And yet, I think, even if the reality is somewhat more mundane, this too can be true. All our lives are mundane but all our lives are also poetry.

Whether my mind wanders around these thoughts or I am caught up by a line Mr. Fordyce reads and my mind is trailing after the rest of the poem, it is all okay. It is an afternoon of the greatest charity, this reading in the shade on a warm day with the words I can listen to or not as I like, with the berries available and lemonade to take as I will. I can feel my feet, which were tired, moist and swollen when I sat down, shrinking back to their bony normal size, able to wriggle around freely in my shoes again. Willie Mae has stopped crying and I put him in his baby carrier, where he goes to sleep. I lean back in my chair. There are tons of birds in the big oak tree that is sheltering us. They are singing quietly. What are all these birds doing in this tree? The children are playing happily with the new toys. We go on this way for an hour and the man never lifts his eyes from the pages. Then he reads, "Nothing Gold Can Stay," and I say it myself, Nothing gold can stay, nothing gold can stay, and look at my watch and realize it is true because I have to take the children home now.

"I have to go," I say, standing up.

"Please tell your mother h.e.l.lo," says the man.

"My name is Jane Fielding," I say. "These children are the Gourds." It seems too much to list their names.

"My name is Anton Fordyce," says the man, but all our names seem superfluous. He does not stand up but he puts the book down.

"Thanks for the raspberries and the lemonade," I say.

He nods. I make the children put the toys back in the box and we leave the blankness and past the sharp edges of houses, are swallowed into town. I turn one last time to glance at Mr. Fordyce. I almost expect him to have disappeared but he can just be glimpsed beyond the trees, reading quietly and eating raspberries.

Mabel's Cousin the Channeler.

My Eighth Adventure.

The Blueberries Are Ripe.

"Jane," says my mother as I start out the door. I am on my way to care for the little Gourds as I have for the last two weeks except on the weekend, when I see Ginny and deliver Bibles. Ginny's mother has put her in soccer camp right until school starts. Ginny feels bad that she can't help me and is very upset with her mother, who doesn't seem to care that camp is making Ginny miserable. That Ginny counted on her summer to work on her dress designs. Now at the end of her day she is too tired to be creative. She says she feels like a steam kettle with a plugged hole. Any moment she will pop.

I want to tell my mother all this but of course I cannot. She must wonder that I am never, ever at home this summer but I can tell her nothing. I never told her that Mr. Fordyce said h.e.l.lo. How could I explain my afternoon there? And as the days slip by and I have not told her where I go, I have become more deeply mired in a kind of secrecy that sets me apart from her and Hershel and Maya and Max. I am not here when Max sees whales.

My mother does not look at me. She says, "Jane, could you stay home and watch Maya and Max and Hershel for me today? Henry has asked me to go antiquing with him."

I don't know how much she sees H. K. Thomson when I am not around. I never would have thought my mother would have an interest in someone like him. I feel that just as I have a secret life, my mother is not someone that I knew as well as I thought. It is as if we are losing each other, and a deep sadness fills me. Nothing gold can stay. This is the first time she has asked me to watch Max and Maya and Hershel since I started my adventures, but of course I can't.

When I say no with no explanation she looks concerned. "I know you're busy these days...," she says, and lets it hang there. I can't explain and am aware how surly it makes me appear. She is making jam with the blueberries she and Max and Hershel and Maya picked together yesterday. I love blueberry picking. I love the bogs and the discovery of always more berries cl.u.s.tered together. I hate the bees. I am frequently stung picking blueberries but it is worth it. I look at the big pots of blueberries on the kitchen table and our pantry filling with another row of jam jars and I am sad. It is as if I am missing summer. It is as if I am missing my life. It is happening here without me.

"That's okay," says my mother, seeing my face. "Run along."

I run out and the dark green screen door bangs behind me. It makes a whomping sound. It is one of my favorite sounds in the world. It is the sound of the house breathing. The screen door is its lungs. We keep the house breathing through our movement. What keeps us breathing through its movement? The house is the sixth member of the family. The one that is always watching. Under its roof, we are one.

I see H.K. trudging down the beach toward our house. His head is at a strange angle. H.K. always looks like he's walking into the wind.

I hurry down the beach. It is a cool, damp morning and I pull the corners of my cardigan closer to my body. As H.K. pa.s.ses he gives me a sickly smile. Not because he wants to smile at me, but because he thinks he has to. I drop my head and move along faster.

Mrs. Gourd has got the little Gourds herded in the front yard, if you can call it that. She has a cardigan on too. Hers is pulled tightly in as well. We are all reining ourselves in this morning. She has a patent leather pocket book over her forearm. It looks shiny and new. I wonder if she has spent her tips on it. I wonder why they are all waiting in the yard like that and then I hear it. Pans and pots being thrown around inside like some great beast is floundering around in his cage. Shouted oaths. Mostly about how he is going to kill Mrs. Gourd.

