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  TOO FAR

  Rich Shapero

  Outside Reading

  San Mateo, California

  Outside Reading P.O. Box 1565 San Mateo, CA 9440:

  Copyright © 2010 by Rich Shapero

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. ISBN: 978-0-9718801-3-9

  Cover painting by Eugene Von Bruenchenhein, EVB #191

  (for more information, visit www.vonbruenchenhein.com)

  Artwork copyright © 2009 Rich Shapero

  Title font and additional graphics: Sky Shapero

  Cover design: Adde Russell

  Map art: Laurie Lipton www.laurielipton.com

  Author photo: Henry Boxer

  Printed in the United States of America

  Also by Rich Shapero

  Wild Animus

  1

  On the outskirts of Fairbanks, down a gravel road, a small house and a family had taken root among the trees. A man and a woman, and a six-year-old boy. They had come from a long distance, impelled by an idea, like seed flock on the wind. In May the northern sky pales early. Dreams trail off, and you wake and dress yourself. Robbie, the boy, managed that himself now.

  After they ate breakfast, Dad would leave. Robbie would go outside.

  Between the house and the wilds was a bald spot—the Clearing—and there he sat this particular morning, in deep concentration.

  Is the stick curious or something to fear?

  He was twiddling a dry twig between stones, and down in the pocket a spider was watching.

  Does it have a mind of its own? Robbie thought, as the spider might. Or is someone holding it? Following everything I do.

  Like a voice from the heavens, he spoke to the spider. "Grab on—"

  Light steps crossed the Clearing. In his circle of sight: one shoe, then two. Socks bright and unmatched—one purple, one blue.

  Robbie looked up. A girl, his own age.

  "Is someone down there?" she asked.

  Her eyes seemed enormous. But it wasn't their size. Fervent thoughts, and wild ones, were churning inside. She had a brown pony tail spouting over one ear. Over the other, locks were twisted oddly, ribboned and knotted with rubber bands.

  "Yep," Robbie answered. "I'm his friend."

  She bent over and saw the spider. Her head tilted, as if considering how to introduce herself. Then she began to hum. A lilting melody—something you might please yourself with when no one else was around. Robbie listened as he peered between the stones. The song seemed to speak to him as well. There was a call to freedom in it, a confidence that banished care.

  "Hey," Robbie said. "He's climbing out."

  The girl smiled, spread her arms with a theatrical flourish and rose. Then, without a word, she began to turn. Her hands trailed, as if letting go of something. There was a magenta scarf around her shoulders and a scarlet one at her waist, and they flared as she whirled, faster and faster. She closed her eyes and her attention drew into a private quarter. Robbie was mesmerized.

  The girl stopped and plunked down beside him.

  Robbie felt their knees touch.

  "Everything's loose," she laughed, making a dizzy face.

  Her breath quivered between her lips. A ringlet bounced beside her temple. She was closing her eyes again. Beneath her dark brows, the lids twitched like wings.

  "I'm entering the special place," she said.

  Robbie heard an invitation.

  "Are you?"

  "Sure," he answered, shutting his eyes.

  "The wind sings my songs," the girl said. "So do the leaves. I show them how."

  Robbie tried to imagine how you could do that.

  "Your turn," she said.

  "Okay . . ." Robbie tried to think. "I can write my name backwards." He frowned. What's so special about that? He cracked his lids.

  She was still immersed. "When I smile, the whole world feels warm," she said.

  That's something, Robbie thought, closing his eyes again. "I fly in my dreams."

  "I can be as invisible as air," the girl said. "In real life."

  "When my friends are in danger, I rescue them."

  She giggled. "No one remembers what I remember."

  "I go anywhere in the forest," Robbie said. "And I never get lost."

  He felt a bump. She was shaking him. When he opened his eyes, her face was inches away.

  "Really?"

  He just stared back.

  She turned to the slope behind them. It rose steeply, thronged with aspens and red currant. Buds were starting to burst and the branches were sparked with green. "Have you been up there?"

