The Vanishing by Wendy Webb

beside his. “I didn’t know she’s not supposed to be riding.”
    “Adrian would prefer she didn’t,” he said. “But if you know anything about Amaris Sinclair, you know she’s not one who takes direction easily.”
    I chuckled. “I’ve only been here for a couple of days, but I have figured that out.”
    “He’s worried she’ll fall and hurt herself or worse,” Drew said, his eyes on Mrs. Sinclair. “But look at her. Sheer joy. And she’s an expert, better than you and me combined. She loves these horses but I can’t remember the last time she rode.”
    With Mrs. Sinclair in the lead and Drew next to me, we fell into an easy rhythm as the horses walked along the river, which was not yet frozen over by the cold temperatures though the trees were dotted with snow. I took in the landscape around me. This was the wilderness, no doubt about it. Not a car or house or telephone pole as far as the eye could see. Only enormous, age-old pine trees, rolling hills, and clean, crisp air. There was an ancientness that was hard for me to define. The trees themselves seemed to be holding secrets within their ramrod-straight trunks, their pine needles swaying gently in the breeze. It seemed as though they were signing a message to us as we passed.
    I could see why Andrew McCullough had wanted to build Havenwood on this land.
    We crested a ridge and I saw a lake before us—not Lake Superior, which was still some distance away, but an inland lake. Its surface held a thin layer of ice that glinted in the bright sunshine, and its rugged, rocky shoreline was covered with more enormous pine trees. I held my breath as a massive moose appeared from within the forest, broke the ice with its hoof, and lowered its great head, enormous rack and all, to take a drink.
    Drew pulled his horse to a stop next to mine. “Ever seen that before?” he whispered, lifting his sunglasses to get a better look.
    I just shook my head, watching until the moose had drunk its fill and disappeared back into the pines.
    I looked at Drew, my heart beating hard and fast in my chest, and knew my eyes were as wide as saucers. He smiled with the pride that comes from showing the wonders of one’s home to a newcomer.
    “We have a lot of them up here,” he said, clucking for his horse, and mine, to resume walking. “Not as many as in years past, but we still do see them, especially in the winter. It’s a great treat, isn’t it?”
    “This is what it must’ve looked like here, hundreds of years ago,” I mused, knowing I was seeing the land just the way Andrew McCullough had. “Civilization hasn’t yet crept in, with its paved roads and telephone poles. This is how the native peoples saw it, back before…” I suddenly felt a bit ashamed when I thought of the end of that sentence. Before my ancestors came and destroyed life as the natives knew it.
    Drew nodded. “You’re exactly right. Not everybody picks up on that. This view hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years. It’s just as rugged and beautiful and harsh as it was back then.”
    We rode in silence for a while, listening to the wind whisper to us through the pine needles. I had never heard such a thing before. The world around me was utterly devoid of the sound of civilization—no planes flying overhead, no car noise from any nearby street, no radios blaring, no voices. Just the soft hoofbeats of the horses’ feet crunching through the snow, and the whispering pines. It was a wispy, almost human sound that seemed to convey welcome and wisdom and warning.
    My body swayed in time with Nelly’s gentle gait. I couldn’t pinpoint the last time I had ridden a horse and had been nervous about attempting it, but it was almost as though my body remembered what my mind couldn’t grasp. The movement felt as natural and calming as breathing in and out.
    As we rode, Drew kept turning toward me, as though he wanted to say something.
    “What?” I said finally.
    “What do you mean,