Before Wings (18 page)

“No, no, no,” said another. “Say it slower or she’ll never remember. My son forgets every day and I’ve been telling him for years.
Proshoo
, dear,” she enunciated clearly.

“
Proshoo
,” repeated Adrien.

“She has it!” they exclaimed simultaneously.

“Could someone
proshoo
tell me what’s going on with my aunt?” asked Adrien.

The hairnets broke into a volley of Ukrainian, shaking their heads at each other, then turned back to their pots. Adrien knew the signs. There was no point in pushing this one any further.

“Well, could you tell me when Paul Marchand’s birthday is,
proshoo
?” she asked loudly.

The smiles came back. “We’ve ordered the cake. Such a nice cake. Sixteen candles. He’ll need a big kiss,
proshoo
.”

Adrien flushed but held their eyes determinedly. “What day,
exactly
?”

“It’s a secret,” they grinned. “Practice that pucker. Make it good for him.”

It was tough to keep smiling for the seven-year-olds, even Tamai’s group. Fortunately no one noticed her mood, even Aunt Erin’s fan-for-life, who came through at 10:50.

“I see you’re wearing a very ugly T-shirt today,” Adrien said, placing the requested Caramilk bar on the counter.

“It’s not so bad,” conceded the girl, pulling it out from
her chest and assessing it.

“Looks better upside down?”

The girl flashed her a grin.

“You’re doing great with the flag,” Adrien told her.

The girl took the Caramilk bar and stood a moment, smiling at her. “I like it here.”

“Me too,” said Adrien.

Darcie appeared behind the girl, waving something. “I got mail!”

“How come you’re not at the range?”

“It’s raining. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Just spitting. Robin Hood wouldn’t let a few drops of water get him down.”

“Robin Hood didn’t have to teach archery to giggling eleven-year-old girls,” scowled Darcie. She hung around as two more cabins came through, then helped close the store for lunch. Adrien carried the till into the office, her roommate at her heels. “Now, finally,” said Darcie. “I can show you.” She pulled a stack of photos out of a mail-order envelope. “Remember that picture I took of you and your aunt last week? I had two copies made. Here’s yours.”

Setting down the till, Adrien gave the photograph a casual glance and her mouth dropped. Darcie had captured them standing on the porch, leaning over the rail and looking down into the camera. Both seemed caught off guard, between expressions, somewhere within themselves. Except for differences in age and hair color, they could have been the same person.

Darcie laughed and elbowed her. “You’re as gorgeous as she is, Grouch. Didn’t you ever notice?”

Gwen got up from her desk and leaned over Adrien’s shoulder, nodding without surprise. “Like mother and daughter, aren’t they?”

“Sisters,” said Darcie. “I’ll get another copy made for your aunt.”

“Make it for me,” Adrien said suddenly. “I’ll take her this one.”

Gwen put an arm around her. “My guess is she’d like it today.”

“That’s what I thought,” Adrien said.

Gwen’s eyes were thoughtful. “How about now, Grouch?”

Adrien paused at the top of the stairs to the master cabin, pressed her forehead against the screen door and listened to the muffled crying that came from inside. She was about to step into the eye of the storm that whirled around everyone at this camp, the invisible mysterious storm no one would acknowledge. Without knocking, she opened the door and entered. The crying came from the bedroom, where her aunt lay on the bed, her face shoved into a pillow to keep herself quiet, her body moving in waves of grief.

“Aunt Erin?”

Her aunt lifted a startled face and stared at Adrien as if she didn’t recognize her. Her cheeks were blotchy, her eyes swollen. She reached for a box of Kleenex and blew her nose, then lay down again, burying her face in the pillow. Adrien stepped into the silence, walked to the bed and sat down.

“I brought you something.” She laid the photograph
next to the pillow. “Please look.”

Slowly her aunt turned and saw the picture. She picked it up and held it close to her face. “That’s amazing,” she whispered.

“I like looking like you,” Adrien said.

Her aunt’s eyes faltered.

“I like being like you,” Adrien added.

Her aunt gave a short wry laugh. “True, isn’t it? Two peas in a pod.”

“The pod’s okay too.”

Her aunt sighed. “Haven’t been a good aunt. It’s just this week. Things’ll get better. Take you out for supper next week, just the two of us.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll put this picture on my wall,” her aunt added. “Next to my desk.”

