by Paula Guran
“Yeah, but what’s in those boxes?”
Struck by a sudden, most curious idea, one wrapped in the aura of the forbidden, she stopped and regarded the faraway stack of containers. Eudora thought of the train conductor and his precious cargo. The boxes were long and narrow, each one the size of a person. Munn stopped moving, too, and turned around to look at her.
“Could be anything inside those things. Don’t think too much about it, kiddo. Let’s see if your old man is ready.”
He picked up her case and led her up three flights of stairs, into a wide corridor and past several sets of doors. Asking him anything would have been a waste of time, she knew. As if in compensation, music and the smell of food drifted to her. Munn opened a door, looked at her for a second, then said, “Keep quiet and stay behind me.”
She nodded. Her heart was beating faster, and she felt flushed with anticipation.
Munn slipped through the door, Eudora directly behind him.
Over his shoulder, she saw the great fire at the back of the room, the massive table where the remains of a roast sat amidst scattered plates, glasses, pads of paper—the ruins of a working dinner. The fire and the low candles on the table provided the only light.
A group of men, her father’s friends and business partners, were seated on stools and sofas and easy chairs off to the side of the table. They were attending to the conversation in progress as if nothing could be more crucial to their futures. In fact, each of these nine or ten men was staring at her father as if he alone were the key to whatever lay ahead. They were dependent upon Den, she saw; he was at their very center. Den turned his head toward Munn and at last found that Eudora had come into the enormous room. Even at her distance from him, even in the dim, flickering light, she saw joy flare up into his eyes. He moved swiftly toward her, his arms held wide. Behind him, the other men watched his progress with the patient curiosity of dogs. Quickly, he pulled her into his embrace and began to apologize for failing to pick her up at the station. The men dared not move until he looked back and gestured.
Imagine, Eudora thought, it took me my whole life to notice that he’s the king around here.
Six months later, Eudora and Maude Munn had many times ridden their horses through the town and raced them over the fields. After long secret consultations and hilarious conversations; after luxurious meals and hurried, impromptu meals because she had to get back outside into the cold twilight to track rabbits through the fresh snow; after snowball fights with half the girls in town; after hours of lonely study; after occasions of ecstasy at the suddenly apprehended fact of really being there, wrapped in dark furs at the edge of the forest as light snowfall skirled down from the gray, shining sky and the hints of a thousand adventures seemed to shimmer before her; after long conversations with her father; after all of this, it had become her last full day in Lost Lake. Eudora and Maude were taking their final ride together on their favorite horses, and they came again to the edge of the forest no one was ever supposed to enter.
Maude’s horse was brown and white, with spots of dirt on his belly that she would have to comb out later on. The horse whinnied, and Maude settled him with a few pats on the neck.
“I don’t think even he wants to go in there,” she said. Maude shifted on the horse’s back, uneasy. It wasn’t like Maude to hesitate. When they had leaped off the roof of an abandoned building into a bed of cardboard boxes, it had been Maude’s idea. When they had dropped water balloons onto the backs of Den’s men, it had been Maude’s idea. When they had spent the night together, curled up like she used to with Lily and Jane, but somehow even closer, it had been Maude’s idea. But she wasn’t feeling bold right now, that was clear. Eudora watched as Maude turned toward her; her strawberry birthmark looked brighter, pinker than usual. It was her stoplight, Maude liked to say, and it didn’t like the cold. Eudora thought it didn’t like the forest, either. Kids in Lost Lake liked to make up stories about the lake itself, how it was haunted, but Eudora didn’t believe them, and Maude had never acted like she did, either. Anyway, she’d never even seen the lake. For all she knew, the lake itself might be a myth, no bigger than a mud puddle after a rainstorm.
“How scary can it be?” Eudora said, and urged her horse on. The forest was thick, but there were pathways—roads, almost—that indicated they wouldn’t be the first, maybe not even the first that day. Maude nodded, and squeezed her horse, and into the forest they went.
