Miki had been taken before a storm and so had the boy from Red Dog Mine. Funny too, how out of all the towns in the state the delivery I had scheduled for that morning had been to Red Dog Mine. I didn’t know if I believed in fate—it seemed to me God had better things to do than worry about where my deliveries went to—but it was definitely weird.
What was even weirder was the remark the Inuit man who’d helped me haul the supplies onto the back of his truck made. “Be careful,” he said, pressing the wad of money he owed me into my palm. I told him the storm wasn’t due to hit for another few hours. “That’s not what I meant,” he said.
Yeah, well, what the hell did he mean?
When I asked him to explain he just shrugged. Whatever he was trying to tell me, he wasn’t about to get into details. I would’ve settled for a few vague sentences but even that didn’t interest him. “Safe travels, pakak,” he’d said, climbing into his pick-up and leaning his head out the window. I’d stood there until the truck faded from sight.
How had he known my childhood name?
I set the bottle of water back into the fridge and put the kettle on instead. I usually didn’t drink chamomile unless I was going to bed but it had been a strange day and my nerves were on edge. One cup wouldn’t knock me out. Anyway, it wasn’t like I needed to be anywhere.
A Katy Perry song floated across the kitchen as the water heated. I poured the water onto the tea bag and returned to the open living room area, setting the cup onto a side table and kneeling to light the woodstove. The flames crackled as the fire grew, casting warmth across the darkening room. I sat back on the couch and watched the colors dancing behind the glass door on the stove. My book was upstairs on my bedside table but I couldn’t work up the motivation to get off the couch. Instead I sat there as the music drifted through the room, blotting out the howl of the wind outside.
Sleep settled over me as if somebody had thrown a warm blanket onto my body. I slid sideways on the couch and rested my head on one of the pillows. For a long time I lay there, lost in the warmth and the sense of safety. Images started lapping at my mind, growing in size and fading away, some larger than others. The snowman in my mother’s yard that Miki had been building, the weathered face of the man at the landing strip, the charred logs in the ice cave, Hunter kissing me. I must not have been wholly asleep because part of me seemed to be wading through the images, searching for the one I needed.
When the boy’s small form appeared I could feel my body tense even though there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to shake myself awake but it was as if my limbs were frozen. I lay there paralyzed, willing the image to disappear.
It didn’t disappear. Instead it moved closer, floating toward me. Behind the boy, the sky had turned to violet and the sand beneath his feet was a color that had no name. In the dream I knelt down and ran the sand through my hands. It didn’t feel grainy the way it usually does. It was slick and cool and it ran through my fingers like water. The sea shone in the unearthly light, its surface covered with glassy images. The boy was the same one I’d seen in the newspaper pictures, the one who’d disappeared before the last snowstorm.
“Tommy—”
He didn’t smile when he heard me. His eyes were wide and unblinking and impossibly blue. He reminded me of an old-fashioned doll, the kind you see in antique stores. Except that he was perfectly transparent. His blond hair floated around him but it was the pale gold of a watercolor sunset and the ends bled into the violet sky.
My dream self reached out to Tommy when he’d come close enough for me to touch him. My hands cut through him as the sky went all white, a grainy, dazzling colorless shade that pulsed with electricity. The sand was white now too, and cold. Just like snow. I looked down and saw that I was wearing only jeans and a t-shirt despite the chill in the air. Tommy wore a red snowsuit and matching mittens. Everything was slowing down, even the waves. They hung motionless in the snowy air, just on the cusp of breaking.
I tried to turn toward the glassy sea of images but now even my dream self couldn’t move. Behind Tommy, another child floated across the still water, never looking in our direction. A wisp of red hair peeked out from beneath the child’s knitted pink cap.
“Annie?” I called out, though my words carried no sound.
The child in the distance didn’t turn back, only floated further and further off, until at last she merged with the pulsating sky. On the other side of the white, a rhythmic pounding began. Softly at first, then louder, so loud the sky began to shake. I watched as a spider-web crack spread across the scene before me and shattered it. Shards of images rained down over me, slicing my arms, my face, my palms.
When I opened my eyes I was still screaming. I held out my hands and was surprised not to see any blood. The room came into focus. The crackling fire in the woodstove, the dogs curled at my feet, the high whine of the wind. The music had stopped playing, replaced by the sound of someone driving a nail into a piece of wood.
No, not a hammer. Someone pounding on the door. My door.
I ran a hand through my hair and sat up groggily. I felt as if I’d been drugged, even though I knew that wasn’t possible. Boris and Natasha were both watching the door closely, their ears forward. Who on earth would venture out in the middle of a blizzard? No one came to mind.
On my way toward the entry I grabbed my shotgun off the rack next to the door. I wasn’t a big fan of guns but a girl living alone in the middle of nowhere had to take precautions.
“Who’s there?” I asked, cocking the gun and laying my hand on the doorknob.
“It’s me. Hunter. Now open the damn door. I’ve been out here listening to you scream your head off for the past ten minutes.”
I pulled the door open and Hunter burst through, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked in disbelief. “Or haven’t you noticed there’s a blizzard going on?”
