Beyond the Cabin Read online

  Clenching the sides of my head, I hunched forward. The shakes came stronger, nearly enough to snap me.

  I heard the sound of running. Scrubbing my face, I spun and saw Joan, little round Joan, hurrying down the hill. Almost rolling. I gasped a laugh at the absurd image. I wondered why I heard no music.

  “Joshua!” she said, her breath coming loud. “Oh Joshua! I just heard.” As she approached, I saw tears streaming down her face. Joan sat next to me and threw her arms around me. “Joshua. I’m so sorry.”

  Something inside me cracked. I raised my arms and held Joan tightly. The crack widened as I squeezed, the raging fire began to erupt inside me. I felt the tears coming, my throat getting even tighter. Shaking, I settled into Joan’s arms, burying my face in her shoulder. Mal’s dead. Shot in the head. I noticed the rhyme, hated myself for it.

  I coughed, then sucked in air.

  “Oh Joshua. I’m so sorry. Poor Malachi.” I felt Joan’s tears on my shoulder. I tried to dry my cheeks on her shoulder too. A sob, from somewhere deep, below my stomach and behind my heart, tore through me.

  “Poor Malachi,” Joan said again, her voice muffled in my shoulder. “If only he hadn’t left.”

  I felt another sob building, wanted to lose myself; let go. If only he hadn’t left? Is that what she said?

  I pushed her away. “If only he hadn’t left?” My voice came out almost squeaky, having trouble getting through my throat. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I swallowed hard, trying to push the shudders racking my body back down, deep into my stomach.

  “Joshua,” Joan said, surprise and hurt evident in her voice and on her face. “I- I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean.” She wiped her face.

  I looked over her shoulder, saw Esther erupt from the house and start down the hill. From fifty feet away I could see her tears. They’re not gonna see mine!

  “Go away! Nobody understands! Nobody even wants to try to understand why he left!” I pushed Joan away and stood. “Go away! I don’t need you!”

  “Joshua!” Esther shouted from the hill. “Please! I’m so sorry! Please let me talk to you!”

  “No!” I used my sleeve to clean the weakness from my face. “No! Stay away! You don’t get it! None of you!”

  I turned and ran, skirting the goose pond and diving into the welcoming shelter and cover of the trees.

  Chapter 6

  I finally saw it through the deepening shadows spilling from the Douglas firs and other trees. The cabin seemed taller without Mal in it. With four walls and no roof, it seemed emptier too.

  We could have done a better job on the doorway. The jagged-edged rectangle sloped to the left, proving that even Mal had trouble controlling the chainsaw he’d stolen for us to use. The doorway faced a small clearing. Trees and brush surrounded the other three walls. I went in, noticing the shadow-dappled floor and walls. My cabin. Now only mine.

  Tools lay scattered on the dirt floor. A handsaw and a chainsaw sat in a corner, under a small tarp, along with a mostly empty red gallon can of gasoline. The image of Mal using a short hose to siphon gas from one of the commune’s cars flashed through my head. Nobody else knew about the cabin Mal and I had built. It was our place.

  But now it was only mine. Because Mal was dead. I dropped to the floor, pine needles crackling under me. I looked around at the rough logs that made up the walls of the cabin. Their dark bark seemed loose and old, the dried mud between the logs flaking now.

  “We never got a roof on,” I said to the walls. I looked up and saw the tall firs that grew up against three of the outside walls. Some of the bright day’s sun filtered through leaves and needles. “Only the rafters.”

  My throat still felt like I had swallowed nails, then a water balloon. My chest felt full of ice. My face was hot. I knew my cheeks were bright red. I hated that.

  Mal was dead. My brother. My best friend.

  Long minutes passed. I knew I was close to crying when Joan had wrapped me up earlier, but now, when I felt safe from prying eyes and pitying looks, I could find no tears. A strange numbness had settled in. Uncomfortably numb, unlike that song by Pink Floyd that Mal liked. He didn’t like it anymore.

  Can you like music in… wherever you go? Or is that it? I shook the thoughts from my head, standing quickly. I was suddenly restless; I had to move. I looked up again, saw the rafters and the trees above. Mal had designed the simple peaked rafters, making me hammer nails while he held things in place.

