One Silver Summer Read online

  A voice called out.

  “Morning, Sass. It’s going to be beautiful today. Coffee?”

  It was her uncle, leaning over the sea wall at the end of the small cottage terrace, holding out a steaming cup. He looked kind of crazy in his paint-splattered sweater with holes at the elbow, but there was something of Mom in his blue eyes, Sass’s eyes too, kind of intense in the way they creased up in the corners. Not that Mom and he were that alike: he was dark to her fair. Though she’d gotten a lot blonder over the past few years, covering the grays, she’d told Sass with a smile.

  She hadn’t been as straight about having a brother. Sass had figured out that her mother was maybe fifteen when her uncle David was born. Was that why they’d never been close?

  “Yeah. Coffee’s good. Thank you.” She avoided his gaze, stepped up, and took the mug, sitting down on a rock with her back to the harbor wall. Running a finger around the chipped rim of the cup, she waited for it to cool, or for her uncle to say something else. Let him speak first. She wasn’t about to spill her guts to this stranger with her mother’s eyes.

  After an eon, he began carefully. “Were you all right yesterday evening? You came in soaked through.”

  Sass was ready to be polite, but not completely truthful. Not yet.

  “Yeah, fine, just tired, you know?”

  “I didn’t know you were going out.”

  Too many questions. She felt herself prickle. “I didn’t know myself until I went.”

  “Still, tell me next time so I don’t … worry.” His voice trailed off and he looked up at the horizon. Sass followed his gaze: in the distance, a triangle of red sailed across the open sea beyond the tiny port. Her uncle was pointing at the water with a paint-stained finger. He chewed his fingernails like she did.

  “D’you know, Sass, the best thing about living near the ocean? It washes away the bad stuff. It’s just going to take time, though, lots of time.” There was a gruffness to his voice. He cleared his throat.

  Sass’s reply stuck in hers. Who was this man she hardly knew to tell her? He’d never visited them. He’d never even called, to the best of her knowledge.

  “Listen, I’m driving over to the gallery if you want to come? There’s some great stuff you might want to see?”

  “No, thanks. Art’s not my thing,” she said, trying to ignore his disappointed face. She actually liked art, and the gallery looked kind of cool, a converted chapel that he’d pointed out on a trip to the store, but she couldn’t handle any more awkward silences. “I’ll stay here with Harry. I’m okay hanging out with him.”

  She crouched down and pulled at the dog’s flopped ears.

  “Well, if you’re sure? Things will get better when school starts. You’ll be with kids your own age.”

  Sass picked up a handful of sand, scrunching it in her fist before letting it slip through her fingers. “Yeah, maybe.” She hadn’t been in touch with any of her friends since she’d gotten to England. You had to climb a mountain around here to be in the twenty-first century: no Wi-Fi, no cell signal. Besides, no one, not even her best friend, Lauren, had known what to do after the accident, and after the first round of awkward hugs and promises to be there whenever she needed, they’d drifted thousands of miles apart. Maybe she’d write her sometime when she was feeling better.

  David was staring at her. Sass drained the last of her coffee. “You go,” she said. “I’ll take Harry for a walk. A long one. Over the top of the headland, maybe.”

  She stood up to show that she meant it. Her uncle rubbed the back of his head, as if undecided about the right thing to do. After a pause, he made up his mind.

  “Okay. Your choice.” He looked guilty, but Sass felt relief.

  “Want to know something else, Saskia?” He paused and smiled sadly. She held her breath, her shoulders tense.

  “You’re so like her …” And before she could ask him what he meant, he touched her arm and left.

  It was still early, and since the tide was out, Sass clambered over the rocks with Harry. The terrier got to splash through every pool and roll on washed-up dead fish because her mind was somewhere else. The horse from the meadow kept nudging her way in. There had been something magical about her: so still and silver in that field of flowers. She didn’t know why exactly, but Sass wanted to see her again.

