Chapter 38: Words Right Out of My Mouth

Rather amazingly, Lara was the first one to wake up the next morning. Even in the very faint glow from dawn’s first tendrils, I could see that the night had delivered new light to her face.

“Come on, get up!” she whispered.

“What’s wrong? I thought we were leaving at eight-thirty today. What time is it?”

“About seven. Mom’s just getting up to make breakfast. Let’s go look for those clues.”

“Right now?”

“Or I can go by myself.”

I groaned and stretched. “All right, give me a second to wake up.”

Lara sat on my bed patiently. She wasn’t going anywhere, just in case I rolled back into a snooze. I pulled the covers aside and got upright. A peek out the window showed clear skies dawning, though there had been a fresh deposit of snow overnight.

“Looks like a good skiing day,” I said, as I pulled on some layers.

“Let’s check the stream first,” she urged.

“Chill already!”

I groggily found my coat in the living room as Melissa came out of her bedroom.

“Morning, loves,” she called, her voice still tangled in a web of sleep. “Where are you off too? Don’t wake the Martins just yet!”

“No, we’re just going to the stream to look for something,” Lara said, as she pulled me toward the back door.

“At this hour?”

“Treasure hunt that Heather made for us.”

Melissa smiled knowingly. “Oh, right.”

“Wait, you know about it?” I asked.

“Have fun!” she deflected.

We slipped outside, surprised by the warmth. Well, relatively speaking. I was expecting a nasty biting chill, but it wasn’t half bad. We quietly trudged through the deep snow, tracking our way into the woods and eventually reaching the creek. We surveyed the scene.

“Where did she take that picture?” Lara asked me.

I tried to remember. “I think we went upstream a bit. Here, this way.”

After a bit of hiking, the setting looked familiar. Indeed, Lara pointed toward the bank of the brook. In the gathering light, we spotted the root in question, still peeking out from the mounting snow.

“Now what?” I asked.

“She would’ve taken the shot from here,” Lara said, as she moved to the other side of the root.

There was nothing obvious about the location, so I knelt down and started brushing snow aside. I was rather startled when I uncovered a hard glossy object buried in the snow pack.

“Bingo,” I said, picking up the glass canning jar.

“Looks familiar,” Lara said with a laugh.

I nodded. We had a whole shelf full of these old Ball jars in the pantry. Inside, there was a Ziploc bag that contained a piece of paper.

“When the hell did she do this, is what I want to know!” I cried.

“Maybe she was up late the other night,” Lara suggested.

“Must’ve been.”

“Open it.”

I tried the lid, but it didn’t budge, likely frozen. “It’s stuck. Let’s take it back to the house.”

“All right,” Lara agreed. “Keep a look out for that funny shaped branch.”

There was more activity in the kitchen when we returned, as the rest of the adults had roused to help with breakfast.

“Where’s Heather?” I asked Mairead.

“Still sleeping. She’ll be down soon,” she said.

Lara took the jar from me and ran it under cold water in the bathroom sink. After a bit, she pulled it out and tried the lid. We were greeted by a metallic sound as the silver ring finally slipped.

“This is so cool,” Lara breathed, looking at me with excited eyes.

“Yeah, totally. You think we can find our present before we go skiing?”

“Probably. We found this one pretty quick. If you hadn’t been such a lazy ass getting up, we’d probably be done by now!”

“Whatever. What’s it say?”

Lara had the slip of paper out of the bag and read it aloud. The message was very different than anything I imagined.

“‘Part the Third: the often Appeared Emerging With stark I’.”

“‘With stark I’? What the fuck does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” Lara admitted.

“Is that really an ‘I’ on the end?”

“Or a one. Does it matter? Maybe it’s just jumbled up. Uh ... here, listen. ‘I often appeared emerging with ... the stark’?”

“Oh, that’s definitely it,” I said, sniggering sarcastically. “Let’s go collect our present!”

Lara harrumphed. “We need the other parts.”

“You think?”

“Come on, let’s go, then,” she urged. “Grab the picture set. I think we’ll need it.”

A minute later we were back outside, holding the photos up and comparing them with the trees in the clearing in front of our house.

“Maybe we should look at windows,” Lara suggested. “Can’t be too many places this would be taken from.”

