Into the Darkness

by Andrews, V. C.

  “Most of the parents I know think their children are God’s gift,” I said, and he laughed.

  “Ain’t that the truth.” He paused and looked toward the lake. “I found a path that will take us to the lake quickly. Want to try it?”

  “There are No Trespassing signs everywhere around Echo Lake. It has no public access.”

  “I don’t think they have armed guards watching, do you? Besides, I can’t believe you’re so law-abiding. I bet you jaywalk.”

  “Most of the year, there’s not enough traffic here for it to matter.”

  “Rationalization,” he said. “Well? Want to risk going to prison with me?”

  I looked in the direction he wanted us to head. It went through thick woods. Even with the moonlight, it was quite dark. I had expected that when he suggested a walk, he meant a walk to the village, maybe to have a soda or something. Why did I spend so much time on my face and my hair if I was going to walk in the darkness?

  “Are you afraid of being in the dark with me?” he asked when I continued to hesitate.

  “It’s not just you being a stranger. You just moved here days ago. How do you know how to navigate through the woods and all? I certainly don’t and I’ve been here all my life.”

  “Oh, I have radar like bats. I haven’t been sitting inside the house. I’ve been exploring. Trust me,” he said. “It’s worth the walk.”

  “If I ruin these shoes . . .” I’d had no idea that he wanted to go off the road. I was wearing a relatively new pair of soft buck leather comfort shoes.

  “We come to any puddles or mud, I carry you across. Guaranteed. Well?”

  There was something about the way his eyes picked up the moonlight when it sidestepped the clouds. They didn’t reflect it; they absorbed it. They seemed to grow larger, brighter. Maybe he did have radar. I was a little annoyed at the way he smiled at me as I considered where he wanted us to go, but I was also quite intrigued. It was more like a challenge, as if he expected that I would back away and run home or something, and yet he looked as if he was really enjoying the debate I was having within myself.

  “What are we going to see?”

  “No way to describe it,” he said. “But I’ll bet it’s a view of the lake you’ve never experienced.”

  “How could you know that? You haven’t been here long enough to know more than I do about my hometown and what I’ve seen and not seen of the lake.”

  “If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize,” he said.

  Was this crazy? Was I about to go deep into the darkest part of the woods in our village with a boy I had just met literally hours ago and with whom I had spent no more than fifteen minutes? All I knew about him was that he had a mother who was an artist who believed in reincarnation and a father who was gone most of the time doing top-secret economic research or something. Their house looked barely inhabited, and he wouldn’t even tell me exactly where he was from. Daddy’s joke about Jack the Ripper came tumbling back through my mind.

  But then he reached for my hand and took it so gently I stopped thinking bad thoughts instantly.

  “Okay?”

  “Yes,” I said. For a moment, I felt hypnotized. During that moment, it was as if I would follow him anywhere, even through a raging fire.

  He held on to my hand, and we crossed in between the Knottses’ and the Littlefields’ houses. We could hear the televisions going in both, since both families had their windows open. It was a cool summer night, the kind of night when you at least wanted the air flowing through your home, if you didn’t go out for a walk or something as we were doing.

  “I bet if you could check, you would be hard-pressed to find a house in this village or any town or city where young people our age aren’t planted in front of a TV set or a computer screen right now.”

  “So?” I said.

  “So? So, it’s a Facebook world where no one sees himself or herself anymore. They look into the new mirrors of our world, and instead of discovering who they really are, they see who they dream of being.”

  He nodded at the Littlefield house and continued.

  “They swim in illusions and disappointments. The sound of someone’s voice, the feel of her hands in yours, the scent of her hair, and the electricity of her very life in her eyes is diffused and filtered until what was once warm and human is now a matter of megabytes. I have seen best friends trapped in flash drives.”

  I stood there, mesmerized. “You don’t have a computer?”

  “With a father like mine, how could I not have a computer? He had a laptop in the delivery room.”

  I laughed, but I felt energized, inspired. How bright was he? “What grade are you in?” I asked.

  “When I left, I was in the eleventh. You’re going to be a senior this year.”

  “I don’t remember telling you that.”

  “Just like for a walk in the woods, I research first,” he replied.

  “So we could have classes together?”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be here.”

  “What?” I paused. “I don’t understand. Your parents rented the house?”

  “Sorta.”

  “How can you sort of rent a house?” I asked.

  He started us walking again. We sidestepped a ditch and stepped through a patch of blueberry bushes.

  “So?”

  “It’s like a test run.”

  “Test run? You mean, to see if you like it, like living here?”

  “Yes, exactly. We’ve done that before—many times before, actually.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense. When you say ‘many times before,’ what do you mean? How many?”

  “Ten, twelve.”

  “I don’t know what it must be like to move so much. I’ve lived only in one place, one house.”

  “Believe me, you’re lucky,” he said. “No matter what you think of your hometown.”

