Ghosts

by David A. Robertson

  21

  WALK IT BACK

  LAUREN CUT THROUGH SILK RIVER like a race car driver. Cole just tried to keep up, keep her in sight. She navigated the bends in the river with expert precision while Cole did his best not to crash the boat, at least not until they’d gone far enough that the others were safe. Cole had never been this deep into the woods before. He wondered how long they could go before finding the end of Blackwood. It made him realize just how remote Wounded Sky was. It wasn’t just Blackwood that kept the community separated from what felt like the rest of the world, either. Soon after Silk River finished its journey through Blackwood, it fed into Little Playgreen Lake. At the southern end of the lake rested Wounded Sky’s closest neighbour, Norway House Cree Nation.

  Cole took inventory of all the sensations coursing through his body—the fight-or-flight sensations so familiar to him, although right now, the adrenaline was warranted; they were engaged in an actual chase. He hoped the guards had taken the bait, and that Brady, Eva, and the others were, by now, at the cabin.

  They’d gone about five kilometres before Lauren pulled up to the shore ahead. He slowed to a stop behind her. They both jumped out and crouched by the boats for a minute, hidden from the view of anybody approaching. Listening, waiting. If the guards had stopped, if they weren’t following anymore, they’d have to drive the boats back. If the guards were still coming, they had to hightail it, lead the guards on what Cole hoped would be a long and futile search.

  “Hear anything?” Lauren asked.

  Cole closed his eyes and listened carefully. He heard engines in the distance. “Yeah, it worked. They’re following us.”

  Lauren let out a sigh of relief. Even if the two of them weren’t safe, the others were. “How close, you think?”

  “Too close.” Cole started to climb up the embankment, on the side of the river the cabin was on.

  Lauren yanked at his hoodie.

  “What?” he asked.

  “We should go a bit farther out, on the other side of the river, throw them off.”

  Cole looked to the other side of the river, where the thick woods offered plenty of cover. “Good plan,” Cole said, “if they have somebody with them who can track.”

  Lauren shrugged. “We’ll make it obvious. Pull the boats over to the other shore and break a bunch of twigs and branches, press down the long grass.”

  “Yeah, even I could follow that trail.”

  Lauren jumped back into the boat, pushed off from the shore, and let the weak current bring her to the other side. Cole did the same, and when they’d both got out, he pulled the boats onto the shore, so they wouldn’t drift off. They stomped the grass down from the shore, up the embankment, and into the forest for several yards. They broke some branches that had fallen across their makeshift path, made sure to kick at the ground to leave obvious prints, and tore leaves off the underbrush.

  “I think that’s good,” Lauren said after they’d spent an efficient minute or so doing the work. “We don’t want to make it too obvious.”

  Cole looked over their path, from where they’d ended it, to where it sloped down to Silk River. “It’ll get them started anyway.”

  “And by the time they realize they’re idiots…”

  “We’ll be long gone.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Double back on the other side here, cross far up ahead, make our way to the cabin.”

  “Probably an hour on foot.”

  They (Cole in particular, who still felt like a rookie in the bush) were careful not to leave a path for the guards to follow from there on. They made their way out, directly away from Silk River for about a kilometre, then turned back in the direction they’d come from with the boats. They’d been running the whole time and continued to run for an acceptable distance before Lauren slowed to a walk. Cole did the same. She was in amazing shape, but was huffing, struggling for air. She needed a break.

  “We’re…” she looked back, at the thick black of the forest, “…good now. We’ll be…good.”

  “Good.” Cole could’ve run all the way back. But maybe, like Lauren had said earlier, it was a nice night for a walk. To just be in the quiet, to come down from the stress and excitement. The forest offered quiet and peace. The only sounds were their footsteps and Lauren’s heavy breathing, which, after a few minutes, evened out.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Call it the cop side of me, I guess.” As if to display her cop side, she zipped up her RCMP jacket, now that her body heat was lowering. Her badge was on full display.

  “It’s fine.”

