Touch by Alexi Zentner

Author:Alexi Zentner [Zentner, Alexi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-39946-5
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2011-04-11T16:00:00+00:00

THE WOODS THEMSELVES were quiet except for the crunching of my boots in the snow. The birds and squirrels had taken flight at the sound of me, unusual enough that I wondered if there was something else that had passed through the trees recently, a wolf or some other predator. I stayed on the well-worn trail that passed by the abandoned mines and led to the small cluster of cabins where the Chinese lived. Past that I cut my own path through the snow along the banks of the river for fifteen or twenty minutes. I stopped for a minute to catch my breath, and when I did, I heard the voice.

It was a woman’s voice, high and floating, and though I could not make out the words, it seemed to be calling to me. I listened for a moment, and then, though I could not have said why, I was suddenly sure that it was my sister, that Marie was calling for me. I started to run, pushing branches out of my way and stumbling across the uneven ground, heading toward the sound of the river and my sister’s voice. The voice came louder, growing as I approached the water, but when I burst from the trees into clear view of the Sawgamet, the voice was gone. The sun shone down heavily, the river called, and the whistle of birds returned around me, but I no longer heard Marie’s voice.

I stood on the bank, holding the rod and catching my breath, looking out across the partly frozen river, waiting to hear her voice again. For a second, I thought I heard it, but then I realized that it was the sound of the water splashing and running against the ice and the rocks and its own flow, and I began to laugh at myself, at my grandfather, and at the idea that my sister, that anyone dead, would be out in the woods, calling me down to the river.

I had intended to walk a little further, but where I stood would serve for fishing. The river strangled in and ran quickly here, and the fast-flowing water was still only partly frozen despite it already being mid-November, the water burbling and bouncing white. Though I knew better, I put my foot down tentatively on the edge, banging my heel against the hollow-sounding ice, and then eased my weight onto it. I shuffled out a few feet toward a small hollow where the water ran slower in the midst of its fury; the ice cut away into what looked to be a deep, gathering pool of water. The sun angled enough to keep my shadow from hitting the water, and I thought I saw the glistening movement of fish beneath the surface. With the winter coming and the drop of temperature, it would only be another week or so before it was all ice, even the rushing violence of the water in the middle. Past that, far enough into the winter,

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