Stargazey Point (34 page)

“She’ll still sulk for a bit, just for form’s sake,” Marnie had said. “Then we can live in peace until the next time.”

“It won’t be long,” Beau said.

At first Abbie thought he was answering her unspoken thought about Millie’s bad mood, but then she realized he was still talking about Cab.

He fingered his shirt pocket and the block of wood she knew would be there.

She touched her own nautical star. And felt a calmness that must have mirrored Beau’s. Ervina wasn’t the only one around who had a kind of magic. The town, itself, seemed to nourish the unusual. There was Beau and his wood, Cab and his carousel, Sarah, Bethanne, Penny, Silas, Jerome. They were all special people.

Stargazey Point—A Place for Dreams.
It would make a wonderful video.

Without thinking, she slipped her hand through the crook of Beau’s arm. He patted her hand, and they continued to the house in silent comradeship.

D
inner was not the celebration it should have been with the return of the silver. As Marnie had predicted, Millie was still sulking. She sat primly at the head of the table, carefully not looking at any of them as she picked daintily at chicken and dumplings. Beau sat with his head bent, bolting down food like a starving man.

As soon as he’d taken the last bite of food on his plate, he gathered his dishes up, said “Excuse me,” and took his dishes to the kitchen.

Marnie didn’t try to coax Millie out of her mood but ate her own dinner, took a second helping of chicken, then announced that she would do the dishes. She too disappeared, and shortly after, Abbie excused herself and took her plate to the kitchen.

Abbie went straight up to her room. She had plenty to do. Her first set of parents were coming in to be interviewed the following afternoon, and she needed to make a list of guideline questions the kids could ask to get the ball rolling. She wanted to think through the whole project so they didn’t fly off in too many directions.

At first she just sat on her bed staring at the empty page of her notebook. She finally gave it up and went back to the closet for her laptop. Cautioning herself to pull up a blank document and not look at anything else that awaited her there, she carried it out to the writing desk in her little parlor.

It wasn’t easy. The YouTube link as well as her other work sat in full view on her desktop. She created a new folder, dragged her old work-related folders into the new one, then hid it in an unused file. Once it was out of her sight, she began to type.

It took a while. Her back grew stiff; she stood up, stretched, paced the room. She stepped out onto the veranda and looked out to the gazebo, but there was no one standing in the moonlight tonight.

She returned inside and sat back down. A half hour later, she heard a door shut in one of the other bedrooms. And a few minutes after that, another. The next time she heard a noise, she glanced at the computer’s clock. It was almost midnight, and she had several pages of material.

She was tired, but her brain was racing with ideas. Excitement, something she hadn’t felt in a long time, rose up in her as she imagined the finished project, and the carousel with a line of expectant people waiting to ride.

She’d start the film with a shot of the oldest people in town riding the new carousel, maybe intersperse it with some old photographs. Then she’d end with a new generation of children climbing on the newly restored animals, a nod to the past, hope for the future, and a story of a way of life. At least a slice of the story.

She stopped herself. This would be the children’s story, not hers. She had to let them discover, with a little guidance, the richness of their community. See it through their eyes, not hers.

She sat down and began to edit her notes. A noise above her stopped her fingers. She held still, listening. Footsteps. A crash as if a heavy object had fallen to the floor above.

Marnie had told her the third floor had been closed up years before. So who was up there now? And why?

None of them should be wandering the house late at night. Especially in an abandoned part of the house.

The footsteps ceased and Abbie waited to hear them coming back downstairs, but all remained quiet.

Worried at the sudden silence, she went into the hallway to listen. Across from her, the door to the back staircase was ajar as if someone had let it shut and it hadn’t caught all the way. The light from inside cast a yellow sliver across the floor.

Abbie started up the narrow, steep stairs. She reached the third floor and found herself in an identical hallway to her own. And where her own door would be was another door. It too was ajar. She listened but no sound come from inside.

Please don’t let them be hurt or . . . worse.

Abbie tiptoed up to it and peeked into the opening. The room was her parlor’s counterpart, except that cast-off furniture, trunks and cardboard boxes, and wooden crates rose in a precarious jumble on each side of the door.

The room was dark, but light came from the bedroom. Abbie crossed the floor and peered in.

The room was cleared of normal furniture. In its place was the most amazing sight Abbie could ever imagine. Shelves, tables, and stands lined the walls, trisected the room—all filled with wooden objects. Some large, some smaller than a thumb. None bigger than the pieces of wood Beau kept in his pocket.

This was where all the figures he carved and no one saw had gone. To a hidden space in a locked-away room.

He’d built a menagerie of animals, people, trees, houses. On one table was an entire village with stores and stop signs and a village green. On another, wild animals crowded around a painted oasis. Sea animals were lined up along one shelf, and a circus paraded on another.

There were hundreds and hundreds of them, exquisite in their rendering and their detail.

And in the midst of this, Beau sat at a table, hunched over his work, his back to the door. Surrounding him, leaning against chairs, walls, wherever there was space, were paintings. Canvases large and small, all colorful, fantastical portrayals of the carousel.

On the largest canvas, Midnight Lady, black as the night, tossed her head, her mane flying in wild abandon, as she strained at the bit as if she might leap from the canvas. Next to her with its nose pushing forward, hooves stretched almost parallel to the ground, a pinto with a blue-and-gold bridle raced with a golden lion. On the next was a green and gilt sea horse whose tail coiled beneath him as he rose toward the brass ring.

Sections of carousels turned giddily across the canvases, their colors vibrant and fantastical, yet real.

