Seven Tears into the Sea (3 page)

“We'll miss Gwen. And Mirage Beach is incredible,” Jill added. “I could get addicted to this place.”

“It does have a way of stealing your heart,” Nana admitted.

Something in my chest trembled at that, but it felt more like fear than affection. What was that about?

“Mrs. Cook?”

Of course Mandi used Nana's name. Memorizing names was her hobby. She believed knowing the names of every student at Valencia High would guarantee her election as Homecoming Queen next year. She hoped to have Prince Charming on her arm by then. If not, it was still a step in the right direction.

“I'm sorry, too. I have a new stepmother, and this one came with
twins
who need an in-house baby-sitter. So my dad's keeping me on a short leash this summer.”

“My goodness, dear,” Nana said. “I certainly understand.”

I couldn't help sliding Mandi a look out of the corner of my eye. She'd left out the part where she'd get a new BMW in September if she chauffeured the twins around to tennis and swimming lessons all summer.

The BMW was bound to be Prince bait, but Mandi's face turned solemn as she added, “My father thinks the responsibility will be good for me.”

“I'll be back soon, Mom, for a longer visit.” Dad kissed Nana's cheek as we moved out of the kitchen. “I'll just check things at the cottage, get Gwennie settled, then whisk these working girls back to the city.”

“Thelma's washed the curtains, swept, put fresh linens on the bed, all that,” Nana told him at the door.

“It'll be real nice,” Dad said, but he was already climbing into the Honda.

“You might make sure the extra key is where it's supposed to be,” Nana called after him, and Dad flashed her an okay sign over the roof of his car.

Jill and Mandi were ahead of me, piling back into the VW when I felt that pull toward the ocean, again.

“Beckon the sea, I'll come to thee …”

No. I actually shook my head to keep the words from taking root. I'd picked up that rhyme from some Celtic story Nana told. Not from a stranger on the beach.

“Shed seven tears, perchance seven years.”

It was coincidence that I hadn't been back to Mirage Beach for seven years. Pure coincidence, and I was not
about to go stand in the waves and squeeze out seven tears.

The image was embarrassing, not scary. So why, though it had to be eighty degrees, was I rubbing goose-flesh from my arms?

Nana's sigh made me look back. She was gazing after Dad.

“As old as I am,” she said, when she caught me watching. “I still haven't got used to the idea that he's mostly your father now, instead of my son.”

It was an incredibly sad thing to say.

For a minute I didn't know how to react. Then I decided it was a reminder of how quickly time passed. It had been years since I spent time with Nana, and all because I was afraid of gossip.

I darted back up the steps and gave Nana a quick kiss on the cheek.

“The minute I get rid of them, I'll be back,” I promised. “Will you save me a couple scones?”

“All you want, Gwennie,” Nana promised. “And a private moment”—she raised one eyebrow—“after things settle down?”

Oh no. I knew what was coming.

I also knew I couldn't get out of it.

I nodded, waved, and sprinted toward the VW. Mandi and Jill were settled in the car, and I was glad their impatience had kept them from hearing Nana's invitation.

I started the car and revved the engine.

A sea gull cried and swooped so low that all three of us ducked, then laughed.

Driving like a pro, I pulled out of the driveway, speeding after Dad.

This is really why I didn't want to come back.
I could get past the gossip. I'd outgrown the sleepwalking. But what about Nana's totally goofy predictions?

I'm a person who can't take a weather forecast on faith, and Nana expected me to believe she could see my future reflected in an antique copper mirror.

It's like carnival fortune-tellers reading crystal balls, and it's called scrying. It turns up in lots of old stories. In
Snow White,
for instance, when the evil queen says “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” then gets answers from that mirror, she's scrying.

Oh my gosh, Mandi had me doing it, too.

Snow White is a fairy tale, I reminded myself. I live in this century, in the real world. I don't believe in scrying.

I lifted my chin, squared my shoulders, and watched the road.

Dad turned hard right, down the dirt road to Cook's Cottage, and I followed.

“We are gonna have such awesome tans by September,” Mandi squealed. She thrust her arms toward the sky, and I knew how she felt.

Ahead, waves rumbled. Sea wind rushed into my face. I smelled salt, kelp, and sunbaked tar paper on the cottage roof. Summer was making lots of promises.

“I propose a party at my apartment, the night before school starts,” Jill said. “To tell our summer stories.”

“And compare tan lines!” Mandi said. She craned her neck and peeled down one side of her blouse to inspect her starting point.

“And don't forget our promise,” I reminded them.

“Sure, it will be easy for you to try something new every day,” Mandi said, pretending to pout.

“I'm sure the twins will give you a few thrills and surprises,” I answered, but I was actually thinking it might be fun to let Nana read my future. She hadn't done it since we left Mirage Beach.

That last day as Mom and I waited for Dad to return with the U-Haul trailer that would carry everything we owned to Valencia, Nana had plucked the copper mirror out of its pouch and insisted on doing a reading.

Mom had resisted. Before she became a health writer at the
Valencia View
newspaper, Mom was a nurse. She has a scientific brain, so Nana's scrying made Mom crazy.

“Now, now,” Nana had soothed Mom as she fidgeted at Nana's kitchen window, mumbling that Dad had better get back and break up this séance, “this will be a true reading. I can feel it in my bones.”

The gist of the reading was that I'd return to Mirage Beach. That was a pretty safe call, since we wouldn't desert Nana, and she knew it. But one part of the reading really stuck with me.

I think it would have anyway, but Mom guaranteed it when she yelped, “Why on earth would you say something like that to a
child
?”

