The Water and the Wild Page 3

  But there wasn’t a bruise. Where a bruise should have been, there was a handprint. A deep black handprint covered the crook of her elbow, and from it pulsed a hot, tight, uncomfortable feeling, like someone had tied a steaming tea bag too tightly around Lottie’s skin.

  A merry chirp shook Lottie’s attention, and she looked up from the strange mark on her arm to catch a sight stranger still: a white fluttering of wings. A lone white finch was flying away, up into the nighttime rain, until Lottie could not distinguish it from the glaring white raindrops themselves.

  Lottie did not want to think long on why her bike was under a giant tree trunk and why she was not. Instead, she pulled herself off the park bench and began running. That is, she meant to run but ended up doing more of a lollop-stagger instead. She stumbled on something round and slick—an apple—and realized that this had been the familiar smell of home. The tree that had fallen had been an apple tree. The scent of apples grew too strong and sour in the time it took Lottie to get her wits together, and she had to stop lollop-staggering a second time when her stomach lurched and she found herself vomiting an entire school lunch behind a shrubbery at the Skelderidge Park entrance.

  Lottie left the park. The rain had slackened to a drizzle so that she could just make out signposts at the park corner. She did not recognize the street names. Lottie felt her stomach clenching again. Her legs screeched, her brain buzzed, and a dry, cottony creep was working its way around her tongue, her lips, and the roof of her mouth. She was so thirsty.

  Lottie willed her feet across the street, toward a low hum of voices. She heard laughter, shouts, and tipsy-pitched singing. When she looked up again, she realized just where she was. Those shouts were coming from New Kemble’s only pub, the Flying Squirrel. The warm pulse of the pub’s frosted windows shone beneath its sign, a splintered gray squirrel raising a chalice in its paws. Mrs. Yates would murder Lottie on the spot rather than see her set foot in such an establishment. But Mrs. Yates was not here, and Lottie had just had an encounter with a lethal apple tree. Surely she was entitled to a glass of water.

  A peeling sign that hung from the front door informed Lottie that no one under the age of twenty-one was permitted. Lottie did not look twenty-one. She hardly looked her real age of twelve. But Mollie Browne worked at the Flying Squirrel, and Mollie was one of Mrs. Yates’ old boarders and had babysat Lottie as a little girl. Mrs. Yates had eventually evicted Mollie for playing an electric guitar at three o’clock in the morning and “forgetting” to pay her rent three months in a row. Mollie still liked Lottie, though, and she would always blow a kiss from the window when Lottie biked past the pub.

  Lottie crossed both sets of fingers for luck, hoping that Mollie would be on shift. Then she went in, nudging into a mass of sweaty bodies swathed in a cheery, orange glow. If she were not so dazed, Lottie would have relished feeling wickedly rebellious. At the moment, though, she only felt wickedly sick.

  “Excuse me!” Lottie piped up, trying to get the attention of a scraggly-faced man behind the bar counter.

  The bartender didn’t acknowledge her. Lottie tried to speak again, but a man who smelled of sauerkraut stepped on her foot and knocked her back against a metal stool.

  That was when the bad spell began. At long last, one had caught up with her.

  Lottie knew the symptoms very well. First came a sensation like her chest was folding in over itself like a bed-sheet, again, again, and again. Next came a tingle in her brain, her ears, her fingers. She choked in short, staggering breaths and closed her eyes, fighting hard against the pain. It would be over soon, she told herself. Bad spells always ended, no matter how bad they got, just so long as she fought back. She grasped on to the rough edge of the bar counter, trembling.

  “Oi! All right there?”

  Lottie’s eyelids snapped open. She could breathe again. She gulped a few more times and nodded at the scraggly-faced bartender, who had just shoved a handful of peanuts into his mouth and did not look nearly as concerned as he had sounded.

  “Could I have a glass of water?” Lottie asked.

  Scraggly Man blinked blankly at her before revealing a crooked row of browned teeth. He snorted and jabbed a girl with dreadlocks standing next to him.

  “Did you hear that, Molls? This little lost mouse has taken a wrong turn. Thinks we might be giving away free water at this high-class establishment.”

