Journey to Ninas Twei Book One of The Earth Woman Tree Woman Quartet Read online

  Chapter 1

  Full Ripe Corn Moon

  (Three moons earlier in the city of Bayomar

  on the west coast of the country called Uhs...)

  Thump!

  Giselle looked up from gathering her things to see a small blue-gray cat peering at her from the hood of the car. “Where…” She pushed her dark hair back from her face. The cat sat on its haunches, intense green eyes staring at her.

  He wasn’t very old – not a baby, but not full grown either – and he had the same kind of impertinent stare as some of the teenagers she’d volunteered with a few years ago when she was in college.

  He leaned down and licked a shoulder.

  No collar. Was he abandoned? He was too in your face to be feral.

  She gathered her things and opened the door quietly, trying not to startle the cat as she scrunched her legs out of the car seat, her arms full, her chambray skirt twisting under her making it hard to stand.

  One of her sandals fell off. She rolled her eyes as she poked her bare toes back into the sandal (while trying to avoid stepping in an oil streak), stood up, and shook out her skirt. Her nose wrinkled as she took in the reek of accumulated exhaust fumes.

  The cat was unfazed, moving to the edge of the hood and giving a demanding, “Meow!”

  She turned in a circle searching the dark, dank garage for her sister’s car. Monica wasn’t home yet, but her husband’s car was here so he’d already be up in their apartment. They owned the old building and lived on the top floor.

  The cat jumped down next to her and flicked his tail.

  She walked towards the garage entrance.

  He stepped along beside her.

  Once outside she took a deep breath of the cleaner air. Southwest winds. No fumes from the refineries today.

  As they passed the garbage bin, the cat stopped to sniff the belongings of the old woman who lived in the little cave created between the bin and the garage. The woman’d been evicted from the public housing apartment she’d lived in for thirty years when the building was sold to a private corporation.

  The cat looked up and gave a small “mew.”

  Giselle nodded, and continued up the steps to the front door, the cat marching at her side.

  A newspaper lay on the top step waiting for some other tenant to pick it up. The cat stopped and looked at the newspaper, then up at her. “Ten Story Garment Factory in Kanidu Collapses Killing Hundreds,” screamed the headline. Giselle sighed. Last week the explosion of the refinery in Port Blas had destroyed everything for blocks around it. A list of other major industrial “accidents” passed through her thoughts, and she shook her head. The cat flicked his tail.

  She opened the door, and head and tail high, the cat stepped past her into the lobby – the visiting dignitary. Giselle rolled her eyes, laughing. She would have to take him to a vet and see if he had been chipped.

  Her apartment was on the first floor and she could already hear her dogs whimpering, anticipating her arrival home. The cat marched up to the apartment door and sat while she fumbled with her keys.

  Maybe she should pick him up. She put her things down on the floor and reached for him. He side-stepped away and meowed loudly.

  The dogs abruptly stopped their whimpering, listening. She opened the door a crack. The cat stuck its nose in and pushed it wider, strolling in past the two sitting, tail thumping dogs, and the potted ferns that lined the entranceway. Giselle shook her head, grinning.

  The dogs followed the cat as he surveyed the apartment, sticking his nose into the ferns, batting the strands of spider plant that swept downward from hanging pots in the windows, peeking into the bedroom and kitchen, and finally settling in for a wash on the old trunk Giselle used as a coffee table. Giselle dumped her things on the round osk table in the dining alcove, kicked off her sandals, and settled too, sitting on the couch with her feet up on the trunk, next to the cat.

  It wasn’t long before Monica knocked twice, and then, before Giselle could respond, used her key to walk into Giselle’s apartment. She was a trim, carefully dressed woman in her late twenties with the same straight dark hair as Giselle cut short in a no-nonsense style.

  When she saw the cat sitting on the trunk giving himself a bath, she freaked. “You can’t keep that cat, Giselle. Take it to the pound.” She waved her arms in the air. “You don’t have to give a free ride to every stray animal that comes along.” She paused waiting for a response from Giselle who just shrugged. “Take it to the pound,” she repeated. “You can’t keep it. I’m your landlord. I forbid it.”