Dark, empty branches stretched skyward over their heads like the skeleton of a ceiling—all beams and bones, no connective tissue. The leaves were gone. The girls stopped talking, and the only sounds were the horses’ hooves on the dirt, the wind in the branches above them, and their own heartbeats. Eudora knew they weren’t supposed to go into the forest, but it sounded like advice they’d outgrown, didn’t it? She was sure it did. It wasn’t safe for children, of course, but she and Maude weren’t children anymore. They could take care of themselves. She felt bolder with every step the horse took, until a man in black clothing like a uniform without badges or insignia stepped out from behind a great oak and held out his hand to stop them, and as silently as smoke other men in faceless uniforms, each with an ugly automatic weapon in his black-gloved hands, appeared on both sides, and they stopped their horses, having no real choice, and their audacity momentarily shriveled.
Maude gasped, and Eudora reached out to take her hand. Maude’s palm was sweating already. The guards stepped toward them, spooking Eudora’s horse.
“Turn around, girls,” the guard said. Eudora looked to Maude, who had gone completely white. What is she so afraid of, Eudora wondered. They would turn back if they had to, of course, but why was Maude so frightened?
“I’m Den Hale’s daughter,” said Eudora, “and she’s Clancy Munn’s daughter. We just want to see Lost Lake.” She was sure that her father’s name would grant her access to whatever was hidden in the trees.
The guards didn’t smile or soften the way Eudora thought they would. “Turn around, girls, and ride back freely, or we’ll walk you back, like prisoners,” the guard said. “You choose.”
Surprised and slightly shaken, Maude and Eudora rode back through the trees and across the ring road and left the horses in their stables, and hugged each other, and promised themselves that the following year they would figure out how to get to Lost Lake. When they parted at Den’s door, Eudora thought Maude lingered a little bit, the horse’s reins still tight in her hand.
“What is it?” Eudora asked.
“Nothing,” Maude said. She shook her head, as if trying to convince herself. “Nothing.” Then she clicked her tongue and turned around and went home by herself, back to Clancy’s house on the next block. Eudora stayed outside, listening, just in case her friend came back. The following day, when Eudora took the little train back to warmth and Fairlady, a different conductor accepted her ticket, punched it, plodded to the end of the carriage, and disappeared. When Eudora closed her eyes and fell asleep, she dreamed of horses and leaves and men with guns tucked into their waistbands; she dreamed of Maude’s hair blowing across her cheek; she dreamed of a vast lake that stretched all the way to the horizon.
Dawn was waiting when the train arrived, a basket of food hanging from her arm. She’d baked biscuits for the short ride home from the station, and brought some freshly made juice the color of a sunrise.
“How was the trip?” Dawn asked, smiling. Her eyes looked glassy, which could have been from the breeze coming through the leaves and the grass. It was spring again, and there was pollen in the air.
“Good,” Eudora said, knowing that her mother wouldn’t want to hear more. “Fine.”
“If it was good for you, it’s good for me,” Dawn said, and hooked her arm over Eudora’s shoulder and turned toward home. After six months in Lost Lake, Fairlady looked like a film set—there was no trash or leaves in the gutter, no eyesore vehicles, not a broken window or an empty building. Even by the train station, the streets were as clean as if t
hey’d just been mopped with bleach.
“How is everyone?” Eudora asked, expecting more of the same, easy answers to easy questions. She loved her mother, but Dawn didn’t like to go beneath the surface. Everything was always fine, no matter what.
“Lily’s got the bunnies in the living room—there are more of them now, the big one had some more babies. She wanted to show them to you.”
“And what about Jane?”
Dawn didn’t stop walking, didn’t shift her gaze from the clear, even sidewalk. “Jane’s living with her father now.”
Eudora tried to stop, but Dawn kept moving. “What?!” This had happened to other girls in Fairlady, older ones who were as pretty and blond as Jane. One day they’d be at school, practicing their choreographed routines in the hall, all white teeth and unblemished skin, and then next day, they’d be gone. To their fathers, whom no one had ever seen.
