Maybe a Fox (2 page)

“Hey! It's snowing!”

“Snow?” said Jules. “For real?”

She slid off the bed and stepped next to Sylvie. Through the panes of glass she could see it, big fat flakes tumbling from the sky. And from the looks of it, there were already a couple of inches covering the ground. Sylvie started hopping from one foot to the other. Jules felt a thin sliver of joy making its way into the frosty air between them.

“If we hurry, we have time to make one more snow family,” said Sylvie. “Quick, grab your boots!”

Jules and Sylvie were all about their snow families, tiny snow sculptures that they made whenever the snow was new. Jules placed the blue-gray piece of slate back on her bed instead of returning it to the row of other metamorphic rocks. She liked thinking about it as a planet, at least for now. Her rocks and her frustration could wait.

“Hurry!” Sylvie said, pulling her hoodie and mittens on right over her pj's.

“Coming,” said Jules. Her annoyance slipped away. She pulled on her own hoodie and mittens and followed her sister to the mudroom, where they yanked on their boots. Jules barely had hers on when Sylvie grabbed her hand and pulled her through the kitchen door. Together they jumped off the steps of the front porch. Two sisters, still in their flannel pajamas, flying through the crisp air.

Slow and fast. Thick and thin. Eleven and twelve. Jules and Sylvie.
Thick as thieves,
their dad called them.
You and me, sister,
Sylvie always said. Which just now was entirely true. They were snowbirds, snow girls, snow sisters. Now all of Jules's irritation vanished in the cold, clean smell of new snow.

“Perfect packing snow,” Sylvie said, but Jules could already tell that by the way her boots sank into it, making a solid footprint. “Let's get started.”

The falling flakes looked like snow moths. Jules cupped her hands and caught one. It lingered, then melted into her blue mittens. She took a deep breath. It was a gift from the sky, this snow, when they'd thought the last snow was . . . well . . . the
last
. With the days beginning to get longer and warmer, Jules had believed that their chances of new snow were done. No more tiny snow families tucked about the house—next to the porch, under the big maple, circling the mailbox. But now, here it was.

And here she was, in her pj's and boots, snow moths settling all around them in a thickening layer.

“Where should we put this family?” said Jules, turning in a circle.

The other, older snow families scattered about were mostly half-melted, their misshapen snow bodies leaning toward the earth, more ice than snow. In fact, Jules could feel the thin layer of ice underneath her boots, the result of thawing days and freezing nights. It made a fantastic crackling sound as she walked.

“How about by the beginning of the Slip trail?” said Sylvie, pointing toward the narrow footpath that led through the woods to the river. “There's room there.”

Jules sucked in the cold air. Shivered. “Okay, but Dad won't like it.”

“He'll never know,” Sylvie said, “now will he?”

Jules shook her head. Their dad—and his rules—had left for work almost an hour ago, so he wasn't there to see them. And she wouldn't tell, that was for sure.
We got each other's backs.

Both Sylvie and Jules could recite all of Dad's rules by heart:

Do not
get out of earshot of the house.

Do not
mess with wild animals.

Do not
miss the bus.

Do not
, under any circumstances, go near the Slip.

Jules and Sylvie called the rules the “Do Nots.” And a snow family by the trail that led to the Slip, even if it was officially still within boundaries, would probably make Dad wonder if they had been on the trail itself. The last and biggest Do Not. Jules reached for her trusty hand lens, with its tiny light.

“Come on,” said Sylvie. “This snow will all be gone by the time Dad gets home tonight anyway. There's nothing to worry about. We'll be quick.”

That was another difference between them. Sylvie was quick to act, and Jules took her time, thought things through. For example, Dad had never said,
Do not go out in the snow in your pajamas,
but Jules was fairly certain that he wouldn't approve, even though they did also have on boots, mittens, and hoodies.

Except Sylvie was right. Dad wouldn't know, would he? He was already at work at the lumber mill. It was new, this arrangement where Dad backed the old Dodge Ram pickup truck down their dirt driveway before the two of them got on the school bus. Jules knew that he didn't like leaving them alone like that, but Sylvie spoke for both of them when she assured him, “We can do it, Dad.” And for the past three months, it had worked out just fine.

