The Door in the Forest (13 page)

“Nowhere.”

“You going to see that Crowley kid? We’re looking for him.”

“Why would I want to see him?”

“What’s in the bag?”

“Nothing.”

“Let’s see.” He reached a ham-sized hand inside and pulled out the pad.

“I like to draw.”

The man frowned. “Draw what?”

“Flowers? Trees? Bunnies?”

He handed the pad back and Emily went to the door, stopping in front of the backwards mirror. She glanced at Dominick, but he’d already turned away. Quickly she undid a few buttons of her dress and pulled the material aside. Her back’s reflection was right in front of her, and across it lay a weirdly familiar pattern, written in freckles. She stared. Noticing a soldier glancing her way, she buttoned up and ducked out the door, her heart beating with a strange excitement.

She found the boys where she’d left them, behind a bushy hemlock just inside the lip of the woods.

“How’s the shoulder feel?” said Daniel.

“Hadn’t noticed.”

They moved deeper into the woods and cut over to the cave. Emily sat down on her favorite rock. “All right,” she admitted, “they do look like freckles. I don’t get it.”

“Do they look like the map?” said Wesley, who’d never seen the map himself.

“Maybe. Kind of.” She turned to Daniel. “You burn the map,” she murmured, “so the map is burned into me?”

“Did you bring some paper?” said Wesley. “We’d better copy this down.”

“Do you mind?” said Daniel.

“Go ahead.”

Of the three of them, Wesley was the best sketcher, and so he did the drawing while Emily tried to hold still.

“Don’t wiggle!” said Wesley, erasing several dots.

“I got an itch!”

“I can’t do this if you keep moving.”

Emily cast a sidelong glance at Daniel.

The result wasn’t perfect, but close enough. The question was how to use it. Daniel squinted at three little marks on three sides of a larger blotch (the island?) and thought about the original document. He turned to Wesley. “In your geography class, you studied maps, right?”

“We’re doing a whole unit on them.”

“What do you make of this one?”

Wesley frowned. “Without any place names or longitude or latitude?”

True, there were no place names, but Daniel remembered little spiral symbols on three sides of the central area—like seashells twisting three turns to the left. He described them.

“I remember that,” said Emily. “I’d forgotten they curved to the left.”

“Counterclockwise.”

“Lefty loosey,” she murmured.

“What?” said Daniel.

“Righty tighty, lefty loosey. That’s what Grandma taught me about opening jars.”

“I wish she’d said something about opening the island.”

“What are you
talking
about?” Wesley demanded.

They looked at the map again.

“Do you remember the words around the edge?” said
Daniel. “I couldn’t make them out. Something about a serpent?”

“I think I figured it out,” said Emily. “It said, ‘Cover the Serpent with Next Spring’s Earth.’ ” She looked around at the others.

“That’s it?” said Wesley.

“There’s a little more. It doesn’t make sense, either. ‘Three times Round for the Heart’s Rebirth.’ ”

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s senseless.”

“Cover the serpent,” Daniel murmured.

“Maybe,” she said, “we should go back to that spiral. You say it goes three times to the left?”

Wesley stood up. “Wait a minute. Is it anything like that mark in the back of the cave?”

The other two looked at him blankly.

“I’ll show you. Give me the flashlight.”

The three of them crowded through the narrow opening. The flashlight cast strange shadows, but there along the back wall, among initials and chalked dates (some going back twenty years), was a deeply etched spiral, not an easy thing to inscribe in such hard rock. It curved three times to the left.

“That’s it!” Daniel cried.

Emily’s eyes shone.

“Do you think,” she said as they stumbled outside, “this is one of the places on the map?”

“One of three points,” suggested Daniel, pointing to strategic freckle-shaped marks on three sides of the island.

Wesley looked him doubtfully. “Pretty far-fetched.”

“The scientist speaks,” said Daniel dryly.

Emily tossed her curls. “But where are the other two? And,” she said slowly, “do you think the spiral could possibly be a serpent?”

They looked at one another.

Emily’s mouth edged into a smile.

Wesley was the kind of kid who needed to do things right. “Before we go smearing dirt around in the cave,” he said, “let me get my county map. It’s a lot more exact than this thing.” He looked at the crude drawing he’d made.

Daniel nodded.

“But hurry back,” said Emily.

So Wesley went up to the house for his map, protractor, compass, and, to be on the safe side, a pocketful of brownies his mother had made.

While there, he told her about Daniel, that he was okay but wouldn’t be back for dinner or anything else until things cooled down with Sloper.

Gwen Crowley was alarmed. She’d been alarmed since last night, when she came home to find the house stinking of smoke and Daniel’s room ruined. She paced around the kitchen clasping and unclasping her hands and wouldn’t sit down. She’d talk to the captain, she said, when he came in and get him to promise not to hurt her son.

