Chapter Text
“…and I’m telling you, she looked exactly like you!”
“Exactly like me?” I stress incredulously, hands firmly affixed to the wheel of the decades-old motorhome.
“Like a doppelgänger!” Marina explains, voice breathless and eyes wide with amazement. “Or even… a doppelämber!”
I snicker at the pun, giving her a quick glance out the corner of my eye. If I’m honest, I’m not really focusing too hard on this story of hers—like many before, it’s sure to be both unimpressive and utterly pointless—but the animated smile on her face is always worth seeing. “Scary thought.”
She places a single finger to her chin, then adds, “Well, except that she had green hair.”
“That’s a pretty big exception.”
“But it was cut in exactly the same way!” she insists, gently brushing my bangs aside and making me flush. Unlike Marina, who has dabbled in almost every hair style imaginable, I’ve been content to keep my haircut roughly the same through most of my adult life. After all, it works for me—why should I change it?
“So, that was the only difference?” I press, scrambling to regain my composure.
“Well… I’m pretty sure she also wore glasses,” Marina concedes, racking her brain to recount more details about this mystery character. “And she carried around a gigantic sniper rifle. And she was, like, twenty years younger than you.”
“So she looked absolutely nothing like me, then!”
“Eh, you had to be there,” she insists, waving off my retort with a flick of her wrist. “Watch it with me next time, you’ll see it.”
“You know I’m not really into anime,” I answer, keeping one eye on the thick forest ahead.
She pouts in a way befitting a woman half her age, somehow managing to look cute nonetheless. “You were into the gay ones.”
“That’s because those were the gay ones,” I point out. “Are you saying this was one of the gay ones?”
Marina shifts her feet nervously. “Well, no,” she mumbles. “But there was a lot of chemistry between two of the girls during this one arc!”
“Uh huh,” I mutter, unimpressed. “And how did that turn out?”
“Well, uh… one of them was already dating the main character,” she admits.
“Really selling me on this one, Mare.”
“…And the other one died at the end of the arc.”
I blink twice in disbelief. “So, let me get this straight. A straight girl who is already in a committed relationship and a girl who’s sexuality was, at best, ‘to be determined,’ had some on-screen chemistry for a single arc.”
“That's about right, yeah."
“And then one of them straight-up dies.”
Marina deflates comically, her eyes turning aside as they always do whenever I poke a hole in one of her silly assertions. “Well, it was still pretty cute!” she insists.
“But it wasn’t gay,” I argue. “You might as well point at an empty bench and tell me that’s gay, somehow.”
“It could be!” she exclaims. “You just don’t get it, Amber. You’re not operating on the same level of yuri that I am.”
“Huh, you’re right. I suppose I’m not.” I turn to her with a mischievous smirk. “Maybe you should show me what you mean.”
She chuckles and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “Later,” she stresses begrudgingly. “We’re not gonna to do that while driving again.”
“It would’ve been fine if I hadn’t needed to pull the emergency brake!”
“Yeah, sure,” she drawls, “that definitely would’ve been enough to convince the Tennessee Highway Patrol.”
“Their case was bullshit,” I groan, grabbing my water bottle from the cup holder between us and holding it out towards Marina. “They didn’t have jurisdiction there and they knew it!”
The woman beside me rolls her eyes as she unscrews the cap, allowing me to take a quick sip while leaving one hand on the wheel. She politely takes it back and screws the lid on afterwards.
After far too long spent throwing out disposable water bottles, I managed to convince Amber to purchase some decent reusable ones for us instead. She spent over a week studying different manufacturers, materials, insulation methods—every single variable she could possibly think of. Eventually, she purchased us two matching metal bottles simply because they were “on sale for dirt cheap.” Then again, they’ve lasted nearly two decades at this point, so I guess she must’ve been onto something.
Our conversation kind of peters out as she replaces the bottle, but it’s not an uncomfortable silence—it’s the kind of pleasant quiet that can only come from spending so much of our adult lives together. It reflects our implicit trust in one another, that as I return my focus to the road ahead and as she grabs a dogeared paperback from the seat-back pocket, things are generally okay between us; that even when it seems like we’re off in our own little worlds, we’re still here together.
