Hilary and the girls gathered around the phone in her room about a week later. They always did something special for Dad on Armistice Day. He had been in the Great War, had fought in the Battle of Verdun. He always claimed he spent most of the conflict hiding in a foxhole not shooting at anyone. He said he was luckier than most guys who came back to the US missing limbs or damaged by mustard gas…or who didn’t return at all…but he didn’t really like to talk about his experiences, either.
“Hi, Dad!” three voices chorused. Hilary was just glad to hear his gentle chuckle. She’d missed her father, both during the past few months and when she and Jeff lived in New York. Dad could be a coward and told the absolute worst jokes, but he was also sweet, funny, and good to his beloved children.
“Hi, girls!” Mackie Bloom’s gentle, unmistakable voice crackled on the line. Hilary could almost see the round glasses over his dark eyes and that gray mustache bristling. “How’s my favorite ladies? The house has been so empty without you girls! Nice as it’s been to have C.J to myself and it be just the two of us, I’ve missed you three eating us out of house and home and leaving stockings all over the bathroom.”
Hilary laughed. “We’ve missed you too, Dad. We’re going to hear Mr. Cat talk about his years riding with Teddy Roosevelt at the Battle of San Juan Hill today after lunch. I’m just hoping he can remember all of it. He’s an absolute dear, but his memory does seem to wander at times.”
“Hi Daddy!” Maple waved to the phone. “I’m gonna play all the old songs after dinner, like ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’ and “Keep the Home Fires Burning” on Miss Organ. She says she remembers them, too.”
“Dad,” Betty tried to squeeze in between her sisters, “I wrote a recitation for Troll and Hilary to perform on the sacrifice of our soldiers in battle. I think you’ll like it. And Hilary is going to read ‘In Flanders Fields.’”
“You don’t know how much I miss you girls, sugar plum!” Mackie’s sigh cracked. “I miss the sound of that typewriter of yours going at all hours. I miss worrying that you’ve been up too late and aren’t getting enough sleep. I appreciate the money you send from selling your radio plays, but it’s not the same as having you here.”
“Dad?” Hilary took the phone back. “I want to ask you something. Have you heard anything about Jeff? Or Pavla, for that matter. C.J said The Rivals started.”
“I saw it.” Now her dear old dad bristled with indigence. “She can’t hold a candle to my favorite diva. She’s nothing like you were in the role, Hilary. You lit up the stage. Honey, you cared. I could always tell. She’s a good actress, but she has all the warmth of a cold, flat beer. That role needs you, not a cold fish.”
“Thank you, Dad.” Hilary made a face. “Dad, have you heard anything else about Pavla from your acting friends? Or Jeff. We’re convinced Jeff, Scott, and Victor are somewhere in Pittsburgh. They can’t be anywhere else. Believe us, we’ve called everyone we know.”
“So have I, Ginger Snap.” Mackie’s voice dropped. “And believe me, I don’t like the things I’m hearing. There’s rumors about that woman going around. They aren’t pleasant. They say she practices…rituals.” His voice became a whisper. “Black magic. She’s been heard backstage, speaking in incantations and making black light appear suddenly. It wasn’t special effects, Ginger Snap. They saw her send that black light over the producer she was with, and he was covered in hair they couldn’t shave no matter how hard he tried, and he couldn’t remember who he was or who he’d originally casted in his next extravaganza.”
“That’s crazy!” Maple exclaimed over Hilary’s shoulder. “No one can do that, outside of fairy tales!”
“That’s what I heard!” Mackie’s whisper became a worried hiss. “I believe it. T.J Hunnicut vanished two days ago. He was last seen driving her to his mansion from the Nixon. No one’s seen him since. Not at his place. Not at the Nixon. Not even his mistresses. He’s just…vanished.”
“Just like Jeff and the others.” Betty’s growl nearly matched Bear’s. “She probably got to him too, just like Jeff and the others.”
“She’s after something.” Hilary narrowed her eyes. “Dad, could you and C.J keep an eye on her? Or at least, see what you read in the paper. I think, if we know what she’s up to, we’ll find out what she did with Jeff and the others. They’re not in Europe, I know that much. Hunnicut isn’t, either.”
“Are you crazy?” Mackie’s voice screeched so loudly, she had to hold the receiver away from them. “Bad enough C.J has to work with that barracuda! I like my life, and I don’t think she’s all that pretty anyway! I wouldn’t share a rye crisp with that woman, let alone a drink or anything else!”
“Dad, come on!” Maple made a face. “We’re not askin’ you to take her out. Just…you n’ C.J keep an eye on her. Make sure she don’t do nothin’ else bad. It could be life or death!”
Mackie’s voice cracked and sputtered worse than the phone line. “Life or death? You mean…the dead kind of dead?”
“Dad,” Betty added, “if you don’t help us, everyone in this household is going to be slaves to that…that witch by the end of the year! We like them, and we don’t want that to happen!”
Mackie whimpered. “Even the monster?”
“Especially him.” Hilary sighed. “We’ll be fine, Dad. Don’t worry. We can take care of each other. You just take care of C.J and yourself.”
Maple waved. “Yeah, Dad! We love you!”
“Give our love to C.J!” Betty added. “And happy Armistice Day!”
“Thanks, girls!” Mackie let them off, muttering “Was ever a woman in this humor wooed?” as his daughters went to join the others to celebrate the moment of silence at 2:11 and hear Mr. Cat’s stories about how he rode with the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill again.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Preparations for Thanksgiving pretty much consumed the remaining weeks of November. When Betty wasn’t tapping away at radio scripts, she and Bear were in the library, finishing their Bear Prince story and working on reading the Irish fairy tale The Brown Bear of Norroway. If they weren’t in the library, they were in the music room, playing songs old and new with Miss Organ, Maple, and Eagle. Maple played along with him, Betty sang, and even Eagle squawked along.
