“Is that what happened to my forty bucks too? You just
borrowed
it right off my dresser?”
Alice was silent. Melissa felt sick when she thought of the two twenty-dollar bills tucked into her birthday card.
Austin slid the books onto the floor of the aluminum boat and laid the sword against a seat. Then he stood up and said fiercely, “This sword is mine! Get it? Mine! Keep your hands off it. And what is that crap you're writing about Tristan?”
“You read my story?” gasped Alice.
“Yeah, I read it. It was lying right there. How dare you put Tristan in it! Don't you even care?”
“It's not really Tristan,” said Alice. She sounded terrified now. “It's just a character I made up.”
“Then you shouldn't have called him Tristan. You shouldn't have used his name. It'sâ¦
sick
. You make me sick.”
“Austin, don't,” pleaded Alice.
Austin stepped forward and gave her a rough shove. “Get out of my way. And don't ever touch my stuff again. You got it? Never!”
Austin jumped down into his boat. It rocked back and forth. He untied the rope and then knelt beside the motor and savagely yanked the cord. The motor sputtered and then roared to life.
He glared at Alice with cold eyes and shouted above the roar of the motor. “Dad says you're supposed to come home right now. We're going to town to get tractor parts and you have to stay with Mom.”
“Pleaseâ”
“Do as I say! And shut up! Just shut up!”
Alice stood beside Melissa, frozen, until the boat had disappeared. Then she sank down on the flat rock and hugged her knees tightly.
Melissa felt like she was going to throw up. She took a big breath. Then she sat beside her friend and said softly, “Alice, who is Tristan?”
A
lice didn't say anything.
Melissa repeated gently, “Tristan? Who is he?”
“You won't understand,” said Alice.
“Yes, I will,” said Melissa, although she wasn't entirely sure she would.
“My brother,” whispered Alice.
“Butâ¦I thought it was just you and Austin⦔ Melissa's voice trailed off in confusion.
“My
little
brother,” said Alice. “He died two years ago, just before we moved here. He was four.”
The same age as Cody. Shock and horror filled Melissa. “What happened?” she said.
“He had cancer,” said Alice. Her voice sounded flat, drained of emotion. “He got sicker and sicker and then he just died.”
Tears slid down Alice's cheeks. Melissa reached out and touched her arm. “I'm so sorry.”
Alice swiped her eyes. “Austin thinks he misses Tristan more than I do. But he's wrong. I miss Tristan every day. Sometimes I hate Austin.”
“But I thoughtâ¦you said you guys did all that stuff together.”
“I made it up,” said Alice bitterly. “He
used
to like me. But now he doesn't even know I exist.”
Melissa felt a pang of sorrow as she thought of the photograph she had found in Alice's leather book. Austin's arm was slung around Alice's shoulder, the little boy with the round tummy was tucked securely in front of them, and they had all been grinning. The little boy had a name now. Tristan. And he wasn't Alice's cousin. He was her brother.
An icicle ran up her back as she tried to imagine Cody dying of some horrible disease, and she knew in that instant how terribly she would miss him. She swallowed hard, trying to think of something to say, but her brain was frozen.
Alice stood up. She picked up a small rock from the ground and hurled it far out into the lake. “Austin can go to hell,” she said. “They can all go to hell.”
Then she was crying properly, her shoulders heaving with sobs.
“I'm so sorry,” said Melissa again, feeling helpless. She had a sudden thought that her mother would know what to do and she wished that Sharlene were there.
Alice stopped crying. The tears left dirty streaks on her cheeks, and her nose was running. She sniffed hard and took several huge shaky breaths. She looked at Melissa. “You're so lucky,” she said.
“Me?” said Melissa.
“You have such a perfect family.”
“I don't,” said Melissa quickly. “I really don't.”
“I wish I had your mother,” said Alice.
“But your mother is great. She has that important job.” Melissa felt everything dissolve. “Sharlene didn't even graduate. She's a
custodian
in my school!”
“So?” said Alice. “Who cares? And I lied about my mother's job too.”
Melissa stared at her. “You did?”
