Lance, listening carefully so as not to miss a word of that husky, melodious voice speaking quietly as Gypsy told Kevin the story, distinctly heard his son say, “Night, Mother. I love you.”
He was on his feet and in three long paces stood confronting the pair of them, snuggled together, faces etched in guilt, on the narrow bunk. Twin pairs of bright blue eyes darkened with apprehension, two faces, as alike as possible, paled as he stared at them, speechless for a long, agonizing moment. Then, with dangerous quiet, he asked, “What did you call Gypsy?”
As Lance’s words ended, a clap of thunder sounded overhead and Kevin cowered. He looked positive the wrath of his father was as likely to have caused it as was of the wrath of God. He burrowed his face against Gypsy’s breast and she put protective arms around him, glaring defiantly up at Lance.
“It’s a game we play,” she said. “There’s no harm in it, no need for you to look at us like that.” Then soothingly, stroking Kevin’s hair, she said, “It’s all right, honey. Here, snuggle down and keep warm.” Gypsy slipped off the bunk, pulled Kevin’s sleeping bag high up over his shoulders and kissed him quickly. Lance remained silent, listening to the rising of the wind, hearing repeated claps of thunder which roared and reverberated around the suddenly frail cabin, shaking it in its teeth as he wished his fury could reach out and shake Gypsy and the child.
Confronting him with her chin high, she backed him out of the bunk area, right up against the outside door. “If you have anything to say,” she hissed, “say it to me, not to Kevin. He’s only a child. I’m responsible for the allowing the game to continue.”
“If I have anything to say? If?” Lance kept his voice low, but no less furious for all that. “I have so much to say I hardly know where to begin!” Pain began to tear at the back of his neck, digging vicious fingers into the muscle, pulling it, tightening until hot darts ran up under his scalp, circling his head, biting, tearing, pounding like the rain which now came in sheets across the clearing to lash the sides of the cabin with cat’o nine tails fury. He could feel his vision going, blurring, as the pain got in behind his eyes, and he reeled as he jerked open the door, knowing that if he stayed the rage within him would spill over and he might do terrible things again, things which he could not recall, but of which he had been told, things which had made his life the hell it was today.
The door flew open when he released the latch and as he flung himself out into the storm, Gypsy stood staring after him, hardly aware of the soft whimpering behind her until a small hand, clammy with fear and shock touched hers, hanging limply at her side. “Where did he go? It’s cold, Gypsy. It’s raining and the thunder will get him!”
“Hush, love. Hush, don’t worry, he’ll come home soon. There’s no place else for him to go.”
Kevin’s whimpering turned into a full-fledged howling as the wind smashed the door against the wall and Gypsy ran to close it. “He won’t be able to see!” he wailed. “It’s dark out there and you shut the door and now he can’t see! Gypsy! Gypsy! We made him mad and now his head will hurt and he’ll get sick just like Auntie said!” Kevin’s sobs grew louder, his words wilder and wilder, more and more incoherent until Gypsy, beside herself, sat down with him on her lap and held him tightly until he became more calm.
“Easy, now,” she said, stroking his temple with one hand. “Quietly… Tell me what happens when daddy gets really mad, love, and his head hurts. Did you say he gets sick?” What was it, migraine? Must be…
“Auntie Lorraine says he gets sick and goes nuts and the doctors will send him to the bug-house and that’s why we never do anything to make him mad,” Kevin sobbed. “And you talked back to him, Mother… Gypsy… And made him mad and no one knows what he will do. She says that all the time.”
Bug-house? Lance had said he’d had a breakdown. But so serious he’d been sent to a mental institution? “Doesn’t Auntie ever talk back?”
“No!” Aghast at the idea, Kevin hid his head against Gypsy, who sat there thinking hard. Maybe I’ve misjudged Lorraine. Maybe she’s taught Kevin to fear his father because she fears him herself. And maybe she’s right, it is dangerous to make Lance furious… Dangerous to him, if not to anyone else, for if he were going to hurt another human, he would surely have done it when Kevin called me “Mother”, or when I lipped off at him. He’s been mad at me lots of times and never shown any signs of violence.
