Chapter 20

Twenty

It’s almost dark when I start the pasta water. In late July in the Yukon, this means it’s after ten o’clock at night.

I get a jar of pickled garlic cloves and a cutting board from an upper cupboard and unhook the matching knife from my belt.

Inconspicuously, I look at Lou who is sitting at the table slicing sundried tomatoes. Every now and then, she glances at Grey who is sniffing my fleece sweater.

“We still have to roast some pine nuts,” it suddenly occurs to me as I’m about to open the jar with the garlic cloves.

Lou stands up startled, her bells jingling. “Shall I get them?” she immediately asks. It seems a little too spontaneous to me.

“They’re in a cardboard box in the storage compartment, all the way up front. It’s labeled Kitchen 5,” I say, eyeing her carefully.

“Okay.” She nods a little too hasty.

Watch out!

As if not doubting her intentions, I unclip the key to the storage compartment from my belt. So nonchalantly that I deserve a pat on the back for it, I put it in her hand without saying anything more.

Lou disappears into the gray-green twilight. I stay in the RV, stop, and listen to the bells jingling. It moves around the RV with Lou. Okay, so she’s really going to the back. I grab the glass and open it with a hard jerk. I skewer a clove with my fork and listen again. Ah, she is unlocking the compartment. What if she runs off into the dark in spite of the bells?

If a flashback knocks me out, I won’t be able to catch her. Then she would be alone in the wilderness. I’m not even all that worried she’ll find the road and hitchhike from there to the nearest police station. Instead, I’m more afraid she might get lost in the Yukon and freeze to death during the night. Even on the unpaved forest road, it is incredibly far to the highway.

For a moment, it is dead quiet apart from the bubbling of the boiling water. I can no longer hear the bells jingling.

What is she doing?

In the night, the loud hoot of an owl rings out three times.

Quietly, I hook the knife to the carabiner and walk out as silently as if I was hunting. I creep around the RV and breathe a sigh of relief when I spot Lou in front of the open storage compartment. For a few seconds, I feared she had done something stupid. I’m relieved to see her not rummaging around in another box either, but actually in the one I told her about.

Wordlessly, I remain alongside the RV. I know she’ll jump when she turns around, but despite her confidence and her growing ease, I don’t want her to forget that I’m watching her. Always. Even when she’s not aware of it.

I watch as she closes the box, pine nuts in hand, slams the compartment door shut, and locks it neatly.

She turns and flinches.

“You were taking quite a long time,” is all I say.

She stares at me as if I’m going to sedate her again, but then I see her shake off her shock with a short sigh of relief. “I rummaged around in the box a bit.” She pointedly shows me the packet of pine nuts and hands me the key.

“I just wanted to make sure you got the right box.” With gallant exaggeration, I wave her in front of me and she passes me with stiff strides.

Was she thinking about making a run for it? Is that why it took her so long? Was she debating with herself? Run! Stay here! Run? Did she actually consider it? But then why did she stay? Because of the darkness or because of Grey?

Today, of all days, the black flies are a plague and we eat in the RV despite having made other plans. Lou has Grey on her lap and is eating her noodles in silence, but I notice her wolfing them down. For the first time, she seems to really enjoy it. It pleases me more than I thought and I keep watching her out of the corner of my eye. Something else I notice: her hands haven’t trembled once.

When our eyes meet across the table, she smiles at me. Hardly noticeable, but it’s a smile. A smile from Lou. I smile back, feeling like the most normal young man in the world right now.

Later, as I rearrange the logs for the campfire, Lou kneels beside me and reaches between us into the cloth bag holding the tinder.

“Should I?” she asks hesitantly, looking at me.

“Sure.” I point to the small sticks and twigs I’ve arranged around the thick logs. “Add the birch bark and the fire will burn twice as fast.”

Lou pulls a few pieces of bark out of the bag and awkwardly spreads them around the dry twigs.

“Instead of birch bark, you can also use dry grass, dandelion seeds, or silver thistle seeds,” I explain to her. “You can start a fire without tinder, but you definitely need dry branches and twigs. It’s difficult using only logs.” I nod to her. “I think that’ll do.”

