1
Everett and Jimmy looked to each other.
“Dad... what does this mean?”
“I was kept alive for a purpose,” Everett said, “and I feel that purpose was you.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“How does that make you feel,” Alda asked.
Jimmy spun around. “Oh, for Chrissakes, would you knock it off!” He turned back to his father.
“Dad, none of this makes sense; these visions—you’re being here. None of it.”
“Think outside the box Jimmy,” Alda said.
Jimmy regarded Alda for a moment.
“Is that all this is—a box?”
He came back over to Alda.
“So, exactly what kind of a box are we talking about, Alda? A Rubik’s Cube? Jack-in-the-Box? Pandora’s box? What kind of vague generalities do you have for me, now, Doc?”
“How about me? I’m the very definition of ‘vague generalities,’ don’t you think?”
Renée Cherko stood in the office doorway. She held interlaced hands down before her.
“Mom?
“Goddammit, what is going on here!”
Jimmy looked to his dad, who only returned a blank stare.
“Alda, what the hell are you doing?”
“Don’t blame him, Jimmy,” Renée said.
Renée entered the office and sat beside Everett. She cast him a sorrowful look as she sat down on the edge of the couch, her pressed-together hands wedged between squeezed-together knees. Everett made a quick grimace, but said nothing.
“I think it’s time we all came to terms with what happened,” she said. “Remembered... really remembered... exactly what happened.”
“You remember? You found something out?” Jimmy asked.
Renée nodded. “I think this place... helps.”
“This is crazy!” Jimmy said. “How could you two be here—know about this place—him?” Jimmy said, pointing to Alda.
Alda’s eyes took on a disturbingly deep, dark stare. Jimmy had to consciously pull his attention away from them. He came back to stand before his mother.
“How is this happening?”
Renée reached out to him.
“Allow me.”
2
Renée Cherko dreamed she was pregnant.
Not just once, but many times. Eight to be exact. Eight times between 1960 and 1972. Her husband was a Navy man and usually got shore leave once a year while out on patrol. A submariner. But he had gotten out of the Navy in sixty-five (and after four children), and after a year or two of temporary employment in New Hampshire, got on with the Wanakena, New York, Forest Ranger School. A year and one move later, became a full-fledged Forest Ranger for the State of New York, after a brief stint in Vermont. They’d had four more children between New Hampshire and New York, 1972.
Eight children.
She dreamed this.
But every time she awoke from her dreams, either in the middle of the night or during the light of day, she felt a pronounced, soul-crushing, loss.
She only awoke to four. If she was so lucky.
Where had the others gone?
It would always take her some time before she remembered the reality of it.
She’d lost them.
The doctors had told her she had lost them due to Rh incompatibility; erythroblastosis, to the uninitiated.
But, good God, that’s not how she remembered it!
She remembered all of them—having given birth to each and every one—and that they’d all survived. Every one of them! Her dreams had told her so, her memory had told her so, and her heart had told her so.
It was only her reality that lied.
So on the nights when she found herself awake between one and four in the morning, she usually got up out of bed and walked the house in the dark. She’d usually start with Jimmy’s room, because his was the first one she came upon when she left their bedroom and crossed through the spare room and into the hallway, where Mac slept. She’d take just a short peek—enough to verify that he existed and was sound asleep in his bed. Then she’d go down the short banistered hallway to Penny and Ritchie’s room, and do the same. Next on to Carl’s room, across from Penny and Ritchie.
But usually when she got to their rooms the fear had gripped her and she began second-guessing her senses.
Where they really there?
Or was she just seeing lumps of clothing and blankets thrown together to make it look like her children were all asleep in their beds?
She would have to fight the urge to go in and shake them, wake them up, and throw off their blankets. For to give in meant she had to admit to some form, however low-level, of insanity—and, of course, there was the chance she could be wrong... and that she just didn’t want to know.
But of course she had children. Of course. Its proof was right there every morning. Every breakfast, lunch, and dinner. During homework, scraped knees, and sibling rivalries. Bed time.
But there were only four. Four.
When she knew she’d had eight.
Four—right?
After her bed checks she’d then go downstairs. Sometimes Mac would follow her, sometimes not. Sometimes he’d follow, see all was okay, then return to his sentry post back at the top of the stairs. Mac was a good dog.
And sometimes Mac would just sit there in the dark staring at her. She couldn’t see his dark, caring eyes, but she knew he was looking directly at her—staring at her—because she could see that angular silhouette of his head in the darkness, ears alert.
It always unnerved her.
So she would get up and walk around the house... the kitchen, the pantry, the back porch... or Everett’s ranger office. Sometimes, it didn’t matter the season, she’d even go outside, on the large front porch that nearly wrapped around the house.
And just sit.
Her and her errant memories. Trying to analyze if she really was any kind of crazy. She knew sometimes dreams could be so real... like you were actually alive and living them like everyday life... she knew this, but even that didn’t help.
If she wondered she was crazy... was she?
Were those children sleeping—right now, up in those beds—her children?
Were there really four-and-not-eight-children in their home? In their life?
