Towering

by Alex Flinn

  And yet, we had done it before. I was willing to risk it to see her.

  Finally, she dropped down beside me, and I took her in my arms.

  “Missed you,” I said. “I couldn’t make it in the rain.”

  “I knew.” She shivered. “Cold here.”

  “I brought you some stuff.” I gestured to the coat I’d stolen. “There’s a hat and gloves in the pocket. I thought we could play in the snow. Have you ever done that?”

  “I think, maybe when I was a little girl. I remember building a snowman with Mama. But then, she got scared and we had to go inside.”

  “We can build a snowman. Put it on.”

  I picked up the coat and held it so she could step into it. Then, the hat and gloves. Once dressed, she twirled around, modeling, and I wondered if that was some instinct all girls had, twirling, modeling, even if they’d never seen a television or even met another girl before.

  I had a strange sense of déjà vu, looking at her, as if I’d seen that girl in that coat before. I shook it off. Of course I hadn’t.

  “How do I look?” she asked.

  “Adorable.”

  I kissed her. The wind picked up the fresh snow and flung it around us, and I felt like this was the first day I’d ever lived, like Tyler and Nikki and everyone at home didn’t exist, and we were the only people in this beauty of a white world. “So what should we do?”

  31

  Rachel

  I stared around at the green and white trees, feeling the ache in my muscles, the cold on my face. The air was silent, waiting.

  I looked at Wyatt. “I’d like to make a snow angel.”

  “A snow angel?”

  “Yes. I’ve read about them in books. You lay on the ground and flap your arms until it looks like wings and a full skirt.”

  “I know what a snow angel is.” Wyatt glanced around. “It just takes a lot of room. We sure can’t go on the lake.”

  “Please. If I made one, I could see it from my tower, even after you leave. There’s a clear spot back there, behind those trees. I can see from the window.”

  I suddenly realized I’d staked it out. I’d been doing it for years, planning my escape, thinking of how it would be when I left. Why had I never tried it before? Was I so afraid of falling, of dying?

  I had no life to lose. Until now. I breathed deeply, letting the world into my lungs.

  It was as if saving Wyatt from the ice showed me that I could do something, that I wasn’t helpless, worthless after all.

  I grabbed his arm. “Come this way!” I felt like a different girl.

  “You show me then,” he said, laughing. “I’ll follow you.”

  “I will!” I knew there was a clear path nearby. I’d been tracing it and retracing it.

  “We have to pass that tree.” I gestured toward the big one, the one that had always frightened me as a child, its gnarled branches resembling a monster. It almost completely blocked the path.

  I reached behind me for Wyatt’s hand. He grabbed mine, squeezed it.

  After we passed the monster tree, there would be two more. Then, the clearing would become visible. It was so incredible to think I’d be there, in person.

  The only thing Wyatt had not brought was warm shoes. But I ignored my frozen feet as I pushed through the snowy tree limbs, then held them for him.

  As he clambered through, one branch slipped from my grip. It sprung back, hitting him in the face and sending a pile of snow onto him as well. “Oh, sorry.”

  “You did that on purpose!” But he was laughing.

  “No, I didn’t!”

  “Okay. Just let me hold the next one for you.”

  “Not a chance.” I ran as fast as I could toward it. Which wasn’t very fast because of the snow. I had never walked in anything like it before. At least, that I remembered. The snow was white and sparkly with a hard crust on top. But when you stepped on it, your foot sank down, down, and you had to lift it high to get out. Wyatt was gaining on me.

  He grabbed me. “Let me go first, actually. Not very gentlemanly to make you do all the pushing.”

  “You just want to get back at me.” I struggled against him, and then, I reached the tree.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  I pulled up a huge, snow-covered branch, held it back, and then, again, flung it in his face. “Gotcha!”

  Even though that time, he must have known it was coming, he didn’t duck. He let it hit him full in the face. “You think you’re so funny!”

  I laughed. “I’m hilarious.”

  He started to run fast, overtaking me. He reached the last tree. I hung back.

  He pulled back the branch. “Come on, Rachel.” His voice was low, enticing.

