Stormer’s Pass

by Benjamin Laskin

  Aidos nodded, a comprehending smile on her face.

  “I’m not going to pick it up and kiss it or anything,” he added, “but I can appreciate it…from a distance.”

  “No, Alex,” she affirmed, “you don’t have to like snakes. Just like you don’t have to like spinach or math or the color yellow. But we must revere the tiny freedoms in life if we are to ever understand the greater ones.”

  36

  Romantics

  Perhaps the most curious trait Aidos became aware of in her new friends was their preoccupation with sex—namely, the opposite. Whoever didn’t already have a boyfriend or girlfriend was looking for one, and if not openly and unabashedly, like Sinclair, then secretly, like Patty. Aidos remembered her Aunt Nancy quizzing her about her love life in much the same way her friends talked about it. It was obviously a very big deal.

  Undetected, Aidos had observed some of the youths kissing, and she wondered what they were feeling. Was there any among her friends she would like to kiss like that? In fact, she did kiss them, boys and girls alike, but they were playful pecks or little smooches. The girls’ eyes flew open in surprise and the boys blushed. Some, like Randy, became dizzy, and fainted.

  That was at the beginning. Soon the youths grew accustomed to Aidos’ affectionate nature. So innocent were her kisses, they were impossible to misconstrue. She also held their hands and hugged them. The girl possessed the uncanny ability to pass between the invisible boundaries of personal space, possible only because of the trust and confidence she had earned from them.

  Katie, who was to leave for college in a few days, stole Aidos away from the others to stroll with her alone. Aidos complied unhesitatingly, as was her way. The two girls had grown quite close over the weeks, and Aidos always felt a special joy in the pretty girl’s presence.

  They strolled hand in hand down along Stonehenge Creek and halted by a small, limpid pool surrounded by the pillars of rock that had inspired Aidos to give the creek its name. The pool was about four feet deep and fed by a tiny fall. Upon its rocky banks grew a few saplings and scrub oaks and one very large pine whose half-exposed roots hung down like a gnarled claw into the creek.

  “This is one of my favorite spots,” Katie said. “I can’t believe I lived my whole life in Pinecrest and never knew all these beautiful places existed. And now I’m leaving…”

  “You can come up here whenever you’re home,” Aidos said.

  “I don’t think I’ll be coming home much. I’m going to be very busy. Four years of college and then graduate school or law school—I haven’t decided yet—and then a job in the city, and then, well, who knows…?”

  As Katie spoke, Aidos removed her shoes and sat down on a large flat rock. She hung her feet into the pool and paddled.

  “Cold?” Katie said.

  “See for yourself,” Aidos challenged.

  “Okay, scoot over…” Katie took off her shoes and socks and sat down beside her friend.

  Aidos put her hands in the water and then wiped them down her long, tan legs.

  Katie did the same. “Look how white my legs are compared to yours!”

  “They’re beautiful,” Aidos said, “like alabaster. You remind me of a Greek statue. You make a wonderful Athena, Katie.”

  “And you remind me of an Indian princess. I should start calling you Pocahontas!” Both girls giggled. “Oh, look at the butterflies!”

  Aidos put out her hand. A moment later two large, brightly-dappled butterflies alighted on her open palm.

  “How do you do that?”

  “I just do. Here…” She reached into her back pocket and produced a small magnifying glass. She handed it to Katie. “Now put your hand next to mine…” Aidos gently coaxed the butterflies onto the girl’s hand. Katie held the glass over them and observed with delight. A minute later the butterflies took flight again and vanished.

  After a moment’s silence Katie said, “Aidos, your mother died when you were very young, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember her at all?”

  “Not nearly as well as I’d like, but I have pictures and my father has told me a lot about her.”

  “You must miss her.”

  “I think about her every day.” She held out her hand. On her right ring finger was a silver wedding band. “This was hers. It was handed down to her from my great-grandmother. My dad gave it to me on my last birthday.”

  “What was your mother like?”

  “My dad said she was very intelligent and strong-willed. He said she got her traits from her mother, who was born on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic, between Europe and America.”

  “What was she doing on a boat?”

  “Her parents were refugees. Jews from Eastern Europe.”

  Katie gasped. “Were they in one of those awful concentration camps?”

  Aidos nodded. “My great-grandmother was in Majdanek. My great-grandfather was in the Vilna ghetto, but he escaped to the woods during the 1943 uprising and joined the partisans where he fought until the end of the war. They met in a refugee camp in Cyprus. The British put him there after he was caught smuggling Jews across the borders of Europe. He escaped from there too, and worked with the Jewish underground smuggling refugees into Palestine. He died defending a kibbutz in the war for independence.”

  “Wow,” Katie said. “It’s all so tragic. So your grandmother never knew her father?”

  “No. Her mother had planned to join him on the kibbutz, but they never did. A week before they were supposed to leave, she learned of his death and my grandmother decided to stay put. She eventually married a well-to-do businessman and moved to California.”

  “And your mother?” Katie asked.

