Bird Lake Moon (7 page)

Morass: “something that traps or impedes; a state of confusion or entanglement; any difficult or perplexing situation.”

It describes where I am, he thought. I'm in a morass.

“Mr. Mitch?” There was a tap on his shoulder. “Time to go,” Papa Carl said in a raspy whisper.

“You can use my card to check out,” said Cherry, craning her neck as though she were trying to see what he'd been looking up in the dictionary. “Where are your books?”

“I don't have any,” Mitch murmured.

In the parking lot, Cherry said, “At the library for over an hour and not one book. Well, I tried.”

“Leave it alone,” muttered Papa Carl.

The intruders carried the yellow kayak to the lake, then dragged a canoe down to the same spot. The boy and girl led the dog to the maple tree between the house and the water and lavished him with pats and kisses before latching him to the broad trunk. “Bye, Jasper!” they called. The dog barked a few times, then settled, making himself into a tawny mound that looked like a pile of dead leaves.

It was late morning. Mitch was back at Bird Lake after the trip to the library. He was lying on his stomach, his chin resting in his cupped hands. He stayed low to the ground, inching along beside the lilacs every so often.

Morass. He played with the word in his head until it sounded absurd. He whispered it.

He convinced himself that the intruder son had no firsthand knowledge of what it felt like to be caught up in a morass. And with a jolt of painful awareness came the thought: I will never again have a life like his.

Morass.

As he watched the intruders that morning, Mitch came to the conclusion that his trying to scare them away had been a stupid idea and had had no effect on them anyway. Their behavior—joking around, playing together—was proof enough for him. And something shifted inside him. He no longer wanted the house. He now saw it as shabby and sorry looking. Who needs it?

He realized that he hadn't been swimming since the intruders had arrived. This made him angry.

Morass. Me. Mitch. Mad. Mutt.

M-M-M-M-M.

He waited long after the intruders had paddled out of sight, disappearing behind a clump of brush that jutted out into the lake, before he crawled onto their property. He felt detached, as if he were watching it all from a distance, even as he edged closer.

“Hey, dog,” he said softly. “Hey, Jasper.”

Jasper's tail wagged in greeting. His eyes were large marbles of the deepest brown with wide black centers; his nose was speckled with pink.

A sudden curiosity inhabited Mitch. It came unbidden and was irresistible.

A temptation.

The action required no thought of which he was aware. No plan. His brain was acting on impulse. Brain to fingers: Do this now.

Mitch extended his hand and unhooked the long lead from around the tree.
Click
. The simplest of movements. Done in a flash.

In that flash, Jasper bounded away, the lead trailing behind him like a thick red snake. Gone.

In that flash, Mitch was filled with overpowering regret.

The morass had increased tenfold.

When he was younger, Spencer had believed that his parents could hear all his thoughts. He no longer believed this, but he still wondered about it. He wondered because sometimes his parents seemed to have radar, seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. And then they'd ask probing questions.

On this particular morning, his thoughts were conflicting and would have been confusing to anyone who was privy to them. On one hand, the odd things that had happened nagged at him and made him wary. On the other hand, the night and the morning had been free of any strangeness, and as he drifted and paddled on the lake, he felt he belonged here, that he was bound to this place. He wore a loose smile to prove it.

He thought that if nothing else out of the ordinary happened, the nagging would become familiar, common as a hangnail, and eventually go away. This was his hope. He also hoped that his mother would ask no probing questions.

Spencer and his mother were in an old, dented aluminum canoe. Spencer's father and Lolly were in the kayak they'd brought from home. And Jasper—he'd refused to get into the wobbly canoe, even when bribed with treats, so they'd left him in the yard, tethered to the maple tree.

The canoe had been stored on the side of the house, beneath the white pines, along with sections of a rotting wooden pier and haphazardly stacked cinder blocks. Fallen needles from the trees covered everything like a patchy winter coat. They'd had to search for paddles. Lolly had found them in a corner in the basement among a cobwebbed jumble of garden tools.

