Into the Dark

by Peter Abrahams

  A shadowy corridor led to the right. There were three doors off it, but somehow Ingrid also knew the first one was Grampy’s bedroom. The door was open. Ingrid looked in.

  Grampy’s bedroom was simple: dresser, bedside table, bed. He lay on it, eyes closed, fully clothed, boots still on; his red-and-black-checked lumber jacket hung on the bedpost. Ingrid watched until she was sure she wasn’t imagining the up-and-down movement of his chest. His face was still; it looked much older asleep, really ancient.

  It was cold upstairs. A blanket lay folded at the end of the bed, just beyond Grampy’s feet. Ingrid went in quietly, unfolded the blanket, and laid it over Grampy. A framed photo of a dark-haired woman with features a lot like Dad’s stood on the bedside table: Grampy’s wife. And also Ingrid’s grandmother, but she’d died many years ago, long before Ingrid’s birth, before anyone could attach one of those grandparent names like Grammy or Grandma to her. She was standing on a balcony, or maybe a pier, waving and smiling. Ingrid backed out of the room.

  She went downstairs, called home. Ty picked up.

  “How’s that homework going?” she said.

  “Huh?” said Ty.

  “Is Mom or Dad there?”

  Ty shouted, “Mom! Dad!” Pause. “Guess not,” he said.

  “Where are they?”

  “Do I look like a search engine?”

  “That joke wasn’t funny the first time. I need to be picked up.”

  “So?” said Ty. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Downstairs Ingrid put her jacket on—a red jacket, red being her favorite color, the only one that said COLOR in big letters—and went out to the barn. Even just a few years ago lots of animals had lived on the farm, but now there was just one piglet—for tax purposes, Grampy said. He lived in a plywood pen she’d helped Grampy build, a pen kept in the barn for the winter. Ingrid unlatched the little door.

  “Here, Piggy.”

  Piggy ran out, not even glancing at her, and headed straight for the shelf in the corner where Grampy kept the Slim Jims. He made snorting sounds.

  “You’re getting so big.”

  Piggy didn’t care about that. He made more snorting sounds, kind of impatient now. Ingrid went over, peeled the wrapper from a Slim Jim, tore some off. Piggy tilted up his head, opened wide. Ingrid dropped the piece in. Gone in one chomp. More snorting, right away.

  “Don’t you even chew?”

  Head up, mouth open. Ingrid could see the tail end of the Slim Jim, way at the back. She dropped in the rest. Chomp. Snort.

  “That’s it, Piggy. Back in your pen.”

  But Piggy didn’t want to go back in the pen. A single Slim Jim still lay on the shelf, and his eyes—tiny but intelligent, even calculating, reminding her slightly of her math teacher, Ms. Groome—were locked on it. Ingrid reached into a bin for a handful of hay, covered up the Slim Jim.

  “All gone,” she said.

  Piggy snorted and didn’t budge. He wasn’t buying it for a second. Was this what being a mother would be like? If so, forget it.

  “You know you’re only allowed one,” Ingrid said. Grampy had a rule—although why it mattered, since pigs ate just about everything including slops and garbage and therefore couldn’t be spoiled, was something she didn’t under—

  What was that? Voices? Yes, some commotion outside: angry voices. Ingrid went to a window, wiped away the grime. From there she could see the front of the house, about twenty or thirty yards away. A green van stood in the driveway, with stenciled words on the side: DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION. Grampy stood in the doorway of the house, facing a man about his own size, white-haired like Grampy but younger, dressed in a uniform, same color as the van. He had some papers in his hand and shook them at Grampy. Grampy batted them away with the back of his hand, scattering the papers in the snow. The man in green jumped back and snatched something from his pocket.

  A camera?

  Yes. The man in green stooped over and started taking close-ups of the scattered papers. That seemed to infuriate Grampy. He spun around and disappeared in the house. But not for long: A moment or two later he was back, the .22 rifle in his hands, barrel pointed to the ground. Ingrid banged open the barn door and raced outside.

  “Grampy! Grampy!”

