As Simple as Snow Read online

  “Except you’ll never get to the bottom of it. That’s how deep it is. I also like looking at it this way.” She spun around to look up into the ceiling mirror.

  “That kind of makes me dizzy,” I said. “Is that why you keep it covered up?”

  “Yeah, my father doesn’t like it. He says he doesn’t want any weird illusions in his house, especially the bedroom. My mother says it’s because he’s afraid of heights, and if he looks down into the mirror he feels like jumping.”

  “I don’t think he’d really hurt himself from this height,” I said. An image formed in my head of Mr. Cayne’s hairless head repeating over and over in smaller and smaller copies of itself. It made me laugh out loud.

  “It wasn’t that funny.”

  “No. I was just thinking of something that struck me as funny. What if the whole room were like that. It’d be your own hall of mirrors.”

  She put the cushion back on the mirror and sat down. I went over and turned out the light, and we sat and looked out into the darkness. There was a fat-man moon out, wobbly in the sky, nearly full, with part of his head sliced off. “Lobotomized,” she said. It was so bright that you could almost go sledding.

  “Not in this dress,” she said. “Not on New Year’s Eve. It’s New Year’s Eve every night on the moon.”

  “How’s that?”

  “A year on the moon is twenty-four hours.”

  “My father would love that. He can barely tolerate New Year’s coming once every three hundred sixty-five days. He’d probably kill the Tooles on the moon.”

  She stepped out of the dress in one quick move. “There’s a lot to be said for a dress,” she said. Personally, I wish they were worn a lot more.

  Her body was white, and shimmered with reflected light. My hand shivered, and she reached out and glided her milky hand along my arm. “I’m nervous,” I said. It was my first time. It wasn’t hers.

  “Here,” she said, and handed me a ravioli-sized package. It was a condom.

  I left her house at midnight, afraid that my parents would be leaving the Tooles’ at the same time. If that was the case, it would be a close call to beat them home. I got out of the street and cut across the Bordens’ yard, went behind the Morrisons’, and then out on Talus Road. The snow was deep enough that I was soon out of breath, and I stopped to rest. I thought that the whole town would be celebrating, that the streets would be filled with cars and people, cheering and kissing and hugging and yelling. Instead, it was dead: there were no cars on the street, most of the houses were dark, and those that had lights on were quiet. Maybe the Tooles had a corner on the partying, because there was nothing going on here. Then my phone rang. For a second I was afraid it was my parents. It was Anna.

  “Where are you?”

  “Talus Road.”

  “That’s not very far.”

  “I know. I’ve got to pick up the pace.”

  “You took something with you,” she said. It was almost a question.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thank you. You sound out of breath.”

  “The snow’s a little deep.”

  “Maybe you should stay out on the street.”

  “Maybe. I’ll be able to see my house in a few minutes, and then I’ll know if I’m screwed or not.”

  “Don’t hang up until then,” she said.

  I took the phone away from my ear and started running. My feet felt like lead and my legs were tired, a little wobbly. I should have left earlier. I shouldn’t have had so much to drink. I wasn’t going to fall or anything, but it slowed me down and I was sure that my parents were going to be home. They might not have even stayed for midnight. That would be typical of them—go to a New Year’s Eve party and leave before the celebration. I came out onto Burr Road and could see the side and back of our house. It was dark. “I don’t think they’re home,” I told Anna.

  “Good,” she said.

  “What did that sound like?”

  “It sounded kind of painful. I could hear you breathing and the snow crunching.”

  “That’s pretty much all of it. I’m going to cut in back of Mrs. Owens’s and then I’ll be a block from home.”

  “Don’t hang up,” she said.

  I ran through Mrs. Owens’s backyard and noticed her trashcans behind the garage. I dropped the wadded-up tissue into one of the cans. When I got out to the street, I thought I heard a car. I ran down the street and dashed into the dark house. “I think I just beat them,” I told Anna. I was almost out of breath. I struggled with my boots, leaning against the wall by the back door and holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder.

  “What was that noise back there?”

  “I got rid of that stuff I took from your house.”

  “Where?”

  “Mrs. Owens’s.”

  “You don’t think she’ll come out and find it?”

  “There was a bag. I put it in the bag. Besides, what if she did? She won’t know where it came from.”

  “It might give her a scare, though.” She laughed.

  I had my boots off and made it up to my room in the dark. If my parents came home right now they would see the fresh snow on my boots. I thought about going down and wiping them off, but I was too tired. “I have to go to sleep now,” I said.

  “It’s going to be a great year,” Anna said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Listen to me. It’s going to be a great year. Things are going to happen that we never expected, never imagined.”

  “It’s great already,” I said. I had just crawled under the covers when I heard a car in the driveway. “They’re back,” I told Anna. “They must have slugged the champagne and gotten the hell out of there. I’ve got to go.”

  “Go, then,” she said.

  I was worried about the boots, but either my parents didn’t notice or they didn’t want to say anything about it, the next day or any other. I felt as if I had fooled the world. I felt as if we had conquered everything. Anna was right, it was going to be a great year. Everything was going to be all right for once.

  january

  The Saturday after New Year’s, Mr. Cayne and Anna came over to help put up the shortwave antenna. “Maybe we should wait until it’s warmer,” I said.

