The Winter Place Read online

  “Stupid,” Axel said to himself. “Stupid.”

  Tess didn’t seem to notice that he’d failed to capture the necessary proof. “Dad is gonna flip,” she said.

  Axel was quiet for a while. He was, as a rule, hard on himself. He had to be. “You won’t tell him what happened, will you?”

  Tess smashed her lips together. “I’m not an idiot. Don’t think for a second it’s not me he’d blame.” With the bear gone, she unbolted the kitchen door, laughing to herself a little, maybe at how utterly useless the flimsy thing would have been to protect them. “We’re supposed to get rain tonight,” she said. “Why don’t you take some pictures of the prints? They might not be there tomorrow.”

  So she had noticed that he didn’t get a shot.

  Axel followed his sister outside and started snapping pictures of the torn-up old garden and the big, claw-bristling prints. Their preposterous size was proof enough that the animal was not resident. Plenty of black bears lived up in the Adirondacks, and some occasionally strayed as far as Baldwin. But Tess and Axel had seen their tracks, and they weren’t half this big. Together they did a circuit around the house. Evidence of the bear was everywhere. As though it had done nothing but walk rings around their house all afternoon. The deepest scuffs were below the windows. Axel imagined the bear standing to peer inside, investigating each and every room.

  “Maybe it was looking for somebody,” he said.

  “Dude,” Tess said, “sometimes it’s like you’re not even trying to be normal.”

  They’d returned to the kitchen door, where the final set of needle-pointed prints led off through the garden and between the bone-white birches. Axel judged they still had a half hour before it was totally dark. There was really no question in his mind that they were going to follow this bear. You don’t grow up the way Axel had grown up and then not follow an unexplained bear. Tess, for her part, seemed to recognize as much.

  “So really,” she said. “I mean . . . it has to be from the faire, right?”

  “Maybe.” Axel nodded. “It’s totally possible. I think I saw something in the catalog about it.” A lie, but if Tess was going to let them talk themselves into this, Axel was sure as hell going to aid and abet.

  “There’s probably some trainer in a coxcomb going crazy with worry,” she said.

  “It’s tame,” Axel said. “It’s gotta be tame.”

  “If you tell Dad—”

  “Not even . . . I wouldn’t—no.” Quickly, before she could think better of it, Axel turned and picked up the broom. It was so light in his hands, making him feel strong. Not just strong—mighty. He braced the shaft across his shoulders like the thing was a spear and slung the camera over his neck. Then he set off for the road, cutting right through the vegetable garden the way the bear had.

  “You’re bringing the broom why, exactly?” Tess caught up to him in a few long strides.

  “No reason,” he said. They passed through the garden, approaching the birch grove at the end of the property. “I just like to carry it.”

  “Okay.” She stared at him for a moment. “You know it’s just a broom, right?”

  Axel sort of laugh-coughed. “Come on, Tess,” he said. “I know what’s real and what isn’t.”

  And with that, the two of them headed up the road. Or rather, the three of them, if you counted the wheelchair, which had reappeared among the birches. It followed creakingly, at a distance.

  3

  The Keeper

  Tess knew, of course, that this might not be the smartest thing to do. Even if the bear were a tamed, dancing fugitive from the Renaissance Faire—which really, it had to be, because where else could it have come from?—that was hardly a good reason to put themselves into the woods with it. And Axel’s promise to keep mum about this little adventure would last exactly as long as their father’s classes that evening. Her little brother’s enthusiasm would boil over, and when Sam found out, he’d come down on Tess like a hailstorm. So why do it, then? Tess wasn’t sure, but it had something to do with that moment when the bear stood up, staring right at her through the kitchen window. She couldn’t explain it, but there was something in the animal’s expression that she’d almost recognized. Worse yet, the big, horrible thing seemed to recognize her right back.

