Embers (33 page)

"
They are, and it
'
s your fault. So now I have to tell you something I never thought I would. And dammit
—
your uncle Bill is not gonna take kindly to it.
"

Everett
stopped and waited while his daughter straightened a clump of top-heavy daisies that had flopped onto the narrow brick path. Then he took a deep breath and said,
"
Listen to me, Meggie: the summer of
'
48 was real, real hard on the family. Dad was out of work, Ma was gone. We almost lost the house.
"

Meg looked up from her daisies.
"
This house? Your house?
"

He nodded.
"
Bank was breathing down our necks like you wouldn
'
t believe. Lots of people got breaks, of course, because they
'
d lost everything in the fire. Everyone from the federal government to the Hairdressers Association rushed to help. But us, all
we
lost was our mother
—
our breadwinner,
"
he said with some bitterness.
"
That didn
'
t qualify us for a federal loan, and we didn
'
t need beds or lumber or a new refrigerator, so the Red Cross and Elks Club and such was no real help for us, either. It was a real predicament.

"
We thought things were all up. Then out of the blue comes Gordon Camplin and just like that, pays off three years on the mortgage. He knew our situation and felt sorry for us, y
'
see. It was an unbelievable kindness. It was all done nice and discreet-like, with lawyers and bankers. That
'
s how their kind do things.
"

Her father added,
"
We never even got to thank him in person. Dad
—
well, he wasn
'
t the type, and we were too young. Anyway, we were able to keep holding up our heads, and eventually Billy began makin
'
decent money, and then I started chipping in. But without Gordon Camplin
'
s help getting us over the hump, we
'
d have lost the house for sure.
"

Everett
stood there with his head still high, but with his chin trembling with emotion.

Meg was absolutely staggered by the news. It was like finding out that the man who broke into your house and assaulted your mother was Santa Claus.
"
No, that can
'
t
...
how could
...
I can
'
t believe
...
wait
a minute! Guilt! That
'
s why he helped you out
—
guilt, not pity!
"

Her father
'
s response to that surprised her.
"
Rich folk don
'
t feel guilt,
"
he said firmly.

"
They don
'
t feel pity, either,
"
she shot back.

"
You
'
re wrong. Pity makes them feel richer.
"

"
This is crazy, Dad,
"
she said impatiently.
"
He probably did it for some other reason altogether.
"

There was no answer to that, so Everett Atwells merely said,
"
I wish you would leave Gordon Camplin alone. And I wish you would stop fooling around with games of
...
magic.
"

Coming from him, it was the gravest of reprimands. Meg wondered exactly how much he
'
d heard about the spontaneous séance in the shed.

"
I
'
m not fooling around, Dad,
"
Meg said seriously, which was true, as far as it went.

"
Good. Then that
'
s that.
"
Everett Atwells sighed with relief
;
his duty as nominal head of the household was done.
"
Good night, sweetheart,
"
he said, dropping a quick kiss on his daughter
'
s cheek.
"
I
'
ll see you at the picnic. Not first thing, though; I
'
ll be off for a little fishin
'
first.
"

****

Comfort got up at four and made the sheet cake after all. Meg got up at six and frosted it for her. Then the sisters-in-law loaded the last of the food into the truck and drove it out to
uncle Billy
'
s. Meg came back alone to the Inn Between to fix breakfast for their guests before handing over the reins to a spinster cousin who absolutely hated picnics, people, and bugs of any kind and was willing to do anything, even babysit an inn, to get away from them.

Allie was off on what amounted to a scavenger hunt for Comfort, and Lloyd was in the cellar, tinkering with the Inn Between
'
s infuriating furnace. Since they were all going in one car
—
Tom
'
s
—
to ease the parking crunch at Uncle Billy
'
s, Meg had, for the moment, nothing to do but wait for everyone to assemble.

She was tighter than an overwound clock. It didn
'
t seem possible that now, of all times, the sense of overwhelming dread that she
'
d felt in the shed would return; but it had, and with a vengeance. Maybe it had something to do with the approaching confrontation with Gordon Camplin. As the dance drew nearer, her resolve was becoming fainter.

She wandered out to her garden, deliberately avoiding the shed and the dollhouse within, and was roused from her anxious reverie by an angry
chick-a-dee-dee-dee
sound issuing from a clump of privet. The bird feeder hanging in its branches was empty, and two hungry chickadees were demanding to know why. Meg smiled at the pair of fearless, tiny birds and went back to the house for a refill of sunflower seeds. When she returned the chickadees were still there, still scolding.

