Towering

by Alex Flinn

  Unreal. “And before that?”

  “I lived in a house, with Mama.”

  “Mama.” Such an old-fashioned word. I didn’t know anyone who called their mother Mama. It was like something they said in books.

  “She’s not really my mother, though. My mother is dead. She was killed when I was a little baby. I don’t remember her at all.”

  I thought about the old man in the hardware store, the one with the dead daughter. Could she have been Rachel’s mother? If so, he didn’t know about it.

  “Mama brought me here to keep me safe. She said the people who harmed my mother might come after me as well.”

  It was all kinds of crazy. Yet, everything seemed crazy up here, from Danielle eating her psychedelic salad to Rachel locked in this tower. But maybe the whole world was like that—it was just more noticeable in a small town. I gazed at her, trying not to look like I was. Her skin was so pale, like it had never seen the sun. It was almost translucent, and her hair hung around her shoulders like an angel’s wings. She believed what she was saying. That was for sure.

  “So why did you come down to save me? Weren’t you worried I’d kill you?”

  She smiled. “I thought about it. But then, I realized you were too young to have killed my mother. You looked no older than me. And I could not simply watch you die when it was in my power to help. Then, my existence would be worthless indeed. I sometimes wonder if it is anyway. Besides . . .” She broke off, shaking her head as if she had said too much.

  “We all wonder about that sometimes,” I said.

  “Do you? Do other people wonder that? I do not know any other people.”

  “I think so.” There was something intelligent about her face, something older than her years. “What were you going to say?”

  “Nothing. I don’t want to . . . burden you, tell you too much and get you into a mess.”

  I looked around. Outside the windows, I could see only the tops of trees. Inside, I could only see her.

  “I think I’m in it,” I said.

  “You don’t have to be. You could leave, climb down to the bottom and never see me again.”

  “No, I couldn’t do that. Now, I know you’re here. I can’t just leave you.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “I don’t know.” Though I had an idea. It was because of Tyler. I hadn’t done enough there. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “Besides, I feel like I’m supposed to be here, like I found you for a reason. Why else would I hear you when no one else did?”

  She sat very still for a moment, her face illuminated by firelight. Her hand was still in mine, and I wanted to kiss her again, but I didn’t want to spoil it, so I just sat there. Her fingers were so delicate, interlocking with mine.

  Finally, she said, “I have these dreams, strange dreams.”

  “Dreams?” I thought of Danielle at the window. But maybe that had been real.

  “They don’t feel like dreams at all. I mean, not like dreams you have when you’re asleep and forget an hour later. These dreams feel like prophecies, and when I started having them, things changed.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Well, for one thing . . .” She gestured toward the rope of hair on the floor. “My hair grew. It grew very fast.”

  I nodded. “That’s weird all right. What else?”

  “When I was little, Mama used to brush my hair with a special brush, a silver one with a pattern of exotic flowers, orchids or lilies, I think.”

  “What?” I had seen the brush, or one like it, somewhere. Where?

  “A fancy silver brush. And then, one day, it disappeared, and I came here. But I have been dreaming of that brush, and dreaming of it all the time, as if it is the key to . . . something, to escape. And then, you showed up.”

  I nodded. “And that’s weird?”

  “Other than Mama, I haven’t seen another human being in years. But more than that . . .”

  Again, she stopped speaking and stared at the rope of hair on the ground.

  “What?”

  “More than that, you were in my dreams too. I don’t want to frighten you, but there was a boy, tall and broad shouldered, with dark hair and green eyes. Do many people have green eyes?”

  I shook my head. “Some. But most people have brown. Or blue.” I looked into hers, which were a bright sapphire color.

  “Do many boys look like you?”

  “Exactly like me? No. So you’re saying I was in your dream?”

  She nodded. “I am certain of it. You are meant to be here.”

  “Then I’m certain too.” And I was, in that instant, I was. There had to be a reason I was here, a reason I’d heard a voice beckoning since I’d gotten here, a reason I’d left home, even. “But what was I doing in your dream?”

  “That is where it grows dim. There were people, somewhere. They wanted me to help them. They needed me to. It had to be me, only me. But I don’t know why or how. I thought perhaps when you came, you would tell me. But you don’t know either?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. But maybe we could ask someone.” I thought of the old man again. Maybe he would know. Or Mrs. Greenwood. I wouldn’t tell them about Rachel. It would freak them out, and I wouldn’t want to get the old man’s hopes up if Rachel wasn’t his long-lost granddaughter after all. “Would you want me to?”

  “I’m not sure. I wouldn’t want anyone to know I was here.” She glanced out the window. “Oh, my, it is getting dark already. I don’t want you to leave, but . . .”

  I looked outside. The sun was already low in the sky. I glanced at my watch. It was already past four, and around here, it got dark early in winter. I had to get back to my car, this time without falling through the ice. “I don’t want to leave either. But I should.”

  “Come again tomorrow. Please?”

  “If I can. If not, the next day.” I stood up.

  She put her arms around my neck again. “Please come back. I never knew how lonely I was until you came.”

  I kissed her. “Me either. Don’t worry. I will. I promise.”

