Page 59 of The Woodsmoke Women's Book of Spells
Carrie
No one else had met him. No one had heard of this trapper. And Sylba, to the end of her days, searched for the man who arrived with the frost and stole her heart.
—Tabitha Morgan, July 19, 1929
Itake a photo of the map, make a few feverish notes. I try again, fruitlessly, to call someone, anyone. In a frenzy, I search for a landline, for a handset that will connect. But there’s no phone to be found. I cast a look at the trees waiting outside, at the mountains holding their breath.
I know what I have to do.
I’ve known it would come to this ever since I pulled up to Ivy’s cottage in the autumn. The mountains, the looming, ever-present mountains, have wanted me to return to them, to walk the old ways under silent trees. I’ve resisted, not wanting to stray too far, especially not alone. But now they have the perfect lure—Matthieu stuck on the end of their hook. I wonder if this is the price of leaving this place all those years ago. If this is somehow my penance for not turning back and coming home. By rejecting Woodsmoke, I was also rejecting my legacy as the next Morgan woman to inherit the book and all its strange, wild magic. I wonder if Iamcursed, as Cora believes. If so, I have no idea how to break it.
Shouldering my rucksack, I cast one last glance around thecabin. I move to the kitchen, scribble a few words on the back of an envelope, and place it by the sink. Then I leave the way I came in, closing the door softly behind me. When I face the trees, the paths snaking away beneath their branches, I choose the one that calls to me. The one I believe Matthieu has taken if his final note on the map can be believed.
I keep my phone in my hand, monitoring the screen, hoping for just one solitary bar of signal. I could go back to Woodsmoke, but what would I say? I don’t know if he’s definitely lost out here. Would I be convincing enough to rally the town into a search? Perhaps they wouldn’t even consider him a missing person. With a jolt, I realize that they might not believe he exists at all. We’ve all heard the stories, so doesn’t this fit the pattern? I push the first branch from my face, the scent of evergreen and spring hitting the back of my throat. I doubt that anyone will listen to me or be inclined to help search for a man who may or may not be entirely real.
The sun climbs quickly, as though racing me to nightfall. I begin at a measured pace, stopping only so often to eat and drink some water. I know a lot of these trails, having explored great swaths of them, and as I walk the map opens up in my head. I call out his name every so often, checking for any sign that he’s brushed through, or that he might have slipped and fallen from the path. Later, as the sun wanes, drifting lower, I try to pick up my pace. But pausing to look for signs slows me down, and I’m horribly aware that time is against me. Still, finding the occasional mark—a pushed-back branch, a fresh boot print that hasn’t been washed away by the rain or the winter—spurs me on, making me hopeful that I’ve chosen the right way.
By late afternoon, my thighs are aching and I keep having to pull down the straps of my rucksack to give my shoulders somerelief. I’ve drunk nearly all the water and have only a few snacks left. And yet the occasional boot print or other sign—such as a discarded chocolate wrapper, recently crumpled and accidentally dropped—tells me that I’m still going the right way.
“You have to be close,” I say, eyeing the dense trees, the slice of path cutting a jagged line through them. “Youhaveto be.”
As the shadows lengthen, creating monsters at the edge of my vision, I pause to pull my head torch from the rucksack. I could sit down right here on the bed of pine needles beneath a tree, tip my head back against its trunk, close my eyes, and allow my bones to rest. After walking all day, I want that—need that. Every part of me is laced with tremors, cold and then hot with a pulsing ache. I’m reaching the furthest stretches of the map in my head. Beyond this point, I don’t know the terrain, and that terrifies me.
But I can’t stop. I’ve come too far. It’s just me here now. Me and the endless mountains. With every shaking step, this feels more and more like a test.
Memories surface as though from an inky lake as I stumble on, more slowly now, much more slowly. Memories of Tom and Jess when we were younger and would explore these mountains with wonder. Of myself in that wedding dress—too pale, too skinny, with my collarbone jutting out—as my mother told me I didn’t have to go through with it. Of how I ripped all those bobby pins out of my hair, discarding them at Cora’s, and how she helped me remove the veil. How my heart was broken, and had been since I knew I wanted to leave and Tom didn’t really want to go with me. How it was like tearing a veil away from my own eyes, my own sight, that day. And how I’ve felt the press and pull of Woodsmoke ever since, however far I’ve run, telling me to come home.
