Pale Phoenix (14 page)

"I don't know what I am."

"I don't believe a word of it." Miranda shook her head. "This is crazy."

"I swear to you it's the absolute truth."

"This is just another way to make me look stupid. Or to get my parents to send me off to a locked ward. When I tell them this story—that'll be it. You can be their only child."

"Oh, Mandy." Abby reached out a tentative hand and touched Miranda's arm. "I know I can't expect you to trust me, but I wish you'd try. The fact that you could hear me crying when I wasn't here
means
something. It must."

"Means what?" Miranda stared at her.

Abby looked around the kitchen. Then she whispered, "I think you're meant to save me."

"Save you how?"

"I don't know how. But I sure know I need help." Now Abby's voice cracked with tears. "There must be something you can do."

Miranda got up and went to the refrigerator. She felt confused. Was Abby still lying—or not? How could she
not
be lying? Miranda opened the door and peered inside, then brought out a big chunk of cheddar cheese. She crossed to the bread bin and found some rye bread. She brought these to the table, then set out plates and knives. Abby watched without a word, her eyes pleading. "Okay," Miranda said, sitting back down. "Tell me what you want me to do." The sight of desperate hope in Abby's strange, cloudy eyes both frightened and compelled her.

"I want to be with my family again," Abby said simply. "I want to be back with them, and live with them, and grow up and marry William. That's all."

"That's all? Sure you don't want to throw in a couple million bucks?" She shook her head and unwrapped the cheese. "You're telling me your family died in a fire—oh, about three hundred years ago. And yet somehow you're here. But you want to go back to them. What do you think I am—magic?"

"Maybe you are. After all, you heard me crying. I just want to be back with my family. Any way you can arrange it."

Miranda shook her head again. She made herself a cheese sandwich and shoved the bread over to Abby. "Look, let's start with this crying." She frowned at Abby. She needed to get things straight. She needed time to think about what Abby was telling her. None of it made any sense. All of it was impossible. And yet ... She had long felt that Abby was not like other girls. She had long suspected Abby of harboring some deep secret. These revelations were puzzling but also strangely comforting. Miranda wanted her parents to hear this. She had
not
been imagining things.

Abby smiled her lopsided smile and shifted in her chair. She reached for the bread but didn't make a sandwich. Instead she sat there rolling the dough into little balls. "Whenever you hear me crying," she began softly, "I'm back in Garnet just after it happened. Somehow just by wishing it so much, I can go back. I'm at my house—what's left after the fire. My mother and father are dead in the ruins. My sisters, too, and William. I think of the ways I could have saved them all, if only I had noticed when the sparks first flew up the chimney and ignited the roof. I could have warned them, and no one would have died. I just stand there and cry."

She swept the little bread pellets into her hand and looked at them. "I don't know why I didn't die in the fire along with the others, but I figure I must have been spared for a reason. I think I know what to do—but I don't know how to do it. I think maybe I need to travel back farther in time, to before the fire happened so I can warn them." She searched Miranda's face. "Can you understand how hard it is for me? I wish so hard, and yet I can't get back far enough to save them. Again and again I feel myself pulled back to the ruin. It's as if I have to try, try, and keep trying. Yet every time I go back, I'm absolutely powerless. It's like I'm not wholly there. No one can see me. I wander around, but can't really do anything—it's as if..." Her voice trailed off.

"As if you're a ghost," murmured Miranda. She still didn't really understand what Abby was telling her. Why wasn't Abby killed in the fire? How could she be alive
now?
How was it possible to travel back in time to a Garnet that hadn't existed for centuries? Miranda had so many questions, she didn't know where to start. "So what about all those photos?" she finally asked. "Where do they come into this?"

Abby was gazing down at the bread balls in her palm. Miranda reached over and shook her arm. "What about them? They really are of you, aren't they? Not of your ancestors at all."

Abby seemed to make an effort to return from the memory of that burned house, those charred remains of her family. She dropped the little balls and dragged her fingers through her long hair. "Oh, yes. They're all of me. You were absolutely right, and I'm sorry I lied to you."

