Brandy thought it more likely to be February but Shay’s body was expanding alarmingly.
“… burglary at Boulder’s historic Gingerbread House,” the radio box said. “KBOL learned today that sometime in the last few days priceless antique objects and furniture were stolen from the home of Mr. and Mrs. Jerrold Garrett.”
The coffeepot bubbled on the stove. Ansel stared popeyed at Brandy. “That mirror, do you think? Stolen?”
Brandy shrugged. She couldn’t imagine the mirror a priceless antique, but if it were stolen at this end of time it could make little difference to her. Shay had it with her at her end. She must make it work from there.
“Sure do hate the thought of that thing running around loose,” Ansel said.
Brandy prayed nightly for God, the wedding mirror and her granddaughter to get busy and send her home. Brandy didn’t want to have Shay’s baby, had no idea how Ansel would deliver it himself or what she could do to help.
The thought of Christmas without her family was beyond bearing.
A week before Christmas, Ansel found her weeping in the barn, heedless of Hooligan’s noisy and violent displeasure.
“Now, no need for tears. Having a baby’s as natural as oatmeal and breathing.”
“It’s just … that I want to be home for Christmas and –”
“Kind of miss that young buck, Marek?”
“No. I mean home … to my own people and time.”
“Hooligan, you quiet down. Shay Garrett, dry your tears and come back to the house. We’ll have a nice hot cup of coffee.”
“My name is Brandy McCabe.”
“Just get all that out of your head.” He helped her over a strip of ice on the path. “You’re going to be a mother soon and you have to learn to get on in this world for the sake of the little one.”
Wind creaked the branches of the dead cottonwoods, sent dried weed pieces dancing across thin patches of hardened snow.
“I can’t stay here forever, Mr. St. John,” she said desperately.
“It’s lonely for you I know, with just old Ansel and his animals. Things’ll be different when the baby comes.” He led her through chill lifeless rooms to the warmth of the oil heating stove in the kitchen.
“Tell you what, Shay Garrett,” he said over the supper table. “I’m planning a special surprise present for you for Christmas. Ought to give you something to look forward to.”
How I would like a hearty beefsteak for a gift. Answering juices flowed in Shay’s mouth. Brandy stabbed a tasteless potato with her fork.
Later, on her way to Lottie’s cold room, Brandy stopped at the parlor window to stare out at a moonlit night.
The lights of a flying machine blinked in the sky. On the ground a shadow rabbit leaped from the protection of rusting debris and raced across the grave of a Stina Mark to wiggle through the fence and disappear into the open field beyond.
Rachael Garrett wandered through echoing rooms. The thieves had stolen the heart from the Gingerbread House.
She was alone again. Jerry’d stayed a few nights, sleeping on the couch in the den, until assured she’d be all right.
Nothing had been taken from the basement and she’d worked long hours to finish her book. She felt lost without it.
When rested, Rachael felt it possible to start over, bury herself in her writing and, if none of her treasures were returned, busy herself hunting for things to fill the sadly empty places in these rooms.
But at night when Rachael was void of words and energy, tired of her own company, the sadly empty places in herself plagued her and she doubted her strength to go on.
She wandered into Shay’s room and backed out. Nothing but pain here, raw and crushing.
Boxes sat about everywhere, holding that which no longer had drawers. In the guest room across the hall from Shay’s, Rachael knelt to riffle through ancient photographs. Elton McCabe leaned stiffly against the wrought-iron fence, Rachael’s mother sat on the grass in front of Sophie and John McCabe. The picture had darkened so the features were unclear, the expressions hidden.
A very old picture of Great-Grandmother Euler sitting on the porch with Great-Grandfather McCabe, both bowed with age, he with a beard and leaning forward, his hands resting on the head of a cane.
Once Rachael’d drawn comfort from these friendly ghosts who’d always inhabited the Gingerbread House, had felt reassured and safe with their vague memory presence.
But now, at night, they lamented and tormented in hushed, angry whispers.
