Silk and Stone (35 page)

Polite to her elders. That was good. Seemed sincere, not smart-alecky. Clara said somberly, “You talk real well. My medicine worked. ’Course, I think it worked because you couldn’t resist talking to Jake, but I’ll take the credit.”

“Mrs. Big Stick! My mother never let me forget you.”

“Your mother seemed like a wise person. Too bad she passed on.”

Shriveling grief shadowed Samantha’s eyes. “Do you have any other miracles handy?” Her voice was tired, very tired.

“There aren’t any miracles. Just faith, know-how, and a keen sense of what’s right.” Clara studied her somberly. “I don’t think you believe in miracles anyhow.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Hmmm. You look into shadows and don’t see that it takes light to make them.”

Samantha slumped a little. “All I see are shadows right now.” She eyed Clara cautiously. “You came here especially to talk to me?”

“Yes.”

“Did Jake send you?” The girl winced, and sorrow seemed to weigh every word.

“No. But I came because of him.” Samantha scrutinized her with a puzzled frown, and Clara took one of her hands. “I’ve done my best over the years to warn him away from you—away from everyone and everything that belongs to your aunt. I’ve got nothing against you yourself, but I want to make sure you understand. Jake’s half crazy from worrying about you. One word from you—one sign that you’d risk everything to be with him—and he’ll never let go. I know love’s a hard feeling to ignore. But he’s got to forget it—and so do you.”

Samantha’s face became a careful mask. Clara felt immediate respect for the girl’s ability to shut others out of her feelings. That kind of talent hadn’t been learned overnight. This fledgling woman looked as tough as nails—maybe as tough as Alexandra Vanderveer Lomax. Clara thought of poor Jake, of souls that had been so carved and polished by trouble that they gleamed. This girl, she thought, reminded her of Jake a lot.

“I can’t stop loving him,” Samantha said slowly. “Or stop hoping that someday—”

“I’m sorry for you. Sorry for what you were born into. But the die was cast years before you drew your first breath. Your aunt don’t let go of what she wants, you hear? She’ll get her way come hell or high water. Oh, you and Jake, you might sidestep her somehow and think you’ve got her beat, but she’ll lie in wait for you. I’m not a crazy old woman.
Hear me, child
. Love Jake all you want, but don’t do anything about it. You’ll bring ruin to him and his whole family.”

Samantha looked away, her eyes shuttered with misery. Clara could see that the girl believed her but didn’t want to admit it. Clara looked at her with satisfaction and
regret. “Your aunt’s evil,” Clara whispered. “Don’t you ever think otherwise. Don’t ever let your guard down.”

The girl’s tormented eyes shifted back to Clara’s. Slowly, her mouth set in a grim line, she nodded.

Chapter
            Sixteen
 

C
harlotte had been enrolled in Pandora High School for three weeks, and Sam was worried about her. Sam had gained weight—greasy sandwiches, french fries, and candy bars had suddenly developed an angry appeal, as if she wanted to prove that junk food would have kept Mom healthy. But Charlotte, who had always eaten like a starving piranha, and had the padding to show for it, barely ate at all. Her tearful spontaneity had become pale, dry-eyed lethargy, and at Highview she stayed in her bedroom at every opportunity, huddled under the covers with novels that she never seemed to finish reading.

Sam brooded about that, and about Mom, and Jake with obsessive simplicity, and moved through the hours at work in a daze.

“Did you hear me?” Patsy asked. “Hello in there. Anybody home?”

Sam turned from the shop’s window, a half-folded silk slip in her hands. Business was slow in the winter, Patsy said. Some afternoons hardly anyone came in. She stood at the window whenever it was like that, her gaze trained on passing cars and bundled-up pedestrians, and she realized she was always, always hoping that Jake would pass by. He didn’t.

She looked at Patsy dully. “I’m sorry. What?”

