Dana Stabenow - Nothing Gold Can Stay

Something tapped at the window, and she looked up to see a spruce bough scrape at the glass. It was a tiny window, with four panes, barely big enough for a dog to climb through. Bears, she thought numbly.

The shadow of the bough shifted on the glass and she saw a faint smear of something. She found a bottle of Windex and washed it off. She washed the other window in the opposite wall, too.

The door had no window.

She swept the floor, depositing the dirt carefully in the plastic trash can. She dusted the shelf. It held three books, a collection of Shakespeare, the Bible, and Idylls of the King .

A small wooden box stood next to the Tennyson, a light layer of dust covering its hand-carved lid. She was clumsy and knocked the box to the floor, scattering its contents. A shaft of pure terror speared through her. She waited for the footsteps to sound. For the door to push open.

After a moment the racing of her heart slowed and she managed to kneel down and collect the items and put them back in the box. A cheap Claddagh ring, a wide silver bracelet that looked Southwestern, a plain gold wedding band. Five pairs of earrings. Two crosses on chains, one gold, one silver. A choker of crystals strung between tiny silver spacers.

Carefully she put them back into the box. Her hands were trembling. It took her three tries to get the lid back on, and she nearly dropped the box again when she tried to put it back on the shelf.

The shelf stood against the wall next to the door.

Taking up Windex and cloth again, she dusted the door handle, a handle shaped like a vine with leaves, with a latch beneath. She pressed down on it a little too hard. There was a click. The door opened.

A light breeze fanned her face. Sunlight dappled the floor. A bird called. Leaves rustled.

She reached out a hand, touched the door. Like everything else in the cabin, it was very well crafted. It swung silently outward.

She took a step forward, another, and the next thing she knew she was outside. No one shouted at her. No one grabbed her. No one hit her. No one forced her down, tore at her jeans, spread her legs and pushed painfully inside her. No one smiled his crazy smile at her afterward, patted her cheek in a travesty of affection and concern and said, “There, there. You’ll learn. It’ll take time, but you’ll learn. You’ve been gone so long, I understand, it’s like a new place to you. You used to love it. You’ll love it again.”

Her heart beat rapidly high up in her throat. She took another step forward, another and then another.

A branch caught her cheek, the sore spot high up where he’d hit her the night before when she’d tried to pull away from him, and only then did she realize how quickly she was moving, walking, shifting into a kind of stumbling run. She had no idea where she was going, which direction was best, the trees and the cliffs behind them were so close, so overwhelming. There might be bears, but she kept going.

She stumbled out into a tiny, circular clearing. Late flowers were blooming, fireweed, wild roses, even a few poppies, orange and red and yellow. They grew up around the stumps of trees cut off at knee level.

Except they weren’t trees, or stumps. She took a step closer to the nearest one. One side had been planed smooth for an inscription.

“Elaine,” she read. “Elaine the Fair, Elaine the Lovable, Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat.” The letters were carved into the wood with the same care and craftsmanship demonstrated in the construction of the cabin and all its contents.

She didn’t want to, she didn’t think she could force herself to move, but her feet stepped forward on their own. The next stump was also planed smooth, also carved, also read “Elaine the Fair, Elaine the Lovable, Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat.”

One stump after another, all planed, all carved. “Elaine the Fair.” “Elaine the Lovable.” “Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat.” “Elaine.”

Elaine. Elaine. Elaine.

You’ll make us some breakfast, won’t you, Elaine?

But her name wasn’t Elaine.

She counted slowly, lips forming soundless numbers. One, two, three. Four. Five, six, seven, eight.

You’re such a good cook, I can hardly wait to taste those pancakes of yours again.

But she’d never cooked for him before.

There, at the edge of the clearing, so faded it was almost invisible, nine. Ten, eleven.

Twelve. A gleaming new piece of wood with the dirt tamped around it still fresh and free from moss and lichen.

“Elaine.”

I’ll be back shortly.

She spun around.

He stood at the opposite edge of the clearing, fifty feet away.

He shook his head sorrowfully. “I told you not to go outside. Didn’t I tell you that?”

She couldn’t speak.

“I told you you could do anything you wanted, anything at all, so long as you kept on the inside of the door.”

Her tongue felt swollen in her mouth.

He sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”

He sounded for all the world like an overindulgent parent faced with the dilemma of a spoiled child.

“Come here,” he said.

He had almost reached her when she realized she was still holding the bottle of Windex. She raised it and squirted him in the face. He yelled and clawed at his eyes.

She turned and ran.

Nenevok Creek, September 4

The Cessna touched down smoothly, jolting only a very little on the gravel surface of the airstrip, and rolled to a halt just short of the Cub parked at the end. Liam was standing to one side. Prince cut the engine and opened the door. “Good to see you’re all right.”

“Good to be all right.”

“What happened?” This as Wy came down the path.

“Throttle cable broke on approach.”

“Jesus,” Prince said. “That’s a new one on me.”

“Me, too.”

Trooper poise was quickly replaced by pilot curiosity. “What’d you do?”

“Pulled the carb heat, trimmed the nose. Cut the engine on final.”

“A deadstick landing.”

“Yeah.” Wy said it laconically, like she did deadstick landings every day and twice on Sundays.

“Impressive,” Prince said, trying not to sound grudging. Nothing that exciting had ever happened to her in the air. “So, you spent the night up at the cabin.”

Something fizzled in the air between Liam and Wy, some emotion to which Prince was not privy. It seemed there had been trouble in paradise the night before. It wasn’t anything she was going to get into if she could help it. “I can take you both out in the Cessna.”

“I’ll stay with my plane,” Wy said.

“Like hell,” Liam said.

“You can’t,” Prince said.

“Why not?” Wy said to Prince.

“You’ve got a problem back in Newenham.”

“What?”

“You know that boy you adopted?”

Wy’s eyes widened and she came the rest of the way down the path in four quick strides. “Is Tim all right? Has something happened to him?”

“Far as I know he’s fine. His mother isn’t.”

Wy’s lips tightened. “I’m his mother.”

“His birth mother, then,” Prince said. “She’s got a court order allowing her to see him. Limited, supervised visitation. She can’t be alone with him, but she can see him.” She looked at Liam. He met her eyes without expression. She looked back at Wy. “For the moment, the boy is out of town. Up at a fish camp on the Nushagak, I hear tell from the friends you’ve got staying at your house.”

Wy nodded. “Yes,” she said through suddenly stiff lips.

Prince looked at Liam. “You find anything more out here?”

Liam shook his head. “I don’t know.” He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a Ziploc bag.