Free Tree By Leaf by Cynthia Voigt Page A

spread over, and the skin encasing it. She lifted her hand and turned it over, moving her fingers slowly closed, and then open. The gray corrugated surface of the rock she sat on was dusted with gray-green lichen growing slowly outward to spread over the surface of the stone, and the gray stone itself almost grew outward from the earth, as if the earth sent forth stones into the light. Clothilde lifted her eyes in time to see the sleek body of a seal gather itself together and slip underwater,where silver fish swam, and hard-shelled clams back down into the thick sandy mud, and the water rested heavy on the strong floor of the earth. Her skirt, she saw, was woven of hundreds of threads, each going on its own dark fabric that lay over her crossed legs. Clothilde stretched out on the rock, lying on her stomach, seeing.
    When she woke up, she was not sure for a second where she was. The air had grown chilly and waves slapped up against the rocks. Clouds approached from the east. She stood up and looked at the woods. The trees had become only that again—they weren’t each so crowdingly distinct. Except, maybe—she peered into the woods with the wind blowing at her back and her skirt moving around her legs—the birches. She could see the swaying of the birches, and their delicate leaves scattered high along their branches, almost as she had seen them before she fell asleep, like the memory of a song.
    Of course it hadn’t happened. Clothilde knew that. It was a dream, or some temporary craziness that she should hope would never return.
    But if, she thought, half believing, if it was true?
    Then the peninsula wasn’t hers, she remembered. The Voice had said no to that. So she didn’t want it tobe true. Not if the man in the boathouse could sell the peninsula now, so she wouldn’t have it for when she needed it. Not if she couldn’t go to college and be able to earn her own living so she could have her own life. Besides, it was hers, whatever the Voice said. It had been left to her in a will, and that was the law. Even if the law also said a father could take it away, the law said it was hers.
    She’d have to just wait and see, Clothilde thought, running through the trees along her own path to the beach. She didn’t believe it for a minute; but it would be something, if it were true. If she could have taken care of all those things. She wished she
had
asked to be prettier than Polly Dethier. It was all a dream, anyway, she decided. The nap had filled her with energy. It was all a dream, especially that strange way of seeing everything so clearly, the way everything had crowded itself into her eyes. Things were back to normal now. She’d rather have it be a dream, anyway, rather than craziness, if she could choose. If she could choose, she’d rather have it be true, she admitted, stumbling over a stone. But it couldn’t be true. But if it were, time would tell. “Only time will tell,” she laughed to herself.
    If the things she asked for came about, shecalculated, then she would know. And if they didn’t? Well, it had been a wonderful dream, anyway. The nap and the dream had lifted her spirits. If that was all it was, she was still glad. There might be a way to keep the man in the boathouse from selling Speer Point, if she tried to think of it; she might be able to stop him, if she tried.

Chapter 6
    Clothilde woke the very next morning, Monday, with sunrise in her heart, despite the fog that had come in overnight and wrapped itself around the house, crowding at her window. What if, Clothilde awoke thinking. What if it wasn’t all a dream, what if—
    She went into the bathroom, her mind full of possibilities. Her great-aunt hadn’t pinched pennies on this farmhouse. Even for her tenants she had provided a thoroughly modern home. The bathroom was a big, tiled room, with a porcelain toilet and sink and tub, with deep shelves for storing towels. Clothilde wondered, scrubbing at her teeth and looking at the room