"What are you doing here?" "Visiting Laurie," Helen called back. "I came over on the ferry." "Glad you told me that. I thought you swam!" "You nut!" Helen said, laughing. "How do you know him?" I asked her as we pedaled on. "I've never seem him act so friendly." "He sits in front of me in second period. Rankin Tuttle—you know, alphabetically. We kid around. Is that place over there a hotel?" "It's the Brighton Inn," I said. "Natalie's dad owns it. You've got to see the inside. The ocean water runs right through like a creek, and they've got a little bridge built over. That building across the street is the gallery. The painting in the window is one of Mother's." By the time I had finished giving Helen a guided tour of the village it was really late, and we headed back to Cliff House, pedaling as fast as we could to beat the descending dark. We put the bikes away and entered the house through the kitchen. Dad was seated at the table, getting ready to pour wine, and Mother was burning a chicken under the broiler. Both of them were in good work had gone well—and Mother had a painting of Neal's to show us. It was a strange, fantasy thing of rocks that were shaped like dragons. "It's good, isn't it?" she said with satisfaction. "He's our kid, all right," Dad acknowledged, "half artist, half sf nut." "Sf?" Helen asked, mystified. "That's short for science fiction," Mother told her. The other term is ‘sci-fi’ but don't use that unless you want a fight on your hands. It's a unless it's used by another writer." Dad came back at her with some reference to 59
"That's crazy," Neal said disdainfully. "There’s no such thing as ghosts, and if there were, they wouldn't come out in the daytime, and they wouldn't belong to live people." "This one does," said Megan. Neal, finding the subject too ridiculous to argue about, went off to the kitchen to ransack the refrigerator. As soon as he was gone, I turned on my sister. "Did you really mean that, about seeing this—this ghost person—more than that one time when you thought it was me looking in your window?" "Sure," Megan said. "Sometimes she goes by in the hall. Neal's bed is over against the wall, so he can't see out the door the way I can. She looks in at us, but she doesn't stop. She goes on up the stairs." It was more than I could take. Here I was reaching for Lia—trying with all my strength to make contact—with no success, while my brother and sister and even someone as remote from my life as Jeff Rankin were seeing her everywhere. What could be the reason? Was I trying too hard and in some way establishing a block to communication? Or did Lia simply not want me to find her? If that were the case, why would she be coming here at all? Surely she must mean for me to know of her continued existence, or she would not move where the others could see her. It was as though she were playing some game with me, filling my ears with elusive whispers of her presence, but keeping herself always out of sight. With a sigh, I got up from my seat on the sofa and went over to the window. The sun was low in the sky and shielded by a thin layer of clouds so that the world was awash with cold, gray light. The water looked dull and flat with a metallic cast that gave it 90
"Yes, go ahead, dear. Perhaps he did have some sort of freak accident on his way over here. At any rate, we'll all feel better if we can rule out that possibility." So Neal and I rode our bikes into the village, and Mother had been right; the trip served no purpose. Somewhere in the back of my mind I suppose I had a picture of Jeff in the same situation as Helen, lying injured and helpless along the roadside, but there was no sign of him, and there wasn't even any area where an accident might reasonably have occurred. Beach Road was smooth and flat, lined with nothing more threatening than sea oats and beach grass. Any danger spots were along the cliff walks, many yards away. The village, when we reached it, was like a ghost town with the shops closed tight and no one on the streets or sidewalks. Neal and I pedaled home feeling as though we were the only two people in the world. It was almost noon when we arrived back at Cliff House. We put away the bikes and entered through the back door. The clack of Dad's typewriter told us that he was busy making up for the time he had lost the previous evening. I found myself resenting the fact that he could divide his life up so easily. When he was writing he wasn't worried about anything or anyone except the people in his book. Mother was in the living room feeding Christmas wrappings into the fireplace. She answered my question before I could ask it. "No, Mr. Rankin hasn’t called back." "Do you think I should can him?" "No, I don't," Mother said. "When there's news, he'll let you know, and until then it's better that his line stays open in case Jeff tries to reach him." There was sympathy in her voice. "There's nothing to do 154
the best I could hope for. If he didn't, there was nothing more I could do to warn him. Jeff was strong, but he was balancing on crutches, and the water at the pier's end was cold and deep. The ferry was already three hundred yards offshore now, chugging along like some Image, determined water animal. Its decks were empty, so Lia would not have to be concerned about witnesses. Gordon and Nat and the others would be down in the cabin, protected from the wind, laughing and chatting and, perhaps, wondering why Laurie Stratton was skipping school. "I talked to her last night," Gordon would be saying. "There was nothing wrong with her then. In fact she sounded more like herself than she has in months. " Jeff was waiting at the end of the pier as Lia had requested, slouched over his crutches and looking belligerent. Gone was the good-humored of recent weeks. This was the old Jeff Rankin, jaw set defensively, face dark with brooding hostility. I moved toward him as Lia did, watching his eyes narrow with a flicker of some emotion I could not identify. For a moment neither of them spoke. It was Jeff who broke the silence. "So, what's up?" His voice was cool and carefully noncaring. "Meg says it's important. Did Ahearn dump you again?" "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Lia said. "But I'm afraid it hasn't happened, and there's not much chance it's going to. If it did, I wouldn't be rebounding in your direction. This is something else entirely. It's about my father—" She broke off the sentence, a look of surprise flashing across her face. This was immediately