“Unless it’s not here,” I suggested.

Lara looked at me patiently. “That would be a stupid treasure hunt, then.”

She was right, of course. The reflection in the front guest room window turned out to match the view of the reflected trees in the photo. Again I knelt down to dig in the snow. After several minutes, nothing turned up.

“This has to be it, though,” Lara pressed.

“If it’s here, it’s not going to be easy to find.” A thought struck me. “I think I know where it is, though.”

“Where?”

“Inside the guest room. But let’s look for this other tree first. I’m tired of putting on and taking off my coat.”

Lara and I set off again, circling the front and back yards. We found nothing, so we started down our long driveway. We surely looked like lunatic tourists, rambling around and looking at up at the trees so intently as we held the mat out before us. Luckily no one was there to see us.

“There it is!” Lara exclaimed. She pointed to the dragon-like branch that was growing on a tree a little ways into the woods from the side of the driveway.

“Nice, Lara, that’s it for sure. But where should we look for the clue?”

“Under the branch, I guess.”

After several minutes of clearing snow, I stood up in frustration.

“This is pointless. There’s no way we’re going to dig up this whole area. It has to be something else.”

“Like what?”

“The thing in a photo that’s unique is the place where it’s taken from. Where she was standing. Even, that’s where the first clue was, right?”

Lara nodded in agreement. “Okay, let’s see if we can line it up with the other branches.”

It was easier said than done. We wandered through a rather large cone, trying to match the view of the limbs in the picture with the real trees in our woods. Nothing worked. Something was very weird about the alignment of the shot.

“The branches might be different because of the weight of the snow,” Lara suggested.

“Maybe. Hmm...” I paced around. “Wait a second.”

I stared at the photo. Then I looked carefully at the branch.

“Shit. No way,” I breathed.

“What?”

I marched into the woods, passing under the dragon limb and continuing past it a little further. I turned and held up the print, waving Lara over.

“Heh! Do you get it?”

Lara looked at me blankly. “No. It’s pointing the wrong way now. We’re on the wrong side of the branch.”

“No. It’s supposed to be that way. In the other pictures, the trees were flipped because of the reflections in the ice and the glass. But in this one, she just flipped the negative when she printed it. It’s a mirror image!”

Lara looked again, a smile soon spreading across her face as she saw the inverted match.

“Wow, good going, Matt. That was tricky.”

I backed up against a tree trunk as I refined the alignment. The view looked just about right. I sighed as I looked down at the deep snow. Ah, the irony of the night storm’s deposit. Great for skiing, not so great for hunting.

“Better get to it then,” I said. “Help me out.”

“Forget it, Matt.”

“What?”

“Look.”

I stood again. Lara pointed up into the crook of the tree I had backed into. Tied to it with a piece of twine was another Ziploc bag.

“Score!”

Lara high-fived me with satisfaction. “What’s it say?” she asked, after I undid the tie and removed the slip.

“Ugh. Another bunch of nonsense. ‘Part the First: This place my on from contrast While dried’.”

“Shit, that makes no sense either,” she muttered. Lara started to pull out the other piece of paper to try to figure out the puzzle.

“Don’t bother,” I dismissed. “It’s not going to be that easy. Let’s find that last slip.”

I handed ‘Part the First’ to Lara. She pocketed it with the other one. Once inside the house, there was still no sign of Heather.

“I have a feeling I know what she’s up to,” I said to Lara with a knowing smile.

The room that had the window in the picture was really the office of late. At the moment it looked like a bomb had gone off at a paper plant. Melissa’s cookbook drafts, photos, notes, and all manner of other project components were laid about the entire room, half the floor included.

“Hmm. Be careful,” I said.

We stepped to the window and mounted a search. Nothing obvious was in the area. The table nearby had a stack of notecards and a lamp, but nothing was hidden underneath either of them. I opened the window, finding nothing concealed in the frame.

“Nothing doing,” Lara said. “Maybe it is outside.”

“Maybe. Then again, I just feel like it’s in here. The picture was of her, so she was inside when she took it, probably with her cable release sticking out the window. The trees were just a deceptive reflection.”

I looked around again, searching the lamp once more. The notecards? Of course! I quickly flipped through them, letting out a grin as the handwriting changed for one frame of the makeshift movie.

