Hearts in the Land of Ferns

by Jude Knight

  Ethan continued, “I can’t just leave, Claudia. Ben is counting on me. But I’ll give in my notice. I don’t have any rights. I know that, and I never wanted to frighten you. I’ll give Ben my notice. Will that be okay?”

  She nodded, unable to speak past the conflicting desires to scream at him again and to respond to the gentleness in his tone, and let him past her walls. He nodded back. “You look after yourself. I’ll…” A helpless wave of the hand. “Goodbye, Claudia.”

  7

  What had happened to frighten her so? Surely not him. Ethan had never actually hit her, though he’d come close, and he’d shoved her a couple of times and made her fall. He expected caution, perhaps even a little nervousness. But her reaction—it would not be too much to call it terror—was beyond anything he’d imagined.

  She’d gone back to her father after she left him, but her father had thrown her out, as he told Ethan when Ethan went to find her; to apologize; to beg her to return. And then he’d heard from a friend that she’d gone to her mother’s mother in New Zealand. His birthplace, though he’d not lived there since he was a small boy. Mr Westerson wouldn’t give him an address or even the grandmother’s name; threatened him with a gun and told him to get out.

  It had taken him months to save the fare, but he’d made it to New Zealand at last. And got into the fight that changed the direction of his life before he’d even left Auckland, where his plane had landed.

  Was it Westerson? He had been a brutal coach, though more with words than physically. Still, Westerson had left her with bruises more than once before Ethan persuaded her to come away with him.

  Or had there been someone else since; someone who had treated her badly?

  Ethan hoped not, for her sake, but if she hadn’t been abused by her father or another lover, then her terror was all for him, and that thought was unbearable.

  8

  On the first Saturday in December, Fairburn celebrated the season with a Christmas Parade and a Festival.

  Claudia took an excited Abbie to the assembly area for the floats. The school’s was an ambitious construction on the back of the local road gang’s longest truck (the owner was on the school board). ‘Holiday festivals around the world’ proclaimed the painted canvas skirt nailed to the truck bed so it hid the wheels.

  Every organization and enterprise in the town turned out for the event, which was designed to catch the weekend visitors for whom the Martonvale Valley was a playground. The park sprouted market stalls and amusements. The school, early childhood centre, local churches, and multifarious clubs had been building floats for weeks, and Claudia and Abbie had to weave between them to find where Abbie should be. Carla was waiting, toddler strapped to her back, and one hand holding tight to the five-year-old.

  The school’s theme was traditions from around the world, and most parents had drawn on their own cultural heritage for inspiration, so in a country of immigrants from the northern hemisphere there were lots of midwinter characters in much lighter versions of their traditional winter robes. They were all in costume, Carla as Mother Frost, and the children as snow crystals, the costumes made in light sparkly materials that wouldn’t smother them in the summer heat.

  “Three kings?” Claudia guessed, as the children of the Italian baker marched up to the float, crowns on heads and presents in hand.

  “I reckon,” Carly agreed. “Did you see the Tan family? I love the traditional Chinese robes!”

  Claudia named the Chinese winter solstice festival. “Dongzhi. Lucy Tan did a lovely presentation on it at school last week.” The families had been taking it in turn to teach the rest of the school about their own traditions. When it was the Westersons’ turn, Claudia had spoken about the Jesse Tree, and today Abbie was costumed as a shepherd boy from ancient Israel, complete with cardboard lyre and a shepherd’s crook borrowed from the agricultural museum.

  “Sophie Lafao looks comfortable,” Carly commented, as the Samoan mother led her children over. She and her daughters were resplendent in palatasi, the traditional Samoan two-piece of top and skirt, printed with island designs, and her sons wore lavalavas. All were crowned and wreathed with flowers.

  “Cooler than this beard,” said Rhys Phillips, who was dressed as a Druid. He interrupted himself to stop an incipient fight. “No, Jamie Muller. No beating people with your switch.” Jamie’s mother, rolling her eyes in exasperation, hurried up to retrieve her son and his sack of coal.

