I tiptoe, avoiding any sticks that could give me away as I sneak up behind them. My fingers pull the edges of my black oversized sweatshirt to cover my hands.
I catch sight of my father walking towards the campfire, grinning ear to ear as he notices me, but he doesn’t give me away. He takes a log sip out of his metal jug before sitting on the log in front of them.
I believe they are whispering about Alice’s new crush she met at the local bar in downtown Seattle, we’ll see how long this one lasts. She usually gets bored with them within a week.
I don’t blame her, the men in our area are kind of boring.
My boots crunch on some leaves, and I hold my breath. My cheeks fill with air, and I pause my movements to hold my footing in place before I tiptoe around the broken limbs from a dead tree.
My lips curl into a satisfying grin knowing they don’t hear me. I begin to stand tall, hovering over the two of them before I leap on top of them and let out a roaring yell as if I am a bear.
Tilly’s eyes widen as she drops her hot cocoa, the metal jug clanking against the gravel beneath us. Alice lets out a high-pitched scream, nearly slipping out from the log as she claws at her chest.
My arms wrap around their necks tightly, pulling them in to give them a tight squeeze.
“My hot cocoa!” Alice shouts. “Damn you!” Her hand slaps at my arm, and all I can do is laugh.
“We can’t take her anywhere!” Tilly shouts towards Father and all he does is sip on his drink, casually letting out breathy laughs.
“You girls always keep life entertaining. What would I do without you three.” Father shrugs his shoulders, lifting his gaze up to the dark sky. “Tilly… Serene,” he sighs. “Thank you for coming here to this spot every year. I wish your mother had more time with you two.”
My head rests against Tilly’s, and I take a long sigh. “Yeah. Me too dad. Me too.”
I watch my father’s head tilt up, a soft smile tugging against the corner of his lips as he deeply inhales the scent of the roasting marshmallow Alice has quickly put towards the fire. His salt and pepper hair catches in the wind before he takes the metal stick and places a marshmallow on his.
This is how our mother and him met. Twenty-nine years ago on a trip with their friends. After his eyes met hers, they wereinseparable and how I wish we could remember her. We were too young when she passed.
But every year on her birthday, we come to this exact spot to always remember and feel close to her.
We do it for our father.
MY EYES FLUTTER, HOLDING IN my tears as my mind haunts me with memories.
“We need to move if we want to make it there by dusk and before this blizzard hits.” I grab my leather backpack, putting on my face cover and sheath to guard my skin against the harsh climate. Alice bounces around the tent, pulling our sleeping bags together and tightening them to our bags.
Our tent shakes from a current gust, and the howling of the wind turns my stomach into knots. I beg to the sky above for the storm to hold off, just so we can make it to the mountain in time. I step out of the tent and take a deep breath, the icy air filling my lungs. Back home in Seattle, it’s never this cold.
Why would she run away to the mountains deep in Alaska? An unknown town called Whittier. None of this makes sense. Tilly hates the snow.
It’s chillier here in this town than I thought it would be, but I can’t let that stop us. We’ve come too far to turn back now. I turn towards Alice, who has already geared up and is ready to go.
“Are you ready?” I ask her. She nods with a determined look on her face. “Let’s do this.”
We quickly set off, our boots crunching through the freshly fallen snow. It’s slow going at first as we navigate around rocks and fallen branches. The wind whips around us, making it hardto listen to anything but the sound of our own breathing. The icy air burns at my eyes, drying them out, making it hard to see through the white air that surrounds us. But the drive inside my heart carries me through this. I will not stop until I find her.
The thoughts of Tilly alive run rampant through my mind.My heart is begging that she is just lost.
The mountains in front of us keep disappearing behind the increasing amount of flurries. . Everything is pure white, blinding my eyes. No signs of grass. No green trees. Just tall, pointed mountains in the distance that almost look like a valley. I pull my scarf tighter around my face as I trudge through the snow, feeling my hot breath suffocating my face. But at least it’s warm.
The cold is biting everywhere else, my fingers already going numb despite my thick gloves. The grunting sounds that keep escaping Alice’s lips have me worried.
“Are you struggling back there?” I holler over the wind. “You sound like old Bill snoring at the diner.”
A laugh escapes me as I remember the three of us all together at the diner for ice cream, old Bill in the corner next to the record player, completely knocked out. Every Saturday. That was an us thing. Tilly, Alice, and me. Old Bill just made it ten times better, until he stopped showing up. He was old; of course he wouldn’t live forever. No one does.
A deep snort followed by a loud laugh echoes around me. “Just keep moving, I am right behind you!”
My eyes roll to the cloudy sky above us, knowing Alice will push herself to death.