  “She grew up and got a degree in Art History. She became a schoolteacher because she couldn’t support herself by her painting. My father met her at one of her openings. He said she was intelligent and witty and beautiful, and that he fell in love with her over their first cup of coffee. It was always her dream to get away and live quietly in the mountains somewhere. It was very important to her that I grow up outside of the city. So we came here.”

  “But why was it important?”

  “She was a romantic, and the idea of freedom was something very meaningful to her. I’m told she used to make her mother repeat over and over the story of how my great-grandfather escaped from the ghetto and fled to the woods to hide and live and fight. I think that to my mother the ghettos and camps represented civilization gone berserk, the inhuman face of the civilized world. The woods, on the other hand, represented freedom. You see, throughout history the woods and wilderness have always been a refuge for the freedom fighter. As long as there are woods and wild places, freedom will have a place to revive. I think that my mother never forgot that story and so always bore a deep distrust of the city. Feeling trapped herself, and craving a life that was unfettered by the obligations and pettiness of society, she looked to the woods. And then when I came along, the desire became all the more urgent. She wanted nature, not society to be my taskmaster.”

  “That’s pretty heavy, Aidos.”

  “Heavy?”

  “Well, yeah, I can’t imagine thinking through my mother’s life like that. My mother’s idea of freedom is a walk-in closet with enough shoes and clothes that she need never wear the same outfit twice! But, hey, don’t you ever feel like you’re some kind of experiment? I mean, your parents obviously intended for you to grow up this way because they had some idea it would make a big difference.”

  “I’m no more of an experiment than you are.”

  “Well, you certainly came out a lot different than I did.”

  “We’re not so different, Katie.”

  “You’re too modest, Aidos. I’m going to miss you.” She threw her arms around Aidos and hugged her. They sat in silence and paddled the water with their feet. Finally, Katie turned to Aidos and asked, “Do you ever wonder what you might be doing one or three or five or ten years
from now?”

  “Not really.”

  “But honestly, Aidos, you don’t believe you can spend your whole life as you do now.”

  “I’ll live it the best I can, whatever it may be. Isn’t that the most anybody can do?”

  “That’s what Max says too. But life isn’t that simple.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  Katie shook her head, both annoyed and confused. “You’re about to lose Camelot to the developers. Doesn’t that worry you?”

  “It’s terrible. It’s a shame.”

  “That’s right,” Katie said, as if demanding a more significant reply, but Aidos offered none. “And what about the world?”

  “What about it?”

  “I know you don’t read the papers, but it has never been worse. It’s full of suffering and cruelty and stupidity. And it’s coming right for you, Aidos, so you had better do something.” Katie was surprised by the rancor in her own voice. Aidos’ complacency bothered her. She didn’t know why, but it did.

  “Should I be afraid, Katie?”

  “Well, yes. Yes, you should.”

  Aidos smiled disarmingly. “If I’m afraid, then it won’t matter much what I do.”

  Katie fell into a sullen, uneasy silence. Aware that she was struggling with something painful, Aidos took her friend’s hand in a dovetailed clasp.

  Katie spoke up, a waver in her voice. “It would be okay if you and Max got together after I leave.” She paused. “I mean, as more than friends. I mean in the way Max and I are friends…”

  Aidos didn’t reply, but continued to look down at her paddling feet.

  “It’s only natural that you should,” Katie went on. “You both have so much in common. You know what Max is trying to get at. You can help him.”

  Aidos said, “But you love Max.”

  “Of course I do, but…” She sighed in exasperation. “In a few days I’m going to be in a completely different world. Things will change. I will change. I just think it would be best if we all move on and try not to live in the past. You understand, don’t you?”

  Aidos said, “Max loves you, Katie.”

  “I just can’t—”

  “Can’t what?”

  “I don’t have the faith he does. The things of this world don’t matter to him. Money, titles, prestige, the admiration of others—he doesn’t care about any of that.”

  “You matter to him, Katie. He cares about you.”

  “Maybe…I don’t know. But he has this ideal of me that I can’t afford—”

  “Afford?”

  “How can I say it without sounding shallow?” Katie sighed and then spat it out. “I want to make my parents proud of me, Aidos. I think every kid does. I can do it, too. It wouldn’t be so hard. A successful professional married to another successful professional—that’s what it boils down to. And maybe I want that. It doesn’t sound so bad. But Max, Max doesn’t think that’s enough. Nooo, he thinks I should be a successful human being! I don’t even know what that means…”

  “If you didn’t believe you were capable of something more than your parents’ approval, it wouldn’t bother you so much. Max doesn’t want you to cheat yourself out of something that might be more meaningful to you.”

  Katie sighed in frustration. “Why is it I feel like I have to choose between two worlds—the one you and Max represent, and the other, my parents’? Why do I have to choose? Why can’t I have both? Why can’t Max? Why can’t you?”

  “Don’t choose,” Aidos said. “Build your own world, Katie. I think that’s what Max is trying to tell you.”

