The Janus Tree: And Other Stories

by Glen Hirshberg

  “You’ll see,” says her father, sounding tired. But only tired. And happy, almost. Sure, in the way he somehow still hasn’t learned not to be, that the worst is behind him.

  He pulls open the back door, arms wide, and it’s him, her CatDad with his whisker-face, and she sits all the way up—just to revel in it, just to watch it all land—and he staggers back. Staring.

  Revel? That’s what it’s doing, anyway, Chloe knows. The cold one inside her. The one moving her arms, blinking her eyes. Making her watch.

  Vaguely, glancing toward her brother, Chloe wonders whether she really did figure it all out, or if the knowledge just came with the intruder. The cold one with the bird-feet hands, practically dancing down her ribs under her skin in his glee. Now she really does know. She knows how this happened. She knows when the cold one first appeared in her mother’s hospital room. Her mother, whose eyes have always been blue, it’s this other’s mother that confused her.

  Anyway, she knows what the cold one promised. She knows what he got her mother to offer in exchange.

  “Where is she?” Chloe’s father is murmuring, hovering right outside the way-back door and waving his hands as though trying to clear a fogged windshield, while out the side window, her mother stands rooted, hands over her mouth, shuddering and weeping. There is something almost comforting about it, about both her parents’ reaction. At least they can tell. At least she really was her. There really was a something named Chloe.

  I’m right here, she wants to scream. Right here. But of course, the cold one won’t let her. He’s having way too much fun.

  Her father is on his knees, now, just the way the cold one likes him. Murmuring through his tears. Through his disbelief, which isn’t really disbelief anymore. So delicious when they understand, the cold one tells her, in his inside ice-voice. When they can’t stop denying. Can’t stop pleading. Even when they already know.

  So pathetic, her father looks down there. Hands going still. Head flung back in desperation. Or resignation. “Please,” he says. “What have you done with my daughter?”

  Millwell

  “We stumbled upon the skeleton of a chamois, which had probably met its death by falling into a chasm, and had been disgorged lower down. But a thousand chamois between these cavernous jaws would not make a mouthful.”

  John Tyndall, A Day Among the Seracs of the Glacier du Geant

  So the first thing you’re going to ask is what we were doing up there, right? It’s a stupid question, because you already know, but you want to hear me say it. Alright, I’ll say it. We were looking for him.

  See? Not even worth an eye-roll, is it? So come on, Mr. Sgt. Preston Mountie, what else you want to know? Wait, let’s see if I can guess.

  Were we stoned, want to know that? No we weren’t, at least I wasn’t, and even if the Indian was, by the time we came down…by the time I came down…

  Just…hold on. Okay? Go feed King or something. Just hold on.

  Aren’t you hot in that? No, Jesus, I don’t want another blanket, I don’t even want this one. You look hot in that uniform. And no, I don’t mean you look hot. Although the way you’re staring, you seem to think I do. Come on, all these years patrolling the foot of the ice fall, you’re telling me I’m the first teen you’ve seen stupid enough to climb the glacier in a mini-skirt? People do it all the time, half the summer tourists who go up there do it with their shirts off. Course, I’m not exactly a summer tourist, I mean not like that, and yes, I’ve heard the warnings, and…

  Godgodgodgoddammnit. Okay. Okay. Wait. Okay.

  From the top, yeah?

  First of all, right, I know better. Even though I’m American. My family’s been coming here every summer since I was seven. I’ve been on the glacier half a hundred times. I was here the year that kid—what was he, German?—walked five feet out onto the toe, in full view of the parking lot, and dropped down that crevasse. Remember? Remember just standing there and listening to him scream until he froze to death, because he was so far down you guys couldn’t even find him, let alone figure how to get him out in time? Were you here then? God, I’ve never forgotten. At the end he didn’t even sound like a kid anymore, remember? That growl? Like a bear in a trap.

  Okay, fine, stare some more. When did everybody get so stare-y around here?

  Like I said. We’ve been coming for years, and I’ve got lots of friends here, including the Indian. You know the Indian? Yeah, I thought you might. But tonight…let’s just say I’ve never seen him like that.

