“Now you’ll be sick again,” he told Stephen. “You look worn out.”
He gave me a curt look of dismissal, but I didn’t like what was happening and I followed them into Stephen’s living room.
“I’m going to put him to bed now,” Paul said pointedly.
I felt cross and obstinate, and I wouldn’t fall into the easy trap of talking as though Stephen weren’t present. I didn’t wish to let my anger go.
“Do you want to be put to bed, Stephen?” I asked.
Stephen looked at me, questioning. “I’ll sit outside for a while,” he told Paul. “I can manage that myself, and I don’t need to be watched.”
Paul regarded us derisively. “That’s fine with me. I’ve just told Julian that I’ll be leaving in a couple of weeks. He can pass the word along to Everett.”
I couldn’t tell whether this news upset Stephen or not. He spoke quietly enough. “Why are you doing this now, Paul?”
“I’m not much good when nobody listens to me.” Paul threw a critical look my way. “Things have been different since she came.”
Again Stephen spoke quietly. “I owe you a lot, Paul, and I’m grateful for the way you took hold after my accident. But I can do more for myself now, and perhaps a simpler arrangement will work out. Emory can fill in fine for the present.”
“Sure,” Paul said. He looked both relieved and a bit put out at having his announcement accepted so easily. I wondered how much this move had to do with what Vivian and I had discovered at Oleander Acres. Paul might prefer to be safely away before any rumors reached Everett Asche.
Stephen turned his wheelchair toward the deck, and I went upstairs to look for Julian. By this time I felt increasingly uneasy. With my young patients I always knew that no matter how deeply I cared and empathized, I must hold myself sufficiently apart so that I could function without being involved to the point of my own destruction.
Here, I cared desperately about both Jilly and Stephen. Yet I couldn’t help anyone unless I could first of all help myself. Paul’s leaving might prove an advantage for Stephen, and I suspected that he might do better without him. However, until all that was tormenting both Stephen and Jilly could be resolved, neither would be free. Nor could I be free either—that was my trap.
I found Julian in his study with manuscript strewn on his desk and a half page written on a sheet in his typewriter. Jilly, perched on a corner of his desk, was talking as I walked in.
“I don’t feel like Amber,” she was protesting unhappily. “How can I know that’s who I am?”
“Just be yourself.” Julian’s tone was reassuring. “We can’t always remember who we were before. Perhaps I wouldn’t have known about this myself, if I hadn’t been told.”
Jilly didn’t question that, or ask who had told him, but at the sight of me she slipped down from the desk and started toward the door. On the way she gave me a look that seemed a mingling of hope and distrust. Clearly she didn’t want to listen to whatever I might say to Julian.
“I’ll go look for Carla,” she said, and ran off.
“Sit down, Lynn,” Julian invited. “Jilly has told me about how you found her, but I suspect that she’s holding something back. Vivian has gone out to the farm to see Meryl, and she should be back any minute. She’ll want to hear about your morning. I phoned out there as soon as I heard from you.”
Until now I’d been eager to talk with Julian and ask for his counsel. Yet as he gazed dreamily off into a distant space where I couldn’t follow, I wished I had his gift for removing myself from turmoil, and I wasn’t sure how much to tell him.
With his usual perception, he sensed my hesitation. “If you ask,” he said gently, “help will be given. But you may receive what you ask for, so be careful of your choice.”
“Julian,” I said, “what are you asking for, now that Everett has set down his ultimatum?”
“I hope we can somehow stay here, but I want what is best for all, and sometimes it isn’t possible to see ahead to final wisdom. I can only trust that good may come out of what seems to be disaster.”
The corner that I’d be backed myself into wouldn’t permit me to be passive in Julian’s way. The way out lay straight ahead—onto the spears? But I wasn’t quite ready for that.
I reached into my pocket and brought out the turquoise stone he had given me. It still looked more green than blue, and I held it out to him.
He turned it about curiously in his long fingers. “There are difficulties around you that you may need to face, Lynn.”
