Freeze Tag Read online

  The little children played in the snow.

  They pushed each other down and then got up and admired the dents their bottoms had put in the snow. They swung their lunches and bookbags in circles and let go, so the bright colored containers spun out like trajectiles and hit the others lightly. They laughed six-year-old laughs and made six-year-old jokes.

  The third-grader showed off, doing a cartwheel.

  The littler ones had no idea how to accomplish such a marvelous move, but they tried. They flung their legs up an inch or two and giggled proudly.

  Lannie Anveill walked through them. Stringing her fingers along as if she were hanging laundry on a line.

  Perhaps she was.

  They froze.

  The two kindergartners, the two first-graders, the one third-grader. They hung in their positions like statues.

  “No,” whispered Tuesday, who had started this. “No, please.”

  Lannie stopped midway between her statues and the Trevors. Directly in front of Meghan’s. Meghan might as well have been frozen. She could not move. Could not think.

  “Hi, West,” said Lannie across the frozen yards.

  He did not speak. Perhaps he was as terrified as Meghan.

  “Your heart is not in this, West,” said Lannie.

  He did not move either. Had she frozen him without even touching?

  “I want your heart, West,” said Lannie.

  There was a thick dense silence.

  Lannie’s smile was tiny and yet tall: her mouth opened up and down, instead of sideways, in a terrifying leer.

  The five little children remained frozen in the snow. Perhaps their mothers were not looking out the window. Perhaps their mothers thought it was part of a game.

  It was.

  But not a game anybody should ever play.

  Freeze Tag.

  No, please, thought Meghan. Not the little children. Not just because I want to be the one at Pizza Hut with West. Set them free. Let them go.

  “Lannie,” said West. His head sank down, so that he was looking at his own chest, the front of his own winter jacket. He seemed to lose some of the vertebrae in his backbone, and grow shorter and less strong. His voice scratched. He walked toward Lannie like an old man weighted with stones.

  “You have my heart,” said West.

  Chapter 10

  “YOU KNOW,” SAID MEGHAN’S father, “I haven’t seen Jason lately.”

  Meghan and her mother were going through the movie listings. Once a month the Moore family had Movie Saturday. Driving to the huge, twelve movie theater that had opened a few years ago, they saw one movie at four o’clock, came out dizzy and pleased, went to have hamburgers, french fries, and shakes, and came back for a movie at seven. During the first movie they had candy and during the second movie they had popcorn.

  Meghan loved Movie Day. When she watched a movie, she fell into it. It was completely real and completely absorbing. Even a bad movie was good when you saw it on a big screen. Whereas bad movies when you rented them to watch at home were just plain bad movies.

  This month was a toughie: They wanted to see everything. “It’s better than the months when we don’t want to see anything,” her mother pointed out.

  “I mean, I usually at least see Jason coming and going,” said Meghan’s father.

  Meghan had not been thinking about Lannie for several weeks now. Ever since West had had to go on his knees to beg her to unfreeze the little children at the bus stop, she had decided just not to think about it again. There was nothing she could do. Nothing anybody could do. And as long as Lannie had West, the world was safe.

  You have my heart, Lannie, West had said.

  Meghan didn’t think about that either. It had sounded so true. You could almost see his heart, that day, red and bleeding and beating. As if he carried it over to her and set it down so she could have it.

  Lannie had danced back among the children, as light as an elf on top of the snow. Flying past the little ones, she seemed hardly even to touch them. She skimmed along like a swallow in the sky.

  But the children fell over in the snow, real again. There was a moment when they were all close to tears. All close to calling, Mommy! Mommy come and get me! Mommy, something’s wrong!

  But the yellow schoolbus had turned the corner, and the children lined up to get on, bickering over who deserved to get on first. Shouting about who would sit with whom. And if they crowded closer to each other for warmth, and if a short, cold memory lay like ice on the backs of their necks, they did not say so out loud.

  Nobody had ever said so out loud.