Nana had stared at the copper circle cupped in her palm, and though she was seated right next to me, her eyes saw things far beyond the kitchen table.

“The power which commands the waves, will pull you back,” she whispered. “Back to a reunion no mortal can imagine and no female can resist.”

To forget words like those, you'd have to be brain-dead.

A bird's nest hung between the door hinge and the eaves of Cook's Cottage. I noticed it just as Mandi started to jerk open the screen door.

“Wait!” I said, and though the little mud pellets, all stuck together to make a gourd-shaped nest, shuddered, they didn't fall apart.

“It's a wasp's nest,” Jill said. “There must be something around here we can knock it down with.”

“It's not a wasp's nest, is it, Dad?” I turned to my father as Jill crossed her arms.

Jill isn't as softhearted over animals as I am. Even though her landlord allows small pets, she doesn't have one. She says she has enough trouble feeding herself.

“Cliff swallows,” Dad said. He pushed his glasses
up his nose and stood listening to the nest.

“Can you see inside?” I asked. “Are there any eggs?”

“I don't want to look in with my giant face and scare them.” Dad shook his head and backed away, lowering his voice as if he'd wake the occupants. “I didn't see anybody fly away, but we used to have them every year.”

“If they're
cliff
swallows, wouldn't it be for their own good to—” Mandi made a sweeping gesture over her head, then shifted her weight toward Jill. “I bet they'd be happier down by the cliffs.”

The nest did look like someone had just slung a clump of mud on the cottage wall. And it would be in danger each time my front door opened. And Gumbo's hunting hum was already coming from her cage. I could picture her with head cocked at the door, alert for the sounds of nestlings taking wing for the first time. Still, I wanted to leave the nest right where it was.

“Haven't you heard of the famous swallows of San Juan Capistrano?”

I hated it when Dad asked my friends questions like that. Of course they hadn't. This time he recognized my frustration, because he went on as if they'd answered.

“They've been coming back to a mission for generations, since, oh, I don't know, the 1800s, I think. It's swallows' nature to find a home and stick with it.”

Jill, Mandi, and Dad watched me for a decision.

“They stay,” I told them, and the zing of possessiveness felt good.

Then I held my screen door wide, while Dad reached through to unlock the wooden door and ease inside.

“I've never seen the Nature Girl side of you, Gwen,” Jill said.

“It's going to look like crap until it dries up and falls off,” Mandi warned.

But she followed Jill, eager as I was to see inside Cook's Cottage, and it occurred to me that they both might be just a little bit jealous.

Inside, the cottage seemed smaller than I remembered. I suppose that was because I'd been pretty little when I lived here.

“I love this place,” Jill said. “It's so light.”

Jill's studio sat in a hive of identical apartments shadowed by a freeway overpass, so I understood her admiration, but the truth was, the cottage was much brighter than I recalled.

The curtains were pushed back from each window. June light streamed across the plank floors of golden oak. Except where they were covered by sea grass rugs, they were smooth and glossy.

The cottage had four rooms. Downstairs, there was the living room, a kitchen, and my bedroom. From where I stood by the front door, I could see the staircase leading up to the sleeping loft my parents had shared.

Every wall in the place was painted white and the windows had pale gauzy curtains. I'm surprised Dad wasn't fussing about them being transparent.

The couch was adobe-colored, faded but not ratty. I could very clearly see myself lounging with a book and a can of soda. My sandy beach towel would be draped over a chair pulled up to the round kitchen table. My curtains would billow like sails, and I could hear my seashell wind chimes tinkling in the breeze.

Of course, there weren't any wind chimes in the window or beach towels yet. And, far from fussing about my thin curtains, Dad was chuckling with pleasure because Cook's Cottage still had a dead bolt on the front door and latches on the windows.

Was he thinking of keeping me in or keeping trouble out?

I carried Gumbo's cage and followed Dad on his inspection tour. Mandi and Jill were right behind me.

When Gumbo gave a throaty growl, I peered in at her usually good-natured calico face. Her ears were pressed flat and the gold of her eyes barely showed through the angry slits.

“Had enough, baby?” I asked, then hid her carrier behind the couch, where it would be relatively quiet. As soon as it was just the two of us, I'd let her out to explore.

Dad paused in his scrutiny, hands in pockets. He
nodded to himself, as if this just might do for his daughter. Then he continued walking around, checking lamp cords for frays, sniffing the burners on the gas stove, shouldering a tall bookcase full of old hardbacks to see if it would topple in an earthquake.

“Looks like I'm safe from everything but paper cuts,” I teased.

“I'd be happier if there was a phone, but you're only a two-minute sprint from the Inn,” he muttered.

“No phone?” Mandi gasped as if he'd said there was no oxygen. “What will you do?”

“Use the one at the Inn,” I said, and because I could see she was about to resurrect the cell phone issue, I shook my head.

Dad had read that you could spontaneously combust if you used a cell phone while pumping gasoline. Now that I had a car of my own, he found this to be a serious concern.

I had forgotten the no-phone part of living at the cottage, but I wasn't freaked out about it.

I flicked the light switch beside the door. A porch light, pale in the sunshine, came on. At least I had electricity. I wondered if the birds had built there because the porch light kept them warm.

Of course that was unlikely, since no one lived here.

“Don't forget where these are.” Dad opened a
kitchen cabinet full of candles and held up a box of matches. “You probably don't remember that whenever there's a storm, nine times out of ten it knocks out the power.”

I remembered candles flickering all around me. From the mantle, the coffee table, everywhere. I remembered picnic dinners of salami and cheese and French bread and butter on a blanket in front of the fireplace, and the three of us going to bed at the same time instead of Mom and Dad staying up late.