November 1

3 Days Before the Storm

 

 

Home at a decent hour Halloween night, I re-armed the alarm system, helped Nadia sort her candy, and the both of us went to bed early.

It’s hours more before I sleep, checking and rechecking my phone for any alerts about the security system. Twice the screen lights my bedroom with an alert from the motion detection camera, both times the front door, and I check to see a blurry photo of a coyote visiting. Not unexpected, as their pawprints are often on the grounds in the mud after the rain.

Nick talked about trail cameras. He wanted to know who shared our land, so we could raise Nadia to know and respect the creatures here. I think she would’ve loved that too, and I wonder, not for the first time, whether I can keep enough of Nick alive for her to feel his presence in her life—and if I will be half as good as a parent alone as we were together.

Eventually I drift off and wake sometime later while it’s still black in my room.

The darkness of being in a rural area is complete. It’s a type of sensory deprivation that leaves a person hyperaware of every sound with nothing visual for compensation. Even when starlight peeks out—and the clouds were thick and dark during the day, so that’s unlikely to happen now—heavy trees block much of it out. When the snow hits and the moon is out, it’s bright enough to walk without a flashlight outside of the woods, but this is not that.

When I wake, I cannot see anything, but I’m certain there’s someone in my room.

I’m on my side and it takes a moment to orient myself in the blackness. There’s weight on my arm—I’ve tucked it under my pillow, my head on top. Other arm is folded against my chest. Blankets twist around my legs but it feels like the heavy comforter is thrown off; the air is colder than I remember it being when I lay here earlier. Fine hairs lift on the back of my neck with a prickling sense of awareness, and my mind is spinning, positive someone else is here.

It’s not Nadia. Not without turning on a light. I know my child, all her habits and idiosyncrasies. She’s at the phase of not liking the dark. There’s no nightlight yet in the bathroom, which means she’ll throw on every light she can find before she ventures down the hall, and I’d see it spearing beneath the door.

There is only darkness in my room.

I argue with myself.

The alarm didn’t go off. There’s no one here.

The alarm might be giving me a false sense of security, though. Police encounter them all the time. He might know a way around it.

You’re a light sleeper; you would’ve heard the bedroom door open and close.

But I am exhausted. I’ve barely slept in two weeks. I’ve been up at all hours. I might’ve slept right through any noise. And what if it was that noise that woke me now? I don’t know why I’m awake, but I could’ve been startled by a sound I don’t remember now.

You used to do this all the time and there was never anyone there.

That is true; in those months after I first left, whether I was in a hotel room or a tiny bachelor apartment, I’d often wake in the middle of the night positive someone was there. Nick even grew used to me, that first year, reaching for him in the darkness for reassurance; he’d wake and silently gather me in his arms, sometimes with the light on for my peace of mind so I could sleep again. I remember that deep aching terror and I’m no longer Imogen, confident and comfortable single mom in her own house, but someone else entirely.

You’re being paranoid.

Paranoia has kept me alive so far.

I strain to hear something, anything. The sound of breathing. The scuffle of shoes on the floor. The whisper of clothing from movement. And even as I don’t hear something, I become more and more convinced that I’m being watched, that I can feel eyes on me in the blackness.

My skin tightens and my nerves are raw. Again I orient myself on the bed, but I don’t know how far I am from the edge, and therefore how far I am from the nightstand and my phone. I’m terrified to move, to give myself away, as if whoever is here is just waiting in the darkness for me to make a move. But if I don’t look, I won’t know, I’ll just be cowering in fear, pretending to be asleep.

There’s no one there.

There is someone there.

My chest seizes with fear and anticipation as I shift my hand across the bed in front of me. My fingertips brush the edge of the nightstand and I know immediately where I am on the bed now, know where my phone is, where the bedside lamp waits. I decide I’d rather have my phone in hand if confronted than to turn on the lamp instead and still have to reach for my lifeline for help, so I make that my destination.

Breath held, fingers inching across the nightstand. I remember being a kid, watching Silence of the Lambs late at night at a friend’s, and how I couldn’t stop thinking about Buffalo Bill in night-vision goggles reaching for Jodie Foster’s hair. I think about that now, about someone watching me in the darkness through a bright green filter, how they see me blindly reaching for the nightstand, oblivious to the danger. I think of him being a step ahead of me when I so painstakingly tried to stay several ahead of him and I’m almost as angry as I am terrified.

My fingertips touch the cool hard plastic of my phone. They glide over the glass face and find the familiar dip of the on/off button.

I press down hard, and the glow of the screen lights my room.

I’m not even breathing from the fear and I almost don’t believe it when I find my room is empty.

