Chapter 13

Chapter 13 The Missing Bell They went back to the top of Lovell's Hill, where the empty crossbeam stood, because they needed a place to start their search and Jessie couldn't think of anywhere else. Night had fallen, and a thick cover of clouds hung low in the sky. Luckily, Jessie had brought a flashlight on the stakeout. The thin yellow beam illuminated the ground just enough for them to make their way. At the top of the hill, Jessie flashed the light ahead of her. There was the heavy wooden crossbeam with its empty space where the bell should have hung. The missing bell. What a lousy spy she'd turned out to be! She hadn't learned a thing on the stakeout. She still didn't have any proof that

他们回到洛弗尔山的山顶，那根空的横梁就立在那里，因为他们需要一个开始寻找的地方，而杰西想不出别的地方。 夜幕降临，天空低垂着一层厚厚的云层。 幸运的是，杰西在监视时带了手电筒。 细细的黄色光束照亮了地面，刚好能让他们走过去。 在山顶上，杰西在她前面闪动着灯。 沉重的木横梁空着一个地方，本来是挂钟的。 丢失的铃铛。她变成了一个多么糟糕的间谍啊！她在监视中什么也没学到。 她还是没有任何证据

the Sinclair boys had stolen the bell in the first place. And Maxwell had ended up half out of his mind, running off—to where? Where was Maxwell now? Was he missing, too? "Maybe Grandma was here," said Jessie, skipping the flashlight beam over the ground. There were hundreds of footprints in the snow. Both Jessie and Maxwell had crossed this hill several times over the last few days, and Evan had come straight over the hill when he heard Maxwell's scream and the broken glass. There were footprints everywhere. The ground was a tangled-up dance of feet. "Think, Jessie," said Evan. "It's like a puzzle. You're good at puzzles. Where would she go?" Jessie looked up toward Black Bear Mountain, but there was no way she could see it in the darkness. The woods behind her were a thick brushstroke of blackness, too. Blackness in front of her. Blackness behind her. Where could Grandma be in all that dark?

首先是辛克莱家的孩子偷了钟。 麦克斯韦最后精神失常，跑开了——跑到哪儿去了？ 麦克斯韦现在在哪里？他也失踪了吗？ “也许奶奶在这里，”杰西说，把手电筒的光线跳过地面。 雪地上有几百个脚印。 在过去的几天里，杰西和麦克斯韦都翻过这座山好几次，埃文听到麦克斯韦的尖叫和玻璃破碎的声音，就径直翻过了山。 到处都是脚印。 地面上是一团乱糟糟的舞蹈。 “想想，杰西，”埃文说。 “这就像一个谜题。你很擅长拼图。 她会去哪儿呢？”杰西抬头望向黑熊山，但在黑暗中她根本看不见。 她身后的树林也一片漆黑。 眼前一片漆黑。 黑暗在她身后。这么黑，奶奶会在哪儿呢？

Something cold and wet landed on Jessie's cheek. Then another and another. It was beginning to snow. "Oh, Grandma," said Jessie, quietly. "C'mon, Jess," said Evan. "You can think this out. I know you can." In her mind, Jessie made a list. "She wouldn't walk on the road. She hates walking on the road. So forget that. She didn't go to a neighbor, because they would have brought her back. She's not in the barn?" "I checked." "Don't you think she's on the farm somewhere?" Evan nodded his head. "Yeah, but where?" It was a big farm. A hundred acres. "Let's go back to where she started. The house. And then we'll take the backward loop." That was Grandma's favorite walk, the one that took you all the way to the foot of Black Bear Mountain and then looped back through the

某种又冷又湿的东西落在杰西的脸颊上。 然后一个又一个。天开始下雪了。 “哦，奶奶，”杰西平静地说。 “来吧，杰西，”埃文说。“你可以自己想。 我知道你可以的。”在她的脑海里，杰西列了一张清单。 “她不愿走在路上。 她讨厌在路上走。 所以忘了它吧。她没有去找邻居，因为他们会把她带回来。 她不在谷仓里？”“我检查。” “你不认为她在农场的某个地方吗？”埃文点了点头。 “是啊，可是在哪儿呢？”那是一个大农场。 一百英亩。“让我们回到她开始的地方。 这所房子。然后我们进行反向循环。” 那是奶奶最喜欢的散步，带你一路走到黑熊山脚下，然后绕回来穿过

woods, up the hill to the New Year's Eve bell. Jessie had done that walk a hundred times with Grandma. When they got to the dark house, Evan ran inside to grab an extra flashlight and leave a note for their mother. Then they both strapped on snowshoes—the snow was coming down faster now—and headed down the path. It was hard going. Evan led the way, and Jessie trudged behind. As they walked, they swung the beams of their flashlights from the path, to the woods on the left, back to the path, and then over to the woods on the right. Jessie called out "Grandma!" from time to time. Once she heard something scrabbling close to her feet, but she told herself it was just a squirrel or maybe a

