9

The Evil Spell
On Easter Monday the rain began again in earnest. It was as though the elements were
conspiring to ruin their short week of freedom. Jess and Leslie sat cross-legged on the porch
at the Burkes', watching the wheels of a passing truck shoot huge sprays of muddy water to its
rear.
"That ain't no fifty-five miles per hour," Jess muttered.
Just then something came out of the window of the cab. Leslie jumped to her feet.
"Litterbug!" she screamed after the already disappearing tail lights.
Jess stood up, too. "What'dya want to do?"
"What I want to do is go to Terabithia," she said, looking out mournfully at the pouring
rain.
"Heck, let's go," he said.
"OK," she said, suddenly brightening. "Why not?"
She got her boots and raincoat and considered the umbrella. "D'ya think we could swing
across holding the umbrella?"
He shook his head. "Nah."
"We better stop by your house and get your boots and things."
He shrugged. "I don't have nothing that fits. I'll just go like this."
"I'll get you an old coat of Bill's." She started up the stairs. Judy appeared in the hallway.
"What are you kids doing?" It was the same words that Jess's mother might have used,
but it didn't come out the same way. Judy's eyes were kind of fuzzed over as she spoke, and
her voice sounded as though it were being broadcast from miles away.
"We didn't mean to bother you, Judy."
"That's all right, "I'm stuck right now. I might as well stop. Have you had any lunch?"
"S'all right, Judy. We can get something ourselves."
Judy's eyes focused slightly. "You've got your boots on."
Leslie looked down at her feet. "Oh, yeah," she said, as though she were just noticing
them herself. "We thought we'd go out for a while."
"Is it raining again?"
"Yeah."
"I used to like to walk in the rain." Judy smiled the kind of smile May Belle did in her
sleep. "Well, if you two can manage...."
"Sure."
"Is Bill back yet?"
"No. He said he wouldn't be back until late, not to worry."
"Fine," she said. "Oh," she said suddenly, and her eyes popped wide open. "Oh!" She
almost ran back to her room, and the plinkety-plink of the typewriter began at once.
Leslie was grinning. "She came unstuck."
He wondered what it would be like to have a mother whose stories were inside her head
instead of marching across the television screen all day long. He followed Leslie up the hall to
where she was pulling things out of a closet. She handed him a beige raincoat and a peculiar
round black woolly hat.
"No boots." Her voice was coming out of the depths of the closet and was muffled by a
line of overcoats. "How about a pair of clumps?"
"A pair of what?"
She stuck her head out between the coats. "Cleats. Cleats." She produced them. They
looked like size twelves.
"Naw. I'd lose 'em in the mud. I'll just go barefoot."
"Hey," she said, emerging completely. "Me, too."
The ground was cold. The icy mud sent little thrills of pain up their legs, so they ran,
splashing through the puddles and slushing in the mud. P. T. hounded ahead, leaping fishlike
from one brown sea to the next, then turning back to herd the two of them forward, nipping at
their heels and further splashing their already sopping jeans.
When they got to the bank of the creek, they stopped. It was an awesome sight. Like in
The Ten Commandments on TV when the water came rushing into the dry path Moses had
made and swept all the Egyptians away, the long dry bed of the creek was a roaring eight-
foot-wide sea, sweeping before it great branches of trees, logs, and trash, swirling them
about like so many Egyptian chariots, the hungry waters licking and sometimes leaping the
banks, daring them to try to confine it.
"Wow." Leslie's voice was respectful.
"Yeah." Jess looked up at the rope. It was still twisted around the branch of the crab apple
tree. His stomach felt cold. "Maybe we ought to forget it today."
"C'mon, Jess. We can make it." The hood of Leslie's raincoat had fallen back, and her
hair lay plastered to her forehead. She wiped her cheeks and eyes with her hand and then
untwisted the rope. She unsnapped the top of her coat with her left hand. "Here," she said.
"Stick P. T. in here for me."
"I'll carry him, Leslie."
"With that raincoat, he'll slip right out the bottom." She was impatient to be gone, so Jess
scooped up the sodden dog and shoved him rear-first into the cave of Leslie's raincoat.
"You gotta hold his rear with your left arm and swing with your right, you know."
"I know. I know." She moved backward to get a running start.
"Hold tight."
"Good gosh, Jess."
He shut his mouth. He wanted to shut his eyes, too. But he forced himself to watch her
run back, race for the bank, leap, swing, and jump off, landing gracefully on her feet on the
far side.
"Catch!"
