The Clearing Read online

  I managed a smal smile for her. "Sure, Mae."

  She grinned back and then glanced down at my tank top and jeans. "I meant to ask if you needed any school clothes." she asked gently.

  "There's not much here at the grocery, but we can take a trip down below this weekend."

  " Down below? "

  "That's what we cal it when we drive to the big towns farther west as the Skagit River flows. It's not exactly Seattle, but there is a mal ."

  "I don't real y need anything."

  "Not even a blouse or two?" Mae asked. "It might be fun to go shopping."

  "I don't real y care what people think of what I wear," I said. "I'm not trying to prove anything."

  "Yes, I think you favor your old Aunt Mae," she replied with a laugh. "I always wear the latest in overal s, though." She grabbed her oversize denim purse. "Al right, now let's get some school supplies and a couple of big, juicy steaks. We'l have a nice cookout to celebrate your getting into both calculus and Creative Living."

  "Yeah, Creative Living. I can't wait to start whipping up recipes based around refrigerator biscuits. It's great preparation for my adult life."

  Mae winked. "There's the familiar sass. You're starting to acclimate, kid. By the time you get to school on Monday, you'l be back to your old self."

  I'm sure Mae meant it in a good way. She didn't know I never wanted to be my old self ever again.

  We entered the store, where the air conditioner was set to please a polar bear. The scents of the meat counter, bleachy disinfectant, freshly fried donuts, and overripe tomatoes hit my nose al at once. It was almost too much to take in. To top that, the place was packed with families with shopping carts ful of groceries and dirty-faced toddlers. The cashiers did swift business while chattering over a scratchy-sounding country song piped through the PA system.

  "You go pick out what you need for school, sweetie. Aisle five. I'l get the fixins for dinner."

  Almost on autopilot, I moseyed away. I found the school supplies in the same aisle with Rockvil e High School T-shirts and lawn mower replacement parts. I browsed through the sweatshirts and tanks printed with a crowing rooster, and then moved on to finding what I real y needed.

  "I'd avoid the sparkly ones," said a tal boy, pointing down at the notebook in my hand. "If you get Mr. Sorenson for algebra, he'l mark your assignments down because of the glare."

  "Thanks for the tip, but I don't have him."

  "Ah—but you are new. So, let me guess—you're in trig, right? Then you have Miss Hammond. She appreciates sparkles."

  I studied the guy. He had on a Rockvil e Roosters sweatshirt and running shorts and shoes. Short dark hair with wispy bangs framed his green eyes. Cute.

  "I'm taking calculus," I said.

  He looked impressed. "Ah-ha. In that case, we both have Mr. Agnew. He's neutral on sparkles. I'm Quinn. Quinn Hutchins."

  "They let people name kids Quinn in this town?"

  Quinn blinked at me. "Um, yeah. Why wouldn't they?"

  "No, sorry, I just thought everyone would be, like, Jack or Bil y or Bobby Ray."

  "We're country, but we're not hicks," Quinn said, crossing his arms.

  "So you're saying al Bobby Rays are hicks?" I replied.

  "No. You're the one who—"

  I held up a hand. "Kidding."

  Just then a group of girls our age came giggling down aisle five. They were al dressed in Rockvil e High tees, shorts, and flip-flops. The blonde jingled keys in her hands.

  "What's the deal?" she said, sidling up to Quinn. "We're supposed to grab some chips and go."

  "Just saying hi to a newbie. What was your name?"

  "Amy."

  "Amy, nice to meet you," said the blonde in a bored voice. "I'm Melanie; this is Kristy, and Jane."

  They al murmured their hel os and looked me up and down.

  "I'd ask you along to the footbal team's barbecue, but my car only seats four," Melanie said with an apologetic look.

  "No, it's al right. I have plans," I said with a shrug. Aunt Mae's backyard steaks sounded better than a barbecue with this girl.

  "Okay. Later," Melanie said, moving away.

  "Nice to meet you, Amy," Quinn said, fol owing the group of girls down the aisle. "I'l see you next week—in class."

  As they rounded the corner, Melanie flashed me a smirk that seemed more of a warning than a goodbye.

