Faerie Tale. Raymond E. Feist

turned her thoughts to how she was going to get Jack to call her again.

       • Chapter Nine •

      Agatha Grant’s farm was a sea of green bordered by a shoreline of condos. Most of the surrounding land had been sold off over the years, and a new housing development, Colonial Woodlands, loomed up less than a hundred yards behind her barn. Only a large rambling meadow to the north of the house and the woods to the south protected the farm from the encroaching urban sprawl. She literally lived on the edge of Pittsville. The house was another turn-of-the-century marvel, though from the outside it appeared that considerably more thought had gone into its décor, mused Gloria.

      Agatha stood waiting for them on the front step, a bright-eyed elderly woman who appeared fit and upright despite the ivory-topped cane she held in her left hand. She greeted Philip warmly and bestowed polite kisses on Gloria’s and Gabbie’s cheeks. She ushered everyone into the large parlour, where Jack Cole waited, and invited them to take seats. The boys, as one, chose a love seat, fascinated by the strange two-way facing design. Gabbie and Gloria took comfortable stuffed chairs, while Aggie sat beside Phil on a large sofa, his hand held in hers.

      Jack opened a cabinet, revealing a fine assortment of liquor, asked people their pleasure, and began pouring drinks. He handed a glass to Phil, who sipped and was pleased to discover a pungent, single-malt Scotch. ‘Glenfiddich?’

      ‘Glenfiddich.’

      ‘Thank you, sir,’ observed Phil with deep appreciation.

      Agatha said, ‘Have you something for the boys?’

      Jack presented a pair of tumblers. ‘Coke. Okay?’

      The boys took the offered pair of glasses. Jack passed around the other drinks, then remained at Agatha’s side. After a moment Agatha said, ‘Jack, quit hovering over me. Go sit by that pretty girl over there, that’s a good boy.’ Jack obeyed with a grin, settling upon the arm of Gabbie’s chair. Agatha smiled, and Gloria now understood why her husband held her in such deep affection. She was a person of warmth, able to put strangers quickly at ease. She said to Phil, ‘When Malcolm Bishop ran that little piece in the Pittsville Herald saying you’d come home, I could scarcely believe it. What brought you back here?’

      Phil laughed, glancing at Gloria. ‘I decided to return to writing novels.’

      ‘No, I mean why William Pitt County?’ There was something in her manner of looking at Phil that caused Gloria a moment of discomfort. Somehow this elderly woman still held Phil accountable, as if he were still her student, and from Phil’s expression he still felt somewhat accountable to her.

      ‘It’s my home. The old family house is small, only two bedrooms, and in a section of town that’s pretty run-down now. So I looked around for something bigger and found the Old Kessler Place.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I was sick of Los Angeles and the film business. I remember the fields and fishing at Doak’s Pond. I remember the stories told about the Fairy Woods being haunted, and how we dared each other to go through them on Halloween and none of us ever did. I can remember the sandlot baseball games and riding my beat-up old bike down dusty roads during the summer. The dumb jokes the kids from Charlestown High used to make about Pits-ville High and how we used to get so mad at them and then say the same things ourselves. I remember … a home.’

      She nodded. ‘Well, you’ll find it’s changed a lot in twenty-five years.’ Then she smiled and suddenly the tension vanished. ‘But there’s a lot that hasn’t changed.’ Noticing that the boys had finished their drinks, she said, ‘Why don’t you two run outside and play. We’ve some new additions in the barn. Our cat’s had kittens.’

      The boys glanced at their mother, who nodded, and quickly made good their escape. Phil laughed. ‘I used to hate “grown-up” talk when I was their age.’

      Agatha indicated agreement. ‘As did we all. Now, are you writing?’

      ‘Yes, though it’s tougher than I remember.’

      ‘It always is.’

      Jack laughed at the remark. ‘I say the same thing when I’m trying to organize her papers.’

      ‘This boy is almost as big an oaf as you were, which means he’s a slightly better graduate assistant.’ Phil seemed unconcerned with the comparison. ‘Though, of my students, you have done better than most. I am glad you’ve returned to books. Those films were less than art.’

      Talk turned to the differences between screenplays and novels, and they settled in for a while, enjoying the rediscovered friendship between Agatha and Phil, and the new friendship between Jack and Gabbie. Gloria remained distant, observing her husband. Phil responded to Aggie’s questions, and in a way her prodding produced more revelations about his work in minutes than Gloria had managed to extract in weeks. Not sure of her own reaction, Gloria settled in, considering.

      She regretted Phil hadn’t volunteered as much to her as to Aggie, but then Aggie was a special person to him. After his parents had died in a car crash, Phil had been raised by his aunt Jane Hastings. But Aggie Grant, Jane’s best friend from college, and her husband, Henry, had been frequent visitors. When Phil had graduated from the University of Buffalo he had gone to Cornell to study with Aggie. And Aggie had secured the fellowship that had allowed Phil to attend the university. Gloria conceded that Aggie had been the single biggest influence in Phil’s career. She had been a courtesy aunt, but, more than family, she was his mentor, then his graduate adviser, and remained the one person he held in unswerving professional regard. Gloria had read two of Agatha’s books on literary criticism, and they had been a revelation. The woman’s mind was a wonder, with her ability almost to intuit the author’s thought processes at the time of writing from the finished work. She had never gained wide recognition outside of academia and she had her critics, but even the most vociferous conceded that her opinions were worthy of consideration. Somehow Aggie Grant posited theories about dead authors that just felt right. Still, in the field of literature, Gloria was simply a reader, not a critic, and some of what had been covered in Aggie’s books seemed rites reserved for the initiates of the inner temple. No, if Agatha could get Phil talking about his work, and his problems, Gloria was thankful. Still, she felt a little left out.

      Suddenly Agatha was addressing her. ‘And what do you think of all this?’

      Gloria improvised, her actress’s training coming to the fore. Somehow she didn’t wish it known she had been musing, not following the conversation. ‘The work? Or the move?’

      Agatha regarded her with a penetrating look, then smiled. ‘I meant the move. It must be something of a change for you, after Hollywood and all.’

      ‘Well, the East isn’t new to me. I’m a California girl, but I lived in New York City for several years while I worked in theatre. Still, this is my first stint as a farmer’s wife.’

      ‘Hardly a farmer’s wife, my dear. Herman Kessler kept only enough livestock to qualify for federal tax exemptions: a dozen sheep and lots of ducks and chickens. That farm has never been worked. Herman’s father, Fredrick Kessler, never allowed it, nor did Herman. The meadows have not known the plough or the woodlands the axe for over a century. And this area was never as heavily harvested as others nearby to begin with. The woods behind your home may not be the forest primeval, but they are some of the densest in ten thousand square miles, perhaps the only such parcel of uncleared lowland woods in the entire state of New York.’

      Phil said, ‘I was meaning to ask you: when we were at Cornell you were firmly established up in Ithaca. Now you show up in my old hometown. Why?’

      She rose and went over to a sliding door. ‘A moment.’ She moved the door aside and vanished from view, reappearing almost immediately with a large blue three-ring binder. She returned to the couch and handed the binder to Phil as she sat down.

      He opened it and read the first page. ‘“On the Migration