Girlwood (20 page)

"It's almost as if..." he began, then turned away, reluctant to finish.

But Polly smiled anyway. Almost as if Baba had sent her own blizzard and was watching her gravesite disappear with a laugh.

***

For the next six weeks, the snows kept coming. The local weathercasters said they'd never seen anything like it. Winter started late, then wouldn't stop. Dan Leyland gave an interview to the
Laramie Bee
and said he was ready to start construction on Mountain Winds the moment the ground thawed.

He'd already downed the trees on the site of the community swimming pool and would remove the timber at the first sign of spring.

Life didn't stop in winter, but in Laramie it looked like it did. Neighbors drew the blinds and turned up their televisions, ignoring the weather until it was hospitable again. Even Polly placed the last of the jars of green beans in the woods but didn't go back to check if the food had been taken. She was thirteen now, and it wasn't so horrible Facing Facts. It didn't have to mean the worst would happen—it only meant admitting that it was winter and she had done all she could. Either Bree would survive, or she wouldn't. Polly knew now that she and Baba had never been the ones keeping Bree alive. From the start, the only person who could save Bree was herself.

Polly and her mother spent their evenings going through Baba's cottage, sifting through the dirt on the closet floor that looked almost like a garden bed, picking out seeds and roots from every drawer. Her house had always been more outside than in. In the only bureau Baba hadn't burned in her last bonfire, they found a wooden jewelry box full of vials of primrose oil, which Baba had used to cure everything from asthma to arthritis, and beneath the vials a baby picture of Bree. Polly's mom took out the photo, stroking her finger over the image as if she was brushing back Bree's hair.

"I sometimes think Bree came to her," she said. "Maybe my mother protected her, tucked her away in some shelter and kept her safe. Could Baba have kept something like that from me?"

Her gaze burned into Polly, as if her greatest wish were that her own mother had lied to her. Polly wasn't sure what to think: the place between her mother and grandmother was still a no-woman's-land, but something had taken root in the soil anyway.

"If it had been me," Polly said, "I'd have gone to Baba."

Polly's mom sighed and slid the picture of Bree into her pocket. Then she handed the jewelry box with its valuable oils to Polly.

"She'd want you to have it," she said.

***

After that, Polly's mom went into the Crying Room only once, on Bree's seventeenth birthday. She started going out with friends again, and on a Friday in late February, she went to dinner with Polly's dad. This time, there was no premature talk of working things out. They stammered like teenagers just saying hello, yet the next week he arrived on their doorstep to take her out again.

By March, when Bree had been gone six months, Polly's
mom and dad were officially dating, and Polly seesawed between hopefulness and total embarrassment when she stumbled upon them kissing on the porch. She did like the little carvings her dad brought, though, miniature wooden polar bears and log cabins and wolves. Polly's mom put them on the mantel, and even though her dad still lived at his cabin, the house filled up with the scent of wood. After that, somehow, it was easier to sleep.

It was true that sometimes winter felt like it would never end, but it was also the season of dreaming. Polly burrowed under her covers and dreamed of hibernating fairies, of bear dens and the roots of those larch seedlings taking hold in black, cold soil.

She lay in bed and thought that at thirteen she was just beginning to understand the secret of survival: when things are at their darkest, just take a deep breath and wait.

An earth regenerator, fireweed got its name because it is often the first to grow in burned and clear-cut areas, springing up through the ash after Mount Saint Helens exploded, and amid the rubble of bombed cities. When young, the whole vitamin-rich plant can be eaten like asparagus, and when used in teas, fireweed is a remedy for asthma.

Polly's mom liked to say there were four seasons in Idaho: fire, winter, more winter, and mud. The mud came in late March, after days of steady downpours. Afternoons flirted with the fifty-degree mark, yet most people stayed inside as if it were still winter, standing at their windows and cursing the slop in their yards.

Only Bridget cheered the clouds. To her, every rainstorm slowed construction at Mountain Winds and gave her the opportunity to gather the Kids for the Woods at the Leyland
Corporation's construction office. On a miserable, wet Saturday, Dan Leyland drove up with Carly in the seat beside him to find twenty thirteen-year-olds picketing around his silent bulldozers and chanting, "Stop Mountain Winds."

