Pale Phoenix Read online

  Miranda stared at her, taken aback. "Well, excuse me!"

  The girl looked about ready to burst into tears. But Miranda didn't want to stay and find out what the problem was. She looked around the crowded room and saw Dan tending his table in the eleventh grade section. She hurried toward him gratefully, nearly knocking over a card table in her haste to cross the gym.

  He threw his arm around her shoulders in welcome, another of the new affectionate gestures he had been making the last few weeks. It was a casual enough move, but it made Miranda worry. She and Dan had been close friends from the day they'd met. She liked him so much, she didn't want any of the usual boy-girl complications wrecking their friendship. So she gently moved out of the circle of his arm as she spoke: "I just saw Abby, and boy, you sure were right when you said she was weird."

  He put his hands into his pockets. "Who's Abby?"

  "The girl we hit this morning. The one we didn't hit."

  "Well, is she all right?"

  "She said she was." Miranda shrugged. "But she was totally rude about it."

  "Oh, well, at least you can tell your mom you talked to her and she's not dead. Right?" He steered her closer to his table. "Now, Ms. Browne. Look at all this great museum-quality stuff. Tell me you can resist any of it."

  Miranda laughed. "I can resist all of it."

  "What about the pink pig? Remember—every cent goes to the Prindle House fund."

  "I'm afraid I can resist it, even then."

  "Can you resist me?"

  A warm flush crept up Miranda's cheeks. She did not answer, but snatched off his table the first item that came to hand. "So, how much is this whistle, then?" It was the one he had blown in the car that morning.

  "You can have it. A gift." His voice was huskier than usual.

  "No, I really should donate some money to our cause." She inspected the little statue so she wouldn't have to look at him. She wished they could just act natural with each other.

  The whistle was a bird about three inches high, carved out of cold, white stone. The bottom of the base was covered in a circle of green felt. The statue was smoothly and intricately detailed, with small feathered wings and a sharp beak. The bird resembled an eagle, but its folded wings were longer, its face faintly human. It seemed to smile.

  "It's a stone phoenix," Dan told her.

  "What's that?"

  "It's the bird from the legend. You know—about the bird who rises out of its own funeral pyre to live again and again."

  She noticed gratefully that his voice was back to normal. "Sounds bizarre."

  "Yeah. I don't really know much about it. My mom found it in a jumble of stuff that was donated to the museum. She knows the whole legend. Get her to tell you." He moved away to wait on a teacher, who wanted to know the price of a pair of wooden candlesticks.

  Miranda turned the stone figure over and over in her hand. She found it strangely fascinating. She raised it to her lips and blew into the small hole at the top of its head. Across the gymnasium she saw Abby raise her head and look around, startled at the high, clear note.

  Miranda waited while Dan sold the candlesticks. She waited while he sold the ugly china pig to Mrs. Wainwright, who was his great-aunt and Miranda's flute teacher. Mrs. Wainwright claimed she wanted it for her collection of china animals that sat atop the grand piano. When she walked away, carrying her pig, Dan turned back to Miranda, grinning. "See? See? Ten bucks."

  Miranda snorted. "She took pity on you, that's what I see."

  "Hey, you'd better get back," he said suddenly. "Susannah's going crazy over there."

  Miranda glanced at her friend, who was beckoning her. Their table was crowded with customers. She held out the stone whistle to Dan. "I really do want this," she said. "How much is it?"

  "Well, if I can get ten bucks for my beautiful pig, I have to ask as much for such a rare old bird."

  Miranda thought ten dollars was a bit steep for such a little bit of stone, but she handed him her only bill readily enough, telling herself the money was for the Prindle House. Dan stuffed the money into a jar.

  She felt him watching her as she hurried over to Susannah. Two small boys were clamoring for the bears; a woman was eager to purchase the dominoes and was waving her checkbook over the heads of the other customers. The old man who had stopped when Abby fell in the road was interested in the camping stove. He recognized Miranda and smiled.