My train of thought is cut short as a bump in the road rattles the motorhome, causing a metallic clang to echo throughout the rear of the cabin. Thankfully, it’s not caused by anything bad—though in a vehicle this old, every jolt is a cause for concern. No, in this case, it’s just a few dangling license plates, clashing against one another in a surprisingly pleasant cacophony.
The wind chime is a wedding gift from Tess, featuring plates from all the states Amber and I visited during our treasure hunt back in 2016. She’s still as quiet as ever, and I’m pretty sure she still has some issues with depression, but it sounds like she’s found more things in life to find joy and fulfillment in. She’s a good kid. Her sister, on the other hand…
Marina suddenly pipes back up. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I heard from Tess earlier today.”
“Oh?”
“She got the plate we sent her from Saskatchewan,” she intones happily.
I smile as my thoughts turn to the youngest of our erstwhile treasure hunting rivals. Tess and I may not get along great, but that’s a far sight better than I manage with her sister. “Is she still making those things?”
“No, but she thinks its cute that we keep sending them to her. She has quite the collection, now.”
“If she didn’t want them, then she could’ve just told us,” I moan.
“I think who it’s coming from matters more than what it is,” Marina reminds me gently.
“Even still, I’d rather not bother her with gifts she doesn’t want,” I argue. “Ask her what she needs next time! We’ll get her something practical, like a power drill, or an adjustable crescent wrench.”
“Not every problem can be solved with more tools, Amber.”
“Tell that to all the problems my tools have successfully solved!” I boast.
The woman beside me just rolls her eyes, focus returning to the paperback open in her lap.
And yet, our conversation still nags at a deep-seated worry in my brain, reminding of all of the times in our relationship that weren’t fine—of all the problems my tools haven’t been able to fix.
I mean, I’ve had to live with myself for all my life; I’m fully aware that I’m not the easiest person in the world to get along with. And while part of me knows that it’s impossible to be in a relationship with someone for nearly two decades without hitting some road bumps along the way, it’s hard not to feel like they’ve all been my fault.
Most of them have been small things, like accidentally leaving her cast iron cookware in the sink, or putting off laundry day for just a shade too long, or forgetting the names of all eight of her siblings during our wedding reception. You know: small stuff, things that we’ve put aside because they never quite feel worth it in the moment.
But no matter how many apologies are exchanged, or how many loving assurances she shares, it never seems to take the weight off my mind—a weight that only grows with each passing year.
A sudden click snaps me back to the present as one of our many mixtapes comes to an end. Without even saying a word, Marina reaches over and ejects it, places it back into its case, and tosses it into the colored bucket resting by her feet. She pulls out another cassette and, after double checking which is the A side, pushes it into the player.
A slow, murmuring soundscape grows in the cabin as I recognize her selection.
The cassette, rather than a bespoke mixtape, is one of the few full album recordings in the motorhome’s collection. It must be popular, because I still see lots of kids today wearing t-shirts of the cover artwork. As for the music… it’s not really my thing, to be honest. But it makes Amber happy when it seems like she’s gotten a bit too far into her own head, and that’s good enough for me!
A smile comes to my face as I regard Marina, quietly returning to her book while the tape continues to play. Her face looks so peacefully content, not-quite smiling as she reads some book about whatever strange ephemera has caught her attention this week, silently mouthing the words to songs that she assures me aren’t to her taste.
And the static that has begun to form in my mind starts to slowly fade away, drowned out by the ancient speakers as they drawl one of my grandfather’s favorite songs from nearly sixty years ago: a collection of sparse, metronomic rototom hits, building slowly to languid crescendo, the rest of the band content to plod gently in the background, gentle keyboard strokes and light guitar chords grounding the music in time, steady and immovable in their clockwork precision, until finally, more than two full minutes past the beginning of the song, the other musicians finally all enter at once, the lead singer singing with such conviction and force that would seem to mark his words out of time:
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
The music is familiar, warming and comforting, like a security blanket. It’s exactly as great as it has been every time I’ve listened to it.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Marina even learned how to play this song at one point, back when she was more serious about expanding her repertoire. Nowadays she mostly sticks to a handful of cringe-worthy indie rock songs that she believes are “more popular than some random grandpa rock album from last century.”
Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long, but there is time to kill today
I find my fingers tapping gently on the steering wheel, gaze drifting through the lightly wooded landscape around us.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
Without much thought, I find myself humming along to the familiar notes of a melodic guitar solo, repeated so many times over the course of my life as to have been recorded forever in my gray matter.
ba da da dum… de da, da da dum…
da dum daa da dum… de da da dum…
ba dee daa dum…
I stop only when I catch sight of Marina out of the corner of my eye, giggling gently to herself.
“…What?” I grumble softly, training my gaze on the road ahead in a vain attempt to hide my reddening cheeks.
“Nothing,” she replies, simply. “You’re just cute is all.”
Needless to say, my plan is a spectacular failure.
Thankfully, before she can press my embarrassment any further, a signpost rolls slowly into view:
Whiteshell Provincial Park
Falcon Lake Campground
15km
“Thank god,” I mutter under my breath.
“Worried you missed a turn?” Marina asks, raising an eyebrow out of either playfulness or concern.
“Hey, I said I’d get us there, and I got us there!” I grumble. I leave out just how close I was to breaking out the road atlas to check our position. Again.
Though traffic has been sparse—we haven’t passed another vehicle on this road in what feels like hours—I diligently carefully check down the side road before making a wide left-hand turn with the RV, still managing to barely cut the grass over the corner.
“All I'm doing is following the map, after all,” I assure her. “It’s a far sight easier than decoding vague hints from some dead guy’s journal the whole way.”
That may have been the wrong thing to say, as Marina’s eyes, for the first time all night, finally turn downcast.
“…Mare?” I ask, tepidly.
She sighs heavily to herself. “You know we can’t just live off of the gold money forever,” she reminds me.
“I know, I know,” I say. “But it’ll last us a little longer, and we'll be set when it's time to retire..”
“But what happens when that money runs out?”
“Marina, we’ve had this conversation before,” I reply, terse. “We’ve already put most of it in savings for retirement and made sure to secure ourselves a nice home for the present.”
“Okay, and what about the years between then and now?”
“Well it’s not like we’re ever going to be too old to travel in the RV.” I laugh nervously, mostly for my own benefit—like I'm trying to play off a joke.
But all Marina does is grunt curtly, stretching her arms. “I guess that’s true, but I sure don’t feel any younger.”
“C’mon, Mare, stop acting like some old fart,” I scold her, playfully. “You’re only 35, after all.”
“Yeah? Well tell that to my back.” She leans forward with a groan, gently twisting her back. “I swear, that bed isn’t getting any easier to sleep on.”
“We could change out the mattress again,” I offer.
She gives me a sad smile. “You know that’s not really the issue, Amber.”
Our conversation is interrupted by a shaky bump in the road, nearly jostling me out of my seat. Both Marina and I instinctively reach out to one another, holding each other steady in the aftermath.
Our arms remain there for just a little longer than is necessary. We only detangle ourselves when Marina catches sight of a loose candy bar on the floor, knocked out of the door-side pocket. I chuckle to myself as she leans down to pick up the snack hidden within an orange-and-blue wrapper.
I will never not love the Reese’s Fast Break. It is, in my estimation, the perfect candy bar. Whereas most candy bars find success in executing a single flavor well, the Reese’s Fast Break is instead a dreamlike melange of milk chocolate, peanut butter, and nougat. No single flavor stands out above the rest, and yet, together, they achieve so much more than a single flavor alone! I offered one to Sorawo and she said that just looking at it gave her cavities. I wonder what kind of sweets they have back in Tokyo?
Finally, after safely and securely storing her sweets, Marina speaks up again. “Mind if I take the aux cable?” she asks.
“Not at all,” I reply, even though the ‘aux cable’ is in this case a cassette-to-headphone adapter daisy-chained to a headphone-to-USB adapter daisy-chained to a USB-to-Lightning adapter connected to her recent gen iPhone in a manner that, somehow, someway, works exactly as expected. “We should be there in just a few more minutes.”
“Mmhmm,” she mumbles, already scrolling through her extensive music library for some strange, bubble-gummy artist I’ve assuredly never heard of before.
