The Village by the Sea by Paula Fox Page A

the terror?”
    She lowered her voice. “They’ve been arguing about stew ,” she told him. “Daddy, she’s so mean! And, Daddy—did she used to drink a lot of brandy?”
    He didn’t answer quickly. She listened to him breathing, so happy at the even sound of it, she nearly forgot what she’d asked him.
    Finally, he said, “Yes, she did. But she stopped. I admired her for that. But she has a habit of resentment. It’s a kind of addiction, too, like brandy.”
    â€œIs she especially mad at your mother because of the house in Connecticut?” Emma asked in a whisper. She had heard the sound of a chair being pushed across the floor.
    â€œI think so,” he said. “She’s been angry at my mother for a thousand years. It’s pretty hopeless being mad at ghosts.” He paused, then, his voice filled with concern, asked her, “Has she been terrible to you?”
    Emma thought a moment. “No, it’s not that,” she said.
    â€œEmma, your supper is getting cold, Crispin’s wonderful stew!” shouted Aunt Bea, her voice carrying from the dining room.
    â€œI heard that,” Emma’s father said. “She always could say wonderful so it could slice you in half. Never mind. It’s hard to believe, but she doesn’t care what the target is—she wants to feel the stones leaving her hand—it won’t be long, my duck.”
    â€œI’m so glad, Daddy,” Emma said feelingly.
    â€œSo am I,” he said.
    On her way back to the dining room, she passed the long table. Uncle Crispin’s violin was elsewhere, but behind a pile of music books, she saw the tiny plastic deer. Without thinking she grabbed it up and stuck it in her pocket.
    â€œIt was Daddy,” she said to the two of them, sitting silently at the dining table. “Mom’s coming to get me Monday. That’s a day early.”
    â€œHe must be doing very well indeed,” Uncle Crispin observed. He looked quite tired, Emma thought.
    â€œYou might try to disguise how happy you are to get away from me,” Aunt Bea said, pouting.
    â€œOh, it’s not that!” protested Emma. “It’s going home, seeing them. It’s—”
    â€œAll right, all right …” muttered Aunt Bea. “I know that.”
    â€œI’m going home Monday,” Emma told Bertie.
    â€œThat’s only four days,” Bertie said. “And I think we have to have a library, and a church for everyone, no special kind.”
    â€œWe ought to have a little forest, too,” Emma said, “behind the village, at the foot of the cliff, so that people can go on picnics in the summer. There has to be a wild place.”
    â€œThat’s a good idea,” Bertie agreed.
    â€œI have a wild creature to put in our forest,” Emma said, showing Bertie the deer.
    â€œDid you find that on the beach?” asked Bertie.
    â€œNo,” Emma replied.
    â€œBut you said we should use only what we found lying around on the sand,” Bertie recalled.
    â€œI know I did,” Emma said. Since she couldn’t explain to herself why she wanted the deer to be part of what they had made, she could hardly explain it to Bertie. The deer was the right size, but she didn’t think that was the whole reason. The doll’s house furniture Bertie had offered would have been, too. She felt cranky suddenly as though Bertie was arguing about the deer—which she wasn’t. But they weren’t building doll’s houses.
    The village had taken on a life of its own. The tiny twigs and branches looked like real trees when they swayed in a breeze. The street of luminous shells gleamed. In the gardens behind the houses, the hedges and flowers stirred, and the studio skylight often seemed lit from within. It wasn’t a place built for dolls with their hard little bodies and frozen faces.
    She sighed. “The deer comes from a brandy