  Harry led the way over the headland. At the top, Sass looked down at the village: a cluster of cottages clinging like barnacles to a coastline that stretched on forever. A screeching, black-headed gull moved her on, flapping too close to Sass’s head, and she fled up the path. It was getting hot already and the air seemed to shimmer around her.

  Retracing her steps from the evening before, Sass came to the arched gateway and the hedgerow where she’d spotted the horse. She couldn’t see much through the leafy green, but it was clear the animal was no longer nearby. Disappointed, she turned and pushed at the gates held solid between their vine-covered posts. No way were they budging. She looked again at the ivy. Could she shinny across? She’d always been good at climbing.

  Sass tested her weight on the vines, which seemed to hold her. Pushing Harry through a small gap in the hedge below, she scrambled up and along, until she was right above the meadow. She hung down and jumped the last few feet, calling to Harry, who was sniffing at a rabbit hole.

  The paddock was just as she remembered, only more beautiful. Spindly stemmed wildflowers with showerheads of tiny white petals grew up past her waist. There were wispy featherlike grasses glistening with dew, and behind her stretched tangles of thorny roses, hot pink and scented. The meadow sloped slightly downward and she followed the incline to the bottom of the dip, where she saw the horse, just a few feet away, drinking at a creek.

  An instinct told Sass not to walk straight up. She remembered how they’d been with her after the accident: careful, gentle … slow. She blotted out the crushed cans and cartons of milk spilled across the sidewalk. Stretching out her palm, she watched as the animal ambled over with her ears pricked to nuzzle her hand.

  “Hey, I’ve got something for you.” Sass held out an apple that she’d brought with her. Soft lips took it, chewing and chomping messily, before nudging her for more.

  “What about leaving some for me, Greedy? That was my breakfast.”

  The horse looked old with her ears twitching back and forth. Up close, Sass could see she was almost white, made silvery gray from a distance by a splatter of paintlike, black spots. Sass scratched behind her twitching ears and down her long neck, working at the knots in her mane. It was hot already and the nearby creek looked tempting. Harry was already drinking, his pink tongue lapping noisily.

  Stooping down, Sass cupped her hands in the clear water and drank too. It was good. She refilled her bottle. Then she sat down and pulled off her socks and borrowed rubber boots, and, with a sharp gasp, dipped her bare feet with a wriggle of her toes. She splashed her face, lifting her hair to enjoy a cool trickle down her neck. As she straightened up, she caught sight of something hidden behind an overhanging willow.

  It was an old wreck of some kind. She stood up and moved closer. A horse trailer like a rusted tin can rested on a couple of musty hay bales. There were no windows to look through, but a low door at the front was held open by a straining … striped tie? Sass’s curiosity was pricked.

  “Hello! Is anyone in there?” she called.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dim light inside, Sass saw that someone had been there, and recently. Along with a stove and a scatter of spent matches was a fleece horse blanket flung across an empty cot still wearing the imprint of a body. A voice in her head told her to get out, but Sass had caught sight of a leather halter hanging on a nail. She reached up and took it down, turning it over in her hands. It was old and well oiled, stuck with white hairs, and there was a name inscribed on a brass tag: BO was all it said.

  From outside, a voice cut the silence. “You!”

  Sass jumped out of her skin. She spun around too fast and crashed s
traight into a boy with brown hair who’d stepped right up behind her. They clung together in a kind of awful slow-dance, tumbling out of the low door and onto the grass in a tussle of limbs, where Sass found herself looking down into a pair of very dark eyes. She gulped and slid off just as a canine cannonball shot out of the bushes.

  “Harry, no!”

  Her cry came too late as the dog tore into the boy’s pants with a growl. Harry’s target scrambled back in the mud, a shock of hair falling across his forehead. “Call him off me. Now!”

  Sass jumped to her feet and grabbed Harry by the collar. “I’m so sorry, are your pants …”

  “My pants?”

  Sass flushed, suddenly recalling that pants meant underpants in England.

  “I’m … he’s not mine. I …” Sass stuttered, but no way was the boy listening.

  “You’re going to deny responsibility? Unbelievable!” A bite-size fabric tear flapped halfway up his thigh.

