Magic hour: a novel (9 page)

She followed Ellie across the marshy lawn toward the house.

In the glorious light, the old house appeared to be made of hammered strips of silver. The grayed clapboards shone with a hundred secret colors. White trim, peeled in places to reveal patches of wood, outlined the windows and doors. Rhododendrons the size of house trailers dotted the yard.

Ellie opened the door and led the way inside.

Everything looked as it always had. The same slip-covered furniture—pale beige with pink cabbage roses and faded green leaves—graced the living room. Pine antiques were everywhere—an armoire that was probably still filled with Grandma Whittaker’s doilies and table linens, a dining table scarred by three generations of Cateses and Whittakers, a credenza that was decorated with dusty silk flowers in ceramic vases. French doors flanked a river-rock fireplace; through the silvery glass panes, a ghostly ribbon of river shone in the sunlight. Ellie hadn’t changed a thing. It wasn’t surprising. In Rain Valley things and people either belonged or they didn’t. If they belonged, they were loved and kept forever.

Ellie shut the door. Just as she said, “Brace yourself,” two full-grown golden retrievers came thundering down the stairs. At the bottom, on the slick wooden floors, they skidded together and slid sideways, then found their footing. They barreled across the room and hit Julia like the Seahawks’ front line.

“Jake! Elwood!
Down,
” Ellie yelled in her best police voice.

The dogs were clearly deaf.

Julia gave them a giant shove and spun away. The dogs turned their lavish attention on Ellie, who threw herself into loving them.

Julia watched the three of them roll around on the floor. “Please tell me they sleep outside.”

Ellie sat up, laughing, and pushed the hair out of her eyes. The dogs licked her cheeks. “Okay, they sleep outside.” At Julia’s relieved sigh, her sister said: “
Not!
But I’ll keep them out of your room.”

“That’s as good as it’s going to get, I suppose.”

“It is.” Ellie told the dogs to sit. On about the twelfth command they obeyed, but as soon as Ellie looked away, they started to belly crawl toward the door.

“Come on,” Ellie said, leading the way to the stairs.

Julia dragged her suitcase up the narrow, creaking stairway. At the top she turned right and followed her sister down the hallway to their childhood bedroom.

A pair of twin beds, swaddled in pink chiffon, a pair of white-painted French provincial student desks with gold trim, a lime green bean bag chair. Trolls and Barbies lined the white shelving; dozens of blue-and-yellow Nancy Drews reminded her of nights spent reading with a flashlight. A faded, dusty poster of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones was tacked to the wall.

On her bed, a pair of cats lay sleeping, twined together like a French braid.

“Meet Rocky and Adrienne,” Ellie said as she crossed the room and scooped up the apparently boneless animals. The cats hung lazily from her arms, yawning. She tossed them into the hallway, said, “Go to Mommy’s room,” and then turned to Julia. “The sheets are clean. There are towels in your bathroom. The hot water still takes decades, and don’t flush the toilet before you shower.” Ellie stepped closer. “Thanks, Jules. I really appreciate your coming. I know things have been . . . bad for you lately, and . . . well, thanks.”

Julia looked at her sister. If she’d been another kind of woman, or if they’d been different sisters, she might have admitted:
I had no where to go, really.
Instead, she said, “No problem,” and tossed her suitcase into the room. “Now tell me why I’m here.”

“Let’s go downstairs. I’ll need a beer for this story.” Ellie started for the stairs, then turned back to Julia. “So will you.”

J
ULIA SAT IN HER MOTHER’S FAVORITE CHAIR AND LISTENED TO HER SISTER
in growing disbelief. “She leaps from branch to branch like a cat? Come on, El. You’re getting caught up in some country myth. It sounds like you’ve found an autistic child who simply wandered away from home and got lost.”

“Max doesn’t think it’s that simple,” Ellie said, sipping her beer. They’d been in the living room for the better part of an hour now. There were papers spread out across the coffee table. Photographs and fingerprint smudge sheets and missing-children reports.