Again Miranda felt some of the tentacles of an earlier fear loosen around her heart. "But how?" she asked. "There were photos taken around the turn of the century. There were photos from before you were born—I mean—"

Abby's lips curved. "You're starting to get it, I think." There was a trace of her former derisiveness in her tone. "Think, Mandy. I told you I was born in 1680, right? And here I am now. Old, right? Very old. Older than anybody." Her shoulders sagged. "I've been around forever, practically, and in that long a time you can collect quite a few mementos. I've never been able to stay in one place for long, but I can, at least, carry a few things with me. Photos are one way I can remember some of what happens as the years go by. I'll show you my pictures, all of them, I promise."

"Go get them," Miranda said urgently. "Right now."

"Not now. I'm exhausted, and so are you. How many shocks do you think you can absorb in one night?"

"What's this sudden concern for my health?"

"I know you'll want to show Dan, too, so we'll wait till we're all together. Tomorrow."

Miranda's eyes felt gritty. She rubbed them, then sat looking at Abby, trying to decide whether anything she had heard tonight was real. It was true, though, that she wanted Dan to know what was going on.

Abby stood up. Her hair was a stream of silver in the moonlight through the kitchen window. "You can wait," she said. Her mocking grin flashed briefly, but her words were gentle. "I've learned a lot about waiting. You get good at it—when you have all the time in the world."

After Abby left the kitchen, Miranda sat staring at the tabletop until, finally, she roused herself and went up to bed. But she couldn't sleep. Abby's strange story left her shivering, no matter how many blankets she piled onto her bed. Finally she went to the linen closet in the hall and rummaged around till she found the old, red hot-water bottle. She took it into the bathroom and filled it with hot water. She returned to bed and hugged the rubber bottle to her chest, closing her eyes as its warmth seeped through her. It seemed ages ago that she and Dan had danced in the snow. Ages since they had kissed good night on the porch. Ages and ages and ages...

Finally her eyes closed, and she fell into a confusing dream in which she wandered the streets of Garnet, looking for Abby. Every time she thought she'd found her, Abby darted around a corner, pale hair flashing, and was gone again.

Miranda woke up feeling groggy and leaden. But as she rubbed her eyes, memory returned, and she jumped out of bed with sudden energy and pulled on her clothes. She would call and tell Dan to come over right away. They would make Abby show them the photos before breakfast.

But breakfast was already underway when Miranda ran downstairs. She tried several times over breakfast to catch Abby's eye without success. Helen and Philip were outlining their battle plan for a day of spring cleaning. It consisted of chores and more chores. Miranda tried to point out that it wasn't anywhere near spring yet, but her mother handed her a list of jobs. "Think positive," Helen said. "We'll get a head start."

There was no time to call Dan. No private moment to talk to Abby. As they drove to the shopping center in Lexington on a myriad of errands, Abby chatted brightly with Helen and Philip, but did not once look at Miranda in any other than her usual cursory way. When they returned home for lunch, Virginia Hooton phoned to invite the Brownes and Abby over for pizza that evening. Helen accepted with pleasure. Then she sent Miranda to clean the attic.

"Can't Abby help?" Miranda asked. She felt she would burst with wanting to talk.

"Let's keep the peace and have you work separately," suggested Philip on his way to the basement with the toolbox. "Abby can help me build a wine rack."

"No, really. I'd like her help," begged Miranda.

And Abby added, "I'll help her. I don't mind."

Helen shrugged. "All right. But no fighting."

Miranda led the way upstairs. Abby followed, carrying a broom and dustpan. The attic was cold and dark, lit only by the single bulb dangling from the low ceiling. The room stretched the whole length of the house, its corners shadowed and feathery with cobwebs. The center of the big room was full of the Brownes' suitcases, boxes of old china and books, trunks of summer clothes in storage, and crates of Christmas decorations. Miranda's job was to sweep up the dust.

"This shouldn't take long," Abby said, and began sweeping by the long, low windows. Miranda blocked her path.

"What are you doing?"

Abby widened her eyes. "Sweeping!"

"I mean, why are you ignoring me?"

"I'm not ignoring you."

"Yes, you are. You're avoiding me—as if we never talked last night."

