Rainshadow Road (Friday Harbor #2)(56)

Gritting her teeth with effort, Lucy leaned to grip the window frame and tried to push it upward. “Holly, can you help me?”

Together they struggled with the window, but the frame was stuck. The hummingbird flew back and forth, striking the glass again.

Holly let out another cry. “I’ll get Uncle Sam.”

“Wait … Holly…” But the little girl had gone in a flash.

* * *

A cry from downstairs caused Sam to drop a garbage bag filled with debris. It was Holly. His hearing had become attuned so that he could instantly tell the differences among Holly’s screams, whether they were happy, fearful, or angry. “It’s like I know dolphin language,” he had once told Mark.

This shriek was a startled one. Had something happened to Lucy? Sam went for the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.

“Uncle Sam!” he heard Holly shout. She met him at the bottom of the stairs, bouncing anxiously on her toes. “Come and help us!”

“What is it? Are you okay? Is Lucy—” As he followed into the living room, something buzzed by his ear, something like a bee the size of a golf ball. Sam barely restrained himself from swatting at it. Thankfully he hadn’t, because as it went to a corner of the ceiling and batted against the wall, he saw that it was a hummingbird. It made tiny cheeping noises, its wings a blur.

Lucy was on the sofa, struggling with the window.

“Stop,” Sam said curtly, reaching her in three strides. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“He keeps slamming against the walls and windows,” Lucy said breathlessly. “I can’t open this stupid thing—”

“Humidity. It swells the wood frame.” Sam pushed the window upward, leaving an open space for the hummingbird to fly through.

But the miniature bird hovered, darted, and batted against the wall. Sam wondered how they could guide it to the window without damaging a wing. At this rate it was going to die of stress or exhaustion.

“Let me have your hat, Holls,” he said, taking the pink baseball cap off her head. As the hummingbird harrowed and hovered in the corner of the room, Sam gently used the cap to constrain it, until he felt the bird drop into the canvas pouch.

Holly gave a wordless exclamation.

Carefully Sam transferred the bird to the palm of his hand and went to the open window.

“Is he dead?” Holly asked anxiously, climbing onto the sofa beside Lucy.

Sam shook his head. “Just resting,” he whispered.

Together the three of them watched and waited, while Sam extended his cupped hands beyond the sill. Slowly the bird recovered. Its heart, no bigger than a sunflower seed, spent heartbeats in music too fast and fragile to hear. The bird rose from Sam’s hands and flickered away, disappearing into the vineyard.

“How did he get into the house?” Sam asked, looking from one of them to the other. “Did someone leave the door open?” With interest, he saw that Lucy’s face had gone scrupulously blank.

“No,” Holly said in excitement. “Lucy did it!”

“She did what?” Sam asked, not missing the way Lucy had blanched.

“She made it out of a juice glass,” Holly exclaimed. “It was in her hand, and it turned into a bird. Right, Lucy?”

“I…” Visibly agitated, Lucy searched for words, her mouth opening and closing. “I’m not quite sure what happened,” she finally managed to say.

“A bird flew out of your hand,” Holly said helpfully. “And now your juice glass is gone.” She picked up her own juice glass and thrust it forward. “Maybe you can do it again.”

Lucy shrank back. “Thank you, no, I … you should keep that, Holly.”

She looked so thoroughly guilty and red-faced with worry that it actually gave weight to the crazy idea that had entered Sam’s mind.

“I believe in magic,” Lucy had once said to him.

And now he knew why.

It didn’t matter that it defied logic. Sam’s own experiences had taught him that the truth didn’t always seem logical.

As he stared at her, he found himself trying to separate out a tangle of thoughts and emotions. For his entire adult life, he had kept his feelings organized in the way that some people kept their cutlery in a knife block, sharp edges concealed. But Lucy was making that impossible.

He had never told anyone about his own ability. There had never been a point. But in an astonishing turn of events, it had become a basis for connection with another human being. With Lucy.

“Nice trick,” he said softly, and Lucy blanched and looked away from him.

“But it wasn’t a trick,” Holly protested. “It was real.”

“Sometimes,” Sam told his niece, “real things seem like magic, and magic seems real.”

“Yes, but—”

“Holls, do me a favor and get Lucy’s medicine bottle from the kitchen table. Also some water.”

“Okay.” Holly jumped off the sofa, causing Lucy to wince.

Grooves of pain and distress had appeared on Lucy’s face. The exertions of the past few minutes had been too much for her.

“I’ll replace the cold packs in a few minutes,” Sam said.

Lucy nodded, practically vibrating with misery and worry. “Thank you.”