Warm, the brandy seeping into her weary bones and bloodstream, Pix wanted her mother to tell the story againâand againâjust as a child with a favorite book. Like most other parents she knew, she had more quotations from Doctor Seuss and Margaret Wise Brown to hand than Shakespeare.
“You actually have Duncan here to thank more than me,” Ursula said.
“I know,” Pix answered, and gave the boy yet another hug. Since her mother had climbed out of the canoe and deftly cut their ropes with the Swiss army knife she always carried, Pix had been doing a great deal of hugging.
“I knew something was weird. They had been treating me like shitâexcuse me.” Duncan flushed and looked at Ursula. “I mean, they had been yelling at me and saying I was never coming back here, then suddenly Mom gives me some money and tells me to take all my friends out.” He shook his head. “She's been real jittery all summer and it's been worse lately. I thought because of what was happening at camp, and”âhe lowered his voiceâ“because of what they thought I was doing.”
Pix was indignant. “We owe you an enormous apology!”
“Don't worry about it. I probably would have thought it was me, too. Like who would have thought Mom would go out and buy the same shoes? They're for kids.”
Pix pulled the blanket closer around her. The wind was picking up and it seemed they might finally get the rain they'd
been waiting for all these weeks. It could come. The Fairchild's foundation was dry. Even if Seth couldn't work for a few days, the ground was so parched, it would be worth it.
The deck they were sitting on seemed another island and time was suspended, making it difficult for her to decide to move. Behind them the house was still illuminated, a gaudy backdrop to the dark landscape on either side. The waning moon shone across the water and the stars were out, mixing with clouds moving across the sky in an ever-increasing number. The air was fresh. Tilting her head back, Pix drank it in gratefully.
She realized she hadn't been listening to the conversation, and Duncan, uncharacteristically, was continuing to talk.
“So I go to my friends, âLet's blow the pizza, get snacks, and see the early movie.' I wanted to check out what was happening. I came back here alone. All the lights were on, but no one was home. They weren't in the office at camp, either, and all the campers and staff were in their cabins. Mom's car was in the driveway and when I looked in the garage, Jim's was there, but yours was, too. It didn't make any sense. You couldn't have all gone somewhere together, unless someone else had picked you up, but you didn't seem to be that kind of friends, anyway. I decided to call your house. I was going to hang up when you answered so you wouldn't think I was a jerk. When you didn't answer, I began to get this funny feeling. I couldn't call Earl. We aren't exactly buddies. So I thought of your grandmother. She seemed okay.”
Ursula took up the tale. “I couldn't imagine who was calling me at such an hour. Duncan wanted to know if you were there and of course you weren't. I told him I'd be right over.” What Ursula did not say was that she knew immediately something was very very wrong. It was a summer out of sync and the disappearance of her daughter and granddaughter had to be serious. She stopped at their house to make sure and found it dark, completely empty.
“It's amazing what we can do when our adrenaline gets
going,” Pix marveled, thanking God that she had not know at the time her octogenarian mother, who had not driven for years, was racing from The Pines across the causeway to the Athertons in the dead of night in her venerable “Woody”âa 1949 Plymouth Suburban wagon.
“Fortunate that I had just had the car serviced for Arnie and Claire to use while they're here. Anyway, Duncan had been doing some investigating of his own while I was on my way. When I arrived, he told me there were many things missing from the houseâvaluable thingsâand the lobster boat was gone; the Whaler was at the mooring. I called the police, then decided to take the canoe out. Duncan had found some rope and your purse on the floor in one of the rooms upstairs and we were both convinced that you'd been taken someplace under duress.”
Pix liked her mother's choice of wordsâa quaint way to describe the terror that she and Samantha had just suffered.
She looked at the group. It was very late and they were all in one stage or another of extreme exhaustion.
“I think we'd better go home, especially because it seems a storm is on the way. I know Earl was coming here, but surely the state police have been in touch with him and told him we're all right. He'll know we went homeâand all of us are sticking together for the rest of this night, anyway.”
When Duncan had reached Earl, the sergeant had immediately launched a search of the area around the camp, including the quarry, calling back to tell the boy to stay put with the Millers if they turned up at the house.
There was one more thing Duncan wanted to say. Everyone was being so nice and he felt guilty. “I didn't think Mrs. Rowe should go out in the canoe like that, but I don't know how to paddle one, and she was pretty insistent.”
Mother had won the Women's Singles Canoe Trophy at various events on the Concord River for more years than Pix could remember and had been paddling the Penobscot since
she was a child. And “pretty insistent” was definitely a euphemism.
“She's very good at it, in fact, she'll teach you.” Samantha thought it was time Duncan had some new interests and she fully intended to take her rescuer under her wing, if he would let her.
“That would be great,” he said, then mumbled, “except I don't know if I'll be here.”
Pix had studiously been avoiding any reference to Duncan's parents. It did not seem the moment to break it to the boy that his mother was a murderer, including of his natural father, and that both Jim and Valerie were involved in larceny up to their shirt-pocket emblems. Seeing him on the dock, as soon as they were within shouting distance, they'd called to him to phone the state police and get the Coast Guard to stop Jim's boat. Other than this, all mention of their captors had been moot.
“But Granny, why did you go to the island?” Samantha asked the one question that had not yet been answered. Pix felt foolish not to have thought of it. Why indeed?
“It was the only place that made sense. Their boat was gone. If you were still alive, and I believed you were, they had to put you someplace, but it couldn't be close to the camp. So, I simply started paddling along the shore, then out toward sea. Plus, I heard you shouting.”
Sgt. Earl Dickinson was surprised and happy to see a group of laughing, obviously healthy friends as he drove up. Someone had been in time.
