Birds of Summer (11 page)

There was another game about how Meg would have been a concert pianist if she hadn’t married Alan—and then Pardell would tell about how he gave up his career as a serious writer to marry Meg.

There was also an Odious game. Odious was the orange tomcat. Both Alan and Meg pretended to hate him and blame his presence in the house on each other. They each had a large repertoire of disgusting cat stories, which they often told at the very moment they were allowing Odious to climb all over them or sneak things off their plates at the table.

It took Summer a while to understand how the Pardells really felt about Odious, and about a lot of other things. Or at least to find out that they didn’t really feel the way they said they did. She found the fact that she couldn’t ever count on either of them meaning exactly what they said either frustrating or funny, depending on her frame of mind.

It must have been somewhere around ten o’clock when Summer’s mind quit dredging up real Oliver and Pardell memories and shifted down into dreamed-up ones. She’d been very tired that night, and she must have been sleeping deeply because she was only vaguely aware of Sparrow’s climbing over her. Ordinarily, Sparrow on her way to the bathroom, half-awake and clumsy, managed to knee her in the stomach, get tangled in her hair and, in general, thoroughly wake her up. But this time she barely registered Sparrow’s departure. It was quite a while later that she suddenly came fully awake knowing that a great deal of time had passed and Sparrow hadn’t returned. And also knowing in some strange interior way that something was very wrong.

It took only a minute to confirm her sudden conviction that she was all alone in the trailer. The bathroom was empty, and so was Oriole’s bedroom. She still hadn’t returned from the Fishers’, or wherever she went almost every night with Angelo. And where Sparrow had gone was easy to guess. She’d had that dream again and had gone looking for Marina. For several minutes Summer stood on the front steps calling—just as Sparrow still called almost every day for Cerbe—and just as uselessly. In the moon-bright forest stillness, the sound of her own voice frightened her—a long throbbing wail like the cry of a lost animal. Then she ran back to the bedroom, pulled on jeans, shoes and a jacket, grabbed her flashlight and ran down the path toward the road and the Fishers’.

On the path, beneath the branches of the tall trees, it was very dark in spite of the full moon; but when she reached the road, she switched off the flashlight and went on running. She ran for a long way—up the steep road, at times scrambling up shortcuts between the frequent switchbacks. At last sharp cramps in her legs and a searing pain in her chest forced her to stop. She dropped to her knees and crumped against the embankment. It wasn’t until the pain had subsided and her ears were no longer deafened by the thunder of her heart and the rasp of her breath that she began to listen—and to think.

Just ahead the road was leveling out, which meant she was almost to the wide plateau where the Fishers lived. She listened, trying to hold her breath, but there was no sound except for the faint rustle of a brisk ocean wind in the surrounding pine trees. The road ahead, which she had walked many times in the days when the McIntyres were welcome visitors, was a narrow canyon between tall trees and thick underbrush. And at the end of the road there would be—what? The dog-murdering Creep, Neanderthal Bart, slimy little Jude, dangerous watchdogs, and whatever was behind all the mysterious changes of the past months. If she got up and went on, she would walk alone and in the dark into the midst of whatever it was.

It was not something she had planned on when she dashed out of the trailer in pursuit of Sparrow. If she had thought at all, it must have been that she would catch up with Sparrow while she was still on the road. But she hadn’t, and now she would have to decide what to do next. Whether to give up and go home—or to keep on going.

A sane, reasonable-sounding voice in her mind argued against it. “Go back,” it said. “She probably isn’t here anyway. She probably curled up and went to sleep somewhere in the trailer, the way she does, and just didn’t hear you calling. Or maybe she turned off the road to go to that secret tree stump of hers and Marina’s, and if you start back maybe you’ll find her on her way home.” But there was another part of her, the stubborn, hardheaded part that had always made her swim against the current, that answered the reasonable voice with a firm, “No.” Nothing else just “No.” She said it out loud—stood up—and started on up the road.

The gate was new. Fastened with a heavy chain and padlock, it crossed the road just as it emerged from the heavily wooded hillside and entered the clearing. Moving as quietly as she could on the graveled surface, Summer crept forward until she could peer between the crossbars. At first, in the uncertain soft-edged moonlight, everything looked just as it always had. Ahead of her was the big house, an enormous log cabin with a wide stone chimney and deep veranda. A light was on in the living room, but no one was visible through the small-paned windows. Just to the right was the grape arbor and the large gazebo that Galya called the summer house, and farther back, behind the arbor, Summer could see the dim outline of the smokehouse and beyond that the small cabin that had belonged to the grandfather. The smokehouse was dark, but a light shone in the window of the old cabin.

