I LET OUT a tense breath at the sight of Ernest’s house on the crest of the hill. There could be no sight better after the dark of the woods and shock of the deer. Laughter and the smell of baking bread came down to me on a light breeze, but it wasn’t the wind from the woods. It was an ordinary wind with no meaning or sense of comfort that I could find.
I trudged up the hill on the narrow path, thigh-deep wildflowers on either side of me. I unclenched my fists and the tension dripped from my fingers, flowing away from the tight chest that came when the wind left.
“Where have you been?” Mom stood in the garden to my right, surrounded by six-foot-high beanpoles and fluffy sprouts of lettuce that she and Aunt Calla planted early in the spring. I knew they did that, but I always felt like the garden magically appeared on its own, when needed, and conveniently refused to grow hated veggies, such as Brussels sprouts or leeks.
I smiled when I saw her there and the last vestiges of fear left me.
“I took a walk,” I said.
Mom came out of the garden with the cats coiling around her ankles. They looked like they’d been telling secrets. Mom made a shushing sound at them and walked through the flowers, carrying a basket overflowing with tomatoes, lettuce, zucchini and squash. Her short hair framed her face like a coronet of gold. She looked like the woman in a painting I’d seen at her friend’s gallery once. Maybe it was Mom moving through the artist’s fields of heavy brushstrokes with her golden hair and purposeful walk.
“Since when do you take walks?” She stepped onto the path and draped her free arm over my shoulder.
“I don’t know.” I’d planned to tell her about the deer, but the curious expression on her face stopped me. If I told about the deer, there’d be no end to her questions. She’d figure out I’d been over the property line. She wouldn’t understand that it was Beatrice’s fault and I didn’t mean to do it.
I avoided her gaze and began walking. She fell in step beside me. The scent of lavender oil that she rubbed on her burns enveloped me, making me relaxed and sleepy. When we neared the house, she stopped me with a firm hand on my shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong. Okay? Stop being so weird.”
I looked up. Her brow was furrowed, her eyes crinkled with worry.
“I’m the weird one?” she asked. “I don’t think so, not this time.”
“Whatever.” I jerked away and walked ahead of her into the house. When I looked back through the screen door, she still stood in the path with her basket. The cats sat on either side of her as motionless and knowing as their mistress.
Her lips moved in a chant. “See potential in ya, let me mold that. I can transform ya. I can transform ya.”
That was a new one. Chris Brown wasn’t really Mom’s style. I went inside to the kitchen. Ella and April were mixing dough. Luke and Caleb lounged at the table half-dressed and sweaty.
April turned with a smile. The smile dropped off her face the second our eyes connected. “What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing. I went for a walk.”
Ella came up and peered at me. “Something happened.”
“You might as well tell,” said April. “We always find out.”
“Nothing happened.” I looked at Luke and Caleb for help, but they only watched me with curious, concerned expressions.
I turned around and went right back out the door. The path was empty. Mom was gone, but I could still hear her song in my head.
The rest of the day went by fast. I set the deer, and the man who shot it, firmly in the back of my mind and concentrated on more enjoyable things, like getting a tan for Shasta and hitting a line drive past Luke. I accomplished the tan, but the line drive escaped me.
At six o’clock, The Pack walked back to the house, dragging our feet, almost too tired to carry our gloves. Only Ella had energy to crow about her homer, but no one paid her any mind.
I was the first to smell the intoxicating scent dancing on the wind. “Wow, do you smell that?” I raised my nose and sniffed again. The rest of The Pack did the same.
“Yeah, what is that?” said Luke.
“Mom’s making dessert,” said April with a frown. “I wish she would’ve told me.”
“She probably didn’t know this morning.” Caleb took off in a slow lope, half run, half walk. It reflected his grace, but none of his speed. The rest of us ran with him, except Ella, who hadn’t got a head start.
I reached the screen door as it slammed shut behind Luke and Caleb. I threw it open and held it for April, who charged past me.
Mom and Aunt Calla looked up when we ran into the kitchen. “Look who the cat dragged in,” they said.
“What is that?” I asked.
“What?” Aunt Calla smiled and coiled a long lock around her finger.
“That smell. It smells like pineapple upside-down cake.”
“Well, then, it probably is. Let me check.” She opened the oven door with a flourish and pulled out a rack. A large cast-iron skillet was in the middle, bubbling with a mixture of cake and liquid happiness. We stared at it with our mouths open.
“Why?” Luke asked.
“Why what?” asked Mom.
“Why’d you bake?”
“We can bake,” she said.
“I know, but you never bake here.”
