by Zoje Stage
“About our land being haunted? I think you could be right! And wrong—this is bigger.”
“What does that even mean? We have a serious problem called a shit-ton of snow, and you’re just scaring the kids and acting like a lunatic.”
The kids hadn’t heard her; it was her husband she was scaring. His haunting theory had been a source of comfort because it was familiar, something to grab onto that existed in lore across millennia and, given the local history, a plausible explanation (with a leap of faith). Even without the precise words, she was suggesting something even more inexplicable. Was it the unknown aspect that scared him most?
As if in response, he put the beans in the grinder and jackhammered their peace with the sharp blast of fresh coffee.
“But it is bigger—even if the problem is weather! Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes!” She spoke into the whirring cacophony and he either didn’t hear her or neglected to answer. “Fine. You pretend we wouldn’t have prepared better if we’d moved somewhere with hurricanes.”
She strode to the front window, turning her back on him in every way as she contemplated the snow. Maybe it would disappear as quickly as it had come. That would be an appropriate thing to get on her knees and pray for. “Oh God!” She gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth.
This place was making them all crazy.
Shaw was right; she’d scoffed at The Secret and the inanity of praying for stuff. And if he hadn’t been so distracted by his “muse,” he might have thought to put a snowblower on their list of necessities. Would they have shown up in hurricane country with nothing but a flimsy umbrella? And their precious daughter was trying to understand the language of trees because her careless father had made up a story. Now that Orla needed to identify the moment when they’d started losing their grasp on reality, she couldn’t. Had the idea of moving been reckless from the get-go?
Or maybe she was just angry. At him. For this. The snow wasn’t his fault, but wasn’t the rest of it?
Orla huddled in a corner where Shaw, in the kitchen, wasn’t likely to see her. She pulled at her hair, swallowed down a scream. These were not helpful thoughts; she was losing her mind. He’d warned them not to open the doors. But the need to, now that she couldn’t, ticked in her like a bomb. She’d explode if she couldn’t get out. She raced upstairs to the bathroom and heaved open the window. Sucked in air. Didn’t come out until the fresh air defused her heart and chilled her tripping brain.
18
The views from the upstairs windows were shocking—and amazing. Only the pointed roof of the garage was visible; the rest lay hidden beneath a deep and endless swath of snow. It buried tree trunks, leaving dark, surrendering branches that looked too immobilized even to wave for help. But it was better than being downstairs. From the second-floor vantage point, and able to breathe again, Orla could appreciate its beauty—and the possibility that it was simply snow. The sky was the same, and that helped alleviate the claustrophobic panic of the living room; the more Orla thought about it, the more reasonable that explanation became. Who wouldn’t start to lose it if she felt like she’d been buried alive?
Eleanor Queen believed as Orla did, that if they tried to walk in the snow, they’d sink to the bottom. But Shaw insisted it would hold them, that it would settle some, as snow does, but they wouldn’t drown in it.
“So if we lose electricity or anything else happens, we can strap on our snowshoes and hike to town.” He chewed his sticky peanut butter toast as he sat on their bed with the kids.
Orla supposed Shaw meant that as a reassuring backup plan. But she hadn’t thought about the electricity that came to their home on fragile cables—fragile cables that kept the furnace running, and the lights on, and the water pumping, and the refrigerator and stove in working order. Surely such a tenuous lifeline would succumb to the oppressive snow…though the few lines she could see from her bedroom window appeared all right, not slackened or weighted down.
“That’s a pretty long hike. We have the generator, and the woodstove,” she offered—the only practical thing she’d been able to utter since they’d awakened. She didn’t know if the generator would work while buried in that much snow, but they could always use the woodstove for warmth and melting water, and to provide a flicker of light.