Without saying anything, she withdraws her hand and watches me set fire to the tinder under a layer of dead aspen branches. Acrid smoke immediately billows and the first bright red flames lick upwards. “The light color comes from the birch bark. It contains essential oils and burns almost like a rag dipped in kerosene.”

Lou nods.

We watch the flames rise for a while, then I go in and grab two beers from the fridge. They’re the last ones, so next time I want to drink alcohol, I’ll have to switch to Canadian rye whiskey.

As if it were no big deal, I put one beer in Lou’s hand and kick back in the camping chair. As I open the can and take my first sip, Lou shifts in her chair a few times until she finds a suitable position with Grey on her lap. She opens the beer can and slips her free hand under the covers to Grey. For the first time, she is sitting relaxed with me by my fire.

“He’s good for you,” I say. “Grey. You smile more often now.”

Instead of answering, she takes a sip of beer. It strikes me that she never mentioned in a post if she drinks alcohol. Probably not since she’s only sixteen. Ethan must have kept an eagle eye on her because it’s forbidden at her age and her eldest brother is certainly not one to turn a blind eye.

She sets the can down and gnaws her bottom lip. “I don’t feel so alone anymore,” she finally says, and it sounds like a confession.

It’s strange to hear her say that. As if I were her friend. “I see.” I nod. “I used to have a dog. His name was Blacky.” And with him, even hell was a better place.

Lou looks me over in a way she’s never done before. “I assume he was black,” she says, and I detect a hint of mockery.

I shake my head. She’s trying to tease me, that alone is a miracle. “No, he was a retriever mix,” I reply. “He was every color except black.” The monster called him Skyler, but he was always Blacky to me.

“So you’ve always been different.” A statement, not a question.

“What do you mean?” I find myself stiffening, like I always do when it comes to myself and my past.

She takes another sip of beer and stares into the fire. “Well, anyone else would have called him Goldie or Brownie. Anyone else would have just asked me out at the visitor center instead of kidnapping me. I guess you know I wouldn’t have said no then, right?”

“But I wanted more than a date,” I say in a hoarse voice. I wanted you forever.

Lou takes a deep breath. “Why are you so afraid of being abandoned? Why do you get flashbacks at just the thought of losing someone?”

Pressure builds inside me, like a capped soda bottle being shaken. I don’t want to talk about my past even though Lou deserves to know something about me. I involuntarily clench my fingers tightly around the beer can and stare intently at the top with the narrow opening. “I can’t talk about it.” The words stumble out of me. Softly but decisively.

“You can’t or won’t?” I hear Lou ask. She sounds so open, so genuinely interested. Toward me of all people.

I can’t, I should say, but I can’t get the words out. The latch is locked. A silence ensues between us, in which the crackling of the fire seems twice as loud. A log bursts open and sparks fly into the night air and again the little owl, which I heard earlier, calls.

“Sometimes it’s good to talk things out,” Lou says after what seems like forever. “That’s what has helped me many times.”

I look inside myself, into the darkness, and catch a glimpse of the boy in his dirty pants. He sits huddled in the blackness of the closet, rocking back and forth. Back and forth. He’s cold, he’s hungry, his heart is blind and deaf. The smell of mold and wood oil fills my nose. Everything in me contracts.

“I can’t.” It’s a whisper that comes out of me. As if I hadn’t said that, but he, straight from the depths. My hand grips the can so tightly that it dents with a crack. “I’ve tried so many times.”

Lou breathes slowly in and out through her nose as if forcing herself to have this conversation. Again, I wonder what happened the night of my flashback.

“Maybe you should say it to yourself first,” she says softly. “Without anyone listening to you.”

I close my eyes for a moment. “Good idea, but it doesn’t work.” I lift my head and smile at her. It feels like a spasm in the jaw, like biting into a lemon. “If I were to hear my voice naming these things for what they were, then it’d be…” I shake my head defensively, not wanting to continue but something inside me is forcing it out. “…like raping myself…like I’d break all my bones…crush myself until there’s nothing left but a pile of ashes and dust… I’d be completely lost afterward.” I pause, shocked at my unembellished words. I shake my head with a dull feeling in my stomach. How does Lou get me to say things I hardly think about?

