A Walk Through a Window (9 page)

S
omething wet and cold was running down Darby’s cheek. She reached up to rub her fingers through it. Was it blood? Her head was pounding so hard she could hardly open her eyes, but when she checked, there was no blood on her fingers. She tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea hit her and she decided to stay put for another minute. This was no ordinary headache. Even with her eyes closed she could see spots dancing like—like snowflakes.

That got her up. As she lifted her head, the headache slammed home like an axe through her skull. But she had to think. She had to think.

Snowflakes. What had happened to the snow? She squeezed her eyes open a crack, but all she could see was grass. Grass with yellow flowers dotted here and there.

Darby was in the secret garden. Her skateboard was on the ground and she sat with one hand on the stone windowsill of the old building.

She wiped her face again and realized that what she
had thought was blood was actually saliva. She must have been lying in the garden, drooling on herself.

Disgusting.

Darby tried to scramble to her feet, but her stomach heaved and pretty soon the drool wasn’t the only disgusting thing she left in the garden.

She couldn’t ever remember a headache like this one. With wincing eyes, she glanced at the stone windowsill. Had she fallen and hit her head? It was so hard to think.

The sky was clear, with a few wispy clouds turning pink at the edges. No sign of a storm at all. Darby could see a single evening star gleaming through the leaves of the huge oak tree. The light of it pierced her brain and forced her to look away. Under her feet, the grass was a little wet, but it felt more like dew than the remains of a cloudburst. Hadn’t it been pouring when she was last here? Darby had to put the thought aside—she needed all her energy just to get herself up off the ground.

There was a rustle and Maurice jumped out through the window and down onto the grass beside Darby. He meowed and circled around her feet, a calico figure eight.

“Better watch where you’re stepping, cat,” she muttered to him and he purred at the sound of her voice. The spots seemed to be fading and the headache had eased a little since she had been sick, but she knew she had to get back to Nan and Gramps. Maybe she’d given herself a concussion. Her head was so sore she didn’t even want to think about what she had just been through. How long had she been gone? Had the police been looking for her?

Darby felt a weird pang of guilt. Poor Nan. She must be out of her mind with worry. But it was so hard to think with her head pounding. She wished with all her heart to be home in Toronto, but she also knew Nan would know what to do. Nan had brought up Darby’s dad and his brothers, and being the mother to three boys meant she had probably seen enough cracked skulls to know what one looked like. Darby just had to get to her, first.

As she stood up, Maurice leaped through the garden toward the front of the house. By the time Darby had staggered around there, she could see him zipping through the rusted gate and heading for home. She followed, moving pretty slowly. Every step jarred her head and the red late-afternoon light was making her feel nauseated again.

Nan met her at the door. “Have you been chasing Maurice, Darby? He’s all worked up,” Nan began, but her words died on her lips when she got a look at Darby’s face. “What’s the matter, dear?”

Darby dropped her board on the front porch with a clatter that made her wince. Not one word about how she had been gone for two days. Nan was just upset about the cat? A pain was stabbing through the back of Darby’s right eye and she couldn’t think anymore. She muttered something about hitting her head and before she knew it, Nan had her wrapped in a comforter on the couch in the living room with a cold cloth over her eyes.

And once again—she was gone.

Darby woke up sometime later to find Nan standing beside her spot on the couch with a strange man. Before she had a chance to say a word, Nan explained he was a doctor who lived across the street. The guy was wearing shorts and an apron splashed with barbecue sauce. Nan must have pulled him away from his dinner.

She stayed in her spot on the couch and listened to them talking beside the door.

“Are you sure she’s going to be all right, Brian?” Nan said, her voice worried.

The screen door creaked on its hinges. “I really don’t think you have any cause for concern, Etta,” he said, in what Darby recognized as the reassuring tone doctors always use. “There is no sign of physical trauma. She’s at the right age for getting a migraine—teenage hormones often play a big part. Migraines are terrible things, but they don’t cause any lasting damage and they are more common than you might think. Just bring her along to my office tomorrow when she’s feeling better and we’ll do a couple of standard tests.”

The door slapped behind him, but only after Nan pushed a home-made apple pie into his hands.

Darby couldn’t imagine her own mother ever giving a doctor an apple pie. Darby wasn’t even sure her mom knew how to bake. But then again, she’d never heard of a doctor who would do a house call in Toronto, especially wearing an apron that said “Kiss the Cook.”

After he left, Nan helped Darby upstairs to her room. Darby was surprised to find Gramps sitting on her bed. He waited until she was finished in the bathroom and had
her pyjamas on, and then he tucked her in and kissed her on the forehead.

“Goodnight, kiddo. Sleep well.” That was it. He left and Darby heard him walking down the stairs, talking to Nan.

It felt weird—but in a nice way. And at least he hadn’t called her Allie.

The next morning, the first thing Darby saw was her school journal sitting on the table beside her bed. Her clock said it was only 6:30. No need to go downstairs just yet. When she sat up, she found her head wasn’t hurting at all anymore. In fact, she felt pretty good. She grabbed the journal, intending to write just a line or two to eliminate any feeling of homework guilt she might have—not that she had much. She started to write what she could remember about the people in the snow house. It might have been a hallucination, but it was pretty interesting all the same.

