Shadows of the Redwood (15 page)

Laurie turned onto Citrus Avenue, then slowed the car down and pulled up in front of the house. A “sold” sign was slapped across the red and white real estate sign.

“We’re here.” Laurie said in a soft voice.

Knot hopped up on the seat back and climbed onto Keelie’s shoulders, then walked down into her lap and sat with his paw on the door handle.

Laurie stared at him. “Look, he’s giving you kitty love.”

“He’s being a pain in the hiney.”

Keelie looked out the car window at the house, which seemed like a vision from another lifetime. She didn’t know if she could go inside. It might hurt to make the memories more real. It was like her heart breaking into shards of glass, again.

She breathed in, trying to still the grief washing over her in waves. “I can do this,” she said, as if the words would be a life preserver in the crush of emotions.

Laurie reached over and placed her hand on Keelie’s shoulder. “That’s why I’m here. We don’t have to go in until you’re ready. Want to get a coffee at the mall?”

Keelie exhaled. “I need to do this. The sooner the better.” Looking at the “sold” sign, Keelie realized that soon a new family would grow up here. The story of Mom and Keelie as a family was over. Now, it was Keelie and Dad. It was a new chapter, but she wanted one more chance to see the backstory of her life.

Risa was fascinated. “So few trees, but the gardens are beautiful.”

“People pay a lot of money for their landscaping,” Keelie agreed. Her mother had probably chosen this neighborhood because there were so few trees here. There were trees on the other side of Citrus Avenue, but here there were none. Her house was a sparkling white Mediterranean with a bay window in the front. Colorful landscaping decorated the sides of the house, and over the roof she saw the tops of three palms that were actually a block away.

Sean and Risa jumped out. Keelie sat still for a moment, savoring the view of the small neat yard, with its river-rock borders and the flagstone path that led to the back, and the round-topped front door with the little window.

She opened the car door and Knot stretched. He dug his back claws deep into Keelie’s thigh as he propelled himself out the door like an acrobat. He landed on the ground with a thud.

Stupid cat!

Somewhere nearby someone was mowing their lawn, probably Mr. Heidelman, who cut his lawn at odd hours, even at midnight. It had driven Mom crazy. “Who does yard work at midnight? You’d think we had vampires in our neighborhood.”

Keelie wondered if Mom had known about Uncle Dariel. There were so many things Mom had never told her, and now she would never know Mom’s side of the story.

Knot sat on the front walkway and meowed. He looked directly at her as if saying, “Come on.”

Years of memories rolled through Keelie’s mind. They were running into one another, a cluttered collage of film clips from her life: trick-or-treating on Halloween, Chrismases with artificial trees, Thanksgivings, even just bringing in the groceries—the years were heaped on one another.

Keelie wanted to relive them all, capture them in a locket and keep them with her. When she walked out of this house today for the last time, would she lose them?

The others were already trying the locked door and looking through the windows when she got slowly out of the car. Would she feel her mother here?

The solitary orange tree next door sang a song of welcome, and her nose burned with tears. When had she heard this familiar song? Had the trees always sung for her and she just hadn’t heard them? Aching with memory, Keelie went to join her friends.

Yes, I’m back
, she told the tree.

She would say goodbye, then leave forever.

The key was in the lock, but Keelie couldn’t make herself turn it. Laurie stood beside her, hands on her hips. She studied Keelie with concern in her eyes. “You ready to do this?”

Risa stared at them from behind Laurie, frowning.

Warm fur rubbed up against her leg. Knot meowed, then reached up and impatiently tapped the doorknob.

She felt Sean’s strong hand at her waist. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he whispered, “but we’re here for you.”

Keelie nodded. She turned the key in the lock.

Knot rose up on his paws and pushed the door open a crack, then squeezed in, marching past Keelie. He stopped and sat down in the middle of the living room. Sunlight streamed onto the hardwood floors. Knot sat in the center of a warm patch of light, his fur shining with an orange glow. He turned his green eyes toward her and blinked, as if saying, “Well, what now?”

Keelie’s feet were frozen to the welcome mat. She couldn’t move. If Mom were here, she would’ve been insulted that the cat had forged his way ahead of her. Mom liked to be first, and she wanted Keelie to be just like her. She would’ve told Keelie to walk inside and do what she had to do. She could almost hear her using that lawyer voice. The one she used when they’d argue and she was tired of debating the subject. Keelie squared her shoulders.

