Firebird (10 page)

Alexandra held her breath and waited.

“It was
you
, Aunt Zan.  A long time ago.  You held my hand, took me walking on a beach.  We collected shells…”

Oh, God.  She
remembered
.  “Yes!  And you found a sand dollar.  I told you it had doves inside.  We put it in a music box that played
Sleeping Beauty
while a tiny ballerina spun round and round – just the way you danced on the beach.”

The girl stared at her, then turned away with a shake of her head.  “I don’t remember any tiny ballerina.  Or any shell.”

“You’d just turned four.”  Alexandra’s voice sounded strange, shaky in her ears.  “I was living in California, and your mom showed up on my doorstep.  Asked me to take care of you while she went off to -  somewhere.  Hawaii, I think.”

“And you took me to the beach.”

“Yes, Jules.  Every day.”

“You painted my picture…”  The girl’s voice was dreamlike, lost in memory.

Juliet dancing by the edge of the water, so small and beautiful, her long hair spun-gold in the sun and her white dress lifting in the ocean breeze.
 

Alexandra nodded.

“I always wondered about that painting,” said Juliet slowly.

“I saw it, in Georgetown, hanging over your mother’s bed.  Do you still have the shell I gave you that day, Jules?” asked Alexandra suddenly.

A shadow fell across Juliet’s upturned face, extinguishing the light.   “Why would I?  I told you, I don’t remember any shell.”

“But you said –”

“I’ll tell you what I
do
remember, Aunt Zan.  I remember that you said you loved me, and then you were gone.”

I’ve come back for Jules, Zan.  Hope she wasn’t too much trouble.

Trouble?  Alexandra swallowed, blindsided by the memory.

Let her stay with me, Eve.  Let her –

She’s
my
daughter, Zan.  Not yours.

But I could take care of her –

Because I can’t?  Just leave me and my daughter alone! 

Oh, God, Jules, I did love you, I wanted you to stay.  She managed, “I had no choice, Juliet.  She was your mother…”

“I waited for you.”  Soft, damning words.  “I waited a long time.”

Alexandra felt her heart squeeze in her chest.  “When your mother came looking for you that day, you and I were walking on the beach.  I wish, now, that we’d taken the long way home that morning.  Then maybe -”  She reached toward her niece.

The girl’s face shuttered.  “But we didn’t.  And I don’t know you now.”

Alexandra dropped her outstretched hand.  What if she had fought to have  Juliet stay with her, all those years ago?  How different would all their lives have been?  “Fair enough,” she said finally.  “But maybe we can try to find – ”

“I’m not going to spill my feelings all over the freakin’ beach, Aunt Zan!”

“Okay, I get it, you’re tough.  But will you just drop the attitude for one minute?”

“I can’t do this.”  Juliet grabbed her iPod, jammed headphones over her ears and marched down the beach.  “At least my mother
lived
her life,” she shot over her shoulder.  “You’re just hiding, like she said, a lonely Snow Queen locked in behind all those walls you’ve built!  Enjoy your
fairytale
, Auntie.  But I don’t believe in happy endings.”

Did her niece murmur ‘sanctimonious witch’ as she stalked away?

Lonely?  Locked behind walls? 
Pot, meet Kettle
…  “I don’t like you any better than you like me,” muttered Alexandra.

She kept her eyes on her niece.  Moving with that peculiar dancer’s glide that points each toe at a 45 degree angle, Juliet’s walk was fluid, confident.  But it’s all an act, thought Alexandra.  She’s just a child, lost in a sea of anger and grief.  A girl who can’t believe in happy endings.

You need someone, Alexandra thought suddenly, who will abandon all common sense and reason on your behalf. 
Someone who thinks with her heart
...

But it won’t be me
.

She watched until Juliet put enough distance between them and dropped to the sand with a lithe, dancer’s grace.  Then the girl hugged her knees and stared blindly out to sea.  Fragile body bowed against the luminous sky, short spiked hair glowing orange-brown in the autumn light.  So hurt.  So alone.  Still holding the sand dollar.

Alexandra saw the scene as a painting, and caught her breath.  What is going on in her mind? she asked herself.  She’d never taken the time to get to know her sister’s daughter, and now - no longer a child, not yet a woman.  A girl so terrified of rejection that she was always the one who walked away first.  A girl so alone that she thought she was disappearing…

She gazed at her niece, suddenly seeing herself at age fifteen, alone on the beach.  Pretending not to care.  “Damn, why did I lose my temper?” Alexandra murmured, feeling an inexplicable ache in her chest.  “The sweater isn’t important.”         

