“Yes, ma’am.” Barbara scribbled quickly on her pad.
“I’ve written Mrs. DuLane a sweet little note inviting her to stay here as my guest during the fall leaf season. Make sure it gets to the post office today.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Call the club and double-check all the arrangements for the brunch next week. I don’t want to see even one lousy carnation in the centerpieces this time. When I host a flock of dim-witted hick senators’ wives, they are going to go home properly impressed.”
“No carnations, I promise.”
“Tim begins his summer internship with the chamber of commerce tomorrow. Remind Matilda to have his clothes ready. I expect to see him in a suit and tie every morning.”
“Jane Treacher left a message that golf shirts and casual slacks would be all right. She said to tell you everyone’s casual during the summer.”
“A suit and tie,” Alexandra repeated. “I set the standards for my son’s appearance.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“The senator will be back from Raleigh tomorrow. His blood pressure’s climbing again and I’m sending him to Dr. Crane’s office in Asheville for a checkup. Get an appointment for Monday or Tuesday.”
“And if Dr. Crane’s already booked? Any alternatives?”
Alexandra thought of the growing community of specialists who’d set up practice among Pandora’s moneyed crowd, and of Hugh Raincrow, who was quickly becoming the only general practitioner in town. She’d heard through her grapevines that the new boys eyed Hugh suspiciously and considered him uncooperative. He didn’t play golf or charge consultation fees, he still made housecalls, and he refused to refer patients to them for anything less than an emergency.
If Hugh wanted to alienate himself from progress, she was delighted. Indeed, nothing would make her happier than seeing him lose patients to the newcomers. But doctors were clannish, and she couldn’t be certain that word about Orrin’s unstable blood pressure wouldn’t spread among them until it reached Hugh. The less the damned Raincrows knew about her family, the better.
People were still whispering about Tim’s broken nose. She had wanted to shake him into a semblance of manly behavior that night, had wanted to see him fight back after Jake hit him.
And she wanted to see Jake humiliated and humbled until he no longer had the power to make her nervous. Alexandra fiddled with the handle of her coffee cup. “Dr. Crane will work the senator into his schedule,” she said brusquely. “Tell him I insist.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Let’s go through the mail, Barbara. We can finish the rest later.”
Her secretary placed a stack of neatly slit envelopes in front of Alexandra. Alexandra shuffled through them, tossing bills into two separate piles. “These are my sister’s,” she noted, tapping one set. “I’ll write the checks tomorrow morning.”
“I hope Mrs. Ryder is feeling better.”
“She’s fine. A little embarrassed over her poor judgment in men, but I’ve assured her she doesn’t have to worry about the money. Oh, I almost forgot—call her this afternoon and tell her I’ve booked the girls for classes with an etiquette coach in July. A lovely old Asheville lady who used to be somebody.”
“And if Mrs. Ryder asks for details?”
“She won’t. I’ve already convinced her that she’s been entirely too free-wheeling about their social graces. Charlotte’s becoming a flighty little bohemian, and Samantha is apparently in training to become a very dull old woman.”
Barbara laughed. “What do you mean?”
“She’s an excellent student, but she has no interest in other teenagers or any extracurricular school activities. She practically runs my sister’s shop and she, well, in her spare time she sews. It’s up to me, obviously, to expand all that marvelous strength of character into something a good deal more interesting. Charm, strength, and brains—that’s the ticket.”
Alexandra laid out the rest of the mail like a game of solitaire. “Invitations,” she mumbled, arranging small pastel envelopes according to the prestige of the return addresses. “It’s going to be a busy summer.”
“A pleasant one too, I’m sure,” Barbara interjected.
“Yes, life can be nearly perfect at times.” She gave in to a brief, dark thought about never being perfectly secure as long as Sarah Raincrow and her brood existed, but shelved the worry as insignificant. She had control of her own life and Frannie’s, and Charlotte’s, and most of all, her glorious, promising Samantha.
