Middletide: A Novel

Prologue

JANUARY 3, 1994

Gray foam slapped the bow of the Crestliner as it zipped north across the still waters of Puget Sound. A fisherman by the name of Mike Ginter sat behind the windshield, bobbing up and down with the tiny boat, his eyes glued to the wall of evergreens that flanked the shoreline ahead. He was searching for the dying pine, the one with bleached branches poking through the top like exposed bones.

It was early Sunday morning, and by the looks of it he had beaten Wes to their favorite fishing spot for once. Mike cut the engine and the Crestliner slid through the hidden entrance to the cove as silently as a paper boat. As far as he knew, he and Wes were the only fishermen in town who knew about it. Between the dead pine and the one to its right was a small inlet accessible only at high tide and so narrow that he had to crouch down behind the windshield as the sweeping lower boughs scratched the sides of the low boat on the way in.

Fed by a small stream that ran through the Leith property, the hidden lake was full of fresh water that attracted the fattest trout anywhere near Point Orchards. Mike and Wes had sworn on their friendship to keep the place a secret, though not a weekend went by without someone at the marina eyeing their catch and pressing them for information.

Mike’s Crestliner popped through the pines and he yanked off his hat, slapping it down on the bench beside him. He’d been fully prepared to rub in Wes’s tardiness, but there was his friend’s boat, already docked on the far side of the lake and rocking as gently as a cradle. Mike swore as he reached for the set of aluminum oars beneath the bench. He rowed forward, his paddles sending the perfectly mirrored evergreens on the surface dancing in the soft ripples. He and Wes never risked motors here; both to prevent alerting fishermen out on the sound and to hide the fact that they were technically trespassing on Elijah Leith’s property.

Mike rowed a diagonal path across the water toward his friend. Wes stood like a soldier at attention in his boat, his back to Mike, his eyes fixed on the trees. There was no shoreline here. The dark forest marched right up to the water’s edge and the firs hung out over it, casting black shadows in a wavering ring around the lake.

It’s seven-forty, Mike called as he drew close, the sun has officially been up for one minute, what’s a guy gotta do to beat you out here?

Wes didn’t turn at the sound of Mike’s voice, or laugh at his joke, or even acknowledge his presence. Mike dug his right oar into the water, slowing the boat and pulling even with Wes’s small craft.

You know, one of these mornings Irene’s gonna…

Mike’s voice fell away as he stared at his friend. Wes’s face was as expressionless as stone. If the man hadn’t been standing on two feet, Mike might have thought he was dead.

Look, Wes said in a voice so quiet it neared reverence.

Mike’s eyes left his friend’s face and followed his gaze to the trees.

There, in the shadow of a giant hemlock was a woman, hanging by her neck from a lower branch. The tips of her bare feet brushed the damp earth, and her arms dangled limply at her sides.

Her back was to them, but there was no mistaking who she was. No one else in Point Orchards had hair like that, perfect, corn silk–blond hair that fell in a sleek wave all the way to her lower back. Hair that Mike Ginter and every other man in town admired when they stepped into her office. Hair that his wife said was impractical for a doctor. A breeze stirred and her body twisted slowly on the rope. Mike looked away. He didn’t want to see her face.

Two minutes after nine in the morning, Sheriff Jim Godbout tied the silver police skiff to a felled log onshore. His young deputy Jeremy was already circling the tree where Dr. Erin Landry hung, running his eyes up and down her body.

There’s a note, Jeremy called as Jim approached. The deputy slid a folded piece of paper from the pocket of Erin’s fleece jacket, careful to avoid touching the cold hand that guarded it. He passed it to the sheriff, and Jim unfolded it, scanning it quickly. When he reached the end, he read it again, this time lingering over the words. He sighed deeply as he refolded the note and tucked it into his pocket. When he lifted his face to meet his deputy’s eyes, he looked every bit as old as his sixty-eight years.

Well? Jeremy pressed.

Let’s get her down, the sheriff said sadly.

Jeremy used a branch at shoulder height to pull himself up into the tree and clambered through the boughs to the branch where the rope was tied off.

She must’ve climbed up, tied the rope, and jumped, he called down, his fingers making slow work of the frozen knot.