"
Me, me, me,
"
she said aloud to them.
"
You
'
re just like everyone else nowadays
—
selfish.
"

Meg decided, on a whim, to make them give her something in return. She scooped a handful of seed from the paper bag and held it out for them in her open palm. She would feed them if they would trust her: that was the trade.

She was standing very near the feeder; the birds could hardly mistake her meaning. They fluttered and darted around her
—
so close that she could feel the breath of their wings on her cheek
—
but for all their boldne
ss, they continued to hesi
tate.

Chick-a-dee-dee-dee! Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!

I
'
m sorry,
she said, communicating with them through the stillness of her pose.
If you want
it
,
you'll
have to come get it.

One of the pair
—
hungrier or
braver or simply more trusting
—
made a darting pass at her hand, then swerved away at the last minute to the safety of the privet.

Almost,
she thought, daring to smile. It occurred to her that her arm should be tired, but the thought
—
along with her depression, her anxiety, her restlessness
—
faded away, lost in the simple act of watching a small bird feed.

The chickadee made a decision; she could see it in his eyes.

Here I come,
it said with fine bravado.
Get ready.

The bird landed lightly on her forefinger, then scooped up the first sunflower seed it saw and flew away with it to the privet. The other bird, somewhat reassured, hopped to a branch a little bit closer to her.

Meg waited.

****

When Tom couldn
'
t find Meg in the kitchen he turned instinctively to the garden, and that was where he was now, watching her.

It was extraordinary. She was standing as still as a statue, with her open hand extended, while two small black-and-white birds with pale
cream
breasts took turns picking seeds from it. He
'
d never seen anything like it. One of the birds was even ba
l
lsy enough to be picking over the seed in her hand
—
looking for a good one, apparently
—
and throwing the ones he didn
'
t like over the side. Unbelievable.

Meg looked absolutely beautiful just then, graceful and still and utterly at one with the garden around her. Her T-shirt of camouflage green and her khaki-colored shorts reinforced the illusion; her
chestnut hair
gleamed in the morning light that filtered
through a shade tree overhead. Her legs
—
straight and strong and tanned
—
suggested an athleticism that struck him as positively erotic. And her face! How had he not noticed her face before? With its straight nose and gently squared chin, her face in profile had the classic balance of Greek statuary.

Diana,
he realized at once. A goddess of power and serenity and uncommon fierceness. The Greeks called her the Lady of Wild Things. Oh, yes. The image perfectly matched the woman standing there with her hand outstretched to the birds around her.

He was awed by the sight. And in some way that he didn
'
t understand, intimidated by it.

He made a move to turn and go, and that shattered the moment. Suddenly Meg was aware of him. She threw down the seed, the birds flew away to hide and scold, and Meg became all business, funneling a paper bag into the top of the feeder. He felt like a director who
'
s yelled
"
Action!
"

"
Good morning, Lieutenant; all set to go?
"
she asked in a voice so casually offhand that it was actually irritating. Didn
'
t she understand how overwhelmed he
'
d been?

"
Yeah, sure,
"
he answered, still shaken by the vision of her.
"
Where is everyone?
"

Meg told him and then said,
"
So we have a little time. I was just topping off the feeders,
" she explained, clearly self-
conscious.

"
I
'
ve never seen birds so tame,
"
he confessed.
"
Are they house pets?
"

She laughed, and the sound of her laughter was like the sound of water falling from a high place.

"
They
'
re chickadees,
"
she said,
"
and they
are
the tamest things around. Would you like to try feeding these two?
"

How could he say no? He felt as if he
'
d been invited into a secret place. Risking the chance that he
'
d look like a fool, he let Meg pour a handful of seeds into the palm of his hand, then held it out toward the clump of privet just as he
'
d seen her do. The curved bench was close by; Meg sat on it without a word and watched him. He didn
'
t dare turn to look at her; he only stood, stone-still, holding out his arm, which ached like hell after twenty seconds.

The chickadees weren
'
t buying it. They flew off to a nearby small tree covered with lilac flowers.
Damn it,
he thought. Rejected by a chickadee. It couldn
'
t get any worse than that. Maybe he was too big. Maybe he was too garishly dressed: He was wearing a yellow Day-G
lo
T-shirt with big letters that phonetically spelled
BA
HA BA, just the way the locals said it.