by Emily France
“Wait,” Essa said, looking at Micah. “What kite app?”
“Thought that was what you were looking for,” Micah said, pulling winders out of the box. “Puck was all proud of herself because she installed it without my help. I tried to help her, but she wouldn’t let me.” He crossed the room and pointed at the screen, to the kite icon in the top corner. “Puck and I made a deal. If she would help me memorize all the dragon inventory, I would help her install stuff on the computer. But she did this one on her own. She said she loved it.”
Essa looked at the icon. “I remember,” she said. “Puck said it was a game. With kites. With really pretty kites. Open it. I want to see.”
Oliver moved the cursor toward the game icon. The little white arrow hovered over the kite, and he double-clicked.
It wasn’t a game.
The kite icon changed. The colorful canvas drawing disappeared, and in its place was a black box.
Oliver double-clicked again, and a program opened up.
Puck’s screen name appeared on the right-hand side, Pucknow. Icons of little houses lined up underneath it. One had a star on its roof. Oliver clicked it. A chat log popped up. A long one. Conversations that went back months.
“It’s a veil,” Micah said slowly. “Man, that girl is sneaky.”
“A veil?” Essa asked.
“It’s a way to disguise an app. You give it a fake cover—a veil. I’ve seen one that makes an app look like a calculator icon. But when you click it, it’s something else entirely. I’ve never seen one that disguises something as a game . . .”
Essa looked ill. “The last time I caught her on the computer in here, I tried to open her last browser page, but I couldn’t. I thought she was shopping on the Internet again, signing up for another candy-of-the-month club or something. But . . .”
“You couldn’t open up her last web page because she wasn’t on the web.” Micah narrowed his eyes at the screen. “She was in this chat app.”
Oliver scrolled and scrolled. Puck had been chatting with so many different people. Mostly about plays and dragons and wanting to take tap classes. But then something caught Oliver’s eye. A chat dated Saturday, June 17. The day of his first kiss with Essa near Gold Hill. The day that Puck’s mother announced the plan to marry Ronnie and move to Portland.
Essa looked like she was going to be sick. Like she was going to vomit all over the keyboard, the screen, the mouse.
“Hoverracer,” she said slowly. She looked at Oliver. “It’s probably some kid who has been in the store.”
“We’ll find him,” Oliver said. “It can’t be that hard to track him down.”
“But he doesn’t know where she is. She didn’t tell him.”
Essa shook her head in disgust and walked away from the screen while Oliver scanned the rest of the chat. Puck had been complaining about her mother, how she never paid attention. How she smoked pot all the time. How Puck tried to explain Zen to her. How her mother never listened.
Then Oliver saw the worst thing.
Oliver hoped Essa would stay across the storage room, that she wouldn’t come back over and read the last part.
But she did.
Oliver remembered when Essa had said she wanted to smoke. It was obvious from the look on her face that she did, too. The day that Essa’s mom broke the news about Ronnie, Oliver and Essa had been watching Puck out the kitchen window. Puck was throwing rocks angrily at the fence. Essa said if she didn’t get out of there soon, she was going to smoke her brains out.
Now, Essa stared at the screen. “Puck was listening,” she said. “She heard me. I knew it.” Essa looked down at the dirty storage room floor. “That’s why she ran away when she did. Because our mom was letting her down. And so was I.” She looked at Oliver, eyes wide. “It’s not just my mom’s fault. It’s also mine.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true.”
Oliver looked back at the screen. He scanned the chat again. About Puck studying orienteering. About hiding the mala and the Puzzle Kite box. He looked at what Puck said about Ayden:
Ayden never made it, but I will.
“Wait,” Oliver said, his back straightening on the stool. “Ayden never made it . . . where? Where was his family hiking? Where were they going?”
“I think she just means that Ayden didn’t survive and she will and—”
“But what if that was her destination? Ayden’s destination.” Oliver typed Ayden’s name into a search box. “Here it is,” he said slowly. “Ayden Beech.” Oliver silently skimmed the rest of the article until he came to a line that made him stop. He read it out loud. “The group was hiking to the Bennett Campground . . .” He looked at Essa.
She leaned forward, the smallest spark of hope in her eyes. She pulled up a map of the Comanche Peak Wilderness, traced her finger along the Comanche Trail. “We were breaking off the trail west to Brown’s Lake,” she said slowly. “For Puck to get to Bennett Campground, she would have to go north to catch Beaver Creek Trail. That would lead her straight to it.”
“And she wrote N for north on the clothes she left. The Edi-sweets bag was buried a hundred and eight steps north, but maybe she was also . . .”
“Headed north to the Beaver Creek Trail. As long as she made it to the trail, finding the campground would be easy.”
Oliver looked back at the screen, at the news story about Ayden. “Ayden never made it, but . . .”
“Maybe Puck did.”
40
ESSA
Essa showed the cops the chat log and by the time she made it to Bennett Campground, there were five police cars and one ranger’s Jeep already there. The cops were scouring it all: the tent sites, the bathrooms, the park.
