Chapter FIVE
The sounds were coming from a wooded area to our left. Dense with hardwoods and strewn with boulders, the terrain dropped in giant stair steps to the twisting stream below. Ferns and rhododendrons created a dark curtain of green. I couldn’t see a thing.
The noises were almost animal-like in their timbre. A wildcat could be waiting to pounce, or a protective mother bear. I could hear myself breathing, and whatever was out there probably could, too. “What is it?” I set the pail of berries beside the path and grabbed Grady’s arm. Bears like berries, so you’re welcome to them, I thought. Just leave us alone!
I felt him stiffen as the groaning came again, this time ending in a thin wail.
“Sounds like somebody’s hurt!” Grady said. “Must be down there somewhere. Wait here.”
“Oh, no you don’t! You’re not leaving me here for bear bait! I’m coming, too.” After a fleeting moment’s consideration, I decided to let my cousin take the lead, and padded along behind him while he battled the almost-impenetrable underbrush. Branches whacked me in the face, and vines grabbed at my ankles. Crouching sideways, I slid down a mossy bank, feeling stones roll under my feet. And since the tail of Grady’s shirt was handy, I snatched it for support.
With an arm out to signal silence, Grady stopped to listen. I glimpsed the river far below, but we were too high above it to hear the rush of water.
“Are you sure it’s a person?” I whispered, and he pointed to something I couldn’t see.
“Down there,” he said. “Thought I saw something move.”
Was he thinking, as I was, of that awful day almost twenty years before when he and Beverly and I had discovered the body of a murdered vagrant not far from where we now stood? It was all I could do to keep from turning and clawing my way back up the hill.
All I could see below was a network of vines in a jungle of rhododendrons. Poplar and sourwood, oak and hickory competed for the sun and shut out the light, briars tore at my hair. “You’d better know what you’re talking about,” I said.
Grady reached for my hand. “Watch your step, there’s kind of a drop-off here.”
Only when we inched our way down and could get a better look did I see what looked like a bundle of old clothes at the bottom of an overhang.
The bundle moved. It wore green plaid pants and a pink flowered blouse. Glasses, miraculously unbroken, hung from a chain around her neck. Ella!
“She’s still alive.” Crouching beside her, Grady held her fragile old wrist. “We’ve got to get help—now!”
Ella’s eyes were closed, and dirt and abrasions stood out against the pale background of her face. I touched her hair, whispered her name. She whimpered.
“I’ll go,” I said, scrambling to my knees. “The guesthouse is closer. I’ll get the caretaker to call.”
“No!” Grady put a hand on my shoulder. “Mom said Casey left this morning. Some kind of family emergency. It’ll be faster if I go, Kate. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He was already halfway up the hillside before I could answer.
I didn’t like staying behind, but Grady was right, I thought, as I knelt beside the injured woman. He could run faster, yell louder and Ella needed help sooner rather than later. She lay curled with one arm pinned beneath her, her leg at an unnatural angle. Small twigs and leaves were caught in her thinning gray hair. I dared not move her, but I attempted to make her as comfortable as possible. Gently I wiped her face with a tissue, then took off my blouse and folded it as a buffer between Ella’s face and the scratchy bush that probably stopped her fall. No time for modesty now. Surely, whoever answered Grady’s summons had seen a bra before.
“I’m right here,” I told her, covering her hand with my own. “Help is on the way, Ella. We’re going to get you out of here.” I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.
Her eyes opened briefly, and there was pain there—and something else. She struggled to speak. “Dag—”
“Dagwood? Is that what you were doing when you fell? Looking for your cat?” I stroked her cheek, hoping Ella would open her eyes again. “I’m sure he’s all right. Why, I’ll bet he’s already back home by—”
“Not fell,” she whispered. “Pushed.”
“What?” I leaned closer.
Again Ella opened her eyes, and this time she looked up at the ledge where she must have been standing when she fell. “Pushed,” she said, her fingers clutching mine.
I could tell she wanted me to look there, too, so I did, but of course, there was no one there. If anyone had pushed the housekeeper off the ledge, they would be long gone by now. But why in the world would anybody want to hurt Ella Stegall?
“Ella, are you sure?” I asked. “Maybe you lost your footing? If you were standing on moss, it can be slippery, and it’s easy for rocks to become dislodged . . .”
I didn’t know which of us I was trying to convince, but it didn’t matter anyway, for Ella had lapsed again into unconsciousness.
Please don’t die! The ground was deep in leaves from years before, and I made a little sitting nest for myself beside her and watched her chest go up and down. But what if it stopped? I had taken a course in CPR when Josie was small, and I went over the steps in my mind: Call for help . . . we’d done that . . . check pulse . . . listen for breathing . . .
Something snapped in the woods below me and I know I must have jumped, but Ella didn’t notice. Was somebody watching? If Ella had been pushed from the ledge, was the person who did it waiting to come back and finish the job—and me?
A bird chirped from a limb above me, and a squirrel scurried through the underbrush. I scratched a bite on my ankle, wiped the sweat from my eyes and tried to see the sky. I couldn’t. Ella made sort of a grunting noise and grimaced in pain. “It won’t be long now,” I told her, carefully removing leaves from her hair. “Stay with me, Ella. Help should be here any minute.” God, please don’t make a liar of me!
An outcropping of rock, partially covered in moss and underbrush, jutted from beneath the place where Ella had been standing. If she had landed there on her way down, it was a wonder she was still alive.
I shifted my position and listened for the sound of approaching rescuers. Nothing. What was taking so long?
Earlier that day, Augusta had tried to warn me, only not in so many words. But warn me of what? Was my life in danger here? I felt suddenly cool, vulnerable without my blouse, as if someone were watching. The woods seemed quieter than before; not even a breeze ruffled the leaves. I tried not to think of the ghost stories we used to tell about the spooks in Remeth graveyard: the Yankee soldier who went around with a lantern looking for his lost unit; the woman who swore to haunt her young widower if he ever married again. When he did, they say his hair turned white overnight.
