A Chill Rain in January (22 page)

At first Kenny didn't believe her. But then he did.

When she told him to pack his pajamas he did, he packed them in his gym bag, along with some other stuff, and he looked around for a photograph of his dad to take with him, but he couldn't find one.

He put on his oversize ski jacket with all the big pockets, and into one of the inside pockets he put the brown envelope, because he couldn't leave it behind in case somebody—a prowler or a thief or just somebody like a bad kid—got into the empty house and found it.

That had been days ago.

Kenny didn't know why he hadn't told his Aunt Zoe right away at lunchtime that he had what she was looking for.

Because she scared him, that was why. Partly why.

He waited long into the night, until he was absolutely sure there wasn't a single sound happening anywhere in the house. Then he got the flashlight from his gym bag, and the brown envelope from his pocket, and he climbed into bed, pulled the covers over his head and slid out the exercise books. He opened the one on top and the first thing he saw, printed in big letters, was his aunt's name. Kenny began to read.

E
ARLY
Wednesday morning, Ramona pulled the curtain back and looked outside into fog. It swirled lazily around vague, dark, vertical shapes that she knew were the trunks of the fir trees that surrounded the cottage. Her heart gladdened as she peered out into the fog; there was brightness behind it, and when it lifted she knew there would be sunshine. She couldn't see the branches of the trees, or the ferns and salal that grew close to the ground; only the dark poles of the trunks, which seemed to emerge out of fog and vanish into fog, as though the trees had no branches, and were not rooted in the earth. Ramona heard a vibrant, insistent birdcall, one note, sweeping upward, repeated again and again, one voice calling into the fog, maybe seeing beyond it, to the sun.

She turned from the window and got herself dressed.

In the kitchen she made a small pencil mark on the cupboard door, next to three similar marks; in this way she was keeping track of the length of her stay. Then she ate two crackers and a handful of macadamia nuts, and drank a small bottle of an Australian substance that was apparently watered-down fruit juice.

Ramona, desperately craved real juice, real fruit. She had even started dreaming about fruit, about Golden Delicious apples with a pink flush on them; huge navel oranges, thick skinned, dripping with sweetness like nectar; bananas, cool and yielding; not pineapple, too much acid, but nectarines… peaches…strawberries…she clutched the countertop and gave a little moan. She was going to have to get herself some fruit somehow, somewhere, no two ways about it.

When she'd finished her breakfast she crept out of the cottage, closing the door softly, after making sure it wasn't going to lock behind her.

The air was moist and sticky, and it smelled like spring. Ramona waded through fog into the shelter of the trees. She felt wonderfully joyous, and tried to give one of the trees a hug, but she couldn't get her arms all the way around its trunk. She rubbed her cheek gently against the rough bark and smelled the spicy fragrance of the branches rustling up there above her. She saw a flash of bright blue and heard the indignant, raucous cry of a Stellar's jay and wondered what had happened to her bird book: she kept it handy by the window all the time, with a pair of binoculars right next to it; she used the binoculars mostly for looking at things out on the water, various kinds of boats and so forth, but it was useful for birds, too. My goodness, she thought, dazed, clinging to the fir tree, I don't know where the ocean is.

Ramona hung on tight, waiting. The fog was dense, and suffocating. It was malevolent; it seemed to mock her. She felt threatened, panicky, but she kept on waiting, waiting, not knowing what she was waiting for, obeying some instruction she couldn't remember getting…and then, abruptly, she knew again where she was. Who she was.

It was like having somebody stop sitting on your chest, she thought, as she hung on to the tree, panting slightly. It was like pushing with all your might against an immovable object, which suddenly gives way. Losing yourself, then finding you again.

She felt a flood of terror that made her start to sweat.

She thought about going into town for fruit, and library books, and having lunch with Isabella, and at the end of the day going to bed in the hospital.

Ramona pushed herself slowly away from the fir tree and rubbed her arms. She'd had a week. And it was a week she'd never expected to have. She was very glad she'd taken it.

She wondered how the nurses would react, when she walked back in there, bold as brass.

She fastened the top button of her coat, shook her head wearily, and headed toward the driveway.

When she got there she stood still, uncertain because of the fog which way to start walking, and then she realized that she had changed her mind.

She wasn't ready to go back, after all. Not just yet.

She left the driveway and sat down on the damp ground, leaning against a tree. What's the worst thing that could happen to me? she asked herself.

She could forget she'd put something on the stove to heat and end up setting fire to the place.

She flinched, thinking about it; she'd done it twice now. She hadn't set fire to the place, but she'd completely forgotten the pot on the stove, until it boiled over. She had been certain that such a thing couldn't happen again, but it had happened again, the very next day.

All right, she told herself, what to do about that is easy. I'll stop using the stove, that's all. I'll unplug it from the wall, is what I'll do.

Now, what else bad could happen?

She felt a sickening lurch of dread and tried to turn away from it but couldn't, and finally she said, out loud, “I could forget what I'm doing and where I am. And this time not ever get myself back again.”

Ramona leaned back against the treetrunk. Obviously she'd be a lot better off in the hospital, when that happened, if it happened, than out wandering around the world on her own. All right, she thought, what would I want to happen, if I forgot who I was when I was out in the world on my own?

