22. Voices
We all froze for a moment, staring incredulously at one another, as if to ask whether anyone else had heard her. Then Roland hobbled to the door.
“It’s her! By God, she’s alive!”
He flung open the door to be greeted by a wall of white.
Somehow, in the brief time between our coming inside and now, a blizzard had blown in on the howling wind. Incredibly fine snow, more like sand than flakes, poured from the sky, only to be whipped from the ground by the wind and sent back into the air.
It swirled into the cabin through the open door, a blast of frigid air that sucked away even the feeble heat of the stove. Roland took a step outside, but Steve grabbed his arm.
“No! You’ll be lost or frozen in half a minute.” Taking a deep breath, he shouted out into the night. “Anna, can you come to us? Do you hear me?”
Even as he yelled into the darkness and wind, I pulled my coat off the line above the stove and shrugged into it. Roland started to follow my example, but Eleanor grabbed his arm.
“Your leg—” she began, but he wrenched free.
“Hang my leg,” he growled. “My Anna needs me.”
Anna. How could she be alive after all this time? With no gear, no food, no shelter?
Anna’s voice came again—except this time, she shouted the words we’d overheard that night on the edge of Lake Lindeman.
“I wish you’d died in the avalanche!”
Roland’s face went utterly white. He snatched up a lantern and shoved his son out of the way to get through the door. I yanked Steve’s coat down and pushed it into his arms as I went past. “Come on!”
We hurried out after Roland, shutting the cabin door behind us. The only light came from Roland’s lantern, already disappearing amidst the surging sheets of white even though he’d barely gone ten feet. The wind blasted the gritty snow in our faces, only to swing around and try from a new direction.
“Pa!” Steve shouted. “Stay with us! If we get separated, we’ll never make it back to the cabin.”
The bitter air stung my throat and lungs; my scarf went stiff as the moisture from my breath froze it solid. If we made it through this without frostbite, it would be a miracle.
Where was Anna? How could she hope to survive this storm with no coat or boots?
I drew in a breath made painful by the cold and shouted her name. Steve and Roland joined me, all of us calling desperately for her. A terrible thought struck me: had she somehow survived all this time, only to die feet away from rescue?
“Roland?” Her voice came remarkably clear, even through the storm. “Where are you?”
“Here!” We turned in the direction of her call and groped our way through the blinding curtains of snow.
“Keep shouting, Anna!” Steve yelled into the wind. “Help us find you!”
“I’m right here,” she replied—only this time, her voice came from behind us, in the opposite direction.
The fine hairs on my neck tried to stand up, but I pushed aside my unease. We’d gotten turned around in the storm, that was all. We started back the way we came only to hear, “Over here!” from yet another direction.
Then: “I’m right here!” from another.
We were going in circles now, in danger of losing track of the cabin’s location, which would be certain death in this weather. And finally my unease pushed past all barriers of rationality, blooming into fear as I gave it voice.
“I don’t think that’s Anna.”
* * *
“Of course it is!” Roland snapped. “Don’t you think I know my own wife?”
I grabbed his arm to keep him from hobbling after the voice. “Think! She’s been gone for weeks. Where has she been all this time? She’d only survive by finding shelter with someone else—and if that happened, why would she be wandering out alone in this storm?”
Steve looked as frightened as I felt. “I don’t know what’s going on, but Colin’s right. Her voice is coming from every direction—how could she move that fast in this storm?”
“It’s this damned wind, confusing everything,” Roland said. He tried to pull free, but Steve also grabbed him.
“In that case, the best thing to do is for us to stay put, and for her to come to us! Otherwise, we’re going to stumble around until we freeze to death. I already can’t feel my feet!”
“If we die out here, it won’t help her,” I added. “Roland, please, don’t condemn your son to death, too.”
It was a low blow—but it worked. His expression wavered, then he let out a long breath.
“Roland, no!” Anna called. “Please, don’t leave me!”
The wind seemed to pass by all my clothes and flesh, funneling ice straight into my veins. Had she—had something?—heard us somehow? But if she was so close, why not come to us?
Then, from a completely different direction, came the unmistakable sound of a baby crying. Not simple fussing, but great, gasping wails, as if it had been utterly abandoned by everyone who was meant to love it.
All of the color drained from Steve’s face. He took a step in its direction, but I grabbed his arm with my free hand, holding onto father and son alike.
“Colin! Help me!” Bessie screamed.
Steve’s head snapped around at the sound. He’d heard her, too.
It wasn’t just in my head. Maybe it never had been.
My grip tightened on their jackets. “We need to get back to the cabin.”
A crack rang out from the forest, followed by another and another.
Somethingwas out there, among the trees.
* * *
Steve pulled one of Roland’s arms over his shoulder and plunged in what I hoped was the direction of the cabin. I grabbed Roland’s other arm, and we practically dragged him between us in our haste. My heart pounded until it seemed it might explode at any second, and all my thoughts scattered and swirled like the snow filling the air.
If we couldn’t find the cabin again, we were doomed. And deep down, on an instinctive level, I knew we’d die before the cold could take us.
