The Snow (18 page)

I will vanish, too.

My parents will live with the same terror and unending worry that Dolly’s will have to. Sympathetic townspeople will deliver casseroles to the Shevvingtons to bolster their spirits in this sad hour. Nobody will ever know. The briefcase will acquire more folders, more photographs, more treasures for the Shevvingtons to look at by night.

Christina fought the ice.

With every kick she slid faster.

Now she could feel the snow on her face.

Now she could almost taste the low tide.

There was a gray ghostliness ahead of her.

It’s the end, she thought. Of the tunnel.

And of me.

S
HE WAS GATHERING SPEED
; Christina was her own toboggan now. She shot into the air. She tried to arch, so that her feet, and not her spine, would hit the rocks. But there was no time. She landed with a jolt she felt from the base of her spine to the top of her skull.

She was sitting on a ledge, only a few feet above the mud flats.

With Dolly.

“Chrissie, you scared me,” whispered Dolly.

“What are you doing here?” gasped Christina.

“The Shevvingtons’ son put me here. Chrissie, when the tide comes in, we’ll be swept off the rocks.”

“
The Shevvingtons’ son?
” repeated Christina.

“He lives in the cellar, Chrissie. Isn’t that terrifying? He’s been here all along! He’s a crazy person, and he used to be in an institution, but they let him out because the psychiatrists didn’t think he was dangerous anymore, and poor Mrs. Shevvington, who loves him — she’s such a wonderful person, Chrissie; she just loves anybody, no matter what they do — anyway, she brought him back home. But he only likes dark, hidden places, so he lives in the cellar.”

The snow gleamed faintly, as if they were in a ghost cove, near ghost water. Christina shuddered. “But where did he keep you?” she said. The Shevvingtons’ son! Now there was a ghastly thought: another generation of them.

“In the passage. We sat there with his hand over my mouth while he giggled to himself,” said Dolly. “We heard the police searching. He has a secret door, and they didn’t find it. It’s thin slabs of rock cemented onto a regular door, Chrissie. Just like in the very best books. The kind I love to read.” Dolly shivered. “But I want to read about things, not have them happen.”

How were she and Dolly going to get out of here? They could not climb up the cliffs: that would take ropes and picks. They could not get back into the passage; it was iced and anyway, the giggle was in there somewhere.
The Shevvingtons’ son!
She knew now that he really would have crushed her up in the bleachers. And that Blake really would have died last autumn if it were not for the tourist who had accidentally happened along. And that she had really been meant to fall onto rocky crags, not soft snow beneath the ski lift.

The Shevvingtons emptied bodies.

Their son tried to kill them.

“How did he get you?” said Christina.

“I came into the kitchen, and he dragged me into the cellar. The Shevvingtons were home, but they didn’t hear me screaming. Poor Mrs. Shevvington. This will hurt her so much! She loves her son, and it isn’t her fault he’s a bad person. I don’t blame her for keeping him at home.”

“Dolly!” cried Christina. “Can’t you see that the Shevvingtons arranged this for you? They heard you screaming and enjoyed it!”

“Don’t be ugly,” said Dolly.

A giggle interrupted her.

Above them in the rock opening was the Shevvingtons’ son, freed from an institution because he was no longer dangerous. “It’s him,” cried Dolly. She clutched Christina like a monkey, fingers wrapping around her.

High in the sea captain’s mansion a window was thrust open, and a light went on. Mr. Shevvington’s head emerged. “Mr. Shevvington!” cried Dolly. “Come and save us! We’re down here!”

The wet suit began giggling.

Christina knew why he was laughing: the Shevvingtons would save nobody.

“We have to cross the Cove,” said Christina, jerking Dolly to her feet. “There are people in those boats over there. If we can get to them, we’ll be safe.”

“Nobody can cross the Cove!” screamed Dolly, trying to jerk free of Christina. “The tide will come in and sweep us away. And besides, it’s all mud flat and salt ice and salt pools we won’t see in the night, and we’ll fall in and drown!”

The wet suit giggled again and began lowering his dark, rubbery legs, coming down to their ledge.

The Shevvingtons’ window closed, the light went off. They were going back to bed. By dawn, when police and parents arrived, there would be a new tide and no trace of two little girls from the Isle.

