Journey

by Patricia MacLachlan

  “Ah, yes….”

  I knew the tone. He didn’t want to say, or he wouldn’t say.

  “The kitten had gone in there,” he said. “Well, good night.”

  “Good night.”

  I heard his footsteps down the hallway and into the kitchen. Then the screen door opened and shut with a small squeak. Out my window I watched him cross the yard and go into the barn, shutting the door behind him. Inside, the barn light went on. Then, as I watched, it went off again.

  * * *

  I am asleep and flying. Cooper and Emmett are there in my dream, and I patiently explain that this is a dream, my flying dream. Cooper smiles at me, and Emmett reaches out a small hand to touch me. “Do you think we could fly, too?” asks Cooper. I am about to say “yes,” but I say “wait” instead.

  * * *

  “Wait!” I said out loud.

  I sat up in bed, awake. Beside me the kittens stirred. I got out of bed and walked to the window. The moon had gone, but the outside light was on. I turned the lamp on beside my bed. It was four o’clock. Bloom, from her box in the closet, made a small sound in her throat. I turned off the light and went down the hallway, barefoot, and out into the yard.

  The moon had set behind the house. I picked my way across the yard, wishing I had thought of shoes. There was dew on the grass and on the stones when I got to the driveway. Very slowly I opened the barn door and slipped inside. I had never been in the barn at night, and there were new shapes and shadows. It did not look like the same place that it was in daylight. It was as if I were still dreaming, as if I had come to a different barn that was like but not like our barn.

  I walked past the grain buckets and the wooden bins; somewhere behind the hay there was a rustle, a mouse or a barn rat. I walked past the stalls to the back of the barn. The door to Grandfather’s back room was closed, but a slice of red light spilled across my bare toes through the space at the bottom of the door. Very carefully I turned the knob. Very slowly I pushed the door open.

  The room was filled with the red light, spilling over the table, over equipment, over my grandfather. There was a sharp, strange smell in the room. Grandfather bent over a tray of liquid, staring at something there. Then he picked up a piece of paper out of the tray.

  Grandfather set Grandma’s metronome going, and it began to click back and forth. Click. Click. Click. I watched it, half hypnotized by the sound and the movement. And then, very slowly, Grandfather turned his head and looked at me. He looked at my pajamas, then down at my feet. Click. Click. Click.

  “Where are your shoes?” he asked, his voice making me jump.

  I opened my mouth to answer him, and then I saw it. Behind Grandfather, hanging on a line, held by clothespins, was my family picture. The picture of the kittens and Bloom in a box, Cooper with his cowboy hat, Cat leaning against Grandmother, and me, lying in Grandfather’s arms, my face turned to the camera with a startled look.

  “What…” I started to speak.

  “Don’t talk for a minute,” said Grandfather, taking what I saw was a picture out of a tray and putting it into another.

  He reached up and turned the red light out and the overhead light on. I blinked, then came closer to the table and looked down. It was the picture of Cooper on his bicycle, his mouth open, looking amazed.

  “The day I drove the car,” I said.

  Grandfather smiled at me.

  “A darkroom,” I said, smiling back at him. “You did this?”

  Grandfather, his hair all tousled, grinned wider.

  He saw me looking at my family picture.

  “That is a fine picture,” he said.

  “Not perfect,” I said. “But…”

  “Good enough,” we said, almost at the same time.

  Then Grandfather lifted his shoulders in a sigh, his face slipping out of his grin.

  “And there’s more, Journey,” he said softly.

  * * *

  In the large envelope are the negatives of Mama’s pictures. Grandfather spreads them out on the table, and I hold one up to the light, my hand trembling. The people in the picture, all white as if they’ve been caught in a flash of sun, stare at me. There is a baby.

  “This one,” I say, my voice a whisper.

  Grandfather nods and hands me another. He watches me as I hold it up.

  It is a man, a baby on his knees. I stare at it for a moment. Then Grandfather reaches up to turn on the red light.

