“How long have you been sitting there watching me?”
“Ten minutes. I thought maybe you were sleeping.”
“No. Meditating.”
“Yep, I caught on to that finally. So what about disguising yourself as a boy?”
I nod slowly while I consider the idea. It could definitely work. Without the wild mane of hair, I could look like a boy. I have no curves whatsoever and have always been a tomboy anyhow. And as long as I don’t say too much, nobody would have a reason to be suspicious.
“Do you have any scissors?”
“Not on me, but I could borrow some from the shelter, and next time I come down I could turn you into Harold.”
“Or Harvey?” I suggest.
“Or Halpert.”
“Sounds too much like a last name. But maybe Harry.”
“You just need an invisibility cloak and you’ll be all set.”
Lise hands me a plastic bag. “That’s gotta last two days. It’s a long way down here in the cold.”
I glance in the bag. There’s a box of soda crackers, two bread rolls, three packs of hot chocolate powder, two chicken salad sandwiches, and an orange.
“The sandwiches are for Tuff. I got them in that Dumpster behind the sandwich shop. So don’t you go eating them unless you want food poisoning.”
“It’s been pretty cold out. They might still be okay.”
Lise shakes her head. “Don’t even think about it. I saw Josh eat a ham sandwich from there once and he vomited for two days.”
I wrinkle my nose at the thought of Josh puking all over the garage.
“Any sign of him or Frankie?”
“Not yet. It’s like they walked off the edge of the earth.”
To hide my disappointment, I look down at the dirty trodden snow under my feet. It’s been packed down by my footfalls and is hard like ice.
“So what else’s happening, like, up in civilization?”
“Same old, same old. Rich people running things. Poor people trying to survive. I spent most of yesterday taking down all the missing-kid posters I could find. They were freaking everywhere. I must have ripped down a hundred.”
“Thanks for that.” I cough.
“I’m sure there’s a hundred more still out there.”
“Better than two hundred.”
“You’re in a glass-half-full sort of mood,” Lise muses suspiciously.
“Maybe. I’ve been thinking, and I’m sure it’s a trick them saying Dad is deceased. It can’t be true. Just a scare tactic. But now more than ever I have to be smart, keep my wits about me.”
Lise doesn’t respond and instead smashes at an untouched patch of crusty snow with her fist. She hurls chunks into the air for Tuff to catch. He jumps and twists and finally snaps on to one. Then he lies down and chews it into tiny pieces. He looks so content it makes me wish I could be a dog.
“So did you talk to Joyce? Did you tell her I left town?”
“I didn’t see Joyce, but I mentioned it to Liberty. She’d seen the posters and was asking about you. She’s a total gossip so she’s sure to mention it to Joyce. Luckily you never did a proper intake, so you aren’t on the books.”
The sun sinks low enough that we’re left sitting in shadow and the extra bit of warmth we’d been soaking in disappears. I pull the sleeping bags out of the tent and hand one to Lise.
“Can you stay for a bit?”
She takes Dad’s bag and wraps it around her shoulders. “A bit. But then I have to go. There’s a comic book thing on at the convention centre and it’s a good chance to hit up the out-of-towners. It’s pretty funny, actually. People walking around dressed like superheroes and Star Trek characters. Mostly adults with money to burn.”
I climb inside my sleeping bag and pull it up around my neck. I shiver and cough. Tuff sits between us on the cardboard and out of habit I scrunch my hand into the fur on his neck. When I don’t say anything more, Lise’s tone changes. She seems almost nurturing, or at least like what I always imagined when I invented an older sister for myself.
“How’ve you been the last couple of days, anyway? I notice you’re coughing a lot. Maybe we should hit the walk-in clinic for real?”
I sigh. “I’m fine, but I’m bored. I’m afraid to go anywhere, even along the trail, in case I see someone and they recognize me.”
Lise picks up the end of a burned branch from the fire pit and draws circles in the snow beside her.
