Fiona Page • Fiction
Near the Colorado border, Lake Maloya sparkles in the fading sun. Long shadows reach across the water from the treeline, the tall hills creating a dark patch where the shade collects. Water laps against the rocks as my friends and I eat dinner, a homemade spread consisting of sandwiches and pretzels.
“I hate camping,” my twin sister Alis complains, tossing an offending piece of onion into the thick weeds around us. “Why am I here again?”
“Because it’s fun,” I tell her, stealing a pretzel from her plate.
“Your definition of fun and my definition of fun are two very different things, Inge,” she says. Some birds chirp in the trees as the sun sinks out of sight.
“Hey, guys,” Kal says, sliding onto the bench between us. I’m not sure if he’s brave or extremely dumb. “Do you know what we’re close to?”
“Tell us,” Yuna, our other friend, drawls.
“Sugarite coal camp,” he says, voice hushed. “It’s all ruins now. Do you want to go check it out?”
“At night?” Alis whines. “We’re going to get in trouble.”
“We’re not going to do anything,” Kal assures her. “I just want to see it. You in, Inge?”
I nod without hesitating. I like standing amongst ruins and picturing the way they used to look, when history was present day. And these ruins aren’t that old; the coal camp was running back during WWII.
Satisfied, Kal turns back to his food. We finish dinner in near silence, if we don’t count Alis’s incessant huffing.
**********
It’s completely dark now, and our flashlights are almost ineffective. We cut through the underbrush to the road and follow it to the small visitor center near the ruins. It’s deserted, the rangers all gone home. The moon is rising behind the hill in front of us, and pale light is filling the sky.
“There are wild animals out here,” Alis whispers. It’s cold; our breath hangs in white clouds in front of us. My boots thud hollowly on the wooden bridge as we cross a small, empty gully.
“Can’t we do this in the morning?” Yuna asks. “I’m freezing.”
I exchange a look with Kal. They’re right, we should wait. All manner of bad things could happen to us out here in the dark with no one around. We make our way back across the bridge and take a seat at a picnic table, facing the black hillside where the ruins hide. The dead leaves on the tree above us are rustling in a spine-prickling way.
“Look at the moon,” Yuna whispers, and I raise my eyes over the hilltop. The moon is full
We watch the moon in silence, and something catches in the corner of my eye. The ruins, cast in milky light, are glowing, mist covering the ground and inching all the way to the bridge. It’s so thick, this sudden fog, that nothing is visible on the hill.
“Whoa,” Kal says.
Slowly, it clears. Under the huge, icy full moon, the ghost town of Sugarite, New Mexico, raises itself. The buildings put themselves back together, brick by old brick, rising into the sky. Board by wooden board, the walkways piece themselves together, trailing through streets and past rows of identical houses.
And there are people, too, as pale and insubstantial as the mist that covered the ground. They go about their lives as if they had never ended, carrying axes and leading horses deeper into the hills to mine. Little kids run past mothers talking in the road, heading for the schoolhouse where a young woman waits for them. We can’t hear their voices, as if a barrier keeps us out.
I don’t know how long we watch the town’s rebirth, but it must be hours. The moon passes overhead, coming into conflict with a patch of clouds. In a blink, the town is gone, leaving cold and empty ruins behind like the life never existed.
Stiff, we pull ourselves off the table, make our way back to the tents. There is nothing to talk about, no way to rationalize what just happened. If we mention it, we will break it.
After all, no one but us needs to know that the small, forgotten town of Sugarite, under moonlight, rises.
Leonardo Magazine 