Freeze Tag (9 page)

“And closer!” breathed Lannie hotly. “My finger moved only an inch and it moved slowly. Like the blade of a guillotine coming down on her throat. And Meghan knew what would happen and she was afraid.”

Meghan could see nothing at all now, would never see anything again, but she knew that Lannie smiled. She knew the exact shape and texture of that smile. She knew it was the closest Lannie Anveill could come to happiness.

West’s voice shook. Meghan loved him for that. She wished that West could know he was still loved. West said, “I will like you best, Lannie.” His voice shook even harder. “But not if you leave Meghan out here in the snow.”

Lannie sniffed. This noise did not fit the dark and the falling snow and the fear. For Lannie, fear and falling were perfectly normal, and so she sniffed, annoyed, calling West Trevor’s bluff.

“And that’s that,” said West.

Lannie did not undo Meghan. It had been a forever “No.” West had simply not understood. Meghan had. She lay quietly under her blanket of snow.

“Come on, Brown,” said West. “Come on, Tuesday. School tomorrow. We have to get some sleep.”

Meghan heard the snow crunch under their departing feet as West shepherded his younger brother and sister up the hill toward the house.

She heard no voices.

Neither Tuesday nor Brown argued with their brother.

They left her.

They walked on into the warmth and the safety and light.

Now
the missing emotions came: they slid like a glacier falling off an alp. Meghan fell a great terrible distance into greater fear than she had ever believed existed. She was alone. Only Lannie Anveill stood beside her. She was cold. There was no warmth anywhere. She was lost. There was no rescue in this world.

Meghan’s body lacked the capacity to reflect her agonies. She wept, but without tears. She shuddered, but without shaking. She screamed, but without sound.

Her only friends — the only ones who knew — who cared — Tuesday and Brown and West —
they had left her
.

Something besides her flesh froze.

She had fallen, truly fallen, heart and mind and soul and body, into Lannie’s clutches.

Lannie had clutched her once, with only one finger, and would never have to clutch her again. Nature would do the rest.

Meghan’s soul wept for the ending of her life, for the grief her parents would feel, for all those years she would never have, all those joys and hopes and frustrations she would never taste.

Lannie stomped her little foot in the snow. It made a pathetic little noise in the greatness of the night. “I thought he was bluffing,” she said angrily. “I didn’t think he’d actually leave you here in the snow, Meghan.”

She knows I can hear her, thought Meghan. How does she know that?

She has frozen and tortured others before me.

She will freeze and torture more in the future
.

Lannie kicked the snow around, like a little kid sulking in her room.

She doesn’t really have much power, thought Meghan. Power is hers just one fingertip at a time, so to speak. West walked away, and he’s gone, and she lost her game.

And I — I lost, too.

“Oh, all right,” said Lannie. Disagreeably, as if she had been asked to share a small piece of cake. “All right!” she yelled up the hill at West. “Are you listening? I said, all right!”

All right, what? thought Meghan. She was very, very cold. She was not going to have many more thoughts. Or many more minutes. So it didn’t really matter.

Lannie poked her in the side. It was a jab, actually, again like a little kid sulking — pinching the other kids because she wasn’t getting enough attention.

Meghan’s hand was moving. Brushing the snow off her eyes. She was shaking her hair. Struggling to get up. Bumping the narrow confines of the dumb, awful, cold, stupid truck.

Memory sifted away, leaving her with only bits and pieces of what had happened.

What am I doing here? she thought.

January? Meghan looked at her watch. She had to scrape off a crust of ice with her nail. One in the morning? And I’m out playing stupid games in a rusty truck in a snowstorm?

Meghan was so cold she really was frozen. She was unable to gather herself up. She floundered, but did not manage to accomplish anything.

“Fine, stay there,” said Lannie.

Oh, yes. Lannie. Lannie who liked to see them shiver before she froze them. Lannie who liked her victims to know.

Meghan remembered.

And then West’s arms were around her. He was sliding her out the door, lifting her in his arms like a baby, warming her with his embrace.

Oh
,
West! West! You did come back for me!
Her lips were very cold, but his were very warm, and when they met she melted a little, and smiled a little, and was safe a little.

