Fabulous Creature Read online

  With a little more encouragement, Griffin went on talking about the dogs for quite a while—their names, their personalities and how intelligent they were. Obviously her rapport with wild animals extended to dogs as well.

  “Do you have a dog of your own?” James asked.

  “No. I can’t because I go to a boarding school and they don’t allow dogs, but Woody and I get to take care of the whippets when my mother’s at home. When she goes away, she usually takes them with her.”

  “Was she going away just now?” It didn’t seem likely that a person would take off in the midst of their own party, but he was beginning to get the feeling that Alexandra Griffith Westmoreland’s behavior wouldn’t necessarily follow any pattern with which he was familiar.

  “No.” She was looking at her shoes again. “She said they were just going down to the Commissary for things they needed for breakfast. Bacon and gin and things like that.”

  “Gin—for breakfast?”

  “Gin fizzes?” Her tone implied that gin fizzes were at least as much a breakfast necessity as bacon, if not more so.

  “Oh sure,” he said. “Gin fizzes.”

  When they reached the Willowby trail, he turned up it, explaining to Griffin that he had to change his clothes and get some apples for the deer. Griffin said she’d wait there.

  “You might as well come along. You can wait for me on the porch. My parents are working. You won’t have to meet them unless you want to.”

  She nodded, but she stayed where she was until he was almost out of sight, then yelled, “Okay. I’m coming,” and ran after him. When they got within sight of the Willowby cabin, she froze again; but this time when he turned back, he saw that she was staring like a kid getting a first glimpse of Disneyland.

  The Willowby cabin was one of the earliest buildings in the entire area, according to Dan Willowby whose grandfather started building it way back when the only access to the area was by mule train. The part he’d built then, one large room of rough logs, was now used as the living room, and over the years several other additions had been tacked on at various angles and elevations. The general effect was what might be called picturesque, if you liked that sort of thing, or ramshackle, if you didn’t.

  As far as James’ personal feelings went, he could appreciate the cabin’s long history and the irregular, slightly saggy appearance that made it seem more like a natural happening than the result of any intentional construction effort. There were, however, some bits of rustic authenticity that he’d be glad to do without—such as the untrustworthy toilet and the propane stove that seemed determined to self-destruct. But, generally speaking, he could relate, at least to some extent, to Griffin’s enthusiasm.

  “It’s a real cabin,” she said in an awestruck voice. “And old. It’s really very old, isn’t it?” Brushing past him she climbed the steps to the lopsided veranda very slowly, looking around at the rough wooden shutters and rusty lounge swing as if they were part of a museum exhibit of artifacts from some ancient civilization. “Real logs,” she said, running her fingers along the wall; and when James said, “Full of real dry rot,” she only nodded and there was something so eager and unguarded about her face that he felt a little guilty for wising off. He left her still exploring as enthusiastically as if she were visiting one of England’s stately homes; and when he came back a few minutes later, dressed for hiking, he found her in the midst of a conversation with Charlotte.

  He heard their voices when he was crossing the living room, and it really surprised him because when he went in, Charlotte had been in the study at the other end of the house typing away on William’s manuscript. But now, suddenly, there she was sitting on the swing beside Griffin, rapping as if they were old friends.

  “There you are, James,” she said. “Griffin and I have been discussing Willowby history and some of those old houses on Marshall Street in New Moon. She’s actually been inside that one with the funny little tower.”

  “It belongs to an old woman I met at the library,” Griffin said. “When I told her I liked old houses, she took me through it.”

  “Would you like to see the cabin before you go?” Charlotte asked.

  James could see that there wasn’t much point in protesting, so he only mentioned that they needed to get started and sat down on the veranda railing to wait. Fifteen minutes later they came back, still talking.

  “We’ve got to get started,” he told his mother. “We’re going on a pretty long hike.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Griffin was just telling me.”

  He nodded, wondering just how much Griffin had told her.

  “Will you be gone long?”

  “Most of the afternoon. It’s quite a long way.”

  Charlotte looked from James to Griffin and back again. He could see she was curious. He hoped she wasn’t going to ask too many questions. “Well, be careful,” she said. “And have a good time.”

  It soon became obvious that Griffin was as curious about Charlotte as Charlotte had been about her. On the way down to the lake she asked several questions about both of his parents—about the work they were doing and if they did the same kind of work when they were at home and finally, if Charlotte was his real mother.

  He grinned. “Well, as far as I know. My memories of our first meeting are a bit vague, but the rumor is it took place in the delivery room in the local hospital. Why do you ask?”

  “I just wondered,” was all she said.

  “Wait a minute. I get it. It’s the prince thing, isn’t it? You’re wondering if I was spirited away from the palace by my faithful nurse, Charlotte, to save me from the clutches of my evil Uncle Richard—or was it Boris?”

  She didn’t laugh. “No,” she said. “I just wondered, because they’re so different.” She was beginning to act strange again, almost angry, so he dropped the subject and so did she.

  When they got into the rugged terrain at the north end of the lake, she began to be hard to keep track of—in more ways than one. For one thing, keeping up a conversation with Griffin was enough to give you the intellectual bends. One moment she’d be chattering away about animals or one of the let’s pretend games she played with Laurel and Woody, and the next she’d start discussing nuclear energy, or biofeedback, or the writings of Tolstoy.

