When Autumn Leaves: A Novel (26 page)

“It’s not false,” Piper said desperately, “it’s true. It’s real. Like I said, Autumn can . . .”

“Autumn is crazy!” Will snarled. “She’s a flaky new age weirdo who wants to believe in this just as much as you do. You have a tumor in your brain. You knew this was coming, you knew that you would see things . . .”

Piper closed her eyes and made herself be still. She thought she might actually shout at her husband, she was so angry. She could understand him not being able to believe her, but she could not understand how he would think her so insensitive that she would actually hurt the girls on purpose. She shook her head and tried to calm down.

“Will, stop. This is not my sickness. I know what’s happening to me. And so do other people. This . . . going . . . it even happened in front of that reporter who came by. She saw me disappear and then reappear out of nowhere.” She knew that anger wouldn’t get her anywhere. She was speaking softly, like cooing almost. Just to get him to try and see, but he wasn’t buying it. “I know, I really do, honey, that this is so hard for you to accept, but I promise. It’s not my sickness. It’s true.”

Will’s eyes narrowed and he stepped back from her with obvious disgust. “It doesn’t matter now, because the damage is done already. They’ll never really have closure. They’ll never know if you are dead, or out there somewhere where they might be able to reach you. They’re only kids, Piper, girls . . . our girls. Aren’t they hurting enough?”

What had only been hinted at for months was now just out there, hovering. He blamed her for hurting the girls with her illness. She knew it at that moment as much as she knew that he hated himself for assigning that blame. But no more. No more guilt. She was going to do as she pleased, because it had been so damn long since she had any choice. Piper let the anger she was holding back fly at him.

“Is it hurting them to ask them to believe in the impossible? The miraculous? In magic? How can that hurt them? How can that do anything but open them up to the universe and an acceptance of everything that can’t be explained except on faith? Tell me, Will. How is that damaging them?”

Will stepped back from her, and with each step, he became someone she no longer knew until he looked almost like a stranger. He was a closed door, and she realized that though he was the girls’ father, in this, he was an outsider; he had no place.

“Will, you have lived in Avening long enough to have seen and experienced events that simply don’t happen in other places in the world. So why now? Why refuse to accept it now?” she asked, though she felt kind of like she already knew the answer.

Will uncrossed his arms. His figure sagged under a hybrid of resignation and sorrow. “Piper, I moved here for you. I would have done anything to make you happy, and that includes saying whatever you wanted me to and trying to believe in things I thought were bullshit. You see what you want, in this town and in me.” He sighed. “I thought . . . I don’t know, that the magic you felt here would rub off somehow, but it didn’t and it never will, Piper. It’s all make-believe, all of it. Group think and mass hysteria and self-fulfilling prophecies. Let me take you to the doctor, honey, and we’ll see where we’re at, okay?”

Piper jumped up, faster than she had done in a long time, her anger and disappointment fueling her. “No. No more doctors, Will. This is my life, whatever’s left of it. I know where you stand now. And as sad as I am, as much as it pains me to see that a huge part of the life we shared was based on you . . . you . . . humoring me, I am glad I know the truth.” Saying it, she felt strangely calm. Almost like it was someone else having the conversation. “But you have to promise me, Will, that you will not push your beliefs onto the girls, especially Shiv. Let them make their own decisions about their spiritual path. Please do that for me. Let them see, or not see, for themselves.”

“I’m sorry, Piper,” Will said sadly. “I didn’t mean to . . . I love you. Whatever else, I do love you.”

“Yes,” Piper said as she looked at him square in the face. She had flashes then of that party at Yale, and the blue jacket and their tiny first apartment and the look in his eyes when he held Sylvie that first time. He couldn’t help how he was built and what he could see and what he couldn’t see. But in her traveling she had moved past him. She might indeed change in that other place, but she already felt like she was someone else. Love changes course and flies away sometimes, that was all. It made her sad. She touched his face gently and walked out of the room.