  “You bedder go, Mummy,” Abbie said.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Claudia asked, not sure whether she was addressing the question to Carla or Abbie.

  Abbie rolled her eyes and Carla nodded. “Fine, Claudia. Go and do your thing with the gymnasts.”

  “I’ll help,” Rhys agreed, cheerfully, and went back to directing his students into their places.

  Claudia found her class easily enough. The six of them, dressed as fairies in pink tulle and glittery wings, were already assembled on the truck bed. The older classes—also in costume—would walk either side. Or, rather, dance, skip, run, cartwheel, and otherwise entertain the crowds. Her father would have had a fit if she’d suggested such a public display in such an uncontrolled environment.

  She clambered up to join the children on the truck, her own Mrs Claus costume making climbing difficult, and took several photos of the children on her phone, to share with their parents. What little treasures they were. Twenty minutes until the start, according to her phone. She started a game of “I spy…” to keep them entertained and amused, and was surprised at how quickly the time flew. They would be one of the last floats to leave the assembly area, but once the parade began to move past them, the children were happily entertained by studying each float and waving to friends and relatives, so Claudia could relax and enjoy herself.

  Ethan waited for the school float in the street behind the supermarket. The parade would be spread out the full length of the Main Street by the time its leaders reached the end of the route. The school float was three or four back from the front, and the one where Claudia ruled over her own little flock of fairies was nearly at the end.

  His planning was rewarded far beyond his expectations when the woman watching over Abbie had to rush one of her own children off to the public toilets when the poor little mite whimpered, “I don’t feel so good’.

  “Polly, stay with Abbie,” she commanded.

  Ethan waited for her to disappear through the crowds, and then approached the truck, just in time to see Polly help Abbie down to the ground and ran to tug on the hand of the distracted head teacher, who was doing his best to control children whose mothers had not yet appeared to collect them.

  Ethan was about to take his chances to speak to Abbie when he heard Polly say, “We will wait under the tree and see the other floats, and we won’t move until Mummy gets back.”

  Perfect. He stepped backwards a couple of steps, and then circled swiftly around a few groups of people until he reached the tree, leaning against it as if he had been there for ages, watching the two girls from the corner of his eye as they approached.

  She was beautiful, her elfin face framed in a cloud of dark curls, her bright eyes sparkling as she and her friend pointed things out to one another and waved to people they knew. Abbie. Abigail, he supposed, though the article hadn’t said so. But surely Claudia had named her for the grandma he’d never met; the one who had lived here in Fairburn.

  “You could ride one of the ponies next year,” Polly said, as the local pony club, their horses decked out as fancifully as the riders, clip-clopped across the paved parking lot and took refuge under the trees.

  Abbie screwed up her face in thought. “Maybe…” she allowed. “Mummy worries.”

  Quite right, too. He didn’t know the child, and already he’d lay himself down on hot coals so she could cross them without burning her feet. She was his daughter, even if he had blown off all right to the relationship before she was even born.

  “Which is your favourit
e?” Polly asked. “Mine is the white unicorn.”

  “Begasus.” Abbie paused and took a deep breath, then blew out the letter ‘P’ with some force, pausing afterwards. “P.—egasus.”

  Polly searched the resting ponies, and Ethan did, too. No winged horse. Abbie giggled, and Polly’s eyes lit with understanding. “That’s what you would do? Pegasus? Would the pony mind the wings?”

  Something light, Ethan thought, and a firm harness so the wings didn’t flap to frighten Abbie’s mount or the other ponies. A few ideas raced across his mind. He’d always enjoyed tinkering with his hands, making a vision come to life in metal, wood and fabric. After he had screwed everything up and flushed his life down the toilet, it had been his only solace. And, in the end, his redemption.

  “You couldn’t make them too big,” he mused. “But if you kept them to around four feet, say, you’d still have a decent wingspan. Polycarbonate for the framework and struts, and parachute silk to cover. We could make it work, I reckon.”

