Tamsin

I wish I remembered all of it. I still go around singing the bits I remember to myself, because sometimes the rest of a song will come back if you do that. Maybe if I could call back the whole song, Tamsin would come with it, the way she was then, shivering so brightly in the sunset. It’s not right to wish that, but I do.

When we were almost at the Manor, I said, keeping my voice as light as I could, “So many weird things ru

“Oakmen,” Tamsin interrupted. “Remember, Je

“Oakmen, right,” I said. “Oak groves and Oakmen. And the little whatevers I heard in the bathroom, and probably whatever Mister Cat was fighting with the other night. I don’t want to know anything about mean old ladies—I just want to know, are there a whole lot more? I mean, is this normal for England, or is it just Dorset?”

Tamsin laughed that spring-rain laugh of hers. “Alas, my poor Je

“Only in junior high school,” I said. “Never mind. Just introduce me as they come along.”

Julian ran out of the house, yelling, “Je

About then Julian caught sight of me, and started waving his arms and bellowing, “Je

After di

Evan made that swing with a nice high back, so it’s really easy to fall asleep in it. I dozed and woke a couple of times, and the second time I had a bad dream. I was still in the swing, in my dream, and it was still night, only now the Manor was really far away, practically on the horizon. There was someone walking toward me, slowly, his face half in shadow, half in moonlight. I tried to jump off and run, but the swing turned into the Pooka, and I was on his back and couldn’t get down. The Other One came right up to the Pooka amd mounted right behind me, wrapping his long arms around me. I screamed, and Sally said, “Shush, baby, it’s me, it’s just me. You were looking so adorable.”

She was in the swing next to me, with my head bumping on her shoulder. My skin was really cold, my mouth was dry, and my neck hurt. Sally said, “You looked so much the way you did when you were little, I just couldn’t help giving you a hug.”

I mumbled something and sat up, trying to straighten my hair. The moon was high, which always makes the night darker here, I don’t know why. Sally told me Meena had called, and I said I’d call her back tomorrow. We stayed in the swing for a time, not saying much, but Sally kept trying to cuddle me and look at me at the same time, and you can’t do that, not the way Sally looks at you. Finally I said, “What? Say it already, and let’s get some sleep. What’d I do?”

Sally got all indignant. “Nothing—you haven’t done anything—why are you so suspicious?” She went on like that a bit longer, and then, without missing a beat: “It’s just that you’ve become so—so solitary lately. Going off by yourself so much, not asking Julian or anyone to come with you. Julian’s feelings are really hurt, did you know that? And Meena—Meena’s been noticing it, too. She asked me about it when she was over the last time.”

I felt horrible. I said, “I’ll talk to her. I’ll do something with Julian, we’ll play croquet or something. It’s just that I’ve been sort of needing to be alone these days. To work a few things out.”

She didn’t immediately ask, “What things?”—Sally’s much cooler than that, and much trickier, too. She nodded, and didn’t say anything right away; but when I started to get up out of the swing she said, “Could I help? Is it something I could maybe—I don’t know… just tell me, Je

These days I have a pretty good idea why Evan fell in love with my mother. Norris, too, for that matter. Back then… back then, what the hell did I know about love and grown people? But I did have my moments, once in a great while, and that was one of them. I looked at her for a change, staring hard through the darkness, seeing the dead leaf in her hair and the motheaten collar of that gray cardigan she’ll never give up on, seeing that her eyes were as wide as Tamsin’s, and brighter in the moonlight. I flicked the leaf away, gave her a kiss on the cheek, took her hand, and we walked back to the house.

“I just love that swing tree,” she said. “I always feel it’s holding me in its arms, and I’m safe as long as I stay there.”

“It’s the last one of those old walnuts,” I told her. “There used to be a dozen. Roger Willoughby planted them when his first daughter was born.”

Sally opened her mouth, closed it again, and went inside. I stayed on the doorstep a moment longer, wondering if Tamsin might still be near. Even with the moon, and with lights in the Manor windows, I couldn’t see much past the barns, except for the bulk of an old sprayer Evan had told Wilf to get rid of a month ago. Just beyond it, two golden glints could have been a lot of things besides the Pooka’s eyes. Tamsin had told me I had friends in the night now, and I went up to bed telling myself that, over and over.