  The men turned to her. They both froze for a moment. Then Grampy took the rifle and stuck it inside the house, out of sight. The man in green put his camera away and picked up the papers. Ingrid came to a halt a few steps away.

  “What’s happening?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  The man in green—much younger than Grampy, one of those prematurely gray guys—turned back to Grampy and said, “I’m trying to do my lawful duty.”

  Grampy said, “This is my land. Get off.”

  The man in green folded the papers. “I’ll be back,” he said. “With a warrant and police protection if necessary.”

  Grampy started trembling. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said.

  They glared at each other. Then the man in green got in his van and drove away, spraying gravel. Ingrid went over to Grampy. She hated to see him trembling like that, but the look in his eye—so fierce—made the notion of hugging him or even touching his arm out of the question.

  “Grampy?” she said. “What’s going on?”

  He turned to her, the look in his eye slowly fading, as though he was coming out of some sort of trance. He took a deep breath. “Total breakdown of society,” he said.

  “What’s the Department of Conservation?”

  “Meddlers,” said Grampy.

  “What do they want?”

  “To make trouble.”

  “How? I don’t understand.”

  He took another deep breath, stopped trembling. All at once his mood changed; he looked a lot better, those bruises under his eyes now almost gone. He smiled down at Ingrid. “Nothing to worry about, kid,” he said. “All taken care of.” He brushed his hands together, like after a job well done. “How about we roast up some marsh—”

  A soft crashing sound came from the side of the house. Ingrid and Grampy went around to look. The pig had knocked over a trash can and disappeared inside, all except for his twisted tail, which twitched wildly. Oh God—she’d left the barn door open.

  “Here, Piggy,” Ingrid called.

  The tail went still. Ingrid and Grampy walked through the snow, stood over the trash can.

  “Come on out,” Ingrid said.

  The pig snorted and came barreling out of the trash can, backward but very quick.

  “Grab ’im,” said Grampy.

  Ingrid reached for the pig, too late. He ran toward the orchard. Grampy said, “Weee-oooo,” surprising Ingrid, and then surprised her more by taking off after it, maybe not fast, but actually running. That terrified the pig, no question. It swerved, changing directions. Ingrid ran to head it off. One thing about Ingrid: She could run. The snow, not too deep, hardly slowed her down at all. The pig heard her coming and tried to go faster, his little hooves flailing away in a cartoonish blur until he lost his balance and tumbled down. Ingrid fell on top of him, and so did Grampy, the three of them rolling over and over in the snow. When they came to a stop, the pig’s face ended up side by side with Grampy’s.

  Grampy saw that and started laughing, a rich, wonderful laugh, almost the laugh of a young man. Tears rose in his eyes and ran down his face. A crazed look appeared in Piggy’s eyes. He squealed, wriggled free, and raced across the field and straight into the barn, never looking back.

  Ingrid sat up. “Grampy? Are you all right?”

  He stopped laughing, wiped away the tears, and rose, not easily. She heard his knees crack. “You’re a good kid,” he said, and brushed some snow out from under the collar of her jacket.

  “How was Grampy?” Mom said, driving Ingrid home in the MPV.

  A tough question. “What’s the Department of Conservation?” Ingrid said.

  “The county agency that protects the environment,” Mom said. “Why?”
>
  “One of them came to see Grampy today.”

  “Oh,” said Mom. Her eyes shifted toward Ingrid. Mom had big dark eyes that seemed to pull in all kinds of information from the visual world, like some sort of special magnets. “What about?”

  “I didn’t really hear,” Ingrid said. “But they sounded pretty mad at each other.” Ingrid left out the .22. Guns were—what was that word? anathema?—to Mom; no sense alarming her unnecessarily.

  “What did the conservation agent look like?” Mom said.

  “He had white hair like Grampy, but much younger.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “You know him?”

  “From work,” Mom said. Mom was a real estate agent at Riverbend Properties, their third highest seller two years before; lately the market had cooled off, and Mom hadn’t sold anything in months. “It sounds like Harris Thatcher. I wish they’d sent somebody else.”

