The Lake and the Library (3 page)

I sighed. “Unless Garret tries to drive his dad's old tractor through the place, no one's getting in there now.” Dave Garret claimed he spent a night there when he came home from the University of Manitoba in the spring. He said there was nothing in there but a raccoon's nest and bird crap. I couldn't let him be right. Every time we came to this building,
our
building, we checked if a way in had been made by someone more shameless, or if maybe nature had taken out its latest fury in our favour. But the building was made of tougher stuff, and it always fought back. We knew deep down that Dave Garret had probably slept on the porch.

“Well, they're going to drive
something
through it in the end.” Paul grimaced, trying to keep his head above the disappointment. “Garret might as well be the one to do it.”

“But that can't be the end of it,” Tabitha protested as we started walking off, touching the porch rail as we went — our own private salute for luck. “If they're just going to tear it down, why don't we just bust in? They can't stop us now!”

I would have usually been right at the helm of the plans that she and Paul started hatching, but something made me turn. I looked up at the high rose window above the porch, one of the only openings without chains or boards on the facade, and felt that the only way in to this mysterious void was to fly. And for a second it felt possible.

Whatever this place was, it belonged less in Treade than I did. Foundation firmly rooted in dying ground, starved for sunlight. But I was so close to shaking off my chains and boards and making my great escape. I wish I could have claimed ownership of the building like I would a genie, using my last wish to set it free. But there was nothing in Treade with powers like that, not for me, and not for this place, whatever it was. It would have to find its own way out.

I turned away from the building's desperate eyes, imagining the windows and doors making a desolate plea for us to switch places. There was nothing I could do. It was in Treade's hands now, a grasp that I'd finally slipped out of.

“I
n the dream there's the lake. The sky is the colour of solid slate. And nothing moves. There's no wind, no clouds, nothing. Frozen. The trees are like these bent, scraggly plinths in the distance, and I'm wading out into the middle of the water, but the water feels more like still-wet concrete at my waist. I can't remember why I'm out there, but there's just this feeling of trying to find something. But I can't see into the water, can't even really move. All I can do is sink, lower and lower, sucked down into this sludgy quicksand water. And then I look up and there's the moon, turning its face away, doing everything not to look, until I'm totally underwater.

“The world flips over and so do I, tumbling and tangled, sinking further and further, and not really drowning but being pushed. There are hands, grabbing at me, making impressions in my skin, but I sink away and away, until I hit the bottom. I roll over and see above me — see that the surface of the water is kind of
crashing
towards me, and the lake is draining away. What washes up in the end is me, and the building, a little worse for wear, but I hear no complaints. Nothing. Just that same stillness as before.

“I get to my feet. The ground is shaking, rumbling, almost breathing, but I keep going. It's ripping up the foundation, and I can see the boards flapping like shutters. The Fable Door is shuddering, and the chains start pooling in front of it like wet rope. I keep going but, well, all around me the ground is just cracking. Shattering. And turning white, like chewed-up eggshells. But I can't stop looking because the rose window, it folds in on itself, once, then unfolds. Blinking. Like an eye. Then the door opens. And there's a wave . . .

“I can't really remember the rest,” I admitted, “but I think it's what you'd call a bona fide premonition. Well, a pretty good sign, anyway, that this'll be a success, don't you?”

“It's pretty crazy, sure.” Tabitha shrugged, noncommittal.

This was not the response I'd expected. Not after years of laughing and mock-gasping as we shared our nightscapes, not after the years and years spent dreaming about what could possibly be inside our sacred, precious hideaway, and not after yesterday, for sure.

After our quest I came home, listless and charged at the same time, not really knowing what to do with myself, this weird energy taking over. It was a confused flight response, like when a bird is about to take off but jerks backwards, invisibly tethered. Leaving was important, but these last adventures with my friends were just as vital. So I resolved to keep my head in Treade while I was still here, just a little while longer, for Tabitha and Paul. They had spent the rest of the afternoon scheming about their great caper, our one last adventure and our one and only break-in, while I was lost in other adventures yet to come. The next morning, I realized this was something we needed right now.

So I decided to use this dream to break back into the fold, to develop our under-cover-of-night schemes, and rally for the gang one more time. Something for Treade, even, to remember me by.

But as we sat in silence that afternoon, watching Tabitha's lackadaisical dog twitch in his sleep, I wondered if she'd heard me at all.