  But now he’s dead. Shot. Because of those stupid drugs. “How could you be so stupid!” I shouted at the forest. My voice echoed flatly against the walls of the cabin. “Why’d those cops have to let you out?”

  I sat again, all strength gone from my legs. But the grief was gone. So was the anger. I felt empty, blank. I saw everything around me, but it was like I saw it with eyes that were right next to and behind me. Like I wasn’t there. I swallowed the lump from my throat and stared at the ground. The empty, blank ground.

  “Drugs suck.” I swore. “Screw you, Mal. And screw drugs.” I’d thought I was empty, but saying that made something come loose in me.

  I tightened down on it. The image of what Mal might have seen in his last second kept flashing in my mind. I tried to make it stop, but it wouldn’t. I had to think of something else.

  I pushed to my feet, wandering the tiny space of the cabin. “I’ll become a cop, stop drugs.” Yeah. I could do that.

  I kept walking in a circle, brushing the logs of the cabin with my fingertips, repeating the words over and over.

  * * *

  The day was already fading by the time I began to walk back through the woods. It was getting cold, as these late March days usually did, but I didn’t hurry. After about thirty minutes of walking, I came to the small goose pond that we kids would shoe-skate on during the winter. Sometimes I would lie flat on my stomach at the edge of the ice, my arms pointed forward, while Mal lay on the shore. On the count of three, I would push off of Mal’s hands while Mal pushed hard as well. Launched, I would slide across the ice like a human sled.

  The images faded as I stood there. Gone. Never again. I didn’t want to think about old times. If I was going to be a policeman and stop drugs, there would be no time for ice skating anyway. As I turned to walk along the dark soil at the edge of the pond, some music began to filter into my head. It was a martial beat, melancholy and stirring at the same time. Like at the end of that movie, Taps, which Miriam had made us watch because it, in her words, “Showed the evils of a warlike people.” Screw that. I could be a soldier too. A warrior against heroin, marijuana, and cocaine. All of it would fall victim to my crusade.

  Cresting the hill, I found Chewie dozing under one of his trees. The huge, hairy dog looked like a massive, lumpy shadow. I walked over to the dog, making a clicking noise in my cheek. Chewie looked up, his expressive face eager.

  “Hey buddy,” I said, flopping to the ground. Chewie huffed and scooted closer to me, sticking his wet nose under one of my hands. I scratched Chewie’s head. “Did you hear? Mal died.” Tears threatened again, but I fought them back. Mal had loved Chewie, spending entire afternoons on walks through the woods with the big black dog.

  Chewie jumped to his feet, whuffling softly. He cocked an ear. “What do you hear?” I asked. Chewie barked again. “Rabbit? Squirrel?”

  The dog ignored me.

  “Go get it,” I said. I stood and headed to the house.

  Nobody met my eyes as I walked through the door and moved toward the living room. I saw the dining room to my left; saw the money beggars counting up their loot for the day. They all looked away as my gaze slid across their hunched forms. My nose told me that I wasn’t too late for dinner. I heard the younger kids playing behind the house on the flat area of grass.

  I sat on the couch that I had been sprawled on a few hours earlier. My book was still there. I picked up the novel and found my spot. Feeling apart from the house, the people and the purpose of the commune, I began to r
ead again.

  “Joshua.”

  I looked up. It was Esther, her usually smooth, pale cheeks now rough with pain and tears. Her eyes looked red and swollen.

  “What?” My eyes went back to the words on the page before me. They meant nothing to me. I saw them, made out the letters, but I kept reading the same sentence.

  “I… I just wanted to say…” her voice trailed off.

  I tried to ignore her. Maybe she’d go away. Maybe I should get a book about policemen, so that I could start studying now.

  “I’m so sorry about Malachi,” Esther said after taking a deep breath.

  I grunted, wishing she would go away. It was going to be okay because I was going to battle the drugs. I would make sure that this kind of thing didn’t happen to anybody else. But I knew she wouldn’t understand. I tried to find some music in my head that could drown out Esther’s voice.

  “Please look at me,” Esther said. “Can we talk a minute?”

