by Max Candee
Outside, fog had blown in from the lake, filling the lower parts of town with a ghostly haze. I didn’t mind; if I couldn’t see anyone in the fog, then no one could see me either. My bare feet were cold on the damp cobblestones. I hurried around a corner before putting my sneakers back on; then I headed away from the lake, past the orphanage and a few shops. Soon the road led into a park. It was exciting to be outside and alone at such a late hour. I hoped that the clouds would part so I could see the moon, or else this secret escapade would be a waste.
A trail led through the park and into the forest. I had grown up with Uncle Misha in a forest very much like that one, with tall trees that seemed ancient and wise. When I first came to the orphanage, that forest had called to me like a song. More than once, I had escaped Sister Daphne’s watchful eye to roam under the trees. Poor Sister Daphne! I almost gave her a heart attack the first time I had disappeared. I was only six, after all. She scolded me – as best as that gentle lady could – and told me about all the bad things that lived in the forest, hoping that would keep me away. But I never believed her. There was nothing in that forest that could hurt me. Not even the bears.
I ran past the trees, only half-listening to the wind singing through the branches and leaves above. Usually, I loved to hear that song, but tonight, I was on a mission and had no time to wonder at the beauty around me. I ran across the bridge over La Fourche, a twisty rivulet that wound all through the trees. The tallest tree in the forest was an ancient oak that stood over a rock formation I called Bear Paw because it looked just like the hand of a bear. This was my secret spot, the one I had run to a hundred times. I would go there when I was hurt or unhappy. I would go there when I was bored or even when everything in life was just right. I’d whispered all my secrets to that old oak tree, and sometimes, when I listened very carefully, it whispered back.
Tonight, I had so many secrets to tell! I dropped my backpack onto the ground and sat with my back against the itchy bark to catch my breath. My mother had sent me a letter thirteen years ago. How incredible was that? How did she know that Uncle Misha would find me and bring me to Geneva to meet Monsieur Nolan? My life could have taken so many different routes. The bears could have abandoned me to the cold; I would never have survived even one night without them. Or Uncle Misha could have been a bad man who sold me into slavery. I’d heard that there were still people in this world who bought and sold children like livestock. But no, the bears had kept me, and Uncle Misha had turned out to be the most generous and caring of men. He followed the instructions in my mother’s locket, never even thinking about himself.
How could she have been so sure that would happen? Probably because she had faith – faith in people and faith in nature. Faith that everything would turn out all right.
I wondered what she was like: Did she have red hair like me? Where was she now? Was she even alive? And why did she have to be so mysterious in her letter? I sighed. She had said that everything would be revealed to me in time. I would have to have faith in her just as she’d had faith in me.
My bear backpack seemed to be grinning at me. I picked it up and opened the zipper to reveal my stash of secret items. I laid them out on the ground one by one: a card, a drawing, a creepy carving of a hand, a candle, and matches.
I was on higher ground there than in town. Behind me, the hills rolled on into faraway mountains. The fog that had sunk into the valleys near the lake didn’t reach this high. The air was crisp and clean without a hint of wind, but clouds still covered the moon.
I picked up the strange drawing and examined it again in the dim light. My mother’s note had said to look at it by the light of the moon, but it looked the same as it had in my room. I glanced up. Just then, the clouds broke apart, and moonlight spilled over the page in my hand.
I gasped, almost dropping the page. My heart went into overdrive and started to thump in my ears.
The drawing began to move – not the whole page, just the ink. It glowed and jiggled and leaped off the page like a 3D movie! The gnarled chicken legs straightened, bent, and straightened again as if thankful for the opportunity to stretch. The house bobbed up and down with each stretch. The skulls on the fence twirled around, and blue light shot from their eyes. I thought I heard a faint laugh; then a witch popped up from behind the house. I blinked in astonishment. She hadn’t been part of the original drawing. She was ancient looking, with long, tangled hair, a pointy nose, and strange teeth that looked too big for her mouth. She sat in a basket, or maybe a bowl, and carried a broom. She zoomed around the house in her basket, sweeping the roof tiles with her broom.
