Frozen Footprints

by Therese Heckenkamp

  A sound like waves crashed in my ears. “How do you know? Did he—”

  “Your grandfather called,” she continued with a dramatic toss of her wavy blond hair. “Apparently, they had a huge argument this morning, and Max ended up swiping one of his cars. The Jaguar.” She licked chocolate from her polished fingertips. “One of the staff saw him take off with it, thought your grandfather had given Max permission. Why anyone would think that, I have no idea. Must’ve been one of the new guys, because if he knew anything at all about your grandfather—”

  “Gwen,” I picked up the remote and zapped away the television chatter, “Max didn’t run away.”

  “Think what you want.” Her voice was almost sing-song. “But you know he’s done it before, and—”

  “Oh come on, that barely counts. He just camped out in the woods one night.” That had been two years ago, right after our father died tragically and Grandfather had been laying down a ton of new laws. And Max had told me his plan ahead of time, so I knew not to worry. “He didn’t run away.” My voice lowered, taking on the tone of a death sentence. “It’s something worse. Much worse.”

  “Oh man, what a Ms. Gloom and Doom! Don’t tell me it’s that ‘twin intuition’ thing again.”

  Fine, I won’t. Instead, I told her how I had tried calling Max and a strange creepy voice had answered.

  Gwen blinked. “A creepy voice? So? It was probably just Max being lame.”

  I shook my head. “It wasn’t. I know his voice.”

  “Fine,” Gwen said in a tone that told me she wasn’t convinced. “What did the creepy voice say?”

  “ ‘Hello, Charlene.’ ”

  Gwen’s mouth gaped. “That’s it? Sheesh, I thought you were going to say it was a death threat.”

  “It was the way he said it.”

  “Come on, Charlene. Max is just messing with you. Again. Man, you are the most gullible person I know. Remember that time when you walked into a door and smashed your nose, and—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled. I didn’t need her to repeat the embarrassing details which I recalled quite clearly, how Max had easily convinced me that I’d permanently damaged my nose.

  “Don’t worry,” he’d assured me, “it’s not crooked enough for anyone but me to really notice. Well, me . . . and maybe a few other guys.”

  For the next couple days, I’d wasted hours examining my nose with mirrors from every possible angle, before I finally realized he’d duped me again.

  But that had been relatively harmless fun. This . . . this was cruel. I leaned over both Gwen and the sofa to peek through the bamboo blinds. Snow flew and howled like a million wild banshees. I let the slats fall shut, then finally shed my coat reluctantly. I wouldn’t be going back out tonight, not in that weather.

  Gwen stretched and yawned. “So you really don’t know where he is? Max never tells me anything—thank goodness—but your grandfather was sure you’d know where he is. He gave me this message.” She tipped her head back, scrunched her eyebrows together, deepened her voice, and quoted, “ ‘Tell Charlene to call me as soon as she returns from wasting my money. I want my car back, and I want Maxwell studying.’ ”

  I was saved from replying, because at the other end of the house, a door burst open. “Oh my gracious word,” my stepmother Joy gasped. “It’s a snowstorm out there. You should see the drifts. I’m lucky I made it home at all!” A moment later she swept past us and into the dining room. “Let’s eat, girls,” she called. “I’m starving.”

  I followed Gwen into the dining room and stood beside the walnut table, already laid with fine white linens and a scarlet table runner threaded with gold. A large vase held a glittering assortment of red and green glass ornaments and scented pine-cones with spirals of silver twirling out at all angles. Joy deposited her latest Coach purse on a side table, then unclasped her hair. It tumbled generously over her shoulders, framing her smooth face in bouncy golden tresses and making her look young enough to be Gwen’s sister.

  Gwen, always bubbling with gossip, announced: “Max did it. He finally ran away.” As she began filling her mother in, Fiona, another maid, sailed in and out with silverware, water goblets, crusty bread and steaming soup. Joy and Gwen sat, but I remained standing.

