“We can take my car,” he told her.
“No. I want to take this.”
Larry got in uncertainly. He didn’t like letting others drive.
“This was my dad’s car,” Aspire told him. “My mom hates to drive.”
“Where are we going?” Larry asked, looking at the rusted floor with trepidation.
“Just down to the cliffs.”
Aspire drove carefully down the old beach road, which petered out into hardpan covered in sand. Down the beach, ocean waves slammed into the side of the cliff and shot spray up forty feet.
She stopped in the shadows of the cliffs.
“The tide won’t reach up here,” she said, opening the glove box. Larry saw a stack of mildewed papers, a leather eyeglass case, and a pair of old binoculars. Aspire reached for a small notebook on top.
Larry strained his head trying to see the top of the cliffs. The waves hitting the rock face sounded like shattering glass.
“This is what I wanted you to see.”
The girl held out the notebook.
Larry took it. The pages were stained with seawater, and tiny grains of sand had stuck to the paper. The notes inside were written in an indifferent scrawl.
Went to the constable. He doesn’t believe me. No one does.
He turned the page. There was a drawing of a sea monster.
“That’s not it. The next page.”
I know what I saw. I am not lying. I did not imagine it.
The picture on the page was of a manlike creature, made long with shadow, carrying what looked like a body over his shoulder, through the woods.
Underneath, in all capital letters, was written: SASQUATCH.
“Sasquatch?” Larry said.
“Well, not that, exactly. My dad liked all the old stories. Sasquatch. The Basket Woman. That’s this witch who roams the woods and puts children in her basket. Or the giant sturgeon who lives at the Bonneville dam and eats people. But just because he liked the old stories doesn’t mean he didn’t see something.”
Larry looked again at the drawing. Her dad had been a good artist, if one with a shaky hand. The figure in the woods had a sense of foreboding to it.
“Why didn’t you say anything about this before?”
“My mom says not to stir the pot. It was one thing to direct you to the guy who cut the memorial stone. She said this would have given that woman false ideas. We would be scaring her over nothing.”
Larry was inclined to agree with her mom. The drawing was probably the result of a fevered imagination. From what the old fisherman had said, her dad had been a drunk too.
“Are you the one who hung the shells?”
“No.”
He handed the notebook back. Aspire took it like it was precious and put it back in the glove box. The car smelled funny to Larry, like wet bones.
“I want to go see the cliffs,” Aspire said, opening her car door. “Come on.”
Larry followed her reluctantly, the wind buffeting them.
