Towering (14 page)

I was doing it.

From above, I felt the rope around my waist go slack. I looked up to see Wyatt holding the rope, making it taut so that, if I fell, I would not fall all the way.

“That’s good!” he said. “Look up at me! Don’t look down.”

Of course, as soon as he said that, I looked down. But the ground was not so far below me, and the snow looked soft.

“Rachel! Up here!”

I looked up, but he was still so far away.

“Come on! You can do it.”

My foot began to feel uncomfortable. I searched for another foothold and found one. I pulled myself up, then my other foot. I shivered, fearing I would lose my grip. Yet, the exertion made me feel warmer. I found another foothold and pulled myself up again.

“Good for you! Keep going!”

I was closer. At least, I could hear him better. I was doing this! I was doing it!

The rope was taut above me. I took another step up but lost my grip on the tower. My tower. I clung to it with both arms but felt the rope holding me tight. I was worried I would end up hanging like a spider. But no, my tower was angled.

“Careful!” His voice was closer. “You can do it.”

I found a handhold, and then, another foothold. The cold air rushed across my dress. I heard birds. I smelled the snow and almost tasted it. I was cold, yet sweating too. I pulled myself up.

“Do that again! All at once!”

I did. It was getting easier, though I was tired. First one foot, then the other, pulling myself up with my hands. I saw him, reeling in the rope, my hair. I heard his voice. “Come on, Rachel. You’re doing great!”

It occurred to me that I
was
doing great.
I
was, for he wasn’t lifting me. I was climbing. It was like something from a book, but this time, I was the heroine! Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. I found another foothold, then another, going much faster than before.

Ouch! A rough piece of wood jabbed my arm. I cried out, but my cry disappeared into the woods.

“Almost there!” he said. “Come to me!”

I had to go on. Ignoring the pain in my arm, I took two more steps, pulling myself up. I felt his hand, reaching out for me, but I was afraid to take it. I wanted to climb inside by myself.

I reached for the windowsill, and found one last good foothold, a tiny outcropping. I pulled myself up. I lifted myself inside. My heart felt as if it might burst, but good.

“I made it!”

“You did. You’re okay!”

I saw, now, that we were tied together. If I had fallen, would he have tumbled out the window as well?

I was breathing hard, my heart pounding. I threw my arms around Wyatt and felt his heart throbbing beside my own. “You saved my life,” I said.

“Did I?” His voice was in my ear. “That’s perfect. You saved mine, so I owe you.”

We stood there a moment, both panting, both shivering. I knew he was the man I had dreamed about. How could he not be, for he was the only one who had come? But did he know?

Finally, we broke apart. I said, “Perhaps you should warm yourself by the fire. I’ll get a blanket. Then, you can tell me what you are doing here.”

He walked to the fireplace and sat beside it, then took the poker and used it to rearrange the logs. His shirt was wet and clung to him. I thought, perhaps, I should suggest that he remove it, to hang it by the fire. But would that be too presumptuous? Yes. I noticed him touching it, and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing. Yet, there was nothing I could do, nothing but gaze at him with the fire’s light caressing his face, unable to believe he was actually there.

“Will you tell me what you are doing here as well?”

I came out of my trance. “What? Oh, the blanket. I forgot.” I rushed to the closet and took down the bright green blanket. I returned and draped it over his shoulders.

“Thank you.”

“Perhaps . . .” I stopped.

“What?”

I looked away. “Perhaps now that you have the blanket to cover you, you should . . .” I felt my cheeks grow warm. I spit it out. “Your shirt would dry more quickly if you draped it by the fire.”

He didn’t respond for a moment. Then, he said, “Oh. Oh, I suppose it would.”

“I will not look,” I whispered. I crossed the room, back to the window. Outside, the air was cold, so I closed it up, to keep the heat in. Then, I gazed out. The hole in the ice had filled with snow, so it was barely visible.

“Rachel?”

The sound of my name startled me. Yet, I loved it. “Yes?”

“Since you saved my life, and I saved yours, I feel really, like I’ve known you. Like we’re sort of closer than other people who’ve known each other an hour. Will you tell me how you got here? I’ve been hearing you, or something. A voice from the woods. I’ve been hearing it for days. But I don’t think anyone else can hear it. I didn’t know if you were real.”

I turned to face him. He was wrapped in the blanket, his shirt draped on the mantel, warming. He had removed his shoes, but he still had on his pants. The green in the blanket brought out the green in his eyes. I walked closer.

“I think I am real,” I said, though I wondered. Could you be real if no one saw you, if no one knew you were there?

He reached out his hand to me. “I think you are too.”

And the next thing I knew, I was sitting beside him, and his lips were on mine. Mine were on his, and all the loneliness of my life was over, evaporated, as if it had never been there at all. He tasted like the breeze, the snow, the pine trees, and I worried that I would wake to find that it was all a dream, all a lovely dream. But his hands on my hair, his lips on mine let me know he was real. He was real.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just . . . I feel like I was meant to come here, to find you.”

I kissed him again. “I feel that way too.”

I had been shivering. Now, I was warm, warm from the fire in the stone fireplace on one side of the room, warm from the girl in my arms. This was it. This was why I was here. To find her, this strange, unearthly, beautiful girl, locked in a tower yet so brave that she slid down a rope and fished me out of the ice. Seeing her, I realized that I was like that too, in my own tower, a tower of the mind, enchanted and unreal. Would I be as brave as her, given the opportunity? Could I save her as she saved me? This girl was different from anyone I’d ever met. She made me feel like a hero.

I glanced around. The room was from another era—wrought-iron bed and a rag rug. The walls were painted bright blue, like the sky. “So, who are you?” I asked.