“True. Right. Can probably hold out, then.” He sounded disappointed. Orla wondered if a part of him wanted a reason to leave, to abandon ship. Was he hoping she would suggest it? Did it have to come from her, since the North Country had been his idea? Maybe she’d propose to Shaw later that they keep the house for a summer place so the mistake they’d made wouldn’t feel like total failure. But for now, she’d wait; it would be cruel to tease any of them with the possibility of leaving when they couldn’t even walk out the front door.
She tried her cell phone again, just in case. But there was no signal. Their bed was going to be a mess if they kept using it as a picnic spot; it was already splattered with crumbs and dribbles from Tycho’s milk.
“We should move the table up if we’re going to keep eating here,” she said.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about it…it should be totally safe to be downstairs.”
“Totally?” Orla raised her eyebrow at him as she tore off a little piece of her toast.
“It’s not like the snow is applying force from different angles, you know? It’s not pushing against the house, it’s just straight down, so…it should be fine.”
“Should?”
“Are you just going to keep singling out individual words from everything I say?”
The kids, from their perches at the end of the bed, watched them bicker back and forth. Orla couldn’t shake the sensation that their bed was a rickety raft about to split apart and plunge them all into a frozen sea. She wasn’t trying to antagonize her husband, but everything he’d said and done since they’d discovered their predicament was testing her restraint. Somehow she’d become an octopus, and Shaw couldn’t stop trampling on her tentacles. She didn’t have enough patience—or arms—to console/care for/entertain her children and demand better survival skills/solutions/apologies from her husband.
“Do you know it’s safe?” How could he have forgotten Eleanor Queen’s dream? She hoped the unspoken question was graffitied across her annoyed features.
“I have every reason to believe…I mean, I understand if you don’t want—if the view out the downstairs windows freaks you out. But it could be like this for days, and we shouldn’t just stop living. After I work on the roof, I’d like to get some painting—”
“You’re going on the roof?” Tycho asked, bouncing a little. “Can I come?”
“The kitchen roof,” Shaw clarified. “That’s our one vulnerable spot, because of the way it was built. They couldn’t put a steep pitched roof on the extension”—he put his hands together so the middle fingers touched, showing the children the shape of the house’s roof—“without blocking some of the second-floor windows. So the kitchen roof just slopes down a few feet, and the snow stacks up there—it doesn’t slide off like on the upper part of the house and the garage. I’m sure I won’t be the first person who’s shoveled snow off that roof.”
He sounded cheery enough, like such tasks were commonplace, and Eleanor Queen nodded at his logical explanation. She didn’t seem alarmed, but Orla recognized what a catastrophe it would be if the kitchen roof caved in—the freezing temperatures and loss of food aside, they’d lose access to the basement, where a lot of their important gear and tools were stored.
Orla let out the breath she’d been holding, not quite sure when she’d stopped breathing. Finally something sounded reasonable, a plan of action. “I’ll do it. The shoveling.”
“Mama’s going on the roof?” Tycho asked, just as bouncy. “Can I come?”
“Shut up,” Eleanor Queen told him. “You’ll die out there.”
“No I won’t.”
“Eleanor Queen, that’s not how we speak to each other.” Orla’s tone was ste
rn, but it was a relief to say something so ordinary.
“No one’s dying, and neither of you are going out on the roof,” said Shaw.
“He’s being stupid. This isn’t fun,” Eleanor Queen spat before slurping down the rest of her milk.
“He’s not being stupid; he’s feeling more adventurous than you are.” Before anyone could say another word, Orla turned to Shaw. “I’m serious, I’ll shovel the—”
“It’s a lot of work, snow can be heavy—”
“I know, but I need to. Please? I almost had a panic attack—I’m sorry, for downstairs. I didn’t know what I was saying. Getting out might help.”
His off-kilter grin was forgiving, and unless she was misinterpreting, he looked a little relieved. When was the last time he’d gone outside? Gone were his declarations about needing to walk among the trees. Shaw took her hand, rubbed her thumb knuckle.
“You really want to?” he asked. “I’ll do it if you don’t…” He sounded like Eleanor Queen steeling herself to sleep without the night-light.
