The Winter People (10 page)

Sometimes, only sometimes, when she was good and lost in her art, if she closed her eyes, Gary was right beside her again, whispering his secrets in her ear. She could almost see him: his dark-brown
hair with the funny cowlicks, the freckles across his nose and cheeks that multiplied when he was out in the sun too long.

Gary, who loved a good ghost story. Gary, who once teased her by saying, “You better hope you’re the one to die first, babe, ’cause if I do I’m gonna come back here and haunt your ass.”

She smiled now, thinking of it. She picked up the blue pack of American Spirits—the last of the carton she’d found in Gary’s studio. She hadn’t smoked since college, and was always hounding Gary to quit, always complaining of the smell on his clothes and hair. Now she found the smell of cigarette smoke comforting, and allowed herself one cigarette a day. Sometimes two. She shook one out of the pack and lit up, knowing it was a little early, not caring.

“What were you doing here, Gary?” she asked out loud, watching the smoke drift up; she secretly hoped that if she started building the next box, adding in details, the answers might come. “Who’s the woman with the braid? And where can I find her?”

“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty,” Ruthie shouted out, hands covering her face. She opened her eyes, stood up from the couch, and hollered, “Ready or not, here I come!”

Hide-and-seek was Fawn’s favorite game, and they’d been playing for nearly an hour now, starting just after they’d washed and put away the breakfast dishes. Ruthie thought it might help take Fawn’s mind off Mom’s being gone. She also decided that it was an efficient, even fun, way for them to search the house for clues. There were always two rules when they played hide-and-seek. The first was that Mom’s room, the basement, and outside were off limits. The second rule was that Fawn always hid. Ruthie was claustrophobic and couldn’t stand fitting herself into tight, dark places. Fawn loved hiding, and she was really good at it; a few times, Ruthie even had to shout that she gave up, so Fawn would come popping out of some unlikely place—the laundry hamper, the cabinet under the kitchen sink.

“Where can she be?” Ruthie asked loudly as she searched the living room. She peered behind the couch, then went into the front hall and looked in the closet. From there, she moved on to the kitchen, where she carefully checked each cupboard. Nothing. Surely Fawn couldn’t fit herself into one of the drawers? Ruthie checked anyway. “Have you turned into a little mouse and crawled somewhere I’ll never find you?” Ruthie called.

This was also part of the game, the constant silly banter that sometimes made Fawn giggle and give herself away.

For twenty minutes, Ruthie searched the house, looking in all of Fawn’s favorite places, but found no sign of her sister.

“Are you under Daddy’s desk? Nope. Have you turned into a speck of dust and blown away?”

Fawn wasn’t in any of the closets, under any bed or table, or lying in the bathtub with the shower curtain drawn around her. Ruthie even checked under the old claw-foot tub, remembering that once she’d found her sister crammed in there on her belly.

Usually when she couldn’t find her sister, Ruthie just got annoyed. Today she felt panic rising, growing stronger as she checked each empty hiding place.

What if Fawn really was gone? What if whatever happened to their mom had happened to her?

Stop it
, she told herself.
It’s only a game
.

“Fawn?” Ruthie called out. “I give up! Game’s over! Come out!”

But Fawn did not appear. Ruthie went from room to room, calling out, listening intently for a giggle or a rustle, as a cold sweat gathered between her shoulder blades. She ended up back in the living room, right where she’d started, on her knees, looking behind the couch.

“Boo!”

Ruthie screamed. Fawn was right behind her.

“Where
were
you?” Ruthie asked, relief flooding through her.

“Hiding with Mimi.” The doll dangled limply from Fawn’s hand.

“Where?”

Fawn shrugged. “It’s a secret. Are we done playing now?”

“I’ve got a new game,” Ruthie said. “Come on.” She led her sister up the stairs to Mom’s room.

“What are we doing in here?” Fawn asked. Mom was big into “respecting each other’s private spaces,” which meant: don’t enter without knocking, and no snooping when no one was there. Ruthie couldn’t remember the last time she’d even set foot in her mother’s bedroom—back when her father was alive, maybe.

It was the largest bedroom in the house, but seemed larger still because of its sparseness: white walls with ancient cracks in the plaster;
only a bed, a dresser, and one bedside table; no art on the walls; no clutter. Not even a stray sock on the old pine floors, just a couple of hand-loomed wool throw rugs on either side of the bed.

