Amber House (26 page)

“Yeah. Evidently no one under the age of forty is supposed to know a thing about her. She’s dead now.”

“You didn’t know about her before? Why didn’t they tell you?”

“I have no idea,” I said bitterly. “I think maybe because — she was like Sam.”

“Like me,” Sammy said, nodding happily.

“Only more so,” I said.

“How do you know?” Jackson asked.

“She talked by repeating the things my mom said. It’s called echolalia. Sammy used to do it.”

“Is that why they never told you about her?” Jackson said, disbelieving.

“I don’t know. Back then, people used to put kids like that in institu —” I looked at Sam and stopped myself. “I wish I knew what happened to her.” I looked at the floorboards. “Do you have your Swiss Army knife?”

“Yeah.” He got it out of his pocket and handed it to me.

“Move closer to Jackson, Sam,” I said. I folded a little screwdriver out of the knife handle and pried up the short board
at the center of the tree-house floor. But there was nothing in the hole.

Far off, I heard the sound of tires hitting gravel. I peered through the leaves to the property’s entrance. My mother was home.

“We’ve got to get down,” I said. “Right now!”

Jackson scooted to the ladder. “I’ll go first, Sam. Then you come after me as fast as you can.” He waited until Sammy got his feet square on the ladder before starting down. Their heads disappeared below the edge of the tree house.

I put the board back in place and shoved Jackson’s knife in my pocket. Then I swung my legs over the edge and hurried after them.

Below me, Jackson lifted Sam from the ladder and they crouch-ran into the bushes by the house. Ten feet from the ground, I stepped into that sense of resisting space.

“Maggie,” my eleven or twelve-year-old mother shouted as she climbed up past me. “Maggie, you promised you wouldn’t come up here without me. I told you we would come together just as soon as I was done painting.”

The sweet simple voice. “Not done painting, Annie.”

I watched her reach the top. “Maggie, stop! Give me Heavy Bear so I can take your hand. You hear me? Don’t move, Mag. Stop! STOP!”

A scream descended on me. And something fell past. Something white and fluttering and fast.

A car door slammed. I felt myself drifting backward, losing balance, and grabbed wildly. I caught a rung of the ladder and hugged it close, pressing myself into the tree bark, quieting a sob in my throat.

“Mommy,” Sammy cried as he ran out of the path near the conservatory. “You’re home!” He grabbed her by the hand and tugged her toward the door, away from the tree.

“Whoa, whoa, Sam,” my mother said. “Let me get my packages. You can help, okay?”

“Okay,” he said.

“Where’s your sister?”

“Playing hide-and-seek. She hasn’t finded me yet.”

“Going to be pretty hard for her to find you if you go inside. You think you should go look for her?”

“Nah,” he said dismissively. “Sarah always finds me.”

They went inside. I scurried down the last ten feet. Jackson took my arm to steady me as I hit dirt. He led me toward the conservatory. “You all right?”

“Yeah.”

“I was afraid you were going to fall. What’d you see?”

“My aunt — Maggie. She —” I could hardly get the word out. My stomach clenched around it. Tears started in my eyes. “She fell.”

He looked stunned. “Off the ladder?”

I shook my head. “Off the tree house. I — I think she died.”

“Oh, God,” he said.

Another wave of dizziness hit me. Only this one was coming up from my guts. My stomach knotted again. “I think I’m going to be s —”

I turned toward the bushes. Jackson caught back my hair. I threw up my breakfast.

“Here,” Jackson said. He held out a clean white handkerchief.

I hung my head and waved off his offer. “I can’t take that.”

“I brought it for you.”

I took the cloth from him and wiped my mouth. “Thanks,” I said, embarrassed. “You must think I’m such a freak.”

“No,” he said. “No. Sarah,” he crouched down a little to catch my eye, “there’s something I should have told you a long time ago —”

“Sarah?” My mother had come to find me. She stood there staring, like she had caught us in the middle of something.

“Mom,” I said, lightening my voice. “Jackson was just helping me hunt for Sammy.”

“Really,” she said.

“Yeah. Have you seen him?”

“He’s inside. Maybe that’s where you should be too. And maybe Jackson should be in school?”

That was my cue to leave. I turned back toward Jackson. “Thanks for your help,” I said.

“Any time.”

I was going to slink away, but my mother’s next words stopped me.

“Jackson,” my mother said crisply, “after you’ve explained to Rose why you’re not in school, perhaps you could give me a hand. I have someone coming in about twenty minutes to collect the horses.”

