The Clearing

by Heather Davis

  "Ouch! Yeah, Lori, I'm sorry—I was just playing. What's so important about having the best costumes?" Jackson added.

  Lori crossed her arms over her chest. "I know it probably sounds dumb, but every year, we walk into the dance and it's like we're total dorks or something. Quinn and Melanie and those people make me feel so lame."

  "Um..." Jackson said.

  "Don't make fun of me, Jackson. You total y know what I'm talking about," Lori said, her voice smal .

  "Wel , that sucks," I said.

  "Sure they're jerks, but you don't have to take it personal y," Jackson said.

  "Yeah, thanks. It helps to remember that when I'm crying in the bathroom stal because Melanie and her cronies laughed about my stupid dress."

  "Real y?" Jackson said.

  Lori nodded.

  After that, nobody said anything until Jackson parked the truck in an open spot at the drive-in. "I didn't know that happened," he said. "Why didn't you tel me?"

  Lori sniffled and shook her head. "It was last year. I got over it."

  Right. I patted Lori on the arm. "Listen, that won't happen this year. We're gonna look awesome."

  "Yeah. I promise to take it more seriously," Jackson said. "Maybe we can figure out how I could get a real soldier's uniform or something."

  Lori brightened. "Real y?"

  "Yes, real y," Jackson said. He got out of the truck and waited for us to grab our stuff. Then, as Lori came around the front, he gave her a big hug.

  And I couldn't help but like the two of them just a little bit more.

  ***

  "That Jackson's truck out there?" Mae asked later that night.

  I hung my coat up on the rack and slid out of my wet shoes. The rain had started up again. "Yeah, did you get my message? We got a hamburger after the homecoming meeting at school."

  Mae clanked the door to the wood stove closed. "Yep."

  "Here," I said, holding out a white paper bag. "Curly fries and a bacon burger for you."

  "Wel , aren't you a sweet girl? I was hoping, but I figured I'd just have a bowl of soup if worse came to worst," she said with a laugh. She took the bag from me and sat down at the table.

  I plopped onto the couch and muted the detective show on TV. "So how did Jackson know you had a thing for bacon burgers?" I asked. "He insisted I get you that, but he wouldn't tel me why."

  "His family may be vegetarian, but that kid worked at Hal's last summer, and let's just say that Katie-dog and I stopped by there a few times."

  Mae grinned at me guiltily and then slid a paper napkin onto her lap.

  "I was going to get you a veggie burger—that would be a whole lot better for you, Mae. Jackson says they're real y yummy."

  Mae shrugged. "I'l take the bacon. Life's too short not to enjoy the good stuff," she said, and then took a big bite. Over on her dog bed near the wood stove, Katie started drooling, watching Mae eat the burger.

  "So, what's on tap for tonight?" Mae said, dabbing her lips with the napkin.

  "Huh?"

  "You and Lori studying again? You've been spending a lot of time over there."

  "Oh, um, yeah, I guess." I kept my eyes on the muted TV so I wouldn't have to fib to Mae's face. "I should go over there pretty soon." I'd told Henry I'd meet him in the clearing tonight. That was now. I wondered if he was worrying about me.

  "Wel , it's a nasty night to be running down to her place. You want a ride?"

  "Nah, I'l bundle up." I left Mae to her burger and went to my room. I took the solid blue dress out of the closet and laid it on the bed. I took off my jeans and hoodie and pul ed the dress on. I shimmied the dress down around my hips and then reached around to zip myself up.

  "Need any help?"

  I froze as Mae came in. Behind me in the mirror's reflection, she appraised me. "Hmm, blue suits you."

  "It's for the dance," I said. "You know, homecoming."

  Mae sat down on my bed. "And this is your idea of bundling up? Amy, it's pouring rain outside. How are you going to walk a quarter mile in that?"

  "Wearing a coat," I said.

  Mae let out a sigh. "Sweetie—sit down."

  I didn't like the tone in her voice. "Mae, why are you making such a big deal out of this?" I walked to the mirror and reached for the pins on my dresser to pin back my curls in waves.