“The weather service says it isn’t going to snow,” Patsy repeated, frowning mildly at her, “but my grandfather says all the signs are right for a
big
snow. And he usually knows.”

“They have computers and satellites at the weather service,” Sam told her.

“But they don’t have grandfathers who talk to animals.”

Sam didn’t know what to say to that argument, and was distracted when Aunt Alex’s heavy silver sedan pulled into a parking spot by the shop’s brick sidewalk. Her secretary and Charlotte got out, Charlotte moving as if her quilted blue jacket and corduroy trousers were lined with lead.

“I picked her up from school a little early,” Barbara said as they entered the shop. “The nurse called.” Aunt Alex’s efficient secretary nodded in Charlotte’s direction. Charlotte leaned on the corner of a rack filled with robes and shrugged glumly at Sam. “She went to the infirmary after lunch,” Barbara added. “She has a terrible headache. Mrs. Lomax and the lieutenant-governor aren’t home from the capital yet, but I gave Mrs. Lomax a call. She gave permission for Charlotte to leave school early today.”

“It’s the snow weather,” Patsy interjected. “It gives people sinus trouble.”

Sam cupped her sister’s drawn, ashen face between her hands. “I’ve got some aspirin—”

“Mom never gave us aspirin. I want some herbal tea.” Sam looked away, biting her lip and feeling guilty.

“I’ve got to walk down to the jeweler’s and pick up something for Mrs. Lomax,” Barbara said, rolling her
eyes. “If Charlotte wants herbal tea, she’ll have to pick it out herself.”

“Then we’ll go with you and stop at the health food store,” Sam said firmly, and glanced at Patsy. “Okay? It won’t take long.”

Patsy spread her hands. “I’m not exactly overrun with customers. Go ahead.”

Sam got her coat from the back, and they walked out. She tucked an arm through Charlotte’s and grasped her hand. It was cold and damp. They followed the perpetually fast-moving Barbara down a sidewalk lined with colorful awnings and leafless shrubs in ornate stoneware pots. The shrubs rattled in an icy wind. “Patsy’s grandfather says it’s going to snow,” Sam said, trying to get Charlotte to discuss something, anything.

But Barbara looked over her shoulder at her, snorted, and said, “He’s an Indian,” as if that summed up the value of the prediction.

“And you’re black,” Sam said evenly. “But I wouldn’t dismiss your beliefs just because of that.”

“I don’t need any lessons in racial tolerance, young lady.” Barbara looked embarrassed and muttered, “I’m the only black woman in these mountains who owns a BMW and a condo at the country club. Don’t you lecture
me
about open-mindedness.”

With that convoluted rationale firmly in place, she pushed open the door of a small shop with
BECK’S FINE JEWELRY
on the glass in gold script. They stepped inside, and Charlotte’s hand clenched Sam’s tightly. Sam stared at her anxiously. “Your aunt left some things to be cleaned,” Barbara said. “Wait here. I’ll pick them up and then we can go buy your
tea.
”

She marched to a counter and began talking to a short, balding man who greeted her warmly and scurried into a back room while an equally short and balding clerk made small talk about the high quality of Mrs. Lomax’s jewelry.

Sam, bewildered and alarmed, stared at the blue vein that had appeared in the chalky skin at the corner of Charlotte’s mouth. Charlotte’s hand trembled inside hers.
“Let’s get some fresh air,” Sam told her, and Charlotte nodded weakly. But the jeweler returned with a felt bag that had an invoice pinned to it, and Charlotte froze. “It’s such a joy to clean and polish these fine pieces for Mrs. Lomax,” he told Barbara, spreading rings and bracelets on the counter under the soft, bright light of a jeweler’s lamp. “And this, of course”—he held up the thick gold chain and its pendant, letting the pendant swing gracefully and catch the light—“this is a masterpiece. So heavy, and yet delicate.”

Charlotte’s grip on Sam’s hand relaxed suddenly, her eyes fluttered, and she slumped. Sam caught her under the shoulders the instant before her head reached the floor.

