A Gathering Light

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Cook called for a toast and Mike Bouchard said he’d do it. “Dear Mattie,” he began, holding up his lemonade, “I love you much, I love you mighty, I wish my pajamas were next to your nightie. Now don’t get mad at what I said, I meant on the clothesline and not in the bed.” I turned beet red. Everyone hooted and laughed except Cook. She slapped the side of Mike’s head and made him go sit on the back steps. Ada and Fran teased me and told me what a hangdog face I’d had all day, then said how clever they were for keeping the surprise a secret.

  After the little party, Cook bawled at everyone to get back to work and Mrs. Morrison handed me a sugar sack. “Your father left it with the milk this morning,” she said.

  Inside the sack was a tiny painting of my house with the yard around it and the pines and maples and the garden and cornfields at the back. It was beautiful and made me feel yearny for home. The note inside it read: “My ma made this for you. Happy Birthday. Tommy Hubbard.” There was a homemade card in the sack, too, decorated with pressed flowers and hand-drawn hearts. My sisters had all written nice messages on the card except Lou, who told me I lived in the zoo, smelled like a monkey, and looked like one, too. There was a small tin of butterscotch candies from my aunt Josie and uncle Vernon. And under all that, wrapped up in the same sort of brown paper I recognized from Mr. Eckler’s boat, was a thin, flat package. I opened it. It was a brand-new composition book. There was no inscription, but I knew it was from my pa. It was a nice thing for him to do and it should’ve made me happy, but instead it made me want to cry.

  “Oh, Mattie, you’ve got a visitor,” Fran said in a singsong.

  I looked up and saw Royal in the doorway, looking as awkward as a hog on stilts. I was partly glad to see him, partly worried. I wondered if he was still angry about our falling-out and had come to get his ring back.

  “Why, Royal Loomis!” Cook said. “You here to bring me more of those nice strawberries?”

  “Uh, no . . . no, ma’am. I . . . uh, brought this”—he held up a package—“for Matt.”

  “Well, I’ll want some tomorrow morning, then. And mind you come here first, not Burdick’s. I don’t want anyone’s leavings.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Like some cake? There’s a few slices left over from Mattie’s party. Mattie, get your guest some cake. Get him some ice cream and a glass of lemonade. Sit down for a spell, Royal.”

  Cook was a dreadful shameless flirt. I fixed some refreshments for Royal and sat down next to him. He pushed his package across the tabletop. “For you. It’s a book,” he said.

  I couldn’t believe it. He might as well have said it was a diamond necklace.

  “Is it really?” I whispered.

  He shrugged, pleased by my reaction but trying not to show it. “I know you like books.”

  My heart lifted. It soared! Martha was wrong about Royal. I was wrong about Royal. He did care enough to look down inside of me. He didn’t like me for my pa’s land; he liked me for me. He did! To think that Royal had gone to a store—maybe to O’Hara’s in Inlet or Cohen’s in Old Forge—and picked this out. Just for me. My fingers trembled as I undid the string. What had he chosen for me? What could it be? An Austen or a Brontë? Maybe a Zola or a Hardy?

  I opened the paper and saw that it was a Farmer. Fannie Farmer. A cookbook.

  Royal leaned forward. “Thought you might be needing that soon.”

  I opened it. Someone else’s name was written on the title page. I flipped through the pages. A few were stained.

  “It ain’t new, only secondhand. Got it at Tuttle’s. It’s got different sections, see? Meats and poultry . . . baked things . . .”

  I could see in his eyes he wanted me to like it. I could see that he’d tried and it only made it worse.

  “Why, Mattie, isn’t that a nice gift?” Cook said, poking me in the back. “So thoughtful. And practical, too. Girls nowadays do not know how to cook. I hope you told him thank you . . .”

  “Thank you, Royal,” I said, smiling so hard my face hurt. “Thank you so very much.”

  a • busion

  “I heard Royal came by last night,” Weaver said.

  It was ten o’clock. Breakfast was over. We were shelling peas on the back steps.

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Heard he got you a book for your birthday.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Novel?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Huh.”

  “Huh what, Weaver? What’s the huh for?”

