CHAPTER 21

1 9 9 5

THE WINTER CAME and went, dumping more snow than usual. But apart from the constant pain of Dad’s absence, things seemed to go back to normal. Then the rain came, Mr. Peterson died, and everything changed.

The rain pounded the ground, but the old man at the Inn said the snowmelt brought the water up. The door to the bar was open a crack, so Elena peeked inside. The old man was the only one there. Mamma must’ve been on a break. Elena decided he was the very oldest of Frank’s regulars, ninety at least. His name was Vince. He was nice and he liked to talk. He passed her a half empty packet of dry roasted peanuts and he spoke so slowly that she had to weigh up her impatience against the chance he might eventually say something interesting.

“In the winter ... the snow builds up on the moun’ns, but if it gets too hot in the spring ... well it melts ... real quick ... and the rivers ... can’t handle ... all that snowmelt comin’ at ’em ... so ... they ... overflow.”

“Will my house get flooded?”

“Could do,” he said. “No way ... to know for sure ... what the river’ll do.”

Elena didn’t want to leave Stapleton but the threat of being separated from her home seemed to be lurking just around the corner. The pressure was building like hot air before a summer storm and everybody felt it. If Kathryn’s family couldn’t survive here anymore, how would her own family ever find a way to stay, especially without Dad? He would be home soon though, she reminded herself. He would never leave them here. She would tell him proudly that she always knew he’d come back.

Vince’s glass was empty, striped with lines of white foam. He loaded his pipe and gently tamped down the tobacco before adding more. He singed the tobacco at the top of the pipe with his lighter until it seeped smoke. He lit it again and cradled the bowl in his palm, sucking on the end of it. She liked the smell, sweeter than cigarettes. The air in the bar was mostly old smoke.

“My brother smokes.”

The old man’s lips pressed against the pipe a couple of times and little clouds escaped from his mouth. “He’d probably ’preciate it if ... you ... kept that to yourself.”

Elena paused. “Can you blow smoke rings?”

He opened his jaw and moved his lips into a circle. He brought his lips closer together and apart and together again, until a few wavering smoke rings rose. He was one of the coal miners, she reckoned, who came here long ago. She could imagine him, a young man in those museum pictures, going deep underground in a rickety shaft with a headlamp and a pickaxe, coming back with his face covered in the stuff he was being paid to dig up. His rough cough was the coal dust trapped inside him, rattling around forever.

“Why do you come here all the time?”

“Got no one ... to talk to ... at home.”

Elena shuffled halfway off her chair and craned her neck so she could see if anyone was coming down the hallway. “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

“Your mom’s rules?”

She nodded, keeping an eye on the doorway. Vince grunted. Elena looked into his filmy eyes and wondered why he didn’t have any friends.

Dad always said Mamma didn’t appreciate what they had. “Aren’t you glad I bought this view, Elena?” he’d ask her when they were all outside on a hot day. “People pay millions for a view like this.”

Elena would nod. “I love our house,” she’d tell him, and she meant it. Mamma would roll her eyes.

If Dad was in a really good mood he’d say: “The only thing that could make this place better is a few flowers. Wouldn’t hurt to plant a few flowers, would it, Giulia?” Mamma would tell him to plant his own damn flowers and he’d laugh loudly. Mamma couldn’t help smiling.

Elena passed the gas station on her way home from the Inn. There were sandbags stacked up outside. She watched people pull in and load them into their trucks as she wheeled around the gas pumps on her bicycle. Dad said their house would never flood. The river never got that high, he said. She hoped he was right.

Mamma was working all day Saturday, so she put Rob in charge. He told Elena they were going to the park. It was better than sitting at home. He abandoned her as soon as they got there, with strict instructions. She wasn’t to leave the park or come and talk to him under any circumstances. Elena watched him from a distance. He was with a girl.

Red hair, freckles, bracelets and rings piercing her ears. She looked very different from Ashley, Rob’s ex-girlfriend. Mamma didn’t know about the new girl. She used to know everything about everything, even the things they tried to hide from her.

Elena didn’t recognize this girl. She wasn’t from Stapleton, unless she’d been living under a rock. She could’ve come from one of the neighbouring towns, but how would she have met Rob? He wasn’t old enough to drive. Maybe she could, or maybe she was home-schooled and grew up on one of the ranches and lived in the semi-wild. Maybe she rode horses and knew how to shoot guns. Lots of people in Stapleton knew how to shoot guns. Dad tried to take Rob out hunting a few times, but he never showed much interest. Elena wasn’t asked but she didn’t mind. You had to be quiet if you went hunting. Elena didn’t like being quiet.

