Virginia Hamilton (20 page)

“Dad? Are you getting old?” And such pain and sorrow in her voice, her dad never really heard the words.

“What? Ticey, what is it?”

He turned back to her, standing there just above the steps in something close to a crouch, as if he would drop from tiredness. He had heard the cry of a child, lost, and he dropped down to the top step to sit, breathing deeply. Justice was there beside him in an instant. She took hold of his arm and commenced rubbing her face along the sleeve of his dusty workshirt. When she looked up at him again, she wore a mustache of fine powder.

Her dad grinned at the sight. “Ticey, girl,” he said. And then: “The boys been at you again?”

“The identicals,” she said.

“Oh, so that’s how it is,” he said.

And she spoke softly back: “You just remember—” Making up her mind to hold in the sadness she felt: “—remember, I was your only daughter.”

Sitting still, carved dark and damp from heat, her dad stared down at her.

She could feel his whole self alert to her now as he cupped her chin in his hand. Her mouth quivering, and she took a moment to make it stop.

“What’s this all about?” he said.

By no means to tell him or ever show him. What he was able to see was his only daughter looking peaked and upset. Her veiled, dark eyes bore into him; and all of his father’s know-how and be-all could not penetrate them.

“You’ve always been my only daughter, Ticey. And you always will be, you know that. Come on, now.

“You leave me so alone,” she said in a whimpering, like a child.

He understood her to mean her mother as well.

“No, we don’t,” he said. “I work. And your mother goes to school. It’s us doing what we have to do.”

“I don’t fit into it. I won’t get another chance,” she whispered.

“Ticey, I don’t like the sound of that,” he said. “Cut it out, now. No need to do anything silly.” Staring at her, he studied her to see if he could figure what was behind all of this talk of hers. It was so easy to take a child lightly. He weighed possibilities in silence. Tired to his bones, he gambled on Justice’s good sense.

“We’re not going to solve a single world problem sitting here,” he said, joking, and got unsteadily to his feet. “Come on with me,” he told her.

But Justice took his hand and pulled him down to sit a minute more. It was then she asked him about
race
and got the answer she wanted, just to comfort herself.

“Come on in with me and your mom,” he said. But she chose to stay where she was. She waved him bye-bye. He smiled and went on in. She did not see him frown as he turned away.

Inside, with heat rolling off him, with no relief from it anywhere in the house. The fans droned. He found his wife in the kitchen, greeted her with a silent kiss between them.

“I’m in the shower already,” he told her, turning on his heel.

“Well, you needn’t rush off.”

“If I don’t, I might gobble the supper before supper, and the cook, too.”

“You had a pleasant day, I see,” she said.

“Nice amount of work, though hard in the heat,” he told her. “It’ll last half the winter, too.”

“Oh, well, then, I get a new coat and Ticey does, too,” she told him.

“That’s what I meant to tell you,” he said. “I’m so beat, I forgot it walking from the front door to here.”

“Forgot what?”

“Ticey,” he said.

“What about her?” Mrs. Douglass asked.

“Keep an eye on her is all. Or have Levi to. She’s thinking about running away.”

“What? But that’s not possible,” Mrs. Douglass said. “Just a while ago, she was saying she wanted to help me … to be with me forever.”

“Well.” Mr. Douglass cleared his throat. “Something’s got her spooked. I don’t mean to press you …”

“Don’t, then,” she said.

“But maybe Ticey’s too young to be left here with the boys all day.”

“You want me to give up school?” Mrs. Douglass asked.

“I never said that.”

“But that’s what you meant.”

Mr. Douglass sighed. “Just only that maybe we can get some help for us around here. Someone young in the house with Ticey.”

“You mean paid help?” Mrs. Douglass said.

“Know another kind?”

“We can’t afford to pay someone to do what I do in this house,” she said. And began to slowly burn; pots and pans suddenly were loud in her hands.”

“Well,” he said again. A pause. He started through the door. “Will take that shower now.”And left her standing there with her anger and her guilt.

No sooner did she feel guilty about leaving Ticey alone all day than she felt frightened. She began to wonder if maybe Ticey was planning something foolish.