  The trip down the rope should have been easy compared to the trip up, but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to make it. I didn’t want to leave. My hands ached until I felt I might fall, and even though my clothes had mostly dried, I felt bone cold. I finally reached ground and struggled across the trees to the car, then drove to Mrs. Greenwood’s house, but I was already plotting how to come back.

  I felt the chill of cold in my legs, my arms. Even my hair felt cold. But for the first time since Tyler died, I felt like something made sense.

  23

  Rachel

  I watched Wyatt climb down the rope, his dark hair against the snow-whitened pines. For an instant, I wondered if I should call him back, ask him to take me with him. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  Mama would be disappointed, for certain. But part of me said that it would be her own fault, for trapping me here, imprisoning me away from the world. That was what she was doing, wasn’t it? I remembered being outside with Wyatt, the sting of the cold air, the feeling of branches scraping against me. Why should this be so unusual?

  No. Mama was protecting me. But could she not protect me by bringing me someplace else, someplace where I could at least go outside? I knew from books that there was a wide world out there. I hadn’t seen it. If Mary, the heroine in The Secret Garden, could travel all the way from India to England to live with her uncle, why could I not travel to hide?

  Nonsense. Mama was an old woman. It would be too difficult for her.

  But what if the man who had killed my mother was gone? Or even dead? What if all my hiding was for naught?

  Oh, this was too much to think about. It had been a day of great excitement, easily the most exciting day of my life. I had rescued someone! I had met a boy, a real boy who liked me, who thought me pretty. I had kissed him. For some girls, this might be the stuff of an ordinary afternoon. For me, it was incredible.

 
My arm throbbed. I pulled up my sleeve and examined it. I found a scrape, forgotten. I remembered how it had happened, climbing up the tower wall. I touched the scrape with some satisfaction. A cold breeze blew in through the window. Wyatt was out of my sight. I pulled up the rope and coiled it round and round itself until it was small enough to store under my bed.

  I yawned. It had been a tiring day, and though I knew that Mama would be here later, I decided to take a nap.

  I crawled under the covers, taking my pillow into my arms. It was merely a pillow but I had, many times, imagined it was my true love. Now, he had a name. Wyatt.

  Wyatt.

  I felt like I could smell him in the air as I drifted off to sleep.

  But I did not dream of him as I would have liked. Instead, I dreamed of people, people I had never seen, their faces pleading with me to save them, save them somehow from themselves. But I didn’t know how. Sliding down a rope and rescuing someone from the ice seemed like child’s play compared to what they wanted from me. In fact, I did not know what they wanted at all. But they seemed to think I did, and they grew closer, their hands reaching toward me, touching me.

  I woke, sobbing, to someone shaking me. The room was dark.

  “Who’s there?” I asked.

  A laugh. Then, a gentle voice, soothing. “Who would be there, Kitten? It is only me.”

  Mama. How many hours had passed since Wyatt had held me, since I’d been that different, not helpless, girl he’d held in his arms.

  “Mama, you’re here.”

  “Of course.” She stroked my hair. “But why is it dark?”

  I wiped my teary eyes with my arm. “I was tired. Maybe still a little touch of fever.”

  “Oh, I am sorry.” She reached for the light switch. “I had hoped you would be better.”

  The room illuminated, and she looked around. I imagined she could see that everything had changed since she had been there last. Indeed, her eyes showed suspicion. But there was no difference.

  My sleeve felt wet where I had been crying. I pushed my sleeve up, then remembered the scrape on my arm. If she saw it, she was sure to ask how I got it. I pulled my sleeve down, the better to cover it. But it did not hurt anymore, and when I looked, it wasn’t there. Had it been my imagination?

  The eagle eyes traveled the room. “Is everything else . . . all right?”

  I nodded. “Only I am lonely. I get so lonely, Mama, all by myself.”

  24

  Wyatt

  I was about halfway back to Mrs. Greenwood’s house when it hit me. There was a girl in a tower out in the middle of nowhere, trapped. No one but me knew she was there. How was I sure she wasn’t a figment of my imagination? Maybe it was all a dream, born of my own loneliness, my need to be a hero to make up for everything that had happened. Maybe I’d crashed through the ice and pulled myself out.

  Maybe I was lying on the ground, dying of hypothermia, and the girl was merely a vision.

  A beautiful vision. I remembered her blond hair, her lacy dress, her skin, a shade of white I had never seen before, almost transparent. Was it because she had never seen sun, or was she an angel?

  And how was it, if she was real, she’d been looking out her window at the exact moment I’d fallen through the ice? Was it because she was so lonely she looked out her window all the time, seeing nothing? I knew what it was to be lonely, but she had been alone far longer.

  I pulled in to Mrs. Greenwood’s driveway, got out of the car, and started toward the house. Then, I remembered the hinges. I decided to tell Mrs. Greenwood I hadn’t been able to get them, that I needed to go back tomorrow.

  Because, of course, another possibility had occurred to me, that Rachel was Mrs. Greenwood’s granddaughter, that somehow, Danielle had had a baby, then disappeared. Maybe she was so scared of her mother she hadn’t told her. How cool would it be to reunite them?

