Silver-White (The Great North Woods Pack #1) (2 page)

Lying there in a heap of despondency, she
wasn’t sad enough to cry, she wasn’t angry in that obvious, screaming and
pitching-a-total-fit sort of way. This was a silent, simmering, focused
rage—the kind that drives otherwise nonviolent people to, say for instance, calmly
walk to the kitchen, pick up a knife, and stab the cause of that rage to death
without a word of warning.

“Just give someone a chance,” her
friends loved to say. “You’re way too picky.” Well, she was picky for good
reason. She’d given someone a chance, and this is what she got for it. Ditched.
By a part-time shoe salesman no less! One who thought watching SportsCenter
every night and repeating what he’d heard made
him
some sort of an athlete.

Ha!
If she hadn’t
been so angry she would have laughed out loud. That much he was good for at
least; he was funny … sometimes. But not half as smart as he thought he was.
And definitely not as slick.

“Never again, buddy,” she promised
herself aloud. “I don’t play baseball. One strike and you’re out.”

Again Evie rolled over. Facing the wall
was darker, and darkness was conducive to sleep. In the process of rolling over
she made her mind up: she would track him down and cause him bodily harm—at her
earliest convenience of course.

Not for ditching her. No, she was over
that quickly. And the fact that he wouldn’t get the chance to do it again was a
small comfort. It was the summer—the August she couldn’t get back that really burned
her. That was the helpless part. When Evie felt helpless, Evie got
mad
. And when Evie got mad, balls tended
to get kicked. Hard. Soccer had been good practice.

Thinking this way, it took her a long
time to fall sleep. Without a clue where a dream would soon lead her, she had
no way of guessing that these few bitter hours would be the final hours of her ordinary
life.

Evie shivered. The voice pulling her
from the dream was urging her to wake. As she took her first conscious breath,
the smell of dewy bark mulch filled her head. Then she felt something soft being
draped over her. Blinking under the growing light, she trembled under the blanket.

“It’s me,” the voice said, and Evie
recognized it now as her mother’s gentle whisper. “Can you stand?”

In response Evie mumbled something incoherent
as she set her mind to the task of standing, still clueless as to her location
or the reason for her mother’s urgings. The moment she moved, however, her
efforts were met with an immediate surge of head-to-toe pain. She winced,
squeezing her eyes tightly shut. Never in her life had she felt anything like
it. Every joint felt locked, every inch of her body tender to the touch; the
soft morning light seemed harsh.

“I know it hurts,” her mother said
softly, “but you can’t stay in the flower garden all day. Not like this anyway.
You’re naked as the day you were born, girl.”

Evie stood weakly but quickly then, assisted
by the strong drive of extreme embarrassment and her faithful mother. Everything
was spinning. Clutching the blanket to her bare skin she set off staggering for
the house, squinting under the terrible glare, and leaning on her mother. Up
the back steps they climbed one step at a time to the deck and entered the
living room through the sliding glass door. From there Evie crawled onto the
couch, sinking down into its warm softness, and lay shivering under the
blanket. If she’d spent the night on a bed of jagged rocks, she could have felt
no worse.

“At least it was
our
flower bed,” her mother remarked. “There’s always a bright side,
honey.”

Evie groaned. Her mind was in a fog. Just
to speak seemed to require a great effort. “What’s going on? Why was I outside?
And why am I naked?”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Remember
what?
”

“Only the wildest Friday night of your
life. For sure I thought you’d remember
that
.”

“Last night?” Evie murmured, trying in
vain to focus through her discomfort. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing, never mind,” her mother said
calmly. “You’re in shock right now and you’re spiking a fever. Keep still.”

Evie had had fevers before. This was a
million
times worse. It felt like she
was dying. The neighbors had probably seen her naked, and her mother was
practically laughing about it. Why was she so … so happy?

“Look at me,” her mother said then,
kneeling by the couch. “Evie, look at me.”

