“Blood,” he said cheerfully. “Just as Michelle said.”
“Oh, Cal, be serious,” June said. “It isn’t blood, and you know it.”
“Then what are you worried about?”
“I’d just like to know what it is, so I’ll know what to use to get it off,” June said.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Cal offered. “I’ll see what I can do with a putty knife, and then we’ll try some turpentine. Chances are it’s just paint, and turpentine will cut right through it.”
“Do you have a putty knife?” June asked anxiously.
“On me? Not a chance. But there’s one in with the tools, if I ever find them.”
“Let’s go find them,” June said decisively.
“Now?”
“Right now.”
Deciding that the best thing to do was to humor his pregnant wife, Cal followed as June led him into the house. Confronted with the jumble of boxes in the living room, he was sure June would give it up as a hopeless cause, but instead she scanned the mound expertly and suddenly pointed.
“That one,” she said.
“How can you tell?” Cal asked, baffled. The label on the box clearly said Miscellaneous.
“Trust me,” June said sweetly.
Cal hauled the box down from its perch near the top of the pile and ripped the tape off it There, right under the lid, was his toolbox.
“Incredible!”
“Precision labeling,” June replied, a bit smugly. “Come on.”
She led him back to the studio, and settled herself on the stool while Cal began chipping at the offending stain. A few minutes later, he looked up.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Won’t it come off?” June asked.
“Oh, it’ll come off all right,” Cal replied. “I’m just not sure what it is.”
“What do you mean?” June got off the stool and lowered herself next to her husband. What had been the body of the stain on the floor was now a pile of crumbling brownish dust scattered around her feet. She reached out and, hesitating, picked up a little of it, rubbing the dust between her fingers, feeling its texture.
“What is it?” she asked Cal.
“It might be paint,” he said slowly. “But it looks more like dried blood.”
His eyes met his wife’s.
“Michelle might have been right after all,” he said. He stood up and helped June to her feet.
“Whatever it is,” he added, “it’s been there for years and years and years. It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with us, and it won’t take long to get that stain out. Once it’s out, you can forget all about it.”
But as they left the studio, June turned and looked once more at the brownish mess on the floor.
She wished she were as sure as Cal that she would forget all about it.
Michelle paused on the trail and tried to guess how far down it was to the beach. Hundreds of feet. For a moment she toyed with the idea of trying to find another route down. No, for now, at least, she should stick to the path. There would be plenty of time later to scramble her way through the rocks and brush that clung to the face of the bluff.
The trail was an easy walk, cut in switchbacks, worn smooth by years of use. Here and there it narrowed where winter storms had eaten it away, and there were occasional rocks in her path, which Michelle kicked over the edge, then watched while they gathered force in their plunge to the beach below, disappearing from her line of sight before she heard them crash at the bottom.
The trail ended very close to the high tide line, but this afternoon the tide was out, and a rocky expanse of beach, broken irregularly by a series of low granite outcroppings, lay before her, curving outward in both directions toward the arms of Devil’s Passage. The water, trapped in the tight cove, boiled and eddied, its swirling currents twisting the surface into angry patterns that even to Michelle’s inexpert eyes looked dangerous. She began walking north, intent on discovering if it might be possible to follow the beach all the way to the foot of Paradise Point. It would be a neat way to go to school — along the beach, then up the bluff and through the village. Much nicer than taking the crowded MTA to Harrison in Boston!
She had gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when she noticed she wasn’t alone on the beach. Someone was crouched over a tidepool, oblivious of her presence. She approached the figure warily, unsure whether she should speak, go on by, or maybe even turn back. But before she could make up her mind, the person looked up, saw her, and waved.
“Hi!” The voice seemed friendly, and when he stood up, Michelle saw that it was a boy, about her own age, with dark curly hair, startlingly blue eyes, and a wide smile. Tentatively, she waved back, and called out a hello.
The boy bounded across the rocks toward her.
“Are you the girl that moved into the Carson house?” he asked.
Michelle nodded. “Only it’s our house, now,” she corrected him. “We bought it from Dr. Carson.”
“Oh,” the boy said. “I’m Jeff Benson. I live up there.” He gestured vaguely toward the bluff, and Michelle’s eyes followed his gesture, though there was nothing to be seen.
“You can’t see our house from here,” Jeff explained. “It sits too far back from the cliff. Mom says the bluff’s going to fall into the sea sooner or later anyway, but I don’t think so. What’s your name?”
“Michelle.”
“What do people call you?” Jeff asked.
Michelle frowned, puzzled. “Michelle,” she repeated. “What else would they call me?”
Jeff shrugged. “I dunno. It just seems like kind of a fancy name, that’s all. Sounds like you must be from Boston.”
“I am,” Michelle replied.
Jeff regarded her curiously for a moment, then shrugged again, dismissing the matter. “Did you come down to look at the tidepools?”
“I just came down to look around,” she said. “What’s in them?”
“All kinds of things,” Jeff told her eagerly. “And the tide’s way out now, so you can get to the best ones. Haven’t you ever seen a tidepool before?”
Michelle shook her head. “Only the ones at the beach,” she said. “We used to go there for picnics.”
“Those aren’t any good,” Jeff scoffed. “All the good stuff got taken out of them ages ago, but hardly anybody ever comes down here. Come on — I’ll show you.”
He began leading Michelle across the rocks, stopping every few minutes to wait for her to catch up. “You should wear tennis shoes,” he suggested. “They don’t slip on the rocks so much.”
“I didn’t know it would be this slippery,” Michelle said, suddenly feeling clumsy but unsure just why. A moment later they had come to the edge of a large pool, and Jeff was kneeling beside it. Michelle crouched down beside him and stared into the shallow water.
The pool lay clear and still before her, and Michelle realized that it was like looking through a window into another world. The bottom was alive with strange creatures — starfish and sea urchins, anemones waving softly in the currents, and hermit crabs scurrying around in their borrowed homes. On an impulse, Michelle reached into the water and picked one up.
The crab’s tiny claw snapped ineffectually at her finger, then the little animal retreated into its shell, only a whisker poking tentatively out.
“Hold your hand real flat, and turn him so he can’t see you,” Jeff told her. “Then just wait, and in a couple of minutes he’ll come out.”
Michelle followed his instructions. A moment later the animal began emerging from its shell, legs first.
“It tickles,” Michelle said, her fist involuntarily closing. When she opened it again, the animal had retreated once more.
“Drop it into one of the sea anemones,” Jeff told her.