She felt a pang at what she wouldn't see. But what she had seen-the slow swallowing of flesh and bones, the peristalsis she'd only read about and imagined in pale abstraction-now it was hers.

She tucked her shirt back in and went into the woods. Long shadows for the first bit, then diffuse light, dim but not dark.

She'd seen what others would call horrible or even frightening, and yes, she'd felt horror and she'd had a moment of fright, but these were pushed aside by the sight, the intense sight, that made the alien intimate.

By the time she got to her house it was almost dark. When she opened the door Rose called from her room, "Mom! Where have you been?" Rose came through the door saying, "May's been trying to find you. Everyone's ..." She stopped and said, "What happened? Oh my G.o.d, are you all right? What did you do?"

"I'm fine."

"You're all b.l.o.o.d.y; there's blood all over-"

"I scratched my cheek. It looks worse than it is." Elsie went to the bathroom mirror. She cleaned her cheek. It was a little worse than she'd thought-an L-shaped cut, a dangling triangle of skin the size of her thumbnail. She washed it and taped a gauze pad over it. She took off her shirt and cleaned her face and chest with a washcloth. Wiped off her knee. Rose was standing behind her. Rose said, "How did you do all that?"

"I was climbing down from a tree and I slipped. Nothing much."

"Climbing a tree? What for? Never mind-Mary and d.i.c.k and May and some other people are at May's house. I said you'd be back by suppertime. That's what you said. Can you go now? It's like a meeting, and I said we'd come. And can you do me a favor? Don't tell them you've been wandering around climbing trees. Just put on some clothes and make something up. And put on long pants; your knee is gross. They've all been busy about May's house. They're waiting to hear what you've been doing."

chapter seventy-seven.

Phoebe had arranged it all, but now she was looking as if May was supposed to say something. They were all sitting at the kitchen table-her family, Mary Scanlon, and Eddie and Phoebe. And Mr. Salviatti. Phoebe had come early, and then Mr. Salviatti, who arrived in a big black car with a chauffeur. She'd only seen such a thing in movies. The driver just sat in the car. May had said to Mr. Salviatti, "There's plenty to eat and drink if your driver would like to come in."

He said, "Ah, how kind you are, but he likes to smoke and listen to the radio." Phoebe had laughed in a nervous way, and May worried she'd said something out of place. Mr. Salviatti had asked to see her garden. She thought he might be doing it to get her over her mistake, but he'd asked a lot of questions and even picked up a handful of soil and smelled it.

Phoebe had called them in, bustled around to get everyone to sit down, cleared her throat, and said, "Whatever's on the stove smells scrumptious, but let's just start in with a few words about what's going on." And that was when she stopped right there and looked at May.

May felt a little updraft of nervousness through her arms and chest. She took a breath and froze. She'd been all of one piece just the other day, right here in her kitchen. She looked at d.i.c.k. He was frowning and staring at the table. She looked at Mr. Salviatti, who lifted his chin and tilted his head, which reminded her of the way he'd said, "Ah, how kind you are." She said, "Kind. You're kind to come." And then what? Now the problem was she didn't feel right crying her troubles out loud. She closed her eyes and smoothed her ap.r.o.n. She was startled that she still had it on, ought to have taken it off before they came. That distracted her enough so that she said, "What is going on is pretty much a mystery to me. Phoebe explained some of it, the law about taking land, but I can't say that I can recite chapter and verse. And it's a mystery to me how all of a sudden Mr. Aldrich's changed. He was perfectly polite and friendly the one time he came by. So I just don't know."

Phoebe patted her arm. What was Phoebe thinking she needed to be patted for? She'd made a fool of herself there at the beginning, that car and chauffeur set her on edge was all, she didn't need patting in front of everyone-that just made it worse.

