Pale Phoenix (15 page)

"Hooray, it's time for pizza!" cried Buddy.

"Not yet," Miranda told him. "We're early because we need to talk to Dan. Alone."

"No fair," wailed Buddy. "He's teaching me how to play Clock Solitaire."

Abby pulled out a chair and sat down. She put the envelope on her lap. "Go ahead and finish," she said. "Take your time. We're in no hurry."

"Yes, we are," countered Miranda.

Dan looked from one girl to the other. "How about I finish showing him—fast? Then we can go upstairs. If it's really so important."

"It's hugely important," said Miranda. At the same time Abby assured him, "Oh, it can wait."

Buddy learned to lay the cards out in a circle of twelve piles with one pile in the middle. Dan showed him how to turn the cards over, hoping against hope not to turn up a king. "Four kings and you've lost," he warned Buddy, turning over another card. "Oops—see? I've just lost. Now you can try it on your own while we go upstairs."

"Stay and show me again," begged Buddy.

"Sorry, Buddy," Miranda told him. "But it's urgent."

"Oh, I don't know," said Abby, reluctant to follow them out of the kitchen. "I could just stay here with him while you two go—"

"Abby!" Miranda put her hands on her hips. Dan looked on, mystified.

"Oh, all
right
" Abby trailed behind them as Miranda led the way upstairs to Dan's room.

Dan sprawled across his bed. Miranda settled herself next to him, while Abby sat as primly as was possible in the big, soft beanbag chair, smoothing her hands nervously over the manila envelope.

"So?" began Dan. "What's up?"

M
IRANDA HESITATED
only a moment. Then she took a deep breath and began. "Abby has told me her secret. And we want you to know it, too."

Abby put her hands to her face, her cheeks pink.

"Go on," invited Dan, and he pulled a pillow under his head. "What's the big deal?"

That was one of the things about Dan that Miranda loved. He was a great listener. He wasn't thinking that soon it would be his turn to talk; he put himself aside. He wanted to hear. He seldom interrupted, and his mind never wandered.

Abby ducked her head, pale hair swinging. She looked small and childlike again, all sophistication erased. So Miranda began telling Dan about Abby's crying the night before, about their talk in the kitchen, about everything Abby had told her. Then Miranda sat back to wait for Dan's response.

It was slow in coming. He always mulled things over before speaking, but this time it was a full three minutes, during which Miranda sat motionless, gazing out at the new snow drifting silently past the window. Abby was curled sideways in the beanbag chair, resting her head on its smooth back. Her hair shielded her face.

Finally, Dan spoke. "
Wow.
What else can I say?"

"You can say what you think it's all about," Miranda told him.

He turned to look at Abby's still, small form in the brown chair. "Poor Abby. We'll have to think of how to help you."

Abby sat up slowly, her eyes wide. Miranda threw her arms around him, laughing. "You're great, Dan Hooton. Do you know that? Who else would have listened to me without cracking jokes? Who else would have believed it? See, Abby? Wasn't I right? Who else would have believed us?"

Dan gently removed her arms. "Hold on just a second. I said we needed to help. That isn't quite the same as believing the whole story." He ran his hand through Miranda's curls. "But I believe you both believe it's true. So that's a start. I think we need to find out if it could possibly be true or if—and you have to admit this is more likely—Abby is, well, you know ... confused."

"You mean crazy," muttered Abby. "I knew it. It's better to keep quiet."

Miranda shook her head. "Come on, show him the pictures, Abby."

When Abby didn't move, Miranda went over and removed the envelope from her unresisting hand. She was so eager to see them herself that her hand shook as she dumped the contents onto Dan's bed: all the old, yellowed photographs, newspaper clippings, recent snapshots, all separated into neat piles and tied with faded satin ribbons. "Take a look," she invited.

Dan fingered the pile of sepia-tone photos backed on cardboard. "What are these? How old are they? They look like they ought to be in a museum, or at least an album."

Abby joined them on the bed. "If you're going to see them, I want you to see them in order." She pawed through the carefully sorted stacks and selected one. She untied the ribbon slowly.

"Here," she said, and lay one photograph on the bed. Miranda and Dan leaned forward to see. "This was the first photo ever made of me. It is me—I swear it."

