As they approached the Nash property, Ursa begged her to stop. It was 7:10, early enough for a quick visit, and Jo wanted to make sure Gabe didn’t have the wrong idea about what had happened the other night. But the silver SUV was still parked at the end of the potholed drive. “Maybe we should leave,” Jo said.
“Gabe won’t care.” Ursa was out the door before Jo could stop her. A woman with a lightly grayed ponytail came through the front door of the cabin. She was in her midforties, her features broad and bullish, and the extra pounds she carried on her tall, powerful frame made her appear more intimidating than overweight. But it was probably the harsh blue of her eyes that made Ursa retreat down the stairs and reach for Jo’s hand. The woman seemed angry with them, and Jo couldn’t imagine why.
“We came by to see Gabe,” Jo said. “I’m Joanna Teale, and this is my friend Ursa. I’m renting the property next door.”
“I know who you are,” the woman said before Jo finished speaking.
“Where is Gabe?” Ursa asked.
“He’s not well,” the woman said.
“He’s sick?” Ursa asked.
The woman made an irritated face.
“Can I see him?” Ursa said.
“You may not.”
“Who are you?” Ursa asked.
Jo was thinking a similar question: Who the hell do you think you are?
“I’m Gabriel’s sister.”
Jo never would have guessed that. She looked nothing like him.
“Can I go see the kittens?” Ursa asked.
“I think it’s best if you leave,” the woman said.
“Is his illness serious?” Jo asked.
She was already walking into the cabin. “I’ll tell him you stopped by.” The door closed.
“She’s mean,” Ursa said when they got in the car.
Or what they’d interpreted as meanness was distress. Maybe Gabe’s sister was upset because he was seriously ill.
Jo took Ursa with her to do fieldwork the next day. The heat was brutal and most of the work was on roads, but Ursa never once complained. She found a new nest with two cardinal eggs. Jo told her she might have to pay her field assistant wages.
After they finished monitoring nests on Turkey Creek Road, Jo drove to the Nash property and parked next to the silver SUV. She and Ursa knocked on the front door, rapping louder when no one answered. Gabe’s mother slowly opened the wooden door, holding her four-legged cane.
“We came to see how Gabe is doing,” Jo said through the screened door.
“Lacey told me you stopped by last night.”
Gabe’s sister must be Lacey, a frilly name that didn’t suit her menacing appearance.
“How is he?” Jo asked.
“Not so well,” Katherine said.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Can we visit with him, maybe just for a few minutes?”
“He wouldn’t want that,” she said.
“Why don’t you ask him? We might cheer him up.”
“I don’t think you will,” Katherine said. “I’m sorry.”
Jo and Ursa watched her close the door with shaking hands. Lacey had come down the road that led to the outbuildings. She was dressed in dirty work clothes and rubber boots smeared with manure. Probably doing Gabe’s usual chores.
“Need something?” she asked.
“We’d hoped to see Gabe,” Jo said.
“Did my mother answer the door?”
“Yes, we talked to her.”
“Damn it,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry. If we’d known you were out back, we’d have—”
“Better if you didn’t. I have lots of crap to deal with, and I mean that literally.” She walked away toward the barns.
Jo was about to call something to her, but everything she wanted to say would sound too combative. She got in the car with Ursa.
“Why won’t they let us see Gabe?” Ursa said.
“I don’t know. Something weird is going on.” She drove to the Kinney house, unable to keep her creeping thoughts at bay. Maybe Gabe was having another breakdown. Even worse, Jo was afraid her awkward interaction with him the other night might have triggered it.
While she and Ursa were out tending to the nests the next day, Jo decided she would be more forceful with Lacey that evening. They finished the fieldwork a little early and arrived on the Nash property about an hour before sunset. “This time we won’t take no for an answer, right?” Jo said.
“Right,” Ursa said.
Ursa knocked on the cabin door. Lacey opened the door, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “You really don’t give up, do you?”
“He’s our friend and we’re worried about him,” Jo said.
“How long will he be your friend when you leave at the end of the summer?”
Jo was too shocked to respond. But she wished she had when Lacey added, “Do him a favor and forget him now instead of later.” Gabe’s sister closed the door.
She apparently believed Jo and Gabe were in a relationship. And she had already concluded that Jo was going to dump him. Jo doubted Gabe had given her those ideas, and that had to mean Lacey had far overstepped the bounds of her sibling bond. Jo had heard of controlling sisters—the kind who disliked the women their brothers dated—but this was outrageous. Lacey was trying to sabotage a relationship that hadn’t even begun.
Jo didn’t notice Ursa was still on the porch until she got to the car. “Ursa, let’s go.”
Ursa came to the upper edge of the porch stairs. “You said we wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“That’s just a saying.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“He doesn’t want to see us.”
“Maybe he does and they won’t let him,” Ursa said.
“I know, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Yes, there is.”
“What?”
“She didn’t lock the door, and I know where his room is.”
“Oh my god! Ursa, get down here this instant!” Jo hissed.
“I don’t have to listen to you because I’m not from this planet. We have our own rules.” She scampered to the door.
“Ursa!”