For a long while I dare not look her way as if what I said was shameful. A weakness. I am ashamed. Of myself, of the world, of every single person. But this kind of shame is difficult to explain. With a deep breath, I also close my other hand around the beer can and cling to it with all my might. I’m ashamed that I was too weak to fight back, I’m ashamed of wetting my pants, the stench, the dirt and my cowardice. I’m ashamed of Jordan Price and myself for looking for food in the trash. I am ashamed for being nothing. And I’m ashamed that my parents let me down, that I’m not worth loving. And even if my mind understands that it was not my fault, my feelings say otherwise. Weakling. Little shit. Bastard. The words circle like blowflies in my mind, always.

“You said you’d be completely lost afterward,” I hear Lou say quietly, “so who are you now? Who are you, Brendan?”

I lift my head. She sits there as before, stroking Grey’s fluffy fur. Her gaze rests on my face, shy but open.

For a moment, I consider her question, glad for the distraction.

“I’m someone who knows my strengths as well as my weaknesses,” I reply. At least that’s how I thought of myself until recently, but now I don’t know where the tightrope is taking me.

“So, what are your strengths?” she asks. “If you could name only three, what would they be?”

“Determination, control, strength.” I know for sure.

“And what are your weaknesses?”

I’ll think about it. “The opposite of them.” It’s more of a question.

Lou tilts her head. “Something like: indecisiveness, impotence, inferiority?”

I nod tentatively, not knowing what she’s getting at yet.

“I guess you don’t know how my brothers characterized me since I didn’t post any of it on Facebook.”

A smile creeps onto my face, mocking and disarming at the same time.

Lou ignores it. “Ethan says I’m shallow, useless, and difficult.” She pauses as if I need time to sort through her words. “Jayden says I’m fun-loving, emotional, and insecure. It’s all the same. It’s just kind of light and dark sides of one and the same character trait.”

I can’t help but think of Lou’s pictures on Facebook. My sun girl in the light. A bit naive, but fun-loving. Everything’s kind of easy for you, Lou, isn’t it?

I peer thoughtfully into the flames. Two flames encompass a log as if to embrace it. I recall what went through my head the other night. My theory about light and darkness and that the light cannot win. “Maybe you’re right,” I reply. “But the shadows are always stronger. As soon as you light a candle to chase them away, you give them new fuel. As if every glimmer of hope angers them…” There’s still so much hate inside me. So much fear. At the moment, it seems to me that no one could ever illuminate my darkness. Not even Lou. “Isn’t it funny how what’s supposed to help you really shows you how weak you are?” I ask softly.

“Maybe the shadows are not stronger,” Lou replies after a moment’s thought. “Perhaps you can only see them better with the light. And what you see simply scares you. So you don’t look. Maybe that’s exactly what you should do.”

An image comes to mind. Lou opens the door to the dark room and behind the crack stands the little boy. The more light falls within me, the more clearly I can see him. I feel more real, but it makes me vulnerable. And I’d like to keep the bolt locked forever.

As I smile at Lou, I feel a guilt that makes my heart heavy. “When you say that, it sounds so simple. That’s exactly why I wanted you, Lou. You are like the light. Like a sun. You always looked so radiant in your photos as if life was easy. As if it could be easy, even for me. It seemed as if you wanted to demand everything from life without thinking of limits. You looked like you expected only the best out of life.”

I don’t know why I’m telling her this. Maybe because this girl finally deserves the truth. I was so obsessed with her at the time. To be honest, I didn’t want to know who she was at all even though I may have convinced myself that I did. It should be like in the photos. That’s the main reason I bought all the things. I wanted that feeling. I figured if she was here with me, it might rub off on me. Today, it seems insane to me that I ever thought that way.

Maybe it was a mistake to tell her, she probably wants to go back in right now, but when I look at her, she looks back.

“Did you figure that out from my photos?” She seems genuinely surprised.

“And from what you wrote.”

“Then I truly was the perfect victim. I expected the best from you, too.” She laughs bitterly.

The sound cuts into my gut. “I’m sorry. I certainly didn’t want to take advantage of that… You are”—I falter, unable to think of anything original—“simply…extraordinary.” Fantastic!

Lou seems to like it anyway. Her eyes are the deepest blue I’ve ever seen. “No one has ever called me that.”

