MISS
BEL   

“TIME FOR SUNBURST,” I told the children. Almost every hand went up — pick me, pick me, my turn, Miss Bel!

Rebee Shore, the new girl, hid behind the other Grade Twos in the centre of the room, her nose pressed to the back of Vanessa’s sweater. She’d been here a week now. Mrs. Bagot marched down the Messenger School hallway last Tuesday afternoon, rapped on my door, announced that the girl was a transfer from the Peace River School Division, then shoved her inside. She came bedraggled, like she had rooted through a week-old hamper to pick out her clothes. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot. I led her to the back of the class and told her to roll up her sleeves. Then I scrubbed her hands with disinfectant and wiped her face with a wet paper towel. I called Vanessa and Susan away from their desks to come join us at the sink. I told them that Rebee Shore was their new assignment, their buddy project, and that they were in charge of making her fit in. The girls moved in on Rebee like mother ducks and fawned over her like a lost lamb.

“Rebee, today you’ll do Sunburst. Come.”

The children separated, making way for Rebee. She inched towards me as I positioned the small chair in the greatest shaft of light pouring through the window. Vanessa and Susan took her by each arm and helped her to step up and stand on the chair. She looked condemned, head slumped, as if expecting the chair to fall and a rope to tighten and snap her neck.

“Girls, have you told Rebee about Sunburst?”

“Not yet, Miss Bel.”

“All right then. Rebee, just close your eyes and stretch out your arms.”

The children moved back slightly, watching Rebee closely. She was breathing fast, panting as she lifted both arms, her eyes squeezed shut. One of her shoelaces had come undone and dangled over the side of the chair.

“You’re standing in a sunburst, Rebee. Does it feel warm?”

I held out my hand and clasped the tips of Rebee’s fingers within mine, pushing Rebee’s arm higher.

“Let the light wash over you like a warm bath. From the tips of your fingers right down to your toes.”

Rebee stood a little taller, her face squeezed into one big wrinkle. She stuck out her chin, holding my fingertips tightly.

“Children, quietly now, what do you see?”

I closed my eyes, too, and listened to the children whisper their observations, just like I’ve taught them. The way the light danced over Rebee’s face, the shine in her hair, the halo above her head, like an angel. Her sweater lighting up in stripes from the slats of the window blinds — its colour changing from red to orange. Rebee’s body glowing, growing, how she became taller by standing in the light.

It’s a silly game I’ve made up for these kids. When I opened my eyes, I saw Rebee, perched on her tiptoes, arms spread wide, like Jesus on the cross.

I wanted her to know that light doesn’t hurt. “Very good, Rebee. You can open your eyes and come back to the floor.” She stepped down from the chair, tripping over her shoelace. “Sunburst is over. Everyone to your desks.”

“Should we take out our arithmetic scribblers, Miss Bel?” “Yes, Peter. I suppose we should.”

* * *

I chose Winter Lake for its coordinates. Longitudinally speaking, I’m now stationed at 110°00 W, directly north of the battered wooden hole, veined and stained, of the old outhouse on the farm where I was raised with the chickens. If I could find a piece of string 560 kilometres long, I could tie it to the outhouse latch, which sits on the southernmost tip of the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, run the string north along the border line, and tie it off at the Messenger School door. The outhouse still stands, although my parents have a real toilet now. It took my father six years to finish the eight-by-four room. My mother said little to hurry the process along. My mother says little during the best of times. Six years to drop a sink into the oval cutout, add a closed-in cabinet, taps to the bathtub, pipes that piped well water in and out. The bathroom door was added in year five. A doorknob to close it — year six. I was ten years old by then, but after all that waiting, the indoor toilet was reserved for visitors. My parents had the well to think about. “Water is as precious as a two-dollar bill, Belinda.” To this day, the flush of a porcelain bowl makes me hear the tinkling of china, cups brought down from the back of the cupboard, teetering on saucers on the way to the table.

But it’s latitude that matters the most. Latitudinally speaking, I’ve moved up in the world. I found the ad for my Winter Lake position while slumped in the hallway waiting for Christie to open the door. Christie and I shared a room in the dorm at the University of Regina. Having graduated already, I’d been forced to give up my key. But Christie didn’t mind me hanging on. She was a big-boned farm girl who hated change, spoke only when in bed, only when her side of the room was in shadow, always with her nose pressed to the wall, always with a muffled, fluttery lisp. I had no intention of teaching like the rest of my graduating class. I was planning to go north to find my uncle. I needed more money to make the trip — I just hadn’t got around to finding a job.

I was waiting for Christie, absently scanning the bulletin board across from the elevators on the dorm’s sixth floor. A small slice of newsprint caught my eye. Grade Two Teacher Reqd. Immed., Messenger Sch., Northern Lights S. D., Winter Lake. I know my geography. The words fluttered inside like trapped swallows as I ripped the paper off its tack — Messenger, Northern Lights, Winter Lake. This was my winning ticket, a paid sabbatical on my journey north. Winter Lake sits at the halfway point on my climb up the provinces. From there, I can dip west and north until I hit the Welcome to the Northwest Territories sign, then traverse my way to the Beaufort Sea. Tuktoyaktuk is positioned at 69°27' N, a quarter-inch above Inuvik on page eighty-six of the New Canadian World Atlas. From Winter Lake, lati-tudinally speaking, I’ll have a mere fifteen degrees to cross before I hit my mark.

So that was it, then. I waited for Christie to get off the elevator, grabbed the key from her farmer’s fist, sprinted down the hallway and unlocked our door. Then I counted my escape money tucked between the covers of Sociology in Crisis. $321.37. Leftovers from the Rotary scholarship, my grand prize for being the student most committed. Glassy-eyed Rotarians listened closely while I read my winning essay, “An Apple for the Teacher — Passion with Purpose.” Most had polished off their chocolate mousses by the time I came to the closing sentence — “And that is the weight of it, this call to the classroom, to forge a new imagination, a better world in the hearts of children.” There was a great upheaval as they collectively stood in the Chamber of Commerce meeting room. Clapping and stomping. I felt light as water, as convincing as butter pecan ice cream.

I stuffed my clothes into two canvas bags, wrapped my night lights in towels and shirts: my feather-winged angel and church tower; my dead starfish; my stained glass leaf with a broken stem; and my plastic clown, whose red nose gets feverishly hot when I plug him in.

Christie wouldn’t face me when I sat at her desk.

“I’ve got a teaching offer. In Winter Lake. I’m leaving Regina. As soon as I get these references done.” I frantically pounded on her keyboard and typed three letters, designing new letterhead for each. Sincerely yours, James Knight, Yours truly, V. Stefansson, and Best Regards, Hugh Evans: northern explorers who, despite being dead, believed in my worthiness more firmly than most.

“When did you have your interview?” Christie had her back to me and scratched at her scalp. She always scratched when she felt change coming.

“When I get there.” I gathered my bags and walked out the door. “You can keep my sociology books.”

I arrived at the Greyhound terminal ticket counter at a quarter to two, then waited four hours for the Winter Lake connector bus to back out of its stall. I sat in the single seat at the back, across from the toilet smells, with the reading light on. I studied my reflection in the window through the long dreary night. I’d given myself a terrible haircut. Again. My bangs were too short. My eyebrows too arching, eyes too far apart, pupils indistinguishable from irises. It took a long night of staring at myself, seven stops, one driver replacement, a nineteen-degree temperature drop, and twenty-two hours before me and my polished boots and two canvas bags lined up at the office counter of Messenger School.

“By bus? Through the night? Instead of a phone call? I’ve never heard such a thing.” Mrs. Bagot steered me into her principal’s office and pointed to the blue upholstered chair beside the plastic palm. I hadn’t eaten since Regina and couldn’t tear my eyes from the jar of red and green striped rock candy sitting beside the pencil holder. I had to clasp my hands together to stop them from reaching in.

Mrs. Bagot thumbed through the contents of my manila envelope. She started with my unblemished transcript. Then, the Rotary scholarship certificate on embossed paper with the gold seal. Then the sample lesson plan for contrasting simple vowel phonemes — pit, pet, pat, put, putt, pot. Last, the three reference letters.

“Those are excellent references, Mrs. Bagot. To assist you with your decision.”

Mrs. Bagot breezed through the dead explorers’ accolades, looking up every so often to study the girl who had garnered such praise. Mrs. Bagot later told me she was surprised by my lack of an accent, my prairie heritage, “When I appeared so, well, from so far away.” I said nothing when she told me that. People smell a whiff of “difference” on me. I don’t want it explained.

During my interview, I recited pieces of my Rotary essay beginning with page two and adding appropriate pauses and occasional stumbles to make it appear I was choosing my words for the first time. My mouth moved in one direction, my mind in another. I was thinking about what got me to this place. I suppose if I traced it all the way back it was that boy in the Luther cafeteria. That boy with delicate wrists, long fingers reaching into his plastic bag, pulling out orange carrots, red and yellow pepper slices, a mixture of lettuce leaves, arranging these painstakingly, as though he were a painter and his plate the palette. I sat two tables over in the noisy cafeteria, surrounded by liberal arts students I didn’t know. The giant fig tree separated my table from the boy’s, so I could watch without being noticed. Thick glasses magnified his worried concentration as he chewed through the colours. He had lips like a woman. He was beautiful in his otherness, so much so that he drowned out everyone else’s roar until all I could hear was the sound of his breathing. When the boy stood to leave, I stood too. As he walked away, his timetable fell from the pocket of his book bag. I scooped up the crumbled paper and studied his choices. It was the first week of my second semester. By day’s end, I’d switched from Arts to Education and changed all my courses to match his. If it wasn’t for that boy, I might have been a sociologist. And sociology is dead — clearly.

