The Park Service: Book One of The Park Service Trilogy (14 page)

Who made all this stuff, I wonder.

The room is quiet, too quiet. It feels strange to be alone, to be away from Jimmy after all this time. I consider going to find him, but I decide to check out the bathroom instead.

White tile floors, a white clawfoot tub with silver plumbing hanging from it like jewelry. I turn the tap and hot water pours from the waterfall spout. Ah, to have running water again. As the tub fills, I remove my father’s pipe from my neck and set it on the counter, strip off my filthy furs, my homemade shoes, and stand in front of the full length mirror.

I don’t even recognize myself, and I like it.

Other than glimpses in rivers or streams here and there, I haven’t seen my reflection since leaving Holocene II. I’m taller than I was then and my shoulders are wider, my muscles more developed. My skin is tan, my hands calloused and roped with veins. And my shaggy hair hangs almost to my shoulders and it reminds me of Jimmy’s.

The steam from the filling tub climbs up the mirror like some fog from the past and my reflection is covered up until just my eyes float there looking back. And then they too recede and leave me looking at nothing but foggy glass.

The water’s hot. I grip the tub edges and lower myself in, sitting still to keep from burning. I feel the heat leach away the dirt and grime, the aches and pains. When the water cools, I reach for a bar of soap and scrub. The water turns so dark with dirt that I have to drain it and then fill it again.

Wrapping myself in an enormous soft towel, I step from the tub and search the countertops until I find a toothbrush and some paste. I’ve done my best with moss and pieces of fur to keep my teeth clean, but the brush takes off layers of grime and leaves them feeling fresh and smooth against my tongue. I find scissors and cut my nails. The clippings are long and dark and they pile on the counter like dead insects.

Back in the room, I find clothes folded neatly at the edge of the bed. On top of the clothes, written in beautiful script on pink stationery is a note that reads:

TAKE A NAP IF YOU’D LIKE ONE. SUPPER WILL BE SERVED ON THE TERRACE AT DUSK.

There’s a soft tap on the bedroom door. My heart jumps, thinking maybe it’s Hannah. I wrap the towel around my waist, puff out my chest, and open the door. Jimmy’s standing there.

“Hey, Jimmy. What’s up?”

He hands me a note.

“What’s this say?”

“It just says we’re having dinner on the terrace.”

“Oh,” he says, nodding. “Ya look different.”

“I took a bath. You should too, it feels great.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I’m gonna rest,” I say, feeling very drowsy now.

“Sure,” he says. “Okay, I’ll see ya for dinner then.”

As soon as I shut the door, there’s another knock.

“What is it, Jimmy?” I ask, opening it again.

“I gotta go.”

“You’re leaving?”

“No, I gotta go shishi.”

“Oh,” I say, chuckling. “Just use the toilet.”

“Which one’s the toilet?”

I invite him in and show him the toilet and how to flush it. He nods, seeming to understand, but looking uncomfortable.

“How do ya know all this stuff?” he asks.

“I grew up with plumbing.”

“So ya’ll jus’ shishi in yer houses?”

“Guess I never thought of it like that,” I say, shaking my head as I walk him to the door and see him out.

The bedding smells of lavender, the pillows smell of pine, and the sheets are warmed from the sun filtering into the quiet room. I’m comfortably full, I’m clean. I feel as if I’m floating in some fantastic fantasy as I close my eyes and picture Hannah’s flowing red hair and her perfect angel face.

I fall asleep and I do not dream.

CHAPTER 24
My Sweet, Sweet Hannah

I stir, turn.

The light is gone from the window—

Oh, no, I overslept!

I jump out of bed and flick on the lamp.

The linen slacks are a little too big, but I cinch them with the belt and roll the cuffs to make them fit. I pull on the shirt, slip on the fabric sandals. Then I hang my father’s pipe around my neck and comb my fingers through my long hair and pull it away from face. I feel entirely new and civilized as I step from the room and make my way through the house to the terrace.