  “Sweet Rachel. I’ll hold it for you. I won’t throw snow in your face. I’m the bigger person.”

  “I’ll bet.” He was holding the branch so a huge pile of snow was aimed at me.

  “Okay, then. Take your punishment. Admit you lost.”

  I sighed. “I suppose I have to. You’re more powerful than poor little me.” In a way, I wanted to feel it, all that snow against my face.

  I stepped toward it, closing my eyes. But he didn’t release it. He let me in.

  We had reached the clearing. The sun had risen, and the snow sparkled with a white glow that had every color of the rainbow. I jumped up and down and into his arms. “We made it! We’re here! Isn’t this the perfect place to make an angel?”

  “Do you know how to make one?” he asked.

  “You’ll show me.”

  He smiled. “The trick is getting up and down without making footprints in the angel. You have to fall back flat. I’ll show you.” He broke away from me and walked a few steps to a clear area, away from the trees. He stood straight and just fell. Then, he flapped his arms and legs like scissors until an angel appeared.

  “Now, help me up,” he said.

  “How?”

  “Careful. Just stay off to the side. Help me balance.”

  I did what he said, and he was able to rise, only stepping in the tiny spot below the angel’s “skirt,” where her feet would be. Then, he backed away.

  It really did look like a real angel, with full skirt and spreading wings. What a wondrous accomplishment! Suddenly, the cold in my feet, on my face, felt like a gift.

  “I want to make one,” I said. I ran over to the other side of his, where the snow was white and unspoiled. I stood, smelling the air, the moment, so that I might never forget it, no matter what else happened. I knew that smells brought memories, but I’d had precious little to remember before now. How amazing, when you thought of it, that most of my life had been spent reading, waiting for Mama to come. Only now was I living.

  “Go ahead,” Wyatt said. “It’s soft.”

  “I know.” My voice was a whisper. I held my arms out, wavered, then fell. The snow caught me. I lay there a moment, letting it hug me. Then, I remembered what Wyatt had done and flapped my arms and legs as hard as I could.

  “Did I do it right?” I asked.

  “Absolutely.” He was beside me now, holding out his hand.

  I reached up and took it, feeling the connection between us like a shock of electricity. Then, I rose slowly, careful only to step where the angels’ shoes would be. I stepped back.

  My angel was enchanting, perfect in the morning light. I almost thought she would take flight. I couldn’t believe I was here, part of this strange, wonderful world I’d only read about in books. I stared at Wyatt. He was so beautiful.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “For bringing me here.”

  He shrugged. “You brought yourself.”

  I made three more, barely noticing the cold, but finally, Wyatt said, “Let me make another.”

  I stepped back, so he could do it. But this time, when I went to pull him up, he pulled down on my arm so I tumbled beside him. He took me in his arms, kissing me.

  “I’ve never met a girl l
ike you. You’re so brave. And when I see things through your eyes, they’re wonderful.”

  “They are.” I kissed him back. I felt a warmth rising from within me. “I feel the same way. I think I’ve been waiting for you, always.”

  “Then come with me,” he said. “Please. We can find help.”

  I wanted to. I really wanted to. And yet, I couldn’t leave Mama. I imagined her finding me gone. But more than that, I knew there was a reason I had to stay.

  “I can’t go,” I said.

  “Because of Mama?”

  “Yes, but more than that. Because of who I am. I know there is something I have to do.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  I wasn’t sure I should tell him. Yet my feet were frozen, his eyes were bright green in the snowy light, and I heard my voice saying, “Come to my tower, and I’ll show you.”

  32

  Wyatt

  It was easier to reach her tower, having done it once before. We embraced once again when she reached the top, and I was newly amazed that she was real. Real. Not some crazy dream I had in the delirium of the cold. She was real and warm, and for once in my life, I had earned the right to her, earned the right to kiss her.

  And that feeling made me brave enough to speak when we finally parted. “Rachel, did you ever think that maybe it is me you are meant for? I was the one who heard you singing. It was impossible. No one else heard it from miles away, but I heard you because I was meant to find you. I was meant to rescue you.”

