The Last to Vanish(30)

Farrah Jordan was a turning point, when the press started calling Cutter’s Pass the most dangerous town in North Carolina. I imagined her, cold and alone, staring up at the barren sky—a flash of red among the white. But the drones and helicopters had found no sight of her—no dark hair splayed in the white snow; no red scarf in the colorless landscape.

The snow and ice melted, and the color came back to the landscape, and still, she wasn’t found. And without a resolution, I could imagine a different outcome. Over time, I found the fear dulling, the sharpness of her disappearance slipping away behind a facade again. It was a mystery, but it wasn’t our fault. The visitors returned, and they went up the mountain, and they came back laughing, smiling. I updated our guidebook to warn the guests about the dangers of exposure, of getting lost. I started leading hikes, an extra way to keep them safe.

But now, I was noticing the slickness of the rock wall, the weeds that had taken root in the grooves, pushing outward from the small pockets of soil. The jagged edge of the rocks used as steps, not rounded or softened by erosion. The sound of pebbles underfoot, kicked loose with the lack of traction.

At the bottom, the trail ended in a widening of dirt and rock and soil, like it was beckoning you closer, to the pool of water. Standing at the bottom, looking up, I realized you’d be visible from all directions. Like a funneling, with you at the center.

The Shallow Falls Trail officially ended here. There was a system of logs suspended over the stream, which brought you to the smaller clearing on the far side of the pool. Beyond lay the narrow, meandering push toward the Appalachian.

Now that we were here, I wasn’t sure what Trey was expecting. There would be no sign of his brother. No footprints to follow. No phone or missing journal suddenly revealing themselves from a thicket of brush.

Trey stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the falls, three levels of cold mountain water gently cascading over a sloping rock face. I dropped my pack beside us in the clearing of dirt, and took the water bottles out of the bag, handing one to Trey again.

“Thanks,” he said, barely glancing my way, dropping his own bag to the dirt beside him. He drained half the container while I stared at his exposed throat. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, eyes narrowed at the pool of water before us.

Celeste once told me, over one of our Sunday dinners soon after I’d arrived, that most people have one thing they try to protect. One thing they value most of all—and once you find out what it is, you know how to work with them. How to work them. She had shared this in reference to building the inn, all the steps they needed to go through to turn their vision into reality. But it was something I thought about often, when confronted with someone difficult—in work, and in life.

I watched Trey closely, wondering, again, what it was he hoped to find here. What had brought him here, in the night.

Careful, Abigail.

Trey’s eyes shifted to me briefly. “How deep is that?” he asked.

“Shallow,” I said.

A twitch at the side of his mouth. “Guess that was to be expected, given the name.”

You could wade in up to your knees in most places. There was no true peril.

But now I was picturing Farrah standing alone here in the winter. I imagined her slipping at the edge, losing her footing, caught, stuck, facedown—breathing in the icy water. I imagined her standing on the other side, startled by something in the trees, losing her grip on the camera, dropping it into the water, as she ran deeper into the woods.

Trey sat on the edge of the rocks and pulled off his boots, stuffing his new hiking socks inside of them, then rolled up his pant legs over his knees. He stepped into the water and stared down at his feet.

I crossed the log bridge so I could keep an eye on him from afar, to watch him without being watched in return.

My steps echoed over the sound of flowing water. On the other side of the falls, the rocks were smoother, better for picnics and for parents to sit on while younger kids splashed in the water.

The wind moving through the trees felt alive, like something coming.

Trey was wading deeper into the center of the pool, water up to his knees, like he was testing the truth of my words. He raised his head periodically, looking for me, and I made a show of looking down at the earth, as if there would be anything left behind.

A flash of red caught my eye at the edge of the woods, and for a second, I thought Farrah. Something near the ground, tucked behind a pile of rocks. A cairn—like the markers sometimes used to guide the way on other trails. Though we’d always used flashes of paint on the bark of a tree here.

Beyond, the trail narrowed in a steep ascent. I knew it had been searched—all the way from the falls to the Appalachian—but not by me. Now, I approached the start of the second trail. The cairn had been constructed from flat river rocks. Like someone had fished them out of the stream, or the bottom of the pool where Trey now stood.

I hadn’t been here in months, couldn’t be sure when this had been added. Or whether it had been here all along.

On the other side of the cairn was a single flower, bright red, leaning against the rocks. Like from a blooming rhododendron. Nothing too unusual, except that there weren’t any in bloom on the bushes surrounding us, that I could tell. And there was something about the way it was positioned, at rest, melancholy. Like a memorial, instead of a trail marker.

I kept my back to Trey as I squatted down for a closer look. The stem was clean cut, at an angle, like someone had taken a knife to it. Deliberate.