  “I was just wondering . . .”

  “Wondering what?”

  “Wondering if there’s a word in your dictionary for when people know the truth but pretend they don’t.”

  Mattie.”

  “Mmmm.”

  It’s very late. Or very early. I’m not sure which. Either way, I’m asleep. Finally asleep. And I want to stay that way. But I hear the sound of boot heels on the floorboards. They’re coming toward my bed. It’s Ada or Fran, must be, come to get me up. I don’t want to get up. I want to sleep.

  “Mattie.”

  “Go away,” I murmur.

  I hear something strange then. Water. I hear the sound of water dripping.

  “Mattie.”

  I open my eyes. Grace Brown is standing by my bed. She’s holding my dictionary in her hands. Her eyes are as black and bottomless as the lake.

  “Tell me, Mattie,” she says. “Why does gravid sound like grave?”

  non • pa • reil

  “Did Hamlet go?” Fran asked me.

  “He sure did.”

  “Big one?”

  “Big as an elephant’s.”

  “How do I look?”

  “Sweller than Lillian Russell,” I said, tucking a rose behind her ear.

  “Hold on,” Ada said, pinching her cheeks. “Now bite your lips.” She did.

  “All right, then,” Fran said. “You two know what to do. Hide in the trees and wait. If it all goes off, I’ll see you in the lake. If not, for god’s sake, come and rescue me.”

  “Go get him, Frannie,” I said.

  Fran straightened the skirt on her swimming costume, pulled the fabric taut over her bosoms, gave us a wink, and trotted off toward the guest cottages. Ada and I, also in our costumes, waited until she was out of sight, then headed into the woods.

  Table six had gone too far.

  Poor little Ada had walked down to the boathouse the evening before to collect the plates and glasses after the weekly fly-casting demonstration. She’d thought the place was empty. The guides had already left. The guests, too. That is, all but one—table six. She’d managed to get away from him before he could show her what she didn’t want to see, but not before he’d told her to crank his handle, and various other dirty things that don’t bear repeating.

  Fran wanted to tell Cook or Mr. Sperry. She said he’d cornered Jane Miley when she was cleaning his room the other day, and that enough was enough. Ada wouldn’t let her, though. She said if it ever got back to her pa, he’d be angry with her. Fathers had a way of making that sort of thing your fault. Ada said her pa would make her give up her position and come home and she didn’t want to.

  We were all burning mad about table six and his shenanigans, but we didn’t know what to do about him. By the time we got Ada’s story out of her, I had to give Hamlet his nightly walk. Ada and Fran came with me. Ada was hiccuping and Fran thought a bit of air would do her good. They followed me across the lawn and through the woods to Hamlet’s very favorite spot—a huge patch of ferns in an out-of-the-way place, about fifty or so yards from the lake.

  The smell was so bad it stopped Ada’s hiccups. She pinched her nose and made a face. I did, too. Fran didn’t. Instead, she parted the ferns, looked at what was on the ground beneath them, and smiled. “We’re going to fix table six,” she said. “And how.”

  “Us?” Ada asked.

  “And him,” Fran said, pointing at Hamlet. “Here’s what we’ll do. Now, listen . . .”r />
  Fran told us her plan. It was clever but risky, too. Things could easily go wrong. But if they went right, we’d never be troubled by table six again.

  That night we assembled our weapons. Fran asked Cook for permission for the three of us to take a swim the next morning after the breakfast service. She said we could. None of us owned a swimming costume, but there were a few old ones kicking about that Mrs. Morrison let the help use. Fran borrowed three and stashed them under our pillows. Ada returned to the boathouse on the pretense of having left a tray there, and came back with a length of rope stuffed in her drawers. I ran upstairs, pulled my fountain pen and composition book out from under my bed, and composed a note. “Flirty, but demure,” Fran had instructed. “You know. . . a come-hither note.” I didn’t know. But I gave it my best.

  Before we went to bed, Fran gave us our final orders. “Ada, get that rope out to the woods first thing tomorrow before anyone’s around to see you do it. Mattie, make sure you feed that dog well,” she said.