  As if! I wanted to yel after her. I couldn't give two rats' butts about Quinn Hutchins, who wasn't even al that great. It almost made me laugh that even in a town as smal as this one, high school clique stuff happened. And girls protected their stupid boyfriends who didn't give a crap about them.

  Mae rounded the corner. "Are you ready to go?" she asked as I placed my items in her cart.

  "Yes." I thought of the cool white mist in Mae's field. I thought of dissolving myself into it. Into the mist of not knowing. Of nothingness. Maybe it'd be a little scary, but wouldn't it be easier to turn invisible and not have to deal? I mean, why even get to know kids if they were going to be just the same as the ones I'd left?

  Two days. I had two days until I had to start school. I closed my eyes on the way home, letting the wind cool my face and my frustration. This would be different, I promised myself. Nobody was going to wreck that for me.

  I was calm. I could keep it together. And if not, there was always the mist.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Fresh apple pie. The crackle of dry leaves underfoot. Snowflakes. Those were the things Henry Briggs missed when he closed his eyes.

  He could feel the summer sunshine on his face and smel the warm earth beneath his toes and the ripening strawberries in the nearby garden. Every day about this time, he heard the whir of dragonflies on their mission to the creek. It was familiar, but there was so much he would never know again—at least, he was pretty sure he wouldn't.

  Lounging in the hammock strung between the cherry trees, he knew he had two hours before his mother would cal him to the dinner table for Sunday supper—most likely ham and potato salad. And there was safety in that predictability. He shouldn't complain. He shouldn't tempt fate or God or whatever to take away the miracle he was living.

  "Henry!" his grandfather cal ed out from the side yard.

  Yes, it was time to mow the lawn. The ever-greening blades of grass were ready again. Henry left his dog-eared copy of Huckleberry Finn in the hammock. He tucked his shirt in as he walked over to the shed, where Grandpa Briggs was rol ing out the push mower.

  "Oiled her up for you."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Don't forget the path to the meadow," Grandpa said. "Won't be long before this June sunshine gives way to Old Man Winter and we're hauling in wood."

  No, it won't give way. Though Henry didn't bother saying it aloud, he couldn't help thinking it.

  Grandpa turned to go, but then paused. "Your mother's got dinner in the oven. She used our sugar ration to bake you a birthday cake. She went to a world of trouble over you. Don't dawdle."

  "Yes, sir."

  Grandpa Briggs gave him a pat on the shoulder as he passed.

  Henry had tried, when this al had first come about, to talk to the old man about what was happening, but Grandpa had dismissed it as poppycock and sent him to do extra chores as punishment. Henry's mother, too, didn't seem to understand the miracle, so he had given up trying and didn't speak of it anymore.

  So this now-familiar cycle continued. It began and ended and began again. His birthday came and went, another in the sea of early-summer days they floated upon. It was a safe sea, one that kept them protected from the awful, awful news that had come in late June the first time through.

  The sun was high when Henry stopped at the edge of the meadow, hearing his grandfather cal ing. He left the mower on the side of the path to the clearing and ran toward the house, the flavor of the ham so familiar in his mouth, he could already taste it, along with the oniony potato salad.

  Oh, what he wouldn't give for a taste of late-fal elk
roast or a Christmas cookie.

  He'd realized long ago, though, that this life had its limitations, its boundaries. Keeping everyone alive meant that they couldn't simply hike into town and buy something else, or go to a neighbor's farm to trade them for something else. The mist hid them from the world in its protective folds. The mist was their end and their beginning.

  Al Henry had now was everything he'd had the summer his world had been destroyed. And that was al he was ever going to have again.

  ***

  "Good grub," Grandpa Briggs said after dinner. He patted his bel y as he sat back in his chair and let out a sigh.

  "I have more," Mother said, emerging from the kitchen with a cake on a platter. In her usual blue housedress and slippers, she looked pretty but tired. It was hard to tel that his mother didn't feel wel , but Henry knew she had spent most of the morning sleeping in her chair next to the radio.

  "Happy eighteenth birthday, son."

  Henry did his best to put a surprised look on his face. "Thanks, Mother."