  “Why?”

  “Harris is a bit of a hothead.”

  “Yeah,” said Ingrid.

  “The kind of person who’d rub Grampy the wrong way,” Mom added.

  Ingrid nodded. “But he cheered up afterward. We roasted marshmallows.”

  “Does he still like them burned to a crisp?”

  “Yup.”

  Mom smiled. She glanced over at Ingrid again. “What’s that on your finger?”

  “A compass ring,” Ingrid said. She extended her hand so Mom could see. “I’ll never get lost again.” Following the example of Sherlock Holmes—who carried a detailed map of London in his head—Ingrid had been trying for months, not too successfully, to do the same with Echo Falls.

  “Where did you get it?” Mom said.

  “Dad gave it to me.”

  “He did?” Mom was beautiful. She had lovely soft skin, still unlined, except for when she was worried or puzzled about something. Then two deep vertical grooves would appear, right between her eyes, two grooves that were visible at that moment. “That was nice of him,” Mom said.

  three

  “UM.”

  “Hi, Joey.”

  “Hi.” Ingrid could hear Joey’s father, Echo Falls police chief Gilbert L. Strade, in the background saying, “Speak up. Don’t mumble.” Then came some bumping sounds, a door closing, and Joey again, his voice now clearer, silence in the background. “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  “I called yesterday.”

  “I was at my grandfather’s.”

  “Yeah. Ty said.” Silence. “Now you’re back.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Back home.”

  “Right.”

  “Guess what.”

  “I give up.”

  “’Member what I got for Christmas?”

  “Snowshoes?”

  “I tried them out today. In those woods.”

  “The town woods?”

  “Yeah.” Silence.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “You might like it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Snowshoeing.”

  “I don’t have snowshoes, Joey. You do.”

  “That’s the thing.” Long pause. “You know Play It Again?”

  “The secondhand sports store?”

  “I was in there the other day. Not yesterday but the day before.” Long pause. “Anyways,” said Joey.

  “Anyways what?” said Ingrid.

  “The thing is, they were in pretty good shape,” Joey said.

  “What were?”

  “Pretty good shape for the price,” Joey added. “Which I can’t tell you on account of they’re like sort of a present.”

  Ingrid, who’d been lounging on her bed with the cordless phone—not a cell phone, since she didn’t have one, thirteen being considered too young for cell phones at 99 Maple Lane—sat up. “You got me a present?”

  “It’s no big deal,” said Joey.

  “What is it?”

  “What is what?”

  “The present, Joey.”

  “I already told you,” said Joey. “Secondhand snowshoes.”

  “Oh,” said Ingrid. “Thanks.”

  “Not too banged up,” Joey said. “No warping or nothin’. And guess what?”

  “What?”

  “They’re red.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Your favorite color.”

  “Thanks, Joey.”

  “Hey,” said Joey. “So how’s right now?”

  “Right now?”

  “For trying them out,” said Joey. “Don’t you want to try them out?”

  Ingrid was actually in the mood—and this often seemed to happen after spending time with Grampy—for taking it easy, maybe whipping up a batch of peanut butter squares, her own recipe featuring white chocolate chips, and memorizing some of Gretel’s lines. “Outside?” she said.

  “Unless you’ve got snow in your room,” Joey said.

  He’d cracked a joke. Did that ever happen? Ingrid couldn’t think of a single example. And this was a funny joke, way funnier than any ever cracked by Brucie Berman, who’d once almost won a bet that he could keep up a rate of three jokes a minute for the entire school bus ride, and had been doing great until Mr. Sidney suddenly slammed on the brakes. Ingrid laughed and laughed.

  “What?” said Joey. “What’s so funny?”

