The Hawley Book of the Dead (14 page)

“Why can’t we ride today?” Fai broke into my
cheerless thoughts.

“Yeah, let’s go for a ride!” Grace urged.

I scanned the sky. “I don’t think so. By the time we tack
up, it’ll be too late to go far. And the horses had a long trailer ride already
today.”

“We could take a short ride! They won’t care. They’d
love it!”

“I know your short rides,” Nathan told them. “They
never last less
than three hours. And your mom hasn’t done a
lick of work all day. How do you expect her to keep supporting you all?”

“Then can’t you come with us? We won’t make fun of
you!”

“Please?”

I put the brakes on. “Nathan hung around here most of the day just
to meet the trailer for us. Now he’s taking the rest of the day for
himself.”

“Then we can go alone.”

“No!” The word shot out of both my mouth and
Nathan’s. “You girls listen to me. Caleigh, too,” I commanded.
“Turn around and look at me, right now.”

It wasn’t often that I became really stern. The girls had their
eyes on me like rabbits transfixed by the glare of headlights.

“None of you, not one of you, not two of you, not all together, may
leave this property without either Nathan or me. That means you never ride, you never
even walk out those gates without an adult present. Never. This is very
important.”

Grace shot me a sulky look. “Why did we move, then? If
everything’s the same. I thought we were supposed to be okay here.”

I put my arm around her. “We weren’t riding at all back
home,” I reminded her. “So this is better, isn’t it?”

She tried to shrug me off. “I’m tired of this. It
isn’t fair. Isn’t it enough that the Fetch killed Dad? Aren’t we
punished enough? I don’t understand why they can’t just
stop
him.”

Fai said, “Because, you bonehead, nobody can find out who he is.
He’s really good at hiding. Like the Unabomber or something.”

I hugged Grace, felt her bony girl shoulders resist me. “It will
get better, honey, I promise. We just have to be good at hiding, too, until he makes a
mistake and is caught. I know this is hard on you, but I just don’t know what
else to do to try to keep us safe.” Grace fumed silently at me, her arms folded,
implacable. “Honey, I’m doing everything I
can
do.” She
looked away, but not before her eyes softened.

“Okay?” I asked her.

“Okay. I guess.”

“Good.” I needed to get us back to the ordinary weave of the
day, back
from the edge of fear and sorrow. “I
know … let’s get out some maps. We’ll plan a ride for
tomorrow.”

“Is the forest on Google Maps?” Fai wanted to know.
“Can we find it on our phones?”

“You probably can here at the house, but remember, cell phones
won’t work in the forest.”

“Hey, can we go to that haunted tavern?” Grace pleaded.

“Sure,” I told her, glad to have found a distraction for
them. I thought, too, that I’d be lucky to trade a few ghosts for the real man
who plagued us.

The next day all three girls were up early. The twins were already dressed in their breeches and boots at breakfast. Planning a morning ride was the one sure way to get them up before ten on a Sunday. I was ready as well, except for changing from my slippers to boots and half-chaps. It’s strange how you can get used to anything. I was almost feeling normal after our day at the fair. Almost happy to be going riding with my girls, as if nothing bad had happened, was happening. But I knew at the back, in the primitive part of the brain where fear is stored, that this skim of happiness was just illusion. Smoke and mirrors.

“What are you going to do today, Caleigh?” Grace was in a mellow, pre-ride mood, disposed to be kind to her little sister.

Caleigh shrugged. She was still in her
Wizard of Oz
pajamas. Scarecrows and Tin Men and Cowardly Lions cavorted through the poisonous poppy field. Dorothy and Toto were already down for the count. “I don’t know,” she mumbled through her granola. “Nathan said he’d take me … back to the fair. Or to Gramps and Grand’s. I haven’t made up my mind … what I want to do.”

“Sweetheart, don’t talk with your mouth full, you look like a cow,” Nathan told her, flipping pages of his Sunday paper.

That finished the girls, and breakfast. Grace spewed oatmeal onto the tablecloth, Fai spouted milk out her nose. Both her sisters shrieked with laughter as Caleigh mooed at them, knocking her half-full orange juice glass to the floor.

Nathan sprang from the table, sweeping his paper to safety. “Reve, what should we do about these creatures? Do you think any boarding school would have them?”

“Probably not.” I had my section of the paper safely tucked to my chest.

“That’s too bad. Well, I think I’ll have a quiet read on the porch.” He swept off, his bathrobe flapping around his pajamaed legs. Caleigh skipped after him. “Nathan, call Grand first. I decided I want to go there and see the giant pumpkin!” That was another of my father’s retirement projects. His giant pumpkin had won a prize at the Tri-County Fair, and now he was coddling it so the girls could carve it for Halloween.

“Mom.” Fai wiped the milk from her face. “We’re ready. We’ll tack up Zar for you, okay?”