  "Sure." Robbie shrugged, his power leaking away. The Hill was no man's land, as distant and unreachable as the sky above it. He could hear Mom at the back of his mind. Lying again.

  "I want to see." The girl's eyes flashed.

  Robbie nodded.

  "Let's go," she said.

  Robbie peered back between the stones.

  "Now." She stood. "What's your name?"

  "Robbie." He rose uncertainly, glancing at his home. It was double trouble. The Hill was forbidden, and the girl would quickly realize that it was a mystery to him.

  Her eyes wandered up the slope. "I bet no one has ever been."

  Robbie laughed. She was starting through the scrub. Without thinking, he hurried after her. "What's yours?"

  She grasped his hand. "Fristeen." Her lips touched his ear.

  They reached the first tall tree. Robbie stopped and turned half-around. They both looked at his house.

  "Is that where you live?"

  He nodded. How many hours had he stood by the window wondering what the great story of the forest was about? He gazed up the slope. This was the doorway he couldn't think beyond.

  Fristeen's eyes were like the jets on a stovetop, and when she faced him it was like someone had turned the knob all the way. She knew it was forbidden, but she didn't care. And suddenly he didn't either. It was time.

  "Don't tell," he said, squeezing her hand.

  She promised with a squint. "I love secrets."

  They entered the thick shrubs. The twigs had dark skin and brown fingers with bumps at the ends that clawed and caught at them as they passed. The leaf litter hissed and slid beneath them. It was a strange new world for Robbie, and there was another strange world clasping his hand. It was warm and alive, and not the least bit hesitant or ill-at-ease. There was a rhythm in Fristeen's breath, in her step, and inside her. And when her fingers wriggled, it was as if she spoke. "Look at i his, look at that." Tips of life peering up at them, lime and maroon. Flowers venturing up from the matted litter, some quailing, some headstrong. A wasps' nest, glaring through the branches like an ashen face.

  "Feel," Fristeen said as they neared a big tree. She reached out, and he did the same. Its skin was gray, cool and smooth.

  "Listen." Robbie closed his eyes.

  "Do you hear something?" she wondered.

  "His thoughts," Robbie whispered. "He has a secret in his fingers. Look, up there." He pointed.

  From a branch, twigs spoked like an unclenched fist, and leaves were trembling at the end of each.

  "They're thinking—all of them. See?" Robbie swept the slope. "Thinking about leaves!"

  Fristeen yelped and broke into a run.

  She reached a bush. Robbie was right behind
her. She grabbed its fingers and pinched its buds, and its leaves jumped out. "Look." Robbie spun around to another. "Shiny." Then on to another and up the slope, running back and forth from bough to bole. Some buds were sharp, some were still hard. But most were excited, swollen and ready, and when your fingers squeezed, they burst for joy. Green ones, gray ones, some pink like flesh. Some fuzzy, some silky, some big and sticky with a minty smell.

  The trees upslope were clamoring. So they raced to the next, Fristeen crying, "You can't stop between." Some leaves bristled, some fanned, some you had to unroll. Look—red. No, silly, it's your fingers showing through. And then they were guessing before they popped the buds. Furry— Prickly! Purple, I bet.

  All of a sudden, there wasn't any more Hill. They whirled and hooted and jumped up and down. Robbie ran to the tallest aspen, threw his arms around it and looked straight up. The gray branches reached—nothing between them and the sky. The tree was urging him to climb.

  Fristeen was beside him, red-faced, breathless.

  "I could," Robbie gasped. "I think I could."

  "I know you could. Look," she pointed down the slope.

  It was an amazing sight. Robbie's house was so small you could pick it up with your fingers.

  He struggled with a new perspective. "I was there all the time." He glanced at Fristeen. "I never left."

  "When I was a baby, I was in prison—a wooden jail. That's what Grace says."

  "Grace?"

  "Come on." Fristeen turned from the slope, faced the forest beyond and started forward.

