"Hold me tighter," Amy said, her lips moving closer to his neck, so that he could almost feel them on his skin. "I want to remember this."
There was pain in her voice, a pain Henry recognized.
"Don't think about tomorrow," he said.
"How can I not?"
He found her lips in the dark and kissed her again. And then she was kissing him back and crying at the same time.
"None of that," Henry said, kissing her chin, then her nose, then her cheeks and forehead.
"Henry ... would you, um, do you want to..." Amy had stopped crying, and her voice was soft across the pil ows.
At first he didn't know what to say. Of course he wanted Amy, wanted her more than anything. "We don't have to..." he said. "I'm not expecting anything."
"I want to. I want to pretend my first time was with you," Amy said.
And Henry closed his eyes and for the first time in his endless summer, let everything just happen as it would.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I woke up and found Henry sitting on the edge of my bed. He was framed in shadows, but I could see he'd put on his dried clothes and abandoned my robe on the hamper in the corner. I thought about how safe I'd felt with Henry, how comfortable it had been with his arms around me. How different it had been from what I'd experienced with Matt. Henry had been right—when you truly loved someone, it made everything better.
"What's going on?" I said, moving up onto my elbows.
He smiled. "Just watching you sleep."
I glanced toward the windows. It was dark, but I didn't hear rain pounding on the roof anymore. I was sleepy, and al I wanted was for Henry to climb back into the sheets with me. "What time is it?"
"It's late."
A silence fel between us. It wasn't only late outside; it was late for Henry. I knew what was coming next. "I don't want you to go," I said.
Henry nodded. "I don't want to, either, but it's the only way this ends."
I gathered the sheets and blankets in my fists, pul ing them up around me. I tried to take deep breaths, but only shal ow ones came and I started to feel dizzy. Henry reached for my hands, forcing them to relax as he pul ed me up to a sitting position.
"You need to be strong," he said. "And from what I saw earlier tonight, that comes easy for you."
"What, are you just going to walk out the door and be gone forever? You're just going to leave me here in the dark?"
"Amy, don't."
"I'm going with you. I'm going with you into the mist." I scrambled out of bed and rummaged in the closet for clothes, throwing on jeans and a sweatshirt.
Henry sat on the bed, watching me. "Amy," he whispered, his voice breaking, "this is hard for me, too."
I stopped in the midst of looking for socks and sneakers.
"You know you can't go, any more than I can stay." He moved to the window and stared out at the back field, at the stretch of trees before the mist. When he turned back to me, his voice was low. "I love you. I meant it when I said it before, and I mean it now. Nothing that happened between us tonight changes that. The distance and time between us doesn't change it. The fact that we can't be together doesn't change it, either."
I dropped the shoe in my hand and went to hug him at the window. "I love you, too."
"Then walk me to the clearing one last time."
***
The path through the woodlot had never seemed so short. Every step I took brought me closer to losing Henry forever. And every step seemed to make me angrier. It wasn't fair that now that I'd final y learned what true love was, it was going to disappear. But maybe that's the price of love—that you don't know how long it's going to last. And you don't know how bad it's going to hurt when it goes away.
"What's the plan?" I asked.
Henry paused to pat Katie-dog where we stood at the edge of the mist. "I'm going to change my prayer tonight, and if it works, then the rest of my life begins."
"And Robert wil come home," I said.
"Hopeful y, Mother wil be around to see that. I don't know what's going to happen. To me, to any of us."
"You're going to do great things."
"I don't know about that," Henry said.
"No, that was a very important time in our history," I said. "I just mean that whatever you and Robert end up doing in the war, you're making a big difference."
A flicker of fear shone in Henry's eyes. "Is it—"
"Yeah, it's almost over, Henry." I reached for his hand.
"Thank you, Amy," he said. "I wouldn't be at this crossroads if you hadn't come along."
I shrugged. "Maybe."
"No maybes." Henry kissed me on the cheek. "Thank you for showing me how life could be."
I started crying then, because it al felt so final. Henry wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me tight. I inhaled the scent of his skin and soap and touched his sandy blond hair, wil ing my fingers to remember the way it felt. I didn't want to forget any of this. I didn't want this moment to end.
Henry kissed my lips softly and then pul ed back to look at me. "Amy, you deserve so much more than you've been given. I know you'l find someone, someday, who's worthy of your love. Don't settle for anything less. Promise me."
I nodded because I couldn't speak. I couldn't tel him that I didn't want to believe what he was saying, that I'd never love anyone the way I loved him. I couldn't tel him my heart was breaking in so many more ways than I ever knew it could.
Henry's eyes wel ed with tears he refused to acknowledge. He reached out one more time to smooth my hair away from my eyes. "Goodbye, love."
And then he let me go and walked into the mist alone.
After he faded away into the clearing, I walked back to Mae's. I pul ed off my clothes and got into bed. Sobbing, I scrunched the covers over my head. I breathed in the faint smel of Henry's soap stil left on the pil ows. I listened to the rain starting up again and Katie snoring at my side.
