Pictures of Hollis Woods (8 page)

I have this drawing folded carefully in my backpack. We're sitting at the table on the porch, the river in front of us, a summer rain drilling the roof above us, soaking us all that last Saturday, muddying the road, greening the grass, puckering the river.

In the picture Izzy is backing out of the screen door, balancing the cake plate in her hands. The cake was vanilla, and Izzy had gathered blue forget-me-nots to circle it.

I used the sharpest pencil (Strawberry Pink) to write the words on top of the cake:
WELCOME TO THE FAMILY, HOLLY
.

Izzy frowned. “I wanted to get your whole name in, but there wasn't enough room.”

The Old Man's eyes sparkled. A moment before I framed the picture in my mind, he patted my shoulder. “Hollis Woods, with us forever.”

Steven sat on the other side. I'd drawn pages of animal tracks for him, raccoon and deer, rabbit and possum … and birds, even a loon that had come up out of the water to sun itself on a rock.

“I'll probably keep them forever, Sister Loon,” he said, full of himself. “Get it?” He pointed to the loon tracks on the side of the page, nudging me under the table like a six-year-old, rattling the glasses, the cake plates.

“Steven, please.” The Old Man hadn't been happy with him all week. Nothing gigantic; little stuff. Steven had left the shed door open, so a raccoon had nested inside … probably the one whose toes were marching all over Steven's paper. Steven had left the house door open, so a bat had flown around the living room Wednesday night. He'd lost the Old Man's fishing knife, and one of the reels was probably sunk under the water somewhere downstream.

“Why don't you just try with him?” I had asked Steven the day before as we rowed around looking for it.

I could see the anger in his eyes. “You're good enough for both of us,” he had said. “That's what Pop would say.”

I leaned forward. “Is it me?” I asked. “My fault?”

He had laughed then. “Don't be silly.”

Still, I wasn't sure. I opened my mouth to tell him about me, a mountain of trouble, but before I could, he tapped my arm. “Hey.” His eyes were earnest behind his glasses. “You don't have to look like that.” He broke off a piece of holly and handed it to me. “Peace, Hollis. It's just like you. Prickly, but not bad to look at.”

I had tried to hide my smile.

Now Izzy put the cake in the center of the table. “Should we have candles?” she asked.

“Sure.” Steven grinned at me. “The works.”

“Why not?” I leaned back. I was full of myself too, thinking about calling the Old Man Pop, and Izzy Mom.

Izzy went inside to rummage through the table drawers for the candles, and Steven turned to me, saying we might walk up on the mountain after supper.

The Old Man looked at him sharply. “In the rain?”

“Don't worry.” I knew I could make the Old Man smile. “We're tougher than the rain.”

“I'm not talking about going all the way to the top,” Steven said.

We ate the cake then, the icing melting on my tongue, and I was feeling guilty because I was
really the one who wanted to go up on the mountaintop.

The end of the old Hollis. Hey, world, here comes the new one.

And I wanted to go alone.

T
he next afternoon I went from room to room, taking my time, looking at everything. Almost everything. I didn't go into Izzy and the Old Man's bedroom. That was their private place.

Photographs filled the guest room wall, and I spent a long time looking at each one. I waited to get to the end to see if the one of me was still there.

First there was a young Izzy in a two-piece bathing suit, then the Old Man sawing down a dead tree, sawdust coloring his beard. There were several of Steven: one without his front teeth, in a bunny costume, one sitting on the hood of the truck, and one with the fish-net in his hand, his head thrown back, laughing.

And the one of me was still there. I was sharpening a pencil, with pale pink shavings falling in a pile on my drawing paper. I ran my finger over it: still there, in the row with the others, still belonging with them.

Steven's room was next, a mess of a room. Socks on the floor, a jumble of string, a couple of keys, and a photo on the dresser. A photo I couldn't even make out, blurs of greens and blues, and something in the center that might have been the boat.

Behind me Josie called, “I found boots. I'm going to wear them.”

“It's too cold to go out,” I called back. “You'll freeze.” But the outside door slammed, and I went to the window. “Josie?” I put my hand on the glass; cold air drifted in around the panes.

Josie was wearing Izzy's wading boots, which went up to her thighs. She twirled in the snow, arms out, fingers spread. It made me dizzy to watch her. After a moment she tipped over, but it was an easy fall, making me think of snow angels. Her scarf blew across the smooth whiteness, a scrap of color.

She was up again, zigzagging, and I thought about going after her as she disappeared in back of the line of evergreens. I hurried a little, grabbing my jacket. The thermometer outside the kitchen window read five degrees, and next to the window, on the wall, the calendar was still at August.

August.

I went out the back door, calling to her. And then in that cold stillness I could hear her singing. “Over the river …”

I went after her, my feet heavy, twirling as I passed the circle she had made, singing back, “… and through the woods …”

She leaned against a small tree, staring at the thin strip of dark water that ran between the chunks of ice. “Isn't it beautiful?” I said.

“I love to walk in the snow.” She was shivering again, looking up at me, suddenly bewildered. “But why aren't we home? And what happened to Beatrice?”

I led her back into the house, into that warm room with the bright blue rugs and the huge couch. I found a robe of Izzy's and wrapped it around her. We sat by the fireplace watching the shadows dance over the walls until it grew dark outside and we slept.

In the morning points of light danced over my eyes. I raised my hand to my face; sun was melting tiny swirls of ice on the window.

Somewhere outside was a faint buzzing sound. It wasn't close—nothing to worry about—but what was it? Someone using a saw deep in the woods? A snow-mobile? The sound gradually died away, and I stood up slowly, thinking about breakfast. There were choices, thanks to Izzy: cans of pineapple juice, blackberry jam, vegetables shiny inside their glass jars, rows of Dinty Moore stew.

