Jude's Music

Four

The next free moment I got, I retraced my steps along that back fence. I wanted to hear the music again; I wanted to know if I'd just been dreaming the notes I'd heard, or if they'd really been there. And, if they had been there, where had they been coming from?

It was late Saturday morning, and it was cold outside. It was overcast, but the rain wasn't falling. It had been replaced by a bitter chill. I was just glad that the wind had died down, because if there was music, I would be able to hear it easier.

I was alone, but I wanted it that way. My sisters didn't go outside unless they had good reason to, and accompanying me on a wild goose chase wasn't their idea of fun. Of course, I hadn't told them what I was looking for. They wouldn't have believed me if I had said anything about that music. I didn't even know if I believed myself, so how could I expect them to understand? Besides, if I was alone, there would be no one to delay me, or to make noise when all I wanted was hush. If I didn't have hush, I wouldn't find a thing.

Suddenly I found myself back in that spot between the trees and the backyard fences. No one was out. The windows and porches I could see in the houses were empty. The field I was standing in was empty. Not a soul was within my sight. If I hadn't been so set on my mission, I would have honestly wondered at the strangeness of that. Mosspond wasn't a large town, but it did have people in it, and people needed fresh air to survive. At least small children should have been out, see-sawing or swinging in their backyards. Maybe adults should have been out as well, making sure their bulbs were buried before the winter arrived or raking some of the leaves that were already beginning to fall in haphazard patterns across their browning lawns.

There was no music as I stood there. I was very still for almost ten minutes, waiting like one of those Greek heroes who was petrified by Medusa's steely glare when they looked into her face. I tried to hold my breath, hoping that if I fell deadly silent, the music would come again. But it didn't.

I decided to move closer. My feet crunched across the grass as I took soft steps right up to the first of the trees. The spiny branches crept toward my cheeks as I leaned in toward the bare white trunks. Wiry twigs snagged my hair. I was very close to actually being in the woods, but if I hadn't gone in just as far as I did – if I had kept one inch back – I would not have seen the path that snaked like a creek through the naked trees.

There was no question about what to do. I needed to see where that path led.

Before I knew it, my legs were carrying me along the narrow dirt trail, leading me deeper into the trees. I wasn't afraid. These were not like the eerie woods in fairy tales where wolves tried to trap you or eyes peered out of the dark holes of haunted, knotted trees. They were not sunlit and twittering with birds, either. They were just sparsely placed trees, growing out of the ground in various patches, reaching their sorry limbs toward nonexistent rays of sun. I pitied them during my walk. It was all I had to think about.

I was able to see the house through the trees long before I came to it. It was a small, brown, one-level building. Its windows seemed dirty, and as I drew closer, I noticed that the land around the house was uncared for. Plants had grown up around and over the front path, and the bushes reached halfway up the windows by the door. At first I supposed that the place was uninhabited, so I didn't worry about whether I'd be welcome or not.

I was only about ten feet away from the left side of the house when a figure stepped out from around the corner of it. The untidiness, then, was to my advantage, because I immediately slipped behind a long stretch of brambles. While my quick-beating heart tried to calm itself from the fright it'd had, my eyes strained to see between the branches.

The person I saw was Jude Wood. He hadn't seen me, but I could certainly see him now. He looked paler than ever with his dark hair hanging over his forehead like spilt ink on a sheet of paper. In his hands, he was lugging a metal pail. I couldn't see what was inside of it.