Stay a Little Longer (12 page)

Ahead of her lay a decrepit old shack, leaning precipitously against a big elm tree as if it had been drinking like Uncle
Otis and needed the support. Rotted planks seemed to cling to the frame out of desperation. Only jagged fragments of the window
remained from long-ago smashed panes. Charlotte figured that one good wind or snowstorm would bring the whole thing crashing
down into a heap on the forest floor.

In her adventures through the woods, Charlotte had come across the shack before and avoided it. Her grandmother had warned
her to stay away from it. She had told her that hobos and tramps used it and would carry little girls away if they caught
them.

She had been scared until her aunt Rachel had explained that not all hobos were bad men; some were just down on their luck.
Whatever that meant.

Apparently there was still somewhere to discover! The broken-down building sat before her eyes like a present at Christmas.
She was still marveling at her luck in finding the shack again when one of the butterflies gently flew through the slumped
frame of the door. Without a moment’s hesitation, Charlotte followed.

The inside of the shack was dark; the scant light that managed to penetrate the tree’s cover did little to illuminate the
small space. As she waited for her eyes to adjust, Charlotte wrinkled her nose at the dank, sour smell that assailed her.
Momentarily, she wondered if this wasn’t a place where animals came to die; she had come across her share of dead raccoons,
squirrels, rabbits, and even deer during her explorations. Pinching her nose shut, she knew she’d have to remove whatever
carcass there was if this was going to be her new special place.

She was just about to go back outside and call for Jasper when she heard a faint rustling sound that froze her in her tracks.
Her breath caught in her throat as she waited, listening, hoping that it had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination.

Is there something here, with me, inside the shack?

With her eyes nearly adjusted to the gloom, Charlotte looked for some sign of a wild animal. In the corner farthest from the
door, a pile of ragged cloth lay in the deepest shadow. As she watched, the rustling noise came again, and this time the rags
moved!

Could it be coons… or possums… ?

Though her heart was hammering like a rabbit’s caught in a trap, Charlotte edged a bit closer to the pile of rags. She wanted
to lift the rags up and steal a look. She’d be careful not to be nipped. Grandmother had explained that some animals in the
woods were sick with something called rabies. But Otis always said, “Them darn animals is much more scared of you than you
are of them… Just don’t give ’em a reason to bite you!”

But just as she was about to reach out and touch the pile, Charlotte let out a gasp. A man’s face appeared in the gloom! Though
his eyes were sunken and his face heavily bearded, she knew that he was looking right at her. Even as she stood there staring,
he lifted one trembling hand and held it out to her as if he thought she would take it.

“Alice…” the man mumbled. “Help me… Alice…”

Mason Tucker was undeniably sick, his body burning up with fever. He had no idea how much time had passed since he had first
entered the shack in the woods; days and nights went by in a dizzy blur of illness. His limbs felt weak, as if his strength
were being drained out of him like water from a jug. Even the simple task of stumbling out behind the shack to relieve his
bowels was an exercise in both perseverance and futility.

He was just about to try to raise himself up off the floor and once again make his way outside when he heard the faint creaking
of a floorboard. Holding his breath, Mason waited, hoping that he had imagined the sound. When it persisted, another squeak
and then a shuffle, his worry was that it was a wild animal come in search of food. If it were an inquisitive squirrel or
raccoon, he figured that he would have enough strength to scare it away. But if it were a coyote or a wolf…

Opening his eyes, Mason peered toward the door, but his vision swam and he was unable to see clearly. Blinking rapidly, he
strained to make out something, anything, of his visitor. Slowly, the room began to come into focus, and he discovered that
it wasn’t an animal but a girl! Initially, he was fearful that he’d been found trespassing by the shack’s rightful owner or
that he’d run afoul of the law. His instinct was to run away, even though he knew his present condition made that impossible.

Mason watched as the visitor drew closer. But with each step, his vision grew clearer until he finally saw the person’s identity,
a realization that lifted all of heaviness from his heart.

