Gypsy Magic (The Little Matchmakers) (16 page)

Kevin gave him an extremely startled look and scrambled up into the corner of his bunk shaking his head. “No, thank you, Daddy,” he murmured with great politeness, averting his eyes, still tugging at pajama pants.

Gypsy bounced into the cabin, skin flushed, eyes bright, long legs flashing as she ran, lips parted and hair afloat. “Gypsy… I’m stuck,” Kevin complained. “Look, my bottoms are crooked.”

“Well, dopey,” she scoffed, “look what you’re trying to do. That leg’s inside out. And you’re not dry yet. Here, let me fix you all up then we’ll have time for a story.” As she talked her hands were busy tugging at his nightclothes, rubbing him briskly with a towel, and then stuffing what she called, making him giggle, ‘spaghetti legs’ into his pajamas.

Lance looked on, a burning ache down deep inside his chest. If he had pushed just a little harder the other night, could he have persuaded her to do as he’d asked? Had he backed away too soon, letting common sense overcome desire?
Desire
? For a moment, the word brought him up short, but he had to admit it. Oh, yes, desire had been extremely high among his reasons for wanting her to go home with them when the time came. And not merely a desire to create a happier home for Kevin.

“Now my story?” Kevin asked.

“On my lap or just like this?” she asked, pulling him into the crook of her arm while Lance pretended not to see.

Kevin snuggled down beside her, leaning his head against her. “Like this.” Lance wondered where she was going to find a book for him. He realized with a pang of guilt that he hadn’t even thought to bring storybooks Kevin. Why hadn’t Lorraine reminded him? Faintly, there came the memory of Keith grumbling something about bedtime stories and “that harridan” having kicked him out of Kevin’s room. What had Keith said? He’d been quoting Lorraine. Lance didn’t recall the exact phrase, but something about stories leading to nightmares and bedwetting, and that precedents shouldn’t be set.

Odd, in all the time they’d been here, Kevin hadn’t once wet the bed.

Staring off into space, Gypsy went into a long, rambling yarn about a boy who wanted to be a whale and one summer learned to swim well enough to join the pod which swam by on its way north. The boy-whale, miraculously named Kevin, too, went right up to the Arctic Circle. Just as Kevin’s eyes began to droop, Gypsy brought the story to an end “And the water grew colder and colder, while Kevin tried to swim faster and faster to keep warm. One day, well into September, he was swimming very, very fast when he looked around but saw only one whale nearby. ‘Where is everyone?’ he asked, and the other whale replied, ‘Hurry! Hurry! We’re going south to where the water’s warmer. Swim faster Kevin, swim faster.’ But as fast as he swam he could not keep up, and then he bumped his head,
bang!
right into an iceberg and started to cry. A kind fisherman came along and pulled him aboard, tucked him into a warm dry sleeping bag, just like I’m doing to you now, and said, ‘You’ve done a lot of swimming in the cold, cold water, and you’re a tired little whale-boy, so goodnight Kevin.’”

Lance, listening carefully so as not to miss a word of that husky, melodious voice speaking quietly as Gypsy told Kevin the story, distinctly heard his son say, “Night, Mother. I love you.”

He was on his feet and in three long paces stood confronting the pair of them, snuggled together, faces etched in guilt, on the narrow bunk. Twin pairs of bright blue eyes darkened with apprehension, two faces, as alike as possible, paled as he stared at them, speechless for a long, agonizing moment. Then, with dangerous quiet, he asked, “What did you call Gypsy?”

As Lance’s words ended, a clap of thunder sounded overhead and Kevin cowered. He looked positive the wrath of his father was as likely to have caused it as was of the wrath of God. He burrowed his face against Gypsy’s breast and she put protective arms around him, glaring defiantly up at Lance.

“It’s a game we play,” she said. “There’s no harm in it, no need for you to look at us like that.” Then soothingly, stroking Kevin’s hair, she said, “It’s all right, honey. Here, snuggle down and keep warm.” Gypsy slipped off the bunk, pulled Kevin’s sleeping bag high up over his shoulders and kissed him quickly. Lance remained silent, listening to the rising of the wind, hearing repeated claps of thunder which roared and reverberated around the suddenly frail cabin, shaking it in its teeth as he wished his fury could reach out and shake Gypsy and the child.