Her mother had the best view in the house, too, the window beside the bed looking north out across the yard and to the wooded hillside. In the fall and winter, when the leaves were off the trees, you could see all the way out to the Devil’s Hand, at the top of the hill. Ruthie stared out that way now, catching only a glimpse of rock peeking through the blanket of thick snow. Then, for a split second, she caught a glimpse of movement—a shadow sliding out from behind the rocks, and back. There, then gone. A trick of the light, she told herself, turning away.

“We’re playing a new game,” Ruthie told her little sister. Fawn’s eyes widened.

“What kind of game?”

“A searching game.”

“Like hide-and-seek?”

“A little. Only we’re not looking for each other, we’re looking for clues.”

“Oooh, clues!” Fawn squealed. Then she got serious. “What kind of clues?”

“We’re looking for anything out of the ordinary, anything unusual. Anything that might help us figure out where Mom might be.”

Fawn nodded enthusiastically. She held Mimi by the arm—something Mom had made. The yellow yarn hair was matted now, the fabric on her hands and feet worn through and patched in places. She had a carefully stitched smile that always kind of creeped Ruthie out and reminded her of a scar, or of lips sewn closed to keep the thing quiet. Mimi was always whispering to Fawn, telling her secrets. When Fawn was very young, they’d find her hiding in the closet with the doll on her lap, deep in conversation.

Ruthie smiled down at her sister. “Are you and Mimi ready to play?”

“Let me see if Mimi is,” she said, holding the doll’s face up to her ear and listening. Fawn listened for a minute, nodding, then put the doll down. “Mimi says yes, but she wants to know if we can play real hide-and-seek again after.”

“Haven’t we played hide-and-seek enough for one day?”

“Mimi doesn’t think so,” Fawn said.

“Okay, we’ll play one more round after,” Ruthie promised. “Oh, I forgot to tell you the best part about this looking-for-clues game—there are prizes. One chocolate kiss for each clue found.”

“From Mom’s secret stash?”

Ruthie nodded. Mom kept a bag of Hershey’s Kisses hidden away in the back of the freezer, and neither girl was allowed to touch it unless offered, usually as a bribe. Mom didn’t approve of the girls’ eating refined sugar, so chocolate was always a big treat, especially for Fawn.

“Ready, set, go!” Ruthie called, but Fawn stayed frozen.

“I’m not sure where to look,” she said.

“You’re a kid! Use your imagination! If you wanted to hide something in here, where would you put it?”

Fawn looked around. “Under the bed?” Her voice came out small and shy.

“Maybe,” Ruthie said. “Let’s check it out.” They both dropped to their knees to peer under the bed. Nothing under there but years’ worth of dust bunnies.

Ruthie checked the floor under the bed for loose floorboards. When she was very young, she’d discovered a nice little hiding place under a loose board in her own room, right under the bed. Over time, both she and Fawn had found many little places like this throughout the house: a small hidden door that opened behind the cabinet they kept the plates in; a corner of the doorframe leading from the kitchen to the living room that popped out to reveal a little niche, perfect for hiding a tiny treasure. It seemed likely that there was at least one secret place in Mom’s room.

“Kids must have lived here before,” Ruthie had told Fawn once. “All these hidey-holes—it’s not something a grown-up would do.”

“Maybe we’ll find something they left behind. A toy, or a note, or something!” Fawn had said, excitedly. But so far, all of the hidden niches they had discovered had been empty.

Ruthie pulled back the mattress and checked between it and the box spring. Nothing. There was a stack of paperback mysteries on top of the bedside table—her mom was a big Ruth Rendell fan. She
opened the drawer and found only half a Hershey bar with almonds, a flashlight, and a pen.

There had never been a table on her father’s side of the bed—he didn’t read at night. He had believed beds were made for sleeping, so he had no table, no lamp. He had done his reading (mostly non-fiction: dense, depressing tomes about global warming or the evils of the pharmaceutical industry; thick, glossy books about gardening and homesteading; slim, antique field guides filled with drawings of New England flora and fauna) in a big leather chair in the office. Her father had loved to read, loved the feel and smell of books—he even used to buy and sell antiquarian books, back before Ruthie was born, before they’d moved to Vermont.