“I already know that.”
“Then it’s interesting that the stone corroborates. Let me keep it for a while and I’ll purify it for you.”
“Whatever you think best,” I said, and he smiled at me benevolently.
“What you are thinking now, Lynn, doesn’t trouble me. I regret your lack of belief, but this will change. Change is on the way for all of us.”
“What do you think of Paul’s leaving?” I asked.
“A step in the right direction, surely.”
“Did Jilly tell you that she explained your views on reincarnation to Stephen?” I asked him.
“I gathered that she had. Did it upset him?”
“I expect he dismissed the whole idea and only wanted to reassure Jilly.”
“It doesn’t matter, Lynn. This miasma around us that we call reality doesn’t really matter. This is only our dreaming time—inner voices and all.”
“Then why were you so insistent on bringing me here—if you think it’s all a dream?”
He shook his head sadly. “I was probably wrong to ask you to come. I let myself be caught up in these foolish events.”
He was beginning to exasperate me. “I can’t accept that sort of philosophy! I’m not going to sit on a mountaintop and contemplate my navel because nothing around me is real. We’re here for something in this life. I’m not sure yet what that is for me, but I’m trying to find out.”
Julian gave himself a little shake as though he threw something off, and his smile was warm. “All right, Lynn. I’ll come down from the mountain—though I like the quiet up there. We do have to live with what we think of as reality. Can you tell me what Jilly may have left out of her account?”
That’s what I had come here to tell him, but now I was less sure that I wanted to, and not at all sure it would do any good. I was saved by the sound of a car outside, and a moment later Vivian and Meryl hurried down the hall to Julian’s study.
Vivian ran to kiss her husband—as though she’d been away on a journey—and Meryl threw herself into a chair with an air of exasperation.
“Julian phoned that you’d found Jilly,” Meryl said. “Tell us about it.”
“We found her at the White Moon site.” I watched for some giveaway reaction, but there seemed to be none, except surprise.
I explained what had happened, and how I had found Jilly huddled in a room deep in the earth of the mountain. They listened intently, Meryl and Vivian clearly tense, while Julian relaxed in a way not wholly convincing, once more rolling his magic pebbles in his fingers. As I wound to the end of my story, I tried to be sharply aware of all three. Alert to anything that might speak to me and give one of them away.
Perhaps it was time to throw my own pebble into the pool. I had promised Jilly not to tell her father about the “fourth person,” but I’d promised nothing more. Now it seemed that I should make an effort to smoke out of hiding whoever it might be—if that person happened to be in this room, or if one of these three knew who had been there that day.
“Just before we went up the ladders to the top,” I told them quietly, “Jilly confided something to me. She said there was one more person at White Moon on the day of Luther’s death and Stephen’s accident. But when I tried to find out who it was, she became upset and I didn’t dare to push. Perhaps she’ll tell you, Julian.”
Meryl and Vivian were staring at me, while Julian had closed his eyes.
Vivian spoke first. “
Could it have been Carla? That picture she has of Luther must mean something. It’s possible she went out there with him that day.”
Julian spoke without opening his eyes. “Are we looking for someone who pushed Luther from that high place to his death? Is that what you’re getting at, Lynn?”
“I don’t know,” I said helplessly. “Whoever was there must have seen what happened, but has never come forward to tell the truth. Why not?”
Dropping his stones back in their basket, Julian came out of his reverie. “If the truth won’t help Stephen, perhaps it’s better not to know. Someone else besides Jilly could be protecting him. Do we really need to carry this any further? Why not let Jilly keep her secret?”
“Maybe you’re right,” Meryl began, but I was already shaking my head.
“Until Jilly can tell someone what’s troubling her, everything is going to get worse as far as she is concerned.”
“Maybe there’s another way,” Meryl said. “We need to get Jilly away from this atmosphere that’s so disturbing to her. I’m not sure you’re good for her right now, Julian—filling her head with all sorts of notions she can’t handle. So Viv and I have been talking. I’ve offered to bring her to Charlottesville for a visit.”