“Emily says not to trust him, no matter what he promises.”

“Oh, I don’t. Where’s Danny? Is he at the cave?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you coming back, at least?”

“I don’t know. Actually, we’re trying to get onto the island.”

“Wesley, no! Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“I know, Mom, but we think we’ve found a map.”

“Who is we? You and Daniel?”

“And Emily.”

“Emily’s with you? Wait.” She took out a bag and filled it with ham slices, crusty bread, a hunk of yellow cheese, and a bag of pine nuts. For good measure, she tossed in a couple of apples. “Here, it’s all I can spare, but it should keep you fed for a little while.”

Wes wedged it into his backpack.

“Just a minute,” said Gwen. “Get your brother’s canteen.”

She filled it with cold water from the pump.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“You be careful, now,” she said, watching as he hurried off, jumping down the two stone steps, then cutting across the Fishes’ backyard and heading for the woods.

She watched long after he was out of sight.

The two friends sat together on the boulder above the cave. The sun beat down on them with a special emphasis.

“Spring earth,” Emily murmured, turning the drawing over in her hands.

Daniel shook his head. “No,
next
spring’s earth.”

“And here we are in the middle of summer. Wait a minute!” She sat up straight. Then she stood up. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

She looked at him excitedly. “Stay here and wait for Wesley.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Grandma’s house. Don’t worry. I’ll be quick.”

“Em …”

But she’d already climbed down and was scampering off through the woods.

Yes
, she thought.
Of course
!

By the time she reached the house, she was sweating. “Forget something?” Big Dominick watched Emily hurry past, through the hall and up the staircase.

Breathless, she reached the top floor and burst into her room. She paused, trying to remember which was the spring window. As she cranked open the nearest one, several dry leaves blew in on a chilly breeze.

The next window gave her a view of budding trees swaying in gentle sunlight. Part of the garden was visible, and the earth looked freshly turned.
Good
, she thought, but was she seeing last spring or next spring?
Just have to take my chances
. A trellis thick with greening ivy covered the whole side of the house. Would it hold her? It was a long way to the ground.

With her hand, she tested one of the wooden slats and found it springy, even flimsy; but the ivy’s roots gripped the wall firmly. It occurred to her that this might not be the smartest idea she’d ever had.

She tried to think of some other way. There was none. Taking a deep breath, she swung a leg over and started down.

The two brothers looked up with relief to see Emily staggering toward them carrying a pail filled with dirt. Daniel ran to help her.

“We were worried you weren’t coming back.”

“Almost didn’t,” she said, catching her breath. “Ever try climbing up a wall while lugging a pail of dirt?”

Daniel smiled. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, don’t.”

“Here, take a drink of water. Wesley brought a canteen from the house.”

She nodded thanks and took a deep drink, ending with a gasp.

“You want to tell us what this is about?” said Daniel.

She sat down by the extinct fire pit. It seemed she was trying not to smile. “Feast your eyes,” she said, “on next spring’s earth.”

Eagerly, she told about her adventure and the strange feeling it gave her to enter a different season—and to bring a bucketful of the future back to the present.

“Now,” said Wesley, “all we have to do is figure out where to put that wonderful dirt.”

“Well, we think we know one place,” she said.

“Yeah, but there have to be others.”

Wesley spread out the county map he’d brought from the house. Beside it he laid the map he’d drawn. He was good at this kind of thing—math, geometry, geography, anything to do with calculations. Daniel let him work.

While they waited, Emily and Daniel looked into making sandwiches. “Here,” Emily said, handing a ham sandwich and a brownie to Wesley. “Brain food.”

The boy took absentminded bites as he refigured his work. “The original map was very old, right? Rock formations might be the only things left. This cave, for instance.”

“So,” said Emily, “we need to find two other formations?”

“I know where they
should
be,” said Wesley, shouldering his backpack. “Let’s see if they’re there.”

“And we’re supposed to go counterclockwise,” said Daniel.

“Three times around?” said Emily.

Daniel held up his hand. “First, let’s do this one.”

They went in the back of the cave, Emily holding the flashlight. She reached into the pail for some dirt, but found it wouldn’t stay in the groove of the spiral. Daniel dribbled in some water from the canteen, making mud, and she had better luck with that. In fact, the design was soon covered, leaving only a dark patch on the wall.

She stood back, admiring her messy work. “Now for the other two.”

With the help of Wesley’s compass and the county map, it wasn’t long before they found a likely formation. It was a single vertical boulder rising like a monolith from the hillside. They walked around it slowly, looking for markings. They didn’t find any.

“I wonder,” said Wesley. He knelt and started scooping dirt away from the base. “This is on a hill. Over the years, the soil would have built up on the back side.”

A foot below the surface, there it was. Emily traced the
spiral gently with her finger. She looked up at the boys and smiled brightly.