The Silver Moon of Summer

by Leila Howland

  Zinnie nodded, knowing that sometimes words felt right the moment they were spoken, and that other times they took some catching up to before they became real. It was like her dad’s advice about talking to a tree. When he’d first told her to do it, it’d seemed ridiculous. But then later, when she had actually spoken to the great, leafy beech out of pure desperation, her father’s instructions had felt as essential as the green grass beneath her feet. It was as though certain words were waiting ahead of her, farther down the timeline, to feel true. She hoped that was the case here. Because right now, it felt like happiness was a pie, and Marigold always got the bigger slice.

  19 • A Moody Sailor & a Clueless Sister

  “Mom, isn’t it so exciting?” Marigold said into the phone the next morning. She couldn’t wait to share the news about playing the waitress. It was only six in morning in Los Angeles, but she knew that her mom would be awake because she was an early riser. Marigold sat on the sofa in Aunt Sunny’s living room, where the only phone in the house was. The morning light came through the window, placing Marigold in a rectangle of sunshine. Aunt Sunny and Tony had left for work, and Zinnie and Lily were waiting their turn to speak with their parents—or at least their mom. Their dad was almost certainly still sleeping. He was a night owl.

  “It’s incredible, honey,” Mom said. “I’m so proud of you. Your dad and I are counting down the days until we get to see you again. This house is just too quiet without you.”

  “Oh, and I haven’t even told you the best news yet,” Marigold said.

  “Better than a role in a TV show directed by Philip Rathbone?” Mom asked.

  “Maybe they’re equally as good,” Marigold said. “I met the coolest girl ever here. She’s actually Mr. Rathbone’s niece. Her name is Chloe, and she’s going to Performing Arts Magnet next year.”

  “That is awesome news,” Mom said. “I wonder where she lives. Maybe we can carpool together?”

  “That’s the best idea ever, Mom,” Marigold said, and already she could picture Chloe and her listening to playlists in the car together, comparing notes about classes, and discussing all the amazing projects they’d probably be collaborating on.

  “It’s my turn!” Lily said from the other side of the sofa.

  “But leave some time for me,” Zinnie said, pointing to the clock. “We need to have Lily at camp soon.”

  Marigold nodded. “Okay, Mom, Lily and Zinnie want to talk to you, too, so I’d better go! I love you.”

  “I love you, too, sweetie!” Mom said.

  “Give Dad a hug for me,” Marigold added, and then handed the phone to Lily.

  As Marigold went into the kitchen to pack Lily’s lunch, she realized that she had been unable to stop smiling since she’d received the phone call last night. Her other worries seemed to have shrunk as her happiness had grown. As she spread peanut butter on bread for Lily’s sandwich, she wondered if the reverse was true, too. If she’d gotten bad news, would her worries and negative feelings about things have grown and her capacity for happiness shriveled? Maybe this is what had happened to Peter when he’d learned about Mr. Rathbone taking over the yacht club. His bad mood had taken over, keeping his feelings for Marigold out of sight. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her anymore, she realized with sweet relief. It was that he had, in a way, forgotten about the good things in his life. Like her.

  Later, after Marigold and Zinnie had dropped Lily off at camp and discussed the plan for the day with Jean, they saw Chloe at the yacht club. They were on their way out, and she was on her way in.

  “Going to help your uncle?” Marigold asked, then felt slightly foolish. Of course that was what she was doing.

  “Yep,” said Chloe. “Congratulations on your part!”

  “Thanks,” said Marigold.

  “And sorry, Zinnie,” Chloe said.

  “It’s okay,” Zinnie said with a shrug.

  “Sorry for what?” Marigold asked.

  “I auditioned too, remember?” Zinnie said.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Marigold said. “Anyway, Chloe, I was talking to my mom this morning, and we were wondering where you live because we thought it might be fun to carpool over to PAM together.”

  “I think I’m taking the bus,” Chloe said.

  “There’s a bus?” Marigold asked, but before Chloe had a chance to answer, Peter walked up, looking as grumpy as ever.

  “Hi, Peter,” Marigold said, recalling her revelation from this morning. She was determined to help him remember that there were a lot of positives in the world, even in the face of his disappointment.

