Jessie said, “There are addicts around here? I thought they were only in the cities.”
“They’re here worse than the cities. But you can’t see them because they’re inside families. And families cover up.
“So anyway.” Terri sat forward. “From now on we can’t go to the Cuttings’ anymore. We have to leave the tools where they are. The whole place is too hot.”
“Hot?” A sick feeling had arrived in Jessie’s stomach.
“Dangerous. If it’s druggies, we could even get hurt.”
“What will happen now?”
“Well, eventually somebody from the house will go in there. Then they’ll call the police, who’ll come over and investigate. They’ll look for footprints and try to trace where the stuff went. They’ll probably see our trail going down to the pond.”
Jessie’s hand rose over her mouth. “They’ll find the tools and think it was us.”
“Not necessarily. They might think the tools are connected to the break-in, like maybe somebody came in on a boat.”
“But what if they ask around and find out we’ve been there fixing the raft? My dad knows we were doing it. So do Julia and Jonathan. They don’t know where, but they know.”
“Everyone in my family knows too,” Terri said. “But families don’t tell on each other, remember? At least mine doesn’t. Does yours?”
“I don’t know,” Jessie said. “I’ve never had anything happen like this.”
“Well, I guess you’ll find out.”
Jessie swallowed. “I don’t think they’d tell on me. Even Julia.”
“So don’t worry,” Terri said.
“What about Miss Cutting? She knows everything!”
Terri sighed. “Even if she talked, who would believe her? Everyone around here knows she’s nuts. Look, we just have to hope nobody goes in the garage for a while. A couple of months from now they won’t be able to see our path so well.”
“By then I’ll be home in Pittsburgh!”
“Right,” Terri said. “But I’ll still be here.”
The good feeling had gone out of the day. They didn’t want to stay hidden, but neither could they decide where to go next or what to do. Lunchtime was long past. Terri had eaten everything in her pockets for breakfast.
“Hey, I’m starving,” she announced. “Let’s go back to my place and make sandwiches. We can bring them out here and eat on the raft. It would really be fun.”
Jessie shook her head no.
“Nobody’s at my house, if that’s what’s worrying you. Everybody’s at work.”
“That’s okay. I’d rather not.”
“Why?”
“I just don’t want to.”
Terri folded her arms. “There’s nothing wrong with my house.”
“I know,” Jessie said. “I just don’t want to go there right now. In fact, I think I want to go home.”
“Oh, I get it. Now you’re scared to hang out with me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You’re scared somebody will find out about us, and you want to go home and hide.”
“I do not!” Jessie said angrily.
“Well, then what’s the problem?”
“I just don’t want to be at your house, okay? Why should I when your dad is crazy and the whole place is a mess and you don’t even have plumbing?”
“What?”
Jessie knew instantly that she’d gone too far. The words had come with no warning, from some well-guarded place she’d hardly known was there. Too late, she backpedaled.
“Sorry, Terri. I didn’t mean it.”
“We have plumbing. Who said we didn’t?”
“I don’t know. Somebody at the beach.”
A hot flush crept across Terri’s cheeks. “Who?”
“Some kids. Friends of Julia’s. I don’t remember their names.” She didn’t want to say it was Julia.
“I thought you weren’t going to hang out with them. I thought you were on my side.”
“I wasn’t hanging out with them,” Jessie protested. “I went to the beach with Julia that day when you didn’t come. I read my book there.”
“And heard what?”
“Nothing!”
“Yes, you did. You heard about my family. You heard my mother left or something. You heard Mitch was crazy.”
“I heard he gets drunk. He does, doesn’t he? That’s why he goes after you. That’s why he feels so bad about it afterwards.”
They faced each other on the raft.
“What else?” Terri said. “What else did you hear?”
“Terri, don’t.”
“Come on. I’d really like to know. What are they saying these days about the no-good Carrs? That we have bad plumbing and stink, that’s a new one. What about the barn?”
