The Story Web Read online

  “Come on then,” she said.

  The raccoon twisted and contorted itself so it came out of the slide. It landed on the ground with a soft plop. Immediately, it started clicking and cooing. A second raccoon crawled out. Then a third and a fourth. Alice thought they were all free, but then a fifth, smaller than all the rest, squeezed out as well. When they had all landed, they started walking toward Alice on wobbly feet. She scooted back to give them room.

  “Hand me that,” Piper said.

  Uncle Donny passed her a plastic crate.

  The raccoons, though, had other plans. They stopped in front of Alice, chattered for a moment, but as soon as Piper stepped near, they went running and tumbling away from the park and into the woods.

  “Huh,” was all Piper could think to say.

  “Huh, indeed,” Uncle Donny agreed. He reached over and put his hand on Alice’s shoulder. “You go on home, okay? I want to make some calls about getting this cleaned up.”

  “Construction’s going to need to stop for a stretch, Donny,” Officer Tibble said. “This backhoe is toast. Plus, with all the talk—” He stopped himself and glanced at Alice. He took off his hat and held it against his chest. “You know some people are going to take this opportunity to raise questions—”

  “I know,” Uncle Donny interrupted. The harshness of his voice made Alice jump. He sighed. “Tiny and his crew owe me some favors. I’ll give him a call and get this going again fast as I can.” He turned to Alice. “Straight home,” he said.

  “I could give you a ride,” Lewis said. “I mean, my mom could.”

  “I’ll walk,” Alice said.

  “Call me as soon as you get there. Fix yourself some dinner.” Uncle Donny checked his watch. “Your mom should be home in less than two hours.”

  “I know.” She was already backing away. She didn’t want to stay there another minute looking at her dad’s park ravaged by the storm. The leaves stuck to the plastic structures and the mud splattered over everything made her feel hollow inside.

  Then she remembered the box she was still carrying. She shoved it toward Lewis. “It’s for your mom. From Henrietta.”

  Before anyone could stop her, she turned and dashed out of the park.

  The easiest way back home would be to cut through the woods, but that would take her past the Bird House, and there was no way she was doing that, not on a day like this. Her dad told her not to spread cruel stories, but the tales about the Bird House weren’t rumors or legends. They were true.

  Everyone in town called it the Bird House because birds of all types flocked to it. Goldfinches, sparrows, crows, hawks, gulls—all these and more made their home at the old house. The birds flew together—swooping above the house, above the tree line, and into the sky—a mass that twisted and shifted as if it had a single brain. Sometimes the flock was so large that it would block the sun and cast a momentary shadow.

  Alice had been to the Bird House only once, with Lewis. Some of the older boys at the rink told them if you brought milk anywhere near the house it would spoil instantly. That’s what happened when witches were around. She’d told the boys that was ridiculous. They shrugged as if to say she was free to disbelieve them—but at her own peril.

  They were eight years old and treated it like a science experiment. “It’s a simple matter of proving or disproving,” she’d said to Lewis as they sat in his clubhouse, a hollow he had scooped out beneath the roots of an old pine tree. “We get a milk at lunch, and after school we bring it up. We don’t even have to stay that long. They said it happens instantly.”

  The next day he’d purchased a milk at lunch and snuck it out of the cafeteria. It was chocolate, and Alice wasn’t sure if that mattered. She also had not taken into account the effect of the milk sitting in Lewis’s cubby all afternoon. After school, they walked toward home together, pausing by the crooked post that marked the end of the Bird House’s long, twisty driveway. “Okay,” Alice said.

  “Okay,” Lewis agreed.

  They walked up, up, up the steep drive until the house loomed into view. It was a faded blue color, with red shingles and trim. The front steps sagged in lazy smiles. The windows shone black as night though the sun was high.

  The milk did not curdle.

  Instead, a huge flock of birds—seagulls and starlings and crows and petrels and doves and pigeons and even a snowy owl—lifted from the trees, the roof, and the lawn. The noise was so loud that Lewis and Alice could not hear their own ragged breaths or the pounding of their footsteps as they raced back to Minnow Lane.

  Alice thought of that adventure almost every time she walked by the end of the driveway, but this time, she didn’t. Her head was spinning so much thinking about the micro-burst and how, of all the places in the town, it had chosen to land on her father’s park, to destroy his bench.