  “Harry thought you were attacking me,” she said, flaring slightly at his stuck-up tone.

  “What? You’re the trespasser.”

  “Yeah, but you came up behind me and shouted!”

  He was tall, but they were about the same age. Sass held his scrutiny. He reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t think who.

  “It wasn’t Harry’s fault. And you’re okay, aren’t you?”

  Her gaze traveled down. She saw bare skin, but no blood. However, Angry Boy hadn’t finished yet, fire in his eyes, though his voice was low and his English accent kind of icy. “That dog should be on a lead.” He pushed his hair out of his face and took a step back, limping briefly as if he expected pain and it didn’t come.

  Harry knew his mistake, Sass could tell. He sat by her side, his jowls saggy, eyes innocently round.

  The boy muttered something under his breath, then spoke. “Look, I just don’t have time for this now. I’m sorry, but …”

  “I’m sorry too,” she replied, relieved at last that they could go their separate ways.

  “What?” he spluttered. “I wasn’t apologizing.” He stood up very straight.

  “Then why did you say sorry?”

  “I was being courteous; it’s a figure of speech.”

  Harry made a growly sound in his throat, sensing another fight. Sass bent to pick him up and forgot that the horse’s halter was still hanging over her shoulder. It slipped down her arm and she looked up, her bare toes curling guiltily. She had been messing with the boy’s stuff … in his trailer.

  “What were you going to do with that?”

  “Nothing! I wasn’t stealing, I promise.”

  “Well, put it down. No one’s allowed here,” he continued, “this is private property.”

  He looked down his long nose at her, arching his eyebrows like she was expected to say or know something that she didn’t. “Didn’t you see the signs?” he asked sharply.

  “No!” she fibbed. There had only been the one that Harry had scooted under. If you didn’t count a wall and barred gates. “I’m sorry. I was walking the dog and saw her …” She reached out to the horse, who, despite the commotion, had come up to investigate and was now nibbling the boy’s shoulder. “She’s so beautiful that I followed her here, that’s all.”

  The boy’s gaze softened a fraction. Stupidly, Sass took it as a good sign and felt braver. “Is she yours? Does the horse belong to you?”

  The glare was back, fiercer than ever. “No,” he said quickly, “she belongs to the estate.”

  He worked here then, a stable boy. “And her name’s Bo, right?” Sass dangled the halter, letting it drop when she saw from the expression on his face that she was practically clapping like a seal.

  “Look, you heard me. You need to go.”

  Sass fought the blush she could feel spreading up her neck. “Don’t worry, I’m out of here.” Adding for extra measure, “I’m sorry to have wasted your so valuable time.”

  Swinging her bag over her shoulder, she pushed past him and called for Harry, who came when he was told for like the first time ever, and ran up the hillside. She’d taken one step forward and followed it with a boy-sized flip back. It wasn’t fair.

  This place: England. She didn’t belong here. With all her heart, she wanted to go home.

  Alex watched the girl go with a dazed feeling like a concussion he couldn’t quite shake off. He was glad that she’d gone, although he wouldn’t bet on not seeing her again. She’d left her man-size Wellington boots by the creek.

  The sound of a powerful car stopped him thinking any more about her. He straightened up and brushed himself off. They’d taken the best part of twenty-four hours to catch up with him. He watched with a hard knot in his stomach as minutes later, a black Range Rover and a flashing police car appeared at the top of the meadow. Doors slammed and a tense group of muttering suits and uniforms slid down the damp grass toward him.

  “Bad night, sir?” His father’s man, Fellowes, stepped forward: ex-army, ex-police, executioner, his eyes boiled eggs in a pork-pie face.

  Alex rubbed his temple. “I’ll get my things.” What else could he say? He wasn’t going to bleat about his parents. The news of their breakup would be everywhere by now. Dissected, discussed, chewed over, until not even he knew what the truth was. And soon there’d be photos of him too with Plum under some naff headline.