  Giselle didn’t answer. It always seemed easier just to let her sister rave than to try to argue. The words, ‘you’re not the boss of me,’ popped into her head, just as they had when as children, after their mother died, Monica really was the boss. She smiled, thinking the childish phrase again. You’re not. You’re not the boss of me.

  “What are you laughing at?” Monica’s voice hit a higher pitch. “It’s not a laughing matter. What will Tony think if you keep living like this? You act like you’re living on a farm instead of in an apartment in a city! You can hardly walk in here with all these stupid plants.”

  Giselle shook her head. Tony was a teacher friend of theirs, but she wasn’t interested in him and Monica knew it. It was Monica who had plans for Tony, not Giselle.

  Then she remembered the newspaper.

  “Monica.” She sat up and looked at her sister, the smile gone. “Did you see another garment factory collapsed in Kanidu?”

  “Oh, for heavens sake, Giselle. You get too emotionally involved in these things. It’s a million miles away from here and there’s nothing you can do about it.” She pointed at the cat. “That cat is here. You need to do something about the cat instead of worrying about people on the other side of the world.”

  Giselle sat back again, folding her arms across her chest, and staring up at the ceiling. “Well, maybe you need to think about whose clothes they’re making.”

  Monica had the grace to look a little ashamed. “I try to buy fair trade clothes. It’s just hard to find them.” She looked away and muttered. “I don’t like shopping at Goodwill.”

  Giselle smoothed down her skirt, took a deep breath and sat up, “Monica, I have to finish my summer school report cards. Rod’s home. I saw his car. Don’t you have report cards to finish, too?”

  Monica threw her arms up in the air, yelling, “Get rid of that cat,” as she left, slamming the door and heading upstairs to her lawyer husband.

  Giselle leaned back on the couch again and looked at the little gray cat perched on the trunk in front of her. He flicked his tail, then curved it gently around a small wooden statue that sat in the place of honor on the trunk – a little Chinese carving of a woman who seemed to be emerging from a tree, with one foot stepping out into the world. It was one of the few possessions Giselle’s great-grandmother had brought with her from China when she came to this country as a very young GI bride. Giselle didn’t know anything about her, but she loved the little wooden woman.

  Monica hated it.

  Why? thought Giselle, for the hundredth time. Why does she hate it?.

  She took the statue in her hands. The wood was so warm and smooth, her face so serene and calming, and there was something so promising about the foot stepping out. I’d like to know more about her. She smiled at the cat whose tail flicked slowly back and forth, back and forth...

  The plants became a smoky green aura pushing everything else into the background and she closed her eyes listening sleepily to the swish and thump of the dog tails. A fragment of a melody slipped through her thoughts and then a deep voice whispered in her head…

  Breath.

  Not a thought. A voice!

  Whispering breath.

  Her eyes popped open. “Where did that come from?” The cat licked a paw and then turned his head to look at her.

  She closed her eyes again. This time the voice was singing to the same fragment of melody.

&nb
sp; Breath, murmuring in the wind-whipped grasses.

  She peered at the cat. “Is that coming from me or from you?

  He just flicked his tail, back and forth, back and forth…

  Listen. Listen,

  Whispering breath in the wind-whipped grasses,

  Breath flowing in the waves of the sea…

  She smiled. What is this song? I can’t remember…

  Listen. Listen,

  Breath, singing through the voice of the wind.

  Then, spoken, not sung and with more urgency…Time. The time is here. Leave.

  Time for what? she thought.

  Time to leave.

  She sat up straight and stared at the cat, who suddenly showed great interest in a paper clip, batting it with a paw.

  Giselle sat back again. Leave? she thought. Leave and go where?

  North, whispered the voice.

  “North,” Giselle exclaimed out loud. She laughed and shook her head. “This is idiocy.” She hopped up. “I have to finish my report cards.” Two more days and summer school would be over, then a month off before jumping back into the frenetic activity of the school year. She looked at the cat.

  Leave? Go North? “Like that would be possible,” she muttered as she turned toward the dining room table and the summer school grades…

  But she did have a month off. Maybe she should take a vacation – by herself. Yes. A vacation without big sister hanging over her all the time! And she could go north, too. She could head north along the coast...

