Nausea surging up her throat, she lurched toward the front door.
He was standing there. In his hand was an ax.
With a sob she spun around and darted up the stairs, almost slipping on her mothers blood. She heard him pounding up the steps after her. She had always been faster than he, and terror made her fly up the stairs like a panicked cat.
On the second floor landing she caught a glimpse of her fathers body, lying halfway out of his bedroom doorway. There was no time to think about it, no time to absorb the horror; she was already dashing up the next flight of stairs and into the turret room.
She slammed the door and latched it just in time.
He gave a roar of rage and began pounding on the closed door.
She scurried over to the window and forced it open. Staring down at the ground far below, she knew she could not survive a fall. But there was no other way out of the room.
She yanked on a curtain, puffing it off the rod. A rope. Have to make a rope!
She tied one end to a radiator pipe, wrenched a second curtain down, and tied the two lengths of fabric together.
A loud thud sent a splinter of wood flying at her. She glanced back and to her horror saw the tip of the ax poking through the door. Saw it pried loose again for the next swing.
He was breaking through!
She yanked down a third curtain, and with shaking hands, knotted it to the first two.
The ax came down again. The wood splintered wider, more chunks flying.
She yanked down a fourth curtain, but even as she frantically tied the last knot, she knew the rope was not long enough. She knew it was too late.
She spun around to face the door just as the ax broke through.
1
THE PRESENT
Someones going to get hurt out there, said Dr. Claire Elliot, looking out her kitchen window. Morning mist, thick as smoke, hung over the lake, and the trees beyond her window drifted in and out of focus. Another gunshot rang out, closer this time. Since first light, shed heard the gunfire, and would probably hear it all day until dusk, because it was the first day of November. The start of hunting season. Somewhere in those woods, a man with a rifle was tramping around half-blind through the mist as imagined shadows of white-tailed deer danced around him.
I dont think you should wait outside for the bus, said Claire. Ill drive you to school.
Noah, hunched at the breakfast table, said nothing. He scooped up another spoonful of Cheerios and slurped it down. Fourteen years old, and her son still ate like a two-year-old, milk splashing on the table, crumbs of toast littering the floor around his chair. He ate without looking at her, as though to meet her gaze was to come face to face with Medusa. And what difference would it make if he did look at me, she thought wryly. My darling son has already turned to stone.
She said again, Ill drive you to school, Noah.
Thats okay. Im taking the bus. He stood up and grabbed his backpack and skateboard.
Those hunters out there cant possibly see what theyre shooting at. At least wear the orange hat. So they wont think youre a deer.
But it looks so dorky.
You can take it off on the bus. Just put it on now. She took the knit cap from the mitten shelf and held it out to him.
He looked at it, then finally, at her. He had sprouted up several inches in just one year, and they were now the same height, their gazes meeting straight on, neither one able to claim the advantage. She wondered if Noah was as acutely aware of their new physical equality as she was. Once she could hug him and a child would hug back. Now the child was gone, his softness resculpted into muscle, his face narrowed to a sharp new angularity.
Please, she said, still holding out the cap.
At last he sighed and jammed the cap over his dark hair. She had to suppress a smile; he did look dorky.
He had already started down the hallway when she called out:
Good-bye kiss?
With a look of exasperation, he turned to give her the barest peck on the cheek, and then he was out of the door.
No hugs anymore, she thought ruefully as she stood at the window and watched him trudge toward the road. Its all grunts and shrugs and awkward silences.
He stopped beneath the maple tree at the end of the driveway, pulled off the cap, and stood with his hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. No jacket, just a thin gray sweatshirt against a thirty-seven-degree morning. It was cool to be cold. She had to resist the urge to run outside and bundle him into a coat.
Claire waited until the school bus appeared. She watched her son climb aboard without a backward glance, saw his silhouette move down the aisle and take a seat beside another student-a girl. Who is that girl? she wondered. I dont know the names of my sons friends anymore. Ive shrunk to just a small corner of his universe. She knew this was supposed to happen, the pulling away, the childs struggle for independence, but she was not prepared for it. The transformation had occurred suddenly, as though a sweet boy had walked out of the house one day, and a stranger had walked back in. Youre all I have left of Peter. Im not ready to lose you as well.