Winterfolk

by Janel Kolby

He tosses it again. “What do you think I did?”

  “You tell me.”

  King tosses the rock again.

  I want to throw the scone at him, but I want to eat it more.

  “He didn’t see Denise,” Jessiebel says.

  King rolls the rock in his hand. “No, I didn’t see Denise. You really think I would?”

  My face heats up. “I dunno.”

  “I got ahold of Bob. Told him how we have to leave today. He loaned me some. Said I could pay him later. He found the kilt in with the costumes.”

  I hold up the pants that show smears of blood. “Then what’s with this?”

  King and Jessiebel look at each other.

  “I don’t know,” King says.

  “They’re your pants.”

  “It’s from the pipe,” Jessiebel says.

  King turns the rock in his hand. “The metal pipe I picked up last night. Had blood on it. I don’t know where it came from. He looks up at me.

  I fold the pants in four.

  He scuffles his foot on the ground and holds up the rock. “Do you wanna play? Jess taught me.”

  “Well, it’s a modified version of the game,” Jessiebel says. “The balls are usually the size of your hand, and they roll. And, of course, the court is a lot bigger, and it’s flat. But this works fine.”

  The rocks aren’t saying anything. “Okay.”

  “Pick out four rocks you can toss easily,” Jessiebel says. “You usually play in teams of two, but there’s three of us, and it really doesn’t matter. We’ll take turns.”

  I drop his pants inside the tent along with the scone, then pick out my rocks from the garden while they explain the rules of the game.

  My black-white-speckled rock is the pallino—whosever rock gets the closest gets to score. I toss my gray-blue one with my eyes closed, and it lands farther than I’d expected. I must be getting strong.

  “Good try,” Jessiebel says. “My turn.”

  I stand next to King with a space between us. I feel every bit of that space like static electricity.

  Jessiebel tosses his rock, and I turn my head from how it flies away. Instead, I watch his kilt move against his scraped and dirty knees. His rock lands about a foot from the pallino.

  I turn to King. “Did you see anyone else while you were out?”

  “No.” He throws his rock wild, into a patch of weathered dandelions. Their gray puffs of hair scatter from the stems. “Your turn,” he says.

  I squeeze my brown rock with the black webbing. Feels good to squeeze it hard. I keep my eyes open this time and take aim. It lands behind Jessiebel’s with a light thud.

  “Nice,” Jessiebel says. He glances at King while he positions himself. He tosses his rock, and it drops half a foot in front of the pallino. He twirls to us and smiles.

  King aims his rock and throws. It soars through the air and thunks right next to the pallino. He looks at me. “I got enough money to get you some clothes before we go.”

  I rub my third rock, which is the color of moist dirt. “What about my clothes at the laundry?”

  I have some jeans there, along with a flower shirt.

  I still have things that are mine.

  “Might be in the Lost and Found box, but we shouldn’t go up there. Go. It’s your turn.”

  “I don’t want you spending on clothes. Not when I have some. If you give me money, I’ll use it for that kitten we saw.”

  He laughs. “The answer’s no. To your clothes and the cat. It’s not worth going back up the hill, and we can’t take a cat with us. It’s your turn.”

  My finger rubs the rock harder. “They’re my clothes.”

  “No.”

  I throw my rock, and it hits hard into King’s, knocking it out of place. “You can’t tell me no.”

  “No?” he asks. “Lance—he knew your name.”

  I swallow hard. “I don’t care. We’re leaving, aren’t we? I’m going to get my clothes. And when I have money, I’ll get that kitten. The bushes aren’t there anymore to keep me from crossing. And I’m going to return that library book, too. It’s not mine and I don’t want it no more.”

  He walks toward my pallino. “I’ll do it. I’ll find your clothes and put the book in the drop box.” He picks up the pallino, my speckled rock, and squeezes it.

  His hands are so big they smother it.

  “Stop doing things for me! I’ll do it.”

  King drops the rock.

  “It’s not a good idea to go,” Jessiebel says.

