Relativity Read online

  I look down at my frayed jeans and olive sneakers. “Thanks for the tip.” I sidestep around her and head downstairs.

  Yep, we’ll be best friends in no time.

  Dad’s laptop is still on the coffee table, but he’s nowhere around. I find Willow in her studio, perched on a stool, paintbrush in hand. She’s working on a painting of bare winter trees. Gray branches set against a gray sky with a gray barn in the background. Super-cheerful.

  “Have you seen my dad?”

  “He ran to the grocery store to get some frozen pizzas and a rotisserie chicken for dinner.” She turns to look at me, black paint in her curly blond hair. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Really?”

  I half nod. Hardly convincing. At least she cares enough to ask.

  “Is there something you need or can’t find?” She puts her paintbrush down, ready to help. So far Willow seems like a decent human being. Then again, I have to wonder what she’s really like, underneath, because there has to be a reason Kandy’s the way she is. Genetics. Her upbringing.

  Willow searches my face. “If you give me a list of your favorite food, I’ll make sure I stock up the next time I shop. Doritos? Cheetos?”

  I sigh. “I’m not much of a junk-food person.”

  Her eyes ask, Then what’s wrong?

  I can’t exactly say that her dilapidated house is depressing, that Ennis will never compare to Walnut Creek, that I miss George, that her daughter is sharpening her freshly painted talons so I’m afraid to go back upstairs. I can’t tell her that since she’s become my stepmother, I’ve suddenly been missing my real mom. That I’m wondering how different my life would be at this very moment if Mom had survived that car crash eleven years ago, when I was four. She got hit hard, but her dependable Volvo weathered the impact. She had her seat belt on. It wasn’t an airbag malfunction or anything else that might make sense. No. It was an airborne windshield wiper—propelled with arrow accuracy and speed—that skewered her esophagus.

  If it hadn’t been for that windshield wiper, I wouldn’t have a stepmother or stepsister. We wouldn’t have moved to Ohio. I wouldn’t be standing in this room right now. Action and reaction. Cause and effect. One event triggers another, one path stems to another, and eventually you end up standing in the middle of Somewhere Unrecognizable without a compass or map. You get there one increment at a time, with movements so subtle that you don’t even notice until it’s too late to find your way back.

  “That bookstore in the shopping strip,” I say, trying to distract myself before I get emotional in front of Willow. “Could I borrow someone’s bike and go? I saw a magazine there yesterday.”

  “I’m sorry, Ruby.” Willow sighs, sincere in her disappointment. “We only have one bike, and it’s in bad shape. I’ll drive you tomorrow, okay?”

  I nod. “I’ll just go for a walk, then.” I turn to leave the studio but notice a canvas propped against the wall. A chill runs through me. “That’s the oak tree that’s off in the cornfields.”

  Willow follows my gaze. She looks at the painting with a weary smile. “You’ve noticed it too?”

  “It’s hard not to.”

  “I know what you mean. After we first moved into this house, I couldn’t stop painting it. The second Kandy left for school, I’d go upstairs and sit at her window and work. I must have twenty oils and watercolors, and a notebook full of sketches.”

  “There’s something about it. Definitely.” True to Willow’s style, the painting is dark. The oak tree looms, its branches reaching out with sinister, clawlike leaves. “You made it look pretty menacing.”

  “Well, that’s because of the legend.” She leans forward to tell me. “Apparently someone tried to hack it down with an ax sometime in the late 1800s, and he was said to have burst into flames.”

  “He caught fire?”

  “So the story goes.”

  I cock my head and consider the lightning-lit clouds that Willow painted behind the oak. “You know, human bodies contain electrical fields, as well as flammable gases. Put the two together, and you’ve got flames.”

  “You’re talking about spontaneous combustion?”

  “Yeah, but there’s never been any scientific proof it actually happens.” I wave my hand to dismiss the idea. “Usually it’s just a dropped cigarette.”

  “There’s more to the story,” Willow says. “About fifty years ago, a couple of professional loggers tried to cut it down with industrial chain saws. They were both electrocuted.”

  “Dead?”