She walked around the edge of the park while Rob and the mystery girl hung out.

“Hey. Elena.”

The low, rumbling voice came from behind her. She spun around and stepped back in surprise. It was Audrey. She had come back.

“Did ya miss me?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been lookin’ all over for you. No one was at the house. I figured you might be here. How’s your mom holdin’ up?”

Elena looked down at her sandals. It was only barely warm enough to wear sandals, but all of her other shoes were too small. When Dad was still around, Mamma would’ve noticed by now.

“She’s fine,” Elena said.

Audrey didn’t seem to hear. One hand was clutching her handbag and the other was shaking. She spoke too quickly and she kept looking around like someone might be watching them.

“Listen, Elena, who’d ya tell your little theories to? About your Dad’s disappearance and the cover-up?”

Elena didn’t like Audrey’s tone, or the word “little”. She was definitely nervous about something and it was starting to make Elena nervous, too.

“You need proof before you start saying things to people or you get yourself in trouble.”

Elena looked down at her sandals in response.

“Who’dya tell?” Audrey asked.

“I said a few things to Mary.”

“Mary. Who’s Mary?”

“She runs the museum.”

Audrey considered it. “She doesn’t seem like the talking type. Who else d’ya tell?”

“No one. Why?”

“Who else, dammit!”

Audrey was right. She had told someone else, but she didn’t want to admit it now that Audrey was angry.

“The councillor. I talked to her ...”

“Vivian?”

Elena nodded. “She came up to me when I was leaving school.”

Elena remembered the powerful smell of her perfume and the silk scarf wrapped around her shoulders. Elena didn’t know her but knew she was an important person in Stapleton. It was strange that the councillor was waiting for her outside the school gates but she seemed nice enough. She just wanted to help. Not many people wanted to help.

“What did you tell her?” Audrey asked.

“She was worried about Dad and she wanted to know if I knew anything. So I told her what I thought happened.”

“I should’ve told her something more believable,” Audrey muttered. “I didn’t think she’d do her own dirty work.”

“What do you mean?” Elena asked, confused.

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“She said it was safe to talk to her,” Elena said, “because it’s her job to look after the whole community, including me and Dad. She just wants to make sure we find him.”

Audrey scrunched her eyes as though she had a terrible headache but when she opened them again her whole face had changed. There was a brightness in her eyes and she put on the smile-scowl that had frightened Elena when they first met.

“We don’t need to worry about her anymore. I got some amazing news.” Audrey leaned in and whispered in her ear: “We found him. We found your dad.”

Elena stepped back and looked at her. “Really?”

Audrey nodded. “He’s in the forest ... laying low.”

Elena couldn’t quite let herself believe it. “So you actually saw him?”

“Jim did. Tracked him down. Made sure he was doing okay. But I can’t tell you where he is, just that he loves you and misses you. He wants you to be strong for your mom and your brother.”

Audrey’s words and her fake kindness didn’t feel right, but Elena had to believe that what she said was true. He was still alive and he was going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Have you already told them?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Mamma and Rob.”

“No. They wouldn’t believe me. It’s our secret for now, okay?”

“Yeah.” Elena’s voice wavered. We found him. He’s in the forest. He’s still alive.

“Your dad can’t go to prison. He’s not the prison kind. He’s better off living in the bush the rest of his days than being locked up. Now, me and Jim are gonna to do everything we can to clear his name and make sure he gets back to you, but that might not happen for a while ... maybe a long time. So you gotta be strong and keep goin’ and keep this to yourself. And your dad said he doesn’t want you getting involved anymore, alright? He was very clear about that. It’s too dangerous.”

“Okay,” Elena said, nodding. She couldn’t imagine not saying anything to anyone. This was the best news they’d had in a long time. At the very least, she had to tell Rob.

“Elena, I’m serious. You gotta promise me you’ll leave this alone now. Don’t say anything to anyone, don’t follow anyone, don’t accuse anyone. Keep your head down.”

“I promise.”

Audrey gave her a hard stare. “I gotta go.”

Elena gave her a goodbye hug but Audrey stood stiffly. It was like she was trying to be happy and trying not to cry at the same time. Elena had never seen her like that before—in pieces.

