Magic hour: a novel (32 page)

The sound was so quiet at first, so thready, that Julia mistook it for a growing wind.

Alice lifted her face to the night sky and let out a howl that undulated on the air. It was a noise so sad and lonely that you wanted to cry, or howl along with her. It made you think of all that you’d ever loved, all that you’d lost, and all the love you’d never known.

“Go ahead, Alice,” Julia said, hearing the throatiness of her voice. It was unprofessional to be so moved, but there was no way to help it. “Let it all out. This is crying for you, isn’t it?”

When the howling faded, Alice was quiet again. She sat there, kneeling in the grass; she was so motionless it was as if she’d melted onto the landscape. Then, all at once, she moved. She bent forward and picked up a tiny yellow dandelion from the darkness in front of her. Julia hadn’t even been able to see the flower. In a single motion she separated the root from the stem and ate the root.

“This is the world you know, isn’t it?” Julia tried to get Alice to let go of her pants so the child could wander freely, but Alice wouldn’t let go.

“I won’t leave you, but you don’t know that, do you? Someone has already left you out in these woods, haven’t they?”

In the silence that followed the question, a crow cawed, then an owl hooted. Within seconds the forest at the edge of their property was alive with birdsong. The unseen branches creaked and sighed; the pine needles rustled.

Alice imitated each of the calls; each of her versions flawless. The birds answered her.

In the darkness, it took Julia’s eyes a moment to notice what was happening.

The yard was full of birds; they formed a wide circle around them.

“My God . . .” It was Ellie’s voice, from somewhere in the shadows.

At the sound, the birds flew away, their wings sounding breathy and fast.

Somewhere, far away, a wolf howled.

Alice answered the call.

A shiver crept down Julia’s spine; suddenly she was icy cold. “Don’t move,” she said to Ellie when she heard a rustling in the leaves.

“But—”

“And don’t talk.”

Alice tugged on Julia’s hand. It was the first time the girl had ever tried to lead. Julia couldn’t help smiling. “That’s good, little one. I’ll follow.”

A cloud moved away from the moon, floated across the sky. In its wake, moonlight painted the grass, lit the river. Everything looked silvery and magical.

Alice pointed at the rosebushes. They were leggy and winter bare, sorely in need of cutting back. She pulled free and approached the roses with a confidence Julia had never seen before. She straightened, lifted her chin. For once she didn’t hunch over and hold an arm across her stomach. Moonlight glanced off her hair; it looked black as a crow’s wing, tinged with blue.

The night felt steeped in magic, shimmering with it. Stars sparkled in the sky. Julia would have sworn she could hear the ocean. She backed away slowly, letting Alice explore this perimeter of her own world. She felt her sister’s approach.

Ellie stopped beside her. “How do you know she won’t run away?”

“I don’t. I’m betting on her attachment to me, though. There are bad memories out there for her.”

“A mammoth understatement.”

Julia watched Alice draw nearer to the rosebush, wondering what the girl would do if a thorn bit her flesh. Would she turn to her for help or comfort? Had she learned at all that she wasn’t alone any longer, or would she feel betrayed by this strange place and run back to the world she knew?

“Be careful, Alice,” Julia said. “There are thorns.”

The girl reached for a single, pink bud, plucked it from the bush.

Alice petted the rose with a gentleness that surprised Julia, then she turned away. Moving slowly, she walked toward the river. When she reached a little lip of land, she paused.

Julia and Ellie followed her, both ready to save her if she jumped.

But Alice kept moving down the bank, to the place where the grass was tamped down and dead. There, she dropped to her knees and bowed her head, howling softly.

“She’s calling her wolf,” Julia said quietly. “Telling him her story and that she misses him.”

They waited for an answer, breath held, but all they heard were the trees whispering overhead and the river’s throaty laughter.

“He’s at the game farm with other wolves,” Ellie finally said. “Too far away to hear her.”

Julia left Ellie standing there and moved toward Alice. Coming up behind the girl, Julia touched her shoulder.

Alice turned around and peered up at Julia through eyes so dark and unfathomable they seemed to reflect the endless night sky.

Julia knelt in the damp grass. “Talk to me, Alice. What are you feeling right now? You don’t need to be afraid. You’re safe here.”

T
HE NIGHT IS FULL OF NOISES.
S
OMETIMES IT IS SO LOUD THAT
G
IRL HAS
trouble hearing the quiet that lies beneath. It has always been like that for her. She has to work hard at not hearing the animals, the insects, the wind, and the leaves. She needs to close her eyes and listen to her own heartbeat until that’s all there is. Even in the dark she sees too much—a spider crawling along the ground at her feet, a pair of crows watching her from the purple tree, a moth flying along the river. In the distance she hears the rustling movement of a hunting cat.

If only the two Hers would stop talking so loudly; then Girl could breathe again. She feels a tightness in her chest and it scares her. She should feel safe out here on the edge of her world. She could run away now if she wanted to. If she was careful and followed the river, she could find her cave again.

All those times she stood at the lying box, with her arm held out in the green-scented air, she imagined a chance like this. The moment when Sun Hair would look away and Girl would run.

But now she doesn’t want to leave.

She looks down at her feet. They are planted as firmly as any tree root. This is where she wants to be. With Sun Hair.

“Talktomealis.”

Sun Hair is there, in front of her, reaching a hand out to Girl. In the light of this round-faced moon, everything about Sun Hair is white.

Girl is afraid and confused. What if Sun Hair doesn’t want Girl to stay? Maybe she is being let go now?

She doesn’t want to go back to the cold, hungry darkness of her cave. Maybe Him is there. . . .

Sun Hair bends down. “Canyoutalktomealis?”

