The Bone Flute (5 page)

Camrose wasn't sure, when she thought back, what she would have done if left to herself. But she wasn't left to herself, for a heavy hand pinned her shoulder and Terence stepped in front of her.

“Leave it to me.” He gave her one fierce look. “
Don't say
anything.
” And turned to face the piper. A policeman stood beside him, hands on hips. The two of them made a wall she couldn't see through.

Mark caught her arm and she turned his way, opening her mouth to say something, but no words came out. He stood with his mouth open and a desperate look on his face. I can't talk, Camrose wanted to say, but couldn't.

Then she realized what was happening in front of her: Terence had got hold of the wrong idea. “I saw him harassing these kids for money,” he was saying.

“Aggressive panhandling, eh?” said the policeman. “We've got zero tolerance for that kind of thing in this town.”

But he didn't, Camrose shouted silently. She pulled at Terence's red leather sleeve, then quickly let go, hating the fleshy feel of it.

“I'll have to move you on,” the policeman was saying. The piper wasn't making a sound.

Mark dodged out of sight and reappeared in front, beside the piper, making urgent signs with his hands.

“What the— Kid, what're you doing?”

“He's pointing at the busker,” Terence said. “Obviously he's accusing him.”

Camrose took a firm hold of the policeman's arm. He turned and frowned down at her. “What is it?”

He wasn't … She strained to get it out, … bothering us!

“What? Speak up!”

Leave him alone! Her throat ached. Tears of frustration started in her eyes.

Terence laughed softly. “Cat's got her tongue.”

The policeman turned away. He pointed a finger. “Now, you, mister … ”

No! No! She grabbed at Terence's jacket again. Sharp steel raked her knuckles. “Ow!” popped out of her like a cork out of a bottle and a shriek poured out after it.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!”

“Hey, easy!” said the policeman.

Everybody was looking at her. She hid her bleeding fist in the other hand. “He wasn't bothering us at all,” she said firmly. “My cousin made a mistake.”

“You sure?”

“Sure!”

“Okay. All right, then.” After giving the piper a stern look, the policeman mixed himself into the crowd. The piper shouldered his bag and set off, almost running. He didn't look back.

Terence smiled at the piper's vanishing back. Then he looked at Camrose and his smile faded. “You know, you can't be too careful. It's so easy to make a mistake about strangers.”

“Is it your business who I speak to?”

The moment the words popped out they sounded dangerous. Terence's face went still and dark. Camrose held her breath.

Mark eased in beside her. “Besides, you sure made a mistake about a stranger just now, didn't you?”

“Well, well. The stones speak!” Terence raked him with a stare, as if seeing him for the first time. Then he straightened up and squared his shoulders. “No, I don't think I've made a mistake. Not about that one.” He sketched a wave and swag–gered off across the square, with the sunlight flashing from the studs and zippers of his jacket.

Camrose found a tissue in her pocket and wrapped it around her grazed knuckles. “I didn't like that,” Mark said quietly.

“Neither did I.”

“What happened to us?”

“Well … ,” She didn't like to say it, but there it was, “he said, ‘Don't say anything.' And he gave me a
look
. And after that I … I couldn't … ”

“Me too. When's he leaving?”

“I don't know. This morning Bronwyn invited him to stay till Dad gets back, and he said he would.”

“I don't like to think of you stuck in the house with him.”

“Bronwyn's there. What's he going to do?”

It took them five minutes to struggle through the crowd to the corner of Market Square and McKirdy Street. Camrose stopped and looked back. “It's funny, how he ran off so quick.”

“Who, the busker? I wouldn't have stuck around either, with the cops giving me dirty looks.”

“Yes, but he knew me, I'm sure he did.” The way his whole face lit up, as if he'd been waiting all his life to meet her. “He knew me, and he wanted to say something, and then he just ran off.”

“Well, did you know him?”

She shook her head and started down McKirdy Street. “Never saw him before in my life.”

And that was strange, because somewhere in her mind a voice was rejoicing. The long wait is over, it chanted, the task is done; the burden will soon be laid down. She hadn't the faintest idea what it meant.

7
Miranda

T
hey didn't say anything more until they were a block away from Market Square and walking across the park.

It was peaceful here, away from the crowds, though not quiet.

Small kids played on the swings and splashed in the wading pool, while their parents or grandparents watched from wood-en benches near the street.

When they reached the hollow in the patch of woods, Camrose stopped with her foot on a lip of broken stone that nuzzled up through the grass. The burning house fl ickered in her memory like an old silent movie.

There was nothing to see here now. Th e hollow was just a green cup of quiet with a big old maple tree growing in the center. Th e sounds of the children shouting and splashing and the cars rolling by on McKirdy Street had faded away.

The trees kept it quiet by sheltering it from the rest of the park, Camrose guessed. A ragged hedge of purple phlox and lilac bushes ran around the inner edge of the rampart of trees. The loudest thing here would be a blue jay or a cicada.

“I'll bet there was a house here once.” She kicked the lip of stone. “I'll bet this was part of it. This could've been the front step.”

Mark nodded, squinting from under his hand. “You can see where it used to be, if you look.”

He pointed at a shape like a giant footprint in the hollow, a big square dip in the ground twenty long strides across each way. In the dip the silvery seed heads of the grass stood six inches lower than anywhere else.

