by Skye, Harper
This one was slower. There was a sweetness to it, a lightness at first. But underneath and inside there was a melancholy that couldn’t be touched but only felt in the heart. Her fiddle was her voice. It was the only way she could really speak openly these days. The only time her heart felt connected to the rest of her body.
Her bow flowed back and forth over the strings, urging them to sing out, and Ailsa swayed slowly herself, the fiddle nestled under her chin, her eyes closed to the fire and the world. This time when she finished, there was a silence that stretched out so far it allowed the melancholy of the night to seep into the fire circle. Everyone sat for a moment as if under a spell.
“That was Callum’s Road,” Ailsa said at last, breaking the silence for them. It was written about a man from an island called Raasay and the road he built to keep his village alive.” Slowly she replaced the fiddle in its case and snapped the latches on the lid.
“That was amazing!” Aaron touched her arm as he spoke.
“Thanks.” She had leaned away from him, pretending to reach for her beer. She knew it was empty, but she lifted it to her mouth anyway, feeling her lips press against the cold that the glass bottle had soaked up from the night.
When she looked up she had seen him looking at her from across the circle, his face partially illuminated by the fire, partially hidden in shadow. He had not moved towards her. He had not tried to edge his way into the end of the song she had played as Aaron did with his questions.
He watched her from a distance. Like she also watched things sometimes. With a curiosity. And a hope that they might do something else unexpected.
“So where are you from in Scotland?” Aaron’s voice pressed against her left ear.
“The northwest,” she replied distractedly, unable to take her eyes away from Zach’s careful gaze. “Do you know Scotland?”
“No, not very well…”
“The highlands.” She replied in a way that cut through the conversation. “I’m from the highlands.”
She could see an amused smile playing at the edges of Zach’s mouth. Ailsa could see Zach’s mouth move, replying to something Seb had said, though he never took his eyes from Ailsa. It was like a thick blanket, his gaze, and for some reason Ailsa could not explain, it made her feel safe.
Chapter 5
The light barely left this sky this far north, and when Ailsa looked at her watch she was surprised to see it was only six o’clock. Still early. It felt like she had been laying half-awake for ages. The night chill was still in the air, and for a moment Ailsa inched down further under the blanket, wiggling her toes in the pockets of warmth from her body.
But then she heard it — the vast silence of the morning. It was calling to her.
No one was awake.
The forest.
The lake.
The wind.
All of it was hers.
Quietly Ailsa swung her legs over the edge of the bed and hopped down. She pulled on her leggings, shoved her feet into her hiking socks and added several layers over her shirt. Minutes later she eased the screen door open and stepped out onto the porch, softening the creak as much as possible. Bending down on the wooden floorboards of the porch to lace up her boots, she heard a soft crack. The snap of a twig underfoot.
She felt him before she looked up. His presence was warm and unassuming. “You’re up early.” His voice was barely above a whisper, but it held resonances deep and low.
When she looked up, Zach was standing several feet away, hands relaxed by his sides. His face held the rough, relaxed look people get when they’re camping. The beginnings of a darker beard outlining his jaw. His hair tousled, his dark brown eyes still lined with sleep.
“You going hiking?” He nodded to her boots.
“I was going to walk down the trail along the river.”
“Anyone going with you?” She shook her head and slowly stood. Her blue eyes met his brown ones, and once again Ailsa felt something thump in her chest as if her heart itself was startled.
“Hiking alone isn’t the best idea around here with the bears.”
“Right!” Ailsa brushed her hands together. She could feel the warmth of embarrassment creeping into her face. “Bears. I didn’t think about that…” He must think I’m an idiot!
Zach stood for a moment watching her, and Ailsa wondered what he saw. Her light brown hair was a tangled mess as it fell down her back and across her shoulders in waves. Her blue eyes still felt full of sleep and she brushed her fingers over them. When she glanced up he was still looking at her. It felt like he was looking right into her.
Slowly Zach rubbed the side of his chin, scratching at the dark stubble. Thinking.
“I just wanted to get a little space from here,” Ailsa tried explain. “Get into the trees. Into the quiet.”
“Yeah,” Zach nodded. “I get that.”
There was something slow and considered about the way he spoke. “Wait here,” he said after a moment’s pause. “Let me grab some stuff.”
He was back a moment later, still in a dark blue teeshirt despite the cold and with a small pack. The muscles of his arms rippled under his skin as he slung the pack onto his back. Without speaking he nodded his head towards one side of the lake and then turned and walked quietly off. Ailsa followed him up past the cabins and down to the small trail that cut a winding path along the edge of the lake. They didn’t talk, but every few paces Zach clapped his hands together or gave a long whistle.
“Bears?” Ailsa asked after they had walked long enough to lose sight of the cabins.
“What?”
“The clapping…” Ailsa pointed to his hands.
“Yeah, we need to make some noise. Bears don’t like to be startled.” He paused and looked at her. “I don’t usually like to be startled either. But there are exceptions.”
Ailsa followed Zach along the path, sometimes walking behind him when the track narrowed, sometimes falling into step with him so that they were so close their arms occasionally brushed against each other. Ailsa wondered if she was imagining that he purposefully slowed whenever the path widened out.