“Great. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll be out.” The girls bolted to the door.

“Hey! Dishes.” They clomped back, tumbled bowls and spoons in the sink, sloshed a little water and soap around while they grumbled about not having a dishwasher. I wiped their messes off the table and sponged the floor. “And don’t go running just yet.”

When the kitchen was almost orderly, I led them to the closet in the mudroom.

“Here, take these with you.” I handed them blaze orange vests, walkie-talkies to put in their pockets.

“What are these for?”

“What
are
they?”

“So the hunters won’t shoot us. It’s the start of deer season.”

“You mean they’re going to shoot Bambi?”

“They’re going to try. It’s bow, not shotgun season yet, so it’s not as dangerous. They aren’t supposed to hunt on Sundays, but I want you to get in the habit of wearing them.”

“Yeah, but what kind of cell phones are these? They’re weird.”

“That’s because they’re not cell phones, they’re walkie-talkies. Remember, we don’t get signal much beyond the gate.”

Grace thunked her head with her hand. “I keep forgetting. That’s
just …” I could tell she was searching for an acceptable word, settled for “
countrified
.”

I ignored her protests. “So, I want you to have these with you anytime we go out. We’ll all carry them, in case we get separated. Nathan will have his turned on while he’s here, in case …” I looked at my lovely daughters holding the unfamiliar equipment they’d need to live this woods life, and I wondered again if I’d done the right thing. But I said nothing. What was there to say?

“All right, go tack up.” They raced out to the barn while I pulled on boots and chaps.

Nathan had a small apartment in an ell that had been a nineteenth-century add-on to the back of the house. Two rooms, a tiny galley kitchen, a bathroom. A porch that hung over what used to be a terraced flower bed, now tangled with overgrown Michaelmas daisies and egg-yolk yellow chrysanthemums. And nettles. Lots of nettles. I added another mental note to my impossible list as I knocked on his door.

Nathan answered, walkie-talkie in hand. “I’ll keep this with me until Caleigh and I leave. We won’t be gone long. When will you be back?”

“I’d say four hours. But give us an extra half hour before you come looking. You have the map?”

“Not only that, I took the 4Runner out early and drove your route. So I’ll know right where you’ll be.”

“That was above and beyond the call of duty.”

“It was a good idea. There sure is a lot of forest out there.”

“Four thousand acres. One of the largest protected forests in the state.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.”

“You know, Nathan, neither do I.”

I headed out to the barn. I loved its lines, its huge hayloft and the cupola to allow air circulation when the barn was full of hay. It was a faded red, the classic color of New England barns, and sunflowers bloomed along the wall beside the big slider doors. It remained unseasonably warm for October. Pink phlox and flame-orange daylilies still rioted away in the old flower beds. The sun shone bright and eerily warm over New England.

I could see the silhouettes of horses and girls in the shadows of the
barn. Maybe I didn’t love Grace and Fai any more when they were around the horses, but I did love watching my daughters burnish their horses’ coats, making certain their bridles were adjusted perfectly, that their saddle pads were flat. All the twins’ sloppy ways were transformed by horses. They were careful and thoughtful and moved with a dignity that always took my breath away. The beauty of wild things shone from them when they were riding, when we had a canter and they flew before me, in seamless motion with their beloved horses.

I leaned in the doorway, at that moment feeling extraordinarily lucky. Lucky to have our girls. Lucky to have kept them safe.

Fai called me out of my reverie. “Mom! Get your helmet on! We’ve been waiting for you
forever
!”

I meekly took the helmet she handed me, tucked my hair under it as best I could, snapped the chin guard. Grace led Zar out to me. I stroked his head, looked into his eyes. They were dark with an unusual green tint, almost like my own and Caleigh’s. The twins had their father’s deep blue eyes.

Zar attempted his head-rub greeting, which I fended off because of the bridle. I took the reins, stepped into the stirrup, and threw a leg over. Zar shifted his weight to accommodate me, and we found our center of balance. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed that feeling—that coming together of weight and purpose—over the past months we were horseless.

The girls led Rikka and Brio out. They mounted, and our horses stepped lightly forward. Zar tossed his head with joy. Brio snorted, then reached back to wipe his nose on Grace’s knee. It was a trick of his that always made her laugh.

“He’d never make a show horse,” I told her, not for the first time.

“Phhh!” Fai snorted, too. “Could you see Brio in an equitation class, wiping green snot all over Gracie’s breeches? Or worse, wiping his nose on the judge!”

“I don’t guess we’ll ever go
in
an equitation class, so I’m not fussed.”

My girls weren’t into the show scene. Like my own childhood self, they’d rather be on the trails.

“So what’s the place we’re going to?” Fai asked. “I keep forgetting its name.” We’d pored over maps the night before, decided on a loop.