  Grandfather talks softly all the time, his face touched by the glow of the red light, telling me what he’s doing. But I hardly hear his words. He tells me about the enlarger and how it works, but silently I wait and watch as, like a face out of the fog, Mama’s face appears on the paper, Papa beside her, the two of them smiling at the baby who is me. The baby’s hand reaches out and the mother bends toward him. After the shutter clicks she will kiss him.

  I stare at Mama’s face. Then at Papa’s. And something that I’ve been trying to remember appears in my mind suddenly, like a face on a piece of paper. My papa’s face is a face I don’t know. It is a face I don’t remember.

  Grandfather washes the picture and hangs it up to dry. He sucks in his breath with a little whooshing sound.

  “Now,” he says, “the other picture.”

  I put my hand on his arm.

  “I know,” I say. “I already know.”

  Grandfather is not surprised. He smiles a little and looks up at my family picture.

  “I sat on your knees,” I say, “not on Papa’s. And you sang Trot, trot to Boston.’ It was your shirt, your button I remembered.” I pause, then whisper. “It was your face.”

  Grandfather takes down my family picture.

  “And this was when you knew,” Grandfather says.

  I stare at my startled face in the picture as I lay sprawled in Grandfather’s lap.

  * * *

  We turn out the lights and walk out into the barn. I trail my fingers along the wood walls. I touch the hay, as if touching it somehow makes it mine.

  Grandfather reaches over and takes my hand. At the door I stop suddenly.

  “Once they loved me,” I say.

  His hand tightens around mine, and when we open the door and walk out of the barn, the night has gone, and the sun has come up.

  ANOTHER LYRICAL STORY FROM NEWBERY MEDAL WINNER

  Patricia MacLachlan

  Twelve-year-old Larkin returns home one day to discover a baby sitting in a basket in the driveway of her family’s house. The only clue to the baby’s appearance is a note from the child’s mother. “This is Sophie,” the note reads. “She is almost a year old and she is good… I will come back for her one day. I love her.”

  TURN THE PAGE FOR AN EXCERPT FROM THIS

  POIGNANT, RIVETING, AWARD-WINNING NOVEL.

  A Dell Yearling Book

  ISBN: 0-440-41145–9

  Excerpt from Baby by Patricia MacLachlan

  Copyright © 1993 by Patricia MacLachlan

  Published by Dell Yearling

  An imprint of Random House Children’s Books

  A division of Random House, Inc.

  New York

  All rights reserved

  summer’s end

  The memory is this: a blue blanket in a basket that pricks her bare legs, and the ‘world turning over as she tumbles out. A flash of trees, sky, clouds, and the hard driveway of dirt and gravel Then she is lifted up and up and held tight. Kind faces, she remembers, but that might be the later memory of her imagination. Still, when the memory comes, sometimes many times a night and in the day, the arms that hold her are always safe.

  chapter 1

  In the evenings my father danced. All day long he was quiet and stubborn, the editor of the island newspaper. But in the evenings he danced.

  Lalo Baldelli and I sat on the porch swing, clapping our hands over our ears when the six o’clock ferry whistle blew, and inside, as always, my father began to tap-dance on the coffee table. It was a low, tiled table, blue and
green Italian marble. My father loved the sound of his taps on the tiles. He danced every evening before dinner, after his six crackers (Ritz) with cheddar cheese (extra sharp), between the first glass of whiskey that made him happy and the second that made him sad. He always began slowly with “Me and My Shadow,” then “East Side, West Side,” working up to Lalo’s favorite, “I Got Rhythm.” Wherever he was, Lalo would come to our house before dinner so he wouldn’t miss my father’s wild and breathless “I Got Rhythm” that finished with a flourish, hands stretched out as if playing to a large audience. Lalo was the only one who applauded, except later, of course, when Sophie did.

  There was a rhythm to the rest of my family too. When my father began to dance my mother would come out of her studio, covered with paint if her work was not going well; and Grandma Byrd would come up from her afternoon nap, her hair untouched by sleep.

  Today my mother came out onto the porch, carrying a silver bowl that held batter for a cake that would never be baked. She carried spoons for Lalo and me, and the large wooden one for herself.

  “You’ll like this, Larkin,” she said to me, handing me a spoon.

  “What kind?” asked Lalo, peering into the bowl.