“Well, of course it's crazy,” I said, trying to even my voice out, “which is why we have to do this. We won't have another chance, and we've waited long enough.” I jumped up, striking a pose on the sofa. “This is our moment!”

This was the cue for Tabitha to break into her usual snorts and giggles, giving her an opportune moment to punt a pillow into my face or jump up and join me. I was always leading the charge, and, faithfully, she'd come running in after, bearing the standard. But not this time. Tabitha's face was carved in granite, giving away nothing as she hung back from the opportunity to give even a smile of support. She just leaned forwards, shoulders hunched, not meeting my eye. The sudden rush of blood to my brain brought me back down to the sofa in a flushed heap, and I tried to keep the breathless smile plastered on my lips, disheartened as it was. “Well? You guys were so pumped about it yesterday.”

“Well—,” she started, but I was diving off the sofa, grabbing for my bag.

“I even threw together some stuff just in case we wanted to really get on this,” I said, digging through and producing a rusted crowbar I had found in the trunk of Mum's Firebird, one of those big police flashlights they had given out at school, and rope. I didn't really know what the rope was for. I had thrown everything together without much of a plan; I just desperately wanted Tabitha to see that I was still with them. I looked at her and expected . . . something. Anything. A glimmer of inspiration, the spark I always saw.

She instead turned her head away, frowning. “I don't know,” she finally said. “I talked about it more with Paul . . . maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea. Someone
owns
the place now, and everything.”

A feeling like a tiny explosion of angry fire ants bloomed in my chest. The two of them were already sharing confidences without me. What had
really
changed their minds? Tabitha was still looking elsewhere, somewhere I couldn't see, and the corners of her long face pinched inward like bad stitches.

“Tabs?” I urged quietly, my hand hovering over her shoulder. “What's going on?”

“It's just.
Urgh
.” She squeezed her eyes shut, getting up and moving to the piano. It was, as usual, crowded with strewn tapestries, cookie plates, and cherubs.
The Lady of Shalott
hung over it, too, mournful on her boat as she sailed away, dying of a broken heart. A lost life.

Tabitha's lips were set in a thin, pink line, but the words finally smashed their way out. “It's just a lot, you know? First you're going, now our building's being torn down. It's a lot to deal with, Ash. Maybe it'd be better if we just let it go and move on. You're moving on already, why can't we?”

I stared, winded. I hadn't seen that coming. I bit the inside of my cheek, fighting the words that wanted to lash back. Tabitha's house, a sacred palace of Renaissance pictures, candelabras, and touch lamps, slid away. Tabitha, I know, wanted to get away as much as I did, and we had always planned to do the big move together. We were twin falcons strapped to a gauntlet, yet somehow I'd managed to extend my wings and snag her with a talon. We used to slam David Bowie's “Changes”
into that piano, screaming the lyrics like fools, but now she wouldn't dare. She plonked a single key instead.

“Tabs, what do you want me to say?” It came out in a flat, ridged tone as I smoothed down my jeans. I shrugged, repacking my bag and clenching my jaw so hard I swear my teeth were turning into diamonds. “I just thought doing this would make you guys happy.”

“Yeah. Well.”

Maybe they were still planning on doing this. Maybe they would do it as soon as I was gone, bust into what was once “ours” and call it “theirs.” Maybe Tabitha's only way of getting over this was to stick it to me and have one adventure I'd never be able to touch. Maybe.
Maybe
. The poison thoughts were carouselling through my head, around and around, making me sick, dizzy. But I couldn't even form the accusation, because there wasn't one. She just missed me, even though I was still right there.

A clock toll went off somewhere but the sound was dull. My face was hot and I felt like there was cotton welling up in my ears and mouth. The dog huffed at the sound and quickly went back to sleep. I was on my feet, the corners of my eyes stinging but betraying nothing.
There's still the summer
, I repeated in my head like the mantra it had become
. There's still tomorrow
. I sent this thought with all my brainpower in Tabitha's direction, because I wasn't feeling sorry enough to admit defeat, to cull her sadness. I was selfish, even then.

I pretended to check the time on my phone. “Anyway. I've got to get home. I'll text you, I guess.”

She didn't move. “Yeah, sure.”

Yeah, sure.

