Last Summer at Mars Hill (7 page)

But she wasn’t. As Moony watched, her mother’s mouth twitched. Then Ariel sneezed, squeezing her eyes tightly. Finally she opened them to gaze at the ceiling. Moony stared at her, uncomprehending. She began to cry, sobbing so loudly that she didn’t hear what her mother was saying, didn’t hear Ariel’s hoarse voice whispering the same words over and over and over again—

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!
—”

But Moony wasn’t listening. And only in her mother’s own mind did Ariel herself ever again hear Their voices. Like an unending stream of golden coins being poured into a well, the eternal and incomprehensible echo of Their reply—

“You are Welcome
.”

There must have been a lot of noise. Because before Moony could pull herself together and go to her mother, Diana was there, her face white but her eyes set and in control, as though she were an ambulance driver inured to all kinds of terrible things. She took Ariel in her arms and got her to her feet. Ariel’s head flopped to one side, and for a moment Moony thought she’d slide to the floor again. But then she seemed to rally. She blinked, smiled fuzzily at her daughter and Diana. After a few minutes, she let Diana walk her to the door. She shook her head gently but persistently when her daughter tried to help.

“You can follow us, darling,” Diana called back apologetically as they headed down the path to Martin’s cottage. But Moony made no move to follow She only watched in disbelief—
I can follow you? Of
course
I can, asshole!
—and then relief, as the two women lurched safely through the house’s crooked door.

Let someone
else
take care of her for a while, Moony thought bitterly. She shoved her hands into her pockets. Her terror had turned to anger. Now, perversely, she needed to yell at someone. She thought briefly of following her mother; then of finding Jason. But really, she knew all along where she had to go.

Mrs. Grose seemed surprised to see her (
Ha!
thought Moony triumphantly; what kind of psychic would be
surprised?
). But maybe there was something about her after all. Because she had just made a big pot of chamomile tea, heavily spiked with brandy, and set out a large white plate patterned with alarmingly lifelike butterflies and bees, the insects seeming to hover intently beside several slabs of cinnamon-fragrant zucchini bread.

“They just keep
mul
tiplying.” Mrs. Grose sighed so dramatically that Moony thought she must be referring to the bees, and peered at them again to make sure they weren’t real. “Patricia—you know, that nice lady with the lady friend?—she says,
pick
the flowers, so I pick them but I still have too many squashes. Remind me to give you some for your mother.”

At mention of her mother, Moony’s anger melted away. She started to cry again.

“My darling, what is it?” cried Mrs. Grose. She moved so quickly to embrace Moony that a soft-smelling pinkish cloud of face powder wafted from her cheeks onto the girl’s. “Tell us darling, tell us—”

Moony sobbed luxuriously for several minutes, letting Mrs. Grose stroke her hair and feed her healthy sips of tepid brandy-laced tea. Mrs. Grose’s pug wheezed anxiously at his mistress’s feet and struggled to climb into Moony’s lap. Eventually he succeeded. By then, Moony had calmed down enough to tell the aged woman what had happened, her rambling narrative punctuated by hiccupping sobs and small gasps of laughter when the dog lapped excitedly at her teacup.

“Ah
so
,” said Mrs. Grose, when she first understood that Moony was talking about the Light Children. She pressed her plump hands together and raised her tortoiseshell eyes to the ceiling. “They are having a busy day.”

Moony frowned, wiping her cheeks. As though They were like the people who collected the trash or turned the water supply off at the end of the summer. But then Moony went on talking, her voice growing less tremulous as the brandy kicked in. When she finished, she sat in somewhat abashed silence and stared at the teacup she held in her damp hand. Its border of roses and cabbage butterflies took on a flushed glow from Mrs. Grose’s paisley-draped Tiffany lamps. Moony looked uneasily at the door. Having confessed her story, she suddenly wanted to flee, to check on her mother; to forget the whole thing. But she couldn’t just take off. She cleared her throat, and the pug growled sympathetically.

“
Well
,” Mrs. Grose said at last. “I see I will be having lots of company this winter.”

Moony stared at her uncomprehending. “I mean, your mother and Martin will be staying on,” Mrs. Grose explained, and sipped her tea. Her cheeks like the patterned porcelain had a febrile glow, and her eyes were so bright that Moony wondered if she was very drunk. “So at last! there will be enough of us here to really talk about it, to
learn
—”

“Learn what?” demanded Moony. Confusion and brandy made her peevish. She put her cup down and gently shoved the pug from her lap. “I mean, what happened?
What is going on
?”