“I really, really, really think shoveling the kitchen roof sounds like a spectacular option.”
“Well, you did say please, and who am I to deprive you of a spectacular option?” He winked at Tycho. “Mama’s gonna shovel the roof—that was my diabolical plan all along.”
Tycho and Shaw shared a conspiratorial giggle. Eleanor Queen gave her father an assessing look, suspicious, and reached a conclusion that Orla couldn’t read.
Eleanor Queen might have decided staying indoors—even after her nightmare—was a better alternative to venturing outside. But Orla had never felt so hemmed in in her life. Having nowhere to go had already been a struggle; having no way to get out felt like a coffin lid slamming shut in her face. Surely that was the origin of her shallow breathing, the sensation that she was running out of air and had to conserve it. And hard physical work, even in the surreal, half-buried landscape, would alleviate the sinking feeling of her—their—helplessness.
“And we should get the snowshoes and stuff out of the basement,” she said. “And move some of the food into the living room, just—”
“In case,” said Shaw, finishing her sentence. “I’ll pile up some essentials by the front door, just in case.”
“In case of what, Papa?” But they avoided answering Tycho’s question.
“In case the house collapses.” Eleanor Queen, doomed, didn’t say the words to anyone in particular. Shaw and Orla exchanged glances, but before they could contradict or reassure her, the girl slid off the bed. “Can I do my schoolwork?”
“Sorry, Bean—the satellite dish is buried, we can’t get online.” Shaw gathered up all of their dirty plates.
“You can work on your math pages, that’ll keep you busy.” Orla stacked up their cups with one hand, swept crumbs from the bed with the other.
“What about me?” asked Tycho.
They streamed out of the bedroom single file, but Eleanor Queen slipped into her room as the rest headed downstairs.
“We can watch Mama from inside, as she shovels,” Shaw said. “Or you can play in my studio while I work?”
Orla couldn’t help but remember the guns. They were locked up now, stored out of sight in the studio’s closet. But still. She didn’t like the image of Tycho playing on the floor with the guns at his back. There was too much danger. Indoors. Outdoors. She longed for the freedom, now gone, to walk—run—through the front door, go anywhere. She needed to get outside, shake off the crushing walls and the fear that moving to the Adirondacks had been a terrible miscalculation. Hopefully that would help. It had to help.
But the ghoul from the shadows reached for her, gesticulating, desperate to make itself understood.
What was she still not seeing? Had Orla missed something by not paying enough attention? To Eleanor Queen? To Shaw? Now, everything inside her, from her churning intestines to her frantic heartbeat, was urging her on. Find the pieces. Solve the puzzle.
Before it was too late.
19
Eleanor Queen huddled with her knees to her chin, comforter to her ears, and glared at them.
“Sorry, Bean. It’s just the easiest window for Mama to use.”
Shaw held the shovel as Orla sat on the windowsill with her legs out, trying to strap on the snowshoes without bonking her head on the window sash.
“You’re making it freezing in here!” Eleanor Queen pouted.
“Out of your way in a minute.” Orla slipped off the ledge and onto the snow. For a moment she stood out there, expectant, still believing that she might sink into the depths and suffocate. She sank a bit, but it was inches not feet. Shaw handed her the shovel.
“Remind me to thank Julie again next time we talk.” She’d found gaiters among the donated winter stuff, and though her boots were tall, the waterproof gaiters Velcroed over her pants all the way up to her knees. And she was prepared for the brightness this time, though banks of clouds were encroaching on the sun; with her sunglasses on, she wasn’t blinded as she stepped out into the white world.
The window closed behind her with the hydraulic swoosh of new, smoothly fitted frames. It shut out Eleanor Queen’s final complaint, and Orla was on her own.
