Flutter (11 page)

I thought about emailing Gia. Part of me wanted to tell her to look up my song, to prove it all to her. But you couldn’t make someone believe you, even if sometimes it was all laid out right in front of them. I didn’t know much. But I did know that.

Instead, I sent her a one-sentence email. “I’m okay.” That was all I wrote. I felt that I owed this to everyone. They couldn’t have me back, couldn’t know where I was, but when I thought of Dad, Gia … They had failed me—yes—but they loved me.

And Gia would tell Dad I was okay.

Late in the afternoon, as I walked back from the library, the wind snaked down my coat collar, and I realized that it was getting colder. I could see my breath in front of me, and I was aware of every part of my body that was exposed to
the frigid air—my face, my neck, my hands. I put my hood up and wound my scarf around my face, my mouth. I slipped my mittens from my pockets and tugged them on. And I thought about Ash, just as I had a zillion times since I’d seen him at the stables. I struggled not to feel guilty about how I had treated him.

How I had blown him off.

Last night, I had checked out the window before I went to bed, and again when I woke in the morning. But he wasn’t camping out. I wanted to feel relief about that.

But I also felt a pang of … what? Guilt. Curiosity.

I wasn’t sure.

But this morning, I had woken extra early, and I had struck out for Betsy’s and the library at an early hour, probably not much after seven. And when I walked past the fire pit in the clearing, the wind picked up a bit. The breeze wafted the scent of slow-dying embers over toward me, and it got my attention.

When I took a few steps closer to the fire pit, a scattering of embers were still smoldering. Could Ash have been here last night?

No.

Maybe he just came later, left earlier.

I didn’t know for sure.

But as I walked back to the cabin from the library that evening, trudging through the evergreens, I made a plan.

Tonight I would stay out here until it got too cold, until I couldn’t take it, so that I could tell Ash to leave if he showed
up. Tell him that I meant what I said. Tell him to stay away from me.

After my dinner of Cup-a-Soup and a stack of Ritz crackers, I dumped my art supplies into an empty crate from the bookshelf. I took it out to the clearing, sat down on the big flat rock near the fire pit, and opened my sketchbook. I sharpened my favorite pencil with a small pocketknife and began to sketch Dala Cabin, in the hope that I would get around to painting it.

I glanced at the pepper spray I had put in my crate with my art supplies. I knew I would threaten to use it if I had to.

I was slightly sick to my stomach, thinking that I would have to be so mean to him. But I had always been a logical girl, a careful girl, and I couldn’t afford to get embroiled in something else. Anything else.

I did not want Ash sleeping out here. Hovering.

Plus
, I kept reminding myself,
I don’t know anything about him
.

I hoped that if I kept saying it to myself, maybe it would ring more true. I kept reminding myself that I should be scared of him.

I got up and moved, choosing instead a spot on the eastern side of the cabin, close to the lakeshore, so I would be somewhat hidden from Ash’s view when he came through the forest path. If.

I piled a few pieces of firewood to use as a stool. I sat and sketched my little cabin, carefully, slowly. Its large limestone
chimney, its shabby roof, and its beautiful view of the lake. The sun moved lower in the sky, and I was grateful for the light of my lantern, which I had left on in the cabin window. I shaded the lake in the background of my drawing. I wiggled my toes in my boots, realizing they were beginning to sting, tingle. I considered building a fire in the clearing.
Should I stay out here and wait longer?

That was when I heard motion in the evergreens, right at the opening of the path.

He was coming here, all right. I couldn’t believe it, after I had specifically told him not to. Indignation swelled right in the center of my chest. I set my jaw hard and steeled myself for this confrontation.
This is my cabin
, I told myself.
I have things to do here
. I didn’t need a knight in shining armor. Plus, did I really know that he was the good guy and not some crazy ax murderer? I mean, in the loop, wasn’t my boy warning me about Ash?

I got up and placed my sketchbook and pencils in the art crate.

I waited for a few moments, trying to stay hidden from view, shoving my hands in my pockets, scowling, but Ash did not appear from the pathway. I walked toward the clearing. I heard the scuffling of feet on the snow, the ice, the forest underbrush, but I couldn’t see anything. The pathway was only about a hundred yards away, but dusk had really fallen then in all its gloom, giving the air that twilight glow. I couldn’t get a good look at the edge of the forest, the path.

