Free Towering by Alex Flinn

apple cake.”
    “You shouldn’t eat it,” the girl said. “Haven’t you seen Snow White?”
    “I heard she killed her daughter,” Brendan said.
    “That’s not true.” I remembered how she’d screamed into the night for Danielle. “And I was kidding about the closet,” I added, in case they were too stupid to get that.
    “I knew that,” the girl said. But then, she turned away, talking to the girl beside her—at least, I think it was a girl. Hard to tell with all the coats. Everyone else went back to what they were doing and saying, and I was left wondering about people back home, if they’d noticed I was gone. We were driving through town now, and by instinct, I checked my phone for texts even though it meant jostling three people. One bar. No messages.
    We drove in silence, finally making a sharp turn off the main road onto a side road. Then, there was a dirt path that disappeared down a hill. I wouldn’t even have noticed the path if we hadn’t been on it. I wondered if it was safe. I decided I didn’t care. The trees on both sides of the car came up like cave walls, and ahead, there was nothing, nothing I could see anyway. Finally, the car would go no farther. Josh said, “We’ll have to walk from here.”
    I was glad too. It was hot, and a car feels even more crowded when it’s full of people you don’t know. Their voices drummed in my ears. I pushed the door open and, feeling the rush of cold air, realized I’d been holding my breath. Everyone else clambered out behind me, and we began the work of trudging through the snow toward a house I still couldn’t see. I noticed some people had six-packs or bags of chips. “Was I supposed to bring something?” I asked Josh.
    “Nah, I knew you wouldn’t get out much, with Old Lady Greenwood. I brought some chips on your behalf.”
    One of the guys had a glass bottle of something. “I don’t really drink,” I said. “I mean, I’m not a jerk about it, but I don’t really drink.”
    “It’s okay. You can be the designated driver.”
    “You better designate someone else to pull this car onto the main road too.”
    “Don’t have that on Long Island, huh?” The guy laughed.
    “Nope.”
    We all stopped talking then, concentrating on walking. A lot of the snow had melted, but it was still hard going, and I realized Josh was right. This wasn’t what I was used to. I was a city kid, meant for paved streets and shoveled sidewalks, and the hick kids with their stronger muscles were leaving me in the dust.
    I was at least ten feet behind the last of them, even the girls, when I heard a sound too human to be wind.
    Singing.
    There was no TV showing Star Trek here, and I could almost make out words. I wanted to tell everyone to stop, stop stepping, stop crunching snow, so I could hear. But that would look crazy, so I said, “What’s that?”
    “What?” the girl in front of me said, and they all stopped walking so, for a moment, it was silent, and I could have heard it. But, of course, like all weird sounds, it ceased to exist when pointed out to someone else.
    “It stopped,” I said. “But it sounded like someone singing. I’ve heard it at the house too, but this seemed closer.”
    “Probably a loon,” the girl said.
    “Are there loons in the middle of winter?” Everyone started walking again, driven on by the cold as much as their boredom with the conversation. At least I hoped so. “I mean, don’t they fly south? Besides, this sounded human.”
    “So do loons.”
    I knew what I had heard, but I didn’t pursue it. It wasn’t worth it. Obviously, there was no legendary local ghost everyone had heard of. Maybe it was my imagination. Maybe I was crazy. We kept walking, and a minute later, I heard another sound, an actual bird or animal. Maybe it was a real loon.
    The girl turned back to me. “Was that it?”
    “Probably,” I said, even though it wasn’t.
    “I’m Astrid, by the way.”
    “Wyatt.”
    “I know. You must be pretty