“Why, it’s Them, of course,” Mrs. Grose said grandly, then ducked her head, as though afraid she might be overheard and deemed insolent. “We are so
fortunate
—you are so fortunate, my dear, and your darling mother! And Martin, of course—this is a wonderful time for us, a blessed, blessed time!” At Moony’s glare of disbelief she went on, “You understand, my darling—They have come, They have
greeted
your mother and Martin, it is a very exciting thing, very rare—only a very few of us—”

Mrs. Grose preened a little before going on, “—and it is always so wonderful, so miraculous, when another joins us—and now suddenly we have
two
!”

Moony stared at her, her hands opening and closing in her lap. “But what
happened
?” she cried desperately. “What
are
They?”

Mrs. Grose shrugged and coughed delicately. “What are They,” she repeated. “Well, Moony, that is a very good question.” She heaved back onto the couch and sighed. “What are They? I do not know.”

At Moony’s rebellious glare she added hastily, “Well, many things, of course, we have thought They were many things, and They might be any of these or all of them or—well, none, I suppose. Fairies, or little angels of Jesus, or tree spirits—that is what a dear friend of mine believed. And some sailors thought They were will-o-the-wisps, and let’s see, Miriam Hopewell, whom you don’t remember but was
another
very dear friend of mine, God rest her soul, Miriam thought They came from flying saucers.”

At this Moony’s belligerence crumpled into defeat. She recalled the things she had seen on her mother—
devouring
her it seemed, setting her aflame—and gave a small involuntary gasp.

“But why?” she wailed. “I mean,
why
? Why should They care? What can They possibly get from us?”

Mrs. Grose enfolded Moony’s hand in hers. She ran her fingers along Moony’s palm as though preparing for a reading, and said, “Maybe They get something They don’t have. Maybe we
give
Them something.”

“But what?” Moony’s voice rose, almost a shriek.
“What?”

“Something They don’t have,” Mrs. Grose repeated softly. “Something everybody else has, but They don’t—

“Our deaths.”

Moony yanked her hand away. “Our
deaths?
My mother like, sold her
soul,
to—to—”

“You don’t understand, darling.” Mrs. Grose looked at her with mild, whiskey-colored eyes. “They don’t want us to
die.
They want our
deaths.
That’s why we’re still at Mars Hill, me and Gary and your mother and Martin. As long as we stay here, They will keep them for us—our sicknesses, our destinies. It’s something They don’t have.” Mrs. Grose sighed, shaking her head. “I guess They just get lonely, or bored of being immortal. Or whatever it is They are.”

That’s right?
Moony wanted to scream.
What the hell are They?
But she only said, “So as long as you stay here you don’t die? But that doesn’t make any sense—I mean, John died,
he
was here—”

Mrs. Grose shrugged. “He left. And They didn’t come to him, They never greeted him…

“Maybe he didn’t know—or maybe he didn’t want to stay. Maybe he didn’t want to live. Not everybody does, you know. I don’t want to live forever—” She sighed melodramatically, her bosom heaving. “But I just can’t seem to tear myself away.”

She leaned over to hug Moony. “But don’t worry now, darling. Your mother is going to be
okay.
And so is Martin. And so are you, and all of us. We’re safe—”

Moony shuddered. “But I can’t stay here! I have to go back to school, I have a life—”

“Of course you do, darling! We all do!
Your
life is out there—” Mrs. Grose gestured out the window, wiggling her fingers toward where the cold blue waters of the Bay lapped at the gravel. “And ours is
here
.” She smiled, bent her head to kiss Moony so that the girl caught a heavy breath of chamomile and brandy. “Now you better go, before your mother starts to worry.”

Like I was a goddamn kid,
Moony thought, but she felt too exhausted to argue. She stood, bumping against the pug. It gave a muffled bark, then looked up at her and drooled apologetically. Moony leaned down to pat it and took a step toward the door. Abruptly she turned back.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Like, I’m going. I understand, you don’t know about these—about all this—I mean I know you’ve told me everything you can. But I just want to ask you one thing—”

Mrs. Grose placed her teacup on the edge of the coffee table and waved her fingers, smiling absently. “Of course, of course, darling. Ask away.”

