by Alex Flinn
Josh frowned. “My dad said no. They didn’t know what happened to her, though people had theories.”
“Like what?”
Josh put his finger to his lips and nodded toward the old man. I looked over at him again. He was holding a doll now, one with curly, yellow hair, and he was sort of crying. I nodded. Josh handed me the bag with the hinges and a receipt, saying he’d put them on Mrs. Greenwood’s account.
“So it was a loon, okay?” he said.
I nodded again, but I knew I was going to the woods to look for myself.
I drove Mrs. G’s car down the same threadlike, bumpy road as before. It was no less scary in daylight. Maybe it was scarier because, now, I could actually see how narrow it was with the trees attacking both sides of the car. And, anyway, it was almost as dark as night. Still, I was going forward. Going back seemed scarier.
Finally, I reached the point where we’d gotten out of the car and started to walk. I opened the door, scraping a branch and almost slipping on a patch of leftover ice. Luckily, a lot of it had melted. I closed the door, making sure not to slam it. I trudged forward.
The day was warmer than before, but still cold. The freezing wind howled across the trees, and it did sound like a woman crying, but it wasn’t the same sound I’d heard before.
When I almost reached Josh’s cabin, I heard a noise like something breaking. I stopped, looked behind me. Nothing there. I took another step forward. Another crack. Was something following me? I stopped. No. Probably just a squirrel or even a fox. They had animals like that here. Still, I stood a moment. And then, I heard it, a voice singing. I ran toward it, unconcerned about noises or foxes or anything but finding out what it was.
17
Rachel
Today, I woke knowing something would happen. Something would be different. It is winter. I have learned to tell winter by the cold outside my window and the snow. And, also, the lights from the distance, lights from a town I’ve never seen. People put them up in winter, and though they’re far away, I see them. I watch them twinkle and dream of the day when I will see them close up.
Once, when I was younger, I asked Mama what they were. She said, “People put them up in December to celebrate the season.”
“I wish I could go there. They must be so happy.” Celebrating sounded like an incredible thing. I had never celebrated anything, other than my birthday and Mama’s, and even those were dull. It wasn’t that my life was awful, merely that it was the same, day after day, year after year.
Mama didn’t let me go, of course. It was too dangerous. But the next time she came, she brought me a package, all wrapped in red-and-green paper with pictures of bells on it. I was so excited. I loved presents. I ripped the paper, carefully, because I wanted to save it in the box under my bed where I kept all my special possessions.
Inside was a box with a green plastic string covered with multicolored objects, each pointed like an icicle.
“They’re lights. You can plug them in the wall and look at them all you like.” Mama started to remove them from the packaging. “They even twinkle.”
“Oh. They’re lovely.” I plugged them in the wall. They glowed red and green, blue and yellow, and when Mama changed one of the bulbs, they blinked on and off.
Mama helped me hang them on the wall. I noticed she put them far from the window so that no one would see them, and every night for weeks after, I plugged them in and watched them blink, on and off, off and on. It made me happy to watch them, and peaceful, like I was part of the wide world.
But, one day, I realized that Mama had brought me the lights because she was never going to take me out to see the real ones.
That night, I took them down and hid them away, in the same box where I had stored my paper. When Mama came and asked where they’d gone, I said they were broken.
“I’ll bring you a new string,” she said.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ve looked at them enough.”
But that was how I knew it was winter, even before the snow began piling on my windowsill. And, when the snow melts, it is spring and the flowers bloom below.
But now, it had only been winter a short time, and the snow was melting. I opened my window. It was a long way down, too long to see much other than the activities of birds and the occasional deer. Still, I wanted to leave the window open, to smell the world outside. I would play my harp and sing my songs, and the animals, at least, would hear me.
I began to do this. I sang the saddest song I knew, about a girl in love with a poor boy but unable to marry him. Mama taught it to me. She said it was from Scotland, and I loved it because it was from so far away.
I know where I’m going;
And I know who’s going with me.
I know who I love;
But the dear knows who I’ll marry.
As I sang, I had once again that strange feeling, the feeling of being listened to, not by birds or squirrels or even deer, but by some sentient, thinking being. I rushed to the window to look.
I saw something, or someone, moving in the distance. Probably, it was just a bear or a mountain lion. Though they were rare, I had seen all sorts of animals in the wood.
I went back to singing. It was silly to hope for what could not happen.
I have stockings of silk;
And shoes of fine green leather;
Combs to buckle my hair;
And a ring for every finger.
Just then, I remembered that Mama had given me these special glasses, which enabled me to see birds and other creatures, very far away. I grabbed them from my table. It was probably merely an animal. A bear. Or a mountain lion. Nothing to get excited about.
Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t a bear. Bears wear coats of brown or black. This creature wore one of blue. It was clearly a human being. Still, I could see nothing more, not even if it was a man or a woman. It could just be Mama.
But it was not Mama. Mama’s coat was gray, and she never walked in the woods. No, this was someone else, someone I had never seen before. It was walking closer to me, struggling where there was no path, holding on to trees to keep its balance, but still coming closer. I could not see the face. Perhaps it was the man I had dreamed of.
