Silk and Stone (27 page)

When no more messages came, she felt only a little better. She would have to live with the gnawing worry that Jake knew more about her than she wanted anyone to know. She finally regained a measure of sanity by telling herself it didn’t matter—he had no
proof
.

But like his mother, he was a thorn embedded in Alexandra’s skin. She could pretend he didn’t matter, but she always knew he was there.

“Here, it’s going to be right here.” Jake nodded at Mrs. Big Stick, then proudly swept an arm at the small clearing marked only by the stumps of a few trees he’d
cut. Massive oaks and sourwoods and hickories still surrounded the knoll, with a thick underskirting of rhododendron, azaleas, dogwoods, and hollies. He would clear no more than he had to for the house and yards, leaving the grandest trees. The spring where Granny had taken him and Ellie so often to sit with their bare feet in the cold, clear water while she told Cherokee fables was at the base of the hill.

Mrs. Big Stick, stout and colorful in a billowing red skirt and oversize print blouse, her scuffed leather walking shoes run-down at the sides from the weight of her responsibilities, squinted at him in contemplative silence. A woven bag bulging with her ceremonial materials hung from one of her shoulders. She hitched it a little higher and pursed her lips. “Your mother told me how proud it makes them—you wanting to stay in the Cove. This is a very important thing.”

Jake nodded. A house for him and Samantha. A mark of his new status, and of leaving Mother and Father’s home. A stake in the Cove’s future. A promise to honor what Father and many generations of Father’s ancestors had fought for and loved. All those sentiments were part of his decision. “I want to look out the front windows and see Granny’s spring,” he added.

“That’s good. See? She has never left you.”

Without another word Mrs. Big Stick bent and flicked a cigarette lighter under the firewood he’d piled in the clearing’s center. He watched in satisfied silence, sitting on a stump at a respectful distance. She nurtured the fire until it blazed without her help, then pulled a small tape player from her bag, twisted the volume control, and pushed a button. Loud, hypnotic drumbeats echoed off the wall of trees.

Mrs. Big Stick brought out a pouch and sprinkled tobacco into the fire, then shuffled around the open space, casting the dried brown bits to the four directions, chanting indecipherable words as she did. The ceremonial blessing soothed Jake. He was touching a past as ancient as the mountains, as enduring as the sun and moon. When Mrs. Big Stick returned to the fire and stood, still
chanting, with her eyes shut, he took Samantha’s quilt from a backpack and spread it on the low branches of a shrub.

Her eyes still shut, Mrs. Big Stick sank stiffly to her knees, felt around for the tape player, and shut it off. Pure silence descended, as if the whole world had been rinsed clean. She continued to kneel, her head bowed. Then, with a firm nod, she sighed, lifted her head, and opened her eyes.

She stared at the quilt curiously. “That is beautiful. It’s good to add your own sacred totems to the ceremony,” she said. “What does it mean to you?”

“Samantha Ryder made it.”

Her deepset eyes widened. Shock and dismay swept over her expression, and she got to her feet with a lumbering speed he’d never expected. Mouth open, she marched to the quilt, halted in front of it, and seared him with a look of horrified disapproval. “You can’t. You can’t do it. Can’t have
anything
to do with her. Oh, this is bad. You should have warned me. I’ll have to work on this. I thought you understood. I thought your granny and I had showed you the right path.”

“You did.” He was astonished and defensive. “I know who I’m meant to be with. I’ve known since I was a kid. Samantha and I are meant to be together. That
is
the right path.”

“No, boy,
no
. Why do you think you lost your feeling for the ruby after your uncle died? Oh, don’t look at me like that—I figured out your problem back then. I tried to explain it to you.
When you can’t get a feeling from something, it’s a warning
. It’s something that can hurt you too bad.”

“Samantha isn’t going to hurt me.”

“Not her, maybe, but through her”—Mrs. Big Stick’s voice dropped to a whisper—“you don’t want any connection to a
ravenmocker.
”

“I have to trust what I
know
. It’s how I find lost hikers for the sheriff. It’s how I find gemstones. It’s how I found Samantha—how I always will.”

“No, that ruby was trying to tell you the truth, boy. That stone knows more than you will ever want to hear. It was carried by medicine people through times so far past, we can only imagine them in our dreams.
And if it won’t talk to you, it’s for your own good
. That stone will come back to where it belongs only through pain, and hardship, and terrible grief.
You can’t invite it here.
”

Angry and confused, Jake quickly folded the quilt and put it away. “If the stone won’t talk to me, I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I’ll listen to my own … music.”

Mrs. Big Stick groaned and hurried back to her belongings. She shook her head as she shoved them into her bag. Jake watched in tortured silence. “Maybe you’re as white as you look,” Mrs. Big Stick said. “You don’t really believe in the power of a ravenmocker.”

“I believe I’d be a coward to let one run my life. And Samantha’s.”

“You won’t be able to stop a ravenmocker with good intentions, boy.” Mrs. Big Stick hoisted her bag to her shoulder and marched toward the narrow path that led back to the house.

