'All right, we're done. I want to hear from either you or Mattie Devore around elevenish tomorrow. It ought to be her.'

'I'll try.'

'If she really balks, you know what to do, don't you?'

'I think so. Thanks, John.'

'One way or another, we'll talk very soon,' he said, and hung up.

I sat where I was for awhile. Once I pushed the b.u.t.ton which opened the line on the cordless phone, then pushed it again to close it. I had to talk to Mattie, but I wasn't quite ready yet. I decided to take a walk instead.

If she really balks, you know what to do, don't you?

Of course.

Remind her that she couldn't afford to be proud. That she couldn't afford to go all Yankee, refusing charity from Michael Noonan, author of Being Two Being Two, The Red-Shirt Man The Red-Shirt Man, and the soon-to-be-published Helen's Promise Helen's Promise. Remind her that she could have her pride or her daughter, but likely not both.

Hey, Mattie, pick one.

I walked almost to the end of the lane, stopping at Tidwell's Meadow with its pretty view down to the cup of the lake and across to the White Mountains. The water dreamed under a hazy sky, looking gray when you tipped your head one way, blue when you tipped it the other. That sense of mystery was very much with me. That sense of Manderley.

Over forty black people had settled here at the turn of the century - lit here for awhile, anyway - according to Marie Hingerman (also according to A History of Castle County and Castle Rock A History of Castle County and Castle Rock, a weighty tome published in 1977, the county's bicentennial year). Pretty special black people, too: most of them related, most of them talented, most of them part of a musical group which had first been called The Red-Top Boys and then Sara Tidwell and the Red-Top Boys. They had bought the meadow and a good-sized tract of lakeside land from a man named Douglas Day. The money had been saved up over a period of ten years, according to Sonny Tidwell, who did the d.i.c.kering (as a Red-Top, Son Tidwell had played what was then known as 'chickenscratch guitar').

There had been a vast uproar about it in town, and even a meeting to protest 'the advent of these darkies, which come in a Horde.' Things had settled down and turned out okay, as things have a way of doing, more often than not. The shanty town most locals had expected on Day's Hill (for so Tidwell's Meadow was called in 1900, when Son Tidwell bought the land on behalf of his extensive clan) had never appeared. Instead, a number of neat white cabins sprang up, surrounding a larger building that might have been intended as a group meeting place, a rehearsal area, or perhaps, at some point, a performance hall.

Sara and the Red-Top Boys (sometimes there was a Red-Top Girl in there, as well; membership in the band was fluid, changing with every performance) played around western Maine for over a year, maybe closer to two years. In towns all up and down the Western Line - Farmington, Skowhegan, Bridgton, Gates Falls, Castle Rock, Morton, Fryeburg - you'll still come across their old show-posters at barn bazaars and junkatoriums. Sara and the Red-Tops were great favorites on the circuit, and they got along all right at home on the TR, too, which never surprised me. At the end of the day Robert Frost - that utilitarian and often unpleasant poet - was right: in the northeastern three we really do believe that good fences make good neighbors. We squawk and then keep a miserly peace, the kind with gimlet eyes and a tucked-down mouth. 'They pay their bills,' we say. 'I ain't never had to shoot one a their dogs,' we say. 'They keep themselves to themselves,' we say, as if isolation were a virtue. And, of course, the defining virtue: 'They don't take charity.'

And at some point, Sara Tidwell became Sara Laughs.

In the end, though, TR-90 mustn't have been what they wanted, because after playing a county fair or two in the late summer of 1901, the clan moved on. Their neat little cabins provided summer-rental income for the Day family until 1933, when they burned in the summer fires which charred the east and north sides of the lake. End of story.

Except for her music, that was. Her music had lived.

I got up from the rock I had been sitting on, stretched my arms and my back, and walked back down the lane, singing one of her songs as I went.

CHAPTER TWELVE

During my hike back down the lane to the house, I tried to think about nothing at all. My first editor used to say that eighty-five percent of what goes on in a novelist's head is none of his business, a sentiment I've never believed should be restricted to just writers. So-called higher thought is, by and large, highly overrated. When trouble comes and steps have to be taken, I find it's generally better to just stand aside and let the boys in the bas.e.m.e.nt do their work. That's blue-collar labor down there, non-union guys with lots of muscles and tattoos.

Instinct is their specialty, and they refer problems upstairs for actual cogitation only as a last resort.