She would want somebody to take her back to the hospital, to Dr. Gillingham.

She thought, what can I do to make sure that what I want to happen happens?

She could write a note explaining her situation and pin it to the front of her coat.

But what if her memory vanished while she was in bed?

She'd write several notes, she decided, and pin one on her coat, one on the sweater she always wore, and one on Marcia's nightgown that she'd borrowed. It would be damned humiliating, going around wearing notes all the time, but it was protection, necessary protection. Against herself.

She hauled herself wearily to her feet and glanced up the driveway toward where she knew the big house stood, shrouded now in fog and sea mist. She wondered if the Strachan woman might go out today, and leave her door unlocked, for once. She was bound to have fresh fruit on hand, a fitness-type person like that, going jogging all the time.

Ramona became aware of a sound: not a bird, not the nearby ocean, not a genial breeze come to sweep away the fog. She tilted her head, concentrating, and watched, and waited, wondering why she wasn't trying to hide herself.

A shape began to materialize, and Ramona saw that it was a small boy, hurrying. He was enveloped in a large jacket and had something clutched to his chest. He didn't see her as he scurried along; he was looking down intently, as if afraid the ground would disappear if he didn't keep an eye on it.

“Hello,” said Ramona, and the boy skittered sideways, away from the sound of her voice, and spotted her standing in the fog on the edge of the driveway, and stopped in his tracks.

When Kenny had finished reading the scribblers, he switched off his flashlight and lay for a long time in the dark, under the covers. He couldn't hear anything except his heart, which was beating so fast that he thought it might be trying to pound its way right out of his chest.

He had to get out of there.

But he was too scared to move.

He'd have to move, though, because he had to get out of there, that was for sure.

After a while he pulled the covers down, very slowly, about two inches. Nothing happened, so he pulled them down some more, and eventually he was peering over the top of them.

The room was totally black. Kenny blinked his eyes. Soon he could see shapes. He held his breath and listened, but he couldn't hear anything except for the muffled sound of the ocean.

He wished very much that he could pull the covers back over his head and just stay there, invisible, until his dad came to rescue him. He felt himself starting to cry.

I've got to make a plan, he thought, and remembered the ten dollars his dad had given him the morning he left. “If I'm not back by the time you get home from school, buy yourself a pizza,” his dad had said. But Kenny had decided to wait for his dad before ordering the pizza, and his dad never came, so Kenny still had the ten dollars. That ought to be enough to pay for the ferry ride, he thought.

Very carefully, he crawled out of bed and tiptoed around the room collecting his stuff, hunched over, hardly breathing. He put his things in the gym bag, leaving behind the clothes his Aunt Zoe had bought for him… He shivered, and pushed her out of his mind.

He got dressed, slowly, quietly; he'd never been so quiet in his life. Then he put on his jacket and sat down on the floor by the window to wait for the sky to get a little bit light.

It was a long way to the ferry. But he could walk there anyway, he knew he could. Maybe somebody would offer him a ride for part of the way. Maybe he could hitchhike. But people didn't like seeing kids hitchhiking. They'd probably ask a lot of questions about where he was going and where he lived and did his dad know he was hitchhiking. So that wouldn't be a good idea. But if he was just walking along looking like he wasn't worried about anything, somebody might stop, then, and offer him a ride, and since he hadn't asked for it, it would be okay to take it. And when he got across on the ferry to Horseshoe Bay he'd phone Roddy, and maybe he could go and stay with him, maybe Roddy's dad would even drive to Horseshoe Bay to get him, because it was a long walk from Horseshoe Bay to West Vancouver, too.

Kenny wiped the tears from his face and wished he could stop crying but at least it was quiet crying; he wasn't making any noise at all.

“I didn't mean to scare you,” said the old lady.

Kenny held on tightly to his gym bag. “It's going to be a nice day,” she said. Kenny's eyes flickered right and left.

“The fog'll burn away, oh, about noon, maybe sooner.” Kenny gave her a quick glance, then looked down the driveway, toward where he thought the highway was. “Where are you off to?” she said.

“Home.”

She nodded. “And where might that be?”

“I don't have to tell you anything,” said Kenny quickly.

“That's right. You don't.”

He started moving away.

“Can I ask you a favor?” she said.

“I've gotta go,” said Kenny.

“If anybody asks you if you've seen me, will you please tell them no?”

Kenny stopped. “Why?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

Reluctantly, Kenny nodded.

“I ran away.”

Kenny frowned. “From where?”

“A place where they keep old people.”

“What do you mean,” said Kenny, skeptical, “a place where they keep old people?”

“I went back to my own house. But they came looking for me there. So now,” she said, spreading her hands, “I'm staying here.”

“In the woods?” said Kenny.

She hesitated, then pointed across the driveway.

Kenny turned and peered through the fog. “Where? What?”

“There's a little house there.”

Kenny walked close enough to be able to see it. Then he went back to the driveway. He stared at the old lady. She looked weird, with that big old coat, and her gray hair all tangled. But her face was calm and friendly. She looked weird, but she didn't look like a crazy person. His Aunt Zoe, now, she was a crazy person. But his Aunt Zoe didn't look weird at all. “Did you really run away?” he asked the old lady.