It hardly even seemed like his voice, Rose thought bleakly.
“Too bad the old guy’s never gonna see me do it.” Hawk shrugged. “He was always big on justice.”
“You mean Solomon?” Rose said, appalled at the callousness of Hawk’s remark. He’d loved that man once! “Maybe he will. While he’s alive there’s still room for hope.”
“Hope,” Hawk said tonelessly. “That’s one idea I may never be able to afford.” He turned to her with something in his eyes at last; sadness, which was better than the vacancy. “Maybe I should hire you to hope for me. Want the job, Rose?”
On the verge of telling him off, she saw the longing in his eyes and realized that he was asking her in earnest, the only way he could allow himself to do so. It was the only time he’d asked for her help in any way since coming home, and her intended retort dissolved unspoken. “If that’s what you need, Hawk,” she said quietly, “I’ll try.”
The day had dawned bright and breezy; perfect weather for an outdoor party. Taubolt needed something joyful now, Rose had argued, something to bring the whole community together and remind them what it felt like to celebrate life as friends. As Ian Kellerman and his band set up their platform, and coolers full of food and drink began to trickle down the stairway to the beach, Michael watched from the bluff tops in his guise as Jake. He was not alone in questioning the wisdom of so conspicuous an event. But the fact that everyone, even tourists, were invited might make it less suspicious to the ever-present enemy, and, in her determination to organize this fete, Rose had pointed out that, precisely because the threat was “ever present,” there would be no better time. In the end, Michael had been unable to dissuade her or fault her motives, so it was going forward, with all the mundane and mystical protections they could muster.
Since Merlin’s so-called stroke, the fine line Michael had been trying to walk between protecting Taubolt and staying out of Joby’s trial had become almost too fine to find at all. Only recently had the angel admitted to himself how much he had depended on the old man’s willingness to rush in where obedience forced Michael to refrain. Merlin’s courage, however ill fated, no longer merely troubled Michael, it shamed him.
There were at least two hundred people on the beach, laughing around the barbecues, flying kites, throwing Frisbees, chasing dogs, wading in the small spring surf with children by the hand, and dancing on the sun-warmed sand to the raucous music produced by Kellerman’s Celts. It was everything Rose had hoped for, and more. She’d been moving around the beach for hours, saying hello to friends and strangers, and meeting friends of theirs, receiving kudos, and enjoying the celebration, when she saw her parents standing hand in hand beside a cooler full of beers and sodas, smiling and laughing like young lovers. She hadn’t seen them look so happy and relaxed for . . . well, maybe years. She smiled and went to join them.
“Hey there, honey!” her father enthused as she arrived. “Finally got a moment for your old man, huh?”
“You don’t look so neglected.” Rose grinned, glancing at her mom.
“We’re having a wonderful time, Rose!” her mother said. “And we’re both so proud of you. What a marvelous thing you’ve put together, dear.”
“Thank you,” Rose replied, leaning in to hug her mother, “for all your help and for supporting the idea.” She smiled at her father. “I know you weren’t so sure about it.”
“Rose,” he said, joyfully embracing her in turn, “the older you get, the more I learn from you. I’ve decided that when I grow up, I want to be just like you.”
Rose had hardly ever felt so happy. “I love you both so much,” she said. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am—for everything you’ve always been and done for me.”
“You tell us all the time,” her mother said, “just by being you.”
“Okay,” Rose laughed, feeling tears gather in her eyes. “Let’s not get all sticky right here on the beach.”
“There you go,” her father said, winking at her mother. “We’ve embarrassed her now. It’ll be three more hours before she comes to talk with us again.”
“No it won’t!” Rose protested playfully, then looked around them at the crowd, and teased, “But there must be someone here I haven’t talked to yet.”
That’s when she saw Hawk coming down the beach path, and her smile faded. He’d come for thirty minutes that morning, then disappeared for hours. She had begun to wonder if he meant to come back at all. Following her gaze, her parents saw him too and seemed to understand. They smiled their farewells as she hugged them each again before rushing up to keep Hawk from going off a second time.
