by Finley Aaron
She’s looking at me with something heavy on her thoughts—something too complicated to communicate with a look. Finally she whispers in a voice too silent for our parents to hear from the cabin behind us, “You walked through walls.”
“I didn’t walk.” I’m whispering, too.
“You went from the alley, through all the walls of our house to your bedroom. You passed through walls. If this is where we’re from—if this is where we were born, if our birth parents can do the things we can do…” Judy squeezes my arm. “Try it.”
“Try what?”
“Go through the wall?” Judy glances back as if to make sure our parents haven’t followed us.
I don’t know what they’re doing back in the cabin—the tunnel bends around, so they’re out of our line of sight—but they haven’t entered the tunnel.
“I don’t know what’s on the other side, or even if there is another side. It could be solid mountain for miles.”
“Somebody went through here,” Judy argues.
“But I don’t know where to.”
“So find out.”
For a second, I try to imagine how I would even attempt such a thing. Then I shake my head. “When I jumped home from the alley, I imagined my room in vivid detail. I pretended I was there, I felt like I was there, and then I was there. But if I don’t know what’s on the other side—how do I get there? I can’t picture it or feel it. I don’t know how.”
Judy looks around impatiently. “I don’t know how else to get through. Whoever came this way before must have done what you can do. Why else would the footprints come only this way?”
“Your theory is probably right, Jude. I just don’t know how to do it.”
Judy hangs her head in disappointment. “How are we going to find out where we came from—”
“Rudyard? Judith?” Mom calls from the cabin tunnel entrance. “Are you two okay?”
“We’re fine,” I call back.
“I think we found the end of the tunnel,” Judy adds. “We’re coming back.”
I give her a questioning look.
“What else are we going to do? There’s nothing more here.” Disappointment nearly drowns her whisper. “I’ll step in your old footprints going back.”
I nod and follow her lead.
Mom hugs us both when we reach the other side. “What did you find?”
“Nothing. It’s just a hollow cave.” Judy offers.
Mom sighs with relief. “All right. We’ve had a busy day. You’ve had quite an adventure. I didn’t sleep well at the hotel last night—I was worried about the weather and what we might find here—and I really think I’ll feel much better and less emotional if I get a good night’s sleep.”
While I’m not going to argue that my mom could use some rest, at the same time, I’m far from nodding off. “I’m too excited to sleep right now.”
“That’s fine.” Dad clamps a hand on my shoulder. “You and I can take the first watch.”
“Watch?” Judy echoes. “We’re in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard. Nobody’s been to this cabin in fifteen years. Why would they show up tonight?”
Dad looks sheepish, but explains, “Your mother and I talked it over. We’re in a potentially dangerous situation. You’ve got to admit, there are strange things about this place—”
“Speaking of strange.” Mom cuts him off. “We need to figure out how to close that false wall. I can’t imagine trying to fall asleep with it gaping open behind my back.”
Even though I already went down the tunnel and saw there’s nothing to fear there, Mom’s words still cause me to shudder. Mysterious gaping tunnels to nowhere are not conducive to a peaceful night’s sleep.
If that’s not a commonly accepted fact, it should be.
We spend some time sorting out sleeping arrangements, tugging the false door closed again (it’s not so difficult—though it does pull the rope back up to the ceiling) and flattening out the futon into a bed. Mom spreads out her sleeping bag atop the side of the futon closest to the fire, while Dad and I try out the hand pump in the kitchenette to see if we can raise enough water to brush our teeth without melting snow.
To our relief, after a lot of pumping, water rushes forth into the washing tub below the spigot.
At first the water is stained orange, probably from rust inside the pipe, but after another minute worth of pumping, it flows clear.
Clear, but not cold. I’m not saying it’s warm, not as warm as the air in the tunnel, anyway, but it’s not cold. Coolish-to-tepid, maybe.
Given that the air temperature outside is well below freezing, I’m a little surprised.
