I wish Pa’d grab the gun. My eyes pass quickly to the wagon, and I take a slow, careful step toward it—I’ll get the gun myself, sink down on the front seat, and aim it across the creek. But Pa shakes his head at me to stay put.
“Is it scavengers?” My voice so quiet, it feels like only air has left my lips. I’ve never encountered scavengers before; I don’t know what they’ll look like, how clever or hidden or dangerous they might be. But I know out here, alone, Pa and I don’t have a way to defend ourselves—no cabin to protect us—and my heart isnow pounding in my ears, dulling all other sound.
But Pa doesn’t reply, his eyes trained on the tree line. The bent oaks, the long streaks of sunlight broken by shadow, making it impossible to pick out anything from everything else.
A shape moves…. A shadow re-forms itself. I think I see an arm reaching out into a shaft of warm sunlight. But it’s not a person at all: It’s a deer, picking her way down to the shore of the creek, forked hooves perching easily on the slick rocks, moss hanging between her coiled antlers, ribbons of it, where little white flowers bloom. She’s beautiful and also terrifying. I hold my breath, afraid to make a sound. I’ve never seen anything like her back in the valley, adorned with green from the forest, as if she is made of the land. And when she sees us—head snapping upright, nostrils flared bright pink—I swear she’s looking right at me. Eyes the color of a blue river stone—intent, eerie. Her gaze reminds me of the old woman, as if she is giving me a warning in the flutter of her long, dark eyelashes:Go back the way you came. Danger lives in these woods, beyond the valley. Go home, Vega.
But just as quickly as she appeared, her ears flick away, and she bolts back into the trees.
I let out an exhale, gripping my hands into fists to stop the trembling.
Pa scrubs a hand across the back of his neck—his own nerves just as frayed. “Let’s get moving,” he says finally, wiping a hand over his forehead. But his palm briefly touches his temple, and I can see the subtle twitch of his eyebrow—a pain he’s trying to hide. And I wonder… how long has he been sick? How long has he felt the ache in his eardrums?
But before I can ask, he lowers his hand and starts back toward the wagon. “Still have a long day ahead of us.”
I stare one last time across the far side of the creek, wanting to see the deer one last time, but there is only the gentle sway of trees and the memory of her eyes.
“It’s called the Ohavie River,” Pa remarks, the wagon bouncing along the rocky path, a cliff wall on one side, a roaring river on the other. “We’ll follow it all the way into these hills, to where it bubbles up from the ground.” His words are calm, but he keeps glancing behind us like he’s worried we might be followed—that someone will track us into these low hills and discover the place he’s kept secret.
At last the trees become thin, unable to keep their footing in the slick rock, and the forest opens up into a clearing. It happens so abruptly that I peer up at the steep terrain and the blue gleaming sky, as if the forest had only been a dream.
And ahead, built beside the river, sits a small house.
I lean forward, elbows against my knees. “Does someone live here?”
“It was a miners’ camp.” Pa secures the reins and removes his hat to wipe at his forehead. “But it’s been empty for years.”
A sagging porch frames the front of the tiny structure, with a stone chimney on the left side made from rocks likely dredged up from the river bottom. But the river does not roar down the hillside here—as it did along the road—it’s a calm pool of clear, cold water that seems to rise up from some deep underground cavern far below.
My legs feel stiff, aching in every joint, and I slide down fromthe wagon, landing in the dry dirt of the road, and stretch my arms overhead. “What were they mining?”
“They had hoped to find gold—” Pa replaces his hat and eases himself down to the ground, shoulders rolling back. “—but it was silver they uncovered in the surrounding rock.”
I try to imagine the rock walls glistening with channels of silver, ribbons catching not just the sunlight but the starlight, too. “Did they get sick? Is that why they left?”
“No. They left once the silver was gone.” Pa starts the work of removing the empty jars from the back of the wagon, stacking the crates on the ground. “We can’t stay long….” He nods at me to take one of the crates. “We can’t risk it. We’ll resupply, then head out in the morning.”
Dust swirls up from the floor of the cabin when Pa pushes open the door, a blizzard of gray particles, and I cough, wiping at the air. How long has it been since Pa was last here? Months, at least.
I step into the room, where broken clay coffee mugs and metal tools sit cluttered in the corners, along with torn sacks that were once likely filled with flour or grain, but have since been chewed up by mice. I trip over something: an old boot, the laces gone. It’s a cabin of artifacts, left behind by the miners. And I feel like we don’t belong here—a place of ghosts.
But there are other things in the cabin too, that belong to Pa.
Crates have been stacked three high on the right-hand wall, each filled with empty glass jars—a mismatch assortment, gathered from his customers and then reused. On the left side, beside the fireplace, sit several wooden barrels. And against the back wall are more crates—but these are filled with something I’ve never seen before.
Pa moves to the empty jars, counting them, but I feel drawnto the back wall, curious about what lies inside the crates. My eyes adjust to the dark, windowless room, and I reach into one of the full crates and pull out a smaller bottle. They’re light, a quarter of the size of the glass jars filled with tonic, and each has a tiny round lid. Letters have been written on the side of every one, but it’s a word I’ve never seen before.
“What is it?” I ask, holding up a bottle and turning to face Pa.
“Aspirin.” His voice is matter-of-fact, as if I should already know this.
I turn the bottle over, and the tiny white pills inside spill to one end. “You use them to make your tonic?”
“We’ll crush the pills and dilute it in water and honey.”
“Where did it come from? All these bottles?” There must be hundreds of them. Each filled with two dozen pills or more.
Pa walks to my side, lifting a bottle into his hand. “My grandfather was a doctor. He used them to treat his patients.”