  Mother eyed him as if she could tel he was faking. "Vanil a icebox was the best I could do. Don't you like that anymore?"

  "Yes, it's stil my favorite," Henry fibbed. He couldn't tel her after countless slices of the same birthday cake, it was getting tiresome.

  Mother set the platter on the table and took a seat. She settled her napkin on her lap and then swept a few errant strands of her hair back up into its twist. "I'l make a chocolate cake when Robert comes home," she said, managing a smile. "Won't be long now that the boys have landed on the beaches over there."

  "The Führer is on his last legs, that's for sure," Grandpa added.

  Henry nodded, his lips pressed together, fighting the urge to tel them what would happen to his brother, what life had planned for the army private.

  Mother glanced up at the calendar, where Henry's birthday was circled in red ink, June 14. "Summer's flying by. Don't you boys think he'l be home soon?"

  "Yesiree, Robert might even come home in time to help hay," Grandpa said. "Johnson's got some good-looking fields this year. You boys could earn some good money."

  Mother chuckled. "The last thing Robert is going to want to do is hay. He'l want to cal on Rosie Grant and take her to the picture show."

  "I think you're right." Grandpa struck a match, lit the single candle on Henry's cake, and slid the platter closer. "Now go on. Make a wish and we'l eat some of this delicious confection."

  Henry blew out the candle, but he didn't make a wish. He never did. On al the birthdays he had lived, he had never made a wish.

  Anyhow, a wish wasn't how al this began. It was a prayer he'd made a few days after his birthday, the night that the final telegram—and then the doctor—had come and gone. While his chums were dreaming of the adventures awaiting them overseas, Henry was kneeling at the side of his bed. As Henry had al owed himself tears in the dark, he'd prayed for a miracle.

  A miracle wasn't the same thing as a wish. No birthday candle smoke could have wrought the life the Briggs family had been experiencing ever since that night.

  "You go finish that mowing," Grandpa said. "I'l help your mother clean up."

  The sweet taste of cake faded in Henry's mouth. "Yes, sir." He left his plate and napkin on the table and pushed his chair careful y into the table. He would mow, and the rest of the day would unfold as the others of this summer always had.

  ***

  The grass in the clearing at the edge of their meadow was tal . Despite the sun, the clearing was fil ed with mist as usual.

  Henry had tried once in the beginning to travel through the mist, to see what was on the other side. After al , the mist hadn't been there until the morning after his prayer. But as he had approached the far edge of the clearing, the mist had thickened into a white dense fog he couldn't see through. And he'd heard a strange humming noise. That's when he'd realized it was a boundary. It was the very edge of the Briggs farm property and perhaps the edge of something bigger.

  Henry had never gone that far into the mist again. He'd never dared, lest something happened and he couldn't return. He couldn't bear to think of what that might do to his family. He didn't know what would happen to them if he weren't there to do what he'd always done—pray that the miracle would continue for another day—and that was infinitely scarier than the idea of getting lost.

  He pushed the mower, clipping the grass with a metal ic swish-swish. He stopped at the side of the path, stooping to pick up some rocks he always seemed to find, and toss them away into the mist. It had taken only a few times of rol ing over the rocks and having to spend the rest of the afternoon sharpening mower blades for him to remember. As boring as it was, Henry was good at mowing this stretch of the land.

  He paused to scratch his leg. Mother would probably have lemonade ready by the time he made it back to the house. She'd be sipping a glass out on the porch and listening to the radio music drifting out through the open window. Some days he joined her, and on others he sipped cool water in the shade.

  He was behind schedule—it had to be about four in the afternoon, judging by the sun. There was stil raking to do, and then his grandfather would need him to help with the garden chores after supper that evening.

  Henry wiped his sweat-beaded forehead with the back of his forearm, the heat real y getting to him. Wanting to cool off a bit, he left the mower on the side of the path and stepped into the clearing, arms outstretched so the tiny water droplets in the air could hit his skin ful force. He ran forward, as far as he dared, and the mist of the clearing chil ed him instantly. He let out a huge sigh. And then he heard a voice.

  Henry froze.

  "Hey!" A girl's voice came again, cutting through the mist.