The canoe and the kayak had started out together, but now, nearly an hour into the family's excursion, the two boats were far enough apart that Spencer saw the kayak as a yellow slash on the water, nothing more.

“If you were a tree, what kind would you be?” his mother asked, out of the blue. It was a game they used to play, years ago.

Spencer laughed. “We haven't done this in a long time,” he said. It embarrassed him slightly; it seemed babyish. “Um. An oak?” he said, shrugging. “An oak,” he repeated firmly. He was thinking of the enormous oak tree in the McDermotts' yard back in Madison. The McDermotts lived next door to the Stones. The oak was good for climbing because of its massive low boughs, and to Spencer, it resembled an elaborate pirate galleon with many gnarled masts reaching up and out. “What about you?” he asked.

“I would be a magnolia tree,” she said. “Like the one at home.”

He twisted and looked over his shoulder at her in the stern, and nodded. He was remembering how Lolly used to be convinced that the magnolia tree was female, the McDermotts' oak was male, and that they were married because their branches touched over the fence that separated the yards. The marriage of the trees, she'd said, made the two families related. This misconception of hers had, over time, become part of the Stone family lore.

“Your turn,” she said.

“If you were a . . . ,” he began slowly. “If you were an animal, what would you be?”

“A turtle,” she replied.

Hearing the word
turtle
made him blush. He looked down at the paddle in his hands. He wished he'd said food instead of animal. Or color. Or piece of clothing. Or anything else. He was glad that she was seated behind him and couldn't see his eyes, or his cheeks, which surely were red. Did she know something? Was she trying to ask something indirectly by saying turtle?

Of course he thought of the turtle that had appeared on the front porch. The sign. He also thought of the small ivory turtle that was missing from the mantel at home. He wondered if his mother had taken it from its usual place. Was it tucked into her pocket this very minute? Was it in her purse? Her wallet?

Or had his father taken it? Or someone—or something—else? He tried to banish these thoughts.

“I'd be a bird,” he said, without waiting to be asked for his response. “So I could fly.”

Neither tried to continue the game. They were silent for a long time after this. They both seemed to have retreated to private places in their minds. Sitting, as they were in the canoe, made this easier. They weren't face-to-face. There were no probing questions.

Spencer's mother steered them into a little cove. A secret, sheltered inlet. The sun broke through the leaves, dappling Spencer's arms and legs and dotting the water with coins of light.

There seemed to be no noises at all until you really listened, and then, it was as if the world were made of sound. Quick, rushed sounds—the equivalent of scribbling on a notepad. Slow, drowsy ones. The sounds of birds. Of insects. Unseen rustlings from the treetops and from the shadows beyond the shoreline. The lake was a container of sounds, the best one being the musical sound as he pushed the paddle through the water and lifted it out.

“The water is so limpid here,” his mother said.

“What's that mean?”

“Transparent. You can see through to the bottom.”

“Hmm.” He peered over the edge of the canoe. The cluster of rocks below looked like a village as glimpsed from an airplane. The water lapped against the side of the canoe. Spencer gently swayed back and forth. Testing.

“Did you hear that?” his mother asked.

Spencer lifted his head and listened. Did she mean a bird? And then he heard it: a shrill, cheerful cry coming from some distance. Lolly. “Disturbing nature,” he said as a joke.

Their idling was over. They started out toward the kayak.

“We'll race you!” Lolly shrieked gleefully when they were within earshot.

“Are you ready to head back?” Spencer's father called. “We're hungry.”

“I'm ready,” said Spencer's mother.

“But we're not racing,” said Spencer.

With the steady wind behind them, they traveled across the lake quickly. From where they were, the cottages ringing the shore looked flimsy, as if they were constructed of balsa wood or cardboard and would blow away if the wind gusted. Spencer didn't want to race, officially, but he did want to beat the kayak back to the house. His strokes were fast and fierce. The muscles in his arms burned. Soon the little house emerged from the background to welcome them. And Spencer and his mother were leading the way.

He was the first one to sense that something was wrong. “Hurry, Mom,” he pleaded, “I can't see Jasper.” He yelled, “Jasper! Jasper!”

