Beloved Evangeline (23 page)

17.

On the fourth night after the adventure I fell into an uneasy sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Of course, another memory would just have to break free from the depths of my subconscious and float to the surface after the events in the swamp. I drifted closer to the last adventure Nicky and I had shared as kids, right before my father had spirited me away to New Mexico. Even as I drifted closer to that memory, I imagined myself shaking my head in my sleep, trying to stave it off.

In those days, it was my plan to find the magical place where my mother used to take me, the place where I knew otherworldliness had existed. I would find proof there, the proof to release my mother from her prison. According to the literature, finding that place was the only place to start. The three of us had concocted a story together, to search for that place. My descriptions and excitement over the enchanted place had enticed Nicky and Jonathan. She decided to lie to her parents, tell them she was spending the night at my house, and I had told my Dad I was spending the night at hers. This way, we could search for an entire day and night, instead of having to come after only a few hours. We carried a simple pack lunch and sleeping bags and set out on what would be the final adventure of our childhoods.

I forgot what Jonathan had planned to tell his parents because he chickened out at the last minute and didn’t come with us.

We didn’t have any maps back then, of course, but we knew those woods better than anyone. Every tree, every stream and meadow—we knew them all. So for this day, we had to set out to go farther, much farther, than we had ever ventured before. I figured my mother must’ve taken me far into the woods, to a place where my father had forbidden me to go. A barbed wire fence marked that boundary, a fence that separated a private hunting preserve from the unclaimed wild land where we so often played. I reasoned that must’ve been why he forbade me go there; because he knew it held my mother’s secrets and therefore must be dangerous. Childishly, it embarrassed me that he refused to talk about her. I felt that he was ashamed of her; I was not. So instead of communicating with me, or I with him, we continued to eye one another cautiously, suspiciously. To me it seemed as though he was waiting for something to happen. For me to turn out just like her. Of course, when I got older, I found out he had just been broken hearted, and would remain so for the rest of his life, and looking at me only served to remind him of her.

So our destination lay beyond that barbed wire fence. The beginning of our journey was fantastic. Enjoying our first taste of real freedom from our parents, we were giddy with delight at our newfound independence. Those well-worn places seemed different to us somehow, as though we were now viewing them through different, more grown-up eyes. We reached the underground waterfall after only two hours of traveling. We paused there briefly, stopping to marvel at the wondrous melody of that invisible waterfall. Trudging through those swamps, we laughed and joked our private little jokes and discussed our dreams for the future. I had wanted to be an archeologist in those days, a female Indiana Jones, though it was hard to imagine it was truly possible, as no such thing existed in either the worlds of books or movies back then. Pippi Longstocking was the closest female I’d ever seen—not exactly the same—but she was all I had.

Only when the sun began to get low in the sky did we begin to feel some hesitation. As determined as I had been, I came close to losing my nerve, and I know Nicky felt the same way, too. This meant crossing a line, formally declaring rebellion against parental control. Neither of us had ever done anything like that before. As much as I wanted answers or redemption, whichever, I didn’t want to hurt my father. I never meant to hurt him. Of course, coming from me, that phrase sort of lost its meaning a long time ago.

In my memory, that day was magical. Regardless of whether or not we found evidence of otherworldliness, that day has been stamped into my memory as the last great day of my childhood, of my entire life, really.

As dusk drew closer, it began to grow cold, naturally. Just as I began to wonder if I had just led us on a fruitless wild goose chase, I noticed the symmetrically spaced posts ahead of us and then the delicate wire stretched out between them. We had reached the fence. Nicky noticed it about the same time. She and I looked at each other, and then broke into a small dance of triumph. In celebration of our accomplishment, we decided to pull out our pack lunches and have dinner in the twilight.

Tiny insects floated through the last golden rays of light above us. Every so often, whippoorwills called to one another. It was nearly as magical as that last evening with my mother had been. Of course, instead of scones and cucumber sandwiches, we had peanut butter and jelly and chips, but still, it didn’t matter; the sandwiches tasted as good to us as any gourmet meal would have. Between hiking through the woods all day and the daylight slowly drawing to a close, I was more exhausted than I had ever been. I found myself wondering how the pioneers had managed their long journeys. It seemed impossible. Much more important than just being tired, though, we felt an enormous sense of accomplishment. We had managed to find this vague destination with relative ease, and we had done so without a map or any other form of adult help or supervision.

After finishing our meals, we climbed between the two strands of barbed wire and crossed the line into the unknown with no other fanfare. I felt a faint tugging of familiarity as soon as we’d crossed the line but not enough daylight remained to pause and ponder that. Nicky must’ve sensed something, too, because she seemed to be moving forward a little more cautiously. I slowly realized that, as we journeyed farther and farther into the forbidden wilds, we seemed to be moving farther and farther from the light. The trees had become taller, the forest more dense. I told myself that was the reason for the darkness to the west, but not the east, of us. Not even a complete moron would’ve been fooled by that weak explanation. It became increasingly clear that the entire wood was growing much more savage than it had been up to this point. Our well known forest had always felt safe; this was different. Though I had felt a strangely familiar feeling at first crossing over, nothing about this wood looked familiar. The forest seemed to be populated with strange trees and other wildlife. The bird calls we heard now were unfamiliar, I could not name them. In all the time that has passed since then, I have never heard such strange sounds. We passed a number of trees that grew horizontally rather than vertically. Not that I had never seen one growing near the ground in that manner before, but I had never seen that many in one location.