Better than fine, actually. Without Dad hovering over them to keep them in line, they could do things like run out into the new snow and make snow families. Good packing snow was the best kind, and you had to take advantage of it before it got so cold that the snowflakes wouldn't stick together, or too warm, so that they melted.

Don't be late for the bus,
was another thing Dad said over and over. Then he followed with,
This is Sylvie and Jules's dad, counting on them.

It was his way of making extra sure that they were paying attention. Jules was pretty certain he wasn't counting on them to make snow families in their pj's, especially when it was close to bus time. But Sylvie was already rolling one tiny ball and then another, intent on her work.

“You make the snow dad and I'll make the daughters,” Jules said now.

Making miniature snow families was something they had started long ago: teensy snow fathers and snow children, little families like theirs grouped around the house. Some of the snow families included friends, like the Porters, who lived across the river from them. According to Sylvie, it had been their mother who'd started the tradition. Tiny snow people, easy for tiny humans to make with only a little help.

“Don't forget a snow mom,” said Sylvie, and then she added, “I'll make her.”

“No!” said Jules. “
I'll
make her.” The anger she'd felt just minutes before crept back under her skin.

Sylvie looked startled by the insistence in Jules's voice. Jules could hear it too, but why should Sylvie always get to make the snow mom? Jules patted a small figure together between her blue mittens while Sylvie watched. Then she placed her down next to the snow dad, which Sylvie had stuck right in the middle of the trail, his little stick arms spread wide as if to hold the snow daughters back.

“There,” said Jules. “A perfect snow family. The last one of the season.”

But Sylvie reached out, picked up the snow mom, and gently set her down right in the middle of the family circle. Jules almost said something—why did Sylvie have to correct her?—but she didn't. There was something in Sylvie's eyes, something that kept Jules quiet. All these years, and Sylvie still missed their mother so much. Jules missed her too, but she knew it wasn't like Sylvie's missing. Sometimes she wondered just how big that kind of missing could be.

“Mom loved new snow,” said Sylvie. “Just like us.”

K
apow!
Like an exclamation point, a faint gunshot echoed. It was distant, likely from across the river.

The bear.

Dad had told them that a rogue bear had been raiding some of the local farmers' chickens. As if to verify the disturbance, a host of birds spoke up. A dozen pairs of cardinals, a small flock of black-capped chickadees, tiny wood finches, and a bunch of starlings. They all started squawking, and without warning, snow suddenly shook itself off the tree branches and swirled around. Jules drew in a cold breath. It was time to go in. But she could tell with one look that Sylvie had other ideas, ideas that meant leaving Jules alone again.

“No, Sylvie,” said Jules. “NO. The bus . . .”

But Sylvie just smiled. “Plenty of time,” she said. “I'll be quick. I have to start getting in shape for track anyway.”

Sylvie was the fastest sprinter in the school, the star of the track team. The second fastest was Liz Redding, and she wasn't even close.

“No. Come on, we have to get dressed. Besides, I'm freezing.”

But Sylvie stayed put, right there by the snow family. Right there by the trail that led to the Slip.

“I have an errand,” she said, and she patted her pocket.

Oh no. No no no. Jules knew what was in there: a wish rock. A quick image of the striped sock in their bedroom closet, bulging with wish rocks, flashed through her head. Had Sylvie taken one out? She must have. Maybe it was the special one, the striped chunk of gneiss that Jules had slipped in there just yesterday, perfect for throwing into the Slip. If Sylvie got it into her head that it was time to take another wish rock to the Slip, nothing, not even Jules, could stop her.

“No,” said Jules again. “We're already cutting it close.”

Dad would be mad if they missed the bus. He'd be madder still if he knew about the Slip. Jules and Sylvie had never, not once, missed the bus, but what their dad didn't know was that they had gone to the Slip dozens of times, hundreds of times, too many times to count. It wasn't that far from their house, not far at all, just down the trail through the woods. They knew the trail, they knew the sound of the Whippoorwill River's tumbling water, and mostly, they knew just how close they could get to the river's edge. Besides, there was the Sylvie Sherman Motto:
If we keep our feet dry, we'll be safe.

