Beach Girls (16 page)

Stevie was in there, somehow. Her painting, the way she'd looked in that white robe, the black bird she was raising with bugs from her garden, the kindness she had shown Nell—and him, the feeling he'd had, those early mornings two weeks back when he'd watched her swim. Picturing her with clear, dark water pouring off her naked body, he had a shining thought: I don't want to move to Scotland.

How could he get out of it?

Luminous mysteries,
he thought. A poetic name for a real struggle. He had signed a contract, made his plans. But he could change them—he knew he could. As he ate dinner with his daughter and new friends, he listened and talked, laughed at a few jokes, eventually joined the procession through the marsh and across the seawall to the beach.

They assembled, friends and family, along the tide line. They gazed east at the placid Sound, waiting with an abundance of faith. That's what it took, Jack thought. Nothing less than faith, to get through the day, the summer, the moonrise. Faith that he'd made the right decision about Scotland. Doubtfully, he glanced down at Nell.

Mysteries of life. Nell snuggled beside him on the sand, and he put his arm around her. His daughter made his top-three list of luminous mysteries, right up there with the full moon.

And Stevie Moore.

Chapter 14

THE CASTLE WAS INCREDIBLE AT THE MOST
ordinary of times: on a sunny April morning, say, or on one of November's dull gray afternoons. But on nights of celestial doings, when the midsummer moon was set to rise and anticipation was running high, the castle was nothing less than enchanted.

Stevie drove up the hill. The night was warm, scented with honeysuckle and pine. Parking her car, she started toward her aunt's cottage, but turned when she heard her name called from the castle. Her aunt was in the tower, waving. Stevie grabbed a flashlight from her glove compartment and started up.

The castle had fallen upon hard times, but its grandeur was unmistakable. Oak beams, heavy leaded windows, stone floors. Stevie had come here as a child, when Aunt Aida had first married Van. She remembered feeling so lucky to be able to play in an actual castle. She felt that same way tonight, and wished she could bring Nell here to see it.

The tower stairs wound around and around; the stone passageway was oppressively dark and musty, and she startled bats as she passed. When she reached the top, she walked out onto a carved balustrade to meet her aunt. The fresh air felt good, and the view across treetops to the river mouth and Sound was magnificent.

“Where's Henry?” she asked.

“He went to Newport, hoping to see Doreen,” Aunt Aida said.

“Didn't he call first?”

“I think he's given up on that. He's just planning to present himself at her door and see what happens.”

“Brave man.”

“With all the action he's seen at sea and in battle, I don't think he's ever been as afraid as he is right now, at the idea of losing Doreen. The worst of it is, he brought it on himself, and he knows it.”

Stevie nodded. She knew that feeling. Driven by her own needs and fears, she'd been the architect of plenty of unhappiness—for herself and for others. She had felt torn earlier. On the one hand, she had wanted to stay at the Point, hoping that she'd run into Nell and Jack. On the other, she was afraid of making things worse.

They gazed east, in the direction the moon would rise. The sun had completely set now, and the forest was coming alive with night sounds: crickets, animals hunting through the underbrush, whippoorwills calling from the Lovecraft marshes.

Aunt Aida had changed from her painting clothes into Mandarin black silk pajamas, but she still smelled of turpentine and oil paint. Stevie loved that smell, and felt comforted by it.

“And you?” Aunt Aida asked after a few minutes. “Why are you here with me instead of with your friends?”

“Friends?”

Her aunt cast a patient smile that informed Stevie she knew she was being deliberately obtuse. “The man and his young daughter. What were their names?”

“Jack and Nell.”

“Ah, yes. And his sister?”

“Madeleine. I saw her. After our last visit, I invited her down to the beach.”

“That was the right thing to do.”

“Well, I wish it was, but I have my doubts. She came, and we had a great visit. Until I told her that Jack and Nell were just down the road, and she got upset and left in a hurry.”

“She was in a bit of shock, that's all. She'll give it some thought and be back. You'll see.”

Stevie pictured Madeleine driving out of Hubbard's Point, not looking back, and thought her aunt was wrong on this one.

“In less than three weeks, I've managed to alienate a whole family,” Stevie said. “I should stick to being a hermit.”

“I doubt that Nell feels that way,” Aida said.

“Nell?”

