Pale Phoenix

by Kathryn Reiss

  "Then let's hurry. I don't like this."

  Abby stood, a forlorn figure, watching them from the charred ruin of her house.

  Miranda had to force down the panic that throbbed in her stomach as she and Dan tried to walk along the road. Instead of moving normally, their feet seemed to be treading air, as if they were in water. Miranda couldn't quite get a purchase on the ground but drifted just above it. At the ruin she had walked on firm ground, but here, beyond the strange wall of wind, the law of gravity did not seem to apply.

  "We're like—like ghosts!" cried Dan, trying to stand firmly on the road and failing. He, too, hovered an inch or so above the earth.

  "How can we be ghosts if we haven't died? We haven't even been born yet," Miranda said. "But we're luckier than Abby—at least we're not trapped at the ruin."

  "I hope to heaven we're not trapped here," he said, and Miranda felt the panic rise in her again.

  Okay, just accept it for now, Miranda told herself sternly as they floated along. We have to worry about helping Abby—that's why we're here. Miranda steeled herself for the task before her.

  They drifted along, trying to catch up with the men. As they were approaching a small cluster of wooden buildings, the three men disappeared inside the main house. Miranda hovered and watched a girl carrying a basket of vegetables come out of the house and stand by the gate. She wore a soft gray dress that brushed her ankles. The collar on the dress was stiff and white, and lay in two points across her breast. On her head was a simple white bonnet, reminding Miranda of the ones she had seen Amish women wearing in Pennsylvania when she visited relatives there one summer. She wondered if this girl might have been one of Abby's friends.

  The girl walked slowly, trailing her hand along the low fence that bordered the chicken yard by the house. Just as she passed by them, Dan waved and called out, "Hello!" But the girl did not turn. He wiped his hand across his face.

  Miranda and Dan waited by the fence until Thomas emerged from the house. They drifted behind him again as he set off down the road.

  Twentieth-century Garnet was a busy town, a historic landmark on the map of New England. In the summertime artists came to town and set up their easels on the common to paint the quaint old buildings along Main Street. Children bought ice cream cones from vendors on the street corners. Local restaurants offered "traditional" New England fare of meat pies, seafood, and chowder. Garnet in the summer pulsed with tourists, teenagers on bicycles, and the sounds of lawn mowers down the side streets and music from the street musicians on the common.

  But Garnet of the seventeenth century was a very different place. Here, there were no busy streets, no motorcycles or cars. There was no music blaring from radios carried by kids on the sidewalks, no calls of street vendors peddling popcorn or hotdogs. The silence was what struck Miranda the most. She could hear birds as she walked, and animals scurrying in the bushes. She saw some deer watching from the side of the path. And there were no stores, as Abby had said, and no schools, no town hall, or hospital. The people she saw were all busy working, many of them doing unfamiliar tasks with tools she did not recognize. These people had a hard life to forge for themselves out of this new land. The artists, the ice cream stands, the restaurants would all be a long time coming;

  The reality of having traveled through time in mere seconds threatened to overwhelm Miranda as she stared at the animals grazing on the village green. She breathed deeply as she drifted along, holding tightly to Dan's hand, soaking up impressions, and trying not to think.

  All the houses they passed were unpainted, but some were quite large; whenever she had pictured Puritan New England—during a history lesson at school, for instance—Miranda had imagined the houses to have been very tiny log cabins. These were wooden houses, true, but of smooth planks rather than rough, round logs like the Lincoln Logs she had built playhouses with as a child. Every house along the green had a garden plot at the side and usually a chicken yard as well. The beans and corn grew tall in the sun, and the path that she and Dan skimmed along was dusty. Unfamiliar smells assaulted her nose: pungent wood smoke curling from every house, animals in the fields. The air, heavy and hot, smelled of pine.

  Miranda shivered in the hot sun. Where were the snowdrifts of the Garnet winter she had left behind? She looked down and saw that although she and Dan had settled onto the path, they left no footprints in the dirt. Who was real and who was not in this strange, different Garnet?