Between heavy eyelids the confused girl stared
into her mother’s smiling, unworried face.

“Trust me,” she said. “I wouldn’t let
anything happen to you. You’re okay. This feeling will pass.”

Evie let her eyes close again. Her
mother was a nurse. There was no reason to doubt her judgment, regardless of
how strange it was for an otherwise sane and healthy teenager to turn up
feverish and naked on a bed of bark mulch.

Sure
.
No
problem
.

“Here,” her mother said a minute later.
“Take this and drink.”

Evie opened her eyes just enough to take
a pill and a glass of water. Leaning on her aching elbow, she drank what she
could, swallowed the pill, and sank down again as soon her mother took the
glass away. Then she was out like a light.

Hours later Evie woke to a strange
humming sound. Dressed in sweats and covered by a blanket, she found herself
reclined in a plush leather seat. She’d been dreaming calm, weightless dreams
that seemed to go on forever, dull after the excitement of the running dream
that she could not clearly recall when conscious. Then something had shaken her,
and she’d felt herself slowly coming back into her aching body. Blinking in the
glare, she turned her head to check her surroundings. There were small windows
of blinding light and more of the tan-colored seats; then her mother’s cheery face
came into focus.

“Turbulence,” she said, leaning toward
her daughter from across the narrow jet aisle. “I’d hoped you could sleep
through the flight. How do you feel?”

“Awful,” Evie croaked.

“You’re cooler than you were this
morning,” she said with her hand on Evie’s forehead. “That’s very good news.”

“Where are we?”

“In the
sky
,” Janie answered with twinkly eyes. “Your grandfather spares no
expense in times like these.”

“Papa Joe?”
Evie drawled,
her affection shining through her great discomfort.

“Yes, honey. We’re on our way home. You’ll
be with him very soon.”

Evie rubbed her forehead. Questions upon
questions raced through her foggy mind. Her grandparents lived up north. Way up
north in New Hampshire. Just shy of Canada. AKA the middle of nowhere. How that
could be the best place for a delirious girl feeling at death’s door, Evie
couldn’t figure. But she hadn’t the energy to voice her questions.

“Go back to sleep if you can,” her
mother said. “We’ll be there in no time.”

The thought alone of her favorite place
and her favorite people was a comfort to Evie. She closed her eyes and drifted
away again, knowing that in no time she would be with her grandfather. He would
make everything all right, as only he could.

When the jet landed at the private
airfield, Evie was barely conscious. As the weightless dreams faded and
daylight met her eyes once more, all that mattered, all that was clear was that
her Papa Joe was in the cabin the moment the plane rolled to a stop. The lumber
baron—a tall and sturdy man appearing less than his seventy two years, except
for his snowy hair—was speaking with her mother, his only daughter. Then he
turned to his granddaughter, and Evie felt the weight of his piercing gaze fall
warmly on her. Though his expression appeared slightly more excited than normal,
he approached her with his common delicacy.

“Good afternoon, stranger,” he said
kneeling by her seat. “You’ve had a rough morning, so I hear.”

Evie nodded pathetically. “Yes, Papa.”

“Well,” he began, taking Evie’s hand
very gently, “I’m sorry to hear that. You know I hate to see you feeling badly.
But, I can promise you the worst is over. You’re with me now, and I say you’ll be
back on your feet in no time.”

Tears started in Evie’s eyes. To appear weak
and helpless before anyone else would’ve been an insufferable shame for Evie
the competitor. But her grandfather, Joseph Ludlow, was special, no matter how much
she tried to downplay it to the rest of the family. In his presence she
couldn’t help but feeling differently, and acting differently in accordance. Though
she was no longer a child, a part of her felt forever a rosy-cheeked little
girl before him; fascinated with him, and delightedly adored by him.

