Towering

by Alex Flinn

  “Rachel?”

  No answer. But even though I was inside, trapped, I heard a whistle of wind in trees. Nothing else.

  “Rachel?”

  I wondered if the brothers were outside, if they could hear me. But if they could, they would probably think I was some idiot, babbling to myself. Still, I lowered my voice.

  “Rachel?”

  No answer. And then, I sensed that the reason she wasn’t answering was because her attention had turned to something else.

  50

  Rachel

  The truck came closer. It was huge, and it was terrifying. I knew it would swoop down upon me, like a falcon or owl, and carry me away. I huddled under my hair, digging deeper, deeper into the snowbank.

  “Rachel!”

  “Mama!”

  She ran toward me, slipping on the snow, arms outstretched. I rose to meet her. When she came closer, she gasped, stopped. Staring at me.

  “That coat! It’s . . .”

  “Danielle’s—my mother’s. I know. I’m sorry! Wyatt gave it to me. I shouldn’t have snuck out with him, but I didn’t know, didn’t know it would cause so much trouble!”

  And part of me was sorry, but part was not because it had to happen. It had to. Everything couldn’t just stay the same.

  She was staring at me as if I had grown a second head. “Your hair?”

  “It just started growing.” I clutched it around me.

  “Today?”

  “No. I mean, not only. Weeks ago, when I asked you for the scissors. That was when Wyatt came. I made a rope for him to climb. And then, it stopped, but it started again today. I don’t know why. It’s like it grows when I need it. I wondered why I needed it today.”

  On the road, another car roared by. Mama and I both started and crouched down. It passed. She grabbed my hand. “No time for this now. We must go—now, before anyone finds you!”

  I tried to run, even walk, to her car, but my hair was caught on something. A branch. I yelped, and reached to untangle it. Mama helped me and then, her holding my hair, we walked to the car.

  It was nearly dark, and a tight squeeze with all my hair. She reached over me to push a button which, I guessed, locked the door. I sat in silence as she locked her own, then fastened herself into the car. She looked back over her shoulder, then backed out onto the road.

  “Best to put the hood over your head,” she whispered. “It will be dark soon, and they won’t know this car—it’s the neighbors’, but best to be safe.”

  I obeyed. I felt safer—a bit—now that Mama was here. I could smell the scent of her house on the coat. Now, I knew it was her house. Yet, I knew that there was something I, and only I, would have to do to find Wyatt. I pulled my hair toward me. Perhaps I should braid it. Yes, I would do that. I began to sift through the hair, looking for the ends, so I could arrange it behind me.

  I knew she wanted to ask me more questions, why I left, and how. There would be a time to answer those questions, or maybe there wouldn’t. But now, I didn’t want to talk about it.

  I breathed in. “He said . . .” There was a car behind us, close behind, which seemed strange on such a deserted road. Its lights glowed bright in the mirror between our heads. I saw Mama’s hands on the steering wheel, gripping, her knuckles white, striped red. I sunk down in my seat, still arranging my hair.

  The car roared around us at incredible speed. Soon, I could only see the red lights on the back of it as it disappeared into the night.

  Mama laughed, a short bark. “Crazy driver.” Then, she turned to me. “I don’t even know where we’re going.”

  “Maybe . . . the police?” I wasn’t sure whether this was the way to go, but in books, people called the police when there was trouble. Wyatt had mentioned that he should have called the police about his friend Tyler.

  But Mama shook her head. “I’m afraid not. The police were . . . not helpful when Danielle disappeared.” She pursed her lips together. “They thought she had simply run away . . . or perhaps, that I killed her. And I can’t take you to my house. It’s no hiding place, and we can’t hide anymore anyway. No, we will have to settle this ourselves.”

  I had feared, or maybe anticipated that. On both sides of the car was blackness, black trees, black rocks, black space. Mama was barely a shadow beside me. “I think he is at the Red Fox Inn, in Gatskill. I heard . . .” I stopped. It sounded crazy.

