The Elementals (6 page)

“What can she possibly do with an extra thirty seconds that she couldn’t do without it?” It was the first time he’d asked the question aloud. Until then, it had been a private shield, a perfect curve of steel to keep him from wondering too much, worrying too much.

Turning to Nathaniel, Amelia curled her fingers round his wrist, counting the beats of his heart. “In the beginning, I saw a single vision at a time. Look what became of it.”

Nathaniel pursed his lips, then after a moment said, “Do you know what I think?”

“Far too often, but please, do go ahead.”

“If she were the very same girl that she is at this moment, but stripped of her silver hair and ability to stop time”— he squeezed Amelia’s arms gently—“we’d still be having this conversation.”

A soft sigh on her lips, Amelia rested against his shoulder once more. Exhaustion rippled through her. It had been a long night: too many people, too many emotions.

Weary, she closed her eyes and asked, “Why are you such a monster?”

Nathaniel kissed her brow and gathered her again. Holding the wind off long enough to reply, he filled her ears with the low, dark honey of his voice and the only answer he ever gave: “How else would you have me?”

The next evening came, and hurricane lamps cast a warm glow across the Birches’ backyard. Sweet hickory smoke wound toward a cloudless sky, and Zora carried a pitcher of mint lemonade from the kitchen.

Adding it to an already laden table, Zora laughed when Emerson abandoned his grill to pick her up. He spun her gently, flashes of calico and lace swirling, then dropped her back to her feet. Beckoned by the curve of her neck, he answered with one kiss, and then two.

“I wonder who that is,” Zora said, catching his arm and holding him in place. “I hope it’s my husband.”

“Were you expecting him, ma’am?” Emerson asked.

Laughing, Zora nudged him with her shoulder. Then she settled beneath the sheltering curve of his body. He smelled of smoke and sweat, and beneath that, clean, new earth. She swayed with him, smiling at the party that sprawled across her lawn.

Sam stood on his hands, showing off for a cloud of pretty, perfumed girls from town. From his sprawl on a bench, Henry picked through a bowl of ambrosia salad as he talked with one of the Hawkins boys.

Brow furrowing, Zora asked, “Do you see Julian?”

Emerson kissed her neck again. “Nope.”

Amused, Zora rephrased her question. “Do you know where Julian is?”

“Yep.”

“Em,” Zora said, and slipped out of his arms. She backed away from him, plucking up a pair of salad tongs to brandish. He straightened to his full height, then took a step toward her. Warning, Zora repeated, “Em!”

“Zo,” he replied. His boot fell heavy on the porch, another stride closer.

Drawing herself up imperiously, Zora said, “Emerson Birch, where is our youngest child?”

At once, Emerson stopped. His whole posture changed, lanky and gentle again as he reached for her. “Oh, Julian? He’s in the barn.”

Exasperated, Zora asked, “You couldn’t have told me that in the first place?”

“No, ma’am.”

“And why not?”

Emerson caught her hand and closed the space between them. Backing her toward the porch rail, he smiled as he leaned down to whisper against her cheek. “Because he’s in there with a girl.”

“Elise?” Zora leaned her head back, her pale eyes sparkling. “How long have they been in there? Maybe I should bring them some cake.”

Looping an arm around Zora’s waist, Emerson twirled her slowly, lazily, and said, “Maybe you should leave them alone and dance with me.”

“But there’s no music.”

“I’ll sing some for you,” he replied.

Stepping into a waltz with him, Zora’s heart fluttered when he made good on that promise. His smooth tenor notes seemed to slip right under her skin; his familiar hands became brand-new on her as they turned and turned in the shadows of the porch.

Glancing up, she caught him in her gaze. There was always something to find in his eyes—unexpected wildness, or teasing, or in that very moment, longing. Old infatuation raced through her skin. She felt light and beautiful and invincible.

Emerson let the song trail off, murmuring a quiet confession. “I love dancing with you.”

In spite of the blush stinging her cheeks, Zora pressed a finger to his lips. “Shhh. I can’t hear the music.”

“What’s that?” he asked, lifting her again. “I can’t hear you over the music.”

They laughed together and took a few more steps. There was still a cake to serve and ice cream to scoop, and a few small presents to give to the birthday boy to open. With a gentle kiss, Zora finally stepped back. But her touch lingered.