  Lottie blushed furiously. The girl turned around. It was Mollie Browne, who looked just as shocked to see Lottie as Lottie was to discover that Mollie now wore dreadlocks.

  “Shoo,” Scraggly Man barked at Lottie. “You’re too young to be in here.”

  “For the love of Hendrix,” Mollie huffed, tossing the bartender the glass she had been drying and swinging her legs over the counter. “Can’t you tell she’s dog sick?”

  Mollie rested a firm hand on Lottie’s shoulder and stooped to look into her eyes.

  “What’re you doing here, Lottie?” she said. “Does Mrs. Yates know where you are?”

  “I fell off my bike,” explained Lottie, “and I’m feeling sick. I didn’t think I could make it back to Thirsby Square without some water. Could I just have a glassful? I promise I won’t be any trouble.”

  Mollie bit down on her pierced lip, giving it some thought. “We’ve got an employee break room in the back. Let’s get you back there, yeah?”

  Lottie hadn’t expected for Mollie to grab her, let alone swing her up onto her shoulders and barrel right past the man who smelled of sauerkraut.

  “Out of the way, fellows!” she shouted, shimmying past burly baseball fans and shoving through a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. The door swung shut, and the grizzled shouts of the Flying Squirrel disappeared into the dim dank of the break room.

  “A bike accident, huh?” Mollie said, setting Lottie back on her feet. “Well, you look all right, just a little shaken up. Sure you’re just thirsty? I can find a first-aid kit, if you need one.”

  “I’m fine,” Lottie said, trying to smile. “Scrapes don’t bother me much.”

  Mollie grinned tiredly. “Yeah, I remember that about you, Lottie Fiske. That’s what you said when you fell out of that apple tree.”

  “Thanks for helping me.”

  Mollie waved Lottie off. “I would stay, but I’m walking a thin wire with the boss as it is. If he found out I let in a kid like you, I’d lose my job.”

  She pointed out a couple of cabinets with towels and glasses and then disappeared in another swoosh of the break room’s swinging door. The room was small and poorly lit, but it had what Lottie needed. Lottie rinsed out a dusty glass under the sputtering tap water and finally raised a glassful to her lips. She chugged the water greedily, and another glassful after it. Then she began to wash off her numb, muddy arms.

  She gasped at the sight of what was on the inside of her left arm. The handprint was still there. Unlike a bruise, the mark was not an uneven patch of brown, blue, or purple—just a thick black that ran against her skin in the perfect outline of a palm and five fingers. Though no, there weren’t five fingers after all. Where the imprint of a pinky had been before, there was now only the slightest sliver of black.

  As Lottie stared dumbly at the mark, she heard a commotion from outside, in the bar. She jerked off the faucet, the handprint momentarily forgotten, and peered through the slatted window of the break room door. There were shouts of anger and surprise as the crowd parted for a sight that Lottie could barely make out. It looked like one figure supporting another, and those two figures were making their way past the rowdy crowd straight toward—the break room door.

  Getting discovered meant getting Mollie Browne into trouble, and that was no way to repay a favor. Lottie ducked down and frantically crammed herself into a forest of employees’ coats that hung in a wooden alcove by the door. Just as she had swatted a prickly scarf away from her face and hugged her knees up to her chest, the door swung open. Shouts from the pub swam in with the sweet, sickly smell of beer. She heard foots
teps, followed by the scraping of chairs. Then there were voices. Mollie was the first to speak.

  “Well! She must’ve skipped out already. Poor girl. You kids have got a knack for getting scratched up tonight, haven’t you? Never rains, but it pours.”

  Lottie heard a dull thud and the sound of labored breathing.

  “Ugh,” said Mollie. “He’s a wreck. Gang brawl, was it? Serves him right. Who lets you kids carry around switchblades, anyway?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said a boy’s distracted voice. “Do you have any clean towels?”

  “In the lower cupboard over there. I expect to get repaid for bloodied-up linens, though, got that? And this place better not look any worse for the wear. You’re lucky I’m feeling like such a humanitarian tonight. Be grateful.”

  “Oh. Right! Yeah, sorry, I am.”

