Lenora’s eyes burned. “I don’t want to start a new life!” Her breath heaved, wobbled, shattered. “I want my old life! I want to go home!”
“There is nothing left in Texas City, love,” Mrs. Jones said. “And the sooner you understand that, the sooner you can move on.” She lowered her voice. “It is what your father would have wanted. I know this, because I knew your father.”
Lenora lifted her eyes to the shining blue ones of Mrs. Jones. She could see everything there: sorrow, understanding, love. Lenora leaned into her.
“My husband’s body was never found,” Mrs. Jones said. Lenora blinked, her cheek smashed into Mrs. Jones’s chest. Her voice vibrated in Lenora’s head. “He was missing in action during World War II. I got the letter. I never saw his body.” Mrs. Jones took a deep, shuddering breath. “I held on as long as I could. And then, after a few years, I let him go.” She sniffed. “It was all I could do. I had to move on.”
Lenora wanted to say something, but her throat was much too raw.
“Death touches us all,” Mrs. Jones said. “But it doesn’t have to break us.”
They remained like that—Lenora pressed to Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones curved around her—for quite some time, until Mrs. Jones said, “I must prepare supper now. Would you like to help?”
Lenora shook her head. What she would like to do was sleep.
But her bedroom was so lonely.
Her vision blurred. She stumbled toward the door and was nearly through it when Mrs. Jones called to her. “I found this,” Mrs. Jones said. She held up Mother’s pearl necklace. “In the garden. I thought it might be yours.”
Lenora had not even noticed it was gone.
Mrs. Jones knelt, her eyes wide and searching. She said, “The dead are always with us. You contain pieces of your mother and father, pieces of your sister and brothers. They will always be with you, wherever you go. When you need them, just listen to what your heart says.” Mrs. Jones wrapped Lenora in a tight hug, and for a moment Lenora closed her eyes and breathed deeply the cinnamon and orange of Mrs. Jones’s hair. It was over before Lenora was ready, and she raced from the room, from the stifling house, aware that she would not make it far without crumbling.
She made it as far as the garden, where she plunged her hands into the soil, uprooting weeds in a furious rhythm that matched the emotions warring in her chest. She wanted to get away from here, away from the sorrow that seemed to eat her from the inside out. She wanted to retreat to the woods, but fear held her back. She did not want to see the Master again, and she feared that Bela would take her there by force this time.
Was nowhere safe?
She’d thought she had found companionship in the woods, but was that true? What did they really want of her? Would she disappear like Bobby and Gladys and all the other white-haired children?
Or was that just coincidence?
She glared at Stonewall Manor. It represented the possibility—the certainty—of death and how it had altered her life forever.
She missed them all so much. She missed their life together. She’d never had her day off from school, had never properly celebrated her birthday, had never told Rory she was sorry for being mad. She’d never shown Mother the stains on her brand-new dress. She hadn’t told Father she loved him that day; did he know?
Lenora sobbed as she worked. She closed her eyes and let the wind dry her cheeks. She tried to clear her mind, but it was impossible. The pearls in her left hand burned, pressed against the earth.
Lenora turned the pearl necklace over in her hands. She pressed the pearls to her lips, pressed them to her nose, pressed them to her chest. She put them on.
A beam of brilliant light caught her attention. It came from the window that was Uncle Richard’s laboratory. Lenora scrambled through the iron gate, careful not to let it swing shut or cause any noise. She crept toward her uncle’s window, which she saw was completely exposed.
Had he been careless, or was this on purpose?
Lenora’s mouth dropped open. Staring back at her from the window was the mechanical rhinoceros. It was even larger than she’d, at first, thought. As she watched, the light bulbs of its eyes glowed to life in two pointed beams. More lights flickered on. She saw a line of robots, their eyes lit with the same bulbs.
So this was why Uncle Richard needed light bulbs.
The rhinoceros moved a thundering step forward, its head nearly crashing through the window. Lenora ducked away, but the rhinoceros stopped abruptly.
