The Ice Sings Back, page 16
“I’m coming back here tomorrow,” Tove said happily. “I’m glad I didn’t bring any equipment this trip; you’d never be able to tear me away. This place is gorgeous. And the sounds!”
Cumulus clouds floated by in long streets, and the blue skies were streaked with a white haze. Ros noted the wind speed and direction, the temperature and humidity. Mountains new and old stretched away in all directions, torn up and torn down, evidence of glaciation and volcanic activity and erosion and weather. She scanned for helicopters, didn’t see a single one.
Tove let out a low whistle, gestured widely at the landscape falling away before them. “One of the biggest misconceptions people have,” she said, looking at the Three Sisters, “is that the wilderness will swallow your scream. As in, no one will hear.”
A flash of cold slid down Ros’s spine. Her thoughts roiled. Did Feather scream? Was Amelia Kane screaming now? Ros shook her head, banished the thoughts, rebuilt her walls. Forced a joke. “A tree falls in the woods, no one hears, right?”
Tove sighed dramatically, tossed a hand into the air. “Yes. But no one accounts for the other trees, plants, insects, mammals, soil, everything else listening in. They hear it.”
“Nothing is silent.”
“Nope. Nothing should ever be silenced,” Tove intoned solemnly, then leaned her shoulder into Ros’s. “She said, primly, hoping to impart a great metaphor.”
Tove giggled, but Ros sucked her lips in, tried to calm her pounding pulse. What did the landscape hear when women went missing? What did the plants record? She willed herself to not think again of her mother. Of her sister. Of that little girl. Shook herself, wrapped her hands around her shoulders, refused to go where her thoughts kept trying to take her. Looked out again, pointed in front of them. “See all the dead trees? They certainly made noise as they went.”
“What happened?”
“Forest fire. Happens all the time out here now. But in front of us, just here? That’s the 2017 Milli Fire. If you look way beyond that, you’ll see the scars from the Nash Fire and the Horse Creek Complex Fire that same year. You can see older scars from the Pole Creek Fire over there,” she said, pointing to her right.
“All the fires have names? Like hurricanes?”
“Yes. And personality. Management, history. It’s a reference point for a lot of folks out here.”
Ros watched Tove carefully, saw her consider this. Ros waited, curious where she’d take the conversation.
“I remember once,” Tove said, “as an undergraduate, this professor sending us out to get recordings of all the different trees on campus. And I learned the sounds of like, thirty different trees, maples, oaks, cottonwoods. I learned how to distinguish these trees without equipment, unaided, and then hear individual tree sounds change over seasons. It was, hands down, one of the most enlightening classes I’ve ever taken.”
Tove clapped her hands. Ros thought she heard a faint gurgle of excitement in the woman’s throat.
“We know so little, Ros. About sound, fire, humanity. It’s exciting to me.” Tove bumped her shoulder lightly against Ros’s. “Like, as climatic changes occur and air temperatures shift, the density of our very air changes, which impacts animal and plant behavior, the nature of the sounds they make. Sounds travel further in cold air, right? So what happens when the air is warmer all the time? Some of my research shows that warmer air is increasing forest foliage, which dampens some sounds, making it harder for some species to hear mating calls or detect prey.”
Ros groaned, laughed. “Sex just got harder?”
Tove cackled, mouth wide. “Not with me!” She laughed harder, and Ros joined her, throat flushing.
Tove crossed her hands over her knees and looked out at the landscape. “What glacier is that?” she asked, gesturing with fluttering, tapered fingers as she spoke.
“The Collier,” Ros replied automatically, staring at the faded green forest carpeting the lower hills.
“It looks broken.”
Ros turned, focused her attention on the ice. From her vantage, it looked like a pale apron, a small white slip in a black and red and green smear. Lifting the field glasses she’d brought, she scanned the ice, noted the swarm of searchers still there. Maybe they’d set up an ancillary base camp for the search. That would explain the helicopters and crowds.
“What happened to it?” Tove stared like she was transfixed.
Ros didn’t lower her glasses. “Who broke the glaciers?” she queried, distracted. “Not easy to say. Easier to say who hasn’t done anything to fix them.”