Rachael turned off the lights and descended the staircase.
“Where’s me buffet from uld Cornwall, you?” Thora K. demanded.
Rachael shivered and went into the dining room to switch off that light.
“You think you can actually replace the Haviland?” Sophie McCabe scoffed. “We trusted you, Rachael.”
Rachael hurried into the living room, knowing that once she began to answer them she was lost.
She lay down on the mattress brought from Shay’s room, reaching for her mother’s green leather-bound diary. She needed to feel her mother’s closeness.
By the light of a bare-bulbed lamp, devoid of its Tiffany lamp shade, Rachael opened the diary and began to read.
The ink had faded and the clumsy, messy handwriting was hard to decipher … but so familiar … so like Shay’s. She’d never noticed before the similarity in the way her mother and daughter formed their letters.
The first page made no sense at all and she went back to read it again.
By the second page, Rachael began to read aloud as if the sound of her voice, hollow in the empty room, could make the words believable.
By the third page she was sitting up, uncomfortably bent over the book. Her voice trembled and tears blurred the words. But they held her captive until two o’clock the next morning, when she finished and set the diary aside, every bone, muscle and joint aching.
“It’s impossible and I don’t believe it,” she said flatly to her image in the bathroom mirror as she swallowed a sleeping pill.
After breakfast the next morning Rachael brought the diary into the bright cozy kitchen, poured another cup of coffee and began to read again from the beginning.
Rachael giggled helplessly when she came to the place where the writer warned, “I don’t think you should tell Rachael any more than you have to. Her life has been upset enough by all this.”
Wind slammed into the Gingerbread House, rattled hanging cups in the cupboard, whirled snow at the windows. She couldn’t see out. She was enclosed in the dimmed room with the diary and the past.
Brandy (strange calling you by the name I’ve answered to for so many years), I found a small replica of the mirror in Hong Kong. It sits on a table in the home of a British couple. They said they knew nothing of its origin. The wife picked it up in a curio shop that had since gone out of business. At the top of this one the fingers held a large glass stone and the bronze was lacquered red and black.
Otherwise it was the same. (Except smaller, as I said, and the mirror glass was newer and better.) I don’t know if all this means anything. I was afraid to destroy our mirror in case it might hurt us in some way. But I think you should discuss it with Jerry and see what he thinks should be done. Perhaps buried deep where it will never be found and can’t…
The end of the sentence was scrawled in the margin because it was the last side of the last tightly written page, but it was impossible to decipher.
Extra pages of stationery had been folded and taped onto the inside of the back cover. Odds and ends of things the writer wanted to add or had forgotten. The very last of these was ominous.
During that first year or two I would see you sometimes, have awake dreams or visions of you in my body. Be very careful. The last time I saw you screaming and a hand with blood all over it coming toward you. I’ve hesitated to mention it because I know it will worry you but I thought you should be warned.
Rachael was laughing when the door chimes sounded. Wind still howle
d around the Gingerbread House and it was growing dark.
Remy stood at the door trying to keep from blowing away. The air felt warmer than it should.
“Well, you’re sure looking happier than I’ve seen you for months.” He struggled in with a large basket and helped her close the door. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, Rem, you just won’t believe it. The most fantastic, incredible …” She hugged him and led him to the kitchen.
“Since you wouldn’t come out for dinner, Ruth and Elinore sent it here and me to share it with you.” He pulled out a bottle of wine. “Merry Christmas, Puss.”
“I’d forgotten it was Christmas Eve. This couldn’t be better.”
“There’s steaks to broil and I’ve got orders to put the salad in the refrigerator and the hot dishes on warm in the oven.” Remy looked around uncomfortably. “Is … ah … Jerry around? There’s enough here for the Chinese Army.”
“No. But if I can catch him, he’s got to see my surprise too. You put the food away and I’ll call.”
There was no answer in Nederland. “I wonder if he’s still at the office.” Rachael and her brother watched her finger tremble as she punched the numbers.