  It was a ridiculous idea. She pulled her papers out of the basket and set to work.

  That Friday evening, after the last day of summer school, the seventeen teachers at Rockland School and their spouses had a gathering at a seafood restaurant across the city next to the bay. The district summer classes had been consolidated at Rockland, the inner city school where Giselle taught – the first time Giselle and Monica had taught at the same site.

  The dining room was a cozy dark place with a fire in a large fireplace on one side of the room to fight off the chill of the summer fog, a strange comfortable contrast to the serious talk of the destruction of good education by charter schools and the use of rote learning to pass multiple choice tests.

  Giselle sat and listened. They all seemed to agree about the problem of corporate owned charter schools and the teaching of rote answers to the tests, but when one teacher expressed distress at the disappearance of art and music in the schools, Giselle was amazed that some of the others disparaged their importance. One even suggested that artists and musicians were purveyors of drugs. From there the group moved into a strident discussion about the War on Drugs.

  She sat forward in her seat. It was time to get involved.

  “But…,” she said several times trying to get a word in edgewise. Each time someone spoke right over top of her voice as if she didn’t exist.

  Annoyed, she raised her voice. “The War on Drugs isn’t really about drugs. It’s about racism. It started as a counter to the Civil Rights movement. It’s really all about throwing people in jail – people of color. Just like the charter schools, it brings in big money by privatizing the prisons. Actually lots more money than charter schools. One Earth Together says…,” but before she could finish, Monica interrupted, “Don’t be silly, Giselle. Everyone knows One Earth Together is full of conspiracy theories.” They all turned away from her, and the conversation went on without her.

  Her principal, Samuel, an older African American who was sitting next to her, patted her hand, but said nothing.

  When she finished eating, Giselle left the table and moved over to a footstool next to the fire. One Earth Together was a wonderful organization pulling together the concerns of many different organizations interested in social change. Their e-newsletter was one of the best sources of accurate information around and Monica knew it.

  Monica often said things like that when they were in public – things that made her feel like a little kid, and then everyone else acted like she was a child. Monica’d done it all her life, or at least ever since their mother died. She couldn’t remember what Monica had been like before that.

  She felt a familiar lump in her chest. It seemed funny that it never got easier. And then dad made it worse, saying over and over again that Monica had to take care of me, that I was like our mother – ‘imaginative’, ‘flighty’, ‘unable to cope with life’. It’s not true, she thought. It wasn’t true about Mom, either. Imaginative, yes. But there’s nothing wrong with being imaginative…

  She felt herself sinking into a dark red tunnel inside herself. The people around her – even her fellow teachers and her sister – seemed like robots, all movement on the outside and no thought on the inside, like she was the only one alive…

  Listen, the words sang through the red fog. Listen,

  Breath, warmed by the life-giving sun,

  That song again! What is it? Under the logs of the fire she watched a forest alive with dark crevices, bright grottoes, and wiggling creatures made of newspaper ash. A forest, inviting her to... she didn't know what. I’ll just get up and walk out the door, and leave them all behind. Maybe I’ll go ‘north’.

  She grinned, laughing at her childish drama. I could stamp my foot and yell, too.

  Suddenly Monica was leaning over her hissing, “What are you doing over here humming to yourself? We’ve been calling you.”

  “I didn’t hear you.”

  “That’s because you were being weird again. Get up. We’re leaving.”

  Giselle rolled her eyes, but dutifully got up. By the time she’d gathered her things and made her way out the door, most of the others were half way down the block to their cars.

  Samuel and his wife stood a little way down the sidewalk waiting for her.

  As she turned to follow them a haunting voice – a beautiful, rich chanting voice – came from somewhere behind her. She turned around, searching the dark, nearly deserted sidewalk for the singer.

  In a pool of light on the next corner she saw a shadowy figure.

  She moved closer, listening, mesmerized by the minor soaring tones. Not English. Maybe not even words.

  A tall black woman dressed in swirling colorful skirts and shawls stood looking out toward the sea, her arms reaching to the sky, her head thrown back as she sang.

  As Giselle moved quietly toward the corner, the woman turned and looked directly at her. The woman was beautiful, with flowing dreadlocks and eyes almost too large for her mahogany face.

