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This is the second part of Chapter 2 of I Am The North, the first installment of the Sitka Saga trilogy.
Shared with permission, written by Rae Wojcik.
Chapter 2: Among Old Photographs | Tanya
Part 2
The question makes me more tense. “Tanya.”
He raises his glass ever so slightly. “Thanks, Tanya,” he says, before taking a sip. He gives a small groan, closing his eyes as he seems to savor the whisky. I wrinkle my nose, wondering how anyone could enjoy ingesting liquid smoke, and take up a rag to wipe the countertop.
He gives a half-smile. “Not a Scotch fan?”
“If I wanted to inhale smoke, I’d start a campfire.”
He sets his glass back down. “You’re missing out.”
“So, what brings you here?” I ask nonchalantly.
“What makes you think I’m not from here?”
I shrug, swiping the rag across the countertop again. “Haven’t seen you ‘round before.”
His dark eyes narrow as he takes another sip of his whisky. “You know everyone here?”
I shrug. “I grew up here, and I work at the bar, after all.”
“And you’re still around? How old are you?”
I square my shoulders and set down my rag. “How old are you?”
The corners of the man’s mouth twitch. “Seventy-seven,” he eventually says.
“Well, I’m nineteen,” I answer, bending down to put clean glasses back under the bar.
“Nineteen? And haven’t left yet?”
I shoot back up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugs, taking a long drink. “I dunno. Don’t kids like you move on from little towns like this? Go to school and such?”
“Yeah, well, not all of us can make it out, can we?” When he doesn’t respond, I continue, “I’m taking college classes online. And I just wrote a book. I’m going to be a historian if I can transfer schools.”
The man’s dark eyes glint above the rim of his glass. “Transfer, huh?”
Before I can respond, the bell above the door chimes, and a tall woman strides in with a whirlwind of rain-tinged air. She removes her hood, her sharp gaze meeting mine with a flash of relief.
“Hey, Ila,” I say. “The usual tonight?”
“Always.” She glances over at the man before settling down two chairs away from him.
I was a child when I first met Ila—she volunteered at my middle school and I liked her a lot more than I liked my teachers. She’d come in from time to time to tell stories about Iron County’s history. I had forgotten about her until I started serving at The Happy Beaver and began seeing her again most weeks. She seemed to know almost everything about the place, from the names and faces in each old photograph that clung to the walls to the very stand of white pines the dance floor was built from. She said she, my mom, and their friends would sneak in to play hide and seek during the years The Happy Beaver was abandoned, and most of them insisted that the place was haunted. It was Ila, even, who encouraged me to write my book when I told her that I’d been reading a lot about the county’s disappearances and had some ideas about how they might have happened.
I always liked it when Ila told stories. Even now. My mom never told me any.
Pouring Ila a glass of zinfandel, I set it on the bar in front of her. She removes her jacket, revealing a thick, hand-knitted sweater and a copper chain, at the end of which hangs the tiny figure of a bear, carved from opal. To me, the necklace is synonymous with Ila. I’ve never seen her without it. She shakes out her flyaway grey hair and takes the glass, eyeing me appraisingly.
“You’re stressed.”
It’s a statement, not a question. She takes a sip of the deep red wine and twirls a grey curl around her finger, watching ever so closely as I finish wiping the countertops.
“I just don’t know about this whole…future thing,” I say, trying as hard as I can to keep the lump from forming in my throat.
“What is it this time?”
I set down the rag and lean against the bar. “They won’t publish the manuscript.”
“Oh.” Ila sits up straighter. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Did they say why?”
“Apparently it’s ‘insensitive’ and ‘not that good,’” I scoff. “I should just get used to being here forever, I guess.”
“It’s just one setback,” she counters. “There are other publishers out there.”
“Not in Iron County. And out of all the ones I contacted, they were the only ones who had sounded interested at all.”
Ila takes another sip of her wine. “I think it wouldn’t hurt to give the book a rest for a bit. Focus on school—it’s just another year of generals, and once you get to your upper-levels, you’ll shine. Heck, I could see you going on to do a dissertation.”
“I basically already did,” I say, thinking of the wealth of research I had amassed to write my worthless book.
“What’s your book about?” The man’s gruff voice cuts into our conversation, not even pretending he wasn’t listening.
“The history of Wild Rose and greater Iron County,” I say vaguely, thinking of Matthew Nicholson’s less-than-appreciative words.
“What’s so interesting about Wild Rose?” he asks, looking at his glass. Ila shifts in her seat, pressing her lips into a thin line.
“A lot, I suppose. But I’m mostly interested in the people, and stories. There are a lot of unsolved mysteries here. Did you know there was a failed mine up the Icicle Trail, and shipwrecks on Lake Superior that were never found? And,” my voice catches in my throat, “several disappearances—far more than in most communities this size.”
The man has his whisky glass halfway to his mouth but sets it down. The music has stopped playing. Something about the silent background makes every spoken word echo.
“There now, no need to scare him away so soon,” Ila says quickly, giving the man a furtive look. “There’s a whole lot here that’s far less dark. For instance, the annual Arts Festival goes back to…”
But at that moment, movement from the corner of my eye catches my attention. The doorway to the lounge is empty. No one else is here. I would have noticed, right? But there it is again. Though the doorway to the lounge I can see the row of old photographs hanging on the wall, where a familiar face dances across the glass.
“Just a sec,” I say to Ila and the man.
I slip out from behind the bar and into the lounge. There, with his back to me, stands a young man, apparently studying an old black-and-white photograph of the Nelson Copper Mine. His golden retriever-colored hair is pulled back into a short ponytail that stops just above the collar of his wool coat. I know who he is, and I know what the picture is. And I don’t like the two together.
“Callum!”
Callum Albright spins around, blinking, but unsurprised to see me. Almost as if he were expecting it.
“Hello, Tanya,” he says, folding his arms and turning back to the picture.
“Still at The Happy Beaver, I see.”
“Did you sneak in through the back door?”
There was no way he had entered without me seeing him—his tall frame is not one that lets him sneak around easily, and the hair at his crown is covered in fresh raindrops.
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