Towering - By Alex Flinn Page 0,24

crowded when it’s full of people you don’t know. Their voices drummed in my ears. I pushed the door open and, feeling the rush of cold air, realized I’d been holding my breath. Everyone else clambered out behind me, and we began the work of trudging through the snow toward a house I still couldn’t see. I noticed some people had six-packs or bags of chips. “Was I supposed to bring something?” I asked Josh.

“Nah, I knew you wouldn’t get out much, with Old Lady Greenwood. I brought some chips on your behalf.”

One of the guys had a glass bottle of something. “I don’t really drink,” I said. “I mean, I’m not a jerk about it, but I don’t really drink.”

“It’s okay. You can be the designated driver.”

“You better designate someone else to pull this car onto the main road too.”

“Don’t have that on Long Island, huh?” The guy laughed.

“Nope.”

We all stopped talking then, concentrating on walking. A lot of the snow had melted, but it was still hard going, and I realized Josh was right. This wasn’t what I was used to. I was a city kid, meant for paved streets and shoveled sidewalks, and the hick kids with their stronger muscles were leaving me in the dust.

I was at least ten feet behind the last of them, even the girls, when I heard a sound too human to be wind.

Singing.

There was no TV showing Star Trek here, and I could almost make out words. I wanted to tell everyone to stop, stop stepping, stop crunching snow, so I could hear. But that would look crazy, so I said, “What’s that?”

“What?” the girl in front of me said, and they all stopped walking so, for a moment, it was silent, and I could have heard it. But, of course, like all weird sounds, it ceased to exist when pointed out to someone else.

“It stopped,” I said. “But it sounded like someone singing. I’ve heard it at the house too, but this seemed closer.”

“Probably a loon,” the girl said.

“Are there loons in the middle of winter?” Everyone started walking again, driven on by the cold as much as their boredom with the conversation. At least I hoped so. “I mean, don’t they fly south? Besides, this sounded human.”

“So do loons.”

I knew what I had heard, but I didn’t pursue it. It wasn’t worth it. Obviously, there was no legendary local ghost everyone had heard of. Maybe it was my imagination. Maybe I was crazy. We kept walking, and a minute later, I heard another sound, an actual bird or animal. Maybe it was a real loon.

The girl turned back to me. “Was that it?”

“Probably,” I said, even though it wasn’t.

“I’m Astrid, by the way.”

“Wyatt.”

“I know. You must be pretty bored at Old Lady Greenwood’s. Because, if you are, you should get a lift ticket for Gore Mountain. It’s not too far. We go all season.”

“I ski a little, but probably not as well as you. I’d drag you down.”

“Doesn’t matter. You could take lessons. My older sister goes to UAlbany, and she’s a ski instructor. We’ve got extra skis. How tall are you?”

“About six feet.”

And then, I heard it again, not the bird or the wolf or the loon or whatever, the other thing, off in the distance.

“There! Did you hear that?”

She shook her head. Maybe I was going nuts. Thankfully, we had reached the house. It wasn’t a whole lot warmer than outside, but there was wood by the fireplace. “Know how to make a fire, City Boy?” Josh asked.

I nodded. I’d been in Boy Scouts. This, too, reminded me of Tyler. He wanted to get his Eagle Scout and had pressured me to stick with it, to do it together. “Got a lighter? Or do I need to rub two sticks together?”

Josh handed me a long, blue lighter, and I busied myself, breaking off smaller splinters to use as kindling and arranging the logs just right while, around me, people I didn’t know talked about other people I didn’t know. But I kept listening for the sound from before, which had sounded closer, so much closer, than at Mrs. Greenwood’s house, but now, all I heard was the chattering of strangers and the howling of the wind.

But it was a voice. A girl’s voice. And somehow, I knew that whoever she was, she was beautiful and also lonely, like I was. I told myself I didn’t want to be around anyone, but that wasn’t true. I only didn’t