Hawk saw her coming well before he reached the beach, and almost turned to flee again. No doubt she’d think he didn’t understand how much this shindig meant to her, or just didn’t care, or even wanted to avoid her. But none of those was why he’d fled the first time. A beach full of people from his maudlin past, half of whom he’d probably offended before going east, had been uncomfortable enough. Then he’d seen Joby walk from underneath the bridge and hurried back up into town as fast as dignity allowed, wanting nothing less than to come face-to-face with his—that man.
Now, as Rose approached him, Hawk nudged his sunglasses higher up his nose and hoped he didn’t smell too much of beer. He tried to think of how he would explain his absence, but she didn’t ask where he had been. She just smiled and waved as if he’d done nothing wrong at all, which, in its way, made him just as uncomfortable.
“What’s up?” Hawk asked, determined to match her nonchalance. If she wouldn’t admit she was upset, he wasn’t going to do it for her. He didn’t play such games.
“It’s going great, I think!” Rose smiled, turning back to survey the carnival-like crowd below them. She grabbed his hand and led him back down toward the beach. “Tholomey and Blue have got the most delicious chicken going at their barbecue,” she said. “Remember that marinade their mother makes? Have you had lunch yet?”
Hawk shook his head, wondering if she really wasn’t mad.
“Nice sunglasses,” she said.
“Thanks,” he answered. “Got ’em at this place in Boston. They weren’t cheap, but you can’t drive straight into the sunset for five days wearing junk, unless you want to go blind, I guess.” He was babbling. Be cool, he told himself. Just shut up, and be cool.
“I wish you didn’t have to go so soon,” she said, gazing at the beach. “You’ll miss all this amazing weather. Can’t you stay an extra day or two?”
“It’s gonna take at least four days to drive back, Rose,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do at work, and this is unpaid leave.”
“I know,” Rose sighed. “I’m just not ready to start missing you again.”
“I’ll come back and get you,” Hawk assured her. “Soon as I’ve made something of myself.” Rose was silent in a way that made him feel he’d said something wrong. “I don’t want us out there just scraping by while all our dreams die on the vine,” he said, compelled somehow to explain. “You deserve to live in style. I want to—”
She turned around and put her fingers to his lips, then leaned in to kiss him. He kissed her back, feeling sick inside. Everything was empty all the time now. . . . Even this.
“So,” he said as soon as she had let him go, desperate for anything to fill the empty moment with. “We’ve still hardly talked about your work these days. How’s it going up there on the Coast?”
She looked at him sadly for a moment, then turned away as if to scan the beach again, though Hawk wasn’t fooled. She’d felt it—the emptiness inside him. Why had he even come back here?
“It’s going pretty well,” she said, still looking at the beach. “We’ve prepared almost all the seeds we’d need, and quite a few of the rarest animals are penned or caged and ready to take out quickly if it ever comes to that.” She sighed, and said, “I wish they’d find the Cup. Then at least we might know where to take them all.”
As he listened, Hawk felt torn betw
een one mind that thought her task made all of his ambitions look like paste and paper, and another that struggled not to sneer at the pointlessness of scurrying around in preparation to go hide again in some new forgotten corner of the world. Would these people never tire of living tiny little lives in fear? This was why he’d left—what he had to get away from.
“Do you think I should?” Rose asked.
Hawk just blinked and stared, realizing he’d become lost in his own thoughts as she’d continued to talk. “I’m sorry. I missed that last bit,” he said, his face burning.
She just shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I was only chattering.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny book four inches high and less than half an inch thick. “I wanted to give you this,” she said, “before you leave. I’ve had it since I was a little girl, but I want you to have it now, to remind you of home, and of me.”