  Abbie and Polly were staring, Abbie’s face suddenly bland. Where did an eight-year-old learn to hide her feelings like that?

  “I beg your pardon,” Ethan said, keeping his voice to the calm hum that had worked with Boss, his rescue cat when he’d brought her home, a frightened and abused kitten. “I could not help but overhear, and then I started thinking out loud.” He spread his hands to show they were empty. Harmless, he thought. I am harmless. “I make things, you see.”

  “I am not allowed to talk to people my mummy doesn’t know,” Polly told him, sternly. “Abbie isn’t, either.”

  “Your mummy and Abbie’s are quite right,” Ethan agreed. “I am nice, but some people are bad.”

  Abbie’s grin flashed again. “Bad man say tha’,” she argued, and he returned the grin, his heart turning over in his chest. A car accident, the article had said, and she was improving all the time. What a gallant little warrior she was, and how Claudia must have suffered.

  He should have been here for them; should have been their wall against the world and not yet another danger from which to flee.

  “Girls?” Here came the friend, frowning at him as she hurried up with her toddler on her hip. “Girls, who is this you are talking to?”

  “My apologies, ma’am.” Ethan bowed. “I interrupted the girls’ conversation, and this young lady was just explaining she could not talk to me.” The sound of his heart thundered in his temples as he took the next step. “Ethan Stone. I’m the new mechanic at Peterson’s.” There. Would she recognize the name? Had Claudia spoken of him?

  Apparently not, because she simply gave him a distracted nod. “Carly Becker. Come on, girls. Abbie, your mum will be here any minute. Let’s go meet her. Nice to meet you, Ethan.”

  She hurried the children away, casting a look back at him when Polly told her, “Mummy, Mr Stone says he could make a Pegasus costume for a pony.”

  “Could he, darling? Oh look! Here comes the gym club’s float.”

  Time to go. Claudia had told him to stay away from Abbie, and she wasn’t likely to understand his burning need to speak to the child, just once.

  He took a few steps to put the tree between him and the road, then threaded his way through the crowds to head home. Would Carly mention the man under the tree to her friend? And if so, would she name him? Ethan didn’t know whether to hope she wouldn’t, or that she would. Perhaps, if Claudia saw he’d spoken to Abbie without any harm coming of it, she might begin to trust him a little?

  9

  As the second week of December passed without further nasty surprises, Claudia began to relax. At the school, the Christmas festivities and the coming summer holiday dominated every classroom, and the end-of-year paperwork harried the teachers. Claudia took her last gymnastics class of the year, and all the girls received a certificate and a personalized drink bottle. She was touched by the gifts she was given in return—soaps, jewelled bookmarks, a potted plant, bars of fancy chocolate.

  RDA was not closing for the year until the middle of the third week, but what Claudia would do over the summer, she was not sure. The riding had done Abbie the world of good.

  When Carly mentioned she was boarding two of the RDA horses, Claudia raised the topic with the RDA convener while Abbie was riding on Thursday afternoon.

  “Carly tells me that Beauty and Podge are staying at her place while RDA is closed for the summer,’ she said, naming the ponies.

  The convener was watching the circling horses, each with a child atop and a volunteer helper alongside, ready to catch the unsteady and control the unwary, but at her comment he turned to look at her. “Yes, sure. Carly thought you might want Abbie to keep riding over the summer, and she’s willing to supervise so we won’t get slammed by the health and safety people.”

  It was as simple as that. “Thank you so much. We’ll follow all the rules, I promise.”

  “I know you can be trusted, and it’ll be good for the ponies to keep working. A bit of light exercise, each day, if you can manage it, will be good for them and good for Abbie, too.”

  One of the other volunteers, currently not needed out in the field, nudged the convener. “That car is there again,” she said.

  Claudia peered up at the parking lot on the hill above the RDA grounds. A black pick-up truck, a light blue hatchback, and a white sedan. “Which one?” she wondered.

