Downhill Chance (37 page)

“Send her home, that’s what,” ordered the uncle. “We can’t look after her here—her mother should’ve knowed that.”

Hannah wailed harder and Missy led her into the room, shutting the door on the uncle’s orders. “Shush, Hannie, you can stay the night—till tomorrow. Stop crying. Ohh,” she sighed unhappily, and raining kisses across Hannah’s forehead, she led her to the bed, lying down with her, kissing and rocking her till Hannah’s wails subsided into shuddering sobs. “There now, let’s just rest for a bit,” she said quietly, “then we’ll have supper, and you can come with me when I—when I goes for a walk, all right?”

“T-to the fairy ring?”

“If that’s what you wants. But only this evening; like I told you, I don’t go outside these days.”

“Only at night?”

“Yes, only at night because everybody talks and stares during the day.”

“Don’t it get t-too hot?”

“I haves my window open and there’s always a breeze. Shh, now, I’m tired again. See? I told you, I’m tired all the time, and that’s why I don’t go out. Perhaps we can just be quiet and nap a little. Is that all right? Can you nap a little right now?” she coaxed, her hair brushing soft against Hannah’s cheek.

Hannah nodded, laying her head carefully upon her aunt’s chest, feeling it swell with each breath she drew.

AFTER SUPPER WAS DONE
and the evening shadow was beginning to fill the room, the uncle ordered, “You’ll not take her prowling.”

“I’m just going out the backyard, that’s all—breathe some air,” said Missy, pulling on a sweater at the door. “Hannah, you ready?”

“She ought to be in bed.”

“Will you check on the wharf in the morning, for someone going down Rocky Head?”

“Thought she was staying till I got back?”

“Thought you wanted her sent back?”

“That don’t fit,” said the uncle, his tone becoming more querulous with surprise, “all the time wanting her to stay, and now sending her back.”

“Ooh, light your pipe,” said Missy, patting his shoulder. “Come, Hannah, got your boots on?”

“You’re up to something,” he said, rising. “I knows when you’re up to something—and I been feeling it for a while now. Either she stays whilst I’m gone, or I ask Alma to keep watch over you.”

“You dare!” snapped Missy, turning on him. “I swear, I’ll leave and never come back agin if you goes asking that busybody to come watching over me.”

“Then the girl stays. And you mind as well,” he warned Hannah, “else you’ll never put another leg back here agin, if I finds you up to no good with her.”

Shaking her head impatiently, Missy opened the door, ushering Hannah outside. “I swear, I’d like to leave here and never come back,” she muttered.

“You mind what you says,” called out the uncle, but she was already slamming the door.

“Worse than having Daddy back,” she said as the uncle pulled apart the curtains, staring after them, “At least he never seen or heard nobody.” Cramming her hands in her pockets, she stared disdainfully at the houses of the Basin, flushed with lamplight, staring back at her.

“How come your daddy never seen nothing or nobody?” asked Hannah, keeping step besides her as she hurried into the dark of the backyard.

“Too busy thinking on his own things, I imagine. Sometimes I finds myself wondering what it was that kept him sitting like that—now that I’ve been sitting there myself, most days.” She gave a little shiver. “I used to be frightened to death when I was a youngster, coming through that gate, with him sitting in the window, his eyes all hollow and black and his face white—like a skull, I used to think.”

“Is Uncle Sim like a skull?”

“No. He don’t sit in torment like Daddy did. He just sits, is all, grumbling at whoever happens to be walking up the road. I got used to that—his grumbling for hours on end. Funny, but that’s what makes me know now that Daddy wasn’t just sitting there, waiting for me to come home and be glared at. Lord, I thinks of the times I used to run home through the backyard and sneak around the corner of the house so’s he wouldn’t see me with his skull-like eyes. Poor Daddy. It must’ve been awful living all alone like that, and with everyone staring all the time. I thanks God for Uncle Sim and his foolish grumbling and our arguing.” Reaching out, she tightened her hand around Hannah’s. “Does Clair

and Luke argue—or grumble?”

“Only since the old vet come ashore.”

“What old vet?”

“From over the hills somewhere. He was with Uncle Joey in the war. How come there’s no stars?” she asked, tossing back her head as they reached the bottom of the yard, gazing at the last trace of blue ebbing from the sky.

“Not dark enough. Did the vet know Daddy, too?”

