To Darkness And To Death

“Yeah. I’m…” What was she? Were there special categories of friends that got information? And others who would have to wait to read about what happened to her? Becky went for the easiest, the longest-running, choice. “I’m her college roommate.”

“If you leave me your number, I can make sure someone calls you. When we know something.”

Becky shook her head. “I’m going to be at Haudenosaunee later this morning.”

“She’ll probably be back by then.” Lisa’s voice was hearty and hollow. “You can talk to her yourself.”

“Right.” The sign for the Millers Kill exit flashed by. Her heart thumped. She braked too fast, and a station wagon swerved past her, horn blaring. Becky signaled, swiveled to look behind her, and veered into the right-hand lane. “Thanks,” she managed to say into the phone. “Talk to you later.”

“Can I say who-” But she had cut off the signal and dropped the phone into the passenger seat before the housekeeper could finish her sentence.

She took the exit and turned northwest, to the road that would lead her to Fort Henry and Cossayuharie and Millers Kill. Missing. Millie. The woman who had hiked the Appalachian Trail through New York and New England. Who ice-climbed in British Columbia. Who had summitted the Grand Teton from her adopted home out west.

Something has happened to her. With that thought came another, one she was ashamed of. The deal. The deal will fall apart without her. And then where will I be?

The questions hung in the stale air around her. She lowered her window, letting the icy air whip through her car. She wanted to concentrate on her friend, on the edge of worry coiling low in her stomach, but she was picturing herself standing on a platform with the president and CEO of GWP, Inc., and her bosses from the Adirondack Conservancy Corporation. They were all waiting… waiting… waiting.

She stopped for a red light. Early shoppers trickled into the Super Kmart parking lot. Through the windshield, she could see the road to Bonnie’s house, just past a nursery shuttered down against the coming winter. She flicked on her turn signal. She needed comfort, and encouragement, and reassurance. That meant she needed her big sister.

Bonnie was almost twelve years older than Becky, the long gap between them punctuated by several miscarriages their mother didn’t like to talk about. When Becky was a little girl, her sister had been like another mother to her, a young, fun version who painted Becky’s nails and taught her to dance to Adam Ant’s Strip. In her teens, thrashing against the confines of their small town and their parents’ overburdening protectiveness, Becky would escape to Bonnie and James’s house, to play with their little boys and complain endlessly to her sister. Becky was long past that stage, and long gone from Millers Kill, but her career as an environmental advocate was a touchy subject with her parents, and she still looked to Bonnie as the conduit, the place where the family’s lines of communication crossed.

The Liddles lived in a small ranch, flanked by houses that had been identical when they were built in the 1950s. A half century of tinkering by owners had personalized them, although their tightly controlled lawns and greenery still gave them a certain sameness. Becky parked behind Bonnie’s Taurus, walked up the drive, and let herself in.

Her younger nephew, Patrick, sprawled pajama-clad on the couch, gazing slack-jawed at a hyperkinetic Japanese anime on the tube. “Hey,” Becky said.

His eyes snapped into focus. “Aunt Becky!” He jumped up and hugged her.

“How are you, Squirtle?” The nickname wasn’t going to fit him much longer. It looked like he had shot up at least three inches since she last saw him.

He wrinkled his nose in scorn. “Nobody’s into Pokemon anymore, Aunt Becky.”

Uh-oh. Better rethink her Christmas gift. “Where are your folks?”

Patrick collapsed back onto the couch. “Dad’s taking Alex to a meet. Mom’s sewing.”

Just then, her sister bellowed, “Patrick! You had better be in your clothes, young man. You’re going to Grandma’s in five minutes!”

“Okay, Mom!” Patrick didn’t move.

Becky crossed through the kitchen to the sun-splashed addition James had built four years back. It was a dining room-family room-sewing room ell, and she could hear Bonnie before she could see her, the sewing machine whirring, her sister muttering under her breath.

“Don’t let me startle you,” Becky said.

Bonnie whipped around in her chair. “Good grief, what are you doing here?”

“I’m on my way to Mom and Dad’s.” Becky slid a pile of folded fabric to one side and made herself at home on the built-in bench. The bright fabric, the sunshine, the hominess of the room lifted her spirits again. She smiled smugly. “I’m going to be at the signing of the Haudenosaunee land transfer to the conservancy tonight.”

“Believe me, I know. Mom hasn’t stopped talking about it. Neither has Dad.”

“Is he still pissed at me?”

“Who knows. He’s tearing what hair he has left out over selling the lumbering company. But he’s also bragging about ‘our college girl.’” Bonnie turned back to her machine. “While you’re wining and dining with the upper crust, be sure to check out these curtains. Made by yours truly.”

“You’re making curtains for the new hotel?”

“Linda Van Alstyne got the contract. There are two other seamstresses besides me on the job.”

“Shouldn’t they be done already? I mean, the grand opening is tonight.”

Bonnie looked at her sideways. “Thanks for the reminder. Yes, they should already be done. I’ve got at least two carloads to run up to the spa, and I still have to take Pat to Mom’s.”

“He can come with me.”

“Really? That would save me a half hour.”

“Sure. I don’t have anything to do until later this morning.” She opened her mouth to tell her sister about her other responsibilities for the Haudenosaunee land transfer, then closed her trap. Her sister got the brunt of their parents’ opinions on Becky’s life. Bragging about how great she was would be uncool. She needed to be sensitive to her sister’s position. Like Millie, who had always been careful not to draw attention to the fact that her family was richer than Croesus. Millie.

“I tried to call Millie this morning, and she’s gone missing.”

Bonnie raised her eyebrows without taking her eyes off the raw silk gliding beneath her needle.

“According to the housekeeper, she went out for a walk last night and got lost. The search and rescue team is looking for her.”

“What’s the big deal?” Bonnie stopped the machine. “She’s probably out there somewhere with a knapsack on her back. Val-de-ree, val-de-rah.” She pulled the curtain forward and snipped the trailing threads with her scissors.

“She wouldn’t just go wandering off. Not on the most important day-” Becky broke off before she could complete the sentence. Of my career.

“That sounds exactly like something she would do. That girl’s got all the dependability of a mountain goat.” Bonnie stood, shaking the curtain out. “Help me fold this.”

“That’s not true. She’s taking responsibility for her brother Eugene. She wants him to come live with her in Montana.” Becky took the end of the drapery and brought it up to meet her sister’s hands. “Why do you dislike Millie?”

“I don’t dislike her. I think she’s a spoiled little rich girl, and I think she’s been a bad influence on you.”

“On me?” She and Bonnie each took an end and brought it up. They met in the middle.

“She can afford to spend her life living in trees to save old-growth forests and traveling the country to every eco-protest meeting there is. She doesn’t have to work for a living. But you do.”

“I have a job! A good one. I have a health plan!”

Bonnie folded the curtain over her arm and laid it on a pile of similarly colored chintz. “You spent two years living hand to mouth after college, following Greenpeace ships around. Stuffing envelopes for fund-raisers and writing grants for crackpot back-to-the-land groups. Is that why Mom and Dad sacrificed to send you to school? They wanted you to have a better life.”

“I like my life. I’m doing work that’s important to me and to the world around me. It pays enough for me to live the way I want to. I don’t need a lot of money or things.”

“Oh, grow up.” Bonnie twisted around. “Patrick! If you aren’t dressed with your bed made now, you’re never watching TV again!” She turned back to Becky. “Someday you’re going to be married and have children. Believe me,