The Margarets (37 page)

This seemed to be a new thought, and she perked up. “Ojlin, he wunt look at me, all bald like this.”

“Tie a scarf around your head until it grows out.”

The idea of having a future was interesting enough that she stopped crying. That evening B’Oag returned to report. “The envoy wanted the place empty, and I done that all, and what in billy-be-drat is that girl doin’ behine my counter with my son?”

“Helping you, Oastkeeper. She needs a job, you need the help. Your son needs a wife.”

“Now you just wait, woman…”

“Envoy,” I corrected him with a steely voice. “I will not wait, B’Oag. I have come, I have found what I was sent to find, killed what I was sent to kill, sorted out the results of both finding and killing, and the job seems well done to me. I have thus far made no fuss about your part in the matter. Do not cause me to choose otherwise.” I fastened my eyes on his, my hands slightly outstretched as though at any moment I might lay them on some part of him.

B’Oag gulped, breathed heavily, gulped again, and said no more. By evening’s end, he was showing G’lil how to tally up the day’s receipts.

I spent two more days at the oasthouse, feeding the chitterlain and sleeping, mostly. On the third day, a strange machine came out of the western sky, hovered over the mill at Vaccy for some time, then went away again. Those of us who ventured into the mill the next day found a great many dead mice, rats, spiders, and other vermin, along with a scattering of strange-looking creatures the others could not name. Like squid, I thought, recalling pictures I had seen as a child. A pulpy and bulbous thing with tentacles and suckers on it. I named them and kept talking until everyone knew the name and the danger.

The following morning, when I woke, I found Ferni waiting for me in the oasthall. Wordlessly, he took my pack and tool kit, tucked the chitterlain into the collar of my shirt, where it would stay warm, and led me out of the place to be half blinded by the sun on the snow.

“Where are we going?” I asked him, as I put on my goggles.

“Someplace south and safe,” he replied, then, seeing my skeptical look, “Well, someplace safer than this, where your chitterlain will find its kindred. Then…a little later, we’re going on to Thairy.”

“To see your old friends at the academy?” I asked.

“To see old friends,” he agreed. “And perhaps new ones.”

Glory and I were sitting on my porch, mending underwear.

She said, “Bamber told me his mama left a note when she went away. He couldn’t read yet, but Abe read it to him.”

“I didn’t know that. I thought she just disappeared.”

“His mother said she was in danger, and so was he, so don’t attract attention.”

“Could she have been an escaped bondswoman?” I asked.

“Bamber honestly doesn’t know, but Abe kept the note, and when Bamber learned to read, he read it for himself.”

“I remember you two helping one another learn to read in first grade. Does he know you tell me about him?”

“I wouldn’t tell you unless he thought it was all right. Bamber doesn’t mind your knowing, Grandma. He says he thinks you’re a lot like his mother.”

“I hope not,” I snorted. “Leaving a child like that!”

“Bamber says she must have had reasons, and Abe isn’t mean to him or anything.” Glory knotted her thread and bit it off. “Bamber’s funny about a lot of things. He’s just as smart as I am. In school, he knows all the answers, but he just gives enough right ones to get by, then he puts down wrong answers for the rest.”

“Why does he do that?”

“What the note said. He doesn’t want to attract attention.”

“I suppose his mother might have had reasons for wanting him to be unnoticed,” I admitted grudgingly.

“Abe Johnson’s still a peculiar choice. I wish we could adopt Bamber,” Glory said.

“We’ve already half adopted him,” I replied with some indignation. “We see that he has clothes, even if some of them are hand-me-downs. We pay for his school supplies. And between your mother and me, we feed him about five times a week. Considering everything, I think we’re being very helpful.”

The conversation stuck in my mind, though. There weren’t many diversions in The Valley. Any little irregularity was food for surmise, so why had I ignored the mystery of Bamber Joy’s abandonment? Whatever the reason, it wasn’t the boy’s fault!

A day or so later, I recruited the two of them to help me pick up chicken feed and groceries. At the store, I treated the young ones to the bottles of sweetberry drink they liked, and they sat down on the steps while I went inside. I was barely through the door when a car came booming across the bridge like a thunderstorm on wheels, more noise than you’d ever hear in Crossroads, and of a particularly irritating kind. The only vehicles we see in Rueful are driven by sedate officials on Dominion business, so the minute I heard the sound, I thought of the men who had asked about the cat.

The machine slid sideways into the turn, kicking up a cloud of dust as it kept right on coming, a danger to every child and chicken in the neighborhood. It didn’t slow down until it was almost on top of the store. The two men got out, looking like they were headed to a hanging.

I got over by the potato bin just as they banged their way in. One of them said loudly to Ms. McCollum, “Have you found out anything about a new cat yet?”

Ms. McCollum came right back at them. “What’s its scientific name? One of the people here in The Valley wanted to look it up. She wanted to know was it Earthian? Maybe an ocelot?”

The taller one said to the other, “Did the people at the office tell you the scientific name of the cat, Walter?”

Walter said, “No, Ned, they did not. We will have to get that information.”

