Chapter 2

Two

Ispend the next day in a strange frenzy, doing all the tasks I didn’t have the strength for the previous days. At minus four degrees, I finally climb onto the roof and repair the rotten spot on the north side above the pantry. I fire up the chainsaw and, in the haze of the smell of gasoline, cut the spruce into neat logs. I fetch several buckets of water and manage to wash myself thoroughly at an inside temperature of fifty-one degrees. Then, I patch the hole in my down jacket and the one in the pot holder with the cheesy heart. Afterwards, I go to the pantry with a pad and pen and make a list of my inventory. I’m down to ten cans of Mexican bean stew, an almost full sack of flour, two sacks of rice, five packages of powdered milk, and ten packs of hard cheese sealed in plastic, not counting the more than fifty cans of meats and vegetables, but I’m out of carrots. I note forty pounds of pasta, ten pounds of margarine, and ten boxes of granola still stacked on top of each other on the back shelf. Next to it I find twenty tubes of tomato paste and sixty cans of brown bread. I don’t need to worry. If need be, I can make it last through two winters.

Later, when the sun stands like a fireball over the western mountain range, I load the rifle.

I feel exhausted but good for the first time in a long time. All day I’ve been looking forward to turning on the laptop again in the evening and learning more about the blonde girl. I vowed not to read all of her previous posts all at once, but to divide them up like a box of chocolates. As if I had to save parts of her life for bad times. Plus, this way I’ll have something every day that helps me get through the night.

After the meal, I put batteries in the plastic ceiling light, place it on the wooden table for now and take down the two oil lamps. Just in case I black out again, I lock them in a closet along with anything else that can break. Finally, it’s time to boot up the laptop that I placed near the stove an hour earlier so it isn’t quite so cold.

I log in to my temporary profile that I created last night. Ben Hoover, not Brendan Connor. No personal information, no profile picture. With a pounding heart, I click on the Louisa bookmark.

She swapped her header. Today, Louisa is standing under an apple tree and laughing with the sunshine. The twinkle in her eyes looks like a rising star in the northern sky.

I take a deep breath. If I have another attack now, it must be her. Then, I should not be looking at her. All day long, this fear of a new attack has bothered me alongside all the anticipation. I just can’t figure out what could have triggered the flash. Hopefully not her, just the overexcitement of my rusty nerves.

Without taking my eyes off of her, I pull out a cig and light it. After a while, when nothing happens, my concern eases and I read through the information she shared about herself in the profile.

My friends call me Lou.

I have to smile. It feels strange, like a frown. Okay, Lou it is. I’ll call you Lou if you like.

Age: 16

Luckily not fourteen or fifteen, I would have been scared of myself.

Favorite color: pink, yellow

Hated subject: math

Favorite subjects: sports and art

Hobbies: fashion, music, dancing

Just a real girl. Doesn’t like math and loves fashion and dancing. For some reason, I think that’s cute although it sounds naive and superficial. My gaze returns to her oval face. To her Alaskan-blue eyes. They shine so brightly, I shudder again. The hot-cold tingling pours from my stomach into my abdomen. It’s disturbing, I can’t remember the last time I felt something like this. Have I ever felt something like this before? I look at her again, shaking my head. She looks like there is nothing in her life that could harm her. Nothing she fears. Admirable.

After a while, I tear myself away and scroll down to her first post:

Hello, everyone, it’s me, Lou, soon to be 16 and on Facebook as of today. Finally! The best thing is: I already know that I’m going to love it. It took me three weeks to convince my brother of how harmless things are around here *rolling my eyes in exasperation*!

Oh, right, before I forget, send me a friend request if you are looking for friends and be sure to send me a message! Also: Is anyone here good at math? I need help with my homework—probability calculation *gag*!

One hundred and thirteen comments. Mainly from guys. Lou replied to a few, mostly to those offering to help her with math.

Hey, honey, you look so good I wanna take a bite of you. What are the chances you’d let me taste you once I do your homework for you? Greetings, Matthew.

Excuse me? This ass Matthew Fox looks like he’s in his forties. Luckily, Lou ignored him. Although…she liked the comment.

