Silk and Stone (8 page)

Frannie straightened, crying silently, but determined. “She will talk. I know she will. And when we have another baby, I won’t take any chances. No more midwives. No more ‘natural’ anything. Nothing but good, modern, dyed-in-the-wool methods. I swear.”

“I don’t think we ought to have another baby until we get this mess straightened out.”

“Carl!”

Frannie rose and reached out to him, but he shrugged her hands away and left the room. Samantha, her eyes filled with tears, chirped sadly.

At the wise old age of six, Jake already knew what he was: a tuning fork. A tuning fork like the one on Mother’s straight-backed piano in the living room, and that was why, Granny explained, he could hear a kind of music no one else could hear, the music of hidden things, lost things. Eleanore was the same way. Ellie didn’t ponder their uniqueness the way he did. It worried him—being different. At a county fair he had seen bottles filled with baby animals so strange they’d died before they were even born. Tiny, two-headed calves, and three puppies joined at a single pair of hind legs. He’d asked Father if there were children, somewhere, like that—dead little babies floating in bottles, with extra parts. Father had looked at him oddly and answered—Yes, son, at medical school I saw babies like that.

Did someone kill them because they had extra parts? Jake had asked, horrified. And Father—who didn’t beat around the bush (that was what Mother was always telling him)—said most times they just died on their own, and it was nature’s way of making sure they didn’t suffer.

But what about the ones that don’t die on their own? Jake persisted. What if Ellie and I had been born with extra parts?

Father had had to think about that a minute. Well, I’m a good doctor. I’d just have cut them off, he said. Then he turned Jake around, felt his arms and legs, his back and stomach, looked into his mouth, and said, Nope, nothing there that isn’t supposed to be there.

Jake had wanted to confess that he and Ellie
did
have an extra part—like Granny—only no one could see it. But the fear that Father might look at him as if he
ought to be in a bottle was too awful to risk. He explained this problem to Ellie, and she agreed that they’d better keep quiet.

So they didn’t tell anyone, not even their parents, that they were tuning forks; Granny was the only one who knew, because she was a tuning fork too. She was their teacher—a whole lot more interesting than any teachers at the elementary school, in town. They happily toted Granny’s spade and pick for her on long walks into the mountains to hunt for rocks, and she showed them how to tell what was what: garnets and topazes, aquamarines and sapphires, and when the music was very, very sweet, rubies.

Most were just rocks, Granny said, but some were so special, she took them to a jeweler in town and sold them.

Being able to find things was a sacred gift, Granny said, a secret gift that bad people might try to steal or use if they knew about it. And the mountains were full of watchful spirits—big, coiled
Uktenas
who hid in the deep pools of the rivers, trouble-making elves and tricky witches who would pounce if they learned how powerful Jake and Eleanore were.

The world of the people was turning upside down, Granny explained. There were strangers on the high ridges outside town now, strangers who put gates on the roads to their fine new houses, strangers who cut down the forest and planted more grass than a million cows could eat, strangers who played games like golf and tennis, which they didn’t want to share with anyone else, strangers who bought the old buildings in town and filled them with beautiful, useless things they could sell only among themselves.

The scariest thing was, the world outside the mountains was in just as much of a mess, Granny said. Hard as it was for her to believe, shows about sex, dope, and naked people were going on up in New York, right on the same street where Grandpa Raincrow had taken her to see
Annie Get Your Gun
. More than 30,000 soldiers were
dead over in Vietnam for no good reason Granny could figure. The space people were getting ready to send men to the moon—who could know what horrible evil might come from meddling with the moon?

And a bunch of fools had added division playoffs to baseball.

Over smoky campfires Granny told them all her stories and gave them all her secret warnings, and they listened, hypnotized. Everybody loved Granny, and she’d lived a long, long time without anyone noticing her extra part. As long as Granny was okay, they would be okay too.

Jake decided odd people had to stick together, and look out for each other.

Another year passed, and Carl’s grim silences began to match Samantha’s innocent ones. Desperation made Frannie forget her vow about not seeking unorthodox help.

Madame Maria was a transplanted Italian, the wife of a German bureaucrat who worked in the mayor’s office, and she gave psychic readings every Wednesday afternoon in her small, cluttered house on a back street where the windows were so close to the sidewalk that the cats who lounged in the flower boxes flicked their paws at the hair of unsuspecting visitors.

One of the cats had pulled a clump of hair loose from Frannie’s long braid, and Frannie toyed with the hair nervously with one hand while the small, sparrowlike Madame Maria gripped her other hand. Madame’s little living room was as pretty as a dollhouse; Madame looked like a faded porcelain figurine, with rigidly permed blue-gray hair even her cats couldn’t destroy.

“You have a problem,” Madame said in a guttural, soothing accent—English overlaid with Italian and German. “You have come to see Madame Maria because you need help.”

