As soon as he took the sweater off he realized it had more potential than he’d thought. For the rest of his ascent he used it as a combination security blanket and rope, throwing it over each successive limb and pulling himself up. When he reached the level of the child he saw that her lips were moving.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Dru? I can’t understand you.”
“Marmalady.”
“All right, you can have some marmalade as soon as we get you down.”
She opened her eyes briefly, then closed them again. Her school uniform was torn, her knees scraped and her cheeks bleeding where she had pressed her face against the rough bark.
“I saw her,” she said. “I saw her down there.”
“There’s no one down there, Dru.”
“There was before. I saw Annamay.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“She got up and walked away.”
“She made sounds when she was falling?”
“They were happy sounds, like she was learning to fly.”
She screamed, Michael thought. She screamed like a banshee and Firenze heard her, and saw her falling out of the tree.
“I didn’t want her to come along,” Dru said. “I was going to practice mountain climbing so I could go with my boyfriend Kevin when we grow up. She was a nuisance. I told her to go home. You’re such a baby, I told her, and you’re never going to be a mountain climber like me and Kevin because you’re scared of things.”
Her words were interspersed with sobs. He kept edging along the limb toward her. He could hear in the distance the sounds of a siren and a whelper. A flood of relief and of gratitude swept over him, gratitude to Lorna’s aunt for the sweater, to the oak tree for its strength, to the maid who’d called the emergency number and to the firemen who were responding.
“Can you hear the sirens, Dru? Those are the men who are coming to rescue you. You’re going to be fine. All you have to do is keep from looking down and I think you can.”
“I don’t know.”
“Listen to me now, Dru. Do you know what mountain climbers do when they’re caught in a dangerous situation? They secure themselves with ropes. You and I don’t have any ropes so we’ll use this sweater. I’m going to tie it around your waist. Like this.”
She offered no resistance as he put the sweater around the limb and under her arms, then tied it at the back with a square knot. “You’re going to be all right now, Dru. The firemen will bring you down the ladder and take you home.”
“I don’t want to go home. They’ll blame me for letting her climb the tree. They’ll blame me because Annamay’s younger and prettier than me. I’m not going home. Never. I’m going to wait here for Annamay to come back.”
“Dru—”
“I won’t listen to you.”
“Yes, you will,” Michael said. “She’s not coming back. She died when she hit the ground.”
“But she got up and walked away, laughing.” The child repeated the words over and over like a magic spell she used to defeat the truth.
But the power of the spell was gone, and each time she said it sounded weaker like a fading echo.
I’ve been chasing a monster, Michael thought, and come up with a mouse, this mouse of a child who watched her friend die and was so shocked and terrified she had to pretend it never happened.
“She isn’t coming back?” Dru said.
“No.”
Tears started rolling down her cheeks, washing away the blood and dirt, leaving clean little paths.