“Yes, I know. He didn't hurt you, did he?”
“No. He was acting so strange ⦠We hit him with a truck, Mom. It was an accident.”
“Yes, I know, darling. It's all right. He wasn't hurt. He won't bother you anymore, I promise. Don't be afraid.”
“We're not afraid. We're not afraid anymore.” The connection was poor. Laura's voice was faint, vibrating against the hum of a thousand other conversations.
“Mom? I got your number from Miss Haskell at camp.”
“Yes, that was the right thing to do. I'm so glad you thought of that. But where are you, Laura? Please tell me.”
“Miss Haskell said that Howie has to stay at camp. That he can't come home with me.”
“That's not true, darling. She doesn't know. He is coming. I promise.”
“We've got to stay together, Mom.” Laura's voice was thin and stretched.
“I promise, I promise. He is coming home with us. I'll steal him, anything. Just tell me where you are. I want you so much.”
There was a long pause. Maddy felt afraid. She tried to stop crying so she could hear.
“I don't know, Mom. Don't cry.” Her voice faded and grew strong again, as if she had looked away from
the telephone. “It's pretty here. There're trees, and a river. There's an old man, too. He lent us some money so I could call you.”
“But ⦔ Maddy tried to think. “Is it a pay phone? What's the number? It should be right there. Right where you dial.”
“There isn't one. Somebody scratched it off.” Laura's voice suddenly sounded very tired. As if things had become too hard. Too hard to try anymore.
“I'm sorry that things didn't work out at camp, Mom. I really tried.”
“That doesn't matter, darling. Not anymore. Just stay where you are. Promise me that, Laura. I'll find you. Just stay where you are.”
There was a series of sharp clicks, and a woman's voice, clear and impersonal, said, “Please deposit five cents. Five cents. Please deposit five cents.”
“Mom?” Maddy heard Laura say, and then there was nothing at all.
Miss Gallagher took the phone from her hand. “Dial 911, Laura,” she said confidently into the dead receiver. “Dial 911.” The silence was replaced by a dial tone.
Miss Gallagher listened for a moment, her eyes staring into Maddy's. She hung up the phone. “Where is she, Mrs. Golden? What did she say?”
Maddy could hardly see her. The world seemed to be drowning in a pool of her own tears.
“She didn't know. There was a river. Trees.” What
did it mean? It was a state full of rivers and trees, going on forever.
“A pay phone. Don't forget that.” Miss Gallagher looked thoughtful. She opened her white wicker handbag and took out a map. She unfolded it and spread it on the bed. Here, she explained, is where the truck was found. They couldn't have gone too far on foot. This must be the river that Laura mentioned. As her blunt finger rooted through the tangle of red-and-blue lines, Maddy began to feel some hope.
“She said there was an old man. He lent her some money.” How foolish that sounded. Old men weren't fixtures. They weren't marked on maps.
Miss Gallagher nodded. “Lockwood. He's got a honey stand by the bridge on County M. There's a pay phone there, too.”
She folded up the map in the right way, so that it fell obediently along its original creases. Maddy began to respect Miss Gallagher. She knew how to fold a map. Perhaps she knew where Laura was.
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“This is the place,” said Miss Gallagher. Maddy looked out the car window at the river, the trees, an enormous sky hazy with a long afternoon's heat. There was a small stand by the bridge. It was painted a glistening white. One corner was sinking into a clump of goldenrod. A hand-painted sign said LOCKWOOD'S HONEY.
There was no one there. Large plywood shutters
closed off the interior of the stand as firmly as eyelids seal the eyes.
Maddy got out of the car. Her legs were a little shaky. She was used to seeing countryside through the closed windows of a swiftly moving vehicle. It made her feel vulnerable and slow to be standing there by the side of the road. She could feel the coarse gravel through the thin soles of her shoes and the wind moving against her bare arms. She could smell the pine trees. She had forgotten that pine trees had such a rich, promising smell. She thought Laura must be very brave to have come here, to be willing to stay, even until dark.
An old man came out of the woods behind the honey stand. He was wearing a black suit and a very white shirt, and he moved with a spry limp.
“I'll just open up,” he said. He picked up a long prop of peeled white wood and lifted one of the shutters. Behind it Maddy could see shelves lined with greenish-gold jars of honey.
Miss Gallagher came around from her side of the car. “Mr. Lockwood? Have you seen a young girl and boy here? About half an hour ago. They might have used the pay phone.”
The man paused, bending for the second prop. He was very old, with black liquid eyes in a dry face.
“Oh yes. I seen them.” He calculated, putting out a pale tongue. “Are you going to pay me?” he asked abruptly.
“What do you mean, pay you?” Miss Gallagher was indignant.
The man chuckled and straightened up. As he came close to them, he extracted a folded piece of paper from the breast pocket of his jacket. It had been torn from a small spiral notebook. He smoothed it carefully with his fingers and then put it in Maddy's hand.
“IOU,” it said. “Sixty cents. Shadow Golden.”
“Yes, of course I'll pay you. I'm her mother.” Maddy fumbled for her purse.
“Shadow's mother?” The old man recaptured the slip of paper neatly from Maddy's hand.
“Don't have to pay. You'd want the IOU then, wouldn't you? I'd rather have the IOU.”
He folded the small page up carefully and put it away. Maddy could hardly bear it.
“But where are they? Where did they go?”
The old man turned and looked off into the woods and then up at the sun, trying to get his bearings.