  Willow shrugs. “Who knows. But after I found that out, I stopped using it as a subject. I felt like I was painting a serial killer. I like my palette dark these days, but not that dark.”

  “Did you ever look it all up?” I ask. “They sound like campfire stories someone made up to scare kids.”

  “No, I never did any research to find out if it was fact or fiction,” Willow admits. “I walked all the way to it one day, and there was nothing out of the ordinary. For all I know, the tree just marks a property line, and it probably provided good shade for cattle at one time. But just the idea of those crazy stories was enough to turn me off.” She points her brush at the canvas in front of her. “I found other trees to paint.”

  “Innocent trees without blood on their branches.”

  “Do me a favor and don’t tell Kandy.” Willow winks at me. “About me painting in her room? She’s doesn’t like me setting foot in there. She calls it ‘trespassing,’ and that if I’m not careful, I’ll be ‘cited and fined.’”

  She laughs, but I’m not so sure it’s funny. What would a “fine” from Kandy consist of? If she actually caught me in her room, would she expect me to do her math homework for a month? Clean her hairbrushes? Organize her purses by color? Of course not. It would be by brand, then color.

  “Gotcha,” I say, pretending to lock my lips with a key. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  “Enjoy your walk. We’ll eat around six,” Willow says, dipping her brush in water.

  “Sounds good.”

  I grab a soda from the fridge and venture into the backyard. A few hundred feet from the house, the grass ends and the cornfields begin. The stalks are dense, in tight rows, but there’s one wider alley at the corner of the yard, like they skipped half a row. A mistake when they planted.

  I can see into the field far enough. It looks like a navigable path, and it’s aimed in the right direction, so I decide to walk to the oak tree. I’ve been wanting to get a closer look, and after hearing Willow’s stories, I’m more curious than ever. Besides, let’s face it: there’s nothing better to do.

  Five minutes into my trek, reality check. This is not easy. Leaves lash my face, dust and dirt invade my sinuses. I’m sweating. And sneezing. My entire body itches. A humongous insect orbits my head, and I spin around, swatting and ducking.

  “Get away!” It dodges the palm of my hand and slowly drifts off, unimpressed.

  I’m left wondering: Was I going this way, or that way, or …? There are no landmarks in a cornfield.

  “Crap.” I walk a little more, then stop to gulp the last of my soda, wishing I’d chosen water instead. Sucrose and caramel color aren’t exactly quenching my thirst.

  Relax, Ruby. You’ve only been walking five minutes. How lost can you be?

  Okay, maybe it’s been ten minutes, though as far as I can tell, I’ve stayed within the confines of a single row, which means I’m walking in a straight line. I jump, stretching my neck, trying to glimpse the third floor of Willow’s house. No use. The corn is eight feet tall. Add the tassels on top, maybe it’s ten. And I suck at jumping.

  Ridiculous? Yes, indeed.

  I can navigate BART all over San Francisco, to and from the East Bay, south to the airport, and anywhere in between. The maps are easy to read; the lines are color-coded. I never feel intimidated. I’m never lost. But then again, I’m never alone. I’m either with Dad or George.

  George. I pictur
e him at the café, in our usual spot, on the leather couch. I should be next to him, scooping whipped cream off the top of my shake, then his. I should not be dripping with sweat in the middle of a cornfield. Last week should not have been the end. It shouldn’t have been our last time together, our good-bye.

  “Your going-away present,” he’d said, handing me a wrapped gift.

  “Thanks!” I’d taken the opportunity to move closer. Our thighs were touching; we were shoulder to shoulder. I could smell his skin, a hint of the sandalwood soap his mother stocks the bathrooms with. “Let’s see,” I said, though it was obvious it was a book. A big one.

  “Try not to squeal with excitement.”

  I snorted with sarcasm. “I wouldn’t know how to squeal, even if I wanted to.”

  “You’d squeal if your dad told you he’d changed his mind, and you weren’t moving.”

  “I might attempt a cartwheel,” I admitted. “Which would be ugly.”

  I peeled the wrapping paper off and held the book in my hands, grinning. It was a collection of photos from the Hubble telescope. Amazing, full-color pictures of impossible things. Star clusters, the Crab Nebula, spiral galaxies. New stars emerging from molecular clouds. Storms on Jupiter.