You lose, Lannie, thought Meghan.

From the lovely protection of West’s arms, from the sweet cradle of his holding her, she looked clearly at Lannie. It was the first time since she had been frozen that she could really see.

Perhaps it was not a good thing to see reality clearly. Reality was frightening. For Lannie Anveill stood very still. And very jealous.

And very close.

And her hand — that hand Meghan had watched descending so slowly — that hand was lifted like a weapon.

Not pointing at Meghan.

Not pointing at West.

But at Tuesday.

Tuesday stood very still, as if she’d met a deadly snake on a forest path. Been trapped by a mad dog. Threatened by a mad bomber.

Perhaps she was.

Perhaps Lannie was all three of those.

Lannie’s eyes, bleached of humanity, focused dead and glassy on West. “Well?” she said.

West set Meghan down in the snow. He stepped away from her. “I’m sorry,” he said to Lannie.

She did not accept the apology. Her hand remained extended, only half an inch now from Tuesday’s bare cheek. And Tuesday knew what was coming. And Tuesday flinched. And Lannie chuckled.

“It was just habit,” said West.

Lannie regarded him stonily. “You were going to carry her home.”

What made me think that love could conquer evil? thought Meghan. What stupidity persuaded me that because West and I love each other, everything will be all right?

A cracked smile pasted itself on West’s face. He was splintered and broken. But this was his baby sister. This was his family.

“You know what I’d like, Lannie?” he said. His smile was in a hundred pieces. But he flirted anyway.

“What?” said Lannie, testing him.

“I’d like to carry
you
home.” His smile solidified and became real. He took a step toward Lannie. She lowered her hand. He took another step toward Lannie. She smiled at him. Meghan wanted to gag, but West smiled even more widely.

He picked Lannie up easily. She appeared to weigh nothing.

As if she were not a person at all, thought Meghan, but a husk of one. Stuffed with hay instead of flesh and bone. Perhaps that dry straw hair is her stuffing coming out.

West did not glance at his sister, his brother, or his girlfriend. He carried Lannie diagonally up the sloping backyard, heading toward her house. They both laughed now. What joke could they possibly be sharing?

West waded through a drift that reached his thighs. Lannie dragged her hand through it, leaving trails of long thin fingers.

“Are you okay, Meghan?” whispered Tuesday.

Oh, sure, thought Meghan. Fine. I go through this sort of thing all the time and it never leaves a mark.

And then she thought, If I can laugh at it, maybe I am okay. But will West be okay? What has he just promised? What have we just gotten ourselves into?

Brown, being younger, was on another subject entirely. “Nobody else woke up,” marveled Brown, staring at the houses on Dark Fern Lane.

But the parents had never woken up to Lannie. They went on feeling sorry for her, because she had never been loved.

There was a reason for that, thought Meghan Moore. Lannie is not loveable. She is only hateable.

West was a silhouette in the dark, climbing and crunching the snow. Lannie in his arms was a pair of boots sticking out on one side, and wispy hair and dangling scarf on the other.

What is her power? thought Meghan. Did she always have it? Who gave it to her? What evil force was her real parent?

It gave Meghan some peace to know that Mrs. Anveill, whatever she might have deserved, had at least not known what was coming. It was good that Lannie’s mother had driven that Jaguar so fast she did not know she was to be frozen forever.

What was this game of Freeze Tag?

Was it truly
forever
?

Did Lannie have West
forever
?

Could Lannie hold the neighborhood hostage
forever
?

I
N THE DAYS THAT
followed, Meghan found out how cold it is to be without best friends.

How frozen you are when you are frozen out of love.

West never looked at her. Not once. Perhaps he did not dare. Perhaps Lannie had given an order and he knew the consequences were too terrible. But oh! how Meghan would have liked a phone call. A note. A single sad look across a room. Just so they could say:
yes
,
it happened; it hurts; we’re afraid; we’re apart
.

But West did not try to communicate with Meghan. Over and over she told herself: he’s protecting me, he knows what Lannie will do if he so much as raises an eyebrow in my direction. But Meghan was not sure. Girls in love are never sure.

