Amber House (10 page)

We stopped at the delicatessen next, in a less ritzy neighborhood of Baltimore. Sam got his promised chocolate malt and his standard turkey and lettuce on white. Then we finally headed for Dad’s hospital.

Dad met us at Johns Hopkins’s old main entrance. He exclaimed, “Golly, honey, what happened to you?” as he bent down and shined into my eyes one of those little flashlight dealies doctors always carry. I guessed I passed the test, because he moved right on to the next featured event: a V.I.P. tour. This involved climbing all the stairs in the hospital’s old rotunda right past
the several
RESTRICTED AREA
signs, up into the cupola at the very top.

I counted steps as Dad started in telling us all about the hospital’s founder,
Mr.
Johns Hopkins. The Hopkins family were Quakers who freed all their slaves sixty years before the rest of the country did, forcing Hopkins to drop out of school and work the fields in their place.

At about one hundred steps into our climb, Sammy and I were hearing all about how Hopkins went on to make a fortune in business, but he also had a piece of bad luck: “He fell in love with his first cousin, Elizabeth,” Dad informed us.

Not smart
, I thought to myself, still counting —
137, 138. You don’t want to fall in love with your cousins
.

Neither one of this tragic pair ever got married, Dad continued, which left Hopkins with a ton of money and no one to leave it to. So he came up with this genius idea of starting a hospital wedded to a medical school.
169, 170.
I was breathless, with the start of a stitch in my side.

“That union of school and hospital,” my father informed us, wheezing quite a bit himself by that point, “sparked a scholarly pursuit of medicine that produced some of the greatest medical discoveries of the twentieth century.”

We all concentrated on climbing as we spiraled up around the inside of the cupola, ducked through a trapdoor to another platform, and hit a last sixty-six steps that were so narrow you had to turn your feet sideways to fit on them. One more trapdoor —
231, 232
— and suddenly, all of Baltimore was below us. My legs felt like lead, but the view was worth the climb. I took some pictures to send to Jecie.

And Dad finally caught his breath. “Just think,” he said, “if Hopkins had been able to finish school, or if he’d married his cousin, or if he’d fallen in love with somebody else, he probably wouldn’t have founded this hospital and university. And then the
thousands of people treated in the hospital, and the millions of people who have benefited from Hopkins research, maybe would have died. All of history is like that — built on an infinite number of almost random events that come together to push things this way or that. If one little thing was changed, well …” Dad shrugged.

I finished the sentence in my head.
The whole world might be too.

We had dinner with Dad and then hooked back up with Mom. The drive home was quiet. Sammy dozed. Mom focused on the road and her thoughts. I could tell she was feeling satisfied with the progress she had made pulling together whatever huge public display she was planning. She’d picked up both her dress and the invitations, and they were safely stowed in the back of the car.

When we got home, the house was dark, except for the exterior light. Sammy and I stumbled inside while Mom emptied her hands so she could turn off the front light and turn on the hall light.

“Sarah,” Sam whispered to me. I bent down to hear. He raised his finger, pointing. “Why’s she in the mirror?”

“What?” I turned to look. The lights blazed.

And I didn’t see anything in the mirror — no reflected portrait, no pattern in the glass, no face at all. I turned back to Sammy. “What do you mean?”

But Sammy had already moved on.

Mom carried her invitations to the office on the lower floor of the west wing and settled in for what I assumed was some party planning, so I took the opportunity to poke around the east
wing. “Come with me, Sam,” I said. I wasn’t up for solitary explorations yet.

Gramma’s room was on the right, toward the river. It was a large room with its own private bath and this cool octagonal nook in one corner. The bedding, a little sofa, and two chairs were all done in a modern floral chintz, and most of the rest of the furniture was of recent vintage, which surprised me. Maybe Gramma just didn’t want to be surrounded by the past in the room where she slept.

The only exception to all the twentieth-century coziness was an antique cradle in the corner. I wondered if Gramma could touch that cradle and still see her baby sleeping in it.