There was no sign of Puck.
Essa and Oliver stood in the parking lot. Watched the wind scatter a few paper cups across the pavement. Mountains loomed in the distance. Campsites were tucked along the creek, some on hillsides with views. Others surrounded by trees.
Puck, were you here?
Did you make it this far?
Essa felt unsteady. Not solid. Like the bottom had dropped out beneath her. She saw the campground bathhouse off to her right and went in, thinking she could at least splash some water on her face. That maybe it would make the world stop spinning.
Inside, there were five sinks with mirrors and a long line of bathroom stalls. She leaned against the counter and turned a sink faucet on cold. She let the water run over her hands. It got colder and colder. She splashed some on her face.
It’s too late.
She’s gone.
She thought about Puck in the bathroom underneath the Boulder Cafe. Hiding in a toilet stall. Doing a vault into the middle of the room. She thought about Puck practicing kicks in the mirror.
I’m afraid this pain will kill me. I can’t survive this storm.
She turned off the water and walked to the paper towel dispenser. She yanked out a wad.
But stopped.
Be mindful.
Be here.
It’s the only way you won’t capsize.
She looked down at the paper towels in her hand. Brought her attention to them. Puck was right; they were plants. They were trees. They were water. They were the sun. Gently, she put them back in the dispenser.
Just this.
Just this.
This very mind is Buddha.
She walked to the electric hand dryer and pushed start. Just like Puck would have. As the hot air blew over her wet hands, she brought her attention to her breath. Thoughts kept racing through her mind. Puck cold and hungry in the woods. Puck forever lost without a trace.
She didn’t push the thoughts out. She felt the sadness, the fear. But then watched them like dark clouds overhead. She had to survive this. She had to.
She brought h
er attention to her breath.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
That’s when she saw it. Carved into the electric hand dryer. Scratched into its white enamel surface:
Ess G.H.Mine
Even though she couldn’t decipher the whole thing, the first word was unmistakable.
Essa.
Her breath came quickly then. She tried to slow it down, but it was no use.
The last clue is for me.
“Oliver.” She screamed it as loud as she could. He came running into the bathroom. “What? What is it?”
“Look,” she said, pointing. “She was here. She scratched this message.”
“What’s it mean?”
“I have no idea.” Essa stared at it. Ran the letters through her mind over and over again.
“Have we seen those letters somewhere before? If this clue is for you, it has to be about something you forgot or weren’t paying attention to.”
“It was on the hand dryer, which is totally for me. I almost wasted about a thousand paper towels when I was chasing her around the Boulder Cafe.”
What else did I forget?
What did I do wrong?
They slowly walked back to the parking lot. Essa looked ahead as the bright sun lit up the evergreens in the campground. The broad teardrop leaves of aspen. The boulders scattered in groups of twos and threes, huddled like children on a playground whispering secrets. The sun cast it all in a golden glow.
A golden glow.
Gold.
“Gold Hill,” Essa said slowly. “G.H.” She thought about the orienteering trek they did. How Anish had dropped Oliver and Essa in the woods near Gold Hill, how they’d had their first kiss. How Puck had been so mad when they found her underneath her comforter at home later. Devastated about the Portland news; furious that Essa and Oliver hadn’t invited her on the day trek like they’d promised. “Gold Hill Mine.”
“So she’s in the Gold Hill mine somehow?” Oliver asked. “But how would she get there from here?”
“No,” Essa said, scanning the hillsides surrounding the campground. “Remember what Puck told you? About the Gold Hill mine?”
Oliver smiled. “They got the gold out of streams. There is no real mine in Gold Hill.”
Essa nodded.
So there must be a real one here.
The opening of the abandoned mine was a mile from the bath house, a large gaping square of black up a hillside. Essa ran as fast as she possibly could.
Be there.
Be there.
Be there.
She reached the mine completely out of breath. She peered into the darkness. Giant wooden beams still held the earth open, dried cobwebs hung in corners and swayed in the cool breeze blowing from the deep. She heard dripping water.
“Puck!”
Inside, her eyes adjusted and she saw something on the floor. A flash of blonde, like a gold coin found at the bottom of a fountain.
Puck.
Eyes open.
Completely awake.
Essa knelt, wrapped her arms around her tiny sister, pulled her close. Her skin looked sallow, dry. “Are you okay?”
“I’m cut,” Puck said, her voice weak and small, like a baby marmot calling for its mother. She held up her arm. She’d stripped a large piece of pine bark and strapped it to her forearm. “Tripped and fell on the way here. But knew how to make a pine bark Band-Aid.” She smiled and slowly blinked her eyes.
Up and down.
Up and down.
“But you’re okay?”
Puck nodded. “Told you I’d make a good survivalist.”
Essa smiled as tears ran down her face. “Did you have enough food? Are you hungry?”
“Starving,” Puck said, her voice sounding weak again. “I forgot my backpack in our shelter. But if I went back in to get it, I knew I’d wake you up. I’ve been stealing food from campers at the campground, but haven’t been able to for . . .” She stopped talking and looked around her, like she’d forgotten where she was. She saw Oliver arrive at the mouth of the mine, the ranger in tow. “Where’s Mom? Did she find me? Is she with you?”