The air shivered around them, the hair on Ros’s arms lifting, stiffening. Ros was aware of the quiet weaving around them, the sound of Tove’s breath, the wind, her own pulse.
“Okay, I lied,” Tove said suddenly, almost guiltily, reaching for her pack. “I did bring recording gear.”
She flashed Ros a bright smile and pulled out a box with two microphones strapped to either side. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not.” Why would she mind? She watched Tove set up the microphone on a pointy chunk of basalt next to their bench. Each movement seemed graceful, practiced.
The woman turned, looked at Ros critically, eyed her from head to toe. Ros felt herself flush again.
“Okay,” Tove said. “But would you mind taking off your pants?”
Ros’s throat hitched. “Excuse me?”
Tove laughed. “Oh yeah, you’ve never done this. Okay. We have to lay here and be quite quiet, quite still. Even with that, though, you’ll move somewhat. I do too. Since the fabric on your pants is swishy, it’ll be picked up in the recording.”
Ros looked down. For the first time in her life, Ros contemplated her pants.
“It’s why I never wear rain pants, rain jackets. They make so much noise, they drown out the trees. I’d rather get wet and listen to the symphony. These cotton tights are as quiet as death!”
Ros laughed out loud, the pure absurdity and newness of it all chasing away the melancholia that had threatened to overtake her mind. She reached down, unzipped, dropped her pants.
Tove stood. “I’ll go no-pants too, in solidarity,” she said, chuckling, and peeled down her blue tights. “Now if other hikers come up here, they’ll think they’ve caught the two of us in the act.”
Ros felt herself reddening to her hairline. She looked away from Tove’s pale thighs, the place where she’d caught a glimpse of dark curls edging the yellow fabric of Tove’s underwear. Of course Tove would wear a thong into the wilderness. Ros felt awkward, overheated.
“Just lay down there, and then settle in. I’ll try for about thirty minutes of ambient recording if that’s okay? See what we can pick up from up here?”
Ros settled onto her back below the rock bench, head atop her pack edge, back and thighs and feet pressed into the rubbly ground. For the first few moments, she was uncomfortable, but gradually, in the heat of the sun, steeped in the fatigue of her body and the heaviness of her thoughts, Ros started to sink into a stupor.
She noticed the small pieces of rock first, ball bearings scrabbling under her skin, but then became aware of the smell of the rock itself—the warm dense minerality, the traces of rotting deciduous leaves and pine needles. The wind rustled over her, and a vast sea of different scents from somewhere beyond the rock ledge wafted across her face.
She tried to identify each new scent as she vaguely heard Tove settle in beside her. Waves of contentment washed up from her feet, across her thighs and stomach, from her chest into her face. Laying there, she felt at ease, as if she could feel the vast spaciousness of the landscape. It was intoxicating.
“Ros?”
She cracked an eye, peered, saw Tove sitting upright, face tilting down at her.
“You drifted off there.”
“Really? Sorry.” Ros sat up quickly, flushing for what felt like the millionth time.
“No worries, you looked adorable. And happy.”
Ros swallowed, pretended she didn’t hear the comment, wished she had her pants on.
“I’ve been sitting here, looking out at this landscape. It looks primordial in a way. Every direction I look, you know?”
Ros nodded. “I know. I feel that too sometimes.” She rolled her tongue around her teeth, gazed past Tove out onto the volcanoes dotting the horizon. “Some of my more declensionist colleagues come here and see only ruin. Only destruction. But I look at all these volcanoes, all these glaciers, all these scabs of lava and forest-burn and life, and I can’t help but think the opposite—that I’m seeing the beginning, not the end.”
Tove sighed, then rose onto her haunches, reached for the recording, flipped it off. “I’m glad I got that,” she said, and Ros’s pulse rang.
“What else did you record?”
“Want me to show you?”
Ros nodded, and was somewhat surprised when Tove slid over, bent down by Ros’s shoulders, tucked her knees in on either side of Ros’s head, cradling it between her thighs. She placed a cool hand on Ros’s forehead. Trying not to flinch, Ros said, “If you hand me your headphones I’ll listen?”
