The Door in the Forest (5 page)

“Here, let me. It’ll sting.”

Emily bit her underlip when he dabbed the lotion. He bandaged her snugly.

“You okay?”

Slowly she nodded. Her eyes even smiled a little, although her mouth did not.

“Good,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

His mother knew how to make a sandwich, and there was no resisting the brownies. Daniel watched Emily attack her food. Had anyone bothered to teach her manners?

But there was something nice about having her here, someone besides his kid brother, who could never sit still and was always jabbering. Emily certainly didn’t jabber. She and Daniel sat on a ledge of rock with their feet hanging down and listened to the wind, which just now was making a magnificent ruckus.

“Ever notice how the wind sounds different in different trees?” he said.

She frowned, listening. Yes, the wind was clattering among the leathery sycamore leaves, gasping through aspens, moaning softly as it passed through the sieve of pines.

They listened for minutes, not saying a word.

“Pretty nice, huh? Want to explore some more? Are you okay to walk?”

A nod.

They headed cross-country, in the direction of the island. There was underbrush to fight through and stands of thorn-studded trees to get around, but eventually they found the path that led to a humped footbridge over a brook.

Emily climbed the cross stays and straddled the bridge’s railing, her eyes eager. There it was, not twenty yards away, the island she’d seen from the top of her grandma’s house—part of it, anyway.

“You look like you know this place,” said Daniel, squinting up at her where she sat.

She wasn’t listening. She was staring at the wide, slow-moving stream, and beyond to a wall of foliage swaying gently like the breathing of some spellbound beast.

“Look!” Daniel whispered excitedly. “He’s there!”

Emily frowned. Then she saw it, the great blue heron with a fish hanging limply from its bill, and her face relaxed. She looked at Daniel and nodded.

“I always think it’s good luck when I see him,” said Daniel.

She pulled her breeze-blown hair away from her face.

“Beautiful, is he not?” said a man’s voice just behind them.

Daniel spun around, startled by the sight of a military uniform, with slashes of gold on the shoulders—the insignia of a captain. The man inside it was on the short side, but you could tell he was all gristle. He was lounging against the opposite railing, his arm draped around a post. His long, carelessly combed black hair (graying at the sideburns) gave him
the look almost of a bandit, an effect heightened by the two hyphens of his mustache. It occurred to Daniel that there was something both casual and dangerous about him.

The man launched himself upright. He nodded at the bird. “You don’t see creatures like that in the city. Rats maybe. You want him? I’ll shoot him for you.” Without a word, he unsnapped his holster and took out a heavy-looking pistol, aiming it carefully.

Daniel stopped breathing. He seemed to lose the power of speech. How do you address an officer? How do you tell him that he must
not
, under any circumstance, do what he is about to do?

The captain glanced from the bird to the boy, and from the boy to the stunned-looking girl. “No?” He lowered the pistol. “Okay. Probably no good to eat anyway.”

What Daniel was most aware of, besides the flood of relief, was Emily’s hand gripping his shoulder hard enough to hurt.

“Thank you,” Daniel managed to say.

The captain pursed his lips, making his mustache bristle. “So,” he said, “you are one of those nice people who like to look at the beautiful thing and not shoot it.”

It was still hard to speak, but, “Yes.”

“I too like to look at the beautiful thing.” He flashed a bandit smile, revealing a black space where a dogtooth had been. “Unless I can eat it. Then watch out!” He chuckled at his own wit. “By the way, to let you know, my men will be staying here a few more days. The tents have been sufficient till now, but others will be coming, so we’ll be putting them up in farmhouses. I see the young lady is looking alarmed at this.”

Her grip on Daniel’s shoulder was painfully tight.

“Needn’t be, miss. We’ll be out of your hair in no time.” He looked them both over. “Well, my nature lovers,” he said, turning to stroll on, as if he had nothing better to do on a Tuesday afternoon, “it’s been a pleasure.”

Daniel and Emily watched as he headed off down the path.

“Oh!” he said, doing an off-balance pirouette to face them again. “Could you direct me to a person named Byrdsong?”

Daniel felt his chest freeze up.

The man looked from him to the girl. It wasn’t hard to read the fear on their faces, and their efforts to hide it. “You know the lady, then,” he said.

Daniel nodded.

“And she lives—where?”

“I …”

The man crossed his arms and smiled. “Come, now.”

The impulse to lie was so strong that Daniel began to feel a headache stirring behind his eyes. He couldn’t do it. “I’m afraid to say.”

“Afraid? Why?”

“You might hurt her.”

“And why would I do that?”

The boy’s head was throbbing. “Because you’re a soldier and soldiers hurt people.”

The captain rested his hands on his hips, as if to settle himself around this concept. “You have an odd idea about soldiers,” he said. “Is that what the people around here think?”

Daniel was silent.

“Well, do they?”

A vein in Daniel’s forehead was pulsing. He mustn’t speak. “They hate you,” he blurted.

“Do they really? Good heavens, we mustn’t have that! What about you, miss? Is that what you think, too?”

“She can’t speak.”

“You mean she’s mute?”

“I think so.”

The captain contemplated them as he might a mildly intriguing math problem. “Well,” he said, “I’ll just have to ask someone else, won’t I?” He flashed that gap-toothed smile. “Unless I just shoot you. Are you good to eat?”

He laughed loudly, and started off again. Daniel watched until he disappeared.

“Scary guy,” he said, more to himself than to Emily. “Hard to figure out. Maybe he’s not that bad.”

Emily slid down from the railing. She looked Daniel in the eye. “
Don’t trust him,
” she said. Simple as that. Three clear words.

“You can talk!”

She turned and looked back at the heron, and the island behind.