My hackles rose, the prickly sensation of fear running through my veins.

“Ash?” I called.

He didn’t answer. Just more shuffling, ice scratching beneath feet.

“Answer me! Come out here.”

Still nothing.

“I don’t want you to camp here. Just stop freaking me out.”

I saw something then, a shape. It was large, white, moving just beyond the evergreens that lined the pathway toward the creek, the stables.

I considered running back to the cabin, locking the door, and was about to do just that when I realized there was a familiar shape to the movement, a familiar outline, stepping bashfully into the opening of the pathway.

“Well, hello,” I said quietly.

It was a beautiful white horse, looking majestic and a bit surreal against the frozen white of the ground and the twinkling of the snowy evergreen branches.

I clicked my tongue toward the animal, approached him slowly, my hands out. I was not familiar with horses. Did they sniff your hand like dogs? I didn’t know. But the horse took a step closer. So I did too. I figured this one must have gotten away from the nearby stables. He was beautifully groomed, well fed, completely clean.

After we spent a few moments dancing around each
other, the horse let me get close enough to pet him, to touch his velvety nose, stroke his gorgeous and freshly brushed mane.

“Someone must be sick with worry over you,” I told him, and grabbed the bridle and led him toward the path. He nuzzled next to me, his nose right against my neck. But when I moved ahead on the path, he didn’t follow. My mind flashed to a movie about horses I had seen with Gia when we were younger. In it, a horse followed a little boy around for peppermints. I remembered the lemon drops in my pocket and decided to give it a try.

“You can have these if you let me take you home,” I told him. I held the lemon drops out in my open palm a few feet in front of his nose, and sure enough, he followed me onto the path.

“Okay,” I told him as we took a few steps in the right direction. I let him have one of the candies, and he whinnied slightly in thanks.

“Mr. Winging will be glad to see you.” We walked quietly through the woods, and darkness slowly leaked in around us. I considered going back to the cabin for a flashlight, but I decided against it, just picking up our pace a bit.

The horse whinnied twice as the light faded in the sky, my insides slippery.
Stay calm
, I told myself. All I needed was to loop out here with the horse.

The woods were silent. I told myself everything was fine, not to worry, I knew where I was going.

It only took five or ten minutes to get the horse back to Winging Stables, but when I saw the floodlights from the outdoor round pen, I was relieved. I opened my palm and gave the horse another lemon drop.

As we emerged from the pathway by the creek, I noticed the flurries of the afternoon had left the farm and all its buildings covered in a soft, cottony pillow of snow. I looked around at the many outbuildings. This was quite an operation here, six buildings in all. I scanned the place and found a swirl of smoke coming from the porch of the old Victorian farmhouse.

We took a few steps toward the farmhouse, and I realized it was Jimmy Winging, smoking his pipe. He raised his arms high in greeting and surprise.

“I found him just out by the lake, by the cabin,” I explained. Jimmy jogged toward us, the sweet smell of his pipe smoke filling the air.

“Ghost! What were you doing out there!” Jimmy grumbled at the horse, taking the bridle from me. “He does this once in a while,” he explained, talking around his pipe. “Thank you, young lady. Thank you.”

“No problem,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets.

Mr. Winging led the horse back toward the round barn. I waited there for a second, in front of the house, unsure if I was ready to trek back through the woods in the dark. I quickly decided I would wait for Mr. Winging to return and ask to borrow a flashlight.

He appeared from the barn in less than a minute, and I waved at him. “I was wondering—”

“Want some dinner?” He cut me off, beckoning me over to the house. “Jeannette would love it if you would, eh?”

“Um.” I considered. “I don’t think so. But I would like a flashlight.”

“Nonsense,” he said, shaking his head, his silver ponytail wagging. “I’ll take you back. I really appreciate you finding Ghost.”

“No, sir. I don’t want to be a bother. I—”

But I was following him even before I could finish protesting. Mr. Winging led me up to the front porch, and I could hear voices laughing in the kitchen, children talking. It heartened me, in a way that I wasn’t used to.

“Go on,” Mr. Winging said, motioning for me to go ahead of him. I put my hand on the screen door then, and in that second, someone—a small blond boy—came slamming through the door from the other side.