Tove applied gentle pressure above Ros’s eyebrows, shook her head no. “Let me show you.”
Ros was not comfortable. She didn’t know where to look as Tove stared down at her. Finally, she simply looked back up at Tove, met her eyes. In the light, her irises carried a redder amber, a leonine tilt. Ros felt unmoored by them and wasn’t prepared when Tove leaned even farther forward, placed her hands lightly over Ros’s ears. “I know you can hear me,” Tove whispered, her lips micrometers from Ros’s ear, “but I want you to focus on what you see. Just look up. Use your eyes.”
Tove leaned away, out of Ros’s view, and all Ros could do was stare up at the sky. At the altostratus clouds, faint sheets, ice crystals and water droplets in long blankets—blue, gray, pink. She felt secure looking up into a sky she knew wouldn’t betray her, wouldn’t change the laws of physics, wouldn’t ever allow her to fall off the planet into the unknown, the darkness.
“Okay, now I’m going to place my hands over your eyes,” Tove whispered. “I want you to focus on just what you hear.”
Tove’s fingers slid across her temples to her eyelids, covered them. She swallowed, felt her throat thicken. She strained her ears, identified the scrabble of rocks sliding under her as she tried not to squirm, the slip and hiss of Tove’s clothing, the scratchy rustle of the wind. But most of all she heard her own pulse, her heart pounding. She felt herself start to sweat at her scalp, in her armpits, between her legs. Her heart squeezed against her ribs.
Ros jerked, grabbed Tove’s wrists, held them tight.
“Shhh…” Tove soothed. “You’re all right.”
Ros’s heart pounded harder; her hands trembled.
Tove lifted her hands from Ros’s eyes. “You’re all right,” she repeated, her voice lifting slightly.
Ros wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. She was blinded temporarily by the abrupt light, but, once her vision stabilized, all she could see were Tove’s eyes. She searched and found no hint of malice. Just golden eyes. Ros swallowed the cannonball in her throat, nodded slightly.
Tove smiled, brought her hands up, covered Ros’s eyes again.
Opening her mouth wide, Ros pulled in a deep, hitching breath. A second. A third. She kept her hold on Tove’s wrists, felt the other woman’s slow, steady pulse under her sweaty fingers.
“We have all kinds of words for wind sounds,” Tove murmured down to her. “Beautiful words. Listen: eolian, psithurism, whoosh.”
Ros slowed her breathing, listened to Tove whisper about the wind. Felt her body relax again. A heaviness rolled up her body, weighted her legs into the ground, pressed her shoulders back. She gave in to it, released her grip on Tove. Dropped her hands down to her chest.
Eyes closed, then covered, Ros heard her own pulse, Tove’s pulse. The wind and trees, breathing. A deep thrumming from somewhere. An insect bustling. Rocks rasping. And then, faint at first, she heard it, a melody, the barest hint of a song that sounded as if it was sung underwater, carried by the wind from miles away. It wrapped itself inside Ros’s ears, caressed her brain and throat and down her stomach and she felt a strong urge to move, to twist her body free and slide forward.
But then Tove pulled her hands away, and Ros blinked at the glaring light and sudden silence. The sun had dropped low, and Ros had no idea where the time had gone.
She pitched forward to sit, swallowed, felt as if she’d temporarily lost something, as if the contentment she’d just experienced was now out of reach. She turned to Tove.
The woman smiled a faded lipstick smile, her face so expressive Ros nearly gave in to the tears boiling behind her eyelids. She shook her head hard, then stood, rocks shedding off her skin. She bent and pulled her pants and boots on, then walked away to the tower to disconnect the download and gather herself and get ahold of the howl blistering in her throat. She felt simultaneously calm and bewildered, grief-stricken and relieved, throbbing.
She made a meal of finishing her work on the tower to give herself time to get collected. When she walked back to the basalt bench, Tove was packed, ready to go. The two hiked in quiet back down to Ros’s cabin. When they arrived, Tove began plugging all her gear to recharge. Ros started dinner.