Phoebe said, "Well, that's the question in a general way, but before we get to the more technical side-I have a little outline I went over with my lawyer-I'd like to color in the human side. Even my lawyerlike lawyer-" She gave a little trill of laughter. "Even my lawyer got emotional. So where we start is that May and d.i.c.k have lived here on Pierce Creek for years-the name tells you something right there. And d.i.c.k and Eddie built this house, May raised her two sons, and d.i.c.k and Eddie rebuilt the house after the hurricane. I mean, talk about sweat equity. And May has cultivated the-"

May stood up when she heard a car pull in the driveway. Thank goodness for something to put a stop to Phoebe making them into a charity case.

Rose and Elsie.

Rose said, "I'm sorry, May. Mom had a little accident. We'll just sit down over there."

May saw the gauze pad on Elsie's cheek, a blotch of red showing through. She said, "Looks like it's still bleeding. Come over to the sink." She got the first-aid kit. When she peeled the gauze pad off she said, "Oh, my. d.i.c.k, you ought to take a look."

d.i.c.k rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands, and held them up. He nodded to May to pull a fresh paper towel. Elsie laughed and said, "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."

"He's handy at this," May said. "He's always patching up his crew."

Elsie said to d.i.c.k, "I'm glad your hand is better. No nerve damage?"

"Nope. Hold still." He held Elsie's chin. "Might need a couple of st.i.tches; you don't want a scar. I'm going to put a b.u.t.terfly on, just to hold that flap. What was it did that? Looks like it tore more than sliced."

"A stick."

"You wash it out with anything?"

"Soap and water."

"Wood's dirtier than a knife. Not as bad as a fish spine, but still ... I'm going to pour something in. Might sting." He turned his head and said, "You go on with your talk. We can hear."

May sat back down. She said to Phoebe, "Maybe you could get to the lawyer part."

Phoebe clapped her hands and said, "I know, I know. But this is the crux of the matter, and it takes some concentration. I've made copies. The law part is page one; page two is some ideas about what I call 'political pressure points.' Take two sheets and pa.s.s them on."

The fuss of pa.s.sing the papers around got everyone to turn their attention back to the table. May folded her hands in her lap and looked at each face in turn. They all knew the story. She'd asked d.i.c.k to tend to Elsie. They all heard that. They could all see that she let things be.

Phoebe was lecturing briskly, not interrupting herself. May was glad to see Charlie and Tom paying attention.

May stole a glance at d.i.c.k. He was touching Elsie's cheek, the tip of his thumb under the cut, his fingers above it. He put the b.u.t.terfly bandage across it, fastened a gauze pad over the cut. May touched her own cheek. d.i.c.k gave Elsie his seat at the table. He got a small bench from the back porch, and he and Rose sat side by side, as if May had arranged that, too. Let them all see Rose was at home here. Phoebe told everyone to turn to page two. May looked at them all turning their pages and thought of them all at once, all of them cross-st.i.tched to one another. May was grateful, after all, for Phoebe and her notes ... And wasn't it just like Elsie to come tumbling in like that? Time to get back to the business of the house. May was content that people showed up to help. She'd been shy about speaking up but quick enough about getting d.i.c.k to bandage Elsie's face. If May's feelings had been completely pleasurable she would have mistrusted them.

chapter seventy-eight.

When Phoebe was done, she turned to May and said, "Let's have that lovely chowder and then we'll see where we are."

d.i.c.k said to Elsie, "You better not chew till you get that sewed up."

