Grandmother stood for a long time before the pedestal of the sandaled feet. R —— trudged onward, but Mr. Girandole waited beside Grandmother, his hand on her shoulder. Finally, gazing once into each other’s eyes, they continued walking, and I followed.
We made our way through the arch and up into the higher glade. The mermaid regarded us somberly as we passed—wondering, I fancied, if we had any news of the ocean, which she could hear and smell away down the slopes but could never see.
I had the unsettling notion that the night’s darkness was pouring out of the screaming mouth. I’d never been in the garden at such a late hour. Somehow, this time of twilight, with the sun vanishing, frightened me more than the pre-dawn dark when daylight lay just ahead. Tiny frogs sang in the trees and along the mossy stone wall. Crickets chorused in the thicket. On every hand the fireflies kindled their pale lamps. I wondered what I’d see if I ran after the fireflies and looked closely.
There was a breathless feel to the woods. The visible patch of sky above the hilltop, where the temple stood hidden behind the trees, had become a deep lavender; the stars were not yet alight.
“This is the hour,” said Mr. Girandole. “The walls of the worlds are thin.” He pointed to murky recesses in the bank’s foliage, alignments of depth and silhouette where day and night commingled. I wasn’t sure what he saw there, but I believed him about the nearness of Faery.
R —— pressed forward, approaching the limbless tree, a ghostly tower now beneath its garment of leaves.
Mr. Girandole clutched my arm and spoke quietly into my ear. “You see how eager he is to be there—to leave this world behind without a thought. That’s what happens when the colors and voices of my land get into a mortal. Stand well back from the door, if you want to have any peace for the years that remain to you. In fact, the two of you should hold onto each other, and don’t come close, no matter what you hear, no matter how badly you want to peek inside. The border is always dangerous.”
“What about you?” Grandmother asked.
“I’ll make sure he gets through the door safely, and that it closes behind him.”
R —— had already floundered into the brambles, his hands on the bone-white trunk of the ancient tree. He called excitedly to us when he’d relocated the keyhole.
Twisting his hat more tightly onto his head, Mr. Girandole led us to the tree’s foot. We sidled around it, the thicket black and tangled. To move even a step required planning and wriggling. Mr. Girandole positioned Grandmother and me to his right as he faced the trunk, with R —— on his left. There was scarcely room to stand. Branches poked our backs, and thorns tore at our clothes. The thicket was so dense I could no longer see the gaping mouth. It was steamy among the vegetation, even with the sun gone.
R ——’s eyes were wide and expectant, but he came forward and embraced us one by one. He smelled of sweat.
“Kind, kind lady,” he said, squeezing Grandmother’s hands. I thought about what a long way we’d come since he’d been hanging in the tree and pointing his gun at us. Clearly, he was healing; his injuries were not going to kill him—nor was our medical treatment. Grandmother had done well. “You save me. I remember. I always remember.”
“Yes, well,” said Grandmother, “we’ll remember you, too.” She hugged him again and patted his face with both hands. “I’m glad you came to us. Be careful, R ——, and be well.”
He glanced a final time at me, and I touched the flute in my pocket. He grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.
Grandmother drew the key out of the carpet bag and used the shears to snip the twine that bound it to the handle. She looked at me. “This key belongs to you most of all,” she said, and passed it to me.
I ran my fingers over its ornate head and handed it solemnly to Mr. Girandole.
Grandmother told him, too, to be careful. Then she clutched me with both arms, and we retreated a step, as far back as the thicket would allow us.
From my position, I could just make out the keyhole in the deepening gloom. R —— took his hands off the trunk and moved aside. Mr. Girandole drew a breath, held up the key, and slid it into the keyhole. It sank in almost up to the head. He turned it slowly, and there was a loud click from inside the tree.
Then the key was jerked from his fingers. The trunk pulled it in like a retracting tongue. Though the keyhole was too small to admit the head’s flanges, I distinctly saw the hole widen like a mouth, suck the key inside, and then close, puckering in upon itself. In the next instant, even the keyhole was gone; only bare, hardened bark remained.