I stare at my closed door, at the mostly empty room where there is nowhere to hide. The closet door is open as I left it earlier, and the part that the sliding door covers has the gun safe taking up the space, leaving no room for a grown man to hide.

My lungs flare with pain as I let out the breath I’m holding and suck in another. The lockscreen on my phone goes dark again, and this time I grasp it as I pull the chain on my bedside lamp.

Still empty.

I sit up, my back against the smooth plane of the fabric headboard for a few minutes and phone clutched in my hands as I take in the empty space.

Fuck. I was so sure.

I want to berate myself, but I can’t—given everything that’s happened, it’s not unreasonable to be afraid. It’s not unreasonable to imagine monsters in the darkness when I know there are real ones closing in. It’s not unreasonable for my anxiety during the day to grow to such a size overnight. I know the anticipation that’s been coiling tighter and tighter around me lately, the tension that I wish would just break at last, even if I get caught in the ensuing violence.

Still gripping my phone tight, I kick off the remaining covers and swing my legs over for my feet to settle on the floor. Thick slipper socks protect me from most of the cold, but that approaching winter chill has seeped inside.

I take my pillow, comforter, and phone, and head out into the hallway. Still no sign of anyone, and Nadia is sleeping safely and soundly. I curl up on her floor and try to sleep again, though I know proper rest is far off.

 

*

 

I do not feel good about my paranoia from the early morning hours.

As more time passes, I get angrier. Angry that I am terrified in my own home again, like that five years’ reprieve never happened. Angry that I’m exhausted. Angry that my daughter woke to find me on her bedroom floor, and I had to spin some story of a Halloween sleepover.

The motion camera caught nothing important, other than what looked like the flash of a marten scampering past the back door at dawn. There’s a layer of snow and nothing but animal prints through it.

I have to get some work done, not because I’m close to deadlines yet but it’s the first of the month—more bills will be pouring in and money will run out soon. Movers are bringing everything from storage tomorrow and will need to be paid, utility bills will hit my inbox shortly, and I want to stock up on more groceries and supplies before the storm descends. My account has overdraft protection, but I don’t like being in the red—I need projects delivered by early next week so I can invoice. Things were sometimes tight when Nick was here, he worked on contracts as I did, but at least the dual incomes meant we covered one another’s rough patches.

When Nadia and I buckle down for the winter and there’s less to do around the house, at least I’ll be able to settle in and work more steadily, maybe take on some new contracts, but in the meantime, my spotty income is stretched about as far as it can go. I’m even still paying his monthly cell phone bill just in case. In case it suddenly comes on again, in case he suddenly uses it. It’s completely absurd and an unnecessary expense, but I haven’t been able to cancel it. I considered applying for another loan, but I barely have five years of credit as Imogen Sharp; without Nick co-signing, I’m not sure what, if anything, they’ll give me.

I sit at the kitchen island working on my laptop while Nadia occupies herself in the living room, and my cell phone sitting to my right suddenly flashes with an alert from the front door camera.

My hand freezes on the mouse for a moment then I peel my fingers off the hard plastic one by one and reach a few inches for the phone has my heart beating hard. I tap the notification on the screen, and it expands to show the dusting of snow on the front step and a figure at the top corner moving by in a blur. I don’t see a face, but the camera caught the sleeve of a royal blue coat, a leg in jeans as the person stepped past.

Reflexively my gaze lifts to the ceiling where I think of the shotgun locked away above. But I think I know that jacket, and while I would like to trudge out there with a gun for a confrontation, it might cause more problems than it would solve.

I rise and pocket my cell phone. “Dee, I have to go outside for a minute.”

She’s got cartoons on in the background but her focus is on having a Barbie beach day, the dolls all lined up in their bathing suits and sunglasses. She has a small plastic pool for them without actual water in it—I’m sure later she’ll ask to take them in the tub and play proper Barbie beach day, but this is sufficing for now.

Nadia looks up at me from under the orange glow of the overhead lamp. “Okay, Mom.”

“Stay inside.”

“I know!” Annoyed now, rather than cheerful.

I move quickly, stuff my feet into boots and get my coat on. My gloves are in my pocket and I immediately reach for them when I step outside; it’s colder than yesterday, and the grimness of the day makes it seem even more frigid. Clouds are thickening with the promise of brutality when they finally burst in a few days, and branches are already heavy under the weight of wet snow.

The footprints in the dusting of snow on the front stoop came toward the door but veered off at the last moment. I suspect they didn’t get closer after their owner identified the camera, but I can’t be certain. What I do know is that the prints don’t turn around and head back down the driveway—which is empty still, other than my SUV—but go around the side of the house.