Holding Emerson’s hand for a moment more, she said, “Things are good, aren’t they?”

“Yes ma’am” He kissed her fingertips and smiled against them. “They always are.”

***

Down by the water, Mollie stood framed in a sandstone arch. Pinned into a vaguely medieval dress, and crowned with a band of paper and foil, she shivered. The sea wind streamed around her, pulling her hair and her hems.

“Do we have enough light?” she asked.

She hadn’t complained all afternoon. Not when they’d had to flee when sea lions took over the beach. Nor when Kate asked her to lie down and let the surf wash over her. But the light was fading; the pleasant afternoon promised to be a chilly evening, and Mollie was still damp.

Kate moved her tripod again. Though sand was a good base for it, the ground wasn’t level. She couldn’t afford to waste film, so everything had to be right. She glanced at the sky and sighed. Blue shifted toward slate gray in the east. Sunset threatened to be ordinary, a few plum-tinged clouds loitering above a hazy sea.

A porcelain rattle interrupted Kate’s geometry. Raising her head from her camera, she saw Mollie clamp her mouth shut to try to stop the chattering of her teeth.

Though she hated to admit it, Kate was somewhat torn. Guilt roiled in her belly, but her gaze sharpened. She couldn’t help but notice that Mollie suffered beautifully.

She looked every inch the miserable Lady of Shalott. Her longing for . . . well, for dry clothes and a warm meal played out on her delicate features like the raw and unrestrained longing of a maiden cursed to see Lancelot, to love him, but to never have him.

Perhaps a true artist would have ignored her muse’s torment. But, since Mollie was the first friend Kate had had, and she rather wanted to keep her, she abandoned art for the day. Covering the lens on her camera, she beckoned to her. “We can come back.”

Throwing her arms around herself, Mollie huddled against the stone wall until Kate finished packing her gear. Then she darted up to her, skirts bunched in one hand. Painting herself against Kate’s side, she wanted to say something, but her teeth clattered violently instead. That set her to giggling, and Kate wrapped an arm around her to share her warmth.

“Perhaps tomorrow,” Kate said, hustling her toward home. “We should build a fire to keep you warm between takes.”

Mollie lit up. “Oh, let’s. We could bring potatoes to put in the embers. I adore a roast potato. When the skin is all crispy and lovely . . .”

“We need to find a canoe,” Kate replied, distracted. Mollie was a stunning Lady of Shalott, but they needed a boat for her to die in, and a Lancelot to die for.

There were so many things to manage, so many details to cover. Plotting the final reel, imagining it in all its glory, consumed every stray thought in Kate’s head.

With a little pinch to catch Kate’s attention, Mollie said, “We’ll find one. Stop worrying.”

“It’s not worrying,” Kate said. “I’m managing the production. That’s how films get made, you know. Careful stewardship, a keen eye for accounting, a knack for solving sticky staging dilemmas . . .”

At that, Mollie dropped her head and pretended to snore.

Kate pinched her back and laughed when she bolted away from Mollie. Calling to her, Kate said, “Someone has to mind the details!”

Hurrying up the cliff walk, they cut through dune grass, ignoring the way it bit their ankles, because that was the shortest path. The house was a rich, amber jewel set among a jade field of sand verbena and Torrey pines.

Lights flickered in a few of the windows, chasing away night before it had even come. There were no automobiles in the yard today; no music drifted from the open windows. Mollie disappeared down the hall to change before Kate even reached the door.

The candied richness of sautéed onions wafted over her when she walked in. Her father stood at the stove, surveying his kingdom of pots and pans. Holding a wooden spoon aloft, he didn’t raise his head when he said, “Good day?”

Circumspect, Kate put her tripod against the pantry. “Yes, it was very clear.”

“What are you working on?”

Now suspicious, Kate studied him. He was in shirtsleeves and spattered with paint, the same as he always was. A smudge from Mimi’s charcoals darkened his cheek. Everything about him seemed ordinary and usual, including the question that had no right answer.

So long as Kate worked on motion pictures instead of dead, dull gouaches, he would find her art lacking.

Pulling her leather satchel off, Kate said, “An adaptation of a Tennyson poem.”

“Oh, Tennyson?”

And there it was. “It has nothing to do with the Pre-Raphaelites, Daddy!”