“The times they are a-changin’,” she sang.
Aunt Calla closed the oven. Both of them bustled around the kitchen making salad and ordering us to wash our hands and set the table. Then Shasta walked in, wearing a skintight white tank dress. We all stopped and stared. Especially me. I might’ve babbled a little. That was one serious dress.
“I was invited,” said Shasta.
“Of course you were,” said Mom.
“What about the two-week rule?” Luke asked.
“Special circumstances.”
“What’s going on?” asked Caleb.
“Shasta needs to be here, so she’s here.”
We looked at Shasta. She shrugged. “Aunt Marion told me I needed to have some pineapple upside-down cake.”
I didn’t know what to think. Mom broke the two-week rule, which as far as I knew had never been broken before. All in the name of Shasta needing cake. I’d told Mom I needed cake a million times. She always responded with a snort. The cake thing would’ve been weird enough if we’d been in town, but we weren’t. Mom and Aunt Calla never baked at Camp. They used the oven for bulky storage. At Camp, if it couldn’t be cooked on the grill, it couldn’t be cooked. Mom and Aunt Calla made casseroles, turnovers, and pies on the grill, but cakes were impossible. They baked unevenly and fell. All birthdays during the summer were celebrated with mountains of ice cream, puddings and possibly pies, but never a birthday cake. Mom said it would heat up the house, because, of course, we couldn’t have air-conditioning like normal people. So the oven sat unused in the corner of the kitchen waiting for an extraordinary event.
That night was an extraordinary event. I got to sit next to Shasta. She smelled fantastic and her dress hem got a lot shorter when she sat down. We gorged on cornbread, barbecued chicken, and heaps of salad, dripping with homemade Caesar dressing, while sweating in the oven’s heat. After we finished, Aunt Calla cut me the first slice of cake. I leaned over the plate with eyes closed, drawing the steam deep into my lungs and when I couldn’t take the anticipation any longer, I took a bite.
I closed my eyes and the cake slid down my throat with barely a swallow to help it along. Mom was watching me when I opened my eyes. She smiled, but she didn’t look exactly happy. Two lines formed between her eyes as she watched me. Her piece of cake lay untouched.
“Can I have your cake, Aunt Violet?” asked Luke, his fork poised to dart in her direction.
“If Puppy doesn’t want it,” she replied.
“Do you?” he asked.
“I’ll split it with you.”
I gobbled the rest of my cake to ensure Luke didn’t take advantage while I was busy. He watched me, licking his lips until Aunt Calla smacked him on the head.
“That’s enough, greedy,” Aunt Calla said.
Shasta laughed, sending peels of laughter around the room.
“There’s one more piece left,” said Luke.
“That’s for Shasta to take home,” said Mom.
“Why does Shasta get it?”
“Because she needs it. Now get to work.”
Everyone else stood up and began clearing the dishes. As I finished Mom’s cake, I caught her looking at me with a curious expression, somewhere between worried and proud. When I went to follow everyone out of the kitchen, she stopped me with a gentle hand. “So you ready to tell me yet?”
“Tell you what? I went for a walk,” I said.
“Really? You’ve been spending a lot of time in the woods.”
“Not so much.”
“Did you see something?” Mom leaned toward me, hope lighting in her eyes. “Is something out there?”
“You’d know if there was, wouldn’t you? You always know everything.”
“I know when something’s up with you,” she said, pulling me in for a hug.
“Nothing’s up. God.” I shook off her hand and left the kitchen.
Aunt Calla cranked up Mary Mary in the living room, and the girls started dancing. Shasta danced for a little while and then she had to go. She took her cake and went, taking all the shine out of the room. I never got to ask her why she needed cake.
Luke and Caleb set up the Scrabble board and roped me into a game. Usually, I kill at Scrabble, but I got creamed. Mom was throwing off my game. She kept watching me, and I went to bed at ten o’clock to avoid her questioning looks.
I lay there, listening to the laughter coming from the living room and wondering how Mom knew something was wrong, if she hadn’t seen anything. I pictured her coming out of the garden with the cats. She’d shushed them. Who shushes cats?
The hoots of laughter from the living room got louder, but despite it I heard a faint scratching on my door. I got up and opened it, finding the cats sitting side-by-side on the threshold, swishing their tails and looking at me with big eyes.
“Are you coming in or what?” I asked.
They answered by stalking in and jumping on my bed. I got under the covers. Sydney and Slick arranged themselves on my chest in tight, little knots and began purring so loud I couldn’t hear anything else. Thoughts of Shasta in that white dress soon replaced my wonderings and I fell asleep with a smile on my face.