And not a word of them is true, I told myself. You are not ten years old, Kate McBride! Grow up and act your age. Think of something pleasant, positive.
Augusta.
Surely I hadn’t dreamed that unconventional duo! No! Those scones were real, and the pancakes. . . . But had I really met my guardian angel? If so, I wished she were here.
“It won’t be long now,” a voice said behind me, and I turned to find Augusta sitting there.
“Well, it’s about time!” I said. “I’m afraid Ella’s badly hurt, and I don’t know what else to do for her.” I broke off a frond of leaves and fanned the pesky gnats from Ella’s still face.
Augusta looked at the woman who lay beside me. “What you’ve done is fine, and the others should be here soon.” She slipped off her silvery sandals and tossed them aside. Her toenails, I noticed, were painted a metallic pink.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” I said, lowering my voice just in case Ella might hear. “She fell from all the way up there, probably hit those rocks on the way down. Don’t just sit there, do something!”
“Kathryn . . .” Her voice was patient, although I could tell it was an effort. “I think we need to come to an understanding. Just what is it you expect me to do?”
“Whatever it takes to save her life. Don’t you have some kind of heavenly magic? You are an angel, aren’t you?”
“It doesn’t work quite that way.” She slipped from her tree stump seat and came to stand beside me, her long dress swirling about her. Today she wore a broomstick skirt of what looked like crinkle cotton that fell from the bodice in tiers of pastel colors. A halo of daisies sat atop a pouf of coppery sunlight hair. “We can’t undo what’s already done,” she said.
“Then can’t you make her better?” I moved aside so that Augusta could sit in my place and watched while the angel touched Ella’s bruised and bleeding forehead with her long, beautiful fingers. Ella slept on.
“I don’t believe she’s in pain now,” Augusta said, observing Ella’s quiet face. “Now all we can do is wait for help.”
“That’s all? Then what good are you? What good are any of you? And where, might I ask, is Ella’s guardian angel?”
She adjusted her daisy crown and gathered up her skirt to make room for me beside her. “We aren’t magicians, Kate, and except in very rare cases do angels perform miracles. However, we do watch over you, do our best to direct you in the right path and try to protect you as best we can.”
“Yeah, right!” I said. “Somebody sure fouled up today.”
One glimpse into her troubled angel eyes made me want to take back my hateful accusations. My heart literally hurt, and it wasn’t from something I ate.
A lock of her hair came loose and tumbled over her forehead, and Augusta tried to tuck it back without much success. “Haven’t you ever sensed a warning, Kate, when you were close to danger?” she asked.
“Of course I have. We all have, but—”
“And don’t you sometimes, without knowing why, choose to do one thing instead of another?” Augusta held out her palm for a butterfly, who seemed quite at home there.
“You mean like today?” Ordinarily I would have chosen to return to my uncle’s the way we had come, but this afternoon, Grady and I had elected to take the longer route.
Augusta nodded. “Life is all about decisions, choices. Sometimes we make the wrong ones, as it seems Ella did today.”
I shrugged. “So, what happened? Did her angel give her a shove in the wrong direction?”
“Certainly not!” If Augusta had wings, she would have flapped them. “I imagine that in Ella’s search for her missing pet, she chose to ignore the warning, or perhaps she didn’t hear it. At any rate, you and your cousin came along to find her.” Augusta touched my arm. “And that was no accident, Kate.”
“You mean her angel sort of directed us here?”
“No doubt about it. We’re meant to look after each other, you know—humans and angels alike,” Augusta said.
“Wait a minute! How did you know about Dagwood?” I asked, and seeing her puzzled expression, realized she didn’t know what I meant.
“Ella’s cat. You said she was looking for her missing pet,” I explained.
She smiled. “I heard her tell you, of course. I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Kate.”
“Then you might’ve seen Ella fall! She says she was pushed. Is that true?”
Augusta’s smiled vanished and her sea-green eyes turned to gray. “I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve only been here since you and your friend left the path when you heard her cry out.”
“But how—”
“I’ve been teaching Penelope to make daisy chains, and we were just over in the meadow. I left her there playing with a huge yellow cat—your friend’s missing Dagwood, I suppose.” Augusta stood and brushed off her skirt. “Shh! I think I hear someone coming.”
I stood and listened, too, but I couldn’t hear a thing. Ella still lay where we had found her, her cheek nestled against my wadded-up blouse. She was breathing, but I didn’t know for how long. “I hope they get here in time,” I said, trying not to cry.
Augusta stepped into her sandals. “It should be any minute now.” She took both my hands in hers, and if eyes could talk, hers would say trouble. “I want you to promise you’ll be careful,” she said.
“Careful about what? What’s going on here, Augusta? Am I in some kind of danger? Is that why you’re here?”
“That I don’t know—at least not yet. Just don’t take chances, please. Because of my duties with Penelope, you understand, I can’t be with you every minute.” Augusta glanced at the broken figure at our feet. “And as you can see, it takes less time than that for—”
“There they are! I see them—right down there!”
I looked up to see my loudmouth cousin Deedee practically rolling down the bank in her name-brand, have-to-be-dry-cleaned linen shorts set that would never be white again. Grady and two men with a stretcher were right behind her, while Uncle Lum straggled along in the rear.
“My God, Kate!” Deedee stopped so short she almost tumbled headfirst into what looked suspiciously like poison ivy. “At least have the decency to put on a shirt or something!”
I was so glad to see professional help arrive, I didn’t even lose my cool, but I could swear I heard someone laughing behind me.
Of course, when I turned around, Augusta was gone.