Meena saw the face, too. We didn’t say anything to each other. We just got out of there. When we looked back at the forest, we didn’t see a single red cap anywhere, but the branches of the oaks were lashing as wildly as though a storm were on the way. Beyond the fence, where we stood, the air wasn’t moving at all.
Meena and I did start running then, and we didn’t slow down until we were completely out of sight of the Hundred-Acre Wood, and we didn’t talk for a while after that. The sun was setting fast, but I could have gotten us home in the dark. Finally I said, “I’m sorry I talked to you that way.”
“Well, you had to, didn’t you?” Meena said. She stopped walking and turned to face me. “You knew we shouldn’t go into the wood,” she said. “A thing came to warn you—a Black Dog, or whatever it was. You tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen.”
“It’s hard to believe stuff like that, first off.” I couldn’t tell if she was still mad at me or not—and with Meena you know—but I had an uneasy feeling, looking at her.
“But what you aren’t telling me is how you knew. And you haven’t been telling me for a long time now.” She was mad, all right, but mad in a different way than I’d ever seen her, level and cold. She said, “Talk to me, Jenny.”
I can’t remember what I answered, and it doesn’t matter—I’d probably be ashamed to recall whatever I tried to get away with. Meena just stood there looking like that, saying, “It’s been going on for months—even Julian’s noticed the way you’ve been behaving. How stupid do you think I am, Jenny?”
So, at last, I told her about Tamsin.
I would have told her—I was planning to, whenever the right moment came up—but the fact is I hadn’t, and she was my best friend, and she had every right to do what she did, once I was through, which was to chew me up one side and down the other in that same flat, un-Meena voice. I took it without a word, not looking at her, until she ran out of gas, and then I just said in the silence, hoping I wasn’t going to cry, “Meena, I’m sorry.”
Meena said, “You could have trusted me. I don’t mean just to keep your secret—I mean to believe you. Of all people, do you think I don’t know about ghosts? About night creatures? About spirits, fairies, things that can change their shape?” Her eyes were getting brighter and brighter, and I was afraid she was going to start crying, which would have been even worse than me. “You know I would have believed you, Jenny.”
I couldn’t say anything. We stood still, the two of us, both twanging like fiddle strings about to go, and me wishing I were dead. Only time in my life so far I’ve ever wished such a thing, but I’ll know it if it happens again. Then Meena began to smile, just a little bit, brushing the back of her hand very quickly across her eyes. “But you went after me,” she said. “You followed me into the wood, even though you were warned not to. You brought me back.”
“Well, I’m not all dork,” I mumbled. “Not all the way through.” So then we both cried, and we hugged each other, and we went on home together, not saying much. With the lights of Stourhead Farm in sight, Meena suddenly turned to me and asked me, “Jenny, what do you think they wanted with us, those things—what did you say she called them?”
“Oakmen,” I said. “I think those were Oakmen, but I don’t know what the hell they are, or what they’d have done. I don’t know anything about this place, Meena. I thought I did, but I don’t. You remember that if I ever start saying I know.”
The first time I brought Meena to Tamsin’s secret room, Tamsin wasn’t there. I was starting to get as jumpy as the billy-blind about all her roaming around—because it was my fault, I’d started her doing that—but Meena was fascinated by the hidden lock, and by that little closet with the one dark window, and I was too busy explaining everything to her to worry much then. But later we sneaked a glance into Tony’s studio and didn’t see Tamsin there either, and that’s when it started to get to me. I kept thinking about Judge Jeffreys—the Other One, whatever that really meant—and all the bewildering things the Pooka had said about me being the only one who could help. I told Meena all that stuff, too.
But Tamsin did show up, just before Meena had to go home. We were sitting in that double swing Evan had made, waiting for Mr. Chari to arrive—and like that, there she was, perched between us on the back of the swing, smiling at me in that way that always turned my insides to chocolate syrup. I said, “Meena, she’s here.”
Meena whirled around, her face actually flushing with excitement. “Where, Jenny? Show me!”
I pointed grandly and made my introduction. “Mistress Tamsin Willoughby, this is my dear friend Meena Chari. Miss Meena, I have the honor to introduce Tamsin Elspeth Catherine Maria Dubois Willoughby, of Stourhead Farm.” And I bowed and waited for them to discover each other.
But it didn’t work out like that. Tamsin was shaking her head sadly, and Meena was looking wide-eyed in all directions, still asking, “Where, Jenny? Where is she?” I’ll never forget the sound of her voice right then. Like a little girl growing more and more afraid that the parade or the show or the party has already started without her.
She hadn’t seen the Black Dog. She didn’t see Tamsin. I didn’t know what to do. I asked, “Can you smell her?”
Meena nodded. In the same small voice, she said, “I know she’s here. I just…” She let it trail off. Tamsin leaned forward and put her hand on Meena’s cheek. Meena stiffened where she sat, and her eyes got very wide. She looked at me, and I nodded, and Meena said, “Oh,” but not so I could hear it. I had to turn my head away for a moment. I didn’t think I ought to see her like that.
“It’s not fair,” I said. “It should be you.”
That snapped Meena out of it fast. “What? Why? Because I look right?—because you think I look like someone who should be able to see ghosts? You have to stop that, Jenny, right now. It’s degrading to you, and it makes me feel really bad. She chose you to talk to, when she’s never spoken to anyone else, and if that doesn’t tell you something about yourself, then I don’t know what will. I think that’s my father coming.”
It was. Meena stood up and turned toward where she thought Tamsin was sitting—I had to move her just a little. She said clearly, “Good-bye. I’m happy that you speak to my friend Jenny. She’s the best person you could have on your side, you can take my word for that.” She stopped for a moment, touching her cheek, and then she said, “If you can hear me—I’m on your side, too.” Then she ran to meet Mr. Chari, and I stood with Tamsin, watching her go.
Twenty-two
Tamsin scolded me about the Oakmen. I’d thought Meena had really worked me over, but after Tamsin got through, there wasn’t enough left to recycle. “Witling, gommeril, logger-head, are you mad then? After all my cautions, to walk in that accursed wood of your own choice, knowing? Mistress Jenny Gluckstein, what can have possessed you? What cloud came over your brain-pan, tell me?” There was a lot more. She was so furious that she lost all her usual transparency—she looked as solid as Sally while she was laying into me. I was so fascinated to see her like that, I know I missed some great seventeenth-century words.
It didn’t help at all when I pointed out that I’d only gone in a little way, and only after Meena—that I couldn’t let her go alone just because she wouldn’t pay any attention to my warning. Tamsin ran right over that one. “Never gainsay me, child— it was for you to keep her out of danger in the first place. There’s where you should have laid hold of her hair, the very moment she spoke of entering the wood.” Oh, she was sizzling, she was wonderful!