Izzy's treasures, not mine.

I'd pay her back someday, I told myself, pay back all of it.

Lighten up
, Steven said in my head. I had to smile. That's really what he would have said.

I unclenched my hands and took another look outside. Footprints crisscrossed the snow. Our footprints. I thought about them uneasily, glancing up at the sky, wishing for more snow to hide them.

I put water on to boil and popped a piece of Josie's bread into the toaster. A mouse lived somewhere in the house. Poor mouse. He'd have to leave now that Henry was here. I wiped away the mouse's leavings with a brush, then sat at the table in front of the window, with Josie's wood pieces on one side and my food lined up in front of me.

After I ate I looked at the tree figure Josie was doing of me: a long piece of wood, spaces drilled in the sides where the arms would be, a face beginning to take shape, a mouth begun, a small, pointed nose, and a tiny cut on the forehead.

I put my hand up to my own forehead, feeling that indentation. And then Josie was there, yawning, her hair a whoosh around her head. She pattered over to the back window. “Sun today,” she said, holding her hands out as if to warm them against the glass. “And a branch that's blown onto the step. Holly, I think.”

I took the last bit of toast crust and crunched it into my mouth.

“The sun on the ocean makes a path sometimes.” Josie reached for a chocolate bar. “You think you can walk on it, walk clear across the ocean to …”

She stopped and I tried to help her. “To England? To France?”

“To where I belong.” She sat at the table and began to work. As I put toast and hot tea in front of her, she glanced around.

“What?” I asked.

“I'm wondering about Beatrice,” she said, and smiled. “And sandpaper. Your face needs smoothing.”

There might be sandpaper in the shed. I'd get it. I didn't have to look at the truck again; I'd pretend it wasn't there. I opened the back door to a blast of cold air—
“So cold your teeth hurt,”
the Old Man had said— and saw the holly branch, thick with bright red berries, that had blown across the steps.

Steven holding a sprig of holly out to me:
“Peace, Holly.”

“I'll get my jacket,” I told Josie. I shrugged into it, pulled on my gloves, and went outside for the sandpaper. The cold went through me, the smell of it sharp and clean.

The mustard woman was far away, probably looking for me. She wouldn't have a clue.

On the way back, I bent down and picked up the holly to bring into the house. I gave Josie the squares of sandpaper, then put the branch in one of Izzy's vases in front of the big window, thinking about Christmas. Maybe ten more days.

Josie and I would have our own. I'd cut boughs of pine, and we had packs of popcorn to make. It would be like Christmas in a book by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I was happier than I had been anywhere, except …

… I didn't belong in that house in Branches, not anymore. I wondered what Christmas was like in the Old Man's winter house, what it would be like this year.

I snipped off that thought before I finished it. Wasn't it enough that I was here in Branches, with holly in the window?

If only I could stay forever.

Something else the Old Man had told me about: fishing in the winter. The fish went deep, but if you caught one, the eating was an experience.

An experience.
The Old Man used words like that.

Fish for dinner, dotted with butter … No butter. Ah, fish smothered in tomato sauce, and string beans jarred last summer. A real meal, the way normal people ate. Better than normal.

“I know you like fish,” I said to Josie.

“Goldfish. I had one in a bowl, I think.” She glanced at Henry, who slept in the middle of one of the Old Man's blue rugs. “I don't trust Henry, though.”

“To eat, I mean, for us.”

She looked across at me, shocked. “I'd never eat a goldfish.”

I could feel the laughter bubble up. “Pickerel,” I said. “Bass. I'm not sure what's around this time of the year.”

“Ah, yes.” She picked up her knife to shave curly bits off the wooden feet.

The Old Man's fishing equipment was hanging on the far wall. Did I really want to go out into that icy world? Of course I did. In Steven's bedroom I gathered things to keep warm: his old green sweater for a scarf around my neck, an extra pair of socks. I found a towel in the hall closet to wrap around my head like a turban, and one of Izzy's large sweaters to put over the whole thing.

I was ready with the pole in my hand. Josie laughed at the sight of me as I passed her.

“The abominable snowman,” I said, and then I was outside, trying to decide. I could fish from the bank or the Old Man's bridge. The bank was closer, so I walked along the tree line and down to a spot almost in front of the house. I swung the pole, lure on the line, over the ice into the narrow stream of water. I didn't know how long I stood there fishing, but after a while I leaned back against a bare maple tree, watching movement on the other side of the river, just the quickest bit of color. A squirrel? A raccoon? But then I saw it was something larger, maybe a deer.

It took one more moment to realize that a person, maybe a fisherman, was standing there, back among the trees. And if I had seen him, he might be able to see me.

The pole slid out of my hands as I lurched backward toward the holly bushes. Another quick step and Steven's sweater pulled away on a branch. I looked back to see the pole on the snowy bank. It had sunk into the snow so that it couldn't be seen. There was just a narrow indentation in the snow; it might have been only a branch if anyone spotted it.

My mouth was dry. I looked across the river again. There was no movement on the other side: a scoop of snow slid off one of the branches; a blue jay teetered on another.

I turned and ran the last few steps toward the house and up onto the porch. I reached for the door, closed and locked it in back of me, leaned against it inside, taking deep breaths.

“What is it?” Josie asked.

I shook my head. “Maybe another fisherman. Don't worry.” Christmas was coming. Maybe it was someone cutting down a tree, or poaching in the Old Man's woods.

All right. It was all right.

He hadn't seen me, and we were safe.

Josie put on her scarf and her coat and wandered outside, “To breathe for a moment,” she told me.

I stayed near the window, watching. But there wasn't anyone there, no one there at all.