Ursa pushed the inner door ajar and slid through the gap. Jo contemplated whether to follow and decided she couldn’t let a child deal with Lacey alone. She entered just in time to see Ursa disappear behind a log wall. Lacey was at the kitchen sink doing dishes, and Katherine sat at the table talking to her. Both had their backs to the front door, and their conversation, along with the running water, had prevented them from hearing Ursa walk in.
Jo crept across the living room, hunched over to keep a smaller profile. She slipped down the hallway and saw Ursa opening a door at the end of the corridor. “Knock first!” Jo whispered, but too late to stop her from entering unannounced.
Jo and Ursa stood in the doorway and surveyed Gabe. Dressed in gray pajama pants and a light-blue T-shirt, he was curled on his side in a log-frame bed with his back to them. Stacks of books were piled everywhere. The only decoration in the room was a star chart pinned to one of the walls.
“Gabe?” Ursa said. “Are you okay?”
He rolled onto his back, his puffy eyes bewildered. “Ursa?”
“Are you sick?” Ursa asked.
“Who told you that?”
“Your mean sister.”
He snorted a soft laugh and sat up, pushing strands of wavy hair off his face. His eyes focused into familiar blue sharpness when he looked at Jo. “She let you in?”
“Actually . . . no,” Jo said.
“My mother did?”
“It’s more of a search and rescue operation,” Jo said.
“You’re kidding?”
“I’m not.”
“They don’t know you’re here?”
Jo shook her head. “The alien made me do it.”
His grin was short-lived. “Jesus, I must look bad,” he said, running his hands over his beard and through his hair.
r /> “You look good,” Ursa said. “You don’t look sick at all.”
“Yeah, well, there are different ways of being sick.” He dragged his legs over the edge of the bed, clearly unaccustomed to moving. His eyes settled on Jo’s. “What made you think I needed rescue?”
“They wouldn’t let us see you.”
“Why did you want to?”
“We need eggs.”
He smiled.
“You missed your egg morning out on the road. It’s caused a county-wide crisis.”
“Not a national emergency?”
“Your delusions are a bit far-reaching,” she said.
“Maybe they are.”
“Can I see the kittens?” Ursa asked.
He stood a little shakily. “Thou shall see the Shakespearean cats, my lady.”
“You don’t have to get up,” Jo said. “We only wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I do have to get up. I have to see Lacey’s face when she gets you in her crosshairs.”
“I’m a little scared about that,” Jo said.
“I’ll run interference. But I warn you, she doesn’t take her cracked baby brother very seriously.”
“Cracked like an egg?” Ursa said.
“Hey, good analogy.” He slid his feet into old tan loafers. “Let’s go see those kittens.”
“Are their eyes open yet?” Ursa asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them for a few days.” He led the way down the hallway. When they arrived in the open space between the kitchen and living room, he waved at his sister and mother. “Don’t mind us,” he said, “just passing through.”
“Gabe!” Lacey said.
“What?”
“How did they get in?”
“Who?”
“Them!”
“Wait . . . you can see them? I thought they were my hallucination.”
Lacey strode over to Jo. “You had the nerve to sneak into our house?”
“I didn’t,” Jo said. “One hundred percent of the nerve came from another source.”
“And no one is going to yell at a little girl—right, Lace?” Gabe said.
“So you’re okay now? Just like that?” Lacey said. “Couldn’t you have done that before I drove over here to do your work?”
“I never told you to come.”
“Who the hell was supposed to take care of Mom?”
“Can we push the play button on this recording later? My friends don’t want to hear it. Let’s go,” he said to Jo and Ursa.
“Where are you going?” Lacey said.
“Ursa wants to see the kittens,” he said.
“Yeah, and what about that? I told you no more cats.”
“My cats are all spayed. The mother was a stray that showed up pregnant.”
“Well, I haven’t found them yet, but I’m thinking of taking them to the river.”
Gabe charged her with startling intimidation, and she backed away until her butt hit a kitchen chair. “You do anything to those kittens and they’ll find you in the river! I mean that, Lacey!”
“You’re friggin’ nuts!” Lacey said.
“I am, so don’t mess with me! And don’t say things like that in front of this little girl ever again!”
Lacey’s sour gaze fell on Ursa. “Who is she? Mom says you feed her every day.”
To keep Ursa from hearing more, Gabe lifted her into his arms and hastened to the door. “I’m sorry,” he said in Ursa’s ear. “Don’t worry about any of that.”
Jo pushed on his back in her urgency to get out. They scurried down the gravel drive on the west side of the house. Halfway to the barn, Gabe set Ursa on her feet. “My bad,” he said. “You’re too old to be carried.”
“It’s okay,” Ursa said.
Jo glanced over her shoulder to see if Lacey was following. She wasn’t, and the cabin had disappeared behind trees that surrounded it on all sides.
“I’m sorry you two had to see that,” Gabe said when they reached the barn. “My sister is . . . she and I have never gotten along. She was in college when I was born, and she’s always been more like my mean stepmother than my sister.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Jo said.
“Can I go see them?” Ursa said.
“Go on,” he said.
