The Door in the Forest (4 page)

“The jam?” Bridey prompted.

Gwen found the jar of preserves. “Have you gotten her to speak?”

“We … communicate,” she said. “Haven’t gotten around to actual words yet.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“I know we will.” The women watched as Emily wolfed the bread and jam and then washed it down with milk. “Well,” said Bridey after a while, “time we were going. Ready, Emily?”

Gwen didn’t like to admit she was relieved. It was tricky enough, in these lean times, to feed her own family. “Danny, why don’t you go with them and help get Emily settled?”

Daniel glanced from one woman to the other. There went his day. “Sure,” he said.

Ten minutes later, with the girl in the front beside her grandmother and Daniel jouncing about in the broken-springed backseat, they were on their way, raising a tunnel of dust behind them along the dirt road. Bridey had opened the split windshield to let in air, but then closed it against dust and bugs. Emily didn’t seem to notice. She stared out at pastures and windbreaks, a house, a horse, a barn all whizzing by at something like twenty miles an hour—a crazy speed!

Between the seats, Daniel observed the silent girl in the front, with her cloth bag of belongings beside her. Her smudged dress, snub nose, and impossible hair gave her the look of a vagabond; but she had one prized possession at least, something in her lap she kept fingering. A toy? No, a necklace, he now saw. It looked like a cheap string of funny-shaped pearls.

She rubbed them as she might a rosary, for luck and comfort. She could use a lot of both, he thought. Bouncing along, he found himself grateful for the racket the car was making—a “bucket of bolts,” the old lady had called it. It made the girl’s silence less awkward. Less
audible
, in a way. How long had she been like this? Daniel didn’t really remember her from when she’d lived here before.

And how was it she hadn’t come to see her grandmother in all those years? The city was fifty miles away, far enough, but not one visit in six years?

His reverie was interrupted by a startling sight. Up ahead, taking up most of the road, marched a company of soldiers led by a muddy staff car, several old Crossley military vehicles, and two armored trucks. Taking up the rear was a slow-moving, house-sized monster topped by a cannon barrel that protruded like a horn. The tank shimmered in its own heat waves while its great heart roared and metal treads clanked down the road. Daniel knew such things had been used in the Great War, which had ended back in 1918, five long years ago. Perhaps this weapon had been taken out of retirement and adapted for the little wars—the Uncertainties—that plagued his own land. But why would a tank be coming to Everwood, a nothing little farm town? Were they planning to shoot at cows?

Grandma Byrdsong pulled her car to the side and yanked the emergency brake as the trucks rumbled past, and behind them the soldiers. Somehow, the men didn’t seem so impressive up close, and there were not as many as Daniel had thought. They looked weary and were not so much marching as trudging. More than one relied on a crutch.

He looked to Bridey for an explanation. He assumed that, as the town’s one witch (something she neither admitted nor denied), she’d know everything. But she was gawking like a tourist.

Emily, he realized with a start, was no longer in her seat, but huddled beneath the dashboard, with her skinny arms over her head.
That’s right
, he thought with a pang,
she’s had run-ins with these people before. They arrested her mom
.

“It’s okay,” he said when the soldiers had passed. “They’re gone.”

Emily didn’t answer. She stayed under the dashboard, and so did not see when Bridey turned off onto a narrow dirt road with a mane of brown grass running down the middle. She didn’t see the car climbing past elms and elderberry that ran leafy hands and scratchy fingernails along the roof and passenger side. Nor did she see the house emerging at the top in dilapidated grandeur, with circle drive and porticoed entrance; or the wild vegetable garden; or the big lilac tree that reached past the second floor; or the cats, some rumored to be feral, peering out from under the rotted porch.

“Here we are,” called out Grandma Byrdsong, lurching to a stop. “Home sweet home.”

Late that night, Emily was wakened by the wind, or was it a sound within the wind? It seemed like a high, soft moaning, more like a call than a moan.

Her grandmother had given her the bedroom at the top of the house, the Four Seasons room, just below the widow’s walk. It was a small and private place, square as a box, with
a window on each wall, inviting weather from all directions, and a different season from each side. Just now, the window on the summer side was shuddering in its loose frame.

The house, once quite grand, was so full of creaks and groans it was hard to tell where any particular sound was coming from. Seen from the front, the dirty white columns and sagging Victorian trim gave the place the look of a failed wedding cake.

Emily didn’t mind. After her days on the road, she was glad for any roof over her head, and this one, at least, didn’t leak. It helped to remember that this had been her mother’s room once. She lay listening in the darkness. The wind, yes, but there was something besides the wind. Quietly, as if not to frighten the sound away, she slipped from bed and padded barefoot into the hall.

Nothing.

Almost nothing.

She noticed a round-topped door to her left. As a small child, she used to be frightened of it and never tried to get it open. Medieval-looking, heavy and darkly studded, it warned her away. That didn’t stop her now, though it took all her strength to pull the bolt on a rusty latch. As she’d hoped, stairs led to the widow’s walk on the roof of the house. Stepping outside, she was nearly blown off balance and grabbed on to the iron railing to steady herself. It was scary out here, exposed in all directions to the wild night wind, but exciting, too. Overhead, a quarter moon scythed through a tangle of clouds. Below lay the woods, like a coverlet, and in the midst of it a ribbon of blackness. She squinted, trying to make it out. Then the ribbon began to glint as the moon broke free
of the clouds, and she realized she was looking at water, several streams surrounding a sort of island. Strange, she thought, an island in the middle of a forest. This was probably the only place in town that you could see it from. Her grandmother’s house stood on a rise of land, giving a view over the treetops.