Steve’s gloved hands hit rough logs. He patted them like a blind man, following the wall until the door came into view.
“Colin, help!” Bessie screamed, and she sounded close, too close. “Save me!”
The door swung open and we all but fell through it. I slammed it behind us, shutting off her agonized screams.
Eleanor shot to her feet in alarm. “What’s wrong?”
Steve shook his head, eyes wide and frightened. “It’s not Anna.”
“What the hell do you mean?” She made for the door. “Of course it is!”
“Then why did I hear my dead sister?” I shouted at her. “Or a baby crying? Or Anna moving all around us, like she was flying from place to place?”
Eleanor stared at me as if I were insane. But my eyes were fixed on Doug, who watched me with a strange sort of detached curiosity. Like a specimen in a jar.
Something scratched on the door.
I spun to face it. Why had I thought reaching the cabin would save us? Imagined it—whatever it was—would just give up and leave?
“Let me in, husband,” Anna said. “I’m so cold out here.”
She didn’t sound cold, though. No chattering teeth, or distressed sobs. Instead, her voice was almost mocking.
We all shied back from the door, including Roland, his expression frozen in horror.
“Colin, help me.” Bessie’s voice was that of a calm little girl, not ragged from smoke and screaming.
A man spoke next, stern and unyielding. “Eleanor, it’s your father. Open the door this instant.”
She cringed back, hands pressed over her mouth as though to keep in a scream. “No,” she whispered. “No…”
Steve broke from our collective paralysis and picked up the ax, which we kept inside to prevent the wooden handle from splitting in the cold. “Really wish we had my rifle,” he muttered. “Get behind me.”
Something hit the door with a bang. Then another. Then nonstop: heavy blows raining down on the wood, rattling it in its frame. The bolt jumped wildly in the latch. If it slid back too far, the door would swing open, and we’d be at the mercy of whatever was trying to get inside.
I’d never been one for a fight. My eyes darted frantically around the cabin—there was no other way out. If I threw a frozen slab of bacon at it, it would surely do little but buy a few extra seconds of life…
The banging stopped.
I took a deep breath, tried to hear anything over the pounding of my own heart. Had it left?
The ear-rending sound of claws being dragged over a hard surface came from just beside the door. It trailed along the cabin wall, as if the thing paced its length, moving farther and farther from the door. When it reached the corner, it stopped.
After that, there was only silence.
* * *
We remained awake and huddled around the stove for the rest of the long, long night. Through a combination of some miracle and Eleanor’s ministrations, we rubbed the blood back into our extremities and avoided frostbite. Roland’s wound was oozing again, so she doused it with carbolic acid and wrapped it in fresh bandages. The only conversation was conducted in low whispers, and then only as needed, as if we all feared whatever had stalked us would return if we spoke too loud.
I couldn’t imagine what we’d just encountered. All I could hear was Bessie’s panicked cries, dissolving into screams. As though I’d been transported back to the wheat fields of Nebraska, watching her burn alive as I stood by, limbs locked in terror of the flames.
The scar I’d gained that day felt…odd. Not painful, just strange. I surreptitiously touched it and found its consistency weirdly spongy.
Old wounds unknitted under the influence of scurvy. Was whatever strange version of the disease that afflicted Doug now spreading to me? If only the waves hadn’t stolen our lime juice at Dyea.
“Anna’s dead, isn’t she,” Roland said into the heavy silence. He slumped in his chair, utterly defeated.
Eleanor closed her eyes at his pronouncement, and pity stabbed me deep. I went to her side and put an arm around her shoulders for comfort. She leaned against me, and muffled sobs tore through her body.
Steve sighed. The ax sat propped against the wall, in easy reach. “I don’t see how she could be alive. I’m sorry, Pa.”
Roland sniffled and wiped at his eyes. “I know she didn’t love me,” he said, voice breaking on the declaration.
“Pa—”
“I remember the first time I saw her,” Roland went on, ignoring Steve. “She was so pretty, all dressed up for church. I didn’t bother trying to court her—what would she want with an old man like me? But then, when I heard her family was in trouble after the bank went under…I guess I figured this old man had something to offer her after all.”
He bowed his head. No one spoke.
“I thought she’d grow to love me,” he murmured, more to himself than to us. “I thought we’d be happy together. But as it turned out, all I could think about when I looked at her was that she was only there because of my money. So I’d give her what she wanted—I’d build her a palace with the gold I was going to mine. But…but I was scared she’d find another man, a younger one, while I was gone. I forced her to come here…”
He trailed off into silent tears. Eleanor buried her face in my shoulder, and I patted her back, murmuring soft words of comfort. Steve bowed his head, lost in his own thoughts.
Doug sat in the same chair he’d been in earlier, not having moved to join us either in the search or to help us rub warmth into our feet and hands. What did he think of hearing Bessie again, even if it hadn’t really been her? Had it broken his heart, or made him hate me, or…?
His expression showed none of those things. Indeed, it didn’t show much at all.
As I watched, he casually reached into his mouth and pulled out another bloody tooth.