Pale Phoenix (23 page)

But Abby walked toward a clump of toadstools growing beneath a tree. "Look, it may not even work. I mean, can a ghost die again? But these are very poisonous. I have to try. It's the best way. Thomas might find my body. He can bury me with my mother and father and sisters. I'll be with William again."

"Stop her!" cried Miranda, running over. "Don't let her try to eat them."

A small procession of men was coming toward them from the woods. The trees behind them swayed back and forth in the wind. Miranda recognized the figure in front as Thomas. The men were empty-handed. This small band had not tracked Willow down to capture her, and Miranda sighed inwardly with relief even as she struggled with Abby. She hoped that the other search parties had also found no one.

"Thomas!" screamed Abby. "Wait! Here I am!" She tried to run to him, heedless of the wind barrier, but was swept into the gale again and hurled back onto the ground.

Dan and Miranda helped her to her feet. "You'd think after three hundred years of trying," he said, "you'd learn."

"Wish us home," Miranda implored her. "Do it now."

"But I want my family!" cried Abby, her hair whipping across her face in the wind.

Miranda yelled back at her. "Abigail Chandler, your family is
dead, dead, dead!
But mine is alive, and I want to see them again. You may not value your life, but Dan and I value ours." Her words were harsh; she meant them to be. "Damn it, Abby, you've lived longer already than Dan and I ever will, and you don't appreciate it at all. I wish you'd grow up."

"I want to grow up, too," hissed Abby. "But I can't. That's the problem."

Abby's face was set with a determination Miranda had not seen before, and she felt a new stab of fear. What could they do if Abby really did refuse to wish them home again? The three of them stood in the charred rubble, ash eddying around them, stirred by the wind.

Abby stubbornly folded her arms across her chest. But at least she wasn't trying to get the toadstools now. Miranda glanced at Dan. What were they going to do if they couldn't convince Abby? There had to be a way.

Miranda's hand crept into her pocket to stroke the cold stone of the phoenix. As before, the feel of it calmed her. And with the new calm came inspiration. Slowly, she drew the phoenix out and held it up. "Look, Abby," she said. "It's you. I mean, you're sort of a phoenix, too. Did you ever think of it that way?"

At Abby's uncomprehending stare, Miranda nodded. "Well, it's true. You are. In the legend, the bird dies in the fire, right? And then it's reborn out of the flames and lives on. But it doesn't live on as its old self—it becomes a new phoenix, with a new life."

"That's right," said Dan. He took the phoenix from Miranda and pressed it into Abby's hand. "You did that, too! You died in the fire, but Willow's statue gave you a chance to start again. You're dead in this time. Just a ghost. But that's okay, because you can come home with us now, and start again."

"Home to what?" Abby's eyes narrowed. She was again the Abby that Miranda knew so well, sarcastic and hostile. "It's no real life there, either. I'm tired of never growing, never changing, being drawn back here just to sit and cry, then going back again, just existing on and on." Her shoulders sagged, and when she spoke next her voice was very soft, hardly audible over the wind. "I would rather die right now than go on that way. I don't
want
to be a phoenix anymore."

Her simple words stirred something deep inside Miranda that all Abby's shouting had failed to reach. Could the solution to Abby's troubles be as simple as deciding
not
to be a phoenix? The first raindrops began to fall. "Come home now," she told Abby. "I need some time to think things through. But maybe I can still help, after all. We can try again."

Abby looked down at the cold stone phoenix in her hand. "Without this bird," she said slowly, "everything would have ended for me in the house that day. Charred bone—" She turned the words over experimentally in her mouth. "Like the others. That's all I'd be. But I'm not, am I?" She looked up at them. "I'm not."

They shook their heads.

Abby gazed at them both with a blank, faraway look in her pale eyes. She seemed to be coming to some decision, for she nodded to herself after a moment. "All right," she said. "I'll take you home." She reached out her hands to them. Miranda's heart beat faster; she had been truly frightened that this moment would never come.

"Close your ¡eyes," Abby whispered.