  They passed into the birches edging the yard, thick with the smell of the bear, where Axel paused to take a few more pictures. Their mother had planted these trees, and they were still only saplings when she died. The birch orchard was supposed to give them some privacy from the road, but for that any old trees would’ve done—plenty, indeed, would’ve done better. When Tess asked her father about it, his answer had been typically roundabout. “These are Betula papyrifera,” Sam had explained. “American white—you see the oval leaf, the fine toothing? Doesn’t look totally dissimilar, at a distance, from Betula pendula. Silver birch. A European variety.” He’d left it there, using the Latin, and the lesson, as a hiding place. Sam could just as well have said: “Your mother planted these trees because they reminded her of home. But they’re not exactly the right kind.”

  When Axel was done, they crossed to the far side of the road. To the south the park entrance was still crowded—knights and jesters heading home for the day—but up here it was quiet. Axel searched the gravel embankment. “There you are,” he mumbled to himself, having rediscovered the trail. The bear tracks didn’t veer off into the welcoming shelter of the park, but rather stuck to the road, traveling due north along the embankment. The tracks disappeared once, in a wallow on the shoulder, but emerged again on the far side, the course just as straight as ever. There was something distinctly un-wild about it, like the bear was paying a neighborly call. Like it knew exactly where it was going.

  The sun had been swallowed up behind the park, but there was so little cover on the far side of the road that twilight was still bright enough. Beyond the low hedges and blackberry were farm plots, ripe pumpkins scattered across them like orange marbles. Day laborers were still in the field, drifting toward a repurposed school bus that sat at the far end of one of the plots. None of them looked like they’d seen a bear. A jay screeched and whistled from somewhere above and was answered by the cries of other jays, deeper in the park. A warning passed from bird to bird. Back in the field the little school bus began to rumble and whine. The driver flipped the high beams on and started working it carefully out of the plot. One of the tires pinched a pumpkin, and it burst. Tess couldn’t explain why, but the world suddenly felt tight as a drum.

  Up ahead was Mrs. Ridgeland’s place—an enormous house sulking inside a rough ring of trees, brassy outdoor lanterns casting light out into the countryside. Mrs. Ridgeland was their only real neighbor, which was a shame, because the woman was a grade-A creep. She owned all the farmland opposite the park, including the puny house that Tess shared with her brother and father. Every month their dad would walk up the road to slip a rent check into her mailbox, but Mrs. Ridgeland never came out to say hello. Never asked after their family or if there were any problems with the house she was renting them. But that’s not to say they never saw her. Nine times out of ten you could spot Mrs. Ridgeland in one of her many windows, gazing back at you through an old-fashioned telescope. That’s how she spent her days, going from window to window to spy on the workers in her fields or on unfamiliar cars passing on the road. Exactly what she was on the lookout for, nobody could say.

  “It’s cold,” Axel said. Tess glanced back at her brother, ready to scold him for not bringing a jacket. But it was the trail he was talking about. The paw prints had veered into the center of the road, where they disappeared like a track crossing a river. Axel got down on his knees and peered expertly at the asphalt. He picked up a handful of fallen leaves and sniffed them. He consulted the air. “There,” he said, pointing to a muddy half-moon on the far side of the road. Sure enough, the tracks reappeared on the opposite embankment, cutting down the slope toward the big, bright house.

  “She must have s
een it,” he said.

  Tess had spoken to Mrs. Ridgeland only a handful of times, and she had no particular urge to add to her tally. But if anybody was liable to notice something out of the ordinary, it would be their landlady. “We can ask,” Tess said. “But that’s it. After that we’re going right home.”

  Axel grinned and nodded. Together they followed the tracks down through the ring of hardwoods that circled Mrs. Ridgeland’s house. The branches above hung a net of tracery over the property, their trunks marking out airy chapels in the yard. This churchy impression was helped along quite a bit by Mrs. Ridgeland’s particular obsession with angels. Stucco and fiberglass statues were strewn among the trees—women with trumpets, men with swords, winged all. The statues were clearly supposed to look like old stone carvings, but mostly they just looked cheap. Tess and Axel lost the trail again just shy of the front stoop. The bear seemed to have stopped between a pair of sinister cherubs, strutting their potbellies and gross baby thighs.

