Pale Phoenix

by Kathryn Reiss

  Pale Phoenix

  Kathryn Reiss

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  ...

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  ANOTHER MIRANDA BROWNE TIME-TRAVEL ADVENTURE

  OTHER HARCOURT NOVELS BY KATHRYN REISS

  Harcourt, Inc.

  Orlando Austin New York

  San Diego Toronto London

  Copyright © 1994 by Kathryn Reiss

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and

  retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work

  should be mailed to the following address: Permissions Department,

  Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

  www.HarcourtBooks.com

  First Harcourt paperback edition 2003

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Reiss, Kathryn.

  Pale Phoenix/Kathryn Reiss.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When her parents take in a strange orphan girl with a

  mysterious past, fifteen-year-old Miranda decides to find out why she

  seems to have come from nowhere and how she seems to be able to

  disappear at will.

  [1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Time travel—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.R2776Pal 1994

  [Fic]—dc20 93-32299

  ISBN 0-15-200030-5

  ISBN 0-15-204927-4 pb

  Text set in Stempel Garamond

  Designed by Lydia D'moch

  Printed in the United States of America

  H G F E D C B A

  For Kathryn Grace Sawyer—

  my oldest friend in the world

  With special thanks to my agent

  and longtime supporter,

  Marilyn Marlow

  This book was written

  with the aid of a grant from the

  New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

  "So the blessed Phoenix, his death-hour over,

  His dear old home once again seeketh...."

  —"The Phoenix"

  From the 8th-century Anglo-Saxon poem

  attributed to Cynewulf, translated by

  J. Lesslie Hall, 1902

  "And to die is different from what any one

  supposed, and luckier...."

  —Walt Whitman,

  "Song of Myself"

  Chapter One

  ON THE MORNING it all began, Miranda Browne had no idea this day would be different from others. Only afterward, looking back, it seemed there had been signs. The cold morning late in January dawned as though a dream, white and heavy with blankets of snow, with thick, white flakes still falling past her window. Silence enfolded the house as Miranda lay warm and snug beneath her quilt, listening for the usual morning sounds. But there was no grind of snowplows or cars going by on the road, no drone overhead of airplanes on their way to the Boston airport, not even the usual beat from the radio down in the kitchen. The whole world might have been catapulted back to an earlier time, when mornings always broke this way: fresh, bright, and soundless.

  Wincing as her bare feet touched the cold wooden floor, Miranda crossed to her window seat and rubbed a clear patch on the frosted pane. New-fallen snow blanketed the shrubs, the fences, Dan's house across the street. The magnolia tree outside Miranda's window sparkled in the gray morning sun, its snow-laden branches dripping with ice ornaments. For a moment the scene outside appeared to her as if it were an old photograph in a museum exhibit—a winter morning frozen forever in black and white.

  Later, looking back, Miranda decided the silence that morning had been a sign, as loud in its own way as a warning bell. Something is going to happen, it tolled.

  And something did.

  Miranda dressed quickly in jeans, a warm sweater, and thick socks. She yanked a brush through her tangled dark curls and hurried out into the chilly hallway and down the stairs to the kitchen. "Hi, you guys. Did you listen to the radio?"

  "School's open, believe it or not," her father, Philip, greeted her. He was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. "I don't know how the buses are going to get out in all this, but the newspaper was right on time, so maybe it isn't as bad down in town as it looks up here."

  "I'll die if people can't get out to come to the flea market," moaned Miranda. "After all our work!" She pulled out her chair and sat down.

  Her parents sat watching the flakes fall outside the window over the sink. Helen, Miranda's mother, held a mug of strong black coffee. Her china plate was laden with two buttered bran muffins. Philip sipped a glass of frothy pink milk—his usual diet drink. There was no plate at his place, but he had finally moved beyond the days of eyeing Miranda's and Helen's food jealously. Since losing nearly one hundred pounds, Philip Browne was a man of new energy and drive.

  Now he drained his glass and carried it to the dishwasher. "I'm off," he said. "That is, I hope to be off, if the roads aren't too bad. But at least the snow is beautiful here."

  "Quite a change from New York," Helen agreed.

  Miranda nodded and bit eagerly into a warm muffin. Garnet snow was crisp and white and sparkling, unlike the snow in New York City, which grew gray as soon as it touched the streets. The Brownes had moved to Massachusetts from New York two years ago when Miranda was thirteen, leaving their cramped city apartment for this spacious old home in a small town near Boston.

  "I'm driving you to school today," Helen told Miranda, clearing the table. "And Dan, too, if he's ready to go in fifteen minutes." Miranda's mother had a private gynecological and obstetric practice in the Garnet town center and spent hours each week at the Garnet Hospital as well, delivering her patients' babies. "Let's get all these bags of junk out to the car now."

  "Mither!" The affectionate nickname Miranda used for her mother came out as a screech. "Mither, that's perfectly fine stuff." She glanced at the brown grocery bags crowding the corner behind the door. "We're not supposed to sell anything that isn't in good condition."

