The phone rang, and Stevie jumped for it. Lisa grabbed her friend’s arm. “Stevie! That’s the Hansons’ phone! Don’t answer it!”
Stevie shook her head. “Could be Carole,” she said. “Or it could be Ed McMahon. Hello, Hanson residence.”
On the other end of the line a girl’s voice asked, “Carole?”
“I’m sorry, she isn’t here right now,” Stevie replied.
“Oh … could you please tell her that Karenna called? She’ll remember me. We lived on the same base in California. My dad had to come here to Quantico for a few days, and he brought me with him so I could see Carole. Here’s the number …” Karenna started to recite a phone number.
“Wait,” Stevie interrupted. “Carole’s not here. She’s in Minnesota for the week, visiting relatives.”
“Oh, no.” Karenna sounded very disappointed. “I would have called her before I came, but I lost her phone number. I guess I should have called. Yuck. I don’t know what I’ll do this week if Carole’s gone. Well, thanks anyway.”
“Wait!” Stevie said. Since she answered Carole’s phone, she felt as if she were a little bit responsible for the consequences. This Karenna was Carole’s friend, and she would be lonely spending the week by herself. “Do you like horses?” Stevie asked.
“Do I? Sure! Carole and I used to take lessons together. I ride all the time.”
“Why don’t you come see Pine Hollow? That’s the stable where we ride. I’m Stevie Lake, Carole’s friend. Lisa Atwood and I could introduce you to Carole’s horse, Starlight.”
Karenna seemed a little surprised. “Okay,” she said after a pause. “Okay, I guess I could. I’d love to see Carole’s horse.” They arranged to meet at Pine Hollow on Friday, and Stevie hung up the phone.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” Lisa said. “First you answer someone else’s phone, then you invite someone else’s friend, out of the blue, to come to Pine Hollow.”
“She’s not someone else’s friend, she’s Carole’s friend. You know Carole would want us to be nice to her. Besides,” said Stevie, grinning mischievously, “I had to answer the phone. It could have been Ed McMahon. We could have been the lucky winners of ten million dollars in the fantastic, fabulous sweepstakes giveaway.…”
Lisa had to laugh. At least part of what Stevie said made sense. They should be hospitable to Carole’s friend.
JUST AFTER BREAKFAST in Minnesota, Louise and Aunt Jessie disappeared into Jessie’s darkroom. Carole didn’t mind. The night before, Christina had offered to take her on a snowmobile tour of the area today, and Carole had happily accepted.
The day was beautiful and the sun shone so brightly on the white snow that it made Carole’s eyes ache. Once she was on the snowmobile the rest of her ached, too, from cold. Even though she’d worn a pair of Aunt Lily’s windproof ski pants, her parka, boots, hat, scarf, and heavy gloves, the wind seemed to cut right through her. Still, she thought as she held on tightly to Christina, she wouldn’t have missed this for anything.
The pine trees were laden with snow. Snowdrifts curved in and out around the trees, and Christina drove the snowmobile right through them. They saw rabbits and deer tracks, a frozen waterfall, and hundreds and hundreds of trees. They also saw many more snowmobiles, most of them driving down the country roads.
“Are they out sight-seeing, like us?” she shouted to Christina above the engine’s roar.
“What? No, they’re probably going into town for something. People use these for transportation around here, Carole. Cars and trucks get stuck in the snow. The wind’s always blowing—the roads can drift shut pretty quickly.”
Carole was impressed. She’d always thought of snowmobiles as fun toys—like motorbikes, but for winter.
“Want to drive?” Christina offered.
“Yes!”
Christina stopped the snowmobile and switched places with Carole. She showed Carole how to start, stop, and turn, and Carole drove them back to the Foleys’ farm.
“Thank you,” Carole called, waving as Christina headed home. She herself headed for the kitchen. She thought she could smell lunch cooking, and she was hungry. Sure enough, her father stood by the stove stirring a pot of soup.
“Boy, does that smell good!” Carole plopped herself on a kitchen chair and began to unwrap her layers of clothing. “I had the best morning, Dad!”
