Free Cassie Binegar by Patricia MacLachlan Page A

the flowers. “These flowers are real!”
    Margaret Mary grinned at Cassie.
    â€œMarigolds,” she said proudly. “I grew them from seeds.”
    â€œBut why?” asked Cassie.
    Margaret Mary knelt beside her. She sat back on her heels and looked at her plants.
    â€œWell,” she began, “they grow, for one thing. They’ll grow and fill in all the spaces here. And they’ll change. New blooms. They won’t always look the same.”
    Cassie and Margaret Mary stared at each other for a moment, then Cassie smiled.
    â€œSplendid,” she announced, sounding just like Margaret Mary. “That’s splendid.”
    She left Margaret Mary, happily weeding, and went inside Margaret Mary’s house to wash her hands. The bathroom was dark and quiet and clean and perfect. Smiling at herself in the mirror, Cassie washed her hands, leaving a slight smudge of dirt on the white porcelain. She did not rinse it off. She opened the clothes hamper and draped the bottom half of a pair of men’s pajamas over the side.
    â€œIt’s only the outside,” she whispered, echoing Margaret Mary’s words from a long time ago. Then she shut the door firmly and went outside to think about fog and snow and the sea.

14
The Lavender Dress
    T HE SKY WAS STARLESS when Cassie went to bed, and during the night the wind rose. A shutter banged against the house, waking Cassie, and she lay in bed, eyes open, listening to the roar of the waves beyond the inlet. At last she slept, and when she woke she could see morning light around the edges of the window shade. She heard the noises of her family downstairs and she got up, pulling her old blue corduroy robe around her, and went down to the kitchen.
    â€œCassie!” Her father reached out for her and pulled her close, pushing her nose into his flannel shirt. “Why up so early? It’s no good of a day.”
    Cassie untangled herself from her father’s arms and the smells of his pipe and the hall closet.
    â€œAre you fishing today?” Cassie peered out the window anxiously. “It’s too stormy.”
    James looked up from a tangle of lines and smiled at her.
    â€œIt’s nice,” he answered. “Just right.”
    Cassie sighed and sat down as John Thomas rumpled her hair. She watched her mother pour coffee into her father’s thermos. She wore her husband’s nightshirt and she looked like a colt, mostly long tan legs and unbrushed hair like a mane.
    â€œIs your lunch packed?” Cassie’s mother smiled at Cassie’s father. In answer, he pulled her close and they kissed. Cassie used to frown when they kissed, or count how long each kiss lasted, but suddenly she caught James’s eye and they smiled at each other across the table.
    â€œYou know, Cass, I almost forgot,” said James, searching through his bait box. “I have something for you. From down under.”
    Cassie smiled. Down under. How many times had James found treasures from the sea. Down under, he called it. Once a brass buckle, green from the sea. Another time an old black pointed shoe from long ago, so soft that the leather fell away from the shoe when it was touched.
    â€œLook. Here it is,” James called softly, his hand held out. “It’s for you. Good luck.”
    Cassie moved closer to James and looked at what he held in his hand. It was a small gold ring, the carving on the sides worn smooth by the water. Cassie turned it over in her hand, and the light from the lamp caught the gold.
    â€œGuess how it came up?” whispered James.
    â€œHow?”
    â€œIn some seaweed tangled in a lobster pot,” said James, smiling. “Do you suppose the lobster was married?”
    Cassie turned the ring over, pausing for a moment, as always, to mourn for the lobster who would be someone’s dinner. She sighed, and put the ring on her smallest finger. It fit perfectly.
    â€œA good luck sign from the sea