Mama would say otherwise. She would say he was coming to murder me, or to steal me away. And suddenly, I was very afraid. What if Mama was right, and it was someone who wished me harm? What if the whole world wished me harm and only this tower could protect me, this tower which seemed suddenly vulnerable? After all, Mama had kept me here all these years. If there was nothing to fear, it would mean she was quite mad.
And yet, I had dreamed of this day, of someone other than Mama coming here, to find me, perhaps to rescue me.
I looked, again, through the glasses. The person was still far away, at the edge of the frozen lake. I could see nothing but the coat. I could not see that it was a man, much less the man of my dreams.
I shut the window and went back to my harp.
Featherbeds are soft;
And painted rooms are bonny;
But I would leave them all;
To go with my love, Johnny.
As I played, I closed my eyes and tried to picture his face. It was silly, of course, for it was merely a dream, a figment of my imagination. My imagination had made him perfect, gifting him with every wonderful attribute of the men in my books, the darkest hair, the greenest eyes, the strongest chin, the broadest shoulders, until he was Arthur and Lancelot, Robin Hood and Perseus all rolled into one, then gifted with the intellect of Rochester and the wealth of Darcy. No man could match up, surely not an ordinary youth with ordinary blemishes.
And yet, I ran to the window to look again, to see if he did. I could not tell yet. But now, at least, I was certain it was a man. The shoulders were too broad, the walk too bold to be a woman. That it was a man was wonderful, yet scary, for I am sure it was a man who killed my mother.
But I was up, and he was down. My tower would protect me . . . if I w
ished it to.
I was not sure what I wished.
He walked closer. In truth, walk was not the proper word for what he was doing. Rather, he struggled over the snow and the trees. Slogged, perhaps, or lumbered. I wondered, for the first time, what he was doing here, and why he continued when it was obviously so difficult. It was not merely uncommon, but unheard of, for anyone to come this close, particularly in winter. In summer, there were children who played and went boating on the lake. The part of the lake that I could see was covered in branches, likely hiding my tower from others’ sight. Sometimes, the children came closer, but never close enough to see me. It was almost as if he knew I was here, as if he were looking for me.
To kidnap me?
I stopped singing entirely. I crouched down on the floor, resting my glasses on the windowsill. I peered through them. Now, he was close enough that I could see his face but for his hat and scarf. He could see mine if he possessed glasses. And if he looked up, rather than examining every root or rock that might trip him. He paused in his trudging as if trying to decide where to go next, looking at the stand of trees to his left, the frozen lake to his right. As he did, I saw a bit of hair, peeking out from underneath his hat.
It was brown, dark brown, much like the hair of my imagined lover. Yet, from my reading, I knew that many men had dark hair.
He made his decision and stepped onto the lake. I sucked in my breath. In years past, the lake had frozen solid. I knew for I had seen deer walking upon it. But this year, the weather had been warmer than usual, and though the ice was covered with snow, the animals had avoided it. I wondered if he might fall through, like Amy did in Little Women. If he did, with no one to fish him out, he would surely die.
He took another tentative step. Then, another. Then, a third. It was all right. He believed so too, for his steps became faster, more confident. In fact, he nearly skipped, so relieved (I imagine) was he to escape the tangle of trees, dead and living.
And then, he disappeared from sight.
18
Wyatt
I didn’t know whose stupid idea this was. Or rather, I did. But was I so starved for adventure, for closure . . . for redemption, maybe, that I’d go out in the cold and snow to look for a ruined tower when no one but a crazy old guy who apparently lived in Josh’s hardware store even knew it existed? When the voice I heard was probably a loon?
Yes. The sad thing was, yes. I was the loon.
I’d passed Josh’s family’s cabin half an hour earlier. Since then, I’d been slogging through the woods where there was no path, where the roots of trees seemed to come alive beneath my feet, and the branches reached down to grab me with their stabbing, scratching fingers. Yes, some of the snow had melted, but that made it no less icy, no less slippery. I slid on a patch of ice and grabbed at a tree branch. It grabbed back, scratching my face. I touched my glove to my cheek and saw a wet spot on the black background. Blood.
Ahead, I saw nothing but trees and more trees. Where was the tower? Did it even exist? If it did, I couldn’t see it. It must be so far from the cabin, too far for me to have heard singing inside. And yet, when a hawk cried overhead, it seemed so deafeningly loud that I could have heard it ten miles away.
No singing today. I stopped to listen. Nothing but the chill wind, invading my bones. I should go back. But when I looked behind me, I could see neither Josh’s cabin nor the car. I might as well go forward.
No, that wasn’t true. If I couldn’t see the car, that was a reason to go back. Go back as fast as I could before the day became darker, colder.
I realized, I had nothing to go back to.
The old lady would be sad if I disappeared, I guessed. But she’d get over it. She’d dealt with bigger things.
I had no friends, and even my mother didn’t seem desperately upset to be rid of me. At least, she’d let me go. She was a young woman. She could meet someone, have another child, a better one.
I remembered the old man, his daughter murdered, or maybe dead from an overdose. Did it really matter? He never got over it.
