Wolf Moon Rising (6 page)

he were going to be noisy, he might as well howl. Pressing on

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the throttle, he gunned the sled up a rise, feeling the vibration

of the engine— and his body fl ooded with a new sense of pur-

pose because he was thinking of the promise he had made to

Jackie.

Two days earlier, he had driven the snowmobile over to the

Old House in hopes of seeing her outside, and maybe taking her

for a ride. Th

at afternoon the air had tasted bitter and the day

felt brief, as though gray dawn and gray dusk had merged with-

out stopping to warm things up in the middle. Th

ere had been

no wind, only the stillness in the air before it would snow, as if

everything was holding its breath. Th

e ground was crusted over,

but he had still gunned the sled over the icy patches, sometimes

hitting a rise and catching air. He remembered how the revving

sound shattered the silence like a fi re alarm announcing his

presence long before he arrived, giving her time to hide herself

away if she wanted to.

But almost as if she had been waiting for him, he had found

her sitting on the snow- covered porch of the Old House, lean-

ing against one of the massive columns. He had released the

throttle and skidded, displaying a bit of bravado in hopes that

she would look up and smile, but her pale eyes were bloodshot,

and he could see she had been crying. He knew she and her

mother argued a lot, and lately her mother had been furious with

her over a missing painting. Her mother thought Jackie had

misplaced it when they were working on the restoration of the

old house.

As soon as he had seen her, David killed the engine and

climbed off the sled. He walked over, brushed the snow off the

step, and sat down close to her. He could tell by the way she was

picking at the rip in her jeans that she was upset. She slid her

thin ballet slippers under the icy grass and he realized his breath was cloudy. It was cold, too cold for anyone to be outside for any

reason other than escape.

Her dark hair was pulled into a loose bun, wisps of curls fell

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across her forehead, and she tugged her sweater around her and

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Lara Parker

looked over at him, smiling briefl y before drawing her knees to

her body. Finally, he had broken the silence.

“You haven’t found it yet, have you?”

She shook her head. “I can see it,” she had said softly, “a

dark place, hidden, with a dirt fl oor.” Th

en she had made an

odd sound, like a puppy whimpering, and covered her face with

her hands. His heart swelled with a desire to help her.

“Tell you what,” he had said, hesitant. “Maybe we should

look for it, in those old buildings behind Collinwood.”

She turned to him and seemed to search his eyes, her own

darting back and forth as if to question him, and he added, “Th

e

workers who rebuilt the Old House carried all the stored furni-

ture and belongings from the basement to one of those build-

ings. Trunks of old clothing. A piano. Boxes of law books and

maritime rules, fi nancial rec ords from the running of the cannery, anything that didn’t burn up in the fi re. It makes sense that the

painting was part of that stash.” He gave her arm a gentle bump

with his fi st. “What do you say? Want to look around with me?”

“Okay.” She sounded doubtful, and then after a long mo-

ment she said, “I guess I should go back inside,” but she didn’t

move. He had been stealing looks at her and then looking away

so as not to stare. Th

e shadows beneath her eyes were smudged

mascara— she had started to wear make- up and then leave it for

days without washing it off . Th

ey were both quiet before she

asked, “Do you remember when we were studying mythology,

and we tried to choose our favorite god or goddess?”

He nodded. For a while her mother had let her home school

with him. He had always had tutors since his father thought the

high school was inferior. But it had been hard for him to actually

pay attention to the lessons with her there in the room.

“Didn’t we decide to be followers of Dionysus?” she said.

“Yeah. We wanted to lie around and drink wine all day.” He

remembered the idea had made him dizzy with longing.

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“His portrait in the book was so beautiful,” she said. “Th

e

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one by Velázquez.”

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“With all those seedy men.”

Jackie laughed. “Didn’t you tell me he was gay?”

“Well, he was kind of pudgy, and he always sore a crown of

grape leaves.”

She smiled. “Not thorns?”

He was concentrating now on a freckle, not really a freckle,

but a very small mole on her neck, a fl aw that somehow made

her more beautiful, and he studied the place at her temple where

the fi ne hairs grew singly as if they had each been drawn there

by the point of a pen. She looked up suddenly at a bird high in

the sky, then over at him, and smiled again. “And you said that

Ares was gay, too, didn’t you?”

“Doesn’t it make sense?” he said. “He was the god of war.”

She grinned and nudged his arm.

“But Aphrodite loved him, didn’t she? Remember the Bot-

ticelli? We stared at for so long.”

“You mean the one where he ignores her and falls asleep?”

Jackie laughed. She was cheering up a little. “You wanted to

be that boy who drove the chariot of the sun,” she said.

“Yeah.” He had found a stick and he was jamming it into

the snow between his feet. “If I’d had the reins to those horses,

I would have been more careful.”

“Oh, and not destroyed the whole earth with fi re?” She was

teasing him a little— putting him on.

He watched her lips move when she spoke, her lips that were

sometimes smooth but today were chapped, and he wanted to

touch their roughness with his fi nger.

“Did you choose a goddess?” he asked softly. He could see

her again as Daphne, her white body changing into a tree, or

Aphrodite rising out of the sea.

“I always come back to Persephone,” she said gravely.

He was surprised. “Th

at’s funny. Why did you pick her?”

She shrugged. “I am my mother’s big disappointment.”