“Go get Dr. Raincrow!” the jeweler yelled to his clerk.

“No, no,
no
,” Barbara retorted, dropping down beside them.

“But his office is just down the street.”

“I don’t care. He’s not what Mrs. Lomax would—”

“
Get him,
” Sam said, cradling Charlotte’s head and staring fiercely at everyone.

The clerk hurried out.

Jake’s father was the kind of doctor Sam thought existed only on television: calm, infinitely gentle, and handsome in a solemn, nonchalant sort of way. Stretched out on the jeweler’s floor with her head in Sam’s lap, Charlotte gazed up at him wistfully as he knelt beside her with his honey-colored fingertips pressed to the underside of her wrist. He studied his pocket watch, which had a scratched face and a tarnished winding stem. “Still ticking,” he announced in a low, kind tone, and smiled at Charlotte.

“Me, or the watch?” she asked. Her voice was a shaky croak.

“Both. But you’re ticking considerably faster than the watch. Take a deep breath. Now let it out. Good girl.” He looked at Sam with warm brown eyes under shaggy
brows beginning to turn gray. Sam had not felt like crying until she gazed into his face. Jake had his cheekbones and full, generous mouth. This was a man who had no reason to be kind to Alexandra Lomax’s nieces, but there wasn’t any hint of dislike in his eyes.

“Are you sure she’s all right?” Sam asked gruffly.

“Considering what you two have gone through in the past six weeks, I’d say she fainted from stress and exhaustion.” He tucked a blood pressure cuff into the pocket of his overcoat.

Sam kept thinking of the necklace. There was something else going on here, but she wasn’t going to ask Charlotte about it in front of Aunt Alex’s spy. Barbara was hunched over them, watching Dr. Raincrow unhappily. “Thank you,” she interjected coolly. “You may send a bill for your services to Mrs. Lomax.”

“There’s no charge.” For the first time, his voice was less than pleasant. But he looked at Charlotte, patted her shoulder, and his face softened. “Lie here a few more minutes and think about something that makes you feel good.”

Charlotte sighed. Tears filled her eyes. “A perfect
soufflé,
” she said.

He smiled. Sam choked up and looked away. Dr. Raincrow folded Charlotte’s coat and eased it under her head. “Sam, step outside and let’s have a talk. You look like you need some breathing room too.”

Barbara glared at him. “There’s no need for—”

“He’s a doctor,” Sam said grimly. “I’m going to talk to him.” She stroked Charlotte’s hair. “I’ll be right back. Keep breathing.”

“Soufflés,” Charlotte mumbled, and shut her eyes.

Sam rose with Dr. Raincrow. He held the shop’s door for her, and after they were outside he took her by one elbow and guided her to a wrought iron bench. Sam sat down beside him, her hands knotted in her lap. “She doesn’t eat enough, and I don’t think she sleeps very well either. She has nightmares. I hear her crying in her sleep, and I wake her up. But she won’t tell me what her dreams are about.” Sam shivered. “I know she’s
dreaming about our mother, because I do.” Sam looked at him firmly. “She’s not pregnant, if that’s what you wanted to ask me. She’s shy around boys. Besides, we were raised to discuss sex openly. And she trusts me. I’d know if she’d done anything. She hasn’t.”

Dr. Raincrow cleared his throat and looked at her with fatherly appreciation. “My son is right. You’re very honest.”

Sam hunched her shoulders and stared at her hands. “No, I’m not. When I can’t say what I want, I just don’t say anything at all. That’s not a wonderful brand of honesty.”

“He’s down in Georgia.” Dr. Raincrow didn’t have to say who
he
was. They both knew. “The park service asked him to find some hikers who never showed up at their checkpoint on the Appalachian Trail.”

“There’s a bad snowstorm coming,” Sam said carefully. She knew she was walking a careful line. Discussing Jake might reveal how badly she wanted to see him.