Daniel came up beside her. “Does anybody know you can talk?”

She was silent, and Daniel wondered if she was done speaking, like some oracle that delivers a cryptic message and says no more. “Is it easier that way? People don’t ask a lot of questions if they think you can’t answer.”

No answer. Each non-answer she gave was like another question.

“But then why let me in on it?”

She shot him a glance that was so adult it scared him. “Because,” she said quietly, “you are dangerous.”

“
What
?” Daniel did not have an overly high opinion of himself, but he’d never thought of himself as dangerous.

“You thought Captain Sloper was not that bad.
Not that bad
!” Less than a dozen words, but coming from her they seemed an avalanche.

“You know his name?” he said.

“Not that bad.” Her lips tightened around the bad-tasting words. “If you want to get yourself killed, keep thinking that.”

Daniel didn’t know what to say.

“Also, you can’t lie worth dirt.”

“I know I can’t.”

“ ‘They hate you,’ you said. Beautiful!”

“I couldn’t help it.”

“
That’s
what makes you dangerous.”

Was this the withdrawn, dirt-caked girl he’d seen such a short time ago on the road to town? Where did she get that tongue of hers?

“How did you know his name?”

“He arrested my mother.” She had to look down then, because her air of self-sufficiency was starting to get shaky.

“Oh,” he said. “But …” His thoughts were swirling and not landing anywhere. “Why would he want to arrest your mother?”

“Why do you keep asking all these questions?”

“I’m trying to understand.”

“Don’t bother,” she shot back. “If you want to help, you can get me onto the island.”

“This island?”

“This island, yes. Can you help?”

He glanced over at the stern, yellow-eyed heron. It had begun walking away, lifting its legs as if there were something unpleasant underfoot. “Why do you need to go there?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Daniel was beginning to think he liked this girl better when she didn’t talk.

“First of all,” she said, “it’s none of your business. But mainly, you can’t keep a secret.”

She had him there. “Maybe I could learn. It’s just I get these—”

“Forget it.”

“No, really. I get these fierce …”

“Don’t worry about it. Just tell me how to get to the island.”

He frowned. “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself.”

“Do you at least have a rowboat or something?”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“The two times I heard of, something ripped long gashes in the hull before it got halfway across.”

“Superstition.”

“Then there’s the quicksand.”

Emily paused. “Anything else?”

“Water snakes. Poisonous.”

“You’re making this up.”

“Want to take a look?”

“You’re making this up. I know it.”

“Come on.”

He led her off the footbridge, through high-climbing brambles that clawed at their ankles and arms.

“Sure you want to do this?” he said when they were halfway there.

“Keep going.”

Wincing with scratches, they made it to the edge of the wide, cloudy creek.

There seemed nothing unusual at first, just a lazy stream on a summer day. But soon a ripple appeared, V-shaped, and at its apex a small, pale head. It was moving downstream, and behind it, beneath the surface, was the undulating body of a snake, five feet long at least. Soon another small head appeared, leaving its V-shaped wake. Then another.

As they watched, one swam quite close to the shore, and Emily stepped back with a gasp. “Did you see that?”

“What?”

“Its head! It’s not a snake’s head! It’s human!”

Daniel looked hard. He had only a glimpse, but it was enough. Human, yes, hideously so, with scales instead of hair, and a glaze of hatred in the eyes.

It was true, then, the old story. Maybe all the stories were true. The place was cursed.

When finally they’d fought their way back to the path, Emily stood silent. Daniel could see she was shaken.

“Still want to get onto the island?” he said at last.

“More than ever.”

Their eyes met.

“Me too,” he said.

Emily hadn’t been home more than an hour when three military cars filled with soldiers swerved to a stop in front of the house. She watched from the autumn window, the one just over the porch, as Captain Sloper jumped out. She was able to see him, she knew, only because the window was closed. Plain glass, plain view—in this case a view of the heat-scorched lawn and exhausted roses that seemed to have quit trying.

The captain bounded up the steps. Emily’s view was blocked by the porch’s overhang, but she heard him rapping on the door. Her first thought:
They’re coming for me! They took Mama, and now they’re coming for me
!

The door must have opened, because she could hear Sloper’s exclamatory voice and a murmured response. She backed away from the window. Soon heavy feet were tramping through the house. Where could she hide?

She dropped down and crawled under the writing desk.

“Emily, dear!” It was her grandmother calling.

“Shh!” the girl hissed under her breath. “Be quiet, Grandma!”

“Come down, Emily, we’ve got guests.”

Is that what you call them
?

A minute later, the door opened and Grandma Byrdsong came in, puffing for air, followed by Captain Sloper.

“That’s funny,” she said.

One of Bridey’s cats, her favorite, the white one called Mallow, padded in and went over to the writing desk, where it sniffed at Emily’s sock-covered feet.

“There you are!” said Bridey. “What are you doing under there?”

Emily poked her head out, glaring.

“That’s the mute girl I saw in the woods,” said Sloper. The corner of his mouth played with the idea of a smile. “Hello, mute girl.”

“This is Captain Sloper, dear. It seems we’re going to have some of his men staying with us for a few days.”

The captain cast his eyes around the little room, taking in the vase of roses on the oak bureau, the narrow bed with its colorful coverlet, and the three framed pictures on a shelf. One photo, in a silver frame, caught his attention. It showed a young woman in a flouncy dress, smiling broadly, her hand resting on a horse’s mane.

Sloper’s eyes focused intently. It was brief, but Emily caught it. A moment later, his face was a mask of mildness.

“Well,” he said, turning to Emily. “Cozy room you’ve got here. A little small for what we want.” He turned to Mrs. Byrdsong. “She can hear me, can’t she?”

“Oh, she can hear you quite well.”