Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies (9 page)

“It’s not raining hard. And isn’t the fishing better in rain?” It waited until after my dad got home from work before it started. I could just scream.

“How about we play checkers, see if it lets up?”

I’m game, even though I can only beat him at checkers about a third of the time. It’s so color-coordinated, like a flannel shirt. We play at the kitchen table, once, twice, three times. He looks outside. I can tell from the sound of rain on the windows that it’s not letting up. I feel like crying. Besides the fisher hunt, I really like fishing.

He looks back to me and his mouth opens to speak. He pauses for a long moment, then says, “I think it’s letting up. Let’s go ahead, before it gets any darker out there.”

I bounce up in glee and chase off after a raincoat. I could have sworn the rain hadn’t let up at all! Seems almost harder to me. But he knows more about the weather than I do. Than anyone, really. He watches it every night, sometimes twice or three times.

We ignore the pelting rain and collect my worms and the old green fishing pole. It’s pretty rusty, and the reel is rusty too, but it’s still easier to fish with than the stick poles. The stick poles are thin branches from beech trees, with fishing line tied on the end. But our hooks are in good shape, and my worms survived.

It’s dusky out, even at only 2:30 in the afternoon. Walking over the bank is treacherous with layers of wet leaves built up on the ground. We grab hold of trees as we descend the steep incline. It gets darker as the trees
thicken around us. Since Daddy’s right behind me, it’s just cool and otherworldly, not scary. A leafy, mossy, green and brown escape. In seconds we can’t even see the house above us, and all I’m thinking about is dodging spider webs.

We get to the first of our favorite places and settle. I bait my hook and drop it in the pool at my feet. After a few quiet moments of watching the water, I suddenly remember I’m looking for more than fish on this trip. Then I spend as much time scouting out the banks on both sides of the brook as I do watching for movement around the rocks in the water.

The rain hits the water and makes spreading, overlapping circles, drawing my eye. Black water bugs with long, bent legs skitter back and forth across the surface. This pool is big enough that the water actually sits here, instead of just rushing on like it does in some places. The mossy brown rocks shift under my feet, and I move very carefully when I want to change position.

Nothing nibbles. Nothing moves on either side of the brook.

After a bit, my dad suggests we try our second spot. I like it even better, because I sit on a big rock outcropping and it’s flatter and more solid. The water is deeper, and there are usually more fish hanging around. I reel in and we move down the brook. I concentrate on walking as quietly as possible, though it’s hard with the leaves. I don’t want to scare the fish. I’ve always wondered how they hear you under the water. I picture them hearing our approach and swimming under the closest rocks, only to come out when we move on.

The other reason I like this second pool is because I’m that much further from the water, and I feel like I can talk to Daddy without the fish hearing. He must
think the same thing because we’re sitting watching two different fish dart back and forth in the pool when he suddenly says, “So. You know, kiddo, that Southern accent thing sort of worries your mother.”

I nod, still watching the fish, guiding my worm through the water slowly. I do know. And I know he worries about her when she worries about us kids. But it’s just the way things are. “I know, Daddy. I’ve tried to explain. People are going to expect it of me.” I haven’t talked to him about how I can heal with my hands. I haven’t talked to anyone about it. They’d just worry, and they all worry about me too much already.

Or they’d think I was crazy. That’s always a possibility.

“People who?”

“Just everyone.” I know about faith healers, I researched. They’re mostly all Southern men in suits on the television. I figured all this out a few years back when I first found out I could heal. I decided against getting a congregation of my own and hitting people on the forehead, because I’m not so sure about the religion thing. But people are going to expect me to talk like a faith healer, which means Southern.

Besides, once I got myself in the groove of the accent, I couldn’t get out of it quite so easy.

That’s all too complicated to explain, though, and I know from experience that when I try to explain things, people get confused. I change the subject to get his advice on how to spot a fisher.

“Do the fishers fish in the same good spots? If we’re really quiet and still, will they come out to fish while we’re here?”

Daddy looks surprised. “Oh . . . no, punkin’. Fishers don’t fish. We won’t see them. They live in these parts,
but they probably hear us coming way off, and they run or climb a tree and hide.”

