“Sure.” He took out his phone, went to an Internet weather site, and typed in “Wolf Lake.”
When the forecast data appeared, he stared at it. “This is useless.”
“What does it say?”
“It says we may get terrible weather but probably won’t.”
“It doesn’t say that. Tell me what it actually—”
“It says there’s a 30 percent chance of a major ice storm this evening, with ice-pellet accumulation of two to three inches, resulting in hazardous driving conditions.”
“And tomorrow?”
“A 30 percent chance of heavy snow accumulation, up to eighteen inches. Possible four-foot drifts with winds gusting to forty miles per hour.”
“So after this afternoon driving will be impossible?”
“It’s only 30 percent likely, meaning it’s 70 percent unlikely.”
She turned back to the window. As she stood gazing out toward Devil’s Fang, he could hear her fingernail attacking her cuticle.
He sighed. “If you want, we can leave for Vermont right now.”
She didn’t answer.
“I mean, if you’re worried about bad weather getting in the way—”
She cut him off. “Just . . . wait. I’m trying to make the right decision.”
The right decision? About what?
He picked up the poker and set about the rearrangement of the logs. After a while he gave that up and sat down on the couch. Minutes passed before she spoke again—this time so softly he almost couldn’t make out the words.
“Will you come with me?”
“Where?”
“I’d like to go back to where I was this morning . . . but have you with me . . . if you’d be willing to come.”
He sensed that the important thing was to say yes, which he did, and to put aside the questions that came immediately to mind.
THEY SET OUT IN A FOG THAT THINNED AS THEY DROVE UP TOWARD the ridge that defined the edge of the geological declivity that contained Wolf Lake. Beyond the ridge there was no fog at all, but slippery spots on the road made for slow going.
As they emerged from the Gall Wilderness Preserve, the GPS directed them onto a public road that led even higher into the surrounding mountains.
Twenty-five minutes later, the GPS alerted them to an upcoming turn onto Blackthorn Road. That intersection formed the center of a ghost town consisting of a few unidentifiable wooden structures in various stages of dilapidation.
“We’re almost there,” said Madeleine, sitting up straighter.
A minute later the GPS told them to make a right on Hemlock Lane.
“Don’t make the right,” said Madeleine. “It’s rutted and overgrown. Pull over here.”
He did as she said. They stepped out of the car into a cutting wind. He turned up the collar of his jacket and pulled his woolen ski cap down over his ears. Whatever it had once been, Hemlock Lane now appeared to be nothing but a rough dirt path into the woods.
She took his cold hand in hers and led him into the desolate lane.
They proceeded cautiously on the icy surface with the wind in their faces, climbing over fallen trees. The first structure they came upon was an abandoned cottage, covered with blotches of black mildew. Half hidden in the woods behind it were two smaller ones in total disrepair.
Madeleine stopped. “The Carey twins, Michael and Joseph, lived here with their mother. In the summer she rented out those little cottages in the back, but in the winter it was just them.”
As her gaze moved over the scene, Gurney got the impression she was attempting to see it as it once was.
“Come,” she said after a while, leading him along the lane.
Brittle remnants of the summer brambles were leaning in from both sides, catching at their pants and jacket sleeves. A few hundred yards farther they came to a second property in worse shape than the first. A huge fallen hemlock had obliterated at least a third of the main house. The remains of three small cabins off to the side were covered with years of decaying pine needles.
“This is it,” she said.
“This was the house where you spent your Christmases?”
She tightened her grip on his hand. “It was more than just Christmas week, though. The last year I came up I was here for six weeks.”
“Your holiday vacation was that long?”
“That year it was. My parents had put me in a private school that had longer winter breaks than public schools and shorter summer breaks.”
“What about your sister?”
“When I was fifteen Christine was already twenty-two.” She paused. “They used to call me the surprise baby. That was a euphemism for the shock baby. I’m sure they wished they could wake up one morning and discover I’d just been a bad dream.”
Taken aback by this, he said nothing. Rarely had she talked about her parents when they were alive, and never after they died.
She drew him closer to her as they proceeded along the narrowing path. Soon all resemblance to an actual road disappeared. The wind grew more biting. His face was beginning to ache. Just when he was about to question her destination, they emerged into a clearing. Beyond it was a perfectly flat white expanse, which he guessed was a frozen lake.
She led him across the clearing.
At the edge of the white expanse she stopped and spoke with a forced evenness. “This is Grayson Lake.”
“Is this the lake where that boy drowned?”
“His name was Colin Bantry.” She paused, seemed to reach a painful decision, and took a deep breath. “I was in love with him.”
In love . . . with the kid who drowned? “Jesus, Maddie. What . . . what happened?”
She pointed to two enormous hemlocks at the edge of the frozen lake. “One night I asked him to meet me . . . over there. It was so cold. The coldest night of the year.”
She fell silent, gazing at the trees.
“I told him I was pregnant.”
He waited for her to go on. All he could see, all he could focus on, was the look on her face, a look of desolation he’d never seen there before.
She repeated herself, slowly, as if punishing herself with the words. “I told him I was pregnant.”
Again he waited.
“He raced out onto the ice on his motorcycle. All the way out. In the moonlight. Out there.” She pointed with a trembling hand. “The ice broke.”
“That’s how he drowned?”
She nodded.
“What happened with . . . your pregnancy.”
“I wasn’t pregnant.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t lie. I really believed that I was. I’d missed my period. Maybe I wanted to be pregnant, wanted to be attached to Colin, wanted a new life, a life where someone wanted me more than my parents did. Oh God, I was so desperate! And I loved him so much!”
“Why do you think he did what he did?”
“The awful thing is, I have no idea. I have no idea, but the thought that tortured me was that he was running away, that he couldn’t face me, couldn’t face being with me anymore. He didn’t say a single word, just . . . just raced off across the ice.”
There was a long silence as they stood staring out over the lake.
Eventually Gurney asked, “Was there a police investigation?”
“Of course. Colin’s father was a deputy sheriff.”
“You told him what happened?”
“I didn’t say anything about telling Colin I was pregnant. I said that I didn’t know why he rode out onto the ice . . . that maybe he was just showing off, or just felt like doing it. He believed me. Colin was like that. Everyone knew Colin was wild.”
There was another silence. Her grip on his hand was almost painfully tight.
He looked into her eyes. “Why are you telling me this now?”