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“Start throwing things overboard!” Jim shouted to his wife.
“What?” She couldn't hear him above the gale-force winds and rain that had greeted them farther out to sea.
He motioned with his hands and spoke louder, “Get rid of some of this stuff. We're too heavy.”
“Are you crazy?”
He left the cabin, went to the back of the boat, and started
tossing bags into the water. Valerie fell upon him, screeching, “My boxes! My collection of Battersea boxes! What are you doing!”
He slapped her hard across the face. “Shut up! I'm going to try to make for shore. We can't ride it out and we're not exactly in a position to radio for help.”
She began to cry. “I'm scared, Jim.”
“So am I. Now, do what I said and come back under cover.” They were both soaking wet.
She threw the wicker hamper over the side and then the silver. We can always buy more, she told herself. We can always buy more.
At the wheel, Jim reached for a handkerchief to dry his face and found Pix's car keys in his pocket. She won't be needing these, he thought, and lobbed them in a long arc into the churning water. Then he turned the boat toward land, looking for a safe harbor.
The raging storm hampered the Coast Guard's search for the next few days. It was not until the sun broke out on Saturday that some children found a life buoy with the name VAL 'N JIM washed up on the shoreâalong with an empty wicker picnic basket.
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“It's a great party,” Faith Fairchild said to her friend, Pix. They were sitting side by side on the back steps of the Millers' house, watching a variety of activities. A large convivial groupâwith Pix's brother, Arnie, at the centerâcontinued to consume lobsters at the large picnic table. “Frankly, at my age I'd rather have a talking frog” was obviously the punch line to a very funny joke. They all burst into laughter. Sam, who had once again made a mad dash for his loved ones, arriving early Thursday morning, started to tell one of his.
“He never gets this one right,” Pix told Faith, “but he laughs so much while he's telling it that everybody laughs with him, anyway.” Faith nodded. As far as she was concerned, the world was divided into people who could tell
jokes and people who couldn't. Totally unable to remember even the most sidesplitting gem, she didn't even try, and kept to strictly off-the-cuff.
Another group was playing croquet. Pix watched her mother tap some poor person's ball miles off course, recalling that even when they were children, Ursula had played to win. “Otherwise, you won't learn,” she'd explained with triumphant sweetness. Claire, Arnie's wife, had obviously drunk from the same well. Her ball hurtled through a hoop, smashed into another, which she briskly sent into the tall grass. Claire had been out for a long bicycle ride and still wore her black Lycra biking shorts with a bright periwinkle blue oversized linen shirt. She was one of those petite, nicely-put-together women who always made Pix feel much taller and much clumsier than she actually wasâlike Alice after eating the first cakes. Pix never knew what to do with her hands and feet when someone like Claire was around. Pix had assumed that in middle age you'd stop caring about what other people thought of you. Supposedly, it was one of the perks. She was still waiting.
The children were all over the place. Samantha and Arlene had immediately taken command of the Fairchild offspring, to Faith's unabashed delight. They seemed to be playing a game that involved a great deal of running and screeching, with little Amy riding piggyback and the dogs racing at their heels, barking happily. Duncan was with them. There had been no sudden transformation. He still wore a black concert T-shirt and black jeans, but his hair was clean and he and Fred were joining the game with every appearance of friendship.
There had been no word about the Athertons, other than the finding of the life buoy, and they were assumed lost. Duncan's paternal grandparents had been notified and were only too happy to have him come live with them. Pix did have a passing thought as to when they'd seen him last, but it seemed that they had always disliked Valerie intensely, especially
after their son's death, when she'd contested his will, seeking to prevent certain bequests, among them a trust fund for Duncan. The Cowleys had told her they didn't care to see her anymore and she had retaliated by keeping Duncan from them, never allowing the boy to visit. He was living with John Eggelston at the moment and John was going to take him south the following week. John had been the one to break the news of his mother's probable death to Duncan. He'd told Pix the boy had pretended indifference at first, saying he'd never really loved her, since she'd never loved him. Then he'd sobbed for hours. Looking at him now playing like the child he still was in part, Pix hoped he would find what he needed from his grandparents. At any rate, it would certainly be an improvement.
“It is a good party, if I do say so myself,” Pix said tritely and complacently. “What could be easier than lobster, especially when my guests brought almost everything else?”
Ever since Faith and family had arrived on Thursday, leaving Aleford as soon as they heard of Pix and Samantha's ordeal, Faith found she was happiest right by her friend's side. First, of course, she had to hear about it all. Then she realized she simply wanted the reassurance of physical presence.
“Do you think people are ready for dessert?” Faith had made a tableful of blueberry tartes with the succulent wild Maine blueberries now in season.
“Not yet. Arnie's still oozing butter and charm.” Pix looked at her brother fondly. He'd been sticking to her side, too. He was reaching for a thick wedge of the corn bread
5
Louise Frazier had brought. She insisted that this treasured family recipe from the Deep South went perfectly with Down East fare. And she was right.
“Now that the rain has stopped, we can get a better look at the house. Do you want to drive out after everyone leaves?” Pix remarked. “It should also be a beautiful sunset.” The Fairchilds
had bravely faced the storm yesterday, but after driving out to the Point, they didn't even attempt to get out of the car. “These weren't drops; these were tidal waves,” Faith had told Pix. “Wonderful climate.”
“It is.” Pix had stoutly defended what she thought of as her native clime. “Think how hot it is in Boston. I'd rather have rain, and especially fog, any day.” Maine without its occasional soft, dense gray fogs molding land and sea alike into new shapes was unthinkable.