When the sun rose the next morning and entrenched itself in the bright blue sky, Timothy and Marshall were driving through Macon on their way north to the Georgia mountains. It had been a quiet trip thus far, with only clipped bits of conversation darting between the two men. They were tense, unsure of what awaited them in Trinity, if anything at all. Marshall remained reserved and distant. Timothy believed he was doing everything he could to hold himself back from the precipice that looked over the bottomless chasm of mystery that was Allison's disappearance. He knew Marshall wanted to jump, to submerge himself in again, if just to feel the warmth of hope once more.
Timothy held back. He wanted desperately to talk to his friend, to coax him off the ledge and join him in the deep. Without it, he would be of little help, or perhaps nothing but a deterrent. Marshall was there with him, though. There was a lot to be said about that. Timothy's anxiety over his friend's position was strong, but not strong enough to risk an explosion by prodding too early.
"Do you want to listen to the radio?" Timothy asked.
"Nope," Marshall replied, eyes fixed on the windshield. "Quiet is good for thinking."
"What are you thinking about?"
"What the fuck do you think I'm thinking about?" Marshall snarled.
"I don't know..," Timothy replied meekly.
"I'm thinking I don't know how in the hell I let you talk me into doing this! I must be some kind of fucking fool. I'm thinking I was doing okay and then you had to bring me back into this shit again."
"I didn't talk you into this," Timothy said. "You came on your own accord."
"I know, I'm just pissed about it. You couldn't leave it the hell alone, could you?"
"She wouldn't let me."
"She was stubborn," Marshall replied after a moment.
They sat in silence again for a long while as Timothy drove through the busy confines of Atlanta during the morning rush hour. They bobbed and weaved for an hour before reaching the open highway again just north of the city. It was early autumn, and the leaves were changing. The small suburban towns that dotted north Cobb County looked especially beautiful when bathed in an autumnal glow. It seemed fitting to have the leaves in the trees match the orange and red clay of the earth.
"I don't know why she loved it up here so much," Marshall said, breaking the long-standing silence between them. "We were together for four years and must've come up here a dozen times. I hate the city, but she loved it."
"Why'd she love it so much?" Timothy asked, hoping to keep Marshall talking.
"Beats me," he replied with a shrug. "Seems like a lot of hustle and bustle for nothing if you ask me. Everybody is in some kind of fucking hurry, all of them going nowhere in particular. It drove me nuts. She always had to drive because it drove me nuts. She didn't care. She drank it up like a fine wine."
"What about Trinity? How often did you go there?"
"We didn't, really. We may have stopped there a couple of times. It's pretty rundown now. Not a whole lot left from when we were kids, and even then, it was dilapidated. I mean, my parents talked about going when they were kids. I can remember stopping once just because she wanted to see it. We drove around, looked at the old adventure park, stopped for a bite, and were on our way. The other time was when we went to the tchotchke shop. That's it."
"Did she know about the shop beforehand?"
"I don't know, Tim," Marshall said, growing annoyed that their conversation was growing into yet another interrogation.
"Did she know exactly what she wanted to get, or did you browse?"
"She wanted a damn wood-carved old man. I told you that already! I don't know why or for whom, but I know she said it was for a friend and that they loved those specific carvings."
"You never knew who the friend was?"
"No, Tim, I didn't. Now, can you stop with the third degree, please?"
"I'm sorry," Timothy said. "I'm not trying to grill you. I'm just trying to make it all make sense."
"You can't, Tim. You just can't. I always assumed that the friend was actually a lover, and that's why she left me."
"I thought it was a mutual break-up," Timothy said with surprise.
"Yeah, outwardly it was. But inwardly? No way. I was broken. I just didn't want her to know how much. I didn't want it to be messy. She still meant to world to me. It just seemed better to let her go as a lover to keep her as a friend."
"What did she say?"
Marshall took a deep breath and stared off into space for a moment before answering.
"She said she was planning on making a lot of big changes in her life. She had a lot of new goals that she wanted to focus on, and our relationship was taking away from that."
"Did she ever say why she had this change of heart?"
"She was your sister. You guys were thick as thieves. Did she ever say anything to you?"
"No," Timothy replied solemnly. "She never said a thing. When I saw her, she was always the same. I never heard a thing about her new goals or whatever, but that doesn't surprise me. Towards the end, our relationship lived in a vacuum. We are trauma-bonded and spoke our own language through that. I could have asked and she would have told me, but I never did."
"Do you ever think she just ran away?"
"Never."
"I did," Marshall continued wistfully. "Still kinda do. I like to believe she just cut ties and started anew somewhere. It's not unheard of, you know?"
"Not my sister," Timothy firmly replied. "Not Allison."
They both fell silent again as all traces of Atlanta and its many suburbs passed into quiet country towns surrounded by lofty woods. The highway began elevating as well, pushing further up into the mountains. Timothy could sense a wave of uneasiness coursing through Marshall. It was obvious that he was feeling the ghosts of the past draw nearer as they closed in on Trinity.
"We must be getting close," Marshall said as if sensing Timothy's perception, his head turned toward the side windows. "I can feel it in my stomach."
Timothy knew what Marshall meant. Besides the general queasiness that accompanied any sharp thrust in elevation, he could feel the same sense of dread welling up in his stomach.
They turned off Interstate 85 and started down the twisting maze of county highways that led up to Trinity. The trees that were perched casually along the interstate now reached their branches far across the road, looming over passing vehicles with ominous darkness. The temperature dropped as they blocked the sun with their mass. Then the highway turned north into a series of switchbacks, taking them rapidly up the mountainside and making both men dizzy in the process. Several more daring drivers passed the two of them on their way up, irritated by the safe speed that Timothy was keeping. Though they both had grown up less than five hours from the mountains, neither of them had grown used to the treacherous switchbacks that zigzagged up the slope.
Finally, the highway evened out into pastures, many of which were decorated with scarecrows and pumpkins to commemorate the upcoming holiday. There was a grayish haze in the sky that threatened storms but showed no follow-through.
"It's like it is in my dream," Timothy blurted out aimlessly.
"What is?" Marshall asked.
"The sky," Timothy replied, pointing through the windshield. "It's always this gray color."
"It's mid-October. It's always that color."
"I've never been here," Timothy replied. "So, I wouldn't know."
"I thought you guys had come here as kids, didn't you?"
"She may have, but I don't remember ever coming here."
"She had definitely been here before," Marshall said.
"Must've been on her own, I guess."
"And so the mystery deepens."
The road curved and brought them to a three-way stop. Perched behind the signs indicating which direction Country Road 432 went where was a rotted old billboard with a ripped facade of fading colors. It said Adventure awaits you in Trinity - 1 mile, followed by an arrow pointing left. Timothy looked to Marshall, who matched his trepidatious stare, then turned left onto County Road 432 West towards Trinity.