Devlin's Light (40 page)

She grabbed her oar and closed her eyes, remembering how immutable the Light had looked, rising from the beach with swirls of snow streaking around it. The water had been choppy and dark and the snow had stung her face sharply as they rowed across the inlet. She had never felt colder than she had on that day, when the wicked storm had hit hours earlier than predicted and brought with it a bad-tempered wind from the north. The frigid waters had sloshed into the boat and numbed their feet and legs. Her father had carried the two frozen children into the sitting room to deposit them in front of the fire, and August had stripped them of their wet clothes and wrapped them in blankets and made them all drink hot lemonade laced with honey. By the time the week had ended, August was nursing both Roberts through pneumonia.

This year a more benevolent breeze blew around the
small craft, chilling their hands without cutting to the bone. India rowed hard against the slightly agitated waters, her eyes on the Light ahead, her heart beating curtly under her sweater. It was hard to come here, to be here on this day, to face the place where her brother had died, when he should be here with them to share the traditions, to count and record the birds, and later to kiss Darla under the mistletoe and help Aunt August to lift the holiday goose from the oven.

As if reading her mind, Corri asked softly, “Indy, do you think Ry knows we’re here?”

“I’m certain of it.” She nodded.

“Good. He can help us find birds.” Corri hopped out of the boat onto the hard sand.

Chapter 24

“Here, Zoey,” India said, as she drew a notebook from the inside pocket of her down jacket and handed it over, “since this is your first time, you can be the official recorder. There’s a pen clipped inside the cover.”

“Great.” Zoey opened the notebook to the first blank page. “What do I do first?”

“Enter the date,” India told her. “Let’s start out on the jetty. That way we’ll have a good view of land and sea.”

“Right.” Zoey took Corri’s hand and marched behind India and Nick. “Look. There’s a bird.” She paused to enter “One seagull.”

“Ah, Zoey, we try to be just a little more specific than that,” an amused India told her.

“Oh. Sure.” Zoey nodded and amended her original entry. “One white seagull.”

Corri giggled and Zoey shot her what was supposed to pass for a dirty look.

“With gray wings,” Zoey added pointedly.

Corri laughed.

“What was wrong with that?” Zoey asked, pretending to be insulted.

“We have to record the bird by name, Zoey,” India told her gently.

“The bird’s
name?
You’re kidding, right? How do you
know what his name is?” Zoey’s brows knit together and she called to the bird. “Excuse me, Edward? Stephen? Jonathan Livingston?”

“Tell her, Corri.” Nick grinned and sat on the nearest rock.

“It’s a laughing gull.”

“A laughing gull?” Zoey frowned. “It doesn’t look all that happy to me.”

“That’s what it’s called.” Corri shrugged. “That’s what kind of gull it is.”

“Okay.” Zoey sighed and sat down beside her brother and bent her head to write. “One laughing gull. Oh, there’s another. We’ll make that
two
laughing gulls. Nothing to this bird-counting stuff, once you get the hang of it. What? India, are you laughing at me?”

“I’m sorry, Zoey, the second one there is a Bonaparte’s gull. It’s smaller and has kind of pinkish legs,” India pointed out.

“And what, dare I ask, is that one?” Zoey pointed to a third gull that flew overhead.

“What do you notice about it that’s different from the other two?” Nick asked from his casual perch.

Zoey watched the bird as it swooped toward the lighthouse.

“Well, it seems to be much bigger.” She cast a wary eye at her brother, who nodded and gestured for her to go on. “I don’t know, Nicky, it’s a seagull, for cripe’s sake.”

Having gone through the same instructional period with her father, India handed Zoey the field glasses and sat down next to Nick.

“Oh, all right. Let’s see.” Zoey raised the glasses to her eyes and went from one bird to the other, adjusting the focus as the distance varied. “Ha!”

She lowered the glasses triumphantly. “That one has a yellow beak!”

“Very good, duchess.” Nick grinned. “You have just correctly identified a herring gull.”

“Yes!” She crowed gleefully and entered the name into the book. “One herring gull. How many kinds of gulls are there, anyway?”

“Lots,” India told her. “Now, write down an old-squaw. A male.”

“Where, Indy?” Corri whispered, and India pointed toward the inlet side of the jetty, where a brown duck with a white head had landed.