Across from Gramma’s room was the Chinoise Room, which was filled with all kinds of things from the Far East: vases and boxes and artwork, and an elaborate dresser trimmed in brass. I shut the door without going in — looked like a bunch of stuff that Sammy could easily break.

The final room in the wing occupied its entire end, from the riverside to the front. It was mostly empty, with a rich, patterned parquet floor — I guessed it was a ballroom. At one end, there was a little fenced-in area that I assumed kept the musicians safe from the whirling dancers. The far wall was all French doors that led to a brick porch and stairs beyond.

The empty echoiness of the room got me to wondering if I could
make
myself see something from the past — if I could summon it up at will. While Sammy spun in tight circles in the center with the evident purpose of making himself dizzy, I went over to touch the gate to the musicians’ area. I gripped the wood until it was pressing a pattern in my flesh, bent my head and concentrated, and heard, saw —

Not a thing. I finally let go, feeling a little ridiculous.
How do psychics do it?
I wondered. It was not much of a gift if I couldn’t even control when it happened. If it ever happened again.

I shrugged and twirled back across the floor toward Sam in a remembered step from second-grade ballet, imagining the music of a waltz. I hit the light switch and reached for the door handle —

And a golden glow blazed behind me. Real music replaced my imagined notes, together with the sounds of feet sliding across the floor, of dozens of people talking. I turned around to see a dance, a ball in full progress, with women in hooped dresses all doing the exact same steps opposite a line of men in tailed jackets.
An echo
, I thought, surprised and pleased.
I found one.

My eyes were drawn to a pretty girl in palest pink with ivory skin and hair almost black. She looked — familiar.
A relative?
She might have been one of my distant grandmothers.
This isn’t so bad
, I thought,
isn’t so frightening.
It was, in fact, something like magic, like being
in
a movie, and I stood, caught by it, enchanted, until I heard my little brother’s voice.

“Wake up, Sarah. I want to go.”

Then the vision of pastel dancers disappeared like a TV set shutting off, and the room returned to darkness. I felt a little disappointed; I wanted it back. Which made me smile at myself. When the echoes didn’t involve a crazy woman screaming at you in a pitch-black attic, they were pretty okay. Interesting.

“Fine, Sam, let’s go.”

As I followed my little brother down the hall, I was humming a snatch of music that I had never heard before, music that had not been played inside those walls for centuries.

The girl in the mirror had a pleasant face surrounded by ringlets of darkest brown. She — I — caught up a stray lock with a hairpin and nodded at my reflection, satisfied. I exited my room and knocked on the next door down the hall. “Are you in there?”

“Sarah-Louise! Come in.”

The boy sat at a table spread with tools and pieces of wood. He brushed glue on a dovetailed edge that he fitted to the exactly obverse dovetails of another piece. His face was pale and hollowed. My brother. Matty.

“Dearest,” I said. “You should not be working.”

“I am all done with the hard work, Sarah,” he said. “Now I have only the pegging and gluing to finish.”

“Do it tomorrow, or next week, when you are feeling stronger.”

He smiled and shook his head. “You and I must not pretend with each other. We must always be truthful.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. I wiped them angrily. “Forgive me.”

“Sit. Help me. I want to finish this thing. I want people to see it a hundred years from now and say, ‘What a clever young man he must have been.’ You shall have it and you shall keep your most valued treasures in it and always think of me.”

“Yes,” I said with tight huskiness, as I — she — sat down to help her brother.

He smiled and touched her hand. “Sarah.”

“Sarah.”

I could hear Sammy’s voice from a faraway place, but I did not want to answer him. It was safe here in the boy’s room, and there were cold shadows all around, at the edges of my vision. I did not want to leave.

“Sarah. Wake up, Sarah.”

Sammy was patting my hand with his small, pudgy one. I sat up into the morning’s cheerful light with my dream still caught in my head. I thought I knew those faces. Had seen them in one of the paintings on the walls.

Such an odd dream. So sad. So real.
Have I been hearing echoes in my sleep?
I wondered.
But then why did I seem to be
in
the echo, instead of just watching it?