We all take turns brushing our teeth, and Mom ducks into the tiny bedroom, changes into her pajamas, and slips into her sleeping bag, while the rest of us pull up chairs around the table, and Dad gets out a deck of cards.
We’re well into our second game of rummy, and Mom is snoozing peacefully by the fire, when I hear a thump from the direction of the front door.
I turn to look that way, but there’s really nothing to see since the door is closed against the raging blizzard (it’s really furious now, and the wind is howling). I glance at Judy and Dad.
Their raised eyebrows tell me they think they may have heard something, too.
“Did you hear something?” Judy asks in a whisper, as if whatever’s on the other side might give up and go away as long as she doesn’t speak too loudly.
And also, probably so Mom doesn’t wake up…because I doubt Mom has slept long enough to be emotionally unfrazzled, and if she wakes up now, she’s only going to be more upset, especially if there is something on the other side of the door.
“Maybe an animal smelled the food from our cooler?” Dad glances at the cooler, which we set up against an exterior wall far from the fire, so the ice packs inside wouldn’t melt so quickly.
I sniff the air. Normally I have an excellent sense of smell, but I can’t smell the food inside the cooler, and I’m inside the cabin. Could an animal really smell it through the blizzard raging outside? And how hungry would they have to be to brave the storm to track it down? Don’t most animals hibernate around here?
“Maybe the wind blew down a small branch?” I shrug off my concern and place a card on the table, completing my turn.
Judy’s turn is next, but before she can make her move, there’s another thump from the front door.
Make that three thumps.
Three loud thumps against the door, almost like someone is knocking.
Chapter Eight
“Is the door locked?” I ask in a whisper, glancing at Mom to make sure she’s still asleep.
She is.
That’s the only good news.
Dad starts to shake his head, to silently communicate that, no, the door is not locked.
The knob jiggles visibly and the door blows open, spewing snow inside past the figure standing on the stoop.
It’s a man.
I think. I mean, he kind of has longish hair, but he also has hairy legs, and he’s built like a man.
A snow-covered man in a knee-length leather coat.
He’s barefoot.
He leaps inside toward us and pulls the door closed behind him.
Dad rises from his chair.
I’m torn between standing to meet whatever might come, and cowering beneath the table or something. I glance at the string dangling from the ceiling and try to calculate a route that will get us safely behind the wall if this guy turns out to be dangerous.
The man shakes the snow from his hair, and now I’m able to recognize him, thanks mostly to his rather distinctive appearance. In addition to his long, perfectly-straight black hair, his skin is kind of olive-toned, and his eyes are always smiling. I’d have recognized him easily, but he’s completely out of place and very strangely dressed.
Or not dressed, in the case of his feet and legs.
“Sorry about the snow.” His voice sounds familiar, too. Though it sounds almost perfectly
like any deep Midwestern voice, he’s always had a hint of an accent I could never quite place—like he came from somewhere far away, though we’ve never bothered to pry into where.
“Master Sparks?” Judy speaks first. “What are you doing here?”
“You missed class last evening.” His tone is completely straightforward, like it’s not at all out of the ordinary for him to track down students, barefoot, across state lines, for missing class. “Some of the kids said they thought you’d gone to Wyoming, so I talked to Mrs. Ferguson, and she told me you found an envelope with an address in the bag.”
“Mrs. Ferguson?” Dad repeats, like somehow the name of our neighbor lady is the most questionable part of that exchange.
Personally, I wonder why he referred to the bag as the bag, not a bag…almost like he’s familiar with that particular bag. Then again, if he found this cabin in the middle of a raging snowstorm, maybe he knows a lot more than we ever imagined.
“Mrs. Ferguson is cat-sitting Keats and Tolstoy.” Mom must have awakened from the banging door or blowing snow or the sounds of our voices, because she’s sitting up inside her sleeping bag now, clutching the insulated fabric up to her chin. “I told her about the envelope, but I didn’t give her the address. I didn’t tell anyone the address. The only people who’ve seen it are the four of us, and the two men at the post office.”