Bad as that was, not having a best girlfriend was even worse. For you could always count on your next-door-neighbor girlfriend. You could say anything and everything to each other, and you always did.

Tuesday never looked at Meghan either. She had that party after all: the JV cheerleader slumber party. And Meghan was not part of the preparation, and not part of the afterglow. Meghan was alone.

Tuesday’s protecting me, too, Meghan told herself. It’s my face Lannie’s hand touched: the hand that holds freezing in its palm.

But Meghan Moore did not feel protected. She felt terribly, terribly alone. Abandoned and deserted. Without a friend in the world.

After school, when West had the use of his mother’s car, it was Lannie who got in the front seat with him and drove away. It was Lannie who met him at his locker. Sat with him during his lunch. Telephoned him in the evening.

But it was Meghan who was supposed to make explanations to the world. Nobody wanted to walk up to West and say, “What are you doing, are you insane, have you lost your mind?” and nobody would have dreamed of walking up to Lannie.

West’s best friend, Richard, who found girls a little unnerving at the best of times and preferred them to stay on their side of the room, actually sought Meghan out. “So what’s going on?
Lannie?
Is West crazy?”

Meghan did not know what to say. What explanation was she supposed to give? The real one was too absurd. Nobody would believe it. They would say Meghan was the crazy one. So she said nothing and her eyes filled with tears because she did not know how to gather allies and mount an army against Lannie Anveill.

Richard said, “He was supposed to be restoring his Chevy this winter. I was going to work on it with him. It was bad enough that right after football he started
dating
all the time.” This meant Meghan. Richard employed the word “dating” as if West had started selling military secrets to the enemy and should be shot. “But now — Lannie!” said Richard. “She has to be the creepiest person I’ve ever known in my life.”

“I agree,” said Meghan glumly.

“But after you?” said Richard, trying to get a grip on this girl thing.

Meghan said nothing.

Richard said, “Well. West and I were supposed to go to the big car graveyard down in Bridgeport, and find parts for his truck. We were going to look for handles so he can repair his, and open the doors from the inside. And Lannie said that didn’t interest her, and West said he’d see her tomorrow then, and Lannie said, ‘No, you’ll see me today,’ and West said, ‘Fine.’ Do you believe that? He didn’t even argue with her? He’s going to stay with her instead of going to the car graveyard with me?” Richard was scandalized. “At least when he dated you,” said Richard, “he also would do normal things.”

Meghan managed a real smile.

“What is there to smile about?” said Richard.

But it was impossible to explain.

Then there was Valerie. Valerie was a lovely girl, a junior, the year between Meghan and West. Valerie, too, had always had a crush on West. She was pretty relaxed about it, and teased herself, and asked Meghan for dating details so she could pretend it was herself dating West. Valerie took one look at Lannie on West’s arm and said to Meghan, “What is going on here? I mean, I thought at least if he dumped you, he’d take me! But no — he’s going out with that pale-faced shrimpette from the zoo.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” said Meghan. She looked around fearfully. A girl who would send her mother to a frozen death in a Jaguar would certainly do the same to a Valerie about whom she did not care at all.

“Everybody says that!” cried Valerie. “She is
so
strange.”

Meghan nodded.

“What does West see in her?” demanded Valerie. “He took her to Pizza Hut, Meghan! I mean, he was willing to be seen in public with that girl.”

Eating off the same pizza wedge. It was enough to make you want to cram it in their faces, thought Meghan.

And then there was Su-Ann. Su-Ann, not Meghan’s favorite classmate by any means, said with a snide smile, “Second half of West’s senior year, Meghan, and it looks like you’re out of the picture. No senior prom for you, huh, babe?”

Meghan said nothing.

“Back to riding the schoolbus like a peasant, huh, babe?” said Su-Ann. “No more rides from the cute boyfriend, huh, babe?”

“Don’t call me babe,” said Meghan. “Don’t call me anything. Get away from me.”

“Sure,” said Su-Ann easily. “Like the rest of the crowd.”

Su-Ann left Meghan alone.