“Who’s Max?”

“He took over Doc Fischer’s practice.”

“He’s probably just over his head with this girl. You should have called the University of Washington. They’ll have dozens of autism experts.”

“Yeah, God forbid someone
smart
should live in Rain Valley,” Ellie said, her voice spiking up. “You’re not even listening to me.”

Julia made a mental note to temper her comments. “Sorry. So, there’s more to the story than dirty hair and prodigious tree-climbing skills. Hit me.”

“She won’t speak. We think—Max thinks, anyway—that maybe she doesn’t know how.”

“That’s not unusual for an autistic. They seem to operate in a different world. Often, these kids—”

“You didn’t see her, Jules. When she looked at me, I got chills. I’ve never seen such . . . terror in a child.”

“She looked at you?”

“Stared is more like it. I think she was trying to communicate something to me.”

“She made direct, purposeful eye contact?”

“Hel-
lo,
I just said that.”

It was probably nothing, or maybe Ellie had it wrong. Autistics rarely made purposeful eye contact. “What about her physical mannerisms? Hand movements, way of walking; that sort of thing?”

“She sat in that tree for hours and never moved so much as an eyelash. Think reptile stillness. When she did finally jump down, she moved with lightning speed. Daisy Grimm claimed she ran like the wind. And she sniffed everything in this weird, doglike way.”

In spite of herself, Julia was intrigued. Perhaps she’s mute. And deaf. That would also explain her getting lost. Maybe she didn’t hear people calling for her.”

“She’s not mute. She screamed and growled. Oh, yeah, and when she thought we’d killed her wolf, she howled.”

“Wolf?”

“Did I forget that part? She had a wolf pup with her. He’s out at the game farm now. Floyd says he just sits at the gate and howls all day and all night.”

Julia leaned back and crossed her arms. Enough was enough. This had all been a ruse, another of her sister’s misguided attempts to save poor little Julia. “You’re making this up.”

“I wish I were. Unfortunately, it’s all true.”

“She
really
has a wolf pup?”

“Yes. And are you ready for the kicker?”

“There’s more?”

“She has a lot of scarring.”

“What kind of scarring?”

“Knife wounds. Maybe some . . . whipping marks. And on her ankle—ligature-type scarring.”

Julia uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. “You better not be pulling my chain. This is a big deal.”

“I know.”

Julia’s mind ticked through dozens of possibilities. Autism. Mental or developmental delays. Early onset schizophrenia. Those were the easy, purely internal answers. But there could be something darker here, something infinitely more unique and dangerous. It could be that this child had escaped from some terrible captor. Elective mutism would be a common response to that kind of trauma. In any case, the kid would need help. And not just any psychiatrist could handle this sort of diagnosis and treatment. Only a handful of people on the West Coast specialized in this sort of thing. Fortunately, she was one of them.

“She really touched me, Jules. I’m afraid that when the bigwig authorities get involved, we’ll lose her. They’ll warehouse her in some state institution until we find her parents. I don’t think I could live with that. There’s something so . . . broken and sad about this kid. I don’t know if anyone has ever fought for her. With you, we could make a case for treating her while we search. No one could deny your credentials.”

And there it was: the reminder.

Julia said softly, “Have you been watching the news, El? I’m hardly at the top of anyone’s list. Your state bigwigs might not be too impressed with me.”

Ellie looked at her. As always, there was a directness in Ellie’s eyes that was vaguely disconcerting. Her sister was one of those rare people who made up her mind easily, stuck with her decision, and fought to the end for her beliefs. Actually, it was one of the few things they had in common. “Since when have I cared what other people think? You’re the one we want to save this girl.”

“Thanks, El.” Julia’s voice was quieter than she’d expected, less certain than usual. She wished she could tell Ellie what this meant to her.

Ellie nodded. “I just hope you’re as good as you think you are.”

“I am.”

“Excellent. Now go take a shower and unpack. I told Max we’d meet him at the hospital before four.”