“I wouldn’t worry if I were you. Nobody pays attention to those posters and that picture didn’t even look like you.”
“Easy for you to say. But every time I hear a noise, I think someone’s coming to haul me off to foster care. Or worse.” I don’t elaborate but wrap my arms around Tuff and bury my face in his fur.
“Let’s go for a walk. There’s time before I have to go back,” Lise suggests. Her eyes brim with concern, which makes me feel worse.
Tuff’s ears perk up at the word walk. He pulls loose from my embrace and prances at our feet to get us moving. The way Lise is looking at me makes me feel like a toddler going on an outing, but I climb out of my sleeping bag and stand up.
The sun is still high enough in the sky that its rays reach like fingers into the bottom of the valley and caress our backs with warmth. Since we’re not in a hurry to get anywhere, we walk slowly, following the trail as it winds like a vein, coiling and bending in step with the Don River. Although there’s a foot of snow covering the ground, the air is still and the day feels warmer than a thermometer would claim it to be. There aren’t many people on the trail, other than a few hard-core joggers decked out in high-tech running gear, and we step to the side whenever one of them passes. They don’t glance in our direction, not even at Tuff, as if we blend in so well with the dried underbrush that we become invisible. I know to some people we are invisible, or they wish we were. But I’m not offended. Most days I wish I were invisible, too.
Lise and I don’t speak while we walk. We don’t comment on the joggers or speculate about Frankie and Josh. We don’t calculate how much Lise can make outside the comic book convention or even think of new places to shelter on minus-twenty days. Yet just walking side by side soothes me. After about twenty minutes, she stops.
“We should turn around. I really have to get back before it gets too late. I’m sorry. I promise to come down the day after tomorrow.”
“That’s okay. I get it. Thanks for bringing us some food. Tuff’s gonna love those sandwiches.” I cough.
“I’ll stay longer next time. You sure you’re gonna be okay?”
“I’ll be fine. I need to get back to my reading list, anyhow. I still have half The Bhagavad Gita to finish. That’ll keep me going for a couple of days.” I don’t tell Lise about burning its pages. No matter how I rationalize it, I still feel guilty for destroying a perfectly good book.
Tuff tears off after a squirrel and we stop to watch before calling him back and continuing our walk. He stays close for another few minutes before he spots a hawk circling overhead, then bounds ahead barking at the sky. As we round the last bend before my camp, we see two police officers walking toward us. I stop to put Tuff on the leash and try to act as calm as possible, although my heart is pounding like pistons in my chest.
“Excuse me. Do you have a minute?” The shorter officer stops in the middle of the trail so that we have no choice but to talk to him. He’s heavy-set and thick-necked and stands with his feet shoulder-width apart, as if he’s a recent graduate of cop college and still trying to remember everything he learned. The other officer assesses us carefully.
I wind the leash around my hand until Tuff has no choice but sit right at my feet. Lise steps in front of me.
“Good afternoon, ladies. I’m wondering if you can help us.”
Lise doesn’t speak, but tilts her chin up in response.
The shorter officer clears his throat. “We had a complaint that someone was camped out down here. Have you seen anything? Maybe a tent?”
I look at the ground and study a dried thistle poking up from a bed of dirty snow. Its geometric pattern makes me want to reach out and touch it, but I avoid the impulse.
“Camping? Down here? In winter? You’d have to be pretty hard core to do something like that.” Lise’s disbelief is so convincing I find the courage to glance up at the police officers.
“So you haven’t seen anything?”
Lise shakes her head. “We went pretty far that way and there wasn’t any sign of a campsite. Not that I saw, at least. Hannah, did you see anything?”
She turns to me and waits for an answer.
“I wasn’t really looking,” I mumble. “How big’s the campsite?”
“Not sure. We had a report about some girl living down here and were asked to check it out. There was a complaint about a campfire.”
“That seems weird, don’t you think?” Lise asks. “Maybe someone got it wrong. Maybe it was someone burning leaves in their backyard.”