“That surprises me.” I shake my head in disbelief. “I mean, you never met your mother and you lost your father early—sorry, yes, I know all that.” I grin apologetically, and for the first time, it seems as if an inner smile echoes on her face. “Another would have complained about their hard fate of losing both parents,” I continue and become serious again. “They would have used this as an excuse for any possible kind of failure, but you don’t.” And I’m only realizing all of this now that I’m telling her since I only wanted to see the fantasy image of her before.

Lou shrugs. “I have my brothers. They are my family. I’ve never wanted for anything.”

“Yes, because you see it that way. The loss of your parents never discouraged you from living. You never missed anything.”

She looks at me confused. “You’re portraying me far too well. There was nothing to miss. Everyone has always taken care of me. I grew up in a house full of love. You’re wrong about me.”

“No. Definitely not. If there’s anyone who loves life, it’s you.” Suddenly, I’m glad again that I kidnapped her because otherwise, I would never have met the other, strong Lou. But how can I be happy about doing something so bad and hating it at the same time? And how is it possible that Lou is sitting here with me and talking to me like it wasn’t me who took her and kept her sedated for five days? Who puts her in chains and makes sure she doesn’t leave?

Looking at Lou, I can see her sinking into her feelings, maybe thinking about what I said and getting sad.

I clear my throat to get her attention. “We shouldn’t talk about this anymore today,” I suggest, pointing at the sleeping wolf on Lou’s lap. “It’s Grey’s big day, isn’t it?”

She nods and seems grateful for the change of subject.

“Perhaps you would like to tell me the story to which he owes his name.”

“You mean Jayden’s story?” The most contradictory emotions are reflected on her face. Confusion, understanding, sadness.

Maybe the story wasn’t such a good idea after all because now she must be thinking about her brother even more. I want to tell her it was stupid and thoughtless of me, but then she puts down the beer she has been sipping.

The bell bracelet around her wrist jingles, but Lou smiles. “Okay.” She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “The story is called Grey, but it’s not about a wolf, it’s about a Native American boy.”

I feel irritated by her sudden kindness. Out of sheer nervousness, I light a cigarette and lean back in my chair.

“I’m not a good storyteller”—Lou looks at me a little apologetically—“but this one I know pretty much by heart.”

“I don’t remember ever being told a story, so I won’t know if you tell it well or not, Lou.” I nod encouragingly.

Lou nods back. She closes her eyes for several breaths and her facial features smooth out, glowing orange and soft in the light of the fire. As she begins to speak, she stares into the flames and her voice suddenly sounds as if she is far away.

“Many summers and winters before the white man’s ships brought death to the Big Muddy River area, a small tribe of Lakota lived near the river valley.”

I exhale the cigarette smoke and stretch out my legs.

“There were lush forests of tall white plane trees, stout maples, and horse chestnut trees as far as the eye could see. When there was a clearing, a carpet of red flowers would cover it, and in the Indian summer, all the trees shone like torches. The boy in this story wasn”t born with red skin like all the Lakota, but with gray skin.”

We look at each other, but Lou actually seems to be there, at Big Muddy River, which probably feels better to her than the Yukon.

“Truly, it was completely gray, pale gray like ash, not reddish like ripe cranberries. His mother called him Delsin, which means, he is like that.”

“She didn’t call him Grey even though that’s the title of the story?” I interject dryly.

Lou reprimands me with a look. “No. She knew he’d never get a better name with the defect, and before the other kids called him Dead Skin or Gray-Face, she chose Delsin to show the others that she accepted him the way the Great Spirit had made him. Young Indians are allowed to choose a different name after a glorious feat, but she feared it would never come to that. Even as a five-year-old, his ashen skin made him look like an old man. Girls feared him and went into hiding whenever he came near them, whereas the boys excluded him and threw stones at him if he tried to join their games.”

I swallow. “It’s a sad story.” It reminds me of my early days in the slums. After I passed the Bones’ initiation test, I could have chosen a name. I didn’t need to be Hoover anymore, but I didn’t want any other name. I wanted mine. There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to know what my mother called me as if it would give me my old identity back. It would have been like I was no longer the bastard, the little shit, the weakling. But of course it didn’t change anything.

Lou looks at me like she knows what’s going on inside me. Her eyes shimmer in the fire like two deep lakes.