The pasta water was roiling by the time Ros handed Tove a cup of black tea, unsweetened. Tove had set up shop on the kitchen table, her laptop flashing various programs as she uploaded data. She took the tea from Ros and waved thanks, then gestured at the enormous headphones propped over her bun. She was listening to a recording.
Ros cut vegetables, threw green spiral pasta into boiling water. Turned when she heard a long tone and beep on the comms system. Someone was radioing the station. She cut her eyes at the clock. It was a little past six, so she wasn’t late for her check in.
“This is OHEWS,” she answered, speaking into the handheld.
“OHEWS, this is Chief Thomas Addington at the mobile field base at Scott Lake. I’m part of the Incident Command for the ongoing search and rescue operation for Amelia Kane.”
“Did you find her?” Ros felt cold to her core, like someone had just dumped an ice bucket down her back.
The radio was silent, then static came through thick. “Can you confirm your identity at OHEWS?”
Ros shivered, was puzzled. “This is Dr. Ros Fisher, chief scientist at the Oregon High Elevation Weather Station at Harlow Crater.”
More static, and then the voice responded. “Will you be at the station tomorrow morning at nine o’clock?”
“Affirmative, I will be.” She waited, tension roiling in her stomach and her shoulders tightening into violin bows. “What is this about?” Ros stood in front of the window gripping the handheld and looked east, out at the Millican Crater, staring blankly through the trees as she waited. A full forty seconds of complete staticky silence ticked by. Bewildered, Ros turned, saw Tove at the table with her headphones clamped over her ears, face scrunched inches from the screen, staring at the computer. She flipped back around to the window, nearly lost her grip on the radio as sweat pooled in her palm.
What was going on?
“Radio check?” she said, irritated.
“OHEWS,” the voice replied almost instantly. “We’ve got you.”
“What is this about?”
There was a pause again, but shorter. “The SAR team has located… something… of interest. We’d like to discuss it with you in person. Confirmed?”
“Confirmed,” Ros echoed, slowly set the handheld back into its port.
Ros’s mind churned, a whirl of questions and outcomes and variables. She felt chilled, reached for the down jacket hanging by the door, slipped it over her shoulders. Her stomach heaved. Like she was seasick, and yet she was standing on a sturdy wooden-planked floor hundreds of miles from the ocean. She moved back to the window, gripped the frame with both hands, gazed out into the night. Wondered what they’d found. Wondered how she was involved. Felt rancid fear trickle down her neck.
“Ros?” Tove’s voice broke in. “Can you come here?”
Ros turned slightly, saw Tove still hunched at her computer, headphones dangling off one ear. She held out another pair to Ros.
“I’m reviewing the audio recording from today. Just making sure there aren’t glitches. And you’ve got to hear this, tell me if I’m crazy.” Tove shook the headphones at Ros.
Dark spots danced in Ros’s vision, sweat glazed her forehead. She gripped the windowpane harder, nails digging into the soft wood. Squeezed her eyes shut, felt the nausea come lurching hot up her throat. Tried to swallow.
Heard Tove say, “I have no idea how, but damned if halfway through I hear laughter.”
10
THE
MEDIC
May sat huddled under someone else’s heavy down jacket, feet dangling off the lowered tailgate of the bush truck. It was late, cold, and the sheer volume of people’s voices, whining generators, vehicle engines, and wind flapping the canopy covers numbed May, chipped away at her already-exhausted body.
She pulled the jacket tighter, smelled the cigarette-mixed-with-lemon-balm aroma of the person who owned the jacket, wondered when they’d come and reclaim it. May could not recall where her own was—she suspected she might have left it up there, by the glacier, by all those bodies.
“Good job today, Young,” a voice called from the dark.
May jerked her head up, saw Baker emerging from the parking lot, headlamp glowing from his forehead like a cyclops. He strolled over, leaned against the tailgate.
“God, not easy,” he continued, arms crossed.
May wasn’t sure what response Baker might want. Right now, she didn’t really feel like talking. Then again, Baker was there, he’d sought her out, so perhaps she should put more effort into interacting with him. She wished he was as easy to talk to as Jamal and Lou. Even though every muscle in her neck screeched, she tilted her head, looked up at Baker. “Yeah,” she managed. Waited to see if he wanted more.