“That’s always a possibility,” the taller officer says. It’s his first contribution to the conversation. “But we’re still required to come down and have a look. You girls didn’t have a campfire, did you?”
“We’re not really the girl scout types. I don’t even know how to make a fire,” Lise says, spinning the word fire with attitude.
A bank of stratocumulus clouds approaches from the south and I wish I could float away with them. I imagine wrapping myself in the low, grey formations and falling into a long, deep sleep. If I could do that, maybe I would wake up back on Starlight with Dad, and escape this nightmare.
The sound of paper catches my attention and I look back at the officers in time to see the shorter one unfold a sheet.
“How about this girl?” He holds up my missing-kid poster and leans closer to Lise. “Have you seen her around?”
Lise studies the poster, then gestures for me to step closer. My instinct tells me to run, to get as far away as possible, but I force myself to shuffle forward and stare at the picture. I swallow hard.
“I haven’t. How about you, Hannah? You see this girl around anywhere?”
“Just on those posters plastered everywhere,” I say in what I hope sounds like a Canadian accent.
The shorter officer looks from me to the poster twice, quickly. Then he turns to his partner as if he’s about to say something. That’s when I give Tuff’s leash three sharp tugs and fall to the ground. I become rigid and start to shake. Tuff barks and dances back and forth. As if on cue, Lise drops to her knees beside me.
“It’s okay, Hannah. I’m right here with you.”
I shake and tremble and let a trickle of foamy spittle escape from between my lips.
“Is she okay?” one of the officers asks. There’s alarm in his voice and as I shake I wonder if he’s never seen anyone have a seizure before.
“She’s epileptic. Happens all the time. Stay clear and it’ll pass. She must have felt it coming or she woulda fallen and cracked her head open on the pavement.”
“Should we call for backup?”
“It’ll be over soon. We just have to wait it out. Her mom works nearby. I’ll call and have her meet us.”
Lise fusses over me as my shaking subsides. She puts her mitts under my head. Then she takes her phone and makes a fake call to my fake mother. She says I had a minor seizure but I’m perfectly fine, then looks relieved when my mother agrees to come right away. When the conversation is over, Lise hands the phone to me. I curl on my side away from the cops and count to ten while fake mom grills me. I tell her about falling but promise I can get up off the ground and walk a few minutes. I try to sound annoyed while Lise wipes the hair out of my face. When I’m tired of the fake argument, I hand the phone back to Lise and pull my hood up over my face while she finishes convincing my mother that everything is fine and we’ll see her in five minutes. Then she helps me to my feet.
“Can we walk with you girls? Make sure you get to your mother?”
Lise steps away from me and over to the officers. She lowers her voice and says: “If you don’t mind, I think she’d rather not. She gets a little embarrassed, you know?”
I stand facing the ground so the hood hides my face and I keep my hands jammed in my pockets to keep them from trembling. Tuff looks from me to Lise and back again.
“Good luck finding that girl,” Lise says, then takes me by the arm and shuffles me south along the trail while the police officers continue north.
I don’t know how Lise managed to ditch the police officers, but I’m grateful when they’re gone. We walk in silence for ten minutes before we glance back to be sure they haven’t turned to follow us.
“Holy shit, Harbour! That was some sweet acting.”
She slaps me on the back and I can’t help myself: a smile breaks across my face.
“Right back at you. You handled those cops like they were preschoolers. They’re probably still wondering why they let us go.”
“Do you think they recognized you? In the picture? Is that why you did your whole seizure thing?”
The question sobers my mood. “I dunno. But I couldn’t take any chances. Let’s get out of here.”
I leave the trail and head up the shadowed side of the ravine. We climb over a fallen tree and through ankle-deep snow, but I don’t want to risk seeing the police officers again. It takes some backtracking, but we find our way to my camp in time to see a blur of brown run into the naked undergrowth. Lise grabs my arm and I double wrap the leash around my hand when Tuff starts to pull and whine.
