Caribou Island

Irene had lain awake all night again, and in those first hours she wept, raged against Gary and unfairness, injustice, wanted to punish but really wanted to come closer to him. Wanted to continue with him, as wrong as that was. Tried to find a path back, but finally she had calmed and known there was no path back. He didn’t love her, and he had never loved her, but he had used her life anyway. This was truth. Nothing she could do could make that change. It was beyond her power. She had felt her mind a vacuum, windblown space inside her, lain there empty for hours, waited for daylight, and finally this exhilaration, a gift, a final gift. It felt almost as if the pain might leave, still crowding her, still pressurizing, but promising to leave.

Snapping through branches, running downhill now, everything passing too fast to recognize. She had known this forest, and if she slowed, she might find signs, might recognize monkshood, its purple flower, the weight of that flower bending, but she was moving too fast, running, a full run, no stopping now, and she didn’t bother to shield with her arms. Let the branches scrape at her face.

Footfalls in snow and moss, the burn of skin on her hands and face and neck, the cold overcast sky above, and her body could weave on its own between trees. Irene, anything that could be called Irene, removed, quiet. Coming closer to the cabin, her legs slowed, a walk and then slower still, hunting as she had once hunted with Gary, making no sound, avoiding branches now, pushing at them carefully, bending to the side, not breaking. Emerging between the tents, directly behind the cabin. Standing still, listening for any movement, any sound, hearing nothing but a light breeze and small waves at the shore. Water and air, and blood, beating faster now. He wouldn’t be in the tents. He’d be in the cabin or at the shore. So Irene pulled an arrow free, set it and notched it, black bow, black arrow against white snow, walked silently toward the cabin door.

The door frame new and mounted on the outside, white and out of place against the logs. Trash bags and flats of canned goods piled all around. Closer until she was nearly at the threshold, and still she heard nothing. The cabin seemed larger now, the back wall high. Rough bark, gaps, some logs projecting out farther than others. She hadn’t noticed before how uneven the surface, valleys and ridges, a landscape set up on end. She waited at the threshold, let her eyes adjust, darker inside the cabin, but enough light coming from the window and gaps to see the plywood floor. The window itself not yet in view, set off farther to the right, blocked by the door. A dim space and no sign of Gary.

Irene stepped in, bow held close and ready.

Irene? Gary asked. He was sitting five feet from her, on a stool by the window. Lit in relief, the lines on his face. Old. What are you doing, Irene?

She stepped back. More difficult now that she was here and he was talking to her. He stood up, hands opening toward her, fingers in relief in this light. Irene, he said again.

She pulled back the arrow tight against her cheek.

I love you, Irene, he said, and suddenly it was easy again. She let the arrow fly, saw it disappear into his chest. Only the black feathers sticking out past his jacket. He was spun around to the side, looking down at his chest, and fell to the floor, facedown. The arrowhead and shaft sticking up into the air.

Gary crying. Or screaming. Some sound over the blood in Irene’s head. She walked closer and notched her last arrow. His legs and arms moving, pulling himself across the floor toward the wall. And what would he find at the wall? She pulled the arrow back to her cheek, aimed down at his back, and let another arrow fly. Another cry from Gary, the arrow too fast to see. Just suddenly there, sticking up high. But it had nailed him to the floor. He couldn’t crawl forward now. Arms and legs still moving, but not getting anywhere. Still not dead, and she had no more arrows. His screaming lower, a thing that did not sound human. Irene dropped the bow and didn’t know what to do. She stood there waiting for him to die, but he wouldn’t die. An awful, animal sound, the last sound a living thing makes. Her husband. Gary.

Irene walked outside, walked down to the shore. The lake a magnification of sky, white and overcast, cold. Irene felt hot, like she could sear through water and sky and snow, even rock. She was a giantess, powerful, able to crush mountains and scoop out lakes with her hands. Walked down the shoreline and this was her shore. Didn’t feel the wind. Had the need to run, so she ran again, ran faster than she ever had before, the uneven stones and pools and ruffs nothing. She was sure-footed. The world had never been real. There was no gravity, nothing to slow her or hold her down. She ran as her mind willed, the world an extension of her. The waves, the grasses, the snow, all of it created in unison.

But then she had to slow, began to tire somehow. Walked on all the way to the far point, close to Frying Pan Island, looked across at its shore. Felt the urge to swim there, to cross the water, leave this island, but something held her back. She had more to do. She wasn’t finished yet. So she turned around, walked back toward the cabin.