Winterwood

by Shea Ernshaw

  I glance back into my home—my thoughts swimming and colliding like honeybees when they’re drunk on their own nectar. Unable to focus. What should I grab? What should I take?

  “Let’s go,” Suzy urges behind me, tugging on my sleeve. “There’s no time.”

  Across the lake, I can just see the boys beginning to flee their cabins, running around the shore, heading for the road. Behind my house, the flames have started moving down the hillside—the fire got here faster than I thought.

  “Wait,” I say, and I bolt through the front door. I take the stairs two at a time, I stumble at the top but push myself up. Beneath the bed I find the spellbook, I reach for it and tuck it under my arm, scrambling back downstairs and out through the door.

  Suzy glances at the book but doesn’t ask.

  “Okay,” I say, giving her a nod, and we rush down through the trees, running along the shore.

  “Here it comes,” Suzy says.

  I swivel around to see the fire making its way down the slope behind the row of summer homes, tearing through the trees. It sounds like a train roaring down tracks. The flames are so hot now that the snow is beginning to melt all around us, dripping off the eaves of roofs, forming puddles at our feet.

  The fire won’t stop until everything is gone.

  I should have grabbed more, I think. Some of my mother’s things. Photographs. Her jewelry. Her favorite seafoam-green sweater hanging in her closet.

  But now there’s no time.

  The stars overhead slink into the background, no longer visible through the smoke and ash and embers swirling all around us. We run through the trees, back to the shore, until we reach the marina.

  “What are you doing?” Suzy shouts when I dart toward the boathouse.

  “Keep going!” I yell back. “I have to warn someone.”

  She shakes her head and stops in the snow, refusing to go without me. I rush up the porch steps and pound my fist against Mr. Perkins’s door. I hear him cursing on the other side, ambling to the front door. A second later it swings open, and for a moment, the breath is caught in my lungs as I gasp for air. “A forest fire,” I manage, pointing out at the lake where the trees are burning on all sides.

  Mr. Perkins steps out onto the porch, holding a hand over his eyes. “What the hell?” he asks in disbelief.

  “You have to get out—now.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he answers, lowering his hand and shuffling back toward the door.

  “It’s going to burn everything,” I say.

  He nods, wrinkles pinching around his mouth. “And if I’m lucky, it’ll burn me right along with it.”

  “Please,” I say. My lungs rasp with each inhale, smoke in my throat, suffocating me with every breath. “You have to go.”

  He lifts his gaze and stares out over the water—the place he’s lived his whole life—then he points a long bony finger up into tree line. “Why don’t you go warn whoever’s been holed up in the old Harrison place?”

  At the line of summer homes, where the Harrison home sits hidden in the trees, I can just make out a narrow spire of smoke rising from the chimney. “No one should be in there,” I say. The Harrison place is rarely used, a small single-story cabin that sits vacant most years.

  “There’s been light in the windows at night—candles, I think.”

  I swallow and step down from the porch. It could be Oliver.

  He was gone from my room when the boys broke in. Maybe he went to the Harrison house, maybe he’s been hiding out. Although I don’t know why.

  Still, I need to be sure.

  I look back at Mr. Perkins. “If you won’t leave, then I won’t either.” A threat, a way to force him into coming with us.

  He levels his gaze on me, testing me, to see if I’m serious. “Just as stubborn as your grandmother,” he says, grumbling, before reaching behind him and pulling the door shut with a bang. There’s nothing he wants to take with him, nothing to save. But at least he’s coming with us. He’s fleeing these mountains.

  I grab his arm and help him down the steps. “Go with Suzy,” I tell him. Suzy shifts from one foot to the other, impatient, ready to run.

  “Where are you going?” Suzy asks.

  “I have to check that house, then I’ll be right behind you.”

  She raises an eyebrow like she doesn’t believe me.

  “I promise,” I say. “You get a head start.”