  You will become, she sang, her voice rich and deep.

  Like the moon and the stars and the sun,

  You will become.

  You will emerge,

  Step out in the world.

  You will go.

  You will learn.

  You will return.

  Click here to listen to song

  She nodded her head at Giselle, then, lifting her head to the stars, spun away and returned to her chant.

  Monica grabbed Giselle’s arm. “What’s wrong with you, Giselle? Come on.”

  Giselle shook Monica’s hand away and reluctantly followed. Samuel and his wife stepped in beside her and Samuel asked, “What did she say to you?”

  Giselle just shook her head. “I don’t know. Her voice was so beautiful.”

  They nodded and said goodbye as they crossed the street to their car.

  Giselle stepped quickly after Monica, smiling a quick “good evening” to a homeless man sitting on the curb as she passed him. Monica, waiting impatiently, rolled her eyes.

  Giselle spent Saturday trying to bring order to the chaos in her apartment after the daily rush of summer school. At the top of her closet she saw the little bit of camping equipment she had bought for a trip with Rod and Monica the summer before – a sleeping bag, a small, one person tent, a little solar stove.

  Maybe she could go camping.

  The cat sat on up on her bed and looked at her. “Monica thinks I’m weird,” she told the cat. “You kn
ow what I don’t understand? I don’t understand why Monica and the others weren’t entranced by that woman’s singing.” She stood still for a moment thinking of the haunting, wild notes of the woman’s song. “And what did she mean, ‘I would become, I would emerge… I would go, but I would return?’ What did she mean?” She looked back at the cat, who blinked at her. “You know, if anyone around here is weird, it’s you.”

  She pulled the camping equipment down and stacked it on the bed. “No chip, no collar. Where did you come from? What do you want?” In her head she heard, not the woman’s chant, but that earlier little haunting melody.

  Breath, flowing in the waves of the sea….

  So familiar, she thought.

  Saturday night folk dancing at the little local park had always felt like a kind of ritual to Giselle – a communion – although she’d certainly never said anything about that to Monica, who couldn’t understand why Giselle would want to folk dance at all. Monica’s big fear was that Giselle would hook up with one of those strange folk-dancing men.

  This Saturday night the dancing seemed more than just that feeling of fullness and connection. It was more intense, as if she was entering into a ritual for some kind of new beginning. They were dancing one of her favorite dances while the setting sun spread silky pastels over their heads. The people who lived in the park sat at the edges watching, their grocery carts, filled with their belongings, behind them. Sometimes they joined the dancers.

  The dance was a slow, rhythmic circling, each dancer moving with the same steps, but not touching, separate from each other, followed by a unison clapping. Tonight every one clapped together. No one missed a beat. They joined hands briefly, thrusting their hands up and stepping together into the center.

  Something electric ran around the circle.

  Letting go, they lifted their arms again in a burst to the sky that threw them back to the beginning.

  There was a high pitched cry above them and Giselle looked up. A red-tailed hawk circled overhead as if he were a part of the dance, spiraling downward as the dancers circled again, moving as one, but not touching until the unison clap like a drum beat that called them together, joining them as they reached upwards to the fiery sky and the hawk.

  Again the song whispered:

  Breath, singing through the voice of the wind,

  Dance with me. Dance with me…

  The dance moved on, leaving Giselle rooted in the middle, her eyes on the hawk gliding above her. He swooped down close enough for her to see his eyes peering into her own.

  Go north, she heard, and the whisper was like thunder in her heart. Light headed, she crouched, touching the earth. Her fingers tingled and she felt something flowing, filling her. Her own voice drummed thunder in her head: Go north, it shouted. Go north.

  “I will,” she cried, leaping back into the dance.

  When she got home she loaded the camping equipment into the trunk of the car, along with all the dog and cat food in the apartment, a cardboard box full of nonperishable food, and a duffle bag full of clothes and toiletries. She wrote a note to put in Monica’s mailbox just before she left:

  Monica,

  I’m going camping. I’ve got the dogs and the cat, and I haven’t left any perishables in the refrigerator. I gave the plants a good watering so they should be fine for a week or so, so you don’t have to worry about anything. I have my cell phone. If there are any emergencies just leave me a message.

