Towering (11 page)

“Mrs. Greenwood, I didn’t mean . . .”

She shook her head. “I never got to have any grandchildren. I always thought about that with Danielle.”

“Well, I’ve learned a lot from you so far. I never knew my own grandmother.”

“I know. That Lina Hill was a stubborn woman.”

Lina was my grandmother. I didn’t know her. She and my mom hadn’t gotten along. She’d never forgiven my mother for getting pregnant with me, I guessed. After my grandmother died, my grandfather contacted my mother. He moved in with us, helped us out, and was the closest thing to a father I ever had.

I wondered if Danielle had been pregnant, if that was why she’d run away from home. Maybe she was still out there. But of course, Mrs. G. wouldn’t know about that, and I for sure wasn’t going to tell her.

Her hand was on the table, and I gave it a little pat, which was awkward, but it seemed right.

When I got home, I realized I’d forgotten to check my texts when I had service. I had two, though, both from Astrid (who lived in town and apparently had service), one reiterating the skiing invitation, one saying what a nice time she’d had New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t answer them, but I decided I’d call her tomorrow. When I went out. It probably wasn’t good to be alone all the time.

I smiled and listened to the wind howl as I drifted to sleep.

In the middle of it, like a harmony, I heard that same voice, singing.

I would check it out tomorrow.

The next morning, I woke from a dream of being chased by evil robots. I felt surprisingly refreshed. I looked down at the snow, which was patchy, indicating a warmer day. I decided to go to Josh’s and try to retrace my steps from New Year’s Eve, solve the mystery of the bizarre singing once and for all, even if it was just a dream.

I told Mrs. Greenwood, “I’m going to town to get those hinges and also, um, to return some calls I got.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is there a girl involved?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.” I wasn’t sure if Astrid was someone I was really interested in. But maybe there was another girl. Maybe.

“It’s complicated?”

“Not that. Just, I’m not sure yet, you know.”

“The course of true love never did run smooth.” I thought that was Shakespeare. Maybe.

I laughed. “Okay, yeah. I met this girl, Astrid. She’s a friend of Josh’s. I thought I’d call and see if we could hang out sometime.”

“Hang out? Do you know when I was a girl, people didn’t hang out. People actually courted. They went out on dates.”

“We do that now too. We just call it hanging out.” To her, going on a date probably implied showing up at the door in a suit and carrying a bouquet of daisies. No one I knew did that. But I could let the old lady have her fantasy. “I’m just going to call her today, though.”

I thought I’d go to Josh’s store for the hinges first. When I saw him, he was putting some kind of weird birdhouse on a high shelf. “Astrid couldn’t stop talking about you yesterday. It was pretty boring.”

“I’ll bet.” I examined the shelves of old yearbooks, wondering why anyone would buy someone else’s yearbook. “I’m here for those hinges.”

“Sure.” Josh motioned for me to follow him toward the stockroom. “But you had an okay time New Year’s?”

“I had an awesome time.” I overstated it because, really, it was nice of him to invite me, and it wasn’t his fault I was kind of congenitally unhappy.

“That’s cool. Astrid wants you to come skiing with us. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Maybe. Listen.” I started to follow him to the register. I noticed the same old man who’d been there the day I ordered the hardware. This time, he was looking at an old school desk. “When I was at the place, I heard this sort of weird sound in the woods. It sounded like someone singing.”

“A loon. Must have been a loon.”

“Astrid said that. But this was in the middle of the night.”

“An owl then.”

“It didn’t sound like a bird at all. It sounded human.”

“It was,” the old man said. “People say there’s a ghost, a young girl who was murdered by her faithless lover in those very woods. Not everyone can hear it, though.”

I turned to him, interested. He had on a fishing hat with flies stuck in it, even though it was the dead of winter. “How can you tell who can hear it?”

Josh nudged me. “Don’t mess with him, Wyatt.”

“I’m not messing with him. I really want to know.” To the old man, I said, “How can you tell?”

“They say it’s people who’ve experienced heartbreak, heartbreak so terrible they’ll never forget.” He raised his eyes to mine. I expected them to be gray and watery, the eyes of a used-up old man. Instead, they were dark and surprisingly steady. “Have you experienced heartbreak?”

I stared back at him a moment before answering. Finally, I said, “Yes. Yes, I have. Have you?”

Behind me, Josh took a breath. The old man nodded.

“I’ve heard it too,” he said. “Deep in the woods, by the lake. It comes from the ruined tower.”

“Tower?”

“There’s no tower in those woods,” Josh said. “There’s nothing but a lake and trees.”

“There’s a tower,” the old man insisted. “I’ve seen it. And a young girl, singing for her murdered lover.”

“Okay, fine. There’s a tower.” Josh gestured toward some people who’d just come in, a man and a little girl who were petting the dogs. “Look, I need to help the other customers, or my dad gets mad. So can I ring that up for you?”

I didn’t know why he was being so impatient. As far as I could tell, his dad wasn’t even in the store. But he seemed in a big hurry, so I followed him to the register. “What was that about?”

Josh glanced at the old man again. I did too. He was back to browsing, looking at an old baby stroller, the kind that was like a bassinet on wheels. “That’s Jerry. Long ago, the year I was born, actually, his daughter disappeared.”