  She blinks, powdery ash drifting away from her lashes. Even her soft russet hair is now a charcoal-gray. “Okay,” she says, nodding, and she and Mr. Perkins continue away from the lake, through the dirty gray snow. If they don’t slow down, they’ll make it down the mountain. They’ll make it out before the fire reaches them.

  But my heart won’t let me leave until I know he’s safe.

  Adrenaline roars through me.

  The fire has already started tearing apart several of the other homes set farther back in the trees, roofs burning, windows broken out, curtains billowing with the wind while flames lick up the walls.

  The fire is a storm now. Sparks instead of snow. Ash instead of cold. It’s blown down from the mountains, from the north, and it won’t stop until it’s devoured everything.

  Until there’s nothing left.

  * * *

  The snow in front of the Harrison cabin is still deep, and my boots sink in up to my knees with each step. My breathing is quick, lungs like daggers scraping against my ribs. When I reach the porch, I grab the railing and use it to pull myself up—hand over hand—the spellbook tucked under my arm.

  I know I’m running out of time; flames have already reached the trees behind the house. Limbs snapping, snow melting from leaves, bark wheezing as it peels away.

  A light shivers from the front windows, a dim glow—hardly visible through the smoke.

  I don’t bother knocking—there’s no time—I yank open the door and burst into the living room.

  The room is dark, woven with shadows. A long dining room table that must seat ten people sits against one wall, and a broad fireplace burns hot on the other.

  And on the couch, someone is asleep—a boy—a blanket half pulled over him.

  Oliver.

  My heart stops beating and I take a step closer, hope rising dangerously up into my chest.

  “Hello?” I ask. I can’t make out his face, partially covered by an arm, but then he rolls onto his side and the arm drops away. The motion startles him awake and he flinches upright—pale-blond hair pressed awkwardly to one side.

  It’s not Oliver. Not Oliver.

  It’s someone else—a boy I don’t recognize. With a narrow face and bright-blue eyes.

  Disappointment sinks through me.

  “Who the hell are you?” he asks.

  “Who the hell are you?” I ask right back.

  He tilts his head, confused. And I feel my expression draw tight—both of us unsure of the other. I survey the house quickly: the small kitchen with plates stacked high, cans of food on the wood counter, cupboards left open. He’s pilfered whatever he could find—which surely wasn’t much, considering the Harrisons rarely visit their summer home. Expired dried beans and stewed tomatoes left behind. Emergency food. A bottle of bourbon sits on the coffee table beside the boy, only a few sips left at the bottom. He’s been in here getting drunk. Maybe he ran away from the boys’ camp, maybe he’s been in here since the party a few houses down—still wasted, no idea what day it is.

  I scowl and he scowls back.

  “You have to get out of here,” I tell him sharply, turning away to head for the door—whoever this boy is, I don’t care, he just needs to leave.

  But he doesn’t move from his place on the couch. “Why?”

  “There’s a fire heading down the mountain.” I point to the window, so he can see for himself.

  He scratches at his head, messing up his unwashed hair even more, and he squints—eyes groggy, cheeks flushed. “Doubt it,” he answers, sinking back into the couch. “
You’re just messing with me.” And then his eyelids snap open wider and he lifts a finger to the air, like he’s making a point. “Wait, are you that moon girl? The one who lives down the shore?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer, he just assumes I must be. Who else could I be—a girl way out here in the forest? “I heard you curse boys and lock them in your basement.” He laughs to himself, rubbing his face with his palm. “And I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  I blow out a sharp, irritated breath and walk back to the door. “I don’t give a shit what you do, but if you stay in here, you’ll die.”

  He sucks in his lower lip and looks hurt—a little kid who was told he can’t play in his tree fort anymore. “Wait!” he calls before I step back outside. “Is the road clear?” he asks. “Did the cops come?” His eyes flash to the door still open behind me, the strange biting wind blowing inside, a mix of winter air and ash.

  “What?” I turn back to face him, head throbbing—I need to get out of here, there’s no time. I need to find Oliver.

  “I mean, did someone come looking for me?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer. “You just need to leave.”

