Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
THE SLED
The toboggan veered to the right. Through the spray of powdery snow, Marlowe saw the grove of apple trees ahead. She screamed and launched herself sideways, flipping the sled and sending everyone careening headfirst into a deep bank of snow.
Marlowe rolled over and wiped the snow out of her eyes. Her face was so frozen she could hardly feel her cheeks.
Nate jumped up and stomped his feet to dislodge the clumps of snow clinging to his pants and jacket. “Enough is enough, Marlowe!” he yelled. “Just stay on the sled!”
They had been doing runs on the sloped North Field all day, trying to navigate the wooden toboggan down the steep hill with all four of them aboard.
Nora staggered back up the hill behind Marlowe, her blue knit hat covered in a layer of snow, her cheeks bright red. “Seriously, Marlowe, that was our best run yet.” She grinned.
“But if we crash into one of those apple trees, we’ll all break our necks and die! Mom said that happened to someone she knew growing up.” Marlowe groaned.
Henry threw his arms out toward the orchard at the bottom of the hill. “They’re a thousand yards away!”
Marlowe balled her ice-cold fingers inside her mittens and peered down the slope. Henry had a point. From where they had crashed halfway down the hill, the snow-covered branches were minuscule.
“Don’t worry, Mar, we’ll have time to jump off closer to the bottom,” Nate said. “Trust me.”
“Okay, fine, but I don’t see why I have to be so close to the front,” Marlowe said. “It’s too scary, and I’m taller than Henry. I should sit behind him.”
“Just close your eyes!” Nora advised.
“Henry and I have to be in the back,” Nate said. “The sled has to be anchored.”
Earlier that morning their father had given them scientific counsel on the physics of sledding: The heavier riders had to sit in the back, with the smallest person up front, feet jammed firmly beneath the curved prow.
That meant Nora sat up front, which she didn’t mind at all.
The faster the sled went, the more she squealed with joy.
Marlowe had a few inches on Henry, but she was skinnier, according to Nate’s calculations, so she was in the second position, with a full view of any dangerous obstacles in their path as they hurtled down the slope.
Henry, on the other hand, was tucked safely between his older siblings, blissfully unaware of the panic Marlowe felt as the sled went racing over the slick, icy powder straight toward the trees.
At the top of the hill, they paused at the hedgerow to catch their breath.
Behind them, the woods were hushed and still, while below them, the land unfolded its pristine pearly skirts.
Six fresh inches of snow had fallen overnight, and the white was broken only by the vivid red of the Gallagher barn and the green pine trees by the road.
Though the hill was on the Fishers’ property, Frank let the Gallagher brothers use the slanted field, as well as the smaller field to the south of the Gray House, for hay in the summertime.
“For tax-break reasons,” he’d told his children.
“Actively farmed land receives exemptions.” The even layer of cut hay left covering the ground after the harvest every season made the winter sledding conditions all the better.
A puff of smoke emerged from the Gray House’s chimney.
Marlowe wanted to get in a good run as much as they all did, but soon she would start to yearn for hot chocolate by the fire.
She longed to spread out her new acrylics on the kitchen table and try to capture the snowy scene on paper.
Ivory paint mixed with something else to capture the glistening sparkle of the snow, she mused.
Nate settled down into the back, the toes of his boots locked against the small ridge, and Henry threw himself between Nate’s legs.
Marlowe took her own place, rolling her eyes as Henry jammed his knees into her sides and gripped the back of her coat in his fists.
That was part of the problem. Without any sides to the sleigh, Henry was the only thing keeping her on.
Nora scooted backward against Marlowe’s chest, and Marlowe wrapped her arm around her friend’s torso.
“Ready?” Nate called from the back.
“Wait.” Nora wrapped her hands up in the looped rope and then nodded. “Ready!”
“Prow to the garden!” Nate shouted as he wiggled the sled loose, pointing it downhill.
“Yes, Captain!” Henry shrieked in excitement.
The sledding had reawakened the childish games of pretend they used to play, where they were treasure hunters aboard a stolen pirate ship.
Marlowe and Nora would be high schoolers in the next year and had left such games behind, and Nate was certainly too old, but at twelve, Henry was still clinging to his childhood.
It was going to have claw marks when he finally let go.
Henry could have this day. They all could, she supposed.
“Man the sails!” she yelled, laughing and squeezing her eyes shut as tightly as possible.
“Full speed ahead!” Nate shouted the command as he pushed them off. The toboggan inched down the slope and then picked up speed, going faster and faster.
“Lean portside!” Nate hollered, and they all leaned to the left.
Marlowe whimpered as her shoulder dropped almost parallel to the snow, and then screamed as Henry pulled her back to the center.
She cried out again as they hit a bump, and opened her eyes, immediately catching a blizzard of icy powder in the face as they whizzed downhill.
They held on to each other’s coats, leaning left and then right, trying not to tip over.
Nate was shouting at them to hold the course; they were bound straight as an arrow toward Glory’s garden and the flat patio to the side of the house. They just had to dodge the small green garden shed.
They were going too fast, but Marlowe knew it was too late to bail.
She clenched her eyes shut again and screamed.
Nora, having at last reached the limits of her daring, shrieked as well.