Who in the world would know the answer to that? I put the question aside; I had no time to think about it at the moment. I had a big day ahead. Sailing with Richard, the senator’s son.

“What are you up to, Samwise?” I asked.

“Up
for
, Sarah. I am up
for
breakfast. Come with me.” He tugged at my hand.

“Okay,” I said, smiling.

It was French toast that morning, fried a golden brown. Another irresistible offering from Rose, who was still helping Mom, and still taking nutritional mercy on Sammy and, as a seeming afterthought, me.

When we were through with the toast, I parked Sammy in front of a cartoon on the TV in Gramma’s room and took a shower in the bathroom near the kitchen, which was a
lot
warmer and cozier than the tiled bath upstairs. As I headed to my mother’s room to borrow her hair dryer, I detoured to answer a knock at the front door. I opened it to a middle-aged woman who, thank
fully, didn’t look like she was going to care too much about my towel head.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

“I’m the calligrapher,” she said, a bit impatiently.

“Um, what?”

“I’m the calligrapher.” She looked at a slip of paper in her hand. “Anne Parsons hired me? To do the invitations?” I must still have looked confused, because she added, “I handwrite addresses.”

“Oh, God, really?” I said, letting her in. I guessed that must have seemed a bit rude, because she frowned at me. But honestly, there were people who did that for a living?

I showed her to the office and rushed back to Gramma’s bathroom — my hair was drying into a wavy mess. Thirty minutes later, it was blown, straightened, and sporting a slight curl on the ends. I’d done my best with the lump-concealment routine, and then I’d managed a quickie manicure. A spritz with floral-citrus Sunrise, a little eyeliner and lip gloss, and I thought was looking pretty good. For me. With a black-and-blue contusion. Sigh.

I’d decided on a white tank layered under a wide-striped blue and white shirt, with my favorite jacket, a couple of bracelets, and a beaded necklace. I looked in the mirror. Okay, skip the necklace. Didn’t want him thinking I was trying too hard.

Except — it just didn’t seem right. The jacket was a little too baggy. Plus, it bunched oddly if I didn’t tug it down all the time. Which I’d probably forget to do.

God. Back up the stairs to my suitcase. What about long sleeves? Too stuffy. Capris? Maybe if my legs were tan. I clenched my teeth against mounting panic.

After ten minutes of manic changing, I headed into the kitchen in the outfit I started with —
sans
earrings and bracelets, plus necklace.

Rose gave me the once-over. “Got yourself all ready for your date?”

“What? No.” I could feel myself flush. “It’s not a date, Rose, we’re just going sailing.”

“Mm-hm.” She handed me a plastic-wrapped package. “I made you some brownies to take along. Can’t go empty-handed — that’s low-class.”

Ouch. I hadn’t even thought about bringing anything. “Wow, Rose, that’s incredibly thoughtful of you. Thank you.”

“You keep an eye on that boy. I hope he’s better behaved than his father was at his age.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m not a little kid.”

“No indeed.” She snorted. “You’re almost sixteen. Need some aspirin? That still hurt?”

“What? Oh.” The bump. The concealment thing was evidently not doing its job. “I know where the bottle is, Rose, thanks.” She turned to go. “Um,” I stopped her, “is Jackson around?”

“He’s working in the garden. Behind the east wing.”

“Thanks,” I said, and ducked out into the gallery and through the French doors. I came out on a stone path that led to the left, branched right along a hedge wall, and became a set of steps between formal flower beds. I spotted Jackson bent over one of these, trowel in hand. Despite the warmth of the day, he was wearing a long-sleeve shirt to work in. When he saw me, he sat back on the low wall of the bed.

“Planting,” I said, “or digging up?”

“Planting,” he answered, pointing to a pile of bulbs. “Ida asked me to put these in about a month ago. And I thought I’d just do that last thing for her. Fall is the best time to put in narcissus.” He added for the botanically impaired — me, “Daffodils.”

“Ah.”