“What barn?”
“You know what barn.” She punched Jessie’s arm.
“Ow! That hurt!”
“So tell me.”
“Okay! They’re saying your brothers burned it down. It wasn’t a spark from a kerosene lantern.”
“Right. You are certainly talking to the right people. What else?”
Jessie paused. She didn’t want to tell the next thing. It seemed shameful even to bring it up.
“Come on!” Terri jeered. “You can do it if you try. Let’s hear the whole story! Or maybe you’re too nice.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Well, let’s hear it, then.”
“Okay! I heard the murderer was someone in your family.”
“Oh, wow. A murderer in my family!”
“I heard he was one of the robbers that killed the husband and wife. He was the man who got sent to prison for life, like you said. That’s why you know all about it. That’s why you told me that story. Except you never said he was related to you, only that he didn’t do it, because you knew I might think—”
Terri shoved Jessie. She shoved her so hard that Jessie fell on the raft and almost went in the water. Terri grabbed the stick and began to pole with furious jabs down the pond. As they went, she talked in bitter spurts of words.
“So they got to you, too. It’s always the same. We can’t do anything around here without somebody bringing up that murder, without somebody saying how it was the Carrs that did it. Who else would it be? Nobody! Always us.”
“If it wasn’t you, who was it?” Jessie asked angrily. Terri’s shove had made a gash in her knee.
“We got framed.”
“Oh, really.”
“My dad’s grandfather wasn’t even there. He got set up. They put all the stolen stuff from the Cuttings’ on our dock to make it look like he did it. Somebody called the police and said to look on Eddie Carr’s dock.”
Jessie’s knee had begun to bleed. She tried to stop the blood with her hand, but it gushed through her fingers.
“See, the murder was a contract job,” Terri went on.
“I’m bleeding,” Jessie said. “Could you hurry up and get me home?”
“I am!” Terri exclaimed. “But first you have to listen. It had nothing to do with us. All we ever did was deliver milk to the Cuttings. Mr. Cutting owned the newspaper in Providence, and somebody wanted to get revenge. They didn’t like what the newspaper was writing about them or their business. These guys came up the pond at night, on purpose. They didn’t come by the road. My dad’s dad told him, and my dad told us. Everybody in my family knows. Eddie Carr got set up from the very beginning.”
“Who is Eddie Carr?” Jessie asked, wiping at her knee.
“He’s the guy they framed!” Terri screamed at her. “Aren’t you even listening?”
Jessie turned her back and stood on the far edge of the raft. She leaned over and splashed some water on her knee. Behind her, Terri stopped poling. When Jessie looked around, she saw her wiping her eyes, which were red and puffy.
“I’m sorry I pushed you.”
“It’s okay.”
“But I need to tell you what really happene
d.”
“Go ahead!”
Terri wiped her eyes and went on.
“After Eddie got sent to the penitentiary, our name and our family got dragged through the mud. People turned against us. Even if they didn’t believe Eddie would do that, they didn’t buy our milk anymore. They didn’t want us delivering to their houses. The dairy went bust. Then my dad’s father left. He just left and never wrote and never came back. Then my grandmother couldn’t handle things and went off the deep end. People thought we were all crazy. They began to make things up about us that weren’t even true. Like that barn that burned down? People say it was the Carrs that burned it. For spite. But why would we do that? We loved that old barn even if we had to sell it to somebody else.
“And now it’s worse. Like one time I was buying stuff and got hauled in for shoplifting. Handcuffs, everything, when I just forgot to pay. And another time I got in a fight with this girl who insulted me, and they said I had a knife and was trying to kill her. And I never even took it out of my pocket. They found it afterwards when I went to the office.
“This knife right here.” Terri pulled it out and popped the blade. She waved it at Jessie.
“It’s only for protection, which I need in this place, let me tell you. But nobody believed me. I had to go before a judge, and they gave me probation. Then the school kicked me out for a week. Just try coming back after that. Everybody looks at you. They run out of the bathroom when you come in.”
