Maybe a Fox (3 page)

But the younger brother. Where was he? The older brother called and called and called. But there was no answer. The river kept him as a prize.

When the older brother recovered, he married the girl in a small, sad ceremony that seemed all the smaller for the absence of his brother. What the older brother didn't tell anyone was that something else had happened underneath the earth where the water flowed.

The boy and the girl grew older. They had many children. At last the time came for them to pass on, and the boy-no-longer-beautiful could not contain his terrible secret for another day. Finally he confessed.

“I had his hand. I was trying to pull him up with me, trying and trying. But I wasn't strong enough, and in the end I . . . I let go.”

And all the tears that the old man had held inside for so many years streamed down his cheeks.

The story of the River Brothers had always made Jules worry. The thought of the Slip, being sucked underground by the force of the water, made her heart race. And that was just fine with their dad.

Don't
ever
go near the Slip.

How many times had he told them that? So many. Despite his rigid rules, Jules loved her quiet, strong dad. Chess Sherman. She loved the way he hummed while he read the newspaper, and how, after he checked their homework at night, he said, “This is Sylvie and Jules's dad, signing off.”

Jules knew that whenever he started a sentence with “This is Jules and Sylvie's dad,” it was almost the same as a hug. He had never been big on telling them that he loved them, but Jules knew that he did by the way he said that sentence, like he was so very glad that he was Jules and Sylvie's dad, their dad, their sweet dad. And somehow, knowing that he claimed them like that helped take up the space that their mother had left. For her, anyway, if not for Sylvie. For Dad was living and breathing and right there with them, to remind them of the Do Nots and to sign off on their homework and to make sure they ate their dinners and did their chores. To count on them and to take care of them.

But Jules's memory of their mother was disappearing, just like their mom's favorite mug, the one with the flamingo on it, had disappeared without a trace. It had sat on the windowsill above the kitchen sink for as long as Jules could remember, and then one day it wasn't there. Frantic, Jules had searched all over the house for it. Sylvie too. But it was gone.

Gone, like their mother.

“Maybe Dad moved it,” Sylvie had said. “Maybe it made him too sad.”

Jules didn't want her dad to be sad. So she never brought up the missing mug, even when she saw Dad standing at the empty windowsill with his head tilted, as if he, too, was confused.

Mostly what Jules remembered about her mother was the mustard jar, and how it had fallen from the bag of groceries that her mother was carrying and burst open at the foot of the porch steps, scattering pieces of yellow-smeared glass on the gravelly walk, and how her mother had said, “Oh!” in surprise just before she crumpled, her body folded in on itself.

Jules had watched Sylvie tug and tug on their mother's still shoulder, then watched some more as her sister took off running on the frozen path between their house and Mrs. Harless's back door, ran to fetch Mrs. Harless, while Jules stood there, unable to move. She couldn't even look at her crumpled-in-half mother at all, only at the bits of yellow glass, like brilliant chips from the sun itself.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry!” Jules had screamed to Sylvie.

And Sylvie did hurry. She ran as fast as a deer, as fast as a lynx, as fast as a six-year-old girl could run. But no matter how fast Sylvie ran, Mrs. Harless couldn't save their mother. No one could.

Later Mrs. Harless pulled them both onto the sofa and sang to them, sang so softly that only they could hear it, sang so that at last both of them stopped sobbing.

Heart defect,
was what they said—doctor, ambulance driver. Dad.

Then: Seven years ago. A broken jar of mustard.

Now: A missing flamingo mug.

She loved you girls,
her father told them, over and over.

Not too long after their mother died, Sylvie told Jules that sometimes she felt as if their mom was watching them, like she wasn't that far away.

“Like where would she be?” said Jules. “On the roof, maybe?”

Sylvie didn't think so. It was then that they made up the Maybe game. It always started with the same question:

What happens after you die?

Then they took turns answering:

Maybe you turn into wind.

Maybe you turn into stars.

Maybe you go to another world.

