“They’re marijuana growers, Brad. Not bank robbers.”
“So? They’re bad guys. If we report them to the police, we’d get in the papers. KIDS UNCOVER MARIJUANA GANG.”
“You’re crazy!”
* * *
“I could only find one.” Felicia came out of her bedroom closet carrying a sleeping bag. “The others are in my parents’ room.”
“We’ll take turns sleeping,” said Brad. “That’s what they do on a stakeout. What about a flashlight?”
“In the drawer over there,” she whispered.
Brad took the flashlight out of her desk drawer and stuck it in his belt. He also found an old package of Twinkies that Felicia had forgotten about.
Then they tiptoed out of the apartment, took their bicycles from the basement, and headed for the place on the James River that Brad knew about.
It was past midnight. It was October, and the air felt brisk. If the police or anyone else happened to catch sight of them, two nine-year-olds riding their bikes in the middle of the night, they would have been suspicious. So they stayed in the shadows as much as possible, only crossing the intersections when no cars were around. They were spirits in the night, small, dark figures. They weren’t bicycling. They floated through the streets like disembodied phantoms. If anyone had asked Felicia in the daytime, she would never had said she’d agree to do anything like this. But now it was different. Now it was nighttime. Now she was here in this world of dark houses, empty streets, sweeping headlights, flickering streetlamps, loud voices coming from open windows, sirens somewhere beyond the corner, maybe her father’s colleagues chasing down real criminals. While she was on an adventure, on her way to the river. It was on that night that she became familiar with the dark for the first time.
* * *
“There it is.”
Brad was hunkered down behind a bush. He was holding the sleeping bag. They had left their bikes up near the road and clambered down the slope to the river. An old shed made of corrugated iron stood in the shrubbery between the slope and the riverbank. At first glance it looked empty, abandoned, dark. But then she saw it. It was like stardust that had fallen from the sky. Light shining on the leaves behind the shack, a silvery glow. A reflection of the light coming from inside, shining through the window.
“There’s a light on,” she whispered.
“They’ve covered all the windows except for the crack I saw. It’s at the back.”
Brad made his way through the bushes toward the shed. Felicia followed, mostly because she didn’t want to be left there alone. The horror movie they had watched earlier was still vivid in her mind.
Brad went over to the window with the shimmering light. He stood on his toes and peeked in through the crack, standing like that for a long time. Then he turned around and whispered:
“Nothing but plants, just like last time. There’s nobody here. They keep the lights on at night to make the plants grow.”
“Let’s go home,” said Felicia.
“No, let’s see if the door is open.” Brad went around to the front.
The thought of Freddy Krueger was still more frightening to Felicia than any marijuana growers. So she followed close behind.
“Are you sure you saw the whole room?”
“Of course,” said Brad.
He reached the door and tried the handle, but a huge padlock hung from it. Anyone could see that it was locked.
Felicia tried again.
“Let’s go home now!”
“No, we’re on a stakeout. I’ll take the first watch. You can sleep.”
They found a good spot in the bushes where the grass was soft. It was a mild night.
“Are you going to be warm enough?” Felicia got into the sleeping bag.
“What are you, my mother?” Brad was sitting on a fallen tree trunk. Then he turned to look at the shed, which was visible behind them. “I’ll wake you up when it’s your turn.”
* * *
In the middle of the night she woke up. The sky was dark and filled with clouds that looked like leftover scraps of food.
The sleeping bag was too hot and stifling. Groggily she turned over, sitting up halfway, and saw that he was lying next to her inside the bag.
He was snoring, but not loud enough to be annoying. More like the purring of a contented cat. She lay back down beside him, studying his face in the faint light.
“You’re so handsome,” she whispered.
Then she fell asleep again without really understanding what she’d been feeling.
* * *
It was the beams from the headlights up on the road that woke them, and the sound of the engine before the car stopped in the parking place. Doors slammed.
“It’s them,” whispered Brad.
They quickly got out of the sleeping bag and crept over behind a tree trunk to peer through the bushes at the shack. Two figures came toward them. In the gray light of dawn, they looked blurry, like a photograph out of focus, as if partially conjured by the sunrise. They were carrying sacks. Neither of them spoke. Soon they disappeared behind the building. From where they were sitting, the children heard them unlock the door and go in. They heard them moving around inside.
“What do we do now?” Felicia hardly dared even whisper.
“I don’t know,” said Brad. “We should have brought your father’s police radio along.” He stood up. “I want to get a look at them at least. Then we can give the police a description.”
“Have you thought about the fact that we should have told my father about this last night? He would have sent somebody out here.”
“What’s the fun in that?”
Brad laughed quietly, sounding a little uncertain, she thought. Trying to make himself seem tough.
Then he moved toward the shack, creeping through the underbrush. She followed. He stood on his toes and looked inside.
“I can only see the back of one of them,” he whispered. “The other one … Shit!” He stepped back and fell to the ground.