Hilary thoroughly enjoyed working on the Thanksgiving pageant with Troll. Betty wrote them a play with her as a pilgrim and Troll as the most unlikely Native American in the history of Thanksgiving pageants…but she was shocked at how well they worked together. They had a rhythm that just matched, even when the dialogue ran to discussions of planting corn and bagging turkeys. She hadn’t had so much fun with any play since the early days of hers and Jeff’s courtship.
Two days before Thanksgiving, Bear and Eagle disappeared into the woods, carrying rope, a bucket, and a burlap bag. They came back a few hours later with five fine river trout and the fattest wild turkey Hilary had ever seen. Mrs. Fox disappeared into the kitchen, turning pumpkins into pies and creamy soup, mashing potatoes, kneading fragrant buttermilk rolls, drizzling carrots with syrup, and boiling tiny onions with a thick white sauce. Maple and Puppy kept trying to snitch tastes until Mrs. Fox sent them to decorate the house instead.
Breakfast was a quick affair on the day of Thanksgiving, mostly consisting of cold cereal and fruit taken in the front parlor. The kitchen and dining room were busy with food preparations. After Puppy and Mr. Rabbit cleared their bowls, Miss Organ was brought out to the main room, and they set up a small stage in the back with a cardboard Mayflower, paper mache corn stalk, and a large rock Bear dragged in and wiped off to use as Plymouth Rock.
Hilary felt thoroughly silly in her brown dress, white apron borrowed from Mrs. Fox, and white bonnet…but Troll looked even more ridiculous in a fringed shirt and colorful ribbon headband with one feather Eagle gave him. Hilary certainly tried to enact a pilgrim woman, sounding as wise and gentle as she could be rhyming “power” with “Mayflower.” When he looked into her eyes as he gave her a hard plastic ear of corn, she felt chills go down her spine. She barely heard the applause when they finished.
“You were darn good out there,” he whispered as Betty gathered the book she and Bear had stitched together from red yarn. “It’s been a long time since I did any acting. I forgot how much I missed it, and…well, acting with a partner.”
“So did I. Acting is what I was born to do.” She settled down at the place on the couch Betty and Bear had vacated. “The way you project your voice and move your claws when you speak, it reminds me so much of…” Her voice caught as she gazed into those almond-shaped eyes. “Of someone I know…knew. Are you sure you didn’t know my Jeff? You…there’s something about you…”
He leaned so close to her, she could smell the tang of sweat, molding slime, and pancake makeup. “Hilary,” he whispered, his raspy voice so soft it could barely be heard, “would you marry me?”
“I…I…” She gulped and nodded at Betty and Scott as they read their story about three princesses who helped rescue a Bear Prince from a wicked troll witch. They wore their cardboard crowns from Halloween. Betty sported her prettiest pink gown. Scott wore his good white shirt with a fancy scarlet braided vest and black trousers that nearly matched his fur. “I think we should focus on them. They’ve worked so hard on this story! Betty says he’s getting better. He can read whole stories without screaming now.”
Troll nodded. “Next week, after the holidays, I want him to look at those codes and listen to the records again. It might help if we all do it together in the music room. I hate to see him hurting so much, but…we’re running out of time.”
She leaned into his arms, ignoring the slime running down them and how bony and hard they were. “I won’t let Pablum do…whatever it is she wants to do to you…by the end of the year. She wants my Jeff for a slave! And those poor men with him…in our dreams…she was treating them like they were animals! None of them deserve that! Jeff certainly doesn’t.” She made a face. “He deserves my fist in his nose and a stick up his rear for running out, but not being turned into some warped reflection of that Eastern European sour cream tart’s desires! Or have I said too much?”
He sighed, stroking her hair with his claws. “Way too much.”
Everyone applauded the duo when they finished. “Thank you!” Betty curtsied. Bear bowed as well as he could. “We worked really hard on that story. We’re going to start on another Monday morning.”
Bear nodded eagerly, rubbing Betty’s hand. “We write story ’bout a prince. Bad queen make him and friends work in kitchen and steals their house. Nice queen and princesses have big party. Prince and friends go to party in disguise.” His wide, round-cheeked smile was incandescent…and rather familiar. “Still hurts when Bear write…not as bad. Piece of cake!”
They were replaced by Mr. Rabbit and Maple, who played “We Gather Together,” “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come,” and “For the Beauty of the Earth” on Miss Organ. Eagle perched on a chair behind them, adding his own squawks. Hilary was always impressed with her sisters’ beautiful voices. They rang out in perfect harmony with Miss Organ’s lovely dulcet tones and Bear’s growls. Mr. Rabbit gave Miss Organ a gentle rub as she sang; she let out a few squeaks.
Mrs. Fox leaned into the living room as “For the Beauty of the Earth” ended. “Ok, folks, chow’s on! Mr. Cat is just about to carve the turkey, and I have the baked fish for Eagle and Bear. Everything’s ready and waiting!”
“Yum! Bear…eat! Bear hungry!” He grabbed Betty’s hand. “Come on! Let’s go eat!” She laughed as he tugged her down the hall to the dining room. Maple took Eagle’s wing and followed them, giving him a little kiss on the beak. Mr. Rabbit gave Miss Organ a gentle rub on the side.
Troll chuckled. “Let’s go get dinner, before Bear gets to that turkey first.” He rubbed her finger and palm in that familiar way that nearly left her knees weak. “You know, Miss Booth, I think I'm most thankful for you this year.”
She could only nod. “And I’m…” It was hard to keep her voice from squeaking. “I’m thankful for you, too.”
He took her hand in his claw. “Let’s go eat.” They followed the others, Hilary’s chest hammering in her heart the whole time.
No comments:
Post a Comment