The Cloud Atlas

“Lily,” I finally whispered, worried the lights above were too fragile for me to speak any louder. Lily made no reply. I called her name, and when there was still no reply, I craned my neck to see if she was still there. She wasn't. Then I surprised myself. Instead of leaping to my feet and running off the rock to find her, I lay there, staring up. I suppose the word is hypnotized, but that doesn't give me enough credit. I was entranced, but I wasn't in a trance. It was like it always was with Lily: a debilitating fascination. So I lay there, and after a while, I heard her voice. She wasn't far away.

“I had seen the northern lights growing up in Bethel, but in Fairbanks, it seemed like we could see them almost all the time.” I kept staring at the sky, now pulsing. “Are you scared?” she asked.

I shook my head. I wasn't scared, just surprised. Minutes ago, I had wanted to scream. I had wanted to hit someone. Lily. And now here I was, lying on the ground, looking at the sky. If it wasn't Lily's magic, then it was Alaska 's, made present by the northern lights.

“Some people get scared. Of course, in Fairbanks, nobody was. The lights were as familiar as rain. But one March, far earlier in the evening than was usual, a tremendous red cloud of light appeared, just to the north. The lights had only just gone out in the dormitory, and as soon as they had, the cloud became instantly visible to all of us inside. We rushed to the window and watched it fold and wave, first one way then the next. And then suddenly-” Lily slapped her hands together, and the light show above me disappeared. I blinked, squinted, and then blinked again.

“Lily?” I sat up on my elbows, and when she didn't reply, stood up.

When she first touched my hand, I flinched, but then she reached out with her other hand and touched me gently on the chest. I relaxed, and let her take my right hand back in hers.

“People who have lived here their whole lives-white, Yup'ik, Inuit-will tell you the northern lights never make a sound. They did that night. They made a crack, just like that, and they were gone.”

“What happened just now?”

“One of the teachers tried to tell us what the lights really were the next day, like it had something to do with science. But we all knew what the lights really were. Really are: the souls of women who die in childbirth. Suicides. Those who have been murdered. That's who you see.”

Lily fell silent, and when I looked over a moment later, she was crying. “Who do you see?” I asked.

She didn't answer. Then she said, “When I first came to Anchorage, there were things I could see, I could hear, there were things I knew, but the longer I've been here-it's flowing away from me. I can feel it.” She ran her hands along her arms. “Here-here.”

“Lily,” I said. “I know why you want the journal. You want to find him.” Lily kept rubbing her forearms. “You want to find Saburo.”

“Saburo,” Lily said. “He's gone. He's died,” she whispered. “I know it, or knew it. What I want to find is-”

“Whatever you need,” I said. “I'll help you.”

Lily looked at me.

“I'll talk to Gurley when he's calmed down. I'll get this transfer canceled or postponed, and I'll go with you. I'll help.”

“Tonight,” she said. “We have to leave tonight.”

“Lily.”

She stepped away. “Come with me,” Lily said. “I'd go alone-I should have already gone alone. But I don't want to. He left something for me, out on the tundra. Something I need to find, to see. Something that's going to be very hard for me to see. I want a friend with me. I want you, Louis.”

“I want to be there, Lily. It's just that-”

“Jesus, Louis. If you won't listen to the real reason, how about this one, since it's the one you'd believe anyway. I need to use you. I can't get out of Anchorage, can't get to Bethel, can't get into the bush, can't go anywhere, without permission from the military. The whole state is restricted. You know what it's like to be a civilian here? A half-breed civilian? Wasn't so long ago the goddamn officers' club was off-limits to any girl who wasn't white.”

She just wanted to use me. I'd fallen, again, for that fiction about friendship and trust and whatever simulacrum of love that offered, and then she'd come out with it. Why she really needed me, then, there. The worst part-for her-was that I couldn't help. A kid sergeant like myself? Like I'd be allowed to escort a civilian-a “half-breed”-into restricted areas.

Years later, with the benefit, or burden, of knowing all that would happen next, I see that she was right, of course-about everything. About what Saburo left her. About the need to leave that night. About how Anchorage was sapping her. About how she thought of me, first, as a friend, and about how she knew I'd never think that was enough.