Miranda stared at the dingy brown cardboard. Abby's face—and only the face was familiar—peered out at the camera from a bundle of shawls. Her body appeared to be swathed in voluminous layers of cloth. But despite the strange garments, Miranda recognized the spark in the girl's pale eyes and the familiar quirky uplift of one corner of the small mouth. A leather trunk stood at her feet. A spindly table at her side held a candle and a book. Miranda turned the photograph over gingerly, afraid it might crumble. She read aloud the dim writing penned on the back:
Abby, 1852.

Miranda dropped the cardboard. Hearing Abby's story, telling it to Dan—none of that had prepared her for the wings of panic now fluttering somewhere deep inside.

Abby held up the next photograph by one brittle corner. "That first one was taken when I worked as a maid for the Longridge family in Boston. This next one was taken a few years later by another family I lived with—in New York."

This photograph showed Abby posed by a graceful curving staircase. She was dressed lavishly in a ruffled gown. The skirts stood out stiffly, held high by hoops, and in her hand she carried an open fan.

"The dress was deep green and the fan had a hunting scene on it," murmured Abby. "They bought the stuff for their daughter's entrance into society because they wanted me to look nice, too. I was living with the Petersons as a companion for Deborah, who was sort of sickly. They treated me like another daughter. The mother even promised I would have a coming-out ball myself when I was old enough—but of course I couldn't stay with them that long."

Miranda turned over the photograph and read the faded lettering:
Abigail, age sixteen. The New York Cotillion
,
1856.
"But you aren't sixteen," she protested weakly.

"No. I've always had to lie—just to get by. Sometimes it's hard to keep track of the stories. Who am I this time? How old am I? What background have I concocted for myself? It's like, I don't know, being a spider or something. Spinning webs around me for protection. But they're sticky, too. And they get torn down easily." She sucked on her bottom lip, looking at the photos. "Anyway, it's hard to get work if I tell my true age. It's bad enough being so small."

"What do you mean, you couldn't stay with the Petersons long?" Dan asked. "Why couldn't you?"

"I always have to move on because I never get any older. Sooner or later, people notice. I have to find another place to live before they get suspicious."

Dan frowned. "But why couldn't you stay with these families anyway? And how did you find them in the first place? And where did you go when you left them—" He reached for the photo Miranda was holding and stared at it. "It's all so bizarre."

"But you have to believe the story now, don't you?" pressed Miranda. "You can't look at these things and not believe."

Abby looked hurt. "You're right about one thing—it
is
bizarre.
I'm
bizarre. I thought of joining a circus sideshow once, just to find a permanent home. You know: Girl Wonder! Never Ages!"

"Sorry, Abby," said Dan softly. He was nearly as pale as Abby herself as he studied the photographs. "It's just hard to believe. I mean, the whole thing. Your story—and these pictures as proof. The photos
could
be fakes, you know." He looked earnestly at Miranda. "They seem old and all that, but even age could probably be faked with special techniques."

"I don't think they're fakes," maintained Miranda.

"Yeah? But Abby's a self-confessed liar. Why should this story be any more true than any other story she's told over the years?"

"Over the years, Dan? Listen to yourself. Either you believe Abby's as old as she says she is, or you don't. The only reason she's told so many lies is because she's had to cope." Miranda glowered at him. "I think you're being horrible. Think of how awful it is for Abby to tell the truth for once and have no one believe her."

"Well, at least she's got you in her corner now," said Dan coolly. "And that was no easy conquest."

They stared at each other. "Truth is stranger than fiction," Miranda told him, moving away so their arms were no longer touching. "Haven't you heard that saying before?"
We're fighting
, she thought.
I can't believe it.

They faced each other on the bed, frowning. Miranda glanced over to see how Abby was reacting, then screamed and clutched Dan's arm.

Abby had vanished. She had been sitting in the beanbag chair only a moment before. She had not passed the bed to leave the room. And there was no other way out.

Dan leapt off the bed in a panic. "Where'd she go? Abby!" He picked up the beanbag chair, dropped it again, ran to the window and looked out, then turned to Miranda with terror in his eyes. She sat motionless on the bed, tense and waiting.

Suddenly the air in the room seemed to change. It felt denser for an instant, as if atoms were somehow rearranging themselves. And then Abby was there again, back in the beanbag chair.

"Proof," Abby said softly. "All I have to do is wish to be back at the ruin, and I'm there."

"Oh, Abby." Miranda's heart was beating hard, as if she had been running. She regarded Abby with awe.