She heard it again, a faint call like a woman’s voice, and it was coming from the direction of the island. She strained to hear. The tall, vine-covered trees swayed like sad dancers. There! She heard it again. Could almost make out the words.

Her breath caught in her throat. She had heard, had thought she’d heard, a voice calling
Where are you? Where are you
?

The words were lost in the sighing of the trees.

The whole island was moving, the curtain of vines swinging like long dresses. Just for a moment, the dresses swung aside, revealing a pale figure within the gloom. Was it an animal? Could it have been a woman? Too far away to tell.

Emily stood leaning out over the rail, staring and staring, but the vines did not part again. Her throat ached with unshed tears and unsaid words.

“
Mama
!” she cried out suddenly into the night. “
I’m here! I’m here
!”

Daniel didn’t want to take her, but it was hard to argue about it. The girl had been here three days, had no friends, and appeared to be mute. What would it hurt to have her come along on one of his walks?

It was no good to say that Wesley could just as easily take her. This was a school day for him, and there was even a quiz. Name two cities on the Baltic, that sort of thing. Excuses don’t come better than that.

To sweeten the deal, Daniel’s mother made two bag lunches and added a couple of fresh-baked brownies wrapped in wax paper. Daniel stuffed everything in his backpack, along with some rope and other supplies for his secret cave.

Well, secret. It wasn’t really secret and wasn’t much of a cave. It went back ten or twelve feet into the rocky hillside and had a narrow entrance formed by a couple of boulders that at some point, centuries ago, must have rolled against each other. Apparently, other kids had used this cave years before, leaving scratchings and designs on the back wall. Daniel
liked to think the marks were ancient petroglyphs left by a long-dead civilization, but the illusion was hard to maintain when you saw
MOLLY ♥ PETE
and
HOWIE IS A BIG FAT JERK
.

Sometimes he and Wesley built a fire there and camped out, but more often, Daniel went alone to think. He didn’t like the idea of taking a stranger with him, but somehow without knowing or even liking her, he trusted this girl. Trusted her silence. She wasn’t likely to spill any secrets.

And he had to admit, she’d improved a lot since that first day. A bath and a few nights’ sleep had helped; and Grandma Byrdsong had managed to untangle that squirrel’s nest of hair. It was still a little on the wild side, but the curls were held firmly in place with a green velvet headband. Standing there in the yard, she looked almost like a regular person, in a simple blue dress with tiny flowers—sleeves to her forearms, and the cuffs fastened with pearl buttons.

It was not a dress to go hiking in, but what would she know about that? She was a city girl, unused to struggling through underbrush or keeping her footing on shale. During the whole time, she didn’t say a word.

“Keep up, will you?” Daniel said, seeing her fall behind again. But then he regretted his tone. She was trying. It wasn’t her fault she was short and couldn’t keep up with his long-legged strides. And how could anybody hike in those shoes? “Come on,” he said more gently, “we’re almost there.”

The hill steepened. Up ahead stood the laurel bushes and the boulders that hid the mouth of the cave. Daniel and his brother had always been careful to vary the way they approached the place, to avoid wearing a path in the hillside that others could see and follow. As a result, there was no
easy way to go. Slippery leaves from last year covered unstable stones, and it wasn’t long before Emily let out a strangled cry and fell hard.

“Hey,” said Daniel, crouching beside her. “Are you okay?” A red spot was visible on her dress near her knee. “Let’s take a look at that.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“Come on,” he said. “I’m not going to bite you.”

She held the hem of her dress tightly around her ankles. No strange boy was going to look at her knee.

“Have it your way.” He stood and pulled her to her feet. “We’ve got a first-aid kit in the cave. You can use that.”

No words. No smile. No complaint, unless you count wincing. They continued on, at last reaching the entrance. He sat her down outside, by the fire pit, and handed her the first-aid kit and his canteen. “Sure you want to do this yourself?”

She didn’t look at him.

“Okay. Wash it out really well. Then you can put on the other stuff. I’ll be inside.”

What a bother she was.

He clicked on his flashlight and headed into the dark to straighten things up: tools, including his coiled rope, on one rock ledge; cans of brown bread and containers of dry food on another; bedrolls up on boards to keep out the damp. As always, he glanced at the “cave paintings” left by former generations of kids. Did they really think they’d fool anyone?

Then came the sweeping out of spiders. That was the part he hated. Spiders gave him a serious case of the creeps.

All this didn’t take long, so he counted slowly to twenty. Surely she’d had time enough by now; but when he went
back out, she was still fiddling with the bandage. Tears stood in her eyes.

“I see what’s the matter,” he said, kneeling. “You can’t hold the bandage and tie it at the same time. Right?”

She had pulled the hem of her dress down when he appeared, but now, with a sullen look, she raised it a little so he could see.

“Do you mind?” He pulled away the gauze pad. “Did you use the calendula lotion?”

She looked puzzled.