Lost (41 page)

PART FOUR

20

With a soft whir of tires, the new black Pontiac slipped smoothly through the night. Glancing at the river beyond the trees, Leona could see the first rays of morning pierce the dark and then the light washed across fields and trees and dim houses, drawing them up in sudden levitation, like faded water-color landscapes in pop-up Christmas cards. Moments later, as if sensing the new light, the children began to wake up around her. “We're almost there,” she told them. “It's not much further.”

In the cold, luminous dawn, the Pontiac sped through the outskirts of Brandenburg Station, slowed to the speed limit, and turned down the steep main street. The town was still asleep. All night the temperature had hovered near zero and now, driving down the empty street, Leona saw the effect of the unusually cold weather spread before her in a wide perspective. Beyond the small gazebo of the waterfront park, under sketchy layers of fog, the Ohio River had frozen over in great tilting slabs of ice.

At the bottom of the hill, near the edge of the little park, she brought the car to a standstill. Hazard Road, which would take them through winding curves to a point near the island, was barricaded. Signs read:
ABSOLUTELY NO ONE PERMITTED ON LOST RIVER
.
ICE UNSTABLE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
.
NO DRIVING ON ICE
.
VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED
. Leona hesitated scarcely a moment. Would the police expect to find her here? She couldn't risk being seen. She turned the steering wheel, jockeyed around the barricades, and headed out Hazard Road. She had seen those signs before. Inevitably, every few years the river froze over, and just as inevitably, parties of daredevils walked or skated or—if the temperature was really severe and the ice deep—drove across the river to the Indiana shore. After a bitter cold spell, the ice posed little danger; it was an adventure, something to recall for their grandchildren. The warning signs were routine. To Leona, the thought of crossing the ice on foot, even with children, presented no real danger.

She was home. Everything looked familiar. Even the withered brown stalks of weeds, protruding through snow, took on a special nostalgia. She drove effortlessly. The air continued to brighten above the shifting fog. Hazard Road was an old highway laid between the water's edge and the adjacent sandstone bluffs. Where the cliffs gapped, the crumbling pavement was ribbed with thin horizontal bands of snow. Leona slowed the car. In a long hooking curve, they passed a smattering of fishermen's shacks; then the road dipped and swerved through a bog and trickled away through a stand of tall loblolly poplars. Offshore, rising through the frozen crust of the river, was the island. Île des Chats. Cat Island.

The Pontiac crossed frozen puddles and came to a stop among the trees. Leona turned the ignition off and settled back, rubbing her tired eyes, filled with relief and a sense of final victory. “Look, everybody,” she said. “There's what I promised you.” She opened the door and let it swing away from her, enjoying the fresh, cold air that struck her face.

The children were clamoring to get out. She reminded them to put on their caps and gloves, then let them step into the pure cold morning.

“Where is this place?” Patsy said.

“It's the Ohio River, just as I told you.”

“But how'll we get out there? There's no boat.”

“We can just walk across,” Leona told them.

“That's river water out there.”

“Yes,” she said, and laughed. “And when it melts, it'll be wet.”

“What if we fall in?” Walter asked her.

“Oh, you won't fall in. I won't let you.”

“My mommy said I would. She said I'd fall in.”

“Walter, trust me, this is different.”

From the trunk, Leona collected the few things they would need immediately, the can of gasoline and the smallest bag of groceries. “Can we take the Christmas presents?” Mamie said. “I want to carry 'em.” Leona saw no harm in it and said, “Of course you can. Now, who wants to carry my briefcase?” Both Patsy and Walter jumped forward. “All right,” Leona said, “you'll have to take turns.” The other, heavier suitcases and the large box of groceries would have to wait until she had time to move them piece by piece. Leading the children through the trees, she came to the bank at the river's edge. In the narrow channel, wind kept the ice clear of snow; where a corner of ice jutted up, it was sometimes possible to see the depth of the frozen mosaic. The ice was universally solid and deep. Nothing moved.

“I'm afraid,” Patsy said. “I don't want to walk on froze-up water.”

“Then you all can wait here. I'll come back and carry you.”