  The people they passed looked real. The villagers could not see Miranda or Dan, but they seemed to be real flesh and blood people who had their own lives and concerns—and never once thought of themselves as pages out of a history textbook or as exhibits in a museum. There was a tension about the villagers. A watchful wariness. What are they afraid of? wondered Miranda as she flew past. Witches? Some people talked in small groups—perhaps about the terrible fire that had claimed the lives of their neighbors. Others walked alone, on errands Miranda could not begin to imagine. There was no bank to go to. No dry cleaner or video store. No corner grocery. She tried to orient herself by imagining the Garnet she knew—they were moving along the edge of the common where Main Street was in the present. A few blocks over would be the high school. Susannah's house would be back where it looked like there were fields. Mrs. Wainwright's house on Elm Street would be built a few blocks to the north, where now there were only thick stands of trees'. Miranda looked toward the hill, where her own house would be built in another hundred years. Dan's would be built even sooner—perhaps in another fifty years. So far the only thing Miranda had recognized was the Prindle House, and yet even that was missing its porch and the newer wing.

  The women they passed wore bonnets, ruffs around their necks, shawls—even though the day was hot. Miranda stared openly at everyone, glad they couldn't see her. All had their heads covered, except for one young girl, perhaps eleven or twelve, who ambled toward them, swinging her bonnet by its long tie, her thick auburn hair held back from her face with a large tortoiseshell comb. She hummed as she passed them, settling the bonnet over her hair again as a group of men came into view farther down the lane.

  "Amazing, isn't it?" asked Dan. He was turning left and right as they drifted along, eager to take in all the details. "I wonder how it would feel to live here now? We'd be considered adults already, for one thing. That much about history I know. There wasn't any such thing as teenagers—I mean, I don't think anyone called people our age that until the end of the nineteenth century. I'd be working in the fields. We'd both be getting ready for marriage soon." He glanced down at Miranda and tried to joke. "So, how about it, my love. Willst thou marry me?"

  She fluttered her eyelashes. "Why certainly, my good sir."

  Ahead of them Thomas stopped outside a two-story dwelling built around a brick chimney. The roof was covered with wooden shingles and the windows were small, set with diamond-shaped panes of glass. It looked nothing like The Sassy Café.

  "We're here," Miranda whispered. "Thomas's house."

  Thomas opened the door and stepped inside. The door swung shut behind him.

  "Should we knock?" asked Dan.

  "Would they hear us?" Miranda walked up to the door and tentatively put her hand out. She touched the wood, felt the rough surface under her hand, but at the same time felt the matter change, as if the atoms were rearranging themselves and her hand slipped into the wood as if into water. She snatched her hand back in panic, their lightheartedness of only moments before entirely forgotten. Please get me out of here, she prayed. I want to go home. Never mind helping Abby. What could ghosts do, anyway?

  Miranda saw that Dan was just as pale as she felt herself. "Did it hurt?" he asked.

  "No. But it's—awful."

  "Well, let's go if we're going." He motioned for her to go through the door. "Ladies first."

  She hesitated, then drifted straight into the door, holding her breath. A split second later she emerged on the other side to find a thin young woman in a black dress and
white apron, with braids coiled at her neck, staring at the door. Miranda gasped, hovering only inches from the woman. But after a moment the woman turned back to the huge fireplace. Something bubbled in a heavy black cauldron, the enticing aroma of sage wafting into the air. Miranda slowly exhaled.

  A little girl dressed like her mother in black with a white apron played in the far corner of the room near a bed. She cradled what looked to Miranda like a bundle of corn husks, but which appeared to be the child's doll.

  Keeping his voice low, just in case the people might hear them, Dan said, "The woman must be Sarah. And I bet the little girl is Charity." He glanced around quickly. "But I wonder where Thomas went?"

  "I wish we could take something back with us," said Miranda. "For Abby." She reached out experimentally and brushed her finger against a tankard on the table. Her finger passed right through it. "But we can't. We don't make any impression here at all. How are we going to let Thomas know Abby is safe?"

