The Story Web

by Megan Frazer Blakemore

  Everyone was quiet. Alice could tell when grown-ups didn’t want to talk about something. They looked at their feet or they looked right past you. They made funny sighs or grunting noises. They played with the buttons on their shirts or the rings on their fingers. Bobby Bixby and Mr. Roberge did all those things.

  Then Mr. Roberge slid out of the booth. “Good story,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Bobby agreed. “Good story.”

  Without saying anything else, they went back to their own tables. Alice knew why. It was one thing to talk about the great and legendary Buzz Dingwell, hometown hero. It was another thing entirely to talk about Buzz Dingwell, the man who left his wife and daughter behind.

  Ashley returned with a huge bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. “I expect that cleaned out before you go, Donny Dingwell,” she told him.

  “Consider it done,” he said. He was still smiling, still glowing, like he hadn’t even noticed what had happened with the other men.

  He served Alice and her mom big bowls of spaghetti, then helped himself, heaping scoop after scoop.

  “But what about the moose?”

  “Yeah,” Alice’s mom said. “Where does the moose come into this tall tale?”

  Uncle Donny grinned. “Nearly forgot that part. Well, your dad’s team won, of course, but in the record books, it would’ve had an asterisk. We never finished the game.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just as they scored their last goal, Alan picked up the puck and threw it toward the woods. He never was much of a sportsman. Next thing we hear is this awful moaning sound. No one moves. Then out of the woods comes Clem. That’s what we called the moose. Clem. And he’s got the puck in his mouth.”

  “No way!”

  “Yep. He walks it over to us and just drops it on the ice. And he stares at us. He’s got these big brown eyes like marbles, and I swear he looks at each of us in turn. None of us moves a muscle. So Clem, he lifts up his big front hoof—those things are mammoth, I tell you—and nudges the puck toward us.”

  “Then what?” Alice asked.

  “Your dad got the puck,” he said with a twitch of a smile. “And you know what happens when your dad gets the puck.”

  “He scores.”

  “That’s right. The point didn’t count, of course, but we’re pretty sure it’s the only time in history that a moose had an assist.”

  Alice settled back into her seat. “That’s amazing,” she said.

  He smiled at her, a meatball poking his cheek out like a chipmunk’s. Alice, though, was realizing something else: here was another story her father told her that was mostly true. Just like the stories about her mom and Henrietta Watanabe. An exaggeration, sure, but the basic facts were there. Could that mean the Story Web was real, too?

  When they finished eating, Alice shrugged on her coat. The birds, the bear, the moose—could they all be trying to tell her something?

  She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t see Alan Sykes lurch toward her on the way to the door.

  “This here is the little girl that kept me from bagging my first moose,” he announced to the men standing around him.

  “This little slip of a thing?” one of them asked.

  Alice had never in her life been called a little slip of a thing. She was strong and powerful. She was bold, brave, and fierce.

  “That’s not how you wanna bag a moose, Alan,” said Jimmy Roberge. “Some poor, confused bull out in the middle of the street. Not much of a story there.”

  “I’d say saving the town from a rabid moose is quite the story,” Alan shot back.

  “Way I hear it, it was Alice who saved the town. And the moose,” Uncle Donny said.

  Alan turned toward Donny, a thin smile on his lips. It was hard for Alice to see any of Brady there. Or any of the Brady she used to know.

  “That park keeps going up, it’s only going to get worse,” he said.

  “How’s that?” Uncle Donny asked.

  “Animals don’t have a place to go,” Mr. Sykes said.

  “That was weeds and garbage before,” Donny replied.

  Alan shrugged. “I guess I’m just confused why you’re suddenly against hunting.”

  “I’m against shooting harmless animals in front of children.”

  “Oh! Of course. It’s all about the children.” He smirked. “Why do you think I was ready to shoot the darn thing? Someone’s got to step up to protect this town now that the great conquering hero is gone.”

  “Enough, Alan,” Frank said. He put a hand on Mr. Sykes’s arm, but Mr. Sykes shook it off.

  “What? I’m not afraid to say it. Town worships those Dingwell boys, and what have they done? That run-down rink is all they’ve got to show for themselves. Can’t even win a state championship.”

  Alice stepped forward, but her mom tugged her back.

  “And if that park goes in, who benefits?” Mr. Sykes asked. “People go to the park, and they go to the rink. The Dingwells reap the profits. Get some real business in there and the whole town can benefit.”

  “Those stores never help the communities they’re in,” Alice’s mom said, managing to keep her voice calm. “Taxes go up, and the wages aren’t enough to live on.”

  “So we get that in whatever deal we cut. A certain tax rate. A certain wage. We can even get them to build us a park in a more central part of town. Heck, maybe we can get them to get the library up and running again. Who knows? All I know is they’re sniffing around, and if we don’t ask for anything, nothing is what we’ll get.”

  “We don’t need that kind of business here,” Alice’s mom said.

  “Sure,” Mr. Sykes scoffed. “We’ll stick with blights like that rink.”

  “Watch it—” Donny said at the same time that Frank said, “Enough.”

