Magic in the Mix (19 page)

“Really?” asked Molly anxiously.

“I've seen her make the choice before.” May's bright jewel eyes smiled at Molly. “You've given her what she wants most. Pat Gardner and you.”

“What about the rest of it?” Miri begged. “Are we going to save Ray and Robbie?”

May's face went blank. “There is never only one way the story can turn out.”

Miri's stomach flopped. “So it depends on us.”

There was a moment of silence. “If you … don't
succeed,” said May, “the boys will not have existed in your lives. Your mother and father won't feel it. No one will feel it.”

“Except us,” said Miri miserably.

May nodded, her brilliant eyes tender.

“It's all our fault,” Miri mourned. “If we hadn't interfered with Jamie and his uncle, Ray and Robbie wouldn't have been caught by Carter.”

“You mustn't despair, child. Time is so very, very complicated that it's impossible to know if you have changed the story or made it what it was supposed to be. Impossible. But”—May closed her eyes—“in any version of the story, you did right for Jamie. His survival is important, not just to him”—her eyes flew open, and she smiled—“but to some others as well.” Gently, she took her arms away from Molly. “I think it's time now, sweetheart.”

Molly nodded without speaking, and the two girls turned toward the door of the house.

“Wait,” said Miri, stopping midstep. “We don't have Cookie.”

“Leave her,” said May. “Leave her for now.” She lifted her eyes to the scene on the lawn. “Her job isn't done.”

Miri began to protest, but Molly interrupted. “She'll come to visit us, won't she?”

May smiled. “Of course. You'll see her all the time. All the times.”

The girls turned for one final look at Maudie and Pat, petting Cookie between them. “Bye,” whispered Molly.

Molly paused, a carton of eggs in her hands. “They looked happy, didn't they?”

“Really happy,” Miri confirmed, dumping a pile of energy bars on the kitchen table. “You think eight bars is enough?”

“Yeah. Eight,” said Molly. She smiled. “It was love at first sight for him, don't you think?”

“Totally,” said Miri. She glanced over the contents of their basket: flashlight, to get them through the woods; eggs, to get them into the Colonel's presence; Band-Aids, for Robbie's head; energy bars, because their brothers were always starving; and most precious of all, the safe-conduct, the slim, battered piece of paper that was their only chance against the stupidity of war.

It has to work, Miri said to herself.

There is never only one way the story can turn out.

Molly looked toward the darkening window. “Let's get going.”

“I need to change into a dress,” Miri said.

Molly, already wearing a dress, nodded impatiently. “Hurry.”

Miri sped toward the stairs. But in the hallway, she stopped suddenly and made an abrupt turn into her mother's office. There, she clicked on the lamp, revealing a room thick with papers. Papers slid from baskets and off the mountaintops of other papers. Stapled papers met unstapled papers and merged with folders, catalogs, books, letters, and scraps to make vast seas of papers. Miri looked at the mess, trying to think like her mother. Oh. She turned to the bookshelf, to a box labeled HOUSE. She lifted the lid and found herself looking at the yellowed newspaper ad for F. Gibbons's dining room table and coffin. Quickly, she lifted it and found the scowling woman, the lace-swaddled baby, and—what she was looking for. She peered intently at the picture of the two laughing soldiers. Could it be? Their chins were identical. But their hair wasn't. It looked like one had dark hair. But maybe it was a shadow.
And the smiles, the way they were holding in their laughs and not succeeding. It could be them. It could also be any pair of teenage brothers. But it
could
be them. It could be Robbie and Ray, unharmed. In the 1860s, in the war, but unhanged and unharmed. Not her brothers anymore, lost to her forever. But not killed. Maybe.

She just couldn't tell. Because the photo was too dark, the brothers too hidden. And because there was never only one way the story could turn out.

She threw the picture back into the box and hurried from the room.

She wanted her brothers. That was the ending she wanted.

In both of their previous trips, the empty silence that hung over the land had given Miri the creeps, but after fifteen minutes in the woods, she longed for it. The dusky gloom was punctuated by unexplainable noises: sudden pops and cracks, soft scurries and breaths. Things approached, stopped short, and were heard scrambling away. Once or twice, far-off voices seemed to call out. Miri's ears
ached to turn the sounds into something known; a shushing in the distance, and her mind said: car on the road. But there was no road, no car, and some very old part of her knew she was hearing something hunting something else. She longed to run.

They were moving as fast as they could, but no one would call it running. They couldn't see more than a few feet ahead, so it was more like hopping. And often, they hopped wrong. “Uck!” Miri detached cobwebs from her face. “Let's use the flashlight,” she said. “We might never make it there if we don't.”

Molly flicked it on, and immediately, there was a startled headlong rush in the bushes next to them. Heavy footsteps crashed away through the darkness. When the noise died away, the two girls found themselves wrapped in each other's arms.

“He was right beside us!” chattered Miri. “Was he following us?”

“I don't know. Probably not. Probably he was just hiding and we scared him.” Molly gave a long shudder. She snapped the flashlight off, and they resumed their hesitant journey.

“I guess in a war, there are lots of people trying not to get caught,” said Miri. “Northern guys,
Southern guys, people who don't want to fight, people who do want to fight—” She was interrupted by a distant sobbing yowl.

“Animals,” added Molly.

Miri paused, her ears tingling as they searched for information. “I don't think that was an animal.”