"I can't blame anybody for doubting me," Abby continued. "But seeing is believing."

"I believe you," whispered Dan. "I believe you. Just don't—don't do that again."

Miranda reached for Dan's hand and held it tightly.

"I promise I won't—at least not without warning you. But listen, let me tell you the whole story, just as I remember it," Abby offered. She shuffled thoughtfully through the stacks of pictures as Miranda and Dan recovered themselves and settled back on the bed together. She had their undivided attention.

"I guess I have to start with the fire at my house," Abby began. Her voice was gentle, as if she were sorry for having frightened them and didn't want to do it again. "It was a hot night in July, in 1693. Right here in Garnet. I was thirteen—almost fourteen, just like I am now. We were having a special dinner at my house for William, who was turning sixteen. He lived next door. Our own house was small, but with a large garden. We had chickens and geese. There were my father and mother, and my sisters, Constance and Faith. Our brother, Thomas, wasn't there that night." She stared out at the falling snow.

"Anyway—it was awfully hot and dry that summer, but even so, we always kept the fire going—that was the only way to heat water or to cook, you know. The roof caught fire while we were eating dinner. It flared up so suddenly—and it just fell in on us. I was at the table talking to William and suddenly everything was chaos. I could hear my mother and my sisters screaming—and I could hear my father shouting. I couldn't see anything in the smoke. It was all around me. I couldn't breathe. I felt something burn my leg—and then, I don't remember what happened. Somehow I was out of the house. The smoke was clearing. Everything was all in ruins. Men were everywhere with buckets of water trying to keep sparks from jumping over to the Prindles' place—"

"The
Prindle
House?" interrupted Miranda in surprise.

"That's right—your same Prindle House." A fleeting smile lifted the corners of Abby's mouth. "Well, nearly the same. It may be the oldest house in Garnet now, but it wasn't then. William's father had built it only the year before."

"What happened next?" ventured Dan. "Did you go to the men?"

"Of course," said Abby, resuming her tale. "I saw my brother Thomas and ran to him. I grabbed his arm—I was crying, but he didn't see me! He didn't feel me there at all. I ran all around, trying to make someone hear me, but it was like I wasn't even there. William's father came along, and another neighbor, but they couldn't see me, either. I thought—I thought I must have died after all. I must have become a ghost."

Miranda nestled against Dan. She felt in need of comforting.

"I waited there until the men had every spark out," Abby continued in a low voice. "And when they left, I tried to follow—but I couldn't. I couldn't leave the site of my house. It was as if—I can't explain it. As if there were a wall of wind holding me back. I tried my hardest to press through the wall and felt myself caught up in—I don't know what it was—a kind of whirlwind or something. I couldn't see, I couldn't hear anything but roaring—and I thought, well, if I hadn't died already, this was surely the end." She smoothed her palm over the manila envelope. "But it wasn't the end. Because when the wind stopped, there I was, standing in a field next to the Prindle House. A
field,
don't you see? Where there hadn't been any field before because my house stood there."

Miranda didn't see at all. She just sat with her hand in Dan's and waited, and Abby continued after a moment of silence. "The field was covered with patches of snow, and I was shivering, wearing only my summer dress. Seconds before it had been summer. Now I was freezing. There was no sign of my house at all—no rubble, no ash. Just grass and snow. I started walking toward the Prindle House, and then I noticed it looked different. It was bigger. There was a porch and a whole other wing. But what was I supposed to do? It started snowing—it was as bad out as it is now." She pointed at the window.

"So I walked to the house and knocked on the door. I thought I'd find William's family, but a woman answered who I'd never seen before. She took one look at me and drew me in. 'Laura,' she cried, 'I declare! We weren't expecting you for another week. What a little bitty thing you are.' And then she sort of shrieked and said, 'Oh, you poor dear thing, where is your trunk? And your cloak?' Of course, I didn't know what to say, so I just stood there in a kind of daze. The woman's voice sounded strange to me. It was a different accent from the people in Garnet. Her clothes were odd, too. And the house! Somehow it wasn't William's at all, anymore. It had completely different furniture and was painted and wallpapered, and full of all sorts of things on shelves. The woman hustled me over to a warm seat near the fireplace and wrapped me in a shawl. 'Just rest now, dear. It's clear to me you have met with some misadventure, and I'll want to hear all about it. But now you need to get warmed up.'"