  “Spice,” said Mama.

  “That’s much better before it’s baked,” said Lalo.

  Mama smiled at him.

  “You bet,” she said, taking a huge spoonful, then handing us the bowl.

  Mama was covered with flecks and smears of paint, and I could tell by the colors what she was working on. The island. Blue for the water of the island ponds and the sky and the sea; green for the hills—light green for the meadows and fields, dark for the stands of spruce. Mama was a walking landscape. That meant trouble, more paint on Mama than on canvas. That meant she was restless. Mama saw me looking at her clothes.

  “I can’t concentrate,” she said, her voice flat and unhappy.

  The porch window behind me opened.

  “Are you eating batter?” Byrd asked.

  “Spice,” said Mama and Lalo at the same time.

  The window closed, and we heard Byrd slide open the mahogany pocket doors to her room. She appeared on the porch with her own spoon.

  Lalo offered her his seat.

  “My dear,” she murmured, and sat, holding up her hand in what Mama called her queen’s wave.

  Byrd grew up in a grand house with pillars and many porches, and could have been a queen. She was seventy years old with white hair piled on her head, and rows of neck wrinkles like necklaces.

  Byrd said often that she was pleased to have all her faculties. Once, though, after an island party and some punch, she called them facilities, and some townspeople still believed that she had many bathrooms in the house and that she loved them all. Lately she had discovered fancy stockings. Today they were black with jewels that sparkled as she moved. The jewels worked like little prisms, tossing light around, causing spots to tremble on the porch ceiling.

  “Great socks,” said Lalo, making Byrd laugh.

  “Stockings, Lalo,” she corrected him. “One day you may live off island, you know, and you’ll see things you never dreamed of. Including patterned stockings.”

  Lalo looked at Byrd, horrified, his spoon halfway to his mouth.

  “Not me,” he said. “I’ll never leave this island. Everything is here.”

  Mama smiled wistfully.

  “Almost everything,” said Byrd. She sighed. “But I do miss—” She stopped suddenly, and I looked at her, waiting for her to say what I knew she missed. What I missed.

  Mama turned to look at her, too, her eyes sharp and sad at the same time. Then Mama’s expression changed as she looked up at Papa, who stood at the doorway, his face all flushed from tap-dancing.

  “What?” asked Papa, out of breath. “What do you miss?”

  “Something,” said Byrd lightly, her tone changing. “I don’t know just what, but I miss something.”

  “I know,” said Mama. “I’m restless. Tomorrow the last summer ferry leaves. And then?”

  “We get the island back,” Papa said, “and everything will be quiet and peaceful and all ours.”

  “Excitement,” said Byrd suddenly, her face bright with memory. “We need something new and exciting to happen.”

  “Like dinner?” suggested Papa.

  “Oh!” Mama jumped up so quickly that the porch swing almost toppled Byrd. “The pot roast is done. Here.” She gave the batter bowl to Papa.

  “What was this?” he asked, sampling it.

  “That was dessert, dear heart,” said Byrd. She got up very slowly. Then, with a quick smile and a sudden shake of herself, like a wren, she went inside.

  “Such excitement,” said Papa softly. Then he looked at us. “This is enough excitement.” There was a pause. “Isn’t it?” he added, asking himself the question.

  We ate dinner as the sun set; candles on the table, the dinner a yearly celebration that tomorrow the island visitors would leave. The seasons on our island rose and fell in a rhythm like the rise and fall of the tides. Autumn was ours with quick colors, leaves flying until they were gone and we could see the shape of the island. The land rose and fell, too, from the north point where the lighthouse stood, curving down into valleys like hands holding pond water.

  Soon winter would come, the winds shaking the windows of the house, the sea black. Herring gulls would sit out of the wind on our porch, watching for spring that would come so fast and cold, we would hardly know it was there. Then summer, visitors would come off the ferry again, flooding us, the air heavy with their voices. And again, at summer’s end they would be gone like the tide, leaving behind small signs of themselves: a child’s pail with a broken handle, a tiny white sock by the water’s edge. Bits and pieces of them left like good-byes.