I find her sitting alone on a wicker chair beside a stone fire pit, holding Junior in her lap, stroking his fur and looking out across the lake. She wears a simple green dress that’s striking against her red hair. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful as she looks sitting there.

She hears me step up and nods to a chair. The fire pit must be fueled with gas because flames rise out of nothing but white sand and seesaw at the air in a light breeze coming off the lake.

“It’s not good to take animals from their environment,” she says, looking at Junior in her lap. “This little guy should be out there with his mother.”

“His mother got eaten,” I say.

“Still,” she says, frowning slightly, “there’s a natural order to things. Whatever ate his mother was fulfilling its role. Who are we to step in and save this one from the same fate?”

“We ate his mother,” I say.

“Oh,” she says, straightening up and setting Junior on the ground quite suddenly. “You ate meat?”

“Yes. We ate meat.”

“What was it like?”

“You’ve never eaten meat?”

“No,” she says, holding her hand to her heart as if her honor has been offended. “We’re vegans.”

“Well, I was raised vegan, too. I hadn’t ever eaten meat until ... well, until I met Jimmy.”

Almost as if I’d called him forth by mentioning his name, Jimmy steps from the house and onto the terrace. His feet are bare, his pants bunched around his waist, the legs rolled up to his knees. His shirt is unbuttoned and flapping in the breeze. He looks very out of place here. He joins us at the fire pit and lowers himself slowly into a seat across from me.

“You both look rested,” Hannah says. “Almost human.”

Jimmy looks furtively around as if he might be looking for something he lost. Hannah watches him for a while, her eyes curious, her head cocked. Then she turns to me and says:

“Do you play tennis?”

“A little, yeah. I mean, I’m not good or anything, but we had an indoor court where I grew up.”

“How about you, Jimmy?” she says. “Do you play tennis?”

Jimmy snaps his head to look at her, his eyes squinted.

“What do yer parents do?”

“Excuse me?”

“All this,” Jimmy says, waving his hand across the estate. “What do yer parents do fer it?”

Hannah turns to me.

“His manners are quite savage, aren’t they? I’ll go let Gloria know we’re ready for our supper.”

She stands, runs her hands along her curves to smooth the wrinkles from her dress, and glides across the terrace to the house, leaving Jimmy and I alone.

“You don’t have to be mean. I’ll teach you about tennis.”

“Ha! Yer gonna teach me?” Jimmy says, leaning forward and planting his hands on his knees. “We dunno nothin’ about these people. Nothin’. Who are they? What do they do?”

“I know she’s been kind enough to take us in and feed us. She even gave us clothes. The least we can do is be polite.”

Jimmy shakes his head.

“You dun’ remember nothin’, do ya? One look at a pretty face and ya forget ever-thin’ we done been through. The cove, the mountains—ever-thin’.”

I know he doesn’t mean it. He’s just being mean because he’s jealous, just like with his mother. Hannah’s paying more attention to me, and he doesn’t like it. But it’s not my fault.

“Listen,” I say, “I haven’t forgotten anything. Let’s just go with the flow and see what all this is about.”

Hannah steps from the house and waves us over to where a mosquito net drapes the table, suspended from an armature, protecting the gorgeous scene spread there. Bowls of fresh fruit and vases of cut flowers. Candles in glass canisters.

And this time, the table is set for three.

Jimmy ducks through the netting and sits without waiting at the single place setting across from the other two. I wait for Hannah to take her seat, then I sit next to her.

The sun has already dipped behind the mountains and the torch flames on the dock appear and disappear in the shadow of puff-white clouds that pass slowly overhead, pastel-looking in dark skies. The lake seems lit with some energy of its own in the lightness of twilight.

Hannah rings the bell.

The woman appears again and fills our glasses with water and sweet iced tea. Then she delivers a course of toasted bread spread with a rich herb paste that Hannah says is hemp butter.

“Thank you, Gloria. This is Aubrey, and this is Jimmy.”

I take Gloria’s hand.

“Nice to meet you.”

