The Splendour Falls (45 page)

‘OK,' I agreed. ‘I just want to finish uncovering the stone. I'm so close to being done with the centre section.'

Sweeping away my empty bowl, Clara said, ‘Don't you have something else you could be doing this afternoon, other than obsessing over that garden?'

Was I obsessing? Maybe, but as long as I was working on the garden I didn't have to think about solving mysteries. Not Hannah's, not Rhys's, not my own.

‘Just a little bit more,' I promised, going to the fridge for a refill of my iced tea before heading back outside with Gigi.

I was up to my elbows in meadowsweet when the dog barked an alert that someone was coming. I turned to see Shawn Maddox in the gap between the hedges.

‘Well, now I'm glad I didn't call before I came over,' he said with a smile. His gaze took in all the work I'd done – a lot in a few days – and fastened with interest on the standing stone in the centre, over half clear of vines now and catching tiny flecks of sunlight. ‘You're almost finished.'

‘Finished clearing, anyway,' I said, that possessive feeling creeping over me again. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘I came to ask if you wanted to go to the Point,' he said, dragging his eyes from the rock and looking at me with a low-wattage smile. ‘But I don't want to take you away from your work. I can see you're up to your knees.'

It was a feeble joke, since I was kneeling in the greenery. ‘I hope you didn't drive all the way out here without calling.'

‘Nope. This is on the way to the Point and I had to go anyway.' He came a few steps further in. Gigi got up with a stretch and walked over to sniff his shoes. Shawn squatted way down to pet her, and I tried not to be charmed by the picture. Big, handsome guy, bent double to pet a little bitty dog …

Watch it, Sylvie.
Though I had to admit, he didn't need any special powers to charm me through my dog.

‘I mostly just wanted to talk to you for a bit.' Nodding to the bench, he said, ‘Want to take a break?'

‘OK.' I climbed to my feet and moved my diagrams out of the way so we could sit. The action gave me a moment to make sure I didn't sound too wary, or too eager, to find out what he wanted to say. ‘What did you want to talk about? You mentioned something about the TTC.'

His mouth curved in the softest version of his smile. ‘Sort of.' He sat beside me, and I didn't realize until too late that the bench was a little small for him, me and the way he made me feel. ‘I have this feeling, Sylvie, that something happened yesterday that put you off the council.' He paused with an uncharacteristic vulnerability. ‘Or maybe just me.'

I rubbed at the grass stains on my jeans, looking for an honest answer, so he wouldn't see through a lie. ‘It was overwhelming, Shawn. The town, all the attention.'

‘You don't really think the TTC is doing wrong, do you? Helping get Maddox Point off the ground?'

Prickles of unease started up my neck, but I tried to hide them with a casual shrug. ‘What's the big deal about a little campaigning? Stuffing flyers in mailboxes, that sort of thing.'

Shawn's laugh surprised me. ‘Can't you think of anything bigger? More off the chart? I know that someone must have said something to you, because suddenly you looked at us like we had a three-headed dog guarding our clubhouse.'

His candid tone drew my gaze to his. ‘What do you mean, bigger?' I asked, as if I didn't know.

‘Like … you and me.' His eyes were all confirmation and warmth and persuasion. ‘And what we could do together.'

I watched him warily, wondering where he was going with this new honesty tactic. ‘You mean, the superstition.'

‘What if it was true?' He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. ‘But not just good luck. What if we could make good things happen for people?'

‘You mean, like, grant wishes?' I was distracted by the stroke of his thumb on my skin. It lulled my curiosity, the way I lulled Gigi to sleep by petting her belly.

‘Maybe not automatically or overnight.' Switching his grip, he interlaced our fingers. ‘Davis and Maddox. Not every generation, but sometimes, when the timing works out, we can do incredible things here. Make this place what it once was. A centre of things.'

For a breathless moment, his words held me in their spell. Then Gigi jumped in my lap, and I jerked in surprise, and broke Shawn's gentle grip on my hand.

‘That's nuts,' I said, not talking about the supernatural but the way I'd just sat there, drinking in what he was telling me. When had I made the leap from magic is possible to magic is
reasonable
?

Shawn laughed. ‘I know. Like seeing ghosts, it sounds nuts.'

I uneasily remembered my theory about crying wolf. Had Shawn been establishing plausible deniability so that he could talk about these things to me, and I couldn't tell anyone?

‘What are you saying, Shawn?' It was a demand
for him to be straight with me. Gigi's body seemed very warm in my arms. It made me realize how cold my skin had gotten. No ghostly chill – it was coming from inside.

‘I'm not saying anything.' He stood, casually turning to walk out of the gap in the hedges as he fired one last shot. ‘Except that you should think about it a day or two. If there
was
such a thing as magic, what would you do with it?'

I didn't need a day or two to know that. The answer took no thought, raised no moral dilemma. If it were within my power to do, I'd fix my leg so I could dance again.

C
lara finally won the battle, making me stop work in the late afternoon. I'd come in for some iced tea, and she swore if I didn't quit for the day, she'd tell Paula I needed that shrink after all. I suspected she was bluffing, but I didn't want to chance it.

As I closed the fridge, my eye fell on the calendar hung on the door. Clearly the master schedule. The Catfish Festival was marked, and my flight arrival. Also final exams, and cheerleading practice. Today's notation jolted me with wary excitement. ‘There is a TTC meeting tonight,' I said.

‘It seems like there's a TTC meeting every night,' Clara answered, but in a singsong ‘What's a mom to do about it?' way.

The calendar
was
loaded with meetings, not necessarily on the same day of the week or month, but there was always one on the full and new moons. Tonight's moon was full.

