Towering (28 page)

“I looked at the man. He was very old with wrinkles upon wrinkles. I thought that by the time my child was seventeen, he would surely have died. Besides, I had no choice. I realized my mistake, and I wanted to leave right away. I agreed to bring her back when she was seventeen.”

I stared out at the sky, which had become gray with clouds, like a rain storm was coming.

“I raised my daughter, your mother, a wonderful little girl, and though it was hard, I never used rhapsody again. To do so would be to approach the place where I almost lost my daughter. That thought, alone, gave me strength. Gradually, I forgot all about it. But when Danielle was about to turn seventeen, I remembered the man’s strange request. I didn’t want to give her to him. I hoped he had died, but one day, when my daughter was at school, he came to my door, asking for her.”

“How old must he have been then?” I asked. “A hundred?”

“That was the strangest thing. He did not seem to have aged at all in seventeen years. If anything, he seemed younger. And when I refused to open my door, he pushed it in like it was nothing. I stared and stammered, pretending I didn’t know what he meant. Then, I said no. No, of course she can’t come. And yet, I had nowhere to go. I tried to keep her inside the house, so he wouldn’t be able to grab her. But a young girl does not want to stay inside.”

I nodded. I knew this was true.

“My Danielle,” Mama said. “She saw a boy in the garden, and she began to sneak off with him.”

I looked down. It was just what I had done with Wyatt.

“I did not find this out until later. At first, when she was gone, I thought she had been taken from me. I looked all over for her, cursing myself for not sprinting her away, not protecting her better. But then, she came back, and I thought it was all right. The boy had left her, it seemed. I learned that she was having a baby, and I didn’t care, didn’t fret as any other mother would. I just wanted her to stay with me. In fact, realizing my foolishness, I made plans to move across the country, to start a new life. And then, Danielle disappeared again, this time for good.”

I felt tears come into my eyes. Poor Mama! “How alone you must have been.”

“I was. And the police were no help. At first, they said that Danielle must have run away. She was a teenage girl. People had seen her with this boy, and he had disappeared, so they assumed she had run off with him. However, I continued to call the police, badger them. My daughter and I may have argued, but she would never have run away. Also, I began to hear stories of other young people disappearing, including another girl from town, Suzie Mills. When I told the police this, they became annoyed. Suzie was an addict and probably dead of an overdose, they said. They had found out that Danielle was pregnant, and they accused me of killing her, because of my shame and anger. They threatened to arrest me, but I knew they had no proof because I hadn’t done it. Still, I gave up on calling them. I only hoped that, someday, she would come back.”

Mama slowed the car, and I knew why. The road was winding here, frightening. She was weeping and could probably barely see through her tears.

I heard her voice in the dark truck. “Then, two months after Danielle disappeared, there was a knock on my door. I opened it, hoping as I always did that it would be Danielle, returned to me. But when I looked outside, instead of Danielle, there was a blond young girl, cradling a tiny infant in a blanket.”

I knew that was me.

“It was Suzie, the girl who had disappeared. She was not dead, but she told me that Danielle was. She couldn’t tell me how she knew, but she knew. She thrust the baby at me and said to take it, keep it, that it was Danielle’s baby, and that the people who had killed Danielle had told her to take it and put it in the incinerator at her father’s veterinary office. She couldn’t do it. I took the child in my trembling arms, and listened as she babbled what sounded like nonsense. ‘Take the baby far away,’ Suzie said. For there was a prophecy that this baby, Danielle’s baby, would be the one to break a curse, to stop the rhapsody that had tainted the town for decades. She said that the baby’s father, whose name was Zach, had known that Danielle would be the mother of the baby that would bring it all down. He had come to her on purpose, impregnated my daughter—because his uncles were the ones who had the rhapsody. He knew how it had harmed people.

“Suzie told me that this baby could be the one to change everything. That is why they wanted her killed. She also told me that your name was Rachel.”

I shook my head. This was crazy. It was too much. And if I was the one who could do this, how was Wyatt involved? Why could I communicate with him, even when he wasn’t there?

“She begged me to take the baby and hide it. They must never know she hadn’t killed you as instructed. I did take the baby, you, away for eight long years, as I had planned to take Danielle. I took you all the way across the country and raised you. But even far away, I worried that someone would find you, take you away from me. So, finally, I brought you home, put you in a tower where no one would think to look, in the middle of the woods, and went back to my old house thinking that, when they saw I was all alone, they would leave me be. For eight years, they did. I wept every night because I could not have you with me, my granddaughter, the only one I had left, and I yearned to see you, yearned to have you in my house.”

I touched her hand. It was good to know that she too had missed me.

She said, “But then, one day, Danielle came to me in a dream. Or maybe I just dreamed about her. She said that her friend Emily’s baby, Wyatt, would be the one to break the spell with you, the one that could free them all. She made no sense, but she was my daughter, so I listened to her. She said that Wyatt must come to live here. Of course, I thought it was crazy. Emily would never agree. But the very next day, I received a call from Emily Hill. I didn’t know if it was merely coincidence, or if she had seen Danielle too, but she was asking me if Wyatt could come here, and I said yes.”

“That is incredible. Incredible.” I was finally warm, almost too warm. My face was flushed, and when I looked into the backseat, my hair filled the entire thing.