  But it wasn’t enough for Mr. Sykes. “You watch yourself, Donny. You don’t have Buzz here to get your back. He’s gone off and checked himself—”

  “Enough,” Alice’s mom said. Loud and clear. “We’re going home.”

  She took Alice’s hand and pulled her out of the restaurant into the driving rain. Alice looked back over her shoulder. Through the window, she saw Uncle Donny. His jaw was set and his hands in fists. Part of her wanted him to punch Mr. Sykes, but only part of her, and she was glad when Uncle Donny just shook his head and came outside.

  They were all soaked as they sat in the cab of the truck. Donny turned the heat way up, and none of them said a word the whole ride home. She went straight into her room and flopped onto her bed. It was several moments before she realized that her bedroom door had been open. Dare was gone.

  If Alice wishes just a little harder, Melanie thinks she could disappear.

  Mrs. Zee would say, in her matter-of-fact manner, “Well, that was unexpected.”

  But it would not be unexpected to Melanie. Melanie has been watching Alice, and disappearing is perfectly in character.

  Alice, in general, holds as still as a bird eyed by a cat. Sometimes she forgets and makes a sudden movement, as if she is about to fly. Sometimes, it seems she almost remembers who she was. A hawk or a falcon, used to soaring fast and high, dazzling in flight. Like those birds, she could be cruel and sudden, diving to catch her prey. Izzy always broadcast her attacks with loud screeches—not that it gave her victim a chance to escape.

  Melanie thinks that Alice attacked not because she wanted to but because she had to. Survival of the predator depends on defeating the prey. Of course, whether Alice meant to be cruel makes little difference to the victim.

  Now, though, Alice is one of the frozen ones. Melanie knows all about that, but it doesn’t make her any more eager to include Alice in the mission.

  It’s not up to Melanie, though. She has gathered evidence and is left with one conclusion: Alice is somehow necessary. There is the way that all the animals seem to be coming for Alice. First, the crow had landed at Alice’s table in the cafeteria, and then the bear had been heading right for Alice until Melanie
called it away. And the moose. Most of all the moose. Plus, there is the way Alice reacted when Melanie mentioned The Story Web. Alice knows something. Melanie needs to know what Alice knows.

  Melanie writes two notes on plain white paper.

  CLUBHOUSE

  AFTER SCHOOL

  URGENT

  She folds them carefully and tucks them into Alice’s and Lewis’s lockers.

  At recess she picks a daisy and plucks off its petals one at a time. Yes, No, Maybe So. Yes, No, Maybe So.

  She lands on Maybe So. This is the best that she could hope for.

  When Lewis arrived at the clubhouse, still clutching the note in his hand, Melanie wasn’t there. Lewis figured she had to have been the one who had left it in his locker, since only Melanie and Alice knew about the clubhouse, and the note wasn’t in Alice’s handwriting. But no one was at the clubhouse. No people, anyway. There were, however, two squirrels, a chipmunk, three crows in the tree above, and a rodent-looking thing that Lewis thought might be an opossum, though he was fairly certain those were nocturnal animals. Sitting right on top of his crate of books was a small bird. It waved one wing at him as if in greeting. It looked just like the waxwing that Alice had rescued. That seemed impossible and yet, his understanding of what was and was not possible stood on shifting ground these days.

  He sat next to the crate and looked at the bird that hopped excitedly around. It swished one wing, quick and strong like a slap shot, all the while chirping to him. “I don’t speak bird,” Lewis said.

  The bird nodded and stopped chirping, though it did keep dancing around on top of the box.

  Lewis heard footsteps approaching, but it wasn’t Melanie who stuck her head into the clubhouse. It was Alice. She had her winter coat zipped to her chin and an old hat pulled low. It looked like she was trying to disguise herself, but she didn’t need to worry about Izzy and the other girls finding her out in the woods. Izzy’s mom was spreading the word about rabid wild animals. Parents were starting to keep their kids indoors. Lucky for Lewis his mom figured she had raised four girls to near adulthood and Lewis would get there, too, one way or the other.

  “Hi,” Alice said. She stood at the threshold to the clubhouse. When they’d first built it, the door was above their heads, but now they needed to duck to get in.

  “Hi,” he said back.

  Next to him, the bird started hopping and chirping frantically.

  “She’s not here?” Alice asked, waving a piece of paper.

  “You got a note, too?” he asked, more than a little surprised.

  “It was from Melanie, right?” she asked.

  “That’s what I figure.” He looked at his hands in his lap, wishing he knew the right thing to say. Instead he said, “I’m not sure why she gave you a note.”

  “Me either,” Alice replied.

  Bzeep. The bird chimed in.

  “Dare?” Alice asked.

  The bird hopped to the edge of the crate, jumped, uselessly flapping one wing, and hopped over to Alice. She crouched and held out her hand. The bird hopped right in. “What are you doing here?” she asked it.

  “Is it really the same bird? You kept it?”

  “She was at my house, but when I got home on Saturday night, she was gone. I can’t imagine how she got out or how she got all the way here.”