The sheriff wrapped his arms around Erin’s waist as the rope slid free. Her body folded over his shoulder, and he laid her gently on the ground beside a cluster of frost-tinted ferns. Twice he tried to close her eyes, but they stayed stubbornly open.

Jeremy jumped down through the boughs and landed with a grunt. Together, the two men stared down at the thirty-five-year-old doctor, who was every bit as beautiful in death as she had been in life.

I just can’t figure why, Jim said, shaking his head.

You mean why she did it?

No, I mean, why here? The trees in this town outnumber the people a thousand to one. Why this tree way out in back of the Leith place? She could have done it anywhere. Out here her body might not have been found for weeks, months even, if Wes and Mike hadn’t come fishing.

The sheriff crouched down and placed his hand on the forest floor beside Erin’s head. He pinched a bit of damp earth between his finger and thumb and studied it. These woods still unnerved him after twenty-five years. They weren’t the golden woods of his youth in the Blue Ridge. Appalachian forests were straightforward and predictable. They abided by the seasons, budding green and lush as spring slid into summer, turning orange and yellow with the fall, and dropping their leaves compliantly at winter’s bid, spending the rest of the year standing naked and straight as matchsticks on the hills. There, every step was announced by the crunch of dead leaves and the snapping of twigs. Those were noisy, airy forests that provided constant birdsong and cicadas for company. These Washington woods were different. They refused to change for the calendar and seemed designed for silence. Padded moss and thick layers of dead pine muffled footfalls and soaked up voices the way the rich, dark earth absorbed rain. The sheriff wiped his fingers on his pants. Behind him, water lapped gently at the dark bank, soft and soothing as a mother with her baby.

Maybe she wanted the last thing she saw to be this pretty little lake in the woods, Jeremy suggested.

In the middle of the night? She would barely have seen a thing.

The deputy shrugged. Beats me.

Jim propped his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. Don’t know that I blame her.

What do you mean?

It was a few years ago, I don’t think you were up here yet when it happened, but her little girl passed away. The sheriff pulled the note from his pocket and handed it to the deputy. I guess she blamed herself this whole time. Got tired of living with the guilt. Can’t imagine.

Jeremy read the note for himself.

I tried to make a life without Anna. It’s not possible.

She’s gone and it’s my fault.

I can’t live another day on earth without her. I just can’t.

To whoever finds me, I’m sorry.

—Erin

Should I head over to her office for a handwriting sample? That’s protocol.

The sheriff hesitated. It sure seems like a straightforward suicide, but yeah, I guess we’d better.

Open-and-shut, the deputy agreed as he folded the note. She must’ve sailed out here sometime in the night with the rope and done it.

A moment of silence passed between the two men as Jim looked around, searching.

Where’s her boat? he asked, nodding to the lake. If she got here by boat, where is it?

The deputy’s eyes circled the water as he thought.

Isn’t there a trail through the woods? It wouldn’t be more than a mile if she parked on the road. Maybe she left her car out there and hiked back here.

Jim’s gaze traveled down Erin’s fully clothed body to the bare feet with only a trace of dirt where her toes had touched the ground.

Without shoes?

Jim wanted to be wrong, but a painful twist deep in his belly told him otherwise. Two and a half decades of service in Point Orchards and not once, not one blessed time, had anyone had the nerve to be murdered. He was eight months from retirement, and now this. He puzzled over it for another minute, but there was no way around the logic. Try as he might, he just couldn’t explain away the pair of bare feet in front of him.

Jim turned and placed a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder.

Let’s get her into town, I’ve got a call to make.

1

AUGUST 22, 1973

Elijah chased Nakita’s laugh down the trail.

He was fast, but she was faster. He drove down the pace, almost sprinting, but all he caught were brief glimpses of long hair as it whipped around tight corners and flashed between tree trunks just ahead.

She knew this trail as well as he did now. They’d been running it all summer. It was the pretense, the excuse they’d given their parents; Nakita needed to train for her senior year of cross-country, and since Elijah had been captain of the team the year before, he would put in the miles with her over the summer before he left for college.

Every day since school let out, at the precise moment the minute hand on the kitchen clock slid from eleven-fifty-nine to noon, Nakita’s firm knock sounded on the front door. Elijah sometimes had to remind himself not to fly to the door and throw it open in excitement after the long morning hours he’d waited to see her.