Tension rippled briefly across his face, but when he spoke, he measured his words. Slipping the towel from his shoulder, he wrapped his hands in it as he turned to her. “Did I say it did?”

“No, but I know exactly what you’re thinking.” She counted her reasons out for him. “I’ve only the one actress and no actors at all. It was
Lady of Shalott
or
La Belle Dame sans Merci.
I can manage the former without an actor better than the latter, that’s all!”

Nathaniel pressed his lips together. “There’s always Ophelia . . .”

“That’s a monologue, Daddy, not a—”

A shriek cut them off. Forgetting their quarrel, they hurried toward the back of the house, where another scream erupted. Kate’s bedroom door was closed, and she pushed herself between it and her father.

“No! She was changing,” Kate said, then opened the door enough to slide through the crack.

In a rush, Mollie stumbled toward her. Her tangled curls bounced on her shoulders, and her face had gone entirely ashen. Tripping over clothes discarded on the floor, she all but crashed into Kate. Clinging to her, she whispered, “This house is haunted!”

As that was quite possibly the last thing Kate expected to hear, she shook her head as she set Mollie on her feet again. “No, it’s not.”

“It is! I tell you, it is!” Mollie jabbed a finger at the back wall, toward the changing screen. “I was down to my combination, and I heard a man say something! I turned around, and there was no one there. So I thought, I must have overheard something from the kitchen. Or perhaps I’m weary from working so hard today . . .”

“You did work hard,” Kate agreed, petting her hair.

“But then it happened again! It was awful! He said I was going to die!”

When Mollie said that, Kate dissolved into laughter. She backed toward the open window, hands up as she reassured her. “No, no, I’m not laughing at you, I’m not. But I know what your ghost is.”

“Do you?” Mollie asked, brittle.

Kate leaned out the window. “Come on, get down here!”

A great black bird dropped from the eaves of the house to land on Kate’s outstretched arm. The creature was massive, bigger than a house cat, and dark as sin. When Kate pulled him inside, she smiled as he nudged his head against her cheek. Her arm bobbed beneath his weight, but she kept him aloft as she carried him toward Mollie.

“This is Handsome, and he doesn’t want you to die.”

“That’s a bird, Kate! Oh, put him back outside!” Mollie kept backing away. “They’re dirty!”

Kate stroked her fingers along his velvet feathers. “Oh, not him. Ravens love a bath; at least, Handsome does. He’s terribly smart, too. Tell her, darling.”

Raising his broad wings, Handsome shook himself out a bit, then turned his head nearly upside down. Keen eyes blinked, and then he opened his beak. An eerie, rattling voice issued from him. “I can talk. Can you fly?”

Mollie slumped against the door. “How on earth . . . ?”

“Isn’t he fantastic? He can say a few more things, but he usually doesn’t.” She laughed when Handsome interrupted her again to ask if she could fly. “Daddy taught him that. He thinks it’s absolutely hilarious.”

“It’s bad luck to have a bird in the house,” Mollie said.

Kate made a kissing sound and nuzzled Handsome right back. “I raised him from a chick. He’s not bad luck at all.”

Unconvinced, Mollie said nothing. She kept Handsome in her sight, creeping around the edge of the room to get back to the dressing screen. When she picked up her dress, Handsome spread his wings and cried out.

Mollie let out another shriek, then one more when Nathaniel rapped on the door and demanded to know what was going on in there. Trying to soothe everyone at once, Kate let herself out and smiled at her father.

“All’s well,” she sang.

Nathaniel sighed as she walked away, and said, to himself alone, “Of course it is.”

***

With a pop and a bite of sulfur, a match sprang to life between Julian’s fingers. A single point of fire spread inside the glass walls of the lantern, casting a soft circle of light in the middle of the pole barn
.

It revealed a working space with bales of hay stacked in the corners and up in the loft. In the dark, the plow and hay cutter seemed like exotic beasts—the cutter’s head a dragon; the plow’s handles a bull.

A wooden swing drifted lazily, wide enough for two and dangling from the loft with a pulley at the side.

Hanging the lantern and shaking out the match, Julian turned. Outlined by the golden glow, Elise stood in the middle of the floor, looking toward the ceiling. She’d laced ribbon in her hair, and her earbobs swung as she moved.

“You have mourning doves up there,” she said.

Julian rubbed his hands dry on his pants. “They’re hiding from the owls.”