  “That boy’s like his father,” Joy said above the Frank Sinatra dinner music crooning from a hidden ceiling speaker. “You never know what he’s going to do next. Although I can’t even count how many times I’ve heard him threaten to run away.” She lifted a dainty spoonful of soup and paused mid-air. “But I wish he’d try just a little harder to please his grandfather—you just never know when the old man will get angry enough to take everything away. From all of us.” Joy and Gwen shuddered simultaneously. They’d had ten years of living the rich life, and now with my father gone, they likely felt their place here was precarious—at least enough so that they didn’t want any waves made.

  “Max talks big, but he didn’t run away,” I insisted. But my conviction was crumbling. I plopped into a chair. “He would have told me. And he would have taken his stuff. I checked his room, and it’s all still there.”

  “Oh Charlene,” Gwen said, rolling her eyes, “everyone knows you can buy new stuff.”

  “Not without money,” I muttered. Then an important thought occurred to me. There was something, one very important, irreplaceable thing in Max’s room that I hadn’t checked for.

  “Try not to worry, Charlene,” Joy said. “I’m sure Max is fine.”

  I nodded as I stood up, thinking only of searching Max’s room again.

  “Anyway,” Joy continued, “I’m sure he’ll come back soon enough, like last time. Sit down, dear, and try the soup. It’s divine!”

  Shaking my head, I barely set foot outside the dining room when Fiona brought me the cordless home phone. “It’s Mr. Perigard,” she whispered, her pretty young eyes open wide and scared. She trotted away the moment I took the receiver, her black hair bow bouncing and satin ribbon tails swishing.

  “Hello?”

  “I knew you were home. I knew you wouldn’t call.”

  “Uh—Grandfather!” I made my voice sound bright. “Merry Christmas!”

  “Christmas is over. Wasn’t one day of forced, false well-wishing enough? You know why I’m calling.”

  Of course I did. Grandfather never wasted time or money with chitchat. Which was a relief, I supposed, because what would we talk about? His collection of European paintings and Roman sculptures? His success as a giant oil tycoon and how his hard work had made him rich? I’d heard enough versions of that story to write twenty books. Twenty very boring books.

  “Where’s Maxwell?”

  A burst of laughter exploded from the carefree world of the dining room. I turned my back and placed a hand over my left ear. “I don’t know.”

  “Why not? He’s your brother.”

  And he’s your grandson! I wanted to retort. Not that you have anything to do with him, unless he’s in trouble. But I bit my tongue. Ranting would accomplish nothing. Sometimes I thought Grandfather’s ears, head, and heart were clogged with his thick, black, ugly oil.

  In the superior tone he used—but unfortunately did not save—for speeches, Grandfather continued. “I want him found, and the moment he’s found, I want him brought to Gardburg.” Gardburg was the name of Grandfather’s grand estate. To me, it sounded like the name of a prison.

  “I want him found, too,” I said. “You should send out a search party.”

  “Bah! The boy left on his own, he can come back on his own. I won’t go begging for him. Serves him right if he gets stuck out there. Teach him a lesson.”

  My grip on the phone tightened savagely. “What lesson? How to freeze to death in one easy step?”

  “Don’t get smart with me, Charlene. You’re not trying to cover for him, are you? If you are, I’ll find out. I—” Grandfather gave a dissertation on what he would do to me, including marrying me off to a strict, old husband who’d teach me to respec
t my elders. Then he hung up without a goodbye, which was the only way he would end a phone call.

  “What a tyrant,” I muttered. “Why do I even bother trying to please him?”

  “Yeah, he’s a tyrant all right,” Gwen agreed, “but some things are worth putting up with.”

  I hadn’t realized she and Joy had stopped their chatter to listen to my phone conversation.

  Gwen dabbed her lips with a linen napkin before continuing. “Pacify him, or the two of you are going to blow it for all of us. Have you ever thought about what would happen to us if the old man gets rid of you two? Sheesh, sometimes you’re just so selfish.”

  Not trusting myself to respond, I hurried back up to Max’s room. I headed straight to his bed and slid my hand under the mattress. Nothing. So I awkwardly hoisted the entire queen-size mattress and did a thorough search over the box-spring. Still nothing.