I follow.

The earth is hard beneath the snow, and what remains of the frosted grass snaps underfoot. Although it’s midday, the heaviness of the clouds and thickness of the woods means less visibility the farther I go from the house. Those bright vinyl flags pinned to the trees snap in the rising bitter wind, however, and though I get only the smallest relief that they’re all still intact, I’ll take it.

Several metres from the house’s small yard, I find Jenni Montgomery in the woods.

I stop just short of the line of spruce trees, their woody scent filling my nose when the wind rushes past again. I haven’t done up my jacket, but I cross my arms at my abdomen to hold it against me as the cold air gives another shove. “This is private property.”

She swings around, those red curls bouncing. But she doesn’t have that bright-eyed bubbly youthfulness I saw when she first arrived—in two weeks, the bleakness of an approaching winter out here seems to have dulled some of her shine. There’s a remoteness here I enjoy, that gives me a sense of peace, like I belonged here even before I arrived. But it’s not for everyone.

The puffy winter jacket doesn’t disguise the shiver rushing over her and she moves toward me. Her cell phone is out but held in a way to suggest she might’ve been taking photos. She still might be recording this, so even though I’m always careful in what I say, I caution myself to overthink everything just in case.

“I didn’t take any pictures of the house,” she says, her breath floating in a pale cloud over her face. She turns her phone’s screen toward me like I can see it from this distance. “I just wanted to see the woods.”

“The woods are pretty much the same no matter where you go around Whitehorse,” I reply coolly. I hope she doesn’t call my bluff on the trespassing mention, because this is not worth me getting entangled with the cops over.

She takes a few steps toward me and waves a gloved hand at the trees—that glove is heavier than what she was wearing when I first saw her, something woollen she must’ve bought in the city. “The flags—are they to keep from getting lost?”

I ignore that. “I repeat, this is private property.”

“The flags are new.”

I give her that, and dip my chin once in a nod.

“I can’t find a lot about you,” she says.

I’m nearly trembling from trying to remain still, to keep from reacting.

“Like you’ve never had a social media profile. Scattered records in B.C.”

“Are you investigating my husband’s disappearance, or me?”

“The RCMP briefly considered whether someone went after Nick because of your past.”

Of course they did. It was their job. And on top of the stress of my husband being missing, I went months wondering if someone would realize Imogen Sharp has only existed for five years, if that little line of inquiry would unravel everything. I’d done a lot of work to ensure my identity would pass scrutiny, and if my lack of a past raised any red flags, a year has gone by without anyone bringing me in for questioning about it.

“I don’t have ‘a past’,” I say. “I have privacy. Which you are infringing on.”

She continues her approach. “I’ve only been trying to help.”

“I think our definitions of help are at odds, Ms. Montgomery,” I say evenly. “If anything you’ve done brings back Nick, I will be glad of it. But believe me when I say that if you do not get the hell off my property immediately, I will have you arrested. You have no reason to be near my house and I want my privacy maintained for my child’s sake.”

She passes me and then stops, half turning to angle herself to face me again. “Owen McKenzie asked me to come here originally.”

“I know.”

“He’s also asked me to leave. We—at the Lost Ones Advocacy Network—might have more of a...sensationalist approach to things, but it gets people found. Viral posts, mysteries people can dig their teeth into and try to solve—it helps bring attention to those missing. And that’s what we want—for people like Nick to be found, so you and your daughter will have a sense of closure.”

I don’t bring up the criticisms I’m aware of regarding her group, as I’m sure she has plenty of excuses to spin. Nor do I raise the point that I don’t believe in closure—you could tell me right this very instant what happened to Nick and it wouldn’t put my mind at ease any more than it would help anyone looking for Chloe to know what became of me. It wouldn’t change what happened. It wouldn’t suddenly make sense of the world. I want, desperately, to know what happened to my husband, but I harbour no illusions that it will help me sleep at night.

Gone is gone.

When I don’t respond, she looks away but doesn’t yet leave. “A lot of people seem to go missing in the north. Both intentionally and not.”

I have no idea what she’s angling for, but my back is up and fingers coil into claws against my sides. “You’ve had a taste of what our autumn is like and the storm they say is on the way is infinitely worse. You could be stuck here for weeks when the blizzard hits, and flights are spotty come winter. I suggest you leave the Yukon while you still have the opportunity—my husband went missing in a storm like the one almost here and I never saw him again.”

She nods, and it seems to be more to herself than me. “I hope he’s found, Ms. Sharp.”

Montgomery finally leaves.

I hope for her sake she keeps going until she gets south again.