“And I suppose that is it, this call to the classroom.” Unlike the Rotarians, Mrs. Bagot neither clapped nor stomped. “My apologies for my long speech, but I feel passionate about teaching.” I didn’t, of course, but there are parts of a girl she must keep private, especially during an interview.

“And why Winter Lake? Why here?”

“I’ve been researching carefully.” I knew nothing of Winter Lake other than its position on the map. “This area has an amazing history. And this school an excellent reputation.”

Mrs. Bagot looked dubious. “You have no direct teaching experience.”

“But I was top of my class.” I felt light-headed from lack of food, sleep, light.

“And you are very young. Compared to the other teachers.”

“My youth works in your favour, Mrs. Bagot.”

“We’ve been relying on substitutes for over two months now. The children have become unruly, I’m afraid to say.”

“I can fix that.”

Perhaps Mrs. Bagot sensed the truth in this bit.

The next morning, after a second sleepless night, this time in the bowels of the Inn on Main Hotel, I arrived at my classroom at a quarter to nine and surveyed the thumbprint patterns etched on grimy green walls, the dishevelled stacks of cardboard along the window ledge. I routed through my predecessor’s paper scraps in my top drawer.

• Cabbage and canned tomatoes (× 6)

• Diet Ginger ale

• Weigh in — 4:00

• Big clothes to Jo-ann’s Slightly Used

• Body Jam — 6:00 PM class

As children bounced in from the cold, I blocked the doorway to inspect each child singly. I must have gripped their shoulders too roughly. When I let go, they ran to their desks like calves after branding. With the hallway emptied, all children in, I walked first to the deep sink, scrubbed my hands, then I marched straight to the board and printed “Miss Bel” in large letters. The room was quiet as a whisper.

“Well, here we go then. We’re going to clean up this dump. Scrub every inch.”

* * *

My mother smacked my left hand so often with the wooden spoon those fingers still burn when they reach for a pencil. Rebee is left-handed. I love the way her fingers curl when she concentrates, smudging the letters as they inch across the page. I love the way her body stays still when she sits at her desk. She hasn’t once raised her hand, joined in a discussion, or asked to go to the bathroom.

As for the others, they natter incessantly. The girls cluster like grapes; they flatter and fidget. The boys crush their juice boxes in their sweaty little fists and pound each other’s foreheads and other flat surfaces.

It’s a funny business, the way the mind works. I used to spend hours in my room at the farmhouse, conjuring up desks filled with breathing bodies shaped like me. I surrounded myself with girls in velvet dresses with satin sashes, boys in shirts crisp as white paper. I stole my classmates from the radio songs that drifted up from my mother’s kitchen.

The real assortment is sorely disappointing. Now I find myself longing for my bedroom, away from the heat of so many grubby bodies. It’s been three months now. Three paycheques, one report card, twelve Thursday after-school meetings in the teachers’ lounge. There are nine green linoleum squares between my desk and the door. Sometimes I simply walk from the classroom, past the mudroom, and into the cold where I stand under the cracked canopy and suck in frigid air.

Yesterday I stood at my classroom window, inside when I was assigned to be out. It was my turn to supervise the recess raucous, but I couldn’t bear another moment. Inhumane, what Mrs. Bagot expected from her teachers. I stared into the twisting, churning mass of bodies wrapped around the play equipment. A clump of girls emerged from the mouth of the vortex. It was Vanessa and Susan, and they were dragging Rebee between them, headed in my direction.

When I got to the mudroom, a blast of angry cold rushed in. Rebee stood in the open doorway between the two girls. I pulled the children inside, out of the howling entrance and slammed the door closed. Vanessa and Susan flung snow wads in every direction.

I stepped around the wet and stood in front of the drizzling trio.

“What’s your problem?”

“Rebee’s bin kilt,” Vanessa yelled from behind her soggy scarf. Her mittened hand pointed at Rebee’s face, which was hidden by her pink scarf save for wide eyes, wet eyelashes.

“Rebee’s not been killed. She’s standing right here.”

“See, see,” Susan started giggling. Rebee stood perfectly still, eyes focused on my stomach.

“Well, let’s take a look then.” I stepped behind Rebee and fumbled with her scarf, the frozen knot, mutton bone hard. I was ready to give up, march into the staffroom, grab a cleaver, chop the scarf in two.

The knot finally gave, so I moved around front of Rebee and pulled the scarf from her face. Susan let out a walloping screech. Rebee’s mouth was bloodied, red-caked lips forming a small doughnut, pink bubbles gathering in the hole. A blood smear had stained one cheek, her chin. Snot ran from her nose. She wouldn’t look at me. Didn’t cry. Didn’t make a sound.

Susan’s giggles turned to sobs.

“Pipe down, Susan, it’s just a little blood.”

I tugged and pulled and peeled the layers until Rebee was wet socks, rumpled T-shirt and baggy pants. Vanessa started shedding, too.

“Stay dressed, Vanessa. You too, Susan. Where does it hurt, Rebee?”

“In her mouth,” Susan yelled.

“What happened?”

“Rebee got banged,” Vanessa added.

“Banged how?”

“By Kenny’s head.”

Vanessa wriggled and squirmed, words tumbling like marbles in no coherent order. How Kenny pushed Rebee from behind. How Rebee lost her balance and fell. How Rebee’s mouth slammed against the curved lip of the frozen slide. How Peter laughed and pointed and the others joined in. Vanessa yakked on and on. Behind the blood splatters, Rebee, pale as a feather, still hadn’t uttered a peep. Her socks were too small, heels folding at the balls of each foot.

“Leave us now. Susan and Vanessa. Both of you. Out.”

They didn’t want to miss the show, so I pushed them into winter and slammed the door behind them. Rebee was trembling by this point. She smelled like washing day, damp cloth, a faint trace of Christmas orange. I marched her to the bathroom and stood her in front of the sink.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, then. See what we’ve got.”

Rebee stared into the oval mirror at her blood-smeared face. She had a faraway look, as though she were looking at her older self. She was in some trailer park, some burnt-out town, some snarly boyfriend with swollen knuckles hovering in the background.

I started with the cheek. Rubbed a paper towel until the blood was all gone. Then I ran warm water over more paper, squeezed out the excess and dabbed at her chin, under her nose, around the corners of her eyes. I could see no swelling, no black and blue rising, no broken skin.

“That doesn’t look so bad. Rebee, open your mouth.”

Lips stayed sealed.

“Fine. Then spit into the sink for me?”

Rebee leaned over and spat a pea-sized pink plop into the sink. I still couldn’t see inside her mouth. I turned on the cold water and filled one of the paper cups that sat by the tap.

“Now you take a drink and swish it all around and then spit it out. Pretend you’ve just brushed your teeth.”

Rebee took the cup slowly, turned eyes first to me, then she swished and spat daintily onto the porcelain. Crimson fizz, then the plink of a little white tooth. We both leaned into the sink to get a better look.

“What is that?” she whispered.

I got a good look at the gap in the front of her mouth.

“Congratulations. You’ve popped your front tooth. Just like you’re supposed to.”

She lowered her head further, studying the tooth, poking it with her fingers. Then she turned and stared at me. Our faces were inches apart.

“Well?”

Rebee’s fingers pinched my sweater. It was the first time I had really looked into her eyes. They were as grey as the end of the world, exhausted.

“Will the Tooth Fairy come?” She asked this reverently, like this might save her life.

I remembered tooth fairies and sugar plum fairies and angel fairies. Somehow, my parents had inherited a book of Classic Fairy Tales, a book as weighty as a fattened pig. I heaved the book onto my bed and read and reread stories of frog princes and talking cats and shoes that would not stop dancing. I waited for those fairies. They never did find their way to the middle of nowhere.

“Will she come?” Rebee asked again.

My mother had a peculiar use for lost teeth, hers and mine. She laid each on the splintered cutting board, and brought down the swinging hammer with a mighty force. Then she scooped up the specks as fine as powdered milk and fed them to her spindly geranium plant.

“What do you know about the Tooth Fairy?”

Rebee shrugged.

“What has your mother told you?”

Rebee shook her head, sadly I thought. Surely her mother had no geraniums.

“Recess must be over,” I said, unwilling to drag it out further. My teacher training lacked tips for this kind of moment. “It’s time to go back to the classroom.”

But Rebee wanted more. “Vanessa said that when her tooth came out she put it under her pillow and she saw the tooth fairy and she had wings. The tooth fairy stayed in Vanessa’s bedroom and twirled and then was gone and she got monies.”

“Money. She got money.”

“Does she come, Miss Bel?”

I had no decent answer. I wanted the fairy to come, my longing as sharp as Rebee’s, but I had no way to find her. I yanked a paper towel from its holder, folded it twice, dug the tooth from the sink, and wrapped it snugly.

“Put this in your pocket.” I passed her the tooth package. “It’ll be safe there. And don’t tell Vanessa. Talk to your mom instead?”

She held out her hand, opened her pocket of her pants, and tucked the paper towel as far down as it would go. I made her scrub her hands with soap and water so hot it made her eyes water. Then we marched back to the classroom, neither one of us saying a word.