  If I’m not thinking about Lannie, thought Meghan, I’m certainly not thinking about Jason.

  Meghan tapped on the newspaper column with her bright blue soft-tipped pen. Meghan liked to write in many colors. She liked to underline in vivid yellow. She liked to make lists in black. She liked to address envelopes in red. She liked to take notes in blue. She had written very few letters in her life, but when she considered writing one, she considered writing it in blue, too.

  Mrs. Moore said, “This movie is supposed to be a really truly weepy huggy romance. I am in the mood. I want love and loss. I want finders keepers. I want rings and music.”

  Meghan’s vow to herself never to think about it again evaporated, as it did, in fact, nearly every day. Sometimes hundreds of times a day.

  I want West, thought Meghan. He is all of those. I am going to a movie with my mother and father to watch an actress pretend to be in love with an actor. A month ago, I was the lover. I was loved.

  And now …

  What was happening now?

  “It kind of bothers me,” said Meghan’s father. He circled the kitchen, wanting his women to listen. Say something. Finish up his thoughts and his sentences for him.

  Not me, thought Meghan.

  At last Meghan’s mother responded to him. “You could go over and check,” she pointed out.

  But Mr. Moore and Lannie’s stepfather were not actually friends. They waved over the pavement. They occasionally met in the driveway when each was polishing his car. Once or twice they had each had a beer in hand on a hot summer day and had stood talking.

  Jason never seemed to have a part in the life of Dark Fern Lane.

  He drove out or he drove in, but he did not drive among.

  In fact, now that Meghan thought about it, what did Jason do?

  Mr. Moore left the kitchen, and the long white counter over which his wife and daughter had spread the newspaper. He crossed into the living room, spread back the curtains that lay gauzily over the picture window, tucked the fern fronds out of the way, and looked diagonally across the street at Jason’s house.

  “There’s Lannie,” said Mr. Moore. “Meggie-Megs, go find out from Lannie.”

  Leave the safety of her house?

  Walk right up to Lannie Anveill? Who froze children like used clothes for a garage sale?

  Get close to Lannie? Who when she was done freezing or unfreezing would set her hand back down? As if it were not attached, but was a purse or a book she was carrying around.

  Say to her: Lannie … we haven’t seen Jason lately.

  “What do you think could have happened to him?” said her mother lightly.

  Meghan could think of one thing, anyway. But her mother was not talking to Meghan. Meghan’s fingers tightened. The blue dot beneath her pen spread an amoeba of ink over the movie listings.

  “He’s probably just out of town,” said Mr. Moore.

  But Jason’s job had never seemed to involve overnight travel. Besides there was Lannie. Would he leave a fourteen-year-old?

  Of course, it was Lannie.

  It was not as if they were talking about a normal fourteen-year-old.

  And yet …

  “Go ask Lannie, Meghan,” said her mother.

  Meghan did not move.

  “I know you’re still upset about West going out with her,” said her father, as if this were pretty small of Meghan; a
n event so minor her father could hardly believe his daughter even noticed when her boyfriend dropped her. “But I want you to ask.”

  Meghan was against part of growing up.

  There suddenly were times when she was supposed to do the hard parts, when up till now they had always fallen into her parents’ laps. “You ask her,” she said.

  Her father sighed a little, shrugged slightly, went to his office, and shut the door.

  “It certainly isn’t very much for your father to ask of you,” said her mother sharply. “I think it’s rather unpleasant of you to refuse him such a simple request. He’s worried about his neighbor and you can’t even be bothered to set his mind at rest.”

  At rest? Since when did Lannie’s answers set anybody’s mind at rest?

