After the Fire (6 page)

“What?” said Melissa. Her cheeks turned hot with confusion.

The girl's light hazel eyes stared at Melissa steadily. “Are you friend or foe?”

Seven

T
he canoe drifted forward of its own will. Melissa hardly felt she could start to paddle backward, though it was what she wanted to do.

The girl hoisted herself onto the rock and sat on the smooth edge, dripping water, her legs dangling in the lake. She studied Melissa and then suddenly grinned. “I was just kidding,” she said.

“I know,” said Melissa quickly.

“I'm Alice May Hope,” said the girl.

Melissa wasn't sure if that was meant to be said all together. Alice-May. “I'm Melissa.”

“Do you have a nickname?”

“No.” Sharlene was the only person who ever called her Mel.

“Me neither. I just like being called Alice.”

So
not
Alice-May. Problem solved.

Melissa tried to think of something to say. “We just got here. We're staying in the Templetons' cabin.”

“I know,” said Alice. “I saw you come. I watched you through my binoculars. Your little brother is very cute. And your mother is beautiful.”

Binoculars! Melissa felt uneasy. Had Alice been spying on them this morning too, while she was giving Cody his swimming lesson?

“You can get out of your canoe if you want, you know,” said Alice. “I don't own this rock.”

Melissa wasn't sure she wanted to. Alice seemed kind of strange. What was all that
Do you come in
peace or war?
stuff about? But she looked around for somewhere to tie the canoe. Up against the bank was a submerged log with a long pointed branch that stuck up above the water. She was conscious of Alice watching her as she maneuvered the canoe beside it. Gripping both sides of the canoe, she managed to step out onto the log, which was slippery, and then onto the bank. She tied the bow rope to the branch and climbed onto the hot rock. She sat down beside Alice, her chest tightening with the familiar shyness.

She needn't have worried about finding things to say. Alice peppered her with questions, her eyes bright with curiosity. How long were they staying? Where did they come from? What was her brother's name? How old was he? Where was her father?

Melissa struggled to answer everything. She kept the details about her father brief. He had disappeared years ago and Melissa didn't remember him. Cody had a different father, a guy called Mike who Melissa vaguely remembered as a tall man with a beard. Mike was two boyfriends before Darren.

It was flattering and scary at the same time to be the object of such interest. Alice volunteered only a tiny bit of information about herself. Her family had moved to the lake a year and a half ago. Her mother worked for a publishing company and flew back and forth to Vancouver a lot, and her father ran the ranch.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” asked Melissa.

Alice hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then she said, “I have one brother. His name is Austin and he's fifteen.”

“Where do you go to school?”

“I don't. I'm homeschooled.”

Melissa wasn't sure she had that right. “You mean you don't go to school at all?”

“I do it at home. Just since we moved to the ranch. My work comes in the mail and then I send stuff back. My mother is like my teacher,” said Alice.

Melissa felt a pang of envy. If you didn't have to go to school, you wouldn't have to worry about being picked for a partner or having someone to walk around with at lunchtime. But Sharlene for a teacher? “I don't think I would like that,” she said. “My mom would drive me crazy.”

A slight frown crossed Alice's thin face. “My mom and I get along great,” she said.

“Do you have to do work every day?” said Melissa.

“Of course. It's real school. But not
now
. It's summer holidays. And who wants to talk about school in the holidays? Do you like fantasy?”

“I'm not sure what you mean,” said Melissa. She found it hard to keep up with Alice's questions. They bounced all over the place like corn popping.

“You know, books with battles against evil and quests and elves and dwarves and stuff like that. Books by authors like R.A. Salvatore and Robert Jordan. Like the Wheel of Time series.”

Melissa had never heard of those authors. “I mostly read mysteries,” she said. “I don't actually read that much. I don't really like it.”

“You're kidding,” said Alice. “That's so hard to believe. I love reading. My mom taught me to read when I was four.”

Melissa prickled. “Not everyone is a reader,” she said. She glanced around. “Were those your books here yesterday?”