Now Jules sat down on her bed. She rubbed her finger along the chunk of marble. She wished she knew for sure that their mom was still watching them.
Maybe.
Then she jumped up. She didn't want to think about the Maybe game unless Sylvie was there to play it with her. So she pulled on her jeans and her flannel shirt and her sweatshirt over that, tugged on the lanyard that held her hand lens, and then she waited for her sister to get back. Sylvie was cutting it close, but there was still time.

Any minute now.

O
n the other side of the river from the Shermans' woods, Sam Porter pulled his knit hat over his ears and set off down the long drive toward the road where he would catch the school bus. His two best friends, Sylvie and Jules Sherman, used to call him Super Friend Sam. Once in a while Jules still did. He didn't mind, even though he was in seventh grade. Not when it came from Jules. Besides, she never called him that outside the woods.

Kapow!
The distant sound of a rifle made him stop in his tracks. It wasn't wild turkey season yet and deer season was long over. Maybe someone was trying to scare off a coyote? Or that bear that had supposedly been roaming around? He had heard his dad talk about a yearling bear that had been spotted near Archer's Sheep Farm, and Mr. Archer was determined to get rid of it. Sam wondered what the bear was doing out. Even though it was late March, it still seemed early for a bear to be done with hibernation.

He listened hard. There was nothing, only the distant rush of the Whippoorwill. Maybe, he thought, the snow would force the bear back into its den. He hoped so, for the sake of both the bear and the sheep.

Sam fastened the top button of his thick wool coat, then stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, feeling for the rock in his right pocket. It was about the size of the medal his older brother, Elk, had been awarded in Afghanistan. It was a wish rock, one that Jules had found for him by the river, Jules with her special pick hammer and her hand lens. It was a rock that he would return to the river as soon as he could, his burning wish written on it in waterproof marker.

He looked down. The new wet snow covered the leather toes of his boots. It was just the kind of snow that Sylvie and Jules loved most. They were probably out in front of their house right now, hurrying to make one of their snow families before the bus came. Sam loved those snow families, especially when one included a miniature Sam. He headed toward the road to wait for the school bus. The walk wasn't far, not even half a mile, but he had left his house early so that he could take his time. Today he was on the lookout for something. Something special.

“You never know,” he said out loud to a small gray squirrel that chattered at him from the branches of the towering maple tree next to the drive. The squirrel did not reply, just shook its tail and darted away.

An enormous snowflake fell right on his nose. He rubbed it off. It wasn't unusual for late March to bring a fresh snow. This was Vermont after all. In Sam's eleven and a half years, he had seen snow fall every month except July and August, and who knows, if he lived there long enough, he might see it then too.

But on that morning, there was the possibility of seeing something else he had never seen. He had woken up to reports of it on the radio—a sighting of a fabled animal just to the north of the Whippoorwill.

Catamount.
Sam even loved the name of him, like he was part cat, part mountain.

He wasn't the same as a bobcat or a lynx. No, the catamount was in the same family as the pumas of Florida and the western mountain lions of California and North Dakota. He was kin to the painters of Kentucky and Tennessee. They all had the same large square face and long, swooping tail. They all shared a singular secretiveness. Nevertheless, Sam knew that the catamount was its own distinct cat—an eastern cougar. And while none had been definitively spotted since the 1930s, every year someone reported a sighting. Just thinking about it, Sam's pulse quickened. The thought of the catamount was why he had left his house early.

“Every year there's a sighting,” his dad had told him, “but a sighting isn't the same as a real catamount.” His dad was a forest ranger. Sam knew he was right, but still. It meant a possibility. A sighting meant
maybe
.

“Probably just a lynx or a bobcat,” his mom had added. “One of those would be more likely. No catamounts around here in dozens of years.”

But that didn't mean there wasn't one here now.