As soon as Audrey left, Elena looked around for Rob and the girl. They’d gone off somewhere, which meant Rob probably hadn’t even seen Audrey. Elena walked around the park a few times and allowed herself to imagine Dad in the forest, thinner than the last time she saw him, surviving on berries and leaves, rabbits, deer and grouse. He was thinking of them just like she was thinking of him, and he was safe. He was coming home, hopefully soon, but maybe not for a while.

She sat on a swing and rocked herself back and forth until Rob appeared. He smelled funny, a sour sweet smell, and his eyes looked tired. He talked slowly. She told him about Audrey, and about how Jim had found Dad, and he was doing fine. Rob just laughed and laughed and laughed.

It was late when Mamma came home. Elena didn’t look at the time, but her eyelids were still heavy with sleep. She had been woken by the sound of Mamma in the kitchen, opening cupboards and scraping back a chair.

Elena pattered into the room in her nightie. Mamma was sitting at the table staring at the empty cupboard that used to be crammed with dried goods like pasta and rice. The makeup Mamma had put on before her shift was running down her cheeks in quivering black lines. Elena hugged Mamma, who pulled her in closer.

“What are we going to do?” Mamma whispered.

“About what?” Elena asked softly.

Mamma wouldn’t say. She assumed Mamma was referring to Dad. His disappearance hit them at odd times. A deep sadness could surge up in Elena’s chest out of nowhere. It would sit there inside her all day and there was nothing she could do to get rid of it. Sometimes she didn’t want to get rid of it. Missing him had become part of her. If she let go of that, there’d be nothing of him left.

“I’m going out. I’ll be a few hours.”

Mamma peered into the kitchen as she slid earrings through her lobes. Rob glanced at her before picking up his cereal bowl and draining the last of the milk from it in one long slurp. He didn’t seem to care about Mamma’s plans.

Elena studied Mamma’s face, perfectly made up, not like the night before. She was wearing a pant suit, the only one she owned, and she looked very professional.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to look for a new job.”

Rob dropped his bowl onto the table. “What about the Inn?”

“Frank had to lay me off. Business is slow. There was nothing he could do. But don’t worry. Someone will be hiring.”

Mamma smiled as if this was good news and disappeared into the hallway. Elena and Rob looked at each other. Elena didn’t want to be like Kathryn’s family; she couldn’t imagine her home boarded shut. They belonged in Stapleton.

Mamma hummed a little tune to herself as she checked her hair again in the hallway mirror. “Frank says we should leave town but I told him we’ll stay until your dad gets home. I can find work here.”

As soon as Mamma left, Rob said: “It doesn’t matter where she looks. She won’t find anything.”

Mr. Peterson was seriously injured in the explosion. He had severe burns to most of his body. Elena didn’t know him or his family. His boys were much older, almost adults, but he worked shifts with Dad, and she’d seen the two of them acknowledge each other in passing.

The Petersons were a rough family. Elena had never heard anything about a Mrs. Peterson, but Mr. Peterson and his sons came up sometimes in gossip at the café or in the playground. People said Mr. Peterson poisoned his neighbour’s dog because it wouldn’t stop barking, and his youngest son was arrested for breaking into a house on Spruce Drive and throwing a party there while the family was on vacation.

Elena heard Mr. Peterson wasn’t doing so well. His was one of the names people brought up when they talked about the explosion, whispering about how unrecognizable he looked and how many surgeries he was having. People only spoke about him sympathetically now. They called him, “that poor man.”

Mamma had been out of the house all afternoon. She was busy plastering the neighbourhood with flyers advertising her cleaning services and she came home with a stack of them still in her hands. She called Elena and Rob into the living room. Elena hoped she had something to say about Dad.

“Mr. Peterson passed away this morning,” she said.

Mamma paused, and then she explained very gently that he had gone in for another surgery and this time he hadn’t come out. Mamma was talking so delicately that Elena wondered if she should be feeling upset about Mr. Peterson. It was sad that he’d died but she didn’t know him. It took Mamma a while to work up to what she really wanted to tell them.

“His family is obviously heartbroken, and they need time to grieve. If you see his sons around, just avoid them for now, okay?”

“I hardly ever see them,” Elena said, still confused. “Well that’s good, but if you do see them, try to stay out of their way,” Mamma said.

“But why ...”