When I tried to call Mattie Devore, an extremely peculiar thing happened - one that had nothing at all ro do with spooks, as far as I could tell. Instead of an open-hum line when I pushed the cordless's on b.u.t.ton, I got silence. Then, just as I was thinking I must have left the phone in the north bedroom off the hook, I realized it wasn't complete complete silence. Distant as a radio transmission from deep s.p.a.ce, cheerful and quacky as an animated duck, some guy with a fair amount of Brooklyn in his voice was singing: 'He followed her to school one day, school one day, school one day. Followed her to school one day, which was against the rule . . . ' silence. Distant as a radio transmission from deep s.p.a.ce, cheerful and quacky as an animated duck, some guy with a fair amount of Brooklyn in his voice was singing: 'He followed her to school one day, school one day, school one day. Followed her to school one day, which was against the rule . . . '

I opened my mouth to ask who was there, but before I could, a woman's voice said 'h.e.l.lo?' She sounded perplexed and doubtful.

'Mattie?' In my confusion it never occurred to me to call her something more formal, like Ms. or Mrs. Devore. Nor did it seem odd that I should know who it was, based on a single word, even though our only previous conversation had been relatively brief. Maybe the guys in the bas.e.m.e.nt recognized the background music and made the connection to Kyra.

'Mr. Noonan?' She sounded more bewildered than ever. 'The phone never even rang!'

'I must have picked mine up just as your call was going through,' I said. 'That happens from time to time.' But how many times, I wondered, did it happen when the person calling you was the one you yourself had been planning to call? Maybe quite often, actually.

Telepathy or coincidence? Live or Memorex? Either way, it seemed almost magical. I looked across the long, low living room, into the gla.s.sy eyes of Bunter the moose, and thought: Yes, but maybe this is a magic place now. Yes, but maybe this is a magic place now.

'I suppose,' she said doubtfully. 'I apologize about calling in the first place - it's a presumption. Your number's unlisted, I know.'

Oh, don't worry about that, I thought. Everyone's got this old number by now. In fact, I'm thinking about putting it in the Yellow Pages.

'I got it from your file at the library,' she went on, sounding embarra.s.sed. 'That's where I work.' In the background, 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' had given way to 'The Farmer in the Dell.'

'It's quite all right,' I said.

'Especially since you're the person I was picking up the phone to call.'

'Me? Why?'

'Ladies first.'

She gave a brief, nervous laugh. 'I wanted to invite you to dinner. That is, Ki and I want to invite you to dinner. I should have done it before now. You were awfully good to us the other day. Will you come?'

'Yes,' I said with no hesitation at all. 'With thanks. We've got some things to talk about, anyway.'

There was a pause. In the background, the mouse was taking the cheese. As a kid I used to think all these things happened in a vast gray factory called The Hi-Ho Dairy-O.

Mattie? Still there?'

'He's dragged you into it, hasn't he? That awful old man.' Now her voice sounded not nervous but somehow dead.

'Well, yes and no. You could argue that fate dragged me into it, or coincidence, or G.o.d. I wasn't there that morning because of Max Devore; I was chasing the elusive Villageburger.'

She didn't laugh, but her voice brightened a little, and I was glad. People who talk in that dead, affectless way are, by and large, frightened people. Sometimes people who have been outright terrorized. 'I'm still sorry for dragging you into my trouble.' I had an idea she might start to wonder who was dragging whom after I pitched her on John Storrow, and was glad it was a discussion I wouldn't have to have with her on the phone.

'In any case, I'd love to come to dinner. When?'

'Would this evening be too soon?'

'Absolutely not.'

'That's wonderful. We have to eat early, though, so my little guy doesn't fall asleep in her dessert. Is six okay?'

'Yes.'

'Ki will be excited. We don't have much company.'

'She hasn't been wandering again, has she?'

I thought she might be offended. Instead, this time she did did laugh. 'G.o.d, no. All the fuss on Sat.u.r.day scared her. Now she comes in to tell me if she's switching from the swing in the side yard to the sandbox in back. She's talked about you a lot, though. She calls you 'that tall guy who carrot me.' I think she's worried you might be mad at her.' laugh. 'G.o.d, no. All the fuss on Sat.u.r.day scared her. Now she comes in to tell me if she's switching from the swing in the side yard to the sandbox in back. She's talked about you a lot, though. She calls you 'that tall guy who carrot me.' I think she's worried you might be mad at her.'