“I can see that,” her father replied. “Bright eyes, roses on your cheeks …”
“Roses from the cold. You can’t believe how cold it is out there. And Christina says this isn’t even cold, really, for this time of year—and it’ll be like this until spring.” Colonel Hanson ladled the soup into bowls and sat down next to her. Carole began to eat.
“What I really find interesting,” she said, between mouthfuls, “is how everyone here arranges things differently because of the harsh weather—like the covered walkways between the houses.…”
Aunt Jessie and Louise came in from the darkroom and began washing up for lunch. Carole waved to them and continued. “And the snowmobiles, they’re actually real transportation. We saw people driving to town to do their grocery shopping. Christina let me drive her snowmobile and I really liked it, but not as much as I’ll like the ride this afternoon.” Louise and Christina had promised to take her on another tour—on horseback, this time.
Aunt Jessie turned from the sink. “I’m sure to a delicate child like you, coming here from way down South is something of a novelty,” she said with a slightly sarcastic sneer. “You don’t know even what winter is, or what it means to be up here in wilderness. Up here, the roads aren’t always passable, and the phones don’t always work. We have to take care of ourselves. You wouldn’t know how to do that. You’d better let Louise take care of you on your ride.”
There was a small silence. Carole said nothing, even though she felt stung by Jessie’s rude words. She hadn’t been raised here; she didn’t know about winter, but she did know she could take care of herself.
What was Aunt Jessie’s problem? Didn’t she care that Carole was her niece, the daughter of her own sister?
You’re just like Jackson Foley. He didn’t care about his family either. Carole directed the angry thought at her aunt, and for a moment felt better. She wasn’t rude enough to say it out loud, but she could think just as mean as Jessie could.
Then she had a second thought—if bloodlines were true, and Jessie was a rascal, what did that say about Carole herself? Here she was now, acting just like Jessie. She didn’t feel better anymore.
She got up from the table and rinsed her bowl and spoon at the sink. She’d go riding. She wouldn’t think about her family.
Carole dressed for the ride in clothing that Jessie and Louise loaned her.
“Your parka’s fine,” Louise said. “Forget breeches; they’re too thin. Wear the snowpants Mom gave you this morning. And here”—she handed Carole a tube of soft knit fabric—“this is a gaiter.” The gaiter slipped over Carole’s head and fit snugly around her face and neck.
“A regular scarf could get caught on the saddle if you were thrown,” Louise explained. “And the gaiter covers your face better, anyway.” Next came a black padded cloth on an elastic band. Louise put it on Carole’s head so that the padding covered both ears and the elastic encircled her forehead. “Like earmuffs, but you can still wear your riding helmet,” Louise explained. Finally she gave Carole a pair of silk glove liners, a heavy insulated pair of riding gloves, and the strangest riding boots that Carole had ever seen.
They were black, knee-high, and had a foot shaped like a regular boot’s, but the sides were made of thick, padded windproof cloth. “Insulated,” said Louise. “Regular snow boots won’t fit in a stirrup, but you’d freeze your feet in regular riding boots. Ready?”
Carole nodded. She was beginning to feel like a mummy.
Nothing, however, made her feel more normal than riding. The back of a horse—any horse—was where Carole always felt happiest, and riding Kismet, Jes
sie’s spirited Arabian mare, was a particular joy. Kismet tossed her beautiful head and pranced through the snowdrifts. Beside her, Louise and Jiminy Cricket moved into a gorgeous, long-striding trot, while Christina and Spice followed her, and Ginger, Louise’s dog, romped along behind.
Carole felt as if she were seeing everything new. Even though she and Christina had snowmobiled over some of the exact same land that morning, now with the horses she felt much closer to the peaceful, frozen wilderness. This must be how the early settlers felt, she thought.
“It’s magnificent!” she shouted. She’d already learned that, with ears and mouths so heavily covered, she would have to yell in order to be heard.
“The best part’s just ahead!” Louise replied.
They followed a cross-country ski track through a stand of tall white pines. Suddenly the track opened onto a beautiful snow-and-ice-covered lake, and they pulled their horses to a halt.
