Zebra Forest (16 page)

Andrew Snow seemed to be struggling for breath. His chest heaved, and he stopped for a minute, maybe to get some air. But then he said, “That guy, he looked my way, laughing harder than ever. Then he said, ‘Well, you can stand anything for five minutes, right?’

“He was still laughing when I grabbed him.”

Andrew Snow shuddered.

“He fought back at first, but I was bigger, and stronger, and much madder. I just threw him down. I heard his head hit the floor. Such a hard sound, like a piece of wood, almost. I should have stopped. Amanda was screaming, pulling at me, but I was so mad, I kept picking him up and shoving him back. Three times, four. He had such dark hair, I didn’t even see the blood until it seeped out onto the floor.”

I looked at Andrew Snow’s back. He was taking big gulps of air, breathing hard. I thought he was done, but then, quieter, he said, “If I’d have pushed him just the once, they’d have called it an accident. But I kept doing it. I kept picking him up and shoving him down. That’s manslaughter. That’s what they said. And it is. I didn’t plan it, Annie. But I killed him. I killed him just the same.”

W
hen he finished talking, Andrew Snow leaned over the sink and put his head in his hands. He started to shiver a little, like I’d seen Gran do. I left him there, shivering a little myself, and went to sit in the darkness of the front room. It wasn’t hot anymore. Already I could hear thunder grumbling over the Zebra, and I wished I could find one of Gran’s quilts and throw it over my head to shut it out. I didn’t like the noise now, and the dark, what with Andrew Snow shivering in the kitchen and Gran and Rew buried upstairs in their rooms.

But Rew wasn’t upstairs. I sat down on the couch, kicking away
Life
magazines, and noticed him there, sitting on the bottom step of the stairs.

Even in the falling dark, his face was white. I jumped a little when I saw him, round eyes so big, staring at me.

“Rew,” I said. “Sit with me. It’s going to storm.”

Rew didn’t answer. But he turned his head to look out the front window, at the first arrow of light slicing down into the edge of the Zebra. He said not a word as the sky opened up.

The rain came in a great gust, slamming into the windows. The light was all gone now, and neither of us moved to turn a lamp on. Lightning frosted the windows every few minutes, making them blink against the hammering rain.

Upstairs, I heard a door open. Gran, dressed in her robe, drifted downstairs, peering out at the storm. Rew didn’t move when she stopped just past him, at the window over the stairs. Andrew Snow came out of the kitchen then. He looked at me, then at Rew, and Gran.

Gran put her hand flat on the windowpane, and I saw it turn black against a sudden surge of light. She turned away from it and reached down to touch Rew’s head.

I thought she must have given him a shock, because he jerked away when she did that. I’d never seen him move that quick before.

“Don’t touch me!” he screamed at her. And the sound of his voice made even Gran’s eyes go wide. Rew backed away as if she’d hurt him — fast, into the middle of the room. His face was ghost-like against the dark of the front room as he looked from Gran to me to Andrew Snow.

“Rew —” I started, but he didn’t let me finish. He was shouting, shouting in a voice so high I thought it must belong to someone else. Someone I didn’t know.

“No!” he shrieked. “You stop! You stop! You
want
him here, Annie, you do, but I don’t! Don’t you think I know you’re letting him stay? He even told you — he told you what he did! And you’re not going to send him back! Not you, and not Gran!”

And then he turned on her, and he did something I’d never seen him do before. He grabbed Gran’s arm and yanked it from the window. “Why did you bring us here?” he screamed at her before I could move to stop him. “Why? Why? You never went to see him anyway!”

I didn’t understand him for a moment, with all that screaming, and with the knocking of the rain and the thunder smashing over our heads. But when I looked up at Gran, I could see that she did. She was looking across the room at Andrew Snow, and when I turned, I could see that he understood, too.

Gran lifted up her hand, out toward Rew. But Rew, enraged, batted it away. “No!” he screamed. And in a fit, he ran to the front door, pulling against it, rattling the chain there. He couldn’t get it open.

Everyone else seemed frozen. Andrew Snow stood watching him, and so did Gran, her hand still half up. But Rew moved in a frenzy. He yanked and yanked at the door, screaming in frustration. And then his head came up, and he turned, and in a second he had run for the kitchen, past Andrew Snow. I felt a sudden gust of wet wind and knew he had opened the back door.

“Rew!”

Gran screamed it, behind me. Her voice was shaky and high against the sudden noise of the storm, but I heard her. Barefoot, in her robe, she moved fast, too, into the kitchen, out into the night.

I ran after her, to the doorway, and felt the rain on my face. Andrew Snow had followed them, sprinting into the darkness. A clap of thunder boomed overhead, then the Zebra flashed into view and I could see the three of them silhouetted against it, running in the rain.

For a moment, I stood there, trembling. Then I ran, too, out into the rain, toward the Zebra.

L
ike great white bones, the birches stood out in the darkness. I ran toward them, calling, screaming for Gran and Rew and Andrew Snow. But the rain, coming down in sheets now, washed my voice away, and the wind roaring down through the Zebra took my breath, too.