  “Are you going sailing now?” Marigold asked.

  “Not here,” Peter said. “I don’t have access to the docks. I’m just looking for Mom. Then I have to try to find a new skipper.”

  “You know, I actually took six sailing lessons this year in California,” Marigold said. “My instructor called me a natural.”

  “That’s cool,” Peter said.

  “I’m just saying, if you needed someone to fill in . . . ,” Marigold said.

  Peter smiled, the first genuine smile she’d seen in days. “That’s really nice of you. I’m not sure if that’s enough experience, though. No offense. Most these kids have been sailing since they were five years old.”

  “Oh,” Marigold said, her cheeks growing warm with embarrassment. She should’ve known that. Still, Peter’s smile hadn’t yet faded.

  “You must be a good sailor,” Chloe said.

  Peter nodded.

  “He’s an awesome sailor, actually. Oh, Peter, this is Chloe,” Marigold said, introducing her friend. “And Chloe, this is Peter.”

  “You two haven’t met yet?” Zinnie asked. Peter and Chloe both shook their heads. “Because she—”

  “Really likes Pruet and she’s our friend,” Marigold said. She didn’t want to reveal that Chloe was Mr. Rathbone’s niece. The last thing she needed was for Peter to start talking about how much he didn’t like the Hollywood people right now.

  “I’m sailing with a buddy over in Omgansett today,” Peter said.

  “Cavorting with your rivals?” Zinnie asked.

  “It’s my only option,” Peter said. “Since my parents rented out the yacht club to those—”

  “I think that’s great,” Marigold said. Peter cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe you’ll pick up some of their team strategies.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Peter said. Marigold beamed. She was definitely lightening his bad mood.

  “I bet it’s going to be fun,” Marigold said.

  “I don’t know, they think they’re so great because their sail bags cost like two hundred bucks each,” Peter said. “Why would anyone spend that much on a bag? All you do with a bag is put stuff in it!”

  Chloe laughed. “That’s so true!”

  “Marigold once saved her allowance for a bag that cost—” Zinnie started, but Marigold interrupted.

  “See you later, Peter,” Marigold said.

  “See ya,” Peter said, and walked toward the club.

  “I’d better get going, too,” Chloe said.

  “Hey, do you think your uncle might let me come and watch one of these days? It would be perfect for my blog,” Zinnie said.

  “Zinnie, I don’t think—” Marigold started.

  “It’s fine,” Chloe said. “You can hang out with me. We’ll just stay out of his way. The trick is to be really quiet and just observe.”

  “Oh, I can do that. That’s what writers do,” Zinnie said.

  Yeah right, thought Marigold. Zinnie may be a good writer, but her staying quiet and out of the way? Now that was unlikely.

  20 • The Oldest House in Pruet

  After Zinnie had helped Marigold convince Ashley to be the emcee of the sand castle building competition, which didn’t take much since Ashley loved to speak in a loud voice and take charge of a crowd, Zinnie returned to Aunt Sunny’s so that she could work on her blog. She was delighted when she saw that she had email with the sub
ject “Pruet adventure.” It was from someone named Brave13. “Follow River Road all the way to the end. Climb over the stone wall and walk through the pasture with the hay bales. Take a left. Check out the old house and then walk a hundred steps back into the woods. Climb.”

  What was she supposed to climb? A tree? It didn’t matter. She would climb a mountain if that’s what was waiting for her. Aunt Sunny’s plan to spread the word about her blog had worked. Someone was helping her find adventure in Pruet! As she changed into her sneakers, applied sunscreen, and filled her water bottle, she wondered who Brave13 was. Maybe Ashley? She had told her about her blog in great detail. But Ashley wasn’t the type to do something undercover. She’d just come out and say, “It’s me!” She’d also told Chloe, but Chloe barely knew anything about Pruet. Then she remembered that Max had mentioned a mystery. Maybe this was it, or part of it anyway. Her heart pounded in her chest and a smile spread across her face.

