18
Wyatt
I didn’t know whose stupid idea this was. Or rather, I did. But was I so starved for adventure, for closure . . . for redemption, maybe, that I’d go out in the cold and snow to look for a ruined tower when no one but a crazy old guy who apparently lived in Josh’s hardware store even knew it existed? When the voice I heard was probably a loon?
Yes. The sad thing was, yes. I was the loon.
I’d passed Josh’s family’s cabin half an hour earlier. Since then, I’d been slogging through the woods where there was no path, where the roots of trees seemed to come alive beneath my feet, and the branches reached down to grab me with their stabbing, scratching fingers. Yes, some of the snow had melted, but that made it no less icy, no less slippery. I slid on a patch of ice and grabbed at a tree branch. It grabbed back, scratching my face. I touched my glove to my cheek and saw a wet spot on the black background. Blood.
Ahead, I saw nothing but trees and more trees. Where was the tower? Did it even exist? If it did, I couldn’t see it. It must be so far from the cabin, too far for me to have heard singing inside. And yet, when a hawk cried overhead, it seemed so deafeningly loud that I could have heard it ten miles away.
No singing today. I stopped to listen. Nothing but the chill wind, invading my bones. I should go back. But when I looked behind me, I could see neither Josh’s cabin nor the car. I might as well go forward.
No, that wasn’t true. If I couldn’t see the car, that was a reason to go back. Go back as fast as I could before the day became darker, colder.
I realized, I had nothing to go back to.
The old lady would be sad if I disappeared, I guessed. But she’d get over it. She’d dealt with bigger things.
I had no friends, and even my mother didn’t seem desperately upset to be rid of me. At least, she’d let me go. She was a young woman. She could meet someone, have another child, a better one.
I remembered the old man, his daughter murdered, or maybe dead from an overdose. Did it really matter? He never got over it.
No, I had to stick this out, to solve this mystery once and for all. Also, I felt something pulling at me, as if it meant me to come here, to find out what was out there even if it was nothing. Which it probably was.
Then suddenly, I heard a voice, singing. Still, far away, it sang an old song I’d heard before but couldn’t place. I shoved past a few more trees and saw a clearing. No trees at all. But that was impossible.
I realized it was the lake. The lake came up farther here. Did I dare step on it? It would be much easier to walk on the smooth lake than to fight through the trees. But parts of it, I knew, weren’t frozen. Near the center was dark, almost black water, reflecting the clouds above. But here, near the shore, it was serene, white, covered in several inches of snow without even a footprint on its surface. It must be safe.
I took one tentative step, feeling it. Solid. I took another. Then, another. This was easy. I took a few more.
Then, I heard a thunderclap, and all at once, I was falling down, down into the freezing water.