“You see,” Camrose said, though she was just guessing, “they filled in the basement with earth and stuff, but then it settled. I wonder how long ago that was?”

“Oh, fifty years. Probably more.”

“How could you know?”

“There's that silver maple in the middle of where the house used to be.” He nodded at it. “It took at least that long to get that size.”

Camrose accepted that. Ask Mark anything about wood, trees or soccer, and he'd give you the right answer.

She jumped off the stone and went to kneel beside the tree. The earth under the grass was cool against her knees, dark and mysterious.

“Wonder what's down there?”

“Dirt and roots.”

“No, if a house used to be here, there could be all kinds of things buried down there. Old coins. Pieces of china. Buttons. Bones.”

“Well, we can't dig for them; it's a public park.” He looked at his watch. “I have to get home.”

“What, and leave me to figure things out by myself?” He was already trotting along the cedar chip path toward Grant Street. “Wait! Where are you going?” she called after him.

“Got to babysit the terrible two. My mom and dad are both showing houses this afternoon.”

“I'll help.” She caught up and jogged beside him.

“What are you, suicidal?”

“Why? We'll bring them to the playground. It'll be fun.”

“Cam, they're monsters!”

She laughed. “Come on, they're just babies. How bad can they be?”

By the time they were back at the playground with Mark's brothers, Camrose was almost wishing she'd gone home by herself. Sweeney was four and Ben was six. They were small, blond kids with round pink faces, and people always fussed over them and said what angels they were.

“It's dinosaurs this week,” Mark explained as he pried the two apart. “That's all they talk about. They think they
are
dinosaurs.”

Sweeney smiled sweetly up at her. Camrose forced a grin. “What kind of a dinosaur are you?”

“Brontosaurus rex,” he said carefully, with the lisp that grownups adored. Then he lunged for her arm with teeth bared. She caught him and held him off.

“I'm a pterodactyl!” Ben screamed. “You're dead, bronto!”

He spread his arms and leaped. Mark caught him and dragged him toward the playground.

“Last month it was monster trucks, and they kept running each other over,” he shouted over the shrieks. “Listen, you two! If you're not good, I won't push you on the swings!”

They quieted at once. “I want Camrose to push me,” Ben said as he climbed into a swing.

“No,
I
want Camrose.”

“
I
want—”

“Quiet! Or Camrose will go home.”

The creak of the swings was like sweet music. Push, push, back and forth. The gentle motion seemed to soothe the boys.

“About Terence,” Camrose said quietly. “I've been think–ing. If he did hypnotize us in the square, he must have had a reason, right?”

“Well, what?”

“Obvious. To stop us talking to that busker. That means he's somebody we
should
be talking to. Maybe he knows something about Terence. Like, that thing I've forgotten.”

“What thing?”

“Don't know. There's just something funny about Terence, only I can't remember what it is.”

“But if you've forgotten whatever it is, how can you remem–ber you've forgotten it? If you know what I mean.”

“Because I can feel it. Down deep, buried. I can feel it scratching to get out.”

He shuddered. “Sounds creepy.”

“Yeah, it is. All I know is, about a year ago there was a phone call, some news about Terence that was important. Something about Germany.” She cuffed the side of her head. “I feel all stuffed up and stupid.”

“Never mind. If it's important it'll come ba—”

A terrifying bellow broke out below Camrose's nose and rose to a piercing shriek. They'd forgotten to watch Ben and Sweeney, and they'd let the swings slow down.

“He scratched me!” Ben screamed.

Sweeney growled and made clawing motions. “He kicked me!”

Ben snarled and aimed another kick.

Just as Mark was moving to put a stop to it, someone slipped around in front of the swings and squatted down between the boys. “Oh, it's the fierce monsters they are, all claws and teeth!” Her voice was a strange, rough purr. “Oh, what a pair of hungries they are.”

It was the shaggy-haired woman they'd seen yesterday in the park. Ben and Sweeney sat perfectly still and stared at her, wide-eyed. “And
mmrrr
, what a meal they just ate!”

She had the strangest eyes, stony black and bright, shining through the brown tangle of her hair. “A whole crocodile you killed, was it?” She clicked her teeth together. They were sharp and pointed. Broken, Camrose decided.

“Bear,” said Sweeney.

“
I
ate a whole elephant,” Ben announced. Normally that would have started a fight, but they just sat there smiling at her.

“Then they must sit very, very still and digest, or their bellies will hurt. Very, very soft and still, each on his nest, the good little monsters they are.”

They sat there swinging to and fro, making soft clucking noises. They stayed like that as the stranger stood up and stepped away from them.

“Wow,” Mark said. “Can you teach me how to do that?”

“Oh, maybe. Depends.” She had a strange, foreign way of talking that went with her rough voice. Everything she said rolled up her throat and curled around her tongue a couple of times before it got out into the air.

“Depends on what?” Camrose said. “Be careful, Mark.”

The woman grinned with all her pointed teeth. “You're right to be wary. Start early, or else grow wise too late, like Gilda.”

“You knew Gilda?”

“I was her right hand, her eyes and ears. Her feet too, some–times.”

“So you're—”

“You have it. I go by the name Miranda.”