by Sara Leach
Cedar hurried up behind her. “Max!” Tears wet his eyes. Max trampled over Tabitha in his rush to get to Cedar, and the two of them rolled on the ground in a joyful reunion.
After a few minutes Cedar sat up and furrowed his brows. “I didn’t believe you, Tabitha. And now we don’t have enough food for Max.”
Tabitha grinned and reached for her pack. She pulled out the bag of dog food that she’d bought on the way to the bus. “I was thinking positively.”
Max leaped for the bag and tried to grab it from her hands.
“Oh no you don’t,” Cedar said. “You’ll get sick if you eat that all at once.” He held Max back as Tabitha poured the pellets into a plastic container she’d brought. Max slurped them up in three seconds and came looking for more.
“You can have more later,” Cedar said.
Tabitha stuffed the bag of dog food back in her pack. “Maybe we shouldn’t go to the top now.”
Cedar eyed Max. “He can make it to the ridge. This is our only chance. We’ll grab all the stuff on the way back.”
“Right. I guess we’d better go then.”
They shouldered their packs and started up the trail. Tabitha marked off sites in her mind as they passed—the spot she’d lost Max, the place she’d seen the bear the first time. Soon, however, they were around the lake and beginning to climb into new territory. Max trotted beside them, no worse for wear after more than a week on his own. Tabitha wondered if the squirrel population at the lake had gone down.
Cedar climbed in silence. Tabitha imagined the weight of Bruce’s ashes pulling at his pack. Was he feeling guilty about scattering them without Tess and Ashley? Should she stop him?
After about forty-five minutes, the trail flattened. Cedar stopped beside a large boulder.
“This is the spot.”
Tabitha turned to look behind her. The view was stunning. Lake Lovely Water glistened below them, surrounded by mountain peaks mottled with cracked blue glaciers. Streaks of yellow and orange trees ran through the forests like rivers.
“My dad loved this view. Sometimes he’d hike up here before anyone else was awake, just to drink his tea and watch the sunrise.” Cedar sat on the boulder, staring at the red peak of the hut. Tabitha crouched beside him, stroking Max’s fur.
“Let’s do this,” Cedar said. He opened his pack and pulled out the box of ashes.
Tabitha stepped away to give him room. She couldn’t believe he was really going to do it.
He held a finger in the air to check the breeze, then motioned her over with his head. “You should help.”
“Me?”
Cedar nodded. “After what we’ve been through, Dad would have wanted you to be a part of it.”
Tabitha swallowed and stepped forward. Cedar began to lift the lid off the box. Just before it opened, she grabbed his arm. “Stop!”
Cedar jerked back. “What’s wrong?”
“You can’t do this. It will kill your mom and Ashley. They’ll never forgive you.”
Cedar wrapped his fingers tightly around the lid. “We have to end this. We need to move on.”
Tabitha gripped his arm. The sun gleamed on the peaks behind him. “You can still move on.” She swept her free hand in a circle, gesturing to the lake and the peaks. “It’s about your memories. Not the ashes.”
Cedar didn’t let go of the lid. He stared hard at Tabitha for a long minute. Max nuzzled his legs. Tabitha held her breath.
He nodded. “I guess you’re right.” He held the box to his chest and turned toward the lake. After a moment he closed his eyes. He mumbled under his breath. Tabitha thought she heard the word goodbye. She stepped back and crouched to hug Max.
Several minutes later, Cedar wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. He stood and put the box in his pack.
Tabitha stepped forward and squeezed his hand. “Let’s go home.”
Cedar parked the van in front of his house. Tabitha noticed her parents’ car parked in the driveway. She was going to be in so much trouble, she didn’t even want to think about it. But right now they had something more important to do.
Ashley opened the front door and ran out to meet them.
“This better be good, Cedar,” she said. “Everybody’s freaking in there.”
Tabitha smiled and opened the van door. Max bounded out to greet Ashley, almost knocking her down. For once, her cousin was speechless. She stared from Max to Tabitha, to Cedar and back again, as Max licked and pawed her.
“How…What?” she stammered.
Cedar grinned. “Looks like you owe Tabitha an apology. She found him. Knew he was there all along.”
Tabitha held her breath, waiting for Ashley to lose it, to say that she was the one who hadn’t wanted to leave.
But Ashley stayed quiet. After a moment she looked Tabitha straight in the eye and smiled. “Thanks.”
Tabitha nodded. Good enough.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
While the characters in this book are fictional, some of the events are based on the experiences of Jane Millen and her family on their hiking trip to Lake Lovely Water in the 1980s. I am indebted to Jane, my friend and hiking partner, for sharing her story with me and allowing me to change it to suit my purposes. I have taken some liberties with the setting, keeping some details as they would have been thirty years ago (there is a tram across the river now) and modernizing others (no cell phones in the eighties). All mistakes are mine.
Many people helped bring this book to fruition. Thanks to: Nona Rowat for sharing Family Stories, her book of memories about the trip; Merilyn Simonds, writer-in-residence extraordinaire, for invaluable feedback; Paulette Bourgeois and Laisha Ronsau for help with early drafts of the story; my editor Sarah Harvey for her eagle eye. Thanks also to Stella Harvey, Sue Oakey, Nancy Routley, Libby McKeever, Katherine Fawcett, Mary MacDonald, Rebecca Wood-Barrett, Lisa Richardson and Pam Barnsley of the Vicious Circle, without whom this story would be sitting in a drawer.
Many thanks to the staff, students and parents at Spring Creek Community School for their interest in and support of my writing.
And a huge hug to my family, for their faith in me, their unfailing support and their love.
SARA LEACH is a writer and teacher-librarian in Whistler, British Columbia. She loves hiking the nearby alpine trails with her husband and two children. Fortunately, they have never been stranded in any mountain huts, although they have endured many rainy days. Sara’s first book for Orca was Jake Reynolds: Chicken or Eagle? To learn more about Sara, please visit saraleach.com.