It was a long walk. Talking helped distract me from climbing over hill and dale, though with Dad’s lead it seemed like we covered a lot more territory than Morrison and I had alone. Still, it was well past noon and I’d gotten most of the way through hunting the wendigo when Dad drew up again, nodding down a narrow holler. “This is your place.”
I blinked down it, then hiccupped as a particularly gnarly old tree resolved into familiarity. We weren’t that far from our back door now, this little gulley one I’d retreated to often as a teen. I blinked again, then scowled accusingly at Dad. “This isn’t anywhere near Petite.”
“I know. I’ll drive you back up to her, but I thought you might want to visit this place without...Mike.” He said the name cautiously, like maybe I wouldn’t know who he meant, since I clearly habitually called Morrison, well, Morrison.
I pushed my hand through my hair, which stood up in sweaty spikes. “You know, Dad, he’s a grown man. If I said I wanted to come up here without him, he’d say, ‘See you later, Walker.’”
Dad pounced like he’d been waiting for the chance. “Is there a reason you two call each other by your last names?”
Clearly I hadn’t started early enough with the History Of My Life, As Related By Joanne Walker, since the last names thing was really sort of a way to get in an eternal dig. I mean, most people at the precinct called each other by their last names anyway, but somehow Morrison and I had managed to turn it into a way to avoid referring to each other by our respective, and therefore respectable, ranks. I decided not to try explaining right now and just went with “It’s a work thing.”
“You don’t work together anymore.”
“Dad, I just quit, give us some time. The point is he wouldn’t have flipped out if I’d headed into the hills alo...” Okay, under the current circumstances, he might have. “I’m going down there now.”
Dad crouched, flat-footed on the slanted earth, and wrapped his arms around his knees. I’d seen him sit like that for hours when I was a kid, and didn’t expect him to move again until I came back up from the holler. I slipped and slid my way down grass and dirt, catching branches to keep myself from tumbling, and in a minute or two was at my teen hideaway.
The old tree hadn’t changed much. There were a few new knots where branches were bursting out like miniature trees of their own, but mostly it was the same crooked old beast it had been. I half closed my eyes, letting memory guide me as I wandered around it, fingers trailing against the bark. There was a particular twist of roots I remembered, almost a braid, that had always been the best place to climb the sloping trunk from. Still only half looking, I found the roots and scrambled upward, guided by my hands and muscle memory. About halfway up there was a dish of a branch, wide enough for my teenage butt to fit into nicely. To my ego’s satisfaction, I still fit. I settled down, back against the trunk, and slid my left hand around the rough bark. My fingers stopped when they found the edge of the hollow there. I’d discovered it this way, sheerly by accident, and had done the same thing then as I did now: scootched around on the branch until I was on my belly, dangling, so I could peer around the tree into the opening.
God. There were things in there I’d forgotten I’d left. Bleached by weather, but still remarkably intact, given that they’d been stored here for over a decade. I struggled out of my coat and made a sack with it, then gingerly took everything from the hollow. Almost everything: I’d banged a little wooden shelf into place above the hollow’s mouth so my stuff would be more protected, and it had swollen too much to remove. I took everything else, though, and clambered back down to sit among the roots and go through my teenage bounty.
There was a journal I barely remembered keeping, though as soon as I saw its embossed red leather cover I remembered it vividly. I’d had the presence of mind to put that in a sealed plastic bag, and the seal had held all these years. I picked it up carefully and opened it, then rifled through the journal, astonished that the pages weren’t a pulpy mash. My teenage self’s handwriting looked fatter and loopier than I remembered.
The last entry was about Lucas. About bringing him up to the holler and my dumb bid to make him like me by having sex with him. There weren’t any graphic details, but when I written it I’d pretty clearly been thrilled, amazed and proud of myself for taking such a big step toward adulthood. But a couple weeks later I’d realized I was pregnant, and I’d never come up here again. I’d stopped keeping a journal, in fact, the date written on the last page my last-ever entry. I closed the book and tucked it into my coat.
There were other things that made me laugh: a coat pin of Raphael from the original TMNT movie, now so weather-bleached it was recognizable only because I knew what it was. A pair of plastic badger earrings, likewise bleached. Sara had given me those after we’d done her spirit-animal quest, so I’d kept them even though I hadn’t pierced my ears until about three months ago. A handful of photographs that fell from the journal, faces of people I hardly remembered. Nostalgia and memorabilia, that’s what was in the tree.
That, and a small wooden box, maybe five inches by three, which I had never seen before. It wasn’t weather-worn or swollen from humidity. I let it sit beside me a long time while I went through the other bits and bobs, aware of its presence but not yet ready to open it. Eventually I put everything else aside and looked at the box a long time, wondering if I really even wanted to open it. It could be Pandora’s Box, filled with things I didn’t want to let loose in the world, or more relevantly, in my mind.
Of course, the thing I’d never understood about Pandora’s Box was that she’d opened it, releasing all evil into the world, but slammed it shut again before hope escaped. That never made any sense to me. I thought she should open the damned box again and let hope escape into the world, too, because it certainly didn’t seem to me like it did any good locked in a box. At least if it was released like evil was, then like evil, it would have the ability to chase through the world on the wind, offering...well, hope.
With that in mind, it was inevitable that I opened the box.
There was a photograph in it, nothing else. Me, fifteen and prettier than I’d imagined myself, my short hair spiked with gel and stronger freckles than usual standing out across my nose, leavings from the summer sun. Sara, her own thick blond hair bleached lighter than usual, too, also from the sun, and her skin richly gold from the tan she’d picked up. I’d thought she was beautiful, back then. Looking at her picture, I still did.
And between us, where he’d always been and always would be, was Lucas. Dark eyes and black hair, a bright grin stretched across his face, and who could blame him? He had his arms around two pretty girls, like he was king of the world and knew it.
I remembered the day it had been taken, just a few days after school started. Lucas had been in Cherokee for a couple of weeks already. Sara and I had met him at the diner and we were all great friends by the time school started. It would be another few weeks before it all fell apart, but right then, man, we were happy. We were the Three Musketeers, los tres amigos, the good, the bad and the ugly. Right in that moment, we were perfect. We were all vibrant, full of life and laughter. Full of love.
Full of hope.
I turned the photograph over and found one word written in pencil on the back: Sorry.
“Yeah.” I turned it again, brushing my thumb over our faces. “Yeah, me too, Lucas. For everything. Rest in peace.”