by Ursula Hegi
“There,” Opal cried out.
A sudden flicker at the bottom of the pitcher.
“Photocytes,” Pete said. “They have photocytes, cells that make the light.”
“I want…” Opal waved the seaweed around till the flickers rose, illuminating her little fist in the pitcher. “I want…”
“Agnes was the size of a muskrat,” Annie said.
“I think of her as St. Agnes now that she’s dead,” Aunt Stormy told her.
“Not just the size. She looked like a big muskrat.”
Mason felt Annie’s eyes pressing at him in the dark. “Don’t listen to her, Opal.”
“My mother,” Annie said, “called her the Rodent.”
In the dark, Aunt Stormy chuckled, softly. “St. Agnes—I want you to know—was part poodle and part terrier—”
“—and part rodent,” Annie said.
Mason elbowed her. “Opal, look at those flickers you’re making.”
“We’ll return the lumis to the bay in the morning,” Pete said.
“I WANT TO be in the sauna.”
“Four is not old enough,” Mason said.
Opal splashed him. “Is five old enough?”
“Maybe once you’re seven,” Annie said.
Mason nodded. “We’ll ask your pediatrician.”
“No!” She swam over to Jake, held on to his neck. “I want Dr. Pagucci!”
“Dr. Pagucci only does splinters,” Jake said.
A few weeks earlier, when Opal had had a splinter under her foot, he’d invented Dr. Pagucci for her. Dr. Pagucci knew how to undo splinters, tears, and bad luck. Jake had made a splinter kit like the one his mother used to have in her first aid box, using one of his mother’s empty lipstick tubes with three sewing needles inside. He would take off his glasses to inspect splinters, poke at them with his needle, and tell Opal stories of graduating from splinter school. Afterward, he’d draw a smile with ears on the Band-Aid.
“I want Dr. Pagucci!” Opal dug her fingers into Jake’s pale hair.
“That hurts. Stop it.” Jake turned her around, gave her a gentle nudge away from him. “Dr. Pagucci’s office hours are over. Besides, he only operates on solid ground.”
Mason held out his arms. “Over here, Stardust. Over—”
But she flung herself toward Annie. “Tell me the story of how I began.”
Mason dove, eyes open…dove along the bottom of the pond, through green-brown water. I’m always last with Opal. If she couldn’t have Jake or Annie, she turned to him. But only then. She didn’t mean to hurt him. But then why did it feel so awful? They don’t need me. Could assemble themselves as a family around Opal. Leave me out. Especially since Opal isn’t mine. Comes as a package with Annie.
Underwater, Opal’s legs were scrambling against Annie. If I want to, I can pull her down…like some big turtle hunting a duckling. Every spring on Aunt Stormy’s inlet, turtles and ospreys snapped up many of those baby fuzzball ducklings that skidded across the surface like tennis balls.
He popped up behind Jake, tickled him roughly.
Jake elbowed him away. “Start acting your age.”
“You began inside the same space where I got started too,” Annie was telling Opal.
Mason swam on his back, kicked his feet softly so he could hear.
“Inside our mom…,” Opal said. “Many many many years before me.”
“Nineteen years. Because I was already nineteen when you lived inside that space—”
“All blue inside…blue light.”
“That’s how our mother imagined it…with the baby levitating in that light.”
“You could feel me move.”
“From the outside, yes…when I touched our mom’s belly.”
“Tell me about my foot.” That was Opal’s favorite part of the story, one she liked to hear again and again.
“Your foot…like a quick step—”
“Tell me about my fist.”
“Your fist, suddenly pushing out, your tiny fist—”
“I punched you.”
Annie laughed. “You did.”
“And you already loved me.”
“Oh yes…you were very real to me.”
“Because our mom let you touch her belly…and we danced together.”
“Yes, on my wedding day.”
Mason swam closer.
“Now tell me the story of the ring.”