  Love,

  Giselle

  Sleep didn’t come easily. She was both excited and terrified about going off somewhere on her own. Monica would be really angry. But I don’t care, she thought. Time to grow up!

  In the morning she slipped out of the apartment building into that quiet that always marked an early Sunday morning in the city. As she walked past the garbage bin, she saw the old woman tucked into the little space between the bin and the wall of the garage, fast asleep. She smiled and slipped ten dollars under the edge of the quilt Monica had given the old lady in December. Monica was not all bad. She let the woman stay, and she gave her money and food. No, Monica wasn’t bad – just too controlling.

  She laughed. Monica was a helicopter sister!

  Heading north on the freeway, past the columns of gray smoke hovering over the bleak neighborhoods surrounding the oil refineries and the stark square buildings of the maximum security prison surrounded by fencing topped with spirals of razor wire, she finally reached the exit for the coastal highway. She breathed a sigh of relief at leaving the freeway and began to relax.

  The coast road was beautiful, but dangerous if taken at too high a speed. Giselle loved slowing down, then accelerating slightly into the curves, feeling the tires grip the road. It felt like she was an extension of the car, like she could feel the road through the steering wheel, through “the seat of her pants” like a very slow race car driver. The cat rode behind Giselle’s neck between the top of the seat and the headrest, purring, the vibrations massaging her shoulders. She felt she was breathing in the coastal cliffs, the beaches, the occasional small towns with tiny harbors full of fishing boats, and breathing out all the distresses of the school year, of her life, of her problems with Monica. And maybe of the world, she thought. This frightening world we’re living in. She shook her head. Hard to escape the world.

  Monica did call her cell as soon as she found the note, but Giselle didn’t answer. Let her leave messages. I’ll call her back later. After all, I’m not supposed to talk on the phone while driving, she grinned.

  She stopped often, exploring the beaches and hiking trails along the way, and loving every moment, except when occasionally she saw a sign:

  No entrance.

  Beach eroded.

  Once someone had added, “Rising seas – climate change!” in red spray paint.

  The first two times she stopped, she saw a hawk circling above her – a red-tailed hawk like the one she’d seen while folk dancing. When she saw another hawk the third time she stopped, she wondered…

  Once, as the hawk flew down closer, she looked at the little cat and saw he was watching it, too, and then the melody came whispering into her head:

  Breath, flowing in the waves of the sea,

  Dance with me…

  She smiled. Yes, let’s dance! But still, she wondered…

  In the early evening she pulled into a state beachside park, setting up her little tent in one of the numbered campsites. She called Monica back, but was vague about where she was and got off the phone quickly, after reassuring Monica that she was just fine, and yes, she was alone, not with some strange man. But if I was with some man Monica didn’t know, it would be my own business, she thought as she tucked the phone away. A strident “Kee-eeeee-arr” pierced the air. Another red tailed hawk soared above her head, circled and flew away – north.

  The next two days followed the same pattern. The mornings were chill and a good time to explore the park trails with the dogs – some winding between tall coastal redwoods, others crossing open grassy meadows – before setting off again up the coast. The cat always ran alongside the dogs for a bit before demanding to be carried balanced precariously on Giselle’s shoulder. They were on the road again by ten or eleven in the morning.

  Once they were caught in stop-and-go traffic passing an ugly logging camp – a muddy mess of wide redwood stumps and huge logging trucks pulling out into the road. She felt an ache in her chest. A deep vibration wailing through her body. “The trees crying”, she whispered to the animals.

  But most of the trip was lovely. She did note how low the water was in the rivers they crossed, deep cracked mud showing between the high water line and the slow muddy flow, and the meadow grasses were all yellow, but they always were in the summer. They stopped and explored several times each day and each time they stopped, a hawk circled and called above them, and the elusive melody whispered in her head.

  Last Quarter, Ripe Corn Moon

  On the third day the road moved inland a little, me
andering through a forested area and past some small steep hills separating the road from the ocean. About noon she came around the curve of a hill to see a meadow that swept down toward the sea. She pulled over to a wide spot on the verge on the left side of the road, and sat with her window open gazing at the water while she ate crackers and cheese. She smiled as she noticed a hawk circling over the meadow. She turned to the dogs, “There’s our hawk.”

