“Better than ever,” he said.
“Me too,” Wesley added.
She sipped. Nothing happened. She looked around. “What?” she said.
“What were you expecting?” said Jakob.
“Something. A puff of smoke maybe.” She took another drink, deeper this time. “That is good!”
The boys watched her. “How do you feel?” said Daniel.
“I still don’t want to go back, if that’s what you mean.” She looked around. “Hey,” she said, “I can’t understand you if you’re all talking at once.”
“I didn’t say anything,” said Wesley.
“What do I care if you ride Snowball?”
“I didn’t say that.” He flushed.
“I heard you mumble about getting to ride Snowball.”
“I only thought it.”
She turned to Daniel. “As for you …”
That was when they heard the first distant boom, more a thud than a boom, like a bass drum wrapped in cotton.
Then a second one. A third. They all looked up.
“The tank!” said Daniel.
There was a screaming across the sky and then a sudden shattering of branches as the first shell hit. Leaves and splintery twigs showered to the ground.
Emily looked around in panic. “They’re shooting at the island!”
Emily jumped to her feet, muttering something that Daniel half heard. She said it again: “Mama.” Another cannon round punched through the air, ripping branches and exploding into the earth. “We’ve got to get back to her!”
Daniel nodded. “But which way?”
“Snowball will know,” said Wes.
Daniel glanced at Jakob Byrdsong.
“Don’t worry about me,” said the old man, picking up his walking stick. “I’ll meet you there.”
Emily held the leopard for Wesley. “She’s all yours.”
“Really?”
“Be quick.”
He jumped on and they started out, Daniel and Emily running alongside. The leopard knew the shortcuts, and within minutes came in sight of the ceiba tree at the entrance to the blue pavilion. Miranda and Bridey were outside, talking earnestly with an old man. It turned out to be none other than Jakob Byrdsong!
It registered with Daniel that it was impossible for Jakob to have beaten them there. But that wasn’t the only surprise. At their feet, patient as house dogs, lay two beautiful white leopards.
“You’re safe!” Miranda cried, taking Emily into her arms.
Daniel went over to Jakob. “How did you do that?”
“Be glad to explain,” said the old man. For the first time, there was a slight tremor in his voice. “Under calmer circumstances.”
Wesley was looking at the cats. “More leopards!”
Miranda nodded. “They’re to bring you home.”
Another explosion, closer and louder, made them all turn. This time the shell came whistling right overhead, cracking several branches in the ceiba tree and exploding against a rocky hummock. Everyone scrambled to get away from the falling debris.
“That was a little too close,” said Bridey.
“Let’s get inside,” said Wesley, heading for the pavilion.
Jakob waved him back. “No use. I designed the building for beauty, not defense. It won’t keep out a fly.”
More shells thudded into the spongy air.
“Why don’t we just hide out on the island,” said Emily, “until they stop shooting?”
“And let the island be destroyed?” said Jakob, giving her a sharp look and waving his walking stick for emphasis. Emily noticed that the top of it was a carved heron’s head. “Remember,” he said, “you took the protections off when you came here.”
“You mean with the mud …?” said Emily.
“Yes. You blocked the signal with it. That’s why the artillery can reach us. Now you need to unblock it.”
“Can we do that?” she said.
“As soon as you’re off the island.”
“There are three leopards here,” said Daniel. “What about Mrs. Byrdsong?”
“My uncle,” said Bridey, “has kindly offered to escort me home. I’ll meet you back at the house.”
“The house? But Sloper’s soldiers are all over the place!”
She smiled and briefly closed her eyes, as if to savor the smile. “Look in Uncle Jakob’s book.”
“He wrote a book?”
“In the library,” said Emily suddenly. “Red binding. Is that right, Grandma?”
“That’s right, chickadee. How did you know?”
Emily shrugged. “I just knew.”
Another artillery shell, higher than the others, whistled overhead.
Daniel nodded. “Library. Uncle Jakob’s book. Right.” He noticed Emily looking down at her shoes. “It’s time,” he said gently.
“You go,” she said. “You and Wes can unblock the protections. You can find the book, too—the second-to-top shelf.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m not going. It’s not that I don’t care about what’s going on out There,” she said, “but what can I do? Am I going to fight an army? Here at least I have my mother.”
“Is that what you’ve decided?” said Daniel.
She looked defensive, but stood her ground. “Yes, it is.”
“Oh, my dear, no!” cried Miranda.
“What do you mean, no? Don’t you want me to stay?”
Miranda touched the girl’s cheek. “Of course. But your life is There.”
“What if I don’t like There?” The girl was dismayed by her mother’s reaction, even as, in a strange way, she had already known what it would be.
Miranda sighed. “We can’t choose our destiny. I couldn’t choose mine.”
Emily was getting upset. “Don’t you want me?”
For an answer, Miranda put her arms around the girl’s shoulders and held her close. “I’m trying,” she said softly, “to see beyond what I want.”
“Mama,” said Emily, her voice sounding strangled. “I can’t lose you again.”
Her mother had no answer for that.