“It’s in the darkroom,” I stated, after reading the cryptic message.

Lara turned to me from where she was carefully looking through stacks of paper on the bed.

“No way. This was the right window,” she said.

“No, the treasure’s in the darkroom. I already found the clue, sorry. It was in these notecards,” I explained. “Look. ‘Part the Second’.”

“‘is Where face halide dark so suspended’,” Lara read. “How do you know it’s the darkroom?”

“Halide. It’s the light sensitive part of film.”

“Okay. Or it’s in your camera bag, then.”

“Hmm ... Actually,” I continued, suddenly being struck by further revelations, “I know exactly where to look! Halide is also in photo paper. ‘Halide dark so suspended?’ Whatever we’re looking for, it’s in the dark box that I keep my photo paper in. Halide suspended in the dark!”

I grinned at Lara, who was pursing her lips thoughtfully.

“You think that’s it?” she murmured. “What about the other parts of the message?”

I shrugged. “Probably just some fancier way to say the same thing. I’ll bet I’m right though. Come on.”

“I don’t know. But all right, it’s easy enough to check.”

Once again the coats went on and we made the short walk to the guest cabin. Inside, all was quiet.

Asleep? Whatever!

“Heather?” I called out.

No answer.

“Heh. She’s out working on the hunt,” I said to Lara shrewdly.

The darkroom door was open. Before we reached it, we heard a dramatic yawn.

“Heather?” Lara called.

“Hi!”

Lara smirked at me as we entered her room. “You are still sleeping!”

“Yep. Nice cozy morning. Guess it’s time to get up, huh?”

I leaned over to kiss her cheek.

“You’ve been sleeping?” I asked dubiously.

“What else would I be doing?”

“Your cheek is freezing cold.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Maybe it was cold in here earlier,” she said simply.

I snorted. “Funny. I need to look in the photo paper box, so I’m going to close the blackouts.”

“Fine with me. What’s in the box?” she asked. “Are you printing a shot?”

“Oh, whatever,” I dismissed.

“Ah, so you solved the pictures,” Heather said conspiratorially, suddenly pretending to get a clue.

“I think so.”

As the room turned pitch black, Lara sat on the bed to keep her bearings. I made my way over to the box and carefully opened it. As I gently felt about, my fingers touched something abnormal. A little crumpled ball of paper.

“Winner,” I said softly.

“Did you find it?” Lara asked excitedly.

“Yep. Just like I thought!”

Sure that the box was closed again, I went for the dimmer. “Lights coming on,” I warned.

I brought the lever up halfway. Lara stood immediately to see what I had found. Heather, still ensconced in layers of blankets, looked on with much amusement from the bed.

I confidently uncrumpled the paper. It had four letters on it: ‘EPON’. I stared at Heather. “Epon? What does that mean?” I protested.

Heather was certainly enjoying herself. I looked at Lara. She shrugged.

Reflections...

I felt a rush of heat to my head as my mistake was revealed to me. “Shit ... This isn’t it,” I muttered, giving Heather a sidelong look.

“What do you mean?” Lara asked.

“Spell it backward.”

After a moment, Lara started laughing. “Told you!” she cried.

“Told me what?”

“That was too easy. We have to at least figure out the whole message.”

Heather chimed in. “You mean you didn’t even work out what it says?”

“Matt just guessed based on a couple of the words. Obviously the wrong strategy.”

I lifted a couple of the developing trays, still convinced I was on the right track. It had to be in the darkroom! But I only found more little pieces of paper as I searched. They all had the same word of reflective rejection written on them. EPON!

Heather laughed richly as I uncovered note after note, echoed images of a red fish bouncing around in my brain.

“Impatient, I see,” she observed cheerily.

I looked at her, the odd message replaying in my head. ‘is Where face... ‘

“Wait, are you the treasure?” I abruptly asked her.

Heather smiled sweetly. “Aw! But nope. Keep trying!”

I sighed with resignation. “All right, let’s see what we have.”

Lara held out the two slips and the notecard. We read the words in sequence.

“This place my on from contrast While dried ... is Where face halide dark so suspended ... the often Appeared Emerging With stark I.”

“It’s like it almost makes sense,” Lara said pensively. “‘This place of contrast ... is where halide suspended... ‘ Uh, something like that.”