  As Miranda took her place behind the table and smiled back, she found her gaze moving beyond him, across the room to Abby at her little desk. A tremor went through her, and she reached her hand back to touch the chill, of the stone whistle in her jeans pocket. Unaccountably she felt a sense of great loss, almost a feeling of homesickness, steal over her. It was ridiculous, of course, for here she was in her own school, classmates all around her, and Susannah and Dan, her mother only blocks away in her office, her father maybe already on his way back from Lexington. But Miranda wanted to be home, needed to be home, cozily ensconced in her window seat with a book, with her parents down in the kitchen at the table drinking tea and a fire crackling in the living room grate. Why did the gym seem suddenly so barren and cold? As she pressed a free jigsaw puzzle on the old man, a vision flickered briefly across the back of her mind: Abby lying so still in the snow, those pale eyes meeting her own.

  Chapter Two

  ALTHOUGH MIRANDA RESOLVED to forget about Abby, she found herself thinking about the girl all afternoon. She quizzed Susannah about her, but learned only that Abby's last name was Chandler, and that she was new in Susannah's science class. A boy who was browsing at their table and actually bought one of the jigsaw puzzles overheard and said Abby Chandler had moved to Garnet only a couple of weeks ago. Even though she looked too young for tenth grade, she was in his homeroom. He told them she kept to herself. Miranda asked other kids who came to their table, but no one knew anything more about Abby.

  In the car on the way home, Miranda told her mother she had tried her best to talk to the girl. Dan sat in the backseat but leaned forward to add that Abby didn't seem injured.

  Helen sighed, driving carefully through the snow-covered lanes. "I thought about the poor thing all day. Even if she says she wasn't hurt, it still was a nasty fall. And so sudden—it almost seemed a faint. She was awfully pale, didn't you think? And so thin. I'm worried about her."

  "I get the feeling she doesn't want us bothering her, Mither."

  "Well, I feel responsible. I'm going to call her parents."

  "I hope they aren't as rude as she is."

  "Oh, Mandy, she's probably just lonely. It's hard being the new kid at school."

  "I know all about being the new girl, don't forget. But in order to make friends, you have to be friendly. It isn't as if I didn't even try, Mither. She was totally weird when I talked to her. No wonder she doesn't have any friends."

  "It's not like you to be so uncharitable." Helen glanced over at Miranda sharply. "Don't be so quick to judge."

  "I don't know what it is. I just don't like her." She felt the pressure of Dan's hand on her shoulder and pressed her lips together, scowling out the window. Dusk came early now, and already the windows of the houses they passed were filled with warm yellow light. From the backseat, Dan reached forward and gently tugged a strand of her hair.

  Helen slid the car to a stop in front of the Hootons' house. Miranda got out of the front seat so Dan could climb out. Virginia Hooton, Dan's mother, threw aside a snow shovel and struggled through the drifts in the driveway to their car. Helen rolled down the window.

  "Hi." Mrs. Hooton smiled, bending down to peer in the window at Helen. "Slippery enough for you?"

  Helen grimaced. "Cold enough, too. I wonder if I'll even be able to get in our driveway."

  "How did the flea market go?" asked Mrs. Hooton. "I stopped by, but I couldn't stay. I had to get back to the Prindle House. We're setting up an exhibit about the history of the house to help with fund-raising. It's hard work."

  "Poor Mom," sa
id Dan, clapping her on the shoulder with a handful of snow.

  "Keep away from me with that white stuff," she warned him. "Or you'll get a whole drift of it packed into your shirt."

  "See how she treats me?" Dan appealed to Miranda. "Can I come live with you instead?"

  Miranda grinned at him but spoke to his mother. "The place was a mob scene." She reached into her coat pocket and drew out the stone whistle. "I bought this."

  "Oh, the phoenix. How much did he charge you for it?"

  "Ten dollars."

  "Hmm." Virginia Hooton glanced at her son. "I doubt it's worth that much—though maybe I'm wrong. It does look quite old. It was in a box of junk I got at an estate sale when old Mrs. Penny died. The box had been up in her attic for ages, unopened. It was labeled 'From Uncle Henry Longridge, Boston.' Whoever that was, I don't know. But since it wasn't Garnet history, it doesn't belong in our museum."