It wasn’t until the end of the day, after the kids were long gone, after I had disinfected my desk and stepped out into the biting wind to face the dark sky that I buried my hands deep into my coat to stop the sting. Somehow the paper towel had slipped into my pocket. I pressed my fingers around the folded square, felt the hard bump of the tiny tooth. I never thought to ask how it got there, when she might have slipped into the staffroom, chosen the exact right coat. I simply clutched that small piece of Rebee, hanging on for dear life, trying to keep it warm.

* * *

I live in Delta’s furnished basement suite. If Delta’s not the oldest living prairies teacher, I can’t imagine who is. She does all her teaching sitting down and has trouble answering questions because her hearing is so poor. When I sneak past her classroom to get outside, she’s often nodded off, her sixth-graders huddling over desks, speaking in low voices, like it’s campfire time and the grownups have been put to bed. Mrs. Bagot has a great respect for elders. She believes in corporal punishment and checks on Delta’s classroom more frequently than mine.

Mrs. Bagot made the arrangements for my stay with Delta. She marched into Delta’s Grade Six classroom at the farthest corner of my wing and told her it was high time she got a new renter. Delta’s last tenant, Martha Flem, collapsed from a stroke in the downstairs bathroom and got wedged between the toilet and countertop. This happened eleven years ago. Martha Flem lay there for three days, semiconscious. Delta found her, twisted and blue with cold, her nightie bunched over swollen kneecaps. Martha must have been a large woman. I can easily sit on the floor beside the toilet, pull my knees up, and twirl a 360. She went straight to a nursing home after that, and I have to bang on Delta’s upstairs door each evening and twice a day on weekends just to let her know I’m still breathing. “Delta,” I yell, pounding on the door, “I’m doing just fine, no need to worry.”

Often, at night, I sit on Delta’s floor, my night lights glowing from every spare wall socket, bordered by overstuffed burgundy chairs, striped afghans, Royal Castle bone china girls, starched frilly doilies floating on every flat top.

I think about Buttercup, the mad dog in Delta’s kitchen, locked behind baby gates. She’s some kind of poodle, with matted pink curls like Delta’s, a red-veined underbelly and filmy eyes. Delta has told me she needs to be put to sleep, but she can’t bear to make that decision. So Buttercup chases herself in circles, round and round, always the same direction, crashing into her water bowl and garbage can. Table legs are especially problematic.

Delta went for some kind of day procedure at the woman’s clinic today. A “woman’s engagement” she called it, though I can’t imagine her woman’s parts. Delta knew she’d be late getting home and asked me to check on Buttercup. “Will you get her outside?” she asked. “Let her stand in the snow for a minute or two and take in the fresh air? She enjoys the birds, you know.”

When I unlocked the door with Delta’s key, Buttercup was stumbling around the kitchen, a white plastic bag wrapped tightly around her head. With each wet, wheezy intake of air, the bag moulded to the dog’s head. She shook her head furiously, but it only smushed tighter. I lifted the bag away. Buttercup, drenched and panting, collapsed to the floor. But then a minute later she had turned herself around and started circling again. Like nothing had happened.

I stood naked in front of the bathroom mirror, and pulled a plastic bag over my head. I cinched it tightly under my chin, eyelashes trapped against filmy white, the bag breathing with me, caressing my lips, and covering my tongue.

I admired Buttercup. The dog had spunk.

* * *

Rebee walks home alone each day. Vanessa and Susan, best friends forever, have since lost interest in their buddy assignment and get rides from their mothers. Rebee cuts through the schoolyard, and then hurries past the tire piles and three-legged chairs leaning in doorways, the old cars on bricks that never leave their yards. The neighbourhood has a sticky feel. Like you’re walking through muck. I know this because Rebee and I take the same route until we get to the dumpster at Forrest Drive, then Rebee turns right.

Delta and I live eight blocks from the Messenger school. In a town this size, the good, the bad and the ugly are all smooshed together. Delta has bird feeders in her spruce trees, plastic deer wedged in the snow, marigolds and petunias come spring, I bet, while the guy next door chains a Rottweiler to a metal post out front.

Delta has a silver Cadillac, big enough to move into, and perches on a pillow so she can see over her steering wheel. Her feet barely reach the pedals. She offers me a ride each morning, but I prefer the walk — the neighbourhood smells and the cold on my face.

Rebee was keeping her head down, like a dog sniffing a trail, like nobody would see her if she couldn’t see them. She’d made it to the dumpster, turned right. I wanted to see where she lived.

“Wait up, Rebee,” I called from behind. She turned too quickly, fear in her eyes, dropping her bag in the snow.

“It’s just me. Miss Bel. I’ll walk with you.” I bent down, picked up the bag, brushed it off, and passed it back to her. Rebee took it and kept on going, like she couldn’t wait to get off the street.

“We’re the new girls in town.” I walked behind her. Few people had shovelled and we tried to match our footprints to those already made. Rebee’s boots filled with snow. “How do you like it so far?”

Rebee shrugged. She didn’t look up, the red pompom bobbing on top of her hat. She pulled down the scarf that covered her mouth so she could swipe at her runny nose.

“What do you like best?” Our breath foamed in the winter air. I puffed over her head, creating a roof that disappeared. The cold sun was so dazzling it made me squint.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” She hadn’t said a word to me since her tooth fell into my pocket. A tiny pink nail poked through the thumb of her mitten. “Come on. You’ve got to have a favourite.”

“Sunburst.”

“I knew it. Sunburst’s my favourite, too.”

We were at a corner. I hadn’t walked this street before but it was more of the same — more white-laced curtains next door to unhinged shutters. Rebee looked both ways, climbed over the mountain made by the Winter Lake snowplow, and stepped out onto the street. There were no cars, no people.

We made it to the other side. She stood in front of the corner house, a dilapidated monster three storeys high, definitely more the motorcycle flag than the lacy curtains type. Rebee leaned back and looked up, first at the top floor of the house, then at me.

“Will I get a turn again?” she asked.

“Well, I can’t say for sure. Sunburst can’t be decided ahead of time.”

Rebee stared at me a minute, crinkling her eyes, then said, “I’m going to make juice.”

“What kind?”

“Grape. Maybe.”

“I’ll come in with you. Purple is a good colour.”

“I’m not allowed.”

“Unless it’s the teacher. The teacher is okay.” I knew this was wrong, even as I said it. But she was so alone, so small.

We entered by a heavy cracked glass door. Inside, a mat was stacked with giant men’s boots and mud-caked runners. We trudged up the steep wooden stairs, past the leftover tuna and burnt cheese smell, past the number three and four doors on the second landing, then switched directions and climbed one more flight until we got to number five. Rebee took her boots off, shaking out the snow, and placed them upside down beside the door. I did the same. Then she stripped off her mittens, hat and coat. She reached under her sweater and pulled out a key on a chain around her neck, turned the key in the lock, and we were in.

“Nobody’s home,” Rebee said.

“You’re home,” I said, dropping my coat on the floor. “You’re somebody.”

Rebee half-smiled. I loved the look of that bare place. The living room was a triangle, with big pillows on the floor and an electric heater inside a brick fireplace. After wading through Delta’s bric-a-brac, drowning in her doilies, I felt like a sock gliding along the worn hardwood. Rebee went into the little room off the living room. I followed. It had an off-kilter look, a slanting ceiling and peeling wallpaper. None of the yellowed pansies lined up at the seams. Rebee went over to a small closet on the short side, opened the miniature door, and hung her coat on a hook, placing her bag inside. There was a foam mattress on the floor, a striped pillow with no pillowcase, and a blue blanket folded neatly on top. No chairs, no dresser.

Rebee turned, staring at me like she didn’t know how I got there.

“So,” I said. “Let’s make us some juice.”

She led me past a second small room with another foam mattress on the floor, this one blanket-heaped, with a woman’s sweaters and jeans scattered about. We got to a small kitchen space. There was no window, no place for a table, just a sink full of dirty dishes, stove, and fridge. Rebee opened the fridge. Yellows, reds, greens. A half-dozen apples, two oranges, Cheez Whiz, ketchup, a paper bag, broccoli, spinach. The sociologists would have a heyday in here, call this part “fridgology,” make some asinine correlation between rolling oranges and transitory lifestyles, urban alienation.

Rebee hadn’t said a word.

“I lived on a farm. Not a real farm, just a few crazy chickens. We had to go outside to go to the toilet.”

There was one juice can in the empty freezer and Rebee pulled it out and popped the lid off with the end of a spoon from the sink. We peered in. Only a small amount of purple concentrate stuck to the bottom of the can.

“I tried to do all my business before it got dark. Only, the more I thought about not having to go, the more I had to go, until I couldn’t think about anything else.”

Rebee placed the juice can on the space by the taps, reached into the dishes pile and fished out a plastic cup. She rinsed the cup in warm water. I took it from her and waited until the water steamed so I could rinse it again. Then she scooped what was left of the concentrate into the cup and filled it with cold water.

“You can have this one,” she said to me, passing me the spoon and the cup with the purple sludge at the bottom. “You have to stir, mix it all through.”

She’d given me the last of it. I started stirring. “So every night, I’d head to the outhouse in my pyjamas and housecoat and my outhouse boots. I waited until the last possible moment. I actually had to squeeze my legs together as I ran.”