  In the midst of the steep zigzag climb to the first plateau, James was called upon to remember the end of War and Peace—it seemed the copy Griffin had inherited from the library was missing the last hundred, or so, pages. And somewhere among the boulders of the riverbed, he was asked if he thought biofeedback techniques could be used to cure alcoholism. When he got through giving his not-too-expert opinion on that one, he turned around to ask why she wanted to know and found she’d disappeared.

  That was the other way she was hard to keep track of—physically. She kept turning up missing. Usually he found her exploring some interesting crevice in the rocks or following the tracks of an animal, but at the riverbed she was crouched behind a boulder with her hands covering her face. She didn’t offer to explain, and he didn’t ask.

  When they had almost reached the beginning of the cliff trail, he started wondering again if he’d made a terrible mistake. It was probably going to be a real problem getting Griffin over into the valley. The first time he crossed, he’d had moments of real panic when he was sure he couldn’t go on and was even more certain he’d never get back the way he’d come. But when he started up the cliff, she stayed right behind him. When they reached the high ledge, he stopped and pointed out the rock by the deep pool directly below, where he’d first seen her—conducting the disenchantment of Prince Poisson.

  “You really were watching—all the time?” She seemed a little embarrassed, but more pleased then anything else, and not at all bothered by the fact that he’d just knocked some large holes in the whole Prince Poisson story. He was sure she’d never admitted to anyone that it was all a fish story—in more ways than one. But then, since she was clearly capable of accepting him as b
oth a long-term member of the Fielding household and a recently disenchanted fish, she probably had no trouble with his being simultaneously watching from the ledge and swimming around in the pool below. It was the kind of mind-boggling concept that made him feel slightly disoriented, and which, on a two-foot ledge over a perpendicular drop, seemed almost dangerously unbalanced.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’d better go. This next stretch is the trickiest part of the trail.” He’d hardly started explaining the difficulties involved in negotiating the shale slide when she launched herself down it. She was waiting for him when he slid to a stop at the bottom.

  He’d almost forgotten how incredible the valley was. He’d been amazed and excited when he first discovered it, but after having been there so many times, its impact had gradually faded. But now, watching Griffin, it was like seeing it again for the first time. On each side almost sheer rock walls streaked by strata and slanting rays of sunlight towered over the series of small meadows. And on the lush green grass of the first clearing, large outcroppings of bulbous black rock crouched like an invasion of gigantic black toads.

  “That first boulder,” he told Griffin, “the flattest one, is my usual observation post. Sometimes the stag comes—”

  “The stag?”

  He grinned self-consciously. “The deer,” he said, “or buck. I just started calling him that sometimes. You know, the noble stag.”

  She nodded. “The noble stag,” she whispered.

  “Sometimes he comes right out onto the meadow while I’m sitting here,” he went on. “But in the middle of the day he’s usually lying down back in the woods near the spring. If he doesn’t come out pretty soon, we’ll go up there and look for him.”

  They sat on the boulder, Griffin hugging her knees up against her chest. She’d gone silent again, but her face was not the same as it had been during those other silences. She seemed to be completely unaware that he was watching her. Her eyes looked dilated and she breathed deeply, her lips slightly parted. After a while he began to feel a little nervous and he leaned closer forcing her to meet his eyes. She started, smiled vaguely and turned away.

  They were still sitting there silently on the boulder when the deer came out of the pine grove. One moment there was only the green wall of pine and fir, and then suddenly there he was, standing in the slanting sunlight at the edge of the clearing. Griffin gasped and grabbed James’ arm.

  As many times as he’d seen him appear like that, it took James a minute before he could trust his voice. When he could, he said calmly, “Well, there he is. What do you think of him?”

  “Shh,” she breathed.

  “It’s all right. He’s used to me talking to him. Watch.” He slid slowly down off the boulder carrying the bag of apples. Moving slowly and continuing to talk in a low, soothing voice, he walked, not directly toward the deer, but obliquely out into the middle of the meadow. He left two apples near the center and then, retracing his steps, left two more quite close to the boulder. He had hardly climbed back up beside Griffin when the deer began to move forward. When he had finished the first two apples, he sniffed the air, staring at James and Griffin, and then tossed his head imperiously, as if he were protesting the necessity of subjecting himself to such close contact in order to receive their offerings.

  “I think he’s saying he’d rather be worshipped from afar,” James said. Griffin only nodded. Her eyes transmitted excitement and now and then she pressed her knuckles against her mouth as if she were trying to keep her lips from trembling.

  The deer relented then and moved closer, to the last two apples, and James forgot about Griffin in his own excitement at seeing him so much closer than ever before. He was noticing details—the smooth sleekness of the gray-brown coat, the patch of white on the wide chest, and the frayed areas on the antlers where the suedelike velvet was beginning to wear away, exposing smooth dark horn. When the apples were gone, he retreated several yards and then stopped to test the air again, perhaps trying to determine if there were more apples, or checking out the new person who had invaded his domain. With his curiosity apparently satisfied, he turned at last and paced majestically into the deep shadows of the grove.