  She followed the directions that Brave13 had given her and sure enough she came to a house that was tiny and set back from the road. From where she stood she could see a plaque with words written on it. She felt a bit like Goldilocks, but she decided to walk up to the house and read the plaque, and it said:

  This is the oldest house in Pruet. It was built in 1632 by James Pruet. He lived here with Eliza Pruet and their three children: Susannah, Patience, and Obadiah.

  This had to be the old house that Brave13 was referring to. It really was an old house—1632 was so long ago it was hard to fathom. That was way before the United States was even a country. Zinnie wondered how this house was still standing. Did anyone live inside of it now? There were no cars nearby, but there was another plaque. It read: “Owned by the Pruet Historical Society. Open on Thursdays from 12–2 p.m.”

  Huh. It was some sort of museum. She took a selfie in front of the plaque, making sure the date 1632 was in the frame. Then she tucked her phone into her back pocket. Brave13’s directions had instructed her to go past the house a hundred feet. She checked to see if anyone was around and then counted her steps aloud. She walked past some trees into a small clearing, and that’s when she saw the tree with planks nailed into it for climbing. She looked up, and there was a tree house! It was small but enchanting, with a roof and a window and a little door. It was pretty high up there, too. This was without a doubt her destination! She snapped a few more pictures and then climbed. A bird squawked nearby. The wood was rough against her skin. She even scraped her knee on one of the planks, but it didn’t stop her.

  She was sweating when she hurled herself through the little door and into the small house. The infinity symbol was engraved on the inside. “Infinity,” Zinnie said as she traced her finger along the sign. She leaned out the window, where there was an amazing view of the ocean. “Hello!” she called to no one in particular. She felt very much alone, but not at all lonely. Instead, the joy of discovery was running through her veins.

  This is a place for something significant to happen, she wrote in her notebook. Just being here makes me feel important somehow. How could a place like this exist without it being crowded with people who wanted to use it? Had Aunt Sunny ever been here? Had Peter? Whose tree house was this? Was it Max’s? Who built it? Tony? When? Did it even matter? Zinnie decided that it didn’t. A place as beautiful as this belonged to the whole world. The question was, should she tell the world about it or keep it between herself and Max? If she blogged about it, would that ruin it?

  After writing her thoughts down, she descended the ladder, which was a lot scarier than climbing up it, and made her way back to Aunt Sunny’s. As she walked, she decided that she had to write about the tree house. She couldn’t keep it inside. She scrolled though the pictures she’d taken, and they were just too awesome to keep to herself.

  When she got back to Aunt Sunny’s, she was thirsty and eager to get to work. She gulped down a glass of lemonade and brought her laptop to her spot in the backyard. Tony was by the garage, wiping down the canoe.

  “Hey, Tony,” Zinnie said as she sat down at the picnic bench.

  “Hi there, Zinnie. You girls are going to have an awful lot of fun in this canoe,” he said. “It’s all cleaned up and ready for the trip.”

  “I can’t wait,” Zinnie said, and powered up her laptop. “Do you know anything about a secret tree house?”

  “You mean the one by the oldest house?” Tony asked.

  “Yeah,” Zinnie said.

  “Of course I do. I built it with my friends back when I was your age. Gosh, is that thing still standing? How’d you find out about it?”

  “Someone sent me an email about it because of my blog,” Zinnie said. “I think it was Max.”

  “I think it was too,” Tony said. “He must really like you.”

  “Why is that?” Zinnie asked, brightening.

  “It’s the year-rounders’ secret,” Tony said. “People don’t know where it is. It’s only for the locals.”

  “Oh. Should I not write about it for my blog?” Zinnie asked.

  “I think it’d make a great blog post. Just don’t tell anyone where it is,” Tony said with a wink.

  “Good idea.” Something about what Tony was doing didn’t quite make sense. Then she put her finger on it. “Wait a second,” Zinnie said. “You told me last year that you don’t know how to fix up boats.”

  “I didn’t,” Tony said. “Until your aunt told me about her plans to take you out in this lovely canoe for the fun fourteenth. That’s when I decided I needed to learn, so I did a lot of research and asked some experts around town. And sure enough, I figured it out. Don’t worry, now. I’ll be testing it out for you.”