Shawn hadn't mentioned it, despite a clear intention to invite me eventually, so he either thought I wasn't ready yet, or there was something he needed to do without me there.

Which meant that I absolutely needed to find out what was going on at those meetings.

I climbed the stairs slowly, Gigi bounding in front of me. I was strangely bubbling with energy too, but it was focused on making a plan. I'd have to act as normal as possible, then sneak out of the house right after Addie. I was getting better at managing Paula, but Rhys was the unknown factor.

I had a good game face, but this kind of subterfuge wasn't my strength. Still, a tide of determination carried me forward. I just hoped I wasn't hurtling over another bluff, because I couldn't rely on anyone to catch me this time.

After dinner, I paced with waiting-backstage impatience in my room, watching for the arrival of the TTC. I couldn't see where they parked out on the drive, but I could see the glow of lights through the half-opaque
screens of the summerhouse, and I could watch the path Addie would have to take to join them. When I saw her walking purposefully across the lawn, I scooped up Gigi and headed for the stairs.

The landing was quiet, and the gap under Rhys's door was dark. I walked downstairs and oh-so-casually went into the den, where Paula and Clara were watching TV while darning socks and folding towels, respectively.

Clara glanced at me and kept folding. ‘Sylvie, your jeans are in the dryer. So you'll be all set to dirty them up again tomorrow.'

‘Thank you, Clara.' I gestured with my thumb towards the kitchen. ‘I'm going to take the dog for a walk, then call it a night.'

‘That's a good idea,' she said. ‘After all the work you did today.'

Paula lowered the sock she was darning and looked at me sternly. ‘You stay close to the house, after what we talked about, OK?'

Clara snapped a towel open, then brought the corners together. ‘She'll be OK. The kids are in the summerhouse for their meeting tonight. As long as she stays out of the woods, she'll be fine.'

I sincerely hoped so. My stomach fluttered nervously, but I kept my stage face on, asking, as if it didn't matter, ‘Are the Griffiths still out?'

The women exchanged glances, Clara's amused and tolerant, Paula's less so. ‘I don't keep tabs on them,' said Paula, in an ‘I'm not your social secretary' tone. ‘But the professor mentioned they might be back late.'

This was good for my plan, so I told myself not to be irked or disappointed that Rhys seemed to have abandoned me to my choice. He had to know the TTC was meeting tonight. Wasn't he curious what I would do? Or did he assume he knew?

First, I had to deal with Paula. If I swallowed her implied critique without comment, she would know something was up. ‘I only asked,' I said testily, ‘because I might have a nice long soak in the tub after I walk Gigi, and I don't want to feel guilty for tying up the bath.'

Paula gave a long-suffering sigh at my attitude. ‘Don't use all the hot water. A second tank is still on the list of improvements for the place.'

Clara just chuckled and said, ‘Have a nice walk, Sylvie.'

My groundwork laid, I said goodnight and headed to the back of the house, Gigi tucked under my arm. On the porch, I took a deep breath and slipped her into her crate. She tilted her head, questioning me, and my heart squeezed, as if I were leaving her behind for good.

But the only thing worse than splitting up our team was the thought of putting her in danger. Chihuahuas know no fear, even when they should. Maybe we had that in common.

‘Not this time, girl,' I whispered. The position of the crate would hide her from a casual glance, and the big pile of laundry would keep Clara busy for a while.

The nervous flutters in my stomach spread to my knees as I left the concealment of the back yard. I
couldn't approach the summerhouse directly, because it was all open lawn, so I headed for the tree line, moving quickly, but trying not to
look
like I was moving stealthily. Once I reached the cover of the trees, I changed direction.

I snuck up from the river side, away from the door. The soft, flickering glow in the gazebo was, thankfully, not enough to spill out onto the surrounding ground. The moon was bright but still low, and I could keep to the shadows of the trees almost right up to the raised foundation.

Breathing in shallow, silent huffs, I pressed against the peeling wood, hunkering below floor level so I couldn't be seen, but I could hear the low drone of voices.

The wordless chant was so eerie and out of place that I almost doubted my senses. But what lifted the hair on my neck and arms wasn't what I
heard,
but what I sensed. This was a
ritual
sound, full of potential, thick and opaque somehow, murky as the silt of a river bottom, hiding silent, swift things below.

It was
not
kid stuff. I should be feeling satisfied that I was right, or at least relieved that I wasn't crazy. But as I pressed myself tightly against the half-wall, inches from discovery, my heart pounded like a timpani.

I could smell candle wax and incense, or something like it. Burning greens and wood, like the bundle of herbs I'd found. What else was going on? Somehow it was more frightening not to be able to see but only imagine.
Oh God. Don't let there be snake handling involved.

‘All right,' said Addie's voice. ‘We're convened.'
This was jarringly matter-of-fact, but the tingle of power still hung in the air, woven into the smoke and the echo of the chant. And Addie sounded different. Instead of petulant, her tone reflected the confidence I'd seen on Sunday.

She continued in the same tone. ‘Everyone put your intentions in the bowl. You know what we're supposed to be doing here, so I don't want anyone putting in something selfish, like a new fishing boat,
Jeff.
We all agreed what's best for the town.'

A frown knotted my forehead. Really? I'd thought the TTC was just a cover. If Shawn and the circle were trying to do good by Maddox Landing, then what was Rhys so bent about?

Someone else spoke, and I thought it might be Jeff, just based on his tone. ‘If we burn the slips of paper, how will we know you didn't put in something for yourself,
Addie
?'

‘Keep on target, people,' said Shawn, his voice so deep with authority I almost didn't recognize it. No boyish Tom Sawyer charm here. This was powerful and mature, like – I struggled for a comparison – like the ancient stone in my garden.