  The book I was searching for was a thin, ragged notebook, but very valuable to Max. He had written Magic Secrets of a Master Magician on the yellow cover in black marker. The notebook contained important irreplaceable notes about magic tricks. He’d begun the journal when he was eleven, and though he thought he’d kept it top-secret, I had known about it from day one.

  I dropped the mattress back down, then smoothed the rumples out of the black comforter, not sure how I should feel about the missing journal. Did Max take it? If so, did that mean he really had left for good?

  On the other hand, if he hadn’t taken it, why was it missing?

  I searched the rest of the room, including the bookshelf, tearing apart all the order that Jennifer had carefully accomplished.

  Suddenly, an image of her hurrying down the stairs with a bag in her hand popped into my head. Maybe she had come across the journal and moved it when she was cleaning.

  Fighting a headache, I ran downstairs and located her in the library, dusting books. “Jennifer, did you take anything from Max’s room?”

  I saw her defenses go up like armor. “I would never take anything that wasn’t mine, Miss Charlene. All I took was garbage.” She brushed a Giovanni table lamp viciously with the feather duster.

  “I’m sorry, I know you would never take anything you weren’t supposed to. But this thing—it’s an old notebook— you might have thought it was garbage, or maybe you moved it somewhere?”

  Jennifer’s stone expression didn’t waver as she shook her head.

  I shifted my weight. “What was in the bag you were carrying down the stairs earlier?”

  Her black eyebrows arched. “Kitty litter, Miss Charlene. Would you like me to show you?”

  I gave a small laugh. “No. Thanks. That’s all.” I turned and left.

  Retrieving my cell phone from my purse, I tried Max again and got nothing but his voicemail. I ended up back in the great room and dropped onto the sofa. I stared at the dead fireplace a moment before pulling up my saved phone numbers. Then I began calling Max’s friends, but no one knew where he was—or if they did, they weren’t saying.

  Finally, I tried Wayne. Maybe I’d left him till last because, as Max’s best friend, he was most likely to know something. They were always hanging out together, practicing the latest magic tricks and planning their futures as traveling magicians. As if Grandfather would ever allow Max to devote his life to such a frivolous career. But the phone just rang and rang while my stomach knotted tighter and tighter. An answering machine beeped on, so I left a message.

  “Wayne? I’m calling about Max. Have you seen him lately? Do you have any idea where he is? Let me know as soon as you can . . . Call anytime—even after midnight.” I hung up wishing I hadn’t added that last part. It made me sound desperate.

  “Max, your little mother was calling for you,” I could almost hear Wayne taunt. Max wouldn’t thank me for that.

  I returned to the deserted dining room, almost wishing it was still dirty so I could clean it and actually accomplish something. But of course, the maids had beat me to it. By this time, Gwen and Joy were nowhere to be seen, probably watching a movie in the downstairs theater room. So I wandered back into the great room. With no fire and so many large windows, the room was already beginning to take on a chill. Not caring, I sank down on the sofa and stared at the stiff blinds, the little slits of darkness leaking through.

  Darkness.

  The word echoed ominously in my mind, and I didn’t know why. I shivered and shifted my gaze. Unlit, our Christmas tree stood huddled in a shadow-shrouded corner like a monster waiting to attack. I turned my eyes on the nativity set at its base, a cluster of little silhouettes, offering nothing but childish illusions of faith and hope.

  I forced out a prayer anyway, but it left me feeling empty.

  Lonely.

  All night long I stayed on the sofa, waiting for Max. Weariness eventually dragged me into a restless sleep, despite the cold.

  So cold.

  I reached blindly for a blanket, but found none.

  As the morning dawned gray, into my bleary brain slithered the sinister voice. “Hello, Charlene,” it whispered slowly, tauntingly evil.

  And it was almost as if I heard the voice add: “Go ahead, try to save your brother . . . if you dare.”

  Chapter Three

  Fear thrummed in my heart as I tugged on my coat and left the house. I could feel the weight of sleeplessness hollowing my eyes, eyes that smarted and watered when they met the winter air. Sunlight glared blindingly on the fresh snow, and immense mounds of white flanked the road.