It was much too tall to get through the window. Uncle Richard had created a massive mechanical rhinoceros that would live forever inside his laboratory.
Lenora watched her uncle guide the rhinoceros into an empty space between the line of robots. Uncle Richard faced his army, not Lenora. There was a drawing in his hands, held behind his back. Lenora squinted.
The drawing showed the Master of the woods.
Uncle Richard turned then, and Lenora ducked into the shadows, but not before she could see the mad gleam in his eye.
The supper bell clanged.
59
At supper, Uncle Richard was quiet, as usual, but the quiet felt heavier. Lenora could feel it pressing on the back of her neck, the sides of her head, the middle of her chest. She stole glances at him periodically, trying to make sense of what she had seen but unable to do anything of the sort. He had built robots, but what was the purpose of robots with light bulbs for eyes and a mass of buttons on their backs?
“So you have been in the woods again.” The words were so unexpected that Lenora dropped her fork. It clattered to her plate.
She tried to think of something to say, but there was nothing.
“Your hair has turned white,” Uncle Richard said. “Just like my son’s. Just like my sister’s.”
“Your sister’s?” Father had never mentioned a sister.
“Gladys,” Uncle Richard said, and Lenora’s chest turned cold.
Without thinking, she said, “I know where Bobby is.” She wanted him to understand. “I think he needs us.”
Uncle Richard’s fork hovered in midair. “My son is dead,” he said, and his eyes dropped to his plate.
She could tell, though, that he didn’t fully believe it. So she said, “I think he’s alive. He’s in the woods. I think we can save him.”
Uncle Richard shook his head. “That’s foolishness. The woods must be destroyed.” He leveled his eyes at her, and they were dark and unreadable. “They will take you, too.”
She could tell, by the set of his jaw, by the blaze of his eyes, by the way he held his fork—the same way he held the door in the car—that he would not listen. She said, “And you intend to destroy the woods?”
Uncle Richard did not say anything.
She would have to stop him, then, or at least accompany him, until she could be sure that Bobby was not alive and trapped.
Uncle Richard put down his napkin and lifted his chin. “Do you know why you go into the woods and come out with white hair?”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but she shook her head anyway.
“The woods steal your vitality, your color. They exist only if they can trap a captive.” Uncle Richard picked up his fork again, as though he intended to continue eating, but he did not move. “My son has been a captive for eight years now. He is likely drained of life, and it is very nearly finished.”
“What is finished?” Lenora could not help but ask.
“The end of the Cole family.” Uncle Richard did not falter on the words. He was sure, unwavering.
“How do you know this?” she said.
“There are stories. Your father tried to show me, but I did not listen.” Uncle Richard put down his fork again and leaned back in his chair. “I have read them all now.”
She would like to read the stories. And perhaps that was clear on her face; Uncle Richard said, “The stories are scrawled in journals. In my lab.”
“Your journals?” Lenora felt the cold spreading; perhap
s her uncle really was mad.
“The journals of others in our family.”
Our family. The words sounded like a promise.
“They kept good records,” Uncle Richard said. “They were called mad for their claims. I thought the same. But they were the sanest people alive.” His shoulders hunched.
Lenora saw what he carried—sorrow, disappointment, regret. Mostly it was regret.
“I wish I had listened,” he said.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. She wanted him to understand this, needed him to. It wasn’t his fault that his sister had disappeared in the woods, that Bobby had as well, that Lenora had explored what he’d forbidden her to explore. “You didn’t know.”
Uncle Richard’s face cleared. “You must not return, Lenora. Promise me. Until I have finished what must be done.” His eyes pleaded with her, and she felt the warmth of his attention, his care, spread into her chest.
She could not promise, though. She loved him too much—she knew this now—to let him lose his son, if his son could be saved. So she merely nodded her head.
A promise could not be bound without words.
Could it?