The door shut heavily in my wake as I padded past the front flower garden. The bees were nowhere to be seen on that monochrome afternoon, which made it a little worse. Tabitha had made up something about “bee speak” a long time ago, and true to form we would hum and buzz to try to discover the opening to their hidden honey world. But there was no buzzing now. Just a sad whine beyond the cul-de-sac.

I ground the heel of my hand into my eyes, doing this covertly just in case she was watching me stalk down her driveway from the living room window.
No
. I promised myself I wouldn't get like this, that I wouldn't compromise my escape and be tortured by the what-ifs of the yellow brick road before me.

Each harsh and hard step away from Tabitha's and back to my block was a curse, punctuated by thunder rumbling overhead. I passed the park. Stopped. There was no way you could see the building from here, but I could sense it. Looming in that hidden thicket amongst all kinds of garbage and broken things. Waiting. I stared at my feet, at the cracks in the sidewalk where various bugs were running for cover, like I should have been doing. The thunder shuddered above me, and I closed my eyes, the road forking in three separate directions and my heart outlining each.

Paul.

Tabitha had shut the drawbridge to our castle with me moping at the moat. But what about Paul? He lived at the other end of Treade. Ever since he got his license we'd driven everywhere, the short streets becoming our own as Elvis or Simon and Garfunkel or Iggy and the Stooges burst from our lungs and the windows. When the three of us were kids, Tabs and I had each taken turns being chauffeured on the front of his bike; as time passed, that throne became the front seat of his car.

Paul, so wrapped up in reason and dreaming in logic, swam through frequencies and formulas. He had always raptly watched me painting or listened shyly to Tabitha's music. Though he could not charm us through art, he lured us into his world of facts, the romance of history, the allure of spider's webs and ingrown trees. His Wonderland was real. All three of us together were the prism refracting reveries and reason. And we thrived.

But right now, after hearing the strum of Tabitha's cold resignation, I could picture him distinctly. He wasn't at home thinking of adventures yet to be had. He was probably sitting with a fresh set of encyclopaedias in his lap, staring blankly into the void, not absorbing any of the information in front of him. He was wondering, instead, how things would be when I left, when the music blasting from his car windows faded. Not even the flat, stubbled fields of Treade would carry the memory of our sound.

At this point I could taste the musk of the rain.

The second path: home. I slipped into one of my many daydreams, imagining where that path would take me.

I see myself pounding the gravel of the road's shoulder, desperate to get to my place. I'm running over the trestle bridge, past the sickly bright Heritage Village and into the northwest 'burbs. And I'm home. Our house is set back on the lot, hemmed in by the apple trees that dapple the town like the only silent, productive residents. Unfortunate laundry whips on the line, ready for another rinse cycle. I jog to the front door, which I remember painting a brilliant red as soon as we moved here, to mark this place as our sanctuary. It's peeling now, since we haven't had the heart to sand it down and leave it beautiful for the next tenants. I reach for the doorknob. Pull.

Pull
again.

It's locked. I bang hard, knowing that Mum
has
to answer. Some shrill reply of
Back so soon, wanderer
? will come, and the usual pillar of perfume or the wisp of cigarette smoke will surround us like a curtain. But nothing. Okay. Keys? I drop down, digging through my bag, hoping I had thrown them in. I hear a jingling, keep digging,
yes
! But something strange is happening . . . the keys won't fit in the lock. They're melting, dissolving, and the keyhole is sealing itself up. This can't be happening. A raindrop
plonks
me square in the forehead. I shut my eyes.

I opened them.

I was still on the sidewalk, standing next to the park. The next strike of thunder was so sharp that I flinched, covering my head in case it started raining anvils. I'd considered my options. And though path two may not have been the most realistic, I knew that was just my heart's way of telling me that path three was the only one to take.

The sky opened and the downpour began. I bolted. Not for Paul's, not for my house. I ran to my building.

I was already soaked, but I couldn't stop. I was swimming in leaps, shooting past the torn-down swings, careening down the hill, racing over the baseball diamond, crashing through the trees like a six-point buck being pursued. The feeling of a sudden, personal adventure had saturated my pores, my bag clapping against my side egging me on. Nothing, not bars or boards, piles of chains, trespassing warnings, or even Tabitha's stone-cold heartache could keep me out now. I would show both of them that I was still here, that this one last adventure was ours for the taking.