Cumulus clouds floated by in long streets, and the blue skies were streaked with a white haze. Ros noted the wind speed and direction, the temperature and humidity. Mountains new and old stretched away in all directions, torn up and torn down, evidence of glaciation and volcanic activity and erosion and weather. She scanned for helicopters, didn’t see a single one.
Tove let out a low whistle, gestured widely at the landscape falling away before them. “One of the biggest misconceptions people have,” she said, looking at the Three Sisters, “is that the wilderness will swallow your scream. As in, no one will hear.”
A flash of cold slid down Ros’s spine. Her thoughts roiled. Did Feather scream? Was Amelia Kane screaming now? Ros shook her head, banished the thoughts, rebuilt her walls. Forced a joke. “A tree falls in the woods, no one hears, right?”
Tove sighed dramatically, tossed a hand into the air. “Yes. But no one accounts for the other trees, plants, insects, mammals, soil, everything else listening in. They hear it.”
“Nothing is silent.”
“Nope. Nothing should ever be silenced,” Tove intoned solemnly, then leaned her shoulder into Ros’s. “She said, primly, hoping to impart a great metaphor.”
Tove giggled, but Ros sucked her lips in, tried to calm her pounding pulse. What did the landscape hear when women went missing? What did the plants record? She willed herself to not think again of her mother. Of her sister. Of that little girl. Shook herself, wrapped her hands around her shoulders, refused to go where her thoughts kept trying to take her. Looked out again, pointed in front of them. “See all the dead trees? They certainly made noise as they went.”
“What happened?”
“Forest fire. Happens all the time out here now. But in front of us, just here? That’s the 2017 Milli Fire. If you look way beyond that, you’ll see the scars from the Nash Fire and the Horse Creek Complex Fire that same year. You can see older scars from the Pole Creek Fire over there,” she said, pointing to her right.
“All the fires have names? Like hurricanes?”
“Yes. And personality. Management, history. It’s a reference point for a lot of folks out here.”
Ros watched Tove carefully, saw her consider this. Ros waited, curious where she’d take the conversation.
“I remember once,” Tove said, “as an undergraduate, this professor sending us out to get recordings of all the different trees on campus. And I learned the sounds of like, thirty different trees, maples, oaks, cottonwoods. I learned how to distinguish these trees without equipment, unaided, and then hear individual tree sounds change over seasons. It was, hands down, one of the most enlightening classes I’ve ever taken.”
Tove clapped her hands. Ros thought she heard a faint gurgle of excitement in the woman’s throat.
“We know so little, Ros. About sound, fire, humanity. It’s exciting to me.” Tove bumped her shoulder lightly against Ros’s. “Like, as climatic changes occur and air temperatures shift, the density of our very air changes, which impacts animal and plant behavior, the nature of the sounds they make. Sounds travel further in cold air, right? So what happens when the air is warmer all the time? Some of my research shows that warmer air is increasing forest foliage, which dampens some sounds, making it harder for some species to hear mating calls or detect prey.”
Ros groaned, laughed. “Sex just got harder?”
Tove cackled, mouth wide. “Not with me!” She laughed harder, and Ros joined her, throat flushing.
Tove crossed her hands over her knees and looked out at the landscape. “What glacier is that?” she asked, gesturing with fluttering, tapered fingers as she spoke.
“The Collier,” Ros replied automatically, staring at the faded green forest carpeting the lower hills.
“It looks broken.”
Ros turned, focused her attention on the ice. From her vantage, it looked like a pale apron, a small white slip in a black and red and green smear. Lifting the field glasses she’d brought, she scanned the ice, noted the swarm of searchers still there. Maybe they’d set up an ancillary base camp for the search. That would explain the helicopters and crowds.
“What happened to it?” Tove stared like she was transfixed.
Ros didn’t lower her glasses. “Who broke the glaciers?” she queried, distracted. “Not easy to say. Easier to say who hasn’t done anything to fix them.”