  There was the shuffling of feet, the creaking of door hinges, a momentary burst of pub shouts, and then nothing but the muffled sounds from inside the break room. By now, Lottie had worked up enough courage to peek through the folds of the coats. She immediately wished that she hadn’t. A body was sprawled out on the table in the middle of the room, and its bloody arm hung just a few feet from Lottie’s nose. Meanwhile, a boy was crouched by the cupboards, pulling out an armful of white towels. The body on the table coughed.

  “Thanks, doctor,” said the voice of the body, and it sounded like it belonged to a boy no older than Lottie.

  Despite the phlegm and pain in the voice, Lottie could swear that the injured boy sounded like he was making a joke. Apparently she was right, because two laughs followed, one soft and wary, the other strangled. Lottie shirked back into the coats as the other boy passed by and turned on the tap.

  “I thought we were goners for sure,” he said. “Just think, a few seconds later, and we would’ve been trapped inside that tree for all eternity.”

  “I think,” said the voice from the table, “that was the general idea.”

  “You mean, you don’t think it was an accident?”

  “I don’t know, but Father sure won’t.”

  “So, you think it was worth it?” The faucet turned off, and the boy-doctor returned to the table.

  “She’s safe. That’s what matters.”

  “And Ada can take care of the rest.”

  “If anyone can, Ada can.”

  The boys laughed again. Then there was a sharp wheeze of breath, the kind Lottie had made growing up when Mrs. Yates had pitilessly cleaned up her scrapes with rubbing alcohol.

  “Sorry, mate. I know it hurts.”

  “Stop flavoring, Fife. You can just tell me how bad it is.”

  “Your arm’s pretty mangled, but nothing’s broken. It’ll look nasty more than anything else.”

  “Right.” A pause. “Thanks. I know you didn’t have to get yourself involved in this.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. Someone’s got to clean up after you. Now shut up. I’ve got to disinfect it, and all I’ve got is this stinging human stuff. Just remember, no touching. I don’t want any new tattoos tonight.”

  There was the sound of wet towel hitting skin, followed by a scream from the boy on the table. Lottie clutched her stomach, woozy from the smell of antiseptic and blood. The injured boy let out another shriek. Lottie felt herself getting sick again—horribly sick. She couldn’t stay crouched in the coat closet any longer. Anything, even the risk of getting caught as an eavesdropper, was better than puking all over Eliot’s green sneakers.

  Lottie counted to one—two—three, then leapt up, sprang from the coats, and pushed out through the break room door. She ran, ignoring a shout from behind her. Out in the pub, the injured boy’s screams were swallowed up in the blare of the baseball game and the yells of drunken men. She burst out the front door and into the blisteringly cold rain. It was still three blocks to Thirsby Square. Lottie looked at her wristwatch, which she was relieved to find had survived the accident. It was past eight o’clock, her curfew, and Mrs. Yates would be irate if she found Lottie’s bedroom empty.

  Lottie passed under a maple tree and shivered. To be so close to death, and for someone to pull her out of the way! Now that Lottie had time to think about it, this was the only explanation for why she hadn’t been smushed in Skelderidge Park: someone must have yanked her away from that falling tree. Then, that someone had just—disappeared. Lottie tugged up the sleeve of her periwinkle coat and looked again at the handprint on her arm. The sting had gone away, but just looking at the mark, she felt sick. Lottie decided that she was never going to wander into a pub ever again. She felt worse now than she had when she had first gone inside.

  Lottie opened the wrought iron gate of the boardinghouse at Thirsby Square. But she didn’t go inside. Not yet. Instead, Lottie crawled under the shelter of her green apple tree. She ran her fingers lovingly down its sturdy trunk, then stooped at its roots. The ground was runny with mud, and Lottie’s fingers went slick as she dug up her copper box. She sat down on the root notch and opened the lid, though only by a crack, so as to shield the box’s contents from the rain. She breathed deeply, and quite suddenly the cold and the rain couldn’t reach her at all. When Lottie opened her copper box, the world outside—with its Pen Bloomfields and Mrs. Yateses and incurable illnesses and falling trees—bled away like watercolors under the tap.

  When her box was open, Lottie could pretend that it was the magic of the letter-writer that was real, not the rules at Kemble School.