Annie lifted her right hand from the water, showed Opal the ring that used to be their mother’s. “Our dad gave our mom an opal instead of a diamond.”
Opal’s fingers closed around the ring. “When my hands get big, I’ll wear it.”
“Yes, we’ll take turns.”
Opal splayed her fingers against Annie’s. “My hand is too little.”
“It’s growing every day,” Mason said.
“For sure?”
“For sure,” he said. “Now who wants nasty fortunes?”
“Me,” Opal yelled, flinging herself in his direction.
Mason caught her.
“I have a date,” Jake said.
“Bring her along.” Mason laughed as he swung Opal around. “Look look—your toes are drawing a circle of splash.”
AT THE NASTY fortune restaurant, Ice Queen 5 was appalled by her fortune. “Listen to this: ‘You are no good and you will never amount to anything.’ ”
“That means you make good decisions,” Jake interpreted.
“Better than mine.” Annie read hers aloud: “ ‘You are a despicable person and bad things will come to you.’ ”
“Listen to mine,” Mason said. “ ‘Your spirit is mean and your soul will be lost forever.’ ”
Ice Queen 5 shook her head. “They’re horrible.”
Jake nodded. “And unpredictable. That’s what we love about them.”
Opal held up her fortune. “Mine. Read mine.”
“I’ll read it for you.” Mason pulled her onto his lap. Kissed the top of her red hair. “Hmm…” He covered the slip of paper.
“Read, Mason!”
Ice Queen 5 leaned over his arm and read Opal’s fortune. “Let me,” she said quickly. “Here, this is what it says, Opal. ‘You are intelligent and generous and courageous.’ ”
Opal shrieked. “Not nasty.”
“Maybe a nice fortune got in there by mistake. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Annie glared at her. “Wouldn’t that be terrible?”
“Because we certainly don’t come here for the food,” Jake said.
“I want nasty—” Opal kicked and slapped at the table.
“I got her.” Mason contained her arms and legs. “Sshhh…” He buffered her with his body from harming herself as she bounced herself against him in a frenzy. “Sshhh…“ Outwaiting her, as he often did.
Ice Queen 5 brought her hand to her lips. “Is she having a seizure?”
“Of course not,” Annie snapped.
“Tell you what,” Mason whispered to Opal. “When you stop your tizzy, Annie will read your real fortune.”
Annie nodded. “I’ll wait till you’re ready, Opal.”
Opal whimpered. Sniffled. “Nasty…”
“Oh, this one is nasty. Ready?”
“Ready…”
“Let me make sure I read it correctly. ‘Your brain is melting, and your nose is stuffed.’ ”
“Gross.” Opal clapped her hands.
“Whoever writes these…things?” Ice Queen 5 asked.
“Someone very talented,” Annie said.
“A sadist. I don’t think they’re healthy for children.”
“Healthier than the fortunes that praise them for things they haven’t done,” Jake said.
“At least those are funny.”
“Oh, but these are much funnier,” Jake said.
“I don’t see the humor in them.”
“How sad.” Jake raised his eyebrows. Yawned. “Opal seems tired.”
Mason knew the cue. Jake wanted to get rid of his
date and meet up with him and Annie. “You’re right,” he said. “Opal does seem tired.”
“I’m exhausted too,” Jake told Ice Queen 5. “Ready for me to take you home?”
WHEN MASON got Opal ready for bed, Annie said, “They’re all clones of the original Ice Queen. You think we should stop numbering them?”
“You never like his dates,” Mason said.
“I want someone more…fascinating for Jake.”
“Someone like you?”
“That again?”
“Indeed, that again.” He switched on the baby monitor next to Opal’s bed.
“I’m not a baby,” she protested.
“That’s not why we use it,” Annie said. “It’s only for when we’re in the pond or sauna.”
They were already skinny-dipping when Jake arrived.
In the sauna, he scooped water with a ladle across the coals, and steam swelled around them. At first he settled on the upper bench with Mason, but he said it was too hot for him and moved to where Annie was stretched out on the lower bench.
