IN THE EARLY AFTERNOON, COLE APPROACHED the Northern Lights Diner. He had some questions for Choch. The sign on the front door was flipped to Closed. It made sense. Other places of business had closed down already, trying to prevent the spread of the flu—the X, the community hall, the mail office, the laundromat. Pretty soon everybody was going to be walking around in dirty clothes. But there was something more to this closure. Not just preventing sickness, but honouring a girl that Cole had really just met. When they were younger, Alex was his friend’s annoying little sister. He never paid much attention to her, other than to shoo her away like she was a fly. Now, he just wanted one more walk with her. Like she said: stay another minute. Cole pushed at the door, just because, and he was surprised to find that the bell chimed as it opened. He walked inside and instinctively made his way to the same table he had frequented with his friends.
Choch appeared from the back, made a weird gesture—a weird face, for that matter.
“What?” Cole asked.
Choch had one flat hand raised into the air as though he were about to give somebody a high-five. He pointed at his palm over and over again, expectantly. Along with that motion, he was ridiculously scrunching his lips to the right. In fact, his whole face was scrunching to the right. Cole looked at him oddly for more than a few seconds before realizing that Choch was directing Cole’s eyes to the back of the diner. Cole looked in that direction to see Eva, the only other person who was in the diner, hidden away from the sight of anyone coming inside. As Cole looked at her—sitting by herself, a cup of coffee in front of her, the sweetgrass ring suspended from her neck and dangling over the black liquid—the questions that he prepared for Choch could wait.
“We open for special customers,” Choch said.
He brushed past Choch and walked over to Eva’s table.
“Hey,” he said to her.
She looked up, forcing a smile. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying all morning. She leaned her cheek against her fist and closed her eyes for a second, like it was okay to fall asleep now.
“Can I sit?” he asked.
She nodded. He sat down across from her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Same as you, I guess.”
Eva turned around, looked towards the counter, beyond it, into the kitchen. “I keep thinking she’ll come out, wipe the counter down, something.”
“Yeah.” They both looked that way for a while, as if they were waiting for Alex to do just that, but they eventually looked away, anywhere around the table but at each other.
“Where’s Michael?” Cole eventually asked.
“Sleeping,” she said. “How’s B?”
“Sleeping too.”
“All the energy,” she said, “all the life…it’s just being sucked right the hell out of here, you know?”
“I know.”
“And then what’ll be left?”
“Us,” he said before he had a chance to think about it, caught up in the fact that she wore his ring as a necklace. Before he could tell her that he’d meant all of them—her, Brady, him, and Michael—she said, “There is no us, Cole.”
“Yeah, I meant all of us. The group. That’s all.” He felt like it was too late.
“Tea?” Choch was standing there with a cup of chamomile tea, extending it towards Cole, a pot of coffee in his other hand. For once, Cole was thankful for the interruption. He felt it would allow him to reboot the conversation, as it were.
“Sure, thanks.” Cole took the cup of tea. Choch touched his nose and winked.
“Warm you up?” Choch said to Eva. She pushed her cup towards Choch. “Why not?” He filled it to the brim, and then took his leave.
Eva stared into the black coffee like there was something to see in it. Cole squeezed chamomile juice out of his tea bag. He had a chance now to change the subject, but like a stupid teenage boy sitting across from an amazing teenage girl, he went right back there. “Why did you keep the ring?”
He wasn’t sure why he asked her. Was it better to think of this than all of the bad things that were happening? Or did he really want to know what it meant, why she’d kept it for so long?
“Cole, I…” Instead of finishing her sentence, she found the ring with her index finger and thumb. “It’s not important. Not right now.”
“You’re right. That was a stupid question.”
He took a sip of his tea, then placed the cup down as softly as he could. Eva began to slide her coffee cup from one hand to the other as she dealt with the silence in her own way. He kept expecting her to get up and leave, but something must have kept her here, just like something must have kept her from throwing away the ring. He wondered if she wore it ever since he left. He wondered what she had thought ten years ago when she woke up to find it on her finger. She caught the coffee cup in one hand, and looked up at Cole.
“It’s not what you think, or what you thought. Why I still have it, I mean. If you’re thinking that there’s something—”
“I don’t think that.” He thought that.
“It reminds me to be strong, like it should, like medicine should. Strong in my mind, my body, my spirit.”
“So, it doesn’t remind you of a kid you kissed in your bedroom. Got it. You’re more in the hair-from-Mother-Earth zone.”
“I’m sorry, I…” Cole looked out the window. He wished that he could rewind the whole conversation, that he would’ve just taken the chance to change the subject when he had it, that Choch would come and interrupt them again. Wasn’t there another special Choch could dream up?
