Towering

Rachel.”
    I shook my head. This was crazy. It was too much. And if I was the one who could do this, how was Wyatt involved? Why could I communicate with him, even when he wasn’t there?
    “She begged me to take the baby and hide it. They must never know she hadn’t killed you as instructed. I did take the baby, you, away for eight long years, as I had planned to take Danielle. I took you all the way across the country and raised you. But even far away, I worried that someone would find you, take you away from me. So, finally, I brought you home, put you in a tower where no one would think to look, in the middle of the woods, and went back to my old house thinking that, when they saw I was all alone, they would leave me be. For eight years, they did. I wept every night because I could not have you with me, my granddaughter, the only one I had left, and I yearned to see you, yearned to have you in my house.”
    I touched her hand. It was good to know that she too had missed me.
    She said, “But then, one day, Danielle came to me in a dream. Or maybe I just dreamed about her. She said that her friend Emily’s baby, Wyatt, would be the one to break the spell with you, the one that could free them all. She made no sense, but she was my daughter, so I listened to her. She said that Wyatt must come to live here. Of course, I thought it was crazy. Emily would never agree. But the very next day, I received a call from Emily Hill. I didn’t know if it was merely coincidence, or if she had seen Danielle too, but she was asking me if Wyatt could come here, and I said yes.”
    “That is incredible. Incredible.” I was finally warm, almost too warm. My face was flushed, and when I looked into the backseat, my hair filled the entire thing.
    “I knew that he would find you. I encouraged it, allowing him to take my car every day, hoping he would have some sort of contact with you.”
    “He did. I can hear him, in my head. I heard him a few minutes ago.”
    She nodded. “I was frightened, but something had to be done. Over the years, I have read the stories of other teens, other young people, who have disappeared, usually visitors, people who wouldn’t be greatly missed. But I knew it was the rhapsody that had taken them, and it must be stopped. It must be stopped.”
    “But how?” I saw lights. We were in a town now. It was a small town, but, as I had seen that night on the train, the occasional neon sign identified the businesses: Gatskill Diner, Gatskill Repairs, Gatskill Library. Then, nothing for a long time. I had braided my hair, as best I could, but there were several unbraided feet near my head where my hair had just grown. It would have to do. I held the end of my hair in one hand. The braid streamed behind me. Then, I saw a sign far ahead.
    Red Fox Inn , it said.
    As we drove closer, I heard a voice. Wyatt’s voice.
    “The key,” it said. “I found the key.”
    “What key?” I asked. Mama turned to me, and I gestured to my ear, so she would know it was Wyatt I heard, Wyatt to whom I spoke. His voice seemed clearer now, and I did not know if it was because we were closer now, or if it had something to do with my hair. I had first started hearing him when my hair began to grow.
    “The key. In the hairbrush—your hairbrush,” his voice said.
    “Hairbrush?” Then, I remembered. I had told him about the hairbrush I had when I was a little girl. That must be what he meant. But it was gone. I had not seen it in years. I turned to Mama. “When I was a little girl, I had a hairbrush, a pretty silver one with a flower design. What happened to it?”
    She looked surprised, then said, “How strange. It just disappeared.” We were close now, and Mama slowed the car. I knew she was as reluctant to arrive as I was, more maybe.
    “Wyatt found it.” I said, “Wyatt, where did you find it?”
    “In a junk shop.” His voice was as clear as if he were standing before me. “It’s in my car, in a bag on the seat. I think you need it.”
    We were not quite to the sign, but I gestured to Mama to slow down, to stop, before she got there. She had already been about to do so, it seemed, and she slowed the car and went a bit to the right, into a clump of brush by the road.
    I said to her, “Wyatt says there’s a key in it that I may need. It’s in the car.”
    Mama gestured toward a green car parked in front of the place. “My car.” She fumbled in her purse. “I have a spare set of keys to the door. But how