Aida nodded. “She's the one who started this ball rolling.”

“By coming to my house,” Stevie said.

“And speaking her mind, letting you and her father know she needs her aunt.” The older woman smiled. “I put great stock in a niece's love for her aunt. And vice versa.”

“So do I,” Stevie said, squeezing her hand, wondering what to do about Nell and her family.

Now they leaned forward, elbows on the stone parapet, gazing east. A fresh breeze ruffled the leaves all around them, cooled their faces. The hill sloped steadily down to the Sound. The town was hidden in the trees. Stevie heard her aunt sigh, and glanced over.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Oh, another developer contacted me this week,” Aida said. “He wants to build a hotel and spa here, put condos on the hill, and turn the castle into a conference center.”

“I hope you told him to go jump in the river.”

Her aunt hesitated, and Stevie saw her bite her lip. “I haven't . . . yet.”

“But you're going to?”

“My taxes are so high now, and the assessor is sending someone around for a reassessment. I've heard that Augusta Renwick's taxes doubled in one year! I can't afford to keep the castle up as it is. . . . I worry that some kids will sneak up here and fall through my crumbling stonework.”

Stevie was stunned. For the first time, her aunt seemed to be seriously considering a developer's offer. An owl called from deep in the trees. They heard its wing beats, saw it pass overhead.

“If you let them put condos in,” Stevie said, “where will the owls go?”

Her aunt tried to smile. “That sounds like a Stevie Moore Caldecott winner.
Where Will the Owls Go?
”

“I mean it seriously,” Stevie said. “You can't develop the hillside. Aunt Aida?”

“It's a conundrum,” her aunt replied after a moment. “Because I can't afford not to.”

“There must be a way to raise money,” Stevie said. “Maybe open the castle to the public for one or two days a week.”

Aunt Aida smiled sadly. “Why would they come? To see my darling husband's romantic but useless folly?”

“Since when have you believed that anything romantic was useless?” Stevie hugged her. “You are the last of the great romantics, Aunt Aida. It's why you've held on to this land as long as you have. Henry and I both know that it would be easier for you to stay in Florida every year, but you can't let this place go . . . because it reminds you of Uncle Van.”

“It does,” her aunt whispered, wiping away tears. “I feel him here with me right now. If his ghost is anywhere, it's here.”

Stevie's heart hurt; she thought of getting to her aunt's age, having loved someone so much that she would sacrifice so much just to be near his spirit. “You must never feel alone,” she said.

“I don't.”

Stevie nodded, gazing over the trees.

“You'll find someone,” her aunt said. “And you'll stop feeling so alone.”

Stevie shook her head. “I had my chances,” she said.

“
Smiles of a Summer Night
,” her aunt said.

Stevie looked over, curious.

“It was a film by Ingmar Bergman, and it inspired Sondheim's
A Little Night Music
.”

“‘Send in the Clowns' was in that musical,” Stevie said. “The story of my love life.”

Her aunt laughed. “It is about human foibles and missteps in love. All but the most fearful of us make them, dear Stevie. It's how we know we're alive! You are far from alone.”

“I've made more and worse than most people.”

Her aunt shook her head, laughing no longer. “You've reached for love body and soul,” she said. “You've believed in it, needed it, so very much, that you've taken
three
chances. . . . In the play, the grand duchess says that of a summer night, the moon smiles three times. . . . Well, tonight, I'd like for you to think of me as the grand duchess.”

“I've had my three times,” Stevie said.

“No, dear. I'm not referring to that. Think
now
, tonight, and think
deep
. Time and experience are measured differently during summer, and especially on full-moon nights.”

At that moment, the moon came out of the sea, far to the east. It emerged slowly, a huge burnt-orange disc hovering over the horizon, upside down, as if spilling gold into the water. “The first smile . . . see?” Aunt Aida asked as the moon shone huge and bright, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

The amazing thing was, Stevie could.

As they watched in silence, the moon rose slowly, turning smaller and paler, until it was pure white, glowing, high in the sky. The face appeared in the craters, and Stevie laughed out loud.

“What is it?”

“I just remembered,” Stevie said. “When we were young, my friends Emma and Madeleine and I used to call her ‘the girl in the moon.' See her, laughing?”

“The second smile,” her aunt said.

