The Door in the Forest (10 page)

“Now, Captain.” She attempted a little laugh. “This is all silly. You can see what it is yourself! It’s just a map of the local towns, and there’s Everwood in the middle. See?” She held the back of a kitchen chair for support.

He scanned the page. “I see that it could be.”

“It is. It obviously is.”

“What’s not obvious,” he said, “is why you wouldn’t say that in the first place.”

“Pure contrariness.”

“I think there’s more to it. What are all these little signs and symbols? And there are words around the border. Something about a serpent? I can’t make it out.”

She peered at it. “You’d have to ask my ancestors.”

“I’m asking you!”

“I think I’ll let you figure it out yourself.”

“Don’t mock me, old woman,” he said. “You do not want me for an enemy.”

“I’m sure, Captain Sloper,” she replied, lifting her head grandly, “I don’t want you any way at all.”

“Well.” He tucked the document into an inside pocket. “In that case, I bid you good night.”

It wasn’t the crickets that woke Daniel late that night; it was their sudden stop. He sat up in his sleeping bag.

“Hello?” he called in a whisper. “Who’s there?”

Who is
ever
there, when you wake in the darkness, with your heart beating?

He remembered now that he was not in his room but in the hayloft beside his sleeping brother. They’d been banished to the barn for the duration. That was fine with him. The less he had to do with Sloper and his men, the better.

That didn’t explain the strangeness. The world seemed the reverse of its familiar, daytime self, like the back of a mirror, showing him not the friendly objects of his daily life, but a dull blankness.

Something, someone was absent. A mirror had gone dark. A sound had ceased.

But the crickets. Why had
they
stopped? That suggested a presence, not an absence. A prowler?

Carefully, so as not to waken Wes, he extricated himself from the sleeping bag and climbed down the ladder from the loft. Moonlight leaked through the old wall boards, throwing stripes of light across the barn floor where Daniel sat lacing his sneakers. A sudden thud from one of the stalls made him jump, but it was just Nate, the Crowleys’ horse, shifting in his sleep.

The big sliding door gave a groan as Daniel pushed it open a few careful inches. He considered lighting the lantern that hung from a nail, but there was no need, with the bright half-moon in a cloudless sky. Anyway, why alert
any intruders who might be out there? Unlikely, he thought, but
something
had silenced the crickets.

He peered across the stretch of broken ground at his family’s house, its roof gray-silver in the strange light. How quiet was too quiet?

He stepped out. The moon shone like a spotlight, frosting the tops of trees and throwing their undersides to blackness. Daniel slid into the shadows, becoming a shadow himself.

Nothing.

Something in the nothing. He held his breath, the better to hear, but the only sound was his heart bashing away in his chest.

A sudden scuttle of leaves behind him made the hairs rise on the back of his neck. The next moment, a hand grabbed his shoulder, and he let out a strangled cry.

“Shh!” hissed a voice.

His eyes began to adjust. “You!”

“Who did you think?” whispered Emily.

The girl, as she emerged more clearly, looked shaken herself. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said, “but I didn’t know who else I could trust.”

“What is it?” he said.

“It’s Grandma.”

“What about her?”

She looked around as if there were spies out there in the dark.

“Emily, what happened?”

“She’s gone!”

Daniel led the girl to the barn and slid the door shut behind them. He lit the kerosene lamp, turning the wick low. “Now,” he said as they sat cross-legged on the floor with the lamp between them, “tell me what happened.”

“Tell me, too,” piped a voice from above. It was Wesley, starting down the ladder.

“You know my brother,” said Daniel.

The girl looked at Wesley’s eager ten-year-old face. “Hi,” she said without enthusiasm.

“Hey.” Wesley plunked down beside his brother. “What’s up?”

“Is it okay to tell him?” said Daniel.

Emily sighed. “Sure.”

“Well,” said Daniel, “Grandma Byrdsong has disappeared.”

“Wow,” said Wes. “Just like Mr. Eccles!”

Everybody had heard about Wayne Eccles. The old farmer had said something unpleasant to Captain Sloper, and
yesterday he’d disappeared. There weren’t that many places he could go, unless he’d slunk out of town, abandoning farm and family. That wasn’t Wayne.

Emily bit her lip. “I don’t know. Tonight she had an argument with Sloper.”

“Your grandmother? What about?”

She wasn’t sure how much she should say with Wesley there, but it couldn’t be helped. “It was about a map. One my mother gave me.” She was surprised to find her voice suddenly shaky. Tears filled her eyes.

“Hey,” said Daniel softly.

“That must be one important map,” said Wesley.