  “I don’t think badly of my hometown. I know I’m supposed to. I’m supposed to be like everyone else and talk incessantly about when I’ll finally get out. Some of them make it sound like we’re in a prison.”

  “We’re all in one sort of prison or another,” he said. “Wait until they get to live in big urban centers and feel the indifference. Nothing makes you feel insignificant as much as walking down a street with about five thousand other people. They’ll wish they were back here.”

  “You talk like you’ve lived for centuries.”

  “It’s not how long you live; it’s what you live, where you’ve been, what you’ve done. Life’s like a glass you can fill with either water or wine.”

  I realized how interesting, even exciting, it would be to have someone like him in my school, in my classes—actually, in my life.

  “Well, in case you do stay on and attend our school, you know we have a summer reading list with reports to make and . . .”

  “I’m sure I’ve read everything you’ve been assigned,” he said, not with disdain as much as with self-confidence.

  “How can you be so sure of that without seeing the list?”

  “Watch it!” he cried instead of answering, and then tugged me a little more toward him to avoid a large dip in the ground. For a moment, he wrapped his right arm around my shoulders. I didn’t pull away, but he released me. “Sorry, if I was too rough, but I was worried about those shoes.”

  “No, it was fine. Thanks.”

  He stared at the gaping hole. It was about two feet wide.

  “It looks like a mini-sinkhole,” he said. “I saw some enormous ones two years ago when we were in Israel. They were at the Dead Sea. Could easily swallow up a house when the ground collapsed.”

  “You’ve been to Israel?”

  “One of my father’s conferences. Something to do with technology and satellites.”

  “Where else have you been?” I asked as we continued walking carefully.

  “Italy, France, Germany, England, and yes, Greece, but I was pretty young for most of those trips and probably got little more o
ut of them than I would have from Disneyland. We just go between those two tall pine trees,” he said, nodding ahead. It was obvious that he did know exactly where he was going and how to get there.

  “When were you here? When did you make this fantastic discovery?”

  “Last night,” he said. “There’s a lot of pine up here, and nothing is cooler than being in a pine forest in the summer. Oh, I forgot Switzerland. My father had a major conference in Zurich. My mother and I took a train to Paris and visited the Louvre. I was in seventh grade then, so I remember all of that well. It’s where you can see the Venus de Milo,” he added.

  “I’ve been to Los Angeles and to New York twice. That’s where my father’s sister, my aunt May, lives. She’s married to a surgeon who works at Sloan-Kettering. I have two cousins on my father’s side, Eden and Keith. Keith is a senior at Columbia planning to be a doctor also, and Eden is attending William and Mary. She plans on becoming an international journalist. If it weren’t for the Internet, I wouldn’t have much to do with them. They’re so far away, and they never seem to have time to come here. My aunt wasn’t happy living here. She says she felt out of touch with everything going on in the world. We’re too rural for her, and she didn’t want any part of our family’s jewelry business. Look at me,” I said, pausing. “Running off at the mouth. I hate the way I sound.”

  “Why? You have a beautiful voice. I loved every syllable,” Brayden said. “You don’t have any relatives on your mother’s side?”

  “She was an only child, like me.”

  “And me,” Brayden said. “We should form a club. We can call it the Club for Those Smarter Than Their Brothers or Sisters.”

  “Ha ha.”

  We paused, and then he nodded at the path in the woods.

  “Just walk right behind me. It is kind of dark through here,” he said.

  How could he see so well? I wondered. The moon was blocked again, and the forest looked more like a solid dark wall.

  “Maybe we went far enough?”

  “You’ll see we didn’t in a few minutes,” he promised.

  I stayed right behind him, almost walking on his feet at times, but just as he predicted, we came out at a place on the lake I had never been. It was a small lagoon. How could he have known, made such a discovery so quickly? Why hadn’t I ever seen it?

  As the moon broke free again, the water glistened, and we could see about a dozen Canadian geese floating just a few feet from shore. I turned at the call of a Northern goshawk looking down at us as if we had intruded in his space. Off to the left were about a half-dozen Great Blue herons.

  “Look,” Brayden said, pointing toward the cattails and reeds in the water. “Two yellow-headed blackbirds. Aren’t they beautiful?”

  In all the years I had lived in Echo Lake, I had never seen so many different varieties of birds gathered in one area. Like most everyone my age I knew, I took it all for granted. Unless we were assigned some science project involving birds, I didn’t pay them as much attention as they obviously deserved.

  It wasn’t only the birds and the surprise opening on the shore that gave us a wide view of the lake, with the moonlight and stars making the water dazzling, that impressed and delighted me. It was the unique silence when so many beautiful things seemed asleep or even, I should say, meditating. Never before had I felt so much a part of it all. It was as if I had suddenly come to appreciate my own home. I felt like someone who had been wearing blinders all her life and suddenly had them removed.

  “I can’t believe you’ve been here only a matter of days and you found this spot so quickly,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I didn’t want to disturb even a water bug.