He stuck his hand out, but he was watching Leslie and P. T. and not concentrating on the
rope, which slipped off the end of his fingertips and swung in a large arc out of his reach. He
jumped and grabbed it, and shutting his mind to the sound and sight of the water, he ran back
and then speeded forward. The cold stream lapped his bare heels momentarily, but then he
was into the air above it and falling awkwardly and landing on his bottom. P. T. was on him
immediately, muddy paws all over the beige raincoat, and pink tongue sandpapering Jess's
wet face.
Leslie's eyes were sparkling. "Arise" - he barely swallowed a giggle -"Arise, king of
Terabithia, and let us proceed into our kingdom."
The king of Terabithia snuffled and wiped his face on the back of his hand. "I will arise,"
he replied with dignity, "when thou removes this fool dog off my gut."
They went to Terabithia on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. The rain continued
sporadically, so that by Wednesday the creek had swollen to the trunk of the crab apple and
they were running through ankle-deep water to make their flight into Terabithia. And on the
opposite bank Jess was more careful to land on his feet. Sitting in cold wet britches for an
hour was no fun even in a magic kingdom.
For Jess the fear of the crossing rose with the height of the creek. Leslie never seemed to
hesitate, so Jess could not hang back. But even though he could force his body to follow after,
his mind hung back, wanting to cling to the crab apple tree the way Joyce Ann might cling to
Momma's skirt.
While they were sitting in the castle on Wednesday, it began suddenly to rain so hard that
water came through the top of the shack in icy streams. Jess tried to huddle away from the
worst of them, but there was no escaping the miserable invaders.
"Dost know what is in my mind, o king?" Leslie dumped the contents of one coffee can
on the ground and put the can under the worst leak.
"What?"
"Methinks some evil being has put a curse on our beloved kingdom."
"Damn weather bureau." In the dim light he could see Leslie's face freeze into its most
queenly pose -- the kind of expression she usually reserved for vanquished enemies. She didn't
want to kid. He instantly repented his unkingly manner.
Leslie chose to ignore it. "Let us go even up into the sacred grove and inquire of the
Spirits what this evil might be and how we must combat it. For of a truth I perceive that this is
no ordinary rain that is falling upon our kingdom."
"Right, queen," Jess mumbled and crawled out of the low entrance of the castle
stronghold.
Under the pines even the rain lost its driving power. Without the filtered light of the sun
it was almost dark, and the sound of the rain hitting the pine branches high above their heads
filled the grove with a weird, tuneless music. Dread lay on Jess's stomach like a hunk of cold,
undigested doughnut.
Leslie lifted her arms and face up toward the dark green canopy. "O Spirits of the grove,"
she began solemnly. "We are come on behalf of our beloved kingdom which lies even now
under the spell of some evil, unknown force. Give us, we beseech thee, wisdom to discern this
evil, and power to overcome it." She nudged Jess with her elbow.
He raised his arms. "Um. Uh." He felt the point of her sharp elbow again. "Um. Yes.
Please listen, thou Spirits."
She seemed satisfied. At least she didn't poke him again. She just stood there quietly as if
she was listening respectfully to someone talking to her. Jess was shivering, whether from the
cold or the place, he didn't know. But he was glad when she turned to leave the grove. All he
could think of was dry clothes and a cup of hot coffee and maybe just plunking down in front
of the TV for a couple of hours. He was obviously not worthy to be king of Terabithia.
Whoever heard of a king who was scared of tall trees and a little bit of water?
He swung across the creek almost too disgusted with himself to be afraid. Halfway across
he looked down and stuck his tongue out at the roaring below. Who's afraid of the big bad
wolf? Tra-la-la-la-la, he said to himself, then quickly looked up again toward the crab apple
tree.
Plodding up the hill through the mud and beaten-down grasses, he slammed his bare feet
down hard. Left, left, he addressed them inside his head. Left my wife and forty-nine children
without any gingerbread, think I did right? Right. Right by my...
"Why don't we change our clothes and watch TV or something over at your house?"
He felt like hugging her. "I'll make us some coffee," he said joyfully.
"Yuck," she said smiling and began to run for the old Perkins place, that beautiful,
graceful run of hers that neither mud nor water could defeat.
It had seemed to Jess when he went to bed Wednesday night that he could relax, that
everything was going to be all right, but he awoke in the middle of the night with the horrible
realization that it was still raining. He would just have to tell Leslie that he wouldn't go to
Terabithia. After all, she had told him that when she was working on the house with Bill. And
he hadn't questioned her. It wasn't so much that he minded telling Leslie that he was afraid to
go; it was that he minded being afraid. It was as though he had been made with a great piece
missing one of May Belle's puzzles with this huge gap where somebody's eye and cheek and
jaw should have been. Lord, it would be better to be born without an arm than to go through
life with no guts. He hardly slept the rest of the night, listening to the horrid rain and knowing
that no matter how high the creek came, Leslie would still want to cross it.