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By Root 2055 0

and its cracked blacktop surface, apparently unrepaired for years, made their teeth rattle in their heads. By the time the corroded, partly collapsed wrought iron fence that bordered Cross Hill came into view, overgrown with jungle-like vegetation, the sky had gradually darkened with heavy, porous clouds blown by a warm, sulfurous wind from the direction of Lake Noir. Was something wrong? Rosalind tasted alarm, apprehension. Seeing, glimpsed through drooping foliage, the stately old limestone house on its hill, cross-shaped, a somber pink-gray; a storybook dwelling it seemed, surely inhabited by very special people, though whether the house was beautiful, or frankly ugly, Rosalind, panting, dazed with exhaustion, could not have said. What did we children know of the history of Cross Hill, what had we been told of our father’s grandfather?—only that the man, deceased for decades, had had a name with a Biblical resonance: Moses Adams Matheson. He’d made a fortune, it was said, as a textile manufacturer in Winterthurn City, forty miles to the south, and had reared to the Chautauqua foothills of Contracoeur. Yet there were no portraits of him at Cross Hill; there were no family portraits at all, and little hanging on the walls except faded silk wallpaper hanging in strips; most of the rooms in the shuttered wings were empty not only of furnishings but of even the memory, the suggestion, of furnishings. As if history itself had been banished, erased. As if history itself was too painful to be retained.

As Stephen and Rosalind at last passed through the opened gate of Cross Hill, the first raindrops struck, like hot lead, sizzling and stinging. And what an uphill climb it was: the hill of Cross Hill had never been so steep. And the badly rutted Acacia Drive, leading through the grassy ruin of a park, so arduous to navigate. By the time Stephen and Rosalind arrived at the house, they were breathless and drenched in sweat; there was little that would have seemed attractive about them, for their bodies reeked of perspiration; Rosalind’s thin cotton shirt and shorts clung to her slender body, her hard, small breasts, in a way repulsive to her. And there, to their dismay, were both Father and Mother awaiting them in the weedy flagstone square in front of the front entrance; the other children were nowhere in sight, as if banished. Father wore a rumpled off-white linen jacket and sporty trousers; clearly he was angry, yet making an effort to control his anger; some of his old, ironic charm had returned, as if he were addressing the court or speaking on television. His eyes were flat and lusterless but he managed to smile with seeming ease; Mother, just slightly behind him, in pale green silk slacks and a matching kimonolike silk tunic, made no effort to smile at all, for her heavily made-up face was swollen with hurt and anger; her eyes were puffy from crying; for she, who was Mother, had surely been blamed for the bad behavior of her two eldest children. Sternly Father said, “Stephen, Rosalind—how dare you disobey me? You’ve been gone, without permission, without even informing your mother and me you’d left Cross Hill, for almost eight hours! Such behavior is unconscionable.” Eight hours! Stephen and Rosalind exchanged a stricken glance. They protested, “But we haven’t been gone more than an hour! We were only just testing our bicycles …” Yet it seemed clear that they’d been gone for more, much more, than a single hour. The sky, massed with ugly clouds, had darkened almost to twilight; the temperature had plummeted at least twenty degrees; the harsh, stinging rain began to fall harder, smelling of night. Like a guilty child Rosalind burst into tears—“Father, I’m sorry! So sorry.” Father said, incensed, “ ‘Sorry’! After we’ve been worried sick about you! You will both go to your rooms now, at once. I’ll speak with you privately.” Shamefaced, Rosalind hurried into the house; but Stephen remained behind, defiant, saying stubbornly that they hadn’t been gone eight hours, he was certain they hadn’t been gone eight hours, and anyway they