The sun burns a darker shade of red as it dips under the Canadian Shield.
I drive onward.
The sun has disappeared below the horizon before Marina speaks up again.
“…We’re not lost, are we?” she asks, looking worriedly at the night deepening around us. Her chosen playlist ("sunno))) at 500% speed") has long since finished, and she’s moved to some of the seats in the back where she can pick at her guitar. Gentle notes and melodies have been our ambiance for a while now—some familiar songs, some original.
“We shouldn’t be,” I grumble with genuine frustration, staring at the forest in my high beams as if understanding were hidden somewhere within the thick tangle of trees.
“But… are we lost?” she asks again.
“I followed the directions perfectly,” I rationalize. “We took the left at the sign for the campsite, and that said it was only fifteen kilometers away.”
“That was almost two hours ago,” Marina adds. “Are you sure we didn’t miss it?”
“You’d think it’d be hard to miss,” I point out.
“But… did we miss it?” she asks again.
I sigh dejectedly. “I… I don’t know.”
She places her guitar down and carefully walks up to the seat behind me, kissing me gently on the cheek. She knows she shouldn’t be walking around in the cabin, even at this low of a speed, but I don’t have the heart to tell her off. “Amber, we’ve talked about this, haven’t we?”
My voice turns to a resigned monotone. “Yes, Marina.”
“What should you do when you’re feeling frustrated?”
“…Stop and take a break,” I intone by rote.
“See? You know the answer.”
“But it makes no sense!” I insist. “The map says…”
“When did you last look at the map?” she asks pointedly.
That gets me to shut up.
“Listen. We haven’t seen anyone on the road all evening. I doubt we’ll be blocking traffic too much if we find a decent shoulder and pull over to get our bearings, okay?”
“But what if the Mounties get us?” I whine.
“They can’t be any worse than the Tennessee Highway Patrol,” she insists. “Let’s just figure out where we are for now, and then we’ll figure out where we have to go after that. All right, Amber?”
I sigh again, forcing myself to regain some semblance of composure. “All right, all right.”
She gives me another peck on the cheek. “Love you, dork.”
“Love you too, dork.”
She goes to sit back down, and I manage to find a large enough shoulder to safely pull the RV over. Its gigantic frame rumbles to a slow stop and, with a final rumble, I cut the engine. I then turn on the light above the driver’s seat—just when did it get so dark out?—and grab the big, red road atlas out of the seat back pocket, splaying it open in before me.
I hear a rustling sound, and turn to see Marina standing up in the kitchen, having tied her lime-green jacket around her waist and sporting only a printed black tank top. The graphic is of a familiar, wave-like line art design, distorted slightly toward the middle by the slope of her breasts. Her long, blonde hair is speckled with a few strands of platinum grey, tied high in a sloppy bun and held together with a single blue scrunchie. Her pale arms, gently toned and freckled from her years spent outdoors, open one of the cabinets in the kitchenette and pull out a glass pot. While she would normally wear something loose and frilly for days of long travel, she’s traded her skirts for a pair of form-fitting hiking pants, revealing the impressive contours of her legs and back.
I’ve told her as much to her face, but even still, I can’t help being rendered speechless at how beautifully she’s matured.
“See something you like?” she asks, smirking knowingly as she fills the pot with some fresh water.
“Oh, absolutely,” I tease, “though I wasn’t aware you were also into such unknown pleasures.”
I think Amber forgot somewhere along the way that this used to be her shirt before I appropriated it. Then again, judging by her expression, she wasn’t able to think about much at all the first time she saw me wear it.
She responds with a soft chuckle—the kind that tells me my attempt a joke went right over her head—and places the pot in the automatic coffee maker. “Hazelnut?” she asks, pulling out the basket.
“Sure, though I didn’t think you’d be having coffee this late at night.”
“Figured you’d want some if we have to drive much further,” she explains, taking out a filter and filling it with some sweet-smelling grounds. “Don’t want you driving sleepy.”
“Thank you, Mare,” I reply, turning back to the road atlas before me.
A click, followed by a gentle electric hum, and the coffee machine begins its work. A moment later, Marina’s face appears over my shoulder, resting softly in the crook my neck.
I gently bonk my head into hers. “Need me to grab your book?”
