Fabulous Creature (16 page)

With calm efficiency the young woman simultaneously looked James over, tucked the dust mop under her arm, adjusted her kerchief and chewed a cheekful of gum. “Yes?” she said at last without breaking the brisk rhythm of her jaws; and then, “The Westmorelands aren’t home, except for the kids.”

“Oh—well—actually I came to see the kids,” James said. “That is, I came to see Griffin—Griffith, that is. I’m James Fielding.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll see if I can find her. She’s around here someplace.” She started to close the door but after scrutinizing James again carefully, apparently decided he looked harmless. “Would you like to come in?”

Seated on one of the transparent chairs, James had been waiting for several minutes when Griffin came into the room. She was wearing jeans, a faded cotton shirt and was, as usual, barefooted. But now that Charlotte had mentioned it, he could see a slight resemblance to her mother. What had seemed only odd before, from a different perspective could be seen as an unfinished version of exotic elegance. As she saw James, her surprising smile lit up her face.

When the young woman, whom Griffin introduced as Cynthia-our-new-live-in, left the room, James got right to the point and Griffin admitted everything. Yes, she had been going to the valley since he’d taken her there. James was indignant. “I didn’t say you could go there by yourself,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t go by myself,” she said. “Woody and Laurel go with me.“

“Woody and Laurel!” He was not only indignant but aghast as well. “Look. That is very, very dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” She didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. “What’s dangerous about it?”

“Well, the cliff trail in the first place. That whole stretch just before you get to the top. If you fell from there, you’d be lucky to live through it.”

“But we’re very careful, all of us. I make sure the kids are very careful.”

“And it’s not just the cliff. It’s the deer, too. He
is
a wild animal and a very powerful one, too. He’s never shown any sign of wanting to hurt me, but you never really know what a wild animal is going to do. Particularly around little kids. If they annoyed him or made him feel cornered—”

She was shaking her head, smiling knowingly. “He won’t hurt them,” she said.

“How can you be sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He looked at her carefully. She was wrong, of course. There was no way anyone could be sure about a think like that. She obviously didn’t know what she was talking about, but she looked so calmly confident you could almost believe she did. He decided to change his approach.

“And it’s dangerous for him, too, for the deer. You can’t count on kids that young keeping their mouths shut. I guess Woody’s fairly safe. At least, he’s usually around where you can keep your eye on him, but Laurel…” He shook his head. “Around all those other Jarretts—and she must know how much they’d love to get their hands on him…”

Griffin was almost laughing. “Laurel wouldn’t tell. Nothing in the whole world could make Laurel tell.”

“I don’t see how you can be so sure.”

She looked thoughtful. “I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “I guess it’s just that I know her so well. I know what she’s thinking and how she feels about everything.”

He shrugged impatiently. He supposed she thought she knew what the deer was thinking and how it felt about things, too. The thought angered him. He had been the one who had found the deer and who had slowly and patiently trained it to accept his presence.

“How many times have you been there?” he asked.

“To the stag’s valley?”

“Yes. How many times have you taken the kids there?”

“I’m not sure. Seven or eight times, or maybe nine. Every day but one, I think, since you took me there.”

He shook his head letting his expression say that he wasn’t going to swallow that one. He was definitely getting the impression that Griffin was indulging in one of her creative narratives. “That would mean you’ve been gone three or four hours out of every day—more than that probably with little kids along, and nobody’s noticed? Don’t your parents ever check up on you? And how about Laurel’s parents?”

“Laurel’s parents have gone to Europe. And Susie, that’s her sitter, has been very busy with a new boyfriend lately. She lets Laurel leave every day at nine o’clock because her boyfriend’s the new life guard, and that’s when she goes to meet him at the pool. So we meet at the Nymph’s Grove every day at nine thirty, and then we go to see the Stag. And it doesn’t matter about our parents. They don’t care how much time we spend in the woods. They know I’ll take good care of Woody.”

“Griffin.” Cynthia had come back into the room carrying a wastepaper basket. “You’d better go see about Woody. He’s sitting up in that tree out back, crying. He won’t talk to me, but I think he’s afraid to climb down.”