The air shivered around them, the hair on Ros’s arms lifting, stiffening. Ros was aware of the quiet weaving around them, the sound of Tove’s breath, the wind, her own pulse.
“Okay, I lied,” Tove said suddenly, almost guiltily, reaching for her pack. “I did bring recording gear.”
She flashed Ros a bright smile and pulled out a box with two microphones strapped to either side. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not.” Why would she mind? She watched Tove set up the microphone on a pointy chunk of basalt next to their bench. Each movement seemed graceful, practiced.
The woman turned, looked at Ros critically, eyed her from head to toe. Ros felt herself flush again.
“Okay,” Tove said. “But would you mind taking off your pants?”
Ros’s throat hitched. “Excuse me?”
Tove laughed. “Oh yeah, you’ve never done this. Okay. We have to lay here and be quite quiet, quite still. Even with that, though, you’ll move somewhat. I do too. Since the fabric on your pants is swishy, it’ll be picked up in the recording.”
Ros looked down. For the first time in her life, Ros contemplated her pants.
“It’s why I never wear rain pants, rain jackets. They make so much noise, they drown out the trees. I’d rather get wet and listen to the symphony. These cotton tights are as quiet as death!”
Ros laughed out loud, the pure absurdity and newness of it all chasing away the melancholia that had threatened to overtake her mind. She reached down, unzipped, dropped her pants.
Tove stood. “I’ll go no-pants too, in solidarity,” she said, chuckling, and peeled down her blue tights. “Now if other hikers come up here, they’ll think they’ve caught the two of us in the act.”
Ros felt herself reddening to her hairline. She looked away from Tove’s pale thighs, the place where she’d caught a glimpse of dark curls edging the yellow fabric of Tove’s underwear. Of course Tove would wear a thong into the wilderness. Ros felt awkward, overheated.
“Just lay down there, and then settle in. I’ll try for about thirty minutes of ambient recording if that’s okay? See what we can pick up from up here?”
Ros settled onto her back below the rock bench, head atop her pack edge, back and thighs and feet pressed into the rubbly ground. For the first few moments, she was uncomfortable, but gradually, in the heat of the sun, steeped in the fatigue of her body and the heaviness of her thoughts, Ros started to sink into a stupor.
She noticed the small pieces of rock first, ball bearings scrabbling under her skin, but then became aware of the smell of the rock itself—the warm dense minerality, the traces of rotting deciduous leaves and pine needles. The wind rustled over her, and a vast sea of different scents from somewhere beyond the rock ledge wafted across her face.
She tried to identify each new scent as she vaguely heard Tove settle in beside her. Waves of contentment washed up from her feet, across her thighs and stomach, from her chest into her face. Laying there, she felt at ease, as if she could feel the vast spaciousness of the landscape. It was intoxicating.
“Ros?”
She cracked an eye, peered, saw Tove sitting upright, face tilting down at her.
“You drifted off there.”
“Really? Sorry.” Ros sat up quickly, flushing for what felt like the millionth time.
“No worries, you looked adorable. And happy.”
Ros swallowed, pretended she didn’t hear the comment, wished she had her pants on.
“I’ve been sitting here, looking out at this landscape. It looks primordial in a way. Every direction I look, you know?”
Ros nodded. “I know. I feel that too sometimes.” She rolled her tongue around her teeth, gazed past Tove out onto the volcanoes dotting the horizon. “Some of my more declensionist colleagues come here and see only ruin. Only destruction. But I look at all these volcanoes, all these glaciers, all these scabs of lava and forest-burn and life, and I can’t help but think the opposite—that I’m seeing the beginning, not the end.”
Tove sighed, then rose onto her haunches, reached for the recording, flipped it off. “I’m glad I got that,” she said, and Ros’s pulse rang.
“What else did you record?”
“Want me to show you?”
Ros nodded, and was somewhat surprised when Tove slid over, bent down by Ros’s shoulders, tucked her knees in on either side of Ros’s head, cradling it between her thighs. She placed a cool hand on Ros’s forehead. Trying not to flinch, Ros said, “If you hand me your headphones I’ll listen?”
Tove applied gentle pressure above Ros’s eyebrows, shook her head no. “Let me show you.”