“Please put the other one away,” Adrien said quietly. “In a photo album, where it belongs.”

Her aunt breathed in sharply, then pulled the picture of the eight girls from under her pillow and laid it between them. The air pulsed with the unspoken.

“They look like they were very happy,” said Adrien. “These five.” She touched their faces gently. “They look happier than most people ever get to be. So do you.”

“Yes,” her aunt said faintly.

Adrien knew she had to respect her aunt’s wall of silence. “Well, I think they loved you very much. They wouldn’t want you to be unhappy, like you are now.”

Her aunt lay without speaking, looking at the two photographs.

“Neither do I,” added Adrien.

A few tears slid down her aunt’s cheek.

“Can I bring you some lunch?”

“I’m not hungry,” said her aunt.

“Yes, you are,” said Adrien. “I’m going to get you some lunch right now.”

She left the room quickly, took the outside steps in one jump and hit the ground running. Minutes later, she returned with a plate piled high with macaroni and coleslaw. “Drink the milk,” she said, setting a full glass on the night table. “Good for you.”

Her aunt sat up. “Never forget a word I say, do you?”

“No.”

Her aunt smiled faintly. “Have to watch my step.” She reached for the fork and began to eat. “I am hungry.”

“You eat every single bite,” Adrien said softly. “I love you, Erin Wood.”

The words hovered between them like insect wings, flickering in a gold-green downshaft of light. Then Adrien slipped out of her aunt’s startled stare and headed for the cabin’s front door, which stood wide open to the storm clouds building over the lake.

fourteen

When the whine of a chainsaw tore through the late afternoon, Adrien understood immediately. Ignoring a cabin of eleven-year-old boys who were arguing about the difference between Coke and Pepsi, she climbed over the Tuck’n Tack counter, pushed through their astonished faces and took off for the Wishing Tree. The rain had let up; she flew through the still-dripping trees unaware of the looks campers were giving her, of Tamai calling her name. The chainsaw whine cut deeper into her head, split her brain into a white grinding heat, and the screaming of wood filled her. She could feel the groan of a great gleaming spirit tilt, lean, begin its fall toward earth. With it went the wishes, the broken-hearted questing wishes, the whispering hearts. Filled with
their falling, dizzy with it, Adrien burst into the clearing and spotted Guy bent over a fallen Wishing Tree. She launched herself. There was the long shock of bodies hitting ground, then the two of them struggling in the wet grass.

Abruptly, the metallic whine cut off. Paul leaned over them, holding the chainsaw. “Let her go, Guy.”

“Are you crazy? She went for me!” Guy had Adrien pinned and was staring down at her, his eyes bugging. “She’s totally lost her friggin’ mind!”

“You’re cutting down that tree because Aunt Erin’s sick,” Adrien yelled, still fighting. “She wouldn’t let you do it. That tree is sacred. You’re killing the wishes of children. You’re cutting down their hearts.”

Guy’s face changed. “Grouch,” he said into her face. “Listen to me, Grouch. Hey, Adrien!”

She stopped struggling.

“We’re cutting the
fallen
half,” Guy said dramatically. “Not the standing part. We’ve attached guide ropes, see? Take a look.”

Cautiously, she turned her head. Five yellow support ropes ran from the standing trunk into the ground.

“Can I let you up now, or are you still going to kill me?” asked Guy. Shamefaced, she nodded and he released her, groaning as he straightened. “Where’d you learn to tackle—the Roughriders? Geez, I wasn’t even cutting the damn thing. Why’d you go for me?”

“I saw you first.” Adrien was soaked and her body felt battered. Paul gave her a hand and she stood, hugging herself. “You can’t do anything to the fallen part,” she insisted, her teeth chattering. “It’s not dead yet.”

“It will be soon.” Guy reached for the chainsaw.

“No!” Adrien yelled, stepping in front of him. “Its soul is still in there. You’ll murder it.”

“It can wait, Guy,” said Paul.

Guy looked from one of them to the other, shaking his head. “This has got to be one of the craziest moments of my sweet life,” he muttered. “All right, put some warning flags around it. You know where they are, Paul?”

“I’ll do it right away,” Paul promised. “I would’ve done this last week,” Guy said, “but Erin kept putting me off. She’s as crazy as you are.”