Griffin jumped up and ran from the room, and Cynthia flopped down into a chair and began tucking strands of hair back under the red kerchief, while she looked at James with frank curiosity.

“Do you live here at The Camp?” she asked.

He explained about the Willowby arrangement and about how he didn’t really know the Westmorelands except that he’d met the kids and he just dropped by to ask Griffin a question.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I know about the Willowby place. We used to hike up there a long time ago, before they built this place and cut off the path. I live in New Moon. That is, I did until I moved into this”—she gestured with both arms—“madhouse.”

“Madhouse?”

She shrugged. “Well, in a manner of speaking. Crazy parties and all kinds of weird people. Oh, the kids are all right, Griffin and Woody. A little weird, but all right. But some of the rest of them—”

“Crazy parties?” James prompted.

She raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes. “Cra-zee!” she said. “Like, a couple of days ago the house was full of people, and one of them was some sort of guru who had everyone taking some kind of dope and lying around contemplating their own deaths. And last week it was a woman who supposedly was going to teach everyone to levitate. By the time that party was over, hardly anyone was on their feet, all right, but it wasn’t because they were floating, at least not physically.”

James couldn’t help grinning. “It does sound pretty far out.”

“Far out doesn’t even touch it. I told my fiancée about some of the things that go on here, and he wants me to quit right away. But we need the money, and besides, I don’t really have to have anything to do with any of the people here except the kids. I’m just supposed to be around to see that they get fed and that sort of thing, and to be here with them at night. I don’t even have to cook when their parents are here. They always bring their own help with them. It’s really an easy job.”

“Yes, I guess it would be. And I suppose the kids aren’t much trouble. That is, they’re off on their own pretty much during the day, aren’t they?”

Cynthia looked at him sharply. “Yeah,” she said. “They like to play in the woods. Mrs. Westmoreland said it was all right to let them.” The friendly expression had been replaced by a defensive suspicion, as if she were suddenly seeing James as a spy for the Westmorelands—someone who’d been sent to make sure she was doing a good job. “Mrs. Westmoreland said the kids have always practically lived in woods whenever they were here at The Camp. She said she didn’t know how she happened to produce a couple of aborigines.” Cynthia leaned back languidly and flourished an imaginary cigarette in a dramatic gesture. “I can’t explain it, darling. They certainly didn’t get it from me. A sidewalk cafe is about as outdoorsy as I care to get.” She checked the effect of her pantomime on James and then added firmly. “She didn’t say
anything
about making them stop.”

“Hey look,” James said. “It’s okay with me. It’s probably the best place for them. I mean, I think nature is great for kids.”

“Hi, Prince. Hi.” Woody ran into the room, tear-streaked, grungy and more gap-toothed than ever.

“Hi, Woody. Looks like you’ve been keeping the tooth fairy busy.”

“Yeah,” Woody stuck his tongue into the latest vacancy. “You know where I was, Prince? I was clear up to the Eagle’s Lair.”

“The Eagle’s Lair?”

“Yeah. We have this great climbing tree out back and all the different places in it have special names. Like the Dragon’s Landing and the Crow’s Nest and the Eagle’s Lair. And you have to be a very good climber to get to the Eagle’s Lair, and I never could, only today I did it.” Woody’s triumphantly lifted chin tucked suddenly. “But then I didn’t feel like coming down all by myself and Grif went off and left me.” He stopped to glare at Griffin, who had followed him into the room.

“You should have let Cynthia help you down,” Griffin said.

Woody’s glare got more ferocious. “She couldn’t help me. She doesn’t know anything about tree climbing.”

Cynthia snorted. “That’s what I like,” she said. “Appreciation. Makes it all worth while.” She got up and headed for the kitchen. “Dinner will be in about half an hour,” she called over her shoulder.

James looked at his watch. “I’ve got to be getting home. Griffin, could I talk to you a minute? I mean, alone?” There were a couple of points he felt still needed emphasizing.