No, I had to stick this out, to solve this mystery once and for all. Also, I felt something pulling at me, as if it meant me to come here, to find out what was out there even if it was nothing. Which it probably was.
Then suddenly, I heard a voice, singing. Still, far away, it sang an old song I’d heard before but couldn’t place. I shoved past a few more trees and saw a clearing. No trees at all. But that was impossible.
I realized it was the lake. The lake came up farther here. Did I dare step on it? It would be much easier to walk on the smooth lake than to fight through the trees. But parts of it, I knew, weren’t frozen. Near the center was dark, almost black water, reflecting the clouds above. But here, near the shore, it was serene, white, covered in several inches of snow without even a footprint on its surface. It must be safe.
I took one tentative step, feeling it. Solid. I took another. Then, another. This was easy. I took a few more.
Then, I heard a thunderclap, and all at once, I was falling down, down into the freezing water.
19
Rachel
He fell through the ice! I did not know if this was the boy I dreamed of. What I did know was that, whoever he was, he would die out there in the freezing lake and not be discovered until spring, if at all.
And I would have witnessed it. Witnessed it and done nothing.
Something, some unearthly force propelled me forward, told me what I must do. I ran to the bed and seized the rope, my rope of hair, then twined it around one of the pillars in my tower. I knotted it, a good, firm knot such as I had read about in books, a knot that looked like a double number eight. I barely thought, barely breathed as I was doing this. I glanced outside. Was he still out there, floundering in the water? He was. But if I did not move quickly, he would not be. I seized my metal bedstead and dragged it over to the window, I knew not how. I placed one of the legs upon the rope, in case my knot was not true enough. Then, I hung the remaining length of rope out the window. As before, it reached the ground, and then some. Was I insane? I could not slide down a rope! I wove it for him to come up. Yet he could not do so if he was trapped under ice. No time for hesitation. I grabbed the quilt and blanket from my bed, threw them out the window to break my fall (and, perhaps, to warm him when I pulled him out). Then, I grabbed the rope, passed it over my shoulder and under my leg in hopes of slowing my descent a bit, and slid down it to the bottom. It all occurred so quickly I remembered nothing except the feeling of my own hair, sliding through my fingers.
I was out of the tower, out for the first time in years.
It happened I did not die. I also did not know how I was going to get back up.
The boy thrashed still. I saw that he had gotten hold of something, a root, and was attempting to pull himself out. Yet, he was unable. I had to save him. I, or he would freeze to death. I grabbed a branch, then ran to the lake and thrust it toward him.
“Here. Take this.”
Shock showed on his white face. “Can you pull me out?” He clung to the root, unwilling to let it go.
“I do not know. I have to try. If you hold the root, you will not drown, but you may freeze to death.”
“Get over here.” He pointed to a spot farther away but still close enough for the branch to reach. “Hold that tree.”
I thought him a bit bossy for a drowning man, but I obeyed, gripping the tree with one hand, the branch with the other. I felt it dip with his weight as he grabbed it. I hoped I had chosen well. If it broke, he would surely . . . I could not think about it.
“Pull!” he yelled.
I pulled with all my might, until my fingers ached and felt as if they might break like icicles. He did not budge. Nothing moved. Yet, still, I held the branch while on the other end, I felt him struggle.
“Pull harder!” he yelled. “Please.”
I couldn’t. I couldn’t, and yet, I did, with a strength I never knew I possessed, a strength I didn’t p
ossess, a strength nearly mythological. I pulled and jerked until my whole body ached, and yet, it must have been the work of a moment, and then, he was clambering out of the water and onto the shore, shivering and running toward me. I ran away, for the blankets. The blankets to give him.
I threw him both the blanket and the quilt even though, now that my exertion was over, I realized that I too was freezing.
I was cold! I was cold because I was out in the world, out for the first time in so many years. I felt the wind on my face, the snow beneath my feet. I smelled evergreen and fresh air. I was outside! I loved it.
I looked over him. He shivered, still, but I could see his face. His jaw was firm. His hair was dark brown, nearly black, and when he looked up at me, his eyes were green as the trees.
It was him.
I knew it.
“Wh-wha-wh-wh-who are y-you.” His teeth chattered.
“I am Rachel.”
“W-where d-d-did you c-c-come from?”
I gestured toward my tower, seeing it, from the front, perhaps for the first time ever. It was old and shabby, almost invisible among the gray clouds, with nubby shingles studding its sides, except where they had fallen off. “There.”
20
Wyatt
“There.” The girl was stunning. There was no other word. With long, blond hair and skin that seemed almost translucent, she looked like an angel. She gestured to her left, and when I was able to stop shivering and staring at her, I looked too. At first, I thought she was joking, for all I saw was a clump of trees. Was she some unearthly creature, like a sprite or a fairy, who lived among the leaves? But then, I saw it, hidden among them.
A ruined tower.
It was made of wood, shingled most of the way up, and appeared to be very old, too old for someone so beautiful to live in. It rose high among the trees with only one window at the very top. From that window hung a golden rope that reached all the way to the ground.