'Just teasing,' he added quickly, unconvincingly. His gaze skipped around the room. 'Something's missing,' he said. 'Ah! The old dragon.'
Trent immediately turned toward the fireplace mantel behind him.
'I guess she's in the kitchen chewing out Cook,' Brook added, pleased with his little joke, which apparently referred to Mrs. Hopewell.
'Where is the Chinese dragon?' Trent asked, still surveying the mantel.
'Robyn took it,' Emily replied, like a child happy to tattle. 'She claims your father promised it to her.'
'You are truly amazing, Robyn,' Trent said to his sister. 'One day I'm going to come home and find the main house stripped. But I'll know where to find everything-in your wing.'
'Not if I sell it first,' Robyn retorted. 'Besides, Daddy did say he would give it to me.'
Trent rose, lifted a small bronze from the mantel and carefully turned it in his hands, as if appraising it, then placed the figure in his open briefcase.
'Guess what? Dad promised this sculpture to me.'
Brook threw back his head and laughed. Emily got the same tight-lipped look as I had seen on Patrick's face. I had been right about her: She was intimidated enough by her husband's children not to insist that these things still belonged to Adrian.
'So Grandfather is on his last legs,' Brook said. 'That's hard to imagine.'
'I find your lack of respect appalling,' Emily said to Brook, apparently not cowed by a college student.
'Oh come now, Emily, why else would you have married an old man?' Robyn challenged her.
'It's called love, Robyn, but I doubt that word is in your vocabulary.'
'You are wrong! I have loved him all my life,' Robyn replied, with such intensity that her voice sounded strange. I have loved him, lived with him, and taken care of him longer than you have.'
'The prognosis is less than a year,' Trent told Brook.
Joseph was right, I thought. Adrian was dying and the vultures were gathering, each one afraid that the next person would get a larger slice of the inheritance. What a lovely group for a child to grow up around!
'I'm taking Patrick outside,' I said.
He bolted for the door, and I followed.
'Play clothes,' his mother called after us. 'Put on his play clothes, Kate.'
I didn't know a little boy could peel and dress so quickly. He ended up with his mittens on the wrong hands, which we fixed when we got outside. We walked silently for a few moments. I let him lead the way and guessed that we were going to the pond.
'What does it mean, 'on his last legs'?' Patrick asked me when we were a distance from the house.
I hesitated, then lied. 'I'm not sure. It must be an American expression. Sometime when you and your mother are alone, ask her.'
We walked beyond the formal gardens and through a bare orchard that ended at paddocks and a horse barn. As a child I had thought I was luckier than Ashley because my parents and I lived in one of the employee cottages, which was near the horse bam and, better yet, an empty cow barn with lofts and ladders, where Ashley and I had liked to play. Between the horse and cow barns was Ashley's favorite place, the pond.
Surrounded by a thick ring of trees, mostly cedar and pine, it was reached by a narrow path. Round, about half the size of a soccer field, the pond looked as it had twelve years before, but the collar of vegetation had tightened around it, the circle of evergreens growing inward, encroaching on its edge, casting long shadows on its half-frozen surface. Dying things and living things mixed together here. A rush of feelings came back to me with the distinctive smell-a smell that was both fresh green and thick with decay. Alone with Ashley, knowing no one could see us, I had found the pond a frightening place. Ashley could think of a hundred forbidden things to do.
'Want to play hockey?' Patrick asked.
'Here?' After what had happened to Ashley, surely someone had taught him 'We can pretend we're on skates and use branches for hockey sticks.'
'Patrick, the ice is too soft! When it's dark and slushy, you can't skate. It will never hold your weight.'
'Yes, it will.'
'Sorry, but-' 'Ashley said so.'
The breath caught in my throat. 'What did you say?'
'Ashley told me it's okay.'
I felt a finger of ice along my spine. 'Well, she's wrong.' I crouched next to Patrick. 'Are you listening? She's dead wrong.'
I looked out at the thin ice, at the hole in it, a circle of black water lying off-center in the pond. There is a scientific reason that area doesn't freeze well, I told myself. Perhaps the pond's spring was located beneath it, or the temperature was warmer because of the amount of sun it received. Though even now, it wasn't hard to believe Ashley's explanation. I had seen the brown and black water snakes basking On the shore and could easily imagine other creatures with serpentine limbs, which Ashley had said hid beneath the pond's dark surface, waiting to pull us under.
I turned to Patrick, who was gazing toward the watery circle. I guess Ashley is your imaginary friend,' I said.
He nodded. 'Only she's not imaginary.'
'Oh? What does she look like?'
'She has brown hair. It's very pretty, brown and curly. She wears a pink coat. She always wants to wear her purple shoes.'
Another chill went through me. Ashley had loved her purple sneakers and would wear a pink snowsuit. But most little girls love pink and purple, I reminded myself, and a lot of people have brown curly hair. And though I had seen no pictures of her displayed in the house, it was very possible someone had shown him one.
I debated whether to tell him that I had played with a little girl named Ashley, then decided against it. It was a big leap to think he was talking about the child I had known. My job would be simpler if I didn't admit to him that I had once lived here.
'Where is Ashley's home?' I asked.
'I don't know. She's here a lot.'
'Here-where?'
'The pond,' he said, his voice betraying exasperation.
'I don't see her.'
He thought a moment. 'Maybe she is hiding from you.
I scanned the trees uneasily, then once again turned my eyes to the dark water where Ashley had drowned. I remembered the day she had died, how she, my mother, Joseph, and I had been looking everywhere for her favorite rabbit. Thanks to Ashley's carelessness and Brook's deliberate efforts, many of her pets escaped, not only their cages but the house. Searching outside, Ashley and I kept calling to one another, then after a while, no one heard her voice. The adults found the ice broken through and dragged the pond to recover Ashley's body. When they drained the water, they found her rabbit and reasoned that she had chased her pet onto the ice and had fallen through.
'You see her!' Patrick exclaimed. He had been watching my face.
'No. No, I don't.'
He looked disappointed. 'Maybe next time.'
'Patrick, I don't understand,' I said. 'Is Ashley a ghost?'
He was silent for a moment. His frown told me he was seriously thinking about the question. 'Can ghosts be alive?' he asked at last.
'They were alive once.'
He shook his head. 'Ashley's alive now.'
This was getting too creepy for me. 'Why don't you show me some other places?' I suggested. 'Do you have swings?'
'And monkey bars,' he said. 'The best ones are by the cottages.'