  Sudden anger flared in me. “Talk about what? He’s dead okay? I know it and you know it!”

  Her cheeks flushed brighter. “We all loved him,” Esther said. “You’re not alone. I mean… maybe it would help if you talk—“ she stopped. “I don’t know… I—“

  “I know I’m not alone! I wish I was! Why can’t you leave me alone! He was my brother!”

  Obviously stung, Esther’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Joshua, why are you… I mean… it hurts all of us.”

  “But he was my brother!”

  “He was Aaron’s brother too,” Esther said. “You’re not the only one hurt by this!”

  “I never said I was!” I was on my feet now. “But I don’t know why you care! It’s not like he cared about you!”

  This silenced her. Her pretty face seemed to melt. Her green eyes clouded with tears and she turned and ran away, pounding up the stairs to the bedrooms on the second floor.

  I was shaking as I sat back down. The anger felt like ice, the coldest ice in the world, inside my chest. I felt it drying up the tears I hadn’t let fall. It left me clean, pure. That worked. Now she’ll leave me alone.

  I picked up my book, fixed a scowl on my face, and pretended to read until dinner was announced. Even then, I ate in silence, meeting nobody’s gaze and enjoying the uncomfortable silence at the three tables. Even the usually rowdy younger kids’ table was subdued.

  The other older boys: Saul and Luke, along with me, were assigned to dishes that night. For a minute, I wondered why Aaron wasn’t helping, then I realized that my other brother, like always, used his computer work to get out of chores.

  Usually Saul and Luke and I found something to argue about, but this time, I felt like I was a silence light bulb—and I had been switched on. Esther kept walking through the kitchen, throwing glances at me, but I pretended not to notice.

  At one point, Luke tried to break the silence. “Josh, hey. Do you wanna go out to the island when we’re done?” He stopped and grunted. “I mean after I change the stupid air filter on the van?”

  “No."

  “Come on man,” Luke said.

  “I said no.”

  “I’ll go,” Saul said, a hopeful look on his face. His black eyebrows seemed to rise above his glasses, disappearing into his equally dark hair.

  Luke sighed and looked at Saul’s hang-dog face with unconcealed disgust. “Are you gonna draw or play your guitar the whole time?”

  “Shut up,” Saul said. “At least I don’t do pull ups on branches for hours.”

  “Dummy! Shut up!” Luke said, looking quickly around. Silence passed between the two boys. Luke’s thin face set itself in a cold look at Saul. “Fine,” Luke said.

  Saul glanced at me, a question on his face. I tried to ignore him while I dried dishes, focusing on a dripping plate in one hand and a drying towel in the other. “You coming?” Saul asked.

  I looked at Saul: fluffy light brown hair and heavy glasses, then Luke: flat curls of dark gold grass for hair and watery brown eyes. “No.” I turned to put the plate away, willing silence back into the room. I didn't care about the usual contest where I tried to finish drying and putting things away before the others finished cleaning off tables and rinsing out the sinks. So, when the last of the dishes had been put away, I headed silently toward the living room to get my book. Saul and Luke had gone outside through the door in the kitchen.

  Book in hand, I walked to the stairs and followed the railing up with my eyes, up to the landing. My heart leapt, throat tightening suddenly. Mal!

  Malachi stood at the top of the landing, leaning over the railing. His face was bright with a smile, his hands stretching over his head. Mal had done this before, while I stood under the landing and tried to take pictures of him so that it looked like Mal was flying. The stupid camera Mal had stolen never got it right.

  I opened my mouth to call his name. I blinked and he was gone. Shaken, I stood stock still at the foot of the stairs for long minutes, closing and opening my eyes slowly. Am I going nuts? Mal’s dead! I swallowed several times, trying to work some spit down my dry throat. I remembered the vision I’d had the day Mal had left. What was going on?

  I had to be going crazy. I’m hallucinating. Trying to decipher what had happened, I climbed the stairs. Is this a nervous breakdown?