The taller one continued, “So, you have not heard of anybody with a strange sort of cat, ma’am?”

“Most everybody has one or two ordinary, everyday cats.”

“Has anyone been buying unusual amounts of cat food, ma’am?”

“Only Ma Bailey, because her mama cat had kittens that’re starting on solid food.”

“You have seen those kittens yourself, ma’am?”

“Everbody in town has seen ’em. Just step down the street to Ma’s Kitchen, and she’ll try to give you one, and another to keep it company.”

The two men turned to go out, and I followed them to the door. On the porch, Walter stopped and glared at Glory. “Little girl, do you know anyone around here who has a strange cat?”

“First off,” Glory said, “I’m not a little girl. Little girls are younger than ten, and I’m considerable older than that. And no, I don’t know anybody who has a strange cat.”

The man stared through her as though she weren’t even there. I shivered, for Bamber was looking up at the man with eyes so blank they could have been cut out of blackboard. He stood up slowly, getting himself between Glory and Walter.

“My steppa, he shoots cats. Can’t abide ’em. Maybe he shot the one you’re lookin for.”

The two men blinked slowly, then got back in their car and went tearing back up to the bridge, where they turned east and kept going, raising more clouds of dust.

Bamber turned to me, and said, “Grandma, whoever sent those two sure didn’t intend anybody to look at them close.”

Glory said, “You mean the way they talk?”

“They talk like the machines talked in the place we were before my mom came here and left me with Abe.”

She cried, “Bamber, you just remembered something. You had a memory!”

His mouth dropped open. “I guess I did. That’s funny.”

He took a slow swallow of his drink, then shook his head. “You
know that stuffed turkalope the sheriff hangs out in the trees at our place? Every year he hangs it there?”

Turkalopes are large Tercisian birds that run quite fast and don’t fly very well. Some people raise them for meat, though I’ve never cared for the taste.

“Why does he do that?” I asked through the screen door.

“Because it’s illegal to bother or kill the wild ones, so the sheriff hangs up this stuffed one, then he hides until some idjit tries to kill it, then he arrests them.”

“Why are we talking about stuffed birds?” asked Glory.

“Because those two guys are like that stuffed bird.”

I realized what he meant. “You mean a decoy! Hold the thought while you load that chicken feed, Bamber. Let me get the groceries.”

I picked up the few things we needed, paid Ms. McCollum for it and the sacks of feed the young ones were putting in the wagon, and we started for home. As soon as we were out of earshot, Bamber whispered, “If decoy’s the right word, then there’s somebody we can’t see watching those two decoys to see if anybody’s interested in what they’re saying or doing.”

That was more talk out of Bamber than I had heard if I had put his whole year’s conversations end to end.

“Because…” Glory whispered.

“Because,” he said, “if somebody takes an interest in those two men, that person may know something about the cat.” He turned that blackboard gaze of his toward me, a tiny smile on his lips. “But we’re onto them, aren’t we, Grandma!”

Bamber unhitched for us at Maybelle’s house. We left the chicken feed in the barn and carried the other stuff up the hill to my house. Falija wasn’t there, though Glory and Bamber said hi to Lou Ellen.

I made chicken sandwiches with pickles for them while Glory and Bamber discussed what the men might really be up to. As usual, Lou Ellen didn’t want all her sandwich, so Glory split what she didn’t eat with Bamber.

“Should we do something about those men?” Glory asked. “Or would that just get us arrested for shooting at the decoy?”

“The safest thing to do with bait is pretend you don’t notice it,” I
told them. “Sniffing at it might be even more dangerous than trying to eat it. Glory, I do wish mightily we knew what this is all about.”

Bamber gave me a very straight look. “You can trust me to look out for Glory, ma’am.” Then he ducked his head as though he’d scared himself, speaking up that way.

“Well.” I grinned at Glory. “It seems we have an ally.”

“I’m glad,” said Falija, suddenly appearing on a chair nearby. “Allies are good things to have.”

That startled Bamber, and he stood gaping as though he’d lost his wits.

“Falija, what do you think about those men?” Glory asked.

“Grandma’s right. We should take no notice, not even if ten more of them arrive and dance across the bridge waving large tambourines.”

“Tambourines?” I said.

“Isn’t it a word? I learned it just this morning. A festive instrument to accompany dance. Can’t you visualize those two men with tambourines?”

This set Glory and Bamber to snickering, and even I had to laugh. When the children left, they stood for a while on the porch. Glory said, “I really don’t know that much about her, Bamber.”

“Her suddenly showing up that way! I seem to remember something about cat-people who do that,” he murmured. “They live on Thairy, and Chottem, and Fajnard, and they’re called the Gibbekot.”

They went on down the hill, their two dark heads almost level with one another, their long legs moving easily. Glory and Bamber Joy. Maybelle didn’t encourage the friendship because she felt Gloriana shouldn’t be particularly friendly with any boy until she was quite a bit older. Knowing what I knew about Gloriana, I thought friendship, boy, girl, or animal, was what she needed, and the two of them were good for one another.

