Moonlight Masquerade (Edilean 8)

The children looked wide-eyed for a moment, then started squealing and running around.

“Sophie,” Reede said softly, “thanks for doing this. If Sue hadn’t taken care of Jim he might have bled to death. She couldn’t look after the kids at the same time. And if you hadn’t been here . . . ” He trailed off. “Anyway, thank you.”

“I enjoyed it. Doing this made me remember some things.”

“Your sculpture?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was the driving force in my life when I was growing up, and during college I thought of nothing else. Jecca and Kim and I were like Roan and thought we were going to set the world on fire with our art.” She was laughing at herself.

“Instead, you’ve just set a bad-tempered doctor on fire. Hey kids! Last one in the bus doesn’t get to sit next to Miss Sophie.”

All of the children started running at once. The two older boys grabbed the potato sculptures without slowing down.

Sophie shook her head at him. “You should have said that the last one in has to sit by me.”

“Ha!” Reede said with a derogatory snort. “You have a knack for making people fall in love with you. It’s certainly worked with me. Hey you two!” he yelled. “Don’t eat raw hot dogs. They’re full of bacteria.” When the children didn’t obey him, he said, “And frog guts. Yeah, eat the bread and chips. Carb load.” He looked back at Sophie. “I think they found cupcakes. You ready for a ride with eight sugared-up monsters?”

As Sophie walked behind him to the picnic table, she was thinking about his remark about love working for him.

Reede took a cupcake from a box and bit into it. “Make that nine sugar fiends,” he said, smiling at Sophie in such a naughty way that she laughed.

They got all the children on the bus, and on the trip back they took turns sitting by Sophie and telling her what animal they wanted. Reede, in the driver’s seat, pulled an old notebook and pen out of a compartment on the door and passed it to Sophie. The children’s ideas about their carvings had become so detailed she had to sketch them and put the child’s name on the picture.

By the time they got to the church and the anxiously awaiting parents, each child had been to Sophie twice. Simple animals had turned into intricate pieces. “And I want its mane to fly out to the back like it’s leaping,” one boy said of the horse he wanted. “The eyes have to be big and the neck long.” A giraffe. “Sweet. Nice,” a girl said of a koala bear.

Sophie thought of the restaurant she was opening and that she wouldn’t have time to do things like this, but the truth was that she’d rather carve anything than make tuna salad sandwiches.

It seemed that the phones had been busy since Mr. Jim had been shot by an arrow and when they got back to the church all the parents wanted to ask Reede about what had happened. As they surrounded him, Sophie stepped out of the way.

“Did you do this?”

She turned to see one of the mothers, the dragon on her outstretched hand. All of the little critters had sat on the dashboard on the way back. “Yes.”

“This is wonderful,” the woman said. “I’m Brittany’s mother.”

“Ah yes, she’s ordered a giraffe.” Sophie explained her promise to the children and how they’d made their orders and she’d sketched them out.

“And you can make them in clay?”

“Sure,” Sophie said. She started to explain about her degree in art but she didn’t say anything.

“We went to a zoo this summer and one of the giraffes leaned over the fence, clasped its teeth down on my daughter’s ponytail, and pulled. I nearly fainted in horror, but Brittany and my husband laughed. And he got a great photo of it. Since then she’s been obsessed. Her room has giraffe wallpaper, a bedspread, and about twenty stuffed giraffes.”

“What a lovely image,” Sophie said and looked at the little girl. “You have a pen and paper? I’ll give you my e-mail address and would you send me a copy of the photo?”

“Yes,” the woman said, her eyes alight. Someone called and she waved her hand. “I have to go, but it was wonderful meeting you. We were afraid our children would return traumatized, but all they can talk about is Miss Sophie and the animals she carved. Thank you. I think that what you did blocked out that awful thing they saw. It would give me bad dreams, much less a child.”

Her words were complimentary, and Sophie realized that it was the first time in a long while that her own actions had made her feel good about herself. For years now it had been men’s feelings that had determined her mood. If her male boss was coming on to her, she felt bad. If Carter’d had a fight with his father and was grumpy, she was sad. If Carter’s father was out of town and he was happy, so was she. When she’d been alone with Reede in the little room high up in the house, she’d felt great.

“You have an odd look on your face,” Reede said as he came to stand beside her. He’d finally escaped the questioning parents. “Care to share your thoughts?”

She wasn’t about to tell him that she’d just come to the realization that nearly every woman reaches at some time in her life. “No,” she told him. “I was just wondering how we’re going to get home. Your car is still in the forest.”

Reede knew that wasn’t what she’d been thinking about. “Heather called to tell me she and her husband are going out there to get it and to clean up the site. Someone will give you and me a ride home. I’m staying in the Gains house tonight, the one you looked at with Al’s wife. Want to stay with me?”

“No,” she said and she meant it, not because she was angry at him, but because she had to do some things for herself. She needed to get her feet on the ground before she reconnected with a man. She stood up straighter. “Thank you, but no.”

Sixteen