Rob interrupted. He was good at getting to the point when Mamma wouldn’t. “They think Dad killed him. They think it’s Dad’s fault Mr. Peterson died. Mom’s worried about what they might do to us.”

Elena looked over at Mamma wide-eyed.

“Rob!” Mamma said. “Don’t scare your sister. I just don’t want either of you getting into any confrontations with that family. The last thing we need is more trouble.”

Elena wasn’t actually scared. She didn’t believe the Peterson boys would want to hurt her, even if they did think Dad was responsible for their dad’s death. She and Rob were just kids and Mamma always overreacted.

Mr. Peterson’s death was followed almost immediately by another big local story, one that did make Elena anxious. The news came from Ken again, but this time he didn’t bother coming around to tell them in person. Mamma’s frown deepened as she listened to him over the phone. She hung up and turned away from them for a moment.

“Ken says there’s a rumour going around the café ... that Dad has been seen in Stapleton.”

Elena’s eyes lit up but Mamma was quick to crush her hope.

“This isn’t what it seems, Elena. If he was here, he would come home.”

“Then why did someone say they saw him?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they saw someone who looked like him, or maybe they just wanted to cause trouble.”

She thought about telling Mamma what Audrey had said, that Dad was safe and hiding in the forest. She could have told Mamma about that earlier, but she always stopped herself. Mamma would tell her it wasn’t true.

The cops came by the house again, two men this time, and they didn’t pretend to be kind. Even their doorstep introductions sounded like threats. They took Mamma into the kitchen and closed the door. They didn’t stay long, probably because Mamma didn’t have anything to say, but Elena caught what the dark-haired one said as they left. “Be careful who you help, Mrs. Reid. If you lie to us, you won’t see your kids again.”

Mamma held Elena tightly as they stood by the living room window and watched the cop car pull away. Mamma said they could intimidate her all they wanted but all she could give them was the truth. They couldn’t take her kids away for that.

COPS APPEAL FOR INFORMATION

It never took long for gossip about Dad to appear in print. The next morning, the local paper was encouraging people to contact the police with any information they might have about a possible sighting of Curtis Reid. He had been spotted near the secondary school when all the kids were in class. Elena was getting so used to seeing his name in print it almost didn’t seem like him anymore. Curtis Reid wasn’t Dad. Curtis Reid was some guy reporters liked to talk about.

What really upset Elena about the article was that it had little to do with Dad. The journalist quoted one person several times; Vivian Lennox, the councillor. She had seemed so concerned about Dad when she approached Elena outside school, but she was a different person in the paper.

“It’s absurd that while the victims and their families are still grieving, the main suspect in this investigation appears to be free to come and go whenever he wants and has no trouble evading the police. The people of our community deserve answers. We’ve suffered enough.”

She had trusted the councillor. Vivian said it was her job to look after them, Elena and Dad, because they were members of the community too. Elena actually thought there was one person, somebody important, who believed as she did, that there was something more to the mill explosion. Rob took one look at the article and said it was all bullshit, a word he chose because Mamma wasn’t in the room. Either way, it was all coming back up again, rising quickly like the river water.

Mamma had left the house by the time Elena got up the next morning. She was giving an elderly neighbour a free trial of her cleaning services and she had told them she’d be gone for a few hours.

Elena rubbed her eyes as she studied the view beyond the kitchen window. The hills looked the same as they always did but the river had crept over its bank and was lapping the edge of their lawn. She called Rob over to take a look, and a few minutes later they were both dressed and heading across the yard. The river was higher than they’d ever seen it, pushing against the edge of the grass.

“Don’t go too close,” Rob said, pulling her back.

The far end of the yard was spongy and the muddy water squelched up around their shoes. It was coming.

Rob and Elena biked over to the gas station. Rob thought he could buy a few sandbags with his remaining paper route money and give someone a few extra bucks to drive them to the house.

The attendant appeared, a scrawny guy a couple of years older than Rob, and Rob swaggered up to him like he was the boss. “Where are the sandbags?”

“We’re sold out. We’re getting more in on Thursday.”

Rob huffed. “What a joke.”

By Thursday, Elena imagined, the river would’ve swallowed their house whole. It was only one storey high and not very wide.

“Frank might help us,” Elena said. Rob huffed again. “No one’s going to help us.” He wheeled his bike off the gas station lot and headed home.