“When Delsin was six years old, his mother died while giving birth to his sister and he had no one left to love him,” she continues. “Delsin’s father, the head of the tribe, was ashamed of Delsin. He had wanted to drown him soon after birth, but the tribe’s medicine man had prophesied that it would bring bad luck if he drowned his firstborn like a deformed dog. So, whenever warriors from a friendly tribe came by to plan battles and conduct negotiations, he would say to them, ‘This is not my son. He was given to me by the Great Spirit and I must bow to his fate and raise him.’”

Like me, Delsin grew up like a bastard. Without friends. Isolated. I’m enveloped by darkness. I miss part of the story, but then I go back to focusing on Lou’s voice, holding on to it like I did that night in the thunderstorm when I had my flashback.

“His sister, Alaska—meaning, where the sea breaks—avoided him too, afraid of also being ostracized by the others and of never having a man take her to his wigwam,” I hear Lou say. “So, Delsin was left to his own devices and became a gray shadow, flitting like a ghost between the forest, the low willows, and the teepees. His father put a bowl of beans in front of the wigwam every day. Delsin only crept in to sleep and rose long before his father so he wouldn’t offend his eyes, as he always said.

“At some point, Delsin himself began to believe he was only a shadow. A gray shade. And since the Lakota didn’t talk to him, he went deep into the woods and started talking to the animals and plants. Eventually, as the sunny days lengthened, he simply did not return to the Big Muddy River camp. He lived for himself, but not alone. He spoke to the maples and plane trees, to owls and deer. Yes, he even spoke to the moon and the stars for he had many things to say, many things which he had heard and seen among the Lakota but did not understand.”

The words continue pouring out of Lou, creating a bubble around us. It’s only Lou and I and the fleeting images her words create.

“He confessed everything under the skies—on the peaks of green-gray hills far from the forest, where his words soared high and wove pictures in the sky. He called the moon his yellow friend in the black sea and he gave shimmering names to the brightest stars that glittered in the mouth and palate just by saying them.”

“What were those names?” I demand, surfacing for a moment as if to catch my breath. It almost seems to me that the inside of my mouth is tingling like after a spoonful of fizzy water.

“I had asked Jayden the same back then.” Lou smiles. “He said he knew the names but couldn’t write them down or say them. They were too beautiful. His letters would shatter like glass if he tried. To Delsin these stars he named were like drops of silver pressed into the sky by the Great Spirit. And sometimes, in the most secret of dreams, he wished his skin was the color of the stars. Silver instead of gray.” She looks at me conspiratorially through the darkness. “At the time, I hated Jayden for not telling me the names.”

I laugh because her confession somehow makes us allies. When I get serious again, I notice her watching me. There’s something in her eyes that reminds me of our first encounter at the visitor center. A mixture of fascination and curiosity. Back when she was observing me across the shelves, clutching the can of bear spray like a lifeline. Back when I would have had the opportunity to write a different future for us.

I swallow again and Lou suddenly seems hopelessly lost. Disoriented, she blinks, then looks into the rising, dark smoke and hastily carries on talking.

“He named the animals that came to him according to their temperament. And after living and talking with them for many, many winters, he could suddenly understand their language too… It must have been a significant morning for Delsin: waking up and hearing the forest full of whispers that he understood.” Ours gazes meet again, but this time Lou is not distracted. “Indeed, Delsin felt as if he had awakened to a new world. He ate nuts with the squirrels, sang with the crickets and birds, and walked with the deer. And deep inside him he heard a voice saying: This is you. This is your place. No one laughed at him here, no one stared at him. Every animal spoke to him. At night, he would listen to the stars play, watch his yellow friend the moon, and thank the Great Spirit for finally being home.” She pauses, petting Grey.

“Is that the end?” I ask. It would be a good ending to a sad story, but I want Lou to keep talking. She has never spoken for so long at a time.

I’m relieved when she shakes her head.

“The story goes on,” she explains calmly. “As I said, several winters and summers had passed.”

Excited, I lean back.