“They don’t FISH?” I’m scandalized. They’re
fishers
. How can they not fish?

“No, they hunt. Squirrels, rabbits, mice, that sort of thing.”

“And cats,” I add darkly.

“Yeah, they’ll take a cat as quick as anything. But they don’t fish.”

“Then why are they called fisher cats? That doesn’t make any
sense
.”

I think he’s confused as to why I’m so intense about this, because he has that unsure look he gets when I start spouting something that sounds totally out to lunch. I’m used to that look on adults. But he presses gamely on. “I don’t know why they’re called fisher cats, come to think of it. Their name is just all over wrong, because they’re not even related to cats.”

“I thought that bit was because they
ate
cats.”

“No, no. Maybe it’s because they look a little like a cat, with the tail and general shape.” His hands sketch a long, low body. “Kind of a stretch, but I guess they’re sort of catlike. But if it was because of what they eat, they could better be called fisher chickens than fisher cats.”

I’m incensed. What are people thinking? Naming something a fisher cat when it doesn’t fish and isn’t a cat, and
not
because they eat cats? That’s just not okay. My face screws up into a scowl.

“I can take you to see a stuffed one up at Hogback. Your chance of seeing one live isn’t so good.”

That’s better than nothing, but it doesn’t serve my purposes. I’m not certain what my purposes are yet, but I don’t think a long-dead fisher suits. Still, if I see the stuffed one, I’ll know what I’m looking for and get
a clearer mental image. Nodding, I bob my line up and down as the fish below me dart through the water, nowhere near my worm. “Okay. Tomorrow?”

“We’ll have to check with your mother, but it’s fine with me.”

That taken care of, I order the fisher issue out of my head and just fish.

Hogback Mountain always makes me think we’re going to drive right off into nothing. It’s one of those roads that curves around so sharp that when you’re coming to the bend in the road, there’s nothing in front of you but huge sky and a major drop. Except right at the very point of the bend they built this gift shop and a platform with those little viewing glasses you can put money in and see things close up. We don’t put money in because we’re Vermonters, and we see trees close up all the time, but tourists fill them with quarters.

Mom was cool with taking a drive today, so after dropping Jen at work, we headed off. It’s wicked cloudy but not raining anymore. The misty fog means fewer people hanging around the platform. Only one car sits in the parking spaces.

Mom and Laura wander the gift shop, but I head right for the stairs that lead down into the cool, darker rooms below. Glass cases stand between open shelves and freestanding pedestals. Vermont wildlife pose everywhere, frozen in time in the act of crouching, swooping, hunting, pouncing, standing clueless about to get eaten, or the ever-popular cowering in fear. Mostly it’s birds under the glass cases.

I know it sounds ghoulish, but I never get tired of looking at stuffed creatures. I love the chance to study them so close, see all the details you never see in moving wild animals. They even have a catamount here.

“Evan. This one.”

I tear myself away from the fox family and hurry to my dad. He gestures to an open exhibit where a large brown animal hunches, lips peeled back from the ivory of old teeth in a ferocious snarl. I back up, reaching for my father’s hand. That fisher looks angry. It’s fatter in the back end, the chest and shoulders narrow, almost as if its back is humped. The tail is bushy and long. I tilt my head to the side, transfixed. It looks nothing like a cat. If I was going to compare it to another animal, I’d actually say it looks like a miniature bear. There’s one of those down here, too. A bear, I mean, not a miniature bear. I don’t think there’s any such thing as a miniature bear. But that’s what the fisher reminds me of, except its muzzle is narrower.

No way would somebody mistake this thing for a cat.

“That doesn’t look anything like a cat.”

“No, not so much, does it? It’s a weasel, actually.”

“A weasel?” Wait a minute. I did weasels in school last year. I remember a lot about them, and the fisher is a lot bigger than what I remember. “A giant weasel?” I ask, skeptical.

Daddy laughs. “Sort of. They’re part of the weasel family. Weasels, fishers, stoats, martins.”

“Oh, okay. Because it’s really big.”

“Isn’t it?”

“And what’s up with the porcupine?” In front of the bristling fisher, a stuffed porcupine lifts its quills.