Abby's lips curved in a smile. "Oh, we talked. But I can't look at you without wanting to tell you about everything—so I thought I'd better stay busy until tonight when we're over at Dan's."

Miranda breathed a big sigh of relief. She realized only then how afraid she was that Abby would laugh scornfully and say Miranda was just imagining things again. "You'll bring the photos when we go over for pizza?"

"Absolutely." Abby knelt to sweep dirt into the dustpan, then glanced up at Miranda. "If you're willing to help me."

"I want to try."

Abby continued sweeping. Dust rose in clouds in the attic and made both girls cough. "You're making a big promise, I have to warn you. Because I'm really very selfish. My problem occupies all my time, all my energy. I know you have your life to lead. You have to go to school and learn things, and take tests, and follow the rules. You have to have friends—and boyfriends. And do all sorts of things. But it's hard for me to concentrate on anything but myself. Playing the piano is about the only way I can keep myself here—in this time. Otherwise I find myself being drawn back, trying to get to my family again." She looked at Miranda imploringly. "So when you say you want to help me, I'm worried you don't know what I mean. I need you to immerse yourself in my problem until we can find a way out of it. I'm afraid—I'm afraid you won't have the time and energy to help me, because there are too many other things you need to do with your life."

"But—but don't you want to do things, too?" asked Miranda. She reached for the broom. "Go to school, have friends, learn things?"

Abby shook her head impatiently. "I've done all that already." She glanced toward the stairs as if afraid Helen or Philip would come up. "I've done it all, again and again. Parties, dates, school, teenage stuff—I was doing it all before you were ever born. Before your parents were born." She held the dustpan for Miranda. "I don't think I can ever make anybody understand what it's like for me."

"But you never get any older," murmured Miranda wonderingly. "How lucky."

Abby stared at her. "Lucky?" she cried. "Oh, you don't know what you're saying. I'm thirteen in body—maybe thirteen at heart—but I've been around for so many years longer than that. I've worked on farms, in mills, in factories. I've had friends killed in battle. I've traveled and moved a hundred times or more. Think, Mandy. You'll grow up. You'll graduate from high school, you'll date people, you'll go to college, probably. You'll have a career. Maybe you'll get married and have children. And I'll always be old enough to be the baby-sitter!" Her voice was bitter. "Most importantly, you'll become an adult, and you'll understand things from an adult point of view.... Oh, Mandy, don't you see? I've lived dozens of lives, but I've been thirteen for almost three hundred years. I'm afraid I'll be thirteen forever!"

Miranda practically flew across the road to Dan's house that evening, but Abby dragged her feet. "As much as I need your help, this is going to be hard," she told Miranda. "I've learned from long experience not to tell. He's not going to believe a word I say."

"He'll want to help you, too."

"You might find yourself losing a boyfriend, Mandy. He'll think we're both insane."

"He'll see the pictures," Miranda said. "Don't they say a picture is worth a thousand words?"

She climbed the steps to the Hootons' front porch and rang the bell. Abby stood clenching and unclenching her mittened hands while they waited. The photographs were in a large manila envelope tucked under her arm. She seemed very small in her big denim jacket and bright yellow boots. Virginia Hooton opened the door and smiled to see the girls. "You're a little early for dinner," she greeted them, "but come on in."

They stepped inside the foyer, and Miranda introduced Abby. She explained they wanted to speak to Dan. Mrs. Hooton shook Abby's hand and said how nice it was to meet her. And, before Miranda's eyes, Abby seemed to shrug off her little-girl shyness and metamorphose into a poised young woman. She lifted her head and smiled graciously and said how pleased she was to have been invited with the Brownes. She admired the Hootons' house, and said she was looking forward to the museum tour someday soon. Mrs. Hooton and Abby walked together through the dining room while Miranda followed. She was impressed by Abby's unexpected social graces. But perhaps in nearly three hundred years even the rudest girl could learn a few manners to put on when it pleased her.

Dan and Buddy were sitting at the kitchen table playing cards. Ed Hooton waved at the girls from a desk in the corner of the big, warm room, where he was talking on the telephone.