My pulse is pounding hard in my temples and I feel anger boiling up inside of me. I would love to leave a comment about his statement but the post is over a year old. I come across a few more silly pickup lines that Lou didn’t like. That’s good.

After reading through all the comments, I have to force myself not to look directly at the next entry. I scroll up again. She seems to be very active. The dates of the last posts confirm that she shares something new every day.

I have no idea how many hours have passed or how many cigarettes I’ve smoked. At some point, I even had to recharge the laptop’s battery. By now I have a pretty good idea of who the blonde girl with the blue eyes really is. I took some screenshots of her best photos and saved them in the Lou folder. She loves lemon cookies and chocolate donuts. She says she has four brothers. The one called Avery seems to be passionate about cooking. Lou posted pictures of her favorite meals that look like works of art and always wrote below: Chef Avery recommends today. Her favorite dish is spaghetti with sundried tomatoes, basil, pine nuts, and garlic.

She even posted a photo of another brother. Liam. Lou took the photo as he was doing a headstand in the garden and wrote below, Liam, the Buddha, Scriver. Oops, I hope I haven’t locked your soul in my phone now. If so, sorry! she captioned with a smiley face at the end.

Sometime that night, I force myself to stop reading. I find it a bit scary to be so intensely involved with only one girl, so I click on a few other profiles. But none of the young women speak to me. It’s like I”m bewitched. I keep coming back to Lou with her open laugh and shimmering blonde hair that looks like it’s reflecting a million rays of sunshine. How would it feel in my hands? How might Lou feel?

When I shut down the laptop, it’s two in the morning. The raven in the poplar tree opposite the log cabin is doing its usual squawking concert. It always does that around this time. Usually, it wakes me up from the nightmare where I am pounding my fists against Jordan Price’s face over and over again until blood runs down his nose and lips and he begins to stagger. And, like every time, I don’t stop. I give him a final hard uppercut to the chin. He doesn’t fall—he flies backward through the gloomy battle arena. I hardly notice anything anymore and only when the wild cheers of the spectators die down do I see the unnaturally twisted neck. Someone next to me whispers something and then everything’s quiet.

So quiet that even in my dreams I hear the crow’s caw like a death knell.

However, today it’s not Jordan Price who receives my punches, but Matthew Fox.

I ram my fists into his stomach and shout that I will kill him if he goes near Lou.

Later, just before dawn, I stand at the window and stare out at the lake. The sky is overcast and the few stars don’t offer much light. Again, I think of Jordan, the boy who died by my hand. I know it was my fault, even if he broke his neck hitting the stone floor. I should have stopped. He was new at it, a young guy whose eyes flickered uneasily, scared of the fight. When he fell, he was so exhausted with no strength left to deftly catch himself.

That happened about two and a half years ago. The world in which I was living at the time now seems more unreal to me than ever before.

I put my hand on the pane of glass. Tonight is the first night I haven’t dreamed about Jordan. I don’t know what that means. Is that good or bad? Am I jaded or merely distracted? Am I an even worse person if I eventually start to forget? Is that normal?

I just don’t know. I don’t even know what it means to be normal.

Feeling lost, I let my eyes wander through the darkness outside. A single snowflake floats to the ground behind the window pane.

What would it be like if I had Lou with me right now?

The next couple of weeks go by, one day just like the other, but with Lou they are not so empty anymore. Everything is easier for me, even getting up in the morning. After breakfast, I do the necessary work. Sometimes I look for trees in the forest that I can cut down for firewood, sometimes I need to repair things or I find that some rodent left a mess on the seat in my outhouse. At lunchtime, I jog several laps around the lake, occasionally build rabbit traps, and in the evenings, I sit in front of my laptop and read Lou’s posts.

It’s almost like I know her personally now. Sometimes, when my obscure nightmares wake me up at night, I stare out at the lake and imagine what it would be like to have a family of my own. Just like Lou. Secretly, I envy her ideal world even though I read in an older post that she lost her parents early in life. Maybe I don’t envy her world, but rather the ease with which she goes through life. And maybe my envy is also a form of admiration or longing. I can’t make sense of my feelings; they are confusing and don’t follow logic. Still, it’s better than before. I feel something again and I have Lou to thank for that, the girl with the flaxen hair and Alaskan eyes.