  “Did you…” she paused, like she wanted to ask something else, but didn’t. She continued. “…was it easier, being away for all those years?”

  “Yes and no,” he said. “I mean, on the one hand, I had no idea how much people hated me up here, so…”

  “Some people.”

  “Some people,” he corrected himself. “So, because I didn’t know, that probably made things a bit easier. You know, ignorance is bliss sort of thing. If I did, I’m not sure if it would’ve been harder, or easier to be away from that.”

  “But you didn’t know, so…ignorance…was it easier?”

  “I think I thought it was easier. I mean, I convinced myself it was easier. I convinced myself that I could just, I don’t know, run away from the pain. That if I was far enough away, I’d be okay.”

  “But it wasn’t.”

  “No,” Cole said. “I was on anti-anxiety meds, having panic attacks, seeing a therapist, all of that. All of that because you can’t run from those things. I couldn’t run from what happened. The more I thought I could, the more all that shit found me and burrowed inside my mind. And then, you know, it would explode. My whole body would explode.”

  “And that’s why you needed the pills.”

  Cole took a deep breath. In for five, out for seven. “She, my therapist, wanted me to try different things. Exercise, mindfulness. I tried all that. I really did. Sometimes, it even worked. But yeah, I took the pills.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, “that you needed that. It doesn’t make you weak or anything.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  That moment hung in the air.

  Pills. Cole could see them smashing against the wall in the basement of the research facility, right before he’d been shot. He could hear them scattering across the floor, sounding like distant rainfall. He didn’t know why he’d thrown the bottle even now. Frustration. Anger. Exhaustion. He might’ve thrown anything he had on him, but he was glad it had been the pills. Even if he wanted one now, he couldn’t have one. It forced him to do the things his therapist had tried to get him to do, like the mindfulness he’d practised on the boat. Dealing with his anxiety in those quiet moments was important, when his body wasn’t being quiet at all.

  “Cole?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You lied to me, back at the cabin, didn’t you? When you said Jayne’s name.”

  “I…” If he lied again, told her another lie, she’d be able to tell. Maybe it wasn’t just Eva and Brady who could sniff him out, maybe it was anybody. Maybe he was just bad at it. He supposed lying wasn’t a bad thing to be bad at. But, the question came again, of how much to tell her? He looked at her, and saw the desperation and longing in her face. The deal was off, but still, some secrets needed to be kept. If he were going to be a hero, however shitty he’d been at it so far, one thing he needed to do was figure out who could know what he really was and what he could really do. Since coming back to Wounded Sky, she was somebody he’d been able to trust. Batman had Commissioner Gordon. Didn’t every superhero need somebody like Lauren? Or was that just making excuses for why he should tell her about Jayne, something he’d always wanted to do?

  “You…” Lauren said.

  “I was lying that I dreamt about Jayne.”

  Cole instinctively looked up at the northern lights, but he
couldn’t see them right now. The trees were too lush overhead. He allowed the memories of that time to come to him. Jayne wasn’t there right now. She was still stuck on Earth because of Choch. Cole was sure, right now, she’d be in the cemetery with her friends, trying to heal from the trauma at the clinic. And often, Cole knew, she was with Lauren, watching over her since being pulled down from the waiting room. Why was she still here? Was she still captive until Cole saved the community, even if the deal with Choch was never really a deal? Even if Choch was dead? He looked away from the sky, back at Lauren.

  “Do you know those wounds I had and how they healed like that?”

  “Cauterized,” Lauren said. “Yeah, why?”

  “I don’t know how to say this.”

  “Then just say it however it comes out.”

  “Okay,” Cole took a deep breath, “I can heal faster than normal people.” He unwrapped the hand that had been shot while breaking into the clinic and showed Lauren. He pulled his hoodie up for a moment and showed her the shot he’d taken while they were on the boat, too. They were starting to mend. They looked like bullet wounds that he’d got a week ago, not hours earlier.

  “Oh, my God.”

  Cole re-wrapped his hand. “But I don’t heal like those bullet holes healed tonight. Somebody did that for me.”