There was no beach, like Carole was used to seeing in Virginia. Instead, the forest ended abruptly in favor of large, snow-covered rocks, which just as abruptly ended at the edge of the lake. To their left a huge pile of rocks jutted dramatically into the sky high above the surface of the lake. Carole caught her breath—it was wild and spellbindingly beautiful.
Louise pulled her gaiter down to her chin. “That’s Lover’s Point,” she said. “Sometimes in the summer we climb up there, but we won’t try it today.”
Carole understood. “With all the ice, it would really be scary.”
Louise shrugged. “Aunt Jessie is going to go out there at midnight during the next full moon. She’s going to take a picture of the moon rising over the lake. She’s not afraid.”
“It’s an awfully dangerous climb for a person,” Carole said. She was surprised that Aunt Jessie would try it—not only in the winter, but alone and at night.
“She’ll go by horse,” Louise replied. “They’re much more surefooted than people.”
“That’s even worse!” Carole exclaimed. “It might be true that horses are more surefooted, but Jessie would be putting her horse at a terrible risk! It’s not right; the horse doesn’t have a choice. The horse doesn’t care about a picture.”
“Jessie’s horse will be fine.” Louise frowned and pulled her gaiter back up over her nose. “Can’t you tell she’s a wonderful mount?”
“Jessie’s always got the wildest ideas,” Christina broke in before Carole could point out that Kismet’s being a great horse had nothing to do with it. “Remember, Louise,” Christina went on, “how she wanted to drive us to Louisiana last February? We had a three-day weekend and she wanted us to go down, dip our toes in the ocean, and drive straight back up. She said she knew where the Mississippi River started and she wanted to see where it ended up. She thought three days would be enough time.” Christina gave Carole a reassuring look. “But we never went. It was just talk.”
Still, Carole thought, driving to Louisiana and riding to Lover’s Point in twenty-five-below-zero-degree weather were two different things. And she didn’t think Jessie had planned to ride a horse to Louisiana.
It was getting cold. They turned their horses and headed for home.
THE NEXT MORNING, after breakfast, Grand Alice invited Carole to come to her apartment. “We’ll have a cup of tea and some talk,” Grand Alice said.
Carole agreed to come at once, but as she followed Grand Alice down the walkway to her apartment she couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. What other skeletons might Grand Alice pull out of the family closet? Carole didn’t want to hear about another Jackson Foley.
Grand Alice’s apartment immediately helped to set Carole’s mind at ease. Sun streamed in from large windows set in both the east and west walls of the open, spacious room. Green plants grew on the west windowsill. A bright pieced quilt covered Grand Alice’s bed, a colorful rag rug covered much of the floor, and gaily embroidered cushions decorated the cozy red chintz davenport. The colors in the room were continued in a series of bright oil paintings hanging on the walls. Looking closely at a picture of blue and yellow wildflowers, Carole saw the name Alice in the corner.
“Did you paint this?” she asked Grand Alice, who was taking a steaming teakettle off of a little two-burner stove.
Grand Alice laughed and gestured toward the east window. An easel was set up next to a desk and chair. “Most mornings, when the light’s coming in that window, I sit and paint, or I sit at my desk and write. The sunshine feels good.”
Carole carefully examined the other paintings, including the one in progress on the easel. “They’re really good,” she said.
“They please me,” Grand Alice replied. “That’s all that matters.”
Another wall was covered with photographs. Carole went over to look at them, and was astonished at how good they were. Some were landscapes and some were portraits, but an equal number were almost abstract. Her favorite was an extreme close-up of a row of icicles.
That’s winter, she thought to herself. That’s what winter feels like around here. Aloud she asked, “Are these …”
“Jessie’s,” Grand Alice finished for her. “Yes, they are.” She brought the tea things to a low table by the davenport and continued. “There’s more than one way of looking at everything. Some angles are more interesting than others, but some are just more confusing. When Jessie takes photographs, she goes hunting for different angles. Problem is, she sometimes does the same thing in her life.” Grand Alice smiled. She sat down slowly, and motioned for Carole to come sit beside her.