"Take the children down to the beach. For the whole day. Do you hear me?" she whispers savagely in my ear. "And do not bring them back. I will come for them down there after work."

I do not know what to say. I have never heard sounds like that before. They frighten me. I take the children quickly away but know I cannot take them to the beach. I cannot be seen today by my mother. I have told her that I cannot take Hershel and Max and Maya. Even if I explain to her that I am babysitting the Gourds, without telling her why, it will not explain why I couldn't also take Hershel and Maya and Max. That I am afraid the Gourd children will tell about Willie Mae and the dropped Bible. That Maya will then blurt it out to my mother. Even if I tell her not to. Small children cannot keep secrets. I am surprised my mother has not seen us before and decide the beach is no longer an option. But where?

I am on Main Street, walking up and down contemplating a destination, and have just decided to visit Mr. Fordyce when I am accosted by Nellie Phipps, who has come out of the hardware store carrying paint cans. She tries to hang on to my arm but misses and grabs me by the collarbone, something I did not know up until this moment was possible.

"Wait up just a minute there, child." She sees the Gourds around my knees and says, "What are all these?"

"They're Gourds, of course," I say. Then I hope she knows that this is their last name and I am not being sarcastic.

"Gourds, are they? They're very small Gourds. Very messy Gourds."

They all still have peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly smeared around their faces from breakfast but you cannot blame Mrs. Gourd this time. She had to get them out in a hurry.

"Yes," I begin, but Nellie cuts me off. "Bring them along."

"Bring them along where?" I ask. I have remembered now that I told her about the Gourd baby. I hope Nellie isn't going to suggest trying out her faith healing on him. We do not know yet what she can actually do. She could experiment and make things worse.

"I am having my house painted so I am going over to Mabel's to get away from the fumes. Her cousin is visiting. She channels."

I wonder if this has something to do with televisions but am so busy keeping the Gourd children on track through town that I don't ask.

Nellie drops off the paint at her house and then we go to Mabel's.

Mabel is even fatter than Nellie. She wears a large, shapeless short-sleeved flowered dress with snaps up the front. I wonder if it is a dress or a bathrobe. She has on matted pink used-to-be-fluffy slippers and has large dark circles under her eyes. She doesn't look healthy. When she opens the door she just stares at us, not even saying h.e.l.lo. Nellie says, "Move out of the way, Mabel, and ask us in. This is Jane, who dropped the Bible on the baby, scarring it for life. Remember I told you about that?"

"Nellie!" I say, too distraught to remember to call her Miss Phipps. But then I realize I don't really need to worry about Mabel knowing because she just shakes her head like she is trying to get water out of her ear and steps out of the way. I'm not even sure she has taken in what Nellie has said.

Inside there is a woman wearing a long white embroidered caftan.

The children start racing around the house until Nellie yells, "STOP THAT!" and gives them an entire bag of plastic cups, and forks and spoons to play with. This makes them very happy.

We go into the backyard. I check to be sure it is completely fenced in. I do not want to lose a bunch of Gourds so early in the day. The Gourds start digging with their plastic spoons, filling their plastic cups. It is a worthwhile pursuit and we leave them to it.

When Nellie and I are seated again Mabel's cousin looks at me and says to Nellie, "Is she here for a session too?"

"She's here to watch," says Nellie.

"Watch what?" I ask.

"I told you. She channels," says Nellie. "Spirits use her to speak to us."

"From the beyond," says Mabel's cousin.

"Beyond what?" I ask.

"These mortal sh.o.r.es," says the channeler, yawning as if she has answered all these questions before. Then she explains that yawning means she is beginning to leave her body because the spirits are anxious to communicate. She asks Mabel to light some candles.

We sit in the dim light with the blinds all drawn. It is very eerie. The channeler closes her eyes and makes noises like she is eating something particularly enjoyable. When she opens her eyes finally and says, "Greetings," it is not her own voice. That is, it is her voice but as if she is now an old lady. "How can I help you, my dear, dear Nellie?"

"Well, I'll be ding-donged," whispers Nellie.

"Is she a ghost?" I whisper to Nellie.

"Shhh," says Nellie. "You'll scare it away."

I close my mouth immediately, lean back and fall off my chair. I am afraid that may scare the ent.i.ty away but it chuckles. Apparently nothing fazes it.

"Ding-dong! Ha, ha. Yes, you are fond of that expression. An amusing expression. Such amusing expressions you have on this plane," says the voice.

"Does she think we're in an airplane?" I ask. "Shouldn't we tell her?"

"She means earthly plane," says Mabel, speaking for the first time.

Of course.

"Ask, my child," says the voice to Nellie.

"Who are you?" asks Nellie.

"A spirit. An ent.i.ty, perhaps you would call me. I cannot give you a name because here in the ether we have many names. But you have questions, I perceive."

"My hands," says Nellie tentatively. You can tell she isn't quite sure about this whole thing either. It seems so unlikely.