  I told her I would, and I did. I stuffed him to the gills. I gave him his usual breakfast, plus two biscuits, four slices of bacon, and a fried egg left over from the help’s meal. Afterward, he nearly pulled my arm off trying to get to his fern patch, and once there he did himself proud.

  When breakfast was over, the three of us raced upstairs and changed. The woolen swimming costumes were awful things. They were baggy and scratchy, with sleeves that went down past our elbows and leggings that covered our ankles and skirts that came down past our knees. As soon as we got them fastened, we tied our hair up in scarves, then ran down the back stairs and out the kitchen door before Mike Bouchard or Weaver could see us and laugh.

  “Do you think he’ll come?” Ada asked me breathlessly as we ran through the woods.

  “He’s bound to. Fran made eyes at him at breakfast and she left him that note.”

  “If you show, I won’t tell,” it said. “Meet me at the far cottage after breakfast.”

  We arrived at the fern patch sweating and panting. It was only ten o’clock or so, but it was already hot and muggy.

  “Where’d you put the rope?” I asked, looking at the ground around us.

  “Right here,” Ada said, pulling it out from under a stand of spruce trees.

  “Where can we tie it?”

  “Around that pine?”

  “Its trunk is too bare. He’ll see it.”

  Ada bit her lip, looking all around.

  “How about that balsam over there? Its branches go down nearly to the ground.”

  We tied the rope around the tree, but then discovered it was too short. It needed to snake along the ground from the balsam tree past the front of the fern patch and into the bushy stand of spruce trees where we planned to hide ourselves, but it didn’t quite reach.

  “What are we going to do, Mattie? They’re going to be here soon,” Ada fretted, looking back toward the hotel.

  “We’ll have to tie it to the pine after all and just hope he doesn’t see it,” I said. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry.”

  I quickly unknotted the rope and retied it tightly around the trunk of the pine tree, about six inches up from the ground. Then I walked back to the stand of spruces, letting the rope play out along the ground. Ada followed me, carefully covering it with pine needles, leaves, and dirt.

  “Cripes, but it stinks. Won’t he know?”

  “He’ll be too intent on other things. Here . . . look, Ada, we made it. With plenty left to spare.”

  Ada glanced at me and I showed her that we had about an extra yard of rope to hold on to in the spruces.

  “Good,” she said. “Help me with the covering, will you?”

  We buried the rope completely, then stepped back to survey our work. It wasn’t perfect, but we decided that if you weren’t looking for it—and table six wouldn’t be—you’d never see it. The only problem was the pine tree. The loop and knot at the end of the rope showed too starkly against its bark.

  “Here I am! This way!” a voice trilled from the distance.

  It was Fran.

  “Jeezum, Matt, they’re coming!” Ada squeaked. “What are we going to do?”

  I looked around wildly. My eyes lighted on the fern patch. I ran to it and broke off a few fronds. I scratched a small hole in the dirt in front of the pine tree with my fingers, stuck the stems in, then tamped the dirt back around them. They looked like a young fern plant and covered the rope completely.

  We heard Fran giggle. She was much closer.

  “Come on! Quick!” Ada hissed. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the spruce trees. The branches bobbed and shook. We frantically tried to still them.

  “This way! Over here! Aren’t you coming?” Fran sang.

  Ada crouched and peered through the branches. I knelt down on the ground and wound the end of the rope around my hand.

  “He’s coming. Get ready, Matt.” It was Ada’s job to say when and my job to pull. “He’s about ten yards away now.”

  I peered through the branches, wincing as a needle poked me in the eye. I had a good view of the fern patch to my right but could see nothing to my left.

  “I can’t find you!” a man’s voice shouted. It was table six. My insides shriveled like bacon in a pan. Our plan had seemed so simple, but now I didn’t see how it could work and wished to god we hadn’t allowed our anger to make us so bold. Fran had to be in just the right place, and table six did, too, and the rope . . . had we buried it too close to the ferns? Or not close enough?

  “I’m right here! Come on!” Fran called. She giggled fetchingly, I saw a blur of black fabric and white skin as she skirted around the fern patch and then she was behind it.

  “Where?” he called out.

  “Right over here!”