  Lottie peered inside at the worn photograph of her parents, and her heart squeezed up her breath in a painful hitch. Unbidden, Mr. Kidd’s recitation from English class winked in her mind:

  For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

  “CHARLOTTE!”

  Lottie slammed her box shut and whipped around. Mrs. Yates stood on the front porch, her arms folded.

  “What are you doing? Get in this house at once!”

  Lottie shoved her copper box back beneath the tree root. She tripped up the front porch, face burning. Mrs. Yates would ground her for this. She would keep her inside for the weekend. She wouldn’t let Lottie visit the Barmy Badger, not even to apologize to Eliot.

  “I—I—” Lottie began.

  But Mrs. Yates held up a hand to silence her. “You’re grounded.”

  “I’m wet,” Lottie replied stupidly.

  Looking over Mrs. Yates’ shoulder, Lottie noticed that they were not alone. A man dressed in a fancy pinstriped suit was sitting in the parlor.

  “This is Mr. Grissom, Charlotte,” said Mrs. Yates, waving Lottie into the parlor. “He’s that nice prospective boarder for our third floor that I was telling you about.”

  The only thing that Lottie could remember Mrs. Yates telling her about a prospective boarder had been that morning, when she’d warned Lottie to stay out of sight. There was no chance of that now, though, as Lottie was as in sight as she could possibly be.

  “Hello,” the man said, inclining his head toward Lottie. “You must be the little lady of the house.”

  Lottie frowned. She did not like the way that the man looked at her, as though she were five years younger than she really was.

  “I’m not a lady,” corrected Lottie. “I’m just Lottie.”

  “You are wet,” said Mrs. Yates, who had apparently not believed Lottie until now. “Careful, child! Don’t drip on the Oriental.”

  Lottie edged away from the ugly, puce-colored rug so that she could more conveniently drip on the bare floor.

  “Now, Charlotte, what happened?” Mrs. Yates said. “I was just explaining to Mr. Grissom that I have a strictly enforced curfew for all guests, no exceptions.” She turned to Mr. Grissom. “This usually doesn’t happen.”

  “I got attacked by a tree,” Lottie explained in what she thought was a very calm, adult manner. “It crushed my bike, but I escaped. Someone pulled me out of the way just in time.”

  Mr. Grissom made a gurgling sound, and Lottie wondered if he was choking. Finally he said, “That’
s quite an imagination the young lady has.”

  “Excuse us, Mr. Grissom,” said Mrs. Yates, grabbing Lottie’s arm and dragging her out of the parlor.

  “You’re lying,” hissed Mrs. Yates just as soon as they were out of earshot of the man. “Here I am, trying to make a good impression, and you waltz in, a flagrant liar and a curfew breaker! Now tell me what really happened.”

  “I just did tell you,” said Lottie, trying to pull free from Mrs. Yates’ pincer grasp. “A tree attacked!”

  “That’s as silly as your notions about goblins and magical boxes,” Mrs. Yates said. “Don’t think that ridiculous story is going to save you from punishment. I’ve a guest to entertain, and you may not look up to an explanation now, but believe me, I’ll expect one in the morning. In the meantime, you’re absolutely forbidden from setting one foot outside this house without my express permission.”

  With that, Mrs. Yates sent Lottie straight upstairs without dinner. The lack of food was all the same to Lottie, who was exhausted and had no appetite after puking up five fish sticks’ worth of lunch in Skelderidge Park. But to be grounded the whole weekend through? She had to see Eliot. She had to apologize. If there were only two, maybe three weeks left, every day counted.

  She would just have to go back tonight.

  Mrs. Yates would be busy with Mr. Grissom downstairs. All Lottie had to do was sneak out the kitchen door. It would be a long run back to the Barmy Badger, but she knew all the best shortcuts. It was a risk, and it might mean a punishment of a whole year full of grounded weekends. But tomorrow Mrs. Yates might lock Lottie’s door, as she’d done many times before. Tonight, Lottie still had a chance.

  Lottie barreled into her bedroom. She grabbed an umbrella from under her bed. Then she tossed off her periwinkle coat and threw open her closet to find a dry shirt and shorts good for running.

  What she found instead was a girl.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Down and Up

  THE GIRL BLINKED ONCE. “You have the strangest taste in clothing,” she said.