by Alison Stine
Clara’s face peered at me from the window, round as the moon.
It got hot in the afternoon. By the time I reached the top of the hill, my T-shirt clung to me and I had taken off my hoodie. Grandma’s station wagon was gone, and the house was blissfully empty. I went into the kitchen to look for something to eat, chasing away the cats who perched on the counter, hissing at me. I checked my phone. A message from the Firecracker. I called her back.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Wellstone,” I said. “Grandma’s creepy old house.”
“Well, she called me this morning. At work. She said you never showed.”
“I’m here,” I said. “I went to that stupid school today. I rode the stupid bus. Grandma’s mad at me for something. Or maybe she needs her bifocals changed.”
“Esmé,” my sister said. “What’s going on? Are you at Grandma’s or aren’t you?”
“I’m here. And it sucks. So when are you going to end this, and bring me home?”
“No,” she said. “You’re staying. You two have to work it out. You and Grandma have to talk. It’s better for you to be there.”
I hung up the phone, and drank a glass of water from the tap. It tasted funny, like copper. I looked around. The kitchen was dark and cluttered. A fireplace in the corner. On each of the ceiling beams hung a cluster of drying flowers or herbs. At the back of the kitchen was a door that led to nowhere, three feet of empty space outside where steps should have been, but were never built.
The house was full of little things like that, half-finished rooms, stairs that led up into ceilings. That door in the kitchen was always locked, I remembered, to keep someone from falling. I glanced out the window over the sink, where the pond sparkled in the sun.
In one of my suitcases, I found a swimsuit. Under the porch, I found a blue plastic raft. Barefoot, I walked down to the pond, and set the raft in the water. It floated. I hesitated for only a moment, then I got on.
I drifted toward the center of the pond, which was small, probably used to water cows. I thought I remembered cows, though there was no sign of them now. On the other side of the pond was a fenced-in pasture, overgrown with weeds, then hill after hill of trees. The ones closest to the pond were birches, white bark reflecting the sun. Cattails grew at the pond’s edge, gummed in mud.
I closed my eyes. The sun felt good on my face. I wished I had thought to bring a book. I floated for a while, listening to the birds. I almost fell asleep. Then I heard a voice.
“You shouldn’t be in there.”
I opened my eyes and sat up.
A boy stood on the opposite bank of the pond by the cattails. He was tall. He had black hair, and the bluest eyes I had ever seen, blue as pool water, blue as broken glass. He was staring at me. “Someone drowned in there,” he said.
“What? Here?” I tried to pull my suit down. I felt cold and exposed.
“That pond. It’s unlucky.”
“I can swim.”
“I’m sure you can. Only I’m not sure it’ll matter.”
“Oh,” I said. I wished I had a towel, something with which to cover myself. I slid off the raft, intending to stand in the water.
But the water was deeper than I expected, and I didn’t touch bottom. I slipped, muddy water splashing up to my neck, into my mouth. I reached for the raft, but the raft danced away.
I felt arms beneath me, hands grasping my shoulders. The boy carried me to the bank by the birches. He tried to lay me on the ground, but I scrambled up.
“I can stand,” I said. “I’m fine.”
The boy wore long shorts, cut ragged at the knees, a button-down shirt, and no shoes. All his clothes were soaking now.
“Thanks,” I said. “I guess the water was deeper than I thought.”
“Told you,” he said. “Unlucky.” He put his hands in his pockets and turned.
He was actually going to leave. Just carry me out of a cow pond and leave.
I called to the boy. “Wait. Who drowned here?”
“A man. A man at a party. A long time ago.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m your neighbor, Tom Griffin. And you’re Esmé, I know.” He ducked under the fence, cutting through the pasture. “Clara told me all about you. She tells me everything.” He grinned at me, then was gone behind a birch.
I stared after him, waiting for him to reappear on the other side of the tree, but he didn’t. I ran through the moment in my head. He was my neighbor, had maybe saved me from drowning, had the bluest eyes I thought I had ever seen.
And he had a girlfriend.
I saw Tom the next day in school.
Or rather: he saw me, which was significant because no one noticed me, not all day. My grandmother was asleep when I left. The bus doors nearly closed on my back. My teachers ignored me, and nobody talked to me—at least nobody tried to sit on me again either—until lunchtime. As I scanned the crowded room, holding my sack lunch, an apple rolled across the cafeteria to rest against my foot.
I bent and picked it up. It was a green apple, sour, the kind I liked best. I looked up. Tom stood on the other side of the cafeteria by the windows. I paused for a moment, then took my lunch and went over to him.
“Come sit at our table,” he said.
“I didn’t know you went to this school. Our table?”
He pushed open the door that led into the courtyard, motioning for me to go ahead.
“Outside?” I asked. “I didn’t think we were allowed to eat outside.”
“Oh, trust me,” a female voice said. “No one will notice.”
It was Clara. My heart began to beat faster.
“People just rush through this courtyard on their way to class,” Tom said. “But I think it’s nice out here. Quiet. We can talk.” He pointed to the bench where Clara sat, smoothing the skirt of her dress. It looked expensive and delicate, the color of ice. Tom wore almost the same clothes as yesterday.