“I’m not a fool,” Jake called. “I have patience. I’m careful.”

She grumbled softly in Cherokee, stopped, and turned around. She pointed at him. Doom lined her face. “If you bring Samantha into your family, the ravenmocker will destroy them all.”

After she disappeared into the forest, Jake sat down and grimly pulled the quilt between his legs. Mrs. Big Stick underestimated his patience and determination. He would not run from the future, and he would never desert Samantha, and he would never let Alexandra ruin the lives of everyone he loved.

He gripped Samantha’s gift in hands that were young and strong and certain. She was as close as his fingertips, and he would wait for her.

Part
          Two
 

Chapter
            Twelve
 

“W
ould you like a pillow?” The school guidance counselor asked that question as she closed her office door, trapping Sam in the fake pine and cinnamon scent of a miniature plastic Christmas tree on the counselor’s scarred wooden desk. It was too early for Christmas decorations, Sam thought. A lopsided Thanksgiving turkey made of papier mâché still sat on the other corner of Mrs. Taylor’s desk.

Sam twisted in a chair beside the desk and looked at her askance. She had no idea why Mrs. Taylor had gotten her out of class for this meeting. “Ma’am?”

“You’re famous for falling asleep sitting up,” Mrs. Taylor, a big mother-bear sort of person, said without rebuke. She frowned benignly as she sank into a creaking chair behind her desk. “You look pooped even now. If you nod off, I don’t want you to smack your head on my desk.”

Sam straightened in the chair and tried to appear perky. “I fall over slowly. I don’t even make a sound when I hit.”

“It’s very commendable of you to not disrupt class. But all your teachers are talking about your spontaneous naptimes. They’re worried about you—your grades have slipped since last year.”

“I’ll still graduate at the end of this quarter.”

“Oh, nobody’s saying you won’t.” Mrs. Taylor frowned. “I hear you don’t intend to come back this spring for the graduation ceremonies. Why, Sam?”

“I’ll already have my diploma. That’s all I care about. What’s the point of marching up on a stage?”

“Sam, get a dictionary. Look up the word ‘fun.’ ” The counselor shuffled through a file folder that had
Ryder, S
. stenciled at the top. “Summer school, heavy course loads, no club memberships, no sports. That’s pretty intense. Haven’t you heard? You’re seventeen. These are the most carefree years of your life.”

“I’ll be eighteen in January.”

“Oh, well, excuse
me
. I didn’t realize you were so close to retirement.”

“My mom’s business isn’t doing very well. When we started, we were the only health food store in the city. But in the past couple of years the national chains have opened franchises, and the big supermarkets started carrying things like mineral water and yogurt, and … good Lord, now we get guys in three-piece suits complaining because we don’t stock five different brands of whole wheat bread.”

“Yuppies,” Mrs. Taylor said darkly. “The world is being overrun by young urban professionals who vote Republican. I read about it in
Newsweek.
”

“Well, we made a lot more money from Mom’s ouhies.”

“Ouhies?”

“Old urban hippies.”

Mrs. Taylor smiled, but her eyes were shadowed. “I hear you’re working nights and weekends at a fabric shop.”

“We need the extra money. And after I graduate and go to work full-time, we’ll be okay.”

“Sammie, do you really want to forego the last part of your senior year? Don’t you want to cause trouble and goof off with the rest of the senior class?”

“I really want to make money. And I’ve never cared much about all that teenage-bonding stuff anyway. I’m not a herd animal.”

“Oh? What are you?”

Sam held up her hands. “A spider. If I could spin silk from my fingertips, I’d make my own web and sit in the middle of it. And any uninvited guests would get wrapped up and eaten.”

“Hon, if you don’t get more rest you’ll doze off in mid-spin.”

Sam knotted her hands in her lap. “I’ll drink more coffee.”

“What about college?”

“I’m not going to waste four years when I already know what I want to do.”

“Which is?”

“Make money.”

“I’ve got news for you, hon. Clerks in fabric shops drive beat-up old cars and buy their underwear at garage sales.”

“I’ll own my own business. Custom draperies, handmade lace, you name it. I’ll sell my work through interior decorators. I’ve got a long-range plan mapped out. You can bet on it.”

“Does this plan include five minutes for a social life?”

Sam unconsciously touched a hand to the small, irregular bump made by the ruby under her blouse. “No.” The bell rang in the halls outside, and Sam shifted in her chair. “I appreciate you worrying about me, but, Mrs. Taylor, I can take care of myself.”

“All right, the lecture is over. Scram.” But as Sam hurried to the door, Mrs. Taylor asked drolly, “Hon, have you ever participated in one of those dinner-and-movie rituals where the male and the female learn how to intrigue
and annoy each other and the male pays for everything?
A date
?”

“Hmmm. No. That must be near ‘fun’ in the dictionary.”

Sam eased out of the office. For a second she’d been tempted to announce,
I’ve been married since I was a child
, just to see the dust fly when Mrs. Taylor exploded. But Sam would not explain why she clung to secret, hopeless dreams. She just never let go, as Jake had said the last time they’d seen each other, three years ago.