Before I Let Go

by Marieke Nijkamp

  What if we’d recognized what she’d been trying to say from the beginning? What if we’d acknowledged her?

  But Kyra taught us that we cannot change the past. We must look toward the future. Life is what it is—

  Crowd

  And so be it.

  Mrs. Morden

  At least we can draw comfort from knowing that we provided for her, for a little while. We provided for her art and gave her all that she needed to create. She came home to us, built her home with us. She brightened our gray world. She made this community tighter, better.

  We have no need to say goodbye. Kyra will never be far from us. She’ll live on in her creations, and the town she left behind will be filled with her heart. We will continue her legacy. It is what it is—

  Crowd

  And so be it.

  Mrs. Morden

  “Tell me a story,” Kyra said, and we told her—

  Crowd

  We will obey.

  Scorn and Celebration

  Halfway through the remembrances, there is a short intermission. So far, with the exception of Mrs. Morden, none of the people who have spoken about Kyra were people I’d ever seen with Kyra. It hurts more and more to be unable to speak out, to be forced into this dance without knowing the steps.

  When Piper appears at my side again, hers is the last face I want to see.

  “Don’t hit me again,” she says, raising her hands. “I came to apologize.”

  I scowl. Does she really think making amends is that easy?

  “No,” she says, as if I’d asked the question out loud. Maybe I did. “I don’t think it’s that easy. But I always considered you a friend. You were Kyra’s friend. I behaved like an ass earlier, and I’m sorry.”

  Piper seems genuine, which makes it hard to stay angry at her. Still, “You did,” I say. “And you may think that I abandoned her, but Kyra meant everything to me. Is that so hard to accept?”

  She cocks her head. “No,” she says. “But in return, is it so hard for you to accept in return that we truly cared about Kyra?”

  “Yes. Yes, it is.” The truth is, I’m starting to believe Lost Creek only thinks it cared about Kyra. I’m starting to think they believed they were doing right by her. I even think their intentions may have been good.

  But intentions alone are never enough.

  • • •

  The memorial continues on, a performance, not a remembrance. Almost everyone in town speaks a few words to Kyra’s memory. People who passed her by whenever she walked around town, who pretended she was invisible. People who demanded she be sent away. They all claim to have known and cared about her.

  At first, I think Kyra would have been amused. It’s as though they’re talking about a world-famous artist, a traveling bard, someone larger than life.

  She did want to change the world. She wanted to go on adventures, explore, collect stories. She wanted to love and lust. She wanted to volunteer and travel, if she could find the right combination of therapy and medication. She wanted to discover who she could be outside the borders of Lost.

  After our kiss, after days of talking and not talking and talking some more, she holed up in the school’s library, the only place in Lost with decent internet. She wanted to understand us, she said, and she came back with a whole list of orientations and identities. It was the first time I’d seen asexuality spelled out, and I found myself in the description.

  Kyra claimed pansexual, and it fit her comfortably too. “I don’t want my love to be limited,” she told me. “I just want to love.”

  This was Kyra’s story. She’d only just started it.

  • • •

  Collectively, the speakers talk for a long time. Given our scant hours of daylight in the winter, it’s an unspoken rule to make the most of them. Today, daylight might as well have been ignored altogether. Night falls again.

  “Do you understand now?” the people around me whisper, and the one thing I do understand is they want me to believe in the same world they see. But I can’t, because that world no longer includes my best friend.

  I can’t believe it. And I won’t. I start down the aisle.

  I owe it to her to tell her story. I’ll remember her on my own terms.

  Service, Interrupted

  INT. LOST SCHOOL—GYM—DUSK

  Corey strides down the center aisle toward the front of the room. Onstage, she glares at the crowd.

  Corey (not loudly enough to be heard by all, but still loud enough):

  Let me tell you a story.

  Let me tell you a story about a girl who lived in an abandoned spa, who cried for help and was refused it. Let me tell you a story about how she died.

  Crowd

  (Dead silence.)

  Corey

  Kyra was my best friend.

  Aaron shifts in his seat, taking in the unrest around him. Following Corey’s script, not the townspeople’s, he rises and joins Corey onstage.

  Aaron (to Corey):

  Go. Now.

  Aaron gently places a hand on Corey’s shoulder and nudges her offstage. There’s urgency in his touch and tension in his face. Corey stumbles, then walks off the stage and along the outer wall. When Aaron starts to speak, no one minds her anymore.

  Aaron (to the crowd, loudly):

  Kyra was a good girl. She wasn’t a messiah. She was lonely, and she was ill. She needed more than the food you brought her. She needed help. She needed hope. She needed people to see her and care about her instead of her art. That was hardly the most important aspect about her. She needed a chance. She did not have to die. This wasn’t her story.

  Aaron risks a glance at Corey before he turns to stare at the painting of Kyra’s death.

  Sheriff Flynn and Mr. Henderson get up and walk toward the stage in perfect synchrony. Mrs. Henderson wails into the silence.

  Aaron (turning to Mrs. Henderson):

  This is not a celebration. She wasn’t a star, and she didn’t burn up. She was a good girl, and she deserved more.