“Was that a coyote?” Lise asks.
We walk slowly around the tent and find bits of shredded plastic and cardboard strewn about in the foot-packed snow. I pick up the bag, but it’s empty and torn into strips.
“Crap!” I say. “He took Tuff’s sandwiches.”
I pick up the orange and hot chocolate packages and shove them into my pocket. Lise retrieves what’s left of the cracker box and throws it on the fire pit. I sink to the ground and rest my head on my knees.
“Damn greedy coyote,” she says.
“It’s not his fault. He’s just hungry.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t see you stealing his mice, or whatever he normally eats.”
“I shouldn’t have left the bag where he could get it.”
“Do you have any tuna left?”
I cough. “Three cans and a sleeve of crackers in the tent.”
“I’ll come down tomorrow. I’m sure I can scrounge something from the shelter. But are you sure you’re going to be okay down here? I mean, what’s to stop him from coming back, like, in the middle of the night?”
“He won’t bother us. He just wanted to eat.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’ve seen him before.”
“Jesus, Harbour. I don’t like this. Not at all. I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have taken that gun from you.”
I sigh. “It’s too late now. Anyway, I’d rather take my chances with the coyote than the cops.” Or worse, I think soberly.
Lise checks her phone but I don’t ask what time it is. I can already feel the air cooling and by the angle of the sun on the far side of the ravine, I know it’s well past three.
“Can I use your dad’s sleeping bag tonight?”
“Why?”
“I’m going to run and get some more supplies, then join you. I should be back by dark if I get going now.”
Without hesitating she heads out along the trail I’ve worn through the forest and I call out after her.
“You don’t have to spend the night, Lise. Seriously. We’ll be fine. It’ll be really cold in the tent.”
She shouts back at me: “I know about the cold, dumbass. I’m Canadian, remember?”
There’s no use calling out again. She’s walked too far away and even in my desperate state I know shouting is not the best way to stay hidden.
“I don’t want her to hate me,” I mutter to Tuff. “One more miserable night down here and she mig
ht not ever come back. Then we’ll be completely screwed.”
CHAPTER 15
I’M NOT CONVINCED the new haircut will let me pass for a boy, but I like waking up without having hair stuck to my neck or tangled around my face, especially when I find Lise jammed up against me, and Tuff scratching at the tent flap to get out.
Normally I get up with Tuff, but today I feel too miserable and the air is too cold, so I crawl across the tent and let him out on his own.
“Don’t run off,” I say, then sink back into my sleeping bag and shiver to recapture the warmth.
Lise barely moves.
“You still alive?” I poke her with my feet.
She moans. “Apparently we didn’t freeze overnight.” Then she shifts tight against me again so she can warm her back.
I’m shivering so hard I’m not sure I’ll ever get back to sleep, but I can’t face being outside in the snow, either, so I close my eyes and imagine warm things like black pavement in July and working on a conked-out engine after motoring down the Intracoastal all afternoon.
The next time I breach consciousness, I’m even more disoriented. The tent is empty and Lise’s sleeping bag is on top of me. But I’m not cold anymore. In fact, I feel hot and wonder hopefully if another stretch of second summer has arrived. Then I notice my throat is sore and my head is pounding. When I poke my head above the top of the sleeping bag, the cold air hits my lungs and I cough.
“Lise?” I call out. “Lise? Lise?” My voice sounds strained, even to my ears.
There are no sounds outside and no smell of smoke.
“Tuff?”
I unzip the tent flap and look around. The campsite is empty, too. My pulse races seeing that Tuff is not lying nearby with his head on his paws, but I take a deep breath and talk myself off the ledge.
He’s just off with Lise somewhere. Lise has him safe. They’re probably running errands or collecting some cash. They’ll be back soon.
My mouth is dry and my throat feels like sandpaper so I dig a bottle of water from the bottom of my sleeping bag, take a long drink, and then double over with a fit of coughing.
“Shit,” I say to the tent. “I’m sick.”
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