The Probable Future

Just thinking about the adulation to come thrilled Will. He liked to be the center of things, even back then. He smiled at Jenny as they sneaked in the front door, and his smile was a gorgeous thing to behold. Jenny blinked, surprised by his attentions, but then she smiled back. This was not an unexpected response. Will had already learned that girls responded when he seemed to be attracted to them, so he tightened his hold on Jenny’s hand, just the slightest bit of pressure, enough to assure her of her appeal. Most girls liked anything that passed for charm; they seemed to appreciate his interest, whether or not it was real.

Do you have anything that belonged to Rebecca? Will asked once they were headed down the hall, for that was what everyone wanted to see: something, anything, that had once belonged to the witch from the north.

Jenny nodded, even though she felt as though her heart might burst. If Will had asked her to burn down the house at that moment, she might have agreed. If he’d asked for a kiss, she most definitely would have said yes. This must be love, she thought standing there. It can’t be anything else. She could not believe Will Avery was actually beside her. She, who was all but friendless, more alone than Liza Hull, the plainest girl at school, now had Will all to herself. She wasn’t about to say no to him. She brought him into the parlor, even though she’d been instructed never to allow anyone there. Guests were not invited to Cake House, not even on holidays or birthdays. And should some delivery man or door-to-door salesman manage to get inside, he would certainly never be brought into the parlor, with its threadbare rugs and the old velvet couches no one sat upon anymore, so that their pillows spit up dust, whenever they were fluffed. Even the paperboy threw the Unity Tribune from the foot of the driveway and was always paid by check, via the mail, so that Elinor didn’t have to see him. Occasionally, the plumber, Eddie Baldwin, was allowed into the house, but he was always asked to remove his muddy boots and Elinor made certain to stand over him as he plunged frogs out of the toilet or unclogged water weeds and tea leaves from the kitchen sink.

Most importantly, no outsider was ever to be shown anything that had belonged to Rebecca Sparrow. Those busybodies over at the library, who were always begging for a trinket or a scrap of cloth for their history of Unity displays, were never allowed past the front door. But of course this day was different from all the rest, and this visitor was different as well. Had Jenny been hypnotized by Will Avery’s dream? Is that what convinced her to bring him over to the far corner of the parlor where the relics were kept? Was it love that caused her to reveal her family’s most treasured possessions, or was it only spring fever, all that filmy green light so thick with pollen, those peepers in the muddy shallows of the lake with their dreamy chorus, calling as if the world were beginning and ending at the very same time.

Along with everyone else in town, Will Avery wanted to see exactly what Jenny herself had always done her best to ignore, what she’d branded the Sparrows’ own private and personal museum of pain. What family was foolish enough to keep the things that had hurt them most of all? The Sparrows, that was who, although Elinor and Jenny did their best to ignore that pain. The corner where the display was kept was dusty and neglected. There were oak bookshelves lining the wall, but the leather-bound books had been un-tended for decades, the seashells that had once been pink had turned gray with age, the hand-carved models of bees and wasps had been attacked by carpenter ants, so that the wood fell to sawdust when touched. Only the glass case had been protected, kept well out of harm’s way.

Jenny snatched off the embroidered coverlet, meant to safeguard the family heirlooms from sunlight and ruin. When he saw what was before him, Will gulped down a mouthful of air, for once in his life at a loss for words. What he’d always assumed was nothing more than rumor was indeed quite real. Now he’d have a story to tell. He started to grin right then, right there. Now they’d all be gathering around him on Monday, and if they didn’t believe what he told them about Rebecca Sparrow, at least he himself would know it was true.

He leaned forward, affected in some way he didn’t understand, almost as if he’d had a heart. There in the glass case before him were the ten arrowheads people talked about, handed down through the generations, preserved under glass, much the way another family might document their history with photographs or newspaper announcements of weddings and births. Against a field of satin, fading from red to pink, but carefully arranged, were three more pieces of the Sparrow archives: a silver compass, a tarnished bell, and what Will thought at first was a coiled snake, but which was, in point of fact, a plait of dark, braided hair.