  “Five yards,” Ada said, in a whisper so small, I barely heard it.

  Fran broke off a feathery frond and held it in front of her face, then she flicked it away and blew a kiss. She waved her pretty hand and toyed with buttons on her swimming costume. She was a revelation. Nonpareil was my word of the day. It means peerless, and that’s what she was. Neither Lillie Langtry, nor the great Sarah Bernhardt herself, could have done as well. Her gestures were bold and coy all at once, and they had the same effect on table six that a red rag has on a bull. I still couldn’t see him, but I could hear him. He took a running start and came barreling straight at the fern patch.

  “Now, Mattie!” Ada hissed.

  I pulled on the rope just as hard as I could, but nothing happened. We’ve put it in the wrong place, I thought. We’ve messed the whole thing up. Oh Lord. Oh no. He’ll get hold of Fran and then . . .

  . . . And then there was a hard twang on the rope that I both felt and heard, and the force of it jerked me forward, just as if I’d caught a big fish, and I gasped out loud as the coils bit into my hand and then there was another sound . . . the sound of table six hollering at the top of his lungs in surprise, and then shock, and then horror, as he tripped and tumbled headfirst through the air, and landed with a thick, wet thud in a heaping pile of dog shit.

  A cloud of black flies swarmed up over the ferns, upset at being disturbed. Fran stood stock-still. Her mouth was hanging open. Mine was, too. I stumbled out from my hiding place and quickly uncoiled the rope from my hand. Ada came out after me. None of us made a sound. All we could hear was the angry buzzing of the flies and the high-pitched “Oh! Oh!” of a man in great distress.

  Table six’s head popped out of the ferns. His eyeglasses were hanging from his left ear. Fran looked at him and burst into laughter. Ada and I did, too. He got to his knees, stood up, and looked with disbelief at his brown palms. Hamlet’s handiwork was smeared across them. It was everywhere else, too—on his tie, and all down the front of his white suit jacket.

  Fran’s laughter turned into helpless, rolling peals. “Now you look just as dirty as you are!” she hooted at him.

  His eyes widened. “Why, you . . . you little bitch!” he sputtered. “You did t
his on purpose! I’ll have your job! I’ll have all your jobs!”

  Fran wasn’t cowed. “You’ll keep your mouth shut and your pizzle in your pants, mister, or I’ll tell my pa what you’ve been up to and you’ll get even worse!” she said. She wouldn’t do any such thing, but table six didn’t know it.

  She turned and ran off toward the lake and Ada and I ran after her, laughing and crowing the whole way. I glanced back over my shoulder once and saw table six stumbling back to camp. I wished I could see his arrival. Mrs. Morrison would never let him inside the Glenmore like that. She’d tell him to go jump in the lake first. Literally.

  When she got to the shore, Fran whipped her head scarf off and tossed it on the sand. She shook out her blazing red curls, then dove into the lake and came up a few seconds later, still laughing. She sucked in a mouthful of water and spouted it out like a fountain. Ada and I did the same, and then we all swam out as far as we dared and treaded water in a circle, reliving our victory. Ada and I kept saying how brave Fran was, and Fran kept saying how she never would have dared to do any of it if it wasn’t for us and that we were clever as foxes for hiding the rope so well and pulling on it at just the right time.

  We swam some more, and splashed each other, and played like otters. I lifted my face to the sun. I knew I shouldn’t—Mamma had told me a million times that sunning myself would only make my freckles worse—but I didn’t care. I felt happy and more than happy. I felt triumphant. We’d fixed table six.

  We floated on our backs for a bit, letting the lake cool us, before we got out to dry off. The water weighed our swimming costumes down and made them baggier than ever. The crotch on Fran’s was hanging so low when she got out of the water that she looked like a penguin. We told her so and she started waddling around with her feet jutting out, which made us laugh some more. We finally collapsed in a heap in the sand, shook our hair out and spread it over our shoulders to dry. We were all quiet for a while, listening to the locusts singing in the trees. The scent of the balsams was so strong in the heat, it made us drowsy. We watched as a family of ducks came to see whether we had something for them to eat—but still, no one spoke.