  Suddenly, as we ate, a gull flew low over the house, its crazy shriek startling us. We looked up, then at each other. Nervous looks and laughter. But there was nothing to be nervous about on that day.

  It was the next day, after the last ferry took the summer people away, that it happened.

  chapter 2

  Puffs of wind came off the water, sending Lalo’s hat flying down the beach. He ran after it, small sprays of sand sent up by his feet. A kite whirled and dipped, suddenly plunging into the water. There was a group sigh behind us, summer tourists on the porch of Lalo’s parents’ hotel. They stood like birds on a line, their bags all packed, faces red, noses peeling from summer sun. Summer’s end.

  “Lalo!” Mr. Baldelli called from the porch, and we ran up to carry bags to the hotel truck, hoping for tips.

  “My umbrella, don’t forget, Larkin,” called Mrs. Bloom. Mrs. Bloom came every summer, bringing her beach umbrella, her chair, and her little hairy dog whose full name was Craig Walter. I took the yellow umbrella from Mrs. Bloom. In her arms Craig bared his teeth at me.

  The Willoughbys clutched handfuls of wildflowers, almost gone by. Their children lugged suitcases of rocks, dead horseshoe crabs, and sea urchins that would crumble before they got home.

  Lalo and I sat on the back of the truck for the short ride along the beach road to the dock. We passed people on bicycles, their baskets filled. We passed parents walking with children, babies in backpacks, dogs loping nose to the ground behind them.

  At the dock cars were already lined up waiting to leave. Griffey and his musical group were there, playing “Roll Out the Barrel,” the only song they knew. Griffey played accordion and Rollie the fiddle. Arthur played his saxophone, and old man Brick played only three notes on his bagpipe: major, minor, and “something diminished,” as Mama put it.

  Papa was there saying good-bye to summer people. I could see the stubble on his face, the beginnings of his yearly winter beard that he shaved off every June before the tourists returned. Byrd and Mama were there, too, Byrd’s legs sparkling, her hair blown like tossed snow. Mama handed a wrapped package to a woman, then smiled at Lalo and me across the dock because she had sold a painting. A child in ove
ralls ran toward the dock’s edge, arms up, until his laughing father caught him up in his arms, swinging him over his head. A young woman holding a baby stood near, watching us. A dogfight began, then ended as owners pulled on their leashes.

  The cars, all stuffed with suitcases and sleeping bags and coolers, beach chairs tied on top, began to move onto the ferry. Then the bicycles were wheeled on.

  “Good-bye!” called Mrs. Bloom, waving one of Craig’s small paws at us.

  “Good-bye!” we shouted back.

  And the gates were closed with a metal clang, the huge lines tossed on board.

  Surprisingly, Griffey, Rollie, Arthur, and old man Brick began a new song.

  “Whatever?” exclaimed Mama behind me.

  “They’ve learned something new,” cried Lalo.

  “What is it?” I asked. “‘Amazing Grace,’” said Papa, grinning. The bland Queen moved off, and my mother began to laugh. Byrd sang in her old voice:

  Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

  That saved a wretch like me!

  I once was lost, but now am found;

  Was blind, but now I see.

  As the boat reached the breakwater we all put our hands to our ears as the whistle blew. Above, the sky was ice-blue, low clouds skimming across, and without the noise like one of Mama’s paintings. And then it was quiet, a handful of us left: Griffey and the boys packing up their instruments, Lalo’s father hosing down his truck at the dock’s edge, islanders walking away. A couple I didn’t know held hands. Maybe they would fly out tonight on the small plane. The woman holding the baby still watched us. A cloud slipped in front of the sun.

  Summer’s end.

  “Your mom cried,” said Lalo as we walked up from the water through the fields.

  “She always cries at the end of summer,” I said. “At the end of anything. At weddings.” I looked at Lalo. “And parades.”

  Lalo burst out laughing. The Fourth of July parade was led by Griffey’s goat and the sewer-pump truck, and still my mama cried.

  Lalo and I sat on the rock by the pond. Water bugs skimmed along the surface; a fish jumped, sending out circle after circle. Way off in the distance the ferry was a small dot, getting smaller, a thread of smoke rising from its stack.