At six the next morning, as Jake reached the front door and pulled it open a crack, a voice from the breakfast table jolted him. He spun to find Susie at the table sipping something steaming out of a dark red mug.
“Wow.” Jake sucked in a quick breath and popped himself in the chest. “Thanks for jump-starting my heart.”
“You’re welcome.” She rose from the table and glided over to him, pink slippers moving like ice skates over the hardwood floor, and pointed at her cup, then the kitchen. “I’ll get you a cup of coffee. You can join me at the table and we’ll talk.”
“No thanks.”
“It’s Black Fedora,” she said in a singsong voice. “Your favorite coffee in the world.”
“Tempting, but I need to finish packing my car.”
“Peter told me last night that you were thinking of leaving. I told him no way. I guess I’m wrong. I guess it’s true.”
“Yeah, it is.” Jake rubbed his dark hair.
“Wow. Okay.” Susie nodded and drilled him with her eyes. “You and I only get a chance to see each other in person a few times a year and you’re leaving after less than a day? Nice move. And it looks like I wasn’t even going to get a good-bye. Thanks, I love you too.”
“It’s not that.” Jake shut the front door.
“Then what is it?”
“I just need to go.”
Susie tapped the right side of her face next to her eye. “I saw this coming, but I didn’t think it would happen so fast.”
“Saw what coming?”
“That you already like her.”
Heat rushed into Jake’s face. “Shut up, sis.”
“I have to admit, she is kind of perfect.” Susie tilted her head and scratched her chin in mock concentration. “And now that I think about it, there’s a high likelihood she likes you back.”
“What part of ‘shut up’ didn’t I communicate properly?”
“I saw the look on your face when Peter introduced her to all of us. I watched you during dinner last night.” Susie leaned against the front door. “I’ve been right there for every romance you’ve gone through since your first one in sixth grade. You don’t think I can see the signs by now? You don’t think I know your type? I know you, Jacob.”
“Not as well as you think you do.”
“I saw hers too.”
“Her what?”
“Don’t be stupid.” Susie took his arm and led him across the living room toward the kitchen. “Let’s get you some java, then have a little conversation.”
“If you know what’s going on inside me, then you also know why I have to get out of here.”
They reached the kitchen and Susie handed Jake a mug, poured him a cup of coffee, then pointed to the french doors. “Lemme get my shoes on and let’s go for a little walk.”
On their way out she grabbed a folder off the kitchen table. They made their way onto the deck, then around the side of the cabin and up the long driveway. They wandered up the dirt road that meandered farther up the lake to the right. They walked a hundred yards in silence before Susie spoke.
“I have a wild thought, crazy, no logic to it whatsoever, but give it a listen, okay?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve been sensing something about you every time I thought about this week and the five of us being together. I even had a dream about it, which I’m not going to tell you about yet, but I think this week is about something deeper than a girl, or you avoiding this girl.”
“You had a dream.”
“Yes.” Susie picked up a large stick that lay on the side of the road and swung it like a light saber. “But that comes later. Right now I want to tell you about what I think the deeper thing is, and I want you to keep an open mind.”
“I’m a human sieve.”
“Good.” Susie chuckled, then stopped and glanced up and down the empty road. “And promise not to think I’m crazy.”
“That part is going to be a challenge. I’ve thought you were crazy since we were both eight. One of the things I like best.” Jake grinned.
“I’m serious. This is important.”
“Okay, bring it on. Tell me. Make me think you’ve lost it out here in the wilds of the Oregon backcountry.”
“I found out about something last night that confirmed my dream. I think you’re here with me this week because you’re the one, the only one, who can help me find this something. It’s a place. And it’s a place you might want to find as well.”
“That doesn’t sound insane.” Jake narrowed his eyes. “Yet.”
“Here comes the crazy part.” She looked at Jake, eyes blinking, her hands rubbing up and down on her shorts.
“Ready, Coach.” Jake held up both hands like he was about to catch a football.
“I think you’re supposed to help me find something at the end of this lake.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
Susie poked the stick in his direction. “This is the part where you don’t laugh and ask if I’m crazy.”
“No laughing, unless it’s out there as far, far away as Star Wars or—”
“It’s farther. Way.”
“Wow. Okay, no laughing.” Jake suppressed a smile. “What’s at the end of the lake?”
“A lost corridor.” Susie lifted the stick.
“A what?”
“A lost corridor. A trail, a kind of tunnel or something. A path that takes you from one place to another.”
“I know what a path is. But I’ve never heard of one getting lost.”
“Listen.” Susie’s eyes grew intense. “Supposedly, if you can find it, and get through it to the other side, you’ll find whatever you want most in the world. It will be given to you.”
“Where did you come up with this fairy tale?”
“I didn’t. I discovered it.”
“How? Where? Before I buy a ticket for Loco Land, I’d like to know who built the park.”
“I have to give all the credit to the piano man.”
“Andrew?”
“He’s plunking around on the keys last night when you went down to the water to mope—”
“Hey!”
Susie winked at him and continued. “He opens up the piano bench to see if there’s any music and finds this.”