“Rose, if this is something you care about, I shouldn’t—”
She shushed him, and put the book into his hand, curling his fingers around it with her own. “Bring it back to me when you’ve read it if you want to,” she said quietly. “The bent page marks my favorite one.” She leaned up to kiss him again, just a brush across his lips, then turned and waved good-bye as she ran down to rejoin the party.
Feeling more sick at heart than ever, Hawk looked down and read the small book’s cover. Flower Fairies of the Winter, by Cicely Mary Barker. The gift was quintessential Rose, but what was he to do with it? He sighed and opened it to find the poem she had marked. There was a picture of a butterfly-winged fairy that looked very much like Rose, wearing a child’s gingham dress and perched on a dark branch festooned in small white blossoms. A poem on the facing page was titled “Blackthorn.”
The wind is cold, the Spring
seems long a-waking;
The woods are brown and bare;
yet this is March; soon April
will be making
all things most sweet and fair.
See, even now, in hedge
and thicket tangled,
one brave and cheering sight;
the leafless branches
of the Blackthorn, spangled
with starry blossoms white!
Very pretty, Hawk thought wearily, but a child’s poem wasn’t going to do the job Rose had in mind. The sheer naiveté of such a gesture might have made him laugh if there’d been any laughter still within him. He shut the book, and jammed it in his pocket, then ambled toward the beach below to get some chicken and, he hoped, a few more beers. Surely no one in a riot like this would ask to see ID. Later, when he’d got his courage up again, he supposed he should go thank her for the gift, but he dreaded having to seem genuinely enthusiastic about fairy poems.
By six o’clock, the time seemed ripe for setting match to powder.
“Hey, GB!” shouted Tique, grinning impishly at Lucifer from within his adolescent guise. “Has Euro gotten back yet? We’re almost out of beer!”
“Keep your voice down, will ya?” Lucifer grinned back. “Ya wanna get us all arrested?” Virtually all of Hell’s operatives in Taubolt were on the beach by now, disguised as very naughty teenagers. “Light ’em if ya got ’em,” Lucifer said in a voice pitched for Tique’s ears only. Then he started up the trail toward town. It was time for Agnes Hamilton, or a damn good facsimile, to phone in her noise complaint. Then it was off to haunt the good sheriff’s binoculars. Gazing up to estimate the rate of failing daylight, Lucifer smiled to himself and thought again, It’s all about the timing.
Donaldson didn’t delegate calls from Hamilton. He’d come out himself to have a look, and he’d heard the blare of music and the roar of people long before he’d reached the cliff tops. He’d heard something about a barbecue on the beach but had imagined nothing more than a small gathering of families and friends, nothing so large—or loud. Their little fliers had advertised no such circus. There should have been permits filed for something like this. Hamilton had been right to complain.
He’d brought a pair of binoculars along, and raised them for a better look. People of all ages gathered around coolers and ice-filled buckets full of cans and bottles. The beach was largely shadowed by the cliffs at this hour, so it was difficult to tell how much of what the chests contained was alcoholic, but he wagered by the party’s raucous mood that it was mostly booze. The more he looked, the more he realized how many of the crowd were kids, half of whom held cans and bottles too; flashes of aluminum, green and brown glass. Could have been soda, but he’d have bet his shirt it wasn’t. He lowered his binoculars and swept his eyes across the beach again. The dancing crowd was large and getting pretty crazy. Numerous bonfires had been lit as evening approached. No permits for those either. He was amazed no one had called him sooner. He raised his binoculars one more time to sweep the beach’s margins, knowing that’s where the worst offenders would be hanging out, and sure enough, behind a thicket near the bridge, he saw a group half-hidden in the tall grass, passing around something that sure looked like a bong. Their faces didn’t seem familiar, but by now the light was too poor to tell for sure.