  “Cole, I was there the whole time, nobody—”

  “Lauren.” Cole stopped walking, put his hand on her shoulder, and she stopped as well. They stood there in the middle of the forest, in the black of night, in the dead quiet. “Jayne did it.”

  “What?” she whispered. “Screw off. Screw you for saying that.”

  “Jayney.” Cole pictured her back at the quarry, dancing around the teenagers full of joy, pretending that they were watching her, that she had made them feel her joy. Dancing like an ember from the bonfire. “She’s been with me since I came back home.”

  “With you? With you how? Stop messing with me, Cole. With you how?”

  Cole kept picturing Jayne, dancing around the fire, dancing around the kids, dancing and smiling and getting brighter and brighter just from thinking she might make somebody smile. “I know this is going to sound strange, but since I’ve come back home, Jayne’s been with me. Really with me. She was with me tonight. She cauterized my wounds. She helps me when I need her. She came down from the northern lights…that’s what she told me.”

  “No…”

  “I wouldn’t mess with you, Lauren. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “She was up there?” Lauren’s voice was steadying, but tears were streaming out of her eyes. “Jayney? And now she’s…” Lauren started to lose her breath, like Cole did when he was having a panic attack. “…she’s here? In Wounded Sky?”

  “Yes,” Cole said, “and she’s just like she used to be, when she was alive. She’s okay, Lauren.”

  “How did she burn your wounds? Do…is she a ghost? Do ghosts do that?”

  “She’s…” There was no way to sugar coat this. “…half burning and half not. From the fire at the school. How she died.”

  “Half burning?”

  “She’s always half on fire, half of her body. The other half, it’s normal. She can make people feel her heat. She can…”

  “That was her at the clinic. The guards.”

  Cole nodded. “Yeah, and that’s why she’s not here right now. It made her sad. When she gets sad, her flames get dim.”

  “Do you know how this all sounds?”

  “Yeah, I know how it sounds.”

  “But I know it,” Lauren touched her chest. “Somehow, I know it. I…” she wiped at her cheeks. “…I can feel her sometimes.”

  “Because she’s with you sometimes. She’s told me that.”

  Lauren hugged Cole and held him so tight he could hardly breathe and kept him like that until she was able to speak, to breathe, normally.

  “Does it hurt? Because she’s burning?”

  “It doesn’t hurt her. She just…she’s the same. She’s happy, like, all the time. She dances all the time, too. She looks like a little flame, you know? She looks…beautiful.”

  Lauren pressed her face into Cole’s chest, clutched his hoodie, and he could feel her sobbing, trying to be quiet. He put his arms around her and just hugged her again, letting her cry. Finally, Lauren moved back, and Cole let her go. She laughed when she saw the imprint of her tear-soaked face on his hoodie. Patted at his chest.

  “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “You’re not…this isn’t going to make you sadder, is it? Like, it won’t make you miss her more or anything.”

  “No.” Lauren shook her head. “No, of course not. If I know she’s okay, that’s all I ever wanted.”

  “You can tell when I’m lying, right?”

  “Yeah.” Lauren wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “Yeah, I think I can. It’s just…this is a lot.”

  “I know. And I know she wouldn’t want you to miss her so much that you forgot to be happy.”

  “I haven’t been happy,” she said. “Not since Jayne died. Not really. I’ve lived. I’ve gone through the motions. Became a cop because I had this stupid thought that I could figure out what happened to the kids. To Jayney.”

  “That’s not stupid. We’re doing that, right now. We’ll do it.”

  “I like what I do. It’s not that. But…we were so close, and she was so…she was just so.”

  “Yeah,” Cole smiled. “She still is.”

  “I mean, have you ever been happy, since that night?”

  Cole thought about that. Went over every second of his life since that night ten years ago and considered whether he’d been happy at any one moment. Really happy. “I’ve been distracted enough to feel happy, but it always went away so fast, when the distraction wasn’t there anymore.”