  Meghan trudged heavily down the half stairs that divided their raised ranch house in the middle. Most of the families on Dark Fern Lane had replaced the thick hairy carpet that originally covered their stairs. When she was little, Meghan had loved that old orangey-brown carpet, with its loops as thick as an old-fashioned mop. Every house had either orangey-brown or else avocado green. It made even the houses of strangers seem familiar, because you remembered the carpeting so well. The year Meghan was in sixth grade, suddenly no grown-up on Dark Fern Lane could stand the sight of shag. Carpet vans were parked on Dark Fern Lane all the time. Now everybody had sophisticated nubbly champagne wool.

  The orange shag had been cozier. Shabby, but comforting.

  There was something cold and businesslike about the knots of pale wool.

  Plus you had to remember to wipe your feet on the doormat before you came inside, a step everybody had omitted back when they had shag carpeting.

  Meghan could not waste much more time worrying over carpet. She went out the front door.

  Her father was correct. Lannie was there.

  Standing thin and small in her driveway.

  Perhaps she was waiting for West to pick her up.

  Perhaps West had just dropped her off and she was still thinking about it, staring down at his house, watching him go inside.

  Meghan walked slowly across the yard. The last snow had melted and the temperature had dropped even lower. The ground was hard as pavement, and the frozen grass crunched like breakfast cereal under her shoes.

  It was difficult to imagine herself and the Trevor children young enough and carefree enough to play yard games here. It seemed decades ago, a topic for history class.

  It was me, thought Meghan. There was a time when I did not know what Lannie could do.

  She had put on her jacket but not mittens or hat, and the wind chewed on her exposed skin, mocking her for thinking she could come outside and live.

  Meghan gathered her courage and looked straight across the street. Straight at Lannie. Firmly, without flinching, because this was not a personal thing, this was a parental order. In the game of Freeze Tag, it didn’t count.

  Lannie had no eyes.

  Only sockets.

  Meghan stopped dead, gagging, unable to walk closer.

  Lannie smiled. The smile rested humanlike under the empty sockets. The smile was full of those baby teeth, small as birdseed. Meghan had a horrible feeling that birds had already been there: feeding on the face, taking the eyes, preparing to peck at the teeth.

  Then Lannie was right up next to her, so wispy and unsubstantial that Meghan felt as heavy as a truck. Who had moved? How did Lannie do this — empty herself from one spot and fill another, without Meghan ever seeing her accomplish it?

  The sockets were not empty after all.

  The same old eyes, bleached out and cruel, stared up at Meghan.

  Lannie smirked.

  It was the smirk that brought Meghan back. Such a middle-high kind of look. An I’ve got what you want taunt. Meghan’s chin lifted. She would not be intimidated. “Hello, Lannie,” said Meghan.

  Lannie of course said nothing. Just waited.

  “My father is worried,” said Meghan.

  Lannie of course said nothing. Just waited.

  “About Jason,” said Meghan.

  Lannie smiled.

  “He hasn’t seen Jason lately,” said Meghan. Talking to Lannie was like being in a track meet. She was winded from four short sentences.

  “Well,” said Lannie, linking her arm in Meghan’s as if they were friends. “You haven’t seen Jason lately either, have you?”

  Lannie’s arm turned to metal. It might have been a shackle on Meghan’s wrist.

  “It’s time you saw Jason,” said Lannie softly. “Come on over to my house, Meggie-Megs.” Lannie had never used the nickname. It sounded somehow evil, as if Lannie had got a hold of some essential depth in Meghan and could control it.

  “I just have to tell my father where he is,” said Meghan, trying to resist. But Lannie did not let go. Meghan was going with Lannie Anveill whether she wanted to or not. They walked in lockstep.

  I do not want to go into that house, thought Meghan Moore. I do not want to be alone with Lannie!

  Lannie, who always knew what you were thinking, knew what she was thinking. “You won’t be alone with me,” said Lannie. Her voice dripped ugliness. Her tiny body shuddered with taunting. “Jason is there.”

  Lannie escorted Meghan in her front door.