Ruthie didn’t know much about her parents’ lives before. They’d met in college, at Columbia. Her mother had been an art-history major; her father was studying literature. It was nearly impossible to imagine what her parents might have been like back in college; the very idea of them as young, daring, and idealistic made Ruthie’s head spin. After graduation, they’d started the book business in Chicago. They came east to Vermont after reading Scott and Helen Nearing’s book
The Good Life
, with the intention of becoming as self-sufficient as possible. They bought the house and land for a song (
They practically gave it away
, her parents always said), got chickens and sheep, planted a huge rambling vegetable garden among the rocks. Ruthie was a little over three when they first moved here. Fawn came along nine years later, when their mother was forty-three, their father forty-six.

“Seriously?” Ruthie had asked when her parents announced that Ruthie would soon have a new baby brother or sister. She’d known something was up—her parents had been whispering and secretive for days, but she’d never imagined this news. When she was little, she’d longed for a baby brother or sister, but now wasn’t it too late?

“Aren’t you happy about it?” her mother had asked.

“Sure,” Ruthie said. “I’m just a little shocked.”

Ruthie’s mother nodded. “I know, sweetie. Honestly, we were a little surprised, too. But your father and I know this is meant to be, this baby belongs with us, here in our family. You’re going to be a wonderful big sister, I know you will.”

Up until this new disappearing trick, the most interesting thing about her mother had been her decision to have a second child so late in life, which sounded like it had been more accident than conscious choice.

“I don’t like being in here without her,” Fawn complained as she looked helplessly around her mother’s room. She was on the bed, where she’d been searching through the covers and pillows. Ruthie was running her hands along the rough plaster walls, looking for secret openings but finding nothing.

The truth was, Ruthie felt the same—like she was trespassing and invading her mother’s much-loved privacy.

“It’s okay,” Ruthie said. “I know it’s a little weird, but I think Mom would understand that we’re doing this because we need to. Because we want to find her.”

Ruthie headed toward the closet. Fawn got up off the bed and watched, rocking a little, twisting Mimi’s rag-doll arm in her hands.

Roscoe came in, tiptoeing hesitantly, turning his head from side to side, like he didn’t know what to expect. This room was even off limits to the cat, because their mother claimed to be slightly allergic and didn’t want to sleep on a bed covered in cat dander. Now Roscoe explored cautiously, his big fluffy gray tail up and twitching. He sauntered over to the closet door, gave it a tentative sniff. Immediately he arched his back and jumped back with a loud hiss. Then he bolted from the room.

“You old drama queen,” Ruthie called after him.

Ruthie went to the closet door, turned the knob, and pulled. Nothing happened. She yanked harder, then tried pushing. It still didn’t budge.

Weird. She stepped back, studied the door, and noticed now that two boards had been attached, one at the top and one at the bottom, screwed into the frame and across the door itself, preventing it from being opened. Why on earth would anyone seal up a closet door like that?

She’d have to go downstairs and get a screwdriver—a crowbar from the barn, maybe.

“I think I found something.” Fawn’s voice was shaky. Ruthie jumped a little, and then turned to see her sister had pushed back the
wool throw rug on the right side of the bed and had pulled open a little trapdoor built into the wide pine floor. Her face was pale.

“What is it?” Ruthie asked, bounding across the room in three leaps.

Fawn didn’t answer, just stared down, eyes huge and worried.

Ruthie looked down into the secret hiding place Fawn had discovered. It was about a foot and a half square, and the wooden floorboards had been cut carefully and put back together as a small door with old brass hinges. It was shallow, only about six inches deep. There, right on top, was a small handgun with a wooden handle. Below it, a shoebox. Ruthie blinked in disbelief. Her mom and dad were peace-loving, pacifist hippies; they hated guns. Her dad could bore you to death with handgun statistics—how much more likely it was that a gun would end up killing a family member than an intruder, how many violent crimes were gun-related. When they killed a chicken or a turkey, their mom made them do this elaborate ceremony, thanking the earth and the bird and urging the bird’s spirit to move on to a higher plane.

“It can’t be Mom’s,” Ruthie said out loud, sure that there was some mistake. She looked at Fawn, who stood frozen, the doll dangling from her hand, swinging like a pendulum over the open hole in the floor.