What kind of witch carries her broom and flies in a bowl instead? Now I definitely heard laughter. The trees around me shook with a powerful wind. The paper was torn from my hand – but not before I saw the witch turn and look straight into my eyes!
I chased the page across the wet grass. The wind died down as if it had never been. I found the paper and pounced on it as if it might jump away. It had refolded in the fall, and the moving picture was gone, replaced by the faded, unmoving ink.
Wow!
I unfolded the picture again. The old woman was still visible, sitting in her basket, staring right at me. Oh dear God. A shiver ran down my spine.
Quickly, before the moonlight could touch it again, I folded the picture and tucked it inside the card.
I had so many questions that I couldn’t even put them in order. My science teacher once asked if any of us believed in magic. I raised my hand, feeling silly, and so did a few other kids in the class. But he said that he believed too. Magic was just science that we didn’t yet understand, he said.
So was this glowing, moving image just science? I supposed that someone from five hundred years ago would think our movies were magic. Still… I certainly couldn’t explain how a lifeless picture had come alive in the moonlight. I looked up at my friend, the moon. He was just a sliver of light, like a glowing grin. Like he knew more than met the eye.
I felt as if everyone knew more than they were saying. Indeed, Monsieur Nolan must have known about my parents, but he never told me about them. Now I wondered if Uncle Misha even knew who my mother was.
And why would she leave such an odd present for me? Apart from the magic, what was the image supposed to mean? She wanted me to learn about myself. So what did an old flying witch who lived in a walking house have to do with me?
My eyes fell on the hand carving. The note had said to put it in a flame in an emergency. Well, I considered this an emergency: The drawing had scared the wits out of me. I had to know more about my mother and family, or the mystery was going to drive me crazy.
I lit the small votive candle and placed it on the ground.
The hand was cool and waxy to my touch. What would happen to it when I heated it in the flame? I thought it might melt like wax, but after the amazing dancing picture, all bets were off.
At first, nothing happened. I held the hand over the flame. It warmed. Then it shivered, making me cry out in alarm. And then… it exploded! Not exploded like a firecracker or a bomb – it exploded in size.
Oh, and it came alive.
With a terrified shriek, I dropped it. The hand zipped around the trees for a minute, and then hovered in front of me as if it were waiting. I stared at it, unable to move. What else could I do? What did it want from me? Was I supposed to do something? It shook like a dog after a bath and opened its fingers so they pointed straight at me.
After a moment, I realized that it probably wanted to shake my hand. I wasn’t sure I wanted to touch it. Seeing a disembodied hand floating in the air was more than creepy, it was plain crazy. The only reason I didn’t run away right then was that the hand had come from my mother, who had suggested I warm it in a flame. Didn’t that mean that the hand was safe?
It jerked toward me again. It seemed insistent that I shake it. I looked at it, trying to calm my frenzied breathing, thinking over and over that it couldn’t be bad. Tentatively, I held out my ha
nd, and its fingers wrapped around my knuckles, palm, and wrist. It was easily the size of a bear paw, and it was warm.
After a firm handshake that had felt strangely reassuring, it let me go and hovered expectantly again.
“You’re… uh… Squire. Is that right?” I asked.
The hand formed into a fist. It was wrinkled with large knuckles dusted with wiry black hair. Definitely a man’s hand, so I began to think of it as a “he.” He turned his knuckles up and down. He was nodding!
“Oh, good, so you understand me.”
Squire nodded again.
“Can you speak?”
He turned side to side, like shaking his head no; then he mimicked holding a pen and scribbling.
“You can write?”
He nodded again.
“That’s great, but I don’t have a pen with me.”
Squire spread his fingers wide. I guessed that was a shrug.
“Did you know my mother?”
He nodded.
“Can you tell me her name?”
