Alaska Twilight Read Online Free Page A

reached into her backpack and grabbed the biodegradable toilet paper she’d brought. Feeling along the bottom of the pack, she found the small shovel. Her hand touched her camera, and she grabbed it too. She never felt whole without the camera around her neck.
    She pulled on her prosthesis, then her boots, and then crawled to the tent opening and thrust back the flap. Her warm breath fogged the frigid air as she peered out. The odd light from the full moon cast everything in a strange yellow hue. An owl hooted overhead, a mournful sound that brought an involuntary shudder. She stepped outside and nearly slipped on the ice that had formed over the puddles in the path. Skirting the other tents, she shuffled toward the woods.
    Her book had forewarned her of everything except how disorienting it was to be out here in the middle of the night with strange sounds coming at her from all directions. The darkness made every bush loom in strange shapes. She managed not to scream when a porcupine lumbered from under a bush to investigate the sound of ice crackling under the tread of her boots. Every sound seemed amplified. She told herself she was a big girl now, not an eight-year-old.
    When she finished, she gathered up her things and turned to go back. The moonlight glittered on the lake in a halo. She tilted her head and observed the effect. This was why she was here. She brought her camera to her face and began snapping shots. The whir of the camera released the tension in her shoulders. She stepped into the clearing and kept snapping pictures. She stopped and listened. She heard . . . people talking. At this hour? She instinctively turned and snapped a few more pictures. In the distance near the woods she saw two figures, but they were too far off to make out any features. The two men—at least she thought they were men—seemed to be arguing. Kipp and Denny? She stepped back and lost her footing in the loose shale. Their acrimonious voices fell silent when they turned at the clatter of rock and saw her. She hurried back to her tent. It was none of her business if those two chose to argue.

    Haley and Augusta packed up their things, and the group traipsed along the trail to where they’d been told the cabin would be available. It was halfway between last night’s campsite and their real destination by the river. The path—if you could call the faint muddy impression a path—meandered through Sitka spruce rainforest and through meadows where the wildflowers were beginning to poke up through the last of the snow cover. Haley remembered how the long spring days once made her think she could almost watch the foliage grow. She consulted her book often as a pastime and identified fireweed, larkspur, and lowbush cranberry. It took nearly two hours to cover two miles before finally arriving at the clearing where their cabin sat. She caught teasing glimpses of the blue water through a break of white spruce, and she could hear the gentle sound of the surf on Cook Inlet.
    Haley stopped in the clearing to catch her breath and look around. She eyed the stark cabin. The four-room structure seemed to be in good repair. The weathered logs looked freshly chinked. Kipp stepped to the door of the cabin and flung it open. “Here we are. The rest of the crew has been filming the area as the snow melted and the ice floes broke up. We’ve gotten some good coverage of snowmelt and some opening den scenes. I’ve given them a week off, and they’re going to Anchorage for a little R&R. They’ll meet back up with us in Stalwart next week.”
    Haley and the rest of the team crowded in behind him to take a look at their base. The common room was small—barely fifteen feet square—and it held several small camp chairs, an assortment of kerosene heaters and lanterns, a couple of coolers, and boxes of supplies. In the tiny kitchen, a small camping stove stood on a rough wooden table, and a stack of unwashed metal plates teetered on the counter. Kipp