Jessie stood as far away from Terri as possible on the raft. She tried to say something but nothing came.
“So that’s the real story you won’t hear on the beach,” Terri said. She popped the blade back in and put the knife in her pocket. She started poling again.
“Not that anyone cares. They don’t. Whatever happened in the past is history to them. They’re just sitting around waiting for us to screw up again. They want to keep us down, that’s part of the deal. When people have you like that, they want to keep it that way. They don’t want you ever to come back up.”
They reached the landing near the Kettels’ cottage. Jessie jumped off and began to walk fast toward her house. Terri’s knife had scared her. But there was something worse. It was something Jessie had known all along but had pushed to the side because it seemed so unfair. She saw how Terri was part of it, the whole terrible life the Carrs lived at the end of the pond. There was no keeping her separate. Whatever she did and whatever she said, she was in up to her neck. And if Jessie wasn’t careful, she’d get dragged in too.
“Don’t go yet!” Terri yelled. “I’ve got more. A whole lot more. You should know how things really are around here!”
Jessie walked faster. “That’s okay. I have to go home now. You keep the raft. It’ll be yours anyway in the end.”
“What end?” Terri cried. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean when we leave,” Jessie answered without looking back. “I mean when this vacation is over, and we leave.”
THIRTEEN
During the whole week after her visit to the garage, Henrietta watched for the girls out the window.
She saw them arrive every morning and leave every afternoon. She saw them come up the hill to the garage, disappear inside it, reappear a few minutes later, and run back down the hill. They were taking her father’s tools down to the raft to fix it. They took the planks she’d left for them by the door. They had to make three trips because they were so heavy.
She couldn’t see the raft itself or the work that was going on. Bushes and trees blocked her view. She would’ve liked to see. She wanted to be down there helping out, or better yet, doing it herself. She was tempted to make another trip down but held back. If she went too often, Sally Parks might catch her. Then the girls would be discovered. Their secret project would be shut down, along with Henrietta’s grand plan: her plot to join them. On the raft. To be back on the pond, where she’d left off all those years ago.
“My goodness, you’d think the World Series was being played out this window, the way you’re at it morning and afternoon,” Sally said one day, bringing in lunch on a tray. “What’s going on out there—if I may ask?”
“You may not,” Henrietta snapped.
“Swans and a flock of geese are all I see,” Sally said, pausing behind her.
Henrietta chose this moment to knock over her glass of milk, artfully distracting Sally from noticing the pond girl, who was just exiting the back door of the garage with a large hand drill.
“Oh! So sorry!” Henrietta exclaimed. “Could you run and get a towel to mop up? And I’ll need to change my skirt.”
One morning it seemed that a problem had developed with the raft, because the pond girl’s friend suddenly appeared by herself at the garage. She was covered with mud. She went inside. When she came out, she was carrying two shovels. Shovels!
Henrietta sat forward and focused her binoculars in excitement. She knew what was happening. The repair work was done! The girls were trying to launch the raft. She knew this because long ago she’d faced this problem herself. The raft was proving too heavy to move. The girls planned to dig a trench to the pond, sluice the raft down the slippery slope, and push it into the water.
Henrietta glowed with pride! Those girls! So smart!
Not long after, pride turned to elation when she caught sight of the two poling away rapidly down the shore. Their work had been a success! The raft floated high and dry, just as it used to in her day.
Henrietta put down the binoculars and brought her palms together in silent applause. It was happening! It was all happening just as she’d wished and planned. Across the room Sally Parks had dozed off in her chair, unsuspecting. The newspaper she’d been reading had fallen off her lap onto the floor. Henrietta raised the binoculars again to keep watch.