“Alice…” he said through cracked lips. “I’m sick, Alice…”

She was every bit as beautiful as Mason remembered; her long blonde hair hung in tight braids, and her bright blue eyes pierced
him all the way through to his heart. Even the look of surprise on her face was as familiar to him as his own reflection in
a mirror. Even though her blouse and skirt were simpler than he remembered her liking, the joy he felt at seeing her again
after almost nine long years sent tears of joy streaming down his face.

Mason wondered why she was here in the shack with him. Maybe she had noticed him in Carlson and followed him. Maybe Samuel
Guthrie had recognized him after all and had gone to his father. His father had told Alice… and she had sworn that she would
find him…

Or maybe the life that he had been forced to live for all of those years hadn’t been real but instead a nightmare from which
he couldn’t manage to awaken. Maybe he’d never climbed on that train, maybe he’d never gone off to fight in France… and he
and Alice still lived in their home… and he was still following in his father’s footsteps at the bank… Maybe he had instead
been far sicker than he’d ever imagined.

“Oh, my beloved… Alice…” he muttered.

Gathering what strength he had left, Mason pushed himself up off the rotted floor and onto unsteady feet. His sudden movement
seemed to startle Alice, who quickly stepped back toward the door. Worrying that she would once again disappear from his life,
he moved to hurry after her, but the room began spinning and suddenly it was all he could do not to fall to the floor. Desperation
pounded at his heart.

“Don’t… don’t run… from me… Alice,” Mason pleaded.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” she answered.

“I can’t… lose you again…” he said through stiff lips.

Just as he was about to grab her and pull her back to him, a thunderous barking exploded around the tightly cramped space
of the shack. In Mason’s twisted vision, it looked as if a humongous black wolf had leaped between him and Alice, its hackles
raised and its teeth bared in a snarl. But even in the face of such a ferocious beast, he refused to cower in fear, to be
denied the reunion he so desperately wanted.

“Alice… I…” he stammered.

“Jasper, hush!” he heard before the darkness that lingered on the edge of his vision closed in and the room turned upside
down.

Before Mason could take another step, the floor seemed to rise up and smack him in the face. All around him, the darkness
that had sat at the edge of his weakening vision swarmed closer, blotting out much of what he could see. But before he could
be completely taken, he saw Alice grab the still barking animal by the thick hair of its coat and pull it back toward the
door. When she returned, she knelt down beside him and began to brush his sweat-slick hair away from his eyes with a touch
as gentle as a feather.

“Mister? Are you sick?”

“Oh, my sweet… Alice…” he managed before the darkness swept over him again.

Charlotte ran headlong through the trees and bushes of the woods as fast as her legs would carry her. Branches whipped by,
striking her in the face, but she couldn’t have cared less. Her heart pounded in excitement at her discovery and a smile curled
the corners of her mouth.

Jasper ran alongside her, leaping over downed branches and skirting past the thorniest bushes. Charlotte was proud of him.
He had been trying to protect her. While he had protested being dragged back outside, Jasper had finally relaxed when he realized
the man posed no danger to either of them.

The strange man was sick; while the halting way that he spoke and the fact that he could hardly stand would have been enough,
one touch of her hand up against the blazing heat of his forehead told her all she needed to know. He needed help… and she
was the one to give it to him.

There were things that she could get him from the house: some water, a bit of food, blankets, maybe a pillow. But Charlotte
knew that she would have to be careful. This would be her secret. She wouldn’t tell anyone at school, and she especially wouldn’t
tell her grandmother or Aunt Rachel; she could practically already hear her grandmother’s warnings. No, she would have to
make sure that no one saw what she was doing.

If someone were to see me…

Charlotte knew that there was something special about the strange, sick man. She didn’t know his name, or where he had come
from.

Maybe he is my fairy godfather…

N
OW WHAT IN THE WORLD
is that girl up to?” Eliza asked.