  You actually met the Indian? Well, whatever they’ve told you, they’re wrong. He’s really smart. And he’s like the world’s happiest kid. When the Eskimo was around, the two of them used to play warring tribes. Have canoe races on land, stupid stuff. The whole idea of having “enemies” just cracks him up. Everything does. That’s such a dumb philosophy? I don’t think so.

  But he wasn’t laughing tonight. None of them were. They were just sitting around the fire-circle pounding Molsons and staring at the trees. And no, by the way, we didn’t have the fire lit, ‘cause when you guys say there’s fire danger we pay attention, even though you think we don’t, and also, it’s blazing outside, who needs one? More like the Okanagan than North Jasper.

  Those kids…we used to have a lot more fun. Land canoes and ice-blocking. Hi-ball, back before they took it away, jumping in lakes from trees and rafts we made, playing tag in the abandoned railway tunnels. God, I used to love how not uptight you all were. Remember? When cops were for criminals and insurance companies were for car crashes and everything else was for playing on?

  Before the Eskimo disappeared. Now the rest of them pretty much do what you want us to. Sit around. Except for the drinking part. It’s true, they drink. A lot. They do. They don’t even mack on each other.

  Don’t check your fancy Mountie watch on me, alright? Amazingly enough, I don’t actually want to think about it yet, I know that must just seem astonishing to you. I still don’t even understand…Can you at least pass the Kleenex? Thanks.

  Like I said. The Indian was like my last holdout. Last summer he took me owling all the time. Just prowling around the woods, going, hoohoo-hoooo. He was damn good at it. We saw owls like half the time. Barn owls. Snowy owls. The rest of the time we’d just go way the hell deep in the trees. So weird. I mean, it’s not like the ocean or the desert or even the glacier, is it? Everyone talks about all the bird cries and the insects and all that. Must be some other woods. Yours are dead flat silent.

  So here we are, first party of summer, and it’s a hundred-five degrees—in Canada—and I want to float the river or owl the woods or whatever. And even the Indian’s just sitting on a rock, glugging a Molson. Chucking stones in the water, not even skipping them. I’m about to leave, and the Indian catches my eye and mouths, “Wait.”

  And I know right away he’s faking, making fun of everyone else’s mood and they don’t even realize it. There’s this twitch around his mouth. It’s really sexy and it always means…meant…anyway, right then, he just dropped his beer in the dirt and bellowed, “BEAR!”

  Well, they turned around. Most of them. No one got up or anything. I think somebody probably said, “Good one, Indian” on the way to sticking a bottle back in his mouth.

  Then he and I got out of there.

  First thing he said when we got back to the road was, “Let’s go to town. Let’s go jump up and down in front of the gas station where the hi-ball used to be until they bring the hi-ball back. Why’d they take it, anyway?”

  “Uh, because half the people who played wound up breaking their ankles or falling off the edge of the trampoline?”

  “Yeah, but the other half went really high.” Then, all of a sudden, he says, “To the woods.” And he grabs my arm and we go running through the trees. He was in full Indian mode now, talking to the forest and yanking me behind him and not slowing for anything. Saying stuff like, “Ho-ho, elk. Surprised you, didn’t I? Indian and Barrett, coming through. Hello, timberwolf, l
ong time no see. Meet Barrett. She’s a hottie, eh?”

  Then he stopped in his tracks and grabbed me and mashed his mouth against mine.

  He was crazed. Hopping everywhere, all that shine to him. Like a firefly in a jar. I didn’t mind him kissing me, I just couldn’t get him to stand still. I couldn’t figure out his mood. Then he says, “My uncle’s dying,” and then, “I really miss the Eskimo.” And he just sits down in the dirt.

  Honestly, I was kind of stunned, at first. Mostly because he went so still. Just sitting there. I crouched down, and I guess my sucky insect repellent was wearing off, because there were bugs crawling up my legs. “What made you think of the Eskimo?” I asked.

