’em too, right, Az?”
“There’s a difference between the spirits that have gone on, and the ones that can’t leave,” Az said. He picked up a knife and began to whittle a branch to a point. “Where I used to live, there was a girl whose parents told her she couldn’t marry the boy she loved. So she hanged herself from a beech tree on top of a hill. Her boyfriend went up to the same tree after she was buried, and hanged himself too. And if an Indian gets hanged, his spirit can’t go to the sky—it gets trapped behind, in the body.” He tested the point of his spear. “After they died, two blue lights used to come over the hill at night.”
Winks leaned forward, elbows balanced on his knees. “Anyone ever get close to them?”
The old man ran the knife down the branch again. Behind him, he could sense Rod van Vleet, doing everything in his power to pretend he was not listening. “Nobody,” Az said, “was stupid enough to try.”
“Ethan?”
From his vantage point beneath the blackout shades, Ethan froze at the sound of his mother’s voice. He whipped his body back so that it wasn’t pressed against the warm glass windowpane and slid his sunglasses between the crack where his bed met the wall. “Hey,” he said, as she opened the bedroom door.
Her hawk’s eyes took in the rumpled comforter, the hat on Ethan’s head, the drawn curtains. She approached him, narrowed her gaze, and tugged down the sleeve of his shirt where a quarter-inch strip of skin showed above his wrist. “I’m going to work,” his mother said. “You ought to be asleep by now.”
“I’m not tired,” Ethan complained. It struck him, though, that his mother must be exhausted. To stay up with him all night, and to work part-time during the day at the library? “Mom,” he asked, “are you tired?”
“All the time,” she answered, and kissed him good-bye.
He waited until he heard her footsteps echoing on the tile floor of the kitchen. Words were traded like playing cards between his mother and Uncle Ross about how late Ethan should be allowed to stay up and what to do in case of emergency. Ethan dug along the side of his bed until he found the silver wraparound sunglasses. He settled his cap more firmly on his brow. Then he lifted the edge of the blackout shade and curled like a kitten on the windowsill. Within minutes, burns rose beneath the chalk of his skin, small spots dotted his face, but Ethan didn’t care. He’d scar, if that’s what it took to prove he’d been a part of this world.
The scientists from CRREL, the Army Corps of Engineers, who had taken a van from Hanover, New Hampshire, to Comtosook and spent the day extracting soil samples with drills made to delve through ground frozen solid as stone, spoke to Rod van Vleet only peripherally. They had come out of academic curiosity and talked of the impact of thaw distribution on vehicle mobility . . . but did not explain how or why this had occurred here and now.
The fellow who arrived from the Scott Polar Research Institute said it looked like permafrost, a climate-dependent phenomenon that occurred when the ground temperature remained below freezing for two or more years—which was not the case on Otter Creek Pass. He spoke of pore ice, segregated ice, and pingos, and reminded Rod that at one point, Burlington and its environs had been glacial.
A Danish team phoned to ask if sudden freezing of the property had affected the chemistry of the atmosphere, and would Rod consider selling in the name of research?
Yet for all of the combined wisdom that these scientists brought to the table, none could explain the odd cravings they developed the moment they crossed into Comtosook— for banana chips and candied violets and the soft skin of homemade puddings. They could not comment on the way loneliness perched on the telephone lines like a crow, except to point out that this was normal in regions where cold seeped so deep it was physically impossible to reach
“There’s a difference between the spirits that have gone on, and the ones that can’t leave,” Az said. He picked up a knife and began to whittle a branch to a point. “Where I used to live, there was a girl whose parents told her she couldn’t marry the boy she loved. So she hanged herself from a beech tree on top of a hill. Her boyfriend went up to the same tree after she was buried, and hanged himself too. And if an Indian gets hanged, his spirit can’t go to the sky—it gets trapped behind, in the body.” He tested the point of his spear. “After they died, two blue lights used to come over the hill at night.”
Winks leaned forward, elbows balanced on his knees. “Anyone ever get close to them?”
The old man ran the knife down the branch again. Behind him, he could sense Rod van Vleet, doing everything in his power to pretend he was not listening. “Nobody,” Az said, “was stupid enough to try.”
“Ethan?”
From his vantage point beneath the blackout shades, Ethan froze at the sound of his mother’s voice. He whipped his body back so that it wasn’t pressed against the warm glass windowpane and slid his sunglasses between the crack where his bed met the wall. “Hey,” he said, as she opened the bedroom door.
Her hawk’s eyes took in the rumpled comforter, the hat on Ethan’s head, the drawn curtains. She approached him, narrowed her gaze, and tugged down the sleeve of his shirt where a quarter-inch strip of skin showed above his wrist. “I’m going to work,” his mother said. “You ought to be asleep by now.”
“I’m not tired,” Ethan complained. It struck him, though, that his mother must be exhausted. To stay up with him all night, and to work part-time during the day at the library? “Mom,” he asked, “are you tired?”
“All the time,” she answered, and kissed him good-bye.
He waited until he heard her footsteps echoing on the tile floor of the kitchen. Words were traded like playing cards between his mother and Uncle Ross about how late Ethan should be allowed to stay up and what to do in case of emergency. Ethan dug along the side of his bed until he found the silver wraparound sunglasses. He settled his cap more firmly on his brow. Then he lifted the edge of the blackout shade and curled like a kitten on the windowsill. Within minutes, burns rose beneath the chalk of his skin, small spots dotted his face, but Ethan didn’t care. He’d scar, if that’s what it took to prove he’d been a part of this world.
The scientists from CRREL, the Army Corps of Engineers, who had taken a van from Hanover, New Hampshire, to Comtosook and spent the day extracting soil samples with drills made to delve through ground frozen solid as stone, spoke to Rod van Vleet only peripherally. They had come out of academic curiosity and talked of the impact of thaw distribution on vehicle mobility . . . but did not explain how or why this had occurred here and now.
The fellow who arrived from the Scott Polar Research Institute said it looked like permafrost, a climate-dependent phenomenon that occurred when the ground temperature remained below freezing for two or more years—which was not the case on Otter Creek Pass. He spoke of pore ice, segregated ice, and pingos, and reminded Rod that at one point, Burlington and its environs had been glacial.
A Danish team phoned to ask if sudden freezing of the property had affected the chemistry of the atmosphere, and would Rod consider selling in the name of research?
Yet for all of the combined wisdom that these scientists brought to the table, none could explain the odd cravings they developed the moment they crossed into Comtosook— for banana chips and candied violets and the soft skin of homemade puddings. They could not comment on the way loneliness perched on the telephone lines like a crow, except to point out that this was normal in regions where cold seeped so deep it was physically impossible to reach
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