Miranda glanced hastily around her for one last look before she obeyed. Here on the grass at the edge of the woods, it could be any time. The rain pelting down around them now could fall in any age. Then almost immediately the rain vanished, the air grew dense around them, almost unbearably stifling, then thinned again, and turned cooler, cold. It was this cold air that Miranda gasped into her lungs just as the smell changed to that of pizza, and she heard Abby's words, "Open your eyes now. We're home."

"M
Y GOODNESS
, I thought you girls had gone home already!" Mrs. Hooton exclaimed as the three time travelers, silent and shaken, slowly walked down the steps from the museum wing into the front hall. "But since you're here, you're welcome to share our bedtime snack. Leftover pizza."

Miranda checked her watch, then clenched Dan's hand. They had traveled so far together, she could not believe so little time had passed. She couldn't bear to leave before they had a chance to talk. He squeezed her fingers, willing her to stay, needing her closeness as she needed his. But then Miranda saw Abby's stricken face and slowly shook her head. "No, thanks. Abby and I had better get home."

"Well, it is getting late." Mrs. Hooton saw them to the door. As they started down the front steps, she called after them. "Oh, would you girls like to come along with Dan to meet me at the Prindle House tomorrow after school? The witchcraft exhibit is just about ready. You three can have a sneak preview, if you like, before we open it to the public."

"That'll be nice," Miranda answered faintly and hurried across the snowy street after Abby.

Abby was withdrawn as they sat in the living room with Helen and Philip over their bedtime hot chocolate. Miranda felt a terrible urge to talk to her parents, to tell them about everything that had happened. But one glance at Abby's set face made her press her lips together hard. This was Abby's drama—she herself was in the wings while Abby stood center stage. There was a certain relief, too, in leaving the explanations to Abby. Miranda sipped her drink, remembering the fragrant stew in Sarah's cauldron.

Abby drained her cup, then looked up at Philip. "Where do you think we go when we die?"

He peered into his mug. "Helen, what did you put in here?"

Abby didn't smile. "I just wonder, that's all."

Miranda tried to catch Abby's eye, but Abby leaned toward Philip, waiting intently.

"I don't know, of course," said Philip. He set his mug on the coffee table. "People believe different things. It depends on what your religion teaches—"

"No, that can't be right." Abby cut him off. "I've been to dozens of churches and synagogues. Religions think they know, but I need
proof.
How can I get absolute proof?"

Helen laughed uncertainly. "Abby, theologians, philosophers, scientists, and just about everybody else for thousands of years—no, certainly much longer than that—have all been wondering the exact same thing you are, and no one has ever found proof that everyone will accept as proof. Faith is an important element of all religions for precisely that reason. I, for one, believe there is a God and a heaven."

"And when you die you'll be with all your family and friends who died before you?"

"I'm not sure I'd go that far, personally," said Helen. "But I know many religions would say yes. And it certainly is a comforting thought."

"So the only way to know for sure is to die, I suppose," said Abby dully.

"Probably," said Helen. She looked questioningly at Miranda as Abby returned to her hot chocolate. Miranda just shrugged. No one spoke for some time; the only sound in the room was the clink of their spoons against the mugs.

Then Abby stood up. "Excuse me. I've had enough—and I'm feeling sort of dizzy. I'm going to bed."

Helen rose hastily. "Let me feel your forehead, honey. Are you coming down with something?"

"No—" Abby waited while Helen placed a hand on her brow. "I'm just tired." She headed for the stairs.

"Let her go, Helen," said Philip, and Helen sat down again.

"What's wrong with Abby, Mandy? Do you know?" she asked.

Miranda shrugged. How to tell them of Abby's despair? How to give them an accurate account of how Abby tried to go back before the fire, of her failure, of her longing to die so that she might at last rejoin her family? At least she hadn't been able to try the poison mushrooms.

Miranda choked on her hot chocolate. Abby had not, after all, been able to kill herself in the past. But nothing prevented her from trying to commit suicide here.

"Excuse me, too," Miranda said, shoving back her chair. "I'll go talk to her, see if anything's wrong."

As she hurried out of the room, she heard her father's soft voice. "It's just great how friendly the girls have been to each other these past couple of days. Maybe things really will work out for us after all."

"Oh, I hope so," said Helen fervently. "It would be so wonderful...."

Miranda sucked in her breath and ran upstairs. Nothing could ever work out if Abby were already dead. She barged into Abby's bedroom without knocking. "Abby? Abby?" But the room was empty.