  I’d wanted to kiss George, but things weren’t like that. Couldn’t be like that. He and Jamie had just broken up, so he was still off-limits. She would’ve killed both of us in a jealous rage. Maybe after a few months, it would’ve been okay. After she’d moved on to the next boyfriend, and if I hadn’t moved three time zones east. Then George and I would’ve had a chance to become more than just flirty friends. Eventually, I’m pretty sure. Like a 90 percent shot. But now I’ll never know.

  Because I’m going to die from corn asphyxiation. Honestly. If one more leaf smacks me across the neck or ends up in my mouth … gag.

  Finally, the upper branches of the oak tree emerge, sending shadows over the tall cornstalks. Yes! All along I was perfectly on track. After another hundred feet or so the field ends abruptly, and I’m standing in an open patch of grass, shaking off corn silk and claustrophobia. I breathe. A very deep breath. So far, the only good thing about Ennis is the smell of fresh air.

  And the tree!

  It’s enormous, majestic. It casts its shade thick and wide, blocking the sun, and the cool air is a kiss of relief after sweating through the cornfield. I walk carefully, stepping over roots that erupt through the earth at intervals, like knuckles, fingers gripping the ground. To think this tree started as an acorn—a seed you could hold in the palm of your hand. How long ago? It shot roots into the soil, spread branches into the sky, feeding on carbon dioxide and rainwater. It thickened and stretched, cells multiplying, pulling itself up, straightening its spine like an evolving primate.

  “You’re beautiful,” I whisper. It’s almost human in its presence. A breathing, living thing.

  I hit the web browser on my phone and type in how old are oak trees in the search field. I scroll through the site listings and find an oak in England that’s a thousand years old, and one in California that’s two thousand. Most sites say they live closer to four hundred years. So this tree could predate the American Revolution, or even the Pilgrims.

  I wish George could see this. I pull out my phone and try to frame the tree for a photo, but of course it doesn’t fit in the viewfinder. I step back, but it’s no use. There’s no way to capture its size and grandeur. If he were here, he’d pull out his sketchbook, and we’d sit quietly for hours while he worked his pencil magic.

  I step closer to the trunk, reaching out to press my hands against the bark, layered and gray like stone. But I pull back, suddenly remembering Willow’s stories of electrocution, death by fire.

  I put my hands on my hips. “You’re not going to fry me up for dinner, right?” I ask.

  You’re an idiot, Ruby. It’s a tree. A bunch of xylem cells and phloem tissue. Plant matter. Not a serial killer.

  It doesn’t answer my question. “Didn’t think so,” I say. At the base of the trunk there’s an even nook, almost like a small front porch. With some lingering apprehension, I sit cross-legged there, leaning lightly, hesitantly, against the trunk. Nothing bad happens. The methane in my intestines doesn’t erupt into flames. I don’t spontaneously combust.

  In the distance, I hear the hum of a lawnmower. A soothing buzz. I close my eyes and relax, daydreaming. My mind skips through memories and settles on one of George singing happy birthday to me in the school parking lot, the way he jumped onto the hood of his car and ended with an operatic flourish: “And many more!” I feel happy in this moment, and sleepy. I’m just nodding off—destined for sweet dreams, for sure—when something hits the top of my head and bounces into my lap.

  “Hey!” I say, startled and annoyed. It’s a piece of bark. I twist around to look up and behind me. Maybe a squirrel knocked it loose. I pick it up and chuck it toward the cornfield.

  I lean against the tree again, trying to pick up where I left off. George singing happy birthday. I’m dozing off when another piece hits. This time I stand up and accuse the tree. “A break, please? That’s all I want!”

  I shake my head. What am I doing here? Stranded in the middle of nowhere, at the bottom of Dad’s priorities. I’m not going to cry. But if I do, at least no one will see me here. I look up at the tree, its branches outstretched like it would give me a reassuring pat on the back, if only it could. That’s when I notice, about ten feet up, a bare spot.