  The mailbox at her house was off-kilter. It had been all fall. Alice tried to right it like she did every time, but it just tilted again. The sand around the base of the post was loose. She had tried filling it in, even mounding the dirt around the post, but nothing worked. So, now she tried to ignore it. She opened the door, pulled out the mail, and slapped the door closed again.

  It looked like a stack of bills and fliers for stores they would never go to, but then Alice noticed, peeking out, the telltale blue envelope that meant a letter from her dad. She held the mail closer to her chest. For once it wasn’t raining, but everything still felt damp, and she didn’t want the letter to get damaged. She could feel her heart beating against her hands. Only her dad’s letters unnerved her this way.

  Her dad started writing her letters when he first deployed. He told her wild tales of his adventures on the battlefield. Today we encountered the most astounding beast! Twice the size of a normal man, but only one eye. He told her these myths, she knew, because he didn’t want to scare her with the truth. But now that he was no longer at war, the stories scared her even more. Why couldn’t he be back in their house? What was so frightening that he couldn’t tell her the truth?

  She opened the front door and Jewel, her cat, darted out, brushing against Alice’s leg. Jewel was gone into the bushes before Alice could even say hello.

  In the house, Alice sorted the mail at the counter: bills in one pile, fliers another, then catalogs, until all she was left with was that envelope the color of a springtime sky: cool and pale and full of the promise of warmer days not yet arrived.

  Her dad’s handwriting was neat and blocky. He wrote in all capital letters. She could see where he had dragged his pen across the paper of the envelope when he wrote her name. The “E” in Dingwell was smudged.

  She slipped her index finger under the flap of the envelope. It gave way easily, like the letter was aching to get out. She pulled the piece of lined paper out and felt the frills on the edge from where he had torn it out of a notebook. She took a deep breath before she carefully unfolded it.

  DEAR ALICE,

  GREETINGS FROM DISTANT SHORES. I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON LEAVING THIS ISLAND AND GETTING BACK TO YOU, BUT CALYPSO INSISTS I AM NOT YET READY. SHE GIVES ME HER OINTMENTS AND POTIONS, A SOFT BED TO SLEEP IN, AND FOOD GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE GODS. I WILL GLADLY GIVE THIS ALL UP WHEN THE TIME COMES.

  WINTER IS ON ITS WAY HERE. PERHAPS IT HAS ALREADY REACHED YOUR SHORES. SO OF COURSE I THINK OF THE ICE, ALICE. ARE YOUR SKATES SHARPENED? DID YOU GET NEW PADS? I REALLY THINK YOU’VE GROWN TOO MUCH FOR YOUR OLD SET. IT’S IMPORTANT THAT YOU GO INTO BATTLE FULLY PREPARED. YOUR TEAM IS COUNTING ON YOU, NOT ONLY AS THE LITERAL LAST LINE OF DEFENSE, BUT AS A LEADER. I’VE SPOKEN TO YOUR UNCLE ABOUT YOUR PADS, BUT HE SEEMS CONFUSED ON THIS MATTER.

  A scratching sound came from the kitchen window. Scritch-scratch, scritch-scratch. Alice snapped her head up, but she couldn’t see anything. She told herself it was just a stick banging against the window in the wind and went back to her letter.

  THERE IS A POND ON THE ISLAND HERE. DO YOU REMEMBER THAT OLD BOOK I USED TO READ YOU? REMEMBER THE STORY OF THE FROG PRINCE AND
THE ILLUSTRATION THAT WENT WITH IT? WELL, OUR POND HERE LOOKS JUST LIKE THAT, AND WHEN IT FREEZES, CALYPSO SAYS I WILL BE ABLE TO SKATE ON IT. THAT WILL SURELY MAKE ME STRONGER, DAY BY DAY, AND SOON I WILL BE ABLE TO ESCAPE THIS PLACE AND RETURN TO OUR ICE. UNTIL THEN, STAY STRONG, STAY SMART, AND LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER. SHE IS SMARTER THAN ALL OF US.

  DON’T FORGET TO LOOK AT THE STARS EACH NIGHT.

