Klickitat by Peter Rock Read Free Book Online Page A

channels lining up, somewhere out in the air, and someone surfacing.
    â€œTF8GX calling N7NTU. CQ, TF8GX.”
    N7NTU is Dad’s call sign. On the radio, when you say “CQ” that means “Seek You”—you’re letting someone know you’re trying to reach them. Sometimes you arrange a time when you’ll be on a certain frequency, and other times you just hope they’re there.
    â€œHello?” I said. “Hello?”
    â€œBe happy, Oregon,” a voice said. “This is Iceland.”
    The voice had an accent; I’d never heard one like it before. Maybe that was partly the radio, the distance. And the voice sounded like a boy, maybe, but more like a woman. Dad had said Iceland was a woman, a friend of his.
    â€œIt’s not him,” I said. “I’m his daughter.”
    â€œHe’s looking for you. Have you returned?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “That’s not me. I’m the younger one.”
    â€œVivian,” Iceland said. “Yes, of course. I have been hearing about you for a long time. I know a lot about you.”
    â€œLike what?” I said.
    â€œAnd now we’re having a conversation.” Static pushed into her voice, then back away. “Has your sister returned?”
    â€œNo,” I said.
    â€œI lost my sister, too,” she said. “Five years ago. Berglind was her name.”
    I glanced over at the washer and dryer, up at the small window by the ceiling, a piece of gray sky. It was hard to turn my head, the headset’s cord against my neck.
    â€œHow is your father doing with all this?” Iceland said. “With your sister gone?”
    â€œAll right,” I said. “Okay, I guess.”
    â€œIt must have been a surprise,” she said.
    â€œI guess so,” I said. “I don’t know.”
    â€œIt’s so cold and beautiful here, now,” she said.
    â€œAre you really in Iceland?” I said. “Or is that just a name you use?”
    â€œThe sea looks like metal and the sky is clear. I was out hunting eiderdown this morning, on the lava flows, the nests there. It grew so windy and I’m so old and not steady. I have to use two canes, to walk on the flows.”
    â€œHow old are you?” I said.
    â€œWhen I was a girl,” she said, static creeping into her words, “I couldn’t walk at all. I just sat in a wheelchair and watched the barges go by. I would daydream about all the places they’d go, all the places I could not go. How is your weather?”
    Then the static rose and tangled; I thought I could still hear her, pieces of words in that snarl, then I thought I lost her. I was about to take off the headset when things cleared again.
    â€œThe static,” I said.
    â€œSome think it’s only noise,” she said. “That is incorrect. Sometimes it’s interference from lightning, or in the atmosphere. Sometimes it’s simply too many people trying to talk at once, trying to reach you.”
    â€œTrying to reach me?” I shivered, the headset’s cord sliding across my bare neck.
    â€œSo many signals,” she said. “All at once. Some say static is the lack of motion, but that is incorrect. Static means there is so much movement in so many directions that the vibration is inward, not outward.”
    â€œLike on a television screen,” I said. “That kind of static.”
    â€œDid you answer me,” she said, “before, about your weather?”
    â€œIt’s raining here,” I said. “I haven’t been outside yet today, though.”
    â€œDo you think,” she said, “do you think that people are really talking about weather when they talk about weather, or are they talking about something else?”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œLike how they are actually feeling.”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “Weather, I guess.”
    â€œYou must miss your sister,”