Freeze Tag (8 page)

More, thought Meghan Moore, more, more, more, more, I will never have enough of you, West. More. More.

A thin white hand ran through West’s hair and resettled it gently behind his ear.

The hand was not Meghan’s.

A long narrow fingernail traced West’s profile and stopped lightly on his lip.

The finger was not Meghan’s.

A wrist as bony as a corpse inserted itself gracefully, slowly, between West’s face and Meghan’s. Fingers like falling snow brushed lightly on Meghan’s cheeks.

“He’s mine,” whispered Lannie Anveill in Meghan’s ear.

Meghan heard, but saw only mistily.

She felt, but through many layers.

Neither West nor Meghan moved away from each other. But there was no more heat between them. Their excitement had been iced over. They might have been anesthetized, waiting for some terrible surgery.

The only thing that moved was Lannie’s hand, stroking here, touching there.

Lannie covered her victims like a snowdrift with her hatred for one, and her love for the other.

The game of Freeze Tag had gone on.

Lannie was still It.

W
INTER WIND PROWLED OVER
Dark Fern Lane.

Snow crept behind shutters and blanketed steps.

Cars left in driveways were rounded white monuments, casting fat meaningless shadows where streetlights touched them.

In the yellow halos beneath the streetlights, snow seemed not to fall, but to hang, separate flakes caught in time. Listening.

Listening to what?

Dark Fern Lane was full of listeners.

Tuesday Trevor was so wide awake it felt like a disease.

Her eyes strained to climb out of their sockets.

Her lungs tried to turn themselves inside out.

Her blood circulated in marathons.

What is the matter with me? thought Tuesday. Her heart revved, and raced, and took corners on two wheels.

After a long time, Tuesday got out of bed. Silently she walked down the narrow hall to the boys’ room. The door was cracked, in order that West could slip back in without making noise. Without making noise, Tuesday opened her brothers’ door all the way.

West was not back.

Tuesday crossed the dark bedroom without bumping into anything. Since the windows looked out only onto yards and woods, her brothers never pulled the shades down. She looked out their window. Snow was falling. West’s footprints in the old snow were covered now. She knew he was in the Chevy but nobody else would. If search parties went out, they would not think of the truck. How long had he been out there? Her heart revved again, fueled by worry.

“Do you think they’re all right?” whispered Brown.

Tuesday jumped a foot. She’d been sure he was asleep. She shrugged.

She said, trying to sound knowledgeable, “I guess they’re having fun.”

“It’s awfully cold out to have that much fun,” said Brown.

Tuesday and Brown felt weird thinking about their own brother with their own best friend Meghan.

“Gag me with a spoon,” said Brown, who hoped that when he was a high school senior he would not disgrace himself like that.

Tuesday had to deep breathe twice in order to say her next sentence out loud. “Lannie’s there, too.”

Brown sat up. “You saw her light go on?”

“I saw her cross the street.”

Brown was full of admiration. Nobody ever saw Lannie cross the street. She just vanished and then reappeared.

“She loves West,” said Tuesday.

“She always has. Talk about making me gag. I think we’d have to give West over to terrorists for a hostage if he ever loved Lannie back.”

“Lannie’s the terrorist,” said Tuesday. I am terrorized, thought Tuesday. “Let’s go down to the yard and check on them,” she said.

“Yeah, but … what if … West and Meghan … you know … like … ick,” said Brown.

What did Lannie have to do with it? Why was Lannie out there in the snow at one in the morning?

“Something happened in school,” said Tuesday. How odd her voice sounded. Like somebody else’s. She tried to catch her voice and bring it home. “This girl. In the cafeteria. At first everybody thought it was an unexplained paralysis. A girl named Jodie. But then somebody said it was Jennifer, and she had fallen down and broken her spine. And then somebody else was sure it was Jacqueline and she had a fever and some virus attacked her brain and turned her stiff as a board.”

“Get to the point,” said Brown.

“It was some girl, okay? And Lannie froze her. The way she did that time when we were little and Freeze Tag was real.”

“It was never real,” said Brown.

“Then why are you pulling the covers back up? It’s because you remember that night, Brown.”

“Do not.”

“Do so.” Tuesday looked back out onto the snow. The wind caught and threw it, as if the wind were having a snowball fight with its friends. The backyard tilted downhill, and vanished into the dark. A cliff to the unknown.

