Mindy Mejia - Leave No Trace

I forced a half smile as my fight-or-flight reflexes slowly relaxed. ‘I hoped you’d chalked it up to nostalgia.’

‘Yeah, lot of good memories here for you, Maya.’ He snorted and then switched his hold on the knife so it was lying flat in both his palms, pushing it toward us. An offering. ‘This’ll cut anything from rope to animal hide and it’s got a pliers, a carabiner, and a can opener on it, too. My father gave it to me just before he died. He built this place, you know. Anyway, maybe it’ll help you find your way to his dad. Reckon that’s where you’re headed.’

He flipped all the attachments out and in as he named them, then handed the knife to me.

‘Harry.’ My throat started to close.

‘No—’ He objected when I tried to give it back and patted my hand awkwardly, like someone tolerating their friend’s dog. Or like a solitary man forced out of his isolation by bleeding, self-involved children. ‘You keep it.’

He stared at me for a second and it felt like he was digging the stitches out of my stomach, snapping them one by one and uncovering the clotted mess inside. ‘ “Be not simply good. Be good for something,” right?’

Turning to shuffle toward the house, he added. ‘Next time I see you, you better not be covered in blood.’

I shook my head at the knife, glowing red in the taillights.

‘Blood happens, Harry. I can’t make any promises.’

We drove a mile down the highway, passing my mother’s cabin and killing the lights to pull into a curved, paved road on the opposite side of her property. This cabin wasn’t a cabin at all. A hulking black building emerged from the woods as we coasted down the driveway, its roof reaching up to swallow the star-filled sky. I’d never seen it from this angle, day or night, but I still remembered the floor to ceiling lakeside windows that looked like gaping eyes when we paddled past. During our summers here, this mansion was owned by a pair of retired doctors, snowbirds who split their time between the Northwoods and the dry burn of Tucson in the winter. I had no idea if they’d left for the year or even if they still owned the place, but the windows were dark. No smoke came from the chimneys. It was as good a place as any to leave Butch’s car. Bumping over the narrow path that wound down toward the lake, I parked in the massive shadow of their boathouse, which was roughly the size of Harry’s entire cabin.

I glanced up the hill – no movement behind the gaping eyes – then checked the weather on the burner, since it might be the last time we’d have any cell service.

‘Clear sky tonight with a low of nineteen degrees. We’ll have sun tomorrow morning, then a snowstorm moving in during the afternoon. Low visibility. Good cover.’

I had Lucas backtrack to the highway and obscure our tire marks while I checked the supplies. Two changes of thermal clothes rated for subzero temperatures. Tent, sleeping bag, fire starters, water filtration, enough protein bars and trail mix to last us a week, a first aid kit, and a 9mm. I wrapped the gun in an extra shirt and sealed it in a watertight bag. If the canoe tipped, it would be safer there than in my boot. By the time Lucas got back, I’d already strapped on my pack and cinched the waistband tight to alleviate the pull on the stitches. I pointed to his and set out hiking through the moonlit white woods, knowing he would catch up in seconds.

We walked silently along the lakeshore, staying in the shadows of the trees even though not a soul – human or animal – was out on this frigid night. Our breath made clouds in the air and my clouds grew faster, smaller, as we approached the clearing near the shore.

‘Have you been here since?’ Instinctively, Lucas moved closer to my side.

I shook my head and kept moving, focused only on the snow-dusted shack and the rickety door that shrieked when I tried to open it. Lucas reached in and together we muscled the old wood open and pulled out the canoe.

‘How’s your side?’ Lucas asked as we carried the boat down the rocks toward the water.

‘What about it?’ I gritted my teeth. Thank God for Kevlar. I doubted I could’ve held up my end of an aluminum canoe right now.

Wordlessly, he leaned down to break the ice forming at the water’s edge. It was only a few millimeters thick, but that could change in a single night. If the water cooled enough, an entire lake could form an ice sheet before sunrise.

I dropped my pack in the canoe and made myself walk back into the dark opening of the boathouse for the life jackets and paddles. They hung in the same place they always had, on hooks along the door. I grabbed them and retreated as quickly as I could, crashing into Lucas. He caught me when I stumbled, but his focus was on something over my shoulder.

‘What’s that?’

All I saw were shadows. He took the flashlight from me and shined it at the base of one of the studs, where a glint of light sparkled against the rotting wood. I stepped inside and my breath caught as I registered what it was.

‘Oh my God.’

Scooping it up, I let the pendant dangle from the tarnished, rusting chain. The agate slice. The necklace I’d brought when Derek, Rex, and I had driven to the cabin searching for the mother I hadn’t known was dead. Months later, after I’d been released from Congdon and details began mattering again, I realized it had somehow vanished during the attack and I’d never considered returning to search for it – maybe Rex had taken it before he disappeared or maybe it had fallen into the water and washed away. I’d traded the two rocks in my head, an agate lost for an agate found, and refused to let myself look back. But here it was in the rotting boathouse, waiting for me after all these years.

‘Was it hers?’

I tried to speak, but nothing came out. Pulling it over my head, I tucked the pendant under my clothes where it made a frozen circle on my chest. I pressed a hand to the spot. ‘Ready?’

‘Maya, I don’t know if you’ve healed enough for this.’

‘It’s this or prison.’ I gave him a paddle, life jacket, and an impossible choice. ‘Where do you want me to go?’

He stepped closer and even in the moonlight I could see him struggle. ‘I know what I’m asking of you, okay, but you’ve got to believe me. He’s not a bad man. Neither of us know what happened that night. We weren’t there. And I don’t think he was ever able to talk about it with me, but—’

‘That’s my job.’ I stepped into the canoe and braced myself. ‘I help people find their voices.’

The Boundary Waters. Somewhere in the middle of the lake we crossed the threshold that divided one world from another, where human saturation gave way to one of the last great wildernesses in the country. Everything was covered with a layer of white, snow weighing down the branches of the pines that stood sentinel, the only witnesses to our silent progress. Our oars dipped in time, me in the bow, Lucas in the stern, steering us toward the main portage off this lake, a northward path that fed into another winding body of water. Paddling turned out to be worse than hiking. The twist of muscle in my abdomen screamed every time I pulled the oar and I bit my lip with each stroke, riding the edge of the pain and wishing I’d broken down and taken another pill. While my insides burned, my skin froze wherever it was exposed and even my fingers began numbing through the gloves. It felt like an hour before we reached the portage, and as soon as the canoe nosed the bank, I splashed out, cracking through the ice and looking for a foothold to drag the bow up as far as I could. Lucas was right behind me, and before I could put distance between us his arms encircled me.

‘Rest,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘Warm up. I can tell you’re hurting.’