Her memory seemed a little clearer now that her head had stopped aching, too. She remembered that long walk in the snow, climbing the hill and seeing the huge herd of caribou in the distance. She remembered touching the pile of boulders on the crest of the hill, and seeing how the rocks formed a sort of stone figure with two squat legs. And she remembered—

Darby rolled out of bed to find the denim shorts she had been wearing yesterday. After much tossing of clothing
from her drawers, she checked her laundry basket and sure enough, there they were.

She jammed her hand into the pocket and pulled it out. In her palm sat a fragment of green stone. Darby ran her thumb over the surface. It had a strange texture to it, almost soft.

Her memory told her she had picked up the stone from the base of the larger pile of stones. But if that was all a hallucination, how could it be lying in the palm of her hand?

And what about Gabe’s rock? The one he gave her before the storm hit—the big rainstorm that should have ruined all of Nan’s white laundry. Nan hadn’t said a word about it, but then, she’d been worried because of her granddaughter’s headache.

Darby remembered they’d been about to take shelter from the storm and Gabe had held out a rock. A piece of red sandstone, just like the green one Darby now held in her hand. He never told her what the rock was for, or why he held it out in the first place. She couldn’t even remember putting it in her pocket. But when she reached back in the pocket, there it was.

And what about Gabriel? Mr. Mystery himself. Just a few days ago, Darby had thought Gabe might be the one kid in this weird little town she could actually talk to. But now she was not so sure.

Darby lay back on the bed and put the rocks beside her on the pillowcase with the notebook. The few lines she had meant to write had turned into ten pages filled with wild scribbling. Rocks and strange friends and
polar bears. Not that she would ever show it to anybody. She’s not
that
crazy. But it had felt good to write it down.

The strangest thing about the whole experience was the passage of time. Darby had been—well, wherever she was—for at least one night. She
slept
there, for Pete’s sake. But the date on her watch had not changed. Could she have bashed the watch? It
seemed
to be running just fine, the seconds ticking away …

The next thing Darby knew, it was eight o’clock and Nan was knocking gently on the door, asking if she might care for a little breakfast.

When Darby called out a sleepy good morning, Nan’s worried face appeared around the corner of the door. “Are you feeling any better, dear?”

“I’m fine, Nan. I guess it was just a migraine like that doctor said.”

She tucked the rocks and her journal into a drawer. “And actually, I’m pretty hungry.”

Nan opened the door wider and beamed at her granddaughter. Nan’s hair was sticking straight up and she looked like she hadn’t slept that much herself, but the relief on her face was obvious.

“I’ve made pancakes for your breakfast, dear,” she whispered conspiratorially as they walked down the stairs. “Gramps might act a little out of sorts to miss his porridge, but I think the bacon may win him over.”

As it turned out, Gramps was talking on the telephone when they entered the kitchen. He ruffled Darby’s hair a little as she walked past him and then waved her to
a spot at the table. She sat down and got started on the pancakes before he had a chance to protest.

“Nothing to worry about, Allan. She’s fine this morning. She’s sitting at the table eating your mother’s pancakes right now. I know, I know—but one day without porridge won’t kill her.”

This was a shocker. Gramps was talking to her dad? Darby couldn’t remember her dad ever talking to Gramps on the phone. Nan, yes, but …

Gramps winked at Darby. “Now, here’s Etta.”

There is no explaining old people.

Gramps sat down and tucked into his plate of pancakes and bacon. He didn’t even make a crack about the amount of syrup Darby was eating. Nan talked to Darby’s dad a while, adding her reassurances and even saying her granddaughter was good company to have around.

Who knew?

Nan shooed Darby away from the dishes, so she went out to the front step. Her stomach was full of pancakes and bacon and her skateboard was calling, but she had some serious thinking to do.

Darby leaned back against the screen door and closed her eyes. She had never heard of migraine headaches bringing on visions. And yet the hallucination about the people in the cold was so vivid. She could still feel the snow crunching underfoot. How could people live like that?
Did
people really live like that?

She opened her eyes. Not a snow house in sight. But if she wanted answers, she knew where to find the next best thing. No hope of Googling—no such thing as a
computer under
this
roof. Instead, she hopped inside to ask permission and picked up her favourite means of transportation. Without a computer, there was only one place she might be able to get a few answers. The library.

Nan had no chores planned for Darby because of the headache and seemed very pleased when Darby said she was heading to the library. “Just remember your doctor’s appointment this afternoon,” Nan said. “And if you pick up any books of poetry, you might want to bring them back to read in that little park across the street.”

“Uh—I don’t really read much poetry, Nan,” Darby mumbled, as she slipped out front door.

“That’s where I met her, y’know,” said Gramps. His voice startled Darby—she hadn’t known he was on the porch. He sat at the small table with an old scrapbook open in front of him.

“Not really in the park, y’see, because there wasn’t a park there in those days. Just the old graveyard. Yer mother had a notion in her head that reading poetry in the graveyard was a romantic endeavour.”

“Not my mother. You mean
Nan
,” Darby said, but his eyes were distant and she wasn’t sure he’d heard.