Chapter Five
Five
Six Rivers High looked more like a mountain chalet than a school.
The original 1970s brick building was still partly visible behind the facade that had been added during the largest renovation, but the oiled wood trim and dark blue metal roof was the kind of modern architecture that didn’t belong in a landscape as wild as this one. Large floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the trees like mirrors, creating an optical illusion that made it feel like the forest was inside the building. Sometimes it had felt that way.
The metal door sent a groan down the linoleum-lined hallway as I hiked my bag higher on my shoulder, trying to balance its weight. I followed the memorized layout of the school I still had filed away in the back of my mind, not bothering to look up to the blue-and-white signs that marked the corridors as I passed. When I reached the art wing, I was instinctively unnerved by how quiet it was. The school day had ended, but I could still hear a few distant voices and the faraway slam of a locker.
Large wood-framed windows looked into several studio-style classrooms that were brightly lit with afternoon light. For a rural public school, the workspaces were incredible, rivaling even the ones we’d had at Byron. It seemed that with every state championship won, the school got another grant or endowment. The art wing had been one of the first improvements and was a primary reason why I wound up painting the series that got me into art school.
I peeked into each of the classrooms until I reached the last door on the left, a long barrel-shaped studio that had three wooden worktables in lieu of desks. Large papier-maché sculptures painted in bright colors were suspended from the ceiling and several overgrown potted plants were stuck on the windowsills. I pushed the door open wider and stepped inside.
“James fucking Golden.” I heard my name spoken in a soft kind of awe from the corner of the room, where Olivia Shaw stood with a plastic bucket in her hands.
Her dark curly hair was pulled back from her face in a long braid and thick-framed tortoiseshell glasses sat on the end of her nose. The yellow blouse she wore was tucked into baggy, high-waisted linen pants, and she had on a pair of cloth sneakers that were covered in specks of paint. Behind her, a messy, cluttered desk reflected the same creative chaos. Half-squeezed tubes of paint and different grades of charcoal pencils were strewn over a large desk calendar that was covered in frantic, looping writing.
She, too, hadn’t changed. The Olivia Shaw I’d grown up with was cool, in a lazy kind of way. Pretty, but simple. There had also always been that innate sense that there was more going on behind her eyes than the echo of the smile on her lips.
She set down the bucket, rounding the corner of one of the tables before she threw her arms around me and squeezed, surprising me. “I can’t believe you’re here.”
I tried to relax under her touch, keeping my balance as she pulled back to see my face.
“How do you look exactly the same?”
I smiled a little awkwardly. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
“Wow.” She let out a breath. “It’s been a really long time.”
The comment made me bristle a little because I knew that’s what everyone was thinking. I was sure there were a number of theories about why I’d never come back to Six Rivers, and no shortage of judgments made about how I’d stayed away. But the curiosity and hurt I’d seen in Olivia’s eyes the last time I saw her were gone now.
She folded her hands like she didn’t know what to do with them, and then thought twice, absently picking up one of the colored pencils on the table and rolling it between her palms. It was the same fidgeting, excited energy she’d had as a teenager, too.
“Thanks for letting me come by,” I said. “I don’t want to keep you too long.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble at all.” She gestured to a stack of cardboard portfolios on the table beside me. “I’ve got grading to do, anyway.”
I studied the pieces that were already laid out. The assignment was a still life of three oranges in a bowl, and the students had used a number of mediums to capture it. It was the same assignment Olivia and I had when we were in art class here together. I distinctly remembered it, because our teacher had insisted that one of the great pursuits of an artist was to try to capture the color, shape, texture, and light of an orange every single day for an entire year. It was a challenge I’d taken on personally at Byron, but I’d made it only fifty-two days before giving up.
“It’s weird, right?” Olivia laughed, reading my mind. “Bet you didn’t think I’d wind up here.”
I hadn’t. At least, I’d hoped she wouldn’t. Olivia had said for years that she would go to L.A. or New York—somewhere loud and bright, where buildings were covered in murals and you could sell your art on the street. And she could have. Olivia was talented, but she had never been desperate and hungry in the same way I was. She was more easily crushed by critique and devastated by rejection. I’d thought many times in my years at Byron that she’d never really had the grit it took to make it as an artist.