  Alex ducked into the car, flanked by two police officers. He was a time waster, he knew it. These men had proper jobs. Criminals to catch. What did he count as, exactly? Fellowes spoke—as if speaking for them all.

  “The good news, Alexander”—he paused for maximum effect—“is that you’re not going back until after summer. You’re to stay here with your grandmother until your parents decide what to do.”

  He was warming up. A vein bulged above his left eye. Alex tried not to stare at it and failed.

  “Nobody has the time for this. Do you have any idea of the worry and embarrassment you’ve caused? People lose their livelihoods when you go AWOL. Absent without leave. That’s hardly fair, is it, in your position?”

  Alex looked past him out the window, conscious of not taking up too much space. He would apologize later. Bo was standing in the farthest corner of the field, spooked by their arrival, almost blue-lit by the flashing lights. He’d make it up to her too.

  As the car accelerated up the long drive to the place he called home, his heart beat faster. Trist House gazed down: a stern stone-nanny who had watched over the Tremayne family for more than three hundred years: births, deaths, fortunes, and disasters.

  When Sass got back to her uncle’s cottage, grouchy and footsore, the early sun had gone in and the wind had picked up. Looking down from the cliff path, she saw a woman she’d never seen before through the open kitchen window. She was standing at the sink humming as she put daisies in a jug, a scarf wrapped around her red-gold hair. After reading Mom’s ancient Nancy Drew mysteries a few Christmases ago, Sass had wanted titian hair. Nancy Drew looked up, put the flowers down, and came out the back door, wiping her hands on her jeans. Boyfriend jeans. She was barefoot too, but her toes were pinkly clean.

  “Hi, I’m Jessie!” Her smile reached her green eyes, disarming Sass slightly.

  “I’m Saskia,” she replied, tucking a dirty foot behind her ankle.

  “I know. I … work with David. I’ve been dying to meet you.” Realizing her mistake, she colored up redder than her hair. “He’s just coming now.”

  Not her uncle’s girlfriend, then, but maybe an artist … buddy?

  David came through the garden gate. “Jess, give me a hand with the painting, it’s got to go up to the studio.” He noticed his niece and reddened. “Hi, Sass, you’re back too.”

  Sass watched as they carried the elaborately swathed shape of a frame up to the boathouse loft. His studio. Her new bedroom. The painting was wrapped in white muslin that streamed up the narrow stone steps, like the trailing veil of a runaway bride.

  “What is it?” she asked when they cam
e down. Jess’s cheeks were flushed with excitement, strands of copper escaping their tie.

  “It’s a painting, an Irving-Welch, not that David’s let me see it yet. It belongs to the old countess up at Trist House.”

  “Trist.” Sass mouthed the long s sound. Where had she heard or seen that name before? It sounded like a cross between “trust” and “risk.” It sounded like a secret.

  “Come on, David!” Jess teased. “Can’t we take a peek?”

  Her uncle wasn’t to be persuaded.

  “You will, tomorrow, when we’re ready to start work. It’s bad enough just having it here.”

  “Lady Helena won’t mind,” Jess persisted, touching his arm. “She doesn’t care what it’s worth … everyone knows that.”

  “She will now,” David said firmly. “Rumor has it the estate’s for sale.”

  “What! For sale? They’ve lived there for generations. They belong there.”

  “Not anymore. It’s too much for the old lady and I reckon with all the news, they need the money. It’s been a long time since the countess bred a winner.”

  “A winner?” Sass had been only half listening.

  “Jump racer. All the money is in flat racing now. Dubai sheikhs and Russian billionaires.”

  “What are you talking about?” It sounded like he was speaking in code.

  “Horses, Sass! Thoroughbreds.”

  Oh. Sass thought about the gray horse. What sort of horse was she with a name like Bo? Was it short for something, or just short? Short and sweet, and muddy. She smiled at the mental picture.

  Much later that evening, while David walked Harry, Jessie got dinner ready. She knew where everything was, even the smallest things like pepper and ketchup, and Sass guessed from the stolen looks between them that the cottage was as much hers as his. For the second time that day, she felt out of place. The new kid at the party.