He trotted back across the field to his patrol car, and radioed for backup. Nearly five months after his promotion and the arrival of his team, Donaldson had yet to achieve anything beyond the prosecution of another handful of teenaged pranks and minor violations. Finally, something major was going down right before his eyes, and he’d arrived in time to do more than scratch his head the morning after. He’d have bet his badge that if they managed to bust enough of those booze-guzzling, bong-huffing kids down there tonight, Taubolt’s more mysterious crimes would fall off just as mysteriously, at least until Joby Peterson managed to get them all out and onto the streets again.
Kellerman’s Celts had been playing tunes back to back for almost thirty minutes, so when they stopped, everyone just assumed they were taking a well-deserved break until Ian started unplugging amps while his band members packed up their instruments.
“Hey! What are you guys doing?” Blue asked. “You’re not packin’ up!”
“Afraid we have to,” Ian said.
“It’s not even dark yet,” whined Blue’s brother, Tholomey. “What’s the hurry?”
As more people gathered to express their disappointment and surprise, Ian grabbed one of the remaining mics, and addressed the crowd. “Folks, we’ve had a great day playing for you all. Thanks for enjoying us so well. Unfortunately, Sheriff Donaldson has sent word down there’s been a noise complaint from up in town. We’re being asked to stop. So,” he smiled and shrugged, “all good things must end.”
There were boos and louder protests from all around the platform.
“Well, let’s go up and talk to him,” Blue suggested to his brother and several others around him.
The idea was immediately encouraged by everyone close enough to hear, but Ian leaned down to put a hand on Blue’s shoulder, and shook his head. “Already been tried,” he said. “He’s been up there half an hour, I’m told, with several other officers. Yours’d be the third group to approach him. Just leave it be. The party can go on without us.”
Rose watched with mild disappointment as people left the beach in larger numbers. It was not the ending she’d have chosen, but it had been a tremendous day, and more than served its purpose. By sunset, a lot of older folks and tourists had already left. The young, always last to abandon a party, were soon left gathered in loose rings around each of the three bonfires, sipping drinks and milking the afterglow for all it was worth. Rose stood in one of these with Ander, Blue, and Nacho, when Joby came to join them.
“It was a really wonderful party, Rose,” he said. “I haven’t had this much fun in ages. It felt really good. Thanks.”
Rose smiled. “You’re welcome, Joby. Thanks for coming.”
“So, how’s Hawk doing?” Joby said a little too casually. “I noticed you were talking to him earlier.”
Rose reached out to squeeze his hand, then pulled him off toward
the water. “I’m sorry he hasn’t come to see you, Joby,” she said when they had left the firelight. “I tried to tell him he should, but—”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Joby said softly, tugging her to a stop. “That’s not your problem and not what I meant. I . . . just wondered how he’s doing and figured you would know.”
“To be honest, I have no idea,” Rose sighed. “He’s changed so much, and . . . not any for the better, I think. All he talks about is how much money he’s going to make and how . . .” She shook her head and looked Joby sadly in the eye. “He talks as if I were just some kind of trophy he intends to win or maybe buy someday, as if he doesn’t know I’m already his. It breaks my heart, Joby. Maybe you were lucky not to see him.”
“I’ve hurt him pretty badly, haven’t I?” Joby said, looking down.
“I don’t think it’s you,” Rose insisted. “Not just you anyway. He’s been like this for a while now. I don’t know why, and I don’t think he does either.”
“You’re probably right,” said Joby, not sounding too convinced.
Someone sent a bottle rocket into the air from the grassy dunes behind them. It went up with a shrill whistle, quickly followed by another, just as Blue came running up to say, “Hey, you guys, someone came down to say the sheriff’s telling everybody to get off the beach. You think we ought to go?”
“Why?” asked Joby. “It’s illegal to stand around a fire on the beach now?”
Before Blue could answer, three more bottle rockets shrilled into the air.
“Fools,” Joby griped. “That is illegal. Do they think antagonizing him will help?”
“Look at that!” Donaldson spat, watching the second wave of rockets go up. “Flagrant little bastards.”
The Book of Joby Page 69