  They continued up to the front door and knocked. Eventually two shadows appeared beneath the door, but it was a while longer before it opened. “What are you two doing?” Mrs. Ridgeland said. Their landlady had thrown a robe on over her pajamas. She held the door open wide, but didn’t invite either of them in.

  “Good evening, madam,” Axel said, coaxing a tiny smile from her—adults rarely saw his word choice for the liability that it was. “We apologize for disturbing you, but we bring urgent news.”

  “Does your father know you came all the way over here?”

  “Sam’s at work,” Tess said.

  “So much more reason for you two not to be out wandering,” Mrs. Ridgeland said, already making to close the door. Then, a little reluctantly: “Do you need me to help you find your way back?”

  It was a ten-minute walk without a single turn, but Axel answered with total sincerity. “No, ma’am, thank you. We just came to ask, did you see the bear?” For the briefest moment it seemed to Tess that a look of unguarded surprise passed across Mrs. Ridgeland’s face. But the expression vanished before it had a chance to settle. “A brown bear,” Axel continued. “A grizzly.”

  “A bear?”

  “Indeed. Yes.”

  “I can’t say I have.” Mrs. Ridgeland glanced at the broom Axel was carrying and shot an annoyed look at Tess. “Are you two playing hunters?”

  “We really saw one,” Tess said, staring hard into the woman’s face, looking for a trace of whatever had just passed. “A brown bear came into our garden.”

  “No bears in Baldwin,” Mrs. Ridgeland said, meeting Tess’s gaze. The black/brown distinction seemed totally lost on her, one bear as impossible as the next.

  “Actually, that’s not entirely accurate,” Axel said. “Up in the Adirondacks there’s a population of—”

  “The Adirondacks are a long ways off.” Mrs. Ridgeland looked over their heads at the darkening trees. “I think it’s time the two of you got along.”

  “The footprints are right there,” Tess said, pointing to where they’d lost the track. “If you want to put some shoes on, we can show them to you.” She wasn’t being insistent out of any desire to be believed. She simply didn’t like Mrs. Ridgeland and wanted to impress the woman’s own wrongness upon her. Their landlady’s expression hardened, and it was now no longer a question of whether or not a bear could happen—it was a contest. The grizzly would have to pop out from behind a tree and start tipping over angel statues for her to admit it to evidence.

  “We tracked it from our garden,” Axel said. “But the track ends here.” If seeing the bear wasn’t enough for him, his week was likely made by getting to say the word “tracked.” “We’ve got some pictures of the footprints, if you don’t want to come outside.” Helpfully, Tess’s little brother offered up the camera for Mrs. Ridgeland’s inspection. She made like she didn’t notice.

  “Well, now . . . if I had to guess, I’d say that bear probably went back the way it came,” Mrs. Ridgeland said. “Why don’t you two go home and check again, before it gets completely dark.” Then, to Tess: “Step inside with me for a minute. I want to give you a flashlight for the way back.”

  Instead of allowing her to follow, Mrs. Ridgeland actually took Tess by the arm and pulled her inside. She shut the heavy door behind them, sealing them both up in a dark hallway overflowing with stacks of faded, glossy paper. Her skin seemed somehow whiter in the darkness, her complexion matching the stucco angels out front. The woman gave the impression of being just as dry and hollow on the inside.

  “Playing with your brother is fine and good,” she said, “but this is too much. It’s odd.” Mrs. Ridgeland whispered the word “odd” like it was a malignant, disfiguring disease. Like she meant to quarantine the afflicted.

  Tess stared at her for a moment. She was getting bolder as she got older. Ruder, too. “You saw it, didn’t you?” she said. “You gave us a look when Axel—”

  The older woman scrunched up her brow, cutting Tess off with a dismissive huff. “It’s solid oak my dear.” She reached over Tess’s shoulders and rapped on the door behind her. “He can’t hear you through it, so there’s no need to keep up the act. Now listen. A little pretend from time to time is harmless enough, but your brother doesn’t understand . . .” She trailed off. “It seems to me like you might be taking advantage of him.”