Oh, Lance, Lance! What have I done to you? Where are you, with your pain, out in the storm?
A jagged slash of lightning ripped across the sky, flashing bright blue in the dim cabin. It’s my fault he’s out there instead of warm and dry and safe! she berated herself. It’s my fault Kevin sits here on my lap, crying the way he is, hopelessly, deeply, not the way a child should cry at all, in rage or in pain. This is a much more adult type of crying… evincing despair.
“Kevin… Listen, hon, I’m going to ask you to be a big, brave boy and stay here alone for a little while. I’m going out to look for Daddy.”
Chapter Six
Kevin’s jaw gaped open as he stared stupidly at Gypsy for a moment before his face screwed up and he cried, “No! You’ll get lost! It’s dark outside and you’ll get lost, too, just like my daddy and then I’ll be all alone!” His voice rose as he wailed in terror and Gypsy stopped her preparations to go out, knowing she couldn’t leave him in this state. There was no telling what he might do.
Sitting down beside him, she tried to keep her voice calm, difficult when there was a clamoring needing her to get out of there, to find Lance and make him come home. “Listen, Kevin,” she said reasonably, “your daddy’s gone out in the storm because of me. I was the one who made him angry and it’s up to me to go and tell him I’m sorry and ask him to please come back. I think I know exactly where is gone and won’t take me very long to find him. Now, this is the way we will work it.”
Her easy, matter-of-fact manner had the desired effect. Kevin cease to sob and began to listen, his eyes on her face, searching for signs of fear in her, and finding none, he relaxed.
“There are two lanterns here, right?” He nodded. “I’m going to take one of them with me and leave the other one for you so there’ll be light in the window if Daddy gets back before me. What your job will be is to stay put and stay awake so if he comes home first, you can tell him where I’ve gone and that I’ll be back when the big hands up here.” With one of Lance’s charcoal sticks, she marked the face of the clock, then picked up the watch he’d left lying on a windowsill. “Now just like soldiers, we’ll synchronize our watches.” Gypsy suited action to her words and went on. “I’ll take the path to the north end and see if he’s in one of the little caves, like the one where we had our picnic. I’m sure he will be there.”
I hope, I pray, she added silently. In the time he’d been gone he’d surely have managed to walk off a temper. If he hasn’t been injured.
“If he’s not there, I’ll look for him until the big hand is here…” She made another mark, “then I’ll take another trail home to see if he’s in.” She pulled Lance’s nylon jacket on, tying the hood tightly.
Kevin sat erect on his bunk, pale and wide eyed, wincing each time lightning flashed, but the sense of importance she had given him by placing the clock and his hands had apparently bolstered his courage.
Gypsy took one of the lanterns and, with a smile she hoped was cheerful and full of self-confidence, she waved to Kevin as she edged out the door and slipped into the stormy night, to gasp as the wind caught at the lantern, nearly tearing it from her grasp.
The yellow glow cast by her light showed silvery streaks of rain slashing sideways. It blackened the shadows of the wildly tossing trees and made the path seem longer and more twisted than ever. Just past the dam she was forced to struggle through the branches of a fallen tree which covered her path, and beyond that, found herself scrambling over roots and rocks, washed clear of their covering soil, slick and treacherous. Somehow, she managed to keep the lantern upright and its gla
ss globe from breaking.
At intervals, she paused and called Lance’s name, feeling hopeless as she did so. Even if the wind had not snatched her voice right out of her throat and tossed it far into the trees, the very rushing and roaring of the storm, the smashing of surf onto the shore would’ve drowned it out before it could go far.
Her self-allotted half-hour was nearly up when Gypsy emerged from the tossing forest onto the wide, grassy slope above the cliffs. Here, unprotected by the forest wall, she was caught and buffeted as the full fury of the storm swept in from the northwest. The booming of surf against the foot of the cliff made shouting for Lance less than futile so, head bent, she scrambled and slithered toward the edge and the steep path leading to overhang where they had failed to enjoy the picnic in which she’d placed such hope.