Rebee watched. She seemed intent on me getting my juice right. I kept stirring.

“I carried a big flashlight and when I got into the outhouse, I’d shine the light on the ceiling and the walls. There was a little screen on top of the wooden door, to let in fresh air I guess, but it didn’t help. A hundred dead flies stuck to that screen all summer. In the winter, my dad stuck up a board piece to keep out the fresh air. That didn’t help either. We can share this juice, okay?”

Rebee shook her head. “I’ll have mine later. After the dishes.”

I dropped my spoon in the sink and asked if we could go sit on the big pillows. My drink was lavender from top to bottom. Rebee led me into the living room, walking backwards, keeping her eye on my juice. I sat on the blue pillow and leaned against the wall under the curtainless window. Stones of strange shapes were lined up on the windowsill above our heads. The late afternoon sun filtered in, dropping shadows on the brick mantel above the heater. Rebee pulled the green pillow close to mine, leaned against the wall beside me, her legs tucked close to her chest. The air was so dry it crackled.

“I always checked the hole no matter how bad I had to pee. I wouldn’t pull down my pyjama bottoms until I shined my flashlight down the hole.”

I passed my cup to Rebee. She hesitated, then took a small sip, leaving a purple film above her upper lip. She was really very pretty.

“What were you looking for? Down that hole.”

I wondered if this was what it would be like to have a child of your own. To come home from work and have her waiting. She’ll have stirred up some juice. When she listens to your story, she asks all the right questions.

“The craptrap monster. I thought he lived down there and waited in the dark, and if you weren’t fast enough, he’d reach up and pull you down.”

“Monsters aren’t real, Miss Bel,” Rebee shifted closer. She was holding the juice by then and she took a big drink.

“Real enough. One time, I was checking out that hole, one hand covering my nose, scared breathless ’cause of the rain. It hurt like a beating on the short run to the outhouse. Like a thousand horses pounding their hooves on me, then all around me on the outhouse roof. Just a flicker, then another, then my flashlight went dead. It was so pitch black I couldn’t see the pieces of me, not the shape of my hand, not my pyjama bottoms or boot tops, certainly not the hole. But I could hear him, feel him. His waking up, his hot breath sizzling up through that hole, the rumble and creak getting louder.”

“Was it the monster?” Rebee pressed further into me, our arms touching, and took another long swig.

“I think so.”

Rebee squeezed her legs together and shuddered. “Did you run away?”

“I couldn’t. Couldn’t turn around, couldn’t do anything. I was frozen to my spot on the slippery wood, leaning into the hole, peeing down my leg. Yes, that’s right, Rebee. I was peeing down my leg. Eventually, I got my mouth to work. I screamed as loud as I could.”

“Your mom came and got you?” Rebee looked at me hopefully. It took me a minute to choose my ending. “No. Nobody came. My parents had the radio going and, with all that rain, they didn’t hear me.”

But I didn’t believe what I was telling Rebee. Mom must have heard me screaming. I’d read about that queasy gut feeling a mother gets when her child is in trouble. How could she not have known?

“My mom is down by the water,” Rebee said. “Probably she is.”

“I finally got my legs moving and backed out of there slowly. I opened my mouth wide and screamed all the way to the house in the hammering rain, nearly drowning myself. I stayed out of the outhouse after dark from then on. I headed in its direction, so no one would suspect, then squatted behind the outhouse beside that little clump of sagebrush, which did quite well from all the attention I showered on it.”

Rebee passed me the cup again and I finished the last mouthful.

“We have a inside bathroom. We always have a bathroom,” Rebee said. “I hate bathtubs. Can you swim?”

“Nope. Not a stroke.”

“Me either,” she looked scared at the thought. “The last one didn’t have hardly any hot water. It didn’t come with a plug. I folded up a washcloth and put it over the hole but the water leaked out, really fast, and then there was just cold left.”

“I guess those were short baths.”

“Sometimes we don’t have a bathtub, just a shower. That’s better. This one has a — ”

Someone was turning a key in the lock. Rebee jumped so quickly she lost her footing on the pillow, crashed down, and bounced back up again.

A woman with long flowing hair glided through the door, looked at me on her pillow and stood perfectly still. Mrs. Bagot would label her foreign, imported, like me. Though she was nothing like me. She was light to my dark, zero degrees latitude, a fiery heat to my north frigid zone. I felt startled by her fierce stare. The way she stood with her legs apart, arms at her side.

“My teacher is here. Miss Bel. She walked me home. She didn’t ask me questions.”

The woman turned to speak to the girl, who shrank back slightly. “So she was invited in, then? Oh. That’s odd, because that’s against the rules. You know better. What is it that she wants exactly? Why is she here?”

Her words were for me, though she stared intently at Rebee, who was looking down, pulling at the string that cinched up her sweatpants. All I wanted, exactly, was to be able to stay.

“I don’t want anything, thanks,” I said, uncrossing my legs, standing, stretching, sauntering towards her, my hand extended. “My name is Belinda. The kids call me Miss Bel.” She took my hand, squeezed my fingers a little too hard, and dropped her arm back to her side. From this close, she looked primordial. She was slightly taller than me, but a similar build. She had the same long limbs, same tiny wrists, same striking lack of a bosom. Her irises were ringed in amber, cat’s eyes, swollen pupils, whites barely showing. Stoned-looking, but you knew she wasn’t high.

“We’re both new to Winter Lake. I beat you by a couple of months. Thought I’d stop in and say hello.”

She took off her coat and chucked it into the room with the clothes heap. She was holding a pink and glittery pancake rock that came from her pocket. I thought she was thinking about bonking me on the head, but she didn’t. Rebee ducked into the kitchen and turned on the water.

“Doing that social work teacher chore. Checking out the home. Making sure the family works,” she said.

“Heavens no. Nobody can get the family to work. No, I’m not checking on anything. Not writing a report. Just popped in for some juice.”

She walked over to the window and placed her stone with the others before turning to me.

“Well, thanks for popping in.”

I couldn’t leave. The room was murky in the fading light, hardwood dents mottling. Soon it would be dark. I walked to the window, turning so that we were both facing into the room. We leaned against the sticky windowsill, our fingertips resting on chipped paint. I swallowed the urge to wash my hands. We could see Rebee in the kitchen, perched on a stool, head bent over the sink, arms paddling through bubbly water. We stood like this, side by side.

“If I was writing a report, I’d give you ten stars. For your lack of crap. For renting the top floor. Spinach and grape juice.”

“You’ve been rooting through the drawers too, Miss Bel?”

We were standing so close I could see her chest press up and down inside her black turtleneck. Mesmerizing, slow and deep. I tried to match my breathing to hers, but I was panting almost.

“You’re a surprise to me.” I fought with my voice to keep it low and controlled. “I walk down a Winter Lake street and stare at the windows and try to imagine the people who live behind them and how their lives go. I imagine overweight housewives with polyester tights. Painted toenails. A baby in a playpen struggling to get out. A woman with a phone to her breast, cradling it so hard I think she might shatter. I’ve seen all these pictures in my head. But no one like you.”

“Am I supposed to be flattered? Or is this the part where I call the cops?” She pushed away from the window and from me, practically floating to the fireplace mantel. Her fingers were steady as she lit the yellow candle with matches from her jeans pocket. When she turned to face me again, her eyes reflected the glow from the candle’s flame.

“I don’t know how you talked my kid into letting you in. You like peeping through windows, well, here you have it. The whole enchilada.” She swept her hand across the room. “You’ve seen it. Said your hello. Goodbye then.”

Rebee was banging around in the kitchen.

“You’re very rude.” Six steps across the cold hardwood and I was beside her again, standing so close to the dancing flame I could feel its heat, the sulphur smell of the dead match. We stared at each other, neither backing down.

“Goodbye, Miss Bel,” she said finally.

I walked slowly to the door, scooped up my coat, and left. I didn’t say goodbye to Rebee. And I didn’t tell her mother that I would come again.

* * *

Rebee never made it to school the next day. Or the day after that. Today, I’m about done for. I’m the kind of weary that makes the backs of your knees ache, the backs of your eyeballs sting, your tongue taste gritty, where sounds are too loud and you’re jumping at nothing. I haven’t slept since I met her.

Yesterday afternoon, I pulled out Rebee’s file from the storage room beside Mrs. Bagot’s office and memorized its checks and scribbles. Mother — Harmony Shore. Father — not applicable. Siblings — blank. Last place of residence — Peace River. Emergency contact — Victoria (Vic) Shore. Allergies — none. No medical conditions. No family doctor. All the wrong questions.

Last night I made enough light to do heart surgery by dragging two more of Delta’s floor lamps into my bedroom. Usually I can keep entertained, give in to the fact that I’m the only one on the prairies who can’t close her eyes for seventy-two hours straight. Sometimes I work at giving my left hand a chance. I write myself left-handed notes. Or I go through my closet, change all the hangers so my shirt buttons face the other way. Or I disinfect the floor beside the toilet where that poor woman wedged herself and polish Delta’s hot water tank until it dazzles.

But last night was bad. At 3:20, I yanked on my sweatpants and hoody and boots, inserted fresh batteries into the rump of my flashlight, and snuck up the stairs, past Buttercup’s door and into the night.