And so it was that night Piper made up her mind to go. Will had fallen into an almost unnaturally deep sleep, and when she turned on the light beside her bed to pack a few things into her rucksack, he did not turn or wake.

Piper gathered many of her favorite pictures of the girls, a few letters and paintings they had made for her, a couple dresses of lightweight gauze (out of habit, she included clothes; she was going on a journey, after all), a first edition of
Sagebrush Moves In
, her box of watercolors, brushes, and pencils, and finally, Sylvie and Shiv’s baby blankets, which still, miraculously, held that wonderful smell of talc and soap.

She went to Siobhan’s room first, pushing the door open just wide enough to move through. The moon was full, illuminating the room so Piper could see her daughter’s sleeping face. The grief froze her momentarily. This was too hard. How could she say good-bye? It was like giving up an arm or leg, a part of her. No, it was not good-bye, not forever. She had to have faith that this was not the end, that she would see them again. That would be how Piper got through this.

She sat quietly on the bed beside her daughter, gently stroking her face until Siobhan’s eyes slowly fluttered open.

“Mommy?” she said, still half asleep.

“Yes, it’s me, angel. Go back to sleep.”

Shiv looked at her mother, as if it were a dreaming conversation. “Love you, Mom,” she said as she rolled over.

Piper squeezed her fingers into her palm hard enough to feel her nails making deep half-moon imprints. “I love you too, Shiv,” she whispered as she bent down to kiss her daughter’s temple, letting her lips linger for as long as she was able. Somehow, Piper pulled herself from the room and made her way to Sylvie’s.

Piper opened the door quietly. Though the curtains were closed, the soft green glow from Sylvie’s stereo let her see her daughter sprawled out on the bed. Piper kneeled beside her, but did not touch or speak to her. There were too many words, too many embraces for Piper to even begin. Sylvie was no longer a child; it was the long and perfect limbs of a woman that she saw sleeping before her. She watched Sylvie, thanking her creator for the years they did have together, years some mothers never got. It was a long time she sat and watched, but then she stood and made her way to the door.

“Good night, Mom,” Sylvie whispered. It was better than good-bye; it was more than words of love. It was simply good night, for it was good, a beautiful summer night, with a swollen silver moon and the air keeping just the right amount of the day’s sun. It was a perfect night to slip away, and Sylvie knew as she felt her mother watching her that Piper was brave and strong and exceptional. However hard it was for Sylvie to let her mother walk out the door, it was a thousand times harder for her mother.

“Good night, my love,” Piper said in a clear voice as she left the room.

Down the stairs and out the door, Piper walked. She had more energy than she had in months. She could already feel her old life slipping away, her old self which was known and examined. It had been a good life, she had done good things. Looking back, she felt the same kind of pride she did when her own children accomplished something remarkable. She was now a mother to herself, waiting to give birth to the different creature she would become.

She didn’t have to do anything, and for that she was grateful. Piper was so tired of preparing for things she didn’t know about. Scary things, dark and menacing things. But now she was going, and the thought of it made her feel light and hopeful. She felt like Houdini with this Great Escape of hers. She would see her girls again. She knew it down to her bones. Piper closed her eyes and imagined the forest, the smell and sound of it. Something unlocked and clicked inside her. Her own world fell away and she stepped into the lush green of her new one with a smile on her face.

Autumn’s doorbell rang at 4:30 in the morning, either an ungodly hour or the most godly of all hours, she wasn’t sure which. She sighed, pulled off her duvet, and threw on a worn cotton dressing gown. She wasn’t by nature an early morning person, but she understood the appeal. The sun would begin to rise in less than an hour, and the approaching twilight was still and deeply peaceful. It was so quiet in the kitchen she could hear the gears moving in her grandfather clock.