  It was identical to every other front door on Dark Fern Lane. It opened onto a rectangle of fake slate tiles. Four steps led down to the family room and the garage. Nine steps led up to where the kitchen opened straight onto the stairs. The living room was at the left, with only a metal railing to keep you from falling off the couch and into the stairwell. Jason had not replaced his shag carpeting. Layers of avocado green fluff, flattened in the center from years of footsteps, climbed both ways.

  Lannie did not take Meghan up to the living room or kitchen.

  They went down the four stairs to the fake cork floor that covered all family rooms.

  Or had. Meghan’s mother and father had continued the new nubbly champagne wool all the way down and across. They had replaced the plain metal railing at the living room rim with a delicate white wooden bookcase, half solid and half see through, so books were firmly placed and special possessions were beautifully displayed.

  I’m thinking so hard about my own house, thought Meghan. I’m so afraid to think about Lannie’s.

  They did not go into Lannie’s family room either.

  It occurred to Meghan that she had never been in Lannie’s family room. The same rather dark half-basement room with the high windows that let in so little light — the room where most people watched TV and sorted laundry and kept the video games and the board games and the outgrown Fisher-Price toys and the piles of paperbacks and magazines.

  Did Lannie have any of those?

  Had any family ever gathered in that family room?

  When Lannie’s relatives wanted to be happy, they drove away. They got in their cars.

  Perhaps it was a room for solitary confinement, instead of family.

  Meghan shivered.

  Lannie smiled.

  They turned right, into the tiny claustrophobic hall with a laundry closet on one side, a half bath on the other, and the garage door at the end. The garage door was flimsy; hollow wood that clunked lightly when closed. Most of these doors had broken and been replaced over the years. Lannie’s had not.

  Lannie opened it.

  The two-car garage under the bedrooms was completely dark.

  Lannie flipped the electric switch and the room was flooded with light from two overhanging fluorescent tubes.

  Jason sat in his Corvette.

  He had a smile on his face.

  One hand on the wheel.

  One hand on the gearshift.

  The motor was not running. But Jason was driving. The garage had been completely dark. But Jason was driving. The garage was very very cold. But Jason was driving.

  Lannie’s arm dropped from Meghan’s.

  Meghan walked slowly toward the Corvette. Jason did not lo
ok up at her. Jason did not stop smiling. Jason did not stop driving the silent motionless car.

  Between the Corvette and the leaf rakes hanging against the side of the garage, Meghan stood trapped. Lannie’s bright glittering eyes pierced her like stabbing icicles. Meghan backed up, pressing herself against the cold wooden studs of the garage. “You froze him.”

  Lannie nodded.

  “But — but he’s — your only family.”

  “No. He was just Jason.”

  “He didn’t deserve to — umm — I mean …” Meghan’s voice trailed off. She was having difficulty thinking. “When did you do it?” she said. “Can you undo it?”

  Lannie shook her head. “It’s been quite a while. I’m surprised nobody missed him before this, actually.”

  Meghan had been in there, in that frozen state, where Jason was now. She well remembered the feeling. She knew every sensation Jason had had — or not had — as the cold took him over.

  But she, Meghan, had returned.

  How long had Jason sat behind that wheel? How long had he sat there, knowing that the glaze over his eyes was to be permanent? That the cold in his bones would be forever?

  “Does West know?” whispered Meghan.

  “Oh, yes.” Laughter etched new lines on Lannie’s parchment skin. “I made him sit next to Jason for a while,” she said, smiling. “West behaves very well now.”

  Meghan, clutching her stomach, retreated around the Corvette.

  “Don’t throw up,” said Lannie. “I’d only make you clean it yourself, Meghan. Jason is fine this way. It’s not that much of a change from his usual personality, you know.”

  Lannie came closer and closer. Meghan had nowhere to go. The lawnmower blocked her exit. She had no strength in her bones anyway.

  Once again Lannie’s hand closed on Meghan’s arm. But nothing happened. Meghan did not freeze. She did not become an ice statue. Blood still ran in her veins and thoughts still poked through her mind like electric shocks.