Ursa ran inside. Gabe and Jo followed her to the stacks of hay at the rear of the building. “The mother cat is surprisingly tame,” Gabe said, picking up the orange tabby that had come to greet him with her meows. He held her to his chest, and she rolled her head against his fingers as he scratched behind her ears.
“She obviously wasn’t born in the wild,” Jo said.
“I know. I think someone dumped her on my property when they saw she was pregnant. People around here know I keep barn cats.”
Jo stroked the cat in his arms.
“She gave birth to the first kitten next to my toolshed, but she let me move her to the barn. The kittens are safer from predators in here because I keep the door closed at night.”
“Predators like your sister?” Jo said.
“Yeah, worse than a rat snake, right?”
“Should we hide them better?” Ursa asked.
Gabe squatted in front of her. “I won’t let her hurt them.”
“But she said—”
“I think she’ll leave tomorrow. She hates farm chores.”
Ursa took Jo’s hand and led her to a nest of multicolored kittens tucked between two big bales of hay. “I’m betting there’s more than one father,” Jo said.
“She’s discovered your deepest, darkest secret,” Gabe whispered in the mother cat’s ear.
Jo smiled at his humor. He’d looked bad when they first saw him, but he’d livened remarkably in the last ten minutes. The alien kid apparently had better instincts than Jo.
“Their eyes are open!” Ursa said, a white kitten in her hands. It mewed softly, its squinted eyes trying to make sense of her human face. “This is Juliet,” Ursa said. “Want to hold her?”
Jo cradled the kitten against her chest.
“The gray one is Hamlet,” Ursa said, pointing at a kitten. “This brown tabby is Caesar. The black-and-white one is Macbeth, and the orange one is Olivia—”
“Which play is that from?” Jo asked.
“Twelfth Night ,” Gabe said.
“Finally, a comedy.”
“And the black one is Othello,” Ursa said. “That name was Gabe’s idea because Othello is a Moor.”
Ursa took Juliet from Jo’s hands. “Juliet and Hamlet are my favorites.” She scooped Hamlet out of the nest and reclined against a hay bale with the two kittens on her chest.
Balancing the mother cat on one arm, Gabe lifted Olivia and handed her to Jo. “Have a little comedy. We need it.”
Jo warmed the tiny orange kitten until it settled down. Gabe was watching her, smiling. “How do you feel?” she asked him. But immediately she regretted asking the question that had dogged her since her diagnosis. “Are you up to having dinner with us?”
He tried to read her motives.
“Ursa and I are making burgers, sweet potato fries, and salad. But I should warn you, they’re turkey burgers. I don’t eat much red meat.”
“I don’t mind turkey burgers,” he said.
“Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Then come over.”
“I’d have to shower first.”
“We can start cooking while you do that.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive.”
“Guess what, you guys?” Ursa said.
“What?” Gabe said.
Ursa sat up, white and gray kitten in each hand. “I’m going to write a play about Juliet and Hamlet.”
“Is it a play about cats or people?” he asked.
“People. Juliet and Hamlet meet in a magic forest before all the bad things happen, and that changes their fates. It’s a comedy, and everyone is happy at the end.”
> “I like it,” Gabe said.
“I really like it,” Jo said. “Can we buy tickets in advance?”
13
Ursa explored the prairie edge with a flashlight while Jo stoked the fire for the burgers.
“What are you doing?” Jo asked.
“Picking flowers for the table.”
“I thought we’d eat outside like we usually do when we grill.”
“No! Gabe coming for dinner is special.”
Jo didn’t want it to be. Maybe she and Gabe would get awkward again, and eating at the kitchen table in fluorescent light would only make it worse. When Jo went inside to check the potatoes, she saw that their dinner wouldn’t be eaten in fluorescence. Ursa had turned out all the lights and placed two half-burned pillar candles on the table on either side of her flower bouquet. It looked way too romantic, but before Jo could do anything about it, Little Bear was barking to announce Gabe’s arrival. She hurried outside to quiet him.
“Good watchdog,” Gabe said, closing his truck door.
“It’s not good. It’s annoying.”
Gabe patted the dog and came up the walkway. He held out a carton of eggs. “Do you really need them?”
“We do. Thanks.” She took the carton from his hand, noticing the warm scent of soap on his skin. “Just to warn you, Ursa has turned this into an haute cuisine affair.”
“Did she find caviar in the creek?”
“The menu is the same, but she’s trying to create dining ambiance.”
“Sounds nice. I hope I’m suitably dressed for a restaurant.”
In the yellow glow of the porch light, Jo appraised his clothing—a blue button-down shirt and light-colored pants, much nicer than the T-shirt and frayed jeans he usually wore. He looked like he was dressed for a date. She suppressed a spike of panic. “It’s perfect,” she said. “A tux would have been overkill.”
She led the way into the house, where Ursa was folding paper towels into napkins at the kitchen table. “I was afraid Lacey wouldn’t let you come,” she said.
“She did her best to prevent me, but I got the chains off,” he said.
Maybe that wasn’t so far from the truth.
Where the Forest Meets the Stars Page 10