Rich Shapero

O
n the outskirts of
Fairbanks, down a gravel road, a small house and a family had taken root among
the trees. A man and a woman, and a six-year-old boy. They had come from a long
distance, impelled by an idea, like seed flock on the wind. In May the northern
sky pales early. Dreams trail off, and you wake and dress yourself. Robbie, the
boy, managed that himself now.

After they ate breakfast, Dad would leave.
Robbie would go outside.

Between the house and the wilds was a bald
spot—the Clearing—and there he sat this particular morning, in deep
concentration.

Is
the stick curious or something to fear?

He was twiddling a dry twig between stones,
and down in the pocket a spider was watching.

Does
it have a mind of its own?
Robbie thought, as the spider might.
Or is someone holding it? Following
everything I do.

Like a voice from the heavens, he spoke to
the spider. "Grab on—"

Light steps crossed the Clearing. In his
circle of sight: one shoe, then two. Socks bright and unmatched—one purple, one
blue.

Robbie looked up. A girl, his own age.

"Is someone down there?" she
asked.

Her eyes seemed enormous. But it wasn't their
size. Fervent thoughts, and wild ones, were churning inside. She had a brown
pony tail spouting over one ear. Over the other, locks were twisted oddly,
ribboned and knotted with rubber bands.

"Yep," Robbie answered. "I'm
his friend."

She bent over and saw the spider. Her head
tilted, as if considering how to introduce herself. Then she began to hum. A
lilting melody—something you might please yourself with when no one else was
around. Robbie listened as he peered between the stones. The song seemed to
speak to him as well. There was a call to freedom in it, a confidence that
banished care.

"Hey," Robbie said. "He's
climbing out."

The girl smiled, spread her arms with a
theatrical flourish and rose. Then, without a word, she began to turn. Her
hands trailed, as if letting go of something. There was a magenta scarf around
her shoulders and a scarlet one at her waist, and they flared as she whirled,
faster and faster. She closed her eyes and her attention drew into a private
quarter. Robbie was mesmerized.

The girl stopped and plunked down beside
him.

Robbie felt their knees touch.

"Everything's loose," she
laughed, making a dizzy face.

Her breath quivered between her lips. A
ringlet bounced beside her temple. She was closing her eyes again. Beneath her
dark brows, the lids twitched like wings.

"I'm entering the special place,"
she said.

Robbie heard an invitation.

"Are
you?"

"Sure," he answered, shutting his
eyes.

"The wind sings my songs," the
girl said. "So do the leaves. I show them how."

Robbie tried to imagine how you could do
that.

"Your turn," she said.

"Okay . . ." Robbie tried to
think. "I can write my name backwards." He frowned.
What's
so special about that?
He cracked his lids.

She was still immersed. "When I smile,
the whole world feels warm," she said.

That's something, Robbie thought, closing
his eyes again. "I fly in my dreams."

"I can be as invisible as air,"
the girl said. "In real life."

"When my friends are in danger, I
rescue them."

She giggled. "No one remembers what I
remember."

"I go anywhere in the forest,"
Robbie said. "And I never get lost."

He felt a bump. She was shaking him. When
he opened his eyes, her face was inches away.

"Really?"

He just stared back.

She turned to the slope behind them. It
rose steeply, thronged with aspens and red currant. Buds were starting to burst
and the branches were sparked with green. "Have you been up there?"

"Sure." Robbie shrugged, his
power leaking away. The Hill was no man's land, as distant and unreachable as the
sky above it. He could hear Mom at the back of his mind.
Lying
again.

"I want to see." The girl's eyes
flashed.

Robbie nodded.

"Let's go," she said.

Robbie peered back between the stones.

"Now."
She stood.
"What's your name?"

"Robbie." He rose uncertainly,
glancing at his home. It was double trouble. The Hill was forbidden, and the
girl would quickly realize that it was a mystery to him.

Her eyes wandered up the slope. "I bet
no one has ever been."

Robbie laughed. She was starting through
the scrub. Without thinking, he hurried after her. "What's yours?"

She grasped his hand. "Fristeen."
Her lips touched his ear.

They reached the first tall tree. Robbie
stopped and turned half-around. They both looked at his house.

"Is that where you live?"

He nodded. How many hours had he stood by
the window wondering what the great story of the forest was about? He gazed up
the slope. This was the doorway he couldn't think beyond.