I just was toying with the idea of telling Nicky it was time to be heading back before it got any darker when I heard it: the low babble of a nearby stream. This had to be the place! We had to be nearing the place my mother had brought me, the magical glen by the brook. I picked up my step in excitement, not quite at a run but a very brisk walk.

“
Evangeline!” Nicky suddenly called out behind me just as I was reaching top speed.

I was startled by the abruptly broken silence, and to be honest, slightly annoyed at having my pace and focus broken so close to the end, but of course I paused as she held up her hand, motioning for me to be quiet.

I heard nothing but the whispering of the stream at first, but, as my focus sharpened, the whispering of the stream seemed to grow closer, which was not possible, right? What had at first sounded like the murmur of a stream now seemed different, not like a stream at all, in fact, but what was it? Rustling leaves? Rain? The sound continued to grow louder. A freight train??

I turned back to Nicky to bounce these ideas off of her, but stopped when I saw that her eyes were bulging wide with horror. I spun around, looking into the direction that must’ve inspired this reaction, but... I saw nothing. The sun had nearly set, and the darkness was settling over us. I was still trying to find whatever had upset Nicky, when she screamed.

“
Run! Run, Evangeline!!” Nicky was already off and running before she finished saying my name.

I stumbled forward, confused and frightened, and now alone. As soon as I found my footing, I was off and trailing after her. By now it was nearly dark. I could hear footsteps, but I couldn’t see her. I was too afraid to call out, so I kept running blindly. For several terrifying moments I ran, as fast as I could, through those menacing woods in almost total darkness. Finally, I tripped over some brambles and landed on the ground. Fumbling around in the darkness, I felt it. The fence. I had made it back to the boundary line. Lucky for me I had fallen before running right into it. That would’ve been very bad, and the situation didn’t need to get any worse. I felt around and crawled under it.

I was more calm after crossing the line, more rational. So instead of running I listened for Nicky. I heard nothing. “Nicky?” I called uncertainly.

No reply.

“
Nicky
,” I continued to whisper.

No reply.

This was unnatural behavior. It gave me a terrible feeling.
Please,
please
let her be alright
, I thought,
please
. Just then, I heard a horrific scream from above me.

I held my breath for several seconds; I couldn’t think. My brain seemed to be frozen, frozen until a deafening crash in front of me. And then I heard a low whimpering sound. I charged forward through the brush, completely blind and directionless, but I found her nevertheless.

Nicky was slumped at the base of large tree. I called to her again and again, but she didn’t wake. With what strength I don’t really know, I mustered enough of it to lift her around the middle, dragging her feet behind us. She was hard to hold onto... my hands were suddenly all wet. There was liquid all over my hands. Maybe she’d found the stream after all, I thought innocently.

I really don’t know how long I’d been dragging her when I started hearing my name. I couldn’t believe it was real, and I was too exhausted to speak, anyway. Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary. The search partiers were equipped with flashlights. And there were a lot of them, it turned out. They rushed over to us and whisked Nicky away. I couldn’t tell you who any of the other ones were, then or now. The chatter of several voices occurred at once, and almost instantaneously, my father had made his way over to me. He was shaking and crying. I think he picked me up in his arms but I can’t be sure. I’m guessing now that I was in shock. I didn’t feel anything except overwhelming relief. Relief that Nicky had been rescued. Relief that I’d be able to sleep in a bed very soon.

Nicky was in the hospital for several weeks. She had no memory of anything that had happened to her. She only had limited memories of the entire day. The doctors said her hips and pelvis had been completely crushed. She also had a broken arm and leg. The only thing remotely close to that injury they’d seen was when a skydiver’s parachute had failed. They guessed that maybe she’d fallen out of a tree, though she’d have had to landed on sharp rocks. And been in an impossible tall tree.

It turned out that Nicky’s parents had called my house, only because she’d left her overnight bag behind. Once they spoke to my dad, obviously, the jig was up, and the search for us was on. After he was sure that I was alright, my dad was furious. He yelled in my face, demanding to know why I’d deliberately disobeyed him and gone in those woods. For several days, he would just grab something off one of the shelves and throw it across the room, completely unprovoked. He tossed my room on my first day back to school. He found my notes, my diary, my research, all of my schemes and plans. When my school bus pulled in front of my house after school that day, he was waiting, holding up my crudely laminated
Haunted Explorers Society
badge.

“
What
the hell
is this, Evangeline?” he demanded as I stepped off the bus.

“
Did you get that out of my closet?” I asked rather than answered.

“
I asked you a
question.
..” he fumed. I had never, ever seen him that angry.

“
You went through my things...”

“
You disobeyed me! I told you a thousand times not to go into those woods! What were you thinking? What is this card? What
is
it!”

“
Dad... it’s nothing...” It was far too private a thing for me to try and explain. I just couldn’t do it. My secrets had been exposed, but that was no reason to have to talk about it.

I yanked the card out of his hand and ran.

“
Evangeline!” he called after me, again and again, but I ran into my room and locked the door.

As soon as school let out for the summer, he packed us up and moved my brother and I out to New Mexico. Nicky and I were devastated, as soon as she’d recovered, that is. I made her an honorary medal, a badge of courage, out of some scrap metal and a length of silver ribbon. She hadn’t wanted to accept it, being that she couldn’t remember what had happened, but I insisted.