The Madrona Heroes Register: Echoes of the Past (8 page)

§

Caleb looked up slightly, taking note
of Binny winding her way through the path into the woods. Binny
storming past him wasn’t exactly a new sight. Caleb was used to
giving people their privacy, and Caleb knew very well that Binny
liked hers. He kept working, never missing a stroke in digging out
a root that was threatening to upturn one of his raised wooden
paths.

Binny’s parents used to take walks in
the woods with all three kids when they were younger. On
particularly lazy days the Jordans would pause their walk and chat
with Caleb. Binny’s mother Julie, would try and talk baseball with
Caleb sometimes. Periodically he would bounce Cassie on his knee,
gently reciting nursery rhymes they hadn’t heard of before. When
the family continued on their trek, Caleb would return to his
seemingly never ending list of horticultural tasks.

§

It wasn’t that Binny didn’t like
Caleb. She did. Everyone did. But Binny didn’t come to the woods
for companionship. Especially not today, when the whole world
seemed to be against her.

People didn’t listen. And they didn’t
do what they should. And the people that were supposed to tell them
to follow the rules weren’t doing their job either. Who did you
call when the people in charge weren’t being in charge
properly?

Binny’s accelerated pace took her
quickly past the spot where Caleb was working. He hadn’t seemed to
notice her, lost in some task of his. There were multiple paths
through the Madrona woods. Despite how windy and confusing they
could be, Binny knew them all. Binny liked how the woods could
swallow you up. As she branched off a couple of times onto lesser
and lesser known tracks, the branches of nearby trees seemed to
intertwine and create a sort of canopy for her, almost a tunnel.
Binny could still make out the shimmer of the lake through the
trees to the east, but the sights and sounds of the houses past the
edges of the woods were now gone. She’d arrived at her
destination.

To the casual observer, usually an
adult observer, Binny had arrived at an old rusted out shell of a
car. In fact, some adults might see this as less a car than a
guaranteed trip to the hospital with its numerous rusty pieces of
metal sticking out at various spots. But to Binny, this 1946
Chevrolet was a treasure – a secret hideout.

The path Binny used to get here had
petered out to the point where it was probably only her footsteps
that kept it from completely disappearing into the forest floor.
And the car itself was not much more visible. The vegetation was
thick here and had enveloped one entire side of the car. A tree had
grown inside it, coming up through the floor and growing through
the window behind where the driver had sat. The forest had claimed
the car just as Binny claimed this part of the forest.

The car’s front seats were gone, as
was the windshield and all the glass for that matter. The radio,
the steering wheel, the mirrors – all gone. Anything that could be
removed, had been. The back seat remained in place but pretty much
all the fabric had been removed or destroyed by the elements many
years earlier. What remained was really a car-shaped shell with a
rusty roof.

How the car got here Binny didn’t
know, but she was pretty sure Caleb hadn’t made it too far in this
direction yet or he would have cleaned it up. Maybe not the car
itself, but certainly the pieces of junk Binny had dragged over to
complete her sanctuary. She had laid two wooden boards across the
springs of the back seat, making it a reasonable place to sit. An
old tire made for a good place to rest Binny’s feet or lay her
skateboard on when she had it with her.

It was at this point that Binny would
usually take a long sweeping look around her to make sure that she
hadn’t been followed. What was the point of having a secret place
if someone else found out where it was? She would part some of the
branches she’d laid across the spot where the passenger front door
was missing – the back was rusted shut – and then enter backwards,
keeping her eyes peeled for strangers. On this day she entered in
just the same way.

There wasn’t really much to do in her
secret spot. She’d brought the occasional book once in awhile. But
coming here wasn’t really about a particular activity. It was just
about being here at all. In a place that nobody knew about. In a
place that was hers. In a place where there was nobody to argue
with her. Here, Binny was in charge and everyone followed the
rules.

The crunch of the can under her foot
as she crouched backwards into the car, was her first signal that
something was wrong in her little corner of the universe. Between
the cans on the floor of the car, and her backward momentum, Binny
lost her balance. She was going to be landing on her rear end for
the second time that day. But somehow the usually hard boards felt
slightly softer, and perhaps wetter(?) as she landed. She wasn’t
hurt exactly, but something didn’t feel quite right.

And then it hit her. The smell. Oh no.
Was it… Yuck. Dog poop. She’d sat in DOG POOP. Looking down at the
floor she realized that she had lost her balance walking on a sea
of empty beer cans. Tall silver beer cans. They hadn’t been here a
few days earlier on her last visit. Oh my god, Binny thought,
someone’s been here. Someone’s been drinking beer here and letting
their dog poop all over my secret spot. My spot isn’t a secret
anymore. And I’m sitting in dog poop. Her thoughts rushed at her
like a dam had suddenly burst.

Binny started to cry.

6

“
Can I tear you away from
that game for a minute?” Julie Jordan plopped down on the floor
next to Zach.

“
Uh huh.” Zach made a
sound that sounded like agreement but showed no sign of stopping
the game.

“
So when I ask to tear you
away from the game, and you agree, that should mean that you
actually stop playing the game for a second so I can have your
attention.” Julie was never one to shy away from teasing her
children. While they did many things differently, teasing their
kids was one topic on which she and Jay were firmly in
sync.

