Read Online The Seasons Hereafter by Elisabeth Ogilvie - Free Book Online

found what she was probing for, got one knee securely into the niche, and leaned forward on her stomach, groping for something to grip, while above her head Louis began to purr enthusiastically.
    â€œI can do without a cheer leader,” she grunted. If she could heave herself onto the ledge where the cat was, and somehow get hold of the boy and drag him up...Louis’s head bumped hers ardently. Close to her ear his purr was an asthmatic roar. Half-kneeling, half-lying in the rockweed, she felt along the edge of his rock and discovered a small depression—enough to press her fingers into—and began to haul herself up.
    All she saw of the man were the slacks and loafers jumping from ledge to ledge, and they could have been an hallucination to be ignored in this desperately personal struggle. They were certainly less real than the cat. She got herself up onto the ledge and stretched down her fingers toward the back of the boy’s jacket, but the man was already reaching for him. His face was suffused with dark color and rigid as a stone mask. He did not look at her or speak but went back up over the ledges carrying the child.
    A woman had come down part way behind him. She put out her hands to the bobbing black head, and then she pulled her gaze away and glanced toward Vanessa. “Are you all right?” she asked in a low voice. In an absolutely white face her eyes looked as green as the cat’s, and Vanessa was positive they didn’t see her.
    â€œYes, I’m all right,” Vanessa said loudly. The woman turned and ran up after the man. Her fair hair shimmered against the dark boughs before she disappeared among them. The silence returned; if it were not for chilled flesh, soaked clothes, and mud-coated moccasins, the whole incident could have been a fantasy. Nice to have proof that I didn’t dream it, she thought. I’m not that far gone.
    Louis had followed the woman, and she rather missed him. She felt for her cigarettes but they were soaked. The front of her jacket and shirt were wet where she’d lain in the rockweed. She would have to go home, but she hated to uncoil herself and straighten up where the cold air could reach her. She sat hunched passively together for a while, wondering if it had been a dead child she had held. Unexpectedly she felt a tremor at the idea.
    â€œGood Lord,” Mrs. Sorensen said from behind her. “That’s gratitude for you. Nobody gave you a thought.”
    â€œWhy should they?” Vanessa didn’t look around. “I was alive, obviously.”
    â€œWell, he is now. He’s mad because he lost his chance at the biggest starfish in the world. Mark is swearing, and Helmi is making coffee as if twenty minutes ago she weren’t positive her only child was dead.” She came down beside Vanessa, holding out a tweed topcoat. “Here, put this on and come on up to the house.”
    â€œI think I’d better go home.”
    â€œYou can’t walk around the harbor in those clothes. And my brother will lug you into the house by force if you don’t come.” As a shudder seized Vanessa, she said gaily, “You see ?”
    There was no way out, with the woman standing over her like a jailer holding a horsewhip instead of a coat. Vanessa loosened the grip on her knees and shuddered again, not completely from cold. It seemed as if the time lengthened out beyond all reason. She could see it stretching to the breaking point like an elastic, and if Joanna Sorensen hadn’t yet made up her mind about Vanessa, this could do it. As if I cared, Vanessa thought wearily. I don’t know why I ever did care. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gone tearing out of the house like Mrs. Bearse’s aunt in her change-of-life fits, and walloped myself right into this.
    But she was freezing now, and she unfolded herself and stood up, staring sternly under the wharf at the harbor, and held out her arms for the coat.