“I do think this might be a good idea,” Vivian put in, watching her husband for approval, as she always did.
I felt less enthusiastic. “I’m not sure this is the right moment to take Jilly away. Not when a small beginning has been made between her and her father. If Stephen shows any sign of coming back to life, Jilly might be the strongest thread to hold him. And her healing depends equally on her father.”
All three looked at me as though I’d said something absurd. But of course they hadn’t seen the effort Stephen had made this morning, both physically and emotionally. I tried another course.
“What will Everett think of your taking Jilly home with you, Meryl?” I asked.
“Oh, he won’t like it.” Meryl spoke airily. “But we have a big house and she’ll be out of his sight most of the time. He can put up with her for a couple of weeks. And I can give her an entertaining time.”
It was as though Vivian and I had never seen Paul out at the farm—Meryl’s manner seemed entirely carefree and innocent. Had she persuaded Vivian that there was justification for her behavior? The two women seemed more comfortable with each other than they had been.
Once more, it was Carla who startled us all by appearing suddenly in the doorway. She looked a bit wild as she held out a silver frame. It was the picture of Luther Kersten, but difficult to recognize because of the vigorous slashes that ran across the face. Someone had taken a sharp instrument and crisscrossed the photograph with cutting lines.
“You know who did this!” Carla cried. “It was Jilly, of course. And she must be punished!”
There seemed a meanness about the act that concerned me. If Jilly had gone this far, she might need a lot more help than any of us could give her. Or that a visit to Charlottesville was likely to cure. This seemed more than mere mischief.
Meryl took the frame matter-of-factly from Carla’s shaking hands to examine it. “Not Jilly,” she decided. “It took more than a child’s strength to do this. You can see how deep the cuts run—right through to the backing of the frame.”
“Then who?” Carla demanded shrilly, snatching the picture back.
Meryl shrugged, and both Vivian and Julian shook their heads in dismay.
“I’ve talked to Oriana,” Carla announced, turning the picture about and folding it to her with crossed arms. “She’ll be here very soon. She understands that everything is out of hand and that she is needed here. I’ve told her that Lynn is interfering with Jilly, and I think that has decided her to come.”
My spirits did a drop to the bottom of whatever ladder I’d been clinging to. Of course it was Oriana that both Jilly and Stephen needed here, and I ought to feel relieved that she was coming. Now I could be free of all responsibility. And my foolish notion of discovering something called “truth” was no more than air in a pricked balloon.
Julian watched me thoughtfully. “Don’t make any quick decisions, Lynn. Let’s talk a bit first. Carla, I’ll see what I can find out about this.”
She took herself and the picture off with a swish of saffron skirts.
“I wish Luther had never come into Larry Asche’s life,” Julian said.
Meryl made a face, mocking him. “I suppose he was Larry’s father in another existence!” Then she yawned and stretched widely, releasing tension. Sometimes Meryl reminded me of a sleek cat.
“Don’t look so upset, Lynn,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Carla cut up Luther’s face herself. I wouldn’t put it past her to try to hurt someone else by placing blame. She knew there were other women. Everybody knew. He was pretty much a rat—as Stephen discovered too late. Of course Everett didn’t care when he took on a lucrative contract.”
Vivian looked shocked, and Julian patted his wife’s arm absently, still watching me. “Oriana will fly in,” he said. “She’ll take a look around, and decide that it’s all more than her delicate spirit can cope with. The first thing we know, she’ll be gone again. So don’t rush off, Lynn. Jilly needs you.”
“I’m not sure she’ll fly right out this time,” Meryl said. “Not with Lynn here. Maybe this is the sort of marriage that suits Oriana—making no demands. She won’t want old embers stirred.”
“There aren’t any old embers to stir,” I assured her sharply.
Meryl’s smile carried an edge of disbelief. “Anyway, this is a good time to get Jilly out of this house—before her mother arrives.”
“Why do you want that?” I asked.
