"Go save the world, Dr. Thorne," I say roughly.
"Keep the wolves away, Nash," she whispers.
She turns and steps up on the ski. She doesn't look back; she's too smart for that. She knows that looking back makes you stumble. She climbs into the cabin and pulls the door shut. The latch clicks.
It's a mechanical sound, and it's final.
"Clear prop!" Hank yells.
The engine coughs, catches, and roars to life. The prop blurs into a silver disc. The wash hits me, blowing snow into my face, stinging my eyes.
I don't move.
Hank taxis out to the packed strip at the center of the harbor ice. He turns into the wind. The engine note rises to a scream, and the plane begins its run. It skims across the ice, pickingup speed, throwing a rooster tail of snow, until finally, physics takes over.
Lift.
The skis break free. The plane climbs, banking sharp to the south, climbing toward the pass.
I watch it until it's nothing but a speck against the granite, until the sound of the engine fades and the silence of the valley rushes back in to fill the hole she left.
"She'll be back," Finn says quietly. He hasn't left.
"Maybe," I say.
"No maybe about it," Finn says. "She left her boots, Nash. Nobody leaves their Sorels unless they plan on coming back to walk in the snow."
I look down at the dock. Sure enough, next to the pylon, sit her heavy winter boots. She had worn her city shoes onto the plane.
"Come on," Finn says, clapping me on the shoulder. "We have a generator to rebuild. And I think the septic tank is acting up again."
"You know how to romance a guy, Finn."
"I try. Come on. Work helps."
He turns and heads back to the lodge.
I stay for one more minute. I look at the boots, then at the empty sky. Then I pick them up. They're heavy, caked with mud and dried pine needles. They smell like wet leather and the forest floor.
"See you soon, Doc," I whisper.
I strap the boots behind me on the snowmobile rack. The ride to Misty Meadows takes forty minutes I don't remember. When I get to the house, I flip on the shed lights and head straight for the workbench.
The shed is exactly as I left it.
It smells of diesel, solvent, and cold metal. It's a place where things make sense. Engines run or they don't. Circuits are closed or open. If something is broken, you can diagnose it, strip it down, and replace the faulty part.
I set Aris's boots on the workbench, right next to my vice grip. They look out of place among the wrenches and the oily rags. They're evidence of a variable I didn't account for.
"Right," I say to the empty room. "Work."
I pull the spare carburetor for the backup generator off the shelf. It's been acting up, running rich, stalling under load. It needs a rebuild, a simple job. I've done it a hundred times.
I clamp the unit into the vice. I grab a screwdriver.
Step one: Remove the float bowl.
I turn the screw. It's tight. I apply pressure.
