Child of a Rainless Year

by Lindskold, Jane

  “So the reports say,” Mikey agreed, “but those need to be taken with a grain of salt, since we know a cover-up was involved. I’m interested in what you overheard. What did she say again?”

  “‘I suppose I’ll need to return the one before I can have another.’”I quoted from memory, though I’d written the words down, for future reference. “‘What a bother! I’ve made the trip twice now, and hoped never to risk a third.’”

  Mikey frowned. “It sounds to me like she’d actually succeeded in bringing something forward from the past into her time. I wonder what would be worth the risk? She would have inherited everything the House contained.”

  “We can theorize forever,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “There’s only one way to be sure—I need to use today’s kaleidoscope and see if I can learn more. You yourself mentioned that Colette is a ‘great person’ in my life, especially right now. I’m hoping that kaleidoscope is set to show not only great people, but great events—like the murder of Julius Caesar or something. I’ll ask to see not only Colette, but what happened to her that day in Phineas House.”

  “Do you think it will work?” Domingo asked, as much of Mikey as of me.

  Mikey only shrugged as if saying the kaleidoscopes were not his to assess, so I answered.

  “I think my mistake—and it wasn’t really a mistake—last time was in asking to see what happened to Colette. The kaleidoscope did as requested. It showed me going into the past, then that she got angry, and whatever made her angry led to her making a mistake that put her off course so she got lost.”

  “And since the fact that she got angry—not what she got angry about,” Domingo said, following my logic with flattering speed, “was what was the key to her getting lost, the kaleidoscope did not bother to work through Phineas House’s currents to show you the specific incident.”

  “That’s what I guess,” I said, “but I won’t know until I try.”

  Mikey spread jam on a slice of cold toast. I’d thought I had a sweet tooth, but Mikey was making me feel positively virtuous.

  “How soon are you going to try scrying again, Mira?” he asked, looking down at the shining surface of the strawberry jam as if he could see omens in it. For all I knew, he could.

  “Pretty much immediately,” I said. “I’m rested, fed, and if I do this now and learn something that makes me want to refine my scrying I’ll still have time to try.”

  “Good planning, except for one thing,” Mikey said. “Last time what you asked the kaleidoscope to show you essentially had no end, so you remained enthralled until the kaleidoscope reached its limits—and we were lucky that wasn’t beyond your physical limits.”

  Domingo leaned forward, his gaze intent. “Watching you was a little frightening, Mira. You hardly moved. You sat there like you’d been carved from wax, hour after hour. The only thing that changed was that you grew more and more pale, and circles formed under your eyes. There was no doubt the process was draining you.”

  I acknowledged their concern with a brief nod.

  “I can see your point, but what I want to scry for this time is definitely a matter of limited duration. Colette was not in that past Phineas House for more than an hour.”

  “How can you be sure?” Mikey countered. “I suspect your sense of time was distorted.”

  “It may have been,” I replied, “but the odd thing was that I felt as if I had my body with me. I mean, my feet hurt after I’d been standing for too long—even though here I’d been sitting. How about my using those signals my body gives to let me know if I’m pushing too hard?”

  Domingo shrugged. “I don’t see how we have much choice, but, please, take care, Mira. These kaleidoscopes are wonderful tools, but you cannot forget that they take a toll on you.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I promised, “but what happened in there is important. I feel it in my bones.”

  The two men looked at each other, exchanging glances that said, “Well, we warned her.” About a half hour later, we once again adjourned to the front parlor.

  I hadn’t bothered to tell Mikey and Domingo that I sincerely doubted the experiment would work at all, that we might be left waiting until later in the week, maybe all the way to next Saturday to do our follow-up research. My dictionary defined Sunday’s mirror as used to scry “great persons on earth.” I wished I knew more. Did that category include great persons living and dead? Did it include past events as well as present?

  I’d decided to press ahead as if it did, remembering stories of legendary seers who impressed their clients by showing them views of famous historical personages, but I wasn’t confident that my kaleidoscope embraced the ability to do the same. Maybe that was why the two men’s cautions didn’t seem important. I didn’t believe today’s attempt would achieve anything.

  Making myself comfortable in my chosen window alcove, I picked up Sunday’s kaleidoscope. The hand-beaten gold case was comfortable in my hand, the little dimples in the metal kissing my fingertips.

  As I raised the kaleidoscope to my eye, I spoke my purpose aloud. “I want to see my mother. I want to see what happened when Colette went into Phineas House that day.”

  Somehow I felt certain the kaleidoscope would know what I meant by “that day,” but I clarified, “The day I viewed yesterday through the kaleidoscope with mirrors of lead, the day Colette left here and never returned.”

  The object chamber for Sunday’s kaleidoscope held a rattling assortment of multifaceted topazes in shades ranging from a yellow-gold so pale that the stones were almost clear all the way to dark amber. Interspersed among the topazes were infinitesimally small rubies. Scattered among the stones was a haze of gold dust.