I reached the edge of the woods and slipped into mud, falling on a root. My face slammed down into the moss, and I could smell the wet, the green water everywhere. But I got to my feet and ran forward, into the Zebra. My heart beat so hard I had to gasp for air, but I knew they were in there somewhere — they couldn’t have gone far.

The rain swept over me, slapping my face, soaking my clothes. But if I was cold, I didn’t feel it. All I knew for a while was running, the sensation of wet ground, and the crashing thunder and the sharp pain of twigs tearing at my arms in the dark. Panting, I followed the jagged path of white trees that glimmered there, straining to hear voices over the thrashing of wet leaves overhead, the branches whipping back and forth in the wind.

Deeper into the Zebra, the dark thickened. It clung to the trees, clotted there between the trunks, and made even the white birches vanish. After a while, I could only stumble forward, hands reaching out, calling, calling.

But soon I was lost. I’d never been lost in the Zebra before, but then, I’d never been in such darkness. I looked behind me, but I couldn’t see even the edge of the forest. I couldn’t see home.

If I’d thought I’d been frightened when Rew ran into the night, I found out then that fear could hollow you out so fast, it left you weightless, erased. Standing there in the wet, roaring darkness, blind and lost, a terror so fierce took hold of me, I nearly fell down. Water dripped off my face and down my fingers, and I reached for the nearest tree and clung to its rough bark, arms tight round it, to keep myself standing. I blinked, trying to clear my eyes of water, but the night was so heavy, all I could see was black.

Thunder exploded over my head then, setting my ears ringing. At the same moment, the forest flashed into sight. If I hadn’t been holding the tree, I’d have fallen to the ground, and as it was, the trunk, even the roots, shook. A sharp hiss and the smell of burning came then, and I shut my eyes, dazzled by the afterglow of the flash.

Another crash, and again I saw the forest, electrified. This time I forced my eyes open and strained for a sight of the edge. When the third strike came, I saw it. Letting go of the tree, I ran for home.

No one had come back. I stood shivering, blinking in the too-bright kitchen, letting the water spill off me into a puddle on the floor. After a while, I realized I was sobbing, and I breathed and stopped myself. I went upstairs and stripped off my clothes, changed, and pulled a quilt off my bed, wrapping it round me to stop myself from shaking. Then I went downstairs to the kitchen, to wait.

I could see now, staring at the windows, why Gran hated them so at night. No matter how hard I strained my eyes, I could see nothing outside. Just my own ghostly face reflecting back at me, alone, in the empty kitchen.

After a time, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I closed my eyes, putting my head down on the kitchen table.

I didn’t sleep, though. In the early hours of the morning, when the storm had died down some, I heard the kitchen door and lifted my head.

It was Rew. His hair and clothes were slicked and brown with mud, and his skin stood out against it, washed unnaturally clean by the blowing rain. He stood for a moment, blinking in the doorway, and then he stepped back and held the door open. Behind him came Andrew Snow, looking much the same as the first night I saw him, dirty and grim. He was carrying Gran.

“G
et towels,” Andrew Snow said. “Quickly.”

Without a word, I turned and ran upstairs. Rew followed. We carried down armloads of old bath towels. I tried to hand one to Rew, so drenched he was dripping, but he barely noticed me.

Andrew Snow had laid Gran on the couch in the front room. He had a dish towel in his hand, and he was gently wiping blood from her face.

I stopped short when I saw that. Gran’s eyes were shut tight, and a long, ugly gash ran from her forehead to her cheek. Andrew Snow turned and saw us, reached for the towels, and quickly wrapped Gran in them, rubbing her body to warm her.

Beneath the towels, he pulled away her wet things.

“Get me something, a robe or nightgown,” he said.

I brought him down her old flannel nightdress. From her bed, Rew had brought her big quilt, and Andrew Snow threw it over her, pulling on her nightdress under it and pulling the quilt tight around her, like a cocoon.

When he’d done that, he turned and looked at Rew.

“You get warm, too,” he said, “or you’ll be sick.”

Mute, Rew turned and went upstairs. Andrew Snow pulled a chair over to the couch and sat down, leaning over Gran. He gently touched the edges of the cut on her face and pressed his palm to her cheek.

“Lightning struck one of the trees out there,” he said to me. “I think a branch knocked her coming down.”

“Will she be okay?” I whispered.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I think so. The cut doesn’t look too bad, but she lay there for a while. Rew found her before I did. When the storm died a little, I heard him calling. And I found them.”

Gran moaned then, though she didn’t open her eyes. Andrew Snow put his hand on her head again, and she subsided.

“We should make soup,” Andrew Snow said. “She could use something warm when she wakes up.”

But he didn’t move. He kept looking down at Gran, his hand on her head. So I said, “I think I could make some.”

I thought I knew how by that time, having seen my father do it so often.

In the kitchen, I opened the cabinet and found the staples Andrew Snow had said would come in handy. Tomato sauce, dried peas, rice. I cut up carrots and added some spice and poured it all into the big pot, to heat on the stove with some water. I even sprinkled in some wheat germ.