  He slapped a mosquito dead on my neck. “I always think of the Eskimo. Especially lately. He was the only one who…He was my best friend. And he never went up there unprepared. He was always careful, he knew the ice, it’s been three years and I still don’t understand it.”

  “You know understanding doesn’t mean anything on the glacier. You taught me that, remem—”

  He stood up and yanked me to my feet, and I mean hard. And there was this look on him. No twitching mouth, now. He looked like he was going to punch me.

  “Let’s go back,” he said.

  Well, I was pretty bewildered by now. And hot, and sweaty. And the whole night just…I let him pull me along. I tried one hoo-hoo-hooo. No owls came, and the Indian didn’t even turn around. We were halfway back to the others when I grabbed his hand and made him stop.

  “If that’s how you feel,” I said, “let’s go find him.”

  The Indian stared at me. When he spoke, he was mostly talking to himself. “I haven’t been up there since…why haven’t I?”

  Why hadn’t any of us? We’d loved it up there. Even after the Eskimo, that first year. That’s when the game started. The looking-for-him game. It was our excuse. Plus we really were looking for him. I think the Indian even thought we’d find him. For a while.

  Twenty minutes later, we were standing at the edge of the tourist center parking lot, a soft stone’s throw from the toe of the glacier.

  She doesn’t look so good, you know. Your glacier. I mean, she was never exactly the most picturesque twenty thousand year-old ice floe, was she, always reminded me of a giant, bumpy, white tongue. Only now it’s not so white anymore, and it’s a lot more bumpy. A giant, twenty thousand year-old diseased tongue.

  It’s also quieter than it used to be. At least before you’re on it. God, I remember standing in that parking lot when I was a kid, and it freaked me so badly. That rushing sound, with absolutely nothing moving. Like breathing, but in no rhythm. Plus all the snorting and smacking.

  “It looks sleepy,” I told the Indian. “Or dead.”

  “It’s not daytime,” he murmured, and started hunting around at his feet. “Help me find a stick.”

  We were looking for something long and thick, you know, to poke for crevasses. I told you, he wasn’t stupid, not even reckless. Unless you count being up there at all, which I guess you probably do.

  Oh, shit. Oh, Indian.

  Go ahead, stare, I don’t care.

  Nnnnnnhhh…

  I’d never been up it at night before. Never even at dusk. And when the Indian found a stick he thought was long enough, and shot me his new, tough-guy face, and I realized we really were about to head up the moraine…hell yeah, I was scared.

  But it was a hundred degrees. At eleven o’clock at night. And it was my idea, remember. I wasn’t pulling back now.

  Before we even hit the ice, the Indian turned his ankle all the way around on some loose rock, and he swore and hopped all over the place. When he managed to put both feet down again, there were tears on his cheeks.

  “Maybe this is a bad plan,” I said.

  “It’s the only plan,” he told me, and the moon just appeared over the peaks, like someone stuck a knife through the sky and slit it. We got a single shiver of wind, too. One deliciously chilly breath. That was our warning.

  “Wait here,” the Indian told me, and stumbled back to the parking lot.

  I thought he was headed to improvise a wrap for his ankle. I stared a while at that moon-slit cat-eye hole in the sky for a while. But when I turned around, the Indian had the lid off one of those park service trash cans, and the bag already out. Then he leaned over and tipped himself halfway upside down inside the can.

  “Indian, what the…” I shouted, and he popped back up with a couple black plastic squares in his hands. He waved them at me, and I realized they were garbage bags. He dropped the one with garbage in it back in the can, replaced the lid, and limped back to me.

  And by the way, no, they weren’t for body bags. It’s like I keep telling you, not that you seem to hear a single word. We didn’t know. Understand?

  “Might need these, if we can find a long enough icy patch,” the Indian said.

  “How’d you know they were stored there?”

  “What, you didn’t?” When I shrugged, he did, too. “Ancient First Nations lore, I guess. Where mysterious white man park service hide-um spare bags.”

  He stuck his stick in the first scrap of snow at the toe of the ice floe, and it went right through, but not far. Two inches, maybe, then clunk. Rock. More like a melting mini-drift from some freak summer storm than the bottom of that glacier. Up we went.