Alice looked taken aback. So Alice
hadn't
seen her then. Melissa felt that this was a tiny victory. “Yeah, they were mine,” said Alice after a moment.

“Are you reading them all at the same time?” said Melissa.

“I've already read them. I'm just reading bits over again for inspiration.” Alice stretched her long legs out of the water. Her toenails were painted black. “I'm writing my own fantasy story. I come out here to work on it. I was just taking a break.”

“Oh,” said Melissa, unsure what to say.

“If I tell you what it's about, you won't tell anyone, will you? I don't want anyone to steal my idea.”

“No,” said Melissa. Who would she tell?

Alice launched into a long winding explanation of the story. It sounded very complicated. The main character was a girl called Elfrida. Her little brother was stolen by some fairies and a changeling left in his place.

Changelings, Alice explained, were creatures from the Invisible World who looked like humans but weren't. They were usually sick and didn't live long. Often they were very old, even though they looked like children. At the end of her story, there was going to be a big battle against the fairies to get Elfrida's real brother back.

How had Alice made all that up? Melissa had enough trouble coming up with any kind of idea during creative writing classes at school. “I thought fairies were supposed to be good,” she ventured.

For a second, Alice looked annoyed, as if Melissa had criticized her. “Not
all
fairies. There are dark fairies too. I think the fairies in my story are going to be spriggans. I read about them on the Internet. Spriggans are grotesque. They can inflate themselves into monsters, so some people think they're the ghosts of old giants. They often kidnap children.”

Alice sounded like she thought the stuff in her story really happened. Like Elfrida was a real person. Melissa tried to concentrate harder on what Alice was saying. “Do you think Elfrida is a good name?” said Alice. “Names are important in fantasies.”

Melissa wasn't used to anyone asking her opinion. She was pretty sure most of the kids at school didn't even know she existed. “Sure,” she said. “I like it.”

She could feel Alice scrutinizing her. Her cheeks turned warm.

Then Alice stood up. “I believe you hail from a peaceable kingdom from over the mountains,” she declared solemnly. “After much deliberation, I have made my decision. Come, I will take you to my stronghold.”

Alice led Melissa along a rough narrow path that led right into the middle of the island. Melissa was glad she had worn her runners this time; the ground was littered with sharp sticks and scattered rocks. The trees were tall, with black trunks and straggly gray moss hanging from the branches. They grew close together, letting only a few rays of sunlight filter through high above the girls' heads.

Alice didn't say anything as they walked, and Melissa used the chance to unscramble her thoughts. She felt partly excited and partly nervous about meeting Alice. She was way friendlier than any of the girls at school, but it was embarrassing when she talked in that weird way. It was like she was trying to be a character in one of those fantasy books. There was no way Melissa was going to talk like that too. She decided the best thing to do would be to ignore it.

Suddenly the trees parted in front of them, opening into a small sunny clearing. Alice watched Melissa's face and then said triumphantly, “You can't see it, can you?”

Melissa shook her head, not sure exactly what she was looking for (What
was
a stronghold?), and Alice pointed up into the dense branches of a huge evergreen tree. “Up there.”

Melissa stared high into the tree and spotted a circular wooden platform with a waist-high wall made of weathered gray boards, built right up against the massive trunk. “It's a tree house!” she said in surprise. “How did it get there?”

“My brother Austin built it last summer,” said Alice. “He built it for me. Well, I helped too. It was a ton of work. We came every day until it was finished.”

“But it looks so old,” blurted Melissa.

There was a short silence. Then Alice said, “It
looks
old because we used old boards from a barn that fell down on the ranch. Dad said we could use them.

Austin and I found this clearing when we were having a picnic one day.”

An older brother who went on picnics with you and built you a tree house! “You're lucky,” said Melissa.

“I know,” said Alice. “I have the best brother in the world.”

“Does he come over here a lot?” Melissa tried to make her voice sound casual but she knew she would be totally tongue-tied around a fifteen-year-old boy.