  Aaron walks offstage, dignified but determined, then out of the building.

  Chaos erupts. Sheriff Flynn swears and Mrs. Henderson collapses. Piper dashes forward to support her. Mr. Henderson stares at the door where Aaron left, his expression thoughtful and cold. The crowd whispers accusations, and there are more tears.

  Corey holds her head low and edges toward the door, pulling her coat off a table in the back. Before anyone can stop her, she dashes out into the cold.

  Darkness Falls

  “Aaron!”

  My voice echoes between the empty houses. Daylight disappeared while we were inside, and Aaron is nowhere to be seen. I scan the road for footprints, but the snow is trampled and dirty. From here, it’s an easy trek through the woods to the spa. If I were him, I wouldn’t go back to Lost. I’d go home.

  I zip my parka and pick up a firm pace. Once darkness truly falls, it’ll be too dangerous to go through the woods alone, but Aaron is the only one with the answers I need. He all but said the town killed Kyra.

  “Aaron!” I call again when I reach the tree line, but the only response is silence. That only freaks me out more. The woods aren’t supposed to be silent, not even in winter. Silence is a sign of danger, of lurking predators. We’re taught that from a very young age.

  “Aaron!”

  Nothing.

  I continue along the path. I know it well—Kyra dragged me here so many times—and my footing is almost instinctive. Still, darkness falls fast around me, and with every step deeper into the woods, I feel like I leave safety farther behind. This is one of the few places in Lost where the sky grows midnight-dark as soon as the sun sets. And that’s when the wolves come out.

  I know I should go back. I have no weapons, no flashlight, not even my phone to use for light.

&
nbsp; I keep walking. Aaron looked distraught. Maybe he’ll tell me what I need to hear so I can go home.

  The trees close in around me. The silence lengthens, until the wind picks up. It’s an eerie sound, the wind through the trees, and just as oppressing as the silence. Yet there’s no rustling of leaves or pine needles. Instead, it sounds like the same tune, over and over again. Always.

  Endless day, endless night.

  Come to set your heart alight.

  Endless night, endless day.

  Come to steal your soul away.

  Endless night, endless day.

  Come to set your heart alight.

  Come to steal your soul away.

  The last light shifts and a shadow crosses mine. Off the path, something moves. I stifle a scream and leap out of the way. A hand? An arm? My heart beats double time.

  A branch, nothing more.

  Then I see the eyes.

  Owl eyes first. Then cat eyes.

  Yellow eyes.

  Human eyes.

  They’re all pinpricks of light in the darkness.

  Only the owl is blinking, slowly. Everything else—everyone else—simply stares.

  The wind hums Kyra’s tune and eyes are everywhere I turn. Watching me. Watching me, and waiting.

  But for what, I don’t know.

  Then, as if they’ve heard some signal I can’t hear or see, they drift closer, slowly but steadily. The lights—the eyes—bar my path to the spa. They surround me.

  “Aaron?” My voice falters and breaks.

  Whatever happened out on the ice, Kyra wouldn’t want me to die in these woods. So, as the eyes begin to tighten their circle, I back away. And I run.

  A Backpack Full of Home

  When I return to the Hendersons’, the house is still dark and empty. I don’t even care. I don’t want to see them. I don’t want to see anyone. I want to leave.

  I never fully unpacked, so repacking my bag is easy. It’s too late to find a way to Fairbanks now, but first thing tomorrow morning, when the reception clears, I’ll call the airline to reschedule my flight. I’ve been to the memorial service. What more can I really hope to achieve?

  Don’t go, she wrote on the walls of her room.

  I’m sorry, Kyra. Maybe everyone who has called me an outsider was right; I long for the yellow light of the city. I long for my dorm room. I long for the border between worldly and otherworldly to be clearly defined.

  I’ll leave a piece of myself here. And no matter where I go, even if Lost is no longer my home, I will still be an Alaskan. This landscape has shaped who I am, even if this community is no longer my own.

  I put Kyra’s notes and drawings in my backpack, and with them, Kyra’s scarf. I couldn’t leave them at the spa. They’re too personal. I’m taking them, taking Kyra with me. It’s the least I can do.

  Hers is a story that deserves to be told. Hers is a story that deserves to be heard. It’s the story of a girl who believed in heroes and wanted to be one herself. Who saw stories in the world around her, and who regaled an entire Alaskan town with them. And hers is a story of how they started to believe her.

  The Smell of Smoke

  My eyes burn. Arms heavy from sleep, I reach up and rub at my eyes. Blink.

  My throat burns. I try to swallow and cough instead. I can’t stop coughing.

  I gulp in air, but it’s acrid. Smoke. My brain freezes. Smoke.

  I’m surrounded by a darkness deeper than any night I’ve experienced. I reach for my phone but come back empty. A trail of flames starts eating its way across the ceiling, through the doorway that’s now open to Kyra’s room.

  I can’t breathe.

  The building is on fire. And I’m inside it.

  The Taste of Ashes

  I have to get out.

  I stand and buckle under the weight of the hot air. My face feels like it’s blistering. I have to get out. I have to keep my wits about me and get out. If not through the door, then the window.