Tuesday stared at her little brother. He stared back.

“Okay,” said Brown. “Let’s go look. But it’s going to be tough living with West if it turns out we’re just interrupting the good parts.”

The door of the truck cab was open.

Lannie was swinging on it, pushing herself back and forth with one small foot. She was smiling as she looked inside.

She knew Tuesday and Brown had joined her but she did not look at them. She was too pleased by the inside of the Chevy.

Brown took Tuesday’s hand. She was glad to grip it. They did not let themselves touch Lannie. They peered into the truck.

Two statues. As cold and white as marble.

Carved in a half embrace; lips not quite touching; eyes not quite closed.

Lannie chuckled. “Hello, Tuesday,” said Lannie. “Hello, Brown.”

The snow ceased to fall. The wind ceased to blow. The world was smooth and pure and white. It lay soft and glittering and glowing on all sides.

“Are they dead?” whispered Brown.

“Just frozen.” The chuckle was full of rage.

I have to reason with her, thought Tuesday. I remember that night in the grass. The last time we ever played Freeze Tag. West reasoned with her. He told her he was impressed. “I’m impressed, Lannie,” said Tuesday. “They look very real.”

Lannie favored Tuesday with a look of disgust. “They are real. They are your brother and your neighbor.” She made “neighbor” sound like “road-kill.”

“They’ll die if they’re left out here,” said Tuesday.

“If they wanted to stay inside, they should have,” said Lannie. “He promised to like me best.” Her voice was slight, and yet filling, like a very sweet dessert. “He broke his promise.”

Tuesday wet her lips. Mistake. The winter wind penetrated every wrinkle, chapping them. “Let’s give West a second chance,” said Tuesday. She had to look away from her frozen brother. “He’ll keep his promise now.” She wondered if West could hear her, deep inside his ice. Could he hear, would he listen, would he obey? It was his life.

“They didn’t believe I could do it.”

Tuesday suffocated in the sweetness of Lannie’s tiny voice. “I believed you,” said Tuesday quickly. She smiled, trying to look like an ally, a friend, a person whose brother was worth rescuing.

Brown was not willing to cater to Lannie. “You’re a pain, Lannie,” he said angrily. “You don’t have any right to scare people.”

“But people,” said Lannie, smiling, “are right to be scared.” Her hair was thin and did not lie down flat, but stuck out of her head in dry pale clumps.

“Undo them right this minute,” said Brown. “Or I’ll go and get my mother and father.”

Lannie laughed out loud. “It won’t be the first time in history two dumb teenagers froze to death while necking in a stupid place at a stupid time.”

“Or call 911,” said Brown. “They’ll save them.”

“No,” said Lannie gently. “They can’t.”

Even Lannie’s words could freeze. Tuesday’s leaping lungs and throbbing heart went into slow motion, and her skipping mind fell down. No. Rescue teams cannot save them. Our mother and father cannot save them. That terrible little phrase “froze to death” hung in front of all Tuesday’s thoughts like an icicle hanging off a porch.

At first Tuesday was going to say,
Brown and I will do anything you want
,
anything at all
,
if only you’ll undo West and Meghan
. But she thought better of it. What promise would Lannie extract? What kind of terrible corner would Brown and Tuesday be in then?

So she said, “You love him, Lannie. He’s better alive. Much more fun.”

“He broke his promise.”

“But he’s learned his lesson now. He’s in there now, listening. He’s ready, Lannie.”

Lannie appeared to consider it. Her eyes shifted from hot to cold like faucets in the shower. “I love doing this,” she told Tuesday at last. Her voice was curiously rich.

Rich with what?

Desire, thought Tuesday. Not for West, and yet it was desire. An unstoppable desire to cause hurt.

The texture of the snow changed.

It became very soft, like an old cozy blanket.

The moon shone through the thin moving clouds, and the snow sparkled in the darkness of night.

The temperature dropped like a falling stone.

She has to undo them! thought Tuesday. What can I offer her? What do I have? My brother! My best friend!

Tuesday scraped through her mind, hunting for anything, the barest scrap, to offer Lannie Anveill.

