Where the Forest Meets the Star - Glendy Vanderah Page 0,30
turned back to Jo. “Is this the girl, the one with bruises who wouldn’t go home?”
“Yes. Keep your voice down.”
“I thought you said she ran away?” Tabby whispered.
“Obviously, she came back.”
“Why the hell is she with you?”
“It’s complicated.”
“What does that mean?”
“What I said.”
Tabby glanced at Ursa again. “So this is what it’s like in Banjo Land? You just randomly collect kids?”
“Stop calling it that. Banjo Land is way south of Illinois.”
“You have to call the cops!” she whispered.
“I told you I did already! She’ll just run again. I’m trying to figure out what to do.”
“You have enough on your plate!”
“I know, but I had to do something. Be nice to her.” Jo walked around the front of the car to the passenger door. Normally Ursa would have gotten out by then, but she’d been reticent all morning, probably because seeing the house scared her about her future. Jo opened the door. “Ursa, this is Tabby. Tabby, meet my friend Ursa.”
“Come out of there, little person with a big name,” Tabby said, reaching inside the car and hauling out Ursa. “You’re so lucky to be named after a bear!”
“I know,” Ursa said. “You’re lucky to be named after a cat. Gabe has a tabby kitten I call Caesar.”
“How cool, but I’m not named after a cat. My completely insane mother named me after a TV witch.”
“Really?”
“For real, and that’s why if anyone calls me by my real name”—she leaned down and whispered “Tabitha” in Ursa’s ear—“I will punch them in the nose.”
Ursa smiled for the first time that day.
“She means that,” Jo said. She looked at the house, as enchanting as ever. “How much? You still haven’t told me.”
“The rent is only a little high,” Tabby evaded, “especially considering we don’t have to buy furniture. But she wants rent now because she’s leaving.”
“Now? We’d be paying for two places until August.”
Tabby dropped to her knees on the sidewalk and held her hands in a prayer gesture toward Jo. “Please, please, please use some of that wonderful money you inherited to help us get this house. I’m begging you!”
Ursa had probably never seen an adult act so goofy, but she loved it. Her left cheek was dimpled in a big grin.
“Get up, you dope,” Jo said.
“Please?”
“Let me look at the house and talk to the lady.”
Tabby sprang to her feet. “It’s our dream house! How often did we wish we lived here when we jogged past it?”
Jo walked to the front of the little house and looked up the walkway lined with a rainbow of bearded irises. “Imagine us drinking wine and pondering mysteries of the universe on that porch swing,” Tabby said.
“Will we be able to afford wine?” Jo said.
“If we correctly prioritize our grocery list.”
Frances Ivey, the retired physical therapist who owned the house, greeted them at the door, casting a wary stare on Ursa. “Who is this?” she asked.
“Jo is babysitting her today,” Tabby said.
“Good,” Ms. Ivey said. “No kids. No dogs. No smoking.”
“But cats are okay,” Tabby said. “Ms. Ivey has two.”
Ursa squatted down to pet the calico weaving between their legs.
“I hope neither of you are allergic?” Ms. Ivey said.
“That would be a bummer for a veterinary student,” Tabby said.
“It would,” Ms. Ivey said with a hint of a smile. “Of course, I’ll take my cats with me to Maine.” She closed the front door behind them. “Tabby told me you’re doing your PhD research down in the Shawnee Forest,” she said to Jo. “And you study birds?”
“Yes, bird ecology and conservation.”
“I like birds. I have several feeders out back. If you decide to rent, I’d appreciate it if you kept them filled. The birds have gotten used to me feeding them all these years.”
“I’d love to feed them. Having birds to watch would be great after apartment living.”
Ms. Ivey took Jo on a tour of the house. Up a wooden stairway with baluster handrails, three bedrooms, one small and two tiny, shared a full bath with antique tile and a claw-foot bathtub. Downstairs, the living room had a working fireplace with a gorgeous old oak mantel. Next to it was a dining room that had been converted to a reading room, and a kitchen with a breakfast nook. The downstairs half bath was as quaint as the bathroom upstairs. The rugs and furniture were simple, giving emphasis to the early nineteenth-century charm of carved woodwork, burnished oak floors, and stained-glass window transoms.
A wooden deck beyond the kitchen french doors overlooked a small backyard, a private garden