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Lois Duncan: A Gift of MagicLois Duncan: A Gift of MagicPrologueOnce upon a time in a house by the sea, lay an old woman, a special old womanwho had the gift of magic.She said to her daughter, who sat near her bed, "I leave you this house, mydear. You do not need it now, but there will come a time when you will. And Iwant to leave something to each of my grandchildren. To the boy, I leave thegift of music—""But Mother," her daughter said gently, "there is no boy. There are just the twolittle girls." She thought her mother's illness had made her forget."There is no boy now," agreed the old woman. "Soon, though, there will be. Tohim, the gift of music, although it may not do him much good, being as how heresembles his father. To one of my granddaughters I leave the gift of dance, andto the other—the one who looks like me—"Her voice was fading and she named the gift very softly, but her daughter, wholoved her greatly, was weeping and did not hear.Nancy had been dreaming all night, and when she woke in the morning it was withthe strange sensation that she had come back from a long journey, leaving partof herself behind. She lay very still with her eyes closed, letting herselfawaken slowly.On the back of her eyelids she could see her older sister Kirby in pink stripedpajamas doing exercises at the foot of her bed. Brendon, in his room at the endof the hall, still slept, breathing through his mouth with a little snortingsound which meant that he was soon to waken. Downstairs their mother sat on thescreened porch and stared at the sea.Nancy pulled herself awake and sat up in bed."Mother's crying," she said."She is?" Startled, Kirby stopped in the middle of a plié, her knees bent out toboth sides. "Are you sure?" She continued, not awaiting an answer. "Should we godown, do you think?""I don't know," Nancy said. "Maybe she wants to cry by herself. It's awful tohave people walk in on you when you're crying. They always want to know all thereasons for it and tell you why they aren't important."To Nancy, everything was important. She was the one their mother called "ourstraight and serious child." She was made in all planes and angles. Herwheat-colored hair hung straight down her back, and her brows and mouth werestraight lines across her face with her nose a straight line down its center.She was twelve years old, but her body was still as thin as an arrow."I don't want to see Mother crying," she said."We won't," Kirby said. "We'll thud on the stairs so that she knows we're comingand has time to mop herself up. Come on."She came back up to a normal standing position and straightened her pajamas andwent out into the hall.Nancy got out of bed and followed her. The thought of Kirby thudding any placewas incredible, Kirby, whose feet were as cushioned as a cat's. It was worthfollowing to watch Kirby thud, even though Nancy did not at all want to see hermother weeping.She need not have worried, however. Their mother turned to greet them as theycame onto the porch. Her eyes were very bright, but other than that there was nosign of tears."You sounded like a herd of elephants," she said. "I was sure it was Brendon.""I don't think he's awake yet." Kirby dropped into a canvas chair opposite hermother and stretched her long legs out in front of her. "What got you up soearly? You're all dressed and everything. I thought you'd want to sleep in thismorning after that long plane trip.""I guess I was too excited to sleep." Elizabeth Garrett was a soft, pretty womanwith a quiet kind of gentleness about her. "I wanted to see if it still lookedthe same in the morning light. It seems so strange to be back again in the samehouse I lived in as a little girl—to be sitting here on the same porch, lookingout at the same sea.""It's a bit like the Riviera," Nancy said, drawing in a deep breath of the saltair. "Not as crowded, of course, and the sand looks whiter." She seated herselfon the end of the chaise at her mother's feet. "Is it still the way youremembered it?""It has grown up a lot," Elizabeth said. "Those pines along the driveway wereonly about ten feet tall when I went away. The flame vine by the door—I rememberit as just a scrubby little thing when my father planted it. Now it covers thewhole wall! Other than that, though, it's the same dear place. The tenants tookfine care of it. I hardly dared hope to find everything in such good conditionafter so many years.""I'm surprised you didn't sell the house after Grandmother died," Kirby said."It must have been hard trying to keep it rented all the time we were away.""Your grandmother didn't want me to sell it," their mother said. "She told methere would come a day when I would be glad to have a place to come to." Therewas a