Frost (15 page)

As Ofelia and Afi had the store well in hand, especially given we were the only three in the place, I grabbed my backpack and warmest parka and headed out the back door.

I hardly ever used the back door. It was mostly for deliveries. And behind our side of Main Street lay the abandoned railroad tracks, now overgrown and pulled up in sections and used mostly by joggers and dog walkers. I was neither, but I picked my way along the patchy snow-covered rails. Something had briefly flashed through my mind when I had treated Afi like a kid.
Not even a kindergartner likes to be treated like one.

A few minutes later, I found the Paul-Bunyan-size log I was looking for. It lay on its side like a fallen giant, three feet thick and worn smooth as marble. It ran along the tracks with the forest, its likely home, at its back and had presumably watched the busy trains bustle past,
clickety-clack,
for many, many decades. I laughed at myself. I was beginning to think like a
Thomas
character. Not too many girls in those books, and the few there were had subordinate roles: passenger coaches pushed and pulled by the bossy engines.

I took a seat on the log and stretched my legs out in front of me. It was very cold. I shivered, though my jacket was designed for modern-day explorers and adventurers. I pulled from my backpack the
Thomas
book and held it up as a teacher would to her class. I then set it on my lap, opening to a random page.

“You choose this time,” I said out loud, my breath curling like a ghostly ringlet in the chill air.

Nothing.
So what was I doing wrong? The right bait. No more pink walls. Asking him to pick. And then it hit me. Child Psych 101. I was
asking
him to pick. Julia had described him as headstrong, even contrary at times.

“Whatever you do,” I said, “do
not
pick a story from this book.”

I sat back, bracing myself with arms fully extended to both sides. Even through my fleece-lined mittens, the trunk of the old tree nipped at me with its icy bite. I wasn’t sure how long I would last in this weather. Even Mother Goose had to have flown south for the winter. Then a wind blew from the east, rifling the pages of the book, the last two turning almost languidly until they settled on a story.

A huff was trapped in my throat. I didn’t dare move. I looked down to find the pages flipped to the very back of the thick book and a story entitled “Ghost Train.”
Of course,
I thought, mentally smacking my forehead. Something scary.

I grasped the edges of the hardcover and began: “‘And every year on the date of the accident, it runs again, plunging into the gap, shrieking like a lost soul.’ ‘Percy, what are you talking about?’ ‘The Ghost Train. Driver saw it last night.’”

When the story came to an end, I whispered, “Nice choice, Jacob,” and closed the book.

“Get in,” I said, pulling alongside a startled Jack, just feet away from the spot in the school parking lot where he’d once pulled the same line on me.

“What?”

“Get in.”

“I can’t. I’m on my way to Walden.” He braced himself against my car door.

This was not going according to plan. He was supposed to think my switch-up of last fall’s kidnapping cute and clever and covered in awesome sauce.

“Get. In.” I said.

He sighed, jogged around to the passenger side, and lowered himself into the seat. I took off before he could even buckle up, another turning-of-the-tables from last year.

“Where are we going? I need to call in if I’ll be late.” He pulled out his phone and began punching keys.

I grabbed his phone, swerving to the left with the maneuver. He tried to get it back; the tussle resulted in me sitting on it and us nearly having a head-on with a big black SUV.

“Give me my phone.”

“No.” I squirmed in my seat, possibly butt-dialing Bangkok. He crossed his arms and stared straight ahead but didn’t dare go after the phone. He didn’t like my driving under the best of circumstances.

We drove in silence for a long time. At least twice, I almost pulled a U-ie, aborting the mission, but something in my recent mindset — an overall resolve to be more proactive in everything — won out.

When we turned down the snow-banked lane to Elkhorn Lake, he finally spoke to me. “So, it’s a full reenactment?”

“Something like that.”

“Why?”

I pulled into a parking spot overlooking the fateful scene of our skating accident and near drowning. It was a bitter cold day. The wind skittered ripples of snow across the iron-banded surface of the lake. No skaters had braved today’s conditions; we had the place to ourselves.

“Because”— the words
I’m afraid
edged dangerously close to forming —“I miss you. Can we walk?”

Though the wind bore down from above, making quick work of my warmest jacket as we followed the path down to the lake, another force was lifting everything from the fringe of my scarf to the wisps of my hair to my spirits. I could tell that the place was having a similar effect on Jack. His pace slowed, the trudge of his step was audibly lighter, and when he took my gloved hand, I could feel the warmth of his touch through two layers of wool.

At the lake’s edge, I crumpled into him. Without uttering a word, we kissed urgently and greedily, a silent exchange of apologies and promises.

“Now I get the need for a field trip,” he said, tangling my hair in his roaming fingers.

“Field trip? No way. This was an abduction. Never forget the lengths I’ll go to.”

“As if I could forget anything about you.” With his hands on my shoulders, he spun me half a turn. From behind, he wrapped his arms around me. We then gazed out onto the lake for many moments.

“OK,” I said. “I got what I came for, but now I’m freezing. Race ya!” I was fueled by the prospect of blasting the heater; he, by some macho can’t-fail-gene — another of the Y-chromosome traits. He beat me; no surprise there. But I had the keys and dangled them teasingly. I found his cell phone on the driver’s seat and tossed it to him before sliding in.