Tom offered to drive her to the hospital. Mr. Salviatti said, "Tom, you should stay. My driver's here." He held Elsie's elbow and led her out. He held the car door open but didn't close it. He said to the driver, "This lady is going to the hospital. Wait and bring her back, please." He said to Elsie, "Everyone will still be talking. I'll listen to everyone, but you and I know Jack. When he wants something he won't stop. If he's blocked one way, he'll find another and another and another. Even if all the people in there get a hundred names, two hundred names, on a pet.i.tion, he can find more. He lines up piece after piece. He's holding a fund-raiser at Sawtooth for Mr. Bienvenue. He can fire Mary Scanlon. He can find someone other than Eddie to work on Sawtooth. Even you-your contract with the school is for only one year. When the bank learned that d.i.c.k lost his boat, they were worried that he couldn't make his payments on his mortgage. Since the bank was worried in that way that banks worry, Jack was there. He has a company that bought the mortgage for eighty cents on the dollar. So that is Jack the octopus. But he has from time to time another side-a desire to be the prince, to be seen as just and generous. So after he has shown that he can squeeze everyone, perhaps he will let go for a moment. Do you remember when he bought Mary Scanlon's restaurant? He felt no pain at paying a little too much. But he also offered her a job. I doubt that she would have sold unless she could keep doing what she loves and does well."

"How do you know all this? About d.i.c.k's mortgage?"

"Because Jack has a notion that I am a clever man, he wanted me to see how clever he is. If this were a game of chess, one would say that he controls the board."

"So what are you saying? We should give up?"

"No." Mr. Salviatti gestured toward the house. "All this resistance will make him angry at first but then perhaps stimulate his imagination. A basic principle of negotiation is to imagine things that the other side wants that are not so dear to oneself. His offer of a little house in Snug Harbor is an overture of that kind. Phoebe has told me about Mrs. Pierce's garden, and I have just seen it. The Sawtooth corporation owns some pieces of land not so far away. There may be a possibility there for something that will make Mrs. Pierce happier. Believe me, if I were an equal partner I would put a stop to this. As it is, I can only suggest ways to discourage the octopus and encourage the king's largesse. Jack has very little regard for the people in there. But he esteems me." Mr. Salviatti c.o.c.ked his head and lifted a hand as if to say, "Who knows why, but there it is. And, of course, you. It is possible that in front of you and me, and perhaps Mr. Bienvenue, Jack will not wish to ... There is an Italian phrase, fare una brutta figura, to make an ugly face-but it means much more." Mr. Salviatti abruptly leaned back and put his palm on his chest. "But I am keeping you from caring for your wound."

And with that Elsie was whisked away. When the chauffeur leapt to open the car door and then the door to the hospital lobby, she felt ushered out rather than ushered in.

What did she expect? All those citizens were members in good standing. She'd been nothing but a disruption in May's house. She'd thought herself the maverick spirit of woods and streams, but her merit badges were out-of-date. She was no longer a forest ranger; she was no longer being as good as a daughter to Miss Perry. She'd come to the meeting with nothing. May told d.i.c.k to tend to her, showing the gathering that she was no more than a scar on an oak branch where a vine had been pulled off.

Courtly old Mr. Salviatti had seen her out.

Her knee hurt. Her cheek hurt. The hospital smell was making her sick to her stomach. She went up to the desk and said, "I think I need someone to sew me up."

chapter seventy-nine.

There she was in Jack's office again, Jack beaming again and saying, "Mary, Mary, Mary!" When he got through beaming and squeezing both her hands, he sat at his desk. "So Rose is going to sing," he said, "and I'm very grateful for your help. I think it's a good thing for everybody ..." He sat down, spun his chair to look out over the yacht basin, spun back to face her. "I love this view, the boats, the pond and the sea. Do you ever miss the view you had from your old restaurant? The creek and the salt marsh and the dunes. And if you stand on tiptoe you can even see a bit of Block Island, can't you?"

"Yes."

"You know, there's a technical name for that line of light where the sky and the sea meet."

"The horizon."

"Ah. In fact, it's what makes the horizon hard to determine. That indeterminate zone is called the glimmer. A lovely word, and nice to know it has a sliver of specialized meaning. You could see the glimmer then. From your old restaurant."

"Yes."

"It's going to be vacant again. My people there are giving up the food business. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the building. It has two big rooms and a kitchen-all one floor. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"An acre or so."

"Yes."

"On a quiet side road. I suppose it would be a nice place to live. Make the old barroom into a bedroom, the dining room into ... what? A dining room. So that would be easy."