Confronting him with her chin high, she backed him out of the bunk area, right up against the outside door. “If you have anything to say,” she hissed, “say it to me, not to Kevin. He’s only a child. I’m responsible for the allowing the game to continue.”

“
If
I have anything to say?
If
?” Lance kept his voice low, but no less furious for all that. “I have so much to say I hardly know where to begin!” Pain began to tear at the back of his neck, digging vicious fingers into the muscle, pulling it, tightening until hot darts ran up under his scalp, circling his head, biting, tearing, pounding like the rain which now came in sheets across the clearing to lash the sides of the cabin with cat’o nine tails fury. He could feel his vision going, blurring, as the pain got in behind his eyes, and he reeled as he jerked open the door, knowing that if he stayed the rage within him would spill over and he might do terrible things again, things which he could not recall, but of which he had been told, things which had made his life the hell it was today.

The door flew open when he released the latch and as he flung himself out into the storm, Gypsy stood staring after him, hardly aware of the soft whimpering behind her until a small hand, clammy with fear and shock touched hers, hanging limply at her side. “Where did he go? It’s cold, Gypsy. It’s raining and the thunder will get him!”

“Hush, love. Hush, don’t worry, he’ll come home soon. There’s no place else for him to go.”

Kevin’s whimpering turned into a full-fledged howling as the wind smashed the door against the wall and Gypsy ran to close it. “He won’t be able to see!” he wailed. “It’s dark out there and you shut the door and now he can’t see! Gypsy! Gypsy! We made him mad and now his head will hurt and he’ll get sick just like Auntie said!” Kevin’s sobs grew louder, his words wilder and wilder, more and more incoherent until Gypsy, beside herself, sat down with him on her lap and held him tightly until he became more calm.

“Easy, now,” she said, stroking his temple with one hand. “Quietly… Tell me what happens when daddy gets really mad, love, and his head hurts. Did you say he gets sick?”
What was it, migraine? Must be…

“Auntie Lorraine says he gets sick and goes nuts and the doctors will send him to the bug-house and that’s why we never do anything to make him mad,” Kevin sobbed. “And you talked back to him, Mother… Gypsy… And made him mad and no one knows what he will do. She says that all the time.”

Bug-house?
Lance had said he’d had a breakdown. But so serious he’d been sent to a mental institution? “Doesn’t Auntie ever talk back?”

“No!” Aghast at the idea, Kevin hid his head against Gypsy, who sat there thinking hard. Maybe I’ve misjudged Lorraine. Maybe she’s taught Kevin to fear his father because she fears him herself. And maybe she’s right, it is dangerous to make Lance furious… Dangerous to him, if not to anyone else, for if he were going to hurt another human, he would surely have done it when Kevin called me “Mother”, or when I lipped off at him. He’s been mad at me lots of times and never shown any signs of violence.

Oh, Lance, Lance! What have I done to you? Where are you, with your pain, out in the storm?

A jagged slash of lightning ripped across the sky, flashing bright blue in the dim cabin. It’s my fault he’s out there instead of warm and dry and safe! she berated herself. It’s my fault Kevin sits here on my lap, crying the way he is, hopelessly, deeply, not the way a child should cry at all, in rage or in pain. This is a much more adult type of crying… evincing despair.

“Kevin… Listen, hon, I’m going to ask you to be a big, brave boy and stay here alone for a little while. I’m going out to look for Daddy.”

Chapter Six

Kevin’s jaw gaped open as he stared stupidly at Gypsy for a moment before his face screwed up and he cried, “No! You’ll get lost! It’s dark outside and you’ll get lost, too, just like my daddy and then I’ll be all alone!” His voice rose as he wailed in terror and Gypsy stopped her preparations to go out, knowing she couldn’t leave him in this state. There was no telling what he might do.

Sitting down beside him, she tried to keep her voice calm, difficult when there was a clamoring needing her to get out of there, to find Lance and make him come home. “Listen, Kevin,” she said reasonably, “your daddy’s gone out in the storm because of me. I was the one who made him angry and it’s up to me to go and tell him I’m sorry and ask him to please come back. I think I know exactly where is gone and won’t take me very long to find him. Now, this is the way we will work it.”

Her easy, matter-of-fact manner had the desired effect. Kevin cease to sob and began to listen, his eyes on her face, searching for signs of fear in her, and finding none, he relaxed.