Eva sighed deeply. “I remember when I found it. I woke up in the field. Dr. Captain was kneeling beside me. She was saying things, but I couldn’t hear her. Anyway, I felt it on my finger, lifted my hand, managed to lift my head up…my head was pounding so bad…and I knew you’d given it to me. I didn’t know what you’d done…but I knew you’d given it to me.”
“We were going to get married.” Cole laughed.
They’d been in the gym together, sitting in the corner on the blue mats, stacked up high. They’d climbed up there together, pretending that they were already on the roof and that the gym lighting was the northern lights. “I think we’re going to get married one day, Eve,” he told her. She looked at him, and her face was red. It probably wasn’t as red as his, but still, it was red. She punched him in the arm and said, “Yeah, then what’re you waiting for, stupid?” Cole jumped off the mats, all the way from the top, and minutes later he was standing by himself at Silk River, rummaging through the blades of sweetgrass, looking for the perfect one.
“You saved me,” she said presently, and leaned forward. She took his hand away from his cup of tea, and kept her hand on his for a moment. “I know that.” She squeezed his hand, then let go of it. “But I’ve been doing okay without you.”
“I know you have. Ashley, he used to tell me what was happening out here with everybody, with you. Never mentioned Michael, but…”
“The thing is, Cole. The thing is that the boy who gave me this ring, I knew him so well. I knew him better than anything or anyone.”
“I’m still me.”
“But that’s just it: you aren’t. You came back different. You left different. But I am too. That fire, it made us all different. And I don’t know you anymore, and you don’t know me, and that’s just the way it is.”
“Sometimes I wish that my auntie and my grandma hadn’t taken me away. I wonder what things would be like now. Like, even though it wasn’t my choice, I still feel guilty.”
“I do too,” she said. “I feel guilty and special at the same time, that I’m alive. And I shouldn’t feel that way either. You know, when people are looking at you, saying things to you…”
“What?”
“Just remember that they’ve said the same things to me,” she said. “They’ve asked me why I got saved, why their friend didn’t, why their kid didn’t. And what do I say to them? I’ve never known what to say but sorry, Cole.”
Cole looked away from Eva, out the window, at the ghost town that was Wounded Sky First Nation. “Tell them that some kid you used to know loved you that much.”
“Cole,” she said. “We didn’t know what love was back then.” She stood up from the booth. “I should get back to Michael.”
“Yeah.” Cole stood up too. “Me too. To Brady, I mean. He might be up now.”
Eva turned to walk away, then stopped and turned back before leaving. “There’s a memorial, I guess, tonight. A memorial before the memorial tomorrow. Just for us. The kids, I mean. For Ashley and Alex.”
“There’s too many of those.”
“There are a lot of people to remember. Anyway, you should come, if you can.”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll come.”
After Eva left, Choch was instantly at Cole’s side, and they both watched through the window as she walked along the path towards Michael’s place.
“Girl trouble?”
Cole shook his head. “No, no trouble.”
“I get it, she’s cute,” Choch said, “and smart and…well…she’s just one of my favourite people around these parts. Besides you, of course. You’re my special little guy.”
“Yeah, well…” Cole began, and his silence said everything without saying anything. Choch knew, though, and Cole knew that.
“And,” Choch said, “there are those pesky little deaths happening around here.”
“I know that. I haven’t forgotten that.”
“And yet…” Choch gave Cole a nudge with his elbow, and they both started on their way to the door. “Your mind’s full of a girl. Two girls.”
“That’s different, with Alex. And it isn’t. My mind. My mind is fine.” But Cole knew it was of no use, that no matter how many times he told Choch to get out of his head, he would always be there. (That’s actually true, you know. Part of the job. I’m the boss, need the info.)
“Not to belabour a point, young one, but you did kind of, sort of, forget the reason why you came here in the first place.”
Cole was standing at the door, holding it open, one foot in and one foot out. “You never even told me the reason, asshole.” He let the door shut in Choch’s face.
Brady was in the kitchen when Cole got back to his place. His hair, usually perfectly braided, was free and dishevelled from the nap. Strands had gone rogue and were stuck up like he’d put his finger in an electrical socket. Brady’s Iskwé t-shirt was creased and his cargo pants were wrinkled. His face was a mix of exhaustion and sorrow. Sometimes, Cole thought, the two emotions felt the same. Brady was pouring hot water into a cup, and a waft of earthy aromas instantly filled the house. Brady saw Cole and got another cup out of the cupboard. He filled that one up, too. They both sat down at the kitchen table with their cups. Cole sipped his, and thought it tasted a lot like Elder Mariah’s. Brady learned everything from his grandmother.
“It’s good.” Cole nodded his approval.
“I told Nókom that one day my tea’s going to taste better than hers.”
“I doubt she’d mind that. I bet she wants that.”
Brady looked across the room, distantly, at something that was beyond the walls of the home. “I should be at the clinic with her. She’s probably not taking any breaks.”