  “I want what’s mine. Give me my rocks.”

  “What?” King asks.

  “My rocks. Give ’em to me.” I go to my garden and plant the remaining rock that’s in my hand. “They belong here, and you didn’t have any right to take them for your game, banging them all up and everything as if they don’t matter. As if nothing matters. Just cuz we’re leaving, doesn’t mean they’re worthless. You probably scared the hamster away, too. Everyone doing things without even telling me. Put them back.”

  They both stare at me. I occupy myself with repositioning my rocks so they fit just right again. As I work on it, Jessiebel comes over and places the rocks on the ground in a small pile, and then King comes with the rest of them and my pallino. I take them one by one and replant them around the empty circle.

  If they wanted rocks so badly, they could’ve gotten them on their own. They didn’t have to come and take those that already belonged. I lean over and brush the dirt off the tops with my fingers and wipe the excess across my bare, purple-stained knees. My locket hangs loose from my neck, wanting to take care of the rocks, too.

  Jessiebel and King are still behind. Watching. But I don’t feel close to either of them no more.

  I lick my lips in search of leftover sugar from the scone, but it’s gone. As is King’s kiss. As is everything.

  I reach for my locket. I lift the beaded necklace from my neck and lay it down on a flat rock.

  I need to see her. The real her.

  “What are you doing?” King asks.

  I hold up my speckled egg and smash it down on the locket, but it doesn’t do anything.

  “Don’t!” King grabs my arm as I go to smash it again.

  I try and get my arm loose.

  He clamps tighter to my arm, and his eyes flicker to the locket. “Please,” he says, “don’t.”

  “Let go of me.”

  He hesitates, but then his fingers open slowly. He steps back and stares down at the closed locket as if it were dark magic.

  My heart stops.

  For just a moment.

  I glance at Jessiebel, and his eyes are bright with excitement. I swing again at the clasp.

  And again.

  It pops open.

  My arm goes limp, and I let go of the rock.

  Inside the crackled glue edges is not a picture of my mom. It’s me. In full color with wild brown hair and a beach behind me. I’m four or five maybe. No one here to tell me how old.

  I look up at King.

  “He said you look like her,” he says.

  I pick it up, expecting it to weigh different, but it doesn’t.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You kept asking for her.” He crouches next to me. “He didn’t have any pictures left, but he had this locket. And I thought maybe . . .”

  I rub at the hardened glue at the edges, but she doesn’t appear. “This was your idea? You lied to me?”

  His head snaps back. “It wasn’t like that.” He takes the necklace from my hand, and his fingertips brush my neck as he puts it on me. “It was hers.”

  I pull the necklace off and drop it to the ground. “I don’t want to wear a picture of myself. That’s what I’ve been doing this whole time. When I thought . . . I thought she was watching over me. I can’t believe you did that.”

  He picks it up and scrapes the glue off with his thumb. “Okay . . . okay.” He puts it ’round his own neck. “I’ll keep it, okay? Until you do want it. It was
hers.”

  I try to picture her. To bring her back to me. But all I can see is a lady in a red dress. Who liked to talk of sleep and dreams.

  Did I imagine her? Have I always? Is there another way I could’ve heard the story about King?

  I shake my head.

  Nothing’s how it should be. I look to the day sky. Those stars are right to hide from me. Or else I’d wish on every single one of them, and I wouldn’t stop wishing until they fell.

  Jessiebel steps forward. “I’m sorry we moved your rocks.”

  “You’re right,” King says. “You should get your clothes. They’re yours. And return the book. But I’ll go with you.”

  “And me,” Jessiebel says.

  “After that,” King says, “we’ll pack up and go.”

  I stand, and my feet follow the rocks in my garden. The path is wide. Enough for three people to walk side by side. I won’t be able to take the rocks with me. “Go?” I say. “Home?” It sounds wrong. That we must leave home to find it.

  My garden started as a path, leading from the door and down the hill, until my dad found it. We moved the rocks into a circle around the tent.