“Still sounds like the paper box,” I said.

“Give it up, Matt. Hmm. We need some paper to write on.”

Lara and I emerged into the main room to work on the puzzle at the table.

“I’m going to get ready to ski,” Heather announced.

We ignored her. We tried rearranging the words in each line, but nothing made sense. The capital letters? TWWAEW? No, nothing in that, though surely they had some importance. Heather emerged from the shower, and still we struggled. She completely ignored our pleas for a hint.

Eventually, Lara hit on an idea. “If you take one word from each line, maybe? Listen: ‘This is the ... place where often ... my face appeared... ‘“

It sounded like something. We rewrote the sequence. Then Lara arranged it into six lines starting with the capital-lettered words.

“A poem,” I breathed. “Good going, Lara.”

“Does it make any more sense, though?” she asked.

I read the riddle a few times. “I think so ... Wait! It’s the hanging wire!”

We rushed into the darkroom again and scanned the metal wire I had installed from wall to wall to dry prints on. At first glance, it seemed another strike out, but then I saw that it was thicker by the far end. Something was odd, there. I felt the section, calling for more light. Lara turned the dimmer up.

“Hopefully not another denial,” I said, as I undid the piece of tape that fastened a rolled-up piece of black construction paper to the wire.

Heather was combing her hair, a full grin constantly gracing her face.

“It says, ‘The next Reflection is right where you’d expect it to be. Have fun!’”

“That’s it?” Lara asked.

“Yup.”

The door to the cabin opened. “Anyone here going skiing?” Sarah called out.

“Yeah, why?”

“Then you better get your butts to the table! We’re leaving soon.” Sarah closed the door.

I looked at Lara. “We’ll have to continue it later.”

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. Then she turned to Heather with excitement. “This is so awesome, Heather. Thank you! But I can’t imagine how you put this together!”

“With a little help from my friends,” Heather said simply. “Just a fun little hunt to find your gift. No big deal.”

Both Lara and I hugged her tightly, perhaps even surprising her slightly.

The skiing was a great day of escape. The three of us spent the entire time together, skiing whatever trails we felt like, racing on occasion, and occupying the chairlifts in a rebelliously good mood. We showed Lara the hidden trail, to her great delight. I made sure to ride solo whenever we took the double chairs, so that Heather and Lara could chat.

Lara’s about-face was amazing. Part of me wondered if it was too good to be true. But then again, Heather had worked some kind of magic since the night before, and maybe Lara was starting to come out of it. It had been over a week since Jonah’s.

In the end, I was happy to let Heather lead the day, which ended up being extremely fun and free. After arriving home and quickly eating dinner, Lara and I returned to the hunt. We searched in a few spots, trying to locate the next photo set. We found it only after Lara asked me what the most obvious place was that I could think of: the box where the rest of Trilogy was sleeping, under my bed, of course.

Sure enough, there was a new trio of pictures sitting on top of the stack of mats. They were all rocks of some sort. We sat on my bed to inspect them.

“Hey, look on the back,” Lara said, when I had raised the mat to scrutinize a detail in the light.

I flipped the mat over. A long strip of film was taped to the back side. I gently pulled it off and examined it. Something was drawn on it with a Sharpie marker.

“What’s on it?” Lara asked.

“A Chinese character.”

“Really? Like from that one Trilogy set?”

“I think so.”

Lara pointed to the stack of mats. “Only one way to find out.”

I flipped through the sets. Hands, shoulders, melamine... Finally I found the one in question.

Well, a version of it, at least.

“What the hell?” I blurted out.

Lara was equally in shock. “Whoa!” she breathed.

The picture of Heather’s torso as she held the flower between crossed arms was in the middle window. Her chest still bore a Chinese character. It looked like it was the same photo from the original set.

But in the other two windows...

“That’s you and me,” Lara observed quietly.

“Is this for real?” I asked.

It was my body. Even though none of our heads were in the frames, it was obviously me. But how? Recognition took a moment, but it came when I looked at the background closely. Heather had taken this shot near the big boulder at the Esopus. Back in October?

“She took that picture of me when we did the photo shoot the other day,” Lara said. “But it’s zoomed in to match.”