Mr. Girandole dropped to a crouch, clawing at the trunk.
But then a narrow door swung inward, a rectangular section of the bark just wide and tall enough to accommodate a person of average size. The receding portal tugged at the vines that covered its surface. Some were dragged after it; some tore loose and hung slack across the opening.
From our vantage, Grandmother and I couldn’t see inside, but Mr. Girandole and R —— were bathed in a wondrous, changing light. At first, it was so blue-white and brilliant that they shielded their eyes. All the leaves behind them shone as if under the full face of the sun, and shadows were banished far back into the thicket. Then the light softened and shifted to a silvery green. I thought at once of the reflection from one of my favorite Christmas ornaments, an old glass globe of my mama’s that hung on our tree each year.
Staring into the light, R —— laughed, his expression one of pure joy. He thumped Mr. Girandole on the shoulder, pushed vines out of his way, and plunged through the door.
“Good-bye!” Grandmother called, but I doubted that he heard her. He was no longer listening to anything in our world.
Mr. Girandole remained sitting on the ground, his legs folded beneath him. Removing his hat, he gazed into the glow, his face touched by deep emotion. At once, his eyes widened, and he cried out as if in pain. Then he appeared to be listening. He nodded and pointed toward Grandmother and me.
Very slowly, he turned his head to look at Grandmother, and I saw a terrible sadness in his eyes. “M ——,” he said. Tears pooled in his eyes. “M ——, the Lord and Lady summon me.” He could barely force the words out. “They’ve let the door stand here this long for my sake, but no more. They will close it forever. The fauns are calling. The Piper on the hill—I hear him . . . I see him dancing. M ——!”
There was panic in his voice, and he crawled toward us.
At first, I didn’t comprehend. Then the realization crushed down on me. Mr. Girandole was leaving us too.
Grandmother ordered me not to move. Dropping her stick, shrugging off the carpet bag, she fell to her knees and caught Mr. Girandole in her embrace.
He cried her name again, pulling her close, weeping into her hair. “M ——! The pain ahead . . . I’ve seen . . . I understand now. Oh, M ——!”
She held and hushed him, and said it was all right. “If they summon, you have to go now,” she said. “This is the way. I won’t be far behind. Just be there, Girandole. Just be there.”
They kissed, long and tenderly, in a radiance more sacred than a dawn. I was crying too, my vision blurred, so it was difficult to be certain of what I saw. But in that glow, Grandmother’s silver-white hair looked black, and it hung down her back in lustrous waves. Just once, she glanced toward me, and the breath snagged in my chest.
For the Grandmother I saw was not wrinkled by years; the mischievous eyes were the same, only wider and exquisitely angled in a smooth olive face. This woman could not have been much past twenty, if that. I knew then how beautiful the face of the missing statue had been.
Mr. Girandole rose to his feet and helped Grandmother up. The smallness, the weight of the years and the mortal world were gone from him, too. A lightness beamed from him, as if he were the first faun in the first spring of the world. He backed away, holding Grandmother’s hands for as long as he could, th
en touching her fingers, then stepping through the vine-draped doorway. At the threshold, he peered at me with what seemed renewed wonder and affection. Then he held Grandmother’s gaze, and as he vanished, his weeping turned to a smile, then laughter. His hat lay in the weeds where he’d dropped it. The glorious light of Faery narrowed to a sliver, then a line, and the door closed with a ringing boom.
In the last of the daylight, I saw that there was no door, no lines to show where a door had been, no keyhole, and no key.
Grandmother picked up the battered hat. I gathered the carpet bag and rucksack, and I handed her the walking-stick. She received it in a hand that was wizened and knobby again.
Without a word, we left the garden by the nearest exit—the mermaid’s yard, through which Grandmother had first entered as a girl. It was full dark now, and we did not look back.