“You ate six pomegranate seeds?” he asked in mock serious-

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ness. “And you spent six months in the Underworld?”

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Lara Parker

She looked at him with her silver gray eyes and nodded. “I

must have. I just wish I knew who he was and what he looked

like.”

“Who?”

A light fl ashed in her eyes and she giggled. “Hades, my se-

ducer.”

Now he wondered whether she was fl irting with him. He

thought of reaching for her hand, but he imagined she might

snatch it back, and he had seen the dirt beneath her nails just as

she thrust them between her thighs and rocked back and forth.

Th

en he saw her teeth were chattering, so he took off his

parka and placed it clumsily around her shoulders. She seemed

to welcome the warmth of his jacket.

“What’s wrong between you and your mother?” he said

softly.

“Why do you ask me so many questions?”

“I don’t know. Because what you don’t say is as interesting

as what you do say.”

She let out a long sigh. “Sometimes we seem like the same

person, and other times we’re so diff erent. As though we come

from two diff erent worlds.”

Still shivering a little, she reached down into the snow and

cupped a little of it to her face.

“Why did you do that?”

She sighed again, then turned to show him her swollen

cheek. “She slapped me.”

“Oh, Jackie.” He reached around her and pulled her to him,

giving her a brotherly squeeze. But it was more than that, and

he tensed a little even though she seemed willing to lay her head

on his shoulder. He felt his body heat up, but he held her until

she whispered, her mouth buried in his coat, “I think my mother

is crazy.”

“We’ll fi nd it, just you wait,” he said. “I’m good at fi nding

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things.” When she didn’t answer, he went on to say, “Once, when

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I was twelve, I found my Aunt Elizabeth’s diamond earrings.

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Th

ey were tiny little studs that were worth $10,000. Th

ey were a

gift from her father for her sixteenth birthday, and she lost

them.”

Jackie looked up at him.

“Th

e night before, she had been sick with a cold and she had

gone to bed after dinner. I made up my mind to look though the

garbage.”

Jackie pulled back and watched him with thoughtful eyes.

“It was always carried to the shed behind the kitchen, so I

went back there and dumped the fi rst trash can, and then the

next, pulling apart all the stuff , bottles, paper towels, leftover food. I could see them so clearly in my mind. When I found

them, I was not even surprised.”

She gasped. “Th

e diamonds were in the trash?”

“Yeah. I pulled apart this crumpled- up Kleenex, and there

they were.”

She shook her head as if she found it hard to believe.

“So you see?” he said, “I have a talent. We’ll look for the

painting together. And we’ll fi nd it. I promise.”

She smiled wanly, and, unable to resist, he pushed a piece

of hair back from her face. His fi ngertips warmed when they

touched her skin. “And don’t worry about your mom. We’ll be

gone from here soon. We’ll be in college. We’ll be together,

away from all this.”

But she turned her face away and stared off into the distance,

as if she saw something on the far horizon.

David was halfway to the bus stop when he remembered he

needed keys. All the outbuildings were locked, and ever

since the accident in the pool he had been forbidden to go in-

side. He gunned the sled around in a U-turn, spraying the fresh

powder like a bow wave and sending a plume out the back. Th

e

engine was running great, but there was an ache in his throat.

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He dreaded dealing with Willie, who was only the caretaker

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Lara Parker

but full of self- importance when it came to his position as

guardian of the estate.

After driving around for ten minutes, David fi nally found

him on the back terrace with an armload of fi rewood. Th

e older

man was panting from the eff ort, and his jacket reeked of smoke

and grease.

“What you want to sneak in there for anyway?”

“Why do you care?” said David, a little exasperated. “Be-

sides, it’s not sneaking.”

Since Willie wasn’t wearing a hat, his gray blond hair stuck

out in bizarre tuff s, and a three- day beard grizzled his fl ushed cheeks. “Th

ere’s glass all over in there, the roof ’s falling in, and

there’s rats.”

David pulled his coat tighter and watched his breath come

out in puff s. Willie was not in the mood to cooperate, and David

experienced a familiar surge of impatience. It was the dismissive

attitude everyone in the family showed toward him. No one

treated him like an adult.

“Willie, I’m the master of the house. Do as I say.”

“You got permission from Mr. Roger?” Willie dropped the

fi rewood to the pavers with a crash, and David jumped back.

“Hey! Come on!” Willie was defi nitely pissed off about

something. “I don’t need permission. I just want to take a look.”

“What are you lookin’ for?” Willie walked over to the tool

shed, and David jerked the door open in the thick snow while

Willie tugged out a wheelbarrow.

“A painting.”

“A what?”

“A portrait someone did. I think it’s of Quentin. You don’t

have any idea what happened to it, do you?”

Willie hesitated and stared at the ground, his mouth work-

ing as if he had a wad of tobacco in there. Th

en he slammed the

wheelbarrow down and began to load the fi rewood. His move-

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ments were clumsy and for some reason he wouldn’t make eye

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contact.

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Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising

“Have you seen it?” David asked.

“No. Th

ere ain’t nothin’ like that back there. Th

ey’re plenty

of paintings inside the house hanging on the walls. All your

ancestors.”

Even though he wasn’t wearing gloves, David decided to

help. He gathered an armload of fi rewood and stacked it in the

wheelbarrow beside Willie’s. In a few minutes they were work-