Elena went to the Inn. She still didn’t know whose side Frank was on but that meant there was a chance he’d be willing to help, and he was the kind of guy who knew how to get hold of things.

Elena pushed through the side gate and balanced her bike against the fence. Frank’s jade cutting device was in pieces in the far corner and the boulder was gone. Elena wondered if the blade had managed to cut through the rock or if the boulder had won and broken the blade, but then decided that she didn’t care about Frank’s projects anymore. The powder blue truck was parked in the same spot with its hood popped up, and Frank was standing behind it. There were a couple of other people back there with him, disguised by the curved truck body.

She crept through the long grass, carefully avoiding the half-hidden metal scraps as she approached the vehicle. The other two were young men; one wiry like Frank, with dull blonde hair that lay flat until it ended abruptly at his chin. He wore a blue plaid shirt over a t-shirt. He was speaking.

“... can’t just get rid of ’em, Frank.”

“I know that, but we need to do something.”

The blonde guy replied but the wind blew his words away. Frank’s voice again, more forceful than usual, but she couldn’t make out his response.

Frank and the blonde guy could probably both fit in the third man’s biker jacket, festooned with chains over ripped jeans. She pictured the two strangers standing outside the trapper’s cabin, the skinny one stepping forward trying to detect Rob among the trees. They could have been the same men she’d seen in the forest but she wasn’t certain.

Their low voices petered out and they were on the move, the two strangers heading towards the gate. She tried her best to backtrack through the junkyard but she wasn’t quick enough.

The big one stomped toward her, crushing everything in his path. “Whatcha playin at? You spyin’ on me?”

His words weren’t lazy like Frank’s. He wasn’t joking around. Elena locked her eyes onto his and tried to look defiant. That’s what Dad told her to do if she ever came across a growling dog. “Make yourself big. Don’t run.”

Frank was coming around the truck, wiping his hands on a rag as if he’d actually been doing some work back there. The big man spoke under his breath.

“Go play with your fuckin’ dolls before you get yourself into trouble.”

He glared at her again but she couldn’t run. She was stuck.

“Elena! Get over here!”

Rooted to the spot, she blinked twice and then raced toward Frank without looking back as the other two left the yard.

“Were you eavesdropping?”

She didn’t answer.

“Some of my business is my business.”

Anger and disappointment in his voice. Elena didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem fair that he could keep all his secrets and also be annoyed with her.

“Who were those men?”

“Old friends.”

Those boys were too young to be Frank’s “old friends.” Maybe what Frank meant was, they’d worked together before, around the time of the mill explosion, for instance.

“What happened to my dad?”

“I don’t know Elena. Why are you asking me?”

“I heard one of your friends talking about getting rid of people.”

“When?”

“Just now.”

“Nobody said that. You shouldn’t have been listening in the first place. Your mom raised you better than that, didn’t she?”

Elena didn’t like being scolded by Frank. She wanted it to go back to how it used to be, when he cracked jokes and told stories. But they could never go back because she knew he was hiding something.

“We weren’t talking about your dad. I told you before. I had nothing to do with that.”

Frank took a five-dollar bill from his pocket and pulled it taught to straighten out the creases. “Go buy yourself something and stay out of my yard.” She took the note but not because she believed him. Frank stared at her as she tucked it into her jacket pocket.

“A few of my albums have gone missing. I’m not accusing anyone, I just wondered if you might know anything about it.”

“No.”

Frank waited for a moment, but Elena didn’t offer him anything else.

“Ah well. They’ll turn up.”

Frank stumbled back toward the powder blue truck and lifted things from his toolbox. Elena wandered halfway back to her bike before remembering the sandbags. She called over to him.

“Can you help us find some sandbags to stop our house getting flooded?”

Frank didn’t even look at her. “Not right now ... got business to deal with. Your house won’t flood if it hasn’t already.”

The way he spoke it was almost like he controlled it, when the river rose and fell. The Stapleton Inn loomed behind him; his family’s legacy, the town’s heritage. Mamma never trusted Frank and his ways, but even she had been sucked in for a while.

“How do you know?”

“I listen to the news. The water levels have peaked. The river isn’t gonna get any higher without some serious rainfall. At most, we might get a few light showers.”

Elena wasn’t going to take his word for it. She couldn’t trust his opinion on something as important as their home.