A familiar pang filled Essa’s chest as she watched Puck look for their mother and realize she wasn’t there.
“No,” Essa said. “But Puck, she heard you. Loud and clear.” Essa rocked Puck back and forth in her arms. Back and forth. “She saw all the clues. What you were trying to tell her. She understands what you meant about listening, about being present.” Essa put her lips close to her sister’s ear, gently whispering. “And so do I.”
Essa saw the tiniest spark of victory in her sister’s eyes, a warm campfire glow.
July 3
41
ESSA
Even though Puck had been home for two days, Puck and Essa still slept in Puck’s bed together, curled up close just like they were the last night before she disappeared. Essa thought of nothing but the feel of Puck’s warm body next to hers, the smell of her hair, the sound of her gentle breathing just as she fell asleep. It didn’t take any effort—to be completely absorbed in the present.
Her Zen teacher said that was how you could spend each moment. Like you’ve been gone and are suddenly home.
Just this.
Just this.
This very mind is Buddha.
Their mother knocked on the door. Asked if she could join. Puck nodded, and the three of them squeezed in bed together. One giant pretzel.
“You know how many buddhas are in this bed?” Essa asked softly.
Puck nodded that she knew. “But tell me anyway,” she said.
Essa looked into her sister’s bright blue eyes. Their mother reached out and softly stroked Puck’s cheek.
“Three,” Essa said. “It’s just that we don’t always know it. Or act like it.” Essa thought of the Zen priest’s compassionate eyes. What he said about not being violent toward yourself. Being kind. “So have a little compassion for us when we’re not in the moment.”
“We’re trying,” their mother said.
“Well,” Puck began, “you know what I think Buddha would say to that?”
“What?”
“Don’t try too hard, or you’ll miss it.”
And she smiled.
They all did.
42
OLIVER & ESSA
“I can still feel the Ghost Train Haze,” Oliver said. “Are my lips melting? I mean, really. Look closely. And why did you let me order that again?”
They’d left Cheba Hut and were walking toward Arapahoe Avenue, toward Saturday zazen.
“Because you seemed so excited to suffer again,” Essa said, smiling. She took his hand and swung it back and forth as they walked. “And you would’ve hated the Robert Plant, anyway. It’s pretty healthy.”
“True.”
As they got closer, they could hear the hum of Arapahoe. The hustling cars. A few horns. The laughter of two girls sitting on the porch of a Naropa building.
The garden outside the Zendo came into view. The warm light shining on the Blue Spruce Inn sign. The empty Adirondack chairs. The swaying closed blossoms of wildflowers. Just as Essa was about to open the gate and step into the garden, Oliver stopped her.
“Can we walk a little? This way.” He pointed down the street. There was a bench under the cold, stark glare of a streetlight. Litter was cluttered about.
“Sure,” Essa said, confused. “Down there?”
“Yeah.”
Essa shrugged and took Oliver’s hand again. They walked to the bench and sat down. Essa draped her legs over his lap, and he pulled them close. She put an arm over his shoulders, her mala beads cool against the back of his neck. He looked in her eyes and softly ran a finger over her sanctuary tattoo. The blade of grass.
Essa raised her eyebrows and smiled. “But you’re not supposed to understand them with your mind, you’re supposed to—”
He interrupted her with a kiss. Long. And slow. And gentle.
“It means when I kiss you, I kiss you,” he whispered. He kissed the place just under her ear. “And when I touch you, I touch you.” He ran his hand over her cheek, down her neck. “I guess what I’m saying is . . .” He stopped. Leaned his forehead against hers and looked into her eyes. “This is a good spot for a sanctuary.”
She smiled the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. It was the smile by the bonfire when they first talked about their sisters. It was the smile when she asked him to follow her to the Zendo for the first time. It was the smile after they first sat zazen and the one after the Dharma talk. It was all of them. All at once.
She cast a glance around them in the cold streetlamp light. At the litter on the ground. The cigarette butts. The empty paper cups. A broken beer bottle. She felt the warmth of his hands holding her. The rise and fall of his chest as he took each breath. The softness of his lips as she kissed him again. And again.
Just this.
Just this.
This very mind is Buddha.
“You know what I think?” she asked, pulling back.
“What?” He pulled her closer.
“The sanctuary is built.”
And she smiled.
They both did.
Author’s Note
I first heard the koan about Buddha silently twirling a flower—the story Oliver uses to finally connect with his sister—during a Dharma talk in a Boulder Zendo. It struck me in a way I cannot describe, but it profoundly impacted my life, just as it did Oliver’s. Later, I would learn that it is often called the Flower Sermon, and it is a foundational Zen story. It inspired this novel.
Although Zen and Gone is a work of fiction, it is filled with factual references to the historical Buddha, the main tenets of his teachings, and several practices used in the branch of Buddhism known as Zen.