Lavender-Green Magic

by Andre Norton

  Judy never looked around, nor did she answer her sister. Again Holly had that queer feeling, as if Judy were behind a kind of glass wall. She could see her sister, touch her, hear her, but Judy just was not close anymore.

  Well, who needed her? A surge of confidence gathered in Holly, sweeping away her bewilderment again. No one needed Judy, but Hagar needed Holly. What she did was going to be very important indeed. And she must do it soon.

  Grandma was inspecting other broken things along the shelf. She might be choosing another piece to try her skill on. Judy had turned away from the table, was heading up the stairs. And Crock was just going out the door. No one was watching, no one would come snooping around if she went right now.

  Holly felt a small shiver of excitement as she slipped out behind her brother. Only one thing could spoil her plan. That would be if Grandpa was working in the fix-it shed. But Crock was not heading in that direction; he was going around to the other side of the barn where the driveway was.

  Holly scuttled along the bare flower beds, where a few stalks, dried and dark, still stood, reminding her of the garden in the maze. The clouds were almost as heavy and bleak-looking here as those which had been hanging over Hagar’s house.

  She had her hand on the latch of the shed door when she jumped at a loud blast of sound. Someone was blowing a horn, a car horn, on the other side of the barn. Did that mean that Grandpa was in the shop and he was being called? Holly pulled the door cautiously open.

  No, the workbench had some tools laid out there, and on the floor stood one of the old trunks they had brought from the Elkins place, its lid off. Maybe Grandpa was trying to fix it. But there was no one here.

  Holly slipped through to the green side where Grandma’s protected plants stood in their rows. She pulled the bag out from under her jacket and went down on her hands and knees to peer under the table. Yes, she was in luck, there were more empty pots there. She had to crawl under the table to pull them out, but she got them.

  Spider webs—ugh! Holly wiped her hands down her jeans. She hated spiders, they made her feel all crawly when she saw them. But Grandma did not believe in killing them, ever. She said that they caught a lot of bugs as had no business being in houses and annoying folks.

  Now, Holly remembered, she’d have to go outside and get the dirt, as she had before. That was going to be risky. The one window of her and Judy’s bedroom looked out in this direction. What if Judy saw her and wanted to know what she was doing? But Holly did not see how else she was going to get those pots filled.

  With the basket and trowel, she went out quickly. No one was around. A glance up at the window—the curtain hung straight there. Better not take any more soil from the flower beds. It was more risky walking toward the maze out in the open this way, but she was sure she could dig up more at a time from along there and no one would notice it.

  Holly worked as fast as she could, but the ground was hard and there were tough grass-roots and stones. She dug with energy, all the time alert to any sound. That car horn had stopped blowing, but now and then she thought she could hear voices. Mostly they seemed to come from the direction of the old cellars Grandpa had filled up with the unusable junk. It was his plan to get as much of the waste inside those cellars as he could and then floor them over with rocks so they would look better. It was like his planting trees: He wanted to keep Dimsdale looking as nice as he could.

  But who could really make a dump look like anything but what it was? Holly used the point of her trowel like a pick to loosen up the tough clods. This dirt did not look very promising, but it was the best she could do. Maybe she could get some of those plant vitamins they sold at the dime store—the kind Mom had fed her African violets. Those would make up for not having any good soil. The point was she had to plant the things Hagar had given her—plant them and hide them, as quickly as she could. Without anyone learning about them.

  For she was as sure as if Hagar had openly warned her that no one must know she had brought these seeds and the long, odd-looking root back from the maze. If Crock and Judy never remembered what had happened in Hagar’s house, she was safe.

  Holly now thought of the place in the maze as Hagar’s house, though they had seen Tamar there, too. Only Holly found it increasingly difficult to remember Tamar very well. While she could close her eyes at any moment and see Hagar as clearly as if she were standing right here watching her dig holes in the exceedingly hard ground.

  The results of Holly’s digging were discouraging. When the soil was dumped into the basket it was all in hard lumps. Maybe once she got it inside she could break it up, even use one of Grandpa’s hammers to mash it if she had to. To add to the difficulty of the digging, Holly felt she had to keep looking around to make sure no one was watching her.

