The Way Back from Broken (10 page)

Mrs. Tatlas leaned through the doorway.

Immediately, Rakmen felt short of breath, like the three of them took up every speck of dusty air in the place. Dirt smudged her face, but he could tell that she'd managed to tack her inner workings back together. He could breathe again. For now, at least.

“You okay with this room, Rakmen?”

“Sure,” he said. “This guy's sense of style was amazing.”

She tried to smile.

“What's the deal with this place anyway?” he asked.

“My uncle bought it in the '60s. He'd come up and fish. Once he retired, he spent most of the summer here. My brother and I used to come up all the time. But it was different.”

“Like clean?” Jacey piped in.

“And with a lake?” said Rakmen.

“Cleaner,” said Leah, glancing around and obviously dismayed by the clippings on the wall. “Things changed after his best fishing buddy died. As for the lake—” she said with a sigh. “There's an old dam at one end that was from back in the logging days. It probably gave way. That's why the water level is so much lower.”

“That stinks,” Jacey said.

And no one could disagree with that.

“I want a bunk!” Jacey announced, moving on to a new topic.

“You're sleeping with me in the other room,” said Mrs. Tatlas, ignoring her daughter's spluttered protests. “Rakmen, can you set the mouse traps while we unload the rest of the car? Stuff's on the table.”

Mouse traps. This deal was getting better every second.

As Mrs. Tatlas and Jacey hauled in their gear, started the propane fridge, and stashed boxes of cereal in large, metal, supposedly mouse-proof tins, Rakmen smeared Skippy peanut butter on the catch plate of each trap. After he'd set them, he tucked one in every place that seemed likely to appeal to mice—not that he had any experience with mice.

Jacey poked around the laden shelves, rattling jars of river rocks, and taking pictures of things she found interesting—a taxidermied mink, a snake skin that smelled of musk, a lone mitten.

“I don't wanna kill the mice,” said Jacey, coming up behind him.

“Would you rather have them chew your face off at night?”

“Ew,” she said, slugging him. “That's rats, right? Mice are kinda cute.”

“Cute or not, I'm not sleeping with them.”

“Me neither,” said Mrs. Tatlas. “Ham and cheese sandwiches okay with everyone for dinner? I'm too tired to cook.”

“Sure, Mrs. Tatlas,” said Rakmen, screwing the lid on the peanut butter.

“Hey, Rakmen?”

“Yeah?”

She spread mayonnaise on six slices of bread. “I think you'd better call me Leah.”

He stiffened. First names meant you had something in common “Okay,” he stammered. Even though he was across the kitchen table from her, it felt too close.

She stopped arranging slices of lunch meat on sandwich halves and met his gaze. “I'm trying not to think about things at home.” Her mouth turned up slightly. Around her eyes, she softened, and there was kindness there. “A long time ago, I was happy here. I'm hoping I can get some of that back.”

He nodded, suddenly awkward, but wanting to believe her.

“I know this is strange,” she said, “but we'll figure it out. I'm glad you came.”

Rakmen nodded again. “I'm . . . I mean . . . I'll . . .” He tripped over the right thing to say. “I'll try to be helpful, Mrs. Tatlas—I mean, Leah.”

Her name caught in his throat. She was the teacher. He was the student. That made sense, but ever since Promise House, those lines had blurred, and he didn't know where he stood anymore.

CHAPTER 12

Leah handed each of them a sandwich on a paper towel and grabbed a water bottle. “Let's go.”

“Aren't we gonna eat here?” said Jacey, knocking on the water-stained table.

“I'm taking you to the point. It was always one of my favorite spots. Plus, you deserve proof that there's a real lake.”

Rakmen followed them out of the cabin and along a tiny path, which hugged the shoreline. As Leah led the way, it seemed to Rakmen that her spine straightened and her head lifted. Maybe she really could leave Mrs. Tatlas behind.

“There's some moose droppings,” she said, pointing to a pile of brown, marshmallow-sized ovals.

“Should we be worried about that?” Rakmen asked.

“No. It's not very fresh, and anyway they're really shy animals except during the fall.”

“Why then?”