  Miranda lifted the bird to her lips and blew its single note into the air. Then she shivered as the wind picked up and rattled the brown leaves left in the elm trees in Dan's front yard.

  "It's an interesting legend." Mrs. Hooton clapped her gloved hands together to warm them. "When the phoenix had lived five hundred years, its time came to die. So it would build a fire and throw itself into the flames. I wouldn't mind some nice warm flames myself just now!"

  "You mean it committed suicide?" asked Miranda.

  "Oh, no—it was a way of living forever. When the fire burned out, there would be a small new phoenix born out of the ashes—and the whole cycle would begin again. It's a comforting thought, really."

  "Too bad we can't do that," said Dan.

  "Oh, I don't know," mused Helen from inside the car. "I think you might get tired of it after awhile. I know I wouldn't really want to be a kid over and over."

  Mrs. Hooton laughed. "True enough. I'd especially hate to be a teenager again. All those raging hormones."

  "Oh, great," muttered Dan. "Thanks a lot, Mom."

  Virginia Hooton looped an arm around his waist and stepped away from the car. "You must be cold sitting there with the window open, Helen. And we have shoveling to do. See you later."

  "Did I hear you say we have shoveling to do?" Miranda heard Dan moan as they drove slowly up the hill of their own driveway. Miranda turned to wave at him out the rear window.

  She followed her mother into the house. Philip strode down the stairs to greet his wife and daughter as they entered the front hall, his long legs taking the steps three at a time. "My ladies! At last! I've been home more than an hour, worrying you were stuck in a drift somewhere."

  "We were this morning," Helen told him, shrugging out of her coat and sniffing appreciatively. "What's for dinner?"

  "Vegetable soup," he said. "With lots of noodles for the two of you, and lots of plain broth for me. Hot soup seemed right for a day like this."

  "I'll let you sniff my noodles," teased Helen. She was proud of her husband's firm resolve where his diet was concerned.

  "Look, it's snowing again," said Miranda, following the smell of fragrant soup into the kitchen. She left her parents exchanging a long kiss in the hallway. It always made her feel warm and happy to see them so affectionate and loving. She took three mugs out of the cupboard next to the sink and three packets of instant hot chocolate from the box in the pantry. "No Fat, No Sugar" the label promised. Even her father could drink this stuff. She poured water into the mugs and popped them into the microwave.

  "How did the flea market go?" Philip asked when he and Helen joined Miranda in the kitchen.

  "Well, we sold a lot," Miranda told him, leaning against the counter. "I don't know what the final total is yet—but I bet there'll be buckets of money for the Prindle House. There were even more people there today than at our haunted house." She looked out at the thick snowflakes falling past the window and remembered their most successful fund-raiser to date, the Halloween haunted house in the gym. She and Susannah had dressed as witches and sold candy apples.

  "So what's this about landing in a snowbank?" Philip asked Helen.

  "I almost hit a girl," she told him, and launched into the whole story of their morning ride to school. "I'm dying to call her parents now to check up on her," she finished. "I've been worrying all day."

  He handed her the phone directory. "Good idea."

  "What was her last name, Mandy?" asked Helen, opening the book.

  "Chandler." Miranda frowned at her mother. She wished Helen would stop carrying on about the weird girl. The microwave timer buzzed, and Miranda opened the door. She handed her parents their mugs of cocoa.

  Helen set her mug on the table as she flipped through the phone book. "Chan—, Chandler, here we go. There's only one in the book, so that makes it easy." She reached for the phone and pressed the numbers. Miranda sipped her cocoa and listened.

  "Hello?" Helen's voice was suddenly the one Miranda called her "doctor voice," smoothly professional, utterly competent. "This is Dr. Helen Browne. I'm calling about your daughter, Abby.... Oh? Really?" Helen's voice faltered. "Then, excuse me. I thought—no. I guess I have the wrong number. Sorry to bother you." She replaced the receiver.

  "Abby doesn't live there?" asked Philip.

  "The man said he lives alone and doesn't have any children. But that's the only Chandler in the book."