  Suddenly the cat hopped from where he had been lying behind her neck to the edge of the window and then out into the meadow. Giselle dropped her crackers and jumped out of the car to rush after him. The dogs leapt out the open door after her and they pushed through the tough yellow grasses afraid they’d never find him again as he led them on a stumbling run down toward the sea. He swerved to the left around the ocean side of the wooded hill they’d just driven past and straight to a little gray weathered house, hidden from the road by the hill. Jumping up on the porch, he turned and sat looking at her, giving his fur a little lick.

  Giselle stopped and leaned over, hands on knees, panting while the dogs danced around the house in delight. The cat scrubbed a paw. Walking slowly up to the house, she scooped him up and nervously backed away afraid someone might come out the door and demand to know what she was doing there.

  She turned.

  Directly in front of her next to a driveway that swerved north through the meadow and then curved toward the road, was a sign on a wooden post:

  For Sale or Rent

  She turned back to look at the little house. It was sturdy and pretty with a porch running around at least two sides so that it sheltered the front door and the side of the house facing the ocean. Climbing up on the porch, she peeked in the windows at the neat little front room. On the ocean side a bank of windows looked in on a long bright kitchen with a stove and refrigerator, lots of counters and cupboards. The porch continued around to the back where a door, with a small swinging flap for pets at its base, led out of the kitchen and down some steps.

  Spinning in a circle looking at the land and sea around her, she breathed deeply. The air smelled so clean.

  The meadow continued on the other side of the driveway down to a cliff overhanging a small beach. To the south, it narrowed as the hill moved out toward the sea. Here, just a little south and west of the house, was a huge coastal live oak tree spreading its gnarled branches wide and tall over the grasses.

  There was a presence about it – something emanating, something reaching…

  Waves of things of forms I am, it murmured.

  Her eyes widened. Turning quickly away from the tree, she walked to the edge of the meadow to look down at the little beach and the sea.

  The tree’s presence behind her felt like something warm on her back. Not a bad feeling. Just scary, like when you meet someone you know is going to be important to you. I feel, she thought… I feel… This tree… She looked back at it.

  Waves of things of forms I am,

  Exist in dreams within me….

  She looked down at the cat. He wiggled out of her arms, jumping to the ground, and then turned to wind between her legs. Shaking her head she turned back to the house, keeping the tree a shadow in her peripheral vision.

  Waves of things…, it whispered.

  The dogs ran delighted circles around them, darting at intervals out into the meadow.

  Of forms I am…

  She shook her head again as if to shake the song out of her thoughts and took a deep breath. The cat stood a moment on his hind feet leaning his front paws against her leg and she reached down to pet him.

  “Could I rent this house? Could I stay here?” Monica’d be upset if I moved away from her, but it’d be a good thing for both of us. The thought wasn’t a new one. “I do love Monica,” she whispered. “I do, but…”

  She’d have to have a job. She had some money she could use for a deposit, but she’d have to have a job.

  She moved slowly back toward the house, thinking. The smaller print on the For Rent sign read:

  Country Acres Real Estate

  1322 Main Street, Arundel

  She scooped up the cat, called the dogs and walked up the driveway to the road and then turned toward the car. “Jee-sus,” she muttered, “I left the car door open, the keys in the car.” She got in and checked her GPS. Putting the car in gear, she drove silently just a little farther north.

  The road turned inland and crossed a river before heading into the small coastal farming community of Arundel. The highway took her through the middle of town past a row of stores, the real estate office, an older gas station, and a little farther along, a small elementary school. She turned around and headed back to the school, pulling into a parking place under some trees shadowing the parking lot. There was one other car in the lot.

  She wasn’t exactly dressed in job interview clothes, but she was clean. This will be the test. If there’s a job, then I’ll move. If not… then this is just a silly fantasy. Rolling the windows down so they could get out if they wanted, she told the animals to stay near the car.