  At last the basket was almost full to the top, and when she lifted it, the weight was nearly more than she could manage. But she tugged it back to the shed. There was a pile of newspapers in one corner. Grandpa spread them on the floor when he was painting.

  Holly grabbed some of these and put them down, set the basket on top, and began to ladle the lumps into the pots with her trowel. Perhaps coming into the warmth of the shed made them break apart. Because even the largest began to crumble, and a few energetic thumps with the trowel broke them up completely. She had to scant on the last two pots, but she was afraid to trust to luck and venture out the second time for more soil.

  Seeds went down into the soil as quickly as she could shift them in. The biggest pot had to hold the root, and she arranged that in the pot with all the care she could, using her hands to build up the dirt around it.

  Now—Holly squatted back on her heels and surveyed the shelves. She and Judy had hidden the other pots; she must do the same with these. Only she could not see too much room left. Standing as tall as she could, she began to move those already on the shelves, wedging in one of her pots well to the back wherever she could discover the necessary space. Finally only the pot with the root was left. Holly could see nothing else to do but to push it well back under the table, hoping that it would grow in spite of the dark—at least get a start.

  While she pushed and changed the other plants around, she was surprised to see that at least two of those Judy had planted showed a tiny slip of green breaking through the soil. There was no way of telling which these were. For they had not thought to try to mark the pots with the seeds as they had put them in. Holly could not even now clearly remember the listing of those Tamar had pressed upon them. Nor did she care now. The important ones were indeed those she had brought back, though Hagar had never quite explained why they were so needful.

  Holly was careful in her cleaning up. Judy might sneak in here to see what she had planted. Grandma certainly often visited her winter garden. No one must guess, at least for now, that Holly had made any additions. She looked around at last with a sigh of relief. She had done what she promised, and she would get the plant vitamins the first chance she had. Those ought to help a lot.

  As Holly left the fix-it shed she was as careful to look about to see if Crock or Judy were spying on her as she had been when she entered. They had no right to try to find out about her business, hers and Hagar’s. Cautiously she pushed open the barn-house door, trying to think up some possible answers to any awkward questions that might be asked.

  “—you can see their way of thinkin’, Lute. ’Course, no one can say you don’t do the best you can to keep it in order. Only, this is a dump, and Mr. Reuther, he says he’ll pay top price. Judge Tanner, he’s lookin’ into the hassle with that Mr. Porter Dimsdale out west. Seems like he ought to be glad to have it all cleared up. The thing’s been hangin’ on long enough. I jus’ came out to let you know how it stands, Lute. We would be doin’ nothin’, but them new people, they got up and made a fuss ’bout a dump being close to ’em and as how this needs clearin’ up to make the town look better ’fore the celebration.

  “Now don’t you take it, Lute, that any of us we’re sayin’
as how you ain’t doing a bang-up job here, ’cause you are. But there’s jus’ so much you can do ’bout a dump. An’ if this Mr. Reuther means what he says—”

  “Then”—that was Grandma, speaking sharp and clear—“you’ll have you some more streets with all them little houses what looks ’zactly alike, an’ no trees nor nothin’—jus’ all bare.”

  “I guess so. There’s more’n more folks as want to live out away from the cities. And they’ve got to go somewhere.”

  “They don’t live outta the cities,” Grandma countered. “No sirree, they jus’ brings their old cities ’long with ’em when they moves. How long we got, Mr. Bill, ’afore these new city folks want to roust us out?”

  “Can’t tell, Mercy. It’s gotta come up ’fore th’ town meetin’. And that over-the-river crowd, they do a lot of talkin’. I jus’ wanted to warn you straight off that there may be trouble waitin’ right ’round the bend. Now me, personally, I don’t want nothin’ to do with this Reuther fellow. He talks big, but I want to see if his doin’ comes up to his talkin’. Dimsdale place was a big fine house once. Pity that burned. Were it still standin’ we could take it over for show, jus’ like they did the old Pigot place, and these people what are fixing up the Elkins’s house are plannin’ on doin’. But nowadays, it seems like they just want to sweep away everything from the old days, was it good or bad, they don’t care. Well, I’ll be gettin’ on. Thanks for th’ snack, Mercy. That was right tasty raisin pie. Seems like you get more taste in your cookin’ than most of the women ’round here who do a lot more boastin’.”