  BE BOLD, BE BRAVE, BE FIERCE.

  YOURS TRULY,

  DAD

  Alice read the letter three times. She was always left with the same question: If he wanted to come home, why didn’t he?

  She tried to imagine the grounds of the island, to see the pond that her dad could skate on. He was a graceful skater. She loved to watch the way he’d glide and swirl and turn away from defenders and toward the goal, always ending up right where he was supposed to be: wide open and ready to score. Fast, too. She’d never seen anyone even half as fast as her dad—though maybe someday Lewis would be.

  Scritch-scratch. The sound came again. Alice still saw nothing in the window. She folded the paper carefully, put it back in its envelope.

  Scritch-scratch.

  She lifted her head. Something moved by the window.

  Slowly, she crossed the room until she stood by the sink. She leaned forward and squinted, but to no avail. Whatever was at the window was hidden in the shadows.

  Tuesday morning. Seven thirty-seven on the clock. Lewis pulled his Bruins hat down over his ears before he stepped out into the cold morning air. He didn’t like to be late for school. It was unprofessional to be late. Pro players were never late.

  The real reason he always left his house at exactly 7:37 was because that’s when he needed to leave to get to where his street intersected with Minnow Lane just in time to meet Alice. Or so it had been every day from the first day of kindergarten to the third week of September. He still left at the same time: he wasn’t going to let whatever funk she was in mess up his routine. Maybe also so he could catch her someday and they could walk together again. They wouldn’t have to say anything. He wouldn’t expect her to explain why she’d stopped playing hockey and stopped being his friend. Sometimes he thought these things had been a long time coming. Sometimes he thought it was whatever had made Buzz leave home. He knew he should ask her, but she was a goalie with her game face on whenever he even thought about it. She didn’t let anyone get by her defenses. So instead he let himself imagine that someday they’d just start walking and it would be like it had always been between them.

  For about thirty seconds that day, he thought that might happen. Right as he came around the curve of Hemlock Street, Alice walked up Minnow Lane. He quickened his pace, but then he came to a dead stop. So did Alice.

  Walking down the middle of the road was a bird. A large bird with thick legs, a long neck, and a body shaped like a boulder. It looked like the missing link between birds and dinosaurs.

  Lewis’s feet carried him so he was right next to Alice, who stood with her mouth hanging open, her breath coming out in puffs. Both watched the bird’s progress, frozen. A row of cars was backed up on each side. As it came to the sidewalk, the bird stopped and stretched out its neck. Lewis couldn’t see its face, only a tuft of feathers that sat atop its head. Then the most unusual sound came out of it, like a grunt that was stuck in its long neck. It spoke, it seemed, right to Alice.

  Alice jumped back, and the creature made the sound again. The bird jerked its head back across the street. Alice didn’t move. Frustrated, the creature moved even closer to Alice, who backed away. The creature kept going toward her.

  Lewis, suddenly unfrozen, started waving his arms. “Hey!” he yelled.

  The bird turned and looked at him. It made that same strange grunting noise over and over.

  “We can’t understand you,” Lewis said.

  That, at last, clicked with the creature. Or maybe it was the driver who laid on his horn. Either way the bird sauntered off. When Lewis turned to ask Alice about it, she was already gone, hurrying down the road.

  “It’s an emu,” a voice said.

  Lewis blinked as Melanie Finch emerged from the bushes at the end of the driveway to the Bird House. Melanie’s hair was thin and nearly white. It blew around her face and stuck to her lips. She brushed it off with her slender fingers.

  “A what?” he asked

  “An emu. A large flightless bird.”

  They turned onto Main Street, right by the dry cleaners. Mr. Cleary was out front sweeping the sidewalk. He would make his way up and down the whole length of the sidewalk before opening for the day. He looked up and gave a wave to the kids. Alice and Lewis waved back.

  “Emus can’t fly at all?” Lewis asked. “Like a turkey?”

  “Nope,” Melanie said. “Not even a little.”

  They turned onto School Street. It almost felt familiar, Lewis thought. Almost normal.

  As they approached the school, Melanie took a deep breath in, and then let it out in a slow sigh. She looked right at him with those watery eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked her. It was hard to tell, but it looked like she was about to cry.

