Into the Fall

by Tamara L. Miller

“Matthew,” she croaked. Her hand reached out beside her. An empty sleeping bag deflated under her touch. Months later, she will say she woke that morning to find her husband missing, but at her most vulnerable—when fear and loneliness creep in on sleepless nights—she’ll admit in those few moments, she knew Matthew was already lost to her.

She was reactive in this environment, obsessed by basic needs—food, water, shelter—and fearful that Mother Nature would betray her.

Sarah had once said that life was better when you acted like a sapling in the wind, twisting and bending when needed, so that the roots stay strong and whole.

“They say the wendigo is a forest-dwelling spirit with the body of an oversize emaciated man and the skull of a stag. It’s not good or evil, though it does have a rather gruesome habit of hunting people. They say no matter how much it eats, it’s never satisfied, and so it’s always hunting. But the most fascinating bit of the legend is that the wendigo’s victims are cursed to become wendigo themselves, doomed to hunt the forests claiming more victims.”

How had Matt managed to slip out to the bakery without leaving a single trace in the snow?

Memory was a misplaced faith; we believed in our pasts only as far as we remembered them.

The first time Matthew had vanished suddenly from her life, even though it was temporary, was after he had told the story about his friend Kwan.

Rarely had a camper disappeared without leaving some sort of trail.

“The Powerful Role of Magical Thinking in Dealing with Grief.”

“Magical beliefs and superstitious behaviors allow people to reduce the tension created by uncertainty and help fill the void of the unknown.”

What reason was there for him to lie?

People were a little bit the same, Boychuk thought, time marching us forward and toward something else, whether we wanted to or not.

Nature don’t care about right or wrong. There’s no cosmic retribution. Good people make mistakes; bad people do good.