Ros was not comfortable. She didn’t know where to look as Tove stared down at her. Finally, she simply looked back up at Tove, met her eyes. In the light, her irises carried a redder amber, a leonine tilt. Ros felt unmoored by them and wasn’t prepared when Tove leaned even farther forward, placed her hands lightly over Ros’s ears. “I know you can hear me,” Tove whispered, her lips micrometers from Ros’s ear, “but I want you to focus on what you see. Just look up. Use your eyes.”
Tove leaned away, out of Ros’s view, and all Ros could do was stare up at the sky. At the altostratus clouds, faint sheets, ice crystals and water droplets in long blankets—blue, gray, pink. She felt secure looking up into a sky she knew wouldn’t betray her, wouldn’t change the laws of physics, wouldn’t ever allow her to fall off the planet into the unknown, the darkness.
“Okay, now I’m going to place my hands over your eyes,” Tove whispered. “I want you to focus on just what you hear.”
Tove’s fingers slid across her temples to her eyelids, covered them. She swallowed, felt her throat thicken. She strained her ears, identified the scrabble of rocks sliding under her as she tried not to squirm, the slip and hiss of Tove’s clothing, the scratchy rustle of the wind. But most of all she heard her own pulse, her heart pounding. She felt herself start to sweat at her scalp, in her armpits, between her legs. Her heart squeezed against her ribs.
Ros jerked, grabbed Tove’s wrists, held them tight.
“Shhh…” Tove soothed. “You’re all right.”
Ros’s heart pounded harder; her hands trembled.
Tove lifted her hands from Ros’s eyes. “You’re all right,” she repeated, her voice lifting slightly.
Ros wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. She was blinded temporarily by the abrupt light, but, once her vision stabilized, all she could see were Tove’s eyes. She searched and found no hint of malice. Just golden eyes. Ros swallowed the cannonball in her throat, nodded slightly.
Tove smiled, brought her hands up, covered Ros’s eyes again.
Opening her mouth wide, Ros pulled in a deep, hitching breath. A second. A third. She kept her hold on Tove’s wrists, felt the other woman’s slow, steady pulse under her sweaty fingers.
“We have all kinds of words for wind sounds,” Tove murmured down to her. “Beautiful words. Listen: eolian, psithurism, whoosh.”
Ros slowed her breathing, listened to Tove whisper about the wind. Felt her body relax again. A heaviness rolled up her body, weighted her legs into the ground, pressed her shoulders back. She gave in to it, released her grip on Tove. Dropped her hands down to her chest.
Eyes closed, then covered, Ros heard her own pulse, Tove’s pulse. The wind and trees, breathing. A deep thrumming from somewhere. An insect bustling. Rocks rasping. And then, faint at first, she heard it, a melody, the barest hint of a song that sounded as if it was sung underwater, carried by the wind from miles away. It wrapped itself inside Ros’s ears, caressed her brain and throat and down her stomach and she felt a strong urge to move, to twist her body free and slide forward.
But then Tove pulled her hands away, and Ros blinked at the glaring light and sudden silence. The sun had dropped low, and Ros had no idea where the time had gone.
She pitched forward to sit, swallowed, felt as if she’d temporarily lost something, as if the contentment she’d just experienced was now out of reach. She turned to Tove.
The woman smiled a faded lipstick smile, her face so expressive Ros nearly gave in to the tears boiling behind her eyelids. She shook her head hard, then stood, rocks shedding off her skin. She bent and pulled her pants and boots on, then walked away to the tower to disconnect the download and gather herself and get ahold of the howl blistering in her throat. She felt simultaneously calm and bewildered, grief-stricken and relieved, throbbing.
She made a meal of finishing her work on the tower to give herself time to get collected. When she walked back to the basalt bench, Tove was packed, ready to go. The two hiked in quiet back down to Ros’s cabin. When they arrived, Tove began plugging all her gear to recharge. Ros started dinner.
The pasta water was roiling by the time Ros handed Tove a cup of black tea, unsweetened. Tove had set up shop on the kitchen table, her laptop flashing various programs as she uploaded data. She took the tea from Ros and waved thanks, then gestured at the enormous headphones propped over her bun. She was listening to a recording.