  “I just don’t understand. And now Max is talking about not playing football this year. That’s how stubborn he is. Okay, maybe it is just a game, but it’s a game he’s really good at, and he can use it to his advantage. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing,” Aidos said. “Unless you’re Max Stormer. Unless you feel convinced that there’s a bigger game to play—one in which success can’t be measured in touchdowns or scholarships.”

  37

  Parting Words

  A few days later, Max and Katie met for the final time before she was to leave for college. They sat together under Aidos’ colossal pine tree that overlooked the school. Max had just told Katie that Aidos had remarked to him that she thought Katie was probably the most beautiful girl in the world. When Max repeated this to Katie, Katie cried. She didn’t know why, but she did.

  “What are you crying for?” Max said, amused.

  “Oh, Max,” she sniffled, “that girl is such an angel. I mean it. A real angel. I’m so afraid for her.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t want her to ever have to change, that’s all. But she will. She’ll have to. She can’t live like this forever. The world is ugly and cruel and demanding, and it’ll change her.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “But she’s so innocent!”

  “There are different kinds of innocence, Katie. She’s a lot stronger and wiser than you think.”

  “Oh, I know how remarkable she is. But she’s just one person against millions. You’ll protect her, won’t you, Max? You won’t let anything bad happen to her, will you?”

  “She can take care of herself.”

  Katie said, “You love her, don’t you?”

  “Yes…”

  “So do I.”

  “But I’m in love with you, Katie,” he said, to make sure there was no confusion.

  “We don’t talk about it, but we should. I’m leaving. Things are going to be different. We shouldn’t make promises we can’t keep.”

  “Who’s making promises? I know things change. You don’t think I know there are going to be a hundred guys chasing after you when you get to college? Rich guys. Classy guys. Who can blame them? But you’ll do the right thing. I trust you.”

  “Don’t put that kind of responsibility on me, Max! I’m not that strong or wise. Don’t expect me to live up to this ideal in your head. Aidos can, but not me.”

  “Why do you keep dragging Aidos into this? Are you telling me that I should forget about you and go after her?”

  “You make it sound so crude…”

  “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

  “You two are meant for each other, Max. You’d be good to her. Good for her. And I’ve already seen what she’s done for you…” Her voice caught as she choked back her tears. “I’m ashamed to think how, secretly, I doubted and patronized you.” She began to cry again. “You can do and be anything you want to, Max. You are going to do something great in this life. I just know it. You don’t need me to—”

  “Are you breaking up with me?”

  “No! Yes. I don’t know!” She dropped her head and sobbed in confusion.

  “We don’t need plans and promises, Katie. It’s okay. I know that I love you. That’s all I need to know. You don’t have to cry, and you don’t have to feel bad, because I understand. You go and do whatever it is you have to do. It’ll take time, but you’ll discover what my love means to you.”

  They both realized that words could not bring them any closer. Max put his arm around Katie and she nestled her head into the crook of his neck. He kissed the top of her head and thought: Goodbye, Katie.

  38

  Vanishing Angel

  “I want to do it, Dad. Besides, it’s as much your trial as it is mine.”

  Aidos kissed her father, Ms. Winters, and Max. It was August. She took with her only a canteen, a hunting knife, a small daypack, and her bow and arrows. Beowulf followed her to the edge of the woods. The others watched as she bent down to kiss and pet him. Then she vanished. The dog stood peering into the dense forest, and whimpered.

  Ms. Winters fought to hold back her tears. “How long?”

  “Two, three weeks, max,” Mr. Thoreson said.

  “Huh?” Max said, deep in thought.

  “And if she’s not back by then?” Ms. Winters asked.

  “Then
I will go after her,” Hardy Thoreson answered.

  “I’m so frightened for her.”

  “Don’t be,” Max said. “She’s not.”

  Ms. Winters wiped the tears from her eyes and said softly, “Dear God, please take care of my little angel.”

  The three of them stood silently on the porch, wrapped in thought. Mr. Thoreson whistled for Beowulf but the dog wouldn’t budge. Instead, he lay down with his head on his front paws, whimpered his bewilderment, and waited.

  39

  Psychic Surgery

  “What do you think they’re talking about?” Mike Sanchez asked, worried.

  “Us, of course,” Steve answered.

  “Look at the coach,” Brandon said. “I haven’t seen him this upset since we lost that play-off game to Southridge two years ago. He looks like he’s gonna cry.”

  The boys, who were sitting on folding chairs, their backs to the window of Principal Mason Kohl’s office, snuck furtive glances over their shoulders.

  “He is crying,” Steve said.

  “Poor guy,” Brandon said. “He’s really taking it bad.”

  “Do you think we’ll be kicked out of school for this?” Mike asked.

  “No, Mike,” Steve said. “You can get kicked off the team for not going to school, but you can’t get kicked out of school for not going out for the team.”

  “What can they do to us, then?” he asked.

  “Relax. They can’t do anything. We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Brandon said, “My dad is going to kill me.”

  “Mine too,” said Sid.

  Steve said, “You guys haven’t told your parents yet?”