Less than halfway to the bottom she realized that no one, not even Lance, could be alive in the swirling maelstrom of spume being flung in tatters from where the breakers tore into the shore, grinding the silver driftwood to matchsticks, flooding the shallow caves and drenching her she stood precariously on the rain-slicked track, trying to find purchase for her numb feet, so she could turn and claw her way back upwards.
Almost knocked off her feet as she crested the steep slope, Gypsy felt the breath sucked out of her lungs and watched in terror while the lantern first flared and threatened to die before she could shield it with her crouched body from the brunt of the wind. Even its globe was little help against the force of the gale. The watch, hidden far up the sleeve of the jacket she wore, was inaccessible, but she felt sure she had been out longer then the time she’d allowed herself for searching. Struggling and gasping, clutching at every finger-and toe-hold, Gypsy managed to reach the relative shelter of the trees and sank in an exhausted heap to catch her breath and steal a peek at the time.
Heavens! In ten minutes, Kevin’s clock would be pointing to the mark she had made to indicate the time when she was due back, and it would have taken her a good half hour from here to the cabin under normal conditions. Picking up the lantern, holding it aloft, she searched for the gap in the trees which was the path to the cabin, and spotting it, or what she believed to be it, she moved as quickly as she dared over the muddy, uneven ground, slippery with its mass of sodden pine needles.
Again, at intervals, she called, pausing only to listen for the reply she was sure would never come. Somewhere off to the right a tree crashed to the earth with a dying scream and twigs and branches constantly fell near her, littering the trail, giving her the added worry that one might fall directly on her.
The trail narrowed, all but disappearing, brush hung low, weighted with rain, branches clashed together overhead, swaying into her path, and pushing them aside, she called out once more, as loudly as her laboring lungs would permit. When an answer came, so near at hand, it startled her into dropping her precious lantern. She managed to save it, however, by making a flying dive and clutching the handle before it could roll down a hill into a gully.
Lance’s large form came into the circle of light from around the bend… The bend in front of her! How in the world he gotten ahead of her? He was even wetter than she was, his dark hair gleaming as black as her own, dripping onto the collar of his shirt, plastered across his brow. His pants were muddy along one side as if he had fallen, and his face shone white and strained in the lantern light.
He shielded his eyes, squinting as if in pain, and peered at her. “What in the hell are you doing out in this?”
“Looking for you.” She shivered, half sobbing, partly from exhaustion, partly from relief at having found him. “Kevin was nearly in hysterics because you went out in the storm. He cried and cried, Lance, cried because he’s afraid for you! It took me forever to calm him down enough to listen to me.”
“You left him alone? A six-year-old?”
“What choice did you give me?” she shouted at him, snatching her arm free when he pulled her in the opposite direction to what she’d been going. Somehow, she’d gotten turned around.
“What choice? You had the choice of staying where I left you, warm and dry and safe.”
“Yes, I was warm and dry and safe, but you were not!” she retorted, scrambling to keep up with his long strides. “It’s my fault you went out into what I thought was just a summer squall. I had no idea it was a full-fledged storm! I had to try to find you. I promised Kevin.”
The thunder rumbled farther away now, off to the east. “I thought you’d be in the cave where we had the picnic, but the waves were dashing right in there and—”
“You went down the cliff?” Lance pulled her to a halt. “In this?”
“No. Only half way. Then I could see no one, not even a hard-headed bully like you could have found shelter down there.”
“Gypsy… Oh, woman, you are something else, you know.” He took the lantern from her, staring at her. “You came out on a night like this to look for me?”
Suddenly her legs began shaking. She backed away from him and he held the lantern high, as if to see her more clearly. In the face of what she thought was his silent accusation, she cried, “I had to come out! Oh, Lance, it’s all my fault and I couldn’t let you stay out in in this if I could find you and take you back to Kevin, because if I had really tried, I could have stopped him calling me mother but it was just a game and we both enjoyed it. But it was only pretense, Lance! Neither one of us took it seriously!”
He closed his eyes tightly for a second. “Please. Stop shouting in my ear.” He took her icy hand in his free one. “Come on, then, if you came out to ‘take’ me home, let’s get going.” They trod on, slipping and sliding by the bank of the creek, clambering through the fallen pine which had barred Gypsy’s way before, soaking themselves even more on the wet branches.
