Boundary waters

8

S HE WATCHED THE WANING MOON RISE above the rock wall at the end of the long, narrow corridor that held the lake. That’s east, she thought. It was a pathetic little piece of information, but with everything so uncertain, that one solid fact was reassuring. Far enough east, she knew, and she would hit Lake Superior and civilization. How far and how long it would take if she were to attempt it were mysteries to which she had no clue.

Wendell had left her a map, a complicated thing, black and white with confusing lines and rings all over it. Nothing like a road map. You might as well give me a book in Chinese, she’d said, laughing. He’d tried to explain to her the lakes, the portages, just in case. She’d pretended to listen.

Stupid, stupid, she thought of herself now. You never listen to the right people.

Somewhere on the cliffs along the shoreline far down the lake, an owl called. She tried to pierce the darkness to see where. The light of the moon gave the gray rock of the corridor a bleak, haunted look. The color reminded her of gravestones. Death was something she’d thought about a great deal alone in those woods. She’d examined carefully the time she tried to take her own life. Wrapped deep in the scent of pine and the sweet smell of the lake water, with the wind and the birds giving her music, her suicide attempt seemed bewildering, like the action of a stranger. Wendell told her the woods could heal if she let them. In that, as in everything, he’d been truthful.

You should have listened more, she thought bitterly, remembering the map. She’d been so careful to make sure no one knew where she was going. She’d been so clever, so complete in her escape. In a way, she realized, she’d dug her own grave.

Then she remembered something Wendell said to her near the end. She’d walked with him down to the lake to see him off. He’d talked of her mother that visit, of the things he remembered about her. They were good things, and she’d been grateful to hear them. Before he’d shoved off in his canoe, he’d said, “We don’t die. In the things we pass on to our children, we go on living. There’s a lot of your mother alive in you.”

Thinking of that, she pulled herself together and pushed away her useless recriminations. She couldn’t sit and wait for Wendell forever. Her food was low. Soon the snow Wendell feared would come. She would have to think of a way out on her own.

From its hidden place in the rocks, the owl called again: Who.

The woman drew herself up in the darkness. Me, she thought. Shiloh .