By the time Elena got home, Rob was pulling furniture out of the kitchen door. She dashed into the middle of the yard and jumped up as high as she could. The ground spewed water when she landed. Bits of mud clung to the edges of her jeans.

The powerful river awed her. The neighbours who hadn’t lost their homes to the bank already had sandbags neatly piled against their fences.

Elena and Rob pulled out the kitchen table and tipped it on its side. Mamma never liked it that much anyway. They dragged it onto the grass, positioned it so it faced the river, then secured it with big rocks. Beside it they stacked the garden chairs, also pinned down with stones. There was a pile of leftover firewood. Rob could carry more pieces, faster, so that soon became his job. Elena did her best to line up the wood so the water wouldn’t seep through the cracks. She stuffed the holes with fistfuls of grass or the crushed beer cans she’d found within throwing distance of Dad’s garden chair.

The yard got mushier and it started to rain; little drips that soon became big ones. Yet it was hardly a downpour, as Frank predicted. Rob trotted in and out of the house, alternating between passing her more logs and moving valuable items to safe places. Rob hadn’t said anything, but Elena knew as soon as he started working indoors that he thought their barricade would fail, and the river would come into the house. “Finish the wall and don’t go any closer to the river,” he said. “It’s deep at the end of the yard.”

Rob brought over the last of the logs and Elena examined the remaining gap between their makeshift wall and the fence. There weren’t enough logs, even if she only made one tier out of them. She’d have to space them out and then find other things to cram between them. There were some stones Dad had used to build a fire pit at the bottom of the garden. She could see a couple of them sticking out of the water close to the willow tree.

Rob went back inside and thumped around, stacking pieces of furniture atop each other. Unplugging all the electronics. Putting the things that would suffer the most damage on top of things that didn’t really matter.

The wind had started to whip the old willow tree, water sloshing its trunk. She stepped over their makeshift barricade and moved toward the fire pit stones, icy water slopping around her ankles. She leaned down and pulled at a stone, but it didn’t budge. It was too heavy. Rob could probably manage that one. There were a couple of smaller ones that she could lift but they were submerged.

She looked back. Everything was there, in that house. All her memories, her things, the secret spaces that hid her diary, her desk with the stationery that made her feel grown up, Mamma’s old photos of Italy, photos of her and Rob since they were babies. That house was their home.

Rob burst out of the back door. “Elena! Get away from there!”

Reluctantly, she headed back. The rain stopped but they’d run out of items to reinforce their wall. Rob said they might as well take a break, at least until they came up with another idea. Elena went through to the living room only to find that Rob had unplugged the old TV and dumped it on top of the sofa.

Through the living room window, she spotted Mamma coming down the road dragging a blue tartan bag on wheels. It would do for her cleaning equipment until they got the truck back.

The bag clunked along their gravel driveway, Mamma steadying it as tipped from side to side. She was almost at the front door when the patrol car drove up and stopped. Mamma turned around and one of her cop dramas unfolded right there on the gravel.

Two male officers got out of the vehicle and quickly accosted Mamma. Elena knew this time they hadn’t come for a chat. Mamma stretched her arms out in front of her while a young, blue-eyed officer cuffed her wrists. Elena pushed her fingers flat against the glass, willing them through it and onto Mamma’s, pulling her into the house. The older cop spotted Elena watching from the living room window. Mamma noticed her then and took an instinctive step towards the house but the older cop held her back. She wore her despair like a trapped animal. Mamma mouthed something at her but Elena couldn’t catch it before the officers tore her away from their home. Mamma was disappearing, just like Dad. All Elena could do was watch, tears slipping down her cheeks. Mamma made Dad’s absence bearable, but only just, only because Elena knew he was going to come back. They couldn’t take Mamma away, too.

“Rob!” she shouted, voice trembling. She banged on the living room window hopelessly. He rushed in, jaw dropped, and looked.

“What ...?”

He started toward the front door but a second car pulled into the drive. This one had no lights on top. A middle-aged couple, in suits, marched up to the front door and knocked loudly. Elena looked at Rob.

“We have to let them in,” he said, “but do exactly what I say, okay?”

Grey suit and grey skirt and hair specked with grey. Rob opened the door and Elena hovered behind him and the grey couple smiled and showed them name badges and the woman said they were going to help them while Mamma was away, but Elena didn’t understand.

“Are you here to help us with the flood?” she asked.

“No. They’re going to take us away,” Rob said abruptly.