Cold fear plunged into Miranda's stomach. The bathroom! Razor blades or who knew what in the medicine chest? But when she ran down the hall to check, that room was empty, too. Miranda put her hands to her face.

She ran to her own room and flung herself onto the bed. Then she noticed Abby in the corner window seat, legs drawn up tightly beneath her.

"Oh, Abby!"

"What's the matter? Seen a ghost?"

"I thought you were going to—"

"Kill myself?" Abby nodded. "I was thinking about it. But I'm a ninny. A great big coward." Her voice cracked with angry tears. "Maybe it wouldn't work anyway. Maybe I wouldn't die even if I tried. But in order to know, I need someone to push me over the cliff, to pull the trigger, to knock the chair out from under me once my head is in the noose—"

"Abby, stop it—please!"

Abby's eyes glittered as she hugged her legs. "I need you to put the poison berries in my tea, or stab me with a dagger. Will you do it, Mandy? You with your safe home and loving family and normal life? Will you do it so I can get back to my own parents—and William?"

Miranda stared at Abby. She saw the twitch at the side of Abby's mouth, that old sardonic, unpleasant smirk. Miranda's pity dissolved. Her voice when she spoke was sharp. "You know I won't. And only someone as selfish as you would ever ask such a thing. Just leave me out of it. I won't shove you down the stairs or shoot your brains out, much as I'd sometimes like to. But listen—last year Mither sprained her back and had to take some pretty strong painkillers. I bet she has some left. Go check the bathroom. Take a couple pills and you'll fall asleep. Take ten—you fall down unconscious. Take the whole bottle, Abby, why don't you? Take it and see if maybe you really
will
die!"

Abby's smirky, superior grin vanished and her eyes filled with tears. Miranda jumped off her bed and stamped right over to the window seat. She shouted into the other girl's face, "Yes, you'll die at last! And what an easy way to go. Even a coward like you can manage it!" She held up her hand when Abby tried to speak. "I know what you'll say next. You'll want me to be the one to pour you the cup of water. No way. This is something you'll do all by yourself. But I'll get my parents to come up and kiss you before you fall asleep. I won't tell them it's good-bye, of course, because they'd rush you to the hospital and pump your stomach, and we know you wouldn't want that."

Her voice rose scornfully. "So they'll kiss you good night, and when they go downstairs again they'll say what I just heard them saying a few minutes ago. How happy they are that you're living with us, how they hope you and I will be friends, how much they want you to stay. Of course you won't hear them, because you'll already have sunk into a stupor. But you wouldn't care, anyway, right? Because we don't matter to you. All you want is to die—on the off chance you'll meet up with people who died three hundred years ago." Miranda broke off to catch her breath and glared at Abby. "All these years of life you've had, Abby—and I don't think you've appreciated one minute. All you've been doing is wishing you
weren't
alive. Well, you don't deserve to be."

She stopped at last, shocked at herself. Abby's head was bowed now and tears dropped onto her knees. Miranda felt tears start in her own eyes. After a long pause, she spoke up grudgingly. "I—I'm sorry. You wouldn't really die from the pills, Abby. In fact, I don't really think we even have any more. But even if we did, and even if you took the whole bottle, I'd be on the phone for an ambulance before you finished swallowing."

Abby lifted her head and threw her arms around Miranda. "Oh, Mandy," she sobbed. "I know I'm awful. I don't really want to die—I just can't bear going on like this. How long does that legend say phoenixes live? Isn't it five hundred years? If I'm a phoenix as you say, does that mean two hundred more years for me? I hate living on and on and never changing, while the people I care about die. I hate going back to the ruin all the time, just to cry there for all I've lost."

"I know." Miranda sat on the window seat next to Abby. She was trying to think back to the moment in the ruin, trying to remember the idea that had risen out of the ashes. Abby had said then she didn't want to be a phoenix. And yet she had no choice. Or did she?

She contemplated the pale girl. "You
look
just like a normal person. You were born like everyone. You lived a normal life—until the moment you should have died. Then something magical happened, and you didn't really die at all. It happened because of one special thing you had that no one else in the world had. The phoenix. Somehow it gave you another chance."