“Why?”
“To give you a chance to escape.”
“But how will you get away?” he asked.
She smiled at him, hiding her sadness. “Don’t worry about that. That’s my problem, not yours. The main thing is for you to get to Canada. That’s what your mom wanted. That’s what I want for you, too. She was right. Canada is so pretty. It’s wide open, and there are mountains and lakes and waterfalls and forests. It’s like heaven. You’ll see. It’s just like heaven.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere without you,” the boy told her. “I want to stay right here. Can’t we just talk to them?”
“No. It’s gone too far. The only thing we can do is save you. You’re not going to die, my sweet. I promise you that. You are not going to die.”
“How will I know when it’s time to go?” he asked.
Lisa tilted her head and cupped her hand behind her ear. “We have to listen. There will be a train whistle. You can’t miss it from here. It’ll pass by on the other side of the field behind the church, and it’ll be heading north. It’ll take you up into Canada. The train stops here as it’s coming into town, so you’ll be able to hop on board. Can you do that? When we hear the train whistle, you’ll need to slip out the back door and into the trees. No one will see you. And then you have to run, Purdue. Run until you get to the train, and then you just climb on and never look back.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll make sure no one follows you,” Lisa said. “That’s my job. To protect you.”
“When we hear the train whistle?”
“Exactly. When we hear the train whistle, you run. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” Purdue replied, but his lips puckered unhappily. “Why can’t you come to Canada, too? You could come with me.”
“Well, you can look for me up there,” Lisa said, “and one day you’ll see me.”
They sat for a while longer in silence. Whenever there was a noise outside, she tensed, expecting the doors to burst open, expecting the assault to come. She prayed they would wait long enough for the train to arrive first. After that, nothing mattered. She shivered, because the monster in her head was getting bolder, getting closer, enveloping her in a dark cloud. She felt its breath on her neck like needles of ice.
“Lisa?”
“Yes?”
“Can you tell me a story?”
“Sure. I can do that. What kind of story would you like?”
“Tell me about the book you wrote. Tell me about Thief River Falls.”
“That’s a book for adults, my sweet,” Lisa murmured. “Not for children.”
“Tell me anyway. Please. I want to know what happens before I go.”
Lisa reached out and put a hand over his. “Okay. I can tell you the story if you really want. Thief River Falls is about a lost boy. Remember? I called him Purdue, just like you. And it’s the story of a lonely woman, too. A lovely, lonely woman.”
“What’s her name?” Purdue asked.
“I called her Madeleine. I named her after my mother.”
“Was your mother lonely?”
Lisa smiled. “Oh, no. Not really. I mean, sometimes I’m sure she was, because she was very far from the place where she grew up. But that wasn’t why I used her name. I use real names in my books when I want to feel close to the characters as I write them. And there was no woman I felt closer to than my mother. We were the only two girls in the family, so we had to stick together. Plus, my mother was the kind of person who would do anything for others, and that’s what my Madeleine — the one in the book — is like, too.”
“Madeleine,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“So what happens?”
“Well, this boy Purdue arrives in Thief River Falls from Missouri. He’s running away from home because his mother died, and he’s on his way to find his uncle in Winnipeg. But he’s on a train, and the train stops here for repairs. He’s lost and sad and confused, so he gets off the train and begins to wander. He wanders through the cornfields in the pouring rain until he gets to a river. There’s a cabin there, and he figures he can stay inside for a while. But instead, it’s like wandering into a horror movie. There’s a man hiding in the cabin who did a terrible thing, and some other men arrive to punish him for what he did. They torture him. They kill him. And the boy, Purdue, he witnesses the whole awful thing.”
Purdue sat next to her, saying nothing, just listening to her as if this were some kind of Grimm fairy tale. She put an arm around his shoulder and nudged him closer, and he leaned his head against her.
“The men discover the boy, and they know he’s seen what they did. He can get them in big trouble if he tells anyone what he saw. They’re not necessarily bad men at heart, but they’ve let themselves become cruel. Revenge can do that to people. It can make you believe that the only way to deal with a monster is to become a monster yourself. And that’s the wrong lesson.”
“They hurt the boy, don’t they?” Purdue said.
Lisa nodded. “Yes, they do. They hit him, and then they bury him in the ground along with the man they killed. But they don’t realize that the boy is still alive. He’s under the ground, but his mother is there with him in his head, and she tells him what to do. How to stay perfectly still. How to escape. And so Purdue digs himself out of the hole and wanders away from the cemetery. A woman in a trailer park finds him. She takes him to the hospital, but the first thing the hospital people do is call the police. Purdue sees the two policemen coming, and he realizes they’re two of the men he saw at the cabin. So he does a smart thing. He runs away. He hops into the back of a truck, and when the truck stops, he wanders again until he finds himself outside a woman’s house.”
“Madeleine,” Purdue said.
“That’s right. It’s Madeleine’s house. She’s a tough, sweet farm girl, but the kind of girl you don’t mess with. She’s an only child, and with her parents gone, she’s just sort of existing from day to day, not really living. This boy, Purdue, gives her something to live for. The two of them click with each other. It’s like they’re meant to be together. Madeleine is determined to rescue Purdue, but as the book goes on, it’s clear that Purdue is really rescuing her. Does that make sense?”
“I think so.”
“At that point, the book becomes a little like a detective story. Because he was injured and buried alive, the boy has blocked out most of his past. He can’t remember anything. So Madeleine and Purdue have to put the pieces back together to find out what happened to him. The clues lead them here to Thief River Falls, and Madeleine discovers that a horrible murder took place days earlier, in which a young wife was killed by her ex-husband. And the boy recognizes the man who killed her. It’s the man he saw tortured and murdered at the cabin in the woods. So Madeleine understands just how serious this situation is. The people they’re up against, the ones who want to find them, aren’t just dangerous people. They’re people with power in town. Police officers. The county attorney. It was his daughter who was killed, and he’ll do anything to cover up the crime he committed out of vengeance. Madeleine knows she has to get Purdue out of Thief River Falls for him to be safe, but as they try to make their escape, the men track them down, and they’re forced to hide away in a remote country church just like this one. They’re inside, and the county attorney and his partners are outside. With guns. So Madeleine has to figure a way out of the trap that will keep Purdue alive.”
“Wow,” the boy said.
“I told you, it’s scary.”
“But I like it.”
“I’m glad,” Lisa said.
They were quiet again. Purdue still had his head against her shoulder. She wished, she prayed, that time would freeze like the Minnesota winters and slow down until every second ticking away lasted for days. But the white, snowbound world couldn’t stay that way forever. The clock kept going.