She might have attempted to run then but Rob seemed to sense her panic and latched a hand onto her arm. Hard.

“There’s absolutely nothing to worry about,” the woman said softly. “We’ve got a couple of really nice families in Stony Creek who are going to take care of you until this is all sorted out.”

She said families. Plural. They were going to be split up. She couldn’t be on her own. It was bad enough without Dad. They couldn’t do this to them. When she looked up at Rob, she could see something in his eyes the grey people couldn’t. Defiance. He wasn’t going to let this happen.

“Me and Elena have some things we want to take. Can we get them quickly?”

The grey couple exchanged looks.

Rob pleaded with them. “The river’s flooding. If we don’t get our things now, we won’t be able to.”

The woman loosened. “Quickly then,” she said and she nodded to her companion.

The man followed them into the home while the woman waited by the doorstep. As soon as there was enough distance between them and the stranger, Rob whispered one word in Elena’s ear.

“Dubov’s.”

They filled their backpacks while the male social worker hovered in the hallway outside their bedrooms, doors open so he could see what they were doing. There was no way for them to escape as long as he was standing there. Elena shoved in some clothes and her nail polish and her diary and heard Rob start up a conversation with the grey man about sports. The man said he was a Canucks fan, so Rob showed him into the living room and pulled out a radio from the bookshelf and put the game on with the volume up.

Elena sneaked out of her bedroom and into the kitchen. She slipped across the vinyl in her socks, grabbed the too-tight sneakers that were sitting by the back door and turned the handle as delicately as she could. She darted across the damp grass in her socks, not wanting to slow down long enough to put her shoes on. She climbed over the low fence, squelched her wet feet into her runners and waited for Rob in Mrs. Dubov’s yard.

Rob scrambled over the fence a minute later and they ran through the yards and down a back alley until their chests burned with the cold air.

“Don’t look back,” Rob said. “It’ll slow you down.”

A treed area broke up the homes and popped them out into another quiet residential street. Elena almost sprang into a hedge when a vehicle approached. It was white and much larger than the grey couple’s car. Rob led them into another alleyway. Dogs barked and a woman yelled at her pets from behind a tall fence.

“Come on, Elena. We’re almost there.”

Almost where? she would’ve asked him, if she’d had any breath to spare. He led her through a small neighbourhood park that connected another set of houses. Finally, the backyards opened into a large ranch that wound around the base of one of the surrounding hills.

This is it, she thought, their big escape. When Rob hit his teens, he had become obsessed with the idea of leaving. He wanted to get a job in Stony Creek, a place of his own and a car. Mamma said it was part of him becoming an adult, needing to be independent. Elena had never wanted to leave, and now that they had to, her heart lurched with every step. She wished she had a deep root like the sagebrush, anchoring her deeply in the ground, but she remembered they only had shallow roots so it was easy to be swept away.

“Just a little further,” Rob said.

The fields nearest the road had been tilled and green shoots broke out of the soil. There were large greenhouses further down the road, but the pair ran in the opposite direction, where they were less likely to encounter other people. They scrambled up the hill in tracks carved out by dirt bikes and ATVs. Beyond them was uneven scrubland that took a gradual incline toward the forest.

“I need to stop.” Elena’s chest was burning so much her stomach churned. Her legs shook. Rob was on full alert. He permitted a break but insisted they crouch down. His head swivelled like an owl’s.

“Where are we going?” she asked as her body began to recover.

“Stony Creek. But we can’t go yet. It’s too risky trying to hitch a ride when everyone’s looking for us. We’ll have to stay in the forest for a few days until the social workers leave. Then we’ll go to Stony Creek.”

“What about the bears?”

“Don’t worry. They aren’t interested in you.”

He sounded just like Dad, except Dad would say it with a goofy grin. Now that Rob was getting bigger, he looked a lot more like Dad.

The problem was, the real reason things fell apart was, Rob wasn’t a man yet. He was going to be, but he wasn’t yet. He didn’t think of all the things Dad would’ve thought of when they escaped the social workers at the house. It was dusk when they crept into the forest without food, water, matches or enough warm clothing. It was early spring and the nights still got cold. Luckily, they’d both packed sweatshirts but those didn’t keep the chill off their bones once the sun had left the sky. They huddled together into the shoulder of a large rock. Elena’s feet were wet, toes crushed inside the shoes she’d outgrown. She pulled off her sneakers and thought her toes might freeze off as the wind circled them. Her back hurt after a while so she lay down on the pine needles while Rob kept watch.