Winter Lake houses shrivel against the night sky like cartoon silhouettes. It’s like they lose all personality after being put to bed. Except for Harmony’s room, whose rock window was lit, the only one, suspended like a star. I crouched in the snow pile on the other side of the street, flashlight off, crinking my neck up, making a wish she would come to the window and give me a sign. I imagined tiptoeing up her stairs, using a key around my neck to let myself in, lying beside her, matching my breathing to hers. My feet started tingling, then numbed solid. I got so cold it felt like wolves were nipping at my wrists and at the dip in my neck. I limped back to Delta’s like a cripple.

Rebee came to school this morning. She showed up twenty minutes after the bell and wouldn’t look at me or the other children as she found her desk, sat, opened her practice scribbler, and picked up her pencil with her left hand. She’d kept her head down since, her cheeks the colour of cold ash.

It’s quiet time. I’ve got the children working on Find the Letters worksheets from the Grade Two Teachers’ Kit. Except for Peter, who thinks we should be well into phonics by now. Peter knows only how to think inside his box, to follow a set of rules he doesn’t understand. He’s like a woodpecker that kid, tuttuttuttuttut. He makes me think of my mother. I’ve stuck him at the back, given him the clean the paintbrush job.

“I want you to come into the hallway with me.”

Rebee jumped. She hadn’t noticed me standing beside her. The hallway was empty. I led her to the water fountain, bent down, and let the water wash the grit off my tongue. Rebee slumped beside me, shuffling from one foot to the other. “Take a drink. It helps. But don’t touch the spout. It’s got germs.”

Rebee stuck her tongue out, shooting water everywhere. “Am I in trouble?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve.

I leaned against the wall.

“Are you mad ’cause I missed the bell?” Rebee leaned into the wall too, the water fountain between us.

“No. I don’t care about that.” I wanted to give her a warm bath. I wanted to hold her head in my hand as she floated in pink bubbles. “Who’s Victoria?”

“What?” Rebee scrunched her eyebrows and wrinkled her lips.

“Vic then.”

“Auntie Vic.”

“What’s your mom’s real name? Harmony. That’s not it, is it?”

Rebee stayed quiet for a minute, so I gave her shoulder a squeeze.

“She used to be Elizabeth,” she piped up, focusing on her scruffy runners. “But you aren’t supposed to call her that. She doesn’t like it.”

“And where do you come from, Rebee Shore?”

She shrugged like she didn’t know and then bent to yank up her sock.

“Come on, Rebee. Where? Tell me.”

“I don’t know the names. One time Jimmy’s grandpa put Ralph on the table and cut his nails with a squeezer, and Ralph didn’t like it and wouldn’t wag his tail.”

She picked at her sweater like it was covered with dryer lint.

“Who’s Jimmy?”

She wouldn’t look at me, but she kept talking at least. “He lived in the big house and we lived in the cabin. Jimmy had a monkey his grandma made with a sock his grandpa didn’t wear anymore. It had button eyes but it didn’t have a mouth. Then we went away so I don’t know if he’s got it anymore.”

It surprised me to think she once had a friend. She reminded me so much of me when I was a little girl, when there were no friends for miles, no friends at all. “And where was this? Where were you living?”

Rebee shrugged again. “There’s too many. Someplace.”

I thought about this girl and her mother, drifting from town to town like gypsies. Who were they running from? I was about to ask, when Rebee blurted, “You’re not allowed to come to my house anymore.”

“Why not?”

“She said.”

“Did she give a reason?”

Rebee shrugged and turned into the fountain and played with the tap. Water burped in the white bowl.

“What did she say?” I pushed off the wall, lifting her hand from the tap, and waited.

“She says you’re trouble.” Rebee didn’t want to say this. I could tell by her whisper, by how she addressed the water fountain. She didn’t try to pull back her hand as she stared at my fingers over hers.

“What else?”

She rubbed the end of her finger against my jagged nail. I could feel it break free.

“What else?”

She wouldn’t stop staring at our fingers, so I kneeled down in front of her. “What else, Rebee?”

“That if you don’t stay away, we’re outta here.”

I took both her hands in mine and pressed them close to her chest, which gave her no place to look but my face.

“What about you?” She had eyes like her mother’s, like almonds, only wider, more fearful. “Do you want me to stay away?”

I could feel her hammering heart, blood pounding through veins too small for this. Betray the mother. Betray the teacher. I wanted to protect her but didn’t let myself think about what I was protecting her from. So when she shook her head no, I let go of her fists, and she fell backwards. I uncurled slowly, eclipsing her, then bowed my head and whispered in her ear. “You should listen to your mother, Rebee. Go back to your desk. And wash your hands.”

She ran from me as though she’d been burned. I waited a long time before returning to the classroom. I made Peter do Sunburst, which I knew he hated. He stood on the chair, fists curled in angry balls.

I left Rebee alone until the final bell, when she could plunge into the cold and away from here.

* * *

I called in sick today. Terrible cramps, Mrs. Bagot. The worst case of the trots. I had to call my mother in the middle of the night. Yes. Yes. Perhaps something I ate. I’ll try my best. You are very kind. Ohhhhh. I must go. Thank you.

After the morning school bell rang, I walked through back allies to the other side of town where the Safeway was. I bought a French loaf, green olives, sharp cheddar, cherry tomatoes, and slices of pink salmon — now stuffed in my backpack inside plastic bags. Then I stopped at the liquor store and bought expensive French wine from the pimply-faced boy. He talked sincerely about bouquet and body and long finishes, as though he’d travelled to France and stomped the grapes himself.

It was a cold, crisp day, no wind, a little past noon. I didn’t even bother to zipper my jacket. I took off my boots in front of her door and wrapped my knuckles against wood, over and over, until she appeared.

“Hello, Elizabeth.”

It frightened her that I knew her name. I could see it in her face, in the way her cheekbones shifted and her eyes narrowed, although she tried to hide it by blocking the doorway. She kept her shoulders pulled back.

“Miss Bel. No school today?”

“Thought I’d play hooky, come visit instead.” She blended with her surroundings, just as I remembered. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt, sea blue, and leggings, feet bare, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Glasses, too, with thick black frames, a book tucked close to her chest. I had become vaguely possessive. You should always pull your hair back, I thought. Always wear blue.

“I’m not looking for company.”

“But here I am. Just like that.”

I pushed past her into the beautifully bare room and heard the door bang shut behind me, feeling her cold stare on the back of my neck. I walked over to the window where she must have been reading, wrestled with the straps of my heavy backpack, and slid it to the floor at my feet. I knew she couldn’t see me, so I wrapped my fist over a rock from her shelf, bent down and slipped it into my pack.

“It’s a beautiful day. Even for Winter Lake.”

There was a striped wool blanket crumpled beside the pillow. I picked it up to feel her leftover warmth and the smell of her skin. I took the blanket in both fists, gave it a good shake, and let it billow to the floor in the centre of the room like a tablecloth.

“Tada.” I spread the wine and the food on the blanket, careful not to turn around and look into her eyes.

“I want you to go,” she told my back.

“You’re only saying that because you feel you must. Because you always do. Where’s your corkscrew?”

I headed to the kitchen without waiting for an answer, opened both drawers, and pulled out an old corkscrew, badly rusted, attached to a coil of stained rawhide. My mother would have found the dish soap, muttered and clucked. I reached for the paring knife and two plastic cups and plates from the cupboard above and carried it all to the blanket. I busied myself by fluffing up the pillows, dragging them to the blanket, opening the wine, and pouring us each a cupful.

Elizabeth still stood at the door. She had taken off her glasses and was chewing on the tip of one of its arms. I felt almost frightened by her shape in the doorway. But it was more of an aching. She could force me to leave in that moment and then it would be over.

I raised my hand, an unconditional gesture, willing some power over her.

She stood there, unmoving, while I held my breath. But then she came, sat on her pillow in cross-legged defeat, and took the cup from my outstretched hand.

“I should have brought flowers.”

“Are we dating, Miss Bel?” She did not try to hide the contempt in her voice.

But I thought about it anyway, about having Elizabeth. Rebee would be with us. We’d walk together on a winter morning, sharing mittens, my hands in theirs. I was filled with a tenderness I could not explain.

“I had to sneak across town to get this stuff. Didn’t want to start a Winter Lake riot for playing hooky from school. My artfulness deserves a toast. Let’s drink to imports most recent, to innocence and impunity.”

I touched the side of her cup with mine. We brought our cups to our lips. I could taste the freshly sawn oak and hint of vanilla, just like the boy said.

“So we’re having your picnic. Are you satisfied, Miss Bel?”

“Yes, yes I am, Miss Elizabeth. Satisfied to my core.”

“My name is Harmony.”

“All right. I’ll go with that. You call me Bel. I’ll call you Harmony.”

The French loaf tore under the dull knife, bread crumbs scattering over the blanket and floorboards. I wanted to borrow Delta’s old Hoover, plug the cord from the lime green canister into the socket by the fireplace, and run its rumpled hose up and down along the pine planks. Elizabeth didn’t notice the mess we were making. She took the bread I offered, and covered it with a slice of salmon. Then she reached for olives and tomatoes until her plate was filled.

We ate what was before us, best friends, sharing a meal. I felt pleased with my choices, colours colliding inside our cheeks.

“You don’t seem the teacher type,” she said at last.