Knot meowed. The front door creaked open wider and Keelie looked around her home for the first time in almost a year. It was empty. The polished tile floors of the sun room on the other side of the hall gleamed, and the walls smelled slightly of fresh paint. She didn’t know what she’d expected to see. Certainly not Grandmother Jo’s dark red velvet settee, or the pegged shelf where they’d hung sun hats, umbrellas, and tote bags. Those were all in storage. She glanced at Sean, hoping he hadn’t noticed her disappointment. They’d come all this way for a mere real estate tour.

Sean’s mouth turned up a little in the corners and he pretended to be very interested in the landscaping out front.

Laurie grabbed Risa’s elbow and dragged her away.

“What are you doing? I want to see what all the fuss is about. Is there a treasure inside?”

“Shut up and help me identify these plants.”

It was apparently the right thing to say to Risa, because the girl fell silent.

Grateful, Keelie stepped into the house alone. The Talbot and Talbot letter crackled in her pocket, where she’d tucked it in case anyone asked who they were and why they were here. She could hear Risa and Laurie’s voices moving toward the back yard.

The house was very still, as if it had been waiting for her. She tiptoed into the living room, which seemed huge without the furniture that had filled it. The floor was a little dented where the piano had pounded flat its rectangular shape.

This was where they’d argued about the belly button ring. Mom had been sorting through files on the table, her lips thin from keeping in her anger. Keelie had felt triumphant when she’d seen how mad Mom was. She’d keep it up until she got her way.

Keelie closed her eyes, feeling like Knot, who closed his eyes as if he wanted to be someplace else. Suddenly, everything came back to her clearly, so real she could hear Mom’s voice as if she was standing right next to her, as if Keelie could reach out and touch her. The smell of paint faded, overlaid with the scent of Mom’s bath gel and the morning’s toast and strong coffee.

“Keelie, we’ll talk about this tonight.” Mom’s dark hair was brushed up and held with an elegant clip. She wore her favorite black business suit, with a white silk blouse and a Chinese scarf. She pushed papers into her leather briefcase haphazardly.

“Mom, everyone is getting pierced. I’m not a baby.”

“Keelie, you’re not getting your navel pierced, and that’s final.” She hurried to the door and held it open, waving at the Lexus idling in their driveway. “Your carpool is here. Get your bookbag, don’t make them wait.”

Keelie snatched up her backpack, narrowly missing a Waterford vase as she swung it onto her shoulder. She was going to be the only girl at the pool party without body jewelry. Everyone would stare and look at her pityingly for having such a bitchy mom. She sighed, hating the quavery feeling in her lungs. She was not going to cry.

“I love you, darling.”

“Well, I hate you.”

Mom sighed. “No you don’t. You’re just mad. Come on. I’m going to be late for my plane. Maybe we can eat at Luna tonight when I get home.”

She’d never come home.

A sick feeling burned through Keelie.
I didn’t mean it, Mom. I didn’t hate you. I love you!

Dad said that Mom hadn’t taken her seriously, but it was the last thing she’d ever said to her mother.

Knot scooted past her, tail held high. Sean turned to look at the kitchen as Knot ducked into her old bedroom.

Ugh. Keelie followed Knot, anxious to prevent a cat accident. Knot was not above using a nice new carpet as his personal toilet, and the house belonged to someone else now.

“Come back here, Knot. Use the garden.”

Her bedroom was empty. For a moment Keelie just stood, staring at the neutral paint on the walls. She blinked back tears. She would not let this get to her. She had a new life now. She thought of her room in Oregon, of the four-poster bed with its twisty carved posts, and the window with a view of the forest. She thought of the fish kite that dangled in the hallway, twirling slowly. That was home now. This—she pictured a home office. Or a nursery. That was it. She felt better thinking that her old room would belong to a baby. The crib could go there, against the wall, and a rocking chair by the window …

She opened the closet door. A rod, a shelf. No cat. Keelie walked quickly from room to room, looking for Knot, but he’d vanished. Sean was in the front room, but the rest of the house was empty.

Just as well. She walked toward Mom’s room. As long as the house was here, Keelie had held out hope that Mom would come back, even though the logical part of her brain said it was impossible. She had seen a lot of magic, but none that brought back the dead. She’d come here partly to prove to herself that Mom wasn’t coming back.

Knot came trotting toward her, tail swishing. “Where were you, bad kitty? You stick close, okay?”