树林里，上山到除夕的钟声。 杰西已经和奶奶走了一百次了。 当他们到达黑暗的房子时，埃文跑进去拿了一个额外的手电筒，并给他们的母亲留了一张纸条。 然后他们俩都穿上了雪鞋——雪下得更快了——朝小路走去。 这是一段艰难的旅程。埃文走在前面，杰西走在后面。 他们一边走，一边把手电筒的光线从小路上照到左边的树林，再照回到小路上，然后又照到右边的树林。 杰西不时地叫一声“奶奶！” 有一次，她听到有什么东西在她脚边乱爬，但她告诉自己那只是一只松鼠，或者可能是一只

rabbit. Nothing to be afraid of. Still, she picked up her pace so that she was right behind Evan— so close that the tip of her snowshoe caught the tail of his and caused him to stumble. She thought he was going to turn around and yell at her, but he didn't. He just kept going. When they reached the foot of Black Bear Mountain, Jessie was hot and sweaty under her ski hat, her bangs plastered to her forehead. Her mittened fingers were damp, too, but her cheeks were stinging from the cold. Jessie wiped her hand across her face. "We haven't found her yet," she said, pausing to rest at the bend in the path that turned away from the mountain and into the woods. She wanted Evan to say something back, something that would give them hope. But Evan didn't say anything. He just shone his light in a circle all around them. The feeble yellow beam danced across trees and rocks and drifts of snow—snow everywhere, covering everything and falling

兔子。没什么好怕的。 尽管如此，她还是加快了脚步，紧跟在埃文的后面——离得很近，她的雪鞋尖碰到了他的尾巴，把他绊倒了。 她以为他会转过身来对她大喊大叫，但他没有。 他只是继续前进。当他们到达黑熊山脚下时，杰西戴着滑雪帽，热得汗流浃背，刘海贴在额头上。 她戴着连指手套的手指也湿了，但她的脸颊冷得刺痛。 杰西用手在脸上擦了擦。 “我们还没找到她呢，”她说着，在小路的拐弯处停下来休息，这条小路从山上转到了树林里。 她想让埃文回嘴，说些能给他们希望的话。 但埃文什么也没说。 他只是把他的光在他们周围照了一个圈。 微弱的黄色光束在树木、岩石和到处都是积雪的雪堆上飞舞，覆盖了一切，飘落下来

thicker and faster now. They kept on walking. Now they were cutting through the woods that covered the far side of Lovell's Hill. There wasn't even a real path here. The only way to navigate was to look for the marked trees, but the markings were invisible in the pitchblack. Even when they focused the beams of their flashlights directly on the trunks of the trees, the falling snow made it impossible to see. "Grandma!" Jessie called out, but more softly now. The woods were so silent that every sound seemed amplified. Evan kept stopping. Jessie could tell he was trying to get his bearings. It was easy to veer off course in the woods, even in the daytime. At night, with no moon to guide by, it would take all their concentration to find their way to the top of the hill. Where are you, Grandma? When they reached the top of the hill, they stood on either side of the heavy wooden

现在更厚更快了。他们继续往前走。 现在他们正在穿过覆盖洛弗尔山另一边的树林。 这里甚至没有一条真正的路。 唯一的导航方法就是寻找有标记的树，但在漆黑的环境中，这些标记是看不见的。 即使他们把手电筒的光束直接对准树干，落下的雪也使他们看不见。 “奶奶!”杰西喊道，但现在声音更轻了。 树林里静悄悄的，每一种声音似乎都被放大了。 埃文不停地停下来。杰西看得出来，他在努力找准方向。 即使在白天，在树林里也很容易偏离路线。 在夜晚，没有月亮的指引，他们要集中全部精力才能找到通往山顶的路。 奶奶，你在哪里？当他们到达山顶时，他们站在沉重的木头墙的两边