  "All I know is that I'm delighted to get it out of the house." Helen smiled. "I can't believe we've collected so much rubbish over the years."

  "What I can't believe," Philip put in, as he wound his scarf around his coat collar, "is that you insisted on lugging all of it here from New York in the first place." He shook his head. "You pack rat!"

  Helen came to kiss him at the back door. Philip waved good-bye and headed through the unshoveled drifts behind their house toward the old barn that now served as a garage. He had given up a career as a professor of American History at the City College when they moved to Garnet. Now he was an assistant curator and research director at the American Museum in Lexington. He said he had burned out as a teacher. Students studied history only for the credit toward graduation, he felt; they didn't have any love of the past at all. At least museum visitors came out of a genuine interest in America
's history.

  "I bet we sell everything," predicted Miranda as her mother swept out the snow that flew in when Philip left. "It seems everybody's interested in the Witch House now."

  The Witch House was the old Prindle House, Garnet's oldest building. It was nicknamed for Nathaniel Prindle, who had been an avid witch-hunter back in the days when people's fear of witches erupted into hysteria. He built the house for his family in 1692, and generations of Prindles lived there until the family eventually died out and the house was bought by the town. It had served as a hospital, a village school, an orphanage, and a library before being abandoned, too run-down for public use. Eventually the house grew so derelict, the city planned to demolish it and build a new community center on the same site, with the empty yard next door made into a parking lot. Garnet folklore long held that the yard was haunted by one of the poor souls Mr. Prindle had accused of witchcraft. On a windy day, legend had it, you could hear wails of anguish.

  The local Historical Society stepped in and clamored for the Prindle House to be saved. Eventually the townspeople voted for the old house to be renovated into the much-needed community center. And the high school was helping by holding fund-raisers—a Halloween haunted house in the school gym had been the first of these. Now the flea market promised to draw a crowd, and a dance was in the works.

  Miranda stood up, cramming a last piece of muffin into her mouth. "I'd better go call Dan," she mumbled. "You know he's probably still asleep." She went to the phone, picturing his tousled dark hair and sleepy eyes.

  "Tell him ten minutes," said Helen. "If I can get my car started."

  On the way to school, Dan Hooton rummaged through the cardboard box he had stowed in the car and pulled out a pink china piggy bank. "Look at this. Ugly as sin, but I bet we can get ten bucks for it."

  "If not, your parents can start a 'Garnet Kitsch' exhibit," teased Miranda. The Hootons' large pre-Revolutionary War home housed the Garnet Museum in one wing. Dan's parents ran the township museum themselves, collecting memorabilia of Garnet history for the displays. Miranda's father maintained that he owed his present job in Lexington to Ed Hooton, who had first introduced him to the curator of the American Museum.

  "Who would buy it?" Miranda wondered, examining the pink pig as Helen drove slowly down the hill. "It's too pink." She handed it back to Dan. "I've got two teddy bears, some dominoes, a clock radio, and loads of old camping gear."

  "Pretty cool," said Dan, rummaging around in his box. "I've got a bunch of old books and coffee mugs. And this. It's a whistle." He held up a small white stone figure and put it to his lips. A clear, high note piped loud and true as Helen piloted the car through the Garnet center. The road wound around the old village common and it was just there, where the road curved, that a girl stepped suddenly off the sidewalk, straight into the path of their car.

  The long note from Dan's whistle still hung in the air as Helen slammed on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the left. The car swerved and skidded off the road into a snowbank. The girl lay motionless in the street.

  "Oh, my God!" Helen jumped from the car and rushed to the fallen figure. Miranda wrestled with her seatbelt, her breakfast muffins now a hard mass in her stomach.

  Miranda and Dan knelt in the street while Helen tried to revive the girl. A small crowd began to gather, and several cars slid slowly to a stop behind them. Miranda's first thought as she gazed down on the girl was that she must be dead. She blended too well with the fresh, soft snow to have warm blood pumping in her veins. Her long hair, wispy and pale, lay fanned out around her body. She lay utterly still, her thin coat of dirty beige wool covered with a light sprinkling of snow.

  A very large beaded satchel had fallen in the snow next to the girl. Miranda had never seen anything quite like it. Shaped like an old-fashioned carpet bag, it was covered in gaudy pink beads. Some of the beads had a silvery cast, and in several places swatches of faded cloth showed through. Notebooks and pens had spilled out of the beaded bag and now dotted the street like dark smudges next to the unmoving girl. Feeling helpless, Miranda began gathering the things up.

  A blue vein throbbed on the girl's neck, and her eyes slowly opened. They, too, were strangely pale, a funny milky beige that nearly matched her colorless hair. She focused on Miranda. "Don't touch those things—" Her voice was small and frightened. Slowly she sat up with Helen's support.

  Miranda realized only then that she had been holding her breath, and she let it out in a puff of frosty cloud. She set the beaded satchel in the snow next to the girl. "I was just—"

  "Did you take anything?" asked the girl, reaching for the bag.

  "Wait, don't move," cautioned Helen. "You may have broken something."