But Leona had gone only a few steps on the ice when she heard Mamie yell, “Hey, wait for us,” and watched them scramble down the bank and trail toward her.

“Be careful,” she warned them. “Walk very slow and easy.” And she waited till they drew near.

The waterway spanned through the rooty tufts of the small outer islands; each landmass jutted a yard above the ice, crowned thick with weeds and saplings. Around these outcroppings of earth and rock, the ice was thin and green, bubbling with air pockets. Leona pointed out the thin places and warned them of the danger. They passed down the crooked aisle of solid ice and saw the stone house, much as Leona had described it, through the morning fog.

The little wooden pier, where Doc Merchassen had tied his motorboat each summer, still stood, its pilings mired in pale green socks of ice. Uncertain of its stability, Leona bypassed the weathered wood and lifted the children to land where the shallow cove met the slope of the yard. Without blemish or track, a crisp mantle of snow covered the entire irregular terrain. There was no path to take. They went directly toward the house, past a dilapidated rose trellis. Icicles hung from the high gables and eaves of the two-story cottage, some so long they nearly touched the ground.

Leaving everything they had carried on the cistern cover, Leona removed the padlock on the cellar and lifted the slanted door. It made an eerie noise and she saw the apprehension on the children's faces. “I'll tell you what,” she said. “We'll need to make a fire until I can get the furnace going. Why don't you try to find some dry wood?”

Looking at the other two children, Walter said, “Firewood like at Aunt Vee's?”

“That's right. Just stack it up out here. And I'll go in and try to get the front door open.”

In the cellar she found a soggy box of candles and, setting them in mason jars, managed to light four of them. With the gasoline she started the old generator.

“What's that thing?” Mamie asked, standing at the bottom of the cellar steps.

“It's a generator. I hope it'll make electricity so we can have lights.” As soon as it was running smoothly, Leona plugged in the water pump and the hot-water heater. When she glanced back again, Mamie was gone, the spill of gray morning light now unbroken on the cellar steps. She loosened the bottled-gas spigot and lit the pilot light in the small furnace. Taking one of the lighted candles, she went up the dark basement stairs toward the living quarters, not knowing what she might find there, although from the outside of the house nothing appeared to have been tampered with.

As far as she could tell, the rooms above ground were just as she had left them months ago. She stood in the vaulted living room. Except for the light from the candle she held in her hand, she stood in total darkness and it accentuated the little sounds she made, the sound of her breathing against the bone-chilling cold. She lit the kerosene lamp, and in the small walnut table in the hall found the front-door key where she had hidden it so many months ago. The door opened on a sheet of plywood. Using an old wooden mallet from the kitchen, she knocked the wood panel away, and the morning light spread through the door.

She went outside and called the children. Then she gathered her supplies together—the red can of gasoline and the bag of groceries—cautioned the children not to play down there, and shut the slanted cellar door. Carrying the briefcase and the sack of Christmas presents, the children followed her to the pantry where she began putting her things away. “Just leave those there,” she told them.

The minutes passed quickly. Together they built a fire in the fireplace. She gave the children tasks to do—let them remove the dust covers from the furniture and take the sheets outside—while, with the mallet and the claw end of a hammer, she pulled the plywood panels from three of the windows, one in the living room and two in the kitchen. An hour had gone by. Quickly she got a pot of soup cooking on the stove for their supper. Letting the water run to clear the pipes, she peeled potatoes and carrots and let the kids cut them up, placating them in the meantime with graham crackers and peanut butter. The next time she looked up, she was surprised to see that it had started to snow again, flakes falling through the sunlight. It's too cold to snow, she thought; it's just a snow shower.

The day revolved around her and she worked joyfully, moved happily. What a luxury it was just to bang around as much as she wanted to. Here at last was the safe, hidden world where she could protect the children from the threat of violence. Filled with energy, she whirled through the house with a broom, dragging down cobwebs; then with a basin of pine-scented soapsuds, she began to wipe down the wooden furniture. There was so much to do—beds to be made, linens to wash, meals to prepare—and she addressed it willingly, vigorously, refreshed in mind and spirit. She would be tired from work. She
wanted
to be tired.