  The combination made for beautiful mandalas, flower-shapes whose golden petals were streaked with red. Occasionally, when I turned the kaleidoscope, red would dominate, creating tiny red wildflowers against fields of gold. I walked into this garden, moving here and there to enjoy each new delight as it materialized, gradually losing awareness of the me who sat in the window seat, a dimpled metal casing rolling slowly between my fingers.

  I was in the garden behind Phineas House. A woman wearing old-fashioned clothing, her shining brown hair parted in the middle was there with me. She had the gravitas of a matron but the fresh, unlined skin of a girl. In her arms she cradled a very young infant wrapped in the lace-trimmed flounces of another day.

  “Chantal,” a man’s voice called down from us, “I know you are weary of being shut indoors, but I think it is too cool yet for the baby. Come inside now.”

  “Oui, Nikolai,” Chantal replied with tranquil patience. “See? I have wrapped her up very well, but I will come in as you say.”

  “Very good,” the man’s voice said.

  I heard what sounded like a window closing, and guessed that the speaker—my grandfather Nikolai—must have been upstairs, looking out into the garden. This then would be my grandmother Chantal, and the baby in her arms could be none other than Colette.

  While listening to this brief exchange, I had confirmed that, as with my previous day’s vision, I was limited to the vicinity of the mother and child, so I followed as Chantal walked around the house rather than going in the convenient kitchen door. I wondered if she would not use a servant’s entry or if this was her way of prolonging her time outside without actually defying her husband.

  As we rounded the side of the House through a narrow walkway—the side lots had already been sold, squeezing Phineas House into the truncated yard I remembered from my childhood—I saw a familiar gig parked by the front gate. Shooting Star turned her head to watch Chantal pass, but Chantal gave no sign of noticing either horse or carriage.

  I wondered why I had not seen Chantal and the infant Colette in my previous vision. I decided that it had to do with my focus then being on Colette and the circumstances of her disappearance—extraneous elements had not been shown. Or maybe even then Phineas House had been extending its protection to its residents. I simply didn
’t know, and it didn’t seem important that I know now. What was important was learning whether this time I would be able to cross the threshold and learn what had gone on inside.

  I hugged as close as I could to Chantal, all but treading the heels of her shoes as she went up the steps to the front porch. A servant opened the door as she approached, and to my great delight, I passed inside with Chantal.

  The entry foyer retained many of the furnishings that were there in my day: the umbrella urn and coatrack were familiar friends, as was a narrow table. This held a tray for cards, a basket for outgoing mail, and an ebullient arrangement of roses. What was missing were the mirrors that the adult Colette had hung everywhere. The only one that remained was set in the middle of the coatrack.

  Chantal automatically checked her reflection as she came in. She was a good-looking woman who was probably very pretty when she made the effort, an effort she had not made merely to take the baby out into the house’s private garden.

  “Beatrice,” Chantal said to the serving woman who had opened the door, a short, dumpy woman who was definitely not one of the silent women. “Would you take off my shawl for me? Little Colette has fallen asleep and I don’t want to wake her.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Beatrice replied, moving immediately to do so.

  Chantal’s accents were colored with her native France, but Beatrice spoke with a flat American accent that for all its almost monotone respectfulness managed to sound vaguely disapproving.

  “I’m going to take the baby up to the nursery,” Chantal went on. “If Felicity is in the kitchen, have her come up immediately.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Beatrice sounded even more unhappy, and I guessed that she and this Felicity—probably the nursemaid—must not get along.

  But this exchange was of passing interest to me. I had been looking side to side, moving as far from Chantal and the infant as my invisible tether would permit me. Nowhere did I spot the adult Colette. Had the kaleidoscope misunderstood me and taken me to see my infant mother, not realizing that the actions of the adult Colette were what interested me?

  I gave an internal sigh. Never mind. If there was a mistake, I had allowed enough time for me to rest from this ordeal and try again before midnight. I’d succeed in confirming that Sunday’s kaleidoscope would let me view past events, and that alone meant this was not a wasted venture.

  Chantal went up the main stair, and I shivered just a little when I remembered that her husband would fall to his death some nine years later, a death caused, if the gossip of a ghost was to be believed, by the baby girl who now drowsed with such contentment in her mother’s arms.

  I was drawn after Chantal into the nursery, and immediately felt a spark of triumph. The adult Colette was waiting there, sitting in a comfortable chair by a window that overlooked the garden. The room was furnished with a crib for the baby, various dressers and wardrobes, and a bed in which, doubtless, the nursemaid, Felicity, slept. The doors to the connecting rooms were closed, but I guessed that the room that would someday serve as my playroom had already been furnished for the amusement of a child too young even to roll over, much less to play with toys.

  The adult Colette watched the entrance of her mother and infant self with cool calculation. A moment later, a buxom, broad-hipped woman came in, a little boy clinging with one hand to her skirts, with his other to a battered toy. The woman was Felicity, no doubt, nursemaid and, quite possibly, wet nurse as well.

