Pale Phoenix

by Kathryn Reiss

  "And you want to be a museum curator?" sniffed Abby. "Don't be ridiculous. Fashions change every year. Does what we wear now look like what your parents or grandparents wore when they were your age? And there you're only talking about fifty or sixty years."

  Miranda noticed Abby didn't say "our age." In fact, Abby seemed more different than ever as they readied themselves for possible adventure. The air of superiority that annoyed Miranda so much now seemed to come from true authority. "Let's get on with this," Miranda said. "If Dan and I look out of place, well, even you will look out of place, Abby, in that dress from 1830 or whenever. Let's just try the experiment. If we need other clothes while we're there, well, we can buy some, I guess. I'm bringing my wallet."

  "Buy some with what?" asked Dan. "We couldn't use modern money."

  "There aren't any stores anyway," said Abby in exasperation. "Do you think we'll just waltz into a mall and choose new clothes from the racks?" She rolled her eyes. This was the prickly Abby that Miranda knew so well. Miranda looked at Dan, and both of them shrugged.

  Abby shook her head at them. "You two. I'd like to see how you'd adapt. I bet the first time you had to do anything—even something simple, like lighting a fire—you'd be crying all over the place."

  "What do you mean?" Dan sounded indignant. "I was a boy scout, once."

  "No matches, probably," Miranda reminded him.

  "Oh. Well—"

  "No matches, no light bulbs, no indoor plumbing," said Abby in a singsong. "No TV or radio or film. No airplanes, no computers, no hospitals, no Christmas trees."

  "No partridge in a pear tree?" asked Dan.

  "Well, maybe wild partridges. But no imported pears!"

  "And no bathrooms," added Miranda. "Right?"

  "No toilet paper, either." Abby smiled wickedly. "Nothing that you two take for granted. But no bombs, either. No missiles. No air pollution. No crack dealers." She shook her head at them. "It's the same world, but a totally different one, too. And I think you'd have a hard time."

  "Come on, Abby, give us a little credit," Dan said lightly. "I almost expect to hear you say, 'Kids nowadays, I declare! What is the world coming to?'" He raised his voice to a falsetto. "Just like my grandmother."

  "Just remember, Dan Hooton, that I'm old enough to be your great-great-grandmother's great-great-grandmother."

  "So show some respect, you whippersnapper," added Miranda.

  Their banter had driven the fearful look from Dan's eyes. He spoke with new confidence. "Look, are we going to try this, or what?"

  Abby clasped her hands in front of her. "Yes," she whispered, and Miranda realized that Abby's edginess came from nerves. "Come here. Stand here with me." Abby indicated a place in the center of the room. "Mandy, you hold the phoenix. We'll touch it and touch you at the same time. Just for good measure." She handed Miranda the stone bird.

  Dan and Abby each placed a finger on the stone figure Miranda held, then put an arm around her. Miranda edged closer to Dan so that their bodies touched.

  "Okay, close your eyes," said Abby. "Now it's up to you, Mandy, to wish us back—back before the fire. If I'm right about you, the phoenix ought to give you the power. Just remember, you have to wish hard. Think of it as a matter of life or death—my life or death. You need to wish for this more than you've ever wanted anything. And then it will work. It must"

  If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride! Unbidden the words to the old nursery rhyme rose to Miranda's lips, but she bit them back.

  "Hang on to your hats," said Dan, and Miranda laughed weakly. She closed her eyes, but she was worried. She wanted to help Abby, she really did. But would the strength of her wanting it be enough to make the phoenix carry them back to a time before the fire at Abby's house? Was that how the magic worked?

  They waited a long time, it seemed, but nothing happened. Miranda opened one eye. She found Dan looking at her. They both looked at Abby, whose face was screwed up in concentration. But nothing happened.

  Miranda leaned against Dan and relaxed. It was a relief, in a way, that time travel wasn't so easy.

  Dan smiled down at her.

  Abby's eyes flew open. "You're not trying! Neither of you."

  "Oh, Abby, I was," Miranda assured her. "But you see for yourself nothing has changed."

  "I really should have packed my contact solution," added Dan, grinning with relief that nothing had happened. "In fact, there are a lot of things I wouldn't want to be caught without. Like what about medicine? What if we got sick?"