She held her breath until Alice said, “Well, not
right
now. He's helping my dad hay. He has to work all day. But
usually
he hangs out with me. He's my best friend.”

It would be wonderful to have a best friend right in your own family, thought Melissa enviously. Then you wouldn't have to explain all the hard bits or try to hide things. She stared up at the tree house. “So how do you get up there?” she said. There were no branches low enough to climb.

“There's steps nailed on the trunk on the other side. We put them there so that enemies wouldn't see them. It was Austin's idea.” Alice paused. “I'll let you come up, but only if you're sworn to secrecy.”

“I swear,” said Melissa.

Alice went first. The steps were made of thick boards. It was like climbing up the rungs of a ladder. There was a hole in the floor of the platform at the top. Alice pulled herself through and Melissa scrambled after her.

“Welcome to Dar Wynd,” said Alice.

“Dar Wynd?”

Alice spread her arms. “This is Dar Wynd.”

Melissa gazed around, impressed. “Wow.”

It was like a little room with branches and blue sky for a ceiling. A sleeping bag with a plaid lining, unzipped and laid flat, covered the middle of the floor like a rug. Sheets of lined paper, some filled with writing, were scattered across the sleeping bag. The end of a red plastic binder poked out from under the papers. Lined up neatly along a board shelf were cans of fruit, beans and soup, a can opener, a plastic container full of water, a large round cookie tin with a lid, a bowl, a spoon and a mug. On another shelf was a row of books supported at each end by a large rock. The bow that Melissa had seen at the flat rock leaned against the wall beside a pile of short sticks.

“What will you do if it rains?” said Melissa. “Your stuff will get ruined.”

“It won't rain,” said Alice confidently. “It's supposed to stay sunny for ages.” She grinned. “But just in case…” She pointed to a stack of folded green garbage bags under the shelf with the books. “I can put everything in a garbage bag!”

“What does Dar Wynd mean?” asked Melissa.

“It doesn't mean anything. I just like the sound of it. It sounds like
wind
but I spell it W-y-n-d. I think the way words look is important. It's the name of the castle in my story, where Elfrida lives.”

The girls sat on the sleeping bag. Alice gathered up her papers and tucked them inside the binder. Then she opened the round tin and held it out for Melissa. “Have a cookie. They're assorted. Mom bought them for me just for here. Usually she bakes cookies but she's working on a deadline right now.”

Sharlene never baked cookies. She always said she was too dead on her feet to bake anything after cleaning up after schoolkids all day. Instead she bought the bulk boxes of cookies that never tasted as good as they looked and were often broken. Alice's family sounded perfect.

Alice filled a blue pottery mug with water. She took a sip and then handed it to Melissa. Melissa stared at the mug and felt her breath catch in her throat. It was identical to the mugs with the loons in the cabin.

“Did you get this from our cabin?” she said, then instantly wished she could take the words back. It sounded like she was accusing Alice of stealing.

Alice stared at her. Melissa felt her face go scarlet. “I mean, it's probably just a coincidence but we have some just like this.”

Alice burst out laughing. “You should see your face,” she said. “You look like you think I'm some kind of criminal.”

“No, I don't,” said Melissa, mortified.

“Yeah, I got it from the cabin,” said Alice casually. “I guess you found the broken window.”

Melissa nodded, shocked.

“It wasn't me that broke it,” said Alice. “It was already broken. I just had to stick my hand through the hole and open the latch. And I just borrowed a bit of stuff. It's not a big deal.”

Melissa felt a mix of horror and admiration. She'd have been terrified to do something like that; terrified of getting cut on the glass, terrified of being caught. Suddenly she remembered the silver bracelet with the letter
A
that was still in her pocket. She took it out. “I found this,” she said. “On the dock.”

“Oh,
thanks
!” said Alice. “I wondered where I dropped it.” She took it from Melissa and slipped it on her wrist. She looked really pleased, and to Melissa's relief the difficult moment slipped away.