“Delsin could have been happy. But eventually, he started longing for a mate.” Another look from Lou darts over to me, shy and fragile. “He wandered back to his tribe’s summer camp, but stayed hidden in the bushes. It seemed everyone there had completely forgotten about him. Nobody talked about him, nobody spoke his name. His father and sister went happily about their daily business. He crept back, head hanging, when he passed the narrow creek that was a tributary of the Big Muddy River and encountered a few young Indian girls drawing fresh water with their wooden buckets. Delsin froze. He spent several days hiding without them noticing him. One, in particular, appealed to him. She always came later than the others and stayed longer. Her name was Istu. That means sugar. Everything about her was sweet. From her full mouth to her straight black hair and shapely breasts, just big enough to fit perfectly in Delsin’s hands. After a few days spent as if in a trance, he returned to the forest. Forgetting the moon and the stars and the animals, he wished more than ever that he wasn’t Delsin. Not to be like that! To be different. To bear a name worthy of Istu. But he knew with all his heart that day would never come. He withdrew, grieved for something he could never have, and grew angry with the Great Spirit. The animals came to comfort him, but in his anger he pushed them away. He renounced his friendship with the moon and from then on was alone again. Another gray, lonely shadow.”

Like me. A faded ghost in the solitude of the Yukon.

“But then one morning when it was very cold, the hoot of an owl woke him. It cried about a mighty army of warriors approaching from the north in an attempt to attack the Lakota tribe. When Delsin heard this, his heart was filled with fear. He thought of Istu’s sweet lips as well as her breasts. He rushed back, a few does at his side telling him the enemy’s plans as they had overheard them during the night. The enemy tribe wanted to encircle the village and raze it to the ground in a single battle. They wanted to steal the winter supplies and keep only the unmarried girls alive.

“Delsin burned with anger when he heard this and ran even faster. He traveled for three days and three nights. When he arrived at his village, no one believed him. They formed a circle around him and pushed him around and laughed at him. His father’s friend, Istu’s father, even wanted to kill him. In his eyes, Delsin had come to bring misfortune upon them all. He stated that maybe Delsin himself might have betrayed their encampment to the army—as revenge for ostracizing him. But his daughter, Istu, stood in front of Delsin and protected him from her father with her arms wide open. In that moment, Delsin realized that Istu’s name transcended her sweet lips. She managed to get the Lakota to listen to him. His father wanted proof of his ability to talk to animals, so Delsin talked to a lame horse and immediately found out the reason for its limp. It had a purulent hoof ulcer, caused by a stone that had gotten stuck in it that was not visible from the outside. The Lakota were stunned. Delsin provided further evidence and the tribe was filled with respect because none of their own had ever spoken to the animals before. They began setting traps and moving their supplies to safety. Women and children were housed with a neighboring tribe, which in turn, provided them with a number of young warriors. So it happened that the enemy army found an empty village and was surrounded.

“Not a single Lakota died, but all enemies fell. It was like a miracle.

“That evening, as the autumn sun reddened the few leaves on the trees, Delsin’s father came and knelt before him. ‘I have always denied that you were my son,’ he said heavily. ‘And I was right. I’m not worthy to be your father. Someone like you comes from the Great Spirit. Today, you saved our tribe. Without you, we would have been lost.’ With those words, everyone else fell to their knees and bowed their heads.

“Delsin’s father said: ‘From today on you shall no longer be called Delsin, son of the Great Spirit, but Silver. Because what is gray? Gray is silver that does not shine. But today you shone, Silver, all of us saw it.’

“Delsin had tears in his eyes, but he wasn’t ashamed. He pulled his father to his feet and said aloud, ‘My name is Delsin: he is like that. If I were not like that, I would never have learned the language of animals and you would have been lost, understand? It was only because I am the way I am that I was able to save you. My mother chose that name well.’

“And so Delsin kept his name. A month later, he married on the banks of the Big Muddy River, now called the Missouri, Istu, whose heart was even sweeter than her mouth or breasts.”

Lou falls silent and this time I instinctively know it must be the end of the story. I float in the bubble created by Lou as if in timeless space. Images of the wild Lakota, the glittering stars, and the gray-skinned boy float past me like memories. Good memories of which there are so few. Memories Lou gave me. I feel like I’m in a river where I would like to be carried along forever. Along with Delsin and his father’s words: Gray is silver that does not shine. I repeat the sentence in my head, but the more I say it to myself, the darker and heavier I feel. Out of reflex, I reach for the coin on my bracelet. A strange numbness rises from my stomach to my throat and settles there. I swallow the lump, only thinking how much I craved words of appreciation as a child. Or for a father’s smile, a kind pat on the back, arms to hold and protect me.