  “That’s right kind of you to say that, Mr. Bill.” Grandma did not sound happy when she answered, but more as if she were worried or upset.

  “You got any ideas as to what they’s goin’ to say at the town meetin’, Mr. Bill?” That was Grandpa.

  “Only just what I’ve been hearin’. Lotta talkin’ goin’ on. There’s some—Jim Hooker, and Ira Batchler, they listens when the new folks talk. ’Course Jim, he runs the garage and Ira’s got the hardware. Them two, they are makin’ money offen those allotment folks. Seems like them houses o’ theirs, they always need a mite of fixin’. And you know that Ira and his boy, they go out on their own doin’ a little carpentry here, a dab of plumbin’ there. And the garage gets about twice as much business now that the development is open. It ain’t, I guess, that Ira and Jim are against keepin’ things as they have been, they’s just wantin’ any pickin’s they think might be comin’.

  “As I see it the main trouble’s that Mrs. Stanley Deevers, her and her bunch of know-it-alls from the other side of the river. She tried to push into the Ladies’ Thimble Society over to the church and tell ’em how they needed to wake up and do something more up-to-date. Only, when Mrs. Pigot stood right up to her, she got miffed. Then it was the school board, and we heard a lotta talkin’ as to how our school’s so backward no young’un is like to get any education.” Holly heard a rich, hearty laugh follow that. “Was she ever caught with one foot in a mud-puddle when Dr. Peabody pulled out that record book of his and started to point out the number of scholarships and such our young’uns have been winning.

  “Mrs. Deevers, she tried to say as how our school was so backward, that we didn’t teach nothin’ about livin’ in this here today world. But she didn’t get too far with that there foolishness. People is too proud of the school, and they got a little hot about her sayin’ all that. So she calmed down a mite and we didn’t hear her argyin’ ’bout things for a spell. Then she turns up with this new idea—’Beautiful Sussex,’ for the Tricentennial. And the trouble is, Lute, Mercy, there she’s got ahold o’ somethin’ as don’t bother people so. They ain’t goin’ to get their dander up defendin’ no town dump from Mrs. Deevers. Then, with Mr. Reuther comin’ in and hintin’ as how he’d be right willin’ to take it over and develop it—well, money talks, even though he’s really plannin’ to make it into a lot of little tacky-lookin’ houses as nobody but city folk, who can’t see further than the end of their noses, is goin’ to buy. But me, I got one darn good question I’m savin’ up for town meetin’ (that’s comin’ on November tenth): I’m goin’ to rise right up and ask do they take away the Dimsdale dump for a development, but where then is they fixin’ to put the trash next? Pitch it out alongside the roads, maybe? What kind of a beautifyin’ kinda thing is that goin’ to be? That’s just what happened over to Norfolk—and that’s what came of it, too. You’ll hear me sayin’ enough to make ’em think. If those dumb-between-the-ears fellers do think. We can give ’em a fight do we want to. Me, I’m goin’ around right now tellin’ it like it is to enough of the old-timers as can throw some weight around. I had to warn you, Lute, Mercy, but we ain’t got to the fightin’ part yet—and me, am I goin’ to give ’em a whale of a fight!”

  Holly heard the other door slam, and now she slipped fully into the warmth of the barn. Grandma was sitting at the table, her hands spread out on the top, and she was looking at Grandpa right over the tops of her glasses, which this time had nearly slipped off her nose though she did not seem to notice.

  “Luther, whatever in the world can we do?” That voice did not sound like Grandma’s at all, but was thin and wavery, like the voice of an old, old lady.

  Grandpa was by the door, as if he had just seen their recent visitor out. “Do, Mercy?” He swung around and his voice was not thin and wavery at all, it was hard. “We gonna do jus’ what Mr. Bill Noyes said—we’re gonna fight!”

  “But he said, an’ he’s right, nobody cares about a dump. That can be just anywhere—”

  “Nobody cares ’bout a dump?” Grandpa was still fierce. “Mr. Correy—where’s he gonna get his antique things? And Lem—he does a lot with his repaired stuff. And Mrs. Dale—the Scouts, they need the dump for their projects. Miss Sarah at the library, who’ll see she gets all them old books? Twice now, ain’t we found things as she said were the best she ever saw? That there journal of Seth Elkins as she shows around every time there’s new people at the museum, who found that? You did, Mercy, right here at this dump!

  “An’ it ain’t going to be all dump, neither. Ain’t you an’ me, Mercy, ain’t we been workin’ plantin’ things an’ tryin’ back there”—Grandpa waved his arm energetically at the wall behind Holly without looking at her at all—”to make it look good again? There’s all yore herbs an’ such as you is known to have. Things like none of them garden-club ladies ever seen ’afore. Didn’t they say so last year when Miss Sarah had you over to th’ library to tell all ’bout ’em? No sir-ree, Mercy, I tells you plain they ain’t gonna sweep us an’ Dimsdale away so easy. Put up them little old houses as gets outta fix quick as a family moves in ’em an’ try to spread out a little—”

  Grandpa’s face was flushed, and he shook his fist in the air, Holly thought, as if he dared one of the development houses to sprout up in the middle of the barn like one of the big mushrooms Holly had seen in the maze.

  One of the big mushrooms. Holly gulped. What had Ha-gar promised? That she could teach Holly how to to make wishes come true! She had done what Hagar had wanted. Now Hagar would have to keep her part of the bargain. Holly would wish, and that Mrs. Deevers, whoever she was, would stop meddling—

  In the moment Holly forgot that she hated the dump. It was hers—or rather it belonged to Grandpa and Grandma, and she was living here. Now she felt as fierce as Grandpa looked. No one was going to take Dimsdale and run bulldozers all over it—cut down the maze—

  Cut down the maze! But if that happened, how could she ever find Hagar again and claim her wishes? No, no bulldozers in the maze!

  “When is the town meeting?” Holly asked.

  Both Grandma and Grandpa gave a start and looked around as she came out of the shadows behind the last stall and walked toward the table.

  “Where you come from, Holly?” Grandma frowned at her. “You been listenin’ without us knowin’?”

  “Yes. I heard that man talking.” Holly was too full of what might happe
n to notice Grandma’s frown very much. “How soon will we know—about what they plan to do?”

  “This ain’t no bother for young’uns.” Now Holly was aware of Grandpa’s very unfamiliar sharpness.

  But Grandma was shaking her head slowly. She did raise her hand now and push up her glasses, but she did that as if she were very tired, and not with her usual emphatic thump. “You can’t keep young’uns from knowin’ somethin’ like this, Luther. They’ll hear the talk soon enough in town. We don’t know nothin’ for sure, Holly. An’ until we do, you don’t say anythin’ even if you is asked. You understand?” She gazed at Holly in a way which was a warning Holly could not disregard.

  “Yes,” Holly answered. She longed to say that Grandma and Grandpa need not worry, if she could just get to see Ha-gar again. But when could she?

  If she tried sleeping on the pillow again tonight, would it work? It must! She must get to Hagar as soon as she could. Or maybe—Holly shivered—maybe Hagar would do nothing unless the plants grew out there in the shed. And it might takes days before they showed. Get the plant food, she could do that; she had enough money left from her allowance to buy at least one package.

  She wanted to go up to her room, get out her purse, and count how much money she had left, because she had bought that special notebook for her project yesterday and she was not quite sure now. This was more in her thoughts at present than Grandma.

  Grandpa had reached for his coat, which was hanging up on the end of one of the stalls.

  “I’ll put the truck under cover tonight,” he said. “There’ll be a stiff freeze by all the signs, if I know ’em.”

  Grandma jumped up. “Freeze—an’ m’ plants in the fix-it shed. Where’s my coat, an’ my scarf?”

  “Now don’t you take on, Mercy. I’ll see to loadin’ up the stove. No sense in you tryin’ to do it. That old stove never did work good for you no how.”

  Holly, who had frozen herself at the mention of the plants, relaxed when she saw that Grandma was not insisting on seeing to that chore. As Grandpa went out the door she headed for the stairs, intent on two things. She must find the pillow and make sure she did not forget where it was so she could use it again to see Hagar. For by now Holly was convinced that the pillow was the real key to the maze. Then she must also portion out her money to get the plant food which would coax the seeds she had planted to grow as quickly as possible.