  "Well, at least we've had our vaccinations," said Miranda. "But I'd miss the daily luxuries. You know, like hot showers and conditioner and toothpaste!" And deodorant, she thought. And tampons.

  "Come on, shut up," snapped Abby.

  "All right." Dan sighed. He winked at Miranda as they moved close together again and touched the phoenix with their fingers. "Nice knowing you."

  "Ssshh!" hissed Abby. And Dan fell abruptly silent.

  The three made a tight knot in that small room, the phoenix at their center. The room was very still. "Close your eyes again," whispered Abby. "This time I'm going to wish us back. I'll wish to go back before the fire by one day. And I'm wishing we can be seen, that we will be real to other people." She moved even closer to them. "Wish it harder. Wish it with all your souls."

  From somewhere a wind began to blow.

  Dan gripped Miranda's hand hard. She kept her eyes closed and squeezed back, trying to concentrate on Pilgrims. When nothing more seemed to happen, she let her mind drift on the currents of wind. Don't think, not of the Puritans, not of Indians, not of witches. Don't think, don't think, don't think. The refrain ran through her mind, and she realized it was right; imagining what she had learned from textbooks and television, from modern imagination, could only be false, and would only hold them back from wherever the phoenix might take them.

  The wind swirled faster. For a moment fear surged in Miranda's mind, but still she did not open her eyes. She fought her fear back, buried it deep, and imagined herself riding on the currents. Only air, cold, empty air, a biting wind such as she and Abby had felt last night on their walk, then cool air, air that warmed slightly until it seemed to be a fresh breeze with a hint of sea and a taste of salt. Miranda tilted her head back, eyes tightly closed, body pressed against Abby's and Dan's, finger fast on the stone phoenix. The fresh breeze in her head changed suddenly, became heavy, hot, and acrid. Dan coughed. Miranda's eyes stung. And very far away the sound of Abby's voice came to them: "Open your eyes now. We're here."

  Chapter Fifteen

  MIRANDA KNEW she was standing on soft grass instead of floorboards, but at first she could not bring herself to open her eyes. She gasped as the acrid air penetrated her lungs. Her eyes opened on a desolate scene. It was daylight now, and she, Dan, and Abby were standing in a glade about twenty feet from a pile of still-smoking rubble. The hot summer air was heavy with charred bits of wood, cloth, and paper. There was dead silence; even the birds seemed to have deserted the scene. Thick forest surrounded the clearing, except to their right, where a wide path sloped down through dense undergrowth to a large house. Miranda recognized it with a catch of breath: the Prindle House. She was terribly afraid.

  Abby's sobs filled the charred air, but for the moment Miranda was helpless to comfort her. Her mind reeled with the sights and sounds and smells of this new place. For a second she felt she couldn't breathe. Then she felt Dan beside her and pressed against him. He gripped her arms so tightly it hurt.

  "It worked," he whispered raggedly. "Oh, Mandy."

  Abby's sobs, painful and wracking, rose to a wail. Miranda stepped closer to her. "Abby?" she whispered.

  "It didn't work," she gasped. "We're back at the ruin, and it's just like always. The fire's already happened and there's nothing left to do. Nothing!"

  "Oh, Abby," said Dan, and he put his arm around her, drawing her close.

  The three of them stood in a huddle, Miranda and Dan staring at each other ov
er Abby's bowed head. Miranda saw in Dan's face the shock she knew must be mirrored in her own. The impossibility of what had just happened to them, the strangeness of this desolate place, left Miranda weak and frightened. She wanted nothing in the world more than to be home with her parents in her own house in her own time. Dan's stricken face was white as he gazed around them. Miranda groped for his free hand and squeezed it hard.

  "I want to go home," he whispered.

  "Oh, Dan. Me, too."

  Abby heard them and, gulping back tears, raised her head. "Oh, Mandy. I was counting on you."

  "I'm sorry. I wished as hard as I could."

  Abby looked around at the burned ruin, then down at the phoenix in her hand. She threw the statue onto the ground. "But it didn't work."

  "Well, something worked," said Dan. He stared in wonder at the expanse of wild forest and the wreckage of the house still smoking in front of them. "We're here, all of us."