Lance swung the cabin door open, holding it against the tearing force of the wind while Gypsy slipped in, anxious to get to Kevin first. He rushed at her, his tear streaked face white, and flung himself against her, howling. “The hand is past the mark! It is! It is and you didn’t come back when you said!”
Gathering him close, Gypsy rocked him, crooning, “Hush, hush, sweetheart. We’re back now, honey. It’s all right. Daddy’s here, too.”
The child spared not a glance for his father. He clung to Gypsy, choking her with his skinny little arms around her neck.
A low voice, dripping with sarcasm, said, “Worried about me, was he?”
“He was so,” she hissed. “But of course if you come in with a face more frightening than storm outside, he’s not going to run to you. What did you expect?”
“Nothing,” he grated, hanging the lantern on its nail in the rafter and holding one hand to the top of his head while his mouth twisted in a grimace.
Clicking her tongue impatiently, Gypsy picked up the child in her arms and carried him to his bunk where she tucked him swiftly into his sleeping bag despite the pajamas he’d dampened clinging to her wet clothing. His thumb sneaked into his mouth and his eyes flickered as he gave her a wan smile. She kissed him gently and softly laid her fingertips on his eyelids. “Sleep now,” she murmured and was glad to see his eyes remained closed even though his mouth worked hard at his thumb.
She stood from a kneeling position and turned around, expecting to find Lance busy at the stove with tea or coffee, or at the very least, sitting on a chair, instead, he was slumped on the floor, his back against the door, his head resting on bent knees. His shirt and pants dripped water to the floor and his hair hung lank across his cheeks and the nape of his neck. “Lance?” she said, stripping off her wet jacket. She hung it on a peg before snatching up a couple of towels and approaching him. “What is it?”
“I’m okay. Go get dry,” he muttered, slurring the words, but she could see it was untrue. His face had an unhealthy pallor and even after he wiped it with the towel she draped over his head, when he looked toward her, she could see beads of sweat standing out on his upper lip. He winced and closed his eyes tightly as if the light caused him pai
n. Frowning, she stood over him, looking down as he shook his head almost imperceptibly.
“You aren’t okay, you know,” she observed gently, crouching before him and touching his head lightly with compassionate fingertips. He was obviously in extreme pain and she recalled his asking her not to shout in his ear. She also remembered Kevin’s mentioning that he might get a bad headache and the doctor would send him to the “bug-house.” That was the reason Lorraine wouldn’t let Kevin bother his father. It was the reason why no one was allowed, ever, to talk back to him. Had Lance honestly been in a mental institution? The question had flickered briefly across her mind before, but now she rejected it as unlikely. Migraine surely that wouldn’t put a man on the edge of insanity.
“Where do you keep the medicine for your migraines?” she asked, keeping her voice soft and quiet.
“Shaving kit… Pills,” came the tired response which showed no surprise at her knowing what was wrong with him.
There was only one bottle of tablets in his black leather case and Gypsy read the pharmacist’s instructions before spilling two out into the palm of her hand and pumping him a glass of water. “Here,” she said, still quietly, “take these, please, and then get undressed. You’ll feel better when you’re warm and dry.”
Lance ignored her, rocking slightly as if the motion eased his pain. He put a hand to the back of his neck, tried to rub, but the effort seem too much for him, and he had barely touched the top muscles before his hand fell limply to the floor.
“Lance,” said Gypsy, more insistently. “Lift your head and let me give you your pills.”
With an angry gesture, he smacked at her hand, slopping the water out of the glass and sending the tablets flying across the room. “Leave me alone! I know what I need and it’s not smothering with nursie-nursie TLC. All I want is those lights turned out!”
Shocked and hurt, and knowing she was more the fool for feeling that way, Gypsy got to her feet and turned off the two lanterns, watching the light fade and die with slight pops from each. They sounded loud in the cabin. She went to her bunk where she slipped behind her curtain and stripped herself of her sodden garments, rubbing her chilled feet briskly with a rough towel.
Gypsy Magic (The Little Matchmakers) Page 13