  “I know you were meant to find me.” She gazed deep into my eyes in that way of hers. “Though, if I recall, it was I who rescued you. But there is something more. Meeting you is merely a piece in the puzzle. I believe I am . . . unusual.”

  I looked at her. She was so beautiful, unearthly beautiful, beautiful in a way that sort of put her out of my league. And, thinking about it, her singing was pretty incredible too—not to mention making that rope out of her hair. Who did that? I said, “Of course you’re unusual.”

  She shook her head. “Not merely in the ways you are thinking. Let me show you.”

  Before I could say anything else, she walked to the bed and drew a pair of scissors out from beneath the mattress. She held up one finger, opened a blade, and quickly sliced it, hard, so it started to bleed.

  I clutched my own finger. “Man, why’d you do that?” I knew a girl at school who was a cutter. I never understood it until Tyler died. Then, I sort of did, the way sometimes, when you hurt one part of yourself, it relieves another. Still, I’d never tried it.

  I stared at Rachel. Her blue eyes filled with tears as she gazed at the drop of blood welling on her fingertip. She held her other hand up, silencing me, telling me to stay away. The tears flowed from her eyes, and I longed to hold her, longed to comfort her. Yet, I also longed to shake her for hurting herself. I didn’t want anyone to harm her.

  Then, she held her finger to her tearstained cheek. For a second, the blood mixed with the tears. She withdrew her finger and held it toward me.

  “Look,” she said.

  I did, though it pained me. But her finger no longer bled. In fact, I couldn’t see a cut, not the slightest scar. It was healed perfectly, as if she had never cut it.

  “Can normal people do that?” she asked.

  I gaped at her, speechless. Did she mean what I thought she did?

  “My tears . . . they heal. Can you do that? Can other people?”

  I shook my head.

  “I didn’t think so. I was uncertain, but in books, people need bandages when they are hurt. I don’t.”

  “Does it only work on yourself?” I asked. “Or can you heal others too?”

  “I don’t know.” The air in the room felt strangely still, as if there wasn’t enough of it. “I don’t know others, except Mama.”

  “You know me.”

  She held up the scissors. “Shall I cut you then? I thought you might scream like a baby when I cut myself just now.”

  “You don’t have to.” I held up my hand, rough and scratched from clutching at the branches and ice the other day. On the cheek she hadn’t touched, a tear still glistened. “May I?”

  She nodded.

  I brushed the tear away with my wounded palm. Her face was so soft, so wild and strange. I wanted to kiss her again, but first, I pulled my hand away and looked at it.

  It was perfectly healed.

  “Wow,” I said.

  She nodded. “Wow. So you see, I am a special girl. I am waiting to find out why, to find out what it is I must do.”

  “But what if being up here is preventing you from finding out?”

  “It didn’t prevent your finding me.”

  “That’s true. But maybe that’s why—I’m supposed to take you away.” I was talking in circles, and I knew it. I just couldn’t believe she was supposed to stay here.

  She shook her head, then stared off into the distance. “I don’t know.” New tears sprung to her eyes. “I wish I understood. Why are you here? What brought you here? Why are you the one who came for me?”

  I thought about it, but the only reason I could think of was a bad one: because I needed to do something good, to make up for the other things. Was that enough of a reason? Enough for her?

  I decided to tell her. I hoped she wouldn’t be disgusted by me, but I had to find out.

  33

  Wyatt

  The sun had finally risen high in the sky, stretching its fingers through the many branches and lighting the room. I tried to make myself comfortable, but I couldn’t. There would be no comfort for me. Telling this story might help, but probably not. Probably, only doing something would help.

  “I used to have this friend named Tyler,” I explained. “He lived next door, and he and I were best friends, almost like brothers. You know what I mean?”

  Too late, I realized of course she didn’t. She’d been locked in a tower her whole life, no friends, nothing. Which was mind-blowing, when you thought about it. Locked in a tower. You could say it a hundred times, and it still seemed like something not real, like something from a book you read a long time ago, before you were old enough to question how crazy it was.