“What’s this?” she said under her breath, lifting a cheap white business envelope with no stamp, no addresses, and only her name scrawled across it in bold, masculine-looking script.
“That was in the mailbox yesterday. I guess someone dropped it off in person.”
“That’s odd.” Alexandra slid her fingers into the envelope and pulled out a second envelope that had been folded in half and sealed. The contents felt flimsy. Alexandra tore the envelope open carefully.
A plain white piece of paper was folded in a large square inside it. She spread the mysterious paper on her desk. Centered on it was a dog-eared snapshot of Malcolm Drury. Her stomach lurched, and she gaped at the photo and then, shock draining her, at the words written beneath it in the same strong, intense hand that had confidently penned her name.
You stole from your sister and her daughters. Don’t do it again. Because I’ll find out.
“Mrs. Lomax? Are you all right?” Barbara’s voice came to her dimly through a buzz of confusion and fear. Had that spineless Malcolm Drury told someone she’d paid him to swindle her own sister—that she’d paid a professional thief to make certain Frannie didn’t become too independent? Drury was beneath her concern, conveniently put away by his own stupidity. But some stranger was out there, knowing her secret, watching her.
The way Jake, as a child, had known about her affair with Orrin.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” Alexandra lied. She covered the message with her hands. “Get out. I mean, we’re done. Go on. Leave me alone. Leave.”
Gaping at her, Barbara hurried from the room. Alexandra forced herself to take several deep breaths, then, with barely controlled panic, ripped the photo, the paper, and both envelopes into bits.
Jake. She refused to succumb to hysterical paranoia about him. Sarah’s eccentric son was not going to harass and intimidate her.
But the fear remained, rising up from the deep well of apprehension Jake had created years ago, and it infuriated her and obsessed her until she was convinced he had sent the photograph.
She waited, day after tormenting day, to see if there would be more messages, or some specific form of blackmail. She despised the fear, the uncertainty, the control over her thoughts and happiness.
When no more messages came, she felt only a little better. She would have to live with the gnawing worry that Jake knew more about her than she wanted anyone to know. She finally regained a measure of sanity by telling herself it didn’t matter—he had no proof.
But like his mother, he was a thorn embedded in Alexandra’s skin. She could pretend he didn’t matter, but she always knew he was there.
“Here, it’s going to be right here.” Jake nodded at Mrs. Big Stick, then proudly swept an arm at the small clearing marked only by the stumps of a few trees he’d cut. Massive oaks and sourwoods and hickories still surrounded the knoll, with a thick underskirting of rhododendron, azaleas, dogwoods, and hollies. He would clear no more than he had to for the house and yards, leaving the grandest trees. The spring where Granny had taken him and Ellie so often to sit with their bare feet in the cold, clear water while she told Cherokee fables was at the base of the hill.
Mrs. Big Stick, stout and colorful in a billowing red skirt and oversize print blouse, her scuffed leather walking shoes run-down at the sides from the weight of her responsibilities, squinted at him in contemplative silence. A woven bag bulging with her ceremonial materials hung from one of her shoulders. She hitched it a little high
er and pursed her lips. “Your mother told me how proud it makes them—you wanting to stay in the Cove. This is a very important thing.”
Jake nodded. A house for him and Samantha. A mark of his new status, and of leaving Mother and Father’s home. A stake in the Cove’s future. A promise to honor what Father and many generations of Father’s ancestors had fought for and loved. All those sentiments were part of his decision. “I want to look out the front windows and see Granny’s spring,” he added.
“That’s good. See? She has never left you.”
Without another word Mrs. Big Stick bent and flicked a cigarette lighter under the firewood he’d piled in the clearing’s center. He watched in satisfied silence, sitting on a stump at a respectful distance. She nurtured the fire until it blazed without her help, then pulled a small tape player from her bag, twisted the volume control, and pushed a button. Loud, hypnotic drumbeats echoed off the wall of trees.