"I imagine so. But you'll want an architect's opinion. I'm the cook."

"Oh, Mary, there's much more to you than that. It's not many people can steal a march on me. There I was about to buy Tory Hazard's house and barn, and what do I find? A corporation is the new owner. But it wasn't more than a day's work to-as we lawyers say-pierce that corporate veil. A nice Irish lawyer in Boston, who has a nice Irish brother who wrote the libretto for ... You see where we end up. So my hat's off to you. Oh, I was irritated for a moment, but now I'm ... interested. So there you are, one of the holdouts in the way of Sawtooth. So I'm interested in finding out if you'd like your old restaurant back-not qua restaurant, of course. You wouldn't want to be competing against yourself."

"The barn on the Hazard property has to be a bookshop. The reason Tory Hazard sold to JB and me is so it wouldn't be bulldozed. So I don't see-"

"So she told me. I was a great admirer of her father, and I wouldn't dream of anything that wouldn't honor him. She seemed surprised, by the way, to learn that you and Mr. Callahan are more than business a.s.sociates. 'Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae,' as Dido famously says-'I sense the traces of an old flame.' My plan for the barn is to make it the Everett Hazard Memorial Library. We have the Robert Beverly Hale Library down the road, but it's very small, and now that I've brought so many more readers to the area, another library would be a public benefit. I don't need to underline the public-benefit part-everyone seems to be learning a little law these days. But I'm sure that you and I and your Mr. J. B. Callahan have no desire to enrich a battery of lawyers. If we can reach an agreement on the real property, I can see a place for Mr. Callahan in our Sawtooth cultural program. A stipendiary position. You see? I'm looking for ways to make everybody happy."

Mary closed her eyes for an instant. She'd been fearing it would come to this-not Jack's iron hand in a velvet glove but facing her own wishes. She said, "I see you're a marvel at mixing the carrot and the stick to get us donkeys to move along. Of course, you haven't mentioned a price at all. But before you do that, I should say that there is one thing that could get me to consider your plan. If we agree to sell you our house, will you leave d.i.c.k and May alone in theirs?"

Jack sat back in his chair, spun away for a moment. She hoped that he might be satisfied with half of what he wanted, that he might be willing to imagine that there were other wishes as urgent as his own.

He spun back and leaned forward. "Mary, Mary, Mary-I'm glad to hear you say that." She lifted her head. "It shows me that you're thinking creatively about our problem." She sighed. She wasn't surprised when he said, "It shows me you're halfway to seeing the whole picture." And there he was doing his old soft-shoe, nimble for all his pomposity. "Sawtooth Point is a discrete piece of land with natural borders that will be on a sound financial footing and will support our traditional values of nature and culture."

Had she sighed again? Had she raised an eyebrow? As if she'd dissented from a sacred text, he leaned even farther forward and snarled. "I'm serious, G.o.d d.a.m.n it. I'm no Johnny-come-lately. I've been putting Sawtooth together for years-make that decades. It's the core of my life. Piece by piece and year after year, while most people were fiddling away their lives, just one day after another. Eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, work. So when the cat comes into the kitchen, the mice scurry around and squeal. And then dive back into their little holes."

Mary was surprised to find herself staring at him with pity. His last speech was how he really felt-no more hoo-ha about the benefit to South County-but it was more saddening than horrifying. How alone he was ... If he'd been a poor crazy out on the street with no company but the voices in his head, you'd want to find him some help, but with a fortune in the bank he could keep himself propped up in his well-staffed isolation. In that isolation, after his hours calculating the dimensions and costs of his maneuverings, he couldn't help but think of the people involved as obstructions in front of his bulldozer, as objects of more or less tensile strength-some were pliable, some were stiff and breakable. She imagined his mind grinding and grinding, perhaps with pleasure, during the morning, with a duller satisfaction during the afternoon, but by evening and into the night, the unstoppable grinding would begin to wear the coating off his nerves. He would list his kindnesses to Elsie and Rose, and wonder at their ingrat.i.tude. And hadn't he been good to Mary herself? And Eddie Wormsley and Phoebe-where would they be without his giving them work? But there they all were, gathering around d.i.c.k Pierce. And in the middle of the night it was cold comfort that he had his "long-standing relationships with the people who actually keep things going"-they weren't the ones murmuring in the corners of his empty room, nothing he could make out, just a rustling of ill will. And come to think of it, the poor man would be missing his wife-whether he'd sent her away to mind Jack Junior or if she'd swept off in anger.