  The rocks are smooth beneath my feet. They show me where the door should be.

  My trees look down and tell me. If it’s not home now, it never was, and wherever I go next, I won’t find it. I’m ashamed to look back at them. To tell them I’m leaving. For a place that is not waiting for me.

  I pick up Mom’s speckled rock, and listen.

  What do you want? it asks.

  My home is an empty circle.

  I remove two stones from the shorter end. Where the door should be.

  I whisper to all the things I cannot see.

  “I want to go home.”

  31

  WE STEP CAREFUL OVER the thorny blackberry branches. I clench my teeth to keep from talking to the blackberries upon blackberries, mostly fresh and waiting to rot, the rest smashed. They already know I’m sorry.

  I hop to a bare spot of grass to wipe my feet.

  Jessiebel jumps across to avoid them, but King walks through without disturbing any. “Come on,” he says.

  I follow, but can’t stop looking back. All those berries. I wouldn’t mind so much if they had been stolen away in buckets. My hands stiffen, and I extend my fingers to loosen them.

  I press my thumb into my middle knuckle on the left and it pops with a good hurt. King turns around, and I fold my hands together.

  “My mom used to pop her knuckles,” I say. “I remember that now.”

  When he walks again, I do the same on the right. Like she did.

  He stops and lifts his head.

  A skunky smell is near, but it’s too sweet to be from a skunk. Someone’s smoking pot. Had to keep in my tent when we smelled it coming from this side. My legs want to crouch to hide me, but I keep them up straight.

  “Do you think it’s them?” Jessiebel says in my ear.

  I don’t care. I swipe him away, and give King’s back a little shove to get him going again.

  The smell grows stronger. The source is around the tree.

  A boy and girl sit on a big rock. The girl passes a joint to the boy. They don’t belong here. Even I know that. His jeans have holes that don’t look natural, and both have hair with straight-cut edges. They startle when they see us.

  The boy stands and holds the joint out to King. The girl crosses her legs, and her short skirt rides up.

  King shakes his head. At the joint.

  The boy leans back against the rock, too stiff to be relaxed, and squints his eyes. He lifts the joint partway to his lips.

  “What are you doing here?” King’s voice is sharp.

  “Hanging out,” the boy says.

  The girl looks at me the same way I do a bird I’ve never seen—wondering what it’s called and why it decided to visit. The boy looks at my legs, then down to my bare feet. King steps in front of me.

  “You know what happens in these parts?” King asks.

  The boy smiles.

  King reaches into his pocket, and the smile disappears. “You know what would happen to the likes of her?” King asks.

  The girl glances quick to me and jumps off the rock. The boy stands up tall.

  King is taller. “This is our home. I suggest you go back to yours.”

  “Home?” I ask.

  King turns to me. His eyes burn determined.

  The boy looks about, and I try to see what he does. He’s looking down at the paper trash and plastic bags.

  I force my eyes up. To the trees. He should be looking at the trees, but he’ll never see what we do.

  The boy peers around King. To look at me. King jerks forward without moving his feet. He doesn’t need to. They back up immediate, and the weeds and sticks trip them as they scramble from us.

  “You think you should’ve said that to them?” Jessiebel asks.

  “What?” Kings says. “Home?”

  Jessiebel shrugs. “I thought it was a secret.”

  King looks away from us to the rock where they sat. “Stupid.” He kicks the dirt. “He left his sunglasses.”

  “I wish they left the joint,” Jessiebel says, “but I’ll take the glasses.”

  “Don’t,” King says. “It’s bad luck to take anything not yours here.”

  “Like the blackberries?” I ask.

  King’s eyes search me, but I don’t give him anything. “Don’t hold on to that,” he says. “You’ll be giving ’em what they want.”

  “Did you mean what you said?” I ask. “This is home?”

  He takes a deep breath. “I know every trail that leads here and out again. I’ve been here longer than anywhere else. I wanna stay. Like you do. But we can’t. You see that now, don’t you?”

  “We could come back,” I say.