“All I had left of my mother was that map, and she begged me not to let the soldiers find it. And now, because of my own stupidity …” Her voice twisted in her throat.

The boys were quiet. They hadn’t had much experience with someone breaking down like this.

“Can you tell us about it?” Daniel said at last.

She wiped her face with the back of her hand. Haltingly she told them what her grandmother had said, that it was the only way onto the island.

“A treasure map?” said Wesley hopefully.

“You’d like that,” said his brother.

“Don’t think so,” she said. “But the way Grandma was talking, it sounded like the most important thing in the world.”

“What do you know about the island?” Daniel said.

“Nothing for sure. But that first night …” She took a big shuddering breath. “That first night I was on the roof and I thought I heard something.”

“Heard what?”

“A voice. Coming from the island.”

“But nobody
lives
there,” Wesley piped up. “Nobody can
get
there!”

“Did you recognize the voice?” Daniel pursued.

Emily looked from Wesley’s eager face to Daniel’s sober one. “It sounded like a woman. It sounded—” she began, but then stopped herself. “Never mind.”

They were all silent. There was a lot of darkness in the barn surrounding the little circle of light, and the three kids huddled in its glow.

“I can’t think that Bridey was trying to get to the island,” said Daniel. “She can hardly walk!”

“Well, she’s out there somewhere,” said Emily.

“Know what I think?” he said. “I think we should wake everybody up. The whole town. Get them all looking.”

“There’s the bell in the church,” said Wesley, jumping up. “We can start by ringing that!”

“We should tell Mom and Dad first,” said Daniel.

“What about the sheriff?” Wesley said.

“Bingham? He hasn’t been exactly …”

“I know. Good thing we don’t have much crime in Everwood.”

It was true. Fred Bingham was a beet farmer who’d taken the side job as town sheriff because it involved almost no work and no one else wanted it. It strained his capacity to get a cat out of a tree.

“Probably we should tell the mayor, too,” Wesley said.

“Fench? Maybe.”

“Do whatever you want,” said Emily, “but do it soon!”

The bell was deafening, loud enough, as they say, to wake the dead. So it seemed to the three kids standing beneath it, yanking on the rope with all their might. It was certainly loud enough to wake the citizens of Everwood. People came from all directions, some of them running, several carrying buckets of water, expecting fire.

Daniel couldn’t hear at first—his ears were ringing. It wasn’t until he’d gotten outside, in front of the forming crowd, that his hearing was mostly back. He stood on the top step with Wes and Emily. Sheriff Bingham was making his way up to join them. Mayor Fench was coming, too, tucking in his shirttails.

“This better not be a prank,” said a farmer near the front.

“Do they know what
time
it is?” said his nightgowned wife.

“We’re sorry to get you all out here,” Daniel called over their heads, “but there’s an emergency. You all know Bridey Byrdsong. Well, she’s disappeared!”

“What did he say?” growled Mr. Fish, who had heard perfectly well. “Bridey the witch?”

“She can’t walk very well.” Daniel looked out over the crowd. “And her car’s still in the garage.”

The mayor and the sheriff stood conferring, then Sheriff Bingham stepped forward. He lifted his head, looking as sheriff-like as possible. “We had search parties out looking for Wayne Eccles today,” he announced loudly. “We’re going to have to call on you again tonight. Do we have enough lanterns?”

“We have some in our basement,” called out Fish’s wife, Min.

“We do, too,” said Gwen Crowley, toward the back of the crowd. She gave her boys an encouraging half wave.

“Good! Meanwhile, let’s split up into groups of five.”

Mayor Fench then had “a few words” to say. The people of Everwood knew what that meant and began to disband. Some older townsfolk headed back to bed, but most wanted to join the search. They might make fun of Bridey, amused at her forgetfulness or her unique approach to driving; but they liked her, even those who secretly believed, or hoped, she might be a witch.

Suddenly Captain Sloper roared up in his staff car, jumped out, and strode through the crowd, followed by several aides.

He seemed not to notice Sheriff Bingham’s presence as he turned and surveyed the people.

“I hear an old lady’s gone missing,” he called out in a voice that echoed back from the building across the street. “We’re here to help.”

Several farmers exchanged looks.

“What’s the matter?” Sloper barked. “Come on! Get moving. Time’s wasting!”

Everyone assumed that Grandma Byrdsong could not have gone far, so mostly they stayed close by the house, their lanterns making an irregular necklace around the yard and outbuildings. The soldiers, meanwhile, rummaged around inside, from the root cellar to the Four Seasons room in the
turret. One soldier was seen waving his lantern from the widow’s walk.