Missing (8 page)

Van has come for me in his boat. It's Wednesday; school tomorrow. He promises Dad that he'll bring me back before dark, even though I remind them that it's the last week before summer vacation starts, and we're not doing anything in class anyway. I scramble into the bow of the boat and Van swings it around and guns the motor. We surge forward toward the middle of the lake, tiny waves beating against the tipped-up bow, and my hair blowing in the wind.

Marion Wilson is just coming back in to shore in a small blue boat. She's sitting very erect in the stern, her hand on the tiller of the motor, and she's wearing a straw hat. I wave at her and she waves back as she heads toward the dock in front of her cabin. I wonder idly if she has been out all day, if that's why she wanted a bag lunch.

“That's Marion Wilson,” I tell Van. “She's a guest from England.”

Van nods. He picks up speed. I've explored in one of the canoes a few times, but I've always stayed near the ranch, going only as far down the lake as a small island covered in scraggly trees and a lot of bleached gray wood. Van shouts out something as we fly past the island, and I turn around so I can hear him. He slows the motor a little and says, “That's Spooky Island. I used to build forts there all the time when I was a little kid. My sisters still play there.”

“Why is it called Spooky Island?” I ask.

Van shrugs. “Don't remember. Maybe because all that dead wood kind of looks like bones.” He's cut the motor right down until we're barely idling. The breeze dies suddenly and the lake turns to glass. I dangle my hand over the side of the boat and scoop up a handful of cold water. It trickles through my fingers like silk. It's peaceful out here. Blue sky. Green water.

Van seems to be making up his mind about something. “Do you want to see something cool?” he says finally.

“Sure,” I say.

Van lets the throttle right out and we slice across the smooth lake, heading for the far side. The shore is much steeper on this side; dense forest, with the occasional outcropping of bare rock, climbs straight up to the sky. We cruise along the edge for a while. Then, in the mouth of a small bay carpeted with pale green lily pads, Van turns the motor off and lifts the propeller up out of the water. He slides to the seat in the middle of the boat, where he picks up a set of oars. “The weeds and stuff will clog up the propeller,” he explains. “We've got to row from here.”

With strong thrusts of the oars, Van noses the boat into the lily pads and across the bay to the shore. The lily pads make a rustling sound against the bottom of the boat; it's the only sound other than the splash of the oars. We're approaching a cliff with scraggly trees growing out of bare rock. Just when I think we're going to bump right into it, I see what Van is heading for: a slit in the cliff wall, just wide enough for the boat. We glide through into a place of shadows and dark water. A secret pool.

“It doesn't go very far,” says Van. “It's just like a little inlet. But I like it because if you don't know it's here, you'd never find it.”

The long narrow pool is cut out of the cliff. There are steep banks, rimmed with trees, on either side, and at the end are slopes of rust-colored boulders covered in patches of lime green moss. It's dank and cold, the water almost black. A different kind of lake weed grows here, hanging in tangled brown clumps just below the surface of the water.

“It's awesome in here,” I say, shivering, “but kind of creepy too.”

I pick up a clump of the slippery brown weed and hold it, dripping, over the water. We sit still for a few minutes, and then Van says, “I just wanted you to see this. You've got goose bumps. Let's get back out into the sun.”

When we come back out into the little bay, the sun is dazzling, bouncing off the lily pads. The warmth feels glorious on my bare arms and legs.

I just wanted you to see this.
As we fly down the lake, I ponder the amazing news flash that Van has chosen
me
to be his friend.

“Do you know how old I am?” says Van's grandfather. He's sitting beside me at the dining-room table. He's a thin man with wispy gray hair, and skin mottled with brown spots.

Van's house is great. Like the lodge at the ranch, it's filled with photographs. They're propped up on tables and clutter the walls, but they're different from Tully's; they're of family, and there are tons of school photographs of Van and his sisters. There are also more books than I've ever seen in one house, crammed onto shelves that climb all the way to the ceiling.

We're about to eat. Van's grandmother is a large, red-cheeked woman with gray hair in a long braid. She was baking biscuits when we arrived and she's still wearing an apron dusted with flour. She's sitting on my other side, and Van is beside her. His three sisters sit facing us. Dawn is ten, Ginny is eight and Katie is six. Except for size, they're very alike: freckles, blond hair and huge brown eyes. We met earlier out in the field, admiring and feeding carrots to the two ponies and throwing sticks for the golden retriever, Prince.

“How old do you think I am?” Van's grandfather persists.

“Um, I don't know,” I say.

Katie giggles.

“Eighty-nine,” he says with a grin. “I'm having my ninetieth birthday on September sixth. We're having a big party.”

“With all the bells and whistles,” says Van's dad. He's moving around the table, filling glasses with water from a pottery jug.

At the other end of the table, Van's mother glances around and says, “I think we have everything.”