60
When Mrs. Jones entered the dining room, she carried a large birthday cake, with a glowing candle. She walked over to Uncle Richard, set it down in front of him, and began singing in a low and melodic voice.
Lenora joined in the singing.
Uncle Richard smiled politely and said, “You always did remember, didn’t you.”
Mrs. Jones cut a generous piece for Uncle Richard and a smaller piece—but still a generous one—for Lenora. The cake was chocolate all the way through.
For a while, the only sound in the dining room, after Mrs. Jones left, was that of forks scraping against plates. The cake consumed their attention. It was rich and delicious.
“Stonewall Manor is a lonely place,” Uncle Richard said around his napkin, which he used to wipe the corners of his mouth. “You have found solace in the woods. A friend, perhaps?”
Lenora stiffened.
“Bobby found a friend as well,” Uncle Richard said, without waiting for her answer. “That’s why he returned.”
Silence again. Lenora could think of absolutely nothing to say. Uncle Richard was trying; why could she not?
She had almost opened her mouth when Uncle Richard said, “Thank you for clearing the garden.” Lenora’s eyes met his. She could see that he meant the words, and they felt warm and . . . safe.
Perhaps there was somewhere safe for her after all.
He said, “When summer is finished we can plant some new flowers. Make it beautiful again.” He spoke in the same halting way he always did, but it did not seem as strange as it used to. He thought before he spoke. He chose each word with care. Words meant something to him. He was very much like her father.
“I would like that,” Lenora said, her throat tight.
Uncle Richard looked at her for a moment longer, and then he said, “I have something to show you. Will you come?”
At first she thought that Uncle Richard might show her his lab, and her heart fluttered with expectation, but he took her not toward the east wing, where he worked, but toward the entrance to Stonewall Manor. Mrs. Jones was waiting out front, smiling.
Lenora didn’t know why until she saw what leaned against the house. There were two bikes—one a sleek black and the other a rosy red. The wheels were thin and large, and the handlebars curved out, up, and back toward the seat. Lenora gasped.
“I used to ride with Bobby,” Uncle Richard said, his voice thick. “I thought it might give us something to do together.”
Lenora shook her head. “I don’t know how to ride a bike,” she said. “I’ve never had one.”
Uncle Richard seemed taken aback. “My brother loved riding,” he said.
Lenora looked at her feet. “My parents didn’t have much money,” she said, and then she glanced back up at Uncle Richard.
His face was pained, his eyes dim. He shook his head and bit his lip, lifting his eyes to the sky. “I wrote to him,” he said. “I thought for sure he would answer at least one of my letters. I wanted him to come home.” He leveled his gaze at Lenora. “I wanted to know you and your brothers and sister. I wanted . . .” His voice broke, and he shook his head, his hand wiping at his cheeks.
Mrs. Jones slipped inside the house. Lenora and Uncle Richard were quiet for a while, before Lenora said, “I don’t understand why he didn’t write back. My father was a good man. A kind man. A forgiving man. He must have loved you. I’m sure of it.”
Uncle Richard nodded, swallowing hard. “Yes,” he said. “But we both said many unforgivable things. We were foolish.” He gazed up at the front of Stonewall Manor. “He didn’t want anything to do with this house. He wanted to protect his children.”
Lenora’s vision blurred. He hadn’t been able to protect his children after all.
“I wish I had another chance to tell him how much he meant to me,” Uncle Richard said.
“Me too.” The words were out before Lenora could stop them. She felt a hand in hers. Uncle Richard had moved close.
He said, “I think he knew.”
And maybe that was enough.
They both turned their attention to the sky, which blazed with a glorious golden glow, day curving into night.
“Should we teach you to ride before the day is gone completely?” Uncle Richard said. “You’re old enough to have the balance. You just need to get the rhythm. It shouldn’t take you long.”
Lenora nodded; she couldn’t trust herself to speak.