  “I’m not worried,” Zinnie said. “My future depends on having adventures.”

  21 • Spirits in the Lighthouse

  “And this is where the lighthouse keeper used to sleep,” Marigold said, taking Chloe up the spiral staircase to a tiny bedroom, with a big round window, at the top of the lighthouse. It had nothing but a double bed, a woven rug, and a little dresser in it.

  Aunt Sunny didn’t feel comfortable with the girls sleeping here by themselves, but it was where their parents were going to stay when they came to visit. Personally, Marigold thought it would be a little spooky to stay here. The wind made the floors creak, and if she was very quiet, it sounded like the walls were whispering. She preferred to be out on the deck in the open air, especially since she had yet to try the diving board!

  As they walked up the stairs, Chloe was light on her feet in her ballet flats. She seemed almost fairylike in her movements. I should learn how to be that graceful, Marigold thought. I should definitely take some dance classes at PAM next year. Maybe I can even take some classes with Chloe. Marigold also loved what Chloe was wearing today: rolled-up boyfriend jeans, a black tank top, and a choker necklace with a red rose in the middle of it. Zinnie, clomping in her sneakers and humming something, was like an elephant behind Chloe. Sometimes it seemed like Zinnie’s presence took up twice the space of everyone else’s.

  “This place is amazing,” Chloe said, snapping pictures with her phone as they gathered in the small room. “Like something from a fairy tale.”

  “Or a poem,” Zinnie said.

  “So true,” Chloe said, smiling at Zinnie, who beamed back.

  Ugh, Marigold thought. Why did Zinnie have to insert herself into the conversation? Why couldn’t she just give Marigold some space?

  “People are free to hang out with whoever they want,” Mom had said to Marigold earlier this year when she was having trouble with Pilar and the Cuties. “And if they don’t want to hang out with you, that’s their loss. But you just can’t control what other people want, even if it hurts your feelings. Who wants to be friends with people who don’t want to spend time with you anyway?”

  “Not me,” Marigold had said, feeling temporarily empowered. But the truth was that even though Pilar had chosen the Cuties over her, she still wanted to hang out with her sometimes.

  Z
innie just didn’t seem to have these problems as much. Sure, there had been the girls who had bullied her about her Stuffels at the beginning of the school year, but Zinnie had taken it in stride. It didn’t seem to have hurt her the same way that Pilar and the Cuties had hurt Marigold. They had been the main reason she’d wanted to go to PAM, even though that would mean venturing out into the unknown. So she couldn’t believe her luck at meeting Chloe. If only Zinnie would step out of the way, maybe Chloe would see what a good friend Marigold was.

  Marigold had said that morning that she was going to meet Chloe at the lighthouse after she finished helping Jean gather and coordinate decorating supplies for the ice cream social. When Zinnie announced that she was coming too, Marigold had very nicely explained that this was a high school gathering. But Zinnie just didn’t get the hint. She’d said, “Eighth grade is close enough! What’s the big deal?”

  Aunt Sunny was at the kitchen sink, washing the breakfast dishes as Marigold swept the floor and Zinnie wiped down the table. Lily was upstairs getting dressed. Aunt Sunny wasn’t intervening, but Marigold knew that very little escaped her aunt’s attention. I will not fight with my sister, Marigold reminded herself.

  “But then who’s going to take care of Lily?” Marigold asked.

  “She can come too,” Zinnie said.

  “Or you can bring her to my office,” Aunt Sunny said. “I’m going out into the field today to check on the plover habitats, and I think Lily would love to come. Maybe you would too, Zinnie?”

  “Thanks, Aunt Sunny,” Zinnie said. “But I think I’d rather go to the lighthouse.”

  “That’s perfectly understandable,” Aunt Sunny said, drying her hands on a dish towel. “I’m going to go check on your sister.”

  Marigold had been hoping that Zinnie would find something else to do this afternoon—like one of her adventures—but nope. Here she was.

  “Yeah,” Marigold said. “It’s pretty cool.”

  “Pretty cool?” Chloe said as she took in the tiny room with its view of the sea. “It’s the coolest place ever. Do you know when it was built?”