The Eyes of the North

I could hear the ice breaking over the hulls of the Great Lakes freighters from 30 miles away. When they got stuck, Coast Guard cutters tried to get them out but even they were not designed for the punishment of this historic winter. One massive ship became completely entrapped and when the crew had eaten all the food on board, an 18-wheeler drove 30 miles out across the solid ice to restock them.

When I thought about mom, I would step outside where I could feel the water in my eyeballs start to freeze.

It was late April before the record-shattering freeze broke on one glorious Saturday. My brother went to the city for some long overdue supplies. He'd never left his five girls with me before but I'd been clean for two years on March 22nd. Plus, he hadn't had much time for himself since Sally died. When mom followed three months later and left me $20,000, I knew I’d be next if I kept on.

So I bought this house. An addition on an addition on a single-wide, it was the secluded location that called to me. It smelled like the cedar, birch, and pine I kept piled by the stocky old cast iron stove. I built a deck on the back last summer just in time to not be able to use it before the early freeze came.

On this fateful day, spring hit the Eastern Upper Peninsula with a bombshell of sunshine and all of nature was desperate to get outside after the long and tormenting winter. And so the new deck hosted for the first time. We played and laughed, eventually wandering down the couple stairs into the sunny backyard. The girls warmed up and wanted to take off their jackets. I was panicked even though I was fine in a long sleeve shirt. I would have buckled at the first sign of a shiver. But as I relaxed, they relaxed, even the deck seemed to relax, and I opened myself up to the role of unclehood.

Creative minds invented new games on the spot until I wasn’t sure if I was laughing or crying tears of joy between my excitement for them, my joy for the weather, the pride for my house, my steadily solidifying sobriety, or my brother’s growing trust.

The melting yard gave way to mud and I laughed at how little I cared about the tracks we began to spread in and out of the kitchen. That's what mops are for and these times are precious.

I bounced out of the house and onto the deck, nerf ball in hand, lost in my own bliss to the point that I barely noticed the girls were still. I stopped and smiled from the deck, and was suddenly chilled deep in my bones.

Deeper, even.

I scanned the girls’ empty faces.

There amongst them, so advanced in his trickery that I almost didn’t see him at first glance, sat an enormous grey wolf on his haunches. He held my youngest niece so gently in his mouth that the baby hardly protested. His eyes had been on me before I even came through the door. He studied me gently, calmly, unalarmed, and carefully.

The skin was stretched drum tight over his exposed ribs, and his belly caved so far in I couldn’t see it from his hulking shadow. Collected but desperate, his two infinite eyes looked deep into me and saw me frozen inside myself.

In a casual manner, he extended his hind legs into a standing position.

Air pushed deep into my lungs.

He bolted for the tree line and I lunged off the deck and through the yard, past the other girls with my hands outstretched, leaning forward into my sprint, almost catching the tail as we vanished into the woods.

I chased with ferocity and vengeance, until I eventually outran time, distance, and orientation. I wasn't just a step behind anymore. Flashes of galloping hindquarters and cries of the baby’s objection had steered me deep into the forest. I was following paw prints in the snow rather than the sight of his tail. There were tracks ahead, tracks to the left, to the right. Then I saw my footprints ahead. He had taken me in circles.

I had no idea where I was when I accepted that I wasn't able to catch him on my own. In a swift motion of self-hatred immediately overshadowed by urgency, I redirected for home to find help. The sun began to sink low in the sky.

I started calling for the girls before I reached the yard. Through the door, I snatched the phone off the wall and fumbled through my little black notebook for the sheriff’s number.

Damn lines were still down. I called for the girls again, ripping the cell phone off the charger in the kitchen even though I knew better. I roamed the house holding the phone high in the air and praying, while I went from room to room searching for the obviously terrified and hiding sisters.

But not a bar of service, and not a peep from the girls.

I began to call for them more gently. The poor things must be petrified and my desperate voice must sound angry to them.

I had to find them before I drove down the street for a cell signal.

Closets? Nope.

Under the bed? No.

This house isn't that big!

Kitchen cabinets? No again.

The Bronco is still out front and the keys are still on the counter.

Back down the hall with a mix of urgency, confusion, and controlled anger. I spoke in an increasingly childlike voice, assuring them it was okay.

Cell phone flashlight under the bed for the second time. Nothing.