It was strange to see the tree canopies from this vantage, almost eye to eye and so close, like they were giant dead bushes, not the treetops beyond her daughter’s side window. For a moment she had the sensation of levitating and feared, again, a swift plunge through the deep snow. But as she hooked a right toward the back of the house and the kitchen, walking with cautious, exaggerated steps as she acclimated to the snowshoes, she felt a release from the claustrophobia. Breathing came more easily and the frozen gusts that bloomed from her mouth reminded her of childhood, when seeing her own breath had been a source of wonder and joy. Ahead of her, the forest of trees lay buried, with only the great pine’s trunk visible above the deep snow.
The plan she’d formed with Shaw was to start on one side of the kitchen roof, at the lowest part of the slope (which was almost at her ground level) and see how much snow she could move by shoveling or swiping, depending on what she could reach. The goal wasn’t to clear the roof down to its shingles but to lessen the weight as much as she could. It was more difficult than she’d anticipated, as the snow she needed to remove towered above her. She had to extend her arms fully over her head to even start, but she was relieved to discover it was a feathery snow, light and airy. If it had been dense and wet, it could have been a double disaster of being too heavy to move and too heavy a load for the sloped first-floor extension.
So, without grace, she whacked snow aside. She had no choice at first but to attack lower sections, inevitably causing the collapse of the snow above; snow powdered her face as it was shaken loose. But when one corner was more manageable, she clambered onto the roof itself and did the rest of the work from there, where, using her full height and stretched arms, she could work from the top down.
It felt weird to be standing atop their kitchen. She wondered if Shaw, gathering supplies beneath, could hear her as she shuffled around. As the glare diminished a bit, she perched her sunglasses on her woolly hat, fearing the darkening sky intended to unleash more snow. Gray folds had settled in, hiding most of the sun and confusing the horizon line; all she saw were endless swaths of silvery white. For a moment she reconsidered what had happened; maybe it hadn’t snowed at all, but the clouds had found purchase on the land around their mysterious house.
The trees in the distance, far up on a rolling hill above the road, looked more naked—less consumed by meringue—than the ones in closer proximity. How widespread, or narrow, had the overnight storm been? What if, like the aurora borealis, it was only here?
Think, think, think…as much as anything, she’d come out here to sort out her thoughts. As if to accommodate her, the land was utterly still. Nothing moved. Nothing emitted a sound.
She listened harder.
Not a bird. Not a distant car. Not the wind.
&nbs
p; “Hello?” she said into the silence, half expecting to not hear her own voice. Perhaps it was a trick of the deep snow obliterating the nuances in the terrain, but the audience of trees looked as if they stood nearer together than they had before, and slightly closer to the house.
A part of her felt like a warrior, weapon in hand, battling an enemy force. After a short time, her muscles surpassed their achy point, heated by constant motion and abundant with energy; her body became a well-oiled machine. It was a comfortable—familiar—place for her, reminiscent of the rehearsal process, when she and her partners would practice the same movements over and over, on a mission of perfection. Eventually the choreography became so ingrained it ceased to require conscious thought and became…something else. A reaction, an impulse, a necessity created by the music. And forever after, if she heard a certain piece of music, her muscles were prepared. They’d twitch in anticipation of each crescendo and her hand would lead her arm to its designated position; she’d lift to relevé, movement coiled inside her, even as she stood in the checkout line at TJ Maxx.
Music controlled motion.
Other people might find that a strange concept; for her it was the natural order of things. Maybe she needed to turn other concepts on their head to heed the specter’s demand and find the keystone that would give her an answer. Weary but absorbed in a rhythm, Orla pondered the unexplained things that had occurred since their arrival. She’d done her best to find logical explanations—global warming or other meteorological changes; general fear, or discomfort, or a sense of displacement; a shared delusion brought on by toxic elements in their environment. But logic didn’t hold. And though the cure cottage was an enticing detail, it was getting harder to believe that it could be the source of their mystery. People died everywhere; was there any reason this place should be more haunted than any other? New York City should be teeming with ghosts if all that was required was a mortal population.