  “Alice—” Lewis began. There was so much he wanted to ask her about. He wanted to ask her what had happened between her and Izzy and Sadie at the social. He wanted to ask her about her dad. Most of all, though, he wanted to ask about them. That was the hardest question.

  Before he could, they heard a crashing sound outside. Melanie appeared around the corner with leaves in her hair and followed by a field mouse and what Lewis thought was a pheasant. Dare strained her neck to look at the newcomers but seemed put at peace when she saw Melanie.

  “Good,” she said. “I wasn’t sure you would both come. With three of us, we should be safe.”

  “Safe?” Alice asked.

  “Was I not clear about the danger? The urgency?”

  “You weren’t clear about anything.” Alice’s voice was icy, like a villain in a movie.

  “All these animals, they’re trying to tell us something very important. That’s why they keep showing up,” Melanie explained.

  Lewis asked, “What do you mean they’re trying to tell us something?”

  Melanie looked at Alice when she answered. “I’ve seen the birds coming to you. The crow at lunch. The starlings in the woods. This little one,” she said, pointing at Dare.

  “To me?”

  “And then the moose. That’s how I know it’s a problem. The birds, they’re always talking, but moose are quiet, and when they want to talk, then you know it’s serious. He came to you, and you have to listen.”

  “He came to you, too,” Alice said.

  “Because we both have a part in this. You and me. We’re the ones connected to the web. I thought it was just me, but you have the connection, too.”

  “Connection?” Lewis asked. He was trying to keep up with the conversation. Melanie was right—there did seem to be something calling both girls, like what Mrs. Zee had been talking about. The call to action.

  “The book,” Melanie said. “You definitely know about the book, Alice. What about the web? Have you seen it? I think you have.”

  Alice said nothing. She just closed her eyes, and Lewis knew that she was going to refuse the call. He glanced over at Melanie. She was ready to go. So was he. Only, he hadn’t been called. At least, he didn’t think he had.

  “We have to do something—” Melanie began.

  “You’re not making any sense,” Alice told her.

  “It’s all very simple,” she said. “The animals are communicating, and—”

  Alice said, “Show it.”

  “What?” Melanie asked.

  “If you can really talk to animals, then show us.”

  “Everyone can talk to animals.” Melanie crossed her arms across her chest. “The real talent is making animals understand you. And understanding them. I’m not so good at that. But I can do a little.” She bent over the bird in Alice’s hand. “That’s how I knew this was your bird. Also, she thinks that you are sad because your dad is far away.”

  “Anyone could’ve guessed that,” Alice said. “Don’t try to mess with my head.” Her face was pinched. Lewis knew that wasn’t a good sign.

  “Melanie, maybe—”

  Melanie interrupted him. “It’s not magic or a trick. It’s just being more attuned to nature.” Melanie looked to Lewis like she wanted him to say something. But nothing he said to Alice these days came out right. It was like he had forgotten how to talk to her. Still, if there was even a chance, even one little thread still connecting them, maybe he could reach her. “I saw the web, Alice,” he said. “It’s bad.”

  Alice shook her head. “No,” she said. Lewis could tell she didn’t believe him. Had things really gotten so bad between them? He wished he could go back to that night. He wished he could’ve said the right thing or asked the right question. He looked at her and tried to catch her gaze. He could communicate his sorrow and guilt better that way. Looks and actions were so much easier than words. She wouldn’t meet his eye.

  Melanie said, “The moose came from the deep woods to warn us that the Freezing is coming. The first thing you need to understand is that there is far more to the world than most people see. The way the world is related. It’s all connected to the Story Web.”

  “It’s just a story,” Alice insisted. “It’s not real.”

  Melanie backed out of the clubhouse. “It is real. I can show you.”

  Alice, though, shook her head. “It’s not real,” she said again.

  “You’ve been there—”

  “I haven’t!” Alice cried.

  “Alice,” Lewis said softly.

  Alice crawled out of the clubhouse with Dare on her shoulder.

  “The web is broken, Alice,” Melanie said.
“We have to fix it.”

  Alice’s eyes narrowed. Lewis rocked forward, trying to put himself between her and Melanie, but it didn’t do any good.

  “I don’t even know why I’m listening to you,” Alice said. The words came easy to her. It was Izzy’s language—and now it was hers. “I don’t even know why I came. You’re nothing but a witch in the woods.”

  For a second, Lewis caught something like regret cross Alice’s face. She swiped at her eyes.

  “Alice,” Lewis said. He leaned toward her. His voice wasn’t angry. It was soft. It was an invitation.

  She clenched her fists. “Just leave me alone!” she cried. Before he could say anything else, she turned and ran from them as fast as she could.

  Alice wasn’t sure she believed Melanie. What she did know was that if the Story Web was real, it was something that connected her to her dad, and she didn’t need Melanie, or even Lewis, mucking it up. She had to figure out what was real and true and what was not.

  At home, she searched her family’s bookshelves for the book her dad had always read to her. She could picture it perfectly: blue cover, gold lettering, the edges of the pages ruffled. It had a ribbon for a bookmark built right in, yellow and frayed. They would sit together, she on his lap, the book in hers, and he would read the stories to her while she carefully studied the watercolor illustrations.