“Did you talk to the men at the post office?” Dad asks Master Sparks. He sounds slightly hopeful, like he wants Master Sparks to say, yes, the men at the post office told him to come out in the blizzard to check on them, or something almost remotely sensible like that.
Because how else do you explain Master Sparks finding us here?
And why is he barefoot?
This is all so completely weird.
But then, a lot of weird things have been happening lately, so maybe it fits.
“I didn’t,” Master Sparks admits. “I just assumed, if you discovered the address, you’d come here.”
I find my voice at last. “How do you know where here is?”
“It’s kind of a long story.” Master Sparks wipes snow from his legs and flicks it in melting splatter toward the fireplace, where it sizzles and rises in tendrils of steam. “It would help if you could tell me how much you know.”
“Why?” Judy challenges him. “So you can keep secret the parts we haven’t figured out yet?”
While my sister has always been outspoken, she has a sort of wide-eyed innocence about her that allows her to get away with even the most cutting remarks. If my parents heard me say the same words to Master Sparks, I’d probably be forced to apologize. But Judy can get away with saying things nobody else can.
Normally I’d be jealous of her skill, but since she sometimes uses it to my benefit, I can’t resent her uncanny knack too much. More than that, however, I happen to know my sister well enough to realize that in today’s case, she’s lashing out because we’ve been on edge for days, the dormant questions of our lives roused beyond ignoring. Ultimately, she’s afraid of what we might learn.
Judy hates being afraid.
So do I.
And indeed, Master Sparks doesn’t chastise her. He gives her a patient look. “No. So I know which parts I don’t have to waste time explaining.”
“We have time.” My father cuts in. “Why don’t you explain it all?”
Master Sparks doesn’t say anything. He takes his time wiping the snow from his coat sleeves and flicking it toward the fire. It reminds me of how sometimes in class, when the students are being squirrelly, Master Sparks will stand there silently at attention, or adjust the cuffs of his taekwondo uniform with a tight snapping noise while he’s waiting for everybody to get their act together.
What’s he waiting for now?
“There is a blizzard raging outside.” Mom addresses our visitor in her firmest teacher’s voice. “We could barely find this place before the snow became thick, when it was light out. How did you find us? What are you doing here?”
Master Sparks looks up from wiping snow. He gives mom this look that’s more than the patient look he gave Judy moments ago. It’s almost…apologetic?
I shiver.
Mom sits up a little straighter on the futon, still clasping the sleeping bag to her chest. “There is a mystery here, in this cabin. And a mystery in your sudden appearance here.” Her voice wavers. “And a mystery in my children.”
“They are all the same mystery,” Master Sparks informs her.
Dad pulls a chair away from the table and scoots it toward our martial arts instructor. “Why don’t you sit down and explain it to us?”
Master Sparks sits with visible reluctance. “It’s difficult to know where to start.”
“Try the beginning,” Judy suggests, her tone still far from friendly, but nobody chastises her.
“No. The beginning is much too long ago, and would only confuse you more.” He sighs and looks toward the ceiling as if he’s reviewing the whole story in his head.
Judy sits in the chair nearest him. “Were Rudy and I born in this cabin?” She’s clearly done waiting for him to talk.
“In a manner of speaking,” Master Sparks grumbles his way through his answer with tangible reluctance, drawing out the admission as though it’s being extracted from him by force. “Yes, you could say that.”
“What’s that?” Dad pulls another chair opposite our visitor, facing him as if to begin an interrogation. “Either they were or they weren’t. There’s no manner of speaking about it.”
But Master Sparks turns to my mom like he’s looking for her to back him up. “There is a mystery in your children. What do you know about it?”
Dad shakes his head, denying the charge.