With a pang, I thought of Acid. My old school, my old life.
Then I looked closer at Tom. I wondered how he could get away with wearing shorts at school, which was not allowed. I wondered how long the three of us could sit out here in the courtyard, which was also not allowed; we were clearly visible through the windows of the cafeteria.
“Aren’t you worried about getting in trouble?” I asked.
“No,” Tom said.
“We got over that a long time ago,” Clara said. “I guess you haven’t yet.”
“Why didn’t I see you here yesterday?” I asked Tom.
But Clara was the one who answered. “He comes to school when he feels like it.”
I had sat on the bench beside her, noting that Tom took the place on her other side. They were familiar with each other, casual and comfortable. He bumped Clara’s shoulder. She made a face at him. They wore the same kind of shoes, black leather lace-ups that looked expensive, though the leather was dusty and cracked.
I took a bite of my sandwich. “How long have you guys been together?”
“Together?” Tom said.
“A long time,” Clara said.
Tom looked at her, then at me. He looked like he was trying not to laugh. “We’re siblings.”
Then Clara did laugh.
I swallowed. I felt heat in my face. “But you have different last names?”
“We’re adopted,” Clara said.
“We’ve known each other since we were kids,” Tom said. “We grew up together. That’s all.”
“Oh. Okay.” I held my sandwich out. “Do either of you want half?”
Tom looked like he was going to laugh again. “No, thanks.”
Clara exchanged a glance with him. “She’s so sweet. Look at her trying.”
I felt stupid for a reason I didn’t understand. I balled up the wax paper from the sandwich, crumpled my napkins. Tom and Clara hadn’t eaten anything at all. “How do you stand it here?” I asked them. “Everyone ignores me. I feel like I’m being shunned.”
“You get used to it,” Clara said. “It becomes easier.”
“I feel like I’m going crazy. I don’t know what I did.”
Tom tilted his head strangely. “What did you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“What happened to you, to end up here?”
I stood. Clara had asked me the same question on the bus. “What is this place?” I asked. “You have to commit a crime to be sent here? No, I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything. There’s nothing wrong with me.” Conscious that Tom and Clara were watching, I dumped my lunch in a trashcan, and went back into the cafeteria, where I sat alone in silence until the bell rang.
Tom and Clara weren’t on the afternoon bus.
I got a snack in the empty house, glancing through the window at the backyard. Tom had said we were neighbors, but the closest house was far down the road, past the fairgrounds. When I had passed it on my walk from the train station, an old woman had been out front, pulling weeds. Did she have two adopted teenagers?
I washed my dishes and put them away. I was heading up the stairs to take a nap, or start on the homework no one would ever collect from me, when I heard a crash.
It was an old house. It made sounds, creaking and groaning, settling, especially at night. It was also overrun with cats, and given my grandmother’s tendency to leave the doors wide open, possibly other strays as well.
There was another crash, followed by a muffled curse.
“Hello?” I said.
At the top of the stairs a door had been flung open: the door to the linen closet, its shelves stuffed with junk. Someone was at the bottom of the closet, searching on hands and knees. “Nuts!” the figure said.
“Excuse me?” I said.
The figure turned. It was a girl, barely older than me. Seeing me, she jumped and clutched at her chest. She wore a drab brown dress and a dingy apron. On her head she had fastened a little white hat. “You gave me a fright,” she said. “Miss, don’t do that.”
“I’m sorry. Who are you again?”
She sat back on her heels. “I’m Martha.”
“Okay,” I said. “Martha. What are you doing in the closet?”
“Well, I thought it was time to change your bedclothes.”
“Change the bedclothes?” I stared at the girl, her dress and apron, that hat. “Grandma has a maid? Since when?”
“A long time,” the girl—the maid—said.
“Do you live here?”
Martha nodded.
That was news to me. I definitely hadn’t remembered a maid. “Why haven’t I seen you before?”
“It’s a big house,” Martha said. “And your grandmother is awfully particular about what I do and when I do it.”
“She sure has a lot of stuff to clean,” I said, staring past Martha into the closet, which was crammed with sheets, bolts of fabric, glassware, and candles. So many candles. On the bottom shelf, there appeared to be a trumpet. A trumpet? I thought of how dusty the house was; how cobwebs were practically knitted in the corners, thick and gray; how the sides of my bathtub bled with rust.
Martha the maid didn’t seem particularly good at her job.
“I don’t mind,” Martha said.
I studied her. “Um, are you old enough to be a maid?”
“Old enough.” Martha stood, groaning as she rose, as if to prove it. “Back to work for me. You run along now. I bet your friends are outside waiting.”
“My friends?” I said. “Clara? Tom?”
But the front yard was empty. A cat, dozing on a downed limb, stared at me with one open yellow eye. I was about to go down to the pond—maybe Martha meant the backyard—when I saw the man in the driveway. He stood by the road, looking up toward the house, but when he noticed me, he turned quickly away.
I wandered down the driveway. “Can I help you?” I asked.
The man wore all black. His hair was black too, a shaggy mess, and his skin looked waxen—as washed-out as Tom and Clara had looked, I realized. People didn’t seem to get much sun in Wellstone.