'Tell her I'm not,' I said. 'No, check that. I'll tell her myself. Can I bring anything?'

'Bottle of wine?' she asked, a little doubtfully. 'Or maybe that's pretentious - I was only going to cook hamburgers on the grill and make potato salad.'

'I'll bring an unpretentious bottle.'

'Thank you,' she said. 'This is sort of exciting. We never have company.'

I was horrified to find myself on the verge of saying that I thought it was sort of exciting, too, my first date in four years and all. 'Thanks so much for thinking of me.'

As I hung up I remembered John Storrow advising me to try and stay visible with her, not to hand over any extra grist for the town gossip mill. If she was barbecuing, we'd probably be out where people could see we had our clothes on . . . for most of the evening, anyway. She-would, however, likely do the polite thing at some point and invite me inside. I would then do the polite thing and go. Admire her velvet Elvis painting on the wall, or her commemorative plates from the Franklin Mint, or whatever she had going in the way of trailer decoration; I'd let Kyra show me her bedroom and exclaim with wonder over her excellent a.s.sortment of stuffed animals and her favorite dolly, if that was required. There are all sorts of priorities in life. Some your lawyer can understand, but I suspect there are quite a few he can't.

'Am I handling this right, Bunter?' I asked the stuffed moose. 'Bellow once for yes, twice for no.'

I was halfway down the hall leading to the north wing, thinking of nothing but a cool shower, when from behind me, very soft, came a brief ring of the bell around Bunter's neck. I stopped, head c.o.c.ked, my shirt held in one hand, waiting for the bell to ring again. It didn't. After a minute, I went the rest of the way to the bathroom and flipped on the shower.

The Lakeview General had a pretty good selection of wines tucked away in one corner - not much local demand for it, maybe, but the tourists probably bought a fair quant.i.ty - and I selected a bottle of Mondavi red. It was probably a bit more expensive than Mattie had had in mind, but I could peel the price-sticker off and hope she wouldn't know the difference. There was a line at the checkout, mostly folks with damp tee-shirts pulled on over their bathing suits and sand from the public beach sticking to their legs. While I was waiting my turn, my eye happened on the impulse items which are always stocked near the counter. Among them were several plastic bags labeled MAGNABET, each bag showing a cartoon refrigerator with the message BACK SOON stuck to it. According to the written info, there were two sets of consonants in each Magnabet, PLUS EXTRA VOWELS. I grabbed two sets . . . then added a third, thinking that Mattie Devore's kid was probably just the right age for such an item.

Kyra saw me pulling into the weedy dooryard, jumped off the slumpy little swingset beside the trailer, bolted to her mother, and hid behind her. When I approached the hibachi which had been set up beside the cinderblock front steps, the child who'd spoken to me so fearlessly on Sat.u.r.day was just a peeking blue eye and a chubby hand grasping a fold of her mother's sundress below the hip.

Two hours brought considerable changes, however. As twilight deepened, Kyra sat on my lap in the trailer's living room, listening carefully - if with growing wooziness - as I read her the ever-enthralling story of Cinderella. The couch we were on was a shade of brown which can by law only be sold in discount stores, and extremely lumpy into the bargain, but I still felt ashamed of my casual preconceptions about what I would find inside this trailer. On the wall above and behind us there was an Edward Hopper print - that one of a lonely lunch counter late at night - and across the room, over the small Formica-topped table in the kitchen nook, was one of Vincent van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' 'Sunflowers'. Even more than the Hopper, it looked at home in Mattie Devore's doublewide. I have no idea why that should have been true, but it was.

'Gla.s.s slipper will cut her footie,' Ki said in a muzzy, considering way.

'No way,' I said. 'Slipper-gla.s.s was specially made in the Kingdom of Grimoire. Smooth and unbreakable, as long as you didn't sing high C while wearing them.'

'I get a pair?'

'Sorry, Ki,' I said, 'no one knows how to make slipper-gla.s.s anymore.

It's a lost art, like Toledo steel.' It was hot in the trailer and she was hot against my shirt, where her upper body lay, but I wouldn't have changed it. Having a kid on my lap was pretty great. Outside, her mother was singing and gathering up dishes from the card table we'd used for our picnic. Hearing her sing was also pretty great.