  “What?”

  “Sometimes, I can hear his voice in my head. And he can hear mine. I know he can. That is how he found me.”

  Mama nodded. “I had suspected as much. That’s where I was going, in any case. The Red Fox Inn was where it all began.”

  “Where what began?” I found the ends of my hair, and I arranged it, as best I could, into three sections. I began to braid it as close to my head as possible, though I knew it would grow.

  There were no cars on the road now. It was so quiet, so dark.

  “All of it,” Mama said. “I suppose it is time to tell you. Perhaps I should have told you long ago.”

  The scary car was long past, but her knuckles were still white. I wanted to embrace her, but I feared it would distract her. “Tell me what, Mama?”

  She sighed. “Once, when I was a much younger woman, I had a difficult life. I took care of my elderly parents, worked hard at a job, and didn’t have much hope in my life.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “Then, one day, a smiling stranger came along and I believed myself in love. He offered me a magical leaf. He said that, if I ate it, I would be happier, more alive. I ate it, and so I was. I saw wonderful visions, even felt like I could fly, and when I ate that leaf, which was a drug called rhapsody, I felt like I had no problems, even when the stranger left. But then, there was no more rhapsody, either, and I was miserable. I tried other drugs, but they weren’t the same. I went through horrible withdrawal.”

  She looked at me, then away, and I realized she was embarrassed. I decided to say nothing, so she could go on.

  She did. “Just at that time, I met a wonderful man, your grandfather, and we fell in love. I told him about the rhapsody, and I found that, with his help, I was able to control my urges. We were married and were very happy. Soon, I was expecting a baby, which would be the culmination of my joy. My husband’s name was Daniel, so we planned to name the baby Daniel if it was a boy, Danielle if it was a girl.”

  I nodded. She meant my mother, Danielle. I continued to work on my hair, though it was already nearly a foot from my head now.

  “And then, my husband was killed in an accident. I was all alone, frightened, no family, no friends. I only wanted to return to the one friend that had kept me company before, rhapsody. I had heard on the street of a secret place to get the drug underneath the Red Fox Inn. I went there, and I stole it. I was, of course, caught, and the owner, a man named Carl, said that he would tell the authorities, who would take my baby from me. I cried and cried, my remorse was so deep. Finally, he agreed to let me go. But he looked at the baby, who had such startling blue eyes, almost the color of rhapsody flowers themselves, and he said, ‘I have one condition. When she is seventeen, she must come here to work for me.’

  “I looked at the man. He was very old with wrinkles upon wrinkles. I thought that by the time my child was seventeen, he would surely have died. Besides, I had no choice. I realized my mistake, and I wanted to leave right away. I agreed to bring her back when she was seventeen.”

  I stared out at the sky, which had become gray with clouds, like a rain storm was coming.

  “I raised my daughter, your mother, a wonderful little girl, and though it was hard, I never used rhapsody again. To do so would be to approach the place where I almost lost my daughter. That thought, alone, gave me strength. Gradually, I forgot all about it. But when Danielle was about to turn seventeen, I remembered the man’s strange request. I didn’t want to give her to him. I hoped he had died, but one day, when my daughter was at school, he came to my door, asking for her.”
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  “How old must he have been then?” I asked. “A hundred?”

  “That was the strangest thing. He did not seem to have aged at all in seventeen years. If anything, he seemed younger. And when I refused to open my door, he pushed it in like it was nothing. I stared and stammered, pretending I didn’t know what he meant. Then, I said no. No, of course she can’t come. And yet, I had nowhere to go. I tried to keep her inside the house, so he wouldn’t be able to grab her. But a young girl does not want to stay inside.”

  I nodded. I knew this was true.

  “My Danielle,” Mama said. “She saw a boy in the garden, and she began to sneak off with him.”

  I looked down. It was just what I had done with Wyatt.

