Sanctuary(57)

Then there was a rustic, and the turtle's head recoiled with a snap. Jo's breath caught as a heron rose up like a ghost, an effortless vertical soar of white. Then the wings spread, stirring wind. It flew over the chain of small lakes and tiny islands and dipped beyond into the trees.

"I used to wonder what it would be like to do that, to fly up into the sky like magic, with only the sound of wing against air."

" I recollect you always liked the birds best," Sam said from behind her. "Didn't know you were thinking about flying off, though."

Jo smiled a little. "I used to imagine it. Mama told me the story of the Swan Princess, the beautiful young girl turned into a swan by a witch. I always thought that was the best."

"she had a lot of stories."

"Ye s. " Jo turned, studied her father's face. Did it still hurt him, she wondered, to remember his wife? Would it hurt less if she could tell him she believed Annabelle was dead? "I wish I could remember all of them," she murmured.

And she wished she could remember her mother clearly enough to know what to do.

she took a breath to brace herself "Daddy, did she ever let you know where she'd gone, or why she left?"

"No." The warmth that had come into his eyes as he watched the heron's flight with Jo iced over. "she didn't need to. she wasn't here and she left because she wanted to. We'd best be going and getting this done."

He turned and walked back to the Blazer. They drove the rest of the way in silence.

I Jo had done some duty at the campground during her youth. Learning the family business, Kate had called it. The procedure had changed little over the years. The large map tacked to the wall inside the little station detailed the campsites, the paths, the toilet facilities. Blueheaded pins were stuck in the sites that were already occupied, red was for reserved sites, and green was for those where campers had checked out. Green sites needed to be checked, the area policed.

The rest-room and shower facilities were also policed twice dally, scrubbed out, the supplies renewed. Since it was unlikely that Ginny had done her duty there since before the bonfire, Jo resigned herself to janitorial work.

"I'll deal with the bathrooms," she told Sam as he carefully filled out the paperwork needed to check a group of impatient campers out. "Then I'll walk over to Ginny's cabin and see what's up."

"Go to her cabin first," Sam said without looking up. "The facilities are her job."

"All right. Shouldn't take more than an hour. I'll meet you back here.

she took the path heading east. If she'd been a heron, she thought with a little smile, she'd have been knocking on Ginny's door in a blink. But the way the path wound and twisted, sliding between ponds and around the high duck grass, it was a good quarter mile hike.

she passed a site with a neat little pop-up camper. Obviously no early risers there, she mused. The flaps were zipped tight. A pair of raccoons waddled across the path, eyed her shrewdly, then continued on toward breakfast.

Ginny's cabin was a tiny box of cedar tucked into the trees. It was livened up with two big, bright-red pots filled with wildly colored plastic flowers. They stood by the door, guarded by an old and weathered pair of pink flamingos. Ginny was fond of saying she dearly loved flowers and pets, but the plastic sort suited her best.

Jo knocked once, waited a beat, then let herself in. The single main room was hardly thirty square feet, with the kitchen area separated from the living area by a narrow service bar. The lack of space hadn't kept Ginny from collecting. Knickknacks crowded every flat surface. Water globes, souvenir ashtrays, china ladies in frilly dresses, crystal poodles.

The walls were painted bright pink and covered with really bad prints-still lifes, for the most part, of flowers and fruit. Jo was both touched and amused to see one of her own black-and-white photos crammed in with them. It was a silly shot of Ginny sleeping in the rope hammock at Sanctuary, taken when they were teenagers.

Jo smiled over it as she turned toward the bedroom. "Ginny, if you're not along in there, cover up. I'm coming in."

But the bedroom was empty. The bed was unmade and it, as well as a good deal of the floor, was covered with clothes. From the looks of it, Jo decided, Ginny had had a hard time picking out the right outfit for the bonfire.

she looked in the bathroom just to be sure the cabin was empty. The plastic shelf over the tiny pedestal sink was crammed with cosmetics. The bowl of the sink was still dusted with face powder. Three bottles of shampoo stood on the lip of the tub, one of them still uncapped. A doll smiled from the top of the toilet tank, her pink and white crocheted gown spread full over an extra roll of toilet paper.