T
HIRTY MINUTES LATER
J
ULIA WAS SHOWERED, MADE UP, AND DRESSED
in a well-worn pair of flare-legged jeans and a pale green cashmere sweater. She was trying not to be too excited about seeing the so-called Flying Wolf Girl, but she couldn’t quite manage her usual calm. She’d felt on the outside for so long now that even this glimpse into her old life was enough to rev her engines.

She got a Diet Coke from the fridge and sat down in the living room. Glancing at the dusty piano in the corner, she was blindsided by a memory. She saw her mom, sitting on the black bench, smoking a Virginia Slim menthol and pounding out a raucous version of “That Old Time Rock ’n’ Roll.” There was a crowd of friends clustered around the piano, singing along.

“Come on girls,” Mom said, waving them over. “Sing along.”

Julia turned her back on the piano. She didn’t want to think about Mom, not yet, but here, in this house, time unraveled somehow. If she stayed too long, she’d become the gawky bookworm with the bad haircut and thick glasses again.

Ellie came downstairs, dressed in her blue-and-black uniform. The three gold stars on her collar winked in the light. Even in the bulky outfit, she looked petite and beautiful. “You ready?”

Julia nodded and grabbed her purse. The few miles passed in a surprisingly companionable conversation. Julia remarked on the changes that had taken place—the stoplight, the new bridge, the closure of Hamburger Haven; Ellie pointed out how much had stayed the same.

Finally, they turned a corner and the county hospital came into view. The modest cement building was tucked at the back of a midsized gravel parking lot. A single ambulance was parked to the left of the emergency entrance. The two-story building was dwarfed by the bank of magnificent evergreen trees behind it. Right now, the streetlamps were coming on; every few seconds a beam of light pulsed through the parking lot, illuminating the tiny droplets of mist that couldn’t quite be called rain. The air smelled sweet and green, like freshly cut grass.

As soon as they parked, Julia was out of the car. The closer she got to the door, the more confident she felt.

She and Ellie walked side by side through the double doors and past the receptionist, who waved. The nurses and aides who passed her wore pale, salmon-hued uniforms that appeared to once have been bright orange. Their crepe soles made a squeaking sound on the linoleum-tiled floor.

At a closed door, Ellie paused. She smoothed her clothes and tucked her hair behind her ears, then quickly checked her makeup in a hand mirror.

Julia frowned. “What is this, a photo shoot?”

“You’ll see.” Ellie knocked on the door.

A voice said: “Come in.”

Ellie opened the door. They walked into a small, cramped office with a ground-level window view of a gargantuan rhododendron.

He stood in the corner of the room, still as a blade of grass on a windless day, wearing faded Levi’s and a black cable-knit sweater. His hair was steely gray. Not salt-and-pepper, either, but a perfect Richard Gere, going-gray-all-at-once kind of color. He had the rugged, tanned look of a man who spent a lot of his time in the sun and the wind. But it was his eyes that caught her attention. They were searingly blue, and intense.

He was the best-looking man Julia had ever seen.

“You must be Dr. Cates,” he said, moving toward her.

“Please, call me Julia.”

The smile he gave her was literally dazzling. “Only if you’ll call me Max.”

She recognized instantly the kind of man he was. A player, like Philip, a man who wore his sexuality like a sport coat. Los Angeles was full of men like him. On several occasions she’d fallen into their trap. When she was younger, of course. She wasn’t surprised at all to see that one of his ears was pierced. She gave him a professional smile. “Why don’t you tell me about your patient? I understand the girl is . . . what, autistic?”

Surprise flickered across his handsome face. He reached down for a folder that lay on his desk. “A diagnosis is your job. Adolescent minds are hardly my specialty.”

“And what is your specialty?”

“Writing prescriptions, if I had to choose. I went to Catholic school.” That smile again. “Thus, my penmanship is excellent.”

She glanced at the framed diplomas that hung on his wall, expecting to see degrees from little known, out-of-the-way schools. Instead he had an undergraduate degree from Stanford and a medical degree from UCLA. She frowned.