I stepped slower back toward the hallway, this time the confusion produced razor blade goosebumps. A wave of nausea. Twitches of pain. My face flushed. My knees buckled and I sank to the hallway floor. There weren’t even muddy tracks inside. No shoes by the back door.

The wolf. The fucking wolf.

The trickster. The distractor.

He was a scout.

I stumbled into the backyard with my teeth chattering. I didn’t want to look.

Paw prints, everywhere.

I crawled around the backyard on all fours crying and begging.

Blood.

I could feel myself breaking, my whole brain splitting down the middle. I tried to resist the picture in my mind but it was impossible.

The scout.

The rest of the pack had been waiting the whole time. As soon as I bolted into the woods they all stepped forward and swarmed the other girls. They were starving from the historical winter. They didn't even seem evil when I saw it in my head, they seemed calculated, which for some reason felt darker than evil. It was nature, the strongest force of all, that robbed me of my nieces.

I followed the paw prints and blood droplets to the edge of the brush, still on all fours until my hand found an object that wasn't nature. I didn't have to look.

A hard rubber sole, canvas and laces. They were all dead.

And now I was too.

I stood, unraveling, and turned slowly back toward the house. I stepped gently and intentionally, dropping the shoe halfway. My thoughts were clear and focused on the gun in the closet. The Glock 37. 45 GAP ammunition had been hard to find and I had a few boxes but now I only needed one round.

I held the gun in my hand and felt thankful. Tears fell first for my nieces, then from self pity. I had tried and worked so hard, only to come to this.

Then they fell for the worst thought I would ever have.

I couldn’t avoid the realization that there was one more thing I could do, one last redemptive act before the inevitable. I sobbed as I heard my brother’s car pull into the long driveway.

I drug myself shaking and lurching to the front door. There was no time for second thoughts, not after losing his wife and now his five girls. He’ll never have to know. I can save him from that horror at least.

I stood behind the door, the leftward in-swing that led into the living room. My jaw and head began to shake uncontrollably and I feared for a moment I would drop the gun before I could get the shot off. His footsteps approached. I forced myself to accept the hard truth...this was the best thing I could do. I had to save him.

The door opened and I held my breath. I quivered violently as he stepped inside. It took both hands to lift the gun and step quietly forward. Point blank. I couldn't miss. Every muscle in my body tensed and I felt a moment of hesitation. Then I squeezed as hard as I could.

The loud bang erupted my stomach and I began to vomit forcefully. I guess he hit the ground. I fell to my knees but couldn't bring myself to look at him.

I don't know how long I stayed there before I realized I was still squeezing the trigger as hard as I could. I couldn't seem to make my grip let go.

My big brother. I could feel him laying next to me. I remembered the time I punched him in the back while we were brushing our teeth as kids and felt an overwhelming sense of shame and self-hatred. I knew I had one thing left to do on this earth but I prolonged it while I experienced this intense feeling of love and admiration and gratitude for my only sibling. He deserved this recognition and I wanted to give it to him. The last thing, the very last thing I could do, was to honor him. And it was a good thing. Noble.

I had begun to calm down just enough to loosen my trembling grip on the trigger when I was distracted from the dense cloud of emotion. It took me a moment to become aware of it, and another moment to realize it had entered my awareness through my ear. I turned to my left slowly, not comprehending at first what I was seeing through stressed vision. I strained to focus.

An apparition?

She looked at me, tattered and bloodied. She seemed to not understand what she was seeing as much as I didn't understand what I was seeing.

Sally’s eyes and my brother’s mouth. She was real. One had escaped, alone.

Outside on the ridge glowed the faintest speck of light on the western horizon — the last evidence of the day. All the excitement and comfort of the sunny thaw had been driven off by the inevitable darkness.

A shot rang out from inside the house. It cast a momentary glow through the windows and onto the yard. The flash lit the face of an owl in the closest cedar, but the creature did not flinch. Even if the sound was heard, there was no echo. The flash, though instantaneous, left a horrid taste on the yard, as if the light had spat evil onto the grass and the dropping temperature had caught it in the frost. It would have made a younger forest shudder. The leaves waved in the breeze and the trees creaked with growth.

The owl was unaffected by the last moment of light, but now there was not even a faint glow on the western horizon.

It was unaffected by the far away echo of howling wolves.

It was unaffected by the second gunshot.