Her grandmother tried for one. “Emily, think what you’d miss by not going back.”
“Do you mean war? Murder?”
“Yes,” said Bridey. “But also the chance …” She searched for the word.
“The chance,” said Miranda, “to do something unexpected.”
“Something unexpected.” To Emily, the words tasted like dirty pennies.
“Quite apart from the usual business of growing up,” her mother went on, “and falling in love, and one day having a child of your own. That’s what There is for.”
Now the tears did come, carried by a current of anger. “It’s not fair!” Emily tore herself away and ran into the woods, ignoring the screech of an incoming shell.
Daniel went after her. He found where she’d stopped and approached slowly, watching her narrow shoulders shake.
“Leave me alone,” she said.
“Listen, I understand. I don’t know what I’d do if my parents were Here.”
She kept her back turned.
“But they’re not. They’re in Everwood, and they’re in trouble.”
She mumbled something.
“What?”
“I said, How do you know that? Wait!” She turned around. “You read what?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“I thought you said you read something.”
“Well, I did. I read Sloper’s journal.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“The other night, when I went back for the map. He thinks we’re all traitors, and we’re hiding weapons.”
“How could he think that?”
“I don’t know, but he plans to destroy the town, leave not one stone on top of another. That’s what he wrote: ‘not one stone on top of another.’ ”
As if to punctuate his words, another cannon volley boomed in the distance. Appar
ently, the soldiers were aiming at a different part of the island now.
Emily wasn’t crying. She was just matter-of-fact. “He’ll do it, too.”
“I know. It won’t be easy to stop him. We need you, Em.”
“I’m no use.”
“I’m not either, by myself. It took all three of us to figure out the map. We can’t do this without you.”
“Daniel,” she said, shaking her head.
“Okay, then, I don’t want to do it without you,” he said.
She scanned his face to see if she believed him. She remembered that he’d recently found a way to tell lies.
“You know,” he went on, looking away and speaking to a nearby beech tree, “I don’t have that many friends. I don’t like the idea of you in Here and me out There.”
She so much wanted to say just then, I don’t either! Instead, she shook her head. “You’re crazy.”
“Can’t argue with you there.”
“You’re crazy as a loony bird.”
“That’s why you like me.”
“Who says I like you?”
Good, he thought. She’s back. “So you’ll help us?”
She studied the ground intently. “I don’t know. I want to stay here.”
“But?”
“My mom and grandmother are pretty strong about sending me back.”
“They want you to live your life.”
“Do something ‘unexpected.’ ”
“Right.”
There was a long pause. She was still looking down. “It would be good to stop that bastard,” she said to her shoes. Then she looked up at Daniel’s open, hopeful face. “Do you think we can?”
“Probably not,” he said.
“Oh.”
“Let’s say it would be unexpected. Are those good enough odds for you?”
Now she did smile, just a little.
“What I can’t figure,” said Wesley, who never let anyone off the hook, “is how did you get here?”
Bridey looked to the side, as if her smile were just for herself. “A bit of a secret.”
“A secret? Tell!”
“Maybe when we get back.”
“How do we get back?” said Daniel.
“Nothing to it, is there, Jakob?”
“Nothing at all,” said the old man, “but when you get across, you must remember to follow the map exactly—in reverse.”
Daniel promised.
“Everything depends on it.”
“We’ll be careful,” said Daniel. He climbed on the back of one of the leopards. “Ready?” he called.
His brother climbed up on Snowball, but Emily wasn’t with them. She was saying goodbye to her mother. Miranda tried to be strong and put the best face on things, but she was wiping away tears. “Go, dear,” she said. “Live the greatest life you can imagine.”
“But I’ll miss you too much,” said the girl miserably. “Where will you be?”
“I’ll be right here. Now, do you have everything? You have the pearls, I see.” They were around Emily’s neck. They looked a little odd against the girl’s mud-spattered dress.
Miranda nodded. “I’d keep them on.”
“Of course.”
“I mean always keep them on.”
“Okay.”
“The pearls were formed here on the island. So no throwing them across the stream.” Miranda tried for a smile.
Emily fingered the necklace. “Mama,” she said, “will you—sometimes—sing to me?”
“I will.”
“Promise?”
Miranda enfolded her daughter in her arms a last time. “I promise,” she murmured. “Whenever I’m able.”
“You mustn’t say that. What if you’re not able? What if you forget? We have to set a time.”
“Em,” Daniel called. “Coming!”
“Let’s think,” said Miranda. “How about every full moon? Just to make it easy.”
Emily nodded. She felt a weight in her chest, making it hard to breathe.
“Now come,” Miranda said. She adjusted the pearls around her daughter’s neck, then led her to the others and watched as the girl climbed on the waiting animal. The leopards started right off.
Emily tried not to look back, but couldn’t help it. There they were, her mother and grandmother, standing in the sunny clearing, waving. She had a sudden thought. Had her grandmother told the truth when she said she’d be meeting them later? What was to prevent her from lying, just to get Emily to go?