  One of the nicest things about 99 Maple Lane—and there were lots, even though it didn’t come close to being the fanciest house in the Riverbend neighborhood—was the fact that it backed right up to the town woods, acres and acres of undeveloped land that stretched all the way to the river. Now—a few days after a heavy snowfall—the woods were silent, except for the light swishing of Joey’s snowshoes and the heavier thudding of Ingrid’s as she fell farther and farther behind. Ingrid could run—would blow Joey away in any kind of footrace—but this was different, more of a plodding motion, sinking four or five inches into the puffy snow with every step. For some reason Joey could plod very fast. Ingrid plodded after him on snowshoes that weren’t really what she would call red, more of a maroon, although Joey didn’t realize that; he was already calling them her red sleds. Joke number two—not as funny.

  He turned—a long way up the path, already way past the old tree house Dad had built for Ty and Ingrid when they were little—and said, “Cool, huh?”

  “You’ll have to shout,” Ingrid said.

  “Huh?”

  Because you’re so far ahead. But Ingrid left that unspoken. Instead she tried copying his stride, longer than hers, and viola! (as she’d heard Meredith O’Malley say more than once instead of voilà), thudding turned to swishing and her speed picked up. She began to feel more at home on the snowshoes, and at the same time more a part of the woods. The path, marked here and there by ski tracks, went up a long rise, the trees growing more closely together, dark and still. Breath clouds rose above Joey’s head, hung in the air for a moment or two, then vanished. Ingrid caught up to him at the big rock—spray-painted with RED RAIDERS RULE!—where the Punch Bowl came in sight. His face was shining.

  “They used to run traplines,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “The pioneers,” Joey said. “In woods just like this.”

  “What’s a trapline?”

  “With bait,” said Joey. “A muskrat steps into it, or maybe a deer, and…” He glanced to the side of the trail, saw some tracks, and pointed. “Bet that’s muskrat right there,” he said.

  Ingrid went closer. She had only a vague idea of what a muskrat looked like, but she recognized these tracks: five-toed imprints in front, four-toed imprints behind. “Gray squirrel,” she said.

  Joey turned to her. “Yeah?”

  Ingrid explained how she knew.

  “Hey,” Joey said. He took off his baseball cap—Echo Falls boys kept their ears uncovered no matter how cold the weather—and scratched his head, scratched hard, in a way that reminded her of her dog, Nigel. That stubborn cowlick, like a blunt Indian feather, stood straight up. He ca
ught her looking at him, and the expression on his face changed. Joey took a step forward. His face seemed to get a little heavier. Was a kiss coming? Possibly, but Joey’s next step banged down on the front of her right snowshoe, a surprisingly loud sound in the woods. He backed away, flailing a little for balance. After some awkward shuffling around—doubly awkward on snowshoes—they got back onto the trail.

  “They ate squirrels too,” Joey said over his shoulder after a while. “The pioneers.”

  “We’ve come a long way,” said Ingrid.

  They started circling the Punch Bowl—an almost perfectly round pond formed by a glacier, although Ingrid could never keep the exact sequence of events in order.

  “Were the Indians here when it was a glacier?” she said.

  “Maybe,” said Joey. “Wanna cut across?”

  The Punch Bowl was frozen over, the ice covered in snow in some places, bare in others where the wind had scoured it. Ingrid saw some ski tracks out there, and scraps of black hockey-stick tape.

  “At least a foot thick this year,” Joey said. “The ice. My dad says.”

  They cut across the Punch Bowl. Once or twice Ingrid heard cracking, like ice cubes when soda first hits them, but deeper.

  “Just compression,” Joey said.

  “What’s that?” said Ingrid.

  “You know,” said Joey. “Kind of like…”

  They climbed the far bank and picked up the trail. Glancing back, Ingrid saw they’d saved maybe a minute. But she trusted Chief Strade.

  “Joey?”

  “Yeah?” Swish swish: Around another bend and out of sight he went, this time leaving a breath cloud that lingered in the air without him.

  “Ever see Doctor Zhivago?”

  His voice drifted back through the trees. “What’s that?”

  “A movie.”

  “What about?”

  “An endless trudge through frozen wastes.”

  “Endless what through what?”

  Ingrid rounded the bend. Joey was waiting at a fork in the trail. A cross-country skier had taken the right fork; to the left the snow lay smooth and unbroken.