  * * * *

  Happy to be in my room alone, I sat on my bunk and looked around the room. All sign of Malachi was long gone, except for the empty top bunk that Luke hadn’t wanted to move to from his bottom bunk; I figured Luke was scared of falling off, although he would never admit to it. The light from the one-bulb fixture in the middle of the ceiling illuminated the small room well. As I sat, my brain felt empty. I felt like one of the reeds that lined the pond after a long winter: old, hollow, and cold.

  Then an image: Esther’s flushed, wet cheeks in the dim living room, flashed into my mind. I thought about Esther, wondered why she was so upset. It’s not like they were related. I remembered what Mal had said about her. I guess she is pretty. If you like green eyes.

  I had to admit that Esther was unique in a household of unique family situations. While many of the kids were related due to sharing one parent, nobody actually knew who Esther’s parents were. At least none of the kids. And it seemed like Esther didn’t know either. Maybe that’s why she’s so bossy.

  I knew that didn’t make sense, that not knowing who your parents were shouldn’t automatically make a person bossy. But what was her deal tonight? I thought of her face, the tears shining on her cheeks. I remembered, on that first day that Mal left, thinking that Esther did have a nice body.

  Finally it hit me and I felt like an idiot. If Mal thought Esther was good-looking, wasn’t it possible that she felt the same way about Mal? She liked him. Maybe she loved him. Did Mal know? Had Mal known? As I sat there, I realized that I had no way of knowing if Mal and Esther had ever gotten together.

  But it was finally obvious why Esther had reacted the way she did. She was usually so calm, in fact she did a lot to keep the younger kids in line. I had never seen her act like that.

  “Well that sucks,” I said aloud to my empty room. Shame crept up on me as I remembered making Esther flush and begin to cry more. I couldn’t remember feeling angry like that before. It had been such a—simplifying feeling. It made things clear. And then after—when it was gone, I had felt pure, even clean. Like I had been emptied of stupid stuff like tears and worries about being in trouble.

  I stood on a beach, watching a black horse, glistening and mighty, running along a beach where the ocean rolled in and splashed in small blue and white explosions. Then I was on an island and Esther perched on a rock that was lit by bright sun. Her hands were outstretched, as if she wanted to catch the shining orb. Suddenly I was flying over gentle hills of grass and trees. I somehow knew I was outside of Cooperton, the city on whose outskirts the commune lived. I felt the wind in my hair. A second later, I sat on the couch in the living room. At the top of the stairs stood Malachi, his arms op
ened wide. Below him was Esther again, with her arms spread as if to catch Mal if he fell.

  Mal leapt and Esther screamed.

  I woke suddenly, feeling like I was swimming through hardening concrete, my heart beating fast, an echoing scream in my head and another stuck in my throat. I tried to breathe past the lump and after a few minutes felt myself relax.

  In the morning, with the pale light of the Pennsylvania morning seeping into my room, the images of the horse and Esther and Mal slowly faded. But Esther’s scream rang loud in my ears throughout the day.

  Chapter 7

  “Shut up!”

  The shout made me jump. I looked behind me at the school desk where Saul sat.

  “Saul! That is not acceptable language!” Penelope said from behind her large teacher’s desk.

  I watched as Saul turned a hurt look on Penelope, as if he’d been betrayed by his very own mother. Join the club.

  Besides, at least it wasn’t Miriam teaching us while Enos and Tabitha were gone. Penelope’s tyrant tendencies only showed up rarely.

  As I turned back, I noticed what must have caused Saul’s outburst.

  Luke was hunched behind his book, but his shoulders were shaking from quiet laughter. Luke’s desk was also behind mine, and only a few feet to the right of Saul’s. It was obvious Luke had been egging Saul on until Saul finally lost it.

  This was one of Luke’s specialties. Jerk.

  “But Penelope, Luke was making nasty noises. I asked him to stop, but he wouldn’t,” Saul said, indignant and hurt.

  Luke’s face appeared from behind his book. His smug lips were curved in feigned indignation. “I was not! I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

  I shook my head. Nothing changed. Two days after Malachi died and everything was the same. Luke still took stupid pleasure from getting others in trouble, and Saul still used his irritating puppy-dog look to squeeze out of it.

  I turned back to look at Penelope, entertaining the unreasonable hope that she might actually punish her son or Luke for once.