Soon they both streaked out. To prove that he could endure the sauna longer than they, Mason stayed on the top tier, where the heat gathered, listening to them holler as they leapt into the pond. He waited a few seconds beyond where he could bear it no longer. Only then did he dash out into the cold, instantly alert, skin prickling. A cold house keeps you alert.
WHEN JAKE and Mason removed the linoleum floors in the pond house, they discovered wide oak boards, the color of maple syrup. They sanded them, sealed them with satin varnish.
At an estate auction in Dover, Annie bought an Oriental rug, still vibrant except for two holes worn into the center. But she darned the holes and wove woolen strands into her darning, almost matching the rest of the rug.
By spring, Opal was talking about the Hungry Ghost and what she wanted the ghost to take away.
“Seeds in oranges.”
“Earaches.”
“Naps. All naps.”
Aunt Stormy encouraged her to draw pictures. “We’ll make a ghost box. And inside we’ll store slips of paper with messages for the Hungry Ghost.”
“Is the box part of the Chinese custom?” Mason asked.
“No, I keep adapting the ritual.”
On pink slips of paper, Aunt Stormy wrote what made her angry—tailgating, entitlement, all the dictators of the world, outrageous car repair bills, ads that cultivated greed—and stuffed them into the box.
Her neighbors saved their worn bamboo rakes for the ghost’s hands, and when it came time for the burning that August, Opal gathered twigs for the flames.
IN WINTER, he liked to rub snow against his cheeks after coming from the sauna. A coldness that didn’t sting but refreshed him, made him feel nutty. Nutty became their word that winter. Opal started using it too. Everything was nutty.
Especially the eco-nuts at the private school where Jake taught science. The eco-nuts were his most dedicated students, as passionate about saving the earth as other adolescents were about sex. One afternoon a week Jake took them out in the school van to study and clean up the environment.
Mason was a fund-raiser now. For New Hampshire Peace Initiative, the only organization he’d wanted to work for since his internship. The two women who’d founded NHPI were so taken by his enthusiasm that they created a job for him.
But Annie had another year in school. Four of her collages, all from the Pond Series, were in a group exhibition in Boston. She’d been working on those images from the day they’d moved here. Mason’s favorite was of the barn leaning toward the pond as if about to drop into its own reflection.
Opening night, he stood with Annie in front of a collage she’d finished a week ago after driving toward their house and finding the sky in the pond, clouds and blues in the sheer pearl-white of morning.
“There’s something elusive in your collages,” an academic type told her. Probably some teaching assistant. Or eternal student.
“Thank you.” Annie smiled.
“What do you mean by elusive?” Mason inquired.
“That you get one moment so fully,” the man answered to Annie, “while already showing how it’s changing.”
“That’s what I’m after.” She tucked her hair behind one ear. More copper than red tonight. As if borrowing from the copper dress she wore.
“Well, you are doing it.”
“I’m so glad that comes through to you.”
“It’s a characteristic of my wife’s work,” Mason told him. “I’ve seen it develop over the years.” He wanted to make love to her against that collage. Wanted to be the light that made her transform what she saw. Wanted the admiration she was getting. Wanted to be her inspiration. Wanted it all to come through him and for nothing to matter to her except their love. Whatever came out of that love would enhance her work. But there must be nothing to come ahead.
OPAL ADORED BigC, who let her swim in the indoor pool that was surrounded by an endless mural of a Mediterranean landscape. Greek-looking buildings. Lots of columns and gardens. Everything was the wrong size. Buildings smaller than rocks. Jars larger than people. Black moss shimmers on rocks, makes them look mottled, weird.
“Ghastly,” Annie said the first time she saw the mural. “The way Lucian Freud paints skin.”
