The internet phone was really just a backup, another safety precaution, as the satellite should provide a more reliable connection than the spotty service they got with their cell phones. Once they were online again, Eleanor Queen could get back to “school”—they were online-homeschooling her for the full year while they explored their options in Saranac Lake Village. Changing schools would be hard enough for her without her jumping in somewhere midyear. They’d decided to ease their sensitive daughter through the changes as softly as they could.
Orla suppressed a laugh when she turned around and saw that her son had “helped” unpack by tossing every single one of his stuffed animals and miscellaneous toys onto the top bunk, where his sister used to sleep. In the coming days she’d dig out his colorful milk crates and help him get organized. Or…his toys were off the floor, and there was barely room to store his clothes. If Tycho liked it that way, maybe she’d let him leave his mound as it was. She knelt beside him and kissed his cheek, tucked the striped comforter over his exposed arm so he wouldn’t get cold. The house was warm, but they’d lower the thermostat for the night. “Good night, sweet boy.”
She left his door cracked so the hallway light could guide him to the bathroom if he woke in the night. Though likely he’d call for one of them; he was easily frightened upon awakening in an unfamiliar place. Orla passed the master bedroom—big enough for a queen-size bed and their dresser—and the bathroom and rapped softly on Eleanor Queen’s door before opening it.
The window in her daughter’s room faced the other side of the property and gave her a view of a narrow strip of yard and a wall of trees. Her new bed, dressed up with all her new flowery bedding, was set up in the corner. Beside it was a little white table onto which she’d clipped her lamp with its rainbow-y holograms dotted around the pink and purple shade. It had been clipped to her headboard when she’d slept on the bunk above Tycho.
Eleanor Queen sat with her pillow at her back rereading one of her favorite books. At her cousins’, she’d read from their shelves, adventure and science books meant for slightly older readers. Orla’s left fist gripped her worry stone, muscles clenching around nothing but her own anxiety. How would they fare without a neighborhood library? Eleanor Queen was an avid reader, but it didn’t bode well that she still preferred her old books to the e-reader her grandparents had gotten her for her birthday. She, Shaw, and Eleanor Queen had spent hours loading books onto it so she wouldn’t run out of reading material before they got fully situated.
Orla sat on the bed beside her. “You don’t like your e-reader?”
The girl shrugged. “That’s for when I run out of paper books. Don’t worry—”
“I’m not worried.”
“Yes you are.” As Eleanor Queen reached out and took her mother’s fist, Orla realized what she’d been doing and relaxed her hand. “There’s nothing like being in bed with a big book on your lap.”
Orla laughed. “Spoken like a fifty-year-old librarian.” She kissed her daughter’s forehead and swept the hair away from her face. Her daughter looked like her, the same coloring, though her limbs and features weren’t as exaggerated. Tycho, with his unruly hair and wan complexion, looked like Shaw. They talked about it in private moments, how they each had a child who favored them. The physical resemblances felt important, like a reminder that the children might have inherited other qualities of theirs too. Part of their parenting strategy was to remember how they’d felt as children, what they’d wanted, how they’d wished to be treated.
“Lots of big changes,” Orla said. “Does it feel weird not to climb a ladder to get into bed?”
Eleanor Queen grinned with her lips tight over her bulging front teeth. “I like the walls.”
“The color?”
She nodded, as if embarrassed by being so pleased. They’d painted all four walls a bright turquoise. In the room she’d shared with Tycho, they’d had to compromise: two pale green walls for him; two lilac-colored walls for her. But she didn’t like purple as much anymore.
“Are you getting used to being away from the city?”
Eleanor Queen shrugged. “Some of it’s nice. But it feels weird.”
“Weird how?” Weird-bad? Weird-scary?
“Weird like there’s nowhere to go.”
Orla laughed. “Yes, my love, you and I both are going to need some time to adjust to that. But we will. And we’ll find magical things—nature is full of wonders; that’s what Papa says. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to finding amazing things.”
“Me too. But maybe they won’t really be magical—like, not real magic. They’ll be real things. Different things than what’s in the city.”
“Yes, I think you’re absolutely right.” She rubbed her nose against her daughter’s, making Eleanor Queen giggle. “My wise girl. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Good night.”
“G’ night.”
Orla started to close the door, then stopped. “Want me to leave it cracked?”
“No, that’s okay…” The girl’s voice wavered with uncertainty, though Orla saw her determination to overcome her fear.
“I’m sorry your night-light wasn’t in the box, but we’ll find it. Why don’t I just leave it cracked for tonight?”
“Okay.” Eleanor Queen grinned with relief and dug her nose back into her book.
Orla blew her a kiss, and left the door ajar on her way out. She didn’t have to tell Eleanor Queen when to shut off her light; her daughter would do it when she was tired, and Orla trusted her judgment. Her daughter seemed content enough, the missing night-light notwithstanding, but Orla couldn’t so easily shake off what she’d seen earlier in her face, before Orla got spooked by the wind. What lurked in a forest? Ravenous animals? Escaped convicts? They had no immediate neighbors, so in theory, no one should be close enough to see them, spy on them. But her city self (her biased-by-stupid-movies self) thought some number of people who chose to live in the boonies were bordering on mutants. Inbreeding cannibals and the like.
Little fingernails tickled her spine as she freaked herself out with her thoughts; she wished she’d already bought coverings for the windows. What if something—someone—was out there right now? Watching her move from room to room?
She started down the spiraling wooden steps but stopped after three and paused on the triangular landing. The window there looked out toward the back of the property, but the lower view was blocked by the first-floor kitchen’s gently slanted roof—an extension that had been added in the 1960s. The snow had stopped falling for now, and the moon, free of clouds, lit up the white ground and highlighted the trees’ talons as branches swayed in a silent wind. And the giant was out there—the solitary eastern white pine (Shaw had confirmed it)—its height almost freakish. What if it had grown so big by gobbling up smaller trees? Hadn’t she once read Tycho such a story? What if it changed form under the cloak of darkness and tiptoed around the land at night, crushing rabbits and mice under its feet?
An owl called and her body responded, muscles tightening with bitterness; she didn’t understand these creatures. Honking cars made sense. Neighbors screaming in Chinese made sense. She’d never thought she’d miss such mundane, once annoying sounds.