  The school was built along the same model as so many rural schools – two long buildings of back to back classrooms with doors to each room coming directly off the sidewalk, joined by a slightly taller building Giselle assumed was the “multipurpose room” – the cafeteria, gym, assembly room all in one. At the end of the first building was a door marked “Office”. The door was unlocked.

  No one was sitting at the two desks behind the long high counter, but a door behind them was open. A friendly middle-aged woman with short gray hair, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, came through the door to ask Giselle if she could be of help.

  Giselle smiled. “I’m Giselle Raphael. I’m an elementary teacher from Bayomar, but I’d like to move up here. I wondered if you had any job openings.”

  The woman leaned on the counter and looked searchingly at Giselle. “I might,” she said. “One of my fourth grade teachers just informed me yesterday that she met someone on vacation and is moving away.”

  She came around the counter reaching out a hand. “I’m Nicki Nichols. I’m the principal. Come into my office and let’s talk.”

  “Uh… I’d like, too, but I have dogs and a cat out by my car. I can’t leave them for very long.”

  The principal grinned. “Well, let’s talk outside at the picnic tables. You’ll have to tell me how you came to be job searching with dogs and a cat – a cat? – in your car.” She held the door for Giselle and pointed out the tables near the cafeteria. Giselle got the animals and joined her.

  Nicki petted the wiggling dogs and the gray cat. “A cat?” she repeated, laughing.

  “The cat just came… I mean, he stays pretty close.” Giselle stumbled a little over her words. “This is a sudden decision. I mean applying for this job, but I think it’s a good one.” She looked hopefully at Ms. Nichols. “I was traveling up the coast camping. I saw this house for rent just outside of town and I really wanted to live there.” She took a deep breath. “I love teaching. I don’t want to stop. I just want to be here.”

  Giselle listed her educational background and gave her Samuel’s name and phone number. Ms. Nichols told her about the community. “The school serves Arundel and the outlying farms with two classrooms at each grade level. The older children travel to Robertsville for middle school and high school. Arundel’s a nice little town with a few stores and in Robertsville there’s a shopping mall with all the modern conveniences.” She leaned back and smiled. “Are you interested?”

  Giselle nodded. She wouldn’t have to stay here forever if it didn’t work out. Besides it just felt like… The cat jumped into her lap and looked up at her.

  “See,” laughed Ms. Nichols, “the cat wants you to take the job!”

  More than you know, thought Giselle. “Yes, I want to apply.”

  They returned to the office and Giselle filled out the forms and made arrangements for transcripts and her credential to be sent. Ms. Nichols would call Samuel for a re
commendation.

  The principal walked her to the office door. “We should know the answer in a day or two, since I’ve already interviewed you.” She gave Giselle a searching look. “It’s very odd you showing up like this just when we need you…

  “But good,” she smiled. “It’s good.”

  Giselle laughed and shrugged.

  As she headed back into town she shook her head. “It was like the job was just waiting,” she told the dogs.

  The real estate office was located in a little white house next to the row of stores. The owner, Mr. Humphries, was a jovial older man. “I’d be delighted to show you the Bidewell house,” he exclaimed when she told him what she wanted. “It’s a wonderful little house, lovely views. Comes with a little land – a little meadow and beach. Very nice.” He handed her a sheet of paper with a picture of the house, a description of its physical qualifications, and the very reasonable rent and sale price.

  “The rent seems pretty low,” Giselle pointed out. “Is there something wrong with the house?”

  “Oh, no, nothing wrong,” he reassured her. “It’s just been on the market a long time. It’s a little isolated for most folks. The old folks kept it up very nicely. The wife – the husband passed – the wife pays someone to come in every so often to clean and check things out. And you don’t have to worry about the rising seas,” he added. “The cliff is high and the house is set pretty far back from the edge if the cliff does erode.” Giselle hadn’t thought about rising seas. A little shiver went down her spine and she sighed.

  “If we were a little farther south,” Mr. Humphries went on. “You know, closer to the city – it would have sold in a snap.”

  “What about local people?”

  “Oh, well, they mostly have their own places, and...,” he hesitated.

  “What?” asked Giselle. “And what?”