I whirled around. “The horses? But — Sammy didn’t even get a chance to ride one.”

I could feel Jackson’s eyes on me, I could feel his concern, but he knew he was no part of this discussion. “I’ll be at the stables in twenty minutes, Mrs. Parsons.” And he set off for home.

My mother looked at me levelly. “There are horses in Seattle. Sammy can ride one there, if he’s so keen on it. I have to get these loose ends tied up.”

“
Loose ends.” Nice euphemism for three hundred fifty years of family history.
I don’t know what possessed me, but I couldn’t let it go.

“You know what, Mom? You have never even asked Sammy or me if we thought it was a good idea to sell this place. And maybe
we
think it should be kept in the family.”

“You have no idea what you’re saying. It’s just an old house full of old stuff. You have no connection to it. You’ve never even been here before.”

“We’re here now. And Sammy and I really like this place. We don’t want it sold to strangers who don’t belong here.”

“Sarah,
you and Sammy
don’t belong here.
I
don’t belong here. We have a life three thousand miles from here. You want us to give all that up?” She stopped me before I could respond. “Even if you had some romantic notion that we could make the move, I could never afford it. The property taxes alone would eat me alive. We’d have to cut this place up and sell it a piece at a time, until there was hardly anything left. Is that what you want?”

“Dad could help —”

“Your father’s got nothing to do with this,” she interrupted me angrily.

“We could afford it if you weren’t spending so much on this ridiculous party,” I shouted.

“The only way I can
afford
the party is by selling the house,” she shot back. “This isn’t open for discussion. Maybe if you were a grown woman with your own income, we could think about keeping the house. Maybe in the best of all possible worlds, we could have done something else. But I’ve got to solve the problem of Amber House today, at this particular juncture in time, and this is the best solution I can come up with. Are we done with this topic now?” she ended in a brittle voice. “You have anything else you want to contribute?”

And I couldn’t think of a thing to say. It looked like Jackson was out of time to find the diamonds; I was out of time to have enough money to save the house. As I turned and walked up the front steps, I thought how ironic it was that in the end, time hadn’t been on Amber House’s side.

My mother seemed in the mood to ask questions and give orders, so I snuck off upstairs before she could do either. I detoured to the bathroom to brush my teeth, then wet a washcloth, went into my room, and lay down on the bed with the cloth over my eyes.

I had just seen someone die. I thanked God I hadn’t heard Maggie’s body hit the ground. I didn’t think I could bear that.

And I’d thrown up in front of Jackson. He’d held my hair and been very nice about it, but I couldn’t bear that either. I wasn’t quite sure why it mattered so much, but I didn’t want Jackson seeing me like that. I pushed the thought off to a corner of my brain and Maggie returned to the front. And the more I thought about her, the more things seemed to make sense, to piece together.

Gramma must have blamed my mother for Maggie’s death. Mom had been the older child, and Maggie had been like Sammy, only more so. And maybe they weren’t even supposed to go up into that tree house. Of course Gramma had blamed my mother. Only, how could my grandmother have been so cruel? If my mother felt about Maggie the way I felt about Sammy, she would have blamed herself, without anybody’s help.

That must have been when my grandmother had started drinking. Must have been. And my mother — that must have been when she’d given up. Stopped painting. Stopped feeling. And maybe started hating Amber House.

That little girl Gramma had written about in her letter at the back of Fiona’s book, the one she had been looking for in Amber House’s memories — it had to have been Maggie. What would that be like — to be trapped in a place where the child you lost still lived in echoes from the past? Waiting and looking and longing for something that wasn’t even a ghost? Just some kind of
recording
of what once was and would never be again. And my mom got to blame herself for
all
of it.

It was horrifying.

Maggie’s death had cut them all open, made them bleed, left them scarred. And we were still paying for it all these years later. Me and Sammy. And Dad. And Mom. It wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t deserved what Gramma had done to her.

For the first time in my life, I felt compassion for my mother.

The sick feeling ebbed away slowly; I thought some fresh air might help.

I went downstairs and slipped out the front door. Through the trees off to the east, I saw the outlines of a truck and large trailer. The guy must have come for the horses. I decided to go watch “my” horses get loaded up.

When I got there, Jackson was leading the feisty bay. He had wrapped a towel over her eyes and was talking softly in her ear. The metal ramp made her shy a little, but Jackson stroked her nose and settled her. She let him lead her up into the trailer. He spotted me and nodded, but continued taking care of business.

