The Probable Future

Jenny stared at Will Avery through the mossy haze of spring. Right away she knew why she felt dizzy. She had always been in awe of Will and too shy to speak to him. He was handsome, with golden coloring and a brash manner, the sort of boy who was far too interested in having a good time to adhere to any rules or consider anyone other than himself. If anything dangerous was about to ensue, any reckless mischief at all, Will Avery would be there in no time flat. He did well in school without even trying, all the same he loved a good party; he lived to take chances. If there was something to enjoy, wreck, or burn down, he’d be the first one in line. People who knew Will tended to fear for his safety, but those who knew him best of all feared far more for the safety of those around him.

Now that Jenny had shared his dream, she felt emboldened. It was as though Will Avery belonged to her already, as if their dreaming and waking life had twisted around each other and their lives were now interwoven, one and the same. Jenny shook the knots from her hair and crossed her fingers for luck. She willed herself to be the fearless woman in his dream, the one who would walk through water for the person she loved, the girl with the dark hair who wasn’t afraid to go after what she wanted most of all.

Come here, Jenny said softly, the very first words she uttered on the first morning of her thirteenth year.

The sound of the peepers was filling her head. Spring fever was in her blood. Other girls her age knew what they wanted for their birthdays long before the day arrived: silver bracelets, gold rings, white roses, presents tied in silk ribbon. None of these possibilities had interested Jenny Sparrow. She hadn’t any idea of what she desired most until she saw Will Avery. Then she knew: she had to have him.

Turn now, she said, and that was when Will looked up at the house.

Jenny quickly pulled on her clothes. She ran downstairs in her bare feet and went outside, into the mild, green air. She felt as though she were flying, as though Cake House were disappearing behind her with its sodden, abandoned rooms turning to ashes. If this was desire—the cold grass under her feet, the scent of mint as she breathed in, the ferocious speed of her pulse—she wanted more of it. She wanted it all the time.

The spring migration had occurred only days earlier, filling the sky with birds. Cowbirds, too lazy to rear their own offspring, were perched beside the nests of sparrows and jays, already tumbling out the azure and dappled eggs that rightfully belonged inside, replacing them with their own larger progeny that were genetically timed to hatch first. The sunlight was surprisingly strong and hot for March; it was the sort of heat that could go through a person’s clothes, straight into the bloodstream. Before this morning, Jenny had been quiet and moody, afraid of the dark and of her own shadow. Now, she was someone else entirely: a girl who blinked in the glittery light, someone who could fly if she wanted to, a person so brave that when Will Avery asked if he could see inside Cake House, she didn’t hesitate for a moment. She took hold of his hand and led him right up to the door.

They left Will’s brother crouched down behind the forsythia, goosebumps rising on the poor boy’s arms. Will shouted for his brother to come along with them, but Matt, always so cautious, thoughtful to a fault, refused. He’d heard stories about what had become of trespassers at Cake House. Even at the age of twelve, Matt Avery was law-abiding. Certainly, he wanted to view the Sparrows’ house as much as anyone, but he was also a student of history, and he knew what had happened to Rebecca Sparrow more than three hundred years earlier. Her fate made him queasy. It made his throat go completely dry. He was well aware that local boys had been calling the dirt road Dead Horse Lane for centuries, and that most people avoided this place; even the old men in town swore there was a skeleton floating just below the lily pads and the reeds. Matt stayed where he was, glowering with shame, unable to break any rules.

Will Avery, on the other hand, would never let a dead horse or an old superstition deter him from having a good time. He’d even gone swimming in the lake once, back when Henry Elliot had bet him twenty dollars that he wouldn’t have the nerve, and the only price he’d had to pay afterward was an ear infection. Now a pretty girl was escorting him across the lawn, and he’d be damned if he backed off, despite the rumors in town. He kept on even when Matt shouted for him to come back, reminding Will that their mother would soon discover they hadn’t slept in their beds. Let good old Matt hide in the shrubbery. Let him fear some witch who’d been dead for more than three hundred years. When Monday came around, Will would be the one who would be announcing to his friends that he’d been inside the Sparrows’ house and had lived to tell the tale. Before he was through, he might snag a kiss he could brag about, perhaps even filch a souvenir of his exploits to show off to the crowd that would gather admiringly in the school yard, hushed at the very thought of his exploits.