The Taxidermist's Second

Some towns forgive. Cascade, Montana, was not one of them.

The sign came up before the town did—a weathered slab of wood with paint flaking at the edges: Welcome to Cascade - Population 8,000. Wren slowed, breath fogging the inside of the truck like a ghost she couldn't shake. Her hands trembled on the steering wheel, the muscles in her forearms tight from the long drive. The road had been a ribbon of gray, potholes and thawing ditches, the Rockies a promise of granite and cold beyond. March mist wrapped the pines in a colorless shawl. The town itself looked small and stubborn beneath the low clouds, roofs like folded hands, smoke rising from a single chimney.

She killed the engine and sat a long time with her eyes on that sign. The truck smelled of old coffee, taxidermy glue, and cedar shavings—familiar things that used to feel like home, now a list of evidence. Her phone buzzed once on the passenger seat, a message from Mrs. Chen with a string of exclamation points and two heart emojis: We're so glad you're back!!!! Come by for tea when you can. Wren thumbed the screen without really reading, thumb numb as if she'd been sculpting.

A man opened his car on the other side of the road and glanced at her with the small-town curiosity Wren had fled a decade ago, the way people inspect a wound without asking permission. She pulled the collar of her jacket higher and forced the truck into gear. The engine complained, then rolled forward. Every mile into Cascade felt like a step closer to a verdict. She tasted it on her tongue—salt and iron.

She remembered Jonah's face the last time she had seen him: close enough to touch, eyes bright with something that could have been everything. His hair had been messy, as always, as if he'd never quite conquered that wildness, his jaw tightening in a way that said he was trying not to break. He'd laughed at something stupid she'd said and reached for her hand. She remembered the warmth, the patient way his fingers curled around hers, as if he were keeping something precious from falling. Then the echo of his next words—"If you leave, Wren, I can't follow"—and the way they had landed like a chisel between bones. Wren had walked away with her hands full of small things: a hummingbird pin, a band of ribbon, a promise she thought she could keep by breaking it.

She found herself whispering as the town came into clearer view, voice small in the cab. "Okay," she said, to the sign, to the sky, feeling ridiculous. "Okay."

Her phone finally rang. She glanced, saw Mrs. Chen's name, and answered without thinking. The bookstore owner’s voice filled the truck, warm and quick like steam.

"Wren! You're really here. I sent a text, but—oh, good, you picked up. How many boxes?"

Wren's mouth made a small sound. The boxes numbered more in guilt than in cardboard. "More than I thought I could carry," she said. "Enough to make Ruth think I moved into a museum."

Mrs. Chen laughed on the other end, a rasp that suggested a kettle long off the boil. "Ruth will be thrilled to have you, dear. She kept asking about you. You should've seen the children's eyes when I told them a real taxidermist was coming back—like I'd said a witch. They were so excited."

Wren gave a brief and brittle smile. "I'm not a witch," she said.

"Not even a little," Mrs. Chen agreed. "You'll come by the shop, yes? I baked scones. And—" she lowered her voice in a way Wren could imagine, "Jonah's been in a mood lately. The whole town has. Be ready for the looks, Wren. People remember things like boomerangs."

Silence spread between them. Wren could hear the beep of the crosswalk light in the distance, a dog barking twice, the soft click of windshield wipers clearing the last of the slush.

"Mrs. Chen—" Wren started, and her voice trembled in a place she didn't want anyone to hear.

"Yes?" The woman’s tone smeared concern across the line.

"I'm coming back for Ruth," Wren said, the confession small and fierce. "I need to help. I couldn't leave her alone anymore."

There was a pause, then, "Bless you, child. You've done well by her. Come by. We'll talk. And if Jonah gives you that look, you glare right back. You owe him nothing but the truth."

The word truth hung heavier than it should. Wren clenched her hands until the tremors calmed, grounding herself in the familiar ridges etched into palms by the instruments she had once held. "I know," she said, because she didn't know anything else to say.

"Good." Mrs. Chen sighed as if settling a quilt. "See you soon. Wear something warm."

"I will," Wren promised, though warmth felt like another kind of armor she wasn't sure she could put on. "Thank you."

"Always," Mrs. Chen said. "And Wren—listen. Don't let everyone else's remembering swallow your own. You know how to fix things—start there."

Wren ended the call and rested her head against the wheel for a second, eyes closed. Fix things. The phrase had once been simple and literal—repair feathers, steady glass eyes, stitch a wing. Now it felt like a map with missing roads. Her breathing was slow enough to count. She pictured the museum's restoration lab, the hum of the climate-control, the long oak workbench scarred with decades of careful hands. She imagined the scent of solvents and old paper. She imagined Jonah standing across from her, the set of his mouth not softening.

A memory unspooled, sharp as a pinprick: Jonah in the doorway of the little apartment they'd shared at twenty-two, sunlight catching in his eyes. "What are you doing?" he'd asked. She could hear it again, could feel the laugh she'd swallowed back then.

"You can't just go," he had said, stepping forward like he could keep her anchored.

"I have to," she'd said, but the words had been a paper shield in her hands. "Jonah, I can't be the reason you don't leave. I can't be what makes you stay when you want more."

His fingers had brushed her cheek. "Wren," he'd said—his voice low, the way he used it when he wanted to coax something true out of the world—"we'll make it work. Trouble doesn't get to decide our story."

She remembered the tug in her chest, the temptation to stay. She'd been so tired then—not of him, not of the life, but of the future she could not imagine for them, given the slow unraveling at home with Ruth, the bad days blooming sooner than they should. She'd convinced herself that leaving was courage, a gift, a way to preserve what he loved about himself: his ambition, his curiosity. She had thought love could be a detour. She'd thought love could be a map.

Flashback voices blurred into present wind, and Wren found herself answering the empty cab as if Jonah's voice was still in the room. "I wanted you to have everything," she whispered. "I thought I was making space."

The memory didn't soften Jonah. It made him more solid—his jaw, that scar above his brow she alone had traced once with a fingertip. She could hear the rest of their last night as if it were playing on a loop: his question—"If you walk away, will you ever come back?"—and the long, impossible thing she'd said in reply, the sentence she thought would be a mercy.

"Maybe," she'd told him. "Maybe not."

She remembered the look that followed, a shape of pain that became a promise never to return. He'd left with his own clean hands and a suitcase of plans. She had boarded a bus and kept walking until her hands learned new work in new towns and her mother's name softened into a memory she couldn't outrun.

The March air pulled at the truck windows, and Wren could see her breath in little ghosts. The town seemed to observe her with a hundred small lenses—curtained windows, a kid on a skateboard who paused to stare. She felt the weight of judgment like a physical thing, a coat too thick for the season. It scraped at her shoulders. She wanted to hide under the bench seat and let the noise of the road cover the sound of her own heartbeat.

She unbuckled, gathered the duffel from the seat, and climbed out into the thin cold. Snow grit crunched under her boots. The air smelled faintly of woodsmoke and wet wool. Hands numb, she hugged the bag to her chest like it could be a shield, and started down Main Street.

She'd come home to face what she'd destroyed.