“Daddy!” he yelled excitedly. The door swung with a mighty force, and I wasn’t expecting it. It thumped me hard, square in the nose. It sent a sharp, stinging pain right into my head. My hands instantly flew up to my face.

There was blood. Lots of blood.

“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Mr. Winging yelled. “Cody, you knucklehead. Jeannette!” he called. “Can you bring us a dishrag?”

Jeannette appeared and shoved a kitchen towel into my hands, and I held my head back, hoping the bleeding would stop. Blood was everywhere, thick red streams on my hands, my shirt.

“I’m sowwy,” I heard myself saying.

“Sit down, sit down,” Jeannette said, pulling me into the house, into the front hallway. “Emery, put your head forward,” she said, pushing me onto a bench. “You don’t want the blood to go down your throat.”

I was instantly surrounded by the whole family, several children, all eyes and chatter.

“Okay,” I said. This was not a big deal. I was not squeamish about blood. I could handle this. “I’m fine,” I told them.

“Should we take her to the Quick Clinic?” Jeannette asked.

“I don’t think so, Jeannette,” Jimmy said. “It’s just a bloody nose.”

“But, Jimmy, she’s so pale, and Cody—”

“No! I’m fine!” I protested. This couldn’t happen. I could
not
get checked into any doctor’s office, any emergency room, anywhere. Who knew what these new doctors might find and question.…

I got up quickly from the bench then and felt myself get light-headed.
I cannot loop. No!
But I steadied my breathing and didn’t feel the thrum. I wasn’t going anywhere. No loop. Just a bad blow to the nose. “I can’t go to the doctor,” I said. “I mean, I don’t need to.”

“I don’t know,” Jeannette said.

The front door opened then, and Ash walked in.

“Hello,” he said, his eyes registering my presence, then quickly looking away.

“Great,” I mumbled to myself.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I hit her with the door,” Cody said. “Sorry, girl.” Cody, who couldn’t have been more than four or five, looked up at me then. And he burst into tears.

Ash didn’t hesitate. “Oh, buddy, it was an accident. It happens,” he told him. He swooped the little boy up over his head and began flying him like an airplane.

“It’s okay,” I told Cody, taking the opportunity to show everyone I was fine. I took the towel from my nose and tried to smile, but Jeannette’s hand went quickly to her mouth.

“Oh!” she said.

“Ouch!” said Jeannette’s daughter.

“You may have a black eye or two,” Jimmy said.

“Sir,” Ash said, ignoring me, putting Cody down, giving him a stick of gum from his pocket, then giving another to his brother. “The mare is going to foal soon. I just thought I would let you know before I left.”

“Jeannette, I’ll be in the gray barn,” Mr. Winging said. “Thanks again,” he said to me, tipping his pipe toward me. “And sorry about the nose.”

Jeannette pushed a bit of hair out of my eyes and tucked it behind my ear in a very motherly fashion. She took my
elbow. “Now, I’m not going to take no for an answer. Let’s just go to the doctor, make sure it’s not brok—”

“No,” I told her. “I’m fine. I can take care of it.” I tried to pull my arm from her, to extricate myself without being rude.

I saw Ash looking at me then, and I pleaded with him with my eyes. Maybe he could help me.

“Emery’s tough, Jeannette. She’s the one who bandaged this up,” he said, lying for me, pointing to his eyebrow, a butterfly bandage. He reached over then and took Jeannette’s arm gently from my elbow. “If she says she doesn’t need to go, she doesn’t.”

He did this all with a smile and an easy charm.

“Oh, well, you sure, Emery?” Jeannette asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “It’s feeling better already.” I bit my lip and nodded at Ash, trying to convey my thanks.

“Well, Ash, why don’t you walk her home—it’s kind of on your way to your place,” Jeannette said. “It’s supposed to storm. You want to take the truck?”

“No, I’m fine. That’s unnecessary,” I said, wanting to get Ash off the hook.

“We can walk,” Ash said, not meeting my gaze. He nodded at Jeannette. “I mean … if it’s okay with you, Emery?”

“That would be great. Thank you,” I said, agreeing quickly, so relieved that I wouldn’t have to face a doctor’s office. I took a deep breath then and hustled myself toward the door.