  The question seemed to startle her. “Do you like stories?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “I guess.”

  She nodded. “There is something I could use some help with.” She took a deep breath. “Do you know about the Story Web?” He shook his head.

  Lewis pulled open the door and walked next to Melanie through the crowded hall. Some of the older boys looked at him with confusion. Lewis ignored them.

  At the row of fifth-grade lockers, Melanie’s was at the far end from Lewis’s. He slipped off his coat and hung it on a hook inside. Brady checked him with his shoulder. “Melanie Finch, huh?” he asked. “What’s your play?”

  “What?” Lewis asked. Since the start of the year, Brady had been talking so strangely, like he was trying on a costume that didn’t quite fit.

  “I know you don’t like her, so what’s up?”

  Lewis reddened. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Her house—”

  “The Bird House,” Brady interrupted.

  “It’s on my way to school. She just came out at the same time as I was walking by.” He left out the part about the emu. “It’s not like I could run away from her.” His stomach felt unsettled as he said this last part, but Brady could sniff out a weakness like a bloodhound. The last thing Lewis needed was Brady pick, pick, picking about Melanie. It’s not like he and Melanie were friends. They’d just walked to school together that morning. No big deal.

  “Whatever,” Brady said, which was pretty much Brady’s favorite word. He didn’t use to be that way. He and Lewis had been friends once, talking hockey and superheroes and daring each other to eat disgusting food combinations. Lewis figured that things just changed sometimes. People changed. Maybe that’s all that was happening with Alice.

  She was at her own locker, two down from Lewis’s, moving in that timid way she had ever since her dad went away.

  “I’ll show you the Story Web,” Melanie said. He hadn’t even seen her coming, but she was right beside him.

  “The Story Web? Okay.”

  She nodded. “Soon. The thing is, we have to save it.”

  Then Weird Melanie, the witch’s niece, went into the classroom. Lewis turned to Alice. She stared at him, eyes wide with surprise.

  The decision to send the little bird had been a contentious one. There were those who said that such a big task should not be entrusted to such a small bird. A messenger, they said, should be swift. Its shadow should be impressive.

  Crow, in particular, was unhappy with the choice. The Web was too precious a thing to leave to just any old bird. Crow insisted that the messenger needed to be loud. Crow was the loudest of the birds. Crow also cast a fine shadow. His feathers were a beautiful oily black, if he did say so himself.

  Why would they send a tiny little bird when they could send him?

  Why should he stay behind while
the little bird went on to glory?

  He should not. He would not.

  Crow lacked patience and had little use for conversations. He preferred action. So, while Moose and the others worked to prepare the little bird, Crow flew away.

  The Story Web.

  Alice heard Melanie say those words, and it all came rushing back into her head. Getting lost in the woods, the willow tree, the huge web. Alice remembered walking through the forest with her father and what he’d told her about the Story Web and the spiders who made it. He had held her small hand tightly in his big warm palm. “You’re very lucky to be able to see a Story Web. Not everyone can.”

  They walked across the top of a boulder. Her father jumped down, then reached up to lower her to the soft ground of the forest. “You know the story of Arachne, of course.” Her father had a book of stories that he read to her from: The Story Web. One of her favorite stories in the book had been about Arachne, a girl in an ancient Greek village who was very proud of her weaving and claimed to be a better weaver than the goddess Athena. It was never a good idea to insult a goddess, and Arachne paid the price. Athena came to her village disguised as an old woman and gave her one last chance to say that Athena really was the better weaver. But Arachne was full of pride and said she stood by her words. So Athena revealed herself and challenged Arachne to a weaving contest. This was why Alice liked the story so much. In so many stories, the winner was simple. Either the mighty won because they were mighty, or the weaker won because of some internal quality like patience or kindness. But in this story, it was more complicated. Athena wove a scene showing the glory of the gods and goddesses. Arachne wove a scene showing all their mistakes and misdeeds. It was beautiful—Athena couldn’t deny that. But she also couldn’t stand for the insults to her fellow gods and goddesses, especially about her father, Zeus. She struck Arachne’s weaving, destroying it. There never really was a winner. It ended with Athena touching Arachne’s forehead and turning her into a spider, dooming her to weave for the rest of her days.