Carole sat down. She wasn’t sure what Grand Alice meant, but the way she was talking reminded Carole of Mrs. Reg, and her habit of telling lessons as stories. Carole was sure her great-grandmother could teach her a lot.
Grand Alice poured Carole a cup of tea, but at first did not take one herself. Instead she reached down slowly, and pulled a small wooden box out from under the table. “I got this ready for you when I heard you were coming,” she said. She handed the box to Carole.
“I can’t be sure what I’m telling you is true,” she continued. “I can’t be sure, nobody can, but this is the story that’s been passed down, generation to generation, on my side of the family. My mother told me. Her mother told her. Way back, to at least the late eighteenth century, one woman told another. The story is that the first woman in my family came over from Africa on the slave boats and brought this with her, around her neck.”
Carole opened the box. It was lined with yellowed satin. Inside was a small, finely carved wooden amulet on a leather thong. She held it up. It was a figure of a four-footed animal—a horse perhaps, or a donkey, or even a zebra. The wood was dark and smooth and the carving was exquisite. Carole held it up to the sunlight. She was amazed to think that something so delicate survived first a trip in a slave boat and then over two hundred years, passed down from hand to hand through Grand Alice’s family until now, when she held it in her own hand. The little animal was unscathed, and the thought of its history nearly took her breath away.
“The leather’s new,” Grand Alice said. “Leather rots, you know, and the old string didn’t look sound to me, so I had a new one put on. You don’t want to put it on a metal chain, Carole, because it might scratch the wood.” She took the necklace away from Carole and gently held it in her own hand.
“This would have been your mother’s, Carole. I had only sons, you know, so I decided I would save this for a granddaughter. I would have given it to your mother, but I waited too long. After she died, I decided to save it for you.” Grand Alice slipped the necklace over Carole’s head.
All at once Carole was overcome with joy and sadness. She flung her arms around her great-grandmother and buried her head against the older woman’s shoulder to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes. She had never thought that anyone in her family, much less herself, would have such a treasure.
“I’ll save it for special occasions,” she promised. “And I’ll always remember the story. Oh, thank you, Grand Alice!”
Grand Alice patted Carole’s arm. “You’re welcome. I know you’re a good person to give it to. You’re like your mother, you know. Now drink your tea. I have pictures to show you.”
Carole obediently drank her tea. But all she could think about was the amulet. “Just think,” she said, fingering the tiny animal, “I may not be the first member of the family to be horse-crazy. Maybe she—the woman who first wore this—loved horses too.”
Grand Alice chuckled. “Maybe so. And Carole, you take care of that necklace, but mind you do one other thing too. You be sure that you pass it on to your family someday.”
Carole nodded solemnly, not trusting herself to speak. Someday she would give the necklace to another young girl, and tell her the story she had just been told.
After tea and two cookies apiece—“Always need a cookie with tea,” Grand Alice declared, even though it was still close to breakfast time—Grand Alice instructed Carole to bring out several photo albums from the bottom drawer of her desk. Carole was thrilled at the number of pictures they contained. What stories they must hold! She got a pen and notebook ready so she could write everything down for her project.
First Grand Alice opened a big black album whose stiff cover crackled with age. “These are the old ones. There aren’t too many of them—photographs were a rare luxury in those days. We start with Jackson Foley. Here he is.”
Carole looked at his picture. To her surprise, Jackson Foley looked like an everyday person, not like the villain she thought him to be. He was thin and slightly stooped, and he looked a little stiff in his formal clothes, but he was smiling and his eyes looked kind.
“Course, he would have been Jackson Washington then,” said Grand Alice. “On the back of the picture it says that it was taken in Boston in 1865, during the Civil War. It’s the only picture of ol’ Jackson I have. It may be the only one he ever had taken.
“Now here …” She turned the page and showed Carole another photograph, this one of an unsmiling young black woman in a frilly white dress. She held a baby, also dressed in white, on her lap, and a toddler leaned against her knee. Two other children stood beside her. The girl was dainty, with ribbons in her hair. The boy’s belly pushed against his suspenders. He looked ready to fight. “This is Jackson’s second wife, and their children. The boy, Frederick, was my husband’s grandfather.”
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