Having persuaded Woody with some difficulty to stay where he was, Griffin walked with James to the end of the drive. On the way he warned her again about the importance of impressing on the kids the absolute necessity of keeping quiet about the deer. Particularly Laurel. “And when her parents come back from Europe you’d better stop taking her there, at least so often. They’d be sure to get suspicious.” For a moment he considered mentioning the conversation he’d overheard between Jill and Angela Jarrett.

He’d just decided not to mention it when Griffin said, “I know. Her parents don’t like her being with Woody and me so much. But they won’t be home until it’s almost time for school to start anyway. And then none of us will be here anymore.”

Somehow he kept forgetting the summer was nearly over. “When will your parents be back?” he asked.

As always, her face seemed to close down as if some kind of internal fires had gone out, or springs dried up. “I’m not sure. Not very long. They’ve gone home, to our house in San Francisco.”

“Home? They’ve gone home and left you and Woody here?” He tried to make his tone of voice invite her to tell him more.

Instead she only turned her head so he couldn’t see her face. Her voice sounded tight, tense or perhaps angry. “They’ll be back soon. They just went down for a party. And to see a doctor. My mother had to see a doctor. And we didn’t want to go.”

“Is your mother sick?”

“Yes,” she said quickly, and then, “Well, not sick exactly. It’s the pain because of the accident. The accident when my father was killed. She almost got killed, too, and ever since she has to take medicine for the pain.”

The tension was still there; but without being able to see her face, it was hard to tell just what it was about. “Well, look,” James said. “I’ve got to go now. Don’t forget what I said—about the deer.”

“I won’t. We won’t.” She was facing him again, standing at attention, her level eyes intense as laser beams. “We will not tell anyone about the stag. Not anyone. Not ever.”

It sounded like a pledge of allegiance. He turned away, and when he had his grin under control, he looked back and waved. She was still standing stiffly at attention, but her face was back to normal—as full of activity as a three ring circus.

The next morning James had an early date for a game of tennis with Diane. For once she was there right on time, but as soon as the game was over she said she had to go home. There was no time, she said, for a hike in the woods, however short. He tried to argue, but it didn’t do any good and a few minutes after ten he found himself on his way back to Willowby cabin. He spent the first half of the walk home worrying about Diane—she’d seemed a little bit distant again—but then he found himself thinking about the deer. About the deer and Griffin and the kids and whatever it was they’d been doing every day in the valley. He ate an early lunch, left a note for his parents, who had gone for a walk on the lake-shore, and by twelve o’clock was well on his way.

It wasn’t until he’d slid down the slope into the first meadow without seeing anyone, or being seen, that he decided to play the spy. If the kids weren’t there already, they would probably be arriving soon, and either way he could observe them for a while without being seen if he were careful. Sinking into a crouch—James Fielding, super-spy—he zigzagged across the meadow, dodging from boulder to boulder, and crept into the shelter of the surrounding trees. He circled the second meadow, staying among the heavy underbrush near the base of the cliff, and had almost reached the small, dense grove that surrounded the spring, when he suddenly stopped and then crept forward more carefully than ever. He had definitely heard the sound of human voices.

He saw the little kids first. Woody and Laurel were sitting cross-legged, straight-backed, near the base of a large tree, like a couple of small buddhas. They were looking away from him, staring intently toward something beyond his field of vision. Dropping back, he circled among tree trunks to a spot more directly behind them. They were facing a small treeless area, a clearing that James recognized as being very near the deer’s resting place. Like spectators waiting for a performance to begin, they were sitting quietly, their hands in their laps.

He eased closer, so close that when Woody leaned toward Laurel, he clearly heard his loud stage whisper. “What’s she doing? Why is it taking such a long time?”

“Shh,” Laurel said. “She’s getting ready.”

They went on sitting quietly except that now Laurel had turned her attention to something she was holding in her lap. Woody scooted closer, watching what she was doing. James was maneuvering, trying to get to where he could see too, when looking up he caught his breath in surprise.

Griffin was standing in the center of the clearing. It was Griffin all right, although for just a fraction of a second he hadn’t been sure. She was wearing a short white tunic, and her hair hung loose and thick around her shoulders and down to well below her waist. There was a wreath of green leaves on her head and bracelets of flowers around her wrists and ankles. She was holding what seemed to be a silver punch bowl at arms length.