Isa laid the feathers lengthwise on top of the birch-bark walls, and they fit the house almost perfectly once Catta added a long, skinny twig as a crossbeam.
“Isa, think of how high up in the air those feathers have been,” Lila said, returning empty-handed.
There had been no moss that was right for a roof or a doormat, which was disappointing, although she was pleased that Catta had come back for lunch. Sometimes he wandered all day, and then she worried. Lila decided that her worries from last night, spurred by Diana’s doom mongering, had all been ridiculous. Just now he was very much a boy, and the three of them knelt down and placed fallen leaves into the gaps in the roof that the feathers did not quite cover.
24
Cyrus took a hammer and spike and thirty yards of rope to the tree line in back of the Staff House. He and his two sons dragged the stag’s carcass into the woods, looking for a remote place to hang it, but it was so heavy they couldn’t get it all the way off the ground and had to stop when the roots and brush grew too thick. They were closer to the clearing than Cyrus wanted, but it was good enough. There were no trails for a hundred yards in any direction. Matthew and Mark held up the stag’s hind legs while Cyrus measured the rope into two equal parts and ran both lengths over a thick branch high up in the tree. He tied each leg with strong knots above the hoof, and then all three of them grabbed the rope ends and walked backward, slowly hoisting until the beast hung about two feet off the ground. Cyrus let go and his sons struggled to keep the stag aloft while he drove the spike into the tree at waist height. Then he tied off the ropes onto the spike. He shoved the carcass to test the rig. It would hold. He cut the stag’s throat, to keep the meat tender for the Migration feast. The venison would be a nice surprise, and the blood now pooling would vanish by tomorrow morning. Sooner if they got a heavy dew.
25
Martha was disgusted. With the Migration coming tomorrow, with both houses full and the Cottage overrun by children, Jim Hillsinger had come into the kitchen and asked her to make eggs-in-a-basket for lunch today. That was Catta’s favorite, on top of the summer pudding Cyrus had suggested for tonight. The special requests were multiplying too fast for her to keep up with her day-to-day work, but she agreed. You always agreed.
Eggs-in-a-basket were simple enough to make, although timing was crucial. They had to be hot rather than warm, which in practice meant that everyone must be seated before the cooking started. Just before one o’clock, she asked Susan who of the family was in the house. Susan didn’t know. Martha was unimpressed by that answer, and she said so. Susan ran out of the kitchen to scout while Martha began the fried potatoes, which could be made in advance along with the asparagus.
The kitchen door opened behind her and Martha, focused entirely on shaking the correct amount of salt onto the potatoes, assumed it was Susan and did not turn around. She said, impatiently:
“Well?”
“Hello, Martha,” Diana Hillsinger said.
This was a terrible sign—two family members in the kitchen on the same day. Martha predicted that, somehow, she would be awake well past midnight.
“I beg your pardon,” Martha said. “I thought you were Susan.”
Other staff members found this one trying—she was whimsical and changed her mind often, which led to more work. But Martha remembered her as a child, when Diana had brought flowers into the kitchen for her on three consecutive mornings. The fourth day, when it was raining, she brought a toad.
“I just wanted to ask you,” Diana said, “to be extra mindful of the amount of salt you put in Jim’s food.”
“The amount of salt,” Martha repeated to make sure she had heard right.
“It’s bad for his blood pressure,” Diana said.
“Mr. Hillsinger the younger?”
“My father is too far gone for it to matter.”
Martha held up the tin saltshaker for Diana to see, and very deliberately put it on the shelf.
“Thank you, Martha,” Diana said, and she exited back through the swinging door. Martha had gotten away easy, and she salted the potatoes anyway.
Before breakfast, Diana had walked down the hill to the chapel by the water, which was a short walk from the house. Her prayers came quicker there. Above all, she had asked for endurance, for her empathy to be equal to whatever agony was coming toward them.
She was overcome this morning with a terrible sense of foreboding, as if something black were hidden inside this gorgeous day. One could not know in advance what exactly her intuition was or what it meant—one could only react once the catastrophe revealed itself. Taking some action now, though, was better than doing nothing. She had wavered at the kitchen’s swinging doors and almost turned around, but then the saltshaker had presented itself. Martha would think she was difficult—all the staff did—but it was possible she had removed at least one boulder from the coming avalanche.
Everyone was very late for lunch. Diana closed her eyes and waited.
26
Billy Quick was reading a letter from his distant cousin Charlotte. It informed him that Charlotte’s sister Elizabeth and her alcoholic husband had been in a serious car accident three weeks before. The letter had come in the same packet as his Japanese message, but, dreading all communication from Charlotte, he’d put it aside until just now. Elizabeth was one of his favorites, but she had always been a poor judge of men.
She and the husband were recovering, but they’d be hospitalized for another month at least. Cousin Charlotte had been staying with their son, George, out in Denver, but now she had to go home. She was flying the unfortunate child from Denver to Boston, where she lived, but since it was impossible for her to accompany him to Maine, she would on such and such a day put the child on the train to Jennings by himself. She knew, Charlotte wrote, that Billy was on Seven for the rest of the summer and would want to help out. Billy compared the kitchen calendar to the dates she mentioned, and he realized that the letter was dated two weeks ago. He was receiving this itinerary on the morning of the evening that the boy was arriving at the train station.
Charlotte went on to say that hopefully he would not have George for more than two weeks and that surely he, Billy, would agree that sharing this burden was appropriate.
Why not? Billy thought. The more the merrier.
Billy finished his breakfast while the table was being set for lunch and then walked down to the workshop to tell Cyrus that, despite the Migration tomorrow, someone would have to go to the mainland tonight to collect young George. They would also have to make sure that the Cottage had a free bed to accommodate one more little savage.
27