“Naw, just wanted to shoulder gremlin for a bit,” she explains, burrowing herself ever-so-slightly further in.
“Color me surprised. Usually, I can’t pull you away from your reading.”
She shrugs, a gesture that I feel more than see given her position. “Couldn’t really focus on reading tonight.” She declines to explain any further, instead nuzzling my neck and giving my lobe a gentle nibble.
“I thought you said ‘later,’” I remind her, attempting to dissuade her with only the mildest regret.
“But what if ‘later’ is ‘now?’” she whines playfully.
I gently pull my head forward before shifting in my seat to face her directly. “Because if ‘later’ is ‘now,’ then I am never getting this thing back on the road.”
She pouts in that characteristically cute way of hers before she’s interrupted by the sound of coffee dripping into the bottom of an empty pot. With clear resignation, she pulls herself back into the kitchenette.
With her gone, my gaze slides back to the front—only to be caught with my own reflection on the pitch-black window.
Though it would appear backwards to anyone else, I’m instantly familiar with the features of my portrait: the way my brown hair drapes gently down to my shoulders, longer in front than in the back; the way my light-brown eyes are half-hidden by droopy lids, bordered by thick eyebrows and blackened bags; the lines and creases that have steadily formed across across my face, in a manner that can most generously be described as “dignified.” I even notice the slight rattiness of my sweater jacket, the way my undershirt sags over my frame, or the places where my bra strap refuses to stay put and slides into view.
Most notably, among all else, is my expression: mouth held tight in a single line, turning down slightly at each corner. Marina calls it my “resting bitch face.” I just think I look… unhappy.
On a whim, I try to force a smile.
The sheer grotesqueness of the image that stares back forces me to stop almost immediately.
Before I can unpack that thought any further, Marina appears again, steaming mug of coffee in tow. “Here you are,” she says, an ironic bravado seeping into her voice. “The finest grocery store coffee Canada has to offer.”
“Thanks,” I answer, taking the mug from her grasp and letting it sit in the cup holder to cool for a moment. “I would’ve even taken a Tim Horton’s at this point.”
“I don’t understand what you have against them,” she argues back. “Their coffee is perfectly fine.”
“That’s just it!” I exclaim. “It’s fine! Merely fine. The way people talk about it, you’d think it was going to give you an orgasm or something!’” And before she can say anything to elucidate the look forming on her face, I add: “Later.”
She just giggles to herself in that way that somehow only gets cuter with time, giving me another peck on the cheek before returning to the main cabin. A second later, I hear the sound of her picking up her guitar, opening the door, and leaving the RV.
The guitar isn’t anything special—not a brand name or anything like that. Just a simple acoustic model I picked up on a whim and just kind of… kept at, I guess. I find that singing and playing music is a great way to help lift my spirits, and it doesn’t take up much space in the RV. Now that I think about it, that consideration alone has really decided a lot of the hobbies I’ve gotten into, hasn’t it?
A couple of seconds later, I hear a gentle ruckus as she climbs the ladder up the side of the vehicle, and a few steps more as she comes to rest somewhere on the roof. I crack the driver’s side window, allowing the cool autumn breeze inside, and moments later, her voice follows, singing a song I’m well familiar with.
ronrii gaaru wa itsumademo
todokanai yume mite
I have no idea what the words are, and I’m not sure she does either—I’m pretty sure she learned the lyrics by rote. But something about the song spoke to her, and she’s been playing it on and off for decades, now.
sawagu atama no naka o
kakimawashite, kakimawashite
I think she told me something about the composer, once: someone who died too young, with so much creativity and vitality left to give to the world. It’s something that bothers me, when I get too far into my head—the idea that my life might be cut short, amounting to nothing in the end.
And yet, my head reminds me, it could be worse. Something that artist created left such an impression that their works are still being performed, even until this day.
In the face of that, what have I done that’s worth remembering?
My gaze naturally turns towards the main cabin where, beneath the small sink, inside a cabinet, hidden behind the securely-stored bottles of dish soap and bleach cleansers, is a small, hinged, wooden box.
Of course, I know what the answer is. It’s the one thing I’ve really managed to accomplish so far.