  "Try the phoenix," Dan suggested, and Miranda drew the stone figure out of her pocket. She raised it to her lips and blew the long sweet note into the air.

  Little Charity dropped her doll. "What was that, Mama?"

  Sarah looked around the room. "I don't know. Perhaps the boys have come back from the garden."

  They had heard the whistle! Miranda closed her eyes and blew again.

  "There it goes again, Mama! And the boys aren't here at all." Charity sounded frightened. "It came from over by the door."

  Sarah walked toward them then and opened the door. She stepped outside. Miranda held her breath. After a moment Sarah came back, closing the door firmly behind her. "It must have been someone out in the lane," she said, returning to the fireplace. Charity settled down with her doll again.

  Miranda and Dan hovered near the door. "So they can hear the whistle. But how can we tell them about Abby?" moaned Miranda. "I wish I knew how to toot out a message in Morse code."

  "Morse code hasn't been invented yet," Dan whispered back. "Anyway, you tried. That's what we'll have to tell Abby." They hovered silently, watching Sarah's dinner preparations. After another moment, Dan added, "But I wish I'd brought a camera. Pictures of this place would help Abby feel less homesick."

  "Yeah, not to mention the great photo essay you could do."

  Miranda looked around her, willing herself to remember details so she could report to Abby. It was a wonderful room, she thought, filled with an astonishing array of things—a museum exhibit come alive. There were no "do not touch" signs posted, and the utensils and furnishings were bright and new rather than darkened with age. This was a real house, a place where a family lived. How Mrs. Hooton would love to see all this! For a fleeting second Miranda wondered whether there could possibly be invisible visitors from the distant future in her own house in Garnet, looking around, marveling at the "quaint" lifestyle of the late twentieth century.

  The enormous fireplace with its pots and kettles on wooden crossbars was the main feature. The beams above were full of hooks from which bundles of dried herbs hung, and not only herbs—dried corn and apples dangled from strings; huge sides of ham and bacon had been strung high inside the fireplace to smoke. Near the fireplace was the long table flanked by benches and two chairs at either end. There was a bench next to the fireplace, with a hinged seat. Miranda recalled having seen one in the Hootons' museum. It was called a settle, and the compartment under the seat was for storing linens or clothes. A narrow, enclosed staircase led upstairs from one corner by the fireplace.

  Miranda and Dan floated together toward the far wall. Shelves contained bowls and rough-looking metal dishes. "They're pewter," Dan whispered. "We have them in the museum. No one here knows about lead poisoning yet." They moved toward the fireplace, passing the small and large spinning wheels under the narrow window and the loom for weaving, which took up one entire corner.

  Sarah reached above her head and pinched sprigs from a dried rosemary plant hanging from the ceiling beam. She threw the herb into the bubbling stew and the aroma from the broth made Miranda's stomach rumble. Then a low door in the back wall opened, and Thomas ducked through with a small boy on his shoulders. Another boy came in behind them. Thomas set the child down and latched the door. She noticed that both little boys wore shoes of leather decorated by large buckles. At least something looked just as the history books showed.

  "They must be Daniel and Nicholas," breathed Dan.

  Thomas walked across the room to Sarah, who quickly wiped her hands on a coarse cloth, her eyes on his face. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her roughly to him. Her arms came up to stroke his back, then tightened around him in a hug.

  After a moment, he set her away from him and sank onto the settle. "Charity?" he said, "Where is a hug for thy father?" The little girl left her doll and came to him.

  "I missed thee," Sarah said. "It seemed a long time."

  Sarah's eyes were sorrowful as she ladled stew into heavy pewter bowls and set the bowls around the table. She placed a large loaf of dark bread covered with a white cloth on a board. Then she poured some amber liquid into a great tankard and set that on the table as well. "We had best eat," she said. "This is another sad day, but at least we are together, the five of us. That's something to be thankful for."

  "Daniel and Nicholas," called Thomas. "Come to the table."

  "I wish we could eat something, too," whispered Dan. "It smells so good." They watched the family gather around the long table for the prayer.