She sighed as she tucked her hair up under an old baseball cap.  Good grief, Eve, what do I do now?  Should I be angry with her, worried, understanding?  Or do I just let her be?  I know how to run an art gallery and take care of a young child, but I have
absolutely no clue
how to handle a fifteen year old girl!  

The cold bright sky held no answers.  Turning away, she reached into her backpack and withdrew the narrow volume of Russian legends that she’d found, finally, wedged behind the bookcase in the nursery.  Slipping on her glasses, she opened the book and caught her breath as the first drawing and magical words sent memory flooding back.

“Once upon a time, a young Russian prince was hunting in a dark and silent forest.  His name was Prince Ivan.”

Ivan
!  One of the names in Eve’s message.  She read on quickly.     

“When night fell, there were no stars or moon, and the Prince lost his way.  Climbing a fir tree, he peered beyond a high wall and found a beautiful, magical garden inhabited by an evil sorcerer...”

Slowly, the old legend unfolded.  

In the heart of a mystical garden, Prince Ivan captures a beautiful bird with feathers of fire - the Firebird.  In exchange for her freedom, the Firebird gives him a magic feather that will protect him from danger.  Eventually, as Ivan attempts to rescue his true love, he and the Firebird are threatened by the evil sorcerer.  The Firebird is consumed by the sorcerer’s fire, but Prince Ivan’s magic feather vanquishes the sorcerer and saves the Firebird.     

Alexandra read the last words out loud.  “And the Firebird rose from the flames to fly, free at last, into the sky.”

As she closed the book, the tangled wall of firs and plum leaves rustled behind her.  The music of a wind chime, close by, floated on the breeze.  Over the pure, light music of the chimes, she heard the faint, unsettling notes of a cello.

Alexandra froze, listening to the deep, resonant tones.  She twisted around to check on Juliet.  Her niece was wandering slowly back toward her.   

But the notes of the cello had sounded like an alarm in Alexandra’s head.  Once, she’d loved those pure, rich sounds.  But that was before she’d met the musician who would become her husband, before he’d begun to play the Bach Cello Suites just before he’d climb the stairs to their bedroom.  Now, she heard the cello in her nightmares.

Juliet stopped before her.  “Do you hear that, Aunt Zan?  Wind chimes.  And… Bach?  There, through the pines.”  She pointed behind her.  “The music is so beautiful.  So sad.  I think there must be someone there.”

Alexandra jumped to her feet.  “We should leave, Jules.  I don’t want - ”

But it was too late.  Like Alice following the white rabbit, Juliet spun toward the notes of the cello and disappeared into the wall of leaves.  Alexandra muttered an oath, grabbed the book of legends and followed her niece into the woods.

CHAPTER 10

“We have heard the chimes...”

Shakespeare, Henry IV

Alexandra took several steps into the sea pines, and then the leaves parted like a curtain.

Juliet was standing very still in front of a small cottage, framed by an arbor of flaming maples, that stood on the edge of the rocks.  It was all angles and eaves and tall mullioned windows with blue shutters, green vines creeping untamed across its weathered shingles.  Beyond the cottage, she could see the glint of bright cove water. 

Okay, Alexandra told herself, taken by the pure beauty of the place.  Nothing dangerous here.  She cocked her head, listening.  Only the wind chimes, beckoning softly. 
Had she really heard the cello?

The front door was slightly ajar.  Uh-oh.  “Jules,” she called, “don’t even
think
about – ”  Before Alexandra could stop her, Juliet bounded up the porch steps and disappeared into the darkness.   Alexandra muttered an oath and ran after her.

“Must we add Breaking and Entering to our list of sins?” she murmured, glancing around the silent room as she caught up to her niece.  The space was large and shadowed by dark drapery that covered the full expanse of the rear wall.  Alexandra moved cautiously forward.  A fireplace and overflowing bookcases to the left.  Dusty sheets shrouded a sofa and chairs.  An old radio - silent now - stood on a small table.  To the right, by a shuttered window, an iron staircase curved upward.  And in the corner, the dark, hulking shape of a grand piano, bathed in shifting shadow.  But no cello…
 

Alexandra’s
fingers felt for the curtain cord and pulled.  With a soft whoosh of sound, the curtains slid open.