After a quick drink from the hose out back, they jogged side by side past the woodshed and behind the chicken coop, where a break in the fence opened into the forest beyond. That was their starting line, the beginning of the trail loop where they’d now put in hundreds of miles of training. There were plenty of other places in Point Orchards to run, but this trail guaranteed seclusion. Out here, they were totally and completely alone.

Which way? she shouted over her shoulder, barely out of breath as she reached the fork in the trail. The left turn would take them back to his house by way of a mossy mile loop through the forest; the right turn was barely an animal trail, overgrown with stinging nettles that would slap and blister their shins. That one would take them toward the sound, to the secret lake they’d first visited weeks before.

You know which way, he called, slowing to a walk, his hands folded behind his head as he sucked in August air swollen with the sweetness of dead pine. A bright shaft of sunlight had broken through the firs overhead and illuminated Nakita’s glistening body like a spotlight. She smiled, her black eyes sparkling with the same excitement that stirred in Elijah, and took off like a rabbit down the narrow trail to the right, hopping over thick patches of nettles and Queen Anne’s lace in her bare feet.

The quick pace didn’t feel so taxing when Elijah thought about what was just a few minutes ahead of them, and he quickly pulled even with Nakita, laughing as he darted around her.

Hey! She grabbed a handful of his tank top, but he tugged free and charged ahead, right through a thick patch of nettles. He ignored the sharp stinging on his lower legs as he weaved through the woods. In a way, he liked the feeling; convincing the brain to ignore discomfort was half the battle in the sport of cross-country, and he had plenty of thoughts to distract him at the moment. He caught a glimpse of shimmering blue-green through the evergreens and sprinted toward it, racing under the last of the trees and slowing to a halt right at the water’s edge.

Nakita popped through the woods behind him, her chest heaving as she stopped short and caught her breath. Elijah locked eyes with her and she dropped her gaze, suddenly shy as she stood facing him beside the lake.

I love that you run with your hair down, he said, stepping toward her and sliding his fingers through it, gently detangling small knots that the wind had tied. You seem as free as a kid, like running is still just a game to you.

Nakita closed her eyes and tilted her head back into his hands.

My nani said the Squalomah word for running means ‘dancing with Mother Earth.’ She shook her hair free and began braiding it loosely with deft fingers. It’s not like that for you? she asked.

Not really. Not anymore. It’s the means to an end. I got what I wanted, the scholarship will get me out of here.

Nakita shook her head. Let’s not. Not today. We still have a week. Let’s pretend we can stretch these last few days out forever.

Elijah grinned as he pulled his shirt over his head and kicked off his shoes, scooped up Nakita, and ran toward the water with her arms tight around his neck. She shrieked as he jumped in and the cool, clear water swallowed them both.

The lake washed away nettles, sweat, and inhibitions, and when they broke the surface, Nakita laughed and pressed her lips to his.

You know, he said, kissing her mouth, her cheek, her nose, this might be my favorite place in the whole world.

Then stay, she whispered, burying her face in his neck.

He held her for a long minute, memorizing the feeling of wet hair plastered across his bare chest. He’d save this moment, every bit of it, in that special place she lived inside his mind. The heat of her sun-warmed skin, the salt on her lips, the rhythm of her beating heart so close to his own; he’d close his eyes and relive every last detail when he was in the sky, headed south on his first airplane ride this time next week.

You hungry? he asked and she nodded.

Elijah carried Nakita through the waist-deep water to where the small stream fed into the lake. He set her down on a mossy log, and she leaned forward to dangle her fingers in the creek, a glossy ribbon of light and shadow that snaked through the dark woods, gurgling cheerfully on its way around slate-gray stones that sprouted ferns like hair. Nakita sat admiring it while Elijah gathered overripe blackberries from the thornbushes behind her.

His hands dripped with purple juice when he called her name, beckoning her to a massive hemlock tree beside the lake. They sat and ate the sweet berries with their backs against the sturdy trunk, the gentle sound of lapping water filling the silence.

Elijah stood and reached into the pocket of his shorts, withdrawing a small jackknife. Flicking it open, he stood and faced the hemlock.

Nakita watched the blade in his hand as it twisted, gouging the thick bark.

Nobody’s gonna see whatever you’re carving, she said practically.