* * * *
Grandmother re-lit the lantern, and we did not speak a word on our way down to the cottage. We both knew that there was no place for words that night. No questions mattered, and no answers were adequate. We’d gotten R —— safely off to whatever awaited him. We’d lost Mr. Girandole, and in our humanity we would grieve for him as if he had died or left us. Drained of emotion and strength, I fell asleep quickly and awoke to the smell of breakfast cooking.
After eating, we washed the dishes, including those from the previous day’s picnics. As Grandmother handled the four cups from which we’d drunk Mr. Girandole’s tea, I knew she was missing him. She’d taken his lost hat into her room.
Another bright, golden day was gathering heat. We wandered out to the back garden and sat on a bench. Since Grandmother had made no announcements about what we’d do, I suspected she had no energy for working in the garden or walking around the village on errands. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what it should be. The notebook in my hands was meaningless now except as a memento. We’d solved the puzzle, but instead of a sense of accomplishment, I felt empty and sad.
I listened to the sound of a car driving along the street. I contemplated getting up and peering around to see what sort it was; but just as I decided I didn’t have the energy, either, it stopped in front of the cottage. The engine shut off. Grandmother and I looked curiously at each other.
Car doors closed, thunk, thunk, as Grandmother stood up, smoothing out her skirt and sleeves. Someone knocked on the front door, and a man’s voice called, “Mrs. T ——?”
I went and stood at the back corner of the cottage, from where I could see along the side yard, beneath the window of my room. The pear and plum trees cast dapples of shade over clusters of creeping myrtle and the magnificent fuchsia.
I caught no glimpse of the car, but a soldier appeared beside the rain barrel. Seeing me, he motioned to someone and said, “In the back.” I hurried to stand with Grandmother and told her it was soldiers.
Such a thrill raced through me that I barely stayed on my feet. My heart beat madly. As sure as the sunlight on my face, I was certain that Papa had come home from the war. I knew in another moment he would come around the corner of the house, drop his pack on the walk, and throw his arms wide to embrace me.
But Grandmother waited, frowning.
My breath stopped as Major P —— appeared. His uniform was crisp and impeccable, his hair and boots shiny, his hat in one hand. Raising his chin in greeting, he came toward us, his boots clacking on the bricks. Two soldiers accompanied him. One was the aide who’d been with him on the ferry; the other was one of those who’d caught me in the garden, on the stairs to the hilltop. The major made none of his usual magnanimous greetings.
Strangely, Grandmother sat down on the bench, just when I expected her to say something. I backed up and stood at her elbow, beside the bench.
We were in some kind of trouble—the Army had discovered something about R ——, but what could it be, now that both he and Mr. Girandole were beyond anyone’s reach? We’d left nothing of consequence in the leaning house, and it was hidden in the compartment: the remains of the pallet bed, a few rags, the bucket and pan—what did the major know?
I thought next of R ——’s gun as the men strode closer. Had someone on the ferry seen me throw it into the sea? What if the gun had somehow been sucked back into the ferry’s engine? What if some mechanic repairing the motor had been shot by it as he tightened a bolt? The mind moves quickly. And some moments in all the years it never loses; it holds them for a lifetime, every scent, every stirring, the sound of every voice, the colors.
“Mrs. T ——,” said the major quietly. “Madam . . . I must speak with you privately. Lieutenant, take the young man for a walk.”
“Yes, sir,” said the third man and beckoned me.
But Grandmother said, “No.” The firmness of her tone surprised me. She held the head of her stick in both hands. The look on her face scared me. “No, Major. Whatever you’ve come to say to me, my grandson should hear it, too.”
The major cleared his throat and glanced at me, then back at her. The lieutenant dropped his hand and resumed a posture of attention. Something had changed about the major. In that moment I saw no arrogance, nothing of the fiery bear.