  "Lord," began Thomas in a deep, resonant voice, "we ask Thy blessing on this food that Thou in Thy abundant mercy hast given. We know it is not by good food and contentments of this world alone that we preserve our life and health. It is by Thy strength and Thy grace that we survive this time of grief and loss. We ask, Lord, for Thy protection against future perils. We ask for Thy blessing on our souls, and on the souls of our family and friend who did not survive the fire." When he paused, everyone around the table remained silent, heads bowed. After a moment he added softly, "Please protect my sister, young Abigail, wherever she may be. Amen."

  Sarah and the children echoed him. "Amen."

  But before they could begin their simple meal, there came a heavy knock upon the door. Thomas rose from his chair to answer. "Why, it's Henry Mather. Come in, Neighbor."

  A thickset man wearing a black hat and a long tunic like Thomas's entered and nodded to the family. "Goodwife," he said to Sarah, removing his hat to reveal a bald head. "Forgive the intrusion at mealtime. Thomas? I have important news. We have found—"

  "Is it Abigail?" Thomas grabbed the man's arms. "Henry, have you found my sister?"

  Henry hesitated. "No, I am sorry we have not. But I must speak about the fire, Thomas."

  "Please, do sit and try the soup," Sarah invited him. "'Tis a vegetable broth flavored with pork. I know you must be hungry."

  Henry set his hat on the settle, nodding tiredly. He sank onto the bench next to Daniel and smiled at the children, who greeted him politely. Sarah ladled some soup into a bowl for him, handed him a hunk of bread, and passed him the heavy mug. All the family drank from the one tankard, Miranda noted.

  Henry drank deeply and sighed as he set the mug down on the table again. "Ah, that is fine ale, Goodwife."

  She thanked him. They ate in silence, and the atmosphere in the room grew heavier. Thomas waited until the man had finished before speaking. He said, "Perhaps you children would like to play out in the lane for a time?"

  "Oh, aye," they chorused and left promptly, Charity dragging the cornhusk doll.

  Thomas turned to Henry. "Now, Henry. What would you have us know?"

  Henry cleared his throat. "Clara was berrying in the woods behind the Prindle House when she saw the Indian woman kneeling by a small fire and muttering an incantation. Her shack is there, you know, on the hill, and Clara would not go too close. But she came to tell me that Willow's eyes were wild. As my daughter in all innocence passed by, hidden by the trees, Willow, looked
up and cast her eye upon the girl. As she did so, the small fire leapt up and caught some dry leaves—and the Indian had to hurry to put out the flames lest the whole forest be burned." His voice cracked. "Thomas, I'm telling you, I fear that woman. People are saying now that she cast her eye on your parents' house and similarly started a fire. I think they must be right." Henry looked at his neighbors and raised his hands, palms up in a gesture of supplication. "'Tis frightening to know such evil is among us. But how else could the roof catch so suddenly as it did unless the devil were about?"

  Sarah's face was very pale.

  Henry glanced over his shoulder as if searching for an unseen presence and lowered his voice. "Josiah Prindle swears he saw a large bird on the roof of his house just before William left to join your family for the meal. The bird flew along with him and rested atop your family's roof as William entered the house. It was a devil bird, Josiah believes. A spirit sent by the Indian to harm poor William."

  Thomas sprang suddenly to life. He stood next to Henry and placed a hand on his broad shoulder. "I thank you for coming to tell us this news."

  "But, Thomas, we must act." Henry thumped his fist on the table. "You owe it to your family and to your neighbors to help extinguish the evil flame among us. Both your parents are dead now, man—and your three sisters. One body cannot even be found—can you tell me that is not a sign more than anything else of witchcraft? The Indian must have spirited Abigail's body away—to use for only the Devil-knows-what infernal purpose!"

  The back of Miranda's neck prickled.

  "The men are assembling now. We must act quickly, my friend." Henry reached for his hat.

  Dan shook his head. "What total bull," he said loudly. But of course no one but Miranda heard him. "Let's get out of here."

  Chapter Sixteen

  BUT MIRANDA didn't budge. "Wait a minute."