Stevie herself was beaming. She remembered being fifteen with her friends, happy and sassy, claiming the moon as their own.

“When will we see the third smile?” Stevie asked. “Since you're grand duchess for the night, you must know!”

“You will see it when you are brave enough to knock on the right door,” her aunt said.

Stevie glanced over, ready to tease her aunt, but she could see that Aunt Aida was purely serious. She regarded Stevie with grave eyes. Stevie's stomach fluttered. Her aunt was contemplating serious matters: the sale of her hillside, her woods, the birds' habitat. An owl called from deep in the forest, and another replied from very close by.

Looking up, Stevie saw the silhouette of a great horned owl, perched on the top of the tower. Its face was ferocious in moonlight, its eyes and beak glinting yellow. A shiver went down Stevie's spine as it flew away, into the trees.

Now, gazing back at the moon, she saw that it had spun a net across the water. Filaments of moonlight shimmered and danced on the waves. Stevie imagined it connecting everyone she had ever loved. She saw Aunt Aida staring, and knew she was thinking of Uncle Van.

Stevie's heart pounded.
Knock on the right door . . .
She thought of Nell standing outside, on the top step, with her skinned knees. And she thought of herself, leaving the invitation in the screen door at Jack and Nell's house. And she remembered Madeleine coming up the hill with her two bottles of champagne. The moon brought the memories together, and Stevie suddenly knew.

She knew what she had to do, where she had to go, to knock on the door.

NELL WAS
so tired, she could hardly keep her eyes open. The moon had come charging out of the water, rising into the sky, while everyone watched. She had liked snuggling into her dad's side, feeling his warmth as the night grew cooler. Then, later, Peggy had pulled her to her feet, to “dance by the light of the moon” with Annie and Eliza. The waves had provided music, and the girls had danced barefoot in the sand until their parents all said it was time to head home.

The families walked together as far as the seawall. The wall was really thick, made of huge rocks, to keep the sea off the road. Peggy and her family said goodbye and headed through the marsh with flashlights.

Nell and her father walked through the sandy parking lot, behind the boat basin. Nell heard the boat hardware groaning and creaking gently in the darkness as the water rose and fell. Walking along, she yawned and stumbled, and her father caught her and kept her going straight.

“That was fun,” she said.

“It was,” he said.

Nell felt exhausted from the fresh air, running around, and general excitement of watching the great big moon come up out of the sea. She had loved being with so many people, all gathered together on the sand.

“It was like having a big family,” she said, holding her father's hand.

He didn't reply. She felt the tar beneath her feet, still warm from the day's sun.

“I liked it. I like when it's just us, you and me,” she said. “But I also like it when it's other people, too.”

“Well, it's mostly just us,” he said. “We'll be leaving the beach soon, in a couple of weeks. But then you can write to Peggy.”

“From Boston?” she asked, unsure of whether they were going back to Massachusetts or home to Georgia.

“Not Boston,” he said, sounding funny—
hesitant,
she thought. Which was a very unusual way for her father to sound.

“We're going to Atlanta?”

“Nell, do you know how to dance the Highland fling?”

“The what?”

“It's a Scottish dance.”

“Scottish? Like, with bagpipes?”

“Yes.”

“Ohhh,” Nell said, shivering. “Aunt Madeleine told me about going to Scotland when she was little, and hearing bagpipes everywhere she went. She liked it, but I wouldn't.”

“Why not?”

“Because I hate bagpipes,” Nell said. “Because of that one that played at church for Mom's . . .” she refused to say
funeral.
She remembered that some man her mother had met at Dixon, the prison where she had volunteered, a guard or a police officer or something, knew how to play the bagpipes, and he'd stood by the altar playing “Amazing Grace.”

“Well, Scotland has a lot more going on than bagpipes.”

“True, but if I heard even one it would ruin my time. They're awful. I hate them. Don't talk about them anymore, okay? Because I'll have nightmares.”

“But, Nell—”

“Shh! Shhhh!” Nell said, covering her ears.

Her father stopped talking. Nell reached for his hand, yawning again. She was very tired, but she wanted to make sure her mind didn't get all upset and filled with funeral music and the prison just before going to sleep. To push it away, she hummed “Lemon Tree” and tried to decide which book she wanted him to read her that night.