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“Granny? Are you okay?”
“It’s not me,” came her grandmother’s shaky voice. “It’s Rosalind.”
* * *
For the next few days, when Brenda’s students asked her why she was sad, she had to explain that she was worried about a friend. Several drew her pictures to cheer her up. One boy showed off his newest Razor scooter trick. Another one brought her a dreamcatcher that one of his aunties had made.
She was one lucky teacher. The kids could always make her smile—in between driving her nuts with their resistance to math, of course.
But Rosalind wasn’t so lucky. Hospitalized for pneumonia, a few days later she was gone. CeCe was inconsolable at first. When Bryce wasn’t available to comfort her, the job fell to Brenda.
“Granny, she was over ninety.” Brenda patted her back as she sniffled on the living room couch.
“But I wasn’t ready. It was that stupid fire. Rosalind was fine until we all had to move out.”
Did snoozing her way through Judge Judy marathons constitute “fine”? Brenda decided not to bring that up.
“At least you got to spend time with her at the end.” Every day after school, Brenda had taken CeCe to the hospital in Braddock. She’d had no time for anything else, other than walking poor Olaf. Her Maltese was currently curled up in Granny’s lap, doing that comforting-simply-by-existing thing he did so well.
“Yes, it’s a good thing, because we got her last wishes squared away. They had a lawyer there who put it all on paper. Signed, sealed, delivered. But you’re not going to like it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re going to find out soon enough. You’re in Rosalind’s will. You’re the only one we could call on. None of her family lives here anymore. They were terrible anyway. That’s why she chose you.”
Brenda got the feeling there was a story there, but she was more concerned about this news about her will. “Chose me for what?”
Granny picked up Olaf and plopped him on Brenda’s lap. Brenda welcomed the warm weight of her dog, who hadn’t even woken up during his transfer. CeCe got off the couch to grab her carpetbag. After rummaging inside for a while, she came up with a manila folder. “It’s all in here. Everything you need to know.”
Brenda took it and scanned it quickly. At first it all made sense. Rosalind had chosen cremation, and prepaid for everything. Then she reached the part where her name came up. She glanced up at her grandmother, mystified. “What the hell is LadyBird Ridge?”
seven
Galen didn’t see or hear from Brenda after that phone conversation. He called her once but didn’t leave a message because he never left messages. Phones made him uncomfortable in general, and voice mails gave him hives. Her cell phone would tell her that he’d called, and if she wanted to call him back, she would. She didn’t.
Duncan Scott did call, however.
Galen led him on the fifteen-mile hike out to the Mackinak cabin. The two of them chopped some wood—well, Galen chopped, Duncan stacked—and Galen made sure he knew how to set a fire in the old barrel stove. But since he was dressed in at least two thousand dollars worth of Gore-Tex, he probably wouldn’t freeze.
At first, Duncan made no mention of Brenda, or what she was up to, and why she’d more or less disappeared for the last week. Galen didn’t ask. He didn’t like thinking of the two of them on a coffee date. If he did, he might be tempted to lead him to a bear den instead of a hunter’s cabin.
Even though Duncan claimed to not want any food, Galen made sure to subtly let him know that the cupboard was well-stocked with cans of beans and so forth. He didn’t want the guy getting hungry and deciding to try out random mushrooms growing in the deep moss. He also showed him how to use the bear spray canister, but emphasized it was only for emergencies.
“This is bear territory, so we have to work around them, not the other way around.”
“If a bear appears, I’ll consider it a spirit guide on my quest. I almost hope one does.”
Galen almost did, too. Except that bear encounters sometimes provoked bear panics in the local populace, and made him fear for the bears.
“Make sure to check in with me when you come back down the mountain,” Galen told him. “If more than five days go by, I’ll come and check on you.”
“Is that necessary?”
“Standard protocol.”
“Well, Brenda says you’re an excellent guide, so I’ll take your word on that.”
Finally, a mention of Brenda. “When did she say that?”