“Catamount,” Sam whispered. He wrapped his hand around the rock, felt the wish burning there in his palm. He had faith in wish rocks. And Jules found him the best ones. For a whole year, he had wished for his older brother, Elk, to come home from Afghanistan. He had wished it over and over on an entire year's worth of rocks.
Elk return.
And hadn't that wish come true? Only a few weeks ago, his brother had returned.

Sam started walking again, faster this time. He couldn't wait to tell Jules and Sylvie about the catamount sighting. Every morning and afternoon, even though the bus seats were only designed for two riders, the three of them smushed together on one seat, Sam right in the middle.

*  *  *

Growing up, hardly a day had passed without Sylvie and Jules and Sam together.

Jules: Eleven.

Sam: Eleven and a half.

Sylvie: Twelve.

They knew the wooded acres of their properties inside out. Their neighbor Mrs. Harless even called them “woodland creatures.” Sam rubbed the rock between his fingers.

Catamount return.

He would take it to the Slip and throw it into the rushing water, the way he and Jules and Sylvie had done for years. It was against the rules, of course. The Porter rules were no different from the Sherman rules.
Do not, under any circumstances, go to the Slip.

Sam didn't go out of his way to break rules, but when it came to wish rocks, the Slip rule was one that he chose to ignore. And now, his brother, Elk, was home safe and sound. Wasn't it possible that the wish rocks might have had
something
to do with that? And now . . . a catamount. One wish had come true and now maybe another was about to.

Then again, there was Mrs. Harless's wish, the one that did not come true:
Zeke return.
Zeke Harless, her grandson, the boy she'd raised ever since his parents died in a car accident. Zeke who was Elk's best friend. Zeke who had gone with Elk to Afghanistan. Sam knew that Mrs. Harless had thrown dozens of wish rocks into the Slip too, all with that same message.

And in the days since he had been back, Elk hadn't said anything about Zeke. In fact, he had said only a few words, period. Elk had given his medal to their dad and, when their dad tried to give it back to him, just shook his head. Each day, he slipped out of the house and faded into the woods.

“Leave him be,” their dad told Sam.

Sam had tried to leave him be, but it was hard. Elk was home, after being gone for a whole entire year, but it didn't feel the same. It was as if a different version of his brother had come back from the war.

“We have to be patient,” his mom told him. “Your brother came back, but Zeke didn't. Elk needs time. He has to figure out how to get along now.”

Would things ever get back to normal? That was Sam's question, but he didn't ask it. His mom and dad were worried enough as it was. It was good to have school to go to, and Sylvie and Jules to roam the woods with. And a wish rock in his pocket.

Sam picked up his pace. Snow. New snow.

Then the morning cracked open with the sharp cry of a fox, and Sam smiled. Everyone knew that a fox meant luck.

J
ules kicked the new snow with the toe of her boot. She rolled Sylvie's mitten into an orange ball between her own blue mittens and held it under her nose. It smelled warm, like Sylvie. What was taking her so long? The Slip was close. How long did it take to chuck one single wish rock into it? They were going to miss the bus!

When Mrs. Harless told them the story about the River Brothers, she'd also told them about the wish rocks. She said that if a wish was good enough it would glimmer in the deep, dark shadows below the water, and pretty soon it would become so bright it would turn into an underwater star. And if that happened, there was a good chance that the wish would be granted.

“But it has to be something you want more than anything else in the whole world,” said Mrs. Harless. “It has to be a burning wish.”

Of course,
thought Jules. Didn't rocks come from stars anyway? Some of them did. And didn't they also burn as they fell through the sky?

Together she and Sylvie and Sam had tossed hundreds, maybe thousands, of wish rocks into the Slip. They used a waterproof marker so that their wishes wouldn't ever wash off.

The only trouble was, Jules didn't have a burning wish. Only small, daily wishes, like
no washing dishes
, or
a silver dollar from the tooth fairy
, or
watermelon for dinner
. Well, her Estwing E13P hammer had been a pretty big wish, but it still seemed small compared to Sam's and Sylvie's wishes. Their wishes were huge.