The wet suit’s slippery foot found the first stony step down.

“Run!” Christina ordered, and she leaped off the ledge, dragging Dolly across the treacherous, dark, unknowable Cove. Dolly fought her. The mud sucked on her. Nothing but thin cotton socks were between her skin and whatever lurked in the mud. “Dolly, pick up your feet. Run! Tide’s coming!”

At last Dolly obeyed Christina.

She’s weak, thought Christina suddenly. I always thought Dolly was strong, like me. We were best friends all our lives, and I thought we were the same. We weren’t. Dolly can follow but never lead. She followed Mrs. Shevvington, because Mrs. Shevvington is stronger. Perhaps the most dangerous thing on Earth is the person who always follows. What if you follow the wrong person? The wrong idea?

A whiffling sound filled the air. Like somebody blowing out candles on a birthday cake.

It was the tide.

They would be battered against the cliff walls like small fish; they would be carried out to sea under the water, their hair swirling red and gold beneath the waves.

The tide inched in like pancake batter.

Now and then a tourist died when he kept clamming, not believing a tide could become a twenty-eight foot wall. Picnickers got swept off pretty ledges, where they sat with their potato chips.

“The mud is eating my sneakers,” sobbed Dolly.

The water gurgled like a milkshake and came toward them. Christina ran faster, but the mud refused to let her speed up. The water came up her legs, lapping her knees. She could no longer run, only wade.

From the cliff came the happy giggle of the wet suit. Christina looked over her shoulder. He was standing in the passage, waving at them.

The tide began its roar of triumph. The water had seen them and was bounding forward.

Dolly was dead weight, nothing but tears and fear. Dragging her, Christina burst out of the water into a sludge of mud and ice.

The tide screamed in rage and desire.

They were near the boats. If they could pull themselves on board, they would be safe from the tide, for a boat would simply rise with it.

Her ear heard a new sound. A motor. An engine.

Feverish with need, Christina looked up. Were the police here? Had a car pulled into the harbor parking lot?

She had been wrong that the Shevvingtons had gone back to bed.

After all the times she had outwitted them, they would not leave this to chance.

Mr. Shevvington got out of his van.

B
UT THE HANDS THAT
pulled Christina up were not Mr. Shevvington’s.

They were a policeman’s. In the wonderful warmth of those big arms, Christina knew she was safe.

“How did you know?” she whispered.

The scream of sirens filled the air. Whirling red-and-blue lights rocketed on police cars.

“It’s entirely my fault,” cried Mr. Shevvington. “My son is not well, but I thought he could function like a civilized human being. I was wrong. Oh, this is terrible. I am fully, wholly responsible for whatever has happened.” Mr. Shevvington told the police that he had never dreamed his son had a way to come and go from Schooner Inne. He had never dreamed that his son would steal poor Dolly.

“He must have been the one who set fire to your clothing, Christina,” cried Mr. Shevvington, hitting his head like one who has just found a solution to a terrible problem. “And to think we blamed you! Oh, Chrissie, will you ever forgive me?”

Christina had no intention of forgiving anybody anything. In fact she hoped Michael and Benj were remembering various tortures of yesteryear to inflict upon the Shevvington family.

Up at the top of Breakneck Hill, Mrs. Shevvington coaxed her son to go quietly with the policemen. Giggling, gibbering, in his wet suit, the man climbed into the back of a police car and drove away forever.

It was too cold to stay on the docks. The police rushed the girls into their cars, drove quickly up Breakneck Hill Road and carried them into the Inne, although Christina said it was the last place she wanted to be. “There, now,” said the policeman comfortingly. “We took the bad guy away. It’s warm in the Inne. And your island friend Anya just got there.”

Anya! thought Christina. It will be all right. Anya and Blake are there; I’ll have allies, people who understand, safety in numbers.

And sure enough, Blake, whose arms were wrapped around Anya to comfort her, spread his arms wider to hold Christina, too, so he was rocking two girls back and forth. One was granite, one fragile as a tern in a storm, but tonight it was difficult to tell which was which. “I’ve got you, Anya,” murmured Blake. “Everything’s all right, Dolly’s all right.” And to Christina he said, “You’re so tough, kid. I love how you’re so tough. You can handle anything, but I’m taking Anya to live with my aunt in Portsmouth. She’s had enough of this crazy town. She needs a city and a fresh start.”

