Towering - By Alex Flinn Page 0,38

of slowing my descent a bit, and slid down it to the bottom. It all occurred so quickly I remembered nothing except the feeling of my own hair, sliding through my fingers.

I was out of the tower, out for the first time in years.

It happened I did not die. I also did not know how I was going to get back up.

The boy thrashed still. I saw that he had gotten hold of something, a root, and was attempting to pull himself out. Yet, he was unable. I had to save him. I, or he would freeze to death. I grabbed a branch, then ran to the lake and thrust it toward him.

“Here. Take this.”

Shock showed on his white face. “Can you pull me out?” He clung to the root, unwilling to let it go.

“I do not know. I have to try. If you hold the root, you will not drown, but you may freeze to death.”

“Get over here.” He pointed to a spot farther away but still close enough for the branch to reach. “Hold that tree.”

I thought him a bit bossy for a drowning man, but I obeyed, gripping the tree with one hand, the branch with the other. I felt it dip with his weight as he grabbed it. I hoped I had chosen well. If it broke, he would surely . . . I could not think about it.

“Pull!” he yelled.

I pulled with all my might, until my fingers ached and felt as if they might break like icicles. He did not budge. Nothing moved. Yet, still, I held the branch while on the other end, I felt him struggle.

“Pull harder!” he yelled. “Please.”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t, and yet, I did, with a strength I never knew I possessed, a strength I didn’t possess, a strength nearly mythological. I pulled and jerked until my whole body ached, and yet, it must have been the work of a moment, and then, he was clambering out of the water and onto the shore, shivering and running toward me. I ran away, for the blankets. The blankets to give him.

I threw him both the blanket and the quilt even though, now that my exertion was over, I realized that I too was freezing.

I was cold! I was cold because I was out in the world, out for the first time in so many years. I felt the wind on my face, the snow beneath my feet. I smelled evergreen and fresh air. I was outside! I loved it.

I looked over him. He shivered, still, but I could see his face. His jaw was firm. His hair was dark brown, nearly black, and when he looked up at me, his eyes were green as the trees.

It was him.

I knew it.

“Wh-wha-wh-wh-who are y-you.” His teeth chattered.

“I am Rachel.”

“W-where d-d-did you c-c-come from?”

I gestured toward my tower, seeing it, from the front, perhaps for the first time ever. It was old and shabby, almost invisible among the gray clouds, with nubby shingles studding its sides, except where they had fallen off. “There.”

20

Wyatt

“There.” The girl was stunning. There was no other word. With long, blond hair and skin that seemed almost translucent, she looked like an angel. She gestured to her left, and when I was able to stop shivering and staring at her, I looked too. At first, I thought she was joking, for all I saw was a clump of trees. Was she some unearthly creature, like a sprite or a fairy, who lived among the leaves? But then, I saw it, hidden among them.

A ruined tower.

It was made of wood, shingled most of the way up, and appeared to be very old, too old for someone so beautiful to live in. It rose high among the trees with only one window at the very top. From that window hung a golden rope that reached all the way to the ground.

“Are you a ghost?” I asked. She wore a gown of white, ghostly, as if from another era.

But she shook her head. “I do not think so. At least, I do not recall dying.” She reached forward and touched her hand to my cheek. “Do I feel like a ghost?”

Suddenly, the sun came out and shone upon her golden hair. Her eyes were bright blue.

Her hand, though cold, still warmed my own cold face like fire. She was the one who’d been singing. I heard her from so far away. This was why I had come here. I reached up and