Mrs. Big Stick brought out a pouch and sprinkled tobacco into the fire, then shuffled around the open space, casting the dried brown bits to the four directions, chanting indecipherable words as she did. The ceremonial blessing soothed Jake. He was touching a past as ancient as the mountains, as enduring as the sun and moon. When Mrs. Big Stick returned to the fire and stood, still chanting, with her eyes shut, he took Samantha’s quilt from a backpack and spread it on the low branches of a shrub.
Her eyes still shut, Mrs. Big Stick sank stiffly to her knees, felt around for the tape player, and shut it off. Pure silence descended, as if the whole world had been rinsed clean. She continued to kneel, her head bowed. Then, with a firm nod, she sighed, lifted her head, and opened her eyes.
She stared at the quilt curiously. “That is beautiful. It’s good to add your own sacred totems to the ceremony,” she said. “What does it mean to you?”
“Samantha Ryder made it.”
Her deepset eyes widened. Shock and dismay swept over her expression, and she got to her feet with a lumbering speed he’d never expected. Mouth open, she marched to the quilt, halted in front of it, and seared him with a look of horrified disapproval. “You can’t. You can’t do it. Can’t have anything to do with her. Oh, this is bad. You should have warned me. I’ll have to work on this. I thought you understood. I thought your granny and I had showed you the right path.”
“You did.” He was astonished and defensive. “I know who I’m meant to be with. I’ve known since I was a kid. Samantha and I are meant to be together. That is the right path.”
“No, boy, no. Why do you think you lost your feeling for the ruby after your uncle died? Oh, don’t look at me like that—I figured out your problem back then. I tried to explain it to you. When you can’t get a feeling from something, it’s a warning. It’s something that can hurt you too bad.”
“Samantha isn’t going to hurt me.”
“Not her, maybe, but through her”—Mrs. Big Stick’s voice dropped to a whisper—“you don’t want any connection to a ravenmocker.”
“I have to trust what I know. It’s how I find lost hikers for the sheriff. It’s how I find gemstones. It’s how I found Samantha—how I always will.”
“No, that ruby was trying to tell you the truth, boy. That stone knows more than you will ever want to hear. It was carried by medicine people through times so far past, we can only imagine them in our dreams. And if it won’t talk to you, it’s for your own good. That stone will come back to where it belongs only through pain, and hardship, and terrible grief. You can’t invite it here.”
Angry and confused, Jake quickly folded the quilt and put it away. “If the stone won’t talk to me, I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I’ll listen to my own … music.”
Mrs. Big Stick groaned and hurried back to her belongings. She shook her head as she shoved them into her bag. Jake watched in tortured silence. “Maybe you’re as white as you look,” Mrs. Big Stick said. “You don’t really believe in the power of a ravenmocker.”
“I believe I’d be a coward to let one run my life. And Samantha’s.”
“You won’t be able to stop a ravenmocker with good intentions, boy.” Mrs. Big Stick hoisted her bag to her shoulder and marched toward the narrow path that led back to the house.
“I’m not a fool,” Jake called. “I have patience. I’m careful.”
She grumbled softly in Cherokee, stopped, and turned around. She pointed at him. Doom lined her face. “If you bring Samantha into your family, the ravenmocker will destroy them all.”
After she disappeared into the forest, Jake sat down and grimly pulled the quilt between his legs. Mrs. Big Stick underestimated his patience and determination. He would not run from the future, and he would never desert Samantha, and he would never let Alexandra ruin the lives of everyone he loved.
He gripped Samantha’s gift in hands that were young and strong and certain. She was as close as his fingertips, and he would wait for her.
Part
Two
Chapter
Twelve
“Would you like a pillow?” The school guidance counselor asked that question as she closed her office door, trapping Sam in the fake pine and cinnamon scent of a miniature plastic Christmas tree on the counselor’s scarred wooden desk. It was too early for Christmas decorations, Sam thought. A lopsided Thanksgiving turkey made of papier mâché still sat on the other corner of Mrs. Taylor’s desk.
Sam twisted in a chair beside the desk and looked at her askance. She had no idea why Mrs. Taylor had gotten her out of class for this meeting. “Ma’am?”
“You’re famous for falling asleep sitting up,” Mrs. Taylor, a big mother-bear sort of person, said without rebuke. She frowned benignly as she sank into a creaking chair behind her desk. “You look pooped even now. If you nod off, I don’t want you to smack your head on my desk.”
Sam straightened in the chair and tried to appear perky. “I fall over slowly. I don’t even make a sound when I hit.”
“It’s very commendable of you to not disrupt class. But all your teachers are talking about your spontaneous naptimes. They’re worried about you—your grades have slipped since last year.”
“I’ll still graduate at the end of this quarter.”
“Oh, nobody’s saying you won’t.” Mrs. Taylor frowned. “I hear you don’t intend to come back this spring for the graduation ceremonies. Why, Sam?”
“I’ll already have my diploma. That’s all I care about. What’s the point of marching up on a stage?”
“Sam, get a dictionary. Look up the word ‘fun.’ ” The counselor shuffled through a file folder that had Ryder, S. stenciled at the top. “Summer school, heavy course loads, no club memberships, no sports. That’s pretty intense. Haven’t you heard? You’re seventeen. These are the most carefree years of your life.”
“I’ll be eighteen in January.”
“Oh, well, excuse me. I didn’t realize you were so close to retirement.”
“My mom’s business isn’t doing very well. When we started, we were the only health food store in the city. But in the past couple of years the national chains have opened franchises, and the big supermarkets started carrying things like mineral water and yogurt, and … good Lord, now we get guys in three-piece suits complaining because we don’t stock five different brands of whole wheat bread.”
“Yuppies,” Mrs. Taylor said darkly. “The world is being overrun by young urban professionals who vote Republican. I read about it in Newsweek.”
“Well, we made a lot more money from Mom’s ouhies.”
“Ouhies?”
“Old urban hippies.”
Mrs. Taylor smiled, but her eyes were shadowed. “I hear you’re working nights and weekends at a fabric shop.”
“We need the extra money. And after I graduate and go to work full-time, we’ll be okay.”
“Sammie, do you really want to forego the last part of your senior year? Don’t you want to cause trouble and goof off with the rest of the senior class?”
“I rea
lly want to make money. And I’ve never cared much about all that teenage-bonding stuff anyway. I’m not a herd animal.”
“Oh? What are you?”
Sam held up her hands. “A spider. If I could spin silk from my fingertips, I’d make my own web and sit in the middle of it. And any uninvited guests would get wrapped up and eaten.”
“Hon, if you don’t get more rest you’ll doze off in mid-spin.”
Sam knotted her hands in her lap. “I’ll drink more coffee.”
“What about college?”
“I’m not going to waste four years when I already know what I want to do.”
“Which is?”
“Make money.”
“I’ve got news for you, hon. Clerks in fabric shops drive beat-up old cars and buy their underwear at garage sales.”
“I’ll own my own business. Custom draperies, handmade lace, you name it. I’ll sell my work through interior decorators. I’ve got a long-range plan mapped out. You can bet on it.”
“Does this plan include five minutes for a social life?”
Sam unconsciously touched a hand to the small, irregular bump made by the ruby under her blouse. “No.” The bell rang in the halls outside, and Sam shifted in her chair. “I appreciate you worrying about me, but, Mrs. Taylor, I can take care of myself.”
“All right, the lecture is over. Scram.” But as Sam hurried to the door, Mrs. Taylor asked drolly, “Hon, have you ever participated in one of those dinner-and-movie rituals where the male and the female learn how to intrigue and annoy each other and the male pays for everything? A date?”
“Hmmm. No. That must be near ‘fun’ in the dictionary.”
Sam eased out of the office. For a second she’d been tempted to announce, I’ve been married since I was a child, just to see the dust fly when Mrs. Taylor exploded. But Sam would not explain why she clung to secret, hopeless dreams. She just never let go, as Jake had said the last time they’d seen each other, three years ago.
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