It occurred to me then that this might be very painful for him. I had thrown a little hissy fit because Mom was selling animals I thought Sam and I had a right to keep, but Jackson had known these animals for years. He probably loved the horses.
Why hadn’t Mom thought to ask him if he’d like to keep at least one?

He led the roan out next, and she walked docilely, nudging her head into his shoulder for a scratch. Jackson was her friend.

I couldn’t watch any more. I went back to the house.

My mother came out just as I got there. A new truck had arrived, with
GARDEN LIGHTS
on the side. Two men in overalls got out to talk to her. Mom had a diagram in her hand of the garden layout. The three of them huddled over the diagram for a few minutes, then the men returned to their truck, hauling extension cords out of the back. And lights. Lots and
lots
of lights.

Mom turned to go in.

“Wait,” I said, walking up to her. I realized, as I struggled for the right words to say, that even though I understood my mother a little better, that didn’t change her. She was still abrupt and harsh and hard. “About the horses —”

“Look, Sarah, I’m sorry you’re upset about the horses, but surely you realize we have to get rid of them.”

“Jackson’s been taking care of those horses for a long time, Mom. Did you think to ask if he wanted to keep one?”

“You know, those animals are pretty valuable. They come from good stock and are quality brood mares. But leaving the issue of money aside, the answer to your question is yes, I did think to ask. I asked Rose. She thanked me, but she said they didn’t have any place to put it and couldn’t afford to keep one even if they did. Okay?”

“Oh,” I said.

She exhaled a little, like she was calming herself. “Look. I know you don’t believe it, but I
do
try. I care about Rose and Jackson. They watched over your grandmother for many years, and it wasn’t easy. She wasn’t an easy woman.”

“I know, Mom.”

“I realize you and Sammy may feel differently about this place than I do. I know you might want to keep some things. You should pick stuff out. We can pack it, store it for you till you get older. You should have some things.”

Some things
, I thought. Pieces of my history that would have no life left in them once they were removed from this place. All the treasures of Amber House would soon be gone, auctioned off. Cut off from what gave them a voice. My throat tightened and I could feel tears behind my eyes, but all I said was, “That would be good, Mom.”

She started away, then turned back. She cleared her throat. “There’s something else you should know, something I should tell you.” She lifted her hands and gripped her temples, covering her eyes for a moment. Then she looked at me levelly. “I sold the boat.”

It took me a second to process that. “What? You sold the
Amber
?”

“Yes.”

I felt like I had lost a friend. “I wanted her. How could you do that without asking me? Without even telling me?”

“I had a chance to sell it for a good price to someone who saw you win the regatta. We couldn’t keep the damn boat. What would we do with it? Sail it all the way to Seattle? Do you know how much it costs to haul something like that across country?”

I didn’t know how, but it just kept getting worse. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion — one collision after another, with no way to make it stop. She shouldn’t have gone behind my back. She should have had the decency to tell me up front. Words came growling out of me without my even thinking: “Every time I start to think of you as a human being, you turn around and prove me wrong.”

“How dare you speak to me like th —”

“I hate you,” I told her. “I’ll never forgive you.”

I ran away blindly, but found myself turning the corner to the back of the house, to the stone stairs that ran to the river. I went down them two at a time.
If I could find the diamonds
, I thought wildly,
I could make this all better.
Then we’d have plenty of money. I would buy the
Amber
back. I could take her out now, hide her somewhere, maybe at Richard’s dock. He’d help me. He’d find me someplace to hide her —

But she was already gone. The dock was empty.

“NO!”

Then I began to sob. It wasn’t just for the
Amber
. It was for all of it. I didn’t know if I loved Amber House or hated it. But my mother was wrong. It wasn’t enough that Sammy and I should be able to keep “some stuff,” some little pieces here and there. We should have been able to keep
all
of it. Even though we hadn’t grown up here, lived here, it was part of who we were. And we were part of it. It would
die
when we left.

I stood on the empty dock and cried for all of us.

“Sarah.”

It was Jackson.

I stumbled toward him and he opened his arms and let me rest there, against his chest. I could feel the scars beneath his shirt, stretching over the frame of muscles, and it made me cry even harder. Life sucked, you know? He’d been scarred for life, his parents killed, when he was too young even to remember. And what about Maggie, who’d backed herself into a foolish accident that never should have happened? And what about Gramma, and my mom and dad, and Sammy? What about me?

