Finding Faith. C. E. Edmonson

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СКАЧАТЬ his head. This was as far as he was prepared to go. “If you don’t mind, I’ll leave Eva to tell you the rest. Eva likes to talk.”

      Satisfied, Margaret leaned back and put her arm around Faith’s shoulders. They were passing through a stretch of unbroken forest, mile after mile of trees and brush. The sun was directly overhead and its beams passed through the leaves of the hardwoods to dapple the forest floor with light. The alternate pattern of light and shadow fascinated Faith, and she was a bit cheered simply to discover that light actually reached the ground. From the train, it had seemed as if the sunlight were being absorbed by the upper branches of the trees and everything below would be in darkness.

      They drove on for another fifteen minutes without passing a house. The only evidence of human activity were the NO HUNTING signs nailed to the trees closest to the road. And even those were few and far between. Faith was beginning to wonder if the forest stretched clear to California when a lake came into view.

      “Hold up for a minute, Ben,” Margaret said. She waited until Ben pulled onto the margin of the road and set the handbrake. “That’s Wildwood Lake, Faith. That’s where we’re going. Wildwood is the largest lake on the Pocono plateau, and the deepest, too.”

      Despite her mother’s enthusiasm, Faith wasn’t all that impressed. Her family had visited Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains a few years ago and Lake George was much bigger. In fact, New York’s harbor alone was big enough to swallow a dozen Wildwood Lakes. Plus, there wasn’t a home in view; the lake appeared to be surrounded by unbroken forest. Nor were there any boats on the water, or any sign that humans had ever been there, only birds, dozens and dozens of them, scattered across the placid, sun-swept surface. Faith recognized Canadian geese and some of the ducks—she’d seen them often enough on the tiny lake in Central Park—but the other kinds of birds were completely unknown. She watched them for a minute as they dove underwater then resurfaced, only to dive again a moment later.

      “Look there, Faith.” Margaret pointed to a paved road that disappeared into the trees surrounding the lake.

      “Is that the way in?” Faith asked. “Why can’t I see any houses?”

      “You can’t see any houses because they’re hidden by the trees. The property owners wanted to preserve the wild view. As for your first question, that road is, indeed, a way into the community. Just not into our community, which is at the other end of the lake. You see, Wildwood Lake has become a hunting and fishing preserve for a few of Pennsylvania’s most powerful families. I don’t like putting it that way, but there’s no way to get around the facts. We were here first, but we live by their rules. Except for a few thousand acres to the east, which is our little world, they control all the land for miles around.”

      Faith shifted in her seat. “Do you mean people like Jaspin Gore?”

      “Miss Faith, how do you know about Jaspin Gore?” Ben asked.

      “The girl at the station, Pauline. She told me that she was Jaspin Gore’s daughter.”

      Faith looked out over the lake at a flock of geese descending one by one, their honking calls as penetrating as they were raucous. The geese were hitting hard, sending up sprays of water. Faith watched the flock swim in circles for a moment, until all had landed. Then they came together, forming a wedge, before swimming toward the far end of the lake.

      “What would happen,” she asked, “if we took that road?”

      “There’s a guard post a few hundred yards in. It’s still there, right?”

      “Still there,” Ben said.

      “Well, if we took that road, we’d be turned back unless we lived, or worked, there,” Faith’s mother continued. “We have to use the road at the other side of the lake. The two roads don’t connect. We have our road and they have theirs.”

      Ben put the truck in gear and they drove for another few minutes until they came to a second road, this one unpaved and marked by deep ruts and exposed rock. Smiling, Ben spun the wheel.

      “Almost home,” he said as they slowed to a crawl.

      Chapter Five

      THE SHORT TRIP, less than a mile, took nearly twenty minutes to complete. The well-worn springs on the old pickup truck weren’t adequate to the task of negotiating the ruts and the rocks. That was obvious enough. But the road wasn’t adequate, either, and when they encountered another vehicle, a dilapidated Model A Ford, Ben was forced to pull onto an open space beneath an enormous beech tree.

      The Model A was driven by a tall man whose brush-cut hair grazed the roof. He waved to Ben as he passed and Ben waved back. This little dance was apparently very common. Still, Faith Covington raised a question.

      “What do you do when it’s raining and the road’s muddy?” she asked.

      “Depends,” Ben replied.

      “On what?”

      “Well, if you’re talkin’ about a passin’ storm, folks just stay home ’til the road dries out. Winters, though, are different, what with all the snow we get. And spring, too, when the snow melts. No, winter time, we mostly leave the cars out by the main road and walk in.”

      But Faith wasn’t through. Between New York City’s subways and its many buses, the city was up and running every day of the year. That was part of New York’s get-ahead attitude. You never let anything hold you back. Certainly not a narrow road. In New York, there was no such thing.

      “What if there’s an emergency? What if someone has a heart attack and you have to call an ambulance? How does the ambulance get to the patient?”

      “That can’t happen, honey,” Margaret said, her voice gentle, “because there’s no telephone service. The state hasn’t run the lines yet.”

      No telephone? What year are they living in here? Faith wondered. She looked at the poles by the side of the road, at the wires strung between them. Well, at least there must be electricity. We won’t have to sit in the dark. Probably.

      They passed a number of small houses, perhaps a dozen in all, as they made their way to the farm. The modest homes were only a couple of hundred yards apart and a number of them appeared to be abandoned. They stood in clearings, often with a garden and a few outbuildings alongside. A few had smoke rising from chimneys. In others, women toiled in the gardens. The women stood to wave as the Chevrolet pickup passed, and to scrutinize Margaret and Faith. In a small community like this, Faith realized, everyone knew everyone else. Her arrival—and her mother’s—came as no surprise.

      So, what exactly was expected of Faith Covington? Because there would definitely be expectations, she knew that. It was like switching schools or moving into a new neighborhood. You had to figure out where you fit in with everyone else around you. Not that it was easy... Far from it.

      Faith’s thoughts were interrupted when Ben stopped the car and pointed to a dead tree by the side of the road. The tree was still standing, though there wasn’t a speck of green on any of its limbs and its bark was sooty black. Perched on one of the tree’s highest branches, a large owl, perhaps two feet high, stared over the top of the pickup. The owl’s gray head was almost perfectly round and its oddly flattened face appeared to melt back on itself. A series of feathered circles, divided СКАЧАТЬ