  "Look at the Prindle House," breathed Miranda. "It's amazing. I can't believe it."

  "Watch out," hissed Dan. "Here comes someone!"

  "Let's hide!" rasped Miranda, fear stabbing sharply as she saw the heavyset man walking toward them from around the side of the Prindle House. He wore a rumpled white shirt and dark pants that buckled just below his knees, and his pale hair was the color of Abby's.

  Abby's sad voice stopped her. "It's just Thomas, my brother. But he can't see you. At least he can never see me."

  Nonetheless, Miranda cowered behind Dan as the man drew nearer. Her fear was in part the dawning realization that this was a real man—not an actor on a stage or in a film or video. This was a real person—from Abby's time. From the past. Miranda tried to take it all in as the man continued walking toward them along the path from the Prindle House. This was a person whose thoughts were untroubled by any single thing in the Brownes' morning newspaper. His world was such a different place from the one Miranda knew, there was almost no comparison. He knew nothing of electricity, of nuclear power, of computer technology. His consciousness was untroubled by such everyday things as trains, airplanes, or cars. Forget rockets and space stations. There wasn't even a United States of America yet. The Revolutionary War was still nearly a century in the future, and the Colony of Massachusetts belonged to England. It was an older, and in many ways, simpler time. Yet despite the man's innocence of Miranda's world, he looked troubled as he stopped at the ruin and passed a hand across his face.

  "It's always like this." Abby stamped her foot and sank down to sit on a rock.

  "But maybe it's different with the phoenix," said Miranda, retrieving the stone whistle from the ground and thrusting it into her hand. "Take this, and now try to talk to him. See if he can see you when you've got the phoenix."

  Abby took the phoenix and stepped forward. "Thomas?" she called to the man, and Miranda caught her breath for a second as he paused. But he wasn't looking at them, merely staring into the ruins of the house. Slowly he started walking through the rubble, bending down every so often to pick up some charred remnant of his family's household.

  "I'm nothing here," Abby said bitterly. Her sobs began afresh. "Oh, God, please help me. I hate living like this. I should have died in the fire, too."

  "Don't say that," cried Miranda, eyes fixed on Thomas.

  "It's true. At least that way I'd be with my family and William. It isn't fair!"

  The man continued to peer into the rubble. Two other men emerged from the trees behind the Prindle House and started along the path to the ruin. They called out Abby's name.

  "She must be here," Thomas called back. "But I can't see where—"

  "She couldn't have just disappeared." The two men climbed over a charred beam and stood at his side. The younger one spoke firmly. "It's impossible. All the other bodies have been found and are being prepared."

  The language sounded strange to Miranda's ears. It was English, yet spoken with an accent she had not heard before.

  "Oh, Thomas," said the older man, who was quite stout, "we all grieve. Do not forget you are not alone in your loss. My own son, my William—" He could not go on.

  "Not knowing is unbearable," muttered Thomas, kicking at some blackened stones, once part of the chimney. "Perhaps she escaped unharmed? Could that be it?"

  "Oh, Thomas," said the stout man. "Possible, perhaps. But in that case, where is she? Abigail was not a girl to run away. She would have come to you."

  "Aye," he muttered thickly, gazing at the ground. Then he raised his head and seemed to look right at the three time travelers. "But if her mind had been addled by the disaster? If she had been hurt and wandered away ... He wheeled around to stare at the forest behind the ruin. "She could be in there. Lost—and afraid."

  "We will continue searching, Thomas. The whole village is helping. But we must accept the Lord's will."

  "Aye," he grunted, turning over a blackened timber with his boot. "The Lord's will—or something else entirely." When the younger men looked at him questioningly, he turned away. "Come, let's leave this place and help the search parties. There is only sorrow here, and nothing else."

  The three men turned together and moved quickly down the lane, away from Miranda, Dan, and Abby. Abby called to them, "But I'm here, Thomas! If only you would see!" She started sobbing again as they started down the rutted road, tried to run after them, but was knocked back onto the grass by a whoosh of wind. She stood up, stunned.

  "Abby, are you all right?" Dan helped her stand up again. "What was it?"

  "Here—you can feel it, too. It's like a wall of wind—you can't feel it until you try to leave the site of this house." Abby rubbed her eyes. "It's what traps me here."