He shook himself in a “no” sort of way. That wasn’t really a fair question; right now, he could only answer yes or no. I’d have to wait until I got back to my room. I could ask again when he had pen and paper.
That’s when I realized how tired I was. My watch said it was after two in the morning. I’d had a very long day, and tomorrow, I had to study for our year-end exams, which would start the following week.
I studied the hand that was hovering in the air patiently. My fear was subsiding; instead, I was starting to feel excited and curious. “Will you come back to my dorm with me?”
Squire nodded.
“You’ll have to stay in my backpack. It’s late, but you never know whom we might meet in town.”
Squire squeezed into the little pouch in the bear’s back. It was a tight fit, and I didn’t want to crumple my mother’s card or the picture, so I carried those. Squire squirmed in my backpack until we reached the park; then he quieted.
“Almost home now,” I whispered.
When I reached the dorm, the door was still unlocked. I slipped inside as quietly as I could. My feet were damp from running through wet grass, and I hoped the wet marks I had left would dry before Sister Constance awoke.
Back in my room, I grabbed a notebook and pen from my desk, all ready for Squire to tell me my mother’s name. I took off my backpack and unzipped it.
Squire was a small, inanimate carving again.
With no room in the backpack, I had left the votive candle under a bush in the forest, planning to go back for it later. I’d have to borrow another one to wake up Squire. But not tonight. It was too late to go sneaking around again.
Tomorrow, I thought, yawning. Then my head hit the pillow, and sleep took over.
Chapter 5
Dear Diary,
My mother’s unusual present seems to have awakened a strange energy in me. I feel like I can fly! But not in a balloon. I want to fly on my own like a bird. Maybe that’s what my mother’s strange picture means? Could I really have a superpower?
With exams only a few days away, I haven’t had nearly enough time to examine my new sidekick, Squire. Twice, his secret was almost revealed when friends came over at unexpected times. I don’t think my friends are ready to encounter an animated hand. I can barely wrap my own head around it.
But there’s more. My dreams have become so vivid, they don’t seem like dreams at all. Last night, I dreamed that I was a bear, running in the woods. I could smell the fresh pine tang of the trees, and when I drank from La Fourche, the water was crisp and refreshing. It filled me with cold fire, and I felt invincible, like I could run all night. I’d say it was the strangest dream ever, except that in the morning, I awoke with muddy feet and the hem of my pajamas was wet.
Was I sleepwalking? I just don’t know.
I wear Uncle Misha’s dream stone all the time. I don’t know if it can protect me, and I don’t even know what I need protecting from, but I feel better with it lying next to my skin. Sometimes it’s warm, and I imagine that Uncle Misha’s love is flowing from it right into my heart.
* * *
Saturday and Sunday, I spent all my waking hours studying. I desperately wanted to get away and wake Squire again, but I didn’t have a chance. All afternoon, Gaëlle and I studied with two other girls from our math class. Gaëlle is really strong in math – thankfully, because it’s my weakest subject. But I knew that with the help of my study group, I’d ace my test on Monday.
I brought Squire with me. He made a perfect paperweight. He held my algebra book open while I copied test examples into my exercise book.
It was hard to keep my mind focused on equations and decimals when all I wanted to do was sneak away and bring Squire back to life. For the first time ever, I might get some real answers about my parents.
But first, I had to get through the exams.
Gaëlle seemed more tired than usual. I was really worried about her, especially since she had a huge purple bruise above her eye.
“It’s from the balloon accident,” she said after the classes were over. We stood just outside the exit from our classroom, in the wide corridor. The kids from our class were flowing out past us, chatting and laughing. “Don’t you remember when we smacked heads?” Gaëlle asked. “I’m surprised you don’t have a goose egg too.”
I did remember smacking heads, but my bruise was nothing like hers. Could she be lying? Her bruise looked more as if someone had hit her.
“Maybe you should have the school nurse look at that,” I suggested.
“Oh, no. It’s already fading,” she said with a faint smile. But along with the bruise, her eyes looked hollow and she’d lost weight, so the bones of her cheeks stood out. I didn’t like it one bit.