In early March, the snow begins to melt, releasing a few boulders on shore. Next to the log cabin, the first green of the crocuses bursts forth and every day the pale winter sun gets brighter. The air gets so warm during the day that a layer of fog gathers over the lake in the morning hours. Sometimes, the Chinook blows through, parting the mist like a sea, leaving trails that soon disappear into nothingness. It looks mystical, like the heart of Avalon. I think Lou would like it.

As I walk to the water hole, this morning’s fog has already lifted and I spot a few hooded campers in front of a campfire on the other side of Quiet Lake. I stop dead in my tracks like a caribou sensing danger. Just as attentively, I register all the other changes. I make out the outline of an orange canvas tent behind the group and then notice their supply bag dangling from the low branch of a willow tree.

Their presence makes me nervous, I don’t know why. I’d like to get my rifle and fire a warning shot to make them leave, but that would only get me into trouble. The shore across Quiet Lake is not part of the land I’ve leased.

I scoop the water out of the hole, ignoring their calls that suddenly echo across the ice. Unmistakably another language, though they switch to English: “Hello! Hello, my friend!”

I don’t even look in their direction anymore. I don’t want any contact with them, no small talk for hermits. I’ve only just managed to get along with myself. With me and Lou. And that works fine. I don’t need anyone else.

I pull the hat almost over my eyes and carry the buckets back to the cabin. With every passing hour of this early March day, I become more aware that my days in the cabin are over. Spring is just around the corner and it’ll not only bring back sparrows and redpolls, but apparently also tourists. The lake is a place of solitude only in winter.

As I sit on the couch tonight and boot up my laptop, I feel a strange sense of nostalgia. Feeling as if I am being driven out of paradise, I decide I must return to the RV. Somehow, it’s all connected now. Lou, the winter, the cabin, and me.

Her latest picture makes me smile—it still feels alien on my cheeks, like sore muscles. Why on earth is she photographing her feet in those Chucks? Ah, yes…the Chucks are new. Of course, she has to post about them! And of course they are yellow. I would have bet my entire inventory on that—okay, okay, maybe only half and the other half on pink!

Instinctively, I run my hands through my hair, wondering for the first time if she would like me. Does she like dark hair and dark eyes? I turn my head and peer at my reflection in the window glass. A serious face with prominent cheekbones and a wide mouth with thin lips.

I’ve never been interested in my appearance, but there were plenty of women in the fighting scene who threw themselves at me. It wasn’t because of my character, at most because of my victories. Ramon, the boy I survived the first winter in the slums with, always used to say that I should make my money with my face instead of my fists. That I looked like a runway model. I didn’t believe him. And even if that were the case, after these months in the wilderness, there’s nothing left of it. My gaze is unsteady, almost furtive, my hair too long, and my hollow cheeks covered in stubble.

I look like the freak I am.

Disgusted with myself, I turn back to the laptop, happy Lou can’t see me.

I scroll around a bit and, to my delight, discover another post I haven’t seen yet.

Hello to all of you out there. Here in Ash Springs, the asphalt is melting again in the sun and I’m just hanging around, and don’t know what to do. Don’t you sometimes feel like your life is just like the monotonous road that leads from Ash Springs to Rachel? With nothing but heat-eaten bushes and dry sand? Don’t you also long for something to finally happen? Something that grabs you like an eagle and yanks you so high in the air, you can see the whole world from above? Something that makes you fly so high that the sun’s rays illuminate your heart? Something that turns you inside out and leaves you as someone you don’t recognize? Don’t you long for it, too?

I read this entry over and over again. It’s the first in which Lou reveals something truly personal about herself. Something that has nothing to do with fashion, girlfriends, family, or school. Somehow, I feel like these words were meant only for me. As if Lou had peered into my heart and found a longing there that I had hidden from myself. Part of me grasps something while the rest lags behind. Maybe it’s only a hunch in my subconscious, I don’t know.

“Something that makes you fly so high that the sun’s rays illuminate your heart,” I repeat in a whisper. Illuminate the darkness forever. A river of sadness and happiness rushes through me and all that’s left is a deep, burning longing for more.

I stare at her and tap my index finger gently against her lips. “Alaska girl, what are you doing to me?”