"Now, now," Mr. Leyland said, stepping out of his mudsplattered truck wearing jeans and a cowboy hat. Carly got out after him, already dressed for next season in white boots and a miniskirt. "That's enough. You've made your point."

"Mr. Leyland," Bridget said, "we have a right to voice our opinion. We think—"

"I know what you think," he said, looking at her from under the brim of his hat. "You think I have no soul. You think I'm just a businessman and all I care about is money and progress. But you're wrong. I believe in protecting natural spaces too."

Polly rolled her eyes, wishing her friends could see his comic-book-pink aura.

"Why do you think I'm taking on this project?" he went on. "I'm not making much of a profit, I can tell you that. I'm doing it so people will have access to wilderness. You want to save your precious woods? You've got to let people in to see them. No one's going to protect what they don't know."

The only sound was the steady rain until Peter mumbled that Mr. Leyland made a good point. Polly was outraged and about to offer a rebuttal when Carly suddenly stepped forward, her white boots disappearing into a murky puddle.

"That's not true," Carly said.

Her dad had been turning to leave, but now he stiffened. "Excuse me?"

Under his steady gaze, Carly's aura went from a fireworks display to a flicker, but more surprisingly, the colors around her began to deepen. Those baby blues and pinks became richer hues of turquoise and red, and maybe they colored her vision too because when she looked at the Kids for the Woods, it was as if she'd never seen them before.

"That's not true about your profit," Carly said, her voice soft but firm. "I heard you tell Mom you stand to make well over a million when all is said and done."

Everyone was silent, then Bridget lifted her sign and began the chant again. "Stop Mountain Winds! Stop Mountain Winds!" Dan Leyland glared at her, not about to change his plans just because his daughter had learned to stand up to him, yet obviously unsettled. And Polly couldn't help but wonder if before Girlwood was ruined, it had worked a bit of magic on Carly Leyland, too.

Carly's dad grabbed the picket right out of Bridget's hand, silencing her. "Get off my property," he said, "before I call the police."

***

The moment the ground was dry, Dan Leyland put his men on twelve-hour shifts. Polly and her mother waited anxiously the day the trees were removed from Girlwood, but if the crew noticed the larch seedlings or Baba's grave, there was no report of it. With the weather finally cooperating, trucks moved in, and bulldozers attacked the woods and newly green fields. Everywhere Polly turned there were downed trees and daffodils, both reminders that spring had come but Bree had not.

On a warm Sunday afternoon, Polly's mom drove past the newly completed waterfall at the entrance to Mountain Winds. Through the open window, Polly smelled chlorine and saw the pennies that had been tossed into the concrete-lined pond. There were red and green banners now, and a dozen
FOR SALE
signs along with waterproof boxes of brochures.

Her mother reached over and squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry, honey."

Polly said nothing. Today, at least, she wasn't going to think about Mountain Winds. For the moment, all that mattered was that her mother had asked to see her father's cabin for the first time. They were going to spend the day together as a family in the woods.

A mile beyond the subdivision, they reached the turnoff, a weedy dirt trail that Polly had to insist was the road. Muttering "Crazy fool" under her breath, her mother eased off the pavement, wincing as the thistle and switchgrass scraped the underbelly of her car.

Twice, Polly had to get out and move rocks from the path, but finally they reached the cozy woodman's cottage that looked, as always, like a holdover from another time. As they pulled up near the shed, Polly and her mother saw it at the same time—the girl on the porch beside her father, carved from larch.

Polly's mom didn't move. The carving was so lifelike that, with only a little stretch of the imagination, they could think that it was Bree standing there and that, like magic, their family was once again whole. Polly didn't want to believe that this was the best they would get, a wooden statue of her sister, but if it was, she knew they could survive it. It seemed cruel to go on, but it was right, too. As if they were truly creatures of the wild now, the kind who persevered.

Her mom surprised her by throwing open the door and running to Polly's dad.

"Oh, Paul," she said. "She's beautiful."