  I looked for the hinges on the seat, then realized they were in my pocket. When I drew them out, I saw, attached to the bag, a long, golden hair.

  She was real.

  But I couldn’t tell anyone, least of all Mrs. Greenwood, about Rachel, not until I was sure who she was. I needed to find out.

  Besides, even though I’d only known her a day, I thought I was falling in love with her.

  25

  Rachel

  In the night, it began to rain. I could count on three fingers the number of times I’d seen rain in January. The rain would make the way here impassable. He could not climb the tower in the wet. I would not see him. Having been alone all these years, I yearned, now, to see him.

  What was it Shakespeare said—The course of true love never did run smooth.

  I turned on the light and surveyed the room. I noticed the scissors Mama had gotten me, lying on my nightstand. I picked them up and tested the blades. Dull. Still, I could try.

  I drew it quickly across my wrist.

  A small amount of blood showed, seeping out.

  The cut didn’t hurt enough to make me cry, but the thought of not seeing Wyatt did. I imagined that it would rain forever, that I would never see him, that I would always be alone.

  Soon, a tear leaked from each eye.

  I dabbed at them with my forefinger, then dabbed at the wound. It stung from the salt.

  Then, it disappeared.

  26

  Wyatt

  I woke to the rain on the roof. Some might call it a patter, but it was more like a deluge. My mother once said that, when it rained up here, you might as well cancel your plans. I knew what she meant, but today, my plans were with Rachel.

  I knew I could never climb that tower in the rain.

  I decided it might be a good idea to start the online courses I was supposed to be taking. That way, I could skip a day when the sun came out. So, after breakfast (Mrs. G. made waffles, which was the only good thing about the day), I logged on to start virtual economics.

  No connection.

  After unplugging and replugging the computer and an hour on the phone with the service provider, then another hour talking to someone in another country who clearly knew nothing about how bad it could rain here, I faced the fact that they were going to have to come service it. Tomorrow.

  I went downstairs to see if Mrs. G. was watching Star Trek. Because this was what my life had come to.

  “It’s not on now,” she said.

  “I thought it was always on.”

  “I wish. Do you want to play Rummikub?”

  “What’s that?”

  She reached down under the end table and pulled out a small leather suitcase. “It’s a game, sort of like gin rummy, only with tiles. You have to build groups of three or four of a kind, or straights. Your mother and Danielle used to play all the time. I haven’t played since . . .”

  I couldn’t imagine my mother doing anything so nerdy, but maybe it was just that dull up here. “Okay?”

  That was all it took for her to start putting together racks and piling on tiles. The piles were numbered and came in four different colors. She explained that you had to make either a group, meaning several of the same number, or a run, which meant all the tiles were the same color, but consecutive numbers, like 2, 3, 4, and 5. There had to be at least three tiles in each run or group. “But the fun part,” she said, “is you can steal from other groups that are already down. For example, if there are three 4s down, and you need one to make a run, you can take it—just not on your opening turn.”

  I didn’t make my opening turn for about fifteen minutes because she said your tiles had to add up to fifty before you could start. Meanwhile, Mrs. Greenwood was building runs and groups, then stealing from them to make more. “It just all comes back to you,” she said.

  “I wish it would come to me in the first place.” But, actually, I was just as glad to have her beating me. She seemed to enjoy it.

  Still, she said, “You must have something.”

  “You’re just better at this than I am.”

  “Nonsense. Yo
u’re a smart boy. That’s what I like about this—it exercises the brain, helps with problem solving.”

  I thought about the problem of how I was going to see Rachel. What if it rained for a week?

  The joker Mrs. Greenwood had just put down laughed at me.

  After she’d beaten me for the third time straight (and I suspected she was holding back), I asked her if there was anything else she needed repaired.

  Maybe she saw the look of quiet desperation on my face. Or maybe she was just as bored of playing Rummikub as I was. In any case, she said, “You know, I think the library might have that internet service. Is there a way to bring your computer there and work?”

  My head shot up quicker than a cartoon character’s. “What? Yes. Yes, there is a way. Where’s the library?”

  “Well . . .” She played with the Rummikub tiles. I dimly remembered that Nikki and her friends used to make necklaces out of them. Nikki . . .

  “It’s a little far,” she said.

  What around here wasn’t? “That’s okay. Where, exactly, is it?”

  “You pass the hardware store and get onto the Northway. Then, you get off in Gatskill.”

  Gatskill? That had been where Zach had worked, at the Red Fox Inn. “About how far away is that?”

  “At least half an hour I’d say. And you should drive slowly in this rain.” She glanced at her watch, a skinny gold thing I bet she had to wind each morning. “Maybe it’s too late to get started. They probably close at five.”

  It was nearly two now. It probably was too late. But on the other hand, I was sure the bar was just getting started at five.

  “No, I’ll go. I’d like to get something done today.” I started to put away the Rummikub tiles.

  “Such diligence.” She placed her hand on my wrist, stopping me. “I’ll put them away.”

  “I’ll get gas for your car too.” It was the least I could do, since I was the only one driving it.