  He stands up suddenly and looks past me again. He’s wearing green sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt that reads WORLD’S GREATEST FISHERMAN, and I’m almost positive he didn’t bring this outfit with him but likely found it inside the house. Buried in a dresser drawer, mothballs rolling around inside. His expression sinks—a shade of darkness slips across his face. “Did they find the body?” he asks grimly, voice hardly more than a scratch.

  “What body?” I ask, afraid I already know what he’s talking about.

  He squints at me like he’s sizing me up, trying to figure out my true intention for busting into his hiding place.

  “Who are you?” I ask again, something beginning to thread its way along my spine, vertebra by vertebra. Brittle bone by brittle bone.

  He hesitates and shifts his jaw side to side like a saw. “Max.”

  Max, Max, Max.

  “You’re Max?” I ask, and I can feel the color leave my cheeks. The heat slipping out through my toes.

  “Yeah.” He narrows his focus on me, his skin pale and sunken. He needs a shower. He needs sunlight.

  Max is alive.

  Not dead. Not dead at all.

  * * *

  Every inhale burns my lungs, and I clear my throat, blinking. Blinking away the smoke. Blinking away this boy who can’t be Max.

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” I say.

  His mouth snaps shut. His face corkscrews together.

  “They said you were dead,” I continue. “The other boys. They said you drowned.”

  Sparks begin to tumble in through the open doorway, blowing across the wood floor—the fire close now, right outside. We can’t stay here.

  “I’m not dead,” he answers—stating the obvious—as if I couldn’t see for myself. But his tone is off—something not quite right. Something else just beneath the surface of his words.

  My hands begin to tremble. “I don’t understand,” I say. Maybe he’s the wrong Max, I think. A different Max. I slide my shaking hand into my coat pocket, feeling for the smooth surface of the watch, and I pull it out, holding it in my palm. I touch the back, where Max’s name is inscribed into the metal. “Is this yours?” I ask, holding it out for him to see.

  He steps forward. “I thought it was gone,” he says, but he doesn’t reach for it, doesn’t try to take it from me, as if he is glad to be rid of it. A memory he didn’t want. A thing he’s been trying to forget.

  I close my hand over it. He’s the right Max.

  The one who should be dead.

  “Where did you find it?” he asks.

  I slide it back into my pocket—I’ve grown accustomed to the weight of it, the subtle vibration of the hands ticking forward, the measurement of time. “Oliver had it. He’s had it since the storm.”

  But if Max is alive… then Oliver didn’t kill him.

  If Max is alive, then Oliver isn’t a murderer. He didn’t let him drown in the lake.

  Max raises an eyebrow. “Oliver Huntsman?”

  I nod.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” He steps around the coffee table, and his jaw is pushed out, his shoulders a rigid slope. I can see the confusion growing inside him, along with something else: anger. “You came here to get me to admit what happened,” he says, his eyes wide and unblinking. “You’re trying to trick me.”

  “What?” I don’t understand what’s happening, what he’s talking about. And I take a step back toward the open door. Away from him.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asks, words slicked with spite.

  A wave of sparks rolls across the wood floor, pushed by the wind.

  Max moves closer to me, his bloodshot eyes refusing to blink, to flinch away.

  “I’m not trying to trick you,” I say. But he reaches forward and grabs me by the wrist.

  “Why do you really have my watch?” he presses, squeezing my wrist tighter, stopping the flow of blood into my hand.

  “I told you,” I say, tugging against his grip. “Oliver had it.”

  His fingers dig deeper into my skin, and he pulls me closer, his face only a few inches from mine. “You’re lying.”

  With the spellbook tucked beneath my arm, I manage to push my other hand against his face, his chin, and force him away. “I’m not lying,” I spit, yanking my arm free from his grasp and starting toward the door.

  “So they did find his corpse?” he asks, his voice hollowed out, thin and strained.

  I stop and look back at him. “What?”

  “In the lake?” he says, as if this clarifies it, raising a single blond eyebrow. “They recovered Oliver?”