He changed the subject. “You look very nice.” And I thought to myself how formally polite that sounded. I wondered what had happened to the guy who’d been chatting with me so casually in the attic, but maybe, given the way the night had ended —

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m going sailing.”

“With Richard Hathaway.”

He knows? How? Like it’s any of his business.
I swallowed my annoyance, saying, “I’m just glad to have a chance to get out on the water. I love to sail.”

“You can take the
Liquid Amber
anytime. I got her all ready for you.”

“For me?” I repeated, a little stupidly.
Right, genius. That was
you
plural, as in
your family.
New subject.
“That was nice of you. Do you sail?”

“Ida used to let me take the
Amber
out. She said a boat that didn’t sail regularly lost her wings. The
Amber
is old, but I bet she’s faster than Richard Hathaway’s boat.”

He waited. I scrambled to find words. “Look,” I said, “about that echo thing —”

“Yes?”

“Maybe I’m okay with it. For now. I mean, it’s still pretty creepy, but I’m willing to keep looking, if you want.”

He did that thing again, where you could see a whole series of thoughts or feelings flickering in his eyes while the rest of his face stayed perfectly impassive. I wondered what was going on in there; I wondered what he was hiding so carefully.

“Tonight?” he said.

“Yeah. Same time, same place?”

“Sure.”

As long as I had him cornered, I decided I’d ask all my pending questions. “How come you called my brother Samwise the other day?”

“Just a little nickname. Seemed to settle him.”

“That’s what I call him.”

“Really?” He shrugged. “I guess that’s why he responded to it.”

“You like Tolkien?” I asked. Which of course was where I’d gotten the nickname, from my favorite hobbit — Samwise Gamgee.

“Not so much,” he said with a tight smile. “I have a friend who loves The Lord of the Rings. I read it because of her.”

He must
really
like her
, I thought,
to wade through twelve hundred pages of a fantasy he didn’t enjoy.
“It’s one of my favorites too.”

He nodded. Silence settled over us, and I realized he was watching me again, like he was assessing me. “Well,” I said shortly, “gotta go.”

He responded with a bland look. “Have a good time. Don’t let Hathaway kill you.”

“I’ll try,” I said faintly, and turned on my heel. I headed back to the kitchen to collect Rose’s package of brownies, then went to the office in the west wing to tell my mother I was leaving.

Mom was hard at work beside the calligrapher, stuffing envelopes and crossing names off a list the senator had sent over.

“I’ll see you later,” I said.

She looked up. Her face softened into a smile of approval. My ensemble had passed the test. “Have fun.”

I resented the relief I thought I read in my mother’s face. I mean, I knew she thought I should have had a boyfriend long before, or at least been “dating,” whatever that meant anymore. Not that she’d said anything.
Directly.
Just made those little side comments that kind of drive you crazy, like “Oh,
Jecie’s
going to prom?” She was probably
thrilled
I was finally doing
some
thing with
some
one.
Whatever
, I thought.

“Thanks,” I said. And headed out the sunroom doors.

Richard was waiting when I got to the bottom of the stone stairs. The
Swallow
was larger than the
Amber
, and much newer. A beauty.

“Nice boat,” I said, admiring.

“Nice necklace,” he said, doing the same. “What happened?”

Confused, I felt for my beads.

“No,” he laughed. “I meant to your
head
.”

Oh, right. Wonderful.
“Yeah, see, I had this really
big
idea last night …”

“Ah-ha-ha,” he said in mock hilarity, smiling.

Silence settled — it was evidently still my turn. Slightly panicky, I held out the brownies and blurted, “Provisions. In case we get marooned.” And instantly regretted it. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t even cute, it was just —

“Great,” Richard said, smiling. He took the heavy bag from me and hefted it speculatively, as if it weighed a ton. “Bring any for yourself, Parsons?”

Now see? That was cute.

I gave him a grin, took the hand he offered, and climbed aboard. He put the brownies on top of a bulging picnic basket, jumped to the dock, cast off the line, and heaved the hull forward. As it slid away from the dock, he skillfully leapt back aboard. “You’re at the tiller, okay?”