  “The white,” the convener told her, not taking his eyes off the vehicle. “It has been parked in the car park up on the hill every time we’ve had RDA for the past week, and look. That flash. I reckon someone up there is using binoculars.”

  As the three of them watched, the flash disappeared, and moments later the car backed away, turned, and left the lot.

  “Did anyone get the number?” the convener asked, but without much hope. Sure enough, all he got was a couple of headshakes. The slope had concealed the base of the car.

  The convener shook his head. “I’ll talk to the police. Someone watching kids through binoculars? Not good.”

  Abbie shook off the sense of dread that descended. Whoever it was, it had nothing to do with her. How could it?

  She had second thoughts on Saturday. She and Abbie got separated for a few moments in the crowds at the weekend market in the parking lot behind the bakery, and when Claudia found her daughter again, Abbie was white, shaking, and near tears. Under emotional stress, her speech became less intelligible, and it took a while for Claudia to understand her scare was more than just losing sight of her mother.

  “I saw jag,” she kept repeating, until Claudia made the connection. “Jack?” she asked, and the crying child nodded, vigorously, adding “Jag wanna gill me.”

  Only Claudia’s own suspicions allowed her to decipher that. So, Abbie believed ‘Jack wants to kill me’? Did she remember the accident, then? She had never said; had always clammed up when anyone asked questions.

  “Jack can’t reach you, darling. Mummy will keep you safe,” she promised, hoping it was true.

  Later that day over at Carly’s, where Abbie was occupied playing with Polly and her sisters, Claudia told Carly and Trent about the incident.

  “He did try,” she explained. “The police didn’t believe me, but I know. He told me that, if I left him, he would kill Abbie. After the accident, he said he was just trying to help; that he picked her up at school that day hoping to use it as an excuse to talk to me. He made out I was hysterical, and I was. I was. Abbie was in critical care, and they didn’t expect her to live. They said her seat belt failed, but it was a near new car. Why should it fail?”

  Carly was indignant. “So they didn’t do anything?”

  “To be fair, it was his word against mine. No evidence.” Claudia had been so angry with the police, but at the same time had understood why they wouldn’t listen to her. “He was charming and reasonable. Respectable, too, with his own business building specialist computers. The police officer who interviewed me pointed out he’d been injured in the crash, too; that it had been a we
t afternoon and the corner was known for problems at speed. He admitted speeding, you see.”

  “But you believe he crashed on purpose, to kill Abbie.” Trent sounded doubtful.

  “See?” Claudia pushed her spoon around her cup, watching the swirl of the coffee rather than meet the derision she expected in Trent’s eyes. “You know me, and you’ve only heard my point of view, and you don’t believe me. Why should the police?”

  “They might now,” Trent suggested. “After all, someone set that fire and let your tires down.”

  Claudia nodded. “And someone wrote the note that got slipped under my doormat. I can believe it of Jack. You don’t believe me, Trent, but it would be just like him.”

  Trent threw up a hand in protest. “I didn’t say I didn’t believe you. You knew the man, and you’re no fool, Claudia Westerson.”

  “That’s right,” Carly agreed. “If you lived with him, you knew him better than anyone.”

  “He was fine as long as I gave him all my attention and no other man looked at me.”

  “Controlling and obsessive.” Carly grimaced.

  Claudia sighed. “Just like my father.”

  “Wait a minute,” Carly said. “What about the man at the parade?”

  “What man?” Claudia suppressed an urge to run out into the backyard, where she could hear the girls’ voices raised in laughing play. Abbie was not in danger here on the Becker’s property.

  “After the parade, actually,” Carly explained. “I took Audra to the toilet. Rhys said he’d keep an eye on Polly and Abbie, and he did, but he let them go watch the floats come in. When I got back, they were talking to a man. I’m sorry, Claudia. I meant to tell you, but they weren’t upset or anything. Apparently, they were talking about the pony club costumes. He said he could build Pegasus wings. Might that have been this Jack?”

  Trent disagreed. “Not if she collapses in tears at the sight of him,” he argued. “She was relaxed with this character, from what you say.”