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Back What Beauty There Is
Chapters (72)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. I
  5. II
  6. III
  7. IV
  8. V
  9. VI
  10. VII
  11. VIII
  12. IX
  13. X
  14. XI
  15. XII
  16. XIII
  17. XIV
  18. XV
  19. XVI
  20. XVII
  21. XVIII
  22. XIX
  23. XX
  24. XXI
  25. XXII
  26. XXIII
  27. XXIV
  28. XXV
  29. XXVI
  30. XXVII
  31. XXVIII
  32. XXIX
  33. XXX
  34. XXXI
  35. XXXII
  36. XXXIII
  37. XXXII
  38. XXXI
  39. XXX
  40. XXIX
  41. XXVIII
  42. XXVII
  43. XXVI
  44. XXV
  45. XXIV
  46. XXIII
  47. XXII
  48. XXI
  49. XX
  50. XIX
  51. XVIII
  52. XVII
  53. XVI
  54. XV
  55. XIV
  56. XIII
  57. XII
  58. XI
  59. X
  60. IX
  61. VIII
  62. VII
  63. VI
  64. V
  65. IV
  66. III
  67. II
  68. I
  69. ∞
  70. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  71. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  72. Newsletter Sign-up

You need to move.

The trees regard me, solemn. I stagger to my feet and look up at a peaked snowcap. I can see him up there. Two hands. A rifle. His face.

What you put in that circle is yours.

I turn and careen into the pines, into cover.

Run.

Run.

I crash through a stand of deadfall limbs, the branches snared among the snow, and am free, running beneath the trees. Away from the cabin, find the road, figure out what is wrong with your head. These are the things to do. Smell of pine. Coldness. An instant or an hour. Heat, so hot. At my right, a dark creature crouches in the trees and rushes away. Cougar, or wolf. I veer away running. I can’t hear him, nothing.

Quiet, these deep woods all the night. Tangle and web. You can get turned around. I burst over the crest of a ridge and find myself on the edge of an open field. Moon-splashed ground. The hard snow. I can’t feel my legs. My hat is gone. By the time I’m halfway across the field, he is behind me at the tree line. Something zings near my ear and I look in time to see the moonlight reflect off the glass of his scope.

I watch him lower the rifle.

The long craack of the shot rolls toward me and caroms across the frozen blue field and into the trees. Mountains in the distance, rising up. How far have you come?

I turn and inhale.

And then I am weightless, flying over the snow. Nothing under my feet but air. Time. The reality of the world. It all breaks to pieces.

I don’t remember the rest.

VII

To you girls I want to say

Some men will shut you up.

They will hide a girl from the world.

But you.

Smart you.

Brave, beautiful you.

You do not belong in a box.

Break the door.

Go, you.

Walk in the sun.

VI

Jack heaved against the spade, and the burden on top of the hatch tipped and balanced for a second in midair and then crashed over on the floor. He lifted Matty through the hatch and laid him by the fallen wardrobe chest. He stood and swung the hatch over and let it slam down. The window, vague moonlight. The fire in the hearth, now out. Ava nowhere.

He’s taken her.

He’s taken her.

He picked up Matty in one arm and clutched the hammer with his free hand. Tore open the front door. He saw a police-issued coat, row of gilt buttons, a handgun, fur trapper hat. A badge shaped like a star.

“Where is she?” Jack shouted. “Where is she? Where is she?”