The Winter People(23)

“A little. Only we’re not looking for each other, we’re looking for clues.”

“Oooh, clues!” Fawn squealed. Then she got serious. “What kind of clues?”

“We’re looking for anything out of the ordinary, anything unusual. Anything that might help us figure out where Mom might be.”

Fawn nodded enthusiastically. She held Mimi by the arm—something Mom had made. The yellow yarn hair was matted now, the fabric on her hands and feet worn through and patched in places. She had a carefully stitched smile that always kind of creeped Ruthie out and reminded her of a scar, or of lips sewn closed to keep the thing quiet. Mimi was always whispering to Fawn, telling her secrets. When Fawn was very young, they’d find her hiding in the closet with the doll on her lap, deep in conversation.

Ruthie smiled down at her sister. “Are you and Mimi ready to play?”

“Let me see if Mimi is,” she said, holding the doll’s face up to her ear and listening. Fawn listened for a minute, nodding, then put the doll down. “Mimi says yes, but she wants to know if we can play real hide-and-seek again after.”

“Haven’t we played hide-and-seek enough for one day?”

“Mimi doesn’t think so,” Fawn said.

“Okay, we’ll play one more round after,” Ruthie promised. “Oh, I forgot to tell you the best part about this looking-for-clues game—there are prizes. One chocolate kiss for each clue found.”

“From Mom’s secret stash?”

Ruthie nodded. Mom kept a bag of Hershey’s Kisses hidden away in the back of the freezer, and neither girl was allowed to touch it unless offered, usually as a bribe. Mom didn’t approve of the girls’ eating refined sugar, so chocolate was always a big treat, especially for Fawn.

“Ready, set, go!” Ruthie called, but Fawn stayed frozen.

“I’m not sure where to look,” she said.

“You’re a kid! Use your imagination! If you wanted to hide something in here, where would you put it?”

Fawn looked around. “Under the bed?” Her voice came out small and shy.

“Maybe,” Ruthie said. “Let’s check it out.” They both dropped to their knees to peer under the bed. Nothing under there but years’ worth of dust bunnies.

Ruthie checked the floor under the bed for loose floorboards. When she was very young, she’d discovered a nice little hiding place under a loose board in her own room, right under the bed. Over time, both she and Fawn had found many little places like this throughout the house: a small hidden door that opened behind the cabinet they kept the plates in; a corner of the doorframe leading from the kitchen to the living room that popped out to reveal a little niche, perfect for hiding a tiny treasure. It seemed likely that there was at least one secret place in Mom’s room.

“Kids must have lived here before,” Ruthie had told Fawn once. “All these hidey-holes—it’s not something a grown-up would do.”

“Maybe we’ll find something they left behind. A toy, or a note, or something!” Fawn had said, excitedly. But so far, all of the hidden niches they had discovered had been empty.

Ruthie pulled back the mattress and checked between it and the box spring. Nothing. There was a stack of paperback mysteries on top of the bedside table—her mom was a big Ruth Rendell fan. She opened the drawer and found only half a Hershey bar with almonds, a flashlight, and a pen.

There had never been a table on her father’s side of the bed—he didn’t read at night. He had believed beds were made for sleeping, so he had no table, no lamp. He had done his reading (mostly non-fiction: dense, depressing tomes about global warming or the evils of the pharmaceutical industry; thick, glossy books about gardening and homesteading; slim, antique field guides filled with drawings of New England flora and fauna) in a big leather chair in the office. Her father had loved to read, loved the feel and smell of books—he even used to buy and sell antiquarian books, back before Ruthie was born, before they’d moved to Vermont.

Ruthie didn’t know much about her parents’ lives before. They’d met in college, at Columbia. Her mother had been an art-history major; her father was studying literature. It was nearly impossible to imagine what her parents might have been like back in college; the very idea of them as young, daring, and idealistic made Ruthie’s head spin. After graduation, they’d started the book business in Chicago. They came east to Vermont after reading Scott and Helen Nearing’s book The Good Life, with the intention of becoming as self-sufficient as possible. They bought the house and land for a song (They practically gave it away, her parents always said), got chickens and sheep, planted a huge rambling vegetable garden among the rocks. Ruthie was a little over three when they first moved here. Fawn came along nine years later, when their mother was forty-three, their father forty-six.

“Seriously?” Ruthie had asked when her parents announced that Ruthie would soon have a new baby brother or sister. She’d known something was up—her parents had been whispering and secretive for days, but she’d never imagined this news. When she was little, she’d longed for a baby brother or sister, but now wasn’t it too late?

“Aren’t you happy about it?” her mother had asked.

“Sure,” Ruthie said. “I’m just a little shocked.”