The Last to Vanish(89)

This place was littered with the dead. But it was also a place where they could still be alive, if you wanted to believe it.

We hired new help, like Celeste promised. Ashlyn was twenty, and she grew up here—it was safest that way. She was the daughter of the elementary school principal, and she seemed so young. Three days into her trial period, she looked overwhelmed, but she kept moving. By day four, she wore her hair like me, in a low bun, and she seemed more confident, more at ease.

That morning, I was taking a group of guests out on a hike. I stopped at the front desk, and there was an envelope on the edge, which Ashlyn pushed my way. My name and our address, written in a familiar print. “Someone just left this for you,” she said.

I raced out front, envelope tight in my grip, just in time to catch her. Georgia, hand on the open door of her car, turning at the sound of my exit. Her hair hung almost to her eyes, and she pushed it to the side now. But she looked out of sync, and I was overcome with the feeling of passing someone on a street and trying to place them, out of context.

I stopped halfway between the lobby door and Georgia’s car.

“I got your letter,” she said.

I’d sent it to the address I’d found for her mother. I wanted to know she was okay. I wanted her to know I forgave her, that we were okay. But still: I wanted to know why.

She looked over her shoulder, at the road leading out, then turned back with a frown. “I was going to mail this. An explanation.” She waved her hand. “An apology. I was just on my way to the post office. And then I kept driving.” Her eyes skimmed the inn, the mountain. “I just wanted to see for myself. See if it was all real.”

I tried to see what she was seeing: a building of wood and stone, emerging from a clearing, like it was always meant to be here. The fog just lifting off the mountain behind it. I had plans for this place, for what it could still become.

“You can stay,” I told her. Meaning: the night; longer. Ashlyn lived at home. The apartment was still open, for now. Believer or disbeliever, Cutter’s Pass welcomed you equally.

But she shook her head quickly. “This was an escape. This was only ever an escape. Something to prove to myself. And then, that camera—I thought I could prove something, but all it did was get him… I wish I could go back.” She shook her head, stepped closer to the car, as if she feared some unnatural pull. A force this place held over her. She gestured to the letter. “I just wanted to apologize. And to say, I’m glad you’re okay.”

And then I watched as she drove off, knowing it would be the last time I saw her.



* * *



THERE WERE FOUR GUESTS on the hike this morning, and we set out in a single line. We’d just passed the first curve, where you turn around, and the trees and rhododendron have already closed around you in a tunnel of shadows, and you can’t see your way back out.

The sound of their breathing, the rustle of hiking pants, the thud of the walking sticks making contact with the trail.

“Is it true,” the woman directly behind me asked, “that the Fraternity Four were last spotted heading this way, to this very trail?”

“Yes,” I said, looking over my shoulder, “it’s true.”

She shuffled into position beside me, breathing faster, keeping pace. “A man down at the tavern, he said he could take us on a tour, tell us about what happened to them.”

“That so?” I said, and thought I saw, through the trees, a flash of a red scarf. A cardinal, probably, if I looked again. But I didn’t.

Instead I looked over at the woman, her gaze trailing in that direction, too. After something she saw—or almost saw.

“Ask me anything,” I said. “I know everything there is to know about this place.”





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


I’m very grateful to the many people who helped guide this story from the initial spark of an idea to the finished book.

Thank you to my brilliant editor, Marysue Rucci, and wonderful agent, Jennifer Joel, for all of the guidance, insight, and feedback on each and every draft. And to the entire team at Scribner, including Nan Graham, Stu Smith, Brian Belfiglio, Katie Monaghan, Brianna Yamashita, Sasha Kobylinski, Jaya Miceli, Laura Wise, and many others who have had a hand in bringing this book into the world.

Thank you to wonderful friends Elle Cosimano, Ashley Elston, and Megan Shepherd, for the brainstorming, the early reads, and the encouragement along the way.

As always, a huge thank you to my family. To Luis, who joined me on every research trip (and hike) while I was working on this story. And to my parents, who brought me hiking every year when I was growing up and first introduced me to the mountains.