'Go on, go on,' Kyra said, pointing to the picture of Cinderella scrubbing the floor. The little girl peeking nervously around her mother's leg was gone; the angry I'm-going-to-the-d.a.m.n-beach girl of Sat.u.r.day morning was gone; here was only a sleepy kid who was pretty and bright and trusting. 'Before I can't hold it anymore.'

'Do you need to go pee-pee?'

'No,' she said, looking at me with some disdain. 'Besides, that's you-rinating. Peas are what you eat with meatloaf, that's what Mattie says. And I already went. But if you don't go fast on the story, I'll fall to sleep.'

'You can't hurry stories with magic in them, Ki.'

'Well go as fast as you can.'

'Okay.' I turned the page. Here was Cinderella, trying to be a good sport, waving goodbye to her a.s.shole sisters as they went off to the ball dressed like starlets at a disco.'

'No sooner had Cinderella said goodbye to Tammy Faye and Vanna - ''

'Those are the sisters' names?'

'The ones I made up for them, yes. Is that okay?'

'Sure.' She settled more comfortably on my lap and dropped her head against my chest again. ''No sooner had Cinderella said goodbye to Tammy Faye and Vanna than a bright light suddenly appeared in the corner of the kitchen. Stepping out of it was a beautiful lady in a silver gown. The jewels in her hair glowed like stars.''

'Fairy G.o.dmother,' Kyra said matter-of-factly.

'Yes.' Mattie came in carrying the remaining half-bottle of Mondavi and the blackened barbecue implements. Her sundress was bright red. On her feet she wore low-topped sneakers so white that they seemed to flash in the gloom. Her hair was tied back and although she still wasn't the gorgeous country-club babe I had briefly envisioned, she was very pretty. Now she looked at Kyra, looked at me, raised her eyebrows, made a lifting gesture with her arms. I shook my head, sending back a message that neither of us was ready quite yet.

I resumed reading while Mattie went to work scrubbing her few cooking tools. She was still humming. By the time she had finished with the spatula, Ki's body had taken on an additional relaxation which I recognized at once - she'd conked out, and hard. I closed the Little Golden Treasury of Fairy Tales Little Golden Treasury of Fairy Tales and put it on the coffee-table beside a couple of other stacked books - whatever Mattie was reading, I presumed. I looked up, saw her looking back at me from the kitchen, and flicked her the V-for-Victory sign. 'Noonan, the winner by a technical knockout in the eighth round,' I said. and put it on the coffee-table beside a couple of other stacked books - whatever Mattie was reading, I presumed. I looked up, saw her looking back at me from the kitchen, and flicked her the V-for-Victory sign. 'Noonan, the winner by a technical knockout in the eighth round,' I said.

Mattie dried her hands on a dishtowel and came over. 'Give her to me.'

I stood up with Kyra in my arms instead. 'I'll carry. Where?'

She pointed. 'On the left.'

I carried the baby down the hallway, which was narrow enough so I had to be careful not to b.u.mp her feet on one side or the top of her head on the other. At the end of the hall was the bathroom, stringently clean. On the right was a closed door which led, I a.s.sumed, into the bedroom Mattie had once shared with Lance Devore and where she now slept alone. If there was a boyfriend who overnighted even some of the time, Mattie had done a good job of erasing his presence from the trailer.

I slid carefully through the door on the left and looked at the little bed with its ruffled coverlet of cabbage roses, the table with the doll-house on it, the picture of the Emerald City on one wall, the sign (done in shiny stick-on letters) on another one that read CASA KYRA. Devore wanted to take her away from here, a place where nothing was wrong - where, to the contrary, everything was perfectly right. Casa Kyra was the room of a little girl who was growing up okay.

'Put her on the bed and then go pour yourself another gla.s.s of wine,' Mattie said. 'I'll zip her into her pj's and join you. I know we've got stuff to talk about.'

'Okay.' I put her down, then bent a little farther, meaning to plant a kiss on her nose. I almost thought better of it, then did it anyway. When I left, Mattie was smiling, so I guess it was okay.

I poured myself a little more wine, walked back into the sc.r.a.p of living room with it, and looked at the two books beside Ki's fairy-tale collection. I'm always curious about what people are reading; the only better insight into them is the contents of their medicine cabinets, and rummaging through your host's drugs and nostrums is frowned upon by the better cla.s.s.