Then Felicia heard the door slam. They came running around the side of the house toward her and Brad. Brad got up and turned to face her.
“Run!” he yelled.
But she couldn’t move. He gave her a shove.
“Run!”
She stepped back and was about to head for the bushes, but by then it was too late.
One of the men grabbed Brad by the arm, spun him around, and pushed him to the ground. Felicia backed up some more but didn’t want to leave her friend behind. She saw Brad fumbling for something on his belt. He pulled out the flashlight and switched it on. The beam landed squarely on the man’s face. The difference between the gray dawn light and the beam was so great that it blinded him, and he had to turn away. But Felicia had recognized the man. She looked at Brad sitting on the ground. He lowered the flashlight. Felicia went over to him so she could look into his eyes. His gaze shifted, filled with disbelief and disappointment.
The man stood over them, not saying a word, not moving either. The other man had withdrawn and was on his way down to the river.
“Dad!” Brad cried after a moment. “What are you doing here?”
His father’s hand slapped him hard in the face.
* * *
Riding back home in the family pickup, Brad’s father tried to downplay the matter.
“It’s legal if you grow it for personal use,” he explained. “And I don’t use much. It’s mostly for the other guys.”
He stopped the car in front of the building where Felicia lived. The curtains were still closed in her parents’ bedroom.
“I won’t say anything if you don’t,” said Mr. Davis.
Felicia looked at Brad. He was sitting next to her, looking like he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open.
She nodded and got out of the truck. She would never forget the look on Brad’s face. There was nothing there. Absolutely nothing. Everything was hidden somewhere deep inside of him.
* * *
Two days later everything had returned to normal. Brad was just as cocky as ever. They were sitting inside the tree house they’d built in his yard. Felicia wanted to try to wrangle something out of him.
“Are you disappointed by him?”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“It didn’t exactly go the way we’d planned.”
“I said, I don’t give a shit. So shut up! Your father is a cop. Mine smokes grass. So what? Fuck it. I’m not going to be like him. Let’s talk about something else.”
They sat in silence for a while. She looked at him. The glint was back in his eyes. Then she leaned forward and kissed him. Just like that. Right on the lips. It was one of the bravest things she’d ever done.
“What was that?”
“Something else to talk about,” she said.
He laughed.
“You’re the one who’s crazy, not me,” he said.
Felicia was sure about two things. She liked him. A lot. And she would never kiss him again. It hadn’t tasted very good.
* * *
Now she laughed. More than twenty-five years later, worn out, scared, with an injured foot, bruised and feeling the effects of alcohol withdrawal creeping through her body like maggots in acid, lying in a sleeping bag with a half-dead, ice-cold boy, she all of a sudden laughed out loud. Something had let go inside of her. Her stomach muscles rippled. She couldn’t hold back. She laughed like a weeping child who has forgotten why she started crying in the first place. I can die now, she thought. Now I can die.
But then she thought of something.
The boy couldn’t die. If there’s no other reason for me to be here, it’s to save him. I’m here for him. The thought calmed her down. She focused on her breathing. She lay there and touched his forehead. He seemed warmer, didn’t he? She noticed how this gradually steadied her. The pain and the nausea didn’t go away, but the exhaustion after all her efforts and the lack of sleep slowly took over, and at last she fell asleep.
9
Very early, before dawn, on the day it happened …
“You’re a free agent,” said Odd. “It’s totally your decision.” He lay in the water below her. Around him floated slushy ice. “I won’t force you to jump.”
She looked at him, her husband, her beloved, this eager “ice bather.” She’d never before gone in the middle of winter to swim in the sea with him. To her it seemed insane. She looked down at his wet gray hair plastered to his head, his arm moving in the ice-cold water. She had no idea what she was doing here. She was standing naked on the pier, with snow under her feet. She wasn’t cold. She was just staring at him.
“You’re a free agent!” he shouted.
Should she jump? Did she dare? Did she want to?
He ducked under the water.
Then she heard a strange knocking sound, as if someone was trying to punch through the pier beneath her.
* * *
Felicia Stone woke from her dream. The first thing she thought was this: I have to talk to him. I have to talk to Odd. That was one more reason she needed to survive.
Then she heard the knocking again. It wasn’t merely part of her dream. It was real. A hammering from out in the living room. It was the door, she realized. He’s found us. The man from the road is pounding on the front door.
Felicia got out of the sleeping bag. The boy moaned softly, but she didn’t wake him. She went into the living room. That was when she heard his voice:
“I know you’re in there.”
It was the first time she’d heard him speak. His voice was strangely clear and sharp, loud but deep, and very calm.
“You can’t escape.”
But he doesn’t know the boy is here too, thought Felicia. She looked around. She caught sight of a trapdoor high up on the wall above the doorway to the bedroom. A crawl space.
She ran back to the boy.