Giving Adrien one last incredulous look, he left. Adrien walked to the tree and knelt by the fallen half. Not much had been removed, a few branches. She put both hands on the charred bark, sent her wish deep inside and waited, but there was nothing. And then there was. A delicate tingling passed from the fallen trunk into her hands, up her arms and into her chest. She was filled with a shimmering emerald light, and singing was in the air.

It was night. A crescent moon held the center of the sky above the clearing. Five girls dressed in cotton nighties walked through the trees, holding hands and singing. Adrien continued kneeling as they approached, watching Roberta lead the girls toward her. Sherry was second in line, her long red hair a wild tangle to her waist, then Cath, Debbie and last of all Nat, in an oversized Snoopy T-shirt. The girls circled the Wishing Tree, Roberta and Nat joined hands, and the five began to sway. Their voices changed, going deep into their throats. The sound was muffled, half-buried, as if they had gone down into themselves and were struggling to find something. They began to writhe in pain—Adrien could see their hurt as the girls’ eyes closed and their faces lifted toward the tree’s whispering leaves, sadness pouring from their mouths. It was the same sadness she felt within herself, constant, never letting go. She stood and stepped into their circle. The girls didn’t stop writhing, but room was made for her—she felt Roberta and Nat take her hands. Adrien’s head fell back and she let her own sadness take her completely; her body swayed and twisted with theirs, her voice a corkscrew of grief. She didn’t know why she was crying, only that grief was a song to be sung, part of the beauty of the night, and her body craved it, became more lovely as the song was released. As the girls danced and sang, their music passed into the Wishing Tree, rose along the glow of its bark into the dark whispering leaves. Then it was over, the girls’ sorrow released, their faces shining with joy. Watching the peace on Sherry’s face, Adrien wished that just once, this girl’s mother could have seen her daughter like this.

“Now we’ll make our wishes!” cried Roberta, coming out of the moment of quiet. “Bums up!”

Giggles bubbled as the girls turned their backs to the tree, flipped up their nighties and pressed their bare bums to the trunk. Amid cries of glee, they danced around the clearing, breasts jiggling, arms waving, the tree in a slow dark laugh above them.

Adrien returned to a late Wednesday afternoon to find herself standing under the Wishing Tree, the clouds above her opening onto a clear blue sky. She turned to Paul, her face radiant.

“Adrien,” he whispered, and she wondered what he saw—places opening around her head, angels reaching through?

“Did you see them?” she asked. “The girls, here around the tree.”

“Just you,” he said. “Singing.”

She reached for him, wanting the warmth of closeness. “Everything came together,” she said into his neck. “Happiness and sadness, crying and laughter, the night and the light. Everything touched, and now it’s the same heart beating. It used to be war, opposites fighting, but not anymore. D’you know what I mean?”

“You were singing the kind of song where you let everything go,” he whispered, pulling her tighter. “What if it’s you? What if you die instead of me?”

“No.” She was certain. “It’s not like that. It’s not a trade-off. It’s each of us, making our own way.”

“Oh god.” He covered his face. “My birthday’s tomorrow and I’m not ready. I don’t know enough—when it’ll happen or how. If I’m going to die or if you will. I thought I could figure it out and beat it, but I can’t. What’m I supposed to do?”

“It’s your birthday,” she said. “Somehow you’ll know.”

“What if I’m wrong?”

“You won’t be. And I’ll be there too—you dreamed it.”

They held onto each other.

“Make a wish,” she said. “Touch the tree and wish.”

“I’m touching you,” said Paul. “That’s my wish.”

He left, not knowing whether to stay or leave, and she stood in the middle of the road, watching the wings that glistened on his back as he rode away. She ate supper in a dull exhaustion, then crawled into Darcie’s bed, sleep closing like water over her head. When she woke it was dark,
rain fell steadily outside, the calm even breathing of girls surrounded her.

Darcie’s clock read 1:22. Heart quickening, Adrien sat up. Her clothing had dried and stuck to her skin. Her shoes were lost somewhere in the corners of the room. She crept over the sleeping girls, down the hall and out into the night.

It was raining; the moon glimmered faintly through fast-blowing clouds. She reached the lawn and began to run, headed for the lake. At the end of the dock she could see a single canoe slipping into the water, carrying five giggling fifteen-year-old girls. Their night held the same rain, but Adrien could see the girls as clearly as if she was in the overloaded canoe with them—Roberta at the prow, Nat at the stern, Sherry, Cath and Debbie between them.