Something was wrong, wasn’t right, but she could no longer talk to her husband about it, because he—and the rest of the world—thought she was nuts. And she couldn’t argue with them. Had no proof.
Her dreams?
Cause she remembered it so?
She hadn’t a leg to stand on.
But then there were other parts of these somnambulistic periods that absolutely terrified her. Sometimes...
Sometimes, she found herself in the woods.
Yes, at three in the morning.
Sometimes in little more than what she currently had on. Sometimes nothing—entirely naked—she would find herself in strange places. Out on Route 30 or 186. Halfway to Saranac Lake. Once she “came to” in the knee-high water of Lake Clear, across the road from their house. Many times just standing out in their front lawn, staring down to the lake, after she’d felt she’d gone as far as St. Regis mountain or the Lake Clear airport, miles away....
Whether or not her memories were false, what the hell was happening to her?
She had no answers and it terrified her. Professionals, those called medical or psychological professionals, had no answers. They thought her postpartum. Hormone imbalanced. A sleepwalker. Perhaps even just plain old organically mentally fucked. They just didn’t know. So they prescribed pharmaceuticals. Therapy. Recommended keeping sharp objects out of her reach. It was a crap shoot.
But still she had the dreams, the intense foreboding and misgivings that something—something!—was terribly wrong about their lives. About their children.
About them.
Once she remembered a bright light in the sky over Lake Clear. It was huge. She’d looked it up at the library one day, finding references to Venus, but it was in the wrong part of the sky for that time of the year. Going back the next night, she found no such light.
So, this was the constant nightmare of her life. A constant state of fear and confusion and medication. And when everyone you knew kept telling you you were crazy, you eventually started believing it, maybe even found comfort in it....
“It was always easier to go with the flow, not fight the current,” Renée said, staring down into the office floor.
Jimmy could say nothing. He stared at his mother, tears welling up inside.
“Mom...”
“I fault no one, honey—no one knew what to do with me, and all of them dealt with me—even your father—the best way they knew how. Heck, I didn’t even know how to handle me. If I did, I’d have fixed myself, don’t you see?”
Jimmy sat in his assigned chair.
“This is all so...,” Jimmy said, hand to his head. “You never found out? Never?
“God, I have a headache.”
Renée slowly lifted her head.
“Well, actually... I did.”
Jimmy looked up. Everett looked to his wife.
“You found out what was wrong? You found—”
“Answers. That’s why I’m here.
“Jimmy, darling, do you remember Christmas Day, 1974?”
Jimmy screwed his brows together.
“Not sure.”
“You’d been playing up back with the snowshoes we’d gotten you for Christmas. You’d been late getting home...”
Lake Clear, New York
25 December 1974
Jimmy loved snowshoeing!
And now he had his very own! Just the sound of the woods, his breathing, and the muffled crunching of his brand new Iverson’s snowshoes in the snow. Weaving in and out of the trees. Thinking about girls and books and movies. By himself—alone.
How magnificent it was out here!
He stopped. Before him lay unmarked snow and trees. He watched his breath curl up before him. Jimmy pursed his lips together, angling the lips upward and blew more vapor up before him...
* * *
It was late. The sun low and orange through darkening skeletal trees against a blanketed landscape. Gusts of wind howled in the distance. Fleeting snow devils kicked up across the snowscape. He wished this moment would last forever. Snowshoeing through the woods beneath the dark steel-gray of a dying winter’s day.
He smiled.
Crunching in the snow, he waddled around.
His tracks still there.
Still his.
Following him.
God, Hannah was cute. Her long brown hair. Her smile. He wished she’d just walk on out of the woods right now.
He shifted uncomfortably, adjusting his snow pants.
Hannah...
Warmth. Family. TV. Home... warmly lit up from the inside, the spoils of Christmas everywhere. Smoke curling out two chimneys. Mom making dinner, wondering where the heck he was. Carl, Penny, and Ritchie all lying on the floor before the TV waiting for him to get
Home.
Family.
Man, Hannah... Hannah, Hannah!
He loved saying her name out loud—thinking it. Why, she could just walk on out of the trees, out here in the woods. For him. Just the two of them.
Alone.
He again adjusted his snowpants....
* * *
Devil’s Den.
It was only a couple more minutes. Home.
The snow was coming down hard.
Was he alone?
The temperature kept dropping. What late afternoon winter light was
Different. Something was really different.
The cold creeped through his heavy garments and down into his toes. Another shiver.
It was darker. Felt much later than it should be.
“Hi, Jimmy.”
Jimmy nearly tripped over his snowshoe-clad feet as he spun around.
Hannah stood back in a copse of snow-covered pine, fir, and empty beech. Surrounded by deer. She came forward, her entourage spilling forth around her.
“This was what you wanted, was it not?”
He’d never noticed before just how deep and dark her large, beautiful eyes were. How compassionate and probing. Her voice melted away all the cold...
“H-hi, Hannah.”
“What do you wanna do?” she asked.
The deer milled around the both of them. Jimmy didn’t feel right.
“I-I don’t know.”
“I have an idea.”