I am afraid.
When he got home, August was sitting on the porch, wrapped in a quilt, breathing with the help of an oxygen tank. He looked at Elias’s empty hands.
He looked at the open journal. At the words It looks like my mother. At the date: 1932.
Standing in the doorway was a woman in a blue coat, dark hair, kind eyes. She looked exactly like the photograph on his father’s dresser. The photograph of the woman who had walked out of their house when Elias was three years old and never come back. -C- 2008 mcgraw-hill ryerson limited
Ninety years. Tivon had been here for ninety years, trapped by a thing that wore the faces of the dead.
The McGraw-Hill company, founded in 1888, had a long history of publishing educational materials in the United States and around the world. With its acquisition of Ryerson Press, McGraw-Hill expanded its reach into the Canadian market, creating McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited.
He packed a backpack: tent, dehydrated meals, a satellite messenger (his father insisted), a rifle for polar bears, and the compass. He left a note on the kitchen table: Gone to find Tivon. Back in two weeks. I am afraid
It seems you’re asking for a long story based on a specific credit line: “-C- 2008 McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited.” That looks like a copyright notice from a textbook or educational resource. I can’t reproduce an existing copyrighted story from McGraw-Hill Ryerson, but I can absolutely write a inspired by the kinds of themes, settings, or characters often found in their educational readers (e.g., coming-of-age, Canadian landscapes, historical fiction, ethical dilemmas).
“I could be,” she whispered. “For you. Stay, Elias. The valley is kind to those who stay. August knows. He sent you here. Didn’t he?”
The next morning, August died in his sleep. Elias found him with a smile on his face, one hand reaching toward the nightstand where the compass used to sit. He looked at the open journal
Elias held up the compass. The needle pointed northeast across the tundra.
If anyone finds this, do not follow the compass. Bury it. Leave this place. There are things older than geographers here.