Quicksand Pond
Page 18
“Mom was worried about you. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Look.”
“What are they?”
“Starlings,” Jessie said. “Terri told me. They do this at the end of the summer to get ready to migrate. Terri called it their ballet.”
“How do they turn all at once? There must be one that gives the signal, or how would they know?”
“I don’t know.”
After a pause and still looking up, Julia said: “Any sign of her?”
“No.”
“I thought you might’ve come out to look for her.”
“I sort of did. I’m not sure she’ll come back here, though. They’ll be waiting for her.”
“At the beach this morning people were saying there’s new evidence about the fire. Now the police think it was started by a cigarette, like someone was smoking in there.”
“You mean, instead of lighter fluid?”
“I guess. Anyway, there’s some doubt about Terri setting the fire.”
“There was always some doubt,” Jessie said. “Everybody ganged up on her.”
“But you thought she did it too, didn’t you? You told Mom about her fire wand.”
“I know. I got scared.”
“So was it really broken? Mom thinks you made that up because you felt sorry for Terri.”
“It wasn’t broken,” Jessie said. “I found it later and threw it in the pond. Terri would’ve had it with her if she’d used it to set the fire, wouldn’t she?”
“I don’t think that was up to you to judge,” Julia said.
“Well, I did! Someone had to believe in her.”
“If Terri didn’t set that fire, why did she run away?” Julia said. “She should’ve waited to get cleared in court.”
“People like her don’t get cleared. Not like us. She knows that better than anyone.”
“Well, they’ll catch her,” Julia said. “Then she’ll get charged with breaking out and end up back in the correctional center anyway. Terri should get her act together and start figuring this stuff out. She should look ahead and make plans for herself.”
“She is making plans!” Jessie said. “She’s made them. She’s getting out!” Her eyes filled with angry tears. “And I hope she makes it. She said she would in the end, and I believe her. She’s the kind of person who doesn’t give up.”
Julia reached her arm around her sister’s shoulders. “Don’t get so upset. Terri Carr is not your problem.”
“Yes, she is!” Jessie burst out, shrugging Julia’s arm away. “She’s my problem because I’ve seen her life, how stuck she is. Oh, Julia, I was so mean to her! I wouldn’t hang out with her. I wouldn’t give her my cell phone number when she asked. I didn’t want her to call me.”
“Anyone can see why.”
“Well, I went over there later and left it for her. On the raft.”
“Your cell phone number? You did? You went to the Carrs’ house?”
Jessie nodded. “Don’t ever tell Mom.”
“Was anyone there?” Julia asked.
“Yes, Mitch. But he didn’t see me. I left Terri the note and came home. I had to let her know where I’d be.”
Julia gazed at her sister with an exasperated expression that was also part something else; perhaps it was admiration.
“You are a good person,” Julia announced at last. “And completely nuts. What if Terri calls you? She probably will, you know. What will you do?”
“I’ll be on her side,” Jessie said. “Whatever she needs, I’ll be there to help.”
“You wouldn’t have to,” her sister said. “Nobody would know if you didn’t. Nobody would even care.”
“I know,” Jessie answered, “and that’s exactly why I’d do it.”
Julia sighed. “You are so impossible. I can never tell what you’re going to do next.” Her arm went around Jessie’s shoulders again, but in such an uncritical way that Jessie leaned closer to her.
They were silent for a long while after this. The surface of the pond turned a luminous pewter color, then dark blue, then black. Overhead, stars came out so distinctly that when the girls looked up, they were able to see the age-old designs they’d been taught as children.
“Look, the Big Dipper!”
“And the Little Dipper, I never can find that usually.”
“There’s the North Star!”
“There’s Cassiopeia.”
“Are those little ones the Pleiades?”
“At camp we called them the Seven Sisters.”
“There’s Andromeda!”
Somehow all this made it possible for Jessie to ask, “What happened with you and Ripley Schute?”
“He left. He had orientation or whatever. The freshmen go early to get to know the campus and see their dorms.”
“So he didn’t say good-bye?”
“No time,” Julia said, a little too casually.
“I’m sorry I said that stuff about him. It’s probably not even true. I just thought I’d pass it along.”
“No, it’s true,” Julia said. “I asked around and got the real story. I pity the poor girl who gets invited to be his date at Princeton.”
“He sounds terrible.”
“Not terrible, just irresponsible. Immature. After a while you get to know who is and who isn’t.”
“I guess you figured him out.”
“I did. So don’t go saying those things to Mom. I know what I’m doing, okay?”
Jessie said okay. When another minute had passed, she leaned closer to Julia and said, “Listen, what’s that noise? I keep hearing it.”
“Sounds like someone swimming, or paddling in the water.”
“It comes and goes. I hear it and then it fades away.”
“Maybe someone’s out there. What’s that story, the one about the drowned boys?”
“The Peckham boys. They got caught in quicksand. There was a lot of it around in the old days, I guess. The pond was named for it.”
“Sh-sh-sh.” Julia hushed her. “There it is again.”
They listened together. As they did, the sound rose and seemed to move nearer. Then, slowly, it diminished and was absorbed into the wallow and splash of the pond, into its shrieks and croaks and unidentifiable whispers. It was impossible for Jessie to determine whether this sound was something apart and distinct from all the others, or whether the wind was blowing at a different angle, bringing to her ears a new way of hearing a noise that had always been there.
TWENTY-FIVE
Twilight” is the word her mother used for this sweet time of the day. Henrietta Cutting, ghosting downhill toward the pond, her feet barely touching the ground, can still hear the way her mother said it: slow, the vowels drawn out and flattened. “Ta-wahh-lahht.” Amazing after all these years how her voice remains in Henrietta’s ear. She’s carried it with her like a song you learn when you’re young and can never forget no matter what has happened to you or where you’ve ended up.
Henrietta has escaped from the house again. This time there will be no calling her back. The girl with the dark hair, the pond girl, is waiting on the raft below. She has come to take Henrietta for a ride. Perhaps she’ll let her handle the raft pole this time. Henrietta’s hands itch to hold it again, to feel in charge of the how and the where of her going.
Somewhere in the grand house above her, Sally Parks is taking a well-deserved snooze. The week’s activities have exhausted them both, starting with Henrietta’s confusing report to the policemen about the three men in gray coats. Several more interviews were necessary before that story was assigned to its correct place in time. About events back then, more than seventy years ago, Henrietta’s memory was so clear that Sally Parks had looked at her with new respect. The old woman named names, gave dates, showed a young reporter from the Providence Evening News the very dressing table she’d hidden under. It was still there in her mother’s room, where nothing had changed in all those years.
“My father, George C. Cutting, owned
your paper,” Henrietta told him.
“This newspaper?” the young reporter asked.
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Cutting—”
“Miss Cutting,” Henrietta interrupted. “I never married. And never will.” She looked down sadly at her hands.
What an interesting figure she was. So misunderstood. So tormented by life. Photographers from the newspaper arrived to take her photo. But since she refused to come downstairs, they had to content themselves with a shot of Sally Parks, in full form, standing on the veranda. (Sally was thrilled!)
State officials began a new investigation of the Cutting murders. Once again the terrible event became front-page news. Three mobsters were implicated, though not one of them was still alive. The old photo of Henrietta as a girl was located in the newspaper archives and printed again. It was the one that showed her with what everyone thought was a fishing pole over her shoulder.
“So you were never once asked about the murders?” Sergeant Smith returned to inquire. His companion now was an FBI agent. “How is that possible?”
“I was a child.” Henrietta shrugged. “No one cared to really listen. The police were so sure they had the right man.”
“But you were there. You saw it happen. You could’ve spoken for Eddie Carr.”
“I tried,” Henrietta said. “Over many years. Eddie’s dead now, you know.”
“We know. We checked.”
“A life ruined,” Henrietta said. “More than one,” she added, with a look at her visitors.
Under these circumstances the investigation of the fire in the garage took a backseat. Henrietta continued to support the pond girl. (“Why are you holding her? Let her come home. She was nowhere near my landing!”) The police were still not convinced, but since no further evidence against the girl could be found, they decided (for the time being) to let her go. Terri Carr was on the brink of being released from the Canville Correctional Center when she escaped. She slipped out an unguarded bathroom window and vanished into the night.
She disappeared.
The next afternoon Henrietta received a phone call from the police asking her to watch out for Terri—the same warning Jessie’s father received as the Kettels packed to leave. Sally Parks, standing by the old woman, saw her lurch up from her chair. The telephone dropped from her hand.
“Miss Cutting, what’s wrong? You’re pale as a radish.”
“She’s coming,” Henrietta breathed.
“What?”
“She’ll be here soon! She’s coming back.”
“Please. Henrietta. Sit down. You don’t look well. Whatever it is, I’m sure this can’t be good for your heart.”
Back and forth from the kitchen Sally flew, with milk, cranberry juice, cookies, sandwiches, a special medication for moments of overexcitement. The old lady would not be quieted. She was “in a wild state.” This was how Sally would describe it later.
That was this afternoon. Now it is twilight and Henrietta has come out of her chair by the window. She was sitting there, watching the pond, and now she has left it and is floating downhill on the lightest of feet. She sees the raft approaching the landing on her shore. The pond girl is on it, waving. They will meet again at last!
“I told them you were not responsible,” Henrietta will say when they are together. “I saw you on the raft. I knew you weren’t to blame for the fire.”
“Thank you,” the girl will say. “Where can I take you on this beautiful evening?”
“I would like to go across to visit the gray foxes,” Henrietta tells her, for suddenly, with no effort at all, the future is the present and she has arrived at the shore. The raft is ready. The girl is helping her aboard.
“We could live over there if you like,” the girl says, pushing off with the pole.
“I would like that very much,” Henrietta replies.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my editor, Emma Ledbetter, whose insight into and enthusiasm for this novel made all the difference. I’m also grateful to my agent and colleague, Gina Maccoby, for her unwavering faith in me over many years.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JANET TAYLOR LISLE’S books for young readers have received the Newbery Honor (Afternoon of the Elves), the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction (The Art of Keeping Cool), Holland’s Zilveren Griffel, and Italy’s Premio Andersen, among other honors. A graduate of Smith College and former journalist, she lives in Rhode Island and often draws on Rhode Island history in her work. Visit Janet online at JanetTaylorLisle.com.
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Simon & Schuster, New York
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids
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ALSO BY JANET TAYLOR LISLE
Afternoon of the Elves
The Art of Keeping Cool
Black Duck
The Crying Rocks
The Dancing Cats of Applesap
Forest
The Great Dimpole Oak
Highway Cats
How I Became a Writer and Oggie Learned to Drive
The Lampfish of Twill
The Lost Flower Children
Sirens and Spies
INVESTIGATORS OF THE UNKNOWN QUARTET
The Gold Dust Letters
Looking for Juliette
A Message from the Match Girl
Angela’s Aliens
ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2017 by Janet Taylor Lisle
Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Charles Santoso
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lisle, Janet Taylor, author.
Title: Quicksand Pond / Janet Taylor Lisle.
Description: First edition. | New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, [2017] | Summary: Twelve-year-old Jessie spends the summer with her family on Quicksand Pond, a New England vacation spot, where she develops a
star-crossed friendship with independent Terri, and meets a reclusive old lady whose connection to a murder that took place decades ago still informs her present—and affects Terri in ways that Jessie gradually comes to understand
the more time they spend together. Identifiers: LCCN 2016009707
ISBN 978-1-4814-7222-7 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-4814-7224-1 (eBook)
Subjects: | CYAC: Ponds—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Murder—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.L6912 Qu 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016009707
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