“
Ok, ok.” Zach paused his
game, turned to look at his mother, raised his eyebrows, and let
out an elongated “Yesssss?” Zach was no stranger to sarcasm
either.

“
I want to talk to you
about Binny.”

Zach’s shoulders slumped a bit and he
let out an audible “ugh”. “Ok, ok. I know what you’re gonna
say.”

“
What am I gonna say?”
Julie mimicked her son’s intonation as she asked him the
question.

“
That I should be nicer
and be a better big brother.”

“
I have to ask Zach, if
you already know what I want, why don’t you just do it?” Julie
pushed gently.

“
Just because I know what
you want, doesn’t mean I don’t feel I’m already doing it.” Zach
responded.

“
Ah. Well played my son.
Well played. But despite your cleverness, this is where you and I
disagree.”

“
She could be a better
sister you know. She yells and goes crazy on me.”

“
And I’m sure that on 100%
of the occasions where that’s happened, you’ve been completely
innocent.” Julie asked rhetorically.

“
Yes.” Zach nodded
earnestly. “Completely innocent.” But even Zach couldn’t stop the
corners of his mouth from turning up in a smile that told his
mother all she needed to know.

All Julie had to do was raise her
eyebrows and Zach finally caved, reassuring her that he would be
nicer to his sister.

“
She’s having a hard time
you know. It’s tough to be the middle kid. She gets it from you and
from Cassie all the time. Since it’s always the kids closest in age
that argue, there’s no Jordan sibling fight that she’s not a part
of.”

“
Has it occurred to you
that if she’s part of every fight that maybe she’s the problem?”
Zach was acting innocent, but had an even bigger smile on his face
now, proud of his clever argument. But before his mother could get
really annoyed at him, he interrupted himself with “Just kidding. I
know. I know. I’ll be nicer. I promise.”

Julie shoulders un-tensed just a touch
with the hope that Zach’s promise wasn’t an empty one. Julie
continued, “Sweetie, it’s just that I can’t always be around to
protect her,” Julie paused and then hastened to add, “because I’ve
had to be at work a lot.” Julie continued, “So I need you to go a
little easy on her. OK? Sorry, I’m done. I know you get it. I’ll
stop now.”

After giving her son what she hoped
looked like an expression of satisfaction, Julie switched topics.
“Honey do you mind helping me find Cassie? She’s out and about
somewhere. It’s been way too long since she’s had a bath, and I
can’t find her. Would you mind looking outside and corralling her
while I get the bath started?”

“
Can we play a game of
chess later?” Zach negotiated for something in return.

“
Yes. Of course sweetie.”
Julie agreed. And then added, “I love getting humiliated by a
twelve-year-old at chess.”

Zach picked himself up off the floor
to go find his sister, but not before he added with a winking smile
“I love that part too.”

§

Now where would that little mop of
curls hide herself, Zach thought to himself. His mother had
apparently scoured the house, so Cassie must be somewhere outside.
On his way out the front door he thought of just yelling for her
but caught himself at the last second as he knew that would earn
him a reprimand from his mother – something along the lines of “I
could have done that.”

Zach started his sweep by walking
around the perimeter of the house itself, eliminating some of the
most obvious spots. The dense shrubs in front of the house were
perfect to hide in. No Cassie. The little shed on the side of the
house was probably too full of spiders to be of Cassie’s liking.
The narrow backyard was empty as well.

Much to Zach’s annoyance, Binny’s
words from earlier that day started playing back in his mind. Binny
had been worried that Cassie was in danger. Was that it? Or was it
just that she was mad Cassie was breaking the rules? In Zach’s
opinion, Binny was often more focused on the rules than on their
sister’s welfare. Yes, Cassie didn’t exactly use common sense on a
regular basis, but she could repeat the rules her parents had laid
out for her being outside with surprising accuracy. Zach reassured
himself that it was probably just Binny being Binny. Cassie was
perfectly fine.

§

While the man had taken this very
route earlier that day, Rembrandt was a convenient excuse to repeat
it. Like an itch in the middle of his back that he couldn’t reach,
his conclusions from the morning were still bothering him. The
little girl had definitely disappeared. No other explanation made
sense. But if he thought that deciding on the facts of the incident
would calm his mind, it had quite the opposite effect. It had only
brought up more questions and speculation that were swirling
through his brain in an absolutely distracting manner.

The man thought a walk with Rembrandt
might clear his mind a little and help him think in a more orderly
fashion. And of course, his thoughts brought him up the hill
towards the very same spot he’d surveyed that morning. And much
like that morning, the little girl was again out in front of her
house playing.

This time however, the little girl
noticed him first. As Rembrandt tugged him up the hill, the little
girl strode down to meet him. As it turned out, it wasn’t so much
the man in which the little girl was interested, it was the dog.
While he would never claim to be an expert on what seven-year-old
girls thought – especially seven-year-old girls who could wink out
of existence – there was at least one thing they could both relate
to – once you got to know him, Rembrandt was extremely
lovable.

§

Zach headed up the hill. It shouldn’t
be that hard to locate Cassie, he thought. She knew she was only
allowed to go as far as two houses in either direction. She wasn’t
there though. She must be below. Zach regretted his earlier
decision not to just stand and yell for her — he was getting
annoyed at the amount of trudging around he had to do.