  Robbie didn't follow.

  She looked back. "It's okay."

  "Yeah, but—"

  "What?"

  He heard the disappointment in her voice. "I've been that way before," he said. "You have?"

  Robbie swallowed. The breezes had vanished and the woodland was silent, awaiting his response. "I don't want to lie to you," he said.

  She gave him a fond look. "Let's go back," he said.

  She shook her head.

  "You'll be scared."

  "Oh, I know," Fristeen said with relish.

  That stopped him. Was it a bluff? No, he could see the truth in her smile: she exulted in things that frightened her. A stray breeze sent a chill up Robbie's back. He shivered, feeling himself in the presence of something new and strange.

  Across the space that separated them, her gaze met his darkly, boldly.

  "Fristeen," he murmured. Was he reasoning with her or pleading? As long as he could remember, his head had been full of fantasies. Lies, Mom called them. For all his rich imagination, he lacked the daring to make anything of them. The answer was staring him in the face.

  "I might need someone to rescue me," she said.

  Retreat seemed suddenly unworthy. This was the Hill, the great unknown. And here he was on top of it, feeling its freedom along with its fear. Fristeen made him think he could be master of both.

  "You might," Robbie nodded, stepping toward her.

  The earth dipped and turned lumpy. They headed into a patch of thin trees that were all bent over. When Robbie glanced at Fristeen, she was too.

  "Follow the Bendies," she said with a secret look.

  Robbie laughed and hunched.

  They reached a place where the trees had snapped and lay piled on top of each other. There was an open space beneath, and they got down on their hands and knees and crawled through.

  "Wait," Robbie said as they rose. He lifted his hand and pulled at one of her ribbons. The braid untwisted, covering her eye. When he brushed the hair aside, his fingertips skimmed her brow.

  "What are you doing?" she asked softly.

  He turned and tied the ribbon to an overhanging branch. "Marking the way."

  Fristeen's eyes grew wide. "So you don't get lost." Kids did that in fairytales.

  Robbie nodded. Would it work? They'd find out on the way back.

  The spell of fairytale was, in fact, stealing over them both. You're listening, and it all seems so unlikely—full of peculiar places and things that could never happen. And then all at once, you're in the middle of it, burning to know what will come next and believing every bit of it.

  They crossed a bed of dead leaves and whisked through parched grass. Strange signs appeared, half-buried in the soil. A shovel head. A section of pipe. A rusty can. Relics of some ancient people. Then the earth ended abruptly. At the verge, a large rusted barrel lay on its side with its open end toward them, and beyond that, a stream wandered between steep walls. On the opposite bank, a dark visage loomed.

  Where a large willow had bent, you could see the vault of a brow and a face netted with dead branches. Shocks of hair rayed to either side. A nexus of twigs formed a piercing eye. The other was narrowed, as if considering. Beneath the collapsed willow, where the bank had been hollowed, a wetness glossed giant lips, and roots emerged around it.

  "His beard," Robbie said, pointing.

  "Hear, hear, hear..." A voice echoed from the rusty drum.

  "And ears," Fristeen said.

  "And a nose."

  "He Knows," the face said. "He Knows, He Knows . . ."

  The mass of dark branches squinted and stared.

  "He Knows," Robbie whispered. "That's his name."

  They traded glances. If He Knows really knew—

  Robbie peered over the edge. "Where does it go?" he asked.

  "The stream," Fristeen added.

  "Dream," He Knows replied, "dream, dream, dream . . ."

  "I'm in the mood," she said. "Too, too, too . . ."

  "Would we get back," Robbie asked, "before dark?"

  "Far, far, far, far . . ."

  Robbie searched the rim. To the left, where the banks pinched together, a fallen aspen bridged the stream. On the far side, the way rose through the brush.

  Fristeen started along the rim.

  "Okay." Robbie followed.

  "Wait, wait, wait. . ."

  They looked at each other. Fristeen grabbed Robbie's hand.