Benjamin and Michael flew down the stairs to hold their little sister. This lasted about a minute, when brotherly love ran out because the neighbors brought over doughnuts and coffee. Interest in food always ran higher than interest in sisters.

Mouth full of jelly doughnut, Benj, whom Christina had counted on to figure out the truth, said, “Dolly’s okay. All’s well that ends well. I admire you guys for taking your son back. I’m just sorry that your son never got well.”

Christina could not believe it. She wanted to kick him.

“And I’m sorry we didn’t believe your stories, Chrissie,” said Michael. “All those times I told you to stop yarning — the giggle and the cellar and the clothes — it was all true. This person did it all.”

“He didn’t do it!” cried Christina. “You still don’t understand! Listen to me. For once, listen to me! The Shevvingtons gave him his orders. They planned this. They trained him.”

She had lost her audience. They went back to doughnuts.

“I’m going to call all the parents,” said the policeman, “to let them know you’re safe and everything’s fine.”

Mrs. Shevvington had managed to turn her oatmeal face into a fairly good replica of a human being, with an expression of grief and shame. “We’ll have workmen come and seal up that cliff passage,” said Mrs. Shevvington. She shuddered noticeably. “It’s so dreadful. I had no idea at all!”

“You were feeding him,” said Christina. “You had to have had some idea.”

Mrs. Shevvington looked reprovingly at Christina. “We had a little apartment near the harbor for him. We gave him an allowance, Christina. How were we to know he had found a means of sneaking in? We would never have kept innocent children in a house where such things were going on! Really! I am an English teacher. My husband is a high school principal. Children and their dear little lives are our greatest and first concern.”

The grown-ups in the room and the three Jaye children all nodded. Even Anya and Blake nodded.

So this is what a scapegoat is, Christina thought. You find somebody to blame it on, and everybody is happy. Even the victims are happy. “I don’t believe this,” Christina said.

Mr. Shevvington, elegant and citified, looked both strong and hurt, dignified and crushed. “Mrs. Shevvington and I are so proud of you, Christina. And of course, we owe you our apologies.”

Christina snorted.

“When I talk to Mommy and Daddy on the phone,” said Dolly, “I’m going to ask if I can finish sixth grade on the island. I think I’m too young for the mainland.”

Her brothers said she was being brave and sensible. The Shevvingtons said, Oh, how they would miss her!

And, oh, how empty your file will be! thought Christina.

Christina could no longer stand being around any of these people. She went upstairs to take a shower, where gradually she turned the water from lukewarm to boiling. She washed her hair twice till it squeaked and, when she got out, towelled it dry. The gold and silver hair dried more quickly than the chocolate brown, and the gleaming ringlets curled in layers.

Christina went back downstairs. Temper, she said to herself. I must not lose my temper.

Dolly, Michael, and Benj had finished telling their parents everything.

Now the policemen were on the phone to Christina’s mother and father. “ … and your daughter is a heroine. Such presence of mind, such courage. She knew the only hope was to cross the Cove, and she managed it. I bet they’ll want to interview her on television. Probably re-enact the whole thing for the cameras.”

By now the downstairs was filled with noisy, happy people. It looked, for the first time, the way an inn should: a place where guests came to celebrate. All smiled lovingly at the Shevvingtons. Anya and Blake sat on a sofa, Anya asleep against his shoulder, Blake calm and proud to be the one supporting her. “It takes courage, also, Arthur,” said one neighbor, “to admit poor judgment. The town will stand behind you, Arthur. You did what you thought was best.”

Christina ate a jelly doughnut in two bites, took the phone from the policeman and shouted, “I saved Dolly, Daddy!”

“We’re so proud of you, Chrissie,” said her father in a choked voice. “Your mother and I are coming over in the morning. Actually it’s nearly dawn now. We’ll see you very soon. Honey, forgive us for our doubts. There really was an explanation for all the things that happened. And now I want you to thank the Shevvingtons for us.”

“To do what?” repeated Christina.

“Thank them. When they realized who must have committed the terrible crime of taking Dolly, they telephoned the police right away and admitted the circumstances. What responsible behavior. I think he is the best principal we’ve ever had.”