And then I remember that night in the car sitting next to Tom,his features all distorted and wrong, telling me to leave. And Jess coming to the cottage, angry, upset, both of us knowing it was never meant to be that way between us.
Then comes a memory of Howard, like a pillar, like an ancient, weathered tree, telling me I should stay and should never have left for so long. All of them, Tom, Jess, Howard, believing I didn’t handle any of it right—not my departure, and not my return.
I struggle on as night grows thick and deep, too dark for my eyes to see beyond the feeble pool of light the head torch kicks out. I wonder if I’m losing my mind a bit. If the mountains have somehow beguiled me, worked their way into my thoughts until I’ve lost all sense of reason. For a moment, I’m sure I hear a human cry of pain and I freeze, blood pounding in my ears, before I continue on, shaking.
This search is no longer just about finding Matthieu. It’s about me, and about Woodsmoke. With every step I’m pitted against all of them, all the voices telling me I should leave. Or that I should have stayed. Some telling me that I don’t belong here in the place where I was born, in the mountains and loam and trees I grew from. Others tell me that, with the Morgan blood running in my veins, I’m so entwined with this place that I have a duty to stay. To carry the book after Cora, to stay and keep the old ways alive. With every step I hear each voice, each opinion, and search for clarity.
The loudest and most treacherous of all these voices, the one dragging me back, pushing me into that cage of a person I escaped—the person wearing the wedding dress with the froth of tulle and lace—is my own. With every footstep I am battling against myself. Against the fears that have plagued me, hounded me, and followed me. I am fighting to find my roots, to plunge them back into the earth in this place and tell the mountains:I’m notdone.
I’m not going anywhere. This is my home too, and these past few months have been my homecoming. It’s taken me a winter to realize that this is where I belong. I’m not afraid of Woodsmoke anymore. I can face the town and stake my claim. I can face the mountains, even as they try to loosen the grip I have on my own sanity. I can face what becomes of the people in the old tales and come out on the other side, stronger.
The fire grows inside me, scorching my veins, reminding me that my heart still beats, that even as this place took everything,everything, ten years ago and left me with this cold, quiet nothing that I’ve been dragging around for years, this lack of home, this lack of belonging, I won’t give in.
“You want my bones as well? Is that it? You want another missing hiker in this place?” I rasp, laughing. Then I pause again. Another human wail is piercing the dark night around me. Fear sparks in my veins, but I bunch my hands into fists. I lift my chin and force my feet to continue, one in front of the other. “Not enough for you to have Cora, not enough to have her fanatical soul, and all the souls of the Morgan women before her. You have to havemeas well.” I sniff, stopping to brace my hands on my thighs. My lungs are aflame, my entire body shaking, and yet still it’s not enough. Not enough for my hometown, for these ancient, blood-soaked mountains. I realize now that there was no welcome here back in the autumn.
Only a final test.
Only a curse.
“Where is he?” I breathe. “You can’t keep him. He’s not yours to keep, just as I never was. It was my choice to leave, and my choice to return.” Then louder, firmer, I scrape together my strength and bellow, “Matthieu! Where are you?”
My voice is a roar, a battle cry, defying the might of the mountains as it echoes through the night. I stretch up, standing tall,and peer into the darkness. “Where are you?” I yell again, voice cracking. “Where are you?”
I have been stripped bare, every piece of me, the armor, the years, all of it shed like a second skin. All I am is a pile of ragged thoughts wandering the vastness of the mountains. To find the man I love, to find myself. To gather up what is left of us and show the mountains they can’t have the remaining pieces. I’ve paid the price, over and over. I’ve wandered the world with that hollow in the center of my chest. I’ve searched everywhere for a place to feel rooted, to belong. Woodsmoke is that place. And these mountains will not break me.
Theywillyield.
An owl hoots, low and long, and I hear prey scurrying in the thicket. I lay aside my tumble of muddied thoughts and attune myself to the outer world. Pinpricks of stars pierce the roof of the world, gleaming and shimmering. Slowly, as though a cloud has shifted, more stars appear, strewn like silver paint flecks over the dark sky. Even in my exhaustion, I smile up at them, picturing that night with Matthieu.
“Are you watching them too?” I ask Matthieu. “Are you somewhere seeing what I see?”