The other one, the big, jangling Night-Haired Her says something from the shadows. There is no color around that one, no scent. Girl cannot sense what that one feels or thinks, but she knows it is bad.

Something is wrong.

“Leavethis. Toodamnspooky,” Night Hair says. She shivers as if it is cold, which confuses Girl even more. It is moons and moons away from cold.

“Goaheadandleave. Illstay.” Sun Hair is looking at Girl and smiling. “Ineedyoutotalkalis. Isanyofthismakingsense?”

Girl hears something. It sneaks up on her like a hunting wolf. She frowns, trying to understand.

Need.

Talk.

Did Sun Hair
want
Girl to make the sounds that meant things?

No.

It couldn’t be. That is the Bad Thing.

Sun Hair’s smile slowly disappears. The color of her eyes seem to change from green to the palest gray. It is the color of lostness, of the water that leaks from your eyes. At last Sun Hair makes a sad, lonely sound and straightens.

“MaybeIwasrightElandImnottheonetohelpthisgirl.”

It seems now that Sun Hair is miles away from Girl and getting farther. Sooner they will be so far apart that Girl won’t be able to find her.

“Ineedyoutotalklittleone.” Sun Hair takes a breath. “Please.”

Please.

From somewhere, Girl remembers this sound. It is special, like the first bud in spring.

Sun Hair
wants
Girl to make the forbidden noises.

Girl gets slowly to her feet. She feels light-headed with fear.

Sun Hair is walking away now.

Leaving.

Girl’s fear pushes her forward. She follows, grabs Sun Hair’s hand and holds so tightly it hurts.

Sun Hair turns to her, kneels. “Itsokayalis. Itsokay. Imnotleavingyou.”

Leaving.
Out of the jumble of sounds, Girl hears this. It is as clear as the sound of a river rising.

Girl looks at Sun Hair. Holding tightly to her hand, she wants to look away or close her eyes so that if Sun Hair is going to hit her, she will not have to see it coming, but she forces her eyes to stay open. It will take all her heart, everything she has inside of her to think and remember and make the forbidden noise.

“Whatisit? Areyouokay?” Sun Hair’s voice is so soft it makes Girl’s heart ache.

She looks up into those pretty green eyes. Girl wants to be good. She licks her lips, then says quietly, “Stay.”

Sun Hair makes a sound like a stone falling in deep water. “Didyou saystay?”

Girl gives her the special rose. “Peas.”

Sun Hair’s eyes start leaking again, but this time her mouth is curled up in a way that makes Girl feel warm inside. She puts her arms around Girl and pulls Girl toward her.

It is a feeling Girl has never known before, this holding of the wholeness of her. She closes her eyes and lets her face burrow into the softness of Sun Hair’s neck, which smells of the flowers that grow when the sun comes sneaking up through nighttime.

“Stay,” she whispers again, smiling now.

SEVENTEEN

E
LLIE SAT IN HER DAD’S OLD CHAIR ON THE PORCH, WRAPPED UP
in a heavy woolen blanket. Beside her, a cup of tea sent thin shoots of steam into the air.

Although it had been almost three hours since the Alice-in-the-woods show, she could still hear the sad, wavery notes of the girl’s howling, like a mournful music of the night.

So much had happened tonight; the hell of it was, had anything changed? Alice
could
speak. That much they knew now, and it might be the open door they needed through which they could find her identity.

But for some reason, Ellie didn’t believe it. She didn’t think Alice belonged anywhere or to anyone. Somehow, she’d been set adrift in her life like one of those elder Eskimo women who crawl out onto the ice floes, where they remain, cold and alone and infinitely unwanted, until they simply gave up their lives.

Ellie wrapped her hands around the cup of tea. Steam pelted her face, brought with it the scent of oranges.

Behind her the porch door squeaked open.

Julia took a seat in Mom’s rocker.

“Is she asleep?” Ellie asked.

“Like a baby.”

Ellie tried to corral her thoughts; they were like mustangs on the open range, running wild at her approach. “Did she say anything else?” That was the starting place. Hopefully, the two words had been only the beginning.

“No. And it might be a while. Tonight was a big event, to be sure, but did you hear the way she said please?
Peas.
Like a two-year-old. And she didn’t put the two words together as a sentence. To her, I believe the words were separate entities.” Julia was smiling brightly. Ellie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen that.

“What does all that mean?”

It took Julia a moment to answer. “It’s all very complicated and scientific, and I need a lot more information to really form a solid opinion, but in a nutshell, Alice is either electively mute—which means that she is choosing not to speak because of the traumas she’s experienced—or she is developmentally delayed in her acquisition of speech. I believe it is the latter. I say this for a couple of reasons. First, she seems to understand specific, simple words, but not sentences comprised of those words. Secondly, tonight she used the two words independently, which reveals the level of syntax learning of an average two-year-old. Think of how children learn language. First it’s simple word identification. Mama. Dada. Ball. Dog. Gradually, they’ll string two words together to communicate a more complex idea, then three. In time, they learn to form negative sentences—‘No play. No nap’—and begin to use pronouns. As they become more proficient, they will form their sentences into questions. Most scientists believe that a child can learn these complex, unvoiced rules and acquire language at any age up to puberty. After that, for some reason, it becomes almost impossible. It’s why kids learn foreign languages so much easier than adults do.”

Ellie held up her hand. “Slow down, Einstein. Are you saying that Alice
can
speak but hasn’t been taught much, so she’s got the verbal skills of a toddler?”

“That’s my guess. I think she was raised in a verbal, perhaps even a caring environment, for the first eighteen months to two years of her life. It was then that she began to learn a few words and bonded physically with someone. After that . . . something very bad happened and she stopped developing her language skills.”

Something very bad.