  She’d been locked in a tower. Oh, and her tears had healing powers. That too. What else? Maybe, if you dropped her out the window, you’d find out she could fly.

  I looked at her. Her skin was the same translucent white as the snow outside, and her eyes saw right through me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you don’t really know what I’m talking about.”

  “Don’t be. I’ve read books. My favorite was called A Little Princess. There was a girl named Sara, and she had to stay in an attic, which was like a tower. She thought she would be so lonely, but then, she discovered a little girl named Becky in the next room. They became friends and had so many adventures. I used to long for a friend like that, just on the other side of the wall. In fact, at night, I pretended there was someone there. Was that what it was like?”

  “Sort of.” I didn’t want to say it was nothing like that. Tyler wasn’t some theoretical soul mate, some pretend friend like in a book. He was a real person, a person who let you copy his homework if you left yours at home, a person to throw a ball with. When Tyler and I went out for the travel baseball team in seventh grade, he made it and I didn’t. So he said he wouldn’t do it either because it wouldn’t be fun without me, even though he really wanted to do it. That was the kind of friend he was. “Yeah, it was like that. We were best friends. His parents were divorced, and after his mother got remarried, we became even better friends. He was over at my house all the time.”

  “That’s so nice,” Rachel said. “I always dreamed of having a friend like that. You must miss him, being away from him.”

  “I do.” I felt a lump forming in my throat, but I swallowed it. “Anyway we always hung out at my house. Tyler said we couldn’t go to his anymore because his stepfather worked the night shift. I wished I could go over his house m
ore so I could see his sister, Nikki.”

  “Nikki?”

  “Yeah, Nikki. Nicole. I’d known her since we were little kids too, and I never really thought of her like . . . well, you know. I never thought of her. But last year, I suddenly started noticing that she was, you know, pretty. I’d known her my whole life, and she should have been like a sister, but suddenly, she wasn’t.”

  “I understand. Like Laurie and Jo March.”

  “Exactly.” Even though I had no idea who Joe March was, he sounded familiar. I thought maybe he was from one of those girl books like Nikki had liked. I’d look on Wikipedia when I got back. “Anyway, one day I decided I’d go over there, just to say hi to her. And Tyler too, of course. I wouldn’t make any noise or disturb their stepdad. We’d pretty much had the type of friendship where you could just walk over without knocking, so I didn’t tell Tyler I was coming.

  “But when I got there, Tyler’s stepdad was awake anyway. I knew because he was screaming and yelling. I could see them through the little window in the front door. Just barely, but they couldn’t see me.”

  I could still picture the scene, through the thick, mottled glass shaped like a flower. Tyler’s stepfather—his name was Rick—was mad about something. Maybe someone had already woken him up. Anyway, his face was practically purple, and I knew I didn’t want to knock.

  “I started to back away. He was calling Tyler’s mom all sorts of names, and then, he hit her. I couldn’t believe it. Tyler sort of freaked then, and they got into it, struggling on the floor. I couldn’t move. I didn’t really know what to do.”

  “I wouldn’t either,” Rachel said. “It sounds terrifying.”

  I remembered it so well. I had stood frozen, both figuratively and literally, in the November cold, while Ty and Rick were hitting each other. Nikki and her mom ran for safety. I was glad at least for that. Finally, it was like a spell had been broken. I ran home.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” I told Rachel. “If I should call the police or something, but I thought Tyler might call them, and it was over anyway, so I didn’t. After a while, I called Ty on his cell phone.” I realized she probably didn’t know what a cell phone was. “It’s a little phone where you can talk to people privately. Like this.” I took out my phone and, even though I knew it wouldn’t work, I turned it on, so she could see the lights. Weirdly, it had bars. Maybe because I was up so high. Josh had told me his phone worked in the hills. There were three texts too, all from my mother. “I asked him if he wanted to come over, hang out, or go to the mall—that’s a place a lot of teenagers go, to buy stuff and hang out. He sounded a little weird, and I knew why. He said he’d see if he could go. A few minutes later, he called me back and asked if Nikki could come over too. Of course I said okay.