“She wanted to, Eudora. Just like you want to live with your father. Doesn’t Jane get to make a choice, too?” Dawn’s voice was as even as the sidewalk, with not a single crack.
Eudora thought of Jane’s whispered pleas, her soft cheek resting against Eudora’s shoulder the night before she left for Lost Lake. That night, Jane hadn’t wanted to go anywhere. Eudora wondered when her friend had changed her mind. “Sure,” she said. “Of course.” When they made it back to the house, all the lights were on and Lily sat in the middle of the living room floor, surrounded by little moving puddles of white fur, smiling as if nothing was different. Even Jane’s mother grinned, so happy to see Eudora home again.
The months went quickly—Eudora went back to school, where she read familiar stories and took familiar tests. She ate her mother’s beautiful, rich food and helped clean the kitchen. Lily stayed close to her in bed at night, the two of them singing the kind of children’s songs that were harmless until you actually listened to the lyrics, which were about hangmen and rotting earth. The summer came and all the playgrounds were full of children. She washed her hair and braided it while it was wet, which left wrinkles of curls behind after it dried, which reminded her of Maude. In the fall, just before Eudora was heading back, Dawn began to pick at her cuticles, which she’d never done before. Once, Eudora was walking by the bathroom and saw Dawn plucking her eyebrow hairs with her fingers, her sharp nails acting as tweezers. Her mother looked completely unlike herself—Dawn looked pale and frightened, but determined, too. Eudora stepped on a noisy floorboard, and Dawn looked up, catching Eudora’s eyes in the bathroom mirror. Instantly her face went back to normal, the corners of her mouth perking back up into a smile. She smoothed her fingers over the reddened stripes over her eyes. “Time for bed!” she said, her voice trilling upward like a happy bird.
Eudora stayed awake on the train—she wanted to know how far it really was in between the two cities. There were tunnels she’d never noticed before, long stretches of time underground. Eudora stared out the window, sure that she would pass something that would explain the difference between her mother’s house and her father’s, between the way she felt in her two bedrooms, the difference between Lily and Jane and Maude.
This time, it was her father who picked her up from the train. He walked up the platform smiling at her, and she took in again that he was actually a small, compact man who moved with a wonderful economy and efficiency you never noticed until he was coming straight at you and you had no choice. Den walked, she realized, like a dancer. He sauntered, he strolled, he more or less glided up to her and hugged her close and kissed her forehead. Her father was just about the same height as Dawn. In a few years, she would probably be taller than both of them. Eudora slid her face into the collar of his old brown leather jacket and, to keep her childhood from vanishing completely away, inhaled the fragrance of Lost Lake masculinity, minus the smell of horses—Den never spent much time in the stables—but with some sharp extra smell like that of a winter evening growing dark. It was the smell, she suddenly felt, of cold water.
“Ah, you’re glad to be back,” he said. “That’s always good to know. And you’re not too softened up from six months in Fairlady, I hope.”
“I’m always glad to be back here,” she said. “Last time, Clancy said it used to take me a couple of days to remember that I really like being in Lost Lake, but when he picked me up I remembered it instantly. This time, too. But when I go there, back to Fairlady, I miss this place so much I think I mope around for weeks.”
All in one smooth, unbroken motion, he hugged her more tightly, patted her on the back, picked up her traveling bag, and began to escort her down the platform. Eudora realized that she had never before said so much about Fairlady when in her father’s world. “Must be hard on your mother.”
“Maybe. But you know Mom, she’s always so cheerful and upbeat. That’s what makes her so wonderful!”
“That’s true,” he said. “Very true. But you always bring some of that cheer to us, you know.”
“Jane must do that, too. She’s here now, isn’t she? My friend Jane Morgan, from Fairlady?”
“I don’t know any Jane Morgans from Fairlady, honey. Sorry.” He smiled at her, then turned to hoist her suitcase into the back of the pickup.
“But . . . she left to live with her father. Mom said.”