“She
used
to work for a publishing company. Before Tristan died. Now she doesn't do anything.” Alice's voice was jagged. “She doesn't even get out of bed most days. She won't even let anyone open the curtains.”
“What's the matter with her?” said Melissa, shocked.
“The doctor calls it depression,” said Alice. “It's because of Tristan dying. She was fine before that.”
“Why doesn't your father make her get up?” said Melissa.
“Dad ignores her,” said Alice bitterly. “He spends all his time outside working. Everything changed when Tristan died. Dad used to be fun. Now I don't think he cares about any of us. He just yells about the house being dirty all the time. And if I'm late making dinner, then he gets really mad.”
That was why Alice had looked panicky when she saw how late she had stayed at the birthday party. Melissa felt numb.
“Can't somebody do something?” Melissa hesitated. “A social worker or something?” She remembered a very sympathetic social worker who had visited them a few times after the fire. Melissa had pretended that the social worker was her mother.
Alice flushed. “We don't want a social worker poking around. It's nobody's business but ours. I shouldn't even have told you.”
“I won't tell anyone,” said Melissa quickly. “I promise.”
“There's no point talking about any of this,” Alice burst out. She hurled another rock.
Then she said, in a voice that sounded hollow and empty, “Austin said I had to go home. Mom must be having one of her really bad days. I better go right now.”
In the late afternoon, clouds started piling up at the end of the lake, and by supper time they had blotted out the sun completely. A stiff breeze rattled the leaves in the aspen trees.
“I think it's actually going to rain,” said Sharlene. “That's probably not a bad thing. The firefighters will be happy.”
Melissa helped gather up the lawn-chair cushions and the towels draped over the backs of chairs and on the dock. She found herself worrying about Alice's stuff in the tree house. It would get ruined if it rained. She gazed out at the lake. The sky and the water were the same dark shade of gray and the air felt heavy.
“I have to go back to the island to do something,” she told Sharlene. “I won't be long.”
The first few drops of rain made dimples on the glassy lake as she paddled up to the flat rock. She ran along the trail to the tree house, scrambled up the ladder and pulled herself through the hole. Her heart gave a jolt. Scattered across the floor were scraps of paper covered in Alice's handwriting. She knew right away that it was Alice's story. She picked up a scrap and stared at it in horror. Austin did this, she thought shakily. He had been furious that Alice had put Tristan in the story. So furious that he had ripped it to pieces.
Slowly Melissa gathered up all the pieces. Uncertain what to do with them, she put them on the shelf and then looked around. For a moment she wished she hadn't come. Most of the stuff would be okay in the rainâthe dishes, the cans of food, the bow and arrows. Austin had taken all the books. She rolled up the sleeping bag and stuffed it in a plastic garbage bag. She hesitated for a moment and then slid all the pieces of Alice's story into the front of the red binder. A paper was sticking out at the back. Melissa slipped it out and studied it for a moment. It was her drawing of Elfrida. The young girl's face looked proud and brave. Melissa remembered Alice saying excitedly, “It looks like me!” She kept the picture aside to take back with her and slid the binder into the top of the garbage bag.
Melissa tied the flaps at the top of the bag and slid it under the shelf. She took one last look around. When Melissa had first seen the tree house, a tingle had run up her spine as if she really were in a magical place. But now she just felt tired, and Dar Wynd seemed like a game she had played a long time ago.
The rain was falling harder now and a chill crept over Melissa. She tucked the drawing under her shirt to keep it dry. As she made her way back along the darkening trail to her canoe, she shivered at the memory of Austin's fury. She wondered if Dar Wynd would ever feel magical again.
S
harlene had decided to save Cody's fish for breakfast and she made hamburgers for supper. Melissa put together a salad while Sharlene fried the burgers on the campstove.
Supper smelled good, but when it came time to eat, Melissa found it hard to swallow. She played with her food and ended up dumping most of it in the garbage. For the rest of the evening she was torn between telling Sharlene what had happened and keeping her promise to Alice. She caught Sharlene looking at her searchingly a few times, but her mother didn't ask and Melissa kept quiet.
