The Singing Stones

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  So that was what the big top room was used for?

  “Dancing should be good therapy for Jilly. I hope you all encourage her,” I said, and heard the superficiality of my own words.

  “Stephen hates her dancing. Perhaps because he’s not even able to walk.”

  My sense of irritation with Stephen was growing. “So he’s completely centered in himself—as Oriana is in herself! And Jilly is being left out by both her parents!”

  “Good!” Julian nodded an approval I didn’t want. “It’s fine if you can be indignant about this. Anger can be useful.”

  “It can also be destructive. What good does my being angry do anyone?”

  He let that pass. “Of course Oriana encourages Jilly’s dancing, and she always teaches her whenever she’s home. Jilly works hard so she can show her mother how much she’s improving. This is why Oriana probably thought it a wonderful idea to bring Carla Raines in to look after Jilly temporