Embers

by Antoinette Stockenberg

  Meg stopped in her tracks. "They didn't," she said, appalled.

  "Did you think no one'd notice? For goodness' sake, girl, this is Bar Harbor! Rich folk live here, and us poor ones tend to work for 'em. So naturally there's bound to be a good bit of gossip goin' on. Why, it's practically a tradition! And the gossip now is that you're carryin' on a vendetta against Gordon Camplin."

  Oh, shit shit shit was Meg's one thought.

  "That's silly," she said carelessly. "I told you, Dad: those accusations were the ravings of an irrational man before he died," Meg said, repeating her previous lie to her father. "No one will take such a claim seriously."

  "They are, and it's your fault. So now I have to tell you something I never thought I would. And dammit — your uncle Bill is not gonna take kindly to it."

  Everett stopped and waited while his daughter straightened a clump of top-heavy daisies that had flopped onto the narrow brick path. Then he took a deep breath and said, "Listen to me, Meggie: the summer of '48 was real, real hard on the family. Dad was out of work, Ma was gone. We almost lost the house."

  Meg looked up from her daisies. "This house? Your house?"

  He nodded. "Bank was breathing down our necks like you wouldn't believe. Lots of people got breaks, of course, because they'd lost everything in the fire. Everyone from the federal government to the Hairdressers Association rushed to help. But us, all we lost was our mother — our breadwinner," he said with some bitterness. "That didn't qualify us for a federal loan, and we didn't need beds or lumber or a new refrigerator, so the Red Cross and Elks Club and such was no real help for us, either. It was a real predicament.

  "We thought things were all up. Then out of the blue comes Gordon Camplin and just like that, pays off three years on the mortgage. He knew our situation and felt sorry for us, y'see. It was an unbelievable kindness. It was all done nice and discreet-like, with lawyers and bankers. That's how their kind do things."

  Her father added, "We never even got to thank him in person. Dad — well, he wasn't the type, and we were too young. Anyway, we were able to keep holding up our heads, and eventually Billy began makin' decent money, and then I started chipping in. But without Gordon Camplin's help getting us over the hump, we'd have lost the house for sure."

  Everett stood there with his head still high, but with his chin trembling with emotion.

  Meg was absolutely staggered by the news. It was like finding out that the man who broke into your house and assaulted your mother was Santa Claus. "No, that can't ... how could ... I can't believe ... wait a minute! Guilt! That's why he helped you out — guilt, not pity!"

  Her father's response to that surprised her. "Rich folk don't feel guilt," he said firmly.

  "They don't feel pity, either," she shot back.

  "You're wrong. Pity makes them feel richer."

  "This is crazy, Dad," she said impatiently. "He probably did it for some other reason altogether."

  There was no answer to that, so Everett Atwells merely said, "I wish you would leave Gordon Camplin alone. And I wish you would stop fooling around with games of ... magic."

  Coming from him, it was the gravest of reprimands. Meg wondered exactly how much he'd heard about the spontaneous séance in the shed.

  "I'm not fooling around, Dad," Meg said seriously, which was true, as far as it went.

  "Good. Then that's that." Everett Atwells sighed with relief; his duty as nominal head of the household was done. "Good night, sweetheart," he said, dropping a quick kiss on his daughter's cheek. "I'll see you at the picnic. Not first thing, though; I'll be off for a little fishin' first."

  ****

  Comfort got up at four and made the sheet cake after all. Meg got up at six and frosted it for her. Then the sisters-in-law loaded the last of the food into the truck and drove it out to uncle Billy's. Meg came back alone to the Inn Between to fix breakfast for their guests before handing over the reins to a spinster cousin who absolutely hated picnics, people, and bugs of any kind and was willing to do anything, even babysit an inn, to get away from them.

  Allie was off on what amounted to a scavenger hunt for Comfort, and Lloyd was in the cellar, tinkering with the Inn Between's infuriating furnace. Since they were all going in one car — Tom's — to ease the parking crunch at Uncle Billy's, Meg had, for the moment, nothing to do but wait for everyone to assemble.

  She was tighter than an overwound clock. It didn't seem possible that now, of all times, the sense of overwhelming dread that she'd felt in the shed would return; but it had, and with a vengeance. Maybe it had something to do with the approaching confrontation with Gordon Camplin. As the dance drew nearer, her resolve was becoming fainter.

  She wandered out to her garden, deliberately avoiding the shed and the dollhouse within, and was roused from her anxious reverie by an angry chick-a-dee-dee-dee sound issuing from a clump of privet. The bird feeder hanging in its branches was empty, and two hungry chickadees were demanding to know why. Meg smiled at the pair of fearless, tiny birds and went back to the house for a refill of sunflower seeds. When she returned the chickadees were still there, still scolding.

  "Me, me, me," she said aloud to them. "You're just like everyone else nowadays — selfish."

  Meg decided, on a whim, to make them give her something in return. She scooped a handful of seed from the paper bag and held it out for them in her open palm. She would feed them if they would trust her: that was the trade.

  She was standing very near the feeder; the birds could hardly mistake her meaning. They fluttered and darted around her — so close that she could feel the breath of their wings on her cheek — but for all their boldness, they continued to hesitate.

  Chick-a-dee-dee-dee! Chick-a-dee-dee-dee!

  I'm sorry, she said, communicating with them through the stillness of her pose. If you want it, you'll have to come get it.

  One of the pair — hungrier or braver or simply more trusting — made a darting pass at her hand, then swerved away at the last minute to the safety of the privet.

  Almost, she thought, daring to smile. It occurred to her that her arm should be tired, but the thought — along with her depression, her anxiety, her restlessness — faded away, lost in the simple act of watching a small bird feed.

  The chickadee made a decision; she could see it in his eyes.

  Here I come, it said with fine bravado. Get ready.

  The bird landed lightly on her forefinger, then scooped up the first sunflower seed it saw and flew away with it to the privet. The other bird, somewhat reassured, hopped to a branch a little bit closer to her.

  Meg waited.

  ****

  When Tom couldn't find Meg in the kitchen he turned instinctively to the garden, and that was where he was now, watching her.

  It was extraordinary. She was standing as still as a statue, with her open hand extended, while two small black-and-white birds with pale cream breasts took turns picking seeds from it. He'd never seen anything like it. One of the birds was even ballsy enough to be picking over the seed in her hand — looking for a good one, apparently — and throwing the ones he didn't like over the side. Unbelievable.

  Meg looked absolutely beautiful just then, graceful and still and utterly at one with the garden around her. Her T-shirt of camouflage green and her khaki-colored shorts reinforced the illusion; her chestnut hair gleamed in the morning light that filtered through a shade tree overhead. Her legs — straight and strong and tanned — suggested an athleticism that struck him as positively erotic. And her face! How had he not noticed her face before? With its straight nose and gently squared chin, her face in profile had the classic balance of Greek statuary.

  Diana, he realized at once. A goddess of power and serenity and uncommon fierceness. The Greeks called her the Lady of Wild Things. Oh, yes. The image perfectly matched the woman standing there with her hand outstretched to the birds around her.

  He was awed by the sight. And in some way that he didn't understand, intimidated by it. />
  He made a move to turn and go, and that shattered the moment. Suddenly Meg was aware of him. She threw down the seed, the birds flew away to hide and scold, and Meg became all business, funneling a paper bag into the top of the feeder. He felt like a director who's yelled "Action!"

  "Good morning, Lieutenant; all set to go?" she asked in a voice so casually offhand that it was actually irritating. Didn't she understand how overwhelmed he'd been?

  "Yeah, sure," he answered, still shaken by the vision of her. "Where is everyone?"

  Meg told him and then said, "So we have a little time. I was just topping off the feeders," she explained, clearly self-conscious.

  "I've never seen birds so tame," he confessed. "Are they house pets?"

  She laughed, and the sound of her laughter was like the sound of water falling from a high place.

  "They're chickadees," she said, "and they are the tamest things around. Would you like to try feeding these two?"

  How could he say no? He felt as if he'd been invited into a secret place. Risking the chance that he'd look like a fool, he let Meg pour a handful of seeds into the palm of his hand, then held it out toward the clump of privet just as he'd seen her do. The curved bench was close by; Meg sat on it without a word and watched him. He didn't dare turn to look at her; he only stood, stone-still, holding out his arm, which ached like hell after twenty seconds.

  The chickadees weren't buying it. They flew off to a nearby small tree covered with lilac flowers. Damn it, he thought. Rejected by a chickadee. It couldn't get any worse than that. Maybe he was too big. Maybe he was too garishly dressed: He was wearing a yellow Day-Glo T-shirt with big letters that phonetically spelled BA HA BA, just the way the locals said it.

  Hell, maybe they just didn't like men. His arm felt as if it was about to fall off.

  Damn it, he thought, telepathizing his anger at the ill-bred beasts. Eat this.

  One of the pair darted not far away from his head — close enough for him to hear its wings flutter. In his life, he'd never heard the flutter of a bird's wings. Instantly his frustration drained away, replaced by —he didn't know what. A feeling that maybe environmentalists weren't all left-wing kooks. A sense that his life so far had been more deprived than he thought. A hunch that in the divine order of living things, chickadees might rank higher than humans.

  When the bird came back — after a minute, after an hour, he didn't know or care which — and alighted on his thumb, he felt a sense of piercing bliss. The bird flew off without a seed. It hardly mattered. The bird would take a seed. He knew that now.

  At that moment he heard Allie cry out, "Tom! I drove by your —"

  He turned in time to see Allie approaching them with a look on her face that was entirely new: of being excluded. He greeted her, and so did Meg, with a heartiness that he knew neither of them felt.

  Very possibly Allie sensed it, because it was more of a command than a request when she said, "You're feeding the birds from your hands? Let me try."

  Meg laughed, but there was an edge to it that Wyler hadn't heard before. "Allie Atwells, you don't have the patience to boil tea. You could never stand still long enough for them to come to you."

  "Really? That shows how little you know me, Margaret."

  "Okay, fine. If you can last for just five minutes, I'll do up your share of the rooms for a week."

  "Okay, fine. Give me some seed."

  Meg tipped the feeder upside down into her sister's hand, then sat back on the bench to watch. Wyler himself retreated a little distance away from them both, anxious not to be a distraction in their contest. From his new vantage behind the flowering shrub, he was able to compare Allie to her older sister.

  Different breed of cat entirely. Allie was taller, more slender, more exotic, more brightly dressed (in fuschia and purple), more this, more that, more everything. Allie Atwells did not — would never — blend into her surroundings, indoors or out. She was the center, she was the showpiece, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  Still, she gave it her best shot. For a good long time she stood stock-still: a more graceful, elegant figure Wyler could never hope to see. The birds, by now thoroughly confused about just exactly who or what the feeder was, continued to hang back. Allie frowned and bit her lower lip in concentration.

  And then she turned to her older sister and said, "Does that include the bathroom off the landing?"

  Meg jumped up with a victorious whoop. "I knew you wouldn't last. Three minutes, thirteen seconds!"

  Realizing her faux pas, Allie blushed becomingly and laughed. She was absolutely charming, a great sport. Once he would've found it enchanting.

  Now, he hardly noticed.

  Chapter 14

  Wyler had rubbed elbows with Uncle Billy on Chicken Pie Night at the Inn Between, but he hadn't yet seen the man in his traditional role as Lord of the Manor.

  He was impressed.

  Bill Atwells's house was a solidly built Tudor on an acre of well-sited land overlooking Bar Harbor. The house had a personality more stiff than charming, more proper than whimsical, but from the flat-topped yews to the ball-shaped spruces, it suggested an owner who had the money and the desire to show the summer folk that town boys could be house-proud too.

  Wyler and his passengers — Allie, Meg, Lloyd, and the twins — unfolded themselves out of his Cutlass and made their way up the curving flagstone path to the front door. Meg was walking ahead of him, riding shotgun on Terry. She had one hand on the boy's shoulder as she issued last-minute instructions in his ear, which Wyler assumed included a warning not to leave the state without permission.

  She needs kids of her own. The thought popped into his head from nowhere, but once there, it lingered. Meg was so obviously designed for nurturing: from her strong and capable figure to the way she rushed in whenever anyone was at a loss, everything about Meg Hazard said "parent." He had learned from Allie early on of Meg's two miscarriages. He thought of the zillions of teenage mothers he'd seen in the course of his career. How ironic that this obviously qualified woman had no children of her own.

  He thought of his own son, lively and brown-eyed and three thousand miles away, and felt a sudden, aching sense of loss.

  "Tom Wyler, if you're not going to listen, I'm not going to talk."

  Allie was alongside in her fuschia short shorts and purplish cut-out top. The outfit was wonderfully easy on the eyes — but she had to be freezing. "I heard every word you said," he protested. "You were asking me whether I'd ever gone sailing. The answer is never." He'd rather sled on hot lava.

  "Good," said Allie with a mysterious smile.

  They passed through the front door and into a breezeway lined with potted palms. Wyler could see why they'd been routed to the picnic this way: the effect of the twin sets of French doors thrown open to the view of the grounds and the harbor beyond was spectacular. The vast lawn, every blade in place, rolled down a gentle slope, ending in what someone said was a right-of-way to the shore. Ornamental trees and evergreens had been planted on the sides of the lawn, framing but not obstructing the view of dozens of yachts moored in the harbor. A cruise ship the size of the QE2 —maybe it was the QE2 — was approaching with its anchors poised.

  Wyler hadn't seen too many backyards like this one.

  Two dozen kids and grownups had already assembled, looking much more ordinary than the view: lots of jeans and shirts from Wal-Mart was Wyler's guess. He had the impression that Uncle Billy was the success story in this bunch, and that once a year he liked to remind them of it.

  Uncle Billy himself was hovering over a mammoth stainless-steel barbecue grill, very definitely not from Wal-Mart. When he saw the new arrivals he waved them over.

  "Hey, hey! What's the word?" he said jovially. He pointed out his new toy with the screwdriver he still held in his hand. "Ain't she a beaut? Not like them slimpsey things you find in your big chains nowadays. This one oughtta go us some. I just hope them steaks is unthawed and ready, that's all."
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br />   He hugged Meg with his free arm and said, "Thanks for giving up Comfort all week. This year she's outdone herself; wait'll you see. Lloyd, I'd marry her m'self if I thought she'd leave you. You're one lucky baster. Allie! Yer half nekked. Put something on, for Chrissake. Glad you could come, L'tinnant. How long you aimin' to stay in ... Ba Ha Ba?" he said in a wry acknowledgment of Wyler's T-shirt.

  Without waiting for an answer from any of them, he said, "Beer's in the tub, pop's in the cooler," and rushed off to greet the next incoming guests.

  "Well, I guess we've made it through the receiving line," said Meg dryly. "I'd better go help Comfort."

  But she didn't run off, and that made Wyler unaccountably pleased.

  "Allie?" Meg said at last to her sister. "You planning to pitch in?"

  Allie laughed and said, "Look around; do you see any women? They're all in the kitchen with Comfort. There's probably not enough room to swing a cat in there. How about if Tom and I start setting up the chairs and tables out here instead?"

  The sisters exchanged a look — Wyler saw the look; he just didn't know what the hell it meant — and then Meg said coldly, "Well, I can't force you."

  Meg left and Allie sighed deeply. She was close to tears. Confused, Wyler said, "Is something wrong?"

  One tear made it out and down Allie's cheek. "Something is. Meg and I don't get along at all anymore."

  "Don't be silly," he told her. "You two are closer than any two people I know." He took out a handkerchief, which seemed excessive for one teardrop.

  "Meg thinks I'm being a princess," Allie said in a low, hurt voice. "I didn't mean to be. It breaks my heart when she's angry with me. I'd better go help in the kitchen."

  "Don't be silly," he said again, dabbing awkwardly at her cheek. The one thing he didn't want Allie to do was leave him alone with two dozen standoffish strangers. "Meg agreed with you. And I don't want you to go," he admitted selfishly.