Neither of them could sleep. Elena rolled around and complained of being hungry, then thirsty and then both. Rob told her to stop being a baby but he wasn’t doing much better. He twitched every time a branch creaked.

“We should go back home.” Elena whispered, as if the conifers that surrounded them might be listening.

“We can’t. They’ll find us.”

“No, they won’t. They’ll be at home in bed by now. We can sneak in and get what we need for a few days in the forest and leave before they come looking for us in the morning.”

“What if they’re watching the house?”

“We can go in through the yards again. If we’re quiet, they won’t even know we’re inside.”

Rob’s stomach growled.

“There’s food in the house,” she said. “We should pack as much as we can if we’re going to be out here for a while.”

Elena couldn’t see his expression in the dark but she could tell he was thinking about it. He got his flashlight out and scanned the trees and then he stood up. It was decided. Elena squeezed her sneakers back on her aching feet and he led the way back to town, downhill this time and at a slower pace. It was comforting, seeing all the familiar houses between the streetlights.

Her legs felt so tired by the time they reached their lane that she just wanted to run inside and crawl into bed but Rob stopped her. They scooted into a neighbour’s yard, one of the boarded-up houses, and made their way carefully back toward Mrs. Dubov’s house. Water seeped into Elena’s shoes again, but the river didn’t seem any higher since they’d left.

When they reached their own yard, Rob was especially cautious. They had to make sure there weren’t any cops or grey people hiding in the bushes. When Rob was finally satisfied the house was empty, they ran through the yard and unlocked the back door. Rob was still paranoid about attracting attention so they left the lights off. Even a nosy neighbour could give them away. The floor was dry; the river hadn’t oozed into the house, at least not yet.

They found bread and honey in the cupboards and ate in silence on the living room floor. Rob said he was going to set his alarm for 4 am. That would give them enough time to sneak back to the forest before the sun came up. It was midnight already. She heard him go into his room and close the door, and she dragged her own tired legs slowly to bed.

She smelled it in her dream, the fire. The mill burst into flames and bits of it landed in her house. Red hot limbs of broken machinery, blackened lumber and falling ash. Tiny pieces fell into her mouth, sticking inside her throat, choking her. She heard shouting; her name, Rob’s voice, but it wasn’t terrifying until she woke up and discovered the smells and sounds were not dreams.

A loud crack had woken her but she couldn’t see where it came from. She shot upright, inhaled a lungful of smoke and tried to cough it out. But it became a thousand tiny razors in her throat, scraping and scratching and making her cough harder.

Covering her mouth with her pyjama sleeve, Elena crouched and crab-walked to the door. The handle was hot and scalded her palm. She leapt back, cradling her hand. Rob’s shouts sounded distant through the fire’s noise.

Pushing and pushing against the stiff window lock with her burned hand, she screamed hoarsely in relief when it flew open, admitting a rush of cool air. She heaved herself through the frame and hit the ground, hard. It knocked the wind out of her and she lay gasping, throat on fire. It passed. She had to find Rob.

She stumbled toward the river, toward their makeshift barricade, desperate to spot him among the dismantled pieces of their home. Clouds had rolled in; she couldn’t see him.

Heat and smoke at her back. She turned around and watched their home crumple like the paper house Mamma always said it was. The curse had finally found them. Rob couldn’t be in there; he must have escaped to the road. She had to get back to the road.

The yelling man came out of the blackness, charging toward her, his face hidden under his big jacket and hat. He was screaming like a maniac, coming to get her. She clambered over the firewood section of their barricade to get away from him and the grass squished beneath her feet and the shouting got louder and their lawn became the river. She tripped over the fire pit stones by the willow tree and fell. The water pulled her in.

She moved with the muddy river and it dragged her back. Weeds loomed from its rocky belly. She merged with them like a fish. It took Elena no strength at all to move downstream. The powerful river carried her where it wanted her to go.

Someone else splashed into the water behind her and she thought it might be the yelling man, but the water made his shape black and blurry. His movements were heavy, arms and legs attacking the river, and she realized he was trying to reach her.

Everything was dense underneath. That person grasped at her body, but the river separated them. It propelled her onward, faster and faster until the other person’s flailing shape became distant and she knew she wouldn’t see anyone if she could look back. They were both part of the river now.