“The males get feisty during the rut.”

Jacey made him stop and hold her sandwich so she could take a poop picture, and he could worry about moose survival strategies. Twenty feet ahead, the path nudged up against a ridge of grayish rock, which jutted into the lake like a huge, knobbly finger. Jacey clambered up and sat cross-legged on very end of the rocky point.

“It is a lake,” she said as they sat down beside her.

From this vantage, Rakmen realized that Vesper Lake was shaped like a giant tadpole. Uncle Leroy's cabin was at the end of the long, swampy tail. The rest was open water ringed by forest. The sun setting behind them turned the surface bronze, and it was actually beautiful, as long as he didn't think about what might be in the water or in the deeply shadowed trees. Other cabins dotted the edge of the lake, all far enough apart to seem lonely. The one directly opposite perched crookedly on stilts. Its front windows reflected the sunset like huge, blank eyes.

“Look at the dock,” said Jacey, pointing across the water to the cabin on stilts. A narrow lane of wood stuck out from the rocky shore in front of the building. “It looks like a tongue. The cabin is blowing a raspberry.” She stuck her tongue right back, blowing spit.

“That is disgusting,” he said.

The light was nearly gone. The surface of the lake turned from gold to blue-black. A light flickered on inside the tongue house. A shape moved behind the window and paused.

Rakmen shivered. Someone was watching them.

A warbling shriek rose across the lake. Jacey pressed against her mother. Rakmen scanned the area, cold rising in him. The call came again, closer this time, as if someone were trapped in a well.

“Is that a wolf?” asked Jacey in small voice.

“No, silly,” said Leah.

The prolonged howl rose, fell, and ended in a choked gurgle.

“What is it?” Rakmen asked. No good could come out of sound like that.

“It's only a bird,” she said. “A loon. See—over there.”

Rakmen followed her finger. A black shape like a cross cut through the darkening sky. He could hear the whipping sound of its wings as it flew overhead.

“You should write that down in your notebook,” said Jacey.

“Why?” The howling bird gave him the creeps.

“'Cause I couldn't take a picture fast enough,” said Jacey, like that was totally obvious.

“You know,” said Leah, “it might be fun to keep a bird list of all the species we see.”

Rakmen wasn't convinced, but he pulled out his notebook, knowing Jacey wouldn't stop bugging him until he did it.

“What do you want me to say?” he asked.

“Howling bird,” said Jacey.

“It's a common loon,” said Leah. “That's the species.”

Howling bird. Common loon
. He tapped the pencil on the page before adding one more line.
Moose, maybe wolves. I don't know what is out here
.

. . .

Later that night, after he'd called his parents and pretended everything was fine, Rakmen lay in the bottom bunk, listening. Little claws scritched and scratched inside the walls. The night outside was full of trills and squeaks and rustling. He couldn't make sense of any of it. At home, he knew the difference between air brakes and an idling UPS truck. He could pick out fire trucks from police sirens. He could sleep through the occasional street fight.

But this. . .

A tiny, furry body raced across his pillow, grazing his cheek, and he flew out of bed so fast, he cracked his head against the top bunk. Giving up on sleep, he reached for his phone. Reception hovered around one bar of signal. His call home had been dropped three times, but he could probably get out a text. Only 11:30 here. Back home, Molly would still be up.

There is a rocking party going on here, he texted.

He sat on the edge of the bed in the dark, itchy and sweating. Damn mice probably had fleas. Rakmen wiped the sides of his face with a T-shirt. Everything about the cabin clung to him like a dirty film. He wished he could shed his skin and end up new.

His phone lit up as a reply came in, turning the underside of the bunk aquarium blue.

Uh? Good? That means you're having fun, right?

It's a midnight party of a million mice.

He hit send and heard the violent snap of a trap followed by a spine-chilling squeal from the front room.

Make that 999,999. There is not going to be water skiing.

Bummer. Swimming?

If you like leeches.

Maniacal hooting sounded across the lake. Another loon or maybe an owl.

