Mal put the little box down and picked up his wine glass briskly, took a giant swallow and set it down again with an air of resolution. ʺOkay. I didn’t just come off Twilight. I broke my neck.ʺ
Silence again. Horrible silence. Ned stopped chewing. The clock went tick tick.
ʺI heard it. Tiny little crunch. And then I was on the ground and couldn’t feel a thing below my neck. All I felt . . . It was . . . no. I don’t want to talk about it.ʺ
Miri looked up just as the tears began to slide down Leslie’s face again. Mal reached his hand out—the hand that Miri had briefly held—and covered hers with his. ʺI don’t want to talk about it for me, not just for Leslie. Leslie was brilliant. Peggy was pretty stirred up by the lightning and Twilight taking off, but Leslie got her quieted down—and the storm left almost as fast as Twilight did—ʺ
ʺAs if it had done what it was meant to do,ʺ said Leslie in a strange flat voice—a voice very like Jane’s when she’d said, That looked like it was right over the old graveyard. Leslie picked up her wine glass in the hand Mal wasn’t holding and took a mouthful.
ʺYes,ʺ said Mal. ʺIt was a bit like that. But this is the wine talking, right? So Leslie tied Peggy up and—and found out I wasn’t getting up because I couldn’t, and she said that she mustn’t move me, and that she’d send Peggy home and you’d be sure to come looking for us and you’d even know where to come because Miri had told her that I liked the old graveyard, and you’d’ve seen the lightning strike.
ʺAnd it was pretty much forever, lying under that tree, till Miri and Balthazar and Flame showed up. . . .ʺ
ʺDon’t,ʺ said Leslie. Mal squeezed her hand. ʺYeah. So Miri showed up and she . . . she saw it was pretty bad. And then . . . well, Flame went kind of nuts. That was pretty weird. Miri decided to see what he was carrying on about and followed him into the old graveyard.ʺ
Jane glanced at Miri and back at Mal.
ʺI thought she was kind of . . . you know, postponing the inevitable. About me. And . . . well . . . I don’t know. There was this feeling for a little while like . . . I don’t know, like the world was coming to an end, except I was already . . . I was pretty out of it. It’s just I was even more out of it there for a while. . . .ʺ
Leslie said, ʺIt was like the sky had come down and was mashing us into the ground. It was like . . . it was like being in a waffle iron and they’re closing the lid. I thought . . . I thought what had happened to Mal was making me crazy, that I was cracking up. And then suddenly it went away.ʺ
ʺOkay, it was like that for you too? That’s pretty much what it felt like to me. Except when they opened the waffle iron and let us out I could move again. It was like everything that had happened since the lighting struck had been the waffle iron. Had been a bad dream. Except it wasn’t. I remember. I remember just . . . kind of not being there, except for this awful . . . Also I feel like I’ve been in a waffle iron. I’ve fallen off horses before and I’ve never been beat up the way I feel beat up now. You’re going to need a winch to get me out of bed tomorrow morning, I think.ʺ
Miri was looking at Mal when he turned to look at her. Leslie was looking at her too, and Jane. She couldn’t see where Ned was looking but she could guess he was looking at her. She looked down at Flame to give her courage, and gently pulled his ears, one silky ear per hand. ʺIt was Flame really. I didn’t know. He—it really is—was—haunted, you know. The graveyard.ʺ This is a place of power. She taught riding at her mother’s riding stable—no, she taught riding with her mother at their riding stable—places of power were nothing to do with her. Flame looked up at her, and the end of his tail twitched. She took a deep breath.
ʺFlame knew the—the thing that was haunting it. He’s a hellhound, you know?ʺ She wanted to laugh, but she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop. ʺI guess he defected. But I guess he knows his old colleagues. This one knew him. It said I could have Mal back if I convinced the—the ghosts to let him go. The—the thing seemed to think that the way—the way Mal was, he—he wouldn’t live long.ʺ He will not want to live. ʺAnd then . . .ʺ But she realized she couldn’t tell them about her grandfather, about Ned’s father, not when they all still missed him so much, especially Ned. It would be like Mal talking about what happened to him after Leslie said don’t. She might try to tell Jane about it later, some time when they were alone. ʺI—I guess I kind of told them that they didn’t have to stay there. That they weren’t trapped. They didn’t seem to know—that was the thing, not letting them know. I think Flame must have stopped the thing from stopping them while I—told them. So they left. And when we came back out of the graveyard again Mal was sitting up.ʺ
There was another, longer silence. ʺDo you suppose Flame would like some wine?ʺ said Jane. She passed Miri an empty plate and Miri poured a few drops of wine into it and set it on the floor. Flame came out from under the table and solemnly lapped it up. Then he raised his head and looked around the table as if checking that this was what he was supposed to do. Or as if he was including them all in . . . it was like ratifying a contract, thought Miri. Sealing a pact.
ʺI think the graveyard really . . . isn’t haunted any more,ʺ said Miri. ʺMaybe cell phones will work here now.ʺ
ʺWell that would be convenient,ʺ said Jane. ʺExcept that then we’ll have to forbid people to use them while they’re riding and insist they turn them off before they get on their horses. Leslie, you’re dropping. Let me show you where you’ll sleep. Miri, can you loan her a nightgown?ʺ
Miri fetched an old, half-worn-out flannel nightgown because it was, in her opinion, the most comfortable and comforting, and then began to collect the dirty dishes and ran water in the sink. ʺFor pity’s sake, Miri,ʺ said her father, ʺgo to bed. I’ll do this.ʺ
Miri shook her head. ʺI’m not quite ready to go to bed,ʺ she said. ʺI don’t want to have to dream about anything yet.ʺ Ned put his arm around her and they stood silently for a moment. Then he sighed. ʺIt’s one thirty A.M. and I believed every word you said. Tomorrow morning I have to give a presentation to the trustees of a big charity so they’ll hire us, and what happened here just now will all be nonsense. But at one thirty A.M. . . . thank you.ʺ He kissed the top of her head. ʺIf you really want to struggle with the dishes, I’m going to bed.ʺ
Miri nodded at the billow of detergent suds. ʺYou go. The horses won’t care if I’m awake, so long as they get their breakfast. Your trustees probably would mind.ʺ
She didn’t notice that Jane had returned till she began lifting dishes out of the draining rack and drying them and putting them away. They’d finished and Miri was mopping the counter when Jane said at last, ʺIt’s all true, isn’t it? It’s all true.ʺ
Miri said, ʺYes.ʺ
Flame was sprawled in the middle of the kitchen floor, where they had to keep stepping over him, but neither of them had wanted to tell him to move.
ʺIt’s two in the morning, and I can say anything I like,ʺ Jane began, and paused.