“Are you looking for my grandmother?” I asked.
The man looked miserable, purple shadows under his eyes, which were swollen into slits and bloodshot. “I believe I may have left something at your house,” he mumbled.
“Okay, I’ll go ask my grandma.” I didn’t want to tell him she wasn’t home.
“I believe I may have lost something. In your pond.”
“Seriously?”
“Lily pads, coy. Nice gazebo.”
“There’s no gazebo.”
“There was to be a fountain in the middle—but we never got that far.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong pond,” I said. I started to back up the hill. I wondered if the maid was watching from the windows, if she could hear me if I screamed.
The man peered at the house. But there was a faraway look in his eyes. “I remember that pond. I designed it.”
“No one designed it. It’s just a pond.”
“I believe I may have lost something in that pond.”
“Look,” I said. “I’m going to call my grandma—”
“I believe I may have drowned in that pond.”
I turned and ran up the driveway.
Two figures were coming down toward me from the direction of the house: Tom and Clara. “Hey,” I said, waving my arms. “We need to call the cops. There’s a guy down there. A crazy guy.”
“Where?” Tom said.
I turned to show him.
But the man was gone. I hadn’t seen a car, hadn’t heard an engine. There was no one in the road. A breeze rustled through the trees, knocking branches together, drifting my hair in front of my face. I realized I was shaking.
“Are you all right?” Tom asked.
“She’s green,” Clara said. “Completely green. I told you, Tom. She needs us.”
“There was a man,” I said. “I swear it.”
“I believe you,” Tom said. “What did he look like?”
“Strange. Black hair. Black clothes.”
They exchanged a glance.
“What?” I said.
“We know him,” Tom said. “He’s a character. Harmless, though.”
“Completely rolled,” Clara said.
“Harmless, Esmé,” Tom repeated.
And I felt something when he said my name. It was a sudden lift, like a weight had been taken from me, like I had felt in the tunnel when the subway worker had pulled me away, before I knew what was happening, before I knew the fallout; I had thought I was flying.
Tom held out his hand. “Come on. We want to tell you something.”
Tom held my hand most of the way. His touch felt light and tenuous, like I was trying to hold onto a leaf. We walked behind the house, by the pond. I tried not to look at it as we passed. It was only an ugly old pond. Stories were just stories.
Clara led us around the back of the barn, then stopped. “We’re here.”
“What’s here?” I asked.
Tom dropped my hand. “A home base, of sorts. At least for Clara.”
We stood in the grass by the barn before an oak tree with big exposed roots. At the base of the trunk rested a pile of old bricks with a hole at the middle, like a pizza oven. Protruding from the top of the brick pile was a chimney.
“It’s a kiln,” Tom said. “Not used anymore, if it ever was. It’s just the secret entrance to a tunnel.”
“A what?” I said.
“That’s what we want to show you. It’s one of Clara’s favorite places. It’s perfectly safe,” he said when I looked at him. “Come on. Clara will go first.”
Clara hiked her skirt with one hand, and bent under the archway of bricks, into the mouth of the kiln. She gave a trilling whistle, like a bird. Then she was gone.
“Whoa,” I said.
“It’s just a tunnel, Ez.”
“I don’t do so great with tunnels.”
“It’s just a way in. And there are steps in the
re, a ladder. You don’t even have to jump. Come on. I’ll help you.”
What had he called me?
Ez.
No one had ever called me that before.
Tom took my hand, and led me into the kiln. At first, all I saw was blackness, then I could make out some kind of passageway a few feet below. Something protruded from the wall: a ladder made of bricks. I clutched Tom’s hand, and with my other, reached blindly. My fingers found a brick. I let go of Tom and called, “I’ve got it.”
“Finally,” Clara muttered below me.
I climbed down the ladder, Tom following close behind. When I leapt from the last step, I landed on packed earth, and moved over for Tom, who jumped down beside me. “How far down are we?” I asked.
“Six feet,” Tom said.
I thought of the barn, six feet above us, the fields, the pond.
“This way,” Tom said.
He was holding my hand again. We moved forward, crouching for a few dim steps, then my eyes adjusted, the tunnel opened, and I could stand upright. The passageway extended for as long as I could see, wide enough for Tom, Clara, and me to stand abreast.
“What is this place?” I asked. My voice was a whisper, but it bounced off the walls.
“What it was,” Tom said, “was part of the Underground Railroad.”
“Really? I thought that was just an expression. Not actual tunnels.”
“There were some tunnels.”
“Is it safe? How long does it go on?”
“All the way to your grandmother’s house.”
“My grandmother’s house was a stop on the Underground Railroad?”
It made sense. The house was old enough.
And big and strange enough.
I touched the smooth brick walls of the tunnel with my hand. The air felt cold and thin. The subway tunnel came back to me then: the darkness, the door, the pain in my forehead when I had struck the wall. I pressed on my temples. “Wait,” I said. “You said this is home? A home base? You live here?” I thought of Tom’s clothes, how raggedy they were, how he had worn the same outfit. “Are you runaways?”