And before him on the table sat a wooden carousel no more than a foot high. Abbie recognized it immediately, though it was rendered in natural wood, no paint to distinguish it. It was the Stargazey carousel.

A pot of glue and a small brush were placed at his elbow, and several carved figures lay on their sides waiting to be attached.

“Beau,” she breathed. Abbie moved slowly toward him, looking raptly at the miniature carousel.

He looked up and saw her. He quickly put his fingers to his lips. He slid off the stool and went to shut the door before coming to stand beside her.

“It’s incredible,” she said. “Did you do this for Cab?”

“The miniature,” he said. “These others”—he peered around at the canvases—“were done many, many years ago.”

She tried to read his expression, but it was far away, as if he were seeing them in a different time.

“Does Cab know you’re doing this?”

Beau shook his head. “Didn’t want to get his hopes up, if I couldn’t remember.”

“He’ll be so excited. He’ll have the order and the colors. Beau, this is wonderful.”

But Beau didn’t look like it was wonderful; he looked like a cornered man.

“You are going to show him, right? That’s why you’re doing it.”

Beau nodded. “The miniature. Not the paintings.”

“Why not?”

Beau didn’t answer. And Abbie remembered Millie talking about Beau painting in the gazebo until “Daddy put an end to that.” Is that why he kept them hidden from view? Because his family disapproved? Surely not anymore.

How much delight these paintings and objects could bring if they were on display. Instead they were shut up and locked away.

Abbie felt a pang so sharp that it took her breath away. What had happened that made him have to keep these hidden away from view? Abbie couldn’t remember seeing anything like them displayed in the house. She would have remembered.

They’d been here all this time. And there were more. She could see the edges of frames standing on their sides in wooden storage racks against the far wall. Had they been here for decades, unseen and forgotten, while Beau traveled the world?

Curiosity finally got the better of her. “May I see the others?”

Beau hesitated. Fingered his shirt pocket. Dropped his hands and walked almost tiptoeing to the first cubicle. Abbie stood where she was, afraid of destroying the fragile moment. He looked back at her once, then he slid a painting from the rack and placed it on the floor.

He set another one to the side of the first.

Now that he had begun, Beau seemed to not be able to stop. Painting after painting came out to be displayed: landscapes in myriad greens and browns, seascapes with bright undulating waves, portraits of running children, smiling adults. All alive and vibrant in color and tone.

One especially caught her imagination, a nude of a young African American woman, her hands lifted over her head as if she were carrying a basket, but she held only air. She was voluptuous, seductive, and innocent at the same time, and Abbie couldn’t remember seeing anyone more beautiful. The painting captured the immediacy and universality of her, like a friend you’ve known for a long time, like an icon of womanhood.

“Beau, this is incredible. Did you do all of them?”

Beau stepped back and looked at the canvases framing the room. He nodded. “Yes, Abbie, I did, a long time ago.”

They stood side by side taking it all in. Then with a jerk, Beau moved. He snatched the nearest painting as if he couldn’t wait to get it out of sight. One by one, they were returned to the storage bin. He was like a man possessed, one who had shared a beautiful gift with her then regretted his decision.

“Beau, wait. Why are you hiding them? They’re all beautiful. Have they ever been displayed?”

He shook his head and continued to return them to their places. And Abbie was filled with outrage that he was made, for whatever reason, to hide his extraordinary talent.

He systematically placed the paintings in their proper places, not even looking at them as he did. One after another, they disappeared.

Until there was only one left. The young black woman with the lifted hands. Beau seemed to run out of steam then. He stopped, looking down at it, and wound down like an old toy.

“What about the ones of the carousel, Beau? I’m sure everyone would love to see them. Does the town have a library? Or maybe at the inn. Or maybe Dom Gaillard would be interested in displaying a few in his gallery. He said the other day he was looking for seascapes, and yours are wonderful.”

He turned toward her, his eyes suddenly defeated and old. “No, Abbie, it would make Millie unhappy.”

Abbie didn’t believe Millie could be so selfish. She’d been given a reprieve on the silver that nobody wanted. And she’d made everyone’s life miserable until it was returned. Surely she wouldn’t deny her brother his moment of recognition.

“Why? Why wouldn’t she want you to display these? They’re wonderful. I bet you could even sell them if you wanted.”

There was a brief flicker of interest before his eyes clouded over again. “That wouldn’t do, Abbie. I sold one when I was a young man. Made some decent money. But only the one—then I went off to the merchant marines and . . .” He paused, looked back at the now hidden canvases. “And these have been here ever since. We’d better go.”

He led her out of the room, and they tiptoed down the stairs, Beau leading the way. He stopped at the bottom, listened. Then he beckoned her into the hallway.

Abbie was thrumming with excitement and indecision. She didn’t want to interfere in something that was decades in the making. On the other hand, she hadn’t missed that one split second of longing as he put the last painting away.

They walked down the hall and stopped at her door. On impulse, she stretched up and kissed his cheek. When she was inside her room, she stood at the door until she heard him walk slowly away.

Chapter 23

A
bbie was surprised to find Beau waiting for her at breakfast the next morning.

“Millie and Marnie are in the garden. I’m taking the carousel to Cabot this morning. You can take one of the paintings to Dom if you want.”

“Only if that’s what you want. You don’t have to agree to anything. He can just give you an appraisal, and you can decide what to do later.”

Beau nodded brusquely. “All right.”

They were about to leave the kitchen when the back door opened. Beau froze. Abbie whirled around.