“How old are you?”

Mrs. Grose’s penciled eyebrows lifted above mild surprised eyes. “How old am I? One doesn’t
ask
a lady such things, darling. But—”

She smiled slyly, leaning back and folding her hands upon her soft bulging stomach. “If I’d been a man and had the vote, it would have gone to Mr. Lincoln.”

Moony nodded, just once, her breath stuck in her throat. Then she fled the cottage.

In Bangor, the doctor confirmed that the cancer was in remission.

“It’s incredible.” She shook her head, staring at Ariel’s test results before tossing them ceremonially into a wastebasket. “I would say the phrase ‘A living miracle’ is not inappropriate here. Or voodoo, or whatever it is you do there at Mars Hill.”

She waved dismissively at the open window, then bent to retrieve the tests. “You’re welcome to get another opinion. I would advise it, as a matter of fact.”

“Of course,” Ariel said. But of course she wouldn’t, then or ever. She already knew what the doctors would tell her.

There was some more paperwork, a few awkward efforts by the doctor to get Ariel to confess to some secret healing cure, some herbal remedy or therapy practiced by the kooks at the spiritualist community. But finally they were done. There was nothing left to discuss, and only a Blue Cross number to be given to the receptionist. When the doctor stood to walk with Ariel to the door, her eyes were too bright, her voice earnest and a little shaky as she said, “And look: whatever you were doing, Ms. Rising—howling at the moon, whatever—you just keep on doing it. Okay?”

“Okay.” Ariel smiled, and left.

“You really can’t leave, now,” Mrs. Grose told Martin and Ariel that night. They were all sitting around a bonfire on the rocky beach, Diana and Gary singing “Sloop John B” in off-key harmony, Rvis and Shasta Daisy and the others disemboweling leftover lobster bodies with the remorseless patience of raccoons. Mrs. Grose spread out the fingers of her right hand and twisted a heavy filigreed ring on her pinkie, her lips pursed as she regarded Ariel. “
You
shouldn’t have gone to Bangor, that was
very foolish
,” she said, frowning. “In a few months, maybe you can go with Gary to the Beach Store.
Maybe.
But no further than that.”

Moony looked sideways at her mother, but Ariel only shook her head. Her eyes were luminous, the same color as the evening sky above the Bay.

“Who would want to leave?” Ariel said softly. Her hand crept across the pebbles to touch Martin’s. As Moony watched them she felt again that sharp pain in her heart, like a needle jabbing her. She would never know exactly what had happened to her mother, or to Martin. Jason would tell her nothing. Nor would Ariel or anyone else. But there they were, Ariel and Martin sitting cross-legged on the gravel strand, while all around them the others ate and drank and sang as though nothing had happened at all; or as though whatever
had
occurred had been decided on long ago. Without looking at each other Martin and her mother smiled, Martin somewhat wryly Mrs. Grose nodded.

“That’s right,” the old woman said. When she tossed a stone into the bonfire an eddy of sparks flared up. Moony jumped, startled, and looked up into the sky. For an instant she held her breath, thinking,
At last!
—it was Them and all would be explained. The Fairy King would offer his benediction to the united and loving couples; the dour Puritan would be avenged, the Fool would sing his sad sweet song and everyone would wipe away happy tears.

But no. The sparks blew off into ashes, filling the air with a faint smell of incense. When she turned back to the bonfire, Jason was holding out a flaming marshmallow on a stick, laughing, and the others had segued into a drunken rendition of “Leaving on a Jet Plane.”

“Take it, Moony,” he urged her, the charred mess slipping from the stick. “Eat it quick, for luck.”

She leaned over until it slid onto her tongue, a glowing coal of sweetness and earth and fire; and ate it quick, for luck.

Long after midnight they returned to their separate bungalows. Jason lingered with Moony by the dying bonfire, stroking her hair and staring at the lights of Dark Harbor. There was the crunch of gravel behind them. He turned to see his father, standing silhouetted in the soft glow of the embers.

“Jason,” he called softly. “Would you mind coming back with me? I—there’s something we need to talk about.”

Jason gazed down at Moony. Her eyes were heavy with sleep, and he lowered his head to kiss her, her mouth still redolent of burnt sugar. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and stood. “You be okay, Moony?”