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

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?

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

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

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

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