“I knew that he would find you. I encouraged it, allowing him to take my car every day, hoping he would have some sort of contact with you.”

“He did. I can hear him, in my head. I heard him a few minutes ago.”

She nodded. “I was frightened, but something had to be done. Over the years, I have read the stories of other teens, other young people, who have disappeared, usually visitors, people who wouldn’t be greatly missed. But I knew it was the rhapsody that had taken them, and it must be stopped. It must be stopped.”

“But how?” I saw lights. We were in a town now. It was a small town, but, as I had seen that night on the train, the occasional neon sign identified the businesses: Gatskill Diner, Gatskill Repairs, Gatskill Library. Then, nothing for a long time. I had braided my hair, as best I could, but there were several unbraided feet near my head where my hair had just grown. It would have to do. I held the end of my hair in one hand. The braid streamed behind me. Then, I saw a sign far ahead.

Red Fox Inn
, it said.

As we drove closer, I heard a voice. Wyatt’s voice.

“The key,” it said. “I found the key.”

“What key?” I asked. Mama turned to me, and I gestured to my ear, so she would know it was Wyatt I heard, Wyatt to whom I spoke. His voice seemed clearer now, and I did not know if it was because we were closer now, or if it had something to do with my hair. I had first started hearing him when my hair began to grow.

“The key. In the hairbrush—your hairbrush,” his voice said.

“Hairbrush?” Then, I remembered. I had told him about the hairbrush I had when I was a little girl. That must be what he meant. But it was gone. I had not seen it in years. I turned to Mama. “When I was a little girl, I had a hairbrush, a pretty silver one with a flower design. What happened to it?”

She looked surprised, then said, “How strange. It just disappeared.” We were close now, and Mama slowed the car. I knew she was as reluctant to arrive as I was, more maybe.

“Wyatt found it.” I said, “Wyatt,
where
did you find it?”

“In a junk shop.” His voice was as clear as if he were standing before me. “It’s in my car, in a bag on the seat. I think you need it.”

We were not quite to the sign, but I gestured to Mama to slow down, to stop, before she got there. She had already been about to do so, it seemed, and she slowed the car and went a bit to the right, into a clump of brush by the road.

I said to her, “Wyatt says there’s a key in it that I may need. It’s in the car.”

Mama gestured toward a green car parked in front of the place. “My car.” She fumbled in her purse. “I have a spare set of keys to the door. But how did he know . . . ?”

“I told him about it, that you used to use the brush. Is the key anything special?”

“I don’t know. Suzie brought the hairbrush when she brought you. She said it was very important, that we must always hold on to it. I didn’t know why, though. I just thought it went with you, because you had such beautiful hair. I can go get it.”

“Maybe I should,” I said.

“No. You can’t.”

“But I must. This . . .” I gestured with my hair. “This shows that something is supposed to happen. I’m supposed to save Wyatt, maybe save . . . everyone.”

It was overwhelming to think of, but it was true. For so long, I had thought my life was worthless, that no one would be affected if something happened to me, if I didn’t exist. Now was the time to make my existence have worth, make it have value. And if I had to risk that existence, I had to.

I reached for the handle of the car’s door.

“Wait!” Mama said. “Just . . . please, let me get the key. We can look at it, and then, I will go to the door of the place and distract them.”

“But . . .” She was going to lock me in the car while she went out to look. I could not handle it.

“I know you’re right, Rachel, my darling Rachel. I’m not treating you like a child. I know you have to do this, find this. But if I distract them, you can sneak around and look for a door. Or for Wyatt.”

I nodded. It made sense. She opened the car’s door and started to get out. I saw that she was old and bent, and it was difficult for her. Yet, she had come to me every day, all these years. I felt warm and slipped out of my coat, my mother’s coat. My hair would be enough. For one second, though, I savored the scent of her. I would never see her, but she gave me life, and she left me the letter. It was enough to go on. Ahead of me, in the dim light, I could barely make out Mama, opening the car door. A light went on inside. She bent and took something out, then closed it quick. She hobbled back toward the car, holding it out to me.

It was my brush. I knew it as if I’d seen it only yesterday. I took it in my hand and touched it. I ran my finger along it. I began to brush my hair. As I did, I heard a click. Something opened, and a key fell on to the shallow snow.

I picked it up and examined it in the dim light. It was heavy and old. I didn’t know what it opened, but I knew it was important.

I clutched it in my fingers and said to Mama, “Go.”

Then, I wound my hair as best I could around my neck and shoulders, and I waited.

I sensed that she was close. Her voice sounded like she was in the room with me. It must have been nighttime now, and I hoped that the darkness would protect her. I could still hear the waterfall, the people working, from outside my door. Were they insane? Enslaved? Or did the rhapsody enable them to work endlessly? I wondered where Carl and Henry were, and suddenly, I didn’t want Rachel to come. I wanted her to run, hide. Even if I never saw her again, it would be okay. I wanted to save her, save her as I hadn’t saved Tyler.

I said, aloud, “Rachel, I changed my mind. You have to leave.”

A moment later, I heard her reply. “I cannot leave. I have to do this.”

“But Rachel, you can’t. It’s not safe.”

She didn’t answer.