Page 11

CHAPTER

TEN

Morgan Riley sat on her couch, her legs curled beneath her, and stared at the flames crackling in her fireplace.

She’d just gotten home from her most challenging project yet. She’d been documenting the phenomenon locals called “ice music.”

During the deepest cold of Alaska’s winter, when temperatures plunged below 30°F, the frozen rivers and lakes of the interior created an acoustic wonderland few had properly captured.

Morgan spent weeks tracking these ethereal sounds—the haunting pings of shifting ice plates, the deep resonant booms echoing across frozen expanses, and the delicate tinkling of frost-coated branches in the wind.

Her project combined time-lapsed photography of the ice formations with audio recordings, revealing how the landscape itself became an instrument during these extreme cold snaps.

National Geographic had commissioned the work and would feature it on TV, and parts of it would be highlighted in an article in their magazine.

Working in the brief four hours of winter daylight, she’d captured the crystalline quality of January light as it transformed ordinary ice into sapphire cathedrals.

The series—which she’d titled “Frozen Resonance”—showcased nature’s stark beauty in the most unforgiving conditions. Each image had revealed something both scientific and deeply spiritual about Alaska’s winter soul.

There was nothing she loved more than traveling and seeing new places, capturing the juxtaposition of beauty and pain.

Because, in so many ways, she felt that was what her life had been.

Beautifully painful and painfully beautiful.

Her journey into that truth had started five years ago when her brother had died. Before that, she’d been a photojournalist, taking pictures for whatever publication was willing to pay. But she’d always wanted to venture out on her own, to take photos of the things she cared about.

Her brother’s death had pushed her to do so. She’d realized just how short life was.

Her throat swelled at the thought of her brother.

She’d been told by authorities that her brother died during an “incident” connected to the Iron Brotherhood biker gang. She’d known he’d become involved with the gang. She’d begged him to get out.

He hadn’t listened. He’d always had to learn his lessons the hard way.

That, unfortunately, had led to his death.

Tears pricked her eyes.

The official police report stated that Bobby’s body was recovered from the river beneath Alameda Bridge, with the cause of death ruled as drowning following blunt force trauma.

The police classified his death as a gang-related homicide. At least his killers were behind bars. But she knew the truth about his death.

Morgan stood and rested her palm against the cool window, gazing into the darkness beyond the glass.

Her father’s voice echoed in her memory: “That feeling in your stomach when something’s off? That’s generations of ancestors trying to keep you alive.”

As a child, she’d dismissed his words as another of his Native American superstitions. Now, she understood—even if she didn’t believe in superstitions.

The feeling had started subtly. The prickle of awareness between her shoulder blades while photographing the frozen lake. The distinct sensation of disturbed air when she returned home, as though someone had occupied her space moments before.

Nothing was ever missing or obviously disturbed, yet somehow the cabin felt . . . studied. Items appeared microscopically shifted from their proper places just as light changes a familiar landscape just enough to make it unsettling.

Morgan had begun second-guessing mundane occurrences. Was that branch broken naturally, or had someone passed this way? Had she left her journal at that angle?

The rational part of her brain manufactured explanations, but her instincts continued their persistent warning.

Something watchful had entered her world, patient and calculating, its attention fixed upon her with an intensity she could feel but couldn’t prove.

Now she was living on the edge, holding her breath as she waited for the next moment of fear to strike.

She moved from the window and went to sit in her favorite chair instead. She opened the leather-bound journal she’d purchased at a gift shop in Seward with Logan.

Logan . . .

She knew she could call him and talk to him about her concerns.

But he’d only worry and become even more protective of her.

Though part of her loved that protectiveness, he already had enough on his plate with his job.

Everything that had happened after he took down that businessman Victor Goodman last year had taken a toll on him.

He didn’t talk about it often. But she could see the stress in his gaze. Doing the right thing had come with a high price—one he was willing to bear.

Plus, every time she was with him, all she wanted was to spill her feelings.

Her feelings for him .

Feelings that grew stronger every time she saw him.

But Morgan wasn’t sure Logan felt the same way.

Many times, she felt certain he did. She was certain she saw affection for her in his gaze and in the sweet things he did for her.

But he remained guarded. He always kept his feelings at a distance.

And Morgan wasn’t sure why.

Except . . . maybe he’d never seen her as someone he could be interested in. Maybe he would always see her as her brother’s big sister. Maybe that made her off-limits to him.

Right now, his feelings were all a guessing game.

She stared at the blank page in front of her, wondering what to write. She needed to write something . An internal nudge urged her to do so. Plus, Dr. Winters—her therapist after her brother’s murder—had encouraged her to get her feelings on paper.

Besides, maybe she should write her suspicions down, just in case anything were to happen to her. She needed to leave some type of breadcrumbs.

Or maybe she just needed to do this for herself. She wasn’t really sure.