  A lot of bark has fallen off, and now I see that the ground is littered with chunks. Odd. I wonder if a tree disease, a parasite, is at work. And then I hear the buzz again. The hum I thought was a distant lawnmower is neither: it’s not distant, not a lawnmower.

  It’s the tree. Tentatively, I press my hands flat against the trunk. It’s vibrating. From within.

  I pull away, my hands tingling slightly. Are the stories true? The only thing I can hear is my heart, and the voice in my head: They’re just stories to scare kids. There must be a reasonable explanation for the vibrating. Something’s going on here that makes sense.

  Insects. Yes, that’s it. The entire oak is full of them, infested. See? It took a whopping thirty seconds to come up with a logical hypothesis. There’s no reason to panic. But then I think about how many insects there must be. Are they boring holes into the outer bark, and at any moment they’ll break through, and I’ll be surrounded by swarms, angry and with stingers?

  Come on, Ruby. Don’t go jumping to conclusions.

  I put both hands on the trunk again, then lean in and press my ear against the rough bark. It sounds like an engine.

  I step back, stumbling away from the tree. I grab my empty soda can from the ground and hurry back into the cornfield. What was blue sky half an hour ago is now half-covered in inky clouds. And more are rolling in.

  Trees don’t rumble. It’s thunder. It’s about to rain.

  I attempt a nonchalant laugh at myself, but it comes out as a high-pitched giggle. I think of George and his iPhone thesaurus app. Bananas, loco, out to lunch, mad as a hatter.

  As I jog into the cornfield, I take one last look over my shoulder at the tree. And that’s when—for a split second, I swear—it seems to be glowing.

  Chapter Two

  The rotisserie chicken is greasy, the pepperoni pizza worse, making dinner delicious-disgusting. Dad also bought the token iceberg salad with approximately three carrot shavings. A glob of ranch dressing is its only hope. I’m seeing a pattern here. Last night was fried chicken with a side of mayo—I mean coleslaw. The night before was ribs from Pig-Out. Dad could cook if he tried, but he can’t pry himself away from work long enough to boil an egg. At least back in California, we had top-notch takeout. Burmese noodles, eggplant rollatini, burritos with fresh guacamole.

  I sit at the kitchen table, armed with a stack of napkins, expecting someone to join me. But Willow and Dad flop down on the family room couch to watch the news, and Kandy takes her plate upstairs.

  Fun time
s.

  I send George my tenth text of the day (BORING! Tho there’s mystery tree in backyard. Buzzes. Full of locusts) and immediately begin checking for his response.

  Are there locusts in Ohio, or some kind of termite that eats a tree from the inside out? I don’t know. It’s more likely there’s something underground nearby, like a generator or transformer, and the vibrations are resonating enough to shake the tree. I think of the dozens of minor tremors I felt in California; there could be a seismic zone running through Ennis. I’m not sure about locusts, but I know there are fault lines all over the Midwest.

  If it weren’t so late, I could have Dad drive me to the library. I could check to see if the electric company has an underground hub near the tree, or if any sinkholes have collapsed. Maybe there’s an underground river.

  And if people really did die trying to cut the oak down, there must be something in the library archives about it. There would be newspaper articles and obituaries. Those clues would provide a way into the research. But I’ll have to wait until morning when the library opens, probably at nine.

  Dad slides over toward Willow to make room for me on the couch, so I settle in to watch TV with them for a while. It’s annoying. They’re both channel surfers, stealing the remote from each other at every opportunity. My phone vibrates and I eagerly read George’s text: At movie. Trning phone off. Srry.

  Bummer. He’s putting on 3-D glasses without me, at the movie we were supposed to see together. Which makes me wonder who he’s with. Maybe his brother, but what if it’s Jamie? What if they’re getting back together? I send Jamie a text that says Whatcha up 2 2nite? then toss the phone onto the coffee table. She hasn’t been keeping in touch, so she might not even respond. So far the only contact she’s made was when she posted a message on my Facebook wall: How’s it going in Cowville?

  Dad eats the last of his chicken, leans forward, and scribbles on a piece of paper. Copywriting inspiration has struck. Even when he’s not working, he’s thinking about it. It’s like constant background noise.