  “My dad really wants to get this set for you,” Anna said. So there they were, all bundled up and ready to go. Mr. Cayne was wearing a bright red stocking cap and chocolate-brown coveralls. He looked like a lit cigar.

  My father was sequestered in his den, so I didn’t even bother to ask him about where to put the antenna, or even if we could borrow his ladder and tools. I simply went to the garage with Anna and Mr. Cayne and let him take over. He outlined the procedure and assigned us our specific duties.

  Mr. Cayne and I carried the ladder to the side of the house and extended it to reach the roof, and he made the ascent as far as my bedroom window. I went to my room while he was climbing the ladder, then handed him the antenna and wire through the open window. “You can close the window right over the wire,” he said, and made his way to the roof. I left the window open and looked down to Anna, who was stationed at the bottom of the ladder to keep it steady. She didn’t look up at me. She was stamping her feet in the snow and trying to wind her long black scarf higher around her ears and nose.

  Mr. Cayne shouted to me to turn on the receiver. As I turned to go to my desk I heard a thump and a skid. I rushed to the window and saw Mr. Cayne getting up from the edge of the roof. “Where the hell were you?” he yelled at Anna. “I could have fallen off this fucking roof thanks to you.” He kicked the ladder violently, knocking it over onto the lawn. I ran downstairs and outside and helped Anna pick it up.

  Her eyes were red, ready to cry. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s all right.”

  As we steadied the ladder against the house, my father emerged, shuffling his slippers in the snow. He looked half asleep, and tried to rub the afternoon nap out of his face. He stood and watched us for a few seco
nds and then retreated into the house without a word. Mr. Cayne was still furious as he stood at the edge of the roof. He ordered me away from the ladder. “Let her,” he said. “It’s all she had to do. One thing. Let’s see if she can do it and not get one of us killed.” He came down the ladder and glared at her. “Nicely done.”

  We returned the ladder and the tools to the garage. “It’s not the best antenna,” he said, “but at least you’ll get a taste for the shortwave. If you like it, we can always upgrade to something better.” I thanked him for his gift and his help, and he started for his car. “Let’s go,” he told Anna.

  “I think I’m going to stay here for a while,” she said. “Is that okay?” Mr. Cayne didn’t look as if he approved, but he dismissed her with a shrug and then left.

  “He’s got a short fuse today,” I said.

  “Let’s go inside.”

  We went up to my room and she closed the door. It was cold from the open window, and Anna quickly crawled under the covers. My father was probably back into his nap. I got into bed.

  She was clutching my hand with hers, and when I turned to face her she was already asleep. She was flat on her back, peaceful and still, and I watched her sleep, listening to the measured rhythm of her breathing. I wanted to turn off the shortwave, but she had a tight hold on my hand. The woman on the radio was calmly saying, “Seis, siete, tres, siete, cero . . .”

  The next Monday we got our report cards. I made the honor roll; Anna kept her consistent D’s for every class. Her parents told her that she couldn’t see me until her grades improved. “It doesn’t make any sense,” she e-mailed me. “I was getting horrible grades long before I met you.”

  “Maybe it’s about the ladder,” I replied.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she wrote. It didn’t matter; we kept on seeing each other.

  She would leave a text message on my cell phone, or IM me at home. “Come to the basement door in a half-hour. It will be unlocked.” I would sneak in through the basement door and we could spend some time together. “My parents usually aren’t this stubborn or stupid,” she told me. “I don’t know why they’re suddenly being dramatic.” I noticed in the dim light of the basement that she had bruises on both arms, just below the shoulders. When she saw me looking at them she sat up and put her long-sleeved shirt and sweater back on.

  “You can’t be cold,” I said.

  “A little.”

  This was one of those times when she wasn’t supposed to be in the basement either. She had sneaked down after her parents had gone to bed, and we couldn’t risk lighting the stove. It was freezing on the couch, but this was better than some of the alternative meeting places. “Meet me at the river,” she would say on the phone, and I would run down to her spot at the river and we would kiss and shiver in the cold until we couldn’t stand it anymore, until our toes were numb and our ears and noses were frozen, and we would have to leave each other again.

  She aced her next test, and the ban was lifted. “It was just an excuse anyway,” she said. “My parents have never cared about grades before. Something else is going on with them.”

  “They don’t like me.”

  “It’s not that simple,” she said. “It never is with them. Besides, they do like you.”

  journal entry

  We had all moved into a barn in the country. It was a huge old barn, bigger than most of our houses. It had to be about a hundred feet long and maybe fifty feet wide, but the most impressive thing was the roof. It had to be more than eighty feet high. There was a second story, with three cutouts in the floor and wooden ladders hanging down to the dirt floor. The whole thing was made of wood and smelled of fire. There was a thin cover of straw in some of the old horse stalls. It seemed perfect.

  We had built our own little rooms in the barn. The Goths took the top floor—they were like bats in the rafters, lurking in their black clothes—except for Anna, who was on the first floor, next to me. Carl had been the first to finish his room, and as we hammered together partitions, moved in bed frames and mattresses and personal belongings, he stayed on his bed reading Why We Buy.