  Lauren took a deep breath, trying to manage her still-quivering voice. “Maybe I can be happy again. Knowing she’s somewhere good. That I’ll see her again one day.”

  “You will,” Cole said. “But let’s make sure it’s not too soon, okay?” Cole took a step forward, inviting Lauren to keep walking with him, and she did. “For you or anybody else.”

  They walked on the other side of the river until they were parallel to where they’d dropped everybody off. By now, the night was breaking, and shadows were stretching across the ground like beams of light.

  “Hang on.” Cole walked out of the woods, took the embankment down to the water’s edge. Looked and listened in the direction where they’d left the boats. He couldn’t hear anything, which meant that the guards were still out in the forest searching.

  “Clear,” he said. When Lauren met him at the water’s edge, he asked, “That’s what they say, right? Cops. When there are no bad guys.”

  “I mean, I’ve never really had to say it before, but if you go off movies or TV, sure,” she said.

  “That’s exactly what I do.”

  “Then that’s what they say.”

  They waded across the river. The freezing water reached up to Cole’s chest and Lauren’s neck. Cole held Lauren’s arm under the water to keep her from losing her balance. On the other side, they ran. Cole would’ve liked to sprint again, but ran beside Lauren rather than ahead, to make sure she was okay. Being wet from the river, in this cold, was taking its toll on her. Cole was relieved when they entered the clearing where Elder Mariah’s cabin sat. They saw a few modest fires burning, and a collection of tents had been erected around the cabin, smoke rising from within them. That’s what Lauren needed, Cole thought, seeing how she could hardly walk anymore. She was shaking uncontrollably. She needed heat.

  “Here.” He picked her up. She didn’t protest. He carried her through the field and into the little tent city. He looked in each tent until he found one with just one of the patients sleeping inside. He helped Lauren lie down on a blanket and tucked it around her body.

  “You’d better take those wet clothes off,” Cole said.

  She tried to say so
mething, but couldn’t get any words out. Just stuttered breaths. He heard rustling under the blanket, and then, one by one, she tossed clothing onto the ground from under the blanket.

  “Is she okay, Coley?” Jayne asked.

  Lauren’s suffering had been enough to summon Jayne. Lauren had the blanket covering her head. Her body was trembling within her self-made cocoon. Cole nodded at Jayne, who was still dimmer than he was used to.

  “She’s shivering so bad,” Jayne said.

  “She’s really cold.”

  “Wh-wh-what?” Lauren said from underneath the blanket.

  Cole put a hand on her shoulder. “Nothing. Try and get yourself warm.”

  He added a log to the fire, but the fire could only get so big inside the tent. She was going to get hypothermia. And could Dr. Captain or Elder Mariah do something about that? Was she too cold? Cole shook his head. He’d get under the blanket with her and give her all his heat, any heat that he had left. He started to take off his hoodie, soaked and icy itself from the waters and the late-autumn air.

  Jayne put a hand on his forearm before he could.

  He looked up at her, and she shook her head slowly. Once to the left, once to the right.

  What? Cole thought. I have to.

  But Jayne just shook her head again.

  She’s going to get sicker.

  Jayne looked at Cole intensely, determined. She got brighter, and her flames climbed higher. The temperature within the tent rose quickly.

  Cole picked up Lauren’s clothing, pulled the string out of his hoodie, and tied it to the poles inside the tent to create a makeshift clothesline. He hung her clothes from it, which caused the tent to sag a bit, but it stayed in place. Jayne lifted her burning arm and directed heat at Lauren’s clothing.

  You’re amazing.

  “I know that, silly.”

  Cole zipped the tent open and looked back before he left. Jayne was where she loved to be, where she was most nights. Sitting with her sister, just being with her. Only now, she was doing more than that. She was keeping Lauren warm and alive. Cole used to wonder if Lauren could feel Jayne with her, if a part of Lauren knew that Jayne was there, and that Jayne was okay, whether Cole had told her or not. Now, Lauren really could feel Jayne, and maybe Lauren knew that Jayne was there beside her.