She opened the folder she’d been carrying and handed him three yellowed pieces of handwritten sheet music with lyrics scrawled in a dark pencil. Jake looked for the name of the songwriter, but all he found was the name Emily printed in small, neat letters at the bottom of the first page.
“May I?” Susie said after a few moments. She extended her hand and Jake handed the pages back to her.
“It’s a song about a lost corridor at the end of this lake that can fix the problems of anyone who finds it. At least that’s my interpretation. Listen.”
Susie held the music in front of her and began to sing.
Paths are right in front us, if we have eyes to see,
Drawing us and healing us, where we need to be.
Blinded eyes and hardened hearts keep us from the race,
Water and path will take us there, if only we’d embrace.
Oh can’t you see? Oh can’t you see now?
Willow Lake, oh draw me now, to the tunnel at the end,
Grant to me my deepest wish, you promised this to send.
“I know, I know, not great lyrics, but still, pretty intriguing idea.” Susie shoved the paper back into the folder and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Jake stared at her, guessing his face had turned a shade lighter. The words of the song were almost the exact same words Leonard had spoken to him on the plane.
Paths are right in front of us all the time, Jake. The right ones. Ones that can take us exactly where we need to go, but they’re so hard to see, so hard to see. Most people are blind. But the water and path are there, take us where we need to be, oh can’t you see, can’t you see, even if they’re sometimes too real to embrace.
“What’s wrong, Jake? You look pale.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Uh-uh. You’re not going to skip past this.” Susie huffed out a laugh. “You look like you saw Yoda.”
“No, just a bit of a shock. The guy that told me about this place, the cabin I mean, he said something just like the lyrics to that song.”
“See! That means you have to help.” Susie waved her light saber stick again. “We will use the ways of the forrrrrrrce to find the corridor, Luke.”
“You’re serious? You want to go looking for a mystical corridor?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not into that whole portal thing like Camille is, are you?”
“Come on, Jake!” Susie whacked him on the shoulder. “I’m not saying it’s real, I’m just saying these kinds of legends often come from something true, then grow out of proportion over time. All I want to do is see what’s there. It might be something extremely cool, and I’ve wanted to do a concept album forever. This could be my inspiration.”
“The land where dreams come true . . . sounds like a kids’ show.”
“It’s not dreams come true. I think it’s more about fixing what’s broken.”
“It’s a great story, but you don’t need me to help you look for this thing. Get Andrew to go with you.”
“I already did. He’s not into exploring.”
“What about Camille?”
“Yeah, right. If I told her, she’d devote every waking moment to looking for it, plus I’m not into her taking over my little adventure.”
“I think Peter would love this.”
“You think Camille is going to let Peter gallivant off with me for half a day without him telling her exactly what he’s doing? Besides, she’s got every minute of his day planned out, right down to the allowable minutes for showers.”
“She’s not that bad.”
Susie quirked an eyebrow.
“Yeah, she is.”
They both laughed.
“What about the new girl, what’s her name?”
“Nice try, Jake. Do I have to bring up the truth of what we already discussed regarding your feelings?”
“No.”
“I’m not going to ask Ari. I want to go with you.” Susie clasped her hands together. “Will you come with me? Just for a few hours. It’ll be like when we were kids.”
“I can’t, and you know why.”
“No. I don’t.”
“I see that look in your eye, Sooz. That crazy look that says there’s a part of you deep down that believes it’s more than a legend. That it could be true. Maybe it’s only one percent of you, but it’s there.” Jake rubbed both hands over his face. “And given my mental state, do you really think it would be good for me to dwell on the idea that there was something out there that could heal me? A comic-book version of hope isn’t the best entertainment choice for me.”
“All I’m trying to do is—”
“You don’t have to try to save me. You don’t have to do anything. I’m fine. I’m making it. I’ll climb out of this hole.”
“I’m not asking you to do it for you, I’m asking you to do it for me. I can already hear the songs in my mind. But I need the source material. Even if we don’t find anything, just searching for this place will help.”
“Do you remember the time in fifth grade when you spun that story about my turtle? And I called you on it because you’re so bad at lying?”
Susie sighed.
“You haven’t gotten any better in the past twenty-nine years.”
“You’re right. Sorry. It’s just that . . .” Susie tossed the stick into the woods and turned to keep her disappointment from him. But even if he hadn’t caught the look on her face, her body language was shouting the message. “You’re my brother. I can’t help it.”
She started back down the road to the cabin.
“Sooz?”
“Yeah?”
“Give me a few to think about it, okay? Tell you what. Instead of leaving now, I’ll head to the grocery store as soon as it opens, pick up a few munchables and some Gatorade for the way home, then come back and give you an answer.”
“Just grab a few things from here.”
“You think Camille would stand for that?”
“No.”
Jake caught up to her and put an arm around her shoulder. “Thanks for looking out for me.”
Susie squeezed his waist and smiled.
“But either way, I’m not staying. After we maybe go searching for never-never land, I’m leaving. And that maybe is like a ten-percent chance maybe.”
“Jerk.”
Jake laughed and yanked Susie in close, then rubbed his knuckles on her head. “I love you too, sis.”