“When did you come back?” I asked.
Her smile fell a little before it righted again. “I never left. I mean, I went to school in Redding, but I came back here after I finished and, a few years later, got my teaching certification. Then I just ended up here.” She looked around the studio as she reached up, sticking the colored pencil into her hair. “I’ve been following what you’ve been up to in San Francisco. Keeping tabs, that sort of thing. It’s been really amazing…just incredible, James.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I tried to soften the moment with a self-deprecating laugh, but it didn’t quite land. The truth was, I was embarrassed. Olivia and I had been neck and neck in our pursuit of the fine arts as we came up through high school, and I knew there was a time when she’d believed she would be shooting for National Geographic or doing editorial work somewhere by now. If she was keeping tabs on me, it would all look very impressive. Press releases and collections and features in publications. But what people didn’t know about that world was that it was mostly composed of smoke and mirrors. I was long past the point of rose-colored glasses.
“And Byron? Was it as magical as it seemed all those years ago?” she asked, voice wistful.
“Yeah, I guess it was.” I smiled. “And you? Are you still shooting?”
“Oh, yeah. I mean, I’m not exactly working on my next series for an exhibition at the Met or anything.” She laughed again, but this time it had just the smallest tinge of sadness. “But yeah. Still shooting.”
I let my gaze wander to the corners of the studio. A lot of young artists with grand ideations of their future notoriety ended up as teachers in schools like this one or at the university level. For some people, it was a kind of settling they were glad to take in lieu of a dream that just never got closer, and I guessed that Olivia was in that camp. For others, it was a dangerous injury to ego that could poison your humanity. The same was true even for the professors at an institution as prestigious as Byron.
“I think it’s really great what you’re doing—finishing the CAS project for Johnny. It’s been pretty wonderful for our little school in the middle of nowhere to be a part of something like that.” She looked genuinely proud. “I mean, admittedly a very small part, but you know what I mean. The kids think it’s exciting, and they just adored Johnny.”
My mouth twisted involuntarily, threatening an ironic smile. Adored wasn’t a word I’d ever really expected to hear in reference to my brother. Intriguing, maybe. Johnny’s lack of interest in people had always seemed to make them that much more curious about him. In that way, he was magnetic, even. But not adored. No one knew what to do with Johnny.
Olivia laughed, as if tracking with the internal conversation I was having with myself. “I know. But he just had that thing, you know? That mysterious vibe.” Her hands splayed out in front of her, illustrating the point like the slogan on a billboard.
“I get it,” I said, though I wasn’t completely sure I did. I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the familiar way people spoke about Johnny. Like they knew him better than I did. Like there had been more than just the miles of physical distance between us.
“Anyway, I don’t want to keep you with all my reminiscing. Why don’t I show you to the darkroom?” Olivia clapped her hands together.
“Sure.” I adjusted the bag on my shoulder. “Thanks.”
I followed her back out of the classroom to the single white windowless door down the hall. Above it, the telltale darkroom light was fixed to the wall—a red bulb caged in thick white wire. When it was on, it meant the door shouldn’t be opened for risk of ruining the work going on inside.
Olivia turned the knob and let the door swing open, extending her hand with another flourish, and when I stepped inside, my throat constricted. The acrid scent of the processing chemicals was so nostalgic that it woke a numbed pain in me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Even after I’d left home for Byron, I made sure I was enrolled in a photography class every semester so that I’d have access to the campus darkroom. It wasn’t just the comfort of the darkness or the familiar smells. It was the soft click of the egg timer on the shelf. The sound of the fan on the enlarger.
The tangible feeling of Johnny’s presence was already beginning to take root from where it clung to the shadows. It drifted through the humid air, invisibly swirling around me as a string of memories skipped through my mind. Johnny had spent half of high school in this room, most of the time while he was supposed to be in some other class. I’d have to track him down after school when he didn’t show up at the car, and I’d find him here, working away and completely unaware that the bell had even rung.
Olivia leaned into the doorjamb behind me. “I found a few things Johnny left behind. They’re in his cubby there.” She pointed to a row of built-in shelves that each had a set of initials assigned to them. It was the same one he’d had when we went to school there. “Put them in an envelope for you.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” Her gaze dropped to the bag tucked beneath my arm. “What are you working on?”