“Don’t know.”

“Hasn’t Clair asked him?”

“No, and that’s why she’s fighting with Daddy—because he won’t go talk to him either.”

“Why won’t she go talk to him?”

“Don’t know.”

“Then why won’t he go talk to him?”

“Because he says he’s a bastard.”

“Luke says he’s a bastard? Why does he say he’s a bastard?”

“Because he drinks liquor. Are we going in?” asked Hannah as they come to the gate leading into a thicket.

“Not scared, are you?”

“No,” said Hannah, staring hard at the dark woods before her, trying to imagine it in its daylight foliage of aspen, brooks and squawking bluejays. “I—I can’t see,” she protested, fumbling with her foot for the path, hands reaching before her as Missy creaked open the gate, ushering her through.

“You’ll see better in a minute—here, hold my hand.” With the clarity of a nighthawk, Missy led them straight onto the path through the wood.

“Daddy said a fairy led Grandy into the woods once and got him lost,” said Hannah.

“Ouch,” exclaimed Missy as Hannah stumbled over her ankles. “What else did he say?”

“That Grandy ate dandelion seeds every day from then on so’s to protect himself so’s he’d never see another fairy.”

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know. I think so—” A sudden rush of air struck her cheek and she leaped back with a shriek.

“Shh, it’s a bird; it’s just a bird,” soothed Missy.

“It’s a bat!” cried Hannah.

“Bats don’t hurt you. Hear the brook? It’ll be lighter in the clearing. There’s no bats there, and they don’t hurt you, anyhow. Lord knows, I’d be dead by now if they did. Come on.”

Holding up a hand to ward off further bat attacks, Hannah allowed her aunt to lead her off the path and alongside a brook choking its way free of the underbrush and sliding across a grassy clearing. It was lighter here, as Missy had promised, and taking courage, Hannah shoved herself more boldly through a grouping of huckleberry and alder bushes, closing her eyes against the branches flicking at her face. Finally they broke through, meeting up with the brook again as it tumbled down an embankment, joining with a river onto the gorge floor. But it was impossible to see the river on this night, with the floor of the gorge as black as tar, and Hannah turned her eyes instead towards the pearly grey of the ocean, scarcely visible at the mouth of the gorge, reflecting the final traces of the evening’s light.

Missy was brushing off a place to sit besides the brook and Hannah fell to her knees, scrambling to sit besides her.

“Mmm, I loves the sounds of running water,” murmured Missy, resting her chin on the crown of Hannah’s head and trailing her hand through the brook as it splashed down over the grade. Hannah nodded, closing her eyes to the dark of the gorge, and feeling instead the warmth of her aunt’s throat on her forehead.

“Where do you think the stars go in the daytime?” her aunt asked softly.

“Nowhere. The sun makes it hard to see them.”

“Getting smart, aren’t you?”

“Daddy told me. And he said you can’t ever reach them, not even if you piled every house in the world on top of each other, and every ladder and every log, not even then can you reach them—that’s how far away they are.”

“He must be right, else we’d be lying on a star this evening.”

“And he said once he was thinking so hard about it that he made a star fall right across the sky.”

“Mmm. Once I believed my daddy could make the heavens dance.”

“That’s silly.”

“Maybe so. Some things are too big to think about.” And she lapsed into silence, gently swaying, her chin nuzzling Hannah’s crown. They sat like that for some time, Missy much calmer than earlier, except for the strength of her fingers as she more fidgeted than stroked Hannah’s shoulders, and Hannah a little uncomfortable because of the damp of the ground penetrating the thin cotton of her slacks, yet remaining still, not wanting to disrupt the aunt’s quiet. Despite herself, a shiver ran through her and her aunt immediately rose.

The horizon had given way to full darkness by now, and Hannah clung tightly to her aunt’s hand as they fought their way back through the huckleberries and alders. The gurglings of the little brook sounded more like rushing river in the quiet of the night, and with relief Hannah found herself on the path leading back through the aspens and the glimmer of a lamplight twinkling through the dark. Another glimmer, and another, and they were back besides the gate again, and windows from the Basin burnishing the night.

“See that,” sniffed Missy, coming up across the yard and staring up at the upstairs window and the uncle, his hands cupped to the pane, peering down at them. “That’s what it’s like all the time now—everybody staring at me. You’d think they never seen anybody this way before, and don’t let them windows that’s dark fool you; that’s the ones they’re most likely looking through,” she added as they made their way up over the garden.