Polly left them to the carving and headed down to the stream. The construction sounds were louder there, a chorus of rumbles and shrieks. Polly picked up rocks and threw them into the churning river. With the snowmelt and heavy rains, the water had never been as deep.

Later, her mom walked down from the cabin. Polly had thought her mother's aura was pure white, but lately she'd noticed flecks of green and blue in it, as if she was slowly letting color back in.

"This place is ridiculous," her mom said. "Who lives like this? No electricity. No microwave or TV Not even a phone!" But when she glanced back at the cabin, her gaze softened. "And yet, this'll sound crazy—"

"I don't need TV," Polly said quickly, her heart pounding. She'd never dared to ask for this. To live
here.
In the woods.

"It's like another world. A refuge. Maybe..." Her mother looked over the river, then stepped out onto a partially submerged rock. Polly could hardly believe the sight of her mom balancing there, letting the icy water slosh over the rims of her tennis shoes. For a moment, she looked trapped, unable to chance another step forward but too far out to go back. Then she suddenly jumped across the deepest water and landed on the other side with a
splat.

"Did you see that?" her mom asked, her eyes shining.

What Polly saw was that her mom was growing out her hair. And walking. Not as far as Baba had, but around the block some evenings, to the store and back.

"Maybe we could come here on the weekends," her mom said. "You know, just to see how it feels. The only thing is, do you think Bree would find us?"

Polly took the same path across the river, ignoring the water that seeped into her shoes. "Of course she will," she said, adding the rest silently.
If she can.

Her mom squeezed her hand. "Let's go for a walk."

***

They headed into the tidied forest which, to Polly's mind, was no longer a forest at all. The Leyland Corporation had removed all the underbrush, leaving the ground oddly clean and bare. Even the firs had been trimmed into perfect-looking Christmas trees, without a single dead branch to mar their appeal. Polly shook her head and led her mom down where the forest had yet to be "fixed," into the overgrown canyon where the river raged and Mandy had caught her fish.

It was a hard hike through tangles of barbed hawthorns and across the snowy patches on the north slope. Ahead was 239 the steep, exposed hill that led up to Girlwood, the summit painfully barren since the crews had removed every last larch.

Polly suddenly turned, nearly knocking her mother over.

"It's April!" she said. "I completely forgot. Baba said there was a flower you'd like in the grove. A blue one that blooms this month. We have to find it."

She looked up the cliff, longing to go back to Girlwood but terrified of what she would find. What if the larch seedlings her friends had planted had all died?

"Hardly anything's in bloom, honey," her mom said. "We'll come back later."

"No!"

Polly's body was covered in goose bumps, the same feeling
she'd always had in the grove. Only the frost-hardy glacier lilies were in bloom at this elevation, yet she knew she had to find that flower.

"Come on," Polly said, looking for a place to cross the river. But all through the canyon the water was fast and deep, the edges still locked in ice.

"We can't cross here, Polly," her mom said. "If you're so determined, we can go back to the cabin and drive around. This makes no sense."

Polly looked at the churning water. Of course her mom was right, but right didn't explain her goose bumps. Right had nothing to do with the furious beating of her heart.

"Baba named it Faith," she said. "The flower."

Her mom looked stunned for a moment, then she let out a grudging laugh. "She always knew just how to get to me, didn't she?"

Polly smiled, leading her mother where the river was narrowest and praying that the fast current wouldn't sweep them off their feet.

"Aaaaah," her mom said as they stepped into the icy water.

"This had better be one good-looking flower." Battling the current and the slick rocks, they shuffled and stumbled their way across. Polly's jeans became a lead weight as she broke the ice on the far side and pulled her mother out after her.

"I can't feel my toes," her mom said.
Polly looked up the steep cliff, fearing that her mother wouldn't be able to climb it. Then she realized she wouldn't have to.

Just a few feet above them, nestled between two sheltering rocks, was a tiny speck of blue. Polly scrambled upward, expecting something wondrous and strange, a flower that reminded her of Baba, then sank to her knees in disappointment beside the tiny bud. The flower was nothing but six cobalt petals and a fuzzy pinkish stem. It was a true blue, and that was rare, but otherwise it was just an ordinary spring flower. Something most people would walk right by.