I shook my head. “Just sorting through some of the negatives and prints. Trying to make sense of everything so I can get it all to CAS.”
Olivia let her hands slide into her pockets, and I could see her struggling for something else to say. “Well, let me know if I can be any help.”
I answered with a nod and she turned out of the room, but then she stopped herself.
“Actually, what are you doing later?”
I looked at her, a little caught off guard. “Nothing, why?”
“Do you want to grab a drink at The Penny?”
“The Penny?”
“Yeah, it’s still around. Everyone’s there on Friday nights and there’s music. If you’re not doing anything…”
“Yeah.” I grinned. “That sounds great.”
Olivia looked equally surprised and delighted. “Okay, perfect! I have your number, so I’ll shoot you a text when I’m headed over there?”
“Sure.”
She smiled even wider and then she was gone, her footsteps trailing up the hallway in a fading echo.
I let the heavy bag and stack of notebooks in my arms fall onto the worktable, trying to stretch out the tension that had seized my neck. The cubby with Johnny’s initials had a manila folder slipped inside, and I eyed it, trying to decide if I had the energy to poke at the barely stitched-together wound in my chest. I didn’t. Not after that conversation with Olivia.
I took off my jacket, finding the roll of film in the pocket and reading the date again—November 10. I peered down the hallway one more time before I closed the door and got to work. Everything I needed to develop the film was stocked, and I flipped the switch on the red light before I turned off the other.
It took a few seconds for my eyes to begin to adjust, but once they did, the rhythm of the darkroom came back to me. The crimson glow painted the shapes of the room in contrasting colors as I dropped the apron over my head and tied it. The room was colder than the classroom or the hallway, kept cool for the sake of the chemicals. It wouldn’t take long for the temperature to make my hands stiff.
I developed the film and trimmed it, hanging it up on the suspended line over the trays. They would have to dry before I could handle them, but I could already tell that most of the negatives on the roll were blank. There were only eight photos, and I wouldn’t be able to make them out until I could use the light box.
In the meantime, I turned my attention to the negatives I’d brought from Johnny’s, situating myself on the stool and spreading out the contents of the bag before me. I’d gathered up all of the sleeves marked with dates that fell within a few months before Johnny died that also took place in the gorge. I still didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I hoped I could at least get a handle on what his days out there looked like.
I flipped the switch on the light box and it came to life, filling the room with a soft, rattling buzz. I set the first sleeve of negatives on the surface, finding the date Johnny had written on the plastic label: August 1, 2023. I moved the magnifier from one photo to the next, but I couldn’t identify many differences between the images, and from the thumbnails, the pictures looked like they were mostly of trees.
Then I opened the notebook for Subject 44, the owl Johnny had been tracking in Trentham Gorge. I skimmed through the pages until I found the correct date. Johnny’s staccato, punctuated handwriting filled the pages, sometimes drooping off the lines as if he had his eyes on the trees as he wrote. The image of him hunched in an outcropping, hood pulled up over his dark hair with a pencil in hand, made the hole in me stretch wider than I thought possible.
There was something so fitting about it. My brother had always been pensive and serious, which made people inquisitive about him, and I think that’s what Olivia had been getting at when she mentioned the kids in her class. Johnny had never cared for anyone’s attention. He was content to be on his own, even if he didn’t want to be far from me, and I imagined that he was truly happy out there alone in the forest for days on end.
The entries in the notebook were labeled by date, time, and location, beginning in September and October 2021. The notes were reports on the subject itself, but Johnny had also detailed his observations of the different locations in the conservation project, cataloging landmarks, erosion patterns, and even climate changes. On August 1, Johnny had seen Subject 44 only once and for a matter of minutes, jotting down a few almost code-like lines I couldn’t totally make sense of.
There was nothing particularly helpful about the records. No mention of whether Johnny was working alone or alongside someone else, and other than what seemed like an irregular schedule, the dates were somewhat consistent with entries appearing at least once a month.