She looked down. “Well, it’s hard to say. I don’t really know, except that my name is Rachel. On my last birthday, I was seventeen. I’ve lived here since I was a child.”

Unreal. “And before that?”

“I lived in a house, with Mama.”

“Mama.” Such an old-fashioned word. I didn’t know anyone who called their mother Mama. It was like something they said in books.

“She’s not really my mother, though. My mother is dead. She was killed when I was a little baby. I don’t remember her at all.”

I thought about the old man in the hardware store, the one with the dead daughter. Could she have been Rachel’s mother? If so, he didn’t know about it.

“Mama brought me here to keep me safe. She said the people who harmed my mother might come after me as well.”

It was all kinds of crazy. Yet, everything seemed crazy up here, from Danielle eating her psychedelic salad to Rachel locked in this tower. But maybe the whole world was like that—it was just more noticeable in a small town. I gazed at her, trying not to look like I was. Her skin was so pale, like it had never seen the sun. It was almost translucent, and her hair hung around her shoulders like an angel’s wings. She believed what she was saying. That was for sure.

“So why did you come down to save me? Weren’t you worried I’d kill you?”

She smiled. “I thought about it. But then, I realized you were too young to have killed my mother. You looked no older than me. And I could not simply watch you die when it was in my power to help. Then, my existence would be worthless indeed. I sometimes wonder if it is anyway. Besides . . .” She broke off, shaking her head as if she had said too much.

“We all wonder about that sometimes,” I said.

“Do you? Do other people wonder that? I do not know any other people.”

“I think so.” There was something intelligent about her face, something older than her years. “What were you going to say?”

“Nothing. I don’t want to . . . burden you, tell you too much and get you into a mess.”

I looked around. Outside the windows, I could see only the tops of trees. Inside, I could only see her.

“I think I’m in it,” I said.

“You don’t have to be. You could leave, climb down to the bottom and never see me again.”

“No, I couldn’t do that. Now, I know you’re here. I can’t just leave you.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I don’t know.” Though I had an idea. It was because of Tyler. I hadn’t done enough there. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “Besides, I feel like I’m supposed to be here, like I found you for a reason. Why else would I hear you when no one else did?”

She sat very still for a moment, her face illuminated by firelight. Her hand was still in mine, and I wanted to kiss her again, but I didn’t want to spoil it, so I just sat there. Her fingers were so delicate, interlocking with mine.

Finally, she said, “I have these dreams, strange dreams.”

“Dreams?” I thought of Danielle at the window. But maybe that had been real.

“They don’t feel like dreams at all. I mean, not like dreams you have when you’re asleep and forget an hour later. These dreams feel like prophecies, and when I started having them, things changed.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well, for one thing . . .” She gestured toward the rope of hair on the floor. “My hair grew. It grew very fast.”

I nodded. “That’s weird all right. What else?”

“When I was little, Mama used to brush my hair with a special brush, a silver one with a pattern of exotic flowers, orchids or lilies, I think.”

“What?” I had seen the brush, or one like it, somewhere. Where?

“A fancy silver brush. And then, one day, it disappeared, and I came here. But I have been dreaming of that brush, and dreaming of it all the time, as if it is the key to . . . something, to escape. And then, you showed up.”

I nodded. “And that’s weird?”

“Other than Mama, I haven’t seen another human being in years. But more than that . . .”

Again, she stopped speaking and stared at the rope of hair on the ground.

“What?”

“More than that, you were in my dreams too. I don’t want to frighten you, but there was a boy, tall and broad shouldered, with dark hair and green eyes. Do many people have green eyes?”

I shook my head. “Some. But most people have brown. Or blue.” I looked into hers, which were a bright sapphire color.

“Do many boys look like you?”

“Exactly like me? No. So you’re saying I was in your dream?”

She nodded. “I am certain of it. You are meant to be here.”

“Then I’m certain too.” And I was, in that instant, I was. There had to be a reason I was here, a reason I’d heard a voice beckoning since I’d gotten here, a reason I’d left home, even. “But what was I doing in your dream?”

“That is where it grows dim. There were people, somewhere. They wanted me to help them. They needed me to. It had to be me, only me. But I don’t know why or how. I thought perhaps when you came, you would tell me. But you don’t know either?”

I shook my head. “Sorry. But maybe we could ask someone.” I thought of the old man again. Maybe he would know. Or Mrs. Greenwood. I wouldn’t tell them about Rachel. It would freak them out, and I wouldn’t want to get the old man’s hopes up if Rachel wasn’t his long-lost granddaughter after all. “Would you want me to?”

“I’m not sure. I wouldn’t want anyone to know I was here.” She glanced out the window. “Oh, my, it is getting dark already. I don’t want you to leave, but . . .”

I looked outside. The sun was already low in the sky. I glanced at my watch. It was already past four, and around here, it got dark early in winter. I had to get back to my car, this time without falling through the ice. “I don’t want to leave either. But I should.”

“Come again tomorrow. Please?”

“If I can. If not, the next day.” I stood up.

She put her arms around my neck again. “Please come back. I never knew how lonely I was until you came.”

I kissed her. “Me either. Don’t worry. I will. I promise.”

The trip down the rope should have been easy compared to the trip up, but it wasn’t because I didn’t want to make it. I didn’t want to leave. My hands ached until I felt I might fall, and even though my clothes had mostly dried, I felt bone cold. I finally reached ground and struggled across the trees to the car, then drove to Mrs. Greenwood’s house, but I was already plotting how to come back.

I felt the chill of cold in my legs, my arms. Even my hair felt cold. But for the first time since Tyler died, I felt like something made sense.