The rain had turned into a steady downpour and sent everyone to bed early. Melissa lay on her back with her window open, listening to the rain pattering on the roof.
What was Alice doing right now? Austin had ordered Alice to come home to stay with their mother because she was having a bad day. What did that mean? Melissa had a vague picture in her mind of a woman with a sad face lying in a bed in a dark bedroom, the curtains pulled tight. She remembered times when Sharlene had stayed in bed all day, hungover from a party. Melissa had crept around the trailer, trying to keep Cody from making too much noise, preparing meals of tinned spaghetti and crackers. But Sharlene had always gotten up eventually and she had never seemed depressed.
All that felt like a long time ago now, and Melissa realized with surprise that she didn't think about it that much anymore. Through the thin walls she heard Cody call out something in a distressed voice and she instinctively tensed, ready to go to him. Then came the reassuring murmur of Sharlene's voice, soft and comforting. Melissa waited a moment and then rolled over on her side and drifted into a deep, exhausted sleep.
It rained on and off for the next two days. Each afternoon a watery sun came out for a couple of hours and Melissa went back to Dar Wynd. Everything was exactly as she had left it. There was no sign of Alice. Melissa's stomach clenched at the thought that something bad had happened, something awful enough to keep Alice away.
After supper on the second day, while Sharlene went to the store, Melissa helped Cody build a castle out of toilet-paper rolls, old yogurt containers and his blocks. “We'll call it Dar Wynd,” she said when it was finished. Cody had been filling the courtyard with his plastic animals but he looked up at Melissa and said, “What's Dar Wynd?”
“It's a very special place,” said Melissa. “But I'm going to let you borrow the name.”
Sharlene came in with a bag of groceries. She admired the castle and then Melissa got Cody ready for bed. She read him three stories and then came back into the main room. Sharlene was standing by the window, staring outside. She turned around and said, “I heard some very shocking news from Marge at the store. I didn't want to tell you in front of Cody.”
“What is it?” said Melissa. Her chest tightened. Sharlene had hardly said anything since she got back from the store and now she looked upset. What could have happened?
Sharlene sank onto one end of the couch, and Melissa stared at her. “What is it?” she said again.
“It's Alice's mother,” said Sharlene. “Apparently she's been very ill. Mentally ill. No one in the community knew. And the night before last⦔ Sharlene's voice trailed off.
“What happened?” said Melissa.
“She took a whole bunch of pills,” said Sharlene.
An icy chill sank deep into Melissa's stomach. “What kind of pills?”
“I don't know,” said Sharlene. “Sleeping pills, maybe. Alice found her, which is awful. It turns out they don't even have a phone down there. Alice's father rushed her to the store, and Marge phoned an ambulance but he was afraid to wait for it. It's two hours to the nearest hospital. Alice's father raced down the highway and met the ambulance on the way. It's a wonder he didn't have an accident. He must have been so frantic.”
Melissa sat down on the couch beside Sharlene. “Is she going to be all right?” she said. Her mouth felt dry.
“She survived the pills,” said Sharlene. “They must have pumped out her stomach. But Marge says they'll be keeping her in the hospital for quite a while.” Sharlene sighed. “Here she was, this poor woman, a neighbor, and no one had any idea she was so unhappy.”
“I knew,” whispered Melissa. “Alice told me. The last time I saw her. Alice had a little brother called Tristan. He died two years ago of cancer when he was four, and her mother has been like this ever since. Tristan was in Alice's story.”
Sharlene squeezed Melissa's hand. “Oh, honey. How sad. No wonder Alice was so drawn to Cody.”
“You'd think it would just make her feel bad being around him,” said Melissa. “He would remind her of Tristan.”
“Alice wouldn't need any reminding,” said Sharlene gently. “And everyone is different. I think Cody helped Alice escape. In an odd way he might have brought Tristan back.”
A miserable feeling of guilt welled up in Melissa. “If I had told you about her mother, do you think we could have done something?”
“No, I don't,” said Sharlene. “And you mustn't start thinking like that. Melissa, in the big picture this may not be a bad thing. Maybe now Alice's mother will get the help she needs.”