She went into Mom’s bedroom with Knot at her side. Also empty, of course. Empty, yet full of Mom. The walls were painted a soft peach, Mom’s favorite color. They hadn’t been repainted, and her almond and rose smell filled the room as if she’d just left. If only she could come back for a goodbye, for one last hug and kiss.

Tears sprang to Keelie’s eyes, and then trailed wet and warm down her cheek.

Knot leaned against her leg, stuck to her like crazy glue. He purred, but it was a different kind of purr, a warm soothing rhythm like a furry blanket of sound that wrapped her in comfort. She felt the tension in her body slowly release. The empty room didn’t contain her mother. Mom was in her memories … mornings in bed reading stories, playing games on weekends. Mom teaching her about makeup. She smiled, remembering the happy discoveries they’d made shopping. Those thoughts were locked away in her heart and mind. She never thought she could remember that happiness without hurting, but she could.

She looked down at Knot, and he blinked up at her, showing fang in a kitty grin. Keelie didn’t know if he’d used magic on her, but she gave him a slight nod of appreciation.

She had another reason for coming in here, too. She opened the door to the walk-in closet. It was almost as big as Dad’s Swiss Miss Chalet (she’d gained an appreciation for small spaces since sleeping in that tiny camper). Kneeling in front of the metal furnace grate on the wall, Keelie pressed the upper right-hand screw that seemed to hold it in place. The grate clicked open, revealing that it was a door. Inside was a safe. Talbot and Talbot knew nothing about this, and Keelie’s hand trembled as she reached for the knob.

She knew the combination. It was the same one that Mom had used for everything from bike locks to her ATM card. Her photos and journals were inside, and just maybe, an explanation of why she kept Keelie away from Dad, why she’d lied about Keelie’s “tree allergy.”

The combination lock sprang open. Keelie felt a tickling wind pass her, coming from the safe. She’d broken a magical ward. Bits of it still fluttered around like a spider web that had been torn. Keelie detected a strange coldness, too. Dark magic had been used here.

She stared disbelievingly at the inside of the open safe. It was empty. She reached into its depths and felt around. Nothing. As she pulled her arm out, a torn piece of paper fluttered to the ground. She picked it up and turned it over.

It was thick and stiff like a piece of parchment from the charm book. Keelie could see images of a fairy spell forming on the page. What had been in the safe, that this charm had been tucked in there to keep it secure?

Suddenly, Keelie sensed eyes watching her from the window. She turned her head slowly. Something had moved, but she saw only the black shadows under the green branches of the shrub outside. Then the darkness shifted, and the sun glinted briefly on a pattern of red and green diamonds. Her blood chilled.

Knot leaped up and ran to the window, hissing. Keelie watched, astonished, as he pulled himself up to the window to look out and grew larger, until he was the size of a bobcat. This was new.

Whatever Knot saw outside made his green eyes glow. He pushed away from the window and ran from the room, still growing.

Keelie ran after him, down the hall, through the kitchen, then to the French doors leading to the back yard, which were opened wide.

Knot was now the size of a small cheetah. He bolted outside, Keelie close behind him.

Laurie and Risa were sitting on a stone bench, Laurie’s eyes were glazed as Risa explained about the plant she held. She screamed as newly huge Knot ran through the bushes that grew at the property line. Keelie pushed her way through the bushes too, following Knot as he ran across the street and down the sidewalk to the corner, then right into the park. Darn cat was going to get shot, or lost, or captured, and it was his fault for using magic in the middle of a city.

He disappeared behind a concrete building that housed the restrooms, still intent on what he was chasing. A single frantic jingle sounded through the bushes on the other side.

I
wouldn’t follow him, if I were you.

Keelie stopped. The big tree in the middle of the park had spoken to her. She spun around and stood before the great California live oak.

The tree pushed its face outward through its trunk. It was lined with wrinkles.

“Who are you?”

The name is Morgan Freeman.

“Like the film star?” Something was familiar about this tree’s voice. “You used to talk to me when I was a little girl and tell me stories when I played in this park.” She’d forgotten until now. Her mother had told her that she was imagining things.

I’m glad to see you broke through your Mother’s spells to remember me.

Keelie reeled back in shock, her runaway cat forgotten. “Mom used magic on me?”

Yes, she did.
The tree leaned to one side, bark cracking like whips as it stretched.

Keelie didn’t want to believe what the tree had said. She looked down at the page in her hand, but she knew deep down that the tree was telling the truth. “She used fairy magic.”

She wanted to protect you from those who would claim you and your magic, Keelie.