My grumbling stomach told me that it was time for supper. As we turned to walk downstairs, I asked Gaëlle if we could have that sleepover in the Irvigne Manor next weekend.
“I feel like we haven’t seen each other since the start of the semester,” I said. “I have so much to tell you.” I really did intend to tell Gaëlle about my mother’s odd letter, but I also wanted to check up on her, and a sleepover was the perfect excuse.
“Um, sure, I guess,” said Gaëlle. She sounded less than excited about the idea, but I wouldn’t be deterred.
“Is Marie coming to pick you up? I’ll walk down with you, and we can ask her right now.”
Gaëlle nodded.
Downstairs, the dormitory parlor was bustling with students coming from studies and leaving for dinner. Sister Constance sat knitting a new royal blue sweater, watching the flow of the kids’ traffic with her usual intense scrutiny as if we all had mischievous plans. I, for one, was too tired for mischief tonight.
Marie’s red car was parked right outside the dorm, blocking traffic. She didn’t seem to care. How did she even get there? Someone from security must have let her in.
“There you are, darling.” She stepped around the car and folded Gaëlle in a hug. Marie wore a flowing skirt in jewel tones – red, green, and blue – with a gauzy black shawl that wrapped around Gaëlle like a shadow. I shuddered, thinking of the shadow that hung over Irvigne Manor.
“Um, Anna Sophia and I were wondering if we could have a sleepover on Friday night,” Gaëlle said, untangling herself from Marie’s grasp.
“What a perfectly splendid idea!” Marie exclaimed, a little too eagerly for my taste. Her eyebrows were plucked into a thin arching line. “Why don’t we plan an end-of-the-year party for all your friends?”
Gaëlle frowned.
“I was hoping it could be just me and Gaëlle this time,” I said. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
I think Marie furrowed her brow, but it was hard to tell with those ridiculous thin eyebrows.
“Of course,” she said. “You big girls don’t always want the little ones around. I understand. You probably want to talk about boys, don’t you? Ha! I remember exactly what it was like to be your ag
e.”
I nodded in agreement although boys were the last thing on my mind. I wanted to find out what was making Gaëlle look like a wasting ghost.
* * *
As hungry as I was, I raced through dinner. I ate too fast, and my ratatouille sat like a bunch of rocks in my stomach. Maybe it was nerves. Right after dinner, I snuck into the cafeteria kitchen to swipe a candle and some matches. I figured that would be easier than sneaking them out of the drawer in our dormitory under Sister Constance’s watchful eye. And I was right. Esther, the school’s cook, was exhausted after serving up hundreds of meals for the students. She was a short, plump woman with a wrinkled face like that of a Shar-Pei dog. She dozed in a chair by the oven, her puffy chef’s hat fallen over one eye.
I tiptoed past her and opened several drawers before finding matches and votive candles in small glasses. I tucked them into my backpack and headed for my room.
I said goodnight to all my dormmates, yawning dramatically so my friends would think I was really tired and not bother me. In my room, I locked the door. With a pad and pen all ready for Squire, I lit a match and held it to a candle. I placed the lit candle on the table and reached for Squire.
A knock on my door startled me.
I opened it a crack to find Lauraleigh standing outside, frowning.
“I smell burning matches or something.” Because Lauraleigh was our hall monitor, it was her job to keep us younger girls in line. She could report any misbehavior to Sister Constance. And although Lauraleigh was usually lenient, fire in the dorm rooms was strictly prohibited except during winter blackouts.
“You’re not smoking, are you?” Lauraleigh asked, and sniffed the air in front of my face suspiciously.
“Of course not.” I laughed, trying not to show how nervous I was. Our science teacher had shown us real lungs in class this year. One was pink and healthy. The other – a smoker’s lung – was black and charred as if someone had burned it on a barbecue. So Lauraleigh shouldn’t have bothered to ask me; I wasn’t going to start smoking.