“Look.” Zach reached for her. His wide hand was warm on her upper arm even through her shirt. She could feel the warmth tingle against her skin. Slowly he crouched down, pulling her with him and pointing to the left where the undergrowth thickened.
“What is it?”
“Fox. Look…”
She peered through the trees, watching for movement. Suddenly Ailsa was aware of how loud her breathing sounded. She could feel the warmth from Zach’s body radiating against her. What was wrong with her? She could barely concentrate. What was this thing she felt every time he came close? Ailsa squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them, refocusing on the forest underbrush. “Where? I can’t…”
“Keep watching…There.” He guided her gaze with his finger. Slowly Ailsa saw a small burnished face and two ears peering out of the bush. It moved without a sound, its mouth ringed in white, its small feet padding through the forest. It crossed their path far off where the trail curved to the right and its tail disappeared from view.
“She was beautiful!” Ailsa breathed, unable to move from the spell the fox had cast.
“She’ll turn pure white in the winter.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Come on,” a warm calloused hand pulled her to her feet.
“Thanks for coming with me,” Ailsa began as they set off again. “It was foolish to think about going alone. But I didn’t want…”
“You didn’t want the noise…” Zach finished, nodding. “You don’t need to explain. I need my space too sometimes. Although…” For a moment he broke his stride and slowed to look Ailsa in the eye.
“Although…” she echoed, waiting.
“It would be easier if we talked a bit.” He smiled at her then, and Ailsa wasn’t sure whether it was in apology or if he was secretly laughing at her. “My hands are getting sore from clapping.”
&nb
sp; Ailsa smiled feeling a flush rise in her face. “Okay.”
“Or you could sing,” he added. “I would bet my bottom dollar you’ve got a voice to match that fiddle of yours.”
“You might be right,” Ailsa laughed back. “But let’s just talk for now.”
He nodded and Ailsa waited for his questions. None came. Just the silence of the forest that they had become a part of. Zach had started walking again, though his pace was slow. Ailsa walked with him, letting the silence fall between them. It felt natural. Like an openness rather than a tension.
“Want a drink?” Zach reached for the water bottle at the side of his pack and they both took long mouthfuls of water, passing the bottle back and forth. The morning air was warming up.
“How long do you want to go for?”
Ailsa shrugged. “I don’t mind.” She paused. “I have some granola bars in my pack.”
“Well we’re all set then,” Zach smiled and turned towards the trail. “There’s a lookout point on that ridge up ahead, but it will still take awhile to get there.”
Ailsa nodded and matched his stride.
“Tell me about this Callum’s Road then,” Zach suggested as they walked. “I like the idea of a man building his own road.”
“Yeah, it’s an amazing story actually,” Ailsa nodded. “In the ‘50s everyone was getting cars, but a lot of tiny villages only had dirt tracks running to the main town. Arnish was a tiny village on an island off Skye. That’s a small island off of another island in the north of Scotland. It’s pretty remote already and people were having to move away because they couldn’t transport things from town. The school shut down…”
“The things we take for granted…” Zach mused.
“Yeah I know. Roads. It’s hard to remember how difficult it must have been to get across land without them.”
“People out here in Alaska, well some people who were here when my grandfather was here…they remember what it was like. Real wilderness. Of course the native Alaskans got around just fine with dog sleds on the snow.” He paused. “So, this Callum decided to build the road himself did he?”
“It didn’t sound that impressive when I first heard the story,” Ailsa admitted. “Well, when I first heard the song, and then the story,” she corrected herself. “But a group of friends and I went up there. The road is insane, winding and going up and down so close to the cliff’s edge. It’s incredibly rocky. And it goes on for what seems like miles and miles. I couldn’t believe it. To think he did all that with his bare hands and a pick axe. And in the driving rain most days too!”
“So it’s true about the rain at least…” Zach asked.
“It rains a lot in Scotland,” Ailsa admitted. “We’re used to it, but having travelled as much as I have recently, I can understand why people think it rains all the time.” She paused. “What do you mean ‘at least’?”
“Well, you hear a lot of things about different places.” Zach shrugged. “And about people too. But they’re not always true.”
“No,” Ailsa shook her head, thinking of the conversations she had had with people throughout her travels. For most people her home meant whiskey, the Loch Ness monster and men in kilts. Not that all these things were wrong. But it wasn’t the truth either. It didn’t come close to capturing the place. Ailsa didn’t even want to consider what people thought about her.
Cold. Bitch. She had heard a few words. She was sure more were said behind her back. And it hurt even more because she knew they were right. She had always been quiet, but once she had also been friendly, outgoing, always up for adventure. Now she felt like a shrivelled version of her former self. Always afraid of the feelings she had trapped inside. Always burdened with the guilt that she knew would never go away. She wished she could explain this to all the well-meaning people who tried to get to know her.
Just ignore me, I don’t have answers like normal people because I’m a ghost. I shouldn’t be here.