“Oriana is the last person to do Jilly any good. Let her deal with Paul’s leaving and a few other things first. Everett feels that it’s foolish to keep this place going as things stand. There have been money problems that Stephen knows nothing about. Changes are in the air. So I’ll get Jilly out from under. Maybe this will bring Oriana down to earth and out of those clouds she inhabits.”
Listening to all this, Vivian looked as though she might start to cry again, and Julian put an arm about her. Perhaps this was my signal to leave Virginia, in spite of what Julian might say. But before that happened, I wanted one last time with Jilly.
I slipped away and went looking for her. But though I roamed the house, I didn’t find her until I gave up and returned to my own rooms. And there she was—curled up in a chair, listening to one of my music tapes. For a moment I stood in the doorway watching her.
Her eyes were closed and she had wrapped her arms across the front of her body again and was swaying in time to the music—perhaps following a dance on the screen of her imagination.
“Hello, Jilly.” I spoke softly so as not to startle her. “I was looking for you. I should have started here.”
She opened her eyes and smiled at me. A warm smile that lifted my spirits. I’d seen just that smile before—when a child began to accept and trust me. She had evidently overcome her own doubts. I would say nothing about Oriana’s coming for now. Let this be a time between Jilly and me.
“I bought a present for you when we were in Charlottesville,” I said. “Let me give it to you now.”
She grew excited as I put the book about dancers into her hands, and she spoke almost shyly.
“Thank you, Lynn. I’ll really like this! But first—before I look at it—I was waiting for you because there’s a place I’d like to show you. A place I go to sometimes. Maybe you’d like it too.”
“I’d love to see it,” I told her quickly. This was trust indeed.
“We’re going outside,” she said, “and it may be windy, so bring your coat.”
As we passed Julian’s study, she looked in dutifully to say she was going for a walk with me. He was alone and he smiled at us in approval. But when we reached the bridge from deck to hillside, Carla was waiting for us, and she looked as disagreeable as ever.
“Not now,”
I warned her. “Please, not now,” and she let us pass without bringing up the slashing of Luther’s picture.
“Do you know about the Singing Stones?” Jilly asked as we started across the bridge.
She’d begun to sound excited, and I felt a little uneasy. However, this was to be my time alone with her—perhaps my last time—so I could only go along as hopefully as I could.
“I’ve heard them sing,” I told her.
She looked back at me, her eyes shining. “Perhaps they’ll sing for us today, Lynn. Let’s hurry!”
12
From the bridge we climbed to the path by which I’d first approached the house. Here was where I’d seen Jilly sitting on a rock watching me—the place from which she’d disappeared so suddenly.
Now we followed the path along the ridge and around a curve where the woods had hidden her quickly that day. Afternoon sun penetrated the branches of oak trees, and thinning leaves allowed bands of yellow light to fall across our way. Spread out below our ridge on one side, the Rockfish Valley reached far across to the Blue Ridge. Here in the open the wind blew strongly, sending bright leaves spinning around us.
“Tell me about the Singing Stones,” I said, following Jilly to where the ridge dipped toward a hollow.
“You’ll see.” She was intent on her own goal and hurried ahead until she came to a grove of hemlock trees with green branches that hung thickly to the ground. There she stopped and looked back at me, putting a finger to her lips—as though someone might hear us in this wild, empty place.
“You’d never guess,” she went on, “because of the way the road winds around the hills, but the farm is right below us here—Oleander Acres. Of course my great-grandfather never called it that when he came here. It’s the name Aunt Meryl has given the farm. Except for Uncle Julian, only my father knows what’s up here,” she whispered. “And of course my father doesn’t care anymore. Watch your head, Lynn.”
She lifted floppy branches and ducked under, holding them up so I could follow. When they rustled back behind me, I found that we had reached a small enclosed space—a grassy circle set among the hemlocks, open only to a high cliff at the back that rose steep and straight above us, forming as solid a wall as the trees. Of coursed this was the sort of hiding place a child like Jilly would love—and would guard as a precious secret.
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