Thistle and Twigg (23 page)

“Cal,” I said to the creaking chair, “I want you to know that everything is okay now. The land is safe. Rest easy my friend.” I looked again at the rose petal.

“Boo,” I said into the night air, “I’m very happy you’re here. I hope you don’t mind that I’m your new… house person.” I sat quietly, turning the petal in my fingers. “It was a lovely gift. Phoebe will cherish it, as I cherish the gifts you gave me. Perhaps I will make my own memento table after all,” I said, thinking of the acorn and red maple leaf.

The evening sounds of crickets and night birds comforted me. I sat there until late in the night, sketching things from the last few days, pondering all the new, odd, wonderful images in my mind. Star Rock. Phoebe in her princess wear. Homer, whom I’d come to regard as the most beautiful and noble of beasts.

I was right to come here. My lifetime fascination with history, nature, and archaeology had all led me to this place. The surreptitious training of the Colonel’s sneak attacks, shooting practice, my childhood ability in seeing ghosts, and the secret government work were all only practice for my real mission as caretaker of this forest. With a glance at my pad, I saw I’d drawn the carved reclining warrior, eyes half open, hand beside his knife.

After sketching a while longer, I looked up from my work. Homer had moved and now lay between the two rockers. And there, in the creaking chair, sat Cal. His head rested on the chair’s back, his eyes were closed. He sensed that I was looking at him and turned toward me. With a wave and a smile, he let me know he was fine, just as he had in our first encounter.

I had another guest as well. In the other rocker sat a young man perhaps in his late teens with short brown hair. His round face and the spray of freckles across his nose added to the look of perpetual innocence. He wore denim overalls with a blue shirt underneath. He was bending down to Homer to give him a back rub.

The boy looked suddenly to me, as if caught doing something wrong. “It’s all right, dear,” I said in a soft voice. “Very nice to see you. And thank you for helping me find Mrs. Hardwick’s note.” With a shy smile, he looked at the floor. “She was absolutely right. You are a beautiful boy.”

His cheeks flushed bright pink. He smiled and looked away again in embarrassment as his body shimmered, became shiny particles, and diffused into a rose tinted gold, like the evening sun sparkling on a lake, as he became transparent and vanished from sight.

Cal smiled in his bourbon-induced way, closing his eyes as his head leaned back again, and he disappeared as well. Both chairs continued to rock in a slow, steady motion. I wondered who else might stop by for an evening visit in the coming weeks and years.

“Homer, we shall have to invest in more rockers.”

He raised his head, blinked his eyes, and set his chin on his paws with a sigh of contentment.

It is mine.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the clean, fragrant air of the forest. Soon I would have many questions to ask and many decisions to make. Who will help me keep it safe? Dare I confide in anyone? How can I reconcile its need to be kept secret with the joy it would bring to others, just as it had done for me?

Will I be remiss if I don’t allow any scientific studies or archaeological digs? Or was Cal right, that all should remain untouched and undiscovered? And most importantly, how can I ensure its future after my death? All must be carefully considered.

But not tonight. Tonight, I would smile as the mysteries on Cal’s list of treasures danced like sugarplums over my head. Tonight, I would revel in the forest’s quiet beauty. I would pray that peaceful dreams come to every creature, large and small, within its arms. And I would give thanks for the creation of all things, visible and invisible, in heaven and on earth, most especially this place, where the visible and invisible reside together, where my heart has found its home.

Though there is no real Tullulah, many aspects of Jane’s magical forest are based on a real place, Dismals Canyon, in the wilds of northwestern Alabama. You can compare my fantasy with the reality at their Web site, dis-
malscanyon.com
, which tells all about the canyon’s history and natural wonders. My sincere thanks to all who have played a part in preserving it through the years.

Certainly all characters herein are entirely fictional, and any likenesses to parents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, cousins, nieces, nephews, inlaws, friends, dogs, acquaintances, or complete strangers whom I may have passed on the street in Alabama or elsewhere in the South is coincidental and, thank goodness, downright impossible, considering. The ghosts are real.

Phoebe’s gun is named after a lady I used to work with. My thanks to Ron Harris for coming up with such a great nickname, to the rest of the Bellevue gang for perpetuating it, and to Lynette Jennings for being such a good sport, with a nod of sympathy going out to all exiled smokers.

Thanks to Brian Green for listening to my crazy ideas and for making weapon and tactical suggestions. Also thanks to Joe Collins and Mark Pfeiffer on the Weapons Info list for sharing their gun expertise.

Special thanks to Marian Young and Kelley Ragland for making Jane and Phoebe’s foray into the world possible.