The birds will, he replied. Maybe a deer or two.

Nakita turned her eyes to the lake. A heron on the far shore bobbed for a fish, quick as lightning, then took slow, luxurious flight with its lunch still wriggling in its beak.

Elijah hummed a casual tune above her.

I just can’t believe this time next week you’ll be gone.

Elijah risked a glance at Nakita and found her eyes downcast with regret for having spoken the words out loud. They hung in the air like fog, tainting the sweetness of the silence.

For several minutes, the only sounds were the babble of the creek and the etching of his knife. Tiny bits of dust and wood fluttered down and landed on Nakita’s shoulder.

Try to put yourself in my shoes, just for a second, okay? Elijah blew the last of the dust away and sat back down beside her. Think of all the things I’ll be able to do and see in a city, things I could never do here. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with Point Orchards, or any small town really, I just don’t think anyone can truly find themselves in a place like this the way they could in a city like San Francisco.

What are you hoping to find? she asked.

I don’t know. Inspiration. Brand-new inspiration, the kind you can only find in a city.

Nakita looked around, her eyes landing on an ancient trunk nearby. It was half-decayed, with three young trees growing on top of it, old and new growth, the twisted roots of the younger trees weaving through thick patches of white lichen and pockets of decomposing bark to anchor themselves in the earth below. She nodded to it.

See that log? That’s a city. You could spend years learning its roads and houses, studying how one generation built a life on top of the last. You could find yourself there, while you count the hundreds of creatures that call that log home. And I bet, if you were willing to be quiet and just sit with it long enough to listen, it would probably tell you its stories.

Elijah jumped to his feet and stared down at her, his eyes as vividly blue and animated as the lake behind him. "That’s the thing, Nakita, I don’t want to listen to stories. I want to tell them. I want to write stories that tens of thousands of people read. Hundreds of thousands. I honestly believe I have it in me to be a great writer, but not if I stay here." Nakita remained silent, her eyes tracking him as he paced back and forth in front of the tree.

I haven’t seen enough, he claimed. "I haven’t lived enough. Writers write what they know, and I just don’t think anyone wants to read a story about someone who stays in the same small town their whole life. I owe it to myself to experience something, don’t I?"

Nakita’s black eyes flashed with indignation as she stood to face him. And this isn’t something? What is this, Elijah? What are we even doing here?

Elijah’s face softened. He took a step toward her and wrapped his hands around her waist.

Look, it’s not that I don’t… that I don’t want to be with you. But there’s a life waiting for me in San Francisco, a very different life than the one I’d have if I stayed here.

Nakita remained silent and Elijah let out a frustrated sigh.

Look, I don’t know how to make you understand. You were raised with this idea that the land you were brought up on was sacred, like it was where your people were meant to be. I just don’t feel that way about this town. I’ve been itching to leave for as long as I can remember. His gaze faltered and he stared down at his feet. You’d probably understand if you were stuck in that cabin day after day after day with my dad.

Somewhere in the center of the lake, a trout jumped, startling them both. When Elijah turned back to Nakita, he found her jaw set and shoulders squared.

Elijah, do you love me? she asked boldly.

He blinked at her, this beautiful sixteen-year-old girl he’d only truly known since she and a few others from the reservation had joined the high school team at the beginning of the season. Once he’d opened his mind to the possibility of being with her, she had come flooding in, consuming every corner of his waking thoughts and most of his dreams as well. He had never known anyone like her. They came from different worlds. Even so, spending the summer together had been like reuniting two halves of a torn photograph, every edge aligning perfectly.

Yes, he said, surprising himself.

Then go, she said firmly. Do what you need to do in San Francisco, live the life you want to live for a few years, then come back.

He closed the distance between them, folding her in his arms and pressing her head to his chest.

I will, he promised. Tell you what, what’s today, the twenty-second? Let’s make a pact right now that on August 22, exactly four years from now, let’s meet at this tree. I’ll have just finished college, and no matter where I am in the world, no matter where you are, or where life has taken us, we’ll meet right here.

Nakita twisted her head to kiss the palm of his hand.

Okay, she whispered.

Elijah pulled back and lifted her face to his.

I mean it, he said, searching her eyes with a fierceness she’d never seen in him. I’ll come back for you, Nakita.