  “Oliver isn’t dead,” I say, a sour taste forming at the back of my throat.

  A quick bark of laughter escapes Max’s lips. And when his mouth falls flat, he leans in close to me again, brows slanted, his teeth grating together. “I watched him sink beneath the ice.” His upper lip curls into a disgusted grin, his nostrils flare.

  I shake my head. “You’re full of shit,” I say, but still, I reach out for the edge of a chair, my knuckles turning white where they grip the striped, navy-blue upholstery. “Oliver didn’t drown.” But even as I say it, the room begins to spin, the watch inside my pocket begins to tick impossibly too loud, beating against my skull.

  One boy missing. One boy dead.

  Which boy is which?

  Max shakes his head and says something, but his voice feels too far away, the room tipping on its side, the merry-go-round moving too fast and I want to get off. I need to get out of this house. I dip my eyes to the floor to keep the walls from spinning, and I stare at a beetle turned up on its back near a couch leg—dead. I feel myself cracking apart, little tiny fractures in the shell of my skin. And once the first fissure splits open, the rest will shatter.

  Max didn’t die that night.

  Max didn’t drown in the lake.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” he says now. His face sways just out of focus, a blur of hair and bloodshot eyes and a cruel grin, but he’s still too close, and I release my hold on the chair. I step away from him, reaching for the open doorway, feeling bits of ash sticking to my skin. Like they will never be washed off. Like I will never escape these flames.

  But then there’s someone in the doorway, blocking my path. Hands reaching out for me. I look up into his too-green eyes and I feel my pupils narrow to tiny pricks.

  Oliver.

  Oliver is standing in the doorway.

  I choke back a strange, terrified sob. Relief flooding through me. “What are you doing here?” I ask, gasping for air, ash spilling down into my lungs.

  “I’ve been trying to find you,” he says, his voice urgent, panicked. “I saw the fire. You have to get out of here.” He holds out a hand to me, but I don’t take it.

  “I thought you were here,” I explain, “in thi
s house. But—” But instead I found Max. I swivel back to face Max, and Oliver’s gaze lifts too, seeing Max for the first time. His expression sinks, fury and hatred seething behind his eyes. Forming a line that runs from his temples to his chin. I want to ask him what’s wrong, what he sees when he looks at Max that makes his jaw constrict.

  But I wheel my gaze back to Max. “I told you he’s alive,” I say, the words choked out. Like a part of me doesn’t believe them.

  Max’s face softens and he looks from me to the doorway. “What?” he mutters.

  “You were wrong,” I say. “You didn’t watch Oliver drown.”

  Max rakes his hands through his hair, as if pulling out the strands from his scalp. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he barks, eyes scanning the doorway where Oliver stands, anger thudding through him. “You’re just as strange as everyone says you are,” he adds, his grin turned sour. “They say you should be locked up, that you’ve lived in this forest too long—that no one can stay sane in these woods.”

  I scowl at him. “I’m not insane,” I answer, wishing I had a better comeback, wishing my head wasn’t so full of smoke. “Oliver’s not dead,” I snap, but when I turn back to look at Oliver, his expression has changed. He’s no longer looking at Max—he’s looking at me, his mouth flattened, eyes pouring through me with the deepest kind of sadness. With guilt and regret and maybe even pity.

  “Nora—” Oliver begins.

  But he’s cut off by Max. “There’s no one there, witch girl,” Max says, pointing to the door. “You’re talking to yourself.”

  I shake my head, confusion and fear suddenly clattering down every joint, and I step away from Oliver, holding a palm in the air.

  I don’t know what’s happening.

  “Weird little witch girl has lost her mind,” Max jeers, laughing now. He says something else, but I can’t hear. He laughs and more sparks skitter through the doorway, smoke filling the house. The fire is close now. But I don’t care.

  Max can’t see Oliver. He’s standing right beside me, but Max doesn’t see him.

  I was wrong.

  So fucking wrong.