“As you wish,” said Major P ——. “Madam, it is with deepest sadness I must inform you that your son, Captain A —— T ——, has made the ultimate sacrifice for his country. He was killed in action yesterday. He died under heavy fire, defending the approach to a field hospital until the forty-three wounded men inside could be evacuated to safety. Please understand the significance of his actions. He was a hero.”
“Defending?” said Grandmother, her gaze far off.
“The reports tell us that the enemy seems to have been unaware of the hospital. They hit with everything they had. Your son, Captain T ——, maintained his position, operating a tripod-mounted gun. He was the last one who could save the wounded men, and so he did. But, Madam . . . he was killed by an incendiary shell. I’m afraid his body was unrecoverable.”
“No body,” Grandmother repeated.
The major spoke on about honors and a medal, and how he’d wanted to deliver the message personally, but I wasn’t listening closely anymore. I knew he was wrong. I wanted to tell Grandmother he was wrong, so that she wouldn’t worry. He couldn’t be talking about my papa. My papa wrote me letters, and they were never about tripod-mounted guns. He marched from place to place and camped. He looked at the stars and the sunsets and described the trees. My papa would be coming home soon.
Grandmother clutched her walking-stick and stared straight ahead, her shoulders slowly rising and falling with her breath.
Then I became certain that this was the major’s cruel trick—a terrible revenge he was exacting. Fury ignited in me. Lunging forward, I made fists and shouted up into his face. “You’re lying! You’re lying! It isn’t true!”
The major stiffened, and even in my anger I could see in his eyes the hardness, the coldness again.
I couldn’t endure having this hateful man in our garden, telling such lies to Grandmother and me. Without another word, I dodged past him and ran to the back gate, left it swinging, and charged out among the arbors. When I found one screened from our cottage by a row of bushes, I sat down on a bench. Then I got up again and crawled under the bushes, through fragrant branches that touched the ground—I crawled into prickles and shade where there were dead leaves, and the bushes’ stems were sticky with sap. I pulled my knees up to my chin and hugged them hard and waited. I would go back when Major P —— was gone with his men and his lies.
Through a gap in the branches, I could see the puffy white clouds hanging motionless.
A while later, I heard footsteps and saw Grandmother hobbling among the arbors, searching for me. She looked much older than she had during breakfast. I wriggled out from the bushes and went to her. She put her arms around me and we sank onto a bench beneath the ripening grapes.
“It’s all a l
ie, isn’t it?” I asked desperately.
Grandmother combed her fingers through my hair, kissed my forehead, and pulled me close. Shutting her eyes, she rocked us gently back and forth, back and forth.
* * * *
Tuesday afternoon passed in a blur. We walked to the store where there was a telephone so I could call my mother; Grandmother told me to. She brought along the number in her handbag. When Mama and I heard each other’s voices, all we could do was cry. She called me “Baby” and said she’d see me on Friday night, and she told me how much she’d missed me and that she loved me. I said I loved her, too. She asked to speak to Grandmother, and Grandmother hesitated when I held out the phone to her. But she took it and listened and said “Yes” and “That’s right” a few times. “Yes, he did . . . Yes, he was . . . Yes, of course there will be, but I don’t know anything yet.” Then she looked at me and said, “He’s a wonderful boy. He’s been my right hand all this time.” After a long pause, she said, “I know that, dear, and I say the same to you. You’re in my heart.”
In no time, it seemed the whole village had heard the news, and Grandmother’s friends started bringing pans and bowls and baskets of food. By that night, my disbelief had turned to anger. If it wasn’t Major P ——’s vicious lie, then it was God’s mistake. God had simply been wrong. He’d let the wrong person die. I knelt on the floor of my room and begged Him to take it back. My papa smiled from the photo on the table, his arm around my mama, his hand on my shoulder. He was there, so clearly there—such a force of life and joy couldn’t be gone from the world; it was all wrong. In bed at night, my knees ached from all the kneeling, and I couldn’t sleep.
A Green and Ancient Light Page 26