  "What is... this? " Mae said, gesturing toward me and my outfit. "That's al I'm trying to find out."

  "This is—just dress up." I grabbed a red lipstick and dabbed a little on my lower lip. I could feel Mae's eyes on me, but I didn't turn around.

  "Amy, come on. Have a seat," Mae said, patting the bed. "Let's you and I have a talk for a minute."

  I sat down across from her.

  "I'm not one to check up on you, but I saw Lori's mom at the grocery store today and I thanked her for letting you come by so often to visit.

  She didn't know what I was talking about."

  My heart sank. "Oh."

  " Oh is right. You weren't going over to Lori's tonight, were you?" When Mae looked at me that way, her blue eyes stony and her mouth grim, there was no way I could keep lying.

  "Okay, no. I'm not going to Lori's."

  Mae let out a sigh of disappointment. "Amy, the first rule was that we were going to tel each other the truth—even if it was hard.

  Remember?"

  "Yeah." My cheeks flushed with shame. "I'm sorry."

  "Now, I don't mean to threaten you—I love having you here with me—but if this lying keeps up, wel , your mom and Pete are moving to Arizona in just under a month. There's stil time to send you with them," Mae said. "So, wil you tel your old auntie what's going on out there?"

  My heart stil ed. "Out there? "

  "Out there in the fog. That's where you're headed again, right?"

  I didn't say anything for a moment. I stared down at my dress, examining the fine stitching, the pretty buttons. "Truthful y—yes," I said.

  "What on earth has you running out to the back pasture in the dark?"

  "You're not going to believe me, Mae."

  "Try me. I think I've heard most everything by this point in my life, sweetie," Mae said. "Whatever it is—if it's just some boy you're meeting or even UFOs landing, I'd like you to simply tel me the truth."

  I winced at the mention of boys—of course Mae would think I had fal en into another crappy relationship with a boy who treated me like dirt.

  How could I ever explain to her the way I felt when I was with Henry, how different he was from anyone I'd ever met, or ever cared about?

  "Amy, I'm getting older by the second. Out with it," Mae said, sounding a bit exasperated.

  "I can't believe I'm going to say this—and I don't think you're going to believe me—but whatever. Henry Briggs and his family are in the back field."

  "The Briggses?"

  I nodded. "It sounds dumb and made up, but the family is real. So real. It's Henry and his mother and his grandfather. They're real and real y there."

  Mae let out a long sigh. "I don't know what to say. You know on TV, the ghost hunters use al kinds of equipment; they don't dress up in costume," she said, eyebal ing my dress.

  "They aren't ghosts, not real y," I said."They're from another time. They're living in the past because the past never went forward."

  "This is pretty out there, kiddo."

  "You think I'm lying," I said, letting out a sigh. "And I did lie about Lori's, but how could I tel you I've been going out to the field to see people who shouldn't be there?"

  "You're going to visit a ghost—and here I worried about your sneaking out to see live boys," Mae said, shaking her head.

  "Henry is alive, Mae. He's in 1944, but he's alive."

  "I don't know how that's possible," she said.

  "They didn't die—they disappeared into a pocket of time," I said, trying to break it down for her. "Henry prayed for the end of summer never to come, and it didn't."

  "Why did he do that?"

  "I'm pretty su
re he thinks his brother Robert died, but I saw in the newspaper he didn't. He was found in a prisoner of war camp and lived to be an old man." I reached into my pocket and pul ed out the obituary I'd printed at the library the day before.

  Mae took the paper from me and read it. "Wel , I knew Robert didn't die. He sold my daddy the property after the war. He sold it because his family had disappeared. They had abandoned that house and were never heard from again."

  "They disappeared into a pocket of time. That's what I'm trying to tel you."

  "And they never knew that Robert lived?"

  "No, and they stil don't. And I thought Henry and his family would want to know, but I couldn't tel him the other night. There's something else

  —something else that happened to them after that. Henry seemed real y upset about it the other night, so I didn't get a chance to tel him about Robert. Those boys from the past, they aren't the world's biggest talkers."

  Mae looked at me intently. "They are very real to you, aren't they?"