Mave Moreau, whom Autumn admitted to her kitchen and sat at her table, hadn’t bothered to call. Autumn had been sleeping fitfully anyway, and decided she couldn’t ignore a worried mother, even if she couldn’t answer all her questions. But Autumn did what Autumn always did in difficult situations: brewed them all—herself, Mave, and Mave’s eleven-year-old daughter, Maggie—cups of peppermint tea.

Mave, a marine biologist who worked at the tiny teaching aquarium in Avening, showed signs of not having slept well herself. Mave was fair skinned and blonde with saucer-like eyes. Her complexion was flawless, but unforgiving; her exhaustion sat, purply and obvious, beneath her bottom lids. Maggie seemed tired but almost bored. Too many grownups and grownup talk for her liking.

“I know you have explained, Autumn,” Mave said, clearly frustrated, “that Maggie has a special gift. A gift for going places that others can’t. I have begged and tried my damnedest to get you to tell me what it all means, to put my mind at ease about it. But you won’t. You tell me I’m just supposed to be okay with my daughter disappearing from her bed for hours in the middle of the night!” Mave gripped her tea cup. “You tell me to wait. That everything will make sense soon. And I have waited, because I respect you and I trust Maggie. But enough is enough now.” Mave’s breath was becoming short. She was obviously trying not to cry.

“Try to calm down,” Autumn said as gently as she could. She hoped she didn’t sound patronizing. “I know it’s difficult. I understand your anger and frustration. Now, just tell me everything that happened, and we’ll see where we are.”

“She left last night.” Mave pointed to Maggie with a thumb jerk. “I checked her bed about midnight before I went to sleep. Gone. And she didn’t come home until four o’clock in the morning. That’s almost the whole friggin’ night.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. She was clearly frustrated, too.

“Maggie?” Autumn asked.

“I had to go,” Maggie burst out, nearly shouting. “I had to go and meet that sick lady and take her through to the inner gate. They told me to. She was, like, practically already dead!” Autumn had the feeling Maggie had already been over this with her mother, to no avail. “What was I supposed to do? Say no? Autumn, tell her, please.”

But before Autumn could get a word in, Mave cut in. “Tell me what? Look, I’m as open-minded as anyone in Avening,” she said to Autumn, as if her daughter weren’t there. “I get that she has a gift for something. I’ve always known she was special, always. But she’s eleven years old. Who the hell is this ‘they’ she’s talking about? Are they monsters? Fairies? Ghosts? And don’t ‘they’ know they can’t ask an eleven-year-old to stay out all night?” Mave took a swig of her tea and slammed the mug on the counter.

“Mave,” Autumn said steadily, “I’m afraid I don’t know exactly what ‘they’ are. They could be any number of things. But I know they would never, ever put Maggie in harm’s way. Whoever they are, they honor her. And she was sorely needed last night.”

“You realize how totally fucking insane you sound right now, right?” Mave was too emotional to censor herself in front of her daughter.

“Totally,” Autumn answered honestly. “But nonetheless, there it is. It’s just the truth. But in the future, she cannot leave her bed,” Autumn said, turning to the girl sternly. “Ever. No sneaking out, Maggie. You can only go during normal play hours. Not during school, either. Right now you belong here, in this world. Got it?”

“This was really important,” Maggie said defensively. “I’ve never snuck out before. And I can’t ditch school. That would be, like, impossible. This isn’t the fifties, you know.”

Autumn laughed. “Tonight was important. But you have to let people here, especially your mom, know what’s going on. You don’t want to worry her to death, do you?” Maggie shook her head, and Autumn, sobered, turned to the girl’s mother. “Mave, I think I’ve figured it out. It was Piper Shigeru. She got an exemption. That’s who Maggie took through last night, right Maggie?” Maggie nodded, her eyes bright and full. “She wouldn’t have known that world well enough yet to get through on her own.”

Mave seemed to be processing this unwillingly. “Just so we’re straight, Piper Shigeru, the terminally ill author, gets to live in this other world? But only because Maggie, my daughter, took her there?”