I cross-referenced each sleeve with the notebook until I reached the end so that I could make notes of ones Quinn might be able to use in the study. By the time I was finished, the processed film was dry enough to be touched. I cut the negatives and fed them into a fresh sleeve before I put them on the light box. The details of the images were more visible under the magnifier, and it looked like there was at least one where I could make out the speckled feathers of an extended wing. But it was the one of the rockface that confirmed it was Trentham Gorge. The distinct sediment stripes that marked the cliff face were clearly visible in two of the shots.
I slid the magnifier over the others, a series of tree lines and rock formations. The little thumbnails were a smear of gray and green, except for a little blot of pink in the last photo. Maybe from a lens flare or a speck of dust on the negative I’d missed when I was cleaning it off.
The enlarger thrummed on the counter as I filled the tubs with the chemicals, settling into the calming pattern of the movements. The walls around me felt like a protective casing that kept everything else out. I put the first negative into the carrier and turned on the lamp, adjusting the projection of the image onto the easel. I exhaled, relieved, when the image came into focus. Johnny had caught the owl straight on, eyes wide and intensely focused.
“Gotcha,” I whispered.
I set the timer before I hit the button, and the lamp clicked on, exposing the image for seven seconds. When I pulled it out of the water bath a few minutes later, I smiled wide. The print dripped as I hung it on the line and turned on the gallery light, studying the details of the picture. Then I circled the negative number on my list and put a star beside it, going to the next. The last on the roll was the image with a blur of pink in one corner, a smudge of color that was starkly out of place in the thick overgrowth of green.
I lowered my face to the magnifier, squinting. It wasn’t a speck of dust on the negative. The discoloration was exposed onto the film in a distinct shape, which meant it wasn’t an imperfection in the film. It was something actually in the photograph.
I slipped the negative from the sleeve and loaded it into the carrier. When the lamp of the enlarger clicked on, I adjusted the projection, making it bigger until I was zoomed in on the corner of the image. My brow pulled as the shape came into focus.
The distant jitter of air vents and the resonant hum of the building filled the hallway outside the door as my fingers gently adjusted the focus.
The cold in the air around me sharpened, making me shiver. There was a sudden feeling in the room like it had grown smaller, like there was less space around me. I turned, eyes scanning the darkness. It was silent except for the sound of the enlarger and the trickle of the water bath in the sink.
I ran a hand through my hair, shaking off the feeling, and turned back to the machine. The timer and the light flicked on, making me wince against the brightness, and when it clicked off again, I opened the easel and took the paper out.
The image surfaced within seconds of me lowering it into the tray, and I pushed the print from side to side with the tongs as it darkened.
James.
My name filled the darkness and I jolted, bumping the developer in front of me. It sloshed over the edge of the tray, and I turned, scanning the small room. The red light was almost viscous, like if I lifted my hand into the air, I would feel it between my fingers.
My heart pounded as the developer dripped onto the floor, and I reached for the light with a shaking hand, flipping it on. I blinked furiously as my vision sharpened. The shadows were gone, that thick, muted sound dissipating as the seconds ticked by, but I could still feel my name buzzing in the air. I could still hear the voice that had spoken it. Johnny’s voice.
The cramped walls of the darkroom felt too close now. The cold air too thin. I propped the door open and tore a handful of paper towels from the roll fixed to the wall, sopping up the mess on the counter and trying to dry the notebooks. Johnny’s handwriting was already smearing on the pages of one of them. I absorbed as much of the liquid as I could, and once the mess was contained, I pulled the print I was developing from the water bath.
I sat on the stool, pushing my hair back from my damp forehead and willing my pulse to slow. The blob in the photograph was a backpack. The pink canvas was covered in winding doodles like the ones I used to draw on my Converse with Sharpie, making me think that it hadn’t belonged to Johnny. He had either accidentally gotten it in the shot or he’d hit the shutter without meaning to.
It wasn’t exactly evidence, but it did mean that only two days before he died, he was out in the gorge with someone else. And it was possible that whoever was with him that day could have also been with him on November12.
The question was, who? My eyes trailed to the empty hallway, where the light was cast in beams from the windows. I knew so little about Johnny’s life here in Six Rivers that I didn’t even have a guess. But I had an idea of who would.