At home, when he couldn't sleep, Rakmen would leave the house, easing the door shut so his parents wouldn't wake, and walk. Past the closed stores and deserted bars. Past the silent playground. Past the St. John's Bridge, its towers lost in the fog. The city at night was empty but not empty. You knew everyone was there behind all those closed doors.

OMG, Rakmen. You're torturing me. Tell me something good.

The hooting came again, closer now. This place was far from vacant. This darkness was full. But not with people. It was full of things he didn't understand. He wished he could explain this to Molly. Instead he typed Jacey loves the camera.

She sent a smiley face back.

She's taking pictures of everything. Even moose poop.

Hahahaha!

He smiled in the dark, psyched to have made her laugh.

Leah seems sort of better here. Like the place agrees with her.

You mean Mrs. Tatlas?

Yeah. She says we're not at school so I'm supposed to call her Leah. It's weird. How's SAT prep?

Rakmen imagined Molly cross-legged on the couch using a study workbook in her lap to conceal her sketchbook. If she were here, she could've drawn the view from the point with all the shadowed hillsides in dark charcoal.

*groan*

She would have added the loon in a black slash.

You'll rock it.

I'm trying. Hey, I've gotta run.

Rakmen squeezed the phone tighter, hating to break the connection. 'Kay. Miss you.

Don't get lost.

He tucked the phone by the side of his pillow and lay back down, doubting he could get any more lost than he already was. He was both exhausted and wired, too antsy in the unfamiliar place to sleep. The mildew wafting out of his pillow made his throat scratchy. In the main room, mouse sounds erupted in fits and starts.

Over the rustling, he heard another noise. Leah was crying. The walls in this cabin were as thin as the ones at home, as thin as the door to the basement at Promise House. Leah cried like his mother, low and rhythmic, each sob catching in her chest. They cried because they were ground zero, and it was impossible for anything to rise from such toxic rubble.

Rakmen pulled the moldering pillow over his head.

He did not want to keep overhearing.

CHAPTER 13

The next morning, Rakmen stayed in bed as long as he could, eyes squeezed shut, trying to ignore the musty smell and the fact that he needed to piss. There was nothing good to get up for. Not one thing.

But he really had to piss.

He dragged himself out of the bunk, rubbing his eyes and wishing the day away before it even got started. Jacey was reading a fifteen-year-old National Geographic in the torn recliner. Leah stood in the kitchen. A mouse trap dangled in each hand, the lifeless mice splayed out like clumps of dryer lint.

“All the traps were full,” she said. “Twelve mice.”

Rakmen had heard every single one of them die in the wee hours of the night, and from the look of Leah's sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, so had she. “Uh, good? I guess.”

“I guess.” Leah turned in a futile circle, looking for some unknown thing, and then turned back to Rakmen with the traps still dangling.

“That's why we set them, right?”

“Yeah, right.” She turned and headed out the front door. “I'll just . . . deal . . . with these last two.”

He put two slices of bread in the toaster.

Nothing was different. He'd travelled three thousand miles from home and was still walking on eggshells and dodging blows. The only new thing was that he ate toast to the sound of scurrying feet.

Jacey abandoned her magazine and nabbed one of his slices.

“Hey,” he said.

She stood with her back to him, studying the wall of fishing lures. “Hey, yourself.”

Leah came back from the mouse graveyard and scrubbed her hands until Rakmen thought the skin might fall off. Jacey started at the top row of lures and touched each one in turn, all the way down. Leah poured cereal. Outside, that bird that sounded like it had swallowed a machine gun chattered its head off.

“Pileated woodpecker,” said Leah in a slumped monotone.

“Uh . . . excuse me?” Rakmen asked. The air in the cabin was stifling.

“That bird calling. It's a woodpecker.”

“Write it down,” Jacey commanded, giving the last lure—a giant, red and white, spoonlike thing with jewel-eyes—a resounding flick with her thumb and third finger. It clanked against its neighbors. She wheeled around to face her mother.

“I want to go fishing.”

“No.” Leah's words remained flat, and there was something dangerous around her eyes.

“Look at these lures.” Jacey flapped a hand toward the wall. “I bet they've caught a million fish. Come on. Take me fishing!”