“You can get to bed now,” she shouted the second they were inside the house and she had strolled to the foot of the stairs. “We didn’t turn into fairies and fly away.” Rolling her eyes, she patted the back of divan for Hannah to sit and, raising the wick, made them each a cup of hot cocoa. “Don’t spill,” she cautioned as Hannah crept up over the stairs behind her, their shadows looming on the wall from the lamp the uncle had left burning on the landing.

Laying her cup on the bedstand, Hannah stripped off her clothes and snatched up the end of the curtain, covering the opening to the closet, looking for her bag. “You got some squawroot?” she asked, dropping to her knees besides some dried roots gnarled around each other, and leaves shrivelled up like hay drying on a piece of brown paper.

“Get away from that,” said Missy loudly, pulling Hannah away from the closet and letting the curtain fall back in place. And seeing Hannah’s stung look, she quickly smiled. “Yes, yes, it’s squawroot. I dries them for Uncle Sim.”

“That’s a lot,” said Hannah. “Too much makes you really sick, Granny Prude says.”

“Never mind,” said Missy. “And tell no one about it. There, underneath the bed is your bag. Hurry now, get undressed.”

“Is it too hot?” she asked, after they were both gowned and had crawled into bed, sitting up on their pillows, sipping their cocoa.

Hannah shook her head, taking a gulp of the sweetened liquid.

“Bet Clair don’t let you drink cocoa in bed.”

“Nope.”

“Is Brother laughing yet?”

“Just bawls.”

“All the time?”

“Yup.”

“Nothing else?”

“He slobbers.”

“I hates slobber. Do Luke rock him?”

“Yup.”

“What else did Luke say to Clair—when they were fighting about the vet?”

“That she’s waiting for something.”

“What’s she waiting for?”

“Don’t know.”

“And what do she say?”

“That he’s scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of walking up the beach.”

“Since the shooting?”

“Yup.”

“Do you think he is?”

“Daddy’s not scared of nothing.”

Missy laid her partially emptied cup on the dresser, reaching for Hannah’s. “Everybody’s scared of something, Hannie,” she said, leaning over and blowing out the lamp. “Only difference is, some people knows what they’re scared of, and some don’t. I’d say Luke’s one of them that knows exactly what he’s scared of, and I’d say Clair’s one of them that don’t.”

“I’m scared of thunder,” said Hannah, sinking beneath the blankets.

“And I’m scared of lightning,” whispered Missy into her ear, making it all shivery.

“Is this how you and Mommy slept?” asked Hannah, after her aunt had tucked around the curve of her back.

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you turn in to her back—or did she turn in to yours?”

“She turned in to mine. She used to say my hair felt like bird’s feathers.”

“Bird’s feathers!”

“Beneath her cheek.”

“Let me feel,” said Hannah. Reaching beneath her head for a fistful of her aunt’s hair, she pulled it across her pillow as had her mother when she was just a girl.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING HANNAH AWAKENED
with the robins, shifting wide-eyed on her pillow, waiting for her aunt to stir. Missy had turned from her during the night, and was curled onto her other side, facing the window.

Inching her head off her pillow, Hannah leaned over and whispered, “Are you awake?”

“Ummm.”

“Are we getting up?”

“In a bit.”

“Is Uncle Sim gone?”

“Ummm. Ooh, Hannie, I don’t feel good in the mornings.”

“Why don’t I go stoke the fire?”

“Don’t burn yourself, then.”

Scrambling out of bed, Hannah pulled on her clothes from the night before and, hopping onto the bannister, swooshed down the railing, landing off balance and staggering against the stairwell wall.

“Hannah?”

“I’m just going to stoke the fire.” Shoving in a junk of wood, she pulled the kettle forward, humming a little, as her mother sometimes did when she was making breakfast, and pulled open the curtains, letting in the morning sun. She found a knife in the drawer and cut off a slice of bread.

“Hannah?”

“Be up in a second.”

Pouring some milk into a cup of tea, she then stirred in some sugar, and rescued the toast before it was too badly burnt. Lapping on lots of butter, she laid it on a tray, along with the cup of tea, and crept up over the stairs, proudly bearing it before her aunt.