Drawing in another deep breath, she started.

There were no other words she could think to start with other than: If you’re reading this . . .

She jotted the words on the page.

Then she continued.

I’ve finally given in to Dr. Winters’ suggestion that I “process my thoughts on paper.” Honestly, the whole exercise feels a bit trite—as if the world needs another photographer waxing poetic about light and shadow. But he insists writing things down will help with the nightmares, so here we are.

I’m dying to drive out to Denali again. The mountain has always been my winter muse—how it stands defiant against a canvas of white and blue, how it wears storms like a shawl of silver.

January brings that perfect crystalline quality to the air where everything feels suspended in time. The kind of cold that transforms breath into ghost-whispers.

Last time I was there, I set up before dawn. No one else was foolish enough to brave the negative temperatures, which was precisely the point. I needed that solitude, that communion with the mountain without the distraction of hikers or tourists.

Just me, my Nikon, and the gentle click of my camera shutter marking time.

Sunrise painted Denali’s face in the most extraordinary shade of amber I’ve ever captured—like honey drizzled over snow.

I lost myself in it, in that sacred space between artist and subject where nothing else exists.

I remember thinking that some moments aren’t meant to be shared; they’re meant to be witnessed.

Moments like when the mountain confides in you.

Then something changed.

I can’t explain it properly—it wasn’t anything I could photograph. The air seemed to thicken around me. The silence, which had been a comfort moments before, suddenly felt . . . weighted. Expectant. Like the pause before an orchestra strikes its first note.

I lowered my camera and listened. I heard nothing except the occasional crack of ice shifting in the distance. But the sensation of being observed intensified like a prickling awareness that spread across my shoulders and up my neck.

I turned and scanned the tree line.

The morning shadows played tricks, stretching and contracting with the rising sun. Nothing seemed out of place, and yet . . .

A raven called from somewhere to my right, the sound startlingly close. When I turned toward it, something moved in my peripheral vision—a flash of deeper darkness against the trees.

By the time I whipped my head around, it was gone.

If it was ever there at all.

I tried to convince myself the movement was wildlife—a moose or maybe a fox. That would have been logical, expected even. But logic couldn’t explain away the feeling crawling beneath my skin—the certainty that whatever watched me wasn’t just observing.

It was studying me.

I packed up my equipment faster than I’d like to admit. My fingers fumbled with the tripod latches, suddenly clumsy in their urgency.

The silence transformed into something oppressive, as if the forest itself held its breath. I caught myself checking over my shoulder every few seconds, my eyes straining to penetrate the spaces between trees.

As I loaded the last of my equipment into my Subaru, I noticed something odd about the snow near where I’d been standing.

A depression.

It wasn’t quite a footprint—more like a disturbance in the perfect powder. One that hadn’t been there when I arrived.

It was probably mine, I told myself. Or maybe where my bag had rested.

I continued to tell myself that, even as I locked my car door the moment I got inside.

The drive back to the cabin felt longer than usual. I kept checking the rearview mirror, though I couldn’t say what I expected to see on that empty winter road.

Here’s the strangest part—when I reviewed the photographs later, in the safety of my studio with a mug of tea warming my hands, I noticed something in three consecutive frames.

A shadow at the edge of the composition, taller than it should have been, with proportions that didn’t quite match any animal I know. In the first frame, it was barely perceptible. In the second, it seemed to have moved closer. In the third, it was gone.

I’ve scrutinized those pixels until my eyes burned, trying to convince myself it was just a trick of light, a branch swayed by wind.

But the wind wasn’t blowing yesterday morning. The air was still as glass.

I haven’t told anyone my suspicions, not even Logan. He’d insist on escorting me everywhere for weeks, and I’d never get the solitude I need for my work.

Besides, what would I say? That I got spooked by shadows? That I felt something studying me?

I have no proof, nothing concrete to point to—just this lingering unease that follows me even now, a day later.

I’m being ridiculous. This is exactly why Dr. Winters thinks I need this journal—to exorcise these imaginings onto paper where they can be seen for what they are: The product of spending too much time alone in wild places.

Still, I’ve checked that my doors are locked three times tonight. And I can’t shake the feeling that the shadow I captured wasn’t something wild at all, but something . . . waiting.

Maybe I’m waiting for something bad to happen because . . . well because I deserve it. How has my life been so blessed after what I did? It doesn’t seem right.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably rolling your eyes at my melodrama. I would be too.

But I imagine myself disappearing. I imagine someone looking for answers. And I imagine them finding this journal.

If nothing else, I can read this back one day and laugh. Or I can marvel at my adventures. I’m not sure.

But if you’re reading this, and you’ve felt it too—that sense of being the subject rather than the observer—then you know.

Some things can’t be captured in a photograph.

Some things are only felt.

And some shadows don’t disappear when you turn on the light.

—Morgan