After what felt like hours, there was a light in the distance. Then two. Then several, shining in different spots, different brightnesses. Compared with the woods, Paxton looked like New York City, and Miri had never been so glad to see it. She and Molly burst from the dark canopy of trees, ducking from the shelter of one small structure to another until they were at the same jutting white corner they had peeked around that afternoon.

The scrubby lawn was empty. Though they hadn't really expected the boys to be sitting there still, Miri and Molly searched anxiously for clues, signs, evidence of their whereabouts. Nothing. Nothing but trees. Where were they? Had they been taken somewhere for safekeeping? Or—Miri didn't want to think it, but she did—had the Colonel grown impatient? Were they too late?

Miri heard Molly swallow hard. “I know,” Miri said, trying to sound calm and reasonable. “But I bet they're fine! I'm almost sure they are! They're probably locked up somewhere, safe and sound. No problem. We'll just go and show the pass to the Colonel ourselves. We can say they gave it to us. And hey, look!” She pointed at the porch. “The guard is gone! We can bust right in and find the Colonel, easy-peasy.”
Easy-peasy?
sneered her brain. Who are you kidding?

As they crossed the porch, Molly whispered, “Remember to look like an innocent little—” A sudden whoop from within the house drowned out her voice.

What kind of person has a party in the middle of a war? thought Miri indignantly. The Colonel, apparently. At the end of the murky entryway stood a bright doorway, streaming light, laughter, shouts, and the clatter of dishes. Bits of conversation, calls to pass the beans, and the thump of boots against floor came from within.

“Innocent little girls,” repeated Molly, “with eggs for the Colonel's breakfast.” She lifted the basket with eggs nestled in Easter grass.

“Innocent little girls with eggs for the Colonel's
breakfast,” confirmed Miri. They tucked the egg carton, together with the energy bars, the Band-Aids, and all other signs of the twenty-first century under a chest of drawers. They turned for one final inspection in the enormous hall mirror.

“Smile!” whispered Molly.

Two innocent little girls with huge smiles plastered on their faces tiptoed down the hall and peeked through the doorway. It was a big room, a dining room, Miri supposed. There was a long table, lined with men—not a woman in sight—and they were all yelling. Miri couldn't understand what they were yelling
about
, exactly. Some of them seemed to be singing, some of them seemed to be chewing, some of them seemed to be arguing, and some of them seemed to be singing, chewing, and arguing all at the same time. No one noticed the two innocent little girls in the doorway. Searching for the Colonel, Miri's eyes zipped from face to face—there was Hern, glugging a drink, but Carter did not seem to have been invited. He probably wasn't very popular, she thought.

“Con-
fusion
to the em-en-em,” hollered Hern suddenly, slapping his hand on the table. “Con-
fusion
to the em-emily!”

“To the enemy!” corrected a nearby soldier.

A bellow of agreement rose from one end of the table, followed by much slamming of cups.

Where was the Colonel? Had he gone to fight a battle? In the dark? Miri and Molly exchanged worried glances.

There was a burst of song: “
God SAVE the SOUTH! God SAVE the South!
”

“Her AAAAL-ters and FIIIIIRE-sides!”

“
GOD SAVE THE SOUTH!
” they wailed in unison.

A heavy soldier rose unsteadily to his feet—it was the guard from the porch, very pink. “
Gentlemen!
” he cried. “
Gentlemen!
Let us not neglect the first duty of a Ranger.” He raised his glass so energetically that it flew out of his fingers and shattered against the wall. He looked at his hand in surprise. “Where'd it go?”

Another soldier popped up, glass ready. “I give you … the Colonel!”

Cheers and whistles. “The
Colonel
!!”

“If you boys would pipe down, Colonel might could get a little sleep,” grumbled a soldier with an enormous black mustache. “Poor feller would rather sleep than listen to y'all's shindy, I bet.”

Aha! The Colonel was asleep! Upstairs, probably. In what the hoopskirt tour-guide ladies had
called the “elegant Buckley bedchambers.” The girls withdrew from the doorway and slipped up the stairs. Behind them, another glass shattered.

At the top of the stairs, they paused uncertainly. Seven closed doors lined the hallway. The Colonel was behind one of them. But which one?

Not the farthest one, at the end of the hall. He was too important to sleep at the back of the house. He'd be in one of the rooms near the front, almost for sure. Miri pointed at the three doors ahead. Molly nodded agreement. He'd be in one of these. But which one? There were two doors on one side of the hall; one door on the other.

The single door had to lead to the largest room. The largest room had to be the Colonel's. He was, after all, the leader of his troops. Plus Mrs. Hibbs had a crush on him. Surely she'd give him the biggest room.

Again, Miri pointed, at the lone door. Again, Molly nodded. Carefully, silently, they approached it. Molly grasped the knob and slowly began to turn it. Miri held her breath, wincing, waiting for a squeak or a squeal to betray them.

But the door opened without a sound, and they
whisked inside. The room was large—and dark, lit only by the moonlight streaming in the window. Miri could see, in the moon-glow, a shining wooden dresser and the china bowl and pitcher that the Buckleys washed their faces in. But most of the space was occupied by a gigantic canopy bed (“Imported from France!” the hoopskirt ladies had gushed). And in the bed—Miri pointed again—lay a sleeping figure. Molly nodded. They tiptoed to the bedside and looked at the unmoving lump of the Colonel.