Fristeen's eyes were like the jets on a
stovetop, and when she faced him it was like someone had turned the knob all
the way. She knew it was forbidden, but she didn't care. And suddenly he didn't
either. It was time.

"Don't tell," he said, squeezing
her hand.

She promised with a squint. "I love
secrets."

They entered the thick shrubs. The twigs
had dark skin and brown fingers with bumps at the ends that clawed and caught
at them as they passed. The leaf litter hissed and slid beneath them. It was a
strange new world for Robbie, and there was another strange world clasping his
hand. It was warm and alive, and not the least bit hesitant or ill-at-ease.
There was a rhythm in Fristeen's breath, in her step, and inside her. And when
her fingers wriggled, it was as if she spoke. "Look at i his, look at
that." Tips of life peering up at them, lime and maroon. Flowers venturing
up from the matted litter, some quailing, some headstrong. A wasps' nest,
glaring through the branches like an ashen face.

"Feel," Fristeen said as they
neared a big tree. She reached out, and he did the same. Its skin was gray, cool
and smooth.

"Listen." Robbie closed his eyes.

"Do you hear something?" she
wondered.

"His thoughts," Robbie whispered.
"He has a secret in his fingers. Look, up there." He pointed.

From a branch, twigs spoked like an
unclenched fist, and leaves were trembling at the end of each.

"They're thinking—all of them.
See?" Robbie swept the slope. "Thinking about leaves!"

Fristeen yelped and broke into a run.

She reached a bush. Robbie was right behind
her. She grabbed its fingers and pinched its buds, and its leaves jumped out.
"Look." Robbie spun around to another. "Shiny." Then on to
another and up the slope, running back and forth from bough to bole. Some buds
were sharp, some were still hard. But most were excited, swollen and ready, and
when your fingers squeezed, they burst for joy. Green ones, gray ones, some
pink like flesh. Some fuzzy, some silky, some big and sticky with a minty
smell.

The trees upslope were clamoring. So they
raced to the next, Fristeen crying, "You can't stop between." Some
leaves bristled, some fanned, some you had to unroll. Look—red. No, silly, it's
your fingers showing through. And then they were guessing before they popped
the buds. Furry— Prickly! Purple, I bet.

All of a sudden, there wasn't any more
Hill. They whirled and hooted and jumped up and down. Robbie ran to the tallest
aspen, threw his arms around it and looked straight up. The gray branches
reached—nothing between them and the sky. The tree was urging him to climb.

Fristeen was beside him, red-faced,
breathless.

"I could," Robbie gasped. "I
think I could."

"I know you could. Look," she
pointed down the slope.

It was an amazing sight. Robbie's house was
so small you could pick it up with your fingers.

He struggled with a new perspective.
"I was there all the time." He glanced at Fristeen. "I never
left."

"When I was a baby, I was in prison—a
wooden jail. That's what Grace says."

"Grace?"

"Come on." Fristeen turned from
the slope, faced the forest beyond and started forward.

Robbie didn't follow.

She looked back. "It's okay."

"Yeah, but—"

"What?"

He heard the disappointment in her voice.
"I've been that way before," he said. "You have?"

Robbie swallowed. The breezes had vanished
and the woodland was silent, awaiting his response. "I don't want to lie
to you," he said.

She gave him a fond look. "Let's go
back," he said.

She shook her head.

"You'll be scared."

"Oh, I know," Fristeen said with
relish.

That stopped him. Was it a bluff? No, he
could see the truth in her smile: she exulted in things that frightened her. A
stray breeze sent a chill up Robbie's back. He shivered, feeling himself in the
presence of something new and strange.

Across the space that separated them, her
gaze met his darkly, boldly.

"Fristeen," he murmured. Was he reasoning
with her or pleading? As long as he could remember, his head had been full of
fantasies. Lies, Mom called them. For all his rich imagination, he lacked the
daring to make anything of them. The answer was staring him in the face.

"I might need someone to rescue
me," she said.

Retreat seemed suddenly unworthy. This was
the Hill, the great unknown. And here he was on top of it, feeling its freedom
along with its fear. Fristeen made him think he could be master of both.

"You might," Robbie nodded, stepping
toward her.

The earth dipped and turned lumpy. They
headed into a patch of thin trees that were all bent over. When Robbie glanced
at Fristeen, she was too.

"Follow the Bendies," she said
with a secret look.

Robbie laughed and hunched.

They reached a place where the trees had
snapped and lay piled on top of each other. There was an open space beneath,
and they got down on their hands and knees and crawled through.