If no one came poking around, she was convinced they could live here safely into the new year, maybe longer. Plenty of time to decide what to do. Now and then, from one of the windows or turning in a doorway, she caught glimpses of Mamie. How remarkable it all seemed now, that she had actually made it here with these children—with Mamie. Leona watched her with the others, watched her dash about, huddle with them, whisper, every bit a little girl.

The children were in and out of the house. Once, when they had come in to ask for a drink of water, Mamie turned, holding her glass in both hands, and asked, “Is this where you live?”

“Yes, Mamie,” Leona answered, stooping to her. “But it's where you live, too. You and me and Patsy and Walter. We'll all live here together. Do you like it?”

Mamie held the glass very still and looked at the floor as if to decide. At last, without raising her head, she slowly nodded. “It's a fairy-tale place,” she murmured, and stepped back toward the other children.

With its nooks and crannies and Victorian woodwork, the summer house must look like a fantasy to a child, Leona realized; like an elf's cottage in a storybook.

By three o'clock that afternoon, the sun had slipped behind the towering river cliffs, casting the island in shadow as deep and blue as dusk. As she worked, Leona made a mental list of the things she would need eventually. Somehow she would have to secure another tank of bottled gas. And the makings for a cake—a tall chocolate layer cake, she thought. Except for the pie she'd made for Mark Hardesty, it had been years since she'd had a good reason to bake anything. The few times she'd made even a batch of muffins for Helen Merchassen, they had eaten only two or three and the rest had gone to waste. Then, in Graylie, Emma had done almost all the cooking. Emma! When Leona went to get supplies, she would try to call the hospital again. She had called two days ago and Emma was stable, still in the coma. She thought of Frank; she could hear his accusations ringing in her mind, but there was nothing she could say to him that would ease his suffering. To keep her grief at a distance, she forced her thoughts elsewhere—to her last few moments with Mark Hardesty. Don't go, he had said; please don't do this. She remembered the warmth of his arms around her and the way he had cupped her face in his hands; could almost feel the slow and unmistakable movements with which her body had responded to his. She let the fantasy linger as she drew clean water. How often she thought of him now, missed him, wanted to see his warm dark eyes crinkle with laughter, wanted that and so much more. I must write to him at once, Leona thought.

The children came upon her standing very still, her pale face turned toward the front window. “What'sa matter?” Walter said, and she turned, startled, and smiled. “Oh, I was just remembering your Aunt Vee. What a good time we had.”

With a few wooden poker chips and a saucer, she showed them how to play tiddlywinks. And when they had tired of that, she gave them a damp deck of playing cards and said she would play the first one who won three games of Crazy Eights.

“We played Crazy Eights at Funny Grandma's house,” Mamie said, and Leona smiled. “Yes,” she replied. “I know you did. I remember.”

But before the card game was finished, Walter came to her. “Can we make a snowman?”

“You can try if you want to, but the snow's too hard and dry. It won't stick together.” Still relieved to be out of the car, they wanted to romp and play outside and Leona immediately chided herself for dampening their enthusiasm. “Why don't you see if you can't make that snowman?”

“You want a big one?” Walter said.

“Yes,” she said. “A very great big one.”

“
O-kay
.” And they put on their warm clothes and ran out.

The stairway to the balcony and second-floor bedrooms ran against the lower wall with a small landing halfway up. The balcony itself was bare except for the small Queen Anne table Helen Merchassen had insisted on bringing here, and two delicate, spindle-back chairs, so old the glue was loose in their joints. Leona ran up and down those stairs all afternoon. With the mallet, she knocked the plywood covers from two of the bedroom windows, but was unable to budge the third. Once, sitting on the side of her bed, she took from her purse the wooden flower Mark had carved for her and set it up against the vanity mirror. And it all came flooding back again—his laugh, his voice that strummed within her, the slow tilting nod when he first said hello to her, morning and evening, so careful and effortless at the same time. But now her memories stung her so deeply, she could hardly bear to look at the small carving.