Hunter glanced around the room warily. “Before I answer your question would you mind telling me why you were screaming bloody murder just now?”
“I was dreaming.”
Hunter handed me the duffel bag and hung his parka on one of the hooks next to the door. “Let me guess,” he said. “It was one of the dreams that come true.”
“No. It was worse.” It had been worse, much worse. I just wasn’t sure if I should tell him why.
He had already removed his boots and was shaking the snow out of his hair. “What do you mean, worse?”
I glanced down at the duffel bag and felt its weight. “What’s this for? Please don’t tell me you’re moving in.”
“Nothing like a change of subject to avoid talking about what’s bothering you.”
“You got me,” I said. “I’d raise both hands in surrender but I’m holding a mysterious bag that weighs at least fifty pounds.”
Hunter brushed the last bit of snow off his jeans and took the bag from me. “I brought you some supplies. And no, I don’t plan on moving in.”
“I already have supplies.”
“Not these supplies,” he said. “I’m talking about essentials.”
When it came to essentials, I was better stocked than Yurovsky’s. I had flashlights and enough candles to set the entire state of Alaska on fire. Not to mention enough canned soup and bottled water to get me through Armageddon.
Hunter knelt down and unzipped the bag. It was filled with bottles of cinnamon and nutmeg, a pound of sugar, a package of espresso, whipped cream, and a gallon of milk. At the far end was a boxed set of seasons 1-5 of The Walking Dead. I strained to see if he’d added anything that suggested he thought he’d be staying over but there was nothing in the bag besides the DVD set and the groceries. And books. He’d also thrown in about a dozen paperbacks. I spotted the latest Veronica Roth book in the mix and had to stop myself from grabbing it.
“A zombie show?” I tried to wipe the smile off my face. “We’re in the middle of a blizzard and that’s what you call an essential?�
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“What better time to get into it?” he asked. “What else do you have to do?”
I could think of a lot of things but I wasn’t going to point that out to him. “What’s the other stuff for?” I asked, though I already had a pretty good idea. “Don’t tell me you’re going to try to recreate Liv’s gingerbread lattes?”
“No. I never imitate. I intend to come up with my own original recipe. With your help, of course. I figured we’d better come up with something, since you’re temporarily banned from the Blue Moon. I wouldn’t want you to go through withdrawal or anything.”
Boris and Natasha got up from the rug and started sniffing Hunter’s jeans as if they smelled of freshly grilled steak. Hunter knelt down and nuzzled his face against theirs, petting them and scratching behind their ears.
There was no doubt about it. My dogs were madly in love with him.
Why was this man making things so difficult for me? I sighed.
Hunter glanced over his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I—”
He stood up, leaving the dogs in a state of near despair. “If you want me to go I’ll go, Kira. Just say the word and I’m gone. I don’t want to stay where I’m not wanted. If you think I came here to seduce you or something, you’re wrong. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I know these past couple of days have been…strange…and I was worried about you.”
“Thanks for your sympathy but I don’t need a babysitter.” I hated the way I sounded, hated the way I needed to push him away, but he’d gotten too close to my heart. Every time I let somebody get close to me something bad happened to them. Either they died or disappeared or turned into a living ghost like my mother had. I didn’t want to care when Hunter disappeared on me.
“Trust me,” he said through gritted teeth, “the last
thing I want to be is your babysitter.”
We stared at each other for so long even the dogs got bored. They padded back to the living room and laid down on the hardwood floor. The fire was too hot now for them to want to get close to it. I understood how they felt. Something inside me was burning up, threatening to destroy me and everything around me.
“You can go,” I said, my voice quiet and controlled. “I don’t need you to stay.”
“Do you want me to go, Kira?”
Before I could answer he touched a finger to my lips to stop me from saying anything. “Before you answer, I want you to understand what I mean. For the past—well, for most of our lives—you’ve been pushing me away. I always thought it was because of your brother or your father or even how your mother treats you. So I put up with it. But I’ve got to tell you I’m getting tired of feeling like you don’t want me around, even as a friend. If you really want to be left alone that’s what I’m going to do. And I’m not just talking about tonight. I mean permanently.”
Hunter looked down at me, his eyes unreadable. “Sometimes I think your gift makes you different than the rest of us. I mean obviously you’re different. But sometimes you don’t seem to need people the way everybody else does. You seem so. . .strong.”
I almost laughed but his fingertip was still on my lips. Its warmth spread through me, making it hard to think. “I don’t feel strong.”
“How do you feel?”
My mind searched for an answer I didn’t have. “I don’t know,” I said slowly. “A lot of the time I guess I feel. . .alone. Like no one can understand what’s it like. Which is true. No one can understand, at least no one I’ve ever met. Yesterday I went to visit my mother—I thought maybe she’d been seeing visions all these years and hadn’t told me. But she hadn’t. She thinks it’s all some kind of crazy delusion of mine. Maybe it is. All these years, maybe I’ve just been imagining these things.”
Hunter took hold of both my shoulders. “Your gift is real, Kira, and you know it. You dreamt what happened to me out on the mountain that day. You described my grandfather as if you’d been looking at his picture. You knew what the wolves looked like and how many of them were there.”