At least the source of the pictures was solved. Significantly more puzzling, though, was that there was a Chinese character on each of our chests as well!

“Did she draw a character on you during the shoot?” I asked.

“No. Definitely not. I would’ve remembered that.”

“And I definitely didn’t have that on my chest when I was fishing.”

“How did she do that, then? Marker?”

I angled the photos in the light, but the characters were clearly part of the print and not drawn on. My mind spun. Am I going crazy?

“I have no fucking clue.”

“What does it mean?” Lara asked.

I sat quietly for a while, overwhelmed by the insanity of the moment. Reality sure seemed to be rather shifty all of a sudden! What does it all mean?

Lara snapped out of it first. She took the negative from my hand and compared its character with the ones in the pictures. She aligned the character on the strip with the one on Heather’s chest.

“This one matches Heather’s. Exactly.”

The negative crossed the mat on an angle.

“Let me guess,” I said. “There’s two more strips coming our way.”

“Sure seems like it. What do you think’s on it?”

I held the length up to the light. “Probably nothing. It’s clear.”

“Can’t be nothing. That would be pointless. Maybe you have to print it to see it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see anything except the character.”

“We should still check. We’re talking about Heather here.”

I grunted. She had a good point. “All right, let’s go up to the darkroom in a minute and see. But what about the rock pictures?”

We examined the photos again. One was easy, it being Melissa’s favorite decorative stone. We just had to figure out where in the backyard it sat under the snow, since she tended to move it around. The others were not immediately recognizable. Although this one—

“Let’s see what’s on the negative,” Lara suggested, interrupting my thoughts. “It might help with the rocks.”

Once in the darkroom, I loaded the strip into the enlarger and killed the lights. I used an index card instead of photographic paper. There was no need to make an actual print, since we’d be able to see any image just from the projection. We stared at the illuminated card as I tried different positions of the negative in the holder.

“There!” Lara said suddenly.

Indeed, there were some faint, thin markings visible on the card now. I focused the lens as best I could.

“What is it?” Lara murmured.

“Looks like little doodles. Or is it just scratches?”

We studied the tiny lines, but they looked as random as scattered rice. No amount of staring made it any clearer.

“So much for that being helpful. We’re back to the rocks, then,” Lara said.

“I don’t know. Shit, what time is it? Get the lights, will you?”

Almost seven. We were running late for the photo shoot. The puzzle would have to wait, again.

With some reluctance at leaving the hunt, Heather, Lara, I piled into the Martins’ Escort and were soon on our way to Clara’s studio.

“So what exactly is this shoot for?” Lara asked from the back.

Heather and I glanced at each other.

“It’s Shannon’s Christmas present,” I said evenly.

“Letting her take pictures of you?”

“Yeah. She...”

Heather happily took over when I petered out. “She’s always wanted to shoot nude pics. So we volunteered to model!”

“You volunteered,” I corrected.

“Still time to get out and walk home, Matt.”

Lara leaned forward between us. “Wow, so you’re going to pose nude for Shannon?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Heather said. “We’ll see what actually happens.”

“And do you really need my help?”

“Sure. Shannon had Randi and Mina helping when she shot the band, and she was glad for it.”

“Okay, cool,” Lara agreed. “I have to say how lucky I got that I never gave Pete those pictures we took, Heather.”

“Yeah, that would’ve been a bit awkward.”

Lara was silent for a while, and then I noticed her hand come to rest on Heather’s shoulder.

“Thanks, Heather,” she said quietly.

“For what?”

“For ... everything. You’re amazing.”

Heather giggled. “I’ve done nothing. No need to thank me.”

Lara rubbed her hand and then sat back in her seat again, quiet and contemplative.

Shannon had the studio set up quite nicely by the time we arrived. Roll-down shades obscured any view from the road, so much so that as we drove up I worried that she hadn’t shown up. From the street the house looked empty, and yet when we entered, the studio was bathed in warm and interesting lighting.

Hugs went around. We chatted about the holidays for a bit while smoking a relaxed joint out back. At last it was time to get to work. The pot made me feel more laid back than I expected, so it wasn’t hard to start discussing ideas for the shoot. Shannon was glad for Lara’s help, realizing things could move quicker with an assistant.

“We should take some regular shots first,” Shannon said. “Just to have something to show to Clara and whatever.”