“That way,” he said, waving his hand toward a dirt track that followed the bank of the river away from the highway.
“That road? But where does it go?”
“Not a road. Fire trail. Doesn't go anywhere. Just up in the woods. I told them, but they seemed to know what they were doing. Sweet kids. Do you want some honey?”
Maddy shook her head, and the old man snatched
away the white wooden prop. The shutter fell down with a bang.
“Up in the woods, it goes. That's where they are now.”
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Overhead a helicopter was circling. As it passed low above them it made a terrific racket, its blades chopping frantically as if they meant to destroy the air itself. From their hiding place underneath an old spruce, the girl and boy watched it suddenly rise vertically into the air and sweep off to the west.
“Do you think they're looking for us?” she asked.
“No. Why would they be looking for us?”
The girl thought there might be reasons. They had done all those things. Sneaking into that motel. Stealing. They'd taken that man's truck. They hadn't taken it very far, but still they'd taken it, and they hadn't asked. Would that be enough for them to send out helicopters? Were men with guns looking for them? She didn't know. It seemed possible.
“Well, I don't think they saw us. I mean, if they are looking for us. Do you?”
The boy didn't answer. She wished he would say something. When she had told him what her mother had said, he had simply nodded and walked off along the fire trail. She didn't know where they were going, or what he was thinking.
It upset her that he wouldn't talk. There were things she wanted them to think about together. She wanted
to tell him that her mother had cried on the telephone. She hadn't expected that. She had thought her mother would be mad. Trying not to show it, perhaps, but still mad underneath. Her mother wasn't mad. She was afraid. It made the girl afraid, too.
It frightened her to realize how much she mattered to her mother. She knew her mother loved her. She'd always known that. But she had always believed that her mother was safe. Safe from her. That she didn't have to think about Maddy when she did something. But that wasn't right. She had to think. She had to think because she had made her mother listen.
When she was little and her mother wouldn't listen, she would punch her. She would punch her as hard as she could. Sometimes her mother had laughed, and sometimes she had been angry, but she had never cried. When the girl had been little she hadn't been able to hurt anyone. Now she could.
The funny thing was that, in some queer, nervous way, she felt glad. She felt very real, as if her body had suddenly gained an enormous presence and weight. She wanted to talk about that, too.
She looked at the boy. The helicopter was gone, but he showed no inclination to move. He was sitting with his legs drawn up, one cheek resting on his knee, his arms tucked away across his chest. His eyes were open, but she couldn't tell what he was thinking. It made her sad that she couldn't tell what he was thinking.
“Where are we going?”
“I don't know. Somewhere.” It was as if he couldn't bring himself to tell her.
“Mom said we should wait for her at the bridge. She said she'd find us.” She had already told him that. “She said Miss Haskell was wrong. That you could come home with us. She promised.”
He took a deep breath and straightened up, as if he had finally decided to talk. “No, she didn't.”
“What do you mean? Yes, she did!”
“No, she didn't. She couldn't. Miss Haskell is right.” He stood up and turned away so she couldn't see his face. “It's against the law.”
“What is?”
“I don't know. Us.”
“That's crazy,” she said. She was angry now. At him. Because he was making her afraid. “That's crazy. You're crazy.”
He didn't answer, but he looked at her. He was holding his head up, and his eyes were narrow. It was as if he wanted to show her that he wasn't crying. But he was, almost.
“I think we should go back,” she said. “I mean, maybe you can't come home with me right away. Then I'll stay at camp. But I think we should go back. There's no place else to go.”
“Yes, there is. I'm not going back there. Not ever. You go. I didn't say you had to come.”
She couldn't breathe. She was ready to cry herself.
With anger, terror, she didn't know. “I thought we were supposed to stay together.”
“No, we aren't. They won't let us.” He tried to think of something to say that would make her feel everything he was afraid of. “I don't need you. I don't want you anymore.”
They stared at each other over a wilderness that words had made, and then she jumped him, wrestling him to the ground and pounding at his face with her fists. He felt his glasses snap at the bridge, and relief swept over him like a wave. He was almost choking with it. He had never felt so strong in his life. He caught her hands, and twisted, forcing her over on her back so he could sit on her stomach. She didn't give up. She didn't seem to realize she was losing.
“You take that back, you bastard!” she panted. “You take that back!”
“I take it back. I didn't mean it. You know I didn't mean it.”
She stopped fighting then. It was funny. He was sitting on top of her, holding her hands back over her head, but she had won.
“I didn't mean it,” he said again. She tried to smile, but had to sniff instead. Her face was wet, and her nose was running. He thought she looked beautiful.
“I know. But you still can't say that.”
He let her go, and she sat up. They sat cross-legged, close together, their heads touching. For the
moment they weren't able to look at each other, but they fumbled with each other's hands.
“I'm sorry I broke your glasses.”
“Yeah. That's okay.”
“Can you see all right?”
“Yes. No, not really. Everything's fuzzy.”
“You can wear mine. We can take turns or something.”
He smiled when he thought of that.
“No, it's okay. I've got some spare ones. Back at camp. Okay?”
He felt her head nod against his.
“Okay,” she whispered. He caught her nervous hand and held it. She gave it up to him like a gift. It wasn't very clean. There was dirt under her nails, and there was a shiny callus on her second finger where she would hold a pencil. He was surprised again at how long her fingers were. They looked delicate, almost fragile, but he knew they weren't.