Fabulous Creature

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  “Griffin.” Cynthia had come back into the room carrying a wastepaper basket. “You’d better go see about Woody. He’s sitting up in that tree out back, crying. He won’t talk to me, but I think he’s afraid to climb down.”

  Griffin jumped up and ran from the room, and Cynthia flopped down into a chair and began tucking strands of hair back under the red kerchief, while she looked at James with frank curiosity.

  “Do you live here at The Camp?” she asked.

  He explained about the Willowby arrangement and about how he didn’t really know the Westmorelands except that he’d met the kids and he just dropped by to ask Griffin a question.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I know about the Willowby place. We used to hike up there a long time ago, before they built this place and cut off the path. I live in New Moon. That is, I did until I moved into this”—she gestured with both arms—“madhouse.”

  “Madhouse?”

  She shrugged. “Well, in a manner of speaking. Crazy parties and all kinds of weird people. Oh, the kids are all right, Griffin and Woody. A little weird, but all right. But some of the rest of them—”

  “Crazy parties?” James prompted.

  She raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes. “Cra-zee!” she said. “Like, a couple of days ago the house was full of people, and one of them was some sort of guru who had everyone taking some kind of dope and lying around contemplating their own deaths. And last week it was a woman who supposedly was going to teach everyone to levitate. By the time that party was over, hardly anyone was on their feet, all right, but it wasn’t because they were floating, at least not physically.”

  James couldn’t help grinning. “It does sound pretty far out.”

  “Far out doesn’t even touch it. I told my fiancée about some of the things that go on here, and he wants me to quit right away. But we need the money, and besides, I don’t really have to have anything to do with any of the people here except the kids. I’m just supposed to be around to see that they get fed and that sort of thing, and to be here with them at night. I don’t even have to cook when their parents are here. They always bring their own help with them. It’s really an easy job.”

  “Yes, I guess it would be. And I suppose the kids aren’t much trouble. That is, they’re off on their own pretty much during the day, aren’t they?”

  Cynthia looked at him sharply. “Yeah,” she said. “They like to play in the woods. Mrs. Westmoreland said it was all right to let them.” The friendly expression had been replaced by a defensive suspicion, as if she were suddenly seeing James as a spy for the Westmorelands—someone who’d been sent to make sure she was doing a good job. “Mrs. Westmoreland said the kids have always practically lived in woods whenever they were here at The Camp. She said she didn’t know how she happened to produce a couple of aborigines.” Cynthia leaned back languidly and flourished an imaginary cigarette in a dramatic gesture. “I can’t explain it, darling. They certainly didn’t get it from me. A sidewalk cafe is about as outdoorsy as I care to get.” She checked the effect of her pantomime on James and then added firmly. “She didn’t say anything about making them stop.”

  “Hey look,” James said. “It’s okay with me. It’s probably the best place for them. I mean, I think nature is great for kids.”

  “Hi, Prince. Hi.” Woody ran into the room, tear-streaked, grungy and more gap-toothed than ever.

  “Hi, Woody. Looks like you’ve been keeping the tooth fairy busy.”

  “Yeah,” Woody stuck his tongue into the latest vacancy. “You know where I was, Prince? I was clear up to the Eagle’s Lair.”

  “The Eagle’s Lair?”

  “Yeah. We have this great climbing tree out back and all the different places in it have special names. Like the Dragon’s Landing and the Crow’s Nest and the Eagle’s Lair. And you have to be a very good climber to get to the Eagle’s Lair, and I never could, only today I did it.” Woody’s triumphantly lifted chin tucked suddenly. “But then I didn’t feel like coming down all by myself and Grif went off and left me.” He stopped to glare at Griffin, who had followed him into the room.

  “You should have let Cynthia help you down,” Griffin said.

  Woody’s glare got more ferocious. “She couldn’t help me. She doesn’t know anything about tree climbing.”

  Cynthia snorted. “That’s what I like,” she said. “Appreciation. Makes it all worth while.” She got up and headed for the kitchen. “Dinner will be in about half an hour,” she called over her shoulder.

  James looked at his watch. “I’ve got to be getting home. Griffin, could I talk to you a minute? I mean, alone?” There were a couple of points he felt still needed emphasizing.

  Having persuaded Woody with some difficulty to stay where he was, Griffin walked with James to the end of the drive. On the way he warned her again about the importance of impressing on the kids the absolute necessity of keeping quiet about the deer. Particularly Laurel. “And when her parents come back from Europe you’d better stop taking her there, at least so often. They’d be sure to get suspicious.” For a moment he considered mentioning the conversation he’d overheard between Jill and Angela Jarrett.

  He’d just decided not to mention it when Griffin said, “I know. Her parents don’t like her being with Woody and me so much. But they won’t be home until it’s almost time for school to start anyway. And then none of us will be here anymore.”

  Somehow he kept forgetting the summer was nearly over. “When will your parents be back?” he asked.

  As always, her face seemed to close down as if some kind of internal fires had gone out, or springs dried up. “I’m not sure. Not very long. They’ve gone home, to our house in San Francisco.”

  “Home? They’ve gone home and left you and Woody here?” He tried to make his tone of voice invite her to tell him more.

  Instead she only turned her head so he couldn’t see her face. Her voice sounded tight, tense or perhaps angry. “They’ll be back soon. They just went down for a party. And to see a doctor. My mother had to see a doctor. And we didn’t want to go.”

  “Is your mother sick?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly, and then, “Well, not sick exactly. It’s the pain because of the accident. The accident when my father was killed. She almost got killed, too, and ever since she has to take medicine for the pain.”

  The tension was still there; but without being able to see her face, it was hard to tell just what it was about. “Well, look,” James said. “I’ve got to go now. Don’t forget what I said—about the deer.”

  “I won’t. We won’t.” She was facing him again, standing at attention, her level eyes intense as laser beams. “We will not tell anyone about the stag. Not anyone. Not ever.”

  It sounded like a pledge of allegiance. He turned away, and when he had his grin under control, he looked back and waved. She was still standing stiffly at attention, but her face was back to normal—as full of activity as a three ring circus.

  The next morning James had an early date for a game of tennis with Diane. For once she was there right on time, but as soon as the game was over she said she had to go home. There was no time, she said, for a hike in the woods, however short. He tried to argue, but it didn’t do any good and a few minutes after ten he found himself on his way back to Willowby cabin. He spent the first half of the walk home worrying about Diane—she’d seemed a little bit distant again—but then he found himself thinking about the deer. About the deer and Griffin and the kids and whatever it was they’d been doing every day in the valley. He ate an early lunch, left a note for his parents, who had gone for a walk on the lake-shore, and by twelve o’clock was well on his way.

  It wasn’t until he’d slid down the slope into the first meadow without seeing anyone, or being seen, that he decided to play the spy. If the kids weren’t there already, they would probably be arriving soon, and either way he could observe them for a while without being seen if he were careful. Sinking into a crouch—James Fieldi
ng, super-spy—he zigzagged across the meadow, dodging from boulder to boulder, and crept into the shelter of the surrounding trees. He circled the second meadow, staying among the heavy underbrush near the base of the cliff, and had almost reached the small, dense grove that surrounded the spring, when he suddenly stopped and then crept forward more carefully than ever. He had definitely heard the sound of human voices.

  He saw the little kids first. Woody and Laurel were sitting cross-legged, straight-backed, near the base of a large tree, like a couple of small buddhas. They were looking away from him, staring intently toward something beyond his field of vision. Dropping back, he circled among tree trunks to a spot more directly behind them. They were facing a small treeless area, a clearing that James recognized as being very near the deer’s resting place. Like spectators waiting for a performance to begin, they were sitting quietly, their hands in their laps.

  He eased closer, so close that when Woody leaned toward Laurel, he clearly heard his loud stage whisper. “What’s she doing? Why is it taking such a long time?”

  “Shh,” Laurel said. “She’s getting ready.”

  They went on sitting quietly except that now Laurel had turned her attention to something she was holding in her lap. Woody scooted closer, watching what she was doing. James was maneuvering, trying to get to where he could see too, when looking up he caught his breath in surprise.

  Griffin was standing in the center of the clearing. It was Griffin all right, although for just a fraction of a second he hadn’t been sure. She was wearing a short white tunic, and her hair hung loose and thick around her shoulders and down to well below her waist. There was a wreath of green leaves on her head and bracelets of flowers around her wrists and ankles. She was holding what seemed to be a silver punch bowl at arms length.

  “Ohh. Look,” Laurel whispered.

  Very slowly Griffin raised the bowl higher and as she lifted her head, the heavy shawl of hair shifted and slid, gleaming palely in the rays of green-tinged sunlight. For a brief moment James found himself capable of a kind of Griffinesque double-vision—capable of seeing a kooky kid playing a fantastical game and, at the same time, watching in a kind of awe as some magical creature of the forest, something pure and free and beautiful, moved through a ritual of strange significance.

  She knelt, then, and placing the bowl on the ground, she dipped her hands in it and lifted them to her face. As she bent over the bowl, the pale curtains of her hair swung down around it, and between the curtains, water fell in glistening drops and shone on her face as she rose to her feet. As she moved towards the children, James drew back among the tree trunks.

  “Give me the talismans,” he heard her say.

  She took something from each of them, small, oblong objects attached to long red ribbons, and turned to go.

  “No wait,” she said as the children started to get to their feet. “Not yet. I’ll come back for you when it’s time.” She crossed the clearing and disappeared in the direction of the spring.

  The wait seemed long, but it might have been no more than fifteen or twenty minutes. Woody fidgeted, stretched out at full length on the pine carpeted ground, and then sat up and put a pine cone down the back of Laurel’s blouse. Obviously making a valiant effort to maintain a faithful vigil, Laurel had managed to ignore Woody until the pine cone incident when, after fishing it out, she threw it at him, thumped him on the head with both fists and then went quickly back to her modified lotus position. Woody waved a fist in her general direction in an unconvincing threat of reprisal, and then settled for a less physical attack. “You’re not doing it right,” he said. “Your feet are on wrong.”

  “I know it,” she said. “They just won’t bend that way. Yours aren’t right either.”

  “They almost are. See. Mine are better than yours.” Woody was still trying to pull a sneaker-clad foot up onto his thigh when Griffin suddenly reappeared. Her face was glowing with a wild excitement.

  Woody jumped to his feet. “Did you do it? Did he let you do it?”

  She nodded hard, mouth tight, eyes blazing. “Quick,” she said. “Get the offering.”

  Woody disappeared from James’ range of vision and returned a moment later with a large paper bag. Emptying the water from the silver bowl Griffin poured in the contents of the bag, which seemed to be some kind of grain. When she shook the bowl from side to side, the grain made a soft sifting noise.

  “Now,” she said. “Hurry.” They sat again, all three of them now, at the base of the tree—cross-legged, arms extended, palms upward, eyes tightly closed. “Send for him. Send the invocation,” Griffin said.

  Woody’s lips began to move in exaggerated slow motion as he mouthed the words of what was obviously some kind of ritual chant. Watching him, James was beginning to grin when a sudden sound drew his attention and he looked up to see something so amazing that he forgot not only about Woody, but also what he was doing, himself. Without knowing how he got there, he found himself standing next to Griffin, staring in amazement as the deer entered the clearing. Pausing only for a moment, he came on to the silver bowl and then lowered his crowned head—a crown that was now decorated with fluttering red ribbons.

  CHAPTER 13

  THERE FOLLOWED SEVERAL days during which James spent a great deal of time thinking. Actually, there wasn’t much else to do. He’d finally finished the da Vinci essay and sent it off to Mr. Johnson, and he suddenly wasn’t spending nearly as much time with Diane.

  He wasn’t entirely sure just why. When he did see her, things were just as great, or almost as great, as ever. The only difference was that they spent a lot more time in public places—at the tennis courts, or swimming pool, or anyplace where people tended to congregate—and a lot less time on hikes in secluded places. But other times when he called up she said she couldn’t see him right then. Usually there was some good reason, or at least some reason that sounded reasonable. Like for instance, she had to go in to Tahoe with her mother to shop for a new bathing suit, which, in spite of the fact that she already owned at least a dozen, sounded like something you’d expect a girl to do. And she always sounded as if she were sorry about not being able to see him.

  A couple of times when they’d finally gotten together after several unsuccessful attempts on his part, he’d come right out and asked her if there was anything wrong, and if she still felt the same way about him. Her answers had always been extremely reassuring.

  “Jamesy,” she’d say, “how can you ask such a silly question? Can’t you tell how I feel about you? Come here and let me show you.” And she would drag him off (not that he ever resisted much) around a corner or behind the nearest tree, and they would mess around until he’d forgotten his worries completely. At least his worries about Diane. After such sessions behind the corner of the Commissary or the big sycamore on the Parade Grounds, his problems tended to be more physical than anything else. Physical and embarrassing. Not that it ever seemed to embarrass her. In fact she seemed to think it was all pretty amusing, particularly the time he’d had to sit down quickly at a picnic table because some people were coming along the path right toward where they were. That time he hadn’t thought it was all that funny. However the next time Diane wanted to mess around in a semi-public place, he hadn’t exactly refused. And later, during one of the long periods when he had nothing to do but think, he’d gotten over feeling irritated at her for laughing at him.

  He’d also had time to do quite a bit of thinking about Griffin and the deer and what had been going on in the hidden valley. He still hadn’t quite gotten over the shock of finding out that Griffin was able to go right up to him, touch him, and even tie things on his antlers. After weeks of careful and patient and maddeningly slow progress, he had earned the right to come to within approximately twenty feet, but no closer, and now in a period of a few days she’d actually been able to put her hands on his wild deer. He still found it hard to believe, although she’d told him all about how she’d done it that day on their way home f
rom the valley.

  After they had safely gotten past the cliff trail, which Woody and Laurel had crossed with surprising skill and fearlessness, Griffin had made them run on ahead so she and James could talk.

  “How did you get him to let you do it?” he’d asked her. “I’m really amazed.”

  “I don’t know exactly.” Griffin looked worried as if she were afraid he was really upset, which of course, he wasn’t, or at least not very much. “I guess it was just that you’d already tamed him so much that he wasn’t really all that much afraid any more. So it was easier for me.”

  He shrugged. “Well maybe. But I still can’t understand it. In less than two weeks he lets you walk right up and touch him. You and two noisy little kids.”

  “Oh no,” Griffin said. “I can’t do it when the kids are around. He always keeps his distance when they’re with me. I have to be all alone, and everything has to be just right.”

  James grinned. “So that’s it. That’s what I was lacking. No olive wreath and Grecian toga.”

  She looked embarrassed. “It wasn’t really. Just bay leaves and Wes’ old tee shirt. See.” She indicated the oversized tee shirt that was now tucked into her jeans. “But the rest of it was real. The ceremony was the important part, and that was real.”

  “The ceremony?”

  She nodded. “The Ceremony of the Talismans Against Evil. It was Laurel’s idea, at least at first. After I told them what you said about how all the hunters would want to shoot the stag if they knew about him, she started to worry like crazy.”

  “Laurel does everything like crazy,” James said.

  Griffin smiled. “I know. But she was really nervous about the stag, so we decided to have a ceremony to give him magical protection from hunters, or anyone who might want to hurt him. We made the amulets and did a lot of ceremonies to make them powerful, but I didn’t know if he’d really let me tie them to his antlers. I’d touched him before, though just barely. But the ceremony worked. Do you want to hear about the ceremony?”