“Jerry? Could you spare me a few minutes this evening? I’ve got a Christmas present for you.”
Remy was staring at her.
A pause on the other end of the line. “Rachael … have you been drinking? You don’t sound like yourself.”
“No. Listen, Remy’s here. Meet us out front of your building. We’ll drive by and pick you up.”
“To go where?”
“That’s the present. Jerry, you’ll never guess what’s happened.” Rachael laughed, and when she could stop she said, “I’ve found Shay.”
16
Brandy McCabe sat in Ansel St. John’s kitchen, Shay’s head buried in her arms on the table. Stina Mark rubbed against her ankles. Wind gusts rocked the house. The radio box sang Christmas carols.
At home Nora would be making preparations for tomorrow’s dinner. The house would be filled with the smell of sausage and cornbread readying for the stuffing. The goose and the ducks picked and clean. Perhaps carolers outside the window, friends laughing in the parlor. “Temperance” punch in the cut-glass bowl. Men adding whiskey to theirs when their wives weren’t looking.
Last year Brandy and Elton went caroling with their young people’s group from church. Silly Terrence Doogle had tried to hold Myra Trevors’ hand and Myra’d boxed him smartly with her muff.
After their dinner of boiled eggs, bread and home-canned peas, Ansel had driven off in his truck.
Last year, over seventy years ago, her father’d been alive and Aunt Harriet stayed with them over Christmas week. After church on Christmas Day and a gay dinner where twenty-five people crowded into the dining room of the Gingerbread House, John McCabe had hired sleighs and hay wagons with runners brought to the door.
Her father was in his cups and demanded to drive the lead sleigh himself. Then he led the caravan about the streets bellowing for people to come out and join the party.
When the caravan was overloaded and other carriage-sleighs had joined them spontaneously, off they set across open rangeland to the north and east.
Brandy sniffed and pulled Stina Mark onto Shay’s knees. “We could have driven over the very spot where this old house stands now, kitty, and it was only last year.”
They stopped once to let the children run and Aunt Harriet became entangled in her skirts while stepping from a sleigh. She fell and turned an ankle.
“Aunt Harriet’s quite stout,” Brandy told the cat. “And there was much ado to raise her up. Pa, instead of helping, gathered a snowball and hurled it at her backside at just the right … well, the wrong moment.” Brandy stifled a giggle and then hiccuped.
“It really wasn’t that funny, but I couldn’t help laughing behind my hand. Ma wouldn’t speak to him the rest of the day and it almost spoiled the fun. When we came home there was hot spiced cider and popcorn.”
Happy barked outside the glass door, startling Stina Mark, who jumped to the floor and hid under the bed.
“Hush now, Happy.” Ansel’s voice raised above the wind. He slid back the door and stepped inside. “Get your coat, Shay Garrett. It’s Christmas Eve.”
“Coat? Where –”
“Don’t talk. Just hurry. Promised you a Christmas present, didn’t I?”
“Deck the halls with boughs …” the radio box said.
Jerry Garrett slid into the back seat of Remy’s car, relieved to see Rachael wasn’t driving. “What’s all this about –”
“Take it easy, Jerry,” Rachael’s brother said, a warning note in his voice. “Where to now, Puss?”
“Columbia Cemetery.”
“Cemetery,” Remy repeated, as if struggling to understand and humor his sister at the same time.
Cemetery, Jerry said to himself and the hope that had flared since his wife’s phone call was snuffed out. “Rachael, tell me what –”
“Trust me,” Rachael cut him off and turned her face to the windshield as an enormous slab of what looked to be plywood flew across the car’s hood and crashed into somebody’s porch.
“We get out in this wind and we could get hit by something,” Jerry warned when they’d parked at the cemetery entrance.
“It’ll only take a minute.” Rachael got out and wind slammed the door.
“Remy, Shay couldn’t be buried here without our knowing it, could she?”
“I don’t know. Let’s just go along with Rachael and keep her calm until we get to the bottom of this. Frankly, Jerry, I’m worried.”