  I walked with quick strides, my chin tucked deep in my cashmere scarf, braced against the wind which lacerated my cheeks. No one went to see Grandfather without an appointment. Particularly his grandkids. He didn’t want us getting special treatment. But he was going to see me this morning, and I didn’t care if I had to break in.

  I carried this strong resolve to the iron entrance gate, which stretched at least two stories high, making it almost impossible to read “Gardburg” scrawled in iron letters across the top. Two granite, sword-wielding angels flanked the entrance, staring me down with cold stone eyes, daring me to come closer. I lifted my arm and waved to get the guard’s attention. He scampered out of his round station house like a rabbit from a burrow.

  “Max!” he called. “It’s about time! Your grandfather—”

  “It’s Charlene!” I yelled, too cold to feel the heat of annoyance at the common identity mistake.

  The guard, a coffee cup plastered between his mittened hands, drew closer and squinted at me.

  Exasperated, I pulled off my woolen hat and shook out my bountiful chestnut curls.

  “By golly, you’re right!” he said. “But you look just like your brother, no kidding.”

  Everyone told us this, and it amazed us that people expected us to take it as a compliment. As if I wanted to hear that I looked like a boy, and Max, like a girl. Anyway, we had our differences. Our hair was the obvious one; I’d purposely grown mine very long, while Max cropped his so short, you’d never know it had a tendency to curl. My eyes were brown, while Max’s were green. He also stood four inches taller than my five feet four inches. But this was not the time to quibble.

  “I need to see Grandfather right away. It’s urgent.”

  “Sorry.” The guard snuggled his face into the steam billowing from his cup. “I have my orders, and I’m not about to bend them—not even for you. Your grandfather’s not expecting any visitors.”

  I clamped my gloved fingers around the iron bars and actually tried to shake the gate. “You don’t understand. This is urgent. It could be a matter of life and death.”

  The guard looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, but your grandfather’s rules are law. You’ve got to know that. The guard yesterday made that mistake—let your brother in—and look what that got him—fired. No sir, I won’t make that same mistake.”

  My heart softened. “You’re right.”

  He took a sip of coffee, eyes fixed doubtfully on mine over the dirty rim.

  “I und
erstand.” It must be horrible working for Grandfather. “I don’t want you to lose your job. Only . . . isn’t there something you can do? Some kind of compromise? Could you call up to the house and ask for permission? I just need to talk to him. It won’t take long. Please?”

  The guard stared searchingly into his cup. Then with a flick of his wrist, he tipped it. Brown liquid splashed on the frozen concrete, sending up a hissing trail of steam. “Ridiculous,” he muttered. “A girl shouldn’t have to beg to visit her grandfather.” He took out a key with a furry mittened hand. “Here’s what I’ll do,” he said while unlocking the gate. “I’ll get you an escort, and if your grandfather has a problem with that, so be it.”

  “Thank you.”

  In answer, he reached into the guard station and pulled out a radio and called something into it that I couldn’t hear. I waited, looking up the driveway. In less than a minute, a guy wearing a yellow jacket—much too thin to block the cold— appeared and skidded to a stop at my side.

  “I’m from the big house,” he said with mock formality, “and I’ve come to escort you up the driveway, Miss Charlene.” He held out an ungloved hand, too tan for the dead of winter.

  I shook his hand awkwardly, saying, “I haven’t seen you here before.” He looked to be at least thirty-five, but he smiled like a kid. “Are you new?”

  “Not that new. You must not visit much, hey?”

  “Not really.” I felt like he thought I was a neglectful granddaughter, but surely he knew what my grandfather was like.

  As we walked, the guy’s black hair bounced against his forehead, which was smooth and also quite tan. “Whoa—” he reached out to steady me—“be careful of ice patches. You can’t see them on this concrete, but they’re everywhere.”

  “Thanks for the warning.” I slowed my brusque steps.

  “My name’s Robert, by the way. Call me Rob. Can I call you Char?”

  “Please . . . I’d rather you didn’t.” I tried to make my reply kind, but I didn’t want to explain that, to me, Char sounded like something old and gray, like a pile of ashes in a dead fireplace. I didn’t let anyone call me by that name, not even Max, though that never stopped him.