“Come with me!” She pulled him out of the sleeping bag and off the bunk as carefully as she could. He was able to stand on his own now. Felicia put her arm around him and led him into the living room. There she got a chair from the table, set it under the trapdoor, and climbed up. She opened the hatch, then got down.
More pounding on the door, louder, steadier. He was using something hard. Maybe the butt of the shotgun?
“Come out right now, or I’ll break down the door!”
So what are you waiting for, you fucking coward? she thought.
The boy had regained his mobility. He had returned to life. And for the first time he spoke.
“That’s him. The man who killed my father.”
“He killed your father?” she asked, unable to stop herself. She knew there was no time to talk, and they had to be as quiet as possible. If he heard them, he’d know the boy was here with her. She pressed her finger to her lips and pointed to the trapdoor. He nodded.
“You’ll be safe up there,” she whispered.
Again he nodded.
Then she helped him up onto the chair and lifted him up, pushing on his feet until he was inside the crawl space. She handed him the sleeping bag, which he took, staring at her with an expression that wasn’t fearful, but there was a lonely look in his eyes, as well as a wish to survive. She closed the trapdoor, got down from the chair, and put it back in place.
Then she closed the door to the bedroom and stood in the middle of the living room to think. The man was still pounding on the door. Felicia realized what she needed to do.
He has to see me, she thought. He has to see me as I run away. That’s the only way to keep him from searching the cabin.
She stood still, taking several deep breaths as she considered various escape routes.
Suddenly two shots were fired, one after the other. The first time the door merely shook. The second time, however, the lock flew into the room, fell to the floor at her feet, and then skidded over to the woodstove. Buckshot sped past her like lethal horseflies.
The door burst open.
A swift movement off to the side. After that she saw only darkness through the doorway. He was standing to the side of the opening, waiting to hear a sound from inside. He wanted to get his bearings and not take any unnecessary chances. Even though he knew she was unarmed, he didn’t want to give her an opportunity to surprise him. He’d already fought with her once. And apparently she’d shown him enough of what she was capable of doing under pressure.
She turned and ran. There was only one option: the bedroom. She could close the door behind her and get out through the window.
The next instant she heard him in the living room. Heavy footsteps crossing the floor, a pause, several metallic sounds. Was he loading the shotgun?
She fumbled with the top latch on the broken window. Nothing was going as fast as she’d hoped. Finally, she was able to push open the window. She put one foot on the sill and was about to jump when the door opened behind her. She looked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of him in the doorway. He was holding the gun in one hand, like some maniac cowboy. He had to duck his head to enter the room. His all-weather jacket was open and fluttered around him. His eyes were just as calm as before.
She threw herself into the snow as the window slammed shut behind her and a shot whizzed over her head. The glass shattered, and several shards landed on the back of her head.
She got up and ran full speed along the side of the cabin.
The next shot came after she had rounded the corner. She dropped to the ground, gasping for breath. She was shaking all over now and almost couldn’t get up. But she had no choice. She had to keep going and get as far away as possible, away from this cabin and the boy hiding inside, as quiet as death, up in the crawl space right above his father’s killer.
So that was the secret the man was so desperately trying to conceal.
Using the cabin for cover, Felicia ran toward the woods, going in the opposite direction from the birch tree on the hill and the footprints in the
snow that would reveal that she’d been up that hill and found the boy. When she paused briefly, she was relieved to find the man following her. Maybe the boy was saved. Not her, but him. She heard the man coming closer through the trees. He was now hunting at a different pace. Time was no longer on his side. It would soon be daylight.
Felicia continued on, limping because of her injured foot. It was clear that she wouldn’t be able to evade him much longer. All she could do was postpone the inevitable. Desperately she looked around. Saw a tree with branches close to the ground. She tried to climb up, but slipped down because of the ice and frost on the first branch she grabbed. She fell again when she tried to grab another. She stayed on the ground until she felt the muzzle pressed against her forehead. The gunmetal was almost warm compared to the ice-cold void inside the metal barrel. He was standing over her. A shadow blocking out the sky.
“The question you ought to ask yourself is this,” he said quietly, whispering as if didn’t want to disturb the forest. “You’ve heard two shots since I loaded the gun inside the cabin. This is a Browning pump-action shotgun, a classic 1893 model. It belonged to my father. A gun like this takes five shells in the magazine. But in Norway the magazine on a pump-action shotgun has to be plugged so it can fire only two shots before reloading. So what you need to ask yourself is this: What sort of man was my father?”
Felicia was breathing hard. Assessing the situation. She had no good cards left. She could try to shove the gun away and attack the man. Roll off to the side and kick his legs out from under him. Maybe grab the gun and render him harmless that way. But he was on high alert. After tapping her forehead with the muzzle, he’d taken a step back. Very professional and deliberate. She’d need to make at least two different moves to reach him. He’d have more than enough time to pull the trigger before she was able to do anything to him.
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