  He said nothing. He just stared out with what was now a soft smile set in a face framed with such longing I felt my own heart ache.

  “Anything wrong?” I asked.

  “What? No. Am I forgiven for making you trek through the bushes and woods?”

  “Absolutely. I wonder what it’s like here in the daytime.”

  “It’s pretty, but it’s not the same. Darkness always adds something special. Ironically, it’s as though the light blinds us, washes away important things that are right next to us or right in front of us.”

  “Is that why your family keeps the lights so low?”

  He looked at me strangely. I thought there was some anger in his eyes, anger and annoyance.

  “I was just curious,” I said.

  He looked out at the lake again and was silent so long I thought he would say no more. I was about to suggest that we start back when he turned to me again and said, “My mother is not well.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. What’s wrong?”

  “She suffers from severe depression. Because of that, she sleeps most of the day and retreats to her art studio for most of the night. It’s not uncommon to see the light on in the attic and nowhere else, no other room lit, so don’t be surprised. And don’t be surprised if you rarely see her outside during the daytime. My father has arranged for things to be delivered regularly. She doesn’t like shopping.”

  “How sad. Especially when you think of her being in a strange new place without any friends. I mean, you don’t know anyone here, do you?”

  “No, but that’s not so unusual for us. Or it hasn’t been, and now, with the way she is, it might not matter.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “Can’t someone help her?”

  “I do what I can.”

  “No, I mean, well, your father, of course, but doctors?”

  “She’s seen doctors. She’s on some medication and is seeing a therapist now. My father . . . my father is more comfortable with statistics than with people. He’s not much help when it comes to something like this.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I hated repeating myself, but what else could I say? As it was, I felt I had stumbled into more information than he wanted to give, but I also knew how hard it would be for him to live in a town as small as Echo Lake and keep people from knowing what his family life was like. I suspected that most of the boys and even most of the girls, despite his good looks, would be turned off.

  “I’d rather, if you can avoid it, you not talk about us with your friends,” he said, as if he could read my thoughts. “It would be horrible for my mother if people came around to gawk or something. That’s mainly why my father wanted to move here. He thought it was far enough away from . . . that it was innocuous. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Of course.”

  “I knew you would.”

  “I hate gossip. My mother hates it the most. My father acts indifferent about it, but it bothers him, too. I can tell you this for sure, my phone rings the least of any of my classmates’. They know that if they tell me something, it dies with me, and that’s no fun.”

  “No boys scratching at the doors and windows?”

  “None I care to let in at the moment,” I said, and he finally smiled again.

  Then he nodded to the right. “Someone once lived out here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a small, very old cabin about a thousand yards farther down. It’s hidden by the overgrowth. None of your friends knows about it?”

  “We don’t hang out on lake property much. They have regular lake patrols, and the Echo Lake police will jump if someone in the Echo Lake Corporation calls. The properties around the lake are the most expensive and owned by very influential people.”

  “No one seems to be doing anything with this area,” he said.

  “I’ll find out why not. I’m sure whoever owns it is just keeping it to wait for a better price or something.”

  “Whatever. It’s my favorite place, so don’t talk too much about it and suddenly have dozens of your friends sneaking onto the property to have little private parties.”

  “This is your favorite place? How can you have a favorite place? You haven’t seen very much of the town, have you?”

  “Enough to know that this place is special.�
��

  I said nothing. We stood looking out at the water, drawing from its energy and beauty. I felt his hand find mine in the darkness.

  “Maybe we should go back,” he said, turning. “I’m sure you told your parents you were taking a walk with the strange new neighbor who was gawking at you through the hedges. They’re probably sitting on pins and needles.”

  “I didn’t mention the gawking, and I didn’t say you were strange. My father wouldn’t have let me out of the house,” I replied, following him.

  He paused. “You really don’t find me strange?”

  “Not strange—different.”

  “Different works,” he said, nodding. We walked on silently for a while until we were out of the woods and he could reach for my hand again. I gave it to him without hesitation this time.

  “Are you going to try to get a job or something for the summer?” I asked.

  “No. I have to take care of my mother. You might not see that much of me.”

  “If there’s anything I can do to help . . .”

  “That’s nice of you. No, there’s nothing, but if you’re around when I’m around, and you don’t mind doing simple things with me occasionally . . .”

  “Thoreau things?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said.

  We passed between the Knottses’ and the Littlefields’ again. The TVs were still going, but now we could hear music from upstairs in the Littlefields’ house. Angie Littlefield surely had some of her friends over. She was a year behind me but more popular than most of the girls in my class when it came to the boys in my class.

  Brayden caught me looking up at her bedroom windows.

  “Why are you really so uninterested in doing things with kids your age, Amber?”

  “How do you know that’s true?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Maybe.”

  He nodded.

  “What?”

  “Something frightens you,” he said.

  “Frightens me? Okay, what, Dr. Phil?”

  He hesitated, staring at me.

  “So?”

  “The same thing that frightens me now.”