“Thank God for that.” My mother was a teacher. Self-appointed. We sat across from each other at the kitchen table. I perched on the Sears catalogue for the first few years, tied to the chair with a worn nylon stocking wrapped around my stomach. My mother never meant to be cruel, but she lacked imagination. The school was too far, and she knew no other way to keep a young child still. The home schooling lessons arrived in the mail like a prison sentence. Again, Belinda. Do it again. By Grade Five the lessons got too difficult for her. She stumbled over the reading passages and couldn’t understand what the assignments were asking. I got to climb the stairs after breakfast and play school in my bedroom, tracing patterns along the window ledge in the mountains of grey dust that formed through the night. My mother never understood this principle either. She could scrub herself raw, but we lived in a dustbowl. We could never stay clean.

A crumble fell to Elizabeth’s sleeve. I leaned towards her, pinched it with my fingers, and placed it on my tongue. Elizabeth failed to acknowledge my gesture. But she didn’t pull away either.

“Teachers are glorified lab attendants,” I continued. “The bureaucrats have clumped the kiddies together, stuck them in a Petri dish. It’s the teacher type’s job to stir up the mix, watch what festers. An unhygienic process, don’t you think? Bad for the immune system.”

She leaned back on her elbows, legs bent at the knees, her head tilted back. I imagined her at age sixty, sitting that way. She would be limber, sturdy, her beautiful neck stretched back, greying hair flowing past her shoulders.

“Then why do it? Why teach?” she stared up at the speckled ceiling like it was an open sky, where clouds in imaginative shapes wing by.

“I don’t know.” And I didn’t really. “You get up in the morning, hard-wired to squeeze the toothpaste with the same pressure you used yesterday. Step out to wander through a day like any other.”

She was still focused on the ceiling, but I could tell she was listening. “But then you press up against something that defies explanation. A man you don’t recognize but already know. A woman who’s drowning, so she learns to stop breathing. There is something inexplicable in the discovery. Not the discovery itself, but your connection to it. Your neural circuitry shorts out. You cross over recklessly, and in an instant, re-author yourself, start a new path. It can’t be reversed.”

Elizabeth laughed. I felt buoyed by the sound, its weightlessness, as though she had risen from the murky depths and floated to the surface with me. She poured herself more wine.

“It’s a bullshit explanation,” she said.

Her choice of words discouraged me, but I forged ahead anyway. “Can you do any better?”

“You don’t like typing. You want summers off. Maybe you like kids.”

“I meant you. Can you do any better? Explain how you got here? Why you’re sitting on this floor, in this town, with this teacher?”

“I’m sitting with the teacher because she barged through my doorway. She assumes the word ‘no’ doesn’t apply to her.” She was not stingy with her affection. It was merely inaccessible, like a box of chocolates on a shelf too high.

“But you opened the door. And it doesn’t explain the rest. How you and Rebee got to this place. The moments that led you to here. You can trace them back, you know. Try it.” She crossed her legs again, straightening her spine.

“Your one particular moment of discovery,” I added. “That one connection greater than the rest.”

Drops of red spread over her cheeks like food colour in water. She took another drink.

“Aren’t you even going to try?”

“How I got here? The Number 2 highway, then the 55, I think. No great connections. No big moment of truth. I got tired of driving.”

“So you stop when you’re tired? Pick up again when you get your juice back?”

“That’s about it.”

“Bullshit. I don’t believe it.”

“I don’t really care.” She smiled when she said this. She looked right at me.

We sat in the fog, cross-legged, and had the rest of our picnic in silence. I emptied the last of the wine into our cups. Dregs clotted in the bottle, something the boy didn’t mention. Elizabeth’s eyes were shiny. She stared at the blanket.

“I’m going to live in Tuktoyaktuk,” I said, trying to sound bright. We had finished our plates and I busied myself by clearing up the debris. I folded the rest of the salmon back to its bag, covered the French loaf with its plastic wrapping, carried the leftovers to the kitchen and placed them on the top shelf of the near empty fridge. We’d eaten all the olives. I threw the empty bags in the garbage and crammed them on top of the withered spinach and rotting paper. “There’s enough for a snack later,” I called back to her. “It’s all in the fridge.”

Elizabeth stood, cup in hand, and walked over to the window. “No one chooses Tuktoyaktuk.” She stared at the ordinary sky covering the empty street.

“When I was a little kid my mother kept threatening to ship me there to live with the Eskimos.” I dropped to my knees in front of the blanket, sweeping crumbs into my palm. “She sounded like a machine gun — tuktuktuktuk. I thought it was somewhere you went to be shot. Some imaginary bad place. But it’s real enough. You can find it on the map.”

“I suppose that explains it,” Elizabeth turned to face me again. “Your lineup of moments.”

Uncle Walter lived in Tuktoyaktuk. He might live there still. I wanted to tell Elizabeth his stories, stories I’ve told no one. About how we made magic that summer, my uncle and me.

“It’s all about your mother.”

“No, it’s more about my uncle. My Uncle Walter.”

But she’d stopped listening. “Mommy threatens. She’s gonna ship you off. To Tuktoyaktuk,” slurred slightly, not getting the word right. “Mommy says it over and over. Of course you’re mad at Mommy. Off you go. Some kind of mad justice blowing you north.”

I turned away, getting up off my knees, and headed back to the kitchen with my palm full of breadcrumbs. “Perhaps not quite that simple,” I answered, my back to her.

“Aah, but it was just a moment ago.” She spoke lightly now. When I faced her, I saw she was smiling. She had her arms crossed, still holding her cup. We stood across the room from each other, she against the light of the window, me lost in the shadows. “What was it the teacher said? ‘Think about the moments that led you to here. Trace them all the way back.’ There we go then. You’re all figured out. Let’s toast the discovery. To the teacher’s life. Mystery solved.”

She brought her cup to her mouth, eyes glinting at me, and poured the rest of those clotted noble grapes down her throat.

I marched forward, ready to slap her cold cheek. A sting for a sting. But by the time I got to her window my fire was gone. “Life is not petty,” I said. “Not yours and not mine either.”

“Tuktuktuktuk.”

“I thought you could use a friend.”

“Of course you did. You’re one of those people who can’t see beyond her cravings. The whole world must need what you need.”

“No. Not the whole world. But you and Rebee, you’re not like — ”

She threw her hand up then, wiping the words out of the air. “Leave us alone. Go somewhere else to find what you’re looking for. There’s a second-hand store down the street. Buy yourself a pretty little thing.”

I couldn’t stand any more, her words or mine. So I backed away from her window and walked out her door.

* * *

Delta has brought me turkey soup on a tray. A large china bowl covered with a tea towel, thickly buttered soda crackers on a little scalloped-edged dish beside, and a pitted silver soup spoon.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked when I opened the door. She was huffing heavily from her difficult descent.

“Much better, thank you. Here, let me take that. Please. Do. Come sit.” I didn’t like this about myself, the church voice I used around old ladies. Sing-song. Quaint. Yet I couldn’t seem to stop it.

“I thought some hot soup might settle your stomach.” She’d hit stormy seas on her way down the stairs. The soup sloshed everywhere, soaked the tea towel, splashing the thickly buttered crackers to a soppy mush.

“Thank you. You are very kind,” my church voice said. I put the tray down on the coffee table in front of the burgundy chairs and motioned Delta to sit. She lined herself up against the closest one and dropped backwards, feet lifting into the air before thunking to the rug. I looked at the tray. Chunks of turkey ice floated in the bowl like bog bodies. An archaeological find, preserved in the depths of her freezer.

“Just look what you’ve done with the suite,” she gazed with pleasure at her doilies and figurines, her petit point-topped stools and brocade curtains. I’d done nothing but move a few lamps and add a few nightlights. “It’s just lovely.”

“Thank you, Delta.”

“And you keep it so tidy. Your mother must be proud.”

When I left the farm for good, all my mother said was, “Don’t forget to soap the can opener.” Delta didn’t need to know this.

“When I was your age, I enjoyed dusting too.”

I did keep dusting.

“But these old bones aren’t what they used to be.”

“Well, I appreciate being able to borrow your vacuum cleaner,” I answered pathetically.

But she was looking down, picking a bouquet of yellow fluff from her afghan. “And I’d be pleased to do the upstairs anytime at all.” I raised my voice so the whole congregation could hear.

“Do you think you’ll be well enough to go to school tomorrow? Mrs. Bagot has been asking about you.”

For a moment I felt strangely inclined to tell the truth. To tell Delta that I was worried I might never be well enough. Delta looked right at me, ready to hear my words. I could have rested my head on her lap. Tell her how lonely I’d been. How confused. How I couldn’t sleep at night. We could have talked about my new friend, a woman, a beautiful woman who was lost like me.

But the moment passed. “Oh, yes. I can’t bear to miss a second day. There’s so much to catch up on. I’ve got tomorrow’s lesson still to plan. I’ll be at it all night.”

“Please, dear, don’t let the stress of the job wear you down. You can only do your best. That’s all you can do.” She leaned forward, reaching for my hand.

“Such a responsibility.” I leaned too, covering her warm hand in mine.

“Well, yes. It is that,” she smiled at me fondly.

I smiled back. Purpled veins flattened under the pressure of my fingers.

“But you’ve had quite an upset and mustn’t push too hard. No sense working yourself into a frenzy.”

I was startled when she said this, but then I remembered we were talking stomach bugs, teaching jobs.

“I insist on driving you tomorrow. Will you let me do that at least?”

She brought me soup. I nodded.

“Good. Well, eat up. Before it gets cold.”