tenderness in her voice, a remembering. "Strange how she could have knownthat. She was a very special woman, my mother. There should be some pictures andscrapbooks and things of hers stored in the attic. We'll have to look throughthem someday.""That would be fun," Kirby said. She liked to claim that she could remember hergrandmother, though Nancy was sure that she did so for effect. Nobody couldremember someone she had seen last when she was three years old. "I'm glad thatwe did come here. It'll be fun to stay in a private house for a change.""You won't think so when you have to do housework," Nancy said. "There won't bemaid service or anything. We'll have to change our own beds and dust and cleanthe bathroom." She wrinkled her nose. "Just like people you read about in books.Still, it'll be a good experience, I guess, for a while.""Girls—" Elizabeth drew a long breath. "I'm afraid I have to tell you something.This isn't to be—"The stairs thumped again, drowning out her voice. It was not fake thumping thistime, but the sound Brendon always made on stairs, even when he was barefoot.He clumped through the living room and came out onto the porch, walking on hisheels. His knees were bare and knobby under the edges of his plaid swimmingshorts."What's for breakfast?" he asked.Elizabeth's face brightened as it always did when she looked at her son. Brendonwas a handsome little boy with his father's tilted green eyes, as clear and asdeep as the sea. He had soft, light hair and a dimple in one cheek like anangel. It was ironic, Nancy often thought, that he should look so darling andbe, in reality, so perfectly dreadful."My hotel-raised child," Elizabeth said fondly. "There's no restaurant servicehere, I'm afraid. We'll have to get a bus into town and pick up some breakfastthere.""Let's swim first." Brendon rocked back and forth from his heels to his toes."What are you girls sitting around for? Don't you want to go down to the beach?""We haven't had a chance to unpack our suits yet," Kirby said. "I don't see howyou can have found yours so fast. It was down at the bottom of the suitcase. Ibet your stuff is all over the room.""I'm going now," Brendon announced calmly, ignoring the accusation as though hehad not heard it. "Okay, Mom?""Not okay," Elizabeth said. "I don't want any of you swimming alone. I don'tknow what the tides are like now. It looks to me as though we've lost some beachto storms, and that can mean strong currents.""Oh, for rats' sake," Brendon said. "I've been swimming all my life.""Yes, in hotel pools. An open beach without a lifeguard is something else again.Besides, we have things to do this morning. We need to stock up on groceries,and I want to look into buying a car.""A car!" All three children turned to stare at her in astonishment. EvenBrendon, whose mouth had been open for a roar of protest, let it close againwithout a sound.Nancy found her voice first."Why?" she asked for all of them. "Why a car? You can't even drive.""I certainly can," her mother said defensively. "I learned to drive when I wasKirby's age. My father taught me. I haven't had a chance for years because we'veflown everywhere and taken taxis and so on, but believe it or not, I drivebeautifully.""But to buy a car!" Nancy kept repeating the words. "We're not going to be heremore than a few weeks, are we? If we buy a car we'll just have to sell it againwhen we leave. Wouldn't it be simpler to rent one?""Nancy, dear—" Their mother regarded them with troubled eyes. She turned to herother daughter. "Kirby—""What is it?" Kirby asked, her face going suddenly pale. "Is something wrong?"It was a stupid question. Of course, there was something wrong. There had beensomething wrong for days, for weeks, for months even. Now that the words hadactually been spoken, Nancy could feel, with a sick kind of acceptance, thegreat wave of wrongness rising higher and higher above them, ready to cometoppling over to swamp them all. With a violent effort she braced herselfagainst it and made her mind go closed."We were talking about the car," she said."And why we'll be buying it." Now that she had decided to tell them, Elizabethwas not to be turned from the subject. "Our stay here—well, it's not going to befor a couple of weeks or even months the way it usually is when we settleplaces. We are going to be here in Florida for a long, long time.""We are?" Kirby said incredulously. Her face was blank."I didn't tell you sooner," their mother continued, "because I wasn't suremyself how things would be. I wanted to see the place again first. It had beenso many years, and with renters in and out, it could have been in terribleshape. And I didn't know either how I would feel here. There are so many ... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]