Still smiling, Den gestured for her to walk around the cab and get in on her side. “I know a couple of Morgans, and neither of them has a daughter. Abel Morgan is so old he can barely walk, and his son, Jerry, who never married, is a captain in our security force. Your friend probably moved to one of those little towns on the other side of the state, Waldo, or Fydecker, one of those. Or maybe Bates, way south of us, that’s a good-sized city. Probably a ton of Morgans in Bates.”
Den turned on the engine, gave Eudora a reassuring pat on the knee, and twisted around to back up into the aisle.
“Daddy . . .”
“Something else?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Why do you need a security force? Fairlady doesn’t have one.”
“That’s a big question, honey.” For a short while, he negotiated the turns needed to get out of the lot and on the road to Lost Lake. “Fairlady’s a special place. There are policemen, but you hardly ever see them, and the town has next to no crime. We don’t have much, either, but some of that is due to our security force. We’re a much busier place than Fairlady. We do have a jail, and there’s almost always one or two idiots in a cell. All kinds of things go on here in Lost Lake—and besides, this is the North. Things are different in the North. We wouldn’t live in Fairlady if you paid us.” He gave her a look that was both amused and fond. “I hope you’ll feel the same way, next year.”
Here it was, thrust in front of her face like a burning torch, the matter she tried never to think about while knowing it could never be very far from her mind. The judge at her custody hearing had ordered that Eudora would have to decide between her mother and her father, between Fairlady and Lost Lake, by the date of her sixteenth birthday, now only two seasons away. After that, her trips back and forth would cease, and she would become a permanent resident of one city or the other, of her mother’s world or her father’s. There was no in between. This abrupt, unwelcome reminder of the decision she somehow would have to make made her stomach cramp in on itself, and for a moment she feared that she would have to vomit onto the remarkably clutter-free floor of the cab, which Den had almost certainly cleaned up for her arrival.
Some of what she was feeling must have been printed on her face, because her father immediately said, “Shouldn’t have reminded you like that. Sorry. I’m sure your mother feels as strongly as I do about this thing.”
Eudora thought, My mother would never have done that to me. Then: My mother wouldn’t say anything about it even if we were about to go before the judge. Instead, she’d ask how I liked her new brand of oatmeal. Dawn kept everything locked up tight. Too tight, maybe. Eudora inhaled and said, “How’s Maude? I can’t wait to see her.”
“Maude’s probably fine,
you know, but she isn’t in Lost Lake right now. She won’t be back before you have to leave again. I’m sorry about that, too. I know what great friends you were.” He used the past tense—were.
“No,” said Eudora. “No, she would have told me. Where is she, anyhow?” A dreadful thought occurred to her. “Did you do this? Did you send her away?”
“She’s on a special trip with Clancy. Town business. She wanted to be more involved! Did I send away your best friend? Of course not. I don’t have the power to do that.”
“In Lost Lake, you can do anything you like. Last year I finally noticed how everyone acts around you. All those men, they need you to tell them what to do. They look up to you. You’re the mayor, or the boss, or whatever.”
“Don’t you think Clancy decides what Maude does, not me?”
“Clancy especially would do anything you told him to do.”
Den frowned at her and without warning swung the wheel sharply to the right, pulling the vehicle off the road and onto the weedy bank. He jerked to a stop, jammed the shift into neutral, and swiveled to face her. His eyes seemed flat, blank, empty. For a second, fear flashed from the center of her chest and sparkled through her nervous system. A gust of cold wind struck the pickup with an audible slap. They were still a mile or two out of town. The nearest building was a little run-down farmhouse about a hundred yards away across an empty field, and it was probably abandoned.
Some feeling came back into Den’s eyes. “Look, Eudora. This is how it goes. All right? Lost Lake doesn’t have a mayor, and there isn’t any boss. When we need to discuss something, we get together, and we work it out. The men in my place, sure, they work for me, but we talk everything over, and everyone has a say in what happens.”
“But what do you do?” she asked.
“About a million different things.” Den paused. “I really thought Maude would let you know, sweetie.”
She felt deflated. “Okay. Thanks. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to make you angry.”