Ever since her first meeting with her
grandfather she’d felt a connection with him beyond all others. This was due in
part by the fact that she didn’t see him often enough—the absence and fondness
factor. Add to that the spell of his warm voice, the power of his eyes, the way
he carried himself so straight, so confidently for a man of his age, so alert
and in control of his world, and so dedicated to his family. But above these
reasons Evie prized her grandfather because, in the absolute furthest reaches
of her memory, Joseph Ludlow was the first man she could recall meeting. Ever.
Period.
If her own father had been in her life, things might
have been different, but by sixteen Evie had long given up imagining that
scenario. What she did have was the greatest grandfather in the world. Toward
him, whether it was entirely intentional or not, she directed the majority of
her affections.
By
him all others were measured, and of course fell short.

Looking at him then through half-open
eyes, all this passed through Evie’s mind. But all she managed to say was,
“What’s wrong with me, Papa?”

“Not a thing, my dear,” he answered like
the old gentleman that he was. “Don’t worry yourself. After a nap in your old
room and some good food, I think you’ll feel brand new. Better than new,
actually. How does that sound?”

“Oh-kay, Puh-puh,” Evie said with extra
drawl, the trick she’d learned years ago to make her grandfather smile his
perfect smile.

The trick worked now as well as ever.
Joseph Ludlow smiled as he prepared to lift her, saying, “Let’s get you to the
house.”

Papa Joe’s newest truck had soft, heated
seats. Evie realized this as soon as he placed her aching frame gently in the
passenger side. And as her grandfather drove, one eye on the road, the other on
her, a warm sense of peace took her over. She didn’t see the mountains, the center
of town, or the long driveway through the trees leading to the farm she so loved,
because she was fast asleep.

In her dream the race was on. Through
the dark she ran swiftly. This time, over a familiar, well-worn trail on her
grandfather’s property, she moved faster than a four-wheeler had carried her
many times in summers past. Like her first dream, she was moving at that same incredible
rate without the slightest fatigue. But unlike the first dream, her purpose seemed
strangely clear. Urgently so, she knew exactly her destination, only not the
reason.

In a small clearing she slowed. With the
night deathly quiet about her she walked on sparse grass and dry leaves; the
ruins of nearly a dozen old structures fanned out on either side of her. Century
old cabins, some were partially caved in, some fully collapsed into heaps. All
were overtaken by brush and new growth of some sort—weeds, moss, flowers, and young
trees sprouting where roofs had once been. These structures Evie paid little
mind to, and did not stop her quiet march until she’d reached the destination
she’d seen clearly in her mind—the single cabin that had been preserved, spared
somehow by the slow demise of time.

The light of the night sky shone through
the thinned tree cover. In that pale glow the logs of the surviving cabin appeared
rough and weathered, but still sturdy, and strangely, beautiful. She’d seen
this small building many times, but never at night, never alone. Windowless,
its only entrance was now black in shadow. There, to that black rectangle Evie
had felt herself compelled to reach. She stopped several yards shy and stared
unknowingly into the blackness.

As a very young girl Evie had believed
this secluded structure to be haunted—as was the small graveyard elsewhere on
the property. At the time her theory was based solely on appearances combined
with childhood imaginings. Now, as a young adult, she was set to discover just how
accurate that childish belief had been.

Before she could see anything at all, a
sound caught Evie’s attention—a sound that reminded her of a long, heavy breath
being taken, and with a sudden shock—a shivery, discomforting understanding—she
realized that she was not alone.
Taking several startled steps backwards
from the doorway, she stopped firmly, holding absolutely still, listening, waiting
for the sound to repeat. Before it did, her eyes caught movements.

Inside, in the blackness beyond the
doorway, she saw first a faint silvery blur, then a trace hint of green that
reminded her of eyeshine. She watched silently as the blur continued to gather,
to grow in that darkness, slowly but surely into a hazy shape. With the shape a
differing sound also grew—a sound as something very heavy would make when moving
deliberately slow, padding lightly. Both sight and sound continued their
increase, until at last they merged into a single animate form—an unbelievable
figure stalking towards her.