He waited until we were on the road, but punched in what appeared to be a speed dial.

“It’s Jack. I know. . . . I’m sorry. . . . I’m not feeling well, but I should have called.”

I barely recognized the groveler before me. He was even tipping his head forward in some sort of subconscious genuflect. As if Stanley wouldn’t understand the need for a little personal time.

On an impulse — a naughty one — I leaned over and said, “Just tell Stanley the truth: that, for once, I won.”

Jack’s face went white. He half-choked into the phone, “It won’t happen again,” after which he snapped the phone shut, turned to me, and glared.

“What?” I said. “Like Stanley doesn’t come running every time my mom snaps her fingers.”

“Except that wasn’t Stanley.”

I gripped the steering wheel, not wanting to hear the rest.

“That was Brigid,” Jack continued, “and, for the record, she’s pissed.”

The rest of the drive home was awkward. Jack kept scratching his right index finger against his thumb as he stared out the passenger window, his mood so foul he dirtied the glass. A part of me was livid that it had been Brigid’s number Jack had on speed dial. Another part felt bad that I’d put him in the position of lying to an authority figure. But the lion’s share felt entirely justified. We had needed to shut out the rest of the world and reaffirm our connection.
Proactive
was the word I murmured all the way home.

Later that night, still a little let down by how my afternoon with Jack had ended, I crawled into bed with a bowl of popcorn, a big bag of Skittles, and two juice boxes. One advantage of having a bedridden mother was the let-go effect on me and the house in general. There were no less than three Coke bottles on my vanity; a pizza box lay on the floor next to my bed; and the six outfits I’d tried on for school that morning were scattered everywhere. I didn’t think my guest would care. Over the past week, I’d felt Jacob’s presence growing stronger. Sometimes it would be the faintest hint of a child’s voice splashing with the milk over my morning Cocoa Pebbles. Or the way I’d swear it was a chubby finger turning my chin so as not to miss a big truck or a fast car. And as much as I knew I’d somehow summoned him, I didn’t know how to proceed. What I wouldn’t have given for advice. Hulda’s would have been ideal. The very depressing news on that front was “no change in her condition.” Frustrating, but better than a turn for the worse, I supposed.

I stuffed a handful of popcorn into my mouth, powered on the TV, and scrolled through channels until I got to the Cartoon Network. Ofelia had crossed my mind as a confidante, but the way she continued to ingratiate herself with my family still had me uncomfortable. Not only was she Afi’s go-to gal, but it had furthermore been decided that she’d stay with my mom while Afi and I were in Iceland. She’d even offered, so my mom said. The whole thing smelled as fishy to me as the oil-packed tuna my mom craved. Given how she’d wheedled her way into our family’s business, and now even my mom’s trust, I was not about to confide in her. And I ignored every esoteric cock of her head or googly-eyed look she gave me.

With my teeth, I stripped the cellophane from the juice box’s straw and pushed it into the tiny foil-covered hole. Next, I did the same with the other juice and set it on my bedside table. For the briefest of moments, even old Grim had seemed a possibility for guidance. Though the way her disapproving once-overs and rankled jabs undermined my temporary authority at every opportunity, I knew she was out of the question. It was more likely she’d have my Stork wings clipped in some painful and humiliating way for what I was doing.

Just what was I doing? Jeez. I barely knew. And as much as I had a conviction that I was finally putting my gifts to good use, I was on my own. Winging it — ha, ha. With a questioning shrug, I opened the bag of Skittles and spilled a big pile of them next to the juice box on the nightstand.
Who cares about plates or napkins? Not us; right, Jacob?
And if he could overlook the pink and purple in my room, I could overlook a few table manners.

We watched two shows. I was so preoccupied with my own thoughts I don’t even remember what was on, but occasionally it’d seem like the bed shook ever so slightly. Jacob laughing at something? Jacob squirming to get to the goodies? Once the credits rolled, I turned off the TV. And so concluded the entertainment portion of our evening.

I sat back against my headboard and concentrated harder than I ever had. Harder even than that algebra final, after which I stood and fell to my knees because my darn legs — both of them — had gone to sleep.
Listen to me, Jacob,
I repeated over and over in my head. I knew, somehow, this wasn’t getting the job done. How many adults had tried to get his attention with that line? Probably a few, right? I tried again.
Peep! Peep!
doing my best impersonation of a bossy little engine. My right ear tickled with the lightest of whispers.

Let’s play a game. A game where you go for a train ride, Jacob. Thomas will be the engine, of course. And you’ll be the passenger. Would you like to do that? If you would and if you’re ready, you have to let me know. You have to tell me tonight while I sleep. And, Jacob, you have to tell me the name of the coach you’d like to ride in. I know Thomas usually pulls Annie and Clarabel, but you could pick your own. Do you understand, Jacob? You get to pick the passenger car.

After that, I wasn’t sure if I felt sleepy or was in some kind of weird stupor. My lids were so heavy they felt like slabs of concrete pinning me to the pillow, but my arms and legs felt tingly, like carbonated water, not blood, was fizzing through my veins. I may have burped. And somewhere far off I heard the rumble of a train and then a whistle.