Farther to the right were the enormous greenhouses—first the two familiar old ones and, beyond them, dimly seen in the distance, what seemed to be at least two more, where the raised beds of the summer gardens had been before. A high gate and new greenhouses, but nothing else. No sign of patrolling dogs or humans. Cautiously, Summer climbed to the top of the gate, and then down the other side.

She had just reached the ground when a sudden sharp noise made her drop down and cower against the gatepost, trying vainly to compress herself into its narrow shadow. The front door of the house opened, and a long swath of golden light shot out across the yard. In the middle of that pathway of light lay an elongated human shadow. Summer raised her head and turned slowly and carefully until she was able to see the person to whom the shadow belonged. It was Oriole.

Carrying what seemed to be a large tray, Oriole crossed the veranda, descended the steps and took the path that led past the arbor toward the far side of the clearing and Dyedushka’s cabin. Still crouching, Summer watched until she reached the cabin and disappeared inside. Seeing Oriole made Summer feel a little less frightened. Oriole wouldn’t be calmly carrying a tray if Sparrow had been chewed up by dogs or shot by an itchy-fingered guard. There was even the possibility that the tray was for Sparrow—a bedtime snack before she was taken back to the trailer.

A split second later and Summer would have been in the midst of the yard at the very moment when the man and dog came out of the house. As it was, she had taken only a step or two when she heard the front door open again. There was time to jump back into the shadow of the gate before the huge man called Bart and an enormous doberman came down the steps and headed across the yard.

Fright was a hot hand squeezing her throat. Cowering on the ground, certain that at any moment the dog would get her scent and race toward her, she tried to make herself leap up and climb the gate. But she couldn’t move—and the dog kept on going in the direction of the greenhouses, tugging eagerly at his leash. When they reached the first greenhouse, Bart opened the door, and he and the dog went inside. Summer got shakily to her feet.

This time she turned sharply to the left, keeping in the shadows of the trees that edged the cleared land. She would circle around the house until she came to the far side of the clearing and the old cabin, keeping the big house between herself and the greenhouses—and keeping the wind in her face, the strong wind that had undoubtedly saved her already by blowing her scent away from the doberman. She had gone several yards, moving silently on the carpet of pine needles, when she stopped again, paralyzed by a sudden sound. A rapping noise, not loud but very near. It seemed to come from the direction of the house. Shrinking back into the deeper shadows below the trees, Summer listened and watched.

The house was not far away, but the windows in this rear wall were dark and silent. The first, Summer knew, opened on the room that had been Marina’s, and the next two were in the boys’ bedrooms. The rooms were dark—empty or occupied by sleepers; but the noise went on.
“Rap, rap, rap,”
—a pause, and then the same thing again. A soft persistent knocking. Gradually curiosity got the better of fear, and Summer moved forward, following the sound, until she could see that a blurred shape, which had seemed to be only a part of a large camellia bush, was actually something separate. Separate and alive and dressed in a flannel nightgown—Sparrow!

“Sparrow,” Summer whispered, and the small, shadowy figure below Marina’s window froze into immobility. But then, as Summer moved cautiously forward, there was a sharp gasp, a flurry of motion and Sparrow’s arms were wrapped tightly around her waist.

“Oh, Summer. I’m so glad you’re here. Marina came again and told me to come so I did, but she won’t come to her window and I was so frightened.”

“Shh!” Summer put her hand over Sparrow’s mouth. “Keep your voice down.” She unwrapped Sparrow’s arms, and grasping her firmly by her wrist, she headed back for the shelter of the trees. But Sparrow resisted.

“No. No. Knock on the window first. On the glass. I couldn’t reach the glass. I want to see Marina.”

“Marina’s in Lodi.”

“No. No, she’s not. She’s here. I know she’s here.” Sparrow’s voice was getting louder again, and she struggled fiercely, digging in her heels and trying to wrench her wrist out of Summer’s grasp. Her voice had taken on the high-pitched wail that usually preceded a fit of hysterical crying. In frightened desperation, Summer capitulated.