“Old-squaw?” Zoey asked.

“Right. One word, hyphenated. It’s a kind of sea duck. A male. And there’s the female. And a harlequin duck. Corri, count the mallards for Zoey so she can write them down.”

Corri used her finger to count the ducks with the green heads. “Five.”

“Do I want to know how many kinds of ducks there might be around here?”

“Lots and lots,” Corri told her solemnly.

“I figured as much. And I’ll bet you know every last mother-loving one of them, don’t you, Miss I-Know-More-Birds-Than-You-Do?” Zoey did her best to appear crabby, but the twinkle in her eyes gave her away and only succeeded in making Corri giggle again.

“India, could I have the glasses for a moment?” Nick asked.

“What do you see?” she asked as she handed them over.

“Looks like a great cormorant.” Nick leaned back, sighting the glasses well into the sky before passing them back to India.

“You’re right, it is.” She nodded.

“Add that, Zoey,” Nick told her. “One great cormorant.”

“Is that with a
c
or a
k?”
Zoey paused, the pen in midair.

“A
c
, silly,” Corri told her.

“Oh, of course. How silly of me. That’s one great cormorant. With a
c.”
Zoey tickled the child. “If you’re so smart, I guess you know what that is over there on top of the porch.”

Corri stood up to look, watching the brown bird as it lifted off in the direction of the marshes.

“It was a rail,” she said. “A
clapper
rail.”

“That’s it, I give up!” Zoey tossed the pen over her shoulder and threw her hands in the air. “Having my nose rubbed in it by my big brother—who has, let’s face it, made it his mission in life to harass his poor little sisters—is one thing. Being shown up by a six-year-old is something else all together.”

“You can learn, Zoey,” Corri told her earnestly. “I can teach you the birds I know.”

“You are entirely too sweet, you know that?” Zoey patted the place next to her on the rock and pointed to the pen where it landed. “You grab that pen and come sit next to me and I’ll try to be a good bird student.”

“Get the pen ready, Zoey,” Nick told her as a flock of birds landed in the trees behind the Light, and it seemed the count began in earnest.

Wrens of various species, songbirds and marsh birds, all gathered closely on the branches. said it confused the hawks if the birds all sat real close.”

“Nick, there’s a hawk,” Corri whispered excitedly. “That’s why they’re all together like that. So he can’t pick out one and eat it. Ry said it confused the hawks if the birds all sat real close.”

“I guess it would be asking too much for me to just write ‘hawk.’” Zoey tapped the pen on the back of the notebook.

“It’s a red-tailed hawk,” India told her. “It just landed on the railing at the top of the Light. Here, take a look.”

Zoey traded the notebook for the glasses. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Oh! Isn’t he handsome? Oh, look at his eyes, they’re so small and black and
beady.
And his beak! It looks so lethal. Oh, Nicky, he’s perfectly
regal.”

Zoey watched the large bird turn this way and that on the railing, his head moving like that of a model in the camera’s lens. When he finally lifted off, it was with a push from the rail and wings outspread to embrace the wind.

“And that’s why people watch the birds.” She smiled. “To see such sights. Are they rare, those, um, red-tailed hawks?”

“No, they’re pretty much staples around here,” India told her.

“Nicky, I want to see something rare.” Zoey turned to him as if he had some control over what flew over the Light that day and what did not. “I thought that’s why we were here. To look for something rare.”

“You
bird-watch
to look for something rare,” India teased her, “you bird-coun to check populations, migrations, document species new to the area.”

“Well, I’m going to see something
rare
before I leave here today,” Zoey told them, “and then I’m going to make a wish on it.”

“When you wish upon a
bird?”
India frowned. “And here, all these years, I thought it was
star.”

“She’s been spending entirely too much time with you,” Zoey grumbled, glaring at her brother.

Nick laughed and returned to the job at hand. Ten kinds of sparrows, two kinds of blackbirds. Juncos. Black-capped chicadees. Cardinals, rufus-sided towhees and yellow-rumped warblers. Jays and crows, grackles and catbirds, nuthatches and even a few bluebirds. But nothing rare. Nothing exotic. Nothing worthy of being wished upon.

Nick looked at the sky and glanced at his watch. “I think we’d better get moving. It will be getting dark soon, and I don’t like the thought of going across the inlet without lights. If any of the bigger boats are coming through, they won’t be able to see us.”