  "Oh, Mither, so what?" Miranda took her empty mug to the sink and turned the water on hard. "Maybe they have an unlisted number. Or maybe since they only moved here a couple of weeks ago they're not in the book—try information. Or maybe Abby's mother has remarried and the phone is listed under a different name. Or maybe—maybe anything!" She didn't understand why she felt so annoyed.

  "You're right, of course," said Helen. "But I feel bad about it. The poor girl looked so lost, so weak...."

  Miranda turned off the water and moved to the stove. She stirred the big pot of vegetable soup, unaccountably restless and irritable. "Look, I have homework," she said abruptly. "Will you call me when the soup's ready?"

  Miranda hurried out of the kitchen, then up the stairs to her bedroom. She threw herself onto the bed. Why was she so unhappy? Feeling something hard under her hip, she reached into her pocket and tugged the stone phoenix out.

  She raised it to her lips and blew the single sweet note. As it died away, she heard her parents' laughter from downstairs, and the same tremor of homesickness and loss that assailed her at school stabbed at her again. What was wrong with her? Dragging herself off the bed, she crossed the room to the dresser, opened her sock drawer, and dropped the phoenix in.

  At lunchtime the next day, Miranda walked with Susannah to the cafeteria. Her friend was flushed with excitement. "Can you believe it? Over five thousand dollars in one day!"

  "It's a good start," Miranda agreed. But she knew it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to turn the derelict Witch House into a community center. Still, their school's contribution brought the house a small step closer to its new life.

  "And next—the dance." Susannah twirled as they entered the cafeteria, her blond curls dancing. "Shall we go together, or ask guys?"

  "Oh—let's just go as a group. It's easier." Miranda's mind wasn't on the Valentine's Dance, scheduled for the next weekend. She saw Abby up ahead. The thin, flaxen-haired girl was wrapped in her dirty beige coat as if she were cold, and she moved slowly, eyeing the selections. "Wait a sec," Miranda said to Susannah. "I need to ask Abby something."

  She pushed through the throng of students waiting for their lunches. "Hi." She stood in line behind Abby.

  Abby's colorless eyes looked at her blankly.

  "My mother tried to call your parents last night, but we couldn't find your number. It wasn't listed."

  "I know." Abby moved forward in line and placed her beaded satchel on the counter. She opened it, glancing furtively over her shoulder at Miranda. The satchel was empty.

  "Well, where do you live?"

  Abby blinked. "Listen. You tell your mother to stop pestering
me. I can get along all right—I mean, I am all right."

  What did that mean, Miranda wondered.

  "What'll you have, girls?" The woman behind the counter held up a large spoon. "Mashed potatoes or fries?"

  Abby stood motionless for a moment, opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it. She snapped her beaded bag shut and turned away without ordering anything.

  "Next?" inquired the woman.

  "Nothing for me, thanks," said Miranda. "I bring my lunch." Perplexed, she looked around for Abby, but didn't see her. She walked back over to Susannah at their usual table in the corner and sat down, greeting the other girls who were there. She scanned the room for Abby and caught sight of Dan at a table on the other side. Then she saw Abby back in line at the lunch counter. So she decided to eat something after all.

  Abby wasn't pushing a tray along the metal counter. As before, she slid her large beaded satchel along. Then, as if she knew Miranda were watching, Abby turned her back. Miranda forced herself to look away.

  The hubbub of all the students grated on Miranda's nerves. Her ears were suddenly extrasensitive to the usual din; she could no longer make out the separate conversations going on at their table, but heard all the voices as a single, throbbing pulse. She pushed away her sandwich and closed her eyes, letting the jarring background tumult wash over her.

  After a moment, she opened her eyes, unwrapped her sandwich, and took a bite, savoring the taste of her mother's special chicken salad and apple filling. Susannah was talking excitedly about the upcoming dance, but Miranda couldn't concentrate. She didn't understand why things seemed wrong. Across the room, Dan was deep in conversation with one of the boys on the debate team. Miranda took another bite, the ringing in her ears subsiding, and noticed Abby making her way swiftly among the tables, heading toward the door to the courtyard. Her beaded satchel, now heavy and bulging, swung against her leg. Miranda put down her sandwich, watching with narrowed eyes.