Flickering Hope by Naomi Kinsman

floor hallway, a spiral staircase rose up to a trap door on the ceiling, which openedonto a round porch at the top of our house. I hadn’t been up there since the first snowfall.
    Pips kept insisting she hadn’t made the calendar, and I was starting to wonder. Of course, if it wasn’t Pips, it must be Mom and Dad. They loved to do stuff like this. When I’d been younger, my parents used to make an adventure out of my “big” present. They’d wrap a clue in a box under the tree leading to a trail of other clues and ending with the present, something I’d hardly dared to wish for, like my first bicycle.
    When I was seven, I secretly wished for my very own theatre, knowing I couldn’t have one. Somehow, they’d transformed the downstairs playroom into a stage, complete with a trunk full of costumes and a pipe to hang backgrounds from. Their artist friend painted sheets to look like a castle, a forest, and a candy factory.
    A pile of snow fell onto my head when I pushed the trap door open. I shook the snow off my hair and climbed the rest of the way up. Snow had transformed the forest, frosting branches and blanketing the ground.
    Look with far-reaching eyes, and you’ll find what you need.
    I scanned the treetops. Was the clue sending me into the forest? Other than the round railing and the cushioned seat, the porch only held an old telescope, left behind by a former owner of the house. Andrew and I had rolled the telescope over to the railing so we could stargaze, but covered it with canvas when the snow began. I pulled the cover off and squinted through the hole.Nothing. I twisted the dial and looked again. Still nothing. Squinting never worked well for me. I covered my left eye with my hand and yet again, I didn’t see anything.
    Maybe the snow had broken the telescope. I turned the barrel toward me and brushed snow away. And then I saw it. A folded paper, wedged into the seal that held the lens in place. I pulled it out and unfolded it. Another piece of map, this one with two words:
Turn left.
    Where could my parents be sending me? The map, with trees and paths marked, was obviously not leading to anyplace inside our house.
    I rotated the telescope so that it pointed back out to the woods and peered through. With my left eye covered, I saw snow-kissed trees in detail through the scope. I uncovered my left eye, focusing hard, trying to see both the detail with my right eye and the distance with my left. Two things at the same time. A tree, individual and particular, and an entire snow-covered forest.
    I opened my sketchbook and drew the telescope’s outline, making the view finder large enough to show the detailed tree, leaving enough room on the page to sketch in the rest of the forest. As I sketched the tree in the lens-shaped circle, I was tempted to hurry through the branches. But I forced myself to draw these specific branches, this specific tree, the way Vivian had taught me. As I did, I realized the tree tilted at an odd angle, and the snow only tipped branches on one side. Had the wind blown off the rest? Had someone brushed past the tree?
    Questions flowed in with each pencil stroke. I hadn’t forgotten how to draw, how to look at things. Almost blue with cold, still my fingers flew across my page. I felt like me.
    I started scribbling notes beside my drawing, as Vivian had done in her sketchbook. Maybe this wasn’t technically the best drawing in the world, but after almost a month of nothing, my fingers finally felt free. I wasn’t tensing them, afraid of what might show up on the paper, or trying to perfectly copy from a book. I hadn’t realized how much I missed this feeling.
    The phone rang and I hurried downstairs to pick it up.
    “I’m going to talk to Doug tomorrow,” Ruth said. “About the family. Dad is going caroling with a bunch of people, and Doug will be there. I thought I should tell you.”
    “Ruth—”
    “Patch’s den is pretty far away from the shack.” Ruth pushed on, as