Uncle Richard held the bike while Lenora climbed onto it. He limped behind her, his hand on the back of the seat, but Lenora was a fast learner, and she was soon riding on her own. Uncle Richard had been right about the balance; she felt like she had always known how to ride a bike.
At some point, Uncle Richard climbed on his bike and pedaled beside her. Lenora could see that riding pained him; he winced every time his left leg bent. The trees curved overhead as though protecting them from the wide expanse of sorrow and holding them in only this moment.
After riding for half an hour or so, Lenora lost control of the handlebars and sprawled out on the ground, causing Uncle Richard, who pedaled behind her, to swerve. He ended up on the ground as well. They both dissolved into laughter before picking up the bikes and walking them back to the porch of Stonewall Manor.
As she walked, Lenora glanced toward the woods. There stood Bela, glowing with a brilliant pink, a look of such fury on his face that she shivered and dropped her eyes to the ground. When she looked back, he was gone, and it was easy for her to convince herself that she had not seen anything at all.
61
Before retreating upstairs, Lenora stopped by the library. She scanned the shelves, looking for stories about the woods. Uncle Richard had said they existed–but where?
She heard the voices of Mrs. Jones and Uncle Richard, floating in from down the hall.
“I hope you had a good birthday.” Mrs. Jones.
“Thank you. For the cake.” Uncle Richard.
“Thank you for teaching Lenora how to ride a bike.”
“It was enjoyable.” She could hear a smile in his voice.
“She will need you now.”
“I know.”
Silence.
Then: “I miss him so much.” Uncle Richard. His voice was higher, strained. Lenora heard a muffled sob, and she turned toward the door.
“Everything will work out.” Mrs. Jones. She’d said the same thing to Lenora.
“I wish I had been a better father.”
“You’ll get another chance now.”
“I wish I had been a better man.”
“Regrets don’t change anything, love. They just hinder us from moving on. Life doesn’t end for those of us who remain. We must keep living, as well as we can.”
Lenora felt the words as though they belonged to her, as though Mrs. Jones intende
d her to hear them.
Uncle Richard made another sound that squeezed Lenora’s chest. “I wish I could tell him I love him one more time.”
Mrs. Jones didn’t answer.
Lenora swallowed hard.
When she heard Uncle Richard close himself behind the door in the east wing and Mrs. Jones pad down the hall, Lenora slipped from the library and raced up the stairs to her room. (The darkness was still the worst monster.) She sat up in her bed for a long time. Then she crossed the hall and moved into Bobby’s room.
Only one lamp worked, the one that sat beside his bed. She flicked it on and studied the shadows it made near the doorway. She moved about the room much like she had done the first time she had entered. She studied the drawings in his bathroom and noticed now that many were creatures she had seen in the woods. She touched the flowers that opened up and sang. She touched the trees that danced. She touched the strange spiked fish she had seen jumping from one of the pools.
She sat on his swing.
What would he want her to do? Could she feel him, alive? Did he want her to rescue him?
Could she?
A voice reached her. Lenora, it said. Come to me.
It was only a whisper, but it sounded like her mother. She shook her head. The window was open. She crossed the room in a hurry and shut it. The voice did not return.
Before climbing into her bed, Lenora looked out her window, toward the woods. They were still and dark. Endless, it seemed. She thought of Bobby, hidden deep within them. She thought of Uncle Richard, still mourning his son, though it had been eight years. She thought about the Master and the tree and the lost children hidden within it.
She would enter the woods as soon as she woke tomorrow. She would bring Bobby home. And together they would stitch what remained of their family back together.
Love, she understood now, was the only antidote for loneliness and loss.
He lured in only children belonging to one family: the Coles, who had been responsible for his death all those years ago.
As he had swung from the tree—the tree that was now his home—he had watched them disappear into the forest. They had not stayed to gawk at him as the townspeople would have done for a public execution in those days. Still, he had seethed. He had vowed to fight for his life, if only to orchestrate his revenge.
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