  There were a lot of us in there, maybe twenty or twenty-five; we had all moved out of our houses, away from our parents. No one knew whose barn it was. We had electricity for lights, but that was as modern as it got. Mice ran around all the time, and birds flitted from ladder to ladder and swooped from high in the ceiling. There was at least one owl. These were problems, sure, but I thought we could take care of them.

  Then one day I came back to the barn and Anna wasn’t there. She didn’t return for a couple of days, and no one could tell me what had happened to her. While I was worried, no one else seemed to be concerned. She wasn’t at her parents’, she wasn’t at school, she wasn’t anywhere. I thought that maybe she had found some other place, someplace better, and was there by herself. She didn’t want anyone to be with her. She didn’t want me.

  Finally she returned to the barn, to get her things. I pleaded with her to stay. “I can’t,” she said. “I have to go somewhere else.” I told her that things would be better. I told her that we were all new at this, that we were learning things every day. It wouldn’t stay like this. I was practically crying. “Just stick it out,” I said. “Things will get better.”

  “I can’t stay,” she said.

  She had persuaded me to keep a dream journal. This was the dream I had three nights in one week, 30 January, and 2 and 5 February.

  mumler

  “How’s the ghost story coming?” she asked me.

  “I’m not doing so well,” I said. I had been trying, but I began to think that I wasn’t really cut out for this type of stuff. I had gotten myself into a situation where I didn’t have anything good enough to show her, but the longer I waited, the greater her expectations were. I would think about it at night, sitting by my window and look out into the night, the snow shining in the moonlight, and I would try to think about what kind of ghost story she would like, one that I would like to write, one that I could write. I couldn’t think of anything. So then I would read some of the books she’d given me, old ghost stories, but that only made things worse because then I couldn’t think of anything that hadn’t been done before. I wanted to write something that would surprise her.

  “Maybe you need some inspiration,” she said.

  She told me that there was a legend about a place across the river called Mumler. You wouldn’t find it on a map anymore, and there was no town there now, only a few acres of woods. I had never heard of Mumler before Anna told me about it. She said that the town was founded more than two hundred fifty years before, that it grew and prospered and then, through a series of strange events, died off. The only things left were some ruins and the legends. What had happened to Mumler was a mystery, and the woods where it used to be were said to be haunted.

  She showed me a bunch of websites with the story. A lot of the details were different, but the general story was the same. Something horrible had happened across the river, and the people who had survived finally abandoned the place and moved into our town or far away. Most of the websites agreed that the town had been founded by George Tomias in 1737, but was overrun by the Mumler family a few years later. One site indicated that the three Mumler brothers had escaped England after a failed plot to overthrow the king, and that a curse had been put on them. Not long after they moved into the small settlement, strange things began to happen. The youngest of the brothers, Abel, went insane, and shortly after that, another resident, Grisham Pyn, fell to his death during a barn raising. According to one site, he was murdered, and Hiram Tanner, who owned the barn, was under suspicion. Tanner eventually went crazy from a curse put on him by his own sister. Some families left Mumler, but trouble seemed to follow many of them. In 1760, the Carter family abandoned their house, which was formerly Abel Mumler’s, and moved to Binghampton, where they were slaughtered by Indians. Around 1800, General Gideon Swann’s wife was killed by lightning, and soon afterward he
went mad. The last events mentioned involved the Proby family in the late 1800s. William Proby’s wife died of an illness, and then his children disappeared in the woods or the river, depending on which version you consulted, and then Proby burned his house down and tried to set the whole town on fire, before disappearing himself. In a few years the town was gone, its residents either dead or moved on to a safer spot.

  One website had a photograph of a washed-out road that had once run through Mumler and was now overgrown with plants and grass. To the left of the ruined road were a number of trees, with a white cloud suspended between two of the trees. The site identified the cloud as some sort of spirit, caught on film. “This is the kind of physical evidence skeptics hate,” the caption read. “There is obviously no way anyone could have created the spirit cloud, but there it is, plainly captured by the photographer.”

  “Have you ever been there?” I asked Anna.

  “It’s private property,” she said.

  “Who owns it?”

  “Some association. There’s no one there to stop us, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I don’t need to go there.”

  “Come on,” she said. “You can’t write about the place unless you see it, soak up the atmosphere.”

  “Who said I’m writing about it? It looks like enough’s been written about the place already.”

  “Well, write about something else, then,” she said. “But this is the only place that I know of that’s supposed to have ghosts. You’re going to write a ghost story, right? So let’s go get some ghosts.”

  Anna took me to Mumler. She brought along a picnic basket with sandwiches and fruit and a thermos of hot chocolate and a little bottle of brandy. It was cold and snow was everywhere. “Maybe we should wait until spring,” I said. We walked across the southern bridge, and then north about a mile and a half. It was a Saturday afternoon and there was only about an hour of daylight left. That’s the way she had planned it. She wanted to get there during daylight, but stay until it got dark. “I’ve got a flashlight if we need it,” she said.