The Cold Nowhere

48

The sun was nearly down.

Stride, Serena and Cat stood outside Michaela’s old house on the remote hilltop of the Antenna Farm. In the intervening years, the evergreens had soared, making the house look even smaller than it was. The paint was the same, yellow and peeling. The porch beams were warped and faded, in need of stain. The weeds in the lot were overgrown, with patches of snow clinging to the fields like white islands.

‘It looks abandoned,’ Cat said.

‘The owners lost it to foreclosure last year,’ Stride told her. ‘The bank has it now. The house will probably be torn down if the lot sells.’

‘Oh.’ She sounded sad at the prospect.

Stride’s Expedition was parked in the rutted driveway. They stood near his truck, twenty yards from the house. Cat hung back, looking afraid. Serena reached out and took her hand.

‘Have you been back here since it happened?’ she asked her.

‘No. Not once.’

‘We don’t have to do this if you’re not up to it,’ she said.

‘No, it’s okay. I want to. You said it might help.’

Cat started toward the house. Her boots cracked a puddle of thin ice like a broken window. Stride and Serena followed, letting the girl walk by herself. It had been Serena’s idea to bring Cat here, to see if the visit triggered any memories, but now he wondered if they were making a mistake.

The girl stopped and looked at Stride. ‘Was it cold?’

‘That night?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bitter cold. You were freezing when I found you.’

She nodded. ‘I remember being cold.’

Cat climbed onto the porch. The loose wood sagged under her feet. Stride found himself overwhelmed by the vividness of his own memories. When he took hold of the railing, he recalled how it had felt under his hands ten years earlier when he’d stood there with Michaela. He remembered the steam making a cloud in front of her face with each breath. He felt the touch of her hand.

Serena watched him carefully, as if she knew what he was thinking.

‘Do you remember how you got under the porch?’ Serena asked Cat.

‘Mother came to my room and woke me up. She opened the window on the back of the house and lowered me into the snow. She said to hide there and not to come out until she came and got me. She made me say it over and over, that I shouldn’t come out, no matter what I heard. Over and over.’

‘Why did you have to hide?’

Cat stared at the driveway, where the truck was parked. ‘There were lights. A car. Someone was shouting.’

‘Who?’

The girl bit her fingernail. ‘My father.’

‘Are you sure it was him?’

‘Yes. He’d been drinking. I wanted to go to him and tell him not to be mad, but I–I went under the porch, like my mother said.’

‘Was he alone?’

Cat’s mouth opened and closed. Her eyes glazed over. ‘I–I don’t know.’

They let her stand in the cold. Cat put her face up against the frosty glass of the front window and peered inside. Stride stood next to her. It was hard to see through the maze of ice crystals. Serena lingered behind them on the porch.

‘Do you want to go inside?’ he asked.

‘Can I?’

‘Sure.’

He had a key from the bank, and he undid the lock. Inside, the house was a wreck, much worse than he expected. The furniture, except for a toppled three-legged chair, had been removed or stolen, and the carpet had been ripped out. Sometime over the winter, the furnace had failed, and pipes had frozen and burst, leaching over the floor and flooding the walls. Vandals had come inside. So had animals.

‘Sorry, it’s not safe to be here,’ Stride said. ‘I didn’t realize it was so bad.’

‘Please, just a minute,’ Cat said.

She picked her way into the empty center of the floor. Stride saw ice, trash and rat droppings. Water stains made ribbons on the ceiling.

‘We should go,’ he said.

‘Please.’

He didn’t want to be here. It was too painful. He could see where the Christmas tree had been, on that night when Michaela had tried clumsily to seduce him. He could smell sugar and hear music. It was all unreal; it was all long gone.

‘Her window was open,’ Cat said.

‘What?’

‘In my mother’s bedroom. She always left the window open, even when it was cold.’

Stride remembered the crime scene and the open window. He recalled thinking that Michaela liked the night air, the way he did himself. ‘Yes, it was.’

‘The window is over the porch.’ Her lower lip quivered. ‘I heard them.’

‘I know.’

‘I heard everything, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, I think you did.’

‘I–I just don’t remember.’

‘It’s okay, Cat.’

‘You found me there? Under the porch?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘I wish I could remember that.’

He said nothing, but he was thinking that it was better if she remembered nothing at all. He’d been frantic. Heartsick. Mute with rage. He’d searched the whole house, which took no time at all. His panic had grown when he couldn’t find her. He’d gone outside and shined his flashlight under the porch, and at first he saw nothing, but when he shouldered his body all the way into the crawlspace, he found her squeezed into a corner. Her knees were tucked under her chin, eyes shut, face soaked by tears; she was paralyzed with fear. He’d eased her out and kept her in his arms, and she hadn’t said a word as he held her. She barely breathed.

Now here she was in front of him again. This teenager was the same little girl with whom he’d shared that awful moment. It felt like a lifetime ago.

‘You saved my life,’ she said.

‘I just found you.’

‘No, I think if you hadn’t come when you did, I’d be dead.’

‘Why do you think that?’

She frowned. ‘I don’t know, but I think it’s true.’

‘We should go, Cat,’ he said softly.

‘Another minute, okay? I need to see her room. I need to see where it happened.’

‘Maybe it would be better if you didn’t.’

‘No, I need to do this. This place won’t be here much longer. If I don’t do it now, I never will.’

‘If that’s what you want.’

He moved to join her, but Cat held up her hand. ‘Could you let me do it by myself? Alone?’

‘I don’t like leaving you here.’

‘Please. Just for a minute.’

Stride hesitated. ‘One minute.’

He was about to leave, but she called after him. ‘Stride?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you really think someone else was here that night? Is it even possible?’

He nodded. ‘Possible? Sure, it is.’

‘Wouldn’t I remember?’

‘Maybe you do. You say you dream about it. Is there someone in your dreams?’

Her face was confused. ‘In my dreams, I always think about you.’

She turned toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. The floorboards shifted, as if they would sink through to the cold ground beneath them. He thought about following her, but instead, he backed through the open door to the porch. Serena stood at the railing, dwarfed by the forest surrounding the large lot. He came up beside her. She was right where Michaela had been so many times. Just as close. Just as attractive.

They stood next to each other in silence. There was no more sun, just shadows. April felt like December.

‘I was a little in love with Michaela,’ he admitted.

Serena gave him a sad smile. ‘Of course you were. It’s who you are.’

She slid her arms around his waist. They were face to face, an inch apart. Her eyes were two bright emeralds. She leaned into him, and he leaned into her, and they kissed, their cold lips turning soft and warm. His fingertips caressed the down on her neck. Her arms rose on his back, holding him tightly. It felt like months of ice melting. It felt like spring coming.

When their lips released each other, they stayed cheek to cheek. He felt her breath on his face and the caress of her hair. They didn’t move or speak; they just held each other and remembered how it felt. It was like listening to the notes of a song you once knew by heart, letting it become familiar to you all over again.

They didn’t even hear Cat.

She was there in the doorway when they finally broke apart. Her face was contorted in terror, her eyes wide and white. It was the face of a lost six-year-old child.

‘Cat, what is it?’ he called to her.

Her mouth dropped open. They could hear her panicked breathing. She shook her head over and over.

‘Where’s the girl?’ she said.

He didn’t understand. ‘What?’

Her jaw worked, but no words came out. Her lips formed an ‘O’ of fear. Like a startled rabbit she bolted forward and threw her arms around Stride, nearly launching them both off the deck.

‘That’s what he said,’ she cried. ‘That’s what the man said when he came inside to kill my father. Where’s the girl?’