  I hold my breath against the smoke and try to pull up the sill. It’s jammed. Another coughing fit wrecks me. I grab the desk chair and hurl it at the window. It shatters, but shards of glass stick out from the frame.

  My throat closes and my eyes have gone completely dry.

  I grab my backpack and charge at the window, pushing away as much glass as I can. The heat makes it easy to focus on my priorities. I’d rather cut myself to shreds than get burned alive. Like a witch, Kyra once said.

  The sudden influx of cold air burns my hands, but the flames feel like they’re at my back and crawling up my legs, so I dive forward using my backpack as a shield.

  I let myself fall.

  In the yard, the snow and the cold are at once overwhelming and welcoming. I sliced my palm and tore open my shin, but I’m out. I gasp for air. It hurts to breathe. My throat is raw from smoke and screaming. It hurts to be.

  Kyra’s piece of home burns before my eyes. These walls held memories and happiness. We made plans here, and dreamed. We slogged through mountains of homework. We were together. We were together. And now, it’s going up in flames. I lost her, and now I’m losing this too.

  I push myself away from the building and collapse against my backpack, strangely relieved to have my clothes with me. At school, they taught us how to handle fire drills—to leave coats and bags and other belongings behind. But I cling to the few familiar things I have left.

  I brace myself for another coughing fit. I would shout for help again, but everything hurts. Besides, we have no proper fire department in town. What could anyone do? The blaze is beyond the reach of a fire extinguisher or makeshift brigade. But the town always sticks together in moments like these. We cling to solidarity, even when there is no hope.

  They’ll be here any moment now, I tell myself.

  I close my eyes as the world around me spins. I breathe in the night air and wait for the cold to numb the pain.

  The Hendersons’ house remains dark and still. I try to shout, but I can’t. I try to get up to run, but I can’t. I want to cry, but I can’t.

  The only movement I see is the flames licking at the roof. Nothing else.

  Only when I finally struggle to my feet do I find a crowd gathered in the side yard. Lost is here. Watching. Waiting. Silent.

  At the forefront stands Mr. H. He stares at me, but he doesn’t acknowledge me. He doesn’t move to help me. He doesn’t move at all.

  In his hands, he holds Kyra’s scarf. The scarf that had been tucked inside my backpack.

  Day Four

  Where Do We Go From Here?

  I might as well be a ghost, because no one pays attention to me. They don’t aid me, they don’t try to stop me when I stumble out of the yard. It’s like I don’t exist anymore. I can’t stay in this town.

  I walk in a daze. The woods aren’t safe at night, even with a path to follow, but Lost isn’t safe anymore either. I need a sanctuary. It is what it is.

  I cough again and it feels as though I’m breathing liquid fire.

  I don’t know how much time passes. I don’t even know if time passes at all or if the world moves without me, but eventually I stagger into the spa. Moonlight filters in through the tall windows, and the entrance hall is clad in shadows. I still don’t have a flashlight to light the way. Even if I still had my phone, it’d be melted plastic and glass. I always thought I knew this place so well I could find my way around blindfolded, but now that I’m inside, navigating in the dark is difficult.

  I feel my way to the staircase and stumble upstairs. I can’t stop shivering.

  Reaching the landing, I start toward Kyra’s room, but I can’t stay there. Not tonight.

  My footsteps echo. The hotel breathes around me, but I hold my breath. A sigh tickles the back of my neck.

  I shudder. “Who’s there?”

 
The floorboards creak. But I can’t see anyone. I trail my hand along the wall until I reach a doorpost. The first door doesn’t open. The second door doesn’t either. I don’t want to know what lies behind them. The third door opens. I nearly sob in relief when I find a window and moonlight streaming in. It’s not much light, but it’s enough. I can see an ancient bed in the far corner.

  I don’t even care about not having blankets. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep, and I’ll wrap myself in my parka to stay warm.

  I lie down on the bed and cradle my backpack. I stare into the darkness of the hall. I don’t dare close the door, because I don’t want to lock myself in, but the emptiness is unnerving. I’m sure that as soon as I take my eyes from the doorway, someone will appear in the darkness.

  Is this how Kyra felt when she stayed here?

  I remember her words, written on the walls of her room. They’re watching. The shadows, Corey. They’re always watching.

  I thought she’d meant the shadows and haunts of this building. I never stopped to think “they” may have been real. But if so, who were they? Her parents? Her petitioners? All of Lost?

  Lost stood by and would have let me burn. They would’ve been happy to watch her die too.

  Note from Kyra to Corey

  unsent

  It started so innocuously: a painting of your brother and a wounded bird. At least, I think that’s where it started. I can’t remember who called it magical first.

  Do you still have it?

  I know you loved it, but I wish you had let me destroy it.

  This isn’t my story.

  Polar Twilight

  The night passes slowly. By early morning, I’m so tired I doze off, my arms still wrapped around my backpack. I dream of fire and heat, but when I wake, the room is freezing cold. The shadows have yet to dissipate, and whenever I turn from the door, I feel the darkness creeping closer. It’s like the walls have eyes. They’re always watching, Kyra wrote.