Lannie swung on the truck door again, making a wide smooth pocket in the snowdrifts. She might have been a six-year-old at a birthday party. Any minute she might lie down in the snow and make an angel.

Lannie. An angel.

Tuesday did not let herself fall into hysteria. She said brightly, “I know, Lannie! You can come to the JV cheerleader slumber party!” Her voice was stacked with false enthusiasm. “At our house! And we’ll have a great time.”

Lannie stopped swinging. She looked briefly at Tuesday, and briefly into the truck.

“But not Meghan,” added Tuesday quickly. “She won’t get to come. Only you.”

Lannie tilted her head.

“All you have to do is unfreeze them,” coaxed Tuesday. She made her voice rich, too. Desire for Lannie’s company. Desire to be a friend to Lannie. “And you’ll have a boyfriend, a dance, and a party, Lannie. All coming up soon. Won’t it be fun?”

Brown was staring at his sister as if they had never met before.

“Well,” said Lannie finally.

“Great!” cried Tuesday. “You’re going to undo them! You’re coming to my party!”

“I’ll undo West,” said Lannie. “Meghan stays.”

“O
NLY,” SAID WEST, “IF
you bring Meghan back, too.”

His voice swirled in the dark. It did not seem like a voice at all, but like a wind, a separate wind. A dervish, perhaps.

Meghan lay frozen, stiff against the seats and the dashboard and the broken handles. Snow falling through the open door of the truck rested on her face. She could not feel its touch but she knew its weight. It was drifting around the hollows of her cheeks and eyes. Soon she would not be visible, she would be one with the rest of the blanketed world.

A statue forgotten until spring.

“No,” said Lannie. Her voice was no longer rich with hurtful desire. It was a statement voice, a voice for making lists and issuing decrees.

No.

It was a forever “No.” A “No” which would not change, which could not be bought, or compromised, or threatened. It was a real “No.”

She was not going to undo Meghan Moore.

I am frozen, thought Meghan.

It was queer the way her thoughts could continue, and yet on some level they, too, were frozen. She did not feel great emotion: there was no terrible grief that her young life had stopped short. There was no terrifying worry about whatever was to come — a new life, a death, or simply the still snowy continuance of this condition. There was simply observation and attention.

It’s like being a tree, Meghan thought. I’m here. I have my branches. I have my roots. But my sap no longer runs. I weep not. I laugh not. I simply wait. And if the seasons change, I live again, and if the seasons do not, I die.

She was surprised to feel no fear. She had been so fearful of Lannie before. Perhaps fear, too, froze. Or perhaps there had never been anything to be afraid of.

West shook his head. “Then it’s off, Lannie.”

What’s off? thought Meghan. What did I miss, being a tree?

She could see very little now. The snow lay right on her open eyes. There was only a yellow hole in the black of the night. It was the nightlight shining out of Tuesday’s bedroom window.

Nightlight, thought Meghan. What a pretty thought. The real night, this night, this night I am going to have forever — it has no lights.

She would be in the dark very soon.

The dark always. The dark completely. The dark forever.

“I don’t want Meghan back,” explained Lannie. “I like her frozen. She’s fun to freeze. She knows it’s coming, you see. It’s much more fun when they see it coming, and they know what’s going to happen.” Lannie chuckled. “I like it when they get scared and you can see it in their eyes.”

Yes, thought Meghan. I was scared enough for her. I screamed loud enough to bring armies, but armies didn’t come. The snow soaked up my scream. The snow and West’s embrace. I screamed into his chest. I don’t know if he screamed or not. We stopped moving so fast.

“Now my mother,” continued Lannie, “she didn’t know.” This was clearly a loss to Lannie. She had wanted her mother to know. Meghan found that she could be even colder, that her heart could still shiver, with the horror of Lannie Anveill.

“And that girl in the cafeteria,” said Lannie sorrowfully, “of course she didn’t know what was coming either.”

The glaze on Meghan’s eyes was greater. The snow lay on them and didn’t melt. Meghan didn’t blink. The yellow nightlight from Tuesday’s room up on the slope grew dim and vanished completely.

“But Meghan,” Lannie went on contentedly, “she knew. She watched my finger move closer.”

Lannie’s voice thickened with pleasure. Tuesday whimpered. Meghan wondered how long she would be able to hear. Were her ears going to freeze now, too?