“They’re good at getting porcupines. One of the few things that can get a porcupine without a nose full of quills. That’s pretty much why they’re back here in New England. After all the fishers got trapped for their pelts, and they were gone, the porcupines were hell on the timber
and lumber companies. And houses and barns. The fishers ended up protected, so they could come back and get the porcupines under control. See those feet? It can climb like nothing you’ve seen. Its feet rotate so it can climb up or down, with a really good grip. It can climb down a tree face-first, not like most animals that have to back down. So it can get to porcupines easy, even after they climb a tree.”

“But how does it avoid the stickers?”

Daddy hesitates. “They’re mean. They just get right in there and attack and don’t let go. When the porcupine turns around to show its back, the fisher jumps clear over it and is in front again. So the porcupine turns around and around and gets tired and confused.”

The pause makes me think there’s more to it that he thinks might upset me. I let it go, knowing that sometimes he’s right. There’s stuff I don’t need to hear. Leaning my elbows on the shelf, I study the fisher from tip to toes. “Spends a lot of time in trees?”

“Yes.”

A new idea forms in my mind even as Laura’s voice calls from behind us.

“Daddy? Mom wants you.”

He looks at me. “Okay?”

“Sure. I’m going to keep looking.”

He ruffles my hair and heads for the stairs, ruffling Laura’s hair on the way past. She laughs and follows him. I don’t think she’s fond of the dead animals.

I turn back to the fisher, leaning in as close as I can without touching. Then, glancing around, I reach out and touch the fur. As bristly as it looks, it’s soft as I run my hand down the side. The body is rock hard, nothing like touching a living animal, no life glow. Soft as it is, the hair feels dry as well, and my fingers come away dusty. Wiping
the dust on my jeans, I brush the fur of its face. There’s no jolt of warmth like when I’m getting a healing pulse. Of course, this fisher is long past healing. Like I said, I can’t raise the dead. If anything, though, my hand feels chilled by the touch. Suddenly it’s a tiny bit shivery down here, surrounded by dead animals. I push past the sensation and move my fingers into the ruff of fur around the fisher’s thick neck, staring into its glass eyes.

Then I get zapped. The electric charge shooting into my palm
hurts.
Nothing like the comfortable heat of healing; it feels more like the time I got shocked by the light socket when I touched the prong of a plug as it was connecting. I have the same reaction too, throwing myself backwards and clutching my hand to my chest. Staring at the inanimate object that should have absolutely no emanation whatsoever, I edge closer again, thumb rubbing at my sore palm. Peering into the glass eyes, I search for something, anything, even knowing the eyes are marbles.

Marbles that pick up an amber glimmer I’d swear wasn’t there before, a glimmer way down deep that makes odd shadows flicker in the brown glass. A hum of static fills the air, and the fisher blurs at the edges, as if in a wave of heat. I hear footsteps on the stairs behind me. The very tips of the bristly fur glow red as my dad walks into the room.

“Finished?”

“Sure.” But I don’t move, waiting as he gets closer. The edging of red is still there, the marble eyes still shadowed. I want . . .

“Laura’s going to get an ice cream, if you want one.”

I don’t want ice cream. I want . . .

“And we thought you might want to look upstairs, too.”

Obviously, there’s nothing out of the ordinary to him. He stands with his hand on my shoulder, eyes running over the glowing fisher and the same dead porcupine, without reacting.

It doesn’t matter what I want.

I take his hand and let him lead me to the door, still watching as the red fades. By the time we start up the stairs, it’s gone completely, and I figure I might as well have ice cream after all.

So, fishers do a lot of climbing trees. I can deal with that. I’m not the most athletic kid, but I can climb a tree. I think I can, anyway. My mother doesn’t like us climbing trees because she doesn’t think it’s safe, but I know a tree that I climbed a little way, and I think I can get further up.

My need to see a fisher feels more urgent, not less, since the Hogback visit. I learned right off, when I found out about being able to heal, not to tell anyone about the weird things that happen to me. I sort of knew without knowing how that it just wasn’t something people would react to well. I told my dead cats, though. About the glow and the eyes and everything. I still got the feeling they wanted me to find the fisher.