to Bascombe,” Mr. Mallory affirmed. “And the lake isn’t far away from the town — or so the farmer told me.”
The car climbed out of the swamp and ran along a narrow ledge so fractured with clefts and studded with potholes that Mr. Mallory had to reduce their speed to a crawl. Up they went now, and the woods grew ever thicker. Big trees rose around them — old maples, birches, and beeches. Here and there, among the underbrush, they could see faint tracks and sun-streaked paths made, perhaps, by animals or hunters.
A silence descended on the car; they peered around anxiously, as if expecting something — though they weren’t sure what.
“It’s amazing! No houses, not a farm in sight,” Mr. Mallory observed. “I wonder if that guy was pulling my leg.”
The road had dissolved into a vague and narrow track. The SUV brushed shrubbery on both sides, branches ticked the windows, and Mr. Mallory slowed their pace to a mere crawl. Then, at the first widening of the track, where a space appeared between the trees, he stopped, half-turned the vehicle, and pulled them up into a tiny clearing.
“I know we have four-wheel drive,” he said, “but this doesn’t look promising.”
He turned off the engine. On an impulse, Chip sprang up, flipped open the door, and swung himself out of the vehicle. Sultry air breathed into the car.
“See up there, Dad? This path leads up to that big boulder on the hilltop. I can climb up and maybe see where the road runs from here. We can get a better idea of where we’re going.”
“All right. Not a bad move. I don’t want to run us into a swamp or something. Don’t go wandering into the woods, though.”
Chip slammed the door and walked quickly up the path. The boulder, a formidable rampart rising above the thick bush, loomed above him. On either side of the rough trail rose yellow and white birches and ranks of evergreens.
By the time he reached the foot of the rock, Chip was breathing hard, and the flies were beginning to attack him. He seemed a million miles from anywhere, and could barely catch sight of the car’s hood down below, silver metal glittering between the pine needles and thick leaves.
Luckily, the big boulder had been cracked open by time and weather. There were footholds and branches close enough to grab hold of. After a few minutes of slipping and scrambling, Chip hauled himself up on top. He lay there panting and sweating, his jeans and shirt smeared with moss, but quite proud of himself. Then he got up and looked around.
He had a spectacular view. From where he stood the hill ran down steeply into a huge marshland. This occupied the near side of a broad valley. To the left, in the direction they had come, the valley closed up in thick woods. Opposite where he stood, it opened into brown, barren fields. He could see a rough road, presumably the one they were following, curving away to the right toward a large plantation of trees. Above the trees he caught sight of a church steeple.
“That’s it!” he told himself triumphantly. “That must be Bascombe.”
He had started to climb down, eager to get back to the car with the news, when something far below caught his eye. A dazzling figure, a large animal, flashed between the trees and stormed along the edge of the marshes. It was a horse, a white stallion, and Chip watched, awestruck, as it shot away at full gallop, heading straight for the open fields beyond the swamp.
He was astonished. The creature seemed composed of shining light — natural, yet strange and wonderful, too.
The stallion galloped away and within seconds disappeared. Chip gulped and stood wondering, shaking his head in amazement. Despite the quiet spaces around him, he hadn’t heard any sounds at all from below; in fact, the horse’s hooves had barely seemed to touch the ground.
2
Village Store
“That’s good news,” his father said when Chip reported on his sighting of the valley, the road, and the steeple. “Now maybe we can find that cottage!”
“But the horse! That sounds really magical,” Mrs. Mallory said. “I wonder who it belongs to?”
“Someone interesting, I hope,” Lee suggested. “A Queen’s boy who looks like Brad Pitt and is going to offer me sunset rides along the lake.”
The others laughed, but there were groans all round when Bascombe came into view.
A cluster of shabby houses, several large sheds, a stable, and a boarded-up church beside a blistered road that ran haphazardly between scruffy fields overgrown with goldenrod and loosestrife. That seemed to be all there was to Bascombe. Coming closer, they saw ancient railway tracks leading through a stunted orchard, and a few beat-up cars that might have been parked forever in front of a gloomy general store.
“Let’s try this store,” their father said. “Maybe we can get directions.”
“They won’t have any phone cards,” Chip assured them.
“Or computer supplies,” Lee added.
“Or the Globe and Mail,” said their mother.
“Or a map of Zanzibar,” their father assured them. “But so what? They’ll have some bottled water or soft drinks. I’m incredibly thirsty.”
“Just so they know where the lake is,” Mrs. Mallory said.
“They’re bound to,” her husband assured her.
Bascombe’s general store occupied a square, ugly, cinder-block building, without side windows or the hint of an awning out front. Three oversized concrete steps led up to the dingy glass doors. A large sign hung over one frost-painted window. “CONFECTIONERY,” it said, but with the “F” missing. Some leftover red and green Christmas lights winked faintly through the smeared pane. A small, handwritten sign advertised “WORMS”; another promised “ICE.” There was a bright-red Coca-Cola dispenser that drizzled rust. It seemed to have half-fallen through a section of rotting porch.
“Not exactly downtown-cool,” Mr. Mallory said.
“It’s right out of Deliverance,” Chip suggested. He was the family’s big movie fan.
Mr. Mallory shoved at the door, which creaked on its hinges. A little bell tinkled, but no one appeared.
The whole family went inside. Chip could feel a kind of hush come into his throat in the place. The dust-settled silence made you want to either whisper or shout.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom he was able to see more of the store, which consisted of a single very large room crowded with shelves, barrels, counters, and tool-boxes, and was lit only by a few greasy, yellow light bulbs. The shelves were weighed down with canned goods and bottles, and stocked with almost everything imaginable: buckets, cutlery, garden tools, fishing gear, shoelaces, pens and pencils, old-fashioned lamps, toilet paper, engine oil, rodent traps, coils of rope, and bottles of glue.
A long, wooden counter ran down one side of the room. It was covered with a faded oilcloth, and on top of this sat at least seven or eight oversized bottles packed full of mostly old-fashioned treats: licorice, single sticks of bubble gum, jujubes, chocolate coins and kisses, and various lollipops and suckers.
All