I wept until Jackson’s shirtfront was wet, and he just stood steady, his arms wrapped around me, his cheek on my hair. “It’ll be all right,” he told me.

I quieted finally, and he fished another clean handkerchief from his pocket. He lifted my chin and blotted my tears, then handed it to me.

“I can’t keep taking these from you,” I said.

He shrugged with his mouth. “Brought it for you. Blow your nose.”

I did what I was told. I felt a little better. “She sold the
Amber
.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry about the horses.”

“They’ll be fine,” he said. He pulled a brass cleat from his pocket. “Took it off the
Amber
before they came for her. Thought you might like to keep a piece.”

I took it in my hand and heard the sound of wind and waves. “Thank you.”

“You okay?”

“I don’t want to leave here.”

“Never can tell how things will turn out.”

I smiled sadly. “I’m pretty certain.”

“Didn’t know you could predict the future.” He smiled back.

I started to answer him, but he laid a finger across my lips, hushing me. He touched the corner of my eye — catching a last teardrop — then trailed his fingertips down my cheek. I saw such longing in his face, I was struck silent all over. His hand slid behind my neck, his other hand along the line of my jaw.

He stepped in close to me, almost touching, so that I could sense the warmth of him from my toes to my chin. His thumb ran across my lips, feeling them as if they were the softest, sweetest thing.

I started to tremble somewhere deep inside, beneath my heart. I didn’t understand.

He bent his head down, parted my lips with his thumb, brought his mouth close to mine. I closed my eyes. I could feel his breath on my skin, cool and warm. His nose touched mine, and he inhaled deeply, breathing me in.

Everything in me rose, a current lifting toward that breath. I waited.

But he stepped back, releasing me, his hands dropping to his sides.

“I have to tell you something,” he said thickly, looking away.

“Tell me.”

“I’m afraid to. I’m afraid to tell you.”

“Tell me,” I said again.

“I —” He looked pained. But he had to go on. “I have a gift too, Sarah. Like yours.”

“Like mine?”

“Sometimes, I can see things. Things that haven’t happened yet.”

A month before, I would have said,
Yeah, sure,
but now, it clicked.
Of course.
“That’s why you’re always catching stuff.”

He smiled faintly. “Yeah.”

“But that’s so much cooler than seeing the past,” I said, confused. Why was this a bad thing? “How much can you see?”

“Mostly just flashes of little things, like the soda getting knocked over —”

“— or someone about to fall off a cliff,” I said. “Not such a little thing.”

“No.” He paused, looking for words. “Sometimes, I can see way down the line, months, even years in advance. The big visions. But all of them are about just one person. Over and over. Ever since I first came here.”

He looked me in the eyes, searching. What could he possibly have to say that was so hard?

His jaw clenched. He made it work. “They’re all about you. I knew you were coming. I knew what you looked like, how you’d be, before I ever met you.”

I remembered him staring at me at the funeral.

“I knew you liked sailing and cherry Coke and The Lord of the Rings.”

And you read it
, I thought.
The whole thing. Even though you didn’t like the books. That’s a little — intense.
And as soon as I thought this, I stepped back the smallest bit.

He saw it. He looked lost. Part of me wanted to take his hand, but more of me was listening to this alarm going off in my head. I didn’t move.

His mouth tightened, but he went on.

“That isn’t even all of it. This is what you have to know. This is what I should have told you a long time ago.”

I waited.

“There is no treasure at Amber House.”

It took me a second to even process the words. “You lied?”

“It wasn’t totally a lie,” he said. “There
is
something here that’s more important to me than anything in the world. And I — needed you. To stay. For me to find it.”

“For you to find
what
?”

The question had come out of my mouth sharply, surprising me. I’d sounded just exactly like my mother. And her voice went on, yammering in my head:
It’s time for you to grow up, Sarah. Everyone wants something. Everyone’s using everyone else.

Even Jackson
, I thought bitterly. And wanted, absurdly, to start crying again.

He could see it. “I know this sounds bad, but I wasn’t just using you, Sarah. It’s so hard to explain —”

“I’m still listening.” The words were little ice chips.

“When I first came here, when I was about four or five, I had a — seizure. That’s what they called it, anyway. But it wasn’t really a seizure. It was like the world squeezed down into darkness and I went through this tiny hole and came out in a different place. A place where I was a grown-up, and a doctor — a surgeon. And I wasn’t scarred. Because there’d never been an accident. My parents were alive.”