In the tree above the barn, Penny asked George for his shoe. He took it off and handed it to her. Below them, down on the ground, James had led the little ones up from the Cottage to the barn in a swarm of flashlights. After a few minutes, a girl’s voice had shouted inside and some of the boys had run out laughing. Then they saw Sheila shove a small boy out the barn’s side door, followed by James, who was too big for her to shove.
“Just answer the question,” James said.
“No,” Sheila said. “No one else came in here.”
“We need five minutes to check the stalls and the loft,” James said.
“Don’t go near Betsy’s box—the puppies don’t like the flashlight.”
James went back inside with two other boys.
“Can we see the new lamb?” one of the littler boys asked her outside the barn.
“There’s three new lambs,” Sheila said.
“Is there one who’s also a dog?”
“He’s sleeping.”
The boy said they would happily look in the dark.
Once they all went back inside, Penny tossed George’s shoe out of their tree. It landed halfway between the tree line and the hayloft rope.
James reemerged from the loft, shouted, “It’s clear!” and all the little ones came streaming out the side door.
One of them found George’s shoe right away; there was more shrieking and another one said, “He’s barefoot and wounded.”
James said, “Check the woods,” and the boys headed directly under them on a path into the forest.
Once their flashlights had all disappeared, Penny said “OK” to George and began to climb down again, telling him which handholds and footholds to use. She crossed the few yards of empty space to the barn and climbed the knotted rope up into the hayloft. George started downhill to retrieve his shoe, but Penny said, “Leave it,” and he did.
“Throw your other shoe way down the hill toward the water,” she said.
George took off the other shoe and threw it toward the Cottage, but then the flashlights appeared again in the woods, moving fast.
“Look out!” Penny hissed from the loft, not wanting to shout.
She heard the voice of James shout, “There he is,” and the flashlights were all on him and then George was covered in angry boys.
“Only below the neck,” she heard James say.
61
What Lila needed now was consecrated ground. She stood up from the sofa intending to flee, but then suddenly they all wanted her: Diana, Wilkie, even Christopher Templeton. Everyone converged, said the dinner had been wonderful, astonishing, et cetera. She smiled and thanked them all effusively and walked out, running only when she heard the heavy front door close behind her. The outdoor chapel was in a little grove cut out of the forest down by the water. Its benches were split logs and the altar a stump still embedded in the ground; from time to time, family members were married or eulogized there. Lila stopped at the edge of the grove to catch her breath but also to make sure she was alone, since the chapel was also known to be a place for trysts.
She sat down on the bench farthest from the water. She had seen Jim watch her leave from his post across the room, but he would not come after her. He put too high a price on his own solitude to steal it from someone else. The real question was whether he had seen or heard, from across the room, the obscene thing that escaped from her there in front of the fire? Was some version of it visible on her face?
The words themselves were inconsequential. She had said I loved it about the silly wigwam out past Montauk when in fact she had been terrified of it, something Billy apparently already knew. If there was a thread of conspiracy in those words—or some sort of invitation in her tone—then could it not be argued, setting aside their recent history, that she had known Billy half her life? That he had loved her sister, and so had she? Was it not true, she asked the high tribunal of whichever gods presided here, that this same innocent dynamic—a loss they shared—was what had sent them down that other path in the first place? And that—whatever had happened between their bodies—she had nevertheless always kept him at the appropriate distance? Why would she now feel something she did not feel then, when it would have been so much easier to have been legitimately in love with Billy Quick? It made no sense.
And yet her voice had betrayed her. She had not used or felt anything like that tone, since that first night with Jim in Merion by the fountain. It was involuntary, a prosecuter might argue, which made it definitive. And in fact, she had taken the very existence of that sound, that tone, to be the first objective sign that she was in love. Had it lied to her this time? She had to ask, Lila told herself, because in this particular case, it was impossible for her to be in love with Billy Quick. It must be something else.
62
“The number seven,” Catta said.
There was confusion in their faces.
“You can’t be here after dawn,” Dale said. “And dawn comes quick this close to the solstice.”
“You start across the shallow path now,” Smock said.
Catta said he was eager to begin walking, just as soon as they helped him with this inconsequential thing: he wanted a tattoo of the number seven on his upper left arm. The men exploded.
“—stupid stupid stupid—”
“—anyone named Hillsinger—”
“—irreligious—”
“—unwholesome—”
“—bad luck—”
Catta laughed. He knew they didn’t want to do it, but he found himself not caring. He said he wished there was more time to explain, but the tide was filling in the path.
“It’s sacrilege,” Conrad said.
“Show me how and I’ll do it myself,” Catta said.
Again the three men spoke all at once: “—ain’t so easy—”
“—risk of infection—”
“—unprofessional—”
“I’ll say I did it,” Catta said, “with squid ink and a fishing hook.”
Smock stood up and spat.
“Never seen a squid here this time of year,” he said.
Now Dale, too, looked at Catta in a harsh way that surprised him.
“Cyrus won’t like it if the boy’s on North after sunrise, much less when the barge comes,” Dale said, turning toward Catta. “That’s the rest of it, ain’t it?”
“If my name wasn’t Hillsinger, you would do it,” Catta said.
“If your name weren’t Hillsinger, we’d throw you into the sea,” Conrad said.
“Now we’re talking professional services,” Dale said, “and in that case we’ll need payment.”
“I don’t have any money,” Catta said.
“Need another canoe paddle.”
Catta wasn’t sure how he would get one, but at this stage he would have agreed to anything.
“Done.”
“Need a mess of birch bark.”
“Fine,” Catta said.
“Know how much a mess is, Hillsinger?”
“Yes.”
“Also need ten more cans of—”
“Nah,” Conrad said. “That’s stealing from Martha.”