“It’s my daughter,” Frannie said, forgetting her hair and letting her hand drop wearily to the table between
them. “She’s almost three years old, but she’s never spoken a word. We’ve taken her to doctors. They can’t find anything wrong with her.”

“Ah, your daughter. I suspected. I feel your … fear. And your guilt. You wonder if you caused her silence, some way.”

Frannie leaned forward eagerly. “Yes. God, yes. She was born at home. I should have gone to the hospital, but I believe in natural childbirth. My husband was away, and I didn’t tell him what I intended to do. I hired a midwife, and I almost died. I didn’t tell my husband the truth for a long time—I prayed our daughter was all right, but when she didn’t start talking …” Frannie swallowed hard and looked away.

Madame stroked her hand. “You have a strong interest in the spiritual.”

“Yes, I do! I had four miscarriages before Samantha—that’s my daughter—”

“I saw a name beginning in S.”

“That’s her—yes. Before Samantha, I lost four babies. No conventional doctors could do a thing to help me. I was so afraid. I was ready to try anything. But I’m afraid I hurt my little girl.”

“Perhaps the fact that she was born at all is because you chose a different path during that pregnancy.”

“I’ve wondered about that.” Frannie hesitated, a knot of emotion still hurting her throat. “But my husband has never forgiven me for what happened. Oh, Madame, every month that goes by without Samantha saying a word is … my husband doesn’t say so out loud, but I know he blames me more and more. I’ve got to find out what’s wrong with her.”

“Is she a nervous child?”

“Oh, no, she’s just the opposite. She’s so calm and, well, sort of
dignified
. She’s an old woman! Sometimes I think she blames me too, for putting her through a hard labor.”

“The child is under pressure. She senses all the anger and fear around her.” Madame cupped Frannie’s
hand in both of hers and shut her eyes. “You are blocking her spirit. You are unhappy. How long have you lived in Germany?”

“Seven years.”

“Homesickness,” Madame proclaimed.

Frannie chewed her lower lip. “I haven’t seen any of my family in all that time. I have a sister—”

“I see her. Blond, yes?” Madame opened one eye and peeped at Frannie. “Like you.”

“Yes! We write to each other, but we don’t have much in common. She’s rich, Madame. Money and prestige mean everything to her. I’m just the opposite. There were bad feelings between us when I left home.”

“Ah! You must go home and resolve this. You envy your sister, but you don’t know it.”

“Envy Alexandra? I don’t think so.”

“Alexandra. Hmmm. I knew her name began with an A. She is …” Madame squinted at her. “Older.”

“Yes. Four years older.”

“Pride is your mistake. Go to your sister. Take your daughter. Clear away the bad feelings. Ask your sister to pay for specialists to perform medical tests on Samantha.”

“No, no, I could never do that. I don’t want my sister’s money. My husband and I agreed a long time ago not to accept any help from my family. I—”

“Pride,” Madame repeated, waving a thin finger. “Pride keeps your daughter from speaking.”

“What?” Frannie said, frowning at her.

“Pride. Like yours. Go home. Set a good example.” Madame placed Frannie’s hand on the table, then leaned back. “That will be five dollars, please.”

Frannie’s thoughts whirled. She hadn’t had time to mull over everything Madame Maria had said, but the woman seemed so confident. Madame had, after all, divined Samantha and Alexandra’s names, the color of Alexandra’s hair, and the fact that Alexandra was an older sister. No one could convince Frannie that psychics weren’t legitimate. She was so desperate for guidance, for ways to protect the daughter she’d birthed after so
many disappointments, and to salvage Carl’s respect for her.

She paid Madame Maria and nodded vigorously. “You’re amazing. Thank you. I’ll do exactly what you suggested.”

She was going home to visit Alexandra. She would humble herself.

Alexandra walked quickly out of the house. William was pitching a softball to Tim on the back lawn, where the grass was just beginning to turn green for spring. Her thoughts distracted, she noted wearily that Tim, at six, was chubby and awkward and had no discernible potential for sports. That galled her—she, who had been riding a pony over jumps by the time she was his age, she, who played tennis and golf with expert skill. She had birthed this clumsy little dumpling who started crying as William’s slow, underhanded pitch bounced off the tips of his splayed fingers.

“It’s all right,” William said quickly, striding over to him with the thick, ponderous movements Tim had inherited, and lifting the boy into his arms. Tim sniffled loudly. William patted his back and coddled him, which set Alexandra’s teeth on edge.

She announced loudly, “Frannie called. She’s coming home. I invited her to stay with us.”

William turned and stared at her. It had been seven years since Frannie ran away with Carl Ryder, with never any hint that she’d ever come back. “Is anything wrong?”

“Samantha still isn’t talking. Frannie asked me to loan her the money for more tests. I’m arranging them with the medical center at the university. The best specialists I can find. Those army doctors are cheap quacks. There are no retarded children in my family. Samantha isn’t going to be the first.” Alexandra hesitated, frowning. “Who knows what the child had bred into her from Carl Ryder’s people?”