I got Delta out of her chair with discrete little tugs and pulls, before hugging her gently at the door to my suite. Yes, most certainly, I would eat all my soup, and return the tray tomorrow when I caught a ride for school. She took the stairs, painfully slow, her grip firm on the railing, two feet to a tread before moving to the next. At the top, she turned and beamed, holding her thumb high, as though she’d already forgotten the climb. As though she were a sparkling young woman, just now returning from secrets and laughter in a rented room. Best friends forever, we could write in our diaries.

I closed my door. When I poured the soup down the sink, the shrivelled turkey chunks caught in the stopper and I dumped them in the garbage can.

I went into my bedroom, lit up my clown nose in the socket by the dresser and clicked both tri-lamps to high. I went to my drawer. Rebee’s tooth was there. It lay on a bed of cotton inside a tiny gold heart-shaped container that used to hold mints. Elizabeth’s rock was there too, wrapped in the folds of my favourite silk scarf. It was glittery cold stone with jagged rose edges, like an opening flower. I lay face down on my bed, that rock cutting into one fist, that tiny gold heart pressed to the other. I breathed deeply, imagining the scent of the Shore girls. But it was Delta’s talcum on the comforter, her Lily of the Valley was all.

* * *

It was bannock day. Mrs Bagot had set this up. Mary Seta was in charge. Mary wore a colourful beaded dress that went down past her knees and moccasins with a quilled piece of velvet on top of the tongue. She was as old as Delta, with a deeply grooved face and soft brown eyes, a thin grey braid hanging down to her waist. Mary has had grandchildren or great-grandchildren in every grade for years and years. None of her descendants was in my class, but Mary would teach us to make bannock anyway.Mothers were everywhere. They flitted like moths around hot little bodies, straightening collars, tucking shirts into pants. The children came polished this morning, scrubbed clean. Peter wore a tie under his sweater, his mother a black dress buttoned all the way to her chin. They had identical round glasses, mother and son, and the same frozen frown. Kenny had his nose wiped and his church shoes on, shiny leather without any scuff marks. The girls wore skirts and leotards, princess and fairy sweaters, and bows in their hair. Except for Rebee, who was in yesterday’s pants and black T-shirt, hair matted at the back where she hadn’t thought to brush. She was prettier than the others without even trying.

Everyone seemed to know about bannock and about one another, children and mothers alike, calling out first names, laughing and jostling, milling about at their own private party. Rebee and I stood off by ourselves at separate corners of the room, watching the tumult.

Mrs. Bagot, who’d suddenly had enough, clapped her hands violently, ordering the children to go sit on the mat. The mothers gathered in a circle behind, arms crossed, a few reaching down to touch a head or shush up a child, one of their own or one of their neighbour’s. I sat on top of Peter’s desk, over to the side. Peter kept looking back, scowling at me, anxious I’m sure that I’d crumple his papers.

“Our people used to hunt and fish and live off the land,” Mary began, her voice low and pure, nothing churchy about it. “We lived in family groups and set up both summer and winter camps, travelling between them by foot or by dog team.”

Mrs. Bagot looked pleased, nodding her head as though she remembered these days.

“But that was a long time ago,” Mary continued in her beautiful voice. “I was taken from my family to live at a residential school. Our land was taken away too. Stolen because of the war and the oil industry.”

The mothers shuffled. Throats cleared. Everyone knew someone who worked at the weapons testing area. I wanted them all to go away, to leave me alone with Mary in a wide-open space. She could pour out the story to someone who cared about this social breakdown, a way of life lost forever. But Mrs. Bagot stepped in. The oil people were coming to the school assembly next week; it had all been arranged.

“Thank you, Mary Seta,” Mrs. Bagot said. “Now, please, tell us about bannock.”

Bannock, she said, was a food of her people and a taste of the north. It was a special bread of flour and lard and black currants, the dough wrapped on a long stick and cooked over a campfire until golden brown.

Kenny asked if we could have a fire. Peter said that would be against the fire regulations. Peter’s mother nodded approvingly. Mary explained we would use the school stove instead. It was going to take us all morning. The first cooks were given their folded aprons, which they were to hold in their arms until they got to the kitchen. A line formed behind Mary. Off they went, children flanked on both sides by most of the mothers, Mrs. Bagot taking up the rear.

I stayed with the rest to work on our craft. The coloured construction paper had already been cut into animal shapes. Rabbits and bison, wolves and elk. I had nothing to do with it. The children were to choose an animal to decorate with felts and gluey glitter bits and then make up a Chipewyan name to write in the centre. The mothers were to help print the letters, then punch holes in both sides of the paper, which would hang on wool strings from the children’s necks. We were to use only the Chipewyan names for the rest of the day.

The children ran to the craft table by the window and found chairs. Susan and Vanessa’s mothers spread out the felts and poured glue blobs onto newsprint. Susan and Vanessa had been whispering on the carpet so they couldn’t find two chairs together and were forced to sit on either side of Rebee.

Everyone chattered excitedly. I leaned against the window counter and let the mothers take over with their flattery and baby talk praise. “Such a pretty design, Meagan. Look what Alice has done with her colours. My, my, what happy triangles. Haven’t we great artists in this room.”

The children lapped up the praise like puppies at water bowls. Look at mine. See what I did. Do you like my design? All except Rebee, who kept her head down, who concentrated on drawing a jagged line in blue, then yellow, along the edge of her wolf. Vanessa and Susan leaned around her, giggling and chatting, as though Rebee were invisible and her chair empty. The mothers too. They circled Rebee, moving to the next child before bending over.

Kenny chose Feather Brain for his name, which Vanessa’s mother printed for him, misspelling Brain as Brian. Vanessa was Little Rabbit. Susan asked how to spell “Buffalo Legs,” which she wanted to print herself.

One by one the children chose their names, finished their decorating, and showed off the animals flapping on their chests.

“How are you, Feather Brain?”

“I’m good, Jumping Boy.”

“Nice to meet you, Freckle Owl.”

Rebee’s wolf was the last to be done. She’d made swirls of colour, pink for the ears. When she finished her final glittery bit, she picked up the blue felt marker and painstakingly printed “REBEE” in thick, perfectly formed letters.

“You did it wrong, Rebee,” Vanessa yelled.

“You got to choose an Indian name,” Peter piped up.

“Too bad you used a felt marker, dear,” Susan’s mother wrinkled her nose at the matted hair.

“Do you want to try again dear?” Vanessa’s mother said, getting all the children’s attention.

The table went quiet. I could feel myself shrinking, smaller and smaller, until I was a tiny dust speck floating over the place where Rebee sat. Again, Belinda, do it again. Do it again until you get it right.

“I want to be Rebee.” Rebee didn’t take her eyes off the paper.

Vanessa’s mother glared over to the window where my empty shell leaned. She thought the teacher should take charge. She didn’t know the teacher had left that place, had become a floating speck in her farmhouse kitchen. A little girl tied to a chair with her mother’s pantyhose.

Susan’s mother leaned down to offer Rebee another paper. Rebee’s cheeks went fiery red as she spread her fingers over the glitter, pressing her wolf to the table.

“There’s lots more wolves,” Susan’s mother soothed. “I could help you make another one.”

“I don’t want to do it again,” Rebee said, not letting go. I was floating on top of her, willing her to stay strong.

Susan’s mother backed away. The children whispered and pointed. Feather Brain shouted, “Rebee’s dumb,” and everyone laughed.

“I only want to be Rebee,” a voice so small you could hardly hear.

Vanessa leaned over and pulled at the paper under Rebee’s fingers. Rebee pressed harder. The paper tore in two. There was a collective gasp. “Oh dear,” Susan’s mother said. Vanessa’s mother flapped her arms.

I’d had enough. I jumped back in my skin and reached for the tape, marching towards her. On the way, I kicked the back of Vanessa’s chair and told her to stand up and go sit on the mat. I told the others to go too, including the mothers, and that they’d better be quiet, that I wanted it so quiet in that room I could hear my heart beat.

Rebee slumped in her little chair and I sat down beside her. I turned the wolf halves upside down, lining them up carefully and joining the tears with tape. Rebee looked up at me, then slowly flipped her paper over. It had lost some of its glitter, but unless you looked closely, you could hardly tell that the wolf had been broken. I tied the wool through the holes with double knots, slipped the string over her head, and draped her name over her heart where everyone could see. Then we stood and held hands tightly as we marched to the mat.

* * *

I woke full and warm all over. 4:17 AM. I pushed Delta’s blanket away and closed my eyes, clinging to Uncle Walter before he evaporated. There, there he was. I’d found him — his soft whiskered cheeks, his drooping eye wandering every which way. I was never sure where to look as he described the northern skies, dancing with the colours of the ocean, like music. He talked about the Beaufort Sea. Of squeezed ships, crushed by polar ice, those who set sail in search of the Northwest passage and never returned. My uncle was painting the barn a ruddy red, mending our fence. I was let out of my bedroom to be his helper. Twelve years old, all limbs and longing. He told of summits shaped like cathedrals, glaciers like rivers, and walls of sculpted stone.

We had the whole summer, my uncle and me, days passing like minutes. He never stopped talking. He knew how trapped I was, how unhappy, so he gave me every story he had. A Rapunzel he called me, without her long hair. After our chores, we sat on the veranda and swatted at mosquitoes in the leftover shimmer of the sun, heat pressing down like an iron. The world came to my door with his booming laugh, like a tumbling waterfall, coating my parched lips and the dust in my throat. Even my mother cracked a smile once or twice and shed real tears when he left without warning on the twenty-fourth of August. He’d forgotten his silver eagle on a chain. I found it on the bathtub rim, hidden behind the Ajax bottle.