She was rewarded a few hours later when she spotted the raft again. This time it was heading down the pond in the other direction, toward the beach. She lost sight of it when the girls turned into the reeds along the shore, across from the Coopers’ stone chimney. A little while after, the pond girl came back alone, poling slowly, looking tired, as well she might after her efforts that morning. Henrietta stood up and waved. She wanted to be sure the pond girl would bring the raft back. She told her to come! Come back to me! she gestured.
But the mysterious line of communication between them seemed to have broken down. The girl passed far out into the middle of the pond without so much as a glance in Henrietta’s direction.
Well, she’ll soon return, Henrietta thought, to comfort herself. She sat back and closed her eyes. The day had worn her out as well.
* * *
The pond girl did not return that afternoon. Nor did she come the next morning, or the next afternoon. Or the morning after that. With every passing day Henrietta sank lower in her chair.
“I’m afraid I may have been forgotten,” she told Sally, who patted her arm.
“Not at all. I’m always here.”
Hour after hour she watched from the window, but the pond girl did not arrive. There was no sign of the other girl either. Both had disappeared. Minute by minute she expected their return, but they did not come.
“Miss Cutting, you’ve dropped your binoculars,” Sally said. “And you’re not looking yourself this afternoon. How about a little walk around the house? It would do you good to get up for a bit.”
“No!”
And later, after supper, long after the sun had gone down: “Miss Cutting, you’re not going to see anything out that window now. It’s too dark.”
“I hope I haven’t been abandoned,” Henrietta whispered, but in such a low voice that Sally Parks didn’t hear.
Before Henrietta’s eyes Sally bustled to and fro, folding down the yellow silk bedspread, puffing up the pillows, arranging the nightstand, drawing the blinds.
“There we are. Almost ready, dear?”
As it did every night, this meant bedtime, the moment when Henrietta usually put up a fight. Now she only nod
ded.
“I don’t believe I’ll need my sleep medicine tonight,” she managed.
“Just as well,” Sally replied. “That bottle’s nearly done. I’ll be sure to call the pharmacy in the morning.”
“I suppose I’ll still be here in the morning. I am so tired,” Henrietta murmured.
“Of course you will, Miss Cutting. What kind of talk is that?”
“I’d be grateful if you would please leave the night-light off this evening,” Henrietta said. Or tried to say. The only word that came through clearly was “off,” but Sally knew what she wanted.
The night-light was another bone of contention between them. Henrietta objected to the glow it threw around the room. She preferred the dark. Normally, Sally denied this request. The night-light made it easy to check on her charge from the hall. But tonight Miss Cutting looked so limp and unhappy, so unlike her usual prickly self, that Sally agreed. She would leave the light off, she said. Just for tonight.
“Safer,” Henrietta murmured as Sally helped her into bed.
“Come again?”
“It’s safer without the light,” Henrietta mumbled.
She was tucked in. The light went off. Sally clumped out of the room, shut the door. Henrietta was left alone in the dark. She lay quiet, receptive, waiting for sleep to fold its wings around her. Her mother used to say that. As a child Henrietta had trouble falling asleep. There was so much energy left in her at the end of every day that she couldn’t settle down. So much to think about, so much to do tomorrow.
“Lie back, darling. Let sleep fold you in its wings,” her mother would whisper.
A kiss and she was gone. Too soon. Always a little too soon.
* * *
A loud bump out in the hall wakes her. Muffled voices. The sound of a struggle. Somebody shouts, “Walk! Get down those stairs!” Someone else makes a noise, a high noise. Her mother? Her father’s voice booms out suddenly: “Who are you? What is this all about?”
There’s another loud bump, then a grunt and a crash. Her mother’s voice cries out: “Don’t do that! Don’t hit him!”
The struggling sounds continue, slowly descending the stairs. Henrietta is out of bed now. She runs to her bedroom door and peeks through the crack. At first the light in the hall is too bright and she can’t see anything. Finally her eyes adjust and she sees a strange man’s back heading down the stairs, away from her. He’s wearing a cap over a full head of hair, and a gray overcoat. He shoves at something in front of him. Henrietta can’t see what.
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