Ros cut vegetables, threw green spiral pasta into boiling water. Turned when she heard a long tone and beep on the comms system. Someone was radioing the station. She cut her eyes at the clock. It was a little past six, so she wasn’t late for her check in.
“This is OHEWS,” she answered, speaking into the handheld.
“OHEWS, this is Chief Thomas Addington at the mobile field base at Scott Lake. I’m part of the Incident Command for the ongoing search and rescue operation for Amelia Kane.”
“Did you find her?” Ros felt cold to her core, like someone had just dumped an ice bucket down her back.
The radio was silent, then static came through thick. “Can you confirm your identity at OHEWS?”
Ros shivered, was puzzled. “This is Dr. Ros Fisher, chief scientist at the Oregon High Elevation Weather Station at Harlow Crater.”
More static, and then the voice responded. “Will you be at the station tomorrow morning at nine o’clock?”
“Affirmative, I will be.” She waited, tension roiling in her stomach and her shoulders tightening into violin bows. “What is this about?” Ros stood in front of the window gripping the handheld and looked east, out at the Millican Crater, staring blankly through the trees as she waited. A full forty seconds of complete staticky silence ticked by. Bewildered, Ros turned, saw Tove at the table with her headphones clamped over her ears, face scrunched inches from the screen, staring at the computer. She flipped back around to the window, nearly lost her grip on the radio as sweat pooled in her palm.
What was going on?
“Radio check?” she said, irritated.
“OHEWS,” the voice replied almost instantly. “We’ve got you.”
“What is this about?”
There was a pause again, but shorter. “The SAR team has located… something… of interest. We’d like to discuss it with you in person. Confirmed?”
“Confirmed,” Ros echoed, slowly set the handheld back into its port.
Ros’s mind churned, a whirl of questions and outcomes and variables. She felt chilled, reached for the down jacket hanging by the door, slipped it over her shoulders. Her stomach heaved. Like she was seasick, and yet she was standing on a sturdy wooden-planked floor hundreds of miles from the ocean. She moved back to the window, gripped the frame with both hands, gazed out into the night. Wondered what they’d found. Wondered how she was involved. Felt rancid fear trickle down her neck.
“Ros?” Tove’s voice broke in. “Can you come here?”
Ros turned slightly, saw Tove still hunched at her computer, headphones dangling off one ear. She held out another pair to Ros.
“I’m reviewing the audio recording from today. Just making sure there aren’t glitches. And you’ve got to hear this, tell me if I’m crazy.” Tove shook the headphones at Ros.
Dark spots danced in Ros’s vision, sweat glazed her forehead. She gripped the windowpane harder, nails digging into the soft wood. Squeezed her eyes shut, felt the nausea come lurching hot up her throat. Tried to swallow.
Heard Tove say, “I have no idea how, but damned if halfway through I hear laughter.”
10
THE
MEDIC
May sat huddled under someone else’s heavy down jacket, feet dangling off the lowered tailgate of the bush truck. It was late, cold, and the sheer volume of people’s voices, whining generators, vehicle engines, and wind flapping the canopy covers numbed May, chipped away at her already-exhausted body.
She pulled the jacket tighter, smelled the cigarette-mixed-with-lemon-balm aroma of the person who owned the jacket, wondered when they’d come and reclaim it. May could not recall where her own was—she suspected she might have left it up there, by the glacier, by all those bodies.
“Good job today, Young,” a voice called from the dark.
May jerked her head up, saw Baker emerging from the parking lot, headlamp glowing from his forehead like a cyclops. He strolled over, leaned against the tailgate.
“God, not easy,” he continued, arms crossed.
May wasn’t sure what response Baker might want. Right now, she didn’t really feel like talking. Then again, Baker was there, he’d sought her out, so perhaps she should put more effort into interacting with him. She wished he was as easy to talk to as Jamal and Lou. Even though every muscle in her neck screeched, she tilted her head, looked up at Baker. “Yeah,” she managed. Waited to see if he wanted more.
