The Stroke of Winter(35)

John awoke to find himself lying on the rocky ground. Outside. He blinked and looked around, confused. Where were his cozy furs? Where was Elizabeth? He scrambled up to his feet and turned in a circle. Where was the village? Everything was gone. Every person. Every dwelling. Every tool and bucket and hide and fur.

What in the world was going on? How could this have happened? Did they all leave, every single one of them, during the night while he was sleeping? But how could that be? Did they take the houses, too?

A coldness wrapped itself around him then, as the realization of the impossible began to take hold. As he looked around, he saw that it was just the forest, undisturbed. As though the village had never been there at all.

But that could not be. John ran through the woods, calling for Elizabeth. Everyone else might have left, but she would not. His wife. His love. He ran down to the shoreline. There was nothing there, no canoes from the village. Only his own, pulled up onto shore. He hurried up to it and saw it was laden with his supplies. The very supplies he had brought with him when he washed up on shore all those months ago.

But then, he saw it. Lying on his pile of furs, as though it had been lovingly placed there. A single leaf from a maple tree. He took it as a sign. A terrible, horrific sign.

John dropped to his knees and let out a wail of anguish so fierce and so deep, all the birds and animals fell silent.

He was tempted to climb into that canoe and paddle fast and long to get far, far away. But then, as he looked around what had been the only happy home he had ever known, he knew he could not go.

“Please come back to me, Elizabeth,” John said, tears streaming down his face, his words carried away on the breeze.

John used what he had learned from the people of the village to build himself a dwelling. He made a roof out of bark and hides, as he had seen the villagers do, and lined the floor with cozy furs. He built a shelf where he stored his supplies and a firepit outside where he could cook his food—just as the people of the village had done. He had all the traps and tools he needed to survive—he had come with it, and somehow it had all ended up in his canoe after everything else disappeared.

He fished and hunted and took only what he needed, using the ways of the land. He spent many of his days gathering berries and mushrooms and wild onions and cattail roots, drying them in the warm sun.

He knew the ways of the forest and the water. The people of the village had taught him well. He would stay and wait for his love to return.

Weeks later, a long canoe of voyageurs—legendary French Canadian trappers—pulled up onto John Wharton’s rocky shore. They were there to trade with the Ojibwe, who lived a day’s paddle away. He invited them to stay the night and share a meal.

Around the fire, John told them of his experiences, how he had been blown off course and ended up here, in a strange land. How the whole village had taken him in and enraptured him with the beauty of the woods and the water. And then, just like that, it was all gone. Disappeared one night, as though it were never there.

“Oui,” one of the voyageurs said, nodding solemnly. “We have heard of a strangeness in these woods. Tales of shape-shifters enchanting travelers. I have heard of it happening elsewhere, as well. Entire settlements, vanishing without a trace.”

“Are you saying they were shape-shifters? Even my wife?”

“It is not for me to say. But will you stay? You are welcome to come with us. We have room for you in our longboat.”

John thought of the lake and all its moods, the animals scurrying up and down the shoreline or playing in the water, the graceful moose with their enormous racks, the steely wolves. The bounty of the land. The view as the sun rose.

“I will stay,” John said, gazing into the flames. “Even without my wife, my place is here.”

Because the area was so rich in furs and John was such a skilled trapper, the voyageurs made plans to help transport John and his furs to a trading post, a three days’ journey down this side of the shoreline. Soon, it was a thriving trade route. And since the man whom the traders were coming to see was John Wharton, the name stuck. “We’re traveling to Wharton,” they would say.

Then the fishermen came, when they heard tell of the bounty of these waters. More settlers arrived. Hands to repair the boats. Women to cook meals for the fishermen. A general store opened, to sell goods from the trading post. A town was growing. And John Wharton was growing older. Nearly a decade had passed since his village and his beloved Elizabeth had vanished.

One day, John rose from his cozy house to take a cup of coffee down to the lakeshore, as he did every morning. But on that morning, a young woman was standing on the shore, looking out over the water. He hadn’t seen her before, but when she turned, she looked so familiar, he gasped aloud.

“Elizabeth?” he said, his voice a whisper.

She squinted at him. “No,” she said. “I’m Cecelia Brown.” She held out her hand. “You must be John Wharton.”



“And that’s the tale of Wharton,” Wyatt said. “And of my family.”

Tess was listening with her chin in her hands.

“So, what? Did they get married? Have children?”

“That’s how the story goes,” Wyatt said. “They had four kids. Two girls and two boys. John lived to a ripe old age and is wholly responsible for this town being here.”

“Wow,” Tess mused. “How cool to know that part of your family history. What an immense connection you must feel to this place.”