The only place she didn’t feel these things was in the wild. The trees were never going to ask her what she wanted to “do” for a career. The open sky didn’t care whether she was a human or a ghost. The wild places accepted her, as they had always done.
They reached the lookout point just as it was beginning to get hot. The sun had climbed above the tops of the trees and the forest had come alive with the sound of insects.
“There’s an eagle,” Zach pointed up into the sky, and Ailsa shaded her eyes from the glaring sunlight and peered out through the vast space over the lake. It was so far away, making slow wide circles in the sky.
What had they talked about that first day together? The lake. The trees. The birds that flew through the air. He never asked her about herself. He didn’t ask her about what Scotland was like or what she did back home. And she didn’t ask him either. Lost out in that vast wilderness it didn’t seem like any of that mattered. What seemed to matter was the way the wind blew through the trees. What animal tracks they could find. The need they both felt for silence away from the noise of the world.
It was like coming home in a way Ailsa couldn’t explain, especially because home these days was never like this. Her parents were always looking at her out of the corner of their eyes, asking her indirect questions that held the broken shards of their hopes for her.
But this, a land that embraced the unpredictability of life, that treasured what was wild in a creature and in a human soul. And a man who somehow seemed to see all these things in the same way she did…it was only for two weeks, but Ailsa was going to take what she could get.
Chapter 6
She skipped down the trail with her fiddle. That’s how it had happened. Zach had said, “Play me something then,” and she had brought the curved wooden fiddle from the case that was slung across her back. She had played softly at first to match the quiet of the forest. But Zach had begun to clap along, and so she had laughed and let the music take her away.
The forest had rung with the sound of her fiddle, and it had seemed to Ailsa as if even the trees were swaying in their dance. They were far away from the cabins, over an hour into their morning hike, and Ailsa had finally learned where Zach was from — Illinois, down in what Alaskans call the Lower 48. She had discovered that he had lived in Alaska for eight years, since he moved up in his mid-twenties driven by his own search for adventure. And she had discovered why his hands were so rough and full of callouses.
“I’m a carpenter.” When he said it, he looked down at his hands with love and pride, and Ailsa could see he was remembering all the beautiful things these hands had made for him. That’s not the way I look at my hands, Ailsa thought to herself. Maybe that’s because he’s doing what he is meant to do. Unlike me.
“What do you make?”
“Stuff with wood.” The edges of his mouth flickered as he teased her.
She narrowed her eyes at him playfully. “What do you love to make?”
“Oh that’s a hard one,” Zach rubbed his hands together as they walked. “Most of my money comes from big house projects, but I love woodworking…I love making chairs. There’s a real artistry and creativity to it. Tables are good too because they are so solid and sometimes I’m just in the mood to work with a big thick slab of wood. You notice the grain more in that work. The tree gets to do most of the artist work in that. Shelves are good too. I made a beautiful curving staircase last year in someone’s cabin.”
“And where do you get this wood?”
“My land mostly,” he replied. He looked out through the trees to where the glimmer of the lake was visible, but Ailsa guessed he was remembered the look of his own land out there somewhere in the vastness of the Alaskan landscape. “I inherited some land up here from my grandfather. He bought a homestead in Alaska in the ‘50s. Not sure why. My grandmother was always mad he’d done it. But when he came back from the War he said he wanted his own piece of wilderness.”
“Is that why you moved out here?”
Zach looked over at her as they
walked, and his gaze lingered on the side of her face. Ailsa drew her hands up self-consciously winding her light brown hair into a knot.
“You’ve got a lot of questions today,” he commented at last.
Ailsa could feel herself blush. What was she doing? She was leaving Alaska in just over a week. Getting close to someone wasn’t at all what she had intended.
“I…” Ailsa stumbled as she tried to think of something to say when she felt Zach lay a hand on the side of her arm. The solid warmth of him startled something deep inside her, and she felt herself holding her breath.
When she looked up Zach also had a slightly awkward look on his face which he quickly tried to cover up with a grin. “Keep it up and you will owe me a few questions back.”
Ailsa tried to smile. “Yeah okay…”
“So I got this job after college…” Zach said picking up the thread of their conversation. “A very sensible, well-paid job.”
“What did you do?” Ailsa asked, trying to regain her footing.
“Mechanical engineering.”
“That is very sensible.”
“Very.” It was a different sort of laugh he made then, in the back of his throat. Rueful and also relieved as if he’d escaped some trap.
“So I got this job. What people call a ‘great job’. But it didn’t fit. Felt like someone else’s hiking boots.” He rubbed at the side of his face where the thick shadow of stubble had grown over the last few days. “You ever try to put on someone else’s hiking boots? Even when they’re your size, you know immediately something’s not right.”
She nodded, so he continued. “So it was like that, and all the while I kept remembering about my grandpa and the stories of his land in Alaska. So I took a trip out here one summer, just to see it.”
He paused and Ailsa glanced over at him. They were walking close together between the trees, and Ailsa could see the cut of his shoulder muscles through his shirt as she looked up at him. The stubble on his face was getting rougher from the days they had spent in the woods, and Ailsa noticed flecks of gold hidden among the dark brown.