  Griffin went on sitting absolutely still, her chin resting on her knees, her eyes riveted on the spot where the deer had disappeared.

  James waited. “Well what do you think?” he said at last. For another moment there was no response, and when it came, it was only a quick turn and a brief smile like a sudden flash of light, and then she was gone again, back into some private world of her own. After a while he tried again. “It’s getting late. We’d better get started or we’ll be late to dinner. At least I will.” There was no telling when dinner happened in a household that had gin fizz breakfasts at one o’clock in the afternoon. After another longish period she nodded slowly and slid down off the rock.

  That was the way it was all the way home. Just as at the beginning of the hike, Griffin had become almost completely nonverbal. It was a different kind of silence, but the end result was the same: a lack of communication that got to be almost embarrassing after a while. Taken as a whole, the entire day had turned out to be fairly uncomfortable, and, of course, he had no one to blame but himself. It served him right for giving in to a sudden impulse to share something that had been his own and private with a kooky kid, just because it had seemed like a good thing to do at the moment. It had been a dumb move, and it might very well turn out to be a lot more serious than a wasted day. How did he know, for instance, that she wouldn’t start shooting off her mouth about the deer to everyone she knew.

  When they finally reached the spot where the path to the west gate branched off, he said. “Look. It’s late. I think I’ll just go on home if you don’t mind going on alone.”

  It took a minute to get through, even then, but at last she said, “Oh no, I don’t mind.”

  “There’s one thing though. I just want to remind you not to tell anyone about the valley. I mean, the deer’s life depends on it. I’ve found out enough about trophy hunting lately to know that he’s really one in a million—as a trophy. And if word got out, every hunter in the whole country would be up here gunning for him the minute hunting season starts.”

  He finally had her full attention. She was staring at him as if he’d just started growing a second head. “As a trophy!” She seemed to be having trouble getting the words out.

  “Yes. You know. A stuffed head.”

  She nodded fiercely. “I know. Like all those things in the Jarretts’ house.”

  That jolted him, for some reason—probably because of his relationship with Diane. He found himself feeling a little defensive. “Well, yes. I guess the thing is, they go by the number of points and the width and symmetry of the horns, and this deer must be really unusual. I think it’s because he’s managed to live a lot longer than most bucks do nowadays, by holing up in that valley during hunting season. So if people start finding out about the valley,” he made a neck chopping motion, “it’s curtains.”

  Griffin actually shuddered. She narrowed her eyes and between her heavy lashes they seemed almost to smoke with intensity. “I would never tell any of those people about the stag,” she said. “Never! They’re murderers.”

  “Well!” James grinned. “I don’t know about that. They’re hunters. That’s not quite the same thing.”

  “They’re murderers,” she, insisted. “They look like murderers. Their names even sound like it. Hank and Jill—yank and kill.”

  He couldn’t help laughing. “How about Jack-whack.”

  “And Mike-strike,” she said.

  “How about Diane?” he asked, thinking there was nothing very fierce sounding about a name like Diane.

  “They call her Di, don’t they?” Griffin said.

  He hadn’t thought of that, or he wouldn’t have mentioned it. “Well, okay,” he said. “I didn’t really think you would tell anyone, but I just thought I’d mention it.”

  He was turning to
leave when she grabbed his arm. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Then she whirled away and began to run.

  When James got back to the cabin, he discovered that Charlotte had jumped to a ridiculous conclusion. “That girl?” he said. “No.” He was in the midst of pulling off a boot at the time, and he almost tipped over laughing. “No. That’s Griffin. She told you her name was Griffin.”

  “But that’s not a name,” Charlotte said. “It’s some kind of heraldic beast, isn’t it? I thought perhaps it was a nickname or a joke of some sort. And after hearing all about Diane just the other night, it never occurred to me you were interested in another girl as well.”

  “Interested?” He stared at his mother in disbelief. “In that little kid?”

  “Dear me.” Charlotte looked chagrined. “I’m really embarrassed to have made such an incredible error. How old is this—child, anyway?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. About thirteen, I think.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  He caught the twitch of lips that obviously meant Charlotte thought thirteen wasn’t all that much younger than almost sixteen. “Okay,” he grinned. “So thirteen isn’t exactly another generation, but there is a big difference. If you saw Diane, you’d know what I’m talking about.”

  “Yes, I’m sure I would.” Charlotte said. “But who is this Griffin, then?”

  “Just a kid who happens to be very interested in wildlife and things like that. I promised to take her to see a place I discovered where you can usually see some interesting things. Oh, and about her name—she’s called Griffin because her real name is Griffith, which is pretty strange, too, especially for a girl. Her mother is that woman we were talking about the other day. That Alexandra Griffith, whose name is Westmoreland now.”

  “Oh,” Charlotte said. “Well, of course. I knew she made me think of someone. She does look quite remarkably like her mother, doesn’t she? When her picture was always in the papers, I remember thinking that, as much as I disapproved of her antics, she really was quite fantastically beautiful. I take it you’ve met her—Alexandra Griffith?”