  "I'm all right," said the girl. She slanted a glance up at Helen. "Don't worry about me."

  "Cracked a rib, maybe," said an elderly man who had stopped to see what had happened. "Girl ought to have a doctor look at her."

  "I am a doctor." Helen bent lower to examine the girl, feeling her gently through the thin coat for signs of injury. Then she put her arms around the girl to help her to her feet. "Are you sure you can stand?"

  "I'm fine. I said I was all right." The girl pulled away and reached down for her satchel. Miranda frowned at her.

  "What's your name, dear? I'm Helen Browne. Where are you going? Let me drive you there." Helen's voice was worried.

  "I'm going to school. To the high school." She brushed snow off her coat with a flutter of thin fingers. "But I can walk."

  "We're on our way there, too," said Dan.

  "I said I can walk."

  "I still say a doctor should see to her," spoke up the old man. "Get an X-ray."

  "Listen, I'm really fine. The car never touched me. I just wasn't watching where I was going and—I just slipped. That's all. I'm sorry I made you run off the road. I hope you can get your car out of the snowbank." This was all said in a rapid monotone, and Miranda shivered despite her warm red jacket and scarf. The girl sounded so odd—like a recording of a girl. As if she weren't really there at all and only her voice were talking....

  The girl turned away and walked carefully back to the sidewalk. "Thank you, all of you. I'm sorry to worry you. I really am ... quite fine." Most of the people who had gathered began to leave now that they realized the girl was not injured.

  Helen lifted her gloved hands helplessly. Miranda sighed with relief. "I guess there's nothing we can do," she told her mother. "If she says she doesn't need help, then I guess she doesn't." They all watched the girl moving slowly down the slippery sidewalk.

  "She looks 'quite fine' to me," said Dan. "Weird, but all in one piece."

  "Looks like you're the ones needing help." Two men who had been part of the crowd moved to the car in the snowbank. "Let's see if we can get you on your way again."

  "Oh, thank you," said Helen, turning back to the car. They all began the business of tugging it out of the snow. Helen kept looking over her shoulder. "I don't feel right about letting her go." The car slid backward out of the drift.

  "Maybe you two can keep an eye on her at school today," one of the men suggested to Miranda and Dan.

  "What did she say her name was?" asked Helen.

  "She didn't," said Miranda.

  At two o'clock the high school students began setting up their wares in the gymnasium. Banners painted with slogans hung across the room: Save the Witch House! and What Would We Do Witchout the Prindle House?! By three o'clock the first customers filtered in, many with small children in tow. Miranda moved the two stuffed bears to the front of her display. "These should catch their eyes," she murmured to her friend Susannah. "It's just a matter of knowing the customer."

  Susannah sighed. "Well, I know no customer's going to want these old jigsaw puzzles. And my mother refuses to let them back into the house. We already have dozens. My dad is addicted. Do you think I can give them away?"

  "Sure. Buy a stuffed bear, get a free puzzle," Miranda cast her eyes across the c
rowded gymnasium, searching for Dan. Her gaze rested suddenly on the small, white face and pale, long hair of the girl who had fallen in the street. Miranda turned to Susannah. "Listen, can you handle all my stuff as well as your own for a few minutes? Try to get those little boys over here to buy the bears. Tell them it's a great deal at only three dollars per bear. I'll be right back."

  She pressed through the throng of people, stepping adroitly around display tables jumbled with castoffs. When she came upon the girl, she stopped. "Hi. I saw you—and just had to come ask, well, you know. Whether you're really okay. After this morning."

  The girl sat hunched at a regular classroom desk. Some pieces of jewelry, several tools, a fine silk scarf, and a lot of silverware in need of polishing lay before her. The girl's pale eyes flickered to Miranda's face, then away. "I told you I was fine."

  Miranda hesitated. "I'm Miranda Browne." She waited, but the girl was looking down at the jewelry, fingering one of the rings. "Well, what's your name?"

  Again the eyes flickered. "Look, do you want to buy something?"

  "No. I just wanted—"

  "Why not?" The girl shook her pale hair back over her shoulders. "The jewelry is real, you know. I bet your mother would like it."

  "She doesn't wear much jewelry, and I only have ten bucks anyway." Miranda frowned. "What's your name?" she asked again. "You're new here, right? I haven't seen you around."

  The girl rearranged the items in her meager display. "I really need to sell this stuff."

  Miranda shook her head, exasperated. Apparently the girl was going to guard the secret of her name as if it were some precious jewel. "Well, it looks like good stuff. I'm sure you'll sell some of it, and it ought to bring in a lot of money for the Prindle House."

  "Oh, yes, that's right. We do have to take care of our past, don't we?" The girl's voice was expressionless.

  Dan was right; the girl was weird. "I think it's important to try." Miranda's voice was sharp. "Don't you?"

  "Look, my name is Abby," the girl offered suddenly. Her voice sounded choked. "And if you aren't going to buy anything, then maybe you'll move on and give other people the chance to look. I really need to sell this stuff."