“Sweet Mary,” whispered Alexandra.  She reached for Juliet’s hand.

Dust motes spun in the dazzling light that spilled into the room.  The whole back wall of the cottage, facing the far side of the cove, was one huge glorious window filled with the blues of sea and sky.  Ivory walls caught the late morning sun, so that the whole room shimmered with blue-gold light.  “It’s like living beneath a sunlit sea,” she breathed.

Both women were drawn to the window.  Alexandra lifted her face to the sun’s warmth and let the island’s light wash over her like a benediction.  “Jules,” she began, “maybe we – ”

The door shot open with a crash.  Juliet cried out and Alexandra pushed her niece behind her as a huge black animal lunged at them.

Paws the size of hands hit her shoulders, hard, and she staggered back under the heavy weight.  A dog, her frantic mind registered, a Lab.  A
friendly
Lab.  He dropped to nuzzle her hip and she bent to scratch the silky ears.

“Jesus, I thought you were a bear!  Hello there, fella.  You live here?  Are you the fan of cello music?”

“That would be me,” said a deep voice from behind her.  “Easy, Hoover.”

The women spun around as a tall figure, his face in shadows, stepped from behind a door and moved toward them.

“Aunt Zan!” cried Juliet.

“I’ll clock you if you come any closer,” said Alexandra, taking a quick protective step in front of her niece.  When he kept coming toward them, panic bloomed in her and she flung the book of fairytales at him.

“Dios!”  The book smashed him in the cheek before he caught it.  With a muttered oath in Spanish, he stepped into the light.  “
Clock
me?  Who
says
that?”

Alexandra kept Juliet behind her.  Somehow, part of her was able to register the rangy height, the curling black hair.  He stood glaring down at her, with the sunlight behind him, and she saw the temper flare like strikes of lightening in the hard mahogany eyes.  Then she saw the deep blue windbreaker, thrown carelessly across the piano bench.

“You!”  Her gaze whipped from the man to the dog.  “You’re the man with the black Labrador.”

“You know him?” gasped Juliet.

“You know me?” he asked at the same time.  His gaze narrowed.  Very slowly he reached out as if to tip the baseball cap off her head.   

“Don’t touch me!”  Alexandra jerked back, threw up an arm to ward him off.

“Leave her alone!” cried Juliet.

He froze, then turned to the girl.  “Whoa, sorry, kid.  I just wanted to see your mother’s face.”

“Puh-leese.  She’s
nothing
like my mother.  She’s my aunt.”

“My mistake.”  He peered down at the girl.  “You, however, do look familiar…”  Juliet backed away, one hand reaching for the Lab. 

“It’s okay, Jules.”  Alexandra took a deep breath, stepping deliberately out of reach.  “We’ve never met,” she said to him.  As if to prove the point, she pulled off the cap and lifted her face to his.  Her hair, which had been caught-up beneath the Mets hat, fell in a sudden spill of copper-red to her shoulders.

“Madre de Dios!” he said softly.

“It was the cello,” she heard herself say.  “I - thought you were someone else.  What the hell are you doing here?”

“Me?  I
own
the bloody place, lady.”  His voice was softly accented and as deep as the ocean.  “Now why don’t you tell me why you two are trespassing on my property?”

“Trespassing!”

 “No?  Are you thieves, then?”

“Your dog doesn’t think so.”

He glared at the Lab, now wedged against Juliet’s thigh – who, for once, was mercifully silent.  “Et tu, Hoover,” he said softly.  “You’re supposed to be a
guard
dog.”

“We didn’t even know this house was here, hidden behind the trees,” said Alexandra.  “But I heard the music...”

A dark brow arched in amusement.  “Ah.  So you were going to steal my radio.”  His eyes were on Alexandra’s bare feet.  “Or perhaps my boots?”

Exasperated, she pushed the hair over her shoulder with a fluid gesture and watched the brown eyes deepen with surprise. 

“You!” he said suddenly.  “I saw you - when? - last night?  On the edge of the dunes.”

“That would be me.”  Grammar be damned.  It felt right.

He thrust out his hands.  “And now here you are again, making yourself quite at home,” he murmured.  “Coincidence?” 

“Do I look like a stalker to you?” she demanded.  “It seems we are just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  She glared at Juliet, who was now on the floor with her arms around the Lab, whispering into his fur and ignoring the adults.