She nodded. I’ll be here.

2

AUGUST 22, 1977

Nakita scooped lard out of the tin with her bare fingers. She plopped it into the little well she’d made in a mound of flour and poured a cup of warm water over it before digging in with practiced twists and turns, rotating the bowl as she formed a rough dough. The floor groaned behind her and she paused.

Good morning, Nani, she said without turning around. You’re up early.

Nakita didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know that her grandmother was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching her knead. She felt the stare of disapproval like a branding iron on her back.

She rounded the dough into three balls and placed them on the cracked Formica before swiveling with a sigh. Just say it.

Does Kailen know where you’re going?

Nakita turned back to the counter. Another handful of lard went into the skillet already warming on the stove. It melted outward, bubbling at the edges.

I haven’t promised him anything.

The thin floor creaked again as Nani took a step into the kitchen.

That’s not what I asked, she said.

When Nakita didn’t answer, Nani came forward and placed arthritic hands on her granddaughter’s shoulders.

Nakita, I only want to keep you from the pain you’re inviting into your heart today.

It would hurt more if I didn’t go and I found out later that he showed up, Nakita said softly.

The gnarled hands left Nakita’s back and began to flatten the balls of dough on the counter into thick circles. Nakita knew this was her grandmother’s way of accepting her plan for the day, though the bridge between acceptance and approval was often a long one for Nani to cross.

The first slab of dough hit the fat in the pan with a loud sizzle, and Nakita left her grandmother to attend to the bread while she packed a small canvas sack with two apples and a strip of dried trout wrapped in paper. Two pieces of the hot fry bread followed, and she covered the third in honey before tearing it in half and handing the larger piece to Nani.

Grandmother and granddaughter carried their breakfast through the front door to where two rocking chairs rested side by side in a sunrise shadow that bowed across the porch, sagging with the aluminum roof that cast it. They ate in companionable silence, but Nani wasn’t letting Nakita off the hook without a fight.

If you would just talk to Kailen—

Nani, please, Nakita said shortly, turning pleading eyes to her grandmother. Kailen’s a good man, but he’s young. I’m young. We have years yet to decide if we want to be together.

He’s already decided, Nakita. He’ll give you a good life, if you let him.

Nakita took a bite of her bread and stared across the dirt road to the dawn-tinted river on the other side. It streaked soundlessly west behind the pines, two canoes lying overturned on its bank. The first was her father’s: rustic, perfunctory, and cracking with age. The second was a gift that Kailen had given her family earlier in the summer, sleek and crafted with skill far beyond his twenty-four years. Nakita couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a bribe.

Do you remember when I was a little girl, the time you caught me on the roof holding two fistfuls of crow feathers?

Nani unleashed a rattling laugh that turned into a cough. Sweet girl, you thought you could fly right up past the trees if you flapped your little wings hard enough.

You made me come down, Nakita recalled. I asked if you were going to tell mama, and you said telling her would do no good, she would only worry.

Nani nodded.

This is just like that, Nakita insisted. Telling Kailen would only cause problems. She finished her bread and licked a drop of honey from her thumb.

That may be, Nani said, rising from her chair, her eyes lingering on Nakita’s face. But Elijah has been gone for a long time, he may not even remember the promise he made. I hope you’ll be safely off the roof without any harm done by the time the sun sets tonight.

Nakita sat alone on the porch a little longer, watching the river flow past the canoes.

Before she left, she rummaged through the old case of cheap makeup she’d gotten for her fourteenth birthday. Half of it was dried up and unusable, but she managed to coax a bit of black mascara out of the tube and enough gloss to stain her lips the deep hue of black cherries. Nani brushed her hair until it gleamed, and Nakita let it fall loosely over the straps of her black tank top instead of pulling it back into its usual braid.

She made herself wait until the sun had risen a full hand’s width above the eastern mountains before setting off for the lake, her canvas bag slung over her shoulder.

The Leith cabin was still dark-windowed when she reached it an hour later, and Nakita felt ashamed as she crept toward the back fence, keeping to the shadows like a thief. She doubted Mr. Leith would prevent her from walking through his property to the lake, but she didn’t want to explain why she was here. She’d seen him several times in town since Elijah left. It was impossible not to when she’d spent the last two years bagging the groceries of everyone who lived in