"Ah yes, your gift," says the ent.i.ty.

"That's what Madame Crenshaw called it, isn't it?" says Nellie, poking me in the ribs.

Yes, I think, but was Madame Crenshaw really clairvoyant? The purse and shoes never showed up again. Stay open, I admonish myself. You cannot see miracles if you are not open to them.

"Of course," the ent.i.ty says smoothly. "You seek to hide your gift but we see it."

"It's not that I'm hiding it," says Nellie, who is getting agitated, I can tell, "so much as I can't ding-dong figure out how it works."

"How it works?" says the ent.i.ty. "But you move energy, my child, you know this."

"I mean the healing part," says Nellie.

"Oh, that," says the ent.i.ty. I don't think it sounds very ent.i.ty-like but it quickly recovers its savoir-faire and says, "That wondrous part. Yes, my child, you have that. In spades."

It seems to me that the ent.i.ty goes in and out locution-wise but that is only my opinion and what do I know of ent.i.ties?

"I feel my time fading," says the ent.i.ty, and its voice is becoming weak and scratchy. "But you must know you have a great destiny. I see gatherings and you and your child giving many healing sessions."

"My child?" says Nellie.

"Her child?" I say. I can't help myself.

"She ain't got a child," says Mabel.

This seems to confuse the ent.i.ty. "I mean your soul child. This girl," says the ent.i.ty, looking at me, although the channeler's eyes are closed so technically I don't know if you can call it looking.

"My soul child?" asks Nellie. Now we are definitely in weird territory and I'm not sure I want to be here.

"Yes. The two of you have had many lives together. You have been twins in a former life. Compadres. Helpmeets. She is on earth to help you heal others. Many will gather for this purpose. The two of you are of the greatly evolved few now living on this planet. It is your destiny to bring others along."

"I'm greatly evolved?" I ask.

"Shhh," says Nellie. "I know what she means."

The ent.i.ty nods at me. "You have had many lives. You are a very old soul, my dear, brought into this lifetime to do great work. There are many new souls here in this generation. It is your destiny to help your friend to bring them along. This is why you are together. Soon the gatherings will begin."

"Where? When?" asks Nellie.

"I must leave. Bless you, my children," says the ent.i.ty. Then the channeler starts to stretch and yawn again and finally opens her eyes. "Where am I?" she asks, but Nellie has no use for Mabel's cousin, who is now just thought of as an ent.i.ty vehicle.

"Gatherings! People will gather for my healing hands!" Nellie says. "You'll have to stick close, did you hear, Jane? In some way you are meant to help."

"But I thought my energies were blocked or something," I said. Before, Nellie was saying I was in the spiritual soup, and now she believes I'm evolved.

"I think helping me do this great work is what will make you evolve further," says Nellie thoughtfully.

"What happened?" asks the channeler, stretching and blinking.

"Never mind. I gotta go," says Nellie. "I'm going to read up on this channeling stuff on one of the computers at the library."

"That will be fifty dollars," says the channeler, suddenly coming fully awake.

"Fifty dollars!" I say.

But Nellie opens her new purse and pays her. We get the little Gourds out of the backyard. Nellie tells them they can keep the plastic cups and spoons, which I think is kind of rude because they are Mabel's, but Mabel doesn't object. When I thank her for the cups she says she is making potato salad for dinner. The channeler says that's nice, what kind? She is certainly back on planet Earth now. Then she says she is in town for another week on vacation and not doing any more channeling. "It really takes it out of you," she says to me.

"I bet," I say. I don't know what else to say. I have had no practice making chitchat about the trials of giving your body up for a good haunting.

I ask Nellie if the Gourds can play in her backyard until it's time to take them home and at first I think she is going to say no but she just shakes her head suddenly and says, "Did you notice how they both talked about my great destiny, Madame Crenshaw and now the spirit? That's how we know this is for real. Because how else would they know this?"

"I wonder where these gatherings are going to be, because your backyard isn't very big, Miss Phipps. Do you think they'll be big gatherings?"

"Oh, BIG!" says Nellie.

"Really big?"

"Huge."

"Then we'd better find you someplace to have them." I am happy to help Nellie with all this if it will make up for dropping the Bible on Willie Mae. And also, if she can do this great thing, it will be so exciting to watch.

"I wonder if the balloonists would let me use their field," says Nellie ruminatively.

"I wouldn't count on it," I say, yawning. If I were a channeler it would mean that the spirits were about to take me over, but no, I'm just tired.

Nellie trots off to the library and the Gourds and I go into Nellie's backyard to make mud pies. It is such a soothing thing to do after all the worry and weight of responsibility. Suddenly all I want is to sit here in the mud spooning twigs into the cups with the Gourds. There are salt.w.a.ter swans overhead making their way to the sea, their long necks thrust forward. They always look too large and ungainly to fly so that seeing them you gasp a little at all the things you would not guess could be but are anyway. I wish I could follow them down to the sea.