I don’t know what it is, she thought. But she knew something was wrong somewhere in the family. She tended to blame herself when anything upset the home system. She had an inkling of something troubling deep in her mind. Yet she had no real time to think, to put her finger on what it was; else, she didn’t want to.

“What’s wrong with me?” she wondered out loud. Maybe something’s wrong with this marriage, she thought, and dismissed it at once.

Working again, cooking now, she saw that her preparations were as thorough and as smooth as ever. She worked steadily, pulling the meal quickly together, spending as little time as possible. Still, it would be a good meal—swiss steak, rice seasoned in beef bouillon. Salad.

“Why blame me?” she whispered.

Nevertheless, throughout the rest of the evening, she was quick to take offense at anything her husband jokingly said. And she kept Justice close to home.

Night came and they went to bed. The house was still, utterly. Mrs. Douglass woke several times and tiptoed to Justice’s room. Every time, she found her child deeply asleep.

A long interval of dreams and silence surrounding them, after which Mrs. Douglass awoke with a start, her mind at once alert. She lay on hot, damp bedding in her own perspiration.

And all the windows open, she thought. God, when will this weather break?

It isn’t weather, she thought. Weather changes.

She would not let her imagination leap to the incredible thought of rainless years. She lay still, hoping for some breath of a breeze. None came. Glancing at her husband beside her, she found him log-like and deep asleep. Then she lay still, breathing as softly as she could in order to hear the house. She knew it had a life of its own. All good houses did. She could say this to herself, although she wouldn’t say it to anyone else. There were houses that held on to their history of love and laughter. Banged fingers, stomachaches cured with rocking; babies squealing with delight. Grown-up arguments; that faithful formality grown serene between adults who have cared for one another over many years. All of it seeped beneath the floorboards and behind the walls.

Now the house breathed its own life of calm and quiet. The best time to hear it, to know it, was this time, deep in the night. She listened, alert to human sound, and to the creaking of old wood which never quite died away.

She heard Levi snoring softly. Sinuses, she thought. I’ll have to have them looked after.

Thomas made no steady sounds, although he occasionally laughed or yelled out, dreaming. She listened, but heard nothing from him. Yet, strangely, she imagined she saw him moving about. Silliness, she told herself.

Mr. Douglass’ warning about Justice running away broke the peace.

Why didn’t I wake up sooner? How could I have forgotten!

She was out of bed in an instant and making her way to the hall. Justice’s room was the first on the opposite side from the parents’ bedroom. The boys’ room was a few paces farther away, on the other side of Justice’s room, closer to the parlor.

What greeted her there in the hall paralyzed her judgment. What she felt was a power of watching coming from Justice’s room into the hall. An enormously tranquil observing, which appeared to blink, as would human eyes.

The Watcher steadied now on something against the wall. It was Thomas, caught in the light of awareness—Mrs. Douglass imagined she could see him through the dark. The Watcher fixed on his terror-stricken expression and drew him away down the hall. He floated through the darkness and through the doorway of his room.

Mrs. Douglass felt quite peaceful. She wondered momentarily why she stood in the hall. She had the impression she had checked on Justice and had found her daughter all right. Now she turned and went back to bed.

She lay with her cheek on the pillow, feeling a mantle of fresh air pass over her shoulders. It cooled the bedding, cooled her bare legs and arms.

The Watcher brought the coolness and left it a long time in the parents’ room. Until Mrs. Douglass slept soundly, with no feeling of time or dreams.

T
HE SUN HAD NOT
risen; yet there was a thick, milky paling of the fading night. Air was heavy with the scent of honeysuckle, which grew in high mounds near the house. The cottonwood tree was full of darkness. Its leaves were blackened, still, and withered from the heat and the prolonged dry spell. Justice could hardly realize that she had a special feeling for it only a couple of days ago.

“Cottonwoman” sounded faintly somewhere inside her, but her delight was all but gone.

They had come outside as soon as the east showed the change of dawning. But first they had dressed soundlessly in their rooms. Thomas and Levi had communicated in their minds so as not to chance waking their folks.

