Whistle Bright Magic

by Barb Bentler Ullman

  “All I know was that she was a good artist, like your dad—and like you. How’d you hear about Rachel?”

  “Over at Lupine’s,” I answered vaguely. Mom’s secrets were beginning to annoy me, and I snapped, “How come we don’t have any pictures of my dad around?”

  “I threw them out.”

  “Did it occur to you that maybe someday I’d be a little curious?” I asked in my snippiest tone. Unrepentant, Mom replied, “I had to move on. My job was to be a good mother to you, and I couldn’t do that if I kept grieving over him.”

  “So you threw everything out—including him?”

  “I was young, Zel, and I did the best that I could.” There was something steely in her tone and in her gaze. I wondered if she was acting tough or if Willa the bookworm was stronger than I’d imagined.

  “Aren’t you even curious about him?” I asked.

  “Not anymore.”

  “A little worried?”

  She sighed. “I put all my worry and hope in a box, and I closed the lid.”

  Funny. She put her feelings in boxes, and I organized mine in drawers.

  “Maybe you didn’t search because you were afraid of what you’d find,” I said, trying to place blame.

  “Maybe you are exactly right.”

  Mom exhaled like she’d decided something. “Look, Zel, he was in bad shape when he left. Really sick and unpredictable.”

  Rubbing her forehead like the memory gave her a migraine, she said, “Near the end, we were fighting all the time. You were little, but you understood the tone, and when we raised our voices, you’d cry ’til you were sick.”

  Way, way back in my memory was a sense of anxiety accompanied by a sound, and the sound was me, crying. There were yelling matches and fights, incomprehensible in their adult concerns, but they all featured one word that I understood—Zelly.

  For a moment I held the memory, but then it was gone, slipping through my fingers like water.

  “After I told him to leave,” Mom continued, “he disappeared completely. For all I know, he could be living on the streets somewhere—he was that messed up. I’m so sorry, Zelly, but that’s the truth.”

  It was easy to imagine the chaos. A young couple struggling with their new little baby. Fights, drunkenness, disappointment, heartbreak. If Mom hadn’t taken a stand, I could be living it now.

  Back then, my infant self did the only thing she knew how to do with her feelings—she cried. And then something really bad did happen. He left, and he did not return.

  CHAPTER 25

  Suspecting the Raggedy Man

  SO MY DAD could be on the streets somewhere like a homeless guy. Turning restlessly in bed, I flattened my pillow with a punch. I closed my eyes and tried to recall the face of the raggedy man on the ladder: black hair under his baseball cap, dark eyes in the shadow of the brim, a crooked nose, the scar on his lip, the unshaven jaw—like someone who’d known hard times.

  I could picture the hand reaching out to me, long-fingered and discolored with splotches. Was it paint?

  That was it—he had paint on his hands! His mother was an artist, and he was an artist—just like me.

  Tall and slender, his build was the same as the guy in the graveyard, the one who seemed to be crying. A strange feeling came over me, and the more I reflected, the more my stomach flip-flopped with an emotion I could not name.

  Crossing the room, I turned on the computer and searched for Vincent Meeker, certain that I’d find something on the man or his art. Disappointed, I came up with nothing at all. I returned to bed, wondering how much of what I was feeling was intuition and how much was imagination. One thing I knew for sure: I just had to go back to that house and find him, to learn the truth.

  At school, Frederick, Lupine, and I met at the usual table at lunch. Originally we’d planned to discuss tonight’s Halloween agenda, but when I told them about my theory, our plans began to shift.

  “So you think that psycho guy could be your dad?” Frederick managed to express both doubt and dread in his tone.

  “I think it’s possible. It seems likely that he would have heard about Grammy Bert’s funeral, and then maybe he returned to the old neighborhood. Plus psycho guy and the man in the maple grove had a similar look about them.”

  In a low voice, Lupine suggested, “How about instead of going to Frederick’s tonight, you guys come to my house and we’ll go confront him?”

  “That idea stinks!” Frederick protested. “First, it means we won’t score any candy, and second, we’ll be creeping around on Halloween night with that monster dog and crazy man in the woods.”

  “You make it sound so bad.” Lupine sniffed.

  “It is so bad!” Frederick practically shouted.

  “Well, let’s not go unless we all agree,” I said. “I mean, we can always wait, even though it is really hard for me to sit and wonder about my long-lost father.”

  Frederick groaned, shaking his head. “I tell you, I don’t like it, I don’t like it, I just don’t like it!”

  Mr. and Mrs. Henderson prepared to leave for their traditional Halloween potluck. “Nana’s only three minutes away,” Mrs. Henderson repeated as she put on her coat. “You just call if you’re scared, and Dad and I will zip home.”

  Nana lived up the hill on Voodoo Creek Road, and all of the Henderson clan would be there. But Lupine had convinced her parents that we wanted to stay at the trailer, to tell scary stories and hand out apples to trick-or-treaters. Frederick rolled his eyes, plainly disgusted with the notion of an apple being anyone’s idea of a Halloween treat.

  Once her parents had gone, Lupine assured Frederick, “Nobody ever comes down here anyway. It’s too creepy on Wicket’s Road.”

  “I know!” Frederick cried. “That’s my whole point.”

  Lupine ignored his grumpy outburst and instead handed us each a flashlight from under the kitchen sink. With businesslike authority, she asked, “Frederick, did you bring your phone?”

  “I did,” he said, “but the service up here isn’t very reliable.”

  With an evil grin, Lupine announced, “I have my pepper spray!” and she held up a can with her finger on the trigger, demonstrating how ready and eager she was to inflict pain. Pocketing her weapon, she opened the front door and happily sang, “Let’s go!”

  CHAPTER 26

  Trick or Treat

  A BLUSTERY WIND KEPT pushing the clouds in front of the moon. One minute it was bright enough to make shadows, and the next minute the world was snuffed into darkness.

  We turned on our flashlights and began walking along the old road. Since the truck had gone through and flattened the grass, the trail was easy to follow.

  “He’s up there,” Lupine said in her low voice. “I smell wood smoke.”

  “That’s because everyone around here has woodstoves,” Frederick said, pointing out the obvious. The air was fragrant with the smoke of seasoned wood and the tangy smell of unpicked apples molding on the trees.

  Shuddering, I had to admit to myself that the man may be just a creepy stranger. Then I shuddered again when I thought he could be my real dad, only unchanged and still an addict.

  “Burr,” I muttered, gathering my jacket close. “It’s cold out.”

  What I hardly dared to hope was that he was my real dad and done with all his bad habits. That’s why I didn’t tell Mom. If the man was Vincent Meeker and he was still a mess, she didn’t need to know. But if there was a crumb of hope, maybe we could open that box together.

  The weird yip of a coyote ricocheted over the field, and Frederick jumped. “Did you hear that?” he whispered.

  “It’s only a coyote,” Lupine said, unimpressed.

  “They’ve been known to attack children,” he lectured.

  “Just boys,” she lied.

  “There’s a light in the house,” I interrupted.

  We studied the building ahead.

  A glow from inside flooded the yard with a warm yellow light, and we could
see that things looked different—the grass had been mowed and the suffocating vines had been ripped off the exterior and piled to one side in a gigantic heap. The windows seemed shinier; the porch had been scrubbed. It appeared that psycho guy had done some cleaning.

  A ribbon of smoke drifted from the chimney and vanished into the limbs of the maple. As we moved closer, we heard music: strings and piano in bittersweet accord, wavering from tinny speakers inside. There was something heartbreaking in that music, something infinitely sad.

  Summoning my courage to climb the porch steps, I whispered, “I’ll do the talking.”

  Obscured by the screen, I could see him sitting on the couch in the living room, playfully directing the symphony with a fork. A plate of dinner and a bottle of water sat on the coffee table. Lit by kerosene lamps, the room was bathed in a golden light that flattered the man playing maestro; he seemed more boyish than menacing.

  Suddenly, Whistle was sitting on the windowsill, grinning. I decided that he must be spying on us most of the time because he always seemed to know where we were.

  Before I chickened out, I took a deep breath and rapped assertively on the door.

  Startled out of his wits, the man jumped and kicked the coffee table, which knocked something else. From an unseen stand, a picture swooped gently downward. It was a painting on stretched canvas, a work in progress depicting the moon in a black sky with leaves swirling in a frenzied breeze. The scene got filed away in my head as a moody autumn vision, beautiful and somehow dangerous.

  A frantic clatter of dog’s nails on wood preceded the appearance of the monstrous Eddie, who pressed his nose against the window and barked as if he wanted to rip my head off.

  “Down, Ed!” the man commanded. “Sit!”

  Amazingly, Ed sat.

  When the door cracked open, I sang out, “Trick or treat!”

  Flustered, he replied, “I—I don’t have any candy!”

  “Then I get a trick,” I curtly responded. “You have to tell me your name.”

  When he opened the door a notch wider, I could see that we shared the same dark hair, the same long lashes, and the same straight nose—except his was altered with a crick and a bump, as if it had been broken.

  Peering out, he said, “I know why you’re here.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked again.

  He held out his hand to shake and answered, “Vincent Meeker. Hazel Jo, I presume?”

  My mouth went sticky and dry as I answered, “You presume right.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Filling the Gap

  “WE’LL JUST TALK from the porch,” I said.

  “You’re careful and that’s smart,” he agreed.

  Whistle interrupted the exchange by piping in, “I read his character true, and there is no danger here.”

  Although Mr. Meeker was oblivious to big-mouth Whistle, I shot the boy a glare, willing him to be quiet so I could concentrate.

  “These are my friends Frederick and Lupine,” I continued.

  He nodded respectfully, waiting for me to take the lead.

  “So, what are you doing here?” I finally asked.

  “I got permission from the owner’s daughter,” he quickly replied. “Kathryn Wicket Pommeroy—she said I could hang around for a while, so long as I cleaned up the place. I suppose I wanted to work some things out.”

  “Did you come back here for Grammy Bert’s funeral?”

  “I did.” He nodded. “That’s what got me back, and then I couldn’t leave.”

  “Did you stand by the maple trees and cry that day?”

  This surprised him. “I didn’t think anyone saw,” he confessed, a little sheepish.

  “Yeah, well, I did.” Then, as tactfully as I could, I asked, “Do you still have, you know, problems?”

  “I quit all that stuff,” he said in earnest. “I’ve been clean and sober for almost five years.”

  Pausing, I formed the question I had come to ask, although I dreaded asking it. Involuntarily, my voice went high and soft, like a younger child’s. “If you’ve been healthy for five years, why didn’t you come and see me?” Tears glazed over my eyes, but I held myself tight.

  “I didn’t have the nerve,” he confessed, glancing down at his feet. “I was afraid I’d be interrupting your happy life.”

  “Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” I snapped, hoping that if I sounded irritable, then I might actually be irritable and the lump in my throat would subside.

  Quietly he said, “Yes, you’re here. You’re a brave kid.”

  “So why didn’t you visit my mom?”

  “I didn’t want to bother her,” he mumbled, brushing crumbs off his jeans. He seemed to be stalling. “Did she, well, find someone else?” Glancing down through his lashes, he flushed a telltale pink. “I mean, it’s good if she did, because I can’t imagine she wouldn’t. . . .”

  “There’s no other guy, if that’s what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh.” He nodded, absorbing the news, and then his mouth formed a smile that reminded me of my own. With the same lanky frame that I saw in the mirror, this man explained my long feet and fingers. His existence also explained my passion for art and my obsession with pictures, and I realized that something was filling up in my heart, as if all this time there’d been a gap that didn’t exactly hurt, but it wanted to be filled and had never been quite right!

  “Everyone calls me Zelly,” I said as the warm feeling spread.

  “And everyone calls me Vin.”

  Still smiling, he stared at me and I could feel my cheeks getting hot. Mercifully, he turned to Frederick and asked, “Are you Marla’s kid?”

  Frederick nodded.

  To Lupine he said, “And with that hair, you must be a Fetch.”

  “Fetch was my mother’s maiden name,” Lupine primly retorted.

  “I’m glad to meet you both.” An awkward pause descended, and a wintry gust fanned my hot cheeks. Like a spotlight, the moon chose that moment to shine.

  “What now?” I asked him.

  “Good question,” he replied, but that was no answer.

  I looked up into the man’s eyes. I could tell he was thinking—thinking hard.

  “Can people start over?” he asked out of the blue, almost pleading.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  CHAPTER 28

  The House Rebuilt Itself

  A FUNNY THING HAPPENED to Vincent Meeker that night. I know because Whistle wrote it all down and left miniature pages of testimony pinned to my pillow in the morning. I grabbed my trusty magnifying glass and began to read Whistle’s account.

  After Zelly and her friends left, the work of the night began. Trickentreat was over, and the poppy snuffed his lamp and crawled into his sleeping sack to ponder the brave and stubborn daughter he’d just encountered.

  I liked that part, Whistle calling me brave and stubborn.

  Hours passed, and finally, when I could read the color of sleep wafting around the man, a band of elders appeared. Grampy was there, and Auntie Win, and the carpenter Calm Stilts, and the last of the garden farmers—five crabby old gentlemen, plus their wives.

  No one under thirty springs could join this band of tricksters, because no one under thirty springs was left in Nutfolk Wood. But good surging requires mental dexterity more than physical fitness, so the oldsters were up to the task.

  The job was fun, concocted as a quick fix to remind the human of his childhood days, spent with the old lady Hazel. It had been a sweet home back then, and therein lay my plan. I wondered if a fresh vision of this house might restore some sense to the grown man of just how much it needed saving.

  I told Grampy my notion, and he liked the lark of it, so he urged the others to follow. It was a quiet procedure, with no banging or sawing of physical work, but only the faint hum of surging, over and over, until the air grew hazy with the dry fog of senzall. So thick was the mist that the man could not have roused out of slumber if he’d wanted to, while through th
e night and into the morning the house rebuilt itself.

  All the refuse from inside was levitated out and heaped onto a mountainous pile of rubbish below the house. The plentiful mouse habitats were sent to the field, much to the surprise of the mice themselves and amidst their squeaky objections.

  Moisture, rot, and all things smelly were surged elsewhere, mostly to field and wood, as plaster walls collected into smooth surfaces, and glass in the window panes reflowed until they were solid. Floors were sanded with particulate, and the dust was sent in a stream to the pile.

  Grampy elected me to lift paint from the darkened town market. The oldsters had argued earlier about color, and after much discourse and debate, it was finally decided. Tan to the parlor, cinnamon to the hall, yellow to the kitchen, and green in the bath. And in the bedroom, a pretty shade of lavender. The paint was surged onto walls without dripping a drop.

  For furniture, we shined up some pretty pieces, reweaving upholstery and surging the mildew away. A farmer’s wife took an interest in the kitchen and made sure the stove was spotless, as well as the sink and the old gas cold box. The oil lamps sparkled and the wood floors gleamed, and when Grampy restoked the fire in the stove, the house was a picture of home.

  By the time the sun was bright in the window, we’d finished, pleased and proud. Surely this man or some other would value the house as a home and not merely as junk in the path of a fortune. As the senzall cleared, the man began to stir, so we hid to watch the fun.

  I’d imagined he might jump about in surprise and pleasure, but this was not to be. Waking and rubbing his eyes, he believed himself to be dreaming still—this I could clearly read. Rising, he walked from room to room as if in a trance. Finally, he sat at the kitchen table and whispered, “Nice seeing you, Willa,” and I could read the waves of regret and melancholy.

  His emotion turned to something else as he slammed his fist on the table and said into the silence, “I won’t let you down.”

  At first glance I saw the nostalgia and suspected a memory of Hazel. But it was himself he envisioned: a grinning boy who loved the forest, who loved to draw, and who loved a girl named Willa. He determined that he would not—could not—let that boy down ever again.