And hadn't they always been safe?

Yes, they had.

Jules looked at her sister, standing there next to the tiny snow mom and snow dad and snow sisters. She was wearing her favorite headband, blue with yellow buttercups. It had been their mother's. Sylvie wore it almost every day. All at once, Jules wanted it. Maybe that would distract Sylvie from going to the Slip, if Jules snatched the headband off her head.

“Hey, it's my turn for the headband,” she said, reaching for it. “Gimme.”

But Sylvie dodged Jules's grasp and set her boots in the snow in a sprinter's crouch.

“Sylvie,
no
.”

Sylvie looked up and smiled. “Try and stop me.”

Jules couldn't and they both knew it. There was no catching Sylvie. She ran so fast she had a hard time stopping. Time after time Jules had seen her sister take a long skid before coming to a halt. Other times Sylvie grabbed onto tree branches or the porch rail to slow herself down, as if she had no brakes.

“Please, Sylvie. We'll miss the bus.”

“Quit worrying,” Sylvie said. “I'll be right back.”

But the feeling of
no
came swarming up through Jules's whole body.
No. Don't go.
She grabbed Sylvie's hand to keep her from going.
No no no.
But as soon as she did, Sylvie gave a good, hard tug, and the orange mitten slipped right off, making Jules stumble backward. She caught her balance, then waved the mitten in the air, like a flame against the white snow.
Come back!
But Sylvie was already running, her one bare, mittenless hand inside the pocket of her hoodie.

And once again, Jules was left in Sylvie's wake.

I
t was true that Sylvie had never missed the bus. And she was so fast. She would be right back, and then she would get dressed, and they'd run out to the end of the driveway and jump on the bus, and there Sam would be, sitting in their usual seat, and they'd all smush in together like always.

Jules went back into the warm house and put her rocks back where they belonged, on the windowsill and the bookshelves and inside the wooden box. She saved the blue-gray slate for last. There. Done. But something didn't feel right, so she took the chunk of marble that Sylvie had given her and put it in her hoodie pocket. That was better.

Sylvie was probably at the Slip by now.

There were lots of stories about the Slip. According to Sam's dad, who was a forest ranger, it was a freak of geology, the result of a seismic shift, a small earthquake that forced the river's bed to disappear into a large cavern that was hiding there all along, opened up by the shifting earth. A hundred yards downstream it bubbled back up into the open air and formed a quiet pool before it remembered that it was a river and needed to ramble its way southward.

That made sense to Jules.

But there was another story, the Legend of the River Brothers, the one that their neighbor Mrs. Harless had told them, and Mrs. Harless's family had lived beside the river for generations, so she should know.

According to Mrs. Harless, it was “a tale of two brothers, both beautiful, who loved the same girl.” Each brother longed for the girl, and finally, in frustration, they told her to choose one or the other for her husband. The girl, in despair, said that she couldn't. She loved them both. So the older brother said, “Let the river decide.” It was agreed that whichever one of them swam through the underground cavern and came up in the pool first would win the girl's hand. After all, they had seen turtles and even geese dodge under the swirling water and minutes later pop up in the quiet waters of the pool.

With that, both of the boys stripped off their clothes and grabbed for the other's hand. As they leaped from the river's side, they each called to the other, “Brother!” Right away, the smaller and younger panicked. He tried to swim out of the current, tried to make it back to the tree-lined banks. Terrified, the older and stronger brother swam to follow. But it was too late. They couldn't get out of the water's grip. It sucked them down, swallowed them whole.

A hundred yards away, it spat the older one out, barely alive, his body battered and scratched from the tree roots that stretched below ground like a ropy sieve, trapping limbs and leaves and turtles. His skin was bruised from being knocked against the rocks that jutted into the darkness. He was so weak he could barely pull himself onto the banks.