In the morning, at ten o’clock precisely, the Duchess arrives in her long sleek car, driving herself this time. Just inside the back door, Margaret hesitates. But Bird doesn’t. He is eager to go.
Good luck, he says. Confidence beaming from his eyes.
Okay, she says at last. I’ll see you soon.
She pulls him close, kisses him on the temple, just where the pulse beats under the skin.
Then Bird, backpack slung over his shoulder, darts through the back garden and out the fence and slips into the car at the curb. There, at the other end of the seat, is a figure silhouetted against a tinted window, turning as he enters. Taller—half a head taller than him now, maybe—longer haired, but the same quick eyes, the same skeptical grin.
Bird, Sadie says. Oh my god, Bird.
She throws her arms around him. Her skin smells of cedar and soap. Bird, she says, I’ve got so much to tell you—
If you’re going to gossip about me, please wait until we’re out of the city, the Duchess says drily. I don’t want to miss anything while I’m concentrating on traffic.
Sadie gives an exaggerated eye roll toward the front seat.
Fine, she says.
In the rearview mirror Bird sees the Duchess’s eyes twinkle back at them, and this more than anything reassures him. Sadie is at ease here, in a way he’s never seen. As the car shifts back into gear, she settles into her seat and turns her gaze to the window, letting out a soft sigh. It’s been months since they saw each other, but somehow Sadie seems younger rather than older, less wary and watchful, as if she’s finally able to breathe after a long time without air. As if she no longer has to fight her way through the world alone. He knows this feeling, or something like it: it is what he felt last night, when he’d called his mother and she came to him; it is what he felt this morning, waking under the comforting weight of her coat. He settles back into his seat, too, happy to be just a child for the moment, not in charge, simply along for the ride. There is so much he wants to ask Sadie—he cannot imagine living with the Duchess, for one thing—but he can wait.
Where are we going? he asks, as the Duchess nudges the car back into traffic again.
To the cabin, she says, and then they’re off.
She drives fast, the Duchess, Bird and Sadie belted firmly in back and pinned in place by unrelenting acceleration, and as they burst out of the tangled gray nest of the city and onto the open road, it feels like a rocket launch into the stars.
I hope neither of you gets carsick, the Duchess says suddenly, with a glance into the rearview mirror.
Neither of them does. Bird is seldom in a car and the sheer speed of it exhilarates him. The tinted windows deepen the colors outside, turning the sky turquoise, the grass emerald. Even the road, which he knows is ordinary flat asphalt, gleams with a silver sheen. In the Duchess’s proximity everything seems richer and more expansive, and this makes such inherent sense to him that he does not question it, simply settles against the soft leather and absorbs it. Beside him, Sadie draws in her breath quickly as a cloud of birds rises from a tree and scatters like a handful of confetti. For the first time he understands why dogs hang their heads out of windows: after so long inside, he, too, feels eager to lap up all he can, the very air tingling with life.
They drive for an hour and a half in companionable silence, the only noise being the occasional whoosh as they whip past another car or truck. The Duchess does not use signals, merely plants her foot firmly on the gas pedal and speeds past as the engine lets out a throaty growl. Bird wonders where the other half of the highway is, the side returning to the city—on the far side of the trees, perhaps. Though he can’t see it, it must be there. It is an exercise in faith. His mother has promised him she will come back. Another exercise in faith. He will remember everything and when he returns he will tell her what he’s seen.
The Duchess has referred to it as the cabin and in the strictest sense this is true: a little milk carton of a house, encircled by trees. To Bird and Sadie, cabin calls to mind Abe Lincoln, hewn logs, and howling wolves. The Duchess’s cabin is small and simple, but this is as far as the resemblance goes. The wooden floors in the main room gleam like buttery toffee. The big fireplace at its center is made of rounded river stones. Behind it are a pair of small bedrooms, a bathroom. On one wall, a window peeks through a clearing in the trees to the silver sparkle of water in the distance.
I’m trusting you not to drown, the Duchess says. There’s not another house for miles, so no one will be coming to save you.
She lifts her wrist and checks a slim gold watch.
So here are the rules, she says. You are not to go off the property, but it’s forty-seven acres so I assume that won’t be too much of a limitation. You may swim, if you don’t mind the cold. You may make a fire, if you’re careful. In the fireplace only. I’ve left you a bag of food that should last until I come back tomorrow. Anything unclear?
Who built this house? Sadie asks. Somehow I don’t think it was you.
She grins cheekily at the Duchess, and the Duchess smiles back indulgently.
My father did, she says.
She pauses suddenly and looks around, as if she is seeing the cabin for the first time. Taking in the wooden walls, the planked ceiling, the satiny floor.
Or rather, had it built, she says. That’s how he did things. Her voice softens. When I was little, we used to sit on the shore, out there, and fish. He and my mother and I. I haven’t been here in many years.
Then she shakes her head, as if shrugging away dust. So don’t burn it down, please, she says crisply.
Are you going back to help my mother? Bird asks.
For the first time the Duchess looks uncertain.
You know your mother, she says, and Bird nods, even as he wonders if this is true. When she gets an idea in her head there’s no stopping her. But she’s coming to me when she’s finished, and we’ll be here tomorrow morning to pick you up.
And then what, Bird and Sadie both think, but neither of them dares to ask.
The Duchess checks her watch again.
I’d better go, she says. I won’t get back until midafternoon as it is, and if there’s traffic—
She picks up her keys from the table and turns back, looks from one of them to the other.
Don’t worry, she says, her voice unexpectedly gentle. Bird, Sadie. Everything will be fine.
Of course it will, Sadie says. We’re here, now.
* * *
? ? ?
When the Duchess is gone, Bird and Sadie—suddenly aware of all the months that have passed between them—lapse into bashful silence. Tacitly, they take stock of their surroundings. In the big main room, a table and three chairs, a kitchenette; in the bathroom, a shower and toilet and a small louvered window through which they can see nothing but trees. Two bedrooms, a larger one, cream colored with a big double bed, and a smaller one—pink—with a twin bed in the corner.
Without asking, Sadie kicks her shoes off in the big room, but Bird doesn’t mind. It’s clear who the house was built for—parents, child—and he is happy to let someone else play the role of adult for a little while longer. He settles on the sofa in front of the fireplace, and beneath him the aged leather crackles.
What is it like, he says. Living with the Duchess. What is that like?