The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(90)

Then he turned to Laurel, who was fingering the yarn manes of the tiny carousel horses. “Look, Laurel,” he said, holding out the box for her to see. “Have you ever heard of Little Orphan Annie?”

When every ornament was in place—every shiny ball and spired star, every wooden soldier and nesting bird—we stepped back, waiting for Simon to plug the lights into the outlet. Right before he did, he warned us that the strings were old, that if a light had burned out since last year it could break the circuit for an entire string. Maybe we should have tested them first, he said, before we went and put them all up. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to lower our expectations or build the suspense. Probably both.

He plugged it in and the tree lit up at once. No light had burned out; no circuit was broken.

“Whoa,” said Laurel.

“Wait till the sun goes down,” Jessie said, making a small adjustment to an ornament. “Then you’ll really see something.”


*

It was time to set Simon’s little table for dinner. Jessie spread a damask cloth and handed Laurel linen napkins to roll and slide into copper rings. I took the white plates she’d stacked on a kitchen counter and began to space them around the table.

When I was finished, I noticed something was off.

“Jessie,” I said, puzzled, as she set a basket of cutlery on the table. “There’s an extra plate here.”

“Is there?”

“We’re five, not six.” I took up the extra plate.

“There’s six napkins, too,” Laurel said, counting them off.

“My, my,” Jessie said absently. “What was I thinking? Well, just set ’em aside.”

Finally Jessie called everyone to supper. Pal and Tinkerbell trotted out from the kitchen and slipped under the table.

The turkey was a deep golden brown, with cherry and chestnut stuffing, set on a platter of roasted vegetables. Laurel leaned into it before she took her seat, and sniffed.

“Can’t wait,” she said.

“You have a biscuit, honey, to keep you,” said Jessie.

Simon took on the turkey, dismantling it as efficiently as if he did it every day.

“I do appreciate a man who knows his way around a carving knife,” Jessie said.

“Then, ma’am,” said Simon, “what you need is a short-order cook.”

He was serving up the turkey slices when I heard it: a distant rumble that seemed uncannily familiar.

And utterly out of place.

It was so faint I thought I might be imagining it. No one else seemed to notice.

Until it came again—a faint roar now, but growing louder.

“Does anyone else hear that?” I asked.

Simon, Jessie and Olin exchanged glances. Laurel closed her eyes, frowning in concentration. The roar was growing even louder, coming even closer, until it was clear it was a powerful engine heading toward the cabin.

Laurel dropped her fork on her plate with a clatter. “It’s the lady!”

She pushed off from the table and raced to the front window, wiping condensation from the glass to stare down the road.

The lady?

It couldn’t be, could it? Here? Now? After all this time?

I left my chair to join Laurel at the window, wiping at the glass, too, staring out in disbelief. The road was empty, still packed with snow from last evening, lined with bare deciduous trees and bottom-heavy firs. Anyone trying to make it up this mountain in anything with tires and a motor, let alone a motorcycle, would have to be crazy as a wildcat.

So, yes, I thought: Bernadette.

In another moment, we saw her, her Harley breaking through the forest road at the edge of the clearing, moving steadily but not fast, tires skittering and sliding in snow that nearly buried them. It had to take considerable skill to keep the bike upright and plowing through two feet of powder.

“Oh, my God,” I murmured as I watched her finesse it.

She still wore her black leather jacket with the zippers and studs. She had on black snow pants that, at the moment, looked more snow than pants, and her red bandanna was replaced by a red scarf. She had on black Oakley sunglasses—the wraparound kind that mercenaries wear in Hollywood movies.

My mind raced, questions flying. What was she doing here? How had she found us? What does this mean?

With a last, snarling burst, the bike slid into the driveway behind Simon’s pickup. The rear wheel sprayed snow in the front yard just as it had kicked up grass and dirt when she’d peeled out from the house in Wheeler that day back in June.