  “I did not find this out until later. At first, when she was gone, I thought she had been taken from me. I looked all over for her, cursing myself for not sprinting her away, not protecting her better. But then, she came back, and I thought it was all right. The boy had left her, it seemed. I learned that she was having a baby, and I didn’t care, didn’t fret as any other mother would. I just wanted her to stay with me. In fact, realizing my foolishness, I made plans to move across the country, to start a new life. And then, Danielle disappeared again, this time for good.”

  I felt tears come into my eyes. Poor Mama! “How alone you must have been.”

  “I was. And the police were no help. At first, they said that Danielle must have run away. She was a teenage girl. People had seen her with this boy, and he had disappeared, so they assumed she had run off with him. However, I continued to call the police, badger them. My daughter and I may have argued, but she would never have run away. Also, I began to hear stories of other young people disappearing, including another girl from town, Suzie Mills. When I told the police this, they became annoyed. Suzie was an addict and probably dead of an overdose, they said. They had found out that Danielle was pregnant, and they accused me of killing her, because of my shame and anger. They threatened to arrest me, but I knew they had no proof because I hadn’t done it. Still, I gave up on calling them. I only hoped that, someday, she would come back.”

  Mama slowed the car, and I knew why. The road was winding here, frightening. She was weeping and could probably barely see through her tears.

  I heard her voice in the dark truck. “Then, two months after Danielle disappeared, there was a knock on my door. I opened it, hoping as I always did that it would be Danielle, returned to me. But when I looked outside, instead of Danielle, there was a blond young girl, cradling a tiny infant in a blanket.”

  I knew that was me.

  “It was Suzie, the girl who had disappeared. She was not dead, but she told me that Danielle was. She couldn’t tell me how she knew, but she knew. She thrust the baby at me and said to take it, keep it, that it was Danielle’s baby, and that the people who had killed Danielle had told her to take it and put it in the incinerator at her father’s veterinary office. She couldn’t do it. I took the child in my trembling arms, and listened as she babbled what sounded like nonsense. ‘Take the baby far away,’ Suzie said. For there was a prophecy that this baby, Danielle’s baby, would be the one to break a curse, to stop the rhapsody that had tainted the town for decades. She said that the baby’s father, whose name was Zach, had known that Danielle would be the mother of the baby that would bring it all down. He had come to her on purpose, impregnated my daughter—because his uncles were the ones who had the rhapsody. He knew how it had harmed people.

  “Suzie told me that this baby could be the one to change everything. That is why they wanted her killed. She also told me that your name was Rachel.”

  I shook my head. This was crazy. It was too much. And if I was the one who could do this, how was Wyatt involved? Why could I communicate with him, even when he wasn’t there?

  “She begged me to take the baby and hide it. They must never know she hadn’t killed you as instructed. I did take the baby, you, away for eight long years, as I had planned to take Danielle. I took you all the way across the country and raised you. But even far away, I worried that someone would find you, take you away from me. So, finally, I brought you home, put you in a tower where no one would think to look, in the middle of the woods, and went back to my old house thinking that, when they saw I was all alone, they would leave me be. For eight years, they did. I wept every night because I could not have you with me, my granddaughter, the only one I had left, and I yearned to see you, yearned to have you in my house.”

  I touched her hand. It was good to know that she too had missed me.

  She said, “But then, one day, Danielle came to me in a dream. Or maybe I just dreamed about her. She said that her friend Emily’s baby, Wyatt, would be the one to break the spell with you, the one that could free them all. She made no sense, but she was my daughter, so I listened to her. She said that Wyatt must come to live here. Of course, I thought it was crazy. Emily would never agree. But the very next day, I received a call from Emily Hill. I didn’t know if it was merely coincidence, or if she had seen Danielle too, but she was asking me if Wyatt could come here, and I said yes.”

  “That is incredible. Incredible.” I was finally warm, almost too warm. My face was flushed, and when I looked into the backseat, my hair filled the entire thing.

  “I knew that he would find you. I encouraged it, allowing him to take my car every day, hoping he would have some sort of contact with you.”