Van's parents have told me to call them by their first names, Martin and Jane, and Van's grandparents insist on Heb and May, but I'm feeling a little uncomfortable so I don't call them anything. My plate is heaped with food: fried chicken, potato salad, green beans, creamed corn and a biscuit. I'll never be able to eat it all. I pick up the biscuit nervously, break it open and spread some butter on it.

I've taken a bite when it hits me like a cement truck. No one else is eating. They're all waiting for something. The girls stare at me and then look at their mother to see what she's going to do. My cheeks flame.

Jane says in this smooth voice, “Dawn, how would you like to say grace tonight?”

Grace. Crap. I should have known. I want to slide under the table. I want to completely and utterly disappear. A wad of biscuit is trapped in my mouth, and I'm sure everyone hears me swallow.

Dawn sucks in her breath. “Thank you, God, for our meal and thank you for having Thea come and visit us. Amen.”

“Amen,” echo six more voices around the table.

Everyone is eating now and the moment has passed, but I still feel like a moron. I'm also mad at Van for not warning me.

The conversation is dominated by Van's sisters, who all have stories to tell from their day at school. I'm happy to sit quietly, trying to get used to so much family.

In between the main course and dessert (I wait cautiously until Van swallows a spoonful of ice cream in case there's some kind of second grace), Van's grandfather falls asleep. His head tilts forward and he starts to snore gently. No one else seems to notice, or maybe they're used to it. I worry that he might topple over sideways but after a few minutes he wakes up. His faded blue eyes survey the table. “What are we talking about?” he says politely.

For a second, Jane hesitates. “I was just asking Thea about the ranch,” she says.

“We used to work at the ranch,” says Heb. “I was a handyman and May was the cook. But I don't remember when.”

“It was a long time ago,” says May gently.

And then from somewhere Heb produces a nugget of information. “I was thirty-one years old when I started there. Your grandmother, girls, was twentyseven. When was that?”

There is a pause. I sense that Van's parents and May are trying to protect Heb from something. What?

“In the nineteen-fifties,” May finally says.

“I don't like Van going down there,” says Heb. He turns to Van and says sharply, “You're not to go there anymore. They'll blame you.”

“Grandpa,” says Van.

“They never found her,” says Heb. “Never. They searched everywhere but not a trace.”

Livia. He must be talking about Livia.

A tickle runs up my spine. Van's grandparents were at the ranch when Livia disappeared, they must have been. And then something shifts in my brain as Heb's words sink in.
Not a trace
. For some reason I'd been sure that Livia had eventually been found. Maybe she had wandered away into the woods. Or maybe she had drowned and they had found her body.

“Never found who, Grandpa?” says Ginny.

“Never mind now, Ginny,” says Jane.

And then Heb's delicate hands, which were folded in his lap, start to flap. He says in a bewildered voice, “Why are we talking about the ranch?”

“It doesn't matter,” says Jane. She looks at Martin and he stands up.

“It's okay, Dad,” he says. “I'm going to set you up in your sitting room with your tea.”

Heb allows himself to be led away from the table.

“What's wrong with Grandpa?” says Dawn, her eyes sharp.

Van's grandmother smoothes her hands on her apron and says calmly, “It's just his dementia. He's mixing up the past and the present. He'll be fine in the morning.”

Dawn persists. “Is Van allowed to go to the ranch?”

“Of course he's allowed,” says Jane. “I'm sorry about all that, Thea.”

“That's okay,” I say.

“We're awfully proud of Heb,” says Jane. “He's usually as sharp as a tack. He knows so much about everything. He must have done too much today.”

“He's never said that before,” said Van. “About me not going to the ranch.”

For a second I think May is going to tell us something. Then her eyes flicker over the girls, who are finishing their ice cream, and she says simply, “There's nothing to worry about. Van, why don't you take Thea to see Grandpa's birds? That will put him right.”

Heb and May's sitting room is at the back of the house. Heb's sunk deep in an armchair with a red plaid blanket across his knees, drinking tea. He's surrounded by birds: ducks and geese and a tall great blue heron, woodpeckers, robins and tiny little birds that I don't recognize. They're carved out of wood and delicately painted in vibrant reds and blues, pale smoky grays, rich cinnamon. They perch on tables and shelves and the sill of a big window that looks out on the lake. They take my breath away, they're so beautiful.

“Did you make these?” I say.

“Every last one,” says Heb proudly. He sets his teacup down and wipes his mouth with a napkin. “I don't carve anymore. Hands are too stiff with this darn arthritis.”

“They're incredible,” I say.

“Grandpa had a show once,” says Van proudly. “In the gallery in town. They asked him to take the show to Vancouver but he didn't want to move the birds so far.”

“They belong here at Gumboot Lake,” says Heb. “There are no foreigners among them, just everyday birds you can see around here.”