Jimmy ignores her, snatching a piece of bread and eating without waiting, his eyes averted from ours. Junior appears and whines and Jimmy passes him bread beneath the table.

Next, Gloria bring bowls of creamy tomato soup seasoned with an herb that Hannah says is basil.

While we eat, Hannah tells us about the lake.

“It never gets old, looking at this view. You know, this is the deepest lake now in all of America. Well, that’s what Daddy says. He would know. I just can’t wait for you to see it in the spring. All the minerals wash down from the glaciers and the water is so blue you’d swear it wasn’t even real.”

“Do you swim in it?” I ask.

“I’m not supposed to,” she says, “but I do it sometimes anyway, when my parents are away. Maybe we can all go out for a swim tonight. What do you think?”

“I’d like that,” I say.

Jimmy pushes his soup bowl away.

“Is the taste not to your liking?” Hannah asks. “I can have Gloria prepare you something special if you want.”

“Ya got any fish?” Jimmy says.

“Oh, no,” she says, “we don’t eat fish here.”

“What, there ain’t no fish in yer lake?”

“The lake is swimming with fish. All native species, too. But it’s not natural for humans to eat other animals.”

“If it ain’t natural,” Jimmy says, “then why do we got these teeth in our mouths? I’ll tell ya what it ain’t natural—livin’ in a big place like this while others is hidin’ out in caves.”

Hannah scowls at him.

“I’ll forgive your ignorance and just assume you don’t understand the human condition.”

Jimmy puffs out his cheeks and looks away.

Thankfully, Gloria breaks the tension by bringing out little dishes of mango sorbet and we eat them with tiny spoons that remind me of the one my father fed me with when I was a boy. After clearing away our sorbet dishes, she delivers a cold potato casserole to the table. Hannah watches Jimmy scoop it up and eat it with his hands, letting Junior lick his fingers clean beneath the table. She looks at me and shakes her head. I shrug.

We eat slow, the courses coming one at a time. I notice that Hannah eats only little tastes of things, telling us the names of all the foods. Then she tells us about the flowers around the lodge. She says the lodge is very old and that it once stood on a bluff overlooking the lake. She says that when the dam was built the water rose and brought the lake up and turned the bluff into a peninsula. Jimmy asks her when the dam was built and who built it, but she waves his question away and says it’s been there since long before she was born.

“Which was sixteen years ago last month,” she adds.

Our final course is a green salad with candied walnuts, and by the time it arrives, the evening alpenglow is sliding down the mountain and spreading across the lake like a luminous pink blanket. The torch reflections rise on the water, twins distorted by gusts of wind running on the lake, rustling across the grass, and softly billowing the netting around the table. The candles, protected in their jars, burn straight and still, and they cast a soft yellow glow over us and the remains of our feast.

As night comes on, Jimmy’s face recedes into shadow and his gray eyes slowly disappear until just the reflections of the candle flame hang there in each eye, like two yellow teardrops. He pushes his unfinished salad plate away and stands.

“I’m tired now and need to sleep,” he says.

“Of course,” Hannah says. “I’m sure Gloria has turned down your bed with fresh sheets.”

I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything.

Jimmy reaches beneath the table, scoops up Junior, ducks under the netting, and is gone, his shadow disappearing toward the house. Hannah watches after him, too. I think she might say something when he’s gone but she doesn’t.

We sit together and stare at the lake, the water darkening as the torch flames brighten on its mirror surface. A thick slice of moon rides above the trees, casting its double on the lake.

Gloria comes out and clears the table. When she returns, she has three stemmed glasses and a crystal bottle filled with red liquid that in the reflection of candlelight looks like blood. She nods toward Jimmy’s empty chair, but Hannah shakes her head and she takes the third glass back with her into the house.

Hannah pulls the stopper from the bottle, fills the glasses, and hands one to me. She picks up her glass and swirls the red liquid, smelling it before she takes a sip. I pick up my glass and copy her movements, tasting the sweet bite of bitter at the back of my tongue. It slides warm and heavy down my throat.