“They know things,” Mom admits quietly from the futon. “They see things we can’t see, long before we can see them. I’ve tried not to let on before now, but they’ve been that way all their lives.”
“What things do they know?” Master Sparks probes further.
Judy and I look at Mom. She’s never told us before that she knew we had amazing vision.
What else has she noticed but never told us about?
“They can read each other, without talking, without making a sound. I thought perhaps they just had a strong connection, being twins, but even still, some of the things they communicate…”
Dad waves his hands like he’s denying everything. “Why are we telling you things? You showed up here out of nowhere in the middle of the night. How did you find us, and why? Don’t act like we owe you information.”
Now Master Sparks looks amused. “This is my cabin. I could ask you what you’re doing here, but I believe I know.”
I’ve been biting my tongue for a while, but if Master Sparks isn’t lying, if this really is his cabin, that may explain one mystery. “Did you put us in the duffle bag?”
Master Sparks meets my eyes. Yup, that’s definitely apology on his face. “Yes.”
“Are you really Mike Smith?”
“I was.”
“Mike Sparks, Mike Smith,” Mom whispers with realization in her voice. “They’re aliases. What’s your real name?”
Master Sparks opens his mouth, but doesn’t answer before Judy cuts in.
“Why did you put us in a duffle bag?” Judy all-but-screams.
“To protect you.”
“From what?” Judy asks. When Master Sparks doesn’t answer immediately, she follows up with a question so heartfelt, her voice breaks up while she asks it. “What happened to our mother?”
“She…had to leave.”
“She left us?” Judy’s voice doesn’t hold surprise. It’s more like she’s just had her worst fears confirmed.
At the same time, I clarify, “She is alive, though?”
“She was alive the last time I saw her, fifteen years ago. I assume she’s still alive. I hope she is.”
“You haven’t seen her since—”
“Since before you were…born.”
“Wait a minute.” Judy was already upset. Now her eyes flash with betrayal-fueled anger. “What does that mean?”
I make a guess. “You left while we were being born, and when you came back, we were here but she wasn’t?”
Master Sparks sucks in a long breath, then slowly shakes his head.
“You’re not their father, are you?” Dad asks. It’s a fair guess, because we don’t look much like Master Sparks. We have dark hair, yes, but ours is thick and rather curly. Our eyes are wide, almost round. And I’ve been taller than Master Sparks for nearly a year already—and I’m not nearly done growing.
“No. Not biologically. But their mother asked me to be their guardian.”
“Did she ask Mike Sparks or Mike Smith to be their guardian?” Mom asks saucily.
Judy rises off her chair, her question louder than Mom’s. “So you put us in a duffle bag and left us at a rest stop when we were only a week old?” She slumps back into her seat. “Some guardian you turned out to be.”
Though I kind of agree with Judy’s assessment, I’m still hoping for real answers. “Why’d you do it?”
“It was the best way to protect you.”
“From what?” Dad asks.
“From those who were after their mother. She came to me, asked me to protect the babies, and then returned to their father who, she firmly believed, did not realize they existed. She wished to keep it that way.”
“Is that even legal?” Mom asks, aghast.
Master Sparks shrugs.
“Where is she?” Judy asks without waiting for him to answer Mom’s question. “She must be near here, right? She must have come from nearby, and you were the first person she found, right?”
“I don’t know exactly how far she traveled, but I don’t believe she came from anywhere close by. She chose me, not out of convenience, but because she knew me. She trusted me.”
“And you put us in a duffle bag.” Judy sounds disgusted. She turns and addresses me. “I don’t think our mother has very good judgment.”
“She did the best she could,” Master Sparks defends. “I tried for a few days to take care of you, but I don’t know anything about babies. This is a remote place, winter was setting in hard, and I was starting to use up the supply of formula she’d brought. What was I supposed to do? Take you into town, load you into a shopping cart, and buy formula? What was I supposed to say when people asked where you came from, where your mother was?