You think Justice got herself up on time?
Levi had traced to Thomas.

She’s up and out by the front already,
Thomas traced back.

You heard her when she went out?
Levi had looked alarmed. If Thomas had heard Justice leave, his folks might have, also. A tremor of revulsion passed over him. Even though they had been mind-tracing, he’d forgotten about himself and his brother. For there were times, such as this morning, when he awakened thinking they were ordinary boys. Then he would shudder suddenly, as he had just now, when he remembered he and his brother had their loathsome talent. Thomas could intercept movement, even thought fragments through walls and closed doors. That’s how he knew Justice was outdoors. And Levi was doomed forever to be a partner in his brother’s telepathic crimes.

Thomas was in one of his moods. Not just foul, but deadly cold. He had awakened, he told Levi, to find himself stiff and aching, half under his bed.

Did you have something to do with it?
Thomas traced to his brother as they left the house.

I was sleeping, you know I was.

How can I know that when I was asleep, too?
Thomas traced. His mouth was a grim line as he silently opened the front door. Sometime during the night—he figured it was about three or so—he’d got out of bed to take a look at Ticey while she was dead asleep. Maybe to give her a few dreams, the kind he sometimes suggested to the sleeping Levi. And maybe to see if there was anything he could find out about her while her mind was in an unconscious state. Thomas thought he remembered getting out of bed and going down the hall. But after that, everything was a blank. Maybe he’d slept, had nightmares—he didn’t know, and not knowing made him suspicious. He had found himself in the morning on the floor. He had been twisted and cramped, as if he’d been flung there, half under the bed.

The three of them now stood on the drive in the thick, murky light before dawn. Their dad’s battered Olds and their mom’s rusty red Vega were lumps of the same gray. Justice thought to look behind them far to the west where there was darkness still. She’d never been up so early and she was delighted to see how the night was banished by sunrise.

“When will the sun come up?” she whispered to Levi.

“Shhh!” Thomas warned, so furious at her talking he nearly hit her. They had to get away from the house; he walked a few paces away, with them following.

“Take the bikes through the side yard and down the garden to the gate,” Thomas told them. He spoke right in their faces, so close they could feel his morning breath. “Take them down the field and lay ’em toward Dorian’s until we need them.”

“When will we need them?” Justice asked him, without thinking.

In the pale dawning, Thomas’ anger was like a contorted atmosphere covering his features. Justice slapped her hand over her mouth and stared at the ground.

Hastily, Levi led her over to her bike and lifted the stand with his hand for her, rather than kicking it up. “Start on out,” he whispered. “Be quiet as you can!”

She started out, with Levi following her, his own bike in hand, and with Thomas bringing up the rear.

They moved cautiously. Within the fence separating them from the field, the garden was still a night garden. Roses, cornflowers and orange California poppies were drab and colorless. Tomatoes hung like ebony balls from gray plants. Melons were clumps of dead shapes on the ground.

At the closed gate, Justice grew aware of something gathered on the other side. She heard no sound. But she sensed shadow. It was more of a substance than the darkened garden. It raced for the hedgerow.

Levi reached around her to open the gate expertly, with little sound. They went through with their bikes and on down the field into rising soft light scented with clover. The light gave grass its green as they walked through it, while, all around, blackened houses, weeds and bushes were still night-full.

They laid their bikes neatly at the far end of the field, Justice’s on the side next to Levi’s. She stared at the two sleek black bikes and her own less streamlined, slower one. Everything, even the air, held an importance that she could not quite comprehend. She sensed four-leaf clovers everywhere, sensed through them and lost the sense of what they were. Moments came and passed when she knew beyond, and no longer knew, what was the sweet odor that filled her nostrils.

They turned back and headed up the field. Dawn had risen to the height and quality of shade. The sky to the east was streaked orange with luminous ribbons of cloud. As the streaks grew brighter, the ribbons dissolved before their eyes. Justice saw leaves of the cottonwood catch the light and turn silver. To the west, light rising drove the night far beyond the line of the ancient trees.