“There are two lanterns here, right?” He nodded. “I’m going to take one of them with me and leave the other one for you so there’ll be light in the window if Daddy gets back before me. What your job will be is to stay put and stay awake so if he comes home first, you can tell him where I’ve gone and that I’ll be back when the big hands up here.” With one of Lance’s charcoal sticks, she marked the face of the clock, then picked up the watch he’d left lying on a windowsill. “Now just like soldiers, we’ll synchronize our watches.” Gypsy suited action to her words and went on. “I’ll take the path to the north end and see if he’s in one of the little caves, like the one where we had our picnic. I’m sure he will be there.”

I hope, I pray, she added silently. In the time he’d been gone he’d surely have managed to walk off a temper. If he hasn’t been injured.

“If he’s not there, I’ll look for him until the big hand is here…” She made another mark, “then I’ll take another trail home to see if he’s in.” She pulled Lance’s nylon jacket on, tying the hood tightly.

Kevin sat erect on his bunk, pale and wide eyed, wincing each time lightning flashed, but the sense of importance she had given him by placing the clock and his hands had apparently bolstered his courage.

Gypsy took one of the lanterns and, with a smile she hoped was cheerful and full of self-confidence, she waved to Kevin as she edged out the door and slipped into the stormy night, to gasp as the wind caught at the lantern, nearly tearing it from her grasp.

The yellow glow cast by her light showed silvery streaks of rain slashing sideways. It blackened the shadows of the wildly tossing trees and made the path seem longer and more twisted than ever. Just past the dam she was forced to struggle through the branches of a fallen tree which covered her path, and beyond that, found herself scrambling over roots and rocks, washed clear of their covering soil, slick and treacherous. Somehow, she managed to keep the lantern upright and its glass globe from breaking.

At intervals, she paused and called Lance’s name, feeling hopeless as she did so. Even if the wind had not snatched her voice right out of her throat and tossed it far into the trees, the very rushing and roaring of the storm, the smashing of surf onto the shore would’ve drowned it out before it could go far.

Her self-allotted half-hour was nearly up when Gypsy emerged from the tossing forest onto the wide, grassy slope above the cliffs. Here, unprotected by the forest wall, she was caught and buffeted as the full fury of the storm swept in from the northwest. The booming of surf against the foot of the cliff made shouting for Lance less than futile so, head bent, she scrambled and slithered toward the edge and the steep path leading to overhang where they had failed to enjoy the picnic in which she’d placed such hope.

Less than halfway to the bottom she realized that no one, not even Lance, could be alive in the swirling maelstrom of spume being flung in tatters from where the breakers tore into the shore, grinding the silver driftwood to matchsticks, flooding the shallow caves and drenching her she stood precariously on the rain-slicked track, trying to find purchase for her numb feet, so she could turn and claw her way back upwards.

Almost knocked off her feet as she crested the steep slope, Gypsy felt the breath sucked out of her lungs and watched in terror while the lantern first flared and threatened to die before she could shield it with her crouched body from the brunt of the wind. Even its globe was little help against the force of the gale. The watch, hidden far up the sleeve of the jacket she wore, was inaccessible, but she felt sure she had been out longer then the time she’d allowed herself for searching. Struggling and gasping, clutching at every finger-and toe-hold, Gypsy managed to reach the relative shelter of the trees and sank in an exhausted heap to catch her breath and steal a peek at the time.

Heavens! In ten minutes, Kevin’s clock would be pointing to the mark she had made to indicate the time when she was due back, and it would have taken her a good half hour from here to the cabin under normal conditions. Picking up the lantern, holding it aloft, she searched for the gap in the trees which was the path to the cabin, and spotting it, or what she believed to be it, she moved as quickly as she dared over the muddy, uneven ground, slippery with its mass of sodden pine needles.

Again, at intervals, she called, pausing only to listen for the reply she was sure would never come. Somewhere off to the right a tree crashed to the earth with a dying scream and twigs and branches constantly fell near her, littering the trail, giving her the added worry that one might fall directly on her.

The trail narrowed, all but disappearing, brush hung low, weighted with rain, branches clashed together overhead, swaying into her path, and pushing them aside, she called out once more, as loudly as her laboring lungs would permit. When an answer came, so near at hand, it startled her into dropping her precious lantern. She managed to save it, however, by making a flying dive and clutching the handle before it could roll down a hill into a gully.