“Good idea,” I said.

“Let’s move the couch from the waiting area in.”

We spent some time setting up some places to sit or recline. Fortunately, Shannon had brought some sheets and had a good eye for arrangements.

“How about some pics of the three of us?” Heather suggested. “We don’t have any like that.”

“Cool. Heather, sit in the middle and you two on either side,” Shannon said.

Heather sank into the couch and Lara and I squished in around her.

“Now have some fun!”

We were still for a moment as the spotlight was suddenly on us. None of us knew where to start, so we sat there with silly grins.

“Well, this is awkward,” Lara finally announced.

“You think it’s awkward now, wait until the clothes start coming off!” Heather quipped.

“Hey, does Clara have any white chairs?” I asked Shannon.

“I don’t know. Why?”

Heather was immediately laughing, though.

“I’m just really into white chairs,” I said.

Shannon gave me a strange look. “What are you talking about?”

“Long story. But Heather still thinks it’s the funniest thing ever!”

“That was priceless!”

“I’m never going to live that down, huh?”

“Hey, at least I got it right!” Lara boasted.

“True. I think Matt’s having some trouble finding success this weekend,” Heather said slyly.

“What are you talking about?”

“All the ‘nope’ notes?” she reminded me with a grin.

Lara laughed. “And you beat him again at skiing today.”

Yes, Heather had won again. I forgot to mention that.

“Well, you’re ticklish, so shut up,” I said. I snuck my hand across Heather’s waist to grab at Lara’s side.

“Matt!” she shrieked.

This was enough to ignite that indescribable source of perpetual laughter one can get when high on pot. Soon we three were laughing our heads off, the silliest of things producing a fresh peal. Meanwhile, Shannon clicked away as we did the shoot what justice we could.

“All right, that’s probably good enough for that,” Shannon eventually announced.

Heather gave me a last tickle before we stood, grinning from ear to ear.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Get naked!” Shannon called. “Who wants to go first?”

Heather didn’t waste any time and started removing her clothes. She made it look like a walk in the park as she got nude without any fanfare. The temptation to stare was high, but I forced myself to help Lara adjust the lighting. Heather stretched herself out onto the couch, facing away from the camera. Part of me was decidedly aroused, but the professional nature of photographic process managed to suppress it. It was just another shoot, after all.

Yeah right! Truthfully, it was a good thing I was doing lights. Heather looked so hot on the couch, her face looking back over her shoulder with this mysterious look, her curvy waist silhouetted by the sharply angled lighting.

“Nice,” Shannon murmured. “Let’s take a few.”

We circled through the studio, Heather using the couch to display herself in artistic ways that Shannon then spilled light onto, minimizing the explicit and maximizing the sensual. One thing was for sure, Shannon had a natural talent for setting lights. Maybe it was all those years of being on the dance stage. After two rolls of film were spent, Shannon clapped.

“Wow, these are going to be great!”

“Enough of me?” Heather asked.

“Whatever you want to do.”

For some odd reason, three pairs of eyes glanced at me.

“All right, my turn, I guess,” I managed, surprised to hear my voice falter a bit.

I started to take my clothes off as Heather reached for hers. Shannon seemed unsure what to do, so she went to her camera to load a new roll of film.

“Actually, let’s smoke another joint first,” I said, buttoning my shirt again.

There was no protest. Heather abstained due to driving needs, but Lara, Shannon and I finished another one. By the time I’d thrown my clothes aside, I wasn’t feeling too bad.

I’d been nude in front of Heather and Lara often enough not to care too much. I wondered what Shannon was thinking, though. She had a clear crush on me, at least until she’d found out about Heather. Likely she did even now, though in a friendly way. Now I was buck naked in front of her. And then there was the fact that Lara was here. Would Shannon find it weird that I would get naked in front of my sister?

Perhaps the high clouded my feelings, but in reality it all felt very cool and easy. I posed as best I could on the couch, trying to keep things implicit rather than graphic. All three girls offered suggestions on what body part to flex or move to a different angle. There was the occasional and sensual murmur of approval from Heather, which elicited a brief giggle from the other two girls. The lights rose and set around the room like the stars in Shannon’s night photography long exposures. The camera shutter kept a stochastic metronome on the session.