Jack cleared his throat, and Mary realized that her silence was making him uneasy. He said, "Where were we? Ah-I may have sounded ... I didn't mean you when I said 'mice.' You're sensible enough to come up here and have a sensible discussion. Of course, you'll want to talk it over with Mr. Callahan."

"I was only thinking all this must be hard on you."

For an instant he appeared touched-the set of his face softened. Then grew tight again. He shut his mouth so hard his lips disappeared. He took a breath and said, "Not in the slightest. This is my meat and drink. Which reminds me-don't you have to be getting back to the kitchen?"

Mary laughed in his face.

Unaccountably, Jack laughed, too. Did he think he'd been funny with his little skip from "meat and drink" to "back to the kitchen for you, my girl?" Hadn't he heard himself being an a.s.shole? Dear G.o.d, they were every one of them being got the better of by a man who was tone-deaf.

chapter eighty.

With every day that pa.s.sed it looked as though Jack was going to get his way. Elsie thought she'd been the screwup, but it turned out n.o.body else was getting anywhere, either. She recognized that she wasn't purely out for justice-d.i.c.k would admire her, May would tolerate her, Jack would howl. And Rose? Every time Rose set foot in May's house, Rose would have to think, Mom was the one ...

Elsie shook it off. Too much dithering. Try again.

She phoned Mary Scanlon. Elsie was moved when Mary told her she'd offered up her new property if Jack would leave the Pierces in peace but not moved enough to offset her anger when Mary said that she talked to JB and that they couldn't outspend Jack on lawyers. "Besides," Mary said, "JB is sure he wouldn't think of anything else, and he has to get back to his own work." She added, "I'm remembering how I love it there at my old place."

"Well, May and d.i.c.k love where they are, too." Elsie hung up.

She tried Johnny Bienvenue again. He said he'd done what he could-he pointed out that he was the exattorney general and not yet a congressman, not in a position to horse-trade.

"And Jack's holding a fund-raiser for you at Sawtooth."

"Yes, he is. That was arranged a long time ago. Look. I sent someone to talk to the township. They say nothing's definite; they're waiting to see if things work out privately."

"The threat of eminent domain is part of the-"

"And I talked to Jack. His position is he's making a generous offer, more than generous, and when he gets the property, a slice of it's going to be for a public footpath to the nature sanctuary. And it's going to be hard to make the case that he's throwing the Pierces out on their ear. He's offering another house plus some cash. The demographics have changed. If South County were still farmers and lobstermen it'd be different. Now there are more people around who look at land as fungible. That means-"

"I know what fungible means."

"-one acre of farmland is worth another acre of farmland, one acre of waterfront is worth another, et cetera. Now, if Jack was robbing them blind ..."

Elsie said, "So it's money, money, money. I thought you were better than that."

He sighed. "I'm reporting the common opinion, not espousing it."

"Have fun at your fund-raiser." She hung up.

She walked down to the mailbox. She opened a letter from the Perryville School. It was a bill for one hundred eighty-five dollars. What the h.e.l.l was this? Rose was on a full scholarship. She didn't go back to her house; she cut through Miss Perry's garden and marched into the school office. She plunked the bill down on the secretary's desk. "What is this about? 'Incidental fees'? What is that?"

"I'm not sure. There's supposed to be a code number. But there's no code number; I don't know why. I'll get someone to go into the file after lunch."