“What is this?”

“It’s port,” she says. “You like it?”

I nod and take another sip.

The night grows dark around us until we’re sitting together in a private world enclosed by the mosquito net. We drink and watch the candle flames reflect through the crystal decanter of port. The red glow highlights Hannah’s hair and her green eyes burn with an emerald sparkle as she sips her wine and looks at me. The port sits like an ember in my gut, slowly radiating heat outward until even my fingertips tingle with warm excitement. Hannah lifts the stopper again and refills our glasses.

“You must have been very brave to cross the mountains,” she says, breaking a long silence.

“Nah, it was nothing really,” I say, feeling myself blush.

“How long did it take you?”

“Two days total on the upper mountain, maybe another three on the approach, I think.”

“It must be lovely to be so close to the stars. I’ll bet you felt you could reach up and pluck them from the sky like fruit.”

“Have you never been to the mountains?”

“No,” she says, with a look of disappointment. “I’ve never been anywhere but here. But that will all change soon enough now. Now I’ll get to tour. How long have you known Jimmy?”

“Since early summer, I guess.”

“And how did you two meet?”

I’m not sure how much to tell, or if she’d even understand. I remember Jimmy’s warning that we don’t know anything about her yet, and part of me knows he’s right. But her green eyes smile at me with patient understanding, and her freckled face is so open, her look so soft, that I can’t imagine her being anything but sweet and pure and kind.

Nervous, I sip my port and set it down. Then I pick it up and sip it again. The warmth oozes into my chest and rises to my head, and I feel my cheeks flush, my heart quicken.

“Okay,” I say, “I have to tell you something, but I’ll warn you first—you might find it hard to believe.”

“You might be surprised what I’d believe,” she says, lifting an eyebrow and sipping her port. “Please, do tell.”

I look at her face, feel the wine wash away my inhibitions, and without thinking, everything pours from my mouth:

“The thing is this—I’m not from up here. I mean, I’m not from the surface. I grew up miles underground and we didn’t think any of this existed anymore up here. The lake, the trees, the ocean—anything. Then a terrible accident happened on a train—well, a kind of train that travels underground—and I climbed out of the wreck and onto the surface and nearly died. I met Jimmy and he really helped me a lot. He did. His family helped me too. But then they got slaughtered and we set out to find out what’s going on, who’s behind things. Then I saw you. Anyway, this probably isn’t making any sense, is it?”

“It makes perfect sense,” she says.

“You mean you believe me?”

“Believe you?” she says, a sexy, mischievous smile curling on her lips. “Of course I believe you.”

“Are you joking with me, or you really do?”

“I knew it all already,” she says. “And what I didn’t know I pieced together when you showed up.”

“What?” I close my eyes and shake my head, trying to clear the fog because the port is making me feel funny and I can’t be hearing her right. “You knew? How did you know?”

She drains her port, the smile still on her face.

“Because we had been expecting you, silly.”

“What do you mean you were expecting me?”

“We’ve been worried sick with wondering what happened to you. But let’s not think about that now. Daddy will explain everything to you tomorrow. Right now, let’s enjoy the night and go for a swim, shall we? Come on.”

She stands and passes through the mosquito net and with her silhouette cast on the sheer netting by the torchlight, she slides her dress free from her shoulders and slips it off.

She steps out of it and runs down to the dock.

I stand and the world spins for several seconds, then rights itself and sits glimmering before me, magical and incandescent, the night filled with mystery. Our conversation slips away into some dark faraway place, and I duck beneath the netting and step over Hannah’s green dress where it lies piled on the grass.

I run after her.

She walks along the dock ahead of me, her perfect body appearing and then disappearing in the light of the torches as she passes. When she reaches the dock’s end, she stands for one moment with her arms upstretched, as if to embrace the crescent moon that hangs pale above the lake, then she dives headfirst into the water with a splash.

I stand at the edge of the dock and watch her swim away, floating on her back and kicking the water playfully.