I don’t want to feel like this.

Too dangerous.

The images of the Lakota fade the longer I sit by the fire. At some point, I feel the coolness of the night air on my neck and hear the crackling and cracking of the fire. Smoke billows in erratic gusts from right to left, biting my nose. In the forest, perhaps even near the cliffs, the wolves howl their dark, plaintive song.

I look at Lou. Her face is still at ease, her posture relaxed. I hope it has been good for her to share Jayden’s story with me. Maybe I should ask her to tell me about her life more often. Maybe she can cope better that way.

Before she senses me watching her, I peer into the darkness of the trees and listen to the wolves howling. Suddenly, Lou starts giggling next to me.

“There’s nothing there, Grey,” she scolds affectionately.

I turn to both of them. Grey cocks his head in the air and licks Lou’s fingers, which she generously offers him. He must have woken up to the howling of his own kind.

“Stay with him, I’ll go make the milk.” I get up and am about to go to the RV when I pause for a moment and look at her.

“What is it?” Lou looks up.

“Gray is silver that does not shine. He’s the same, like the light and dark sides of the same thing. Is that why you told me the story?” I had been thinking about it earlier while I was trapped in her dreamy bubble.

Lou looks at me in amazement. “I told it because you wanted me to. If I had wanted to insinuate something with this story, I would have added that Delsin kidnapped Istu when she was fetching water.”

“And how would the story have ended then?”

Lou tilts her head. “I have no idea. That would depend on Delsin.”

I raise an eyebrow with a thousand words on the tip of my tongue that don’t add up, so I keep quiet even though I’m dying to hear her answer. I quickly collect the beer cans and return to the RV to boil milk.

Would Istu have loved Delsin if he had set her free?

In the warmth of the RV, I put the kettle on the stove, turn on the gas, and do the dishes while I’m waiting for the water to boil. I can’t get Lou’s words out of my mind.

That would depend on Delsin.

What was she insinuating? Why was she looking at me like she did back in Lodgepole? Has she rediscovered the Brendan she thought she saw in me back then? And if so, why?

Didn’t you expect something like this?I hear a voice inside me ask.

Isn’t that what you wanted? Didn’t you also long to be near the monster because you were so lonely?

A chill creeps up my spine. Maybe Lou feels something like affection because she has no choice. The thought that used to give me hope suddenly sickens me.

But at the visitor center she looked at you like she liked you. She went with you. Don’t you remember how her eyes sparkled?

A deafening beep rips me out of my reverie and startles me. A plate slips from my hands and lands with a crash in the sink.

“Fucking shit!” I look around frantically for a second. The flame under the kettle forms its usual blue ring, there is no smoke.

“What’s going on?” Lou calls out, alarmed from outside.

I use the shrill beeping to orient myself. It comes from above. The smoke detector blinks red. I switch it off with a hand and the sudden silence is eerie.

“Only the smoke alarm!” I call to Lou, laughing with relief. “At first I thought it was the propane alarm.”

“What would you have done then?”

“I would have turned off the gas bottle while you ran for safety.”

Luckily, it wasn’t the propane alarm. A gas tank leak is about the worst thing that can happen. Not only is it extremely dangerous, it would also deplete the gas supply relatively quickly. In the end, I might have to travel to a city again.

“Where is the gas bottle? Just in case you’re not around if the alarm goes off?” Lou calls now from outside.

“The bottle is in a compartment on the other side of the RV. About level with the side door.” I allow myself a grin. “I don’t want you messing with it though. Or you might blow us up!”

The kettle whistles and I prepare the milk for Grey. It reminds me of what I was thinking of earlier.

If Lou truly starts to like me, I should be content no matter the reason.

Through the side door, I glance at Lou sitting by the fire, hunched over and speaking to Grey. A gust of wind brushes my face. Like the Santa Ana wind, only cooler. For a few heartbeats, everything blurs and all I can see are the teddy bears swaying in the wind in front of the billowing curtains on Thorson Ave.

Father, mother, child. The perfect family.

That’s what I wished for. No matter for what reasons, Lou will eventually fall in love with me.

So why does it seem so pathetic to me now?