Realtors warned BigC’s prospective tenants that she’d spy on them. But even tenants who were sure they wouldn’t let her in didn’t know how to send her away when she stopped by to bring them additional keys, or to pick up steaks she supposedly forgot in her freezer, or to show them how to close her sun umbrellas properly. On the patio were so many chairs and tables and umbrellas and flowerpots that Jake said it looked like one of those places along Route 27 that sold outdoor furniture.
Part of the rental package was Aunt Stormy, who maintained the house and was supposed to call BigC if tenants trashed it. But she said BigC was good to work for. Respectful and generous. Every spring she gave a benefit for the women’s shelter.
One afternoon, when BigC was installing wind socks along the railings of her boardwalk, Aunt Stormy said, “She only gets weird when it comes to ducks. She likes watching them in the water but gets savage when they land on her boardwalk.”
“The ducks may not quite understand her reasons,” Mason said.
“She once told me that people who pay a shitload of rent have every right not to want to wade through duck shit.”
“Weird enough,” Annie said, “but how much is a shitload?”
“You don’t want to know.” Aunt Stormy shook her head. “Fifty thousand.”
“Per year?”
“Oh no. Memorial Day to Labor Day. Pays her mortgage year round.”
“That’s crazy.”
“It is getting crazy out here. Places selling for many times what they cost a few years ago. Grown kids of local people can’t afford to live here. It creates resentment. Last year, a lot of the locals were angry when summer people suggested we do our grocery shopping during the week, so that stores wouldn’t be so crowded on weekends. You should have seen the letters to the editor.”
“That whole thing of how we share space…” Annie said. “It’s so complicated.”
MASON KNOCKED on the door of her studio. “Can you help me with something?”
“Depends on what it is,” Annie shouted.
“Moving the Wall of China.”
“What?” She opened her door. Frowned at him as though he’d yanked her away from something more important.
“You need to learn to be interrupted.”
“I can’t work with you here.”
“You work with Opal here.”
“Not fully.”
“I stop what I’m doing when you—”
“When you’re here, I count on you to take care of her, to give me some time alone.”
“I wish I’d never built the studio for you.”
To compete with Jake’s Dr. Pagucci, Mason made up a story of his own, about a bratty girl, Melissan
dra, who happened to be always just one day younger than Opal. Melissandra had a night job in a lollipop factory, where she ate the lopsided lollipops so they wouldn’t get sent to stores.
Opal adored Melissandra, and the story became a ritual at bedtime.
“What’s your favorite flavor, Melissandra?” Opal asked him one evening.
“My flavor-favorite? What do you think?” Mason said in his Melissandra voice.
“Red lollipops.”
“I figured you knew.”
“What else do you like to eat?” Opal asked.
Mason grimaced. “Nothing else. Just lollipops. And I never ever say please or thank you, because that’s just stuff grown-ups want me to say.”
“You get into lots of trouble?”
He loved it when he could coax her into giggling like this. “All kinds of good trouble.”
“Like what?”
He lowered his voice. “Like tying my teacher’s shoelaces together.”
Opal’s eyelids closed. Opened again. “What else, Melissandra?”
“Sometimes I smear toothpaste on the chalk, and when my teacher picks it up, her hands get all yucky.” In his normal voice, Mason added, “Go to sleep now, Stardust.”
SUNDAY MORNING, and Mason slept in late. When he got up, Annie was by the window, reading in the rocking recliner.
“Where’s Opal?” He poured a cup of coffee.
“In her playhouse.”
“Look at her dancing, Annie.”
Opal was twirling from the playhouse Mason’s parents had given her for her birthday, arms snaking high in the air. When she reached the tulip tree, her fingers snatched pink-white blossoms.
“Opal,” Annie called, “come inside.”
“She can’t hear you.”
“She’s wrecking the tree.”
But he was siding with Opal, who was scattering petals, spinning through a shower of pink and white. “This is how I want her to remember today…blossoms all around her—”
“You let her get away with everything.” Annie headed for the door. “Opal. Now.”
“Don’t—” He snagged her around the middle. “Her joy matters more than any tree.”