“You’re also seventeen,” Cole pointed out. “And you’ve been through a lot.”
“And she’s an Elder,” Brady shot back.
“Touché.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just, I feel helpless, is what it is.”
“I think everybody does.” Cole included himself in that statement. Him, the guy who was supposed to come save everybody, assuming, of course, that was the deal.
“They’re supposed to bring in people to help at the clinic with the flu, but usually when we want help, by the time help actually comes, we don’t need it anymore.”
“We’ll be okay.” Cole tried to mean it. “Anyway,” he continued, “you should’ve snapped at me. All I meant was, I don’t want you to feel worse than you already do.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that. But just because I didn’t get called back here to do, I don’t know, whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing, doesn’t mean I can’t feel bad for not doing more.”
“Fair enough.” Cole took a moment to consider his friend, sitting across from him at the kitchen table. Sometimes, Brady seemed older than him. It was a shame that Brady wasn’t given the responsibility that Cole had been given, because Cole was sure that Brady would’ve handled it better. Brady held knowledge, and he sought it out. He was destined to be an Elder. And right now Brady looked even older, with how the nap had messed up his clothes and hair. Cole wished he could tell Brady everything. “How are you holding up, anyway?”
“Holding up isn’t the right way to put it, I don’t think.” Brady thoughtfully sipped his tea. He tried to flatten some of the stray hairs on his head. “Holding on. That’s what I’m doing.”
“Maybe that’s all anybody can do right now, eh?”
“It helps having friends around. We can kind of hold on together.”
“Absolutely.” Cole figured now was as good a time as any to bring up the prememorial memorial Eva said was happening tonight. He wasn’t sure if Brady would agree to go, but it would sure make going easier. “Speaking of which, did you hear about the…”
“Yeah, I heard about it.” Brady took out his phone to display to Cole just how he had, in fact, heard about it. “The Wounded Sky teens have a group text. Everybody’s talking about it.”
“So…” Cole started, but Brady kept ruminating about it.
“I think most kids just want to go to drink it all away. I don’t think it’s really about Ashley and Alex. People just want to let loose since it feels like the world’s ending.”
“Sometimes people need to do that, though. I don’t blame ‘em. I know that whenever I was feeling mad about everything that had happened back here, I’d, like, dunk a basketball a million times just to blow off steam.”
“You can dunk?” Brady looked him over: thin, not impressively tall Cole Harper.
“Hops,” was all Cole said.
Brady just shrugged. “Well, that’s a little more productive, Cole, than getting hammered.”
“Still, we should go,” Cole said. “I mean, for us, it would be for the right reasons. For Alex and Ashley.” And also, Cole thought, so he could finally make his way back to the campsite and do a more thorough check than what Wayne must’ve done. That is, providing the murderer wasn’t there to chase him off again. Even then, his super strength was meant for something.
“We can’t go,” Brady said.
“What? Why not?”
“I’ll keep doing my own grieving for Ashley, and for Alex,” Brady said, “but the fact is, Reynold and Wayne have lowered the curfew on the community to 8 p.m.. Nobody’s to go out, unless they’re going to the clinic to help out there. It’s like a damn revolving door over there, Nókom says. More come in, more get sick, more die.”
“And what happens if we get caught then? What could happen that’s any worse than what’s happening now, Brady? They going to ground us or something?”
“I just don’t want to go, okay?”
“Look,” Cole decided to try a different angle and included Brady in his plans to check out the camp again. “I just thought that if we went to the quarry, it’s pretty near that camp, and we could—”
“Wayne’s already checked out the camp, like we wanted him to.” Brady was having none of it. “It can’t have been anything. It was a coincidence, and we need to get over it.”
“I don’t buy that, and I don’t think you do either,” Cole said. “Mr. Kirkness, he just went back at the wrong time, man. We need to make sure. What else do we have?”
Brady took a long, slow sip of his tea, and when he placed it down on the table, he took another long, slow breath. He looked at Cole—this time really looked at him. “Okay, I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I ask.”
Brady took his tea over to the sink, and Cole followed him. They placed their empty cups in it and stood there together, looking out the window, where they could see a small section of Wounded Sky and the path that led all the way to the clinic.
“The one good thing about Nókom being away, at the clinic, if there’s anything good at all, is that she won’t be around tonight when the curfew hits. If I decide to go,” Brady said.
“Why’s that?” Cole asked.
“Because I’ve tried to sneak out of the house before, late, without a curfew. To see Ashley, in whatever weird little nook and cranny he wanted to meet at. She can see anything and hear anything. She says she has three ears. It’s almost impossible to get away.”
“Well, if she does,” Cole said, “just know that, apart from crime shows, I’ve watched Mission: Impossible, like, fifty times. All we’d need is rubber masks, suspension cables, and blue and pink exploding gum.”