“Belinda, let’s you and me make some light.”

He suggested this on the day before he disappeared. We were in the barn and he told me to go find my flashlight. When I got back he’d pried open the trapdoor on the floor with the metal crowbar. I followed him down the rickety ladder and stood in the dirt while he reached up, pulled the trapdoor down, and closed us in. The cellar smelled at first of decay, damp earth and fermenting crabapples. After we settled in, it smelled only of my uncle, sweet tobacco and warm leather.

“We’re gonna make a light show, you and me.” His voice was a whispery echo. The cellar was cramped, and it was only a small light we shared. I’d never been down there and could see a few shelves looming like mountains in the night. My uncle reached into his pocket and pulled out a green roll. I held the flashlight while he unwrapped two Life Savers.

“Wintergreen. The only kind that works,” he said. “Now you just suck on that for a minute. Soften it up. Whenever you’re ready, just flick off the light so our eyes can adjust.” We scrunched down in the tight, black wintergreen space. I flicked off the light. “You all right there, Bel? I’m right here beside you.” I could hear him breathing. He was right there beside me. I didn’t think to feel fear.

“Ready, now. Okay, start chewing. Keep your mouth open so we can see the show.”

Our mouths shimmered and sparked. Dancing greens and blues. I expected to be shocked, some kind of jolt as my teeth sank through the layers, all crackle and flash. But light did not hurt. “Look at you, girl, you got your own Aurora Borealis inside your mouth. Atoms ripping apart and coming together again. The same thing that makes the sky glow. In case you never get north, this’ll have to do.”

We finished igniting, swallowing the last tiny fragments of wintergreen. Then we scrambled up the ladder and into the glorious day.

I turned towards my uncle with breathless laughter. “Can we do it again?” I begged.

His wandering eye found mine for an instant and held. I felt so on fire, so a part of this world, I no longer recognized my body as my own. He pulled the green roll from his pocket, placed it in my damp palm. “Get yourself a little mirror. Find a dark place. Make your own light, any time you want.”

I could hear Delta rumbling around upstairs. The neighbour’s truck started up with a roar. The Rottweiler barked and barked. Buttercup started her frantic racing. It was 5:54. I tried to hang on, but Uncle Walter vanished, utterly, as though he might never have been.

* * *

I’ve missed school all week. Mrs. Bagot said that I had to get a doctor’s note, that if I was not back tomorrow, she was going to dock pay. Delta slipped an envelope under my door. It was one of those all occasion cards, a Winter Lake summer shot of a girl in a rowboat. Please get well, Belinda, she printed in watery letters.

Elizabeth walks the snow-covered trails in the afternoons. I waited outside the dilapidated house and let her march ahead, far enough that she wouldn’t turn back when she saw me. She didn’t say anything when I came up beside her.

“I’m not running away,” I told her. “I want you to know that.”

I wanted her to know this, though I could not explain why exactly. I was not seeking approval, nor asking for permission. I needed her to know there were patterns to my life, a semblance of order. She was running from something — I was sure of that. I suppose I wanted her to think I was someone she could turn to.

The south wind was icy and I wrapped my hood tighter. Elizabeth’s face was unprotected. I wished I had a scarf to give her.

“Do what you want,” she said. “It makes no difference to me.”

“The other day, when we were having our picnic, you said I was running from my mother.”

The houses had dropped away. We reached the ravine, the forgotten place, a hint of wild in the middle of this Winter Lake town. She turned at the fork to the smaller path, and we started our descent. I fell behind her as we slid down the slippery slope.

“Remember,” I yelled ahead. “You said some kind of mad justice was blowing me north. But that’s not true.”

“Fine,” she said. “It’s not true.” I’d caught up again. We were in the valley, heading north. Following a frozen creek bed, ducking under branches. Black Bear area, the old sign said. There was barely any snow down here. No sun, just shadow. Arctic explorers, Elizabeth and I.

“I’m going north to find my Uncle Walter.” Elizabeth didn’t answer, didn’t slow down. We passed under a ridge of rocks. Someone had painted Fuck You Bitch on its underbelly.

“He was a good teacher, my uncle.” We were being woven into the dark forest. There was not the faintest breath of wind down there, just a reverberating stillness. If we didn’t keep moving we’d be swallowed whole.

“Well, you’re the teacher now. Go teach.”

“I can make the Northern Lights. With my mouth.” How foolish this sounded, like child’s words. “I can imagine what your Uncle Walter taught you.” The anger this woman brought out in me. I bit it in. “In the barn cellar.”

“Figures,” Elizabeth answered from some point ahead. I wanted to take the words back. To make them more notable, less sick-sounding.

I’d fallen behind again. How far had we come? Miles from the warmth of her empty room. But she was plowing through the frosted underbrush, and we were not even on a recognizable path now, circling the trees like dogs. My toes jammed against the curved end of my boot, calves aching. If only we could sit on the milk-white stones.

“Did your uncle have a good time with you?” she twisted her head backward, still marching on.

What had I said? Something about the barn cellar.

“Probably sweet-talked the whole time. Sticky little sentences. You’re my best girl, aren’t you, Miss Bel?”

I had one good burst left in me. I ran, six steps, seven, hit her hard from behind, pushing her against cold bark and pinning her there. She folded her arms around the sleeping aspen, forehead pressed against the tree trunk’s rippling skin. I dug my boots into the mushing decay and wrapped my arms around her so our bodies draped that tree.

“Your uncle, not mine,” I whispered, my mouth close to her ear. I could feel her jagged breath, the sting in her lungs. I held her pinned to the frozen tree, but I was afraid to let go, afraid of myself, those feelings.

“I don’t have an uncle,” she said against the rough bark. She said it matter-of-factly, as though being held prisoner was expected, nothing more than she deserved.

I wanted to tell her of that summer. That there was goodness in this world and it sparked when you found it.

“He wasn’t like that,” were the words I managed.

“And it’s a perfect world, Belinda.”

Belinda. She said my name. We untangled from each other, from the sturdy trunk that had been shoring us up, and as she turned to me her sadness turned with her like a coat made of stone.

“Go, then. Go north. Stop wasting my time.” She shoved me backwards with the tips of her fingers, a push compared to my violence. Her forehead was red and swelling, three jagged scrapes, pinpricks of blood.

“I’ve hurt you,” I said.

“Go. You don’t belong here.”

* * *

I am trying. Trying to do this right.

I phoned Mrs. Bagot this morning. “I’m not cut out for the classroom. You were right, Mrs. Bagot, I have too much to learn.” I think she’s relieved to see me leave with no fight. Vanessa’s mother caught me pacing the streets when I was supposed to be on my deathbed. I waved several times as she slowed down her van. I even blew a kiss. She and the other bannock mothers must be whispering madly, beating down Mrs. Bagot’s door.

Delta was harder. I spent much of last night trying to write her a letter. Page after page of false starts. Left hand, right hand, I never could get my pen to work. So this morning I picked up a single red rose and one of those blank Winter Lake cards she likes, and I simply wrote, “Goodbye, Delta. I won’t forget.” I placed the card and the rose on her kitchen table, along with my key. Then I waited for Buttercup to round her next corner, predictably, not like a chicken. I stopped her with my knees, scooped her up quickly and twisted her neck. I did this so quickly she couldn’t have felt a thing. After she went still, I held her in my arms like a baby for the longest time. Then I filled her water dish and food bowl, gathered her little toys, mopped up her urine, and placed her lifeless body gently on the embroidered pillow I took from Delta’s couch. I arranged all the toys around the pillow, then curled her into a ball to make her look as though she’d found peace and had chosen her moment to stop chasing her tail.

I know I’m not right in the head. I get confused about what’s real. But there was a time when I was a little girl and my heart was pure. Elizabeth was pure once too, I’m sure of it. If she had the uncle with the wandering eye, her loveliness would light the entire sky.

Rebee’s still could. She told me once, “Monsters aren’t real, Miss Bel.” Ever since bannock day, I’ve thought about how fiercely she fought against the other wolves. “This is me,” her actions shouted. “I won’t let you make me disappear.”

I stood in the hallway of the Messenger School, well to the side of the door so the children wouldn’t see. This was my last stop, possibly my last chance to do one right thing.

“I’m here for Rebee Shore,” I announced when the substitute teacher answered my knock. She was very large. I wondered if those were her paper scraps in my top drawer, if she’d stopped weighing in and felt angry with herself for giving away her big clothes.

“And who might you be?”

“I might be the teacher. Miss Bel. The one you’ve so abundantly replaced.”

“Oh. Well. Yes, then.”

Rebee stepped tentatively into the hallway, obviously frightened, but then she saw me and smiled wide. I put my finger to my lips to keep her quiet until the door closed.

“Miss Bel,” she whispered. “Are you going to be the teacher again?”

“Only for you, Rebee. I have something to give you before I go.”

She took my hand and clung on tight as we tiptoed down the hallway. I had my other hand in my pocket, clasping two rolls of wintergreen Life Savers and the fairy mirror with the sparkly frame. We were heading to the boiler room. We’d make it black as a starless night before we burst into light.