Marlowe was pretty sure she heard a fearful yelp escape from Nate as they shot over the bottom of the hill and flew through the garden, missing the shed by just a few feet.
The sled clipped a snow-covered bush and finally slowed down to a glide between the house and the orchard.
As it drew to a stop, they all tumbled off. Marlowe leapt up, exhilarated that she had survived. Nora rolled around in the snow, laughing, and Nate pumped his fist in the air.
“That was it,” he said. “The perfect run!”
Henry tried to stand up but toppled over like a puppy in the snow. He was quivering from the adrenaline rush.
“Come on, young one, let me help you up,” Nora teased, hooking her arm under his and hauling him upright. Henry’s chubby, wind-chapped cheeks burned redder. But Nora smiled and patted him on the back, and he wrapped her in one of his sweet, brotherly hugs.
They celebrated with grilled cheese sandwiches and hot chocolates before Nate wandered off to his room with a book, and Henry sprawled out on his stomach in the living room to do a jigsaw puzzle.
When it was time for Nora to return home, Marlowe bundled up in order to walk part of the way with her, as she always did, stealing a few extra moments of alone time together.
Near the road, Nora tugged Marlowe toward the Gallagher barn.
“Quick,” Nora whispered.
Marlowe didn’t hesitate to follow; the hayloft was their favorite place to trade stories about school and share secrets.
Tom and Dave Gallagher had been scarce that holiday season, mourning the loss of their brother Leroy, so she didn’t fear getting caught as they ran under the boughs of the chestnut tree and snuck through the small opening between the barn’s old doors, which hung slightly askew.
As they slipped into the barn, Marlowe shivered at the memory of the last time they’d seen Leroy.
She remembered it being the first weekend in November, mere days before Leroy’s death.
She and Nora had spent all Sunday afternoon in the loft, swapping stories about their separate Halloweens and giggling.
When the setting sun was casting only a dim light and the air was almost unbearably chilly, Marlowe knew it was time to run back to the Gray House for the drive back to the city.
Still, they lay on their stomachs for another minute together before peering through the hay drop.
Leroy emerged from the office and moved through the barn aisle, his bowlegged stride causing him to sway as he moved.
“Hello? Anyone there?” he asked. Crouched behind the bales, Marlowe and Nora turned to each other and clapped their hands over their mouths, eyes gleaming with mischievous delight.
A girlish whisper or footstep was easily written off as a mouse or a squirrel in the rafters, or the old bones of the barn creaking in the wind. Leroy walked on.
Marlowe now fixed her gaze on Nora’s blue coat, so vivid and real in the moment. They scrambled up the ladder and climbed over the bales until they were perched in their spot.
“I have to tell you something,” Nora said. “I couldn’t in the house, in case Henry or Nate were spying.”
Marlowe nodded in understanding. They had suffered a disastrous humiliation in September, when they shared detailed descriptions of their respective crushes, unaware that Nate was listening outside the door.
He and Henry still chanted the names whenever they wanted to get a rise out of Marlowe or Nora.
“I got my period!” Nora whispered.
“When?” Marlowe almost jumped off the hay bale. “Now?”
“No, it was two weeks ago, but I couldn’t tell you over the phone!” Nora shook her head. “It didn’t hurt as much as I thought, and it lasted four days. My mom made me use a pad, but I hated it, and I told her I want to try tampons next time.”
“Oh my God.” Marlowe leaned back against a bale, stunned by all the information.
“Thirteen is a good age to get it,” Nora said, with all the wisdom of a newly flowered woman. “Not too old, not too young.”
“My mom didn’t get hers until she was sixteen.” Marlowe sighed. “I’ll probably be waiting forever like a freak.”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Nora said. “No one really has to know; I thought everyone would be able to tell I got it, but it’s not like that.”
“Good.” Marlowe nodded, relieved that Nora had been the one to go first. Though Marlowe was five months older and a few inches taller, Nora was braver.
As Nora recounted her momentous four days, Marlowe’s mind began to wobble around this new imbalance between them.
She decided it was a good thing: With a guide like Nora, she knew she would be ready to take the leap into womanhood too.
They climbed down the ladder and stepped into the orange light glinting through the windows, when inspiration struck.
Marlowe dashed over to the neat row of pitchforks, hoes, and shovels leaning against the wall near the knife-sharpening wheel.
“Let’s move them,” Marlowe whispered. “Just a bit—to commemorate this day.”
Nora caught on at once. “Of course!”
Marlowe flipped every shovel so the blades were facing up, and Nora moved a row of empty milk pails from one side of the aisle to the other, then she tipped over a bucket of dried yellow corn kernels, scattering them across the floor.
“It will look like the wind did it,” she said.
“Exactly!”
Their hearts racing with all the thrills of the day, they dashed through the barn doors, sprinted across the smaller cow pen, and disappeared behind the thick row of trees that bordered the Gallagher property.
Huge crystalline snowflakes were swirling down again. Nora held out her tongue and caught one. In no time, their footprints would disappear without a trace.
The girls weaved through the trees and came out onto the road. If anyone spotted them now, they would appear to be the picture of innocence, as pure as freshly fallen snow.