“About Shay?”
“About my sister.”
They stepped over the chain across the vehicle entrance, wind flopping Rachael’s hair into her face, grinding stinging grit into Jerry’s eyes.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Rachael yelled, and ran on ahead.
Tree limbs flayed at the sky. Threatening cracking sounds snapped all over town.
“She keeps saying that. Believe what?”
“Hasn’t told me any more than she’s told you.” Remy pulled up his coat collar, turned sideways and shouldered into the wind.
Rachael stopped at the grave of her mother, a distant streetlight cutting through the dark enough for Jerry to see her half-shadowed face. It looked as if she was smiling.
“There she is.” She pointed at Brandy Maddon’s grave. “There’s … Shay.”
A nasty gust hurled a dirt cloud toward them and Jerry pulled out one side of his overcoat to shelter her, drawing her against his chest as he drew it around her.
Rachael’s body shuddered with spasms. She was either laughing silently or sobbing.
Brandy still had the hiccups. They’d begun to hurt.
Wind roared at the truck, trying to force its way in, pinging sand and snow against the windows.
“Are you taking me back to the Gingerbread House?”
“Nope.” He leaned over the steering device, squinting to see the road.
She should have known better than to trust such an erratic person as Ansel St. John.
“All these years and I never will get used to the winds. Seems they’re getting worse. They have ’em in your day?”
Just last winter Mr. Arnett’s hen house blew away, scattering his chickens …
“There’s more town and debris for them to stir up now,” Brandy said stiffly, sure that he lied and was taking her back.
Where streets met and crossed each other, electric lanterns with red, yellow or green lights bounced on wires overhead. They looked to be heavy and Brandy wondered if they ever broke from their wires and fell on vehicles below.
Ansel parked in the shadow of an unlighted building. “Now, you wait here. I got to check on something. Be back in a minute.” His beard flying in the wind, he hurried across a street and disappeared, to return minutes later and insist she follow him.
The wind caught her hair and tugged m
ost of it loose as he took her wrist and pulled her along.
Pulling aside a board in a high fence, he shoved her through the gap and said something that blew away, as did the board.
Ansel led her to a gate in a roofless enclosure, across a rough sandstone area and through a sliding glass door.
Brandy waited until he’d switched on a light and pulled heavy curtains across the door.
A deep red rug, stone fireplace, enormous sofa … “What is this place?”
“You’ll see.” He whirled and raised his arms, obviously delighted with himself. “Your Christmas SURPRISE.”
“Am I to live here?”
“Up to you, Shay Garrett. Nice place like this, this day and age, and that patio door’s never locked. Makes you wonder, don’t it?” He studied a hand-drawn map of some kind on the wall above the sofa. “Looks like somebody’s sure been busy.”
“Mr. St. John, I fail to see what –”
“Come along and I’ll show ya.”
In the next room, a giant bed without bedposts, the coverlet tucked inside the wooden framing. Ansel pushed down on it, creating a billow under the bedclothes that moved like a wave to the other side. “Now, what do you think of that?”
“I’m not sure I think well of any of this business and I demand to know exactly what –”
“Bet your granddaughter liked it just fine.” He caused another ripple and then stared at her in his lidless fashion. “Got to do something about you, though.”
Taking a brush from the bureau he brushed out Shay’s hair. “You shouldn’t braid it at night. Makes it all rumply.” He pulled off her coat and inspected her. “Sure could use some color. Don’t you have any lipstick?”
“I do not paint my face like a … Mr. St. John, what am I doing here?”
“One thing you got to remember, Shay Garrett. I’ll be in the closet there. Don’t keep looking at it and don’t slip and mention my name or we’re done for.”
Marek Weir swerved the Porsche to miss a wire down in the street. Sparks snapped from its broken end, showering onto the pavement like a Roman candle.
He’d had to detour two blocks because a giant tree limb blocked the way, and just when he thought he’d be clear of the confusion a man in front of a Public Service cherry picker flagged him down.