  "You're an old troll," she cried.

  "Cold, cold, cold . . ."

  "No, it's not," Robbie shouted.

  "Fog, fog, fog . . ."

  They headed toward the fallen aspen, kicking up litter, shoes sucking in mud as the gurgle of the flow rose in their ears. The log's gray skin was patterned with moss. They straddled it and scooted across. On the far side, they started up a long slope. They were both breathing hard when they reached the top. A ridge rose on the right, dipped and then lifted still higher. Everything seemed to slope down from that crest. It made you dizzy, just looking at it.

  "Do you think we should?"

  Robbie saw the foreboding in Fristeen's eyes. His dread surfaced, along with the memory of her bravado at the top of the Hill. It was crazy—the impulse to hurl yourself at something you feared. "Dare you," he said, and he started up.

  "No!" Fristeen hurried forward with shrieks and cries, jubilant.

  The dry growth had been flattened by wind or snow. At the dip were twin stumps that you stepped between. Then the pitch grew steeper. They held hands, huffing as they climbed. What had happened here? The slopes on either side were naked. Was it safe to look down? Not yet, not yet. Then you did, and what you saw were the tops of trees, all thin and bony with dead leaves beneath—a speckled brown sky with tiny green stars.

  It was exciting, but frightening. You put your face into the wind and you didn't talk. It was that kind of place. The forest around you expanded with every step.

  So many, Robbie thought. Uncountable. Below and beyond, far into the distance— It was all one big tangle of trunks and arms. Vast, endless. Maybe this was why grownups said scary things about the deep woods, and got nervous when you asked. It was something they preferred not to think about. How could you be anything but lost in a world like this?

  "Robbie?"

  He glanced over his shoulder.

  "If we fell off—"

  "You can't," he said. He stopped. "Stay where you are."

&
nbsp; He took a few more steps. Then he closed his eyes and let his knees buckle. He landed on his rear in the soil. When he looked back she was laughing. Then she hopped forward and sat down beside him.

  It wasn't the highest point on the ridge, but it was a privileged place. They scanned the valleys, and for what seemed a long time, silence prevailed. Finally Fristeen spoke.

  "When Dada plays his guitar, I don't talk. Just like this."

  A breeze passed between them.

  "Mine's going to be a doctor," Robbie said.

  "He wants to help people."

  "Not that kind. Do you know what you're going to be?"

  Fristeen smiled to herself. "I'm going to be the sun."

  Her cheek brushed his. He could smell her hair. It was sweet and smoky, honey melting in tea with a fire going.

  "What about you?"

  Robbie shook his head. "I'll figure it out in first grade." He shivered. The air seemed suddenly colder.

  "You're going to school?"

  "When summer's over. Aren't you?" Something shifted at the corner of Robbie's eye. White scarves were rising out of the ravines just below.

  "If I want to spell something, Grace shows me how."

  The scarves were connecting into misty chains, climbing with such speed that it was easy to imagine they had some purpose.

  "We better go back," he said.

  Fristeen saw the alarm in his eyes.

  In front of them and behind, giant white fingers crept over the ridge.

  As they stood, a huge snarl of mist rose with them, sending tendrils out, circling their bodies like icy rope. They shivered through them, waving their arms to clear a view of the crestline and hurrying down. As quickly as they moved, the vapors followed. Others appeared, swimming from either side, anticipating their flight. Would they make it down the ridge before—No, coiling vapors were drifting together below, meeting and joining to seal the way.

  Robbie stumbled. He rolled over and stopped abruptly as his knees struck something woody. Fristeen cried out, grabbing his shoulder, trying to keep him from the invisible depths below. Robbie drew his feet beneath him, then saw the problem: one of his shoes was unlaced. A sharp wind cut through them, and then it was twisting and twisting. He shuddered as he fumbled and his shoe came off. He watched it whirl away into the bottomless fog, hearing He Knows' warning, "Cold, cold, cold."