  “The police are going to be looking for me,” he says. “Like Lance and them will be looking for you. It’s not safe no more.”

  “But you didn’t do it. It wasn’t a ghost we saw. It was him. Matisse talked to him. She told me.”

  “You really think they’ll care who did it?” he asks. “They’re gonna be after someone.”

  Jessiebel puts his hand on my arm. “It won’t be too bad to leave. We can go south. Camp on the beach. We’ll have a fabulous water view. Better than my scare-ents. And in four years I’ll cash out my trust fund, and we can build a house.”

  “But what about the Winterfolk?” I ask. “You know what’s going to happen.” I look to King. “Like Rosemary.”

  King beats his fist on his thigh. “I’m sorry, Rain.” Then he turns away.

  We climb again. The concrete wall up ahead.

  When we get to it, King laces his fingers and holds out his hands for me to step in. I hand him the book, instead. Then I back up, as far as I can without slipping down the hill, and sprint to the wall, half jumping, half climbing. I scrape my chin as I reach. The tips of my fingers grasp the top. One hand slips, but I fling it forward and catch on again. My fingers are strong as steel, and I use my toes against the wall to get me the rest of the way up. I straddle the ledge and lie down on my stomach.

  My arms hang to either side while I catch my breath. I focus on the book in King’s hands to keep the world from spinning.

  I reach out my hand. “Give it to me.”

  King shakes his head and gives me the book. “That’s why you didn’t wanna wear socks. So you could climb.”

  I sit up. The city is still there, along with the Space Needle. None of the structures glitter as they did before. A gull flies above, but I don’t need it to tell me about the ocean.

  King laces his hands for Jessiebel while I jump down to the other side. I expect to see Lance, or more of his friends, but the streets look as they did when King and I first came here. That was two days ago. I touch the scratch on my chin, and it stings just a bit. Seems longer than that.

  Jessiebel hops down from the ledge and straightens out his kilt. Then King. No one’s
around to notice us. Not yet. But soon we’ll be noticed. We all know that.

  I pull King’s T-shirt down at the hem and brush back my hair with a hand.

  “You look fine,” King says.

  My toes and toenails are dirt caked, my legs scraped, and my knees purple. I don’t look fine.

  “What do I look like?” I ask Jessiebel. “Do I look like a mermaid?”

  Jessiebel covers his mouth. “No, honey.”

  “What do I look like?”

  “Like you need a shower and clean clothes.”

  I look to King. “I want to take a shower.”

  “I thought you were gonna drop off the book while we get your clothes.”

  “No. I want to take a shower first. And change. If my clothes are still there.”

  The three of us take up the whole sidewalk as we walk. One or two people come our way, but they move to the curb to pass us.

  We get to the laundry place with the y missing, and King points down at the sidewalk.

  WINTERFOLK

  “Still there,” he says.

  “It’s permanent. It’ll be here when everyone’s gone.”

  “Nothing’s permanent,” he says.

  No one’s inside when we open the door. King takes me to the cardboard box with Lost and Found written in black marker. There, with a single red sock, is my full laundry bag.

  I drop my book to open it. My jeans, my flower shirt, a sweater, four pairs of underwear, a towel, two pillowcases, and a blanket. All folded nicely. A note on top: Matisse. Call me. It’s important.

  I smell them. Lavender.

  I hug the bag, and it crinkles. Something else in there. I pull out a yellow paper and drop it.

  The notice.

  King picks up the paper. “How’d she get this?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t tell her.”

  “Call her,” Jessiebel says.

  My stomach aches.

  “I will. After I shower. I’ll be quick. Will you stay here? Please? Don’t leave me.”

  “We won’t,” King says.

  Jessiebel wanders over to the vending machine.

  “I mean it,” I say. “No matter what happens, don’t leave me.”

  The water runs warm over my stomach and soothes my swelling. I wish I had soap with me. I remember the bottle of liquid soap at the sink and hop out to get it. I rub some in my hair and let the water wash out the salt. Soon, the only smell left will be me.