A couple of days later The Valley grapevine spread the news that Dorothy Springer had been found murdered in her house. The sheriff had called the Rueful Public Safety officers for help, because there hadn’t been a murder in Remorseful in anybody’s memory. I wondered if this were another decoy. No one in Rueful would kill someone else
to find out who cared or who didn’t, and I had to remind myself that Ned and Walter weren’t from anyplace as simple as Rueful.

“What are they saying at school?” I asked.

Glory stared at her feet. “Mary Beth Conover said it had to be a crazy person, but others said no, if the person was crazy they’d be in Schizo-ville, the Walled-Off for crazy people.”

“You didn’t take an unusual interest, did you?”

She shook her head no. “You think it’s another decoy?”

I told her I didn’t know. The presence of Ned and Walter here in Rueful, where they didn’t belong, had mostly annoyed me, but now, I felt frightened.

That night Glory and I hiked over to the cemetery and pretended to pull weeds along the fence—just in case someone was watching us—while she dug up the little pouch the cat-people had given her. It was the only connection she had to them, and she’d told me if she needed something from them, she might need it in a hurry. Back at the house, we folded it flat, ripped a seam in the lining of her jacket, and put the bag inside. Then I restitched it, almost invisibly, so no matter what happened, she would have it nearby.

Half the town went to Dorothy Springer’s funeral. Everyone was sorry she was gone, particularly the local folks who’d taken it upon themselves to feed her forty or fifty barn cats until they could find homes for them. School let out early in the afternoon, and the Remorseful Ruehouse was full of young people and their families. Bamber and Glory went with me, and we were just part of the crowd, which was a good thing because Ned and Walter were there, sitting in the back row, scanning the congregation.

We saw them on the way in. When we came out of the church, they were gone, but they were out at the cemetery when we arrived there. I had brought a bouquet, some wildflowers and some from my little garden. A lot of other people had done the same, and from under my lashes I watched the two men focusing on every person who laid flowers by the grave, trying to find something unusual. Glory started to cry, but by that time most of us were a little tearful.

“The Remorseful cemetery isn’t as pretty as the one near Cross-
roads,” I said when the burial was over. “But it does have a nice view of the mountains. Here, take my handkerchief, Gloriana. I didn’t know you knew Dorothy.”

“I just knew her to say hello to. It’s just…just…”

“I know. The minister enjoyed himself, didn’t he. Made a real three-hanky affair out of it.”

“He did. Sort of.”

“If it’s any comfort to you, I have a friend in the sheriff ’s office, an old patient of your grandpa’s. She told me Dorothy was dozing in her chair, the way she did of an evening, when someone hit her on the head with something heavy. It was very sudden, and she probably didn’t even feel it. Also, she was well past ninety, and beginning to show signs of failing. She actually told me she wished she could just die quickly, in her sleep, and that’s almost what happened.”

“Was she a friend of yours?”

“Oh, for about forty years. She was one of Grandpa Doc’s patients, too. Well then, most everybody around here was! You don’t need to grieve over her, Glory.”

“It wasn’t grieving so much as thinking I could have caused her to die, Grandma! Even though it was Ms. McCollum who actually mentioned Ms. Springer to…you know who…it could just as easy have been me.”

“Death usually makes us feel guilty,” I told her. “As though those of us still living are part of a conspiracy. Let’s not brood on it, Glory. Til and Jeff are spending the night with friends, and your mother suggested that she and your dad would relish an evening to themselves, so I’m inviting you and Bamber to have supper at my house.”

I’d made a big pan of what farm folk called “all-in,” meat, cheese, beans, grain, and spicy sauce. Different kinds of peppers grew well in Rueful; almost everybody used them, red, green, or yellow, plus the tiny purple ones that set your mouth on fire.

Bamber ate three helpings of all-in and two of dessert. He was apologetic about it until I told him he was a growing boy, and if I remembered rightly, they ate all the time. Bamber flushed and looked pleased, as though he’d received a compliment, as perhaps he had. He’d been told he was normal boyish, and Bamber probably didn’t often get to think of himself that way. After dinner, Falija, Bamber
and Glory did the dishes, and I sat on the porch, watching the battle-bats skydiving for bugs until the dishwashers joined me.

Glory asked Falija if her new brain had told her anything new and helpful.

Falija smiled a cat smile. “As a matter of fact…it’s still light enough for us all to see. Let’s take a walk in the woods. Maybe we’ll find something interesting.”

Since Bryan had died, I often went woods wandering in the dusk or moonlight. I knew Falija saw well even when it was quite dark, so we wouldn’t get lost. She led us up the hill, past a huge chunk of black rock that went up like a steeple, then up a steep slope—me scrambling, with Bamber boosting me from behind—that ended against two huge boulders separated by a narrow slit. Following Falija, we squeezed inside. The opening split in two, and Falija led us to the right. Directly ahead of us was a screen of some kind, a wavering light, as though someone had turned a breeze-riffled pond on its side. I would have stopped right there, but when Falija plunged right through it, the children went after her, so, naturally, I went after them.