  Tess opened her mouth to speak, but then she thought better of it. Her father could forgive a lot, but cussing out their landlady would be too much, even for him.

  “You’ve got him convinced he’s tracking a real live bear,” Mrs. Ridgeland went on. “It can’t be good for his condition, traipsing all over the place, and at this time of year. You’re going to wear him out.”

  “His condition is fine,” Tess said.

  Mrs. Ridgeland sighed, her eyes suddenly glistening. “Oh, honey,” she said.

  Tess felt either a scold coming or a forced hug. She didn’t care to get either, so she said a loud “thank you!” and used that ink cloud to slip back out the door, closing it firmly behind her. Axel had gone down the front steps to wait in the yard. He usually had a good sense of when people were talking about him and would make himself scarce for their benefit.

  “The flashlight?” he said.

  “No batteries.” Tess set down the steps. “Come on.” Axel picked up his broom, and together they passed through the angel-crowded yard and left Mrs. Ridgeland’s house behind them. Everything had grown closer and larger in the dark.

  They walked back home in silence. The A-frame burned through the birches up ahead, alongside the taillights of the last cars still trickling away from Mud Lake Park. Tess was still mulling that look of surprise that had flashed over Mrs. Ridgeland’s face, wondering if maybe she’d imagined it, when she caught sight of a tall, slim silhouette standing against the glow of their house. At first it looked like their father, but he wasn’t supposed to be back from teaching for another few hours. It was a stranger. Tess shushed Axel—he’d been yammering about irregular weather patterns as a potential catalyst for a confused, migratory grizzly—and they approached quietly.

  For his part, the stranger didn’t seem to notice them coming. As the man came into fuller view, Tess saw that he wasn’t tall—he was towering. He skimmed the underside of seven feet, if you counted his boots and hat, but he was just about as skinny as Axel, which made him look like some gaudy marionette from a stop-motion movie. He wore a long duster, patched here and there with patterned swatches. No question this joker had been an attendant or presenter at the faire. He even had an elaborate wizardish walking stick, which he used for support as he lowered himself into an odd squat: free hand on his knee, his narrow butt waggling out like a mockingbird’s. Tess realized that he was talking to somebody in the woods—a second stranger, among the trees. That was enough for her. Renaissance Faire or no, oddly dressed strangers in the night were to be avoided. She took Axel’s wrist and made to lead him silently across the road.

  “Maybe he knows wh
ere the bear is?” Axel whispered.

  “Who cares where the bear is,” she said, tugging on his wrist. He wouldn’t budge.

  “Come on, now!” the stranger was yowling. He had an accent, but from where Tess couldn’t be sure. “You’re being an infant. If it’s too early, then it’s too early. You’ll just have to wait and come back later.”

  Whoever was in the woods made no reply.

  “Having a sulk?” the stranger said. “I bring you all the way to this armpit and you’re having a sulk?”

  Again Tess pulled on Axel’s wrist, but he set his heels. The kid weighed almost nothing, but when he wanted to, he could make himself leaden.

  “I’m going to go ask,” Axel said, twisting out of her grip and continuing down the road. Slowly, the stranger began to grow more distinct. His patchy duster was neatly tailored, with suede elbow pads, and on his feet was a pair of mud-spattered knee-high gum boots. His head was roughly the shape of a sideways egg—so oblong that Tess wondered for a moment if it might be some kind of fancy prosthetic makeup or a well-fitted mask. He wore a beat-up old fedora with a sprig of lily of the valley sprouting from the band. He’d apparently decided to attend the faire dressed as either a depression-era wizard or a vaudeville hobo.

  “You think I won’t go back without you?” The stranger stood up to his full height, his body unfolding. “I can do that. See how well your sorry self makes it home without me.” He gave his head a sad, violent shake. And as his face whipped about, he caught sight of Tess and Axel approaching. “Oh!” he said, startled. He looked back into the woods and then at them again. “No pictures,” he said.