The box, obviously, holds nothing in it anymore. Amber and I converted the majority of the gold into cash, which is now stored safely in an FDIC-insured joint savings account. To our knowledge, only three chunks of it are still extant: one that we keep at home as a keepsake, one we saved and gave to Tess as a high school graduation gift, and one that we melted down and incorporated into our wedding rings. I guess, while we couldn’t find another use for such a strange antique, we couldn’t bring ourselves to throw it away, either.
Of course, I’m not so bull-headed that I’d ever believe the treasure was more important than meeting Marina—but I also know those days spent driving across the highways of the southwestern US was what gave our relationship a chance to blossom in the first place. If not for that fanciful, larger-than-life story, we never would’ve had some arbitrary goal to keep us together. We never would’ve had enough time to get to know one another. Hell, Marina might not have even taken her brother’s car in the first place. I would’ve been all alone, left to complete some somber pilgrimage that I doubt would’ve even provided the closure I so desperately sought.
Maybe things would’ve turned out okay for me in the long run, but in a very real way, meeting Marina is what gave my life a chance to change for the better. Really, she’s the only reason I haven’t turned into another bitter sack of bones.
Life since then hasn’t really settled down much at all. Even now, we barely spend half the year at our home in Colorado. And why would we? We got lucky and struck it rich while young; by all accounts this is supposed to be our reward for that incredible luck. We’ve driven all across the North American continent and, despite the Darién gap, most of the South American as well.
And yet, I can’t help but worry about what will happen when our adventures are finally, inevitably, over.
Marina’s free-wheeling spirit is what attracted me to her in the first place, but even I’ve come to realize her seemingly inexhaustible wanderlust is nearing satiation.
I’ve spent nearly my entire life roaming around, whether with my grandpa or on my own. My entire identity as an adult has been forged over asphalt and dirt. But… who would I be without that? Who is Amber Golley without that constant adventure?
I groan aloud, trying not to interrupt Mare’s performance with my frustration. I hate admitting this, even if just to myself, but as with most things in life, I don’t seem to have a clear answer. All I have is this large, nebulous cloud of doubt, a pitch point of near-infinite density from which no clues can ever escape.
Just as it took me so long to stop treating Marina like a child, it’s taken me even longer to feel like I’ve ever actually become an adult.
I shake my head, take a sip of the coffee, and flip open the road atlas, spreading it out across the steering wheel and paging through to our location.
I make it all the way to the end before I realize that I must have missed it. I massage my forehead and take another sip, trying my best to keep myself awake. We’re still not that far from the border, all things considered—it shouldn’t be too hard to place us on the map, even for an American like me.
And yet, as I page through the atlas again, I find myself more confused than when I started. None of the roads are making sense; none of the rivers and lakes look right; none of the local towns sound familiar. I must be more out of it than I thought.
I try to skim through the index, hoping that might help me gain my bearings, but I fare no better. The letters there feel like they’re dancing on the page, refusing to resolve themselves into words I find legible.
Past that point, it takes still another few minutes of stubborn persistence before I finally concede that I might actually be too tired for this.
With a sigh, I close the road atlas and secure it away in the door pocket. I grab my coffee and walk back into the cabin, setting it atop the small table. Then, I crane my neck back and walk forward toward the roof hatch in the center of the vehicle. After knocking twice for safety, I press the hatch open and feel the cool, evening breeze filter through the aperture.
That’s when I notice, for the first time all evening, it is perfectly quiet outside.
When, exactly, did Marina stop singing?
“Hey, Marina?” I ask. “You up there?”
No answer.
“Mare?” I ask again, voice drawn out with worry.
Again, no answer.
“Marina!” I shout.
“Huh, what?” she yells abruptly, thudding against the top of the vehicle as she sits up with a start. “Amber?”
“Down here,” I call.
A moment later, her familiar head comes into view. “Sorry about that, I… must’ve dozed off or something,” she explains. Her voice sounds languid and tired. We must've been stopped for longer than I realized.
“Might be for the best,” I admit. “I’m not happy about it, but I’m not making any progress with the road atlas. I… might be too tired for this right now.”
She nods in understanding, her gaze slowly drifting off to the side.