  Henry didn't know what to do, so he stood there pretending he was invisible.

  It didn't work. A girl walked toward him in the mist—a girl in dungarees and some kind of an athlete's jacket zipped over a man's undershirt.

  It was a strange ensemble to be sure, since Henry was used to seeing girls in blouses and skirts at school. Usual y girls in trousers were gardening or doing factory work.

  "Hey," she said. "Um, what was that noise?"

  "I beg your pardon, please?" Henry blinked at the girl. He was almost tempted to think she was some kind of angel, but no angel he'd ever heard of looked like her. Maybe she was a ghost? Or maybe she was from the Wilsons' place, the next farm over, and had found a way to breach the boundary of the clearing.

  "I heard a sound. Like a machine. I was wondering what it was. Or maybe it was nothing. Did you hear it?" the girl said, stopping a few feet from him. Henry felt her stare move over his work boots, suspendered pants, and short-sleeved, button-up shirt.

  "I was mowing," Henry said with a shrug.

  "It wasn't a gas mower I heard," the girl said.

  "I use a push mower."

  "Real y?" she said. "That sucks. Maybe you can borrow Aunt Mae's lawn tractor. You know her, right? She lives just over there."

  Henry didn't know who Aunt Mae was, but he wasn't sure he should tel this strange girl anything. "Thank you, kindly. My mower's fine."

  "Okay," the girl said. "Wel , I guess I'l leave you alone."

  "Wait," he said, not wanting her to go just yet. "Where are my manners? I'm Henry. It's nice to meet you." He almost reached out a hand to shake, but then he realized if this girl was some kind of apparition, he wouldn't be able to touch her. He was curious, but at the same time, he didn't want to find out. He stuck his hands in his pockets.

  "Amy," the girl said. "Maybe I'l see you on the school bus on Monday."

  "Monday?"

  "Yeah. You know, it's the first day of school—Monday, September tenth?"

  "September," he said, rol ing the word around in his mouth.

  "Yeah. Can't you feel the chil in the air?" she said.

  "Sure," Henry lied.

  "What's up with this mist?" she said. "It's odd, don't you think?"

  "Ah ... yes, I suppose it's a b
it peculiar."

  Amy regarded Henry again and then said, "I kinda like the way it feels. Like you're hiding from the rest of the world. Is that why you're out here, too?"

  "Sure, I suppose." He hadn't thought of it quite that way, but hiding was precisely what the clearing was helping his family do.

  "Okay, wel , see ya. I've got to go," Amy said, turning away.

  "So long. Perhaps I'l see you again," Henry said, his voice tinged with hope. "Say, before you run off—wil you tel me where you came from?" he said, hazarding a real question.

  "Over there." Amy backed away into the mist. "Bye."

  Henry waved as she disappeared to someplace where it was September. And suddenly, even though it had been a strange meeting, he felt comforted. Possibly, he'd made his first friend in a long, long while—whoever she was.

  Whenever she was.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mae cut me a slice of apple pie and then one for herself. "Ice cream, Amy?"

  "Yeah, please."

  She dipped us each up a scoop, and then we took our plates to the back porch. After a long day of chopping and weeding, I was ready for a wel -earned rest and a piece of homemade pie. And I kept thinking about the clearing and that boy Henry with his way old-school farmer outfit. I didn't think people stil dressed like that in the country—I mean, the kids in town I'd met wore the same kind of stuff as the kids back in the city. But maybe Henry was in some kind of religious group that didn't believe in new technology and homeschooled al their kids. He seemed different, that was for sure.

  "Mae, do any families live close by?" I didn't want to come out and ask her about a guy I'd met. I didn't want to go there.

  "Wel , the nearest neighbors are the Taylors down the road." Mae took a seat in one of the rockers and spread a paper napkin across her lap. "If you like, we'l ride over there one day so you can meet them. They have a daughter about your age—Lori. She plays soccer on the school's team." Mae gestured toward my plate. "How do you like it?"

  I took a bite of pie. The crust was crumbly and buttery and the apples tart on my tongue. "Good," I said.

  "Just good?" Mae raised her eyebrows.