“Maybe I made it up from bits and pieces of what I’d heard, just like Liv said. Like my mother believes.”
“No.” Hunter’s voice didn’t waver. “If you don’t want to use your gift that’s one thing. But at least allow yourself to believe in it.”
He was so close I could feel the warmth of his body. There was a day’s worth of stubble across his jaw and his hair was still wet from the snow. “I still haven’t answered your question.”
“No,” he said softly, his dark eyes on mine. “You haven’t.”
I stood on tiptoe and kissed his lips. “I don’t want you to leave.”
Everything fell away. We stood wrapped in each other’s arms as our kisses grew more frantic. Hunter’s hands were in my hair, on the small of my back, my hips. The electricity coursed through me as he pressed himself to me, pushing me up against the wall. I tugged at his t-shirt and tried to pull it over his head. Hunter finished the job for me and had mine off in a matter of seconds. His hands cupped my breasts and reached to unhook my bra. He touched my nipples and when he lowered his lips to them I didn’t stop him. He flicked his tongue over one of the tips as I fumbled with the buckle on his belt.
“You too,” he breathed, undoing the button on my jeans and pulling them down below my hips. I pulled them down the rest of the way and he did the same, until we stood facing each other wearing only our underwear. Hunter’s boxers were tented and he smiled a little self-consciously. I kept waiting for him to change his mind, but he thrust up against me, kissing me full force as my arms went around his neck. The heat of his bare stomach pressed against mine and burned through me as our tongues twined. He ground into me and I pushed my hips up against him, wanting him inside me. When his hand slid below my panties I opened my legs so he could push his finger into me. I gasped as he moved it and out with increasing speed, my inner muscles tightening around him.
I reached out and clasped his hand, forcing him to stop. I smiled at the hunger in his eyes. “Come on.” I took a step toward the stairs, dragging him behind me. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Hunter’s eyes bored into mine. “Are you sure, Kira?”
“I’m sure.”
For the first time in my life I was really certain of someone. Hunter might hurt me in the end but that was a chance I was willing to take.
Chapter 6
I didn’t tell Hunter about my dream until we’d watched the first two episodes of Walking Dead. I also didn’t tell him he’d been my first but I got the idea he figured that out. Either way, I wasn’t going to bring it up as a topic of conversation. It was funny though. After our kiss in the cave things between us had been strained, awkward. Definitely not anywhere near pleasant. But after we made love for the first time things between us felt different. No, not different. It was as if we were more of what we had been before, even though we didn’t talk about what had happened between us.
Maybe neither of us wanted to think about what would happen at the end of the week. Hunter was leaving for Anchorage in a matter of days and we probably wouldn’t see each other again for months. Not to mention the fact that I wasn’t exactly the girlfriend type.
“So this dream you had,” Hunter said, putting the show on pause and twisting around so he was facing me on the couch. “The one that made you scream like you were being attacked—”
I set down my gingerbread latte (it was a far cry from Liv’s but I wasn’t going to tell Hunter that). “I wasn’t being attacked. That’s not what scared me.”
“So what scared you?”
Outside, the storm was raging. The wind sounded like a high-pitched whine that wouldn’t stop and if the snow piled up on the windows was any indication, we’d already gotten a lot of snow. The TV had gone out an hour ago but the power was holding steady, which was a pleasant surprise. It was still early, not even dinnertime, but it was as dark out as if it were midnight. For some reason it made me think of the pale sky in my dream. Nothing
but endless absence. Like the stories of the void my father used to tell me.
“I think I dreamt of Tommy Muller’s wraith.”
“Who?”
“The boy who disappeared from Red Dog Mine in February. The one from the article I told you about. The boy in my dream looked exactly like the picture in the paper.”
Anybody else but Hunter would’ve pointed out the obvious—that I’d dreamt of Tommy because I’d seen his picture in the paper, not because I was having a vision. It felt good to know there was at least one person in the world I could really talk to about my gift. Even if I never found anyone else who saw things the way I did, it was enough to have someone I could share my visions with. My mom’s remark about Hunter only pretending to believe me to get me into bed flickered across my mind. At least I’d be able to test her theory now.
“Do you think he was in—what do you call it—” Hunter asked.
“The void,” I finished for him. “Yeah, I guess I do. Or at least he is by now. Wraiths usually appear a day or two before the person crosses over to it.”
“So he’s…not dead? Is that what the void means?” Hunter asked. “I’m not really up on all this legend stuff, sorry.”
He believed in my gift, I was sure of that. But he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding his doubts about “the void” and my description of “wraiths.” Even to me, it sounded kind of bizarre.
“I’m not sure. The shamans say it’s the tupilak—restless ghosts—that take children to the void, the place where time doesn’t exist. It’s kind of an eternal limbo and there’s no escape. Anyone who goes there is there forever. Soulless, I guess. As if their soul has been taken, or maybe destroyed. I can’t remember it exactly.” I got up off the couch and walked over to the windows that looked out over the pond. It was impossible to see past the falling snow but I knew beyond it my plane waited in its hangar. Beyond that was the town, waiting out the storm.
“So you think the dream meant restless ghosts took Tommy?”
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