  He laughed. “Well, local people don't want to live there because of the rumors about some of the hilltops over there.” He shrugged. “People have a funny thing about the hills – the forest and the hills. Ghosts or something. They never define it, just hint at it. Things whispering in the redwood trees, or something. It’s ridiculous of course. No one has ever said anything about the house, though. No ghosts in the house.”

  Or singing, thought Giselle.

  The house was delightful. She’d have to wait to hear about the job, but she really wanted to live here. She glanced out the kitchen window at the oak tree.

  Waves of things, it whispered.

  Humphries smiled with delight. “I’ll be glad to rent this house and maybe you’ll want to buy it later. Mrs. Bidewell needs the money. I think you’ll get that job. We have a hard time coming up with enough teachers.”

  As they drove back to town Humphries told her more about the community. Yes, they had a nice little library – thank heavens it hadn’t been closed down like some – and most folks really liked Ms. Nichols, the principal. “Some of the people in the community have lived here forever and tend to be a little provincial.” Humphries shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat. “But there are some folks who’ve moved in from other places – or been out in the world and come back – like Ms. Nichols – whose attitudes are a little more modern, if you know what I mean.”

  Giselle didn’t really ‘know what he meant’, but thought about the rumors of ghosts in the woods. Maybe he was talking about that kind of thinking. “I really liked her. Does she live here in town?” asked Giselle.

  “No. She lives in Robertsville. A little more privacy I think.”

  “Privacy? For her family, you mean? I mean… Is she married?”

  “Well…” He hesitated. “No, she’s not married. Ah… she just lives with a…” He paused. “Well, she has a housemate. Robertsville’s just a little farther from the families of her students, and a larger community. That’s all.”

  Housemate, thought Giselle. Partner, perhaps? Maybe that’s how the community is ‘provincial’. “Did you grow up here?” she asked.

  “Oh, no,” he exclaimed. “My wife did, though. That’s why we moved up here. I took over her father’s real estate agency. Don’t make a lot of money, but I have a small pension from my old job and it doesn’t take a lot to live up here.” He paused looking thoughtful. “Hopefully I’ll still have a pension from my old job. The way things are going today…”

  She let him off at the door of the agency with promises to call him as soon as she heard about the job and drove off to find the nearest campground – a small county park on a river.

  Oh, my god, she thought, what am I doing? This feels right, but scary. She wished she had someone to talk to, but she wasn’t going to tell Monica until it was a done deal. “Oh!” she exclaimed out loud. Ms. Nichols was going to call Samuel. She pulled to the side of the road and found his number on her phone. He answered on the second ring.

  “Hi, Giselle. I hear you’re leaving us.”

  “Wow. She called you already?”

  “Ms. Nichols called an hour or so ago. Does your sister know?”

  “Not yet. I’m not going to tell her until I know I have the job.”

  Samuel laughed. “A wise decision.” He paused. “Actually, Giselle, I think this is a good move – moving away from Monica. You’re an excellent teacher and I’ll have a hard time filling your shoes, although not as hard as Ms. Nichols has. At least we have plenty of applicants. But I do think it’s a good thing for you.”

  Giselle sighed. “I haven’t gotten the job yet.”

  “But you will get it. Trust me.”

  After the phone call Giselle continued on to the campground by the river. It was a lovely little green brushy spot, with a small sandy beach where the river made a wide curve under overhanging cottonwood trees and you could swim at your own risk. The river was low – to be expected after three years of drought, but there was still enough water here to swim. It wasn’t very far from the house. My house, she thought.

  Swimming out to the middle of the river, she floated in the dappled light where the sun filtered down through the trees and willfully pushed the future out of her head. Just floating, she thought. Just floating.

  She spent the night in the campground, and much of the next day swimming and exploring. Ms. Nichols called her in the afternoon to tell her the teaching job was hers, contingent on the receipt of her transcripts and credential.

  As soon as she was off the phone Giselle rushed to the real estate office to rent the house. She signed the lease and Mr. Humphries informed her she could move as soon as she wanted.

  When she returned to the city, Monica was loud and disbelieving, but Giselle gathered her things, rented a truck for her few possessions, and moved. There would have to be a reconciliation with Monica at some point, she knew, but for now she just needed to leave with as little talk as possible. Leave, and go to my house, she thought. My house on the ocean.