  “He did. I can hear him, in my head. I heard him a few minutes ago.”

  She nodded. “I was frightened, but something had to be done. Over the years, I have read the stories of other teens, other young people, who have disappeared, usually visitors, people who wouldn’t be greatly missed. But I knew it was the rhapsody that had taken them, and it must be stopped. It must be stopped.”

  “But how?” I saw lights. We were in a town now. It was a small town, but, as I had seen that night on the train, the occasional neon sign identified the businesses: Gatskill Diner, Gatskill Repairs, Gatskill Library. Then, nothing for a long time. I had braided my hair, as best I could, but there were several unbraided feet near my head where my hair had just grown. It would have to do. I held the end of my hair in one hand. The braid streamed behind me. Then, I saw a sign far ahead.

  Red Fox Inn, it said.

  As we drove closer, I heard a voice. Wyatt’s voice.

  “The key,” it said. “I found the key.”

  “What key?” I asked. Mama turned to me, and I gestured to my ear, so she would know it was Wyatt I heard, Wyatt to whom I spoke. His voice seemed clearer now, and I did not know if it was because we were closer now, or if it had something to do with my hair. I had first started hearing him when my hair began to grow.

  “The key. In the hairbrush—your hairbrush,” his voice said.

  “Hairbrush?” Then, I remembered. I had told him about the hairbrush I had when I was a little girl. That must be what he meant. But it was gone. I had not seen it in years. I turned to Mama. “When I was a little girl, I had a hairbrush, a pretty silver one with a flower design. What happened to it?”

  She looked surprised, then said, “How strange. It just disappeared.” We were close now, and Mama slowed the car. I knew she was as reluctant to arrive as I was, more maybe.

  “Wyatt found it.” I said, “Wyatt, where did you find it?”

  “In a junk shop.” His voice was as clear as if he were standing before me. “It’s in my car, in a bag on the seat. I think you need it.”

  We were not quite to the sign, but I gestured to Mama to slow down, to stop, before she got there. She had already been about to do so, it seemed, and she slowed the car and went a bit to the right, into a clump of brush by the road.

  I said to her, “Wyatt says there’s a key in it that I may need. It’s in the car.”

  Mama gestured toward a green car parked in front of the place. “My car.” She fumbled in her purse. “I have a spare set of keys to the door. But how did he know . . . ?”

  “I
told him about it, that you used to use the brush. Is the key anything special?”

  “I don’t know. Suzie brought the hairbrush when she brought you. She said it was very important, that we must always hold on to it. I didn’t know why, though. I just thought it went with you, because you had such beautiful hair. I can go get it.”

  “Maybe I should,” I said.

  “No. You can’t.”

  “But I must. This . . .” I gestured with my hair. “This shows that something is supposed to happen. I’m supposed to save Wyatt, maybe save . . . everyone.”

  It was overwhelming to think of, but it was true. For so long, I had thought my life was worthless, that no one would be affected if something happened to me, if I didn’t exist. Now was the time to make my existence have worth, make it have value. And if I had to risk that existence, I had to.

  I reached for the handle of the car’s door.

  “Wait!” Mama said. “Just . . . please, let me get the key. We can look at it, and then, I will go to the door of the place and distract them.”

  “But . . .” She was going to lock me in the car while she went out to look. I could not handle it.

  “I know you’re right, Rachel, my darling Rachel. I’m not treating you like a child. I know you have to do this, find this. But if I distract them, you can sneak around and look for a door. Or for Wyatt.”

  I nodded. It made sense. She opened the car’s door and started to get out. I saw that she was old and bent, and it was difficult for her. Yet, she had come to me every day, all these years. I felt warm and slipped out of my coat, my mother’s coat. My hair would be enough. For one second, though, I savored the scent of her. I would never see her, but she gave me life, and she left me the letter. It was enough to go on. Ahead of me, in the dim light, I could barely make out Mama, opening the car door. A light went on inside. She bent and took something out, then closed it quick. She hobbled back toward the car, holding it out to me.