  Chantal handed over her child with trusting ease. “I think she’s wet, Felicity. See if you can change the diaper without waking her.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Felicity replied with competent calm, accepting the transfer of the infant to her arms. “I’ll do as you say.”

  Chantal left after bestowing a kiss on her baby’s brow. The little boy had detached himself from Felicity’s skirts and now crouched by the bed, murmuring to himself as he played with his toy. Felicity gave him a brief smile, then moved to check the infant’s diaper, unwrapping layer after layer of lacy blanket to do so.

  Adult Colette rose from her seat and watched intently as the nursemaid tended to the drowsy baby. Colette looked distinctly displeased when, after the diaper was changed and the baby clean, Felicity moved as if to put the baby in her crib. Colette’s tension ebbed when the baby began to fuss and Felicity gave up all attempts to put her in her crib. Instead, Felicity began to walk around the room with a measured tread meant to lull little Colette back to sleep.

  Adult Colette was less pleased when Felicity opened her dress and set the baby to her nipple. I was standing near my mother now, but all I could make out of her mutterings was something that sounded like “ … don’t need your tit.”

  Time passed as Felicity nursed the drowsy infant, continuing her pacing as she did so, humming a lullaby under her breath. Colette paced with her, her motions that of a stalking predator, her gaze alert, her mood shifting with Felicity’s every motion.

  Eventually, I discerned a pattern in adult Colette’s reactions. Whenever Felicity’s pacing took her near the room’s one mirror—a large one, mounted in a free-standing frame—Colette grew tensely excited. Whenever Felicity drew away, especially when it looked like the nurse might put the baby in her crib or settle them both into the comfortable chair near the window, Colette grew agitated.

  Whatever she wants has something to do with the mirror, then, I said, but I can’t for the life of me guess what.

  Eventually, infant Colette stopped nursing and settled into a deep, milky sleep. Felicity, unable to hear the adult Colette’s protests, settled in the chair near the window, obviously having decided that this was a better course than risking waking her charge during the transition into the crib.

  Adult Colette wasn’t thrilled by Felicity’s choice, but then, when she moved nearer to the seated nurse and child, her mood brightened noticeably, her expression became calculating. Confident now that I could be seen by none of the participants in this peculiar scene, I moved to stand behind Colette and learn what had so pleased her. As soon as my angle of vision matched Colette’s I understood at once.

  Felicity and the infant were both reflected in the windowpane. The lighting was just right, so that the reflection gave back not shadowy images, but ones almost as good as what you’d get from a mirror, complete to a wash of pale color.

  Colette was plucking her gloves off of her fingers now, tucking them into her skirt-pocket, rubbing her hands together as if to awaken whatever sensitivity the gloves might have removed. Then she leaned forward, hands coming together as if she would lift her infant self from the nursemaid’s hold. Instead, to my astonishment, she reached past the living child and her hands went up and into the reflected image on the windowpane.

  Colette reached as if to pull the reflected child forth, but though she made contact with the nurse’s arm, moving the reflected image just slightly back from the child, so that image no longer matched reality, her fingers slipped through the child Colette’s image.

  Adult Colette straightened, as if as surprised at this result as I had been at her attempt. Then she folded her hands in front of her waist in an almost prayerful attitude, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply in and out.

  Calming herself, I thought. Refocusing.

  After several minutes during which I noticed to my fascination that the living Felicity unconsciously shifted her arm so that it now matched the position of its reflection, adult Colette opened her eyes once more. The intensity of her focus was so acute that I found myself glad her back was to me, for it seemed impossible that she would not see me. Under that intense gaze, the images in the windowpane grew more concrete, colors deepening, depth of field expanding so that the reflection seemed as real as the reflected.

  Or rather, part of it did. Felicity’s reflection and that of the chair grew more solid, but that of the baby Colette remained as it had been, translucent, only lightly brushed with color. Nonetheless, adult Colette moved as if to lift the baby from Felicity’s arms. Once again h
er hands passed through the reflection, coming away without the baby Colette she so obviously intended to take from its image.

  Now I saw Colette’s anger building. She paced back and forth across the room, but as was always her way, her anger did not externalize, it focused inward, fueling her thoughts, making her more, not less, calculating.

  Eventually, Colette returned to Felicity’s side. Again she reached into the reflection, but this time she did not try to take the infant. Instead she gave the nurse’s bare forearm a hard pinch, twisting the supple flesh cruelly. A red mark appeared instantly, but only in the reflection. With a startled exclamation, Felicity broke from her meditative silence.

  Baby Colette whimpered drowsy protest, and the little boy looked up from his game and said, “What’s wrong, Mama?”

  Felicity rose from the chair, craning to see her arm, but adult Colette had chosen her spot well. Felicity could not see that portion of her forearm without putting the infant down. With little Colette balancing between going back to sleep and waking into a screaming fit, the nurse wisely chose not to put the child down.