And I wished myself far, far away. Only I stayed there in my bed missing him. And then at last, merciful y, the dark took me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I blink awake to sunlight. A big German shepherd is sleeping at the foot of my bed. I sit up because I hear someone whistling a happy tune. And then my door opens and a graying old woman stands there smiling at me.
"Amy, sweetie! Up and at 'em! Uncle Joe's making pancakes."
"Great-Aunt Mae?"
"Wel , who else would it be? Let's go!"
The dog fol ows Mae out of the room. I look around, but everything seems strange. There's an oak dresser and a desk with a shiny laptop on it. The curtains are a cheerful yel ow, and the room is large and bright. I slip out of the bed and go to the window. I'm on the second story and from here I can see a garden of winter vegetables, and a large apple tree that's lost its leaves. The view seems familiar, yet alien.
I realize I'm in underwear, so I open the closet and take out a white robe. Tying the belt, I walk out into the hal way. Pictures line the wal s. I recognize Aunt Mae, along with a man who must be Uncle Joe. Military pictures of the man in uniform. There are my baby pictures. Pictures of me and my mom. Pictures of me with a familiar-looking boy my age. I sit down on the step, feeling strange and trying to figure out why things seem so fuzzy.
"You al right, sweetie?" Mae says, fol owing me down the stairs.
"Mae, where'd al the pictures come from?"
She laughs. "They've only been here every summer you've spent up here in the val ey with us! And that's been since you were, what, eleven?"
"Who's this?" I say, pointing at the picture of me with a mystery boy.
"Oh, I get it—this is some kind of a senility test? Fine, I'l play," she says. "That, my dear, is your first and only boyfriend, Jackson. You've been spending time with him each summer since you were thirteen. Such a nice boy."
"Who's this?" I point at the pictures of her with the man.
"Uncle Joe."
"And here?" I say, pointing at a military photo.
My skin pricks with goose bumps, but I'm not sure why. "Briggs?"
Mae nods. "Henry befriended Joe from the first minute he met him. Seemed to always be watching over my Joe. Good man. After the war, Henry's brother, Robert, ended up sel ing this house to my daddy. Robert and his family moved into town."
"This house?"
"We almost lost it in a kitchen fire years ago, but Joe was able to extinguish the flames."
I have to ask, and I'm not sure why, "What happened to Henry?"
"Missing in action. Never came back from the war. His family was quite sad, especial y his mother. But they were also proud that Henry saved my Joe."
"Your Joe?"
Mae taps a wedding photograph farther down the wal . "Married forever now," she says with a giggle. "Come on—did I pass the test? Yes?
Then let's go eat some breakfast."
We go down the stairs, passing through a formal parlor with a piano, and enter a sunlit kitchen. An old guy places a stack of pancakes in front of us.
"Now, easy on the butter, my darling Mae," he says, sliding the dish toward me instead. "You've gotta watch the old ticker."
Mae beams at him. "You always take such good care of me."
"My pleasure," Joe says, bending down to kiss her on the cheek. "Eat up now, girls, and then we'l head down to the creek to toss out a few flies."
I eat a pancake, but my stomach is flip-floppy. I down the last of my juice and put my dirty plate in the sink, and then I fol ow the old couple out to the porch.
"Wil you look at that," Joe says, tipping his hat toward the backyard. "Never seen anything like it."
I turn to see what he's talking about. It's some drifting mist settling over the back field. It's mesmerizing. I can't help staring at it.
Moments later while Joe and Mae round up the fly-fishing tackle, I wander toward the mist. I can't explain why, but I feel pul ed toward the coolness of the white fog fil ing the clearing behind the farmhouse.
As I draw closer, everything starts to feel more familiar. My heart feels ful . And I sense, somehow, that this morning is ful of possibilities.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my dedicated literary agent, Stephen Barbara, and to my enthusiastic editor, Julie Tibbott, and her wonderful team at HMH, who believed in The Clearing from the start.
A frosting-covered thank-you goes to my friend Julie Blattberg, who listened to my ramblings of the book's concept over chocolate layer cake and encouraged me to bring the project to life. Thanks also to my writing mentor and friend, Pat White, and to Dona Sarkar and the Buzz Girls, my teen fiction blog sisters at BooksBoysBuzz.com, for their unflagging support.
I am also very indebted to Gordon Rottman, World War I guru and writer, for his help with dates and protocol, and to my friends and family who shared their stories and remembrances of the 1940s. I am humbled by your tales of sacrifice and service.
And above al , special thanks to my father, John-Carl Davis, who used to sing "Time in a Bottle" to me every night when I was a little girl. The inspiration has lasted a lifetime.
HEATHER DAVIS spent seven years living in the Upper Skagit Val ey of Washington, where The Clearing takes place. Like her protagonist, Amy, she had to get used to rural life in the val ey—learning farm chores and absorbing the culture of the smal town, which was quite different from where she grew up in urban Seattle. The beauty of the val ey and her fascination with the "Greatest Generation"—those Americans who lived through World War I —inspired Heather to write this story. She is also the author of Never Cry Werewolf.
www.heatherdavisbooks.com
Table of Contents
Book design by Susanna Vagt
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Clearing Page 19