  Dan looped an arm around Abby's shoulders. "You're the Abigail they're looking for, right? It's horrible. Is this what happens every time you come back here?"

  Abby sank onto the hillock and nodded. She turned her back. "All these buttons, Mandy. Undo them, please. We're ghosts here. Invisible. And it's too hot for all these layers." Under the long, dark wool dress, Abby still wore her jeans and turtleneck.

  Miranda wrenched her gaze away from the small figures of the three men down the road, and unbuttoned Abby's dress. Then she slipped off her own long skirt. Dan rolled up the sleeves of his ruffled shirt and unbuttoned the collar. Miranda bundled all their extra clothes into her mother's shawl and tucked them against a rock.

  "But now what?" asked Dan. "It doesn't look like the phoenix has the power to send you farther back in time to save your family. We're stuck here."

  "Don't say that, Dan!" Miranda shivered despite the warmth of the summer day. "We're not stuck if Abby wishes us home again. Abby?"

  Abby sat motionless, staring stonily at the retreating figures of her brother and neighbors. "I was sure you would help me, Mandy. I really thought you would."

  "Come on, Abby. It isn't my fault that the phoenix's magic is hard to figure out."

  "If only I could go after them. Even if I can't fix things so the fire never happened, I wish I could tell Thomas I'm safe. It isn't right that he should have to be so miserable, searching for me. Oh, if only I could get through this horrible wind! What good is the phoenix if it can't get me home again?" Impassioned, she drew back her arm and hurled the little statue straight into the barrier of wind.

  "Abby!" yelled Dan, and Miranda gasped.

  The phoenix passed straight through and bounced on the road. It lay in the dust. "How come it can go through the wind?" demanded Miranda.

  "Because it's not a ghost, I guess." Abby folded her arms across her chest. "Lucky bird."

  Tentatively, Miranda put her hand out toward the barrier of wind. Powerful currents of warm air swirled against her arm. But she pushed against them, then walked forward. She kept walking, though the wind whipped at her hair and clothes and sucked her breath right out of her lungs, until she was standing by an uncharred grove of pine trees on the far side of the dirt road.

  "Mandy!" Abby cried. "How can you do that? How can you just wal
k through it?"

  "I don't know," Miranda called back. "I guess it's because I'm not a ghost, either." She bent down and scooped up the phoenix, then looked down the road at the retreating backs of Thomas and the other men. "Hello!" she called. "Thomas? Can you hear me? Can you see me?" The men did not turn.

  Dan pressed through the warm wind to join her. It tossed his hair and clothes but did not stop him. Reaching Miranda, he wrapped her tightly in his arms, and they both looked back across the road at Abby, who stood, staring at them with longing.

  "Go after them," she pleaded. "Run after Thomas. If I can't go, you'll have to be my eyes and ears. Find out how his family's doing. Even if no one can see you, you can try to make them sense your presence."

  Miranda turned to Dan. "Should we?"

  He looked worried. "I don't know."

  "The two men with Thomas are Nathaniel Prindle and Richard Mather," Abby called. "Mr. Prindle is the fat one. He's William's father. Richard was William's friend. They're both good men. Oh, it breaks my heart to be so near, to have them searching for me, and no matter how loudly I scream or yell, no matter what I do, they don't notice me."

  "We want to help, but we're afraid. I wish you could come with us," Miranda called to Abby. She would feel so much safer if Abby were with them, she realized.

  "You don't wish it half as much as I do."

  "But where are we supposed to go?" demanded Dan.

  "To Thomas's house," Abby called back. "He's married to Sarah, and they live in the center of the village. Where The Sassy Café is—in your time. He's a wheelwright, just like my father. I mean, like my father was. They have a daughter, Charity, who is three, and two sons named Nicholas and Daniel—Daniel, just like you, Dan. The boys are four and five."

  Miranda wondered what a wheelwright did.

  "But what can we do there?" objected Dan. "No one can see us, so what's the point? I think we ought to go home." He scowled.

  "I'm afraid, too," whispered Miranda. She stowed the phoenix in heir jeans pocket and took Dan's arm. "But we came to try to help Abby, so I think we should go. She hasn't seen her brother's family for years."