“Murdered?” I whispered. That made four missing kids—that I knew about. This place was so creepy.

Josh shook his head. “She probably ran away or OD’d on something. But it sent Jerry sort of over the edge. He was the town veterinarian, very respected. But after that, he got screwy. He had all sorts of crazy stories about a drug ring in Slakkill. Of course, there was no evidence of any ring, just his druggie daughter, but he didn’t want to believe that.”

“No evidence.” I remembered what I’d thought last night, about parents wanting to think the best of their kids. But what about that salad Danielle had eaten. Was it some kind of drug? Was there a drug ring in Slakkill?

“A lot of people disappear around here.” I gestured toward the Missing Person sign on the bulletin board.

Josh did too. “Bryce Rosen—druggie. Every town has them, I guess. And a few other kids have disappeared over the years.”

“A few? How few?”

“Runaways. I told you that. But he had this big conspiracy theory. Said it was a ring, that they’d gotten her addicted, that they’d killed her sure as if they’d pulled the trigger. He was in a mental hospital for a while, and sometimes, he relapses and starts babbling about how we need to find the people who did it . . . or stuff about ruined towers. So we try not to remind him about the woods.”

I shook my head. I didn’t know anyone in my old town who’d disappeared, and until Tyler, no one who’d died young. There was all sorts of weird stuff around this town, the abandoned buildings and the creepy antiques. I said, “How about Danielle. Was she a druggie?”

Josh frowned. “My dad said no. They didn’t know what happened to her, though people had theories.”

“Like what?”

Josh put his finger to his lips and nodded toward the old man. I looked over at him again. He was holding a doll now, one with curly, yellow hair, and he was sort of crying. I nodded. Josh handed me the bag with the hinges and a receipt, saying he’d put them on Mrs. Greenwood’s account.

“So it was a loon, okay?” he said.

I nodded again, but I knew I was going to the woods to look for myself.

I drove Mrs. G’s car down the same threadlike, bumpy road as before. It was no less scary in daylight. Maybe it was scarier because, now, I could actually see how narrow it was with the trees attacking both sides of the car. And, anyway, it was almost as dark as night. Still, I was going forward. Going back seemed scarier.

Finally, I reached the point where we’d gotten out of the car and started to walk. I opened the door, scraping a branch and almost slipping on a patch of leftover ice. Luckily, a lot of it had melted. I closed the door, making sure not to slam it. I trudged forward.

The day was warmer than before, but still cold. The freezing wind howled across the trees, and it did sound like a woman crying, but it wasn’t the same sound I’d heard before.

When I almost reached Josh’s cabin, I heard a noise like something breaking. I stopped, looked behind me. Nothing there. I took another step forward. Another crack. Was something following me? I stopped. No. Probably just a squirrel or even a fox. They had animals like that here. Still, I stood a moment. And then, I heard it, a voice singing. I ran toward it, unconcerned about noises or foxes or anything but finding out what it was.

Today, I woke knowing something would happen. Something would be different. It is winter. I have learned to tell winter by the cold outside my window and the snow. And, also, the lights from the distance, lights from a town I’ve never seen. People put them up in winter, and though they’re far away, I see them. I watch them twinkle and dream of the day when I will see them close up.

Once, when I was younger, I asked Mama what they were. She said, “People put them up in December to celebrate the season.”

“I wish I could go there. They must be so happy.” Celebrating sounded like an incredible thing. I had never celebrated anything, other than my birthday and Mama’s, and even those were dull. It wasn’t that my life was awful, merely that it was the same, day after day, year after year.

Mama didn’t let me go, of course. It was too dangerous. But the next time she came, she brought me a package, all wrapped in red-and-green paper with pictures of bells on it. I was so excited. I loved presents. I ripped the paper, carefully, because I wanted to save it in the box under my bed where I kept all my special possessions.

Inside was a box with a green plastic string covered with multicolored objects, each pointed like an icicle.

“They’re lights. You can plug them in the wall and look at them all you like.” Mama started to remove them from the packaging. “They even twinkle.”

“Oh. They’re lovely.” I plugged them in the wall. They glowed red and green, blue and yellow, and when Mama changed one of the bulbs, they blinked on and off.

Mama helped me hang them on the wall. I noticed she put them far from the window so that no one would see them, and every night for weeks after, I plugged them in and watched them blink, on and off, off and on. It made me happy to watch them, and peaceful, like I was part of the wide world.

But, one day, I realized that Mama had brought me the lights because she was never going to take me out to see the real ones.

That night, I took them down and hid them away, in the same box where I had stored my paper. When Mama came and asked where they’d gone, I said they were broken.

“I’ll bring you a new string,” she said.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ve looked at them enough.”

But that was how I knew it was winter, even before the snow began piling on my windowsill. And, when the snow melts, it is spring and the flowers bloom below.

But now, it had only been winter a short time, and the snow was melting. I opened my window. It was a long way down, too long to see much other than the activities of birds and the occasional deer. Still, I wanted to leave the window open, to smell the world outside. I would play my harp and sing my songs, and the animals, at least, would hear me.

I began to do this. I sang the saddest song I knew, about a girl in love with a poor boy but unable to marry him. Mama taught it to me. She said it was from Scotland, and I loved it because it was from so far away.