“Okay. Okay,” she whispered. “We’ll look. We’ll look to see if Marina’s in her room. Now please, be still. Okay.”

Sparrow gulped and nodded. Clutching Summer’s hand, she pulled her back toward Marina’s window. Summer held back, moving slowly while she wondered desperately what she was going to do. Knocking on the glass was out. With Marina away, someone else was probably using her room, possibly one of Angelo’s thugs. But somehow Sparrow had to be convinced.

Standing below the window, the solution came to her. “I’ll look,” she said. She probably couldn’t see anything at all in the dark room, but she’d pretend to, and possibly Sparrow would be satisfied. She put one foot in the crevice between two logs, grasped the window sill and pulled herself up until her face was level with the pane.

But she did see something. A dim light was coming from down low near the floor—a night light. Marina had always been afraid to sleep in a dark room. Summer’s eyes moved to the left, to where Marina’s bed was barely discernible: a white spread folded at the foot, a dark blanket and a small, dark head on the pillow. Summer was still staring in startled disbelief when the window in the next room went up with a noisy bang. Sparrow shrieked; and not far away, the dog began to bark.

“Ssst,” a voice whispered. “Come here. Quick.” Summer looked up from where she crouched, clutching Sparrow, between the cabin’s foundation and the camellia bush. The upper half of a body was protruding from the next window, the arms motioning wildly. “Summer. Come here.” It wasn’t until he said her name that she recognized the voice as Nicky’s.

She didn’t stop to argue. Pulling Sparrow to her feet, she dragged her toward Nicky’s window by the back of her nightgown. “Sparrow’s here, too,” she whispered.

“Oh my, God,” Nicky said. “Lift her up here. Hurry.”

Summer hurried, and Sparrow, who had been flailing around wildly in terror, making herself as hard to hang onto as a flopping fish, finally realized what was happening and held up her arms. As soon as she disappeared inside the room, Nicky was back in the window. Taking his hands, Summer climbed the log wall like a ladder.

A moment later the dog was under the window, barking frantically. The narrow beam of a flashlight slashed across the room, and a loud voice growled, “Hey kid. What’s going on in there.”

“Get down against the wall,” Nicky whispered before he leaned out the window. “Shut up,” he yelled. “Shut him up.” There was a harsh command, a yelp, and the dog was quiet.

“It’s raccoons again,” Nicky said.

“Raccoons? Where?”

“Right down there. I threw some apple cores out the window, and a few minutes ago a couple of raccoons were right down there fighting over them—until old Adolph got all excited. I thought you said you trained him not to bark at raccoons anymore.”

It worked. There were some muttered words, the rattle of a jerked leash, another yelp, and everything was quiet. Summer, who’d been lying face down against the wall, pushed herself to a sitting position in time to see Nicky getting into his jeans. Then he came back and sat down crosslegged on the floor. “Well, well,” he said. “You two taking up narcing?”

“N
ICKY. WHAT ON EARTH’S
going—” Summer said, before Nicky stopped her with an urgent “Shhh!” He got quickly to his feet and tiptoed to the door. His ear to the crack, he listened for several seconds and then came back. As he crouched down beside her, the bright moonlight from the open window fell directly on his face, and suddenly she realized that he wasn’t nearly as calm as he’d sounded. Either his cool-sounding crack about narcing had been pure bluff, or else the reaction hadn’t set in until the crisis was past and Bart and the dog had gone. But now fear glittered in his eyes and twitched at his mouth.

“Listen,” he whispered so softly she could scarcely hear. “We’ve got to get you out of here right away. As soon as Bart finishes his patrol. We’ll have to hurry.” When Sparrow started to whisper something about Marina, he reached over and put his hand across her mouth. “No,” he said firmly. “Be still.” And she was.

He went back then and listened at the door for what seemed a very long time. From where she was crouching under the window with Sparrow huddled against her, Summer could hear the sound of distant voices, footsteps and finally the heavy slam of a door. She waited, holding back her own fear by concentrating on Sparrow, who was shivering violently and now and then sobbing softly under her breath. At last Nicky left the door and moved silently across the room. He picked up a jacket and was shrugging into it when he suddenly stopped, took it off and put it on Sparrow. Then he opened the window very slowly and quietly. It wasn’t until he was sitting on the sill that he whispered, “Now. Let’s go. Hand Sparrow down to me.”