Zoey stuck out her bottom lip and pretended to pout.

“Sorry, sweetie. Maybe next year.”

“Yeah.” Zoey stood up and dusted off the back of her jeans and sighed.

“Corri, it’s time to leave,” India called to the child, who had gone to the end of the jetty.

“I’ll get her,” Nick told her.

“So, what did you think of your first day of birding?” India held out the glasses for Zoey to hold while she unzipped her jacket and slid the notebook into the inside pocket.

“It was fun.” Zoey nodded, focusing the field glasses on something behind India. “I’d do it again next year. If I’m invited.”

“Of course you’re invited.”

“Indy, what’s kind of big, sort of light blue gray on the bottom and has black streaks on its face?” Zoey asked.

“I don’t know, Zoey, what’s kind of big, light blue gray on the bottom and has…” India stopped. “Do you see something that looks like that?”

“Umm-hmm.” Zoey nodded. “It has yellow legs.”

“You’re making this up, right?” India asked.

“No. It’s right there, on that low branch. Here, take a look.”

“Damn!” India exclaimed, all but jumping up and down.
“I have never seen one out here this time of year. Never never
ever.”

“What?”

“It’s a yellow-crowned night heron,” India said, a touch of awe in her voice. “Nick, come see. Zoey found a yellow-crowned night heron.”

“No way,” he said, taking the proffered glasses from her hand. “I’ll be damned. I never saw one here before.”

“All right, you two.” Zoey put an arm around each of their shoulders. “This is very sweet. You pretend to see something neat, I’ll make a wish and we’ll all go home happy.”

Nick lowered the glasses. “You can wish for real on this baby.” He winked and held the glasses out to Corri, saying, “Come look. You might be old before you see one of these again in December.”

“Really?” Zoey asked. “Is it really like, uncommon?”

“Very.” India grinned.

“Really.” Zoey grinned back.

“Go ‘head, little sister. Make your wish so that we can go home.”

Zoey bit her lip and smiled, a big, glorious happy smile, wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes. When she opened them again she said, “Okay, Nicky, we can go now.”

As he helped her into the boat, Nick asked, “So, what did you wish for on your wishing bird?”

“I wished for someone who would look at me the way you look at India,” she said, patting his cheek fondly, “so that I could look at him the way she looks at you.”

Nick kissed the top of her head. “Duchess, somewhere in this vast world there is a man who has spent the better part of his life wandering, just searching for you.” He sighed. “And someday, heaven help him, he’ll find you.”

Walking to the boat with Corri, India felt Ry’s presence as surely as she felt the wind rustling through her hair.

A shiver ran up her spine when Corri turned back to the Light and waved.

“Why did you do that?” India asked, knowing what the answer would be.

“I was saying goodbye to Ry,” Corri said matter-of-factly as she swung her little legs over the side of the boat.

India glanced over her shoulder, just in time to see the sun’s rays dip a fraction lower behind the lighthouse and spread soft beams through the second-floor windows. For a second she could almost imagine that the very structure had winked at her. “Bye, Ry,” she whispered, and she followed Corri into the boat.

“I’ll bet Georgia’s here.” Zoey hopped out of Nick’s car and raced across August’s front yard and up the steps like a shot.

“Yeah! Georgia!” Corri fled the backseat and raced behind Zoey.

“Are you going to hit the ground running and abandon me too?” Nick asked India.

“Never.”

“Well, this might be our only quiet moment for the rest of the day,” Nick said, reaching into his jacket pocket to withdraw a tiny box wrapped in gold foil, “so I should probably give you this now. Open it.”

He sat back, watching for her reaction when she opened the box.

“Oh, Nick, they’re beautiful.” India held up the earrings to admire their color. “Are they amethysts?”

“Actually, they are violet sapphires,” he told her. “I saw them in an antique store. They matched your eyes so perfectly I couldn’t resist.”

“They are wonderful.” She leaned across the console to wrap her arms around his neck. “I love them.”

“Good.” He beamed, accepting her thanks and her kisses.

“I want to put them on.” She slipped the slender gold hoops from her earlobes and replaced them with the big oval-shaped stones. Pulling the visor down to look into the mirror, she murmured, “They’re the prettiest stones I ever saw. Gorgeous. Thank you, Nick.”