What the Dead Want(29)

She bounded down the stairs, through the house, and out into the fresh air. There was no breeze outside. Tiny insects hovering above the overgrown lawn, the haze of heat and the smell of sweet grass. She kept her back to the house as she walked and remembered what Esther had said about staying there, about how “they” would take over the house once they realized she was gone.

Back at the Greens’ house Hawk was sitting on the porch drinking a cup of coffee and eating toast.

“What happened to your arm?” he asked.

“A picture fell off the wall over at Esther’s house. The corner hit me.”

“Let’s get it cleaned up.”

“I’m fine,” she said, then set the bag of journals and artifacts down, and sat beside him. He handed her a piece of toast, then went inside and came back out with another cup of coffee and gave it to her. He was still wearing his pajama pants but had put on a shirt. The fact that he seemed unaware of how beautiful he was amazed Gretchen.

At Gramercy Arts she was used to being around kids who wanted to be models or actors or rock stars. And they had a way of carrying themselves—like they knew someone was always looking at them. A kind of self-consciousness that made them somehow ugly even though they had perfect skin and teeth and hair and beautiful bodies beneath beautiful clothes. They expected the world to provide everything for them. Hawk was just himself, not trying to have an effect on anyone. Both he and his sister seemed to be looking out at the world, not concerned with what people might be thinking of them.

“We thought you left,” Hawk said.

“I’m not leaving,” she said. “I can’t.”

He looked at her shoulder again. “You really should put something on that, don’t want it to get infected.”

“In a minute,” she said. She took out one of Fidelia’s journals and leafed through it.

“If there’s anything else we need from the house we can go get it in the car,” he said “We should probably do that soon.”

“What car?” she asked.

“Your car now, I guess,” he said sadly. “I’m assuming Esther was planning on giving it to you along with the house, because she had Hope tune it up.”

“Hope fixes cars?” She had thought of Hope as more of a brainy type.

“Well, all kinds of engines, but yeah, cars too. Our dad loved big projects and they used to rebuild cars together. Esther wanted to make sure the thing was in good shape for when you got here, so I’m assuming it’s yours now. Do you know how to drive?”

“I grew up in Manhattan,” she said.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that you di—”

“Of course I can’t drive,” she said, and they started laughing. “Who drives cars?”

“Me,” Hope said from behind the screen door, where she’d been standing. “I’m headed out to the barn now, you wanna come?”

“Soon as I put this somewhere safe,” Gretchen said.

She took her bag of letters and journals and photographs inside and set them on the dining room table. She was eager to see the car she’d inherited, though after inheriting a “mansion” her expectations for these kinds of things had taken a turn for the depressingly realistic.

She set the materials out in separate piles for them to look at later, but stopped when she saw another letter from Fidelia Moore, addressed to James Axton. She paused to open it.

Dear James,

George is a fantastic courier! He brought your letter, the books, and also a gallon of maple syrup that he picked up at Ellis’s on the way.

We sat on the porch for a good hour talking—under the reluctantly approving eye of my mother. Afterward of course she had to remind me that George Axton will be inheriting all the land from the river to the wood, as well as Axton Cotton, and that you—James Axton—will be taking a vow of poverty. They are so eager, my family, to escape our history and unlucky lot in life, as if it is not written all over us. Again my mother told me to stay away from the Greens, can you believe this? Each time they say it I wonder how ignorant she thinks I am, and what she thinks I’ll find that I can’t already see.

Gretchen raised her eyebrows reading this. She wanted to call Hawk and Hope into the house and show it to them, ask them if they could tell her what it all meant, but she kept reading.

They think only about who I will marry. Not who I will be.

Thank you for your sympathy and advice concerning my (now thwarted) education. I have taken on some sewing work for pay, as that seems to be the only thing my parents will allow, and have begun a secret savings. Within a year I may well be able to afford the first tuition payment on my own. And thank you for sending the latest issue of the NORTH STAR. I take so much inspiration from the news and essays therein, but I have found another forbidden source. Valerie Green—whose family receives the paper weekly. She also does sewing work, and cares for children—though she has far less free time than I. She is quite interesting and very dedicated to reading. He father is a musician and her mother a seamstress. The idea that my parents would tell me to stay away from them makes my blood boil, she and I have more in common than anyone I’ve ever known in town.

I apologize again for not being able to slip out. Now that my parents are watching my every move it is difficult for me to meet you in the wood. Know that as soon as it is possible I will come again. Obviously I have not said anything of our work to anyone—even Valerie, though I’m sure she suspects. And my parents, despite their wrath, have the discretion and fear not to speak about our endeavors.