Was she lying? Emily couldn’t tell, but she found herself memorizing the receding image as if it were already a photograph, yellowed not by sunlight but by age, in a dusty frame. She vowed never to forget it, to keep the image with her, if need be, for the years and decades to come, throughout a long life.
Then the woods closed around her and she had to look where she was going.
Three large leopards strode side by side through the underbrush, their muscles rippling beneath thick fur. They didn’t notice the branches that slapped the shoulders and faces of their riders.
“Hey!” cried Emily as a sapling whipped her cheek.
The beast never slowed. It knew where it was going, even if the humans didn’t. The woods grew thicker as they passed through a hemlock grove, and the children had to bend forward and low to avoid scrapes. Emily’s face was in the fur of her leopard’s neck, and she could smell the strong scent of its coat and feel the heat of its body.
Then the woods opened into white oak and beech and the animals were climbing, their breath laboring as they leapt from boulder to boulder until they reached a ridge. Suddenly a vast view unrolled before them.
In the distance, smoke curled up from smoldering gashes where artillery shells had hit.
“Oh!” Emily gasped at the stomach-dropping gorge on her right. Farther off, a mountain rose up, half-veiled in mist, and behind it, just visible, the green-blue of the sea, like an artist’s rendition of eternity.
“Is that an ocean?” cried Wesley. “We’re nowhere near the ocean!”
Daniel looked over at him. “We’re nowhere near Everwood, either.”
The big cats started down an incline, skidding a little on the shale, and soon reentered the woods, scrub pine at first, then taller trees. The mountain vista that had so amazed them closed off decisively, as if by a theater curtain. It was warmer here, and zooming with insects. Another few minutes and they came in sight of the familiar woods of their own neighborhood.
Sweating and slavering, the great leopards stopped and let the children slide off.
“This is it,” said Daniel.
Wesley winced. “My legs hurt!”
“Look!” Emily said, pointing. “Is that the stream?”
No wide, sluggish current, no vicious snakes, just the quiet chromatic scales of clear water over bright stones.
“We can just step across,” said Wesley. A sadness struck him then, and he knelt beside the leopard and hugged its neck.
Daniel was distracted by something overhead, a vague fluttering. “Is it snowing?”
Several white flakes winked in the sunlight. More flakes followed, and more. “It’s not snow!” cried Wesley, looking up. “It’s petals!”
It made no sense, but there was no denying the delicate reality. Soon petals were falling more quickly, until there was a veritable storm of whiteness.
It lasted for minutes, leaving the children laughing and shaking petals out of their hair and shoes.
“It’s the island!” Wesley cried. “It’s saying goodbye to us!”
It almost seemed that way. The odd thing was that it was Wesley, the logical one, the scientist, who came up with that explanation.
“Goodbye, island!” he called out. “Goodbye, wonderful island! Hey, Danny,” he said, “can we take Snowball with us?”
Daniel laughed. He picked up his little brother, swung him around in the air, and set him down again.
“I guess that means no,” said Wes.
“Yes, it me
ans no.” Daniel looked around at Emily. She was not smiling. She was not crying, either. She looked forlorn, despite the festive petals still clinging to her hair.
He went over to her. Hesitated.
He put an arm gently around her shoulder.
“They’re after our children!” Gwen Crowley shook her head in baffled anger. “It’s bad enough our neighbors have been disappearing, but now they’re hunting our children!” Gwen was not a person to raise her voice, so when she spoke forcefully, people listened—especially when they were thinking the same thing.
“Let’s go and fight ’em!” came a thin, tremulous voice from the back. It was Miss Binchey, the postmistress, possibly the oldest person in town. It was comical to think of frail Miss Binchey taking her cane to the heads of government soldiers, but no one smiled.
The mayor stood up. A tall, stiff man with a face that could have been carved from a walnut stump, Mayor Fench could be counted on to preach caution. He was a man in love with committees, and especially subcommittees, and as a result nothing got done in Everwood. That was fine with the voters, who had elected him twice. Or it was fine until now. “Before we all go off half-cocked,” he said in his low, slow voice, “we need to be sure what we’re doing. Do we know, for instance, that the children have actually come to harm?”
Dull as Fench was, he had a point. And the answer was no. No one had seen the boys arrested or hurt. Then again, no one had seen Wayne Eccles arrested, or Bridey Byrdsong. Where were they?
“How do we know,” Fench went on, “the children aren’t just camping out?”
“Actually,” said John Crowley, getting to his feet, “they’re hiding out. Because the captain’s after them.”
Arnie Fish cleared his throat loudly. “Why would Sloper care about a bunch of kids,” he said, “when he’s got a war to fight?”
Crowley lifted his hand for silence. “Just a minute.” He went to the door and peered from the storage room into the main part of the store. It was dark and silent, as always this time of night. The only sound was the low hum of the refrigerator unit near the front.
“Sorry,” he said, closing the door again. “Thought I heard something.”
The interruption seemed to sober everyone. Only a dozen people had shown up for this meeting, and they knew the danger they ran.
The Door in the Forest Page 13