  The Indian kept poking around just to be extra safe, even though he could barely find enough snow to get the stick tip wet, let alone hide a crevasse. But the night got brighter. And bluer. It was like the moraine still had a shine on it, or a frost. Also, we could at least hear sounds, now. That rushing, way down underneath us. Which doesn’t make sense, does it, I mean, it can’t be colder inside the planet, right? Also there were these weird shushes. I couldn’t even tell you where those were coming from.

  The point is, we were watching the ground. Listening to the ground. I’d started to get this tickling in my feet and the backs of my knees. Like when you’re standing at one of those summit viewpoints with no railing? We’d finally gotten to where there’s still more ice than rock—maybe a hundred feet from the lot?—and I don’t know why, I just looked up.

  I’m not the screaming kind. But I’ll admit it, I made a noise, and that’s why the Indian jumped straight ahead and landed on what looked like a little white smear of dust and then dropped all the way to his thighs in ice. Just bang.

  The funniest part—I mean, it wasn’t funny, believe me, it so already wasn’t funny—was that he didn’t even react until like five seconds later. He just stood in the hole, gaping like a ground squirrel, and then he started barking, “Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap,” scrabbling with his hands and scattering rock and ice clods all over the place, and I kind of panicked, it was like watching a movie of someone in quicksand. I dropped down and crawled forward and grabbed his wrist and helped draw him out.

  As soon as he was lying beside me, he rolled over and stared in my face with that punch-something look again. And the ground…I’ve felt it before, but it’s the weirdest sensation. That surface-layer of heat from being in the sun, but you know it’s fake. Or, fragile. A warm that won’t last, a cold you know is under there. Like fried ice cream. Or something that was living five seconds ago.

  “Why did you do that?” the Indian shouted.

  I waved my hands, trying to quiet him, then pointed up. There were actually tears in my eyes, I have no idea why. “I saw that,” I said. “For this retarded second I thought it was a grizzly bear.”

  He looked where I’d indicated. His face didn’t change, exactly. But his tone did.

  “One of those rare yellow Grizzlies?” he said quietly.

  “With really big tires. Yeah.”

  Neither one of us exactly smiled. But he let me pull him up.

  When did they start parking those crazy buses up there, anyway? I guess the tour company’s not as nervous about the glacier anymore either, huh? God, the first time I went down on the ice was in one of those. I was maybe eigh
t, and it scared me so bad. Driving halfway up the mountain along the side of the glacier, first of all. The way the guide was talking, and the way they drove—maybe two miles an hour, I could have handwalked faster—made it seem like we were skirting something, alright. Then the turn, and those huge tires just grabbing the land. Like they didn’t want to go. And the inching down. Inching. Inching. So, so slow. I think they said it was the steepest incline traversed by a four-wheel vehicle in the whole hemisphere, is that right? And they did it that way because it was the only place they were sure the glacier wouldn’t open up and swallow them.

  By now, the Indian had the garbage bags shaken out, and he was cutting head-sized holes in them with his pocketknife. This is probably offensive to say, but he did it so skillfully. It really was like watching someone skin a buffalo. He didn’t tell me what he was doing, and I didn’t ask, and a few minutes later he re-folded the bags, started poking again with the stick, and we went up again.

  The rocks disappeared. And even though you could barely hear that whooshing sound, it was there. And this…breeze isn’t really the word…chill, I guess, started rising around our ankles. It was like wading way out to the ocean. And back ten thousand years.

  Anyway. We were moving slow, now, inching just like those buses. Putting our feet down extra-light, as if that would help if we happened to hit a spot with no ground. I kept glancing up at the peaks above and the black cliffs to the sides. All that dead, hot rock. Once I turned around, and it was kind of amazing. We hadn’t gone very far. The parking lot was maybe a hundred yards away. And yet on a whole other planet. It was like looking at the earth from space.

  I kept almost tripping, because I kept forgetting the glacier isn’t flat. It humps up, drops down, smacks up against itself in little ridges.