Rachel placed the serving tray that held her mother’s breakfast on the table and stepped over to the window. Dawn had only
recently broken on the day, but the sun already warmed the slowly awakening town, though the fall chill in the air had certainly
grown more pronounced. Peering over Eliza’s shoulder, she watched as Charlotte ran around the far corner of the depot and
hurried toward the lake, a pair of woolen blankets clutched under her arm. As always, Jasper trotted along behind her, giving
the occasional bark. In seconds, they were lost to sight.

“This is the fourth time I’ve seen her do something like this in the last week. If it’s not a blanket, it’s an old woolen
coat or a covered basket,” Eliza explained, her face a mask of concentration, her hands wringing with worry. “And that’s only
the times I’ve seen her! Who knows how many times she managed to avoid me! What do you suppose she’s up to?”

“It’s probably nothing.” Rachel shrugged, turning away from the window and setting her mother’s plate of biscuits and gravy
and cup of coffee on her favorite table. “Although I have to agree with you that it is awfully early for her to be up and
about.”

“She’s up to no good!”

“What would make you say such a thing?”

“Because that child is always getting into one form of trouble or another!”

“She and Jasper are probably just playing house in the woods.”

“The woods!” Eliza exclaimed with fright, her eyes growing wide and her hands rising to her cheeks. “What if she were to run
into some wild, rabid animal? What if she wasn’t looking where she was going and carelessly tripped over a log and broke her
arm in the fall? All this is to say nothing of bug bites, poisonous plants, snakes, or any number of other things that could
hurt her!”

Inwardly, Rachel winced; she should have known much better than to put the idea of Charlotte traipsing around the woods into
her mother’s head. Now she would be beside herself with worry until the girl finally returned home, and then would only get
better once she had given her granddaughter a proper scolding laced with warnings of all the terrible accidents that could
happen to her when she was out of sight.

Rachel knew that her slip of the tongue had come about because of all the many things swirling around in her head. It had
been a little more than a week since Zachary Tucker came to her with his offer to purchase the boardinghouse, and every day
she expected to find him once again at their door, demanding an answer. Her nights were filled with worry about the reaction
she felt certain to receive when she told him that they would not sell their home; she wondered if he would set about ruining
all of their lives the way he had destroyed Archie Grace’s.

While there was still a part of Rachel that daydreamed about all that they could do with the money being offered, she knew
that her mother’s decision remained the right one. It was clear from what Eliza had told her that Zachary could never be trusted.

The other matter still playing on her mind involved Jonathan Moseley. Since the afternoon he had made his repulsive advances
she had managed to stay far away from him, or at the very least made certain that there were other people around. At meals,
he was as talkative as always, regaling anyone who would listen about his success as a salesman and his grandiose plans for
the future. But in between the ever-present smile and witty banter, she occasionally saw him looking at her with an eye that
told her his intentions were far from wholesome. He would approach her with his lewd remarks and grabbing hands yet again;
it was only a matter of when.

“You should follow her,” Eliza said, breaking into her thoughts.

“What?” Rachel asked in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“The next time that Charlotte heads off to wherever it is that she’s taking all of these things, I think you should follow
her. It’s the only way we would know without any doubt that nothing is the matter.”

“You’re overreacting!”

“I am not!” her mother answered defensively. “You said it yourself that her being out at such an early hour isn’t normal.
What’s wrong with being absolutely certain she’s safe?”

“She’s just a child, Mother.” Rachel sighed. “This is the sort of thing that a girl her age would do… just as Alice and I
did. We ran around in those same woods. Why can’t you let her have the same fun… the same freedom?”

“Because I know all too well what it feels like to lose a child.”

“Alice wasn’t a child anymore. She was a grown woman.”

“And I lost her all the same,” Eliza said as tears came to her eyes. “Isn’t the fact that Charlotte isn’t a grown woman—that
she isn’t capable of truly knowing right from wrong—reason enough to find out what she’s up to?”