“We should probably stay here for tonight and try to figure things out in the morning,” I explain.
She doesn’t reply.
“…How does that sound to you?” I repeat, concern beginning to creep into my voice.
“…Hey Amber?” she asks, her voice quiet.
“Yeah?” I stifle a yawn, rubbing the sleepiness from my eyes.
“Can you normally see auroras this time of year?”
I pause a moment, caught off guard by her question. “I… don’t really know, actually. I guess it… wouldn’t surprise me?”
“Oh, okay,” she replies, voice still uncertain.
Having learned long ago to translate at least some of Marina’s subtext, I venture a reply. “Why do you ask?” I offer. “Something on your mind?”
“Just…” Her words trail off again, leaving the rest of her question uncertain.
“What’s wrong, Mare?” I reiterate, more softly than last time. “I know I can be dense sometimes, but even I can see that something’s bothering you.”
She sighs heavily before answering. “It’s just… are the auroras usually this blue?”
My brow furrows in confusion. “…Blue?”
“Yeah,” she replies. “Like, really, really blue.”
“Hold, on,” I assure her, “I’m coming up.” Grabbing a flashlight for safety, I zip up my sweater jacket and step out of the RV into the dark, Canadian night. I quickly navigate toward the ladder and scurry up the side, joining Marina on top.
She doesn’t acknowledge me as I approach; instead, her eyes are fixed on the sky, stained a bluish hue that I can only describe as unnatural.
“Gosh, is this what the aurorae look like north of the border?” I ask, my jaw agape in surprise. “It sure is… overwhelming.”
“It’s terrifying,” Marina mutters.
I give her another look. While she doesn’t look like she’s in danger, her eyes have an almost glazed-over appearance, making her expression seem vacant and distant.
“Hey,” I say, shaking her shoulder gently. “We can take a picture or something. No need to strain your neck so much.”
But what actually gets her to move is the sudden beam of a flashlight, shone directly at our faces.
“Hey!” a voice calls out—gruff, low, but feminine.
Both our heads swivel frantically, and while it’s difficult to see against the light shone in our eyes, I finally manage to pick out two figures, just barely noticeable against the pitch forest night.
“I’m sorry for the interruption,” another voice joins, this one higher and more cheery than the first. “I need you two to stay right where you are, if you’d please. No sudden movements or anything!”
“We have guns,” the first voice informs us, completely without remorse.
I find Marina reaching for my arm, and I grab hers in turn. What is happening right now? Are we seriously getting robbed in the middle of nowhere, in the dead of night?
“You don’t have to threaten them!” the second voice pleads, frustration evident in her tone. “We just need to make sure they’re not… you know…”
The other one sighs a bit before continuing. “Sorry, sorry. We’re not trying to hurt you two or anything like that. We just need to make sure of something.”
I don’t know what spurs me in that moment, but some well of confidence surges within me. “Oh yeah? You say you’re not here to hurt us, but you’re keeping yourselves hidden and talking about guns! You both seem way more dangerous than we are!”
Something in my argument takes them aback, and the voices hurriedly confer with one another.
Marina’s hold on my arm grows ever tighter. She won’t say it, but I can tell how much this is scaring her.
I decide to try and press my luck once more. “You’re scaring the both of us!” I yell. “If you’re really not here to hurt us, then why don’t you at least show us your faces?”
“It’s not a bad idea…” the second voice says. “I mean, they’re not armed or anything, and they seem perfectly reasonable. We have the power here.”
The first voice hems and haws for a while before sighing in resignation. “All right, all right. Have it your way. But if this turns out to be the beginning of some weird Canadian folk story I’ve never heard of, then I’m blaming you.”
“Okay!” The second voice intones. “We’re shutting our lights off and coming out!” A moment later, true to her word, the flashlight shuts off, and I suddenly lose myself in the darkness of the evening.
Only after I get my night vision back do I see them: two figures, both evidently women, standing in the pool of light emanating from the RV. One is an older woman with blonde hair—probably a local, by the judge of it. Her partner, however, is the one whose appearance really catches my eye.
But before I can say anything, Marina interrupts the silence with her usual understated grace.
“Hey!” she yells, pointing at the shorter figure. “It’s Doppelämber!”