“When are they gonna tell us?” Frankie asks me on our way up the steep stairs.
“I got no clue.”
It must be an hour that I lie awake, trying to figure it out, while I stare at the cracks in the ceiling and listen to the snakes hunt mice in the attic above it.
“Hey, Frankie,” I say suddenly.
“Huh?” His voice is thick with sleep.
“Suppose this is the test?”
“How do you mean?”
“You know, the waiting. Maybe there ain’t no other test and they’re just seeing how long we can stand not knowing?”
Frankie turns on his mattress to face me.
“I don’t think that’s it, Jack.”
The good feeling I have whisks away, like a bubble of spit on the wind.
There is a sudden, muffled grating from the ceiling above me, a sound of scales against wood beams. I listen a while more, wondering if the mouse got away or if he’s now dinner for a big old black snake.
I yawn. It ain’t the most pleasant thought to fall asleep to, but I’ve had worse.
“Wake up!”
I sit up into a beam of blinding light.
“Ouch!”
“Wake up!” Pete whispers again. The beam of light swings over to where Frankie sits on his mattress, rubbing his eyes.
“What time is it?” I ask. The blood in my veins feels thick and slow.
“Shh!” is all Pete says, and he snaps off the light. He moves to the open window and I see his familiar shape cut out against the stars. Then he’s gone, and it’s just velvety night filling the empty frame. The gutter rattles. A few seconds later, we hear a quiet thud as Pete jumps to the porch roof below.
The flashlight’s left a dull ache behind my eyes, but all the same I’m filled with a sudden, breathless thrill.
“This is it!” I whisper to Frankie as I pull on my shoes.
He meets me at the window, blinking back the sleep from his eyes. There’s movement down below: Pete and Will in silvery moonlight. Pete waves at us to hurry.
Frankie’s eyes jump to mine. For a second I think he won’t do it. Then in one easy movement he is through the window and reaching for the gutter.
We move like clouds across the moon, soundless, down the lane for the ink-dark trees along Apple Creek. Mist blows across the yard, pale fingers clutching at the bare skin on my arms and legs. By the time we reach the trees, my feet squish in soggy shoes.
Pete leads. He don’t use the flashlight; he follows the trail by memory. He takes us fast past the invisible tree trunks, and soon I’m sweating in the night’s cool air.
Apple Creek lies hidden under a shroud of mist. A handful of stars burns fierce and bright above, and Pete runs us faster in their twinkling light.
We run along the creek bank for a time, through a patch of rubbery jewelweed that glistens in the faint starlight and on past a stand of sycamores. One of their roots reaches up and snatches at my toe and I stumble, throwing my hands out wildly to grab hold of something, anything. My fingers close on empty dark, and I’m pitching over the bank toward that soft cloud that hangs over Apple Creek when Frankie snatches my shirttail and drags me back.
I don’t have breath enough to thank him. Pete moves us on, faster.
Where is he taking us? And what sort of test have they got planned for Frankie?
The Sucker Hole’s stony towers rise before us, then sink slowly away behind.
Still Pete leads us on.
Beyond the creek, Knee-Deep Meadow opens up, vast and white under the fog. For a moment the curtain parts, as if a breath from the stars has blown it back, and through the hole we can see the valley’s far wall. A single orange light burns in that dark: a house across the way. It’s visible only a moment before the fog rolls back and hides it from our sight.
Madliner House. As we run, I wonder who among them is awake this hour of the night.
I don’t have long to think about it. Our trail turns suddenly, diving away from the creek toward a black hill that rises, silent and solemn, on our left. Starlight gleams on its bare face, the sparkle of Pennsylvania granite. We are running now between the toes of the Appalachians. Trees close in. Our trail hugs that rocky hill close. With the stars hidden, the darkness returns, so thick now that even Pete has to slow down.
Wet branches slap my arms and chest and once something crashes through the undergrowth to our left—something big.
A thought comes to me. A gnawing, anxious idea as to where Pete is leading us. The hairs on my arms rise on end. I remember Will’s gleeful grin and my heart sinks.
Ahead our trail bends once more. A clearing. An open space between the hills. Pete slows his pace.