A Northern Light(32)

"That boy's going to bring a world of trouble on his head one day," Mr. Pulling said. "Everything all right now?"

"Sure is," Royal said. Then, after Mr. Pulling left, he said, "You like a ride home, Matt?"

"Thank you, Royal, but I'd better see to Weaver."

He shrugged.

I ran back over to the Smiths' cart. Weaver's mamma had Weaver off to one side and was giving him the tongue-lashing of the century. She was furious. Was she ever! Her eyes were blazing and she was shaking her finger at him and slapping her palm against his chest. I couldn't hear it all, but I did hear that "damn fools who get themselves locked up in jail can't go to college." Weaver's eyes were on the ground, his head was hanging. He raised it for a few seconds, long enough to say something to her, and then in an instant all the rage left her and she went limp like a popped tire and started crying and Weaver put his arms around her.

I didn't think I should intrude, so I dropped the money from Mr. Myers's supper into the change can, took my schoolbooks out of the cart, and ran to catch up with Royal. He was just crossing the tracks in the buckboard. Jim and Will were in the back, sitting on milk cans. I figured I was safe. Royal wouldn't try to kiss me or touch what he wasn't supposed to with the two of them there. I felt relieved. And disappointed.

"Can I still have that ride?" I called to him.

"Sure."

"You won't go too fast?"

"Get in, will you, Matt? Train's ready to pull out and I'm right in the way."

I ran around to the other side of the buckboard and climbed in. I was glad to sit down next to him. Glad to have his company on the way home. I was upset by what had happened and in need of someone to talk it over with. "Thank you, Royal," I said.

"For what? I'm on my way home anyway."

"For getting Weaver out of trouble."

"Looks like he's still got plenty," he said, glancing back at Weaver and his mother.

"I think his mamma's upset because of what happened to his pa," I said. Royal knew what had happened to Weaver's father; everyone did.

"Might well be," Royal said, urging his team across the tracks.

"Maybe that started off just like this suitcase thing did," I said, my emotions still churning.

"Maybe."

"With just a few words. And then a few more. And then the words turned into insults and threats and worse, and then a man was dead. Just because of words."

Royal was silent, chewing on all I'd said, I imagined.

"I know you told me words are just words, Royal, but words are powerful things—"

I felt a poke in my back. "Hey, Mattie..."

I turned around. "What, Jim? What do you want?" I asked, irritated.

"There goes Seymour! Ain't you going to wave?"

"Who?"

"Seymour, Mattie! Seymour Butts!"

Jim and Will howled with laughter. Royal didn't actually laugh, but he grinned. And I was silent the rest of the way home.





Dead. That's what I'll be if Cook catches me. In Ada's threadbare robe, my hair loose, walking down the hotel's main staircase as if I were a paying guest. We are only supposed to use the back stairs, but I'd have to walk right by Cook's bedroom to get to them and she's a light sleeper.

It's midnight. I hear the huge grandfather clock in the entry strike the hour. It's dark, but I don't dare light a lamp. There's a big summer moon, though, and the Glenmore has lots of windows, so I can see well enough to not fall down the stairs and break my neck.

The main house has four stories plus an attic. Forty rooms in all. When the hotel is fully booked, as it is this week, there are over a hundred people in the building. All strangers to one another, coming and going. Eating and laughing and breathing and sleeping and dreaming under the same roof.

They leave things behind sometimes, the guests. A bottle of scent. A crumpled handkerchief. A pearl button that fell off a dress and rolled under a bed. And sometimes they leave other sorts of things. Things you can't see. A sigh trapped in a corner. Memories tangled in the curtains. A sob fluttering against the windowpane like a bird that flew in and can't get back out. I can feel these things. They dart and crouch and whisper.

I get to the bottom of the staircase and listen. The only sound is the ticking of the clock. To my right is the dining room. It's dark and empty. Straight ahead, through the porch windows, I can see the boathouse and the lake, calm and still, its black surface silvered by the moon. I pray I don't run into anyone. Not Mrs. Morrison waiting up for her husband. Or Mr. Sperry doing the accounts as he does when he can't sleep. Or, God forbid, table six lurking in a corner like some horrible spider.

I walk under the antler chandelier in the foyer, and by the coat tree made of branches and deer hooves. I pass the hallway that leads to the parlor and get a fright when I see light spilling out of the room onto the hall carpet, but then I remember: That's where Grace Brown is laid out. Mrs. Morrison left a lamp burning because it's unkind to leave the dead all alone in the dark. They have darkness enough ahead of them.

I creep through the dining room toward the kitchen doors. The kitchen does not have many windows, and it takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the heavier darkness inside it. Slowly, Cook's workable and her big, looming range come into focus. The cellar door is just to the left of them. I'm almost there when my foot catches on something and there's an earsplitting crash and then I'm under the workable, quivering like one of Cook's aspics.