No barking.

No eager dog straining at its leash.

He pumped his tired arms the last bit, exerting all his strength. As the front of the canoe scraped against the pebbles on the narrow beach, he jumped out onto the ground and ran to the maple tree.

“He's gone!” Spencer shouted to his family. His thoughts came, frantic but clear. No concerns about ghosts or spirits entered his consciousness this time. There was no mystery. He knew that Lolly was the one who had hooked Jasper to the tree. He knew that it was all Lolly's fault.

“Mom! Dad! Hurry!”

A couple of minutes later, the four of them stood together in the dark pool of shade by the tree. Spencer couldn't contain himself. He shoved Lolly, accusing her. “Look what you did.”

“Spencer, stop,” his father said. His voice was firm, and so was his grip on Spencer's shoulders. “What's going on? What are you talking about?”

“Dad, Dad,” he said, nearly breathless, “she hooked Jasper to the tree. And he didn't break the leash or chew it. The whole thing's gone. It's obvious what happened. Some people can't even work a simple hook or latch, or whatever you call it.” He glared at Lolly. “She didn't do it properly.”

Spencer's father had discovered the extra-long leash in the basement while they were looking for paddles. He'd remembered it when Jasper wouldn't go into the canoe. It had seemed sturdy enough. The hook was rusty, but it had seemed sturdy, too. And, unlike the leash they'd brought from home, it was long enough to encircle the tree, which Spencer's father thought was the safest place for Jasper—outside, but far from the water.

The puzzled expression on Lolly's face shifted; something registered, her mouth twitched.

“Shh, shh. Let's just calm down and look around here first,” Spencer's mother said. She spoke carefully and plainly. “He's got tags. I'm sure we'll find him. It's no one's fault.”

“If we
can't
find Jasper, I'll—” Spencer's words, all snap and sting, ended abruptly.

“Spencer,” said his father. A warning.

Spencer snuffled into his arm and swallowed hard.

“I
know
I hooked it,” said Lolly. “I
think
I hooked it. It was sort of hard to do, I think. I don't know,” she floundered. “I guess it
is
my fault. I'm sorry,” she said to no one really, but into the air, her voice more yelping than anything else. She clamped her lips together until she seemed about to explode. Her hands were lumps she lifted to her face, which was already turning blotchy. And then she burst into tears.

While his parents consoled Lolly, Spencer went on at a frantic pace, angry, and with an air of authority. “He could get strangled with that long leash. Or he could drown or get hit by a car or be stolen by some family because he's so friendly.”

“Or maybe,” Lolly added thoughtfully between sobs, keeping her head down. “Maybe he'll try. To go all the way. Back home. Like the dogs and cat. In that movie we saw.”

Spencer spluttered at his sister—a garbled, mean sound. He seemed to be pinning all his uncertainty onto this one thing he perceived as true. It blotted everything else out.

They hollered Jasper's name, whistled for him, circled the house, investigated the lakeshore, looking left and right and left. The little beach was a kaleidoscopic tangle of footprints and pawprints and offered no real help. Then, while they figured out what to do next, they stared at the base of the maple tree as if it would reveal something, some hidden clue.

“Emmy,” said Spencer's father, “why don't you and Lolly stay here. Spencer and I will drive around. See what happens.”

She nodded. “He'll come back. I know he will.”

In desperation, Spencer screamed Jasper's name at the top of his lungs once more.

“Everyone okay?” An old man had passed through the screen of lilacs and was crossing the yard. “Someone lost?”

He walked with a slightly lopsided stride, but quickly. His skin—badly pocked and deeply wrinkled—was the color of wheat bread. He was thin, not too tall.

Spencer peered behind him, expecting Jasper to be in tow. The man was alone.

Introductions were made and explanations were given. The man lived next door, through the lilacs, in the neat and orderly mint green house. His name was Carl. Mr. Burden.

“My grandson, Mitch, is staying with us,” said Mr. Burden. “He's around here somewhere. Maybe he could help look for your dog.”