  "They'd be real to you, too, Mae. If you only met them, you'd get it. Seriously. What can I do to convince you they're real? Do you want to come with me?"

  Mae blinked at me. "On a night like this? Heavens no."

  "Wel , look—I promised Henry I'd come see him tonight. I'm only going over there for a little while. I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have lied about it, Mae, but I have to see him tonight. I have to tel him what I found out."

  Mae wiped a hand across her forehead. "This is a lot to take in, Amy."

  "So you believe me?"

  "Yes and no." She got up from the bed. "But listen—I don't like your going out in the dark alone. I can't go chasing you down if you get lost out there."

  "You want me to be honest, right? Wel , I'm going out there whether you believe me or not—whether you want me to or not."

  She looked at me, a mixture of weariness and acceptance in her eyes. "I don't expect I'd be able to stop you."

  "And I don't want to lie," I said. "I'm going now. I'm not going to get lost." I hugged Mae, ignoring the fact that she was stiff in my arms. "I promise I'l be careful."

  "I don't like this. You be back soon," she said, releasing me from the hug. "And never, ever lie to me again."

  "I won't need to," I said. I fol owed her out into the living room and put on my heavy coat and boots. I stuffed some flip-flops into my pockets.

  "And for goodness' sake, these ghosts—these ... whatever you think you saw—tel them everything. If that's why they're hanging around, you can release them. They should know the truth."

  "Yeah, I know," I said, heading to the back door. "I know."

  ***

  I crossed into the clearing, shed my raincoat and boots near the stump, and threw on the flip-flops. As I passed into Henry's world, I breathed in the warm summer breeze that greeted me, trying to calm myself. I was excited and more than a little nervous as I started down the path toward the farmhouse.

  But something was different.

  In the twilight blue, the house seemed like a beacon of white light. The last time I'd been there, Henry and his grandfather had been lounging on the front porch. Tonight, their seats were empty, and light, instead of radio tunes, flooded out from the windows.

  I mounted the stairs, almost afraid to cal out a hel o. And then I heard low voices. I stopped at the back door, peering through the window into the kitchen. Henry and his grandpa were sitting at the table, cups of coffee in their hands.

  I raised my hand to knock just as Henry looked up and saw me. His face was pained. He shook his head and I dropped my hands to my side. He didn't want me knocking, for some reason. Okay.

  Henry got up from the table, said something to his grandpa, and then came to the back door. He opened it slowly, quietly, and said, "Hel o, Amy."

  "Hi, what's the deal?"

  He let himself through the door and came out onto the porch. "My mother's having a bad time tonight. She's taken il ," he said.

  "What's wrong—is there anything I can do?"

  "Thank you for offering, but I don't think so."

  I sat down on the porch swing, but he didn't sit next to me.

  "This isn't the best time for us to visit," he said in a quiet voice. "Why don't you let me walk you to the clearing?"

  I almost lost my nerve, almost took the easy way out again. "No, I have to talk to you tonight. It's important."

  "Amy," Henry said, "another time."

  I felt a tightness in my throat. "No, I can't put this off. I thought about it a lot and we real y have to talk, okay?"

  "Amy," Henry said, "my mother's problem is bigger than just a headache."

  "Okay, fine," I said. "What's going on?"

  Henry glanced back toward the kitchen window and then sat down next to me on the swing bench. "She tried to leave the farm today."

  "Oh." I waited for Henry to say more.

  "I talked her out of walking down to church on Sunday, but today, my mother got the idea of taking the neighbors some of our extra honey.

  She wandered into the fog at the end of the road and got confused and scared. It came time for dinner and I couldn't find her, so I went looking. She was down by the creek, crying. She'd been there for hours."

  "What did she think happened?"

  "I don't know. She hasn't said a word since I found her. Look, Amy, things are changing. She'd never tried to leave the farm before. Not once since this endless summer began."

  "Why are things changing?" I asked, dreading the answer.

  Henry looked up at me, concern in his eyes. "You're the only thing different," he said. "Before you came along, things were the same. They were boring, but they were the same."

  I let out a breath. "And now your grandpa is asking questions, and your mom is wanting to go places..."

  He nodded. "Pandora's box."

  "But is that such a bad thing? That they want to real y live? That they might want things to be different, to be more normal?"

  Henry's jaw tightened. "It's not good."

  "And you're blaming al that on me," I said, slowly. "So you don't think any of this is good." I shook my head.

  "Now hold on," he said. "You're the only good thing that's happened to me in forever. You know that." He leaned over and kissed me gently.

  I pul ed back from his lips. "Yeah, I guess, but don't blame me for showing up and ruining your perfect life, okay?"

  Henry reached for my hand. "There are things going on here that you don't know about. Things I haven't told you. I have no right to burden you with my troubles. You've got enough of your own."

  "Wel , sometimes you have to share what's on your mind." I paused, gathering my courage. "Henry, I did come here tonight to get to the truth with you. So can we do that? Then I'l leave you alone to deal with your family."

  Henry nodded.

  I took a deep breath and prepared to tel him what I knew. But Henry spoke first.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "You know my mother is not wel ." He didn't want to sound like a complainer. He didn't want Amy to feel sorry for him, or to judge him for what he'd done. But if she was going to understand what was happening, how being with her, as beautiful as it had been, was affecting the family, then he had to tel it to her straight. He turned on the bench so he was looking directly into Amy's eyes.

  "She's been feeling poorly since my father died a while back." His voice was quiet. "And then Robert shipped out to the army a year and a half ago and she got worse."

  "It's natural to get depressed when someone has a loss," Amy said. "Al the doctors say that."

  "Wel , her doctor's a quack," he said.

  "He didn't give her any help?"

  "Oh, he helped her al right—helped her with some pil s," Henry said, barely able to keep the anger from his voice.

  "Lots of people are on medication for depression," Amy said. "It's something that people get treated for in my time."

  "Wel , this doctor's treatment didn't help. It hurt." He looked aw
ay, unable to take Amy's concerned stare. "It was a hot June day and I'd just made it home from swimming with my chums down at the river. Mother had made fried chicken, a special treat. We were sitting down to eat supper and there was a knock at the door. Mother answered, and then I heard her screaming. I ran out to see what was happening and saw the telegram in her hand. I felt so guilty. We'd had a first telegram ten days before—one that said Robert was missing in action after the invasion at Normandy. The infantry had landed at Omaha Beach on the sixth and no one had seen him since. I'd hid that telegram, Amy. I'd hid that one because I knew what she'd do. I just knew. But I hadn't thought about when this one would come. And this one said Robert was presumed dead. It was so much worse."

  "But, Robert was—"

  "Please." Henry held up a hand. "Let me finish my story." He forced breath into his lungs, then made himself struggle onward. "My mother took to her room. She wouldn't come out, no matter what Grandpa or I said. She cried al night and in the morning"—he took another deep breath

  —"in the morning, Grandpa and I found her unconscious—the pil bottle empty on her nightstand. I fetched the doctor from town, but he said Mother was comatose. She wouldn't wake up, Amy. I prayed that night—I prayed that we'd never got the telegram, that everything was like it was before.

  And darned if it didn't come true. The very next day, the summer started over. The prayer erased away what had happened to us like whitewash over a dirty wal . We began again."

  "You poor mother," Amy said.

  Henry stiffened. He'd often felt sorry for his mother in her grief, but since that night, anger mixed with his pity. How ready she'd been to just leave him behind, how ready just to give up. "It was hard for al of us."

  Amy was watching him."Henry, what if Robert wasn't kil ed?" she said in a tentative tone.

  "That's what I prayed about," Henry said.

  "No, you prayed for the telegram not to come, but what if your brother was alive? Wouldn't your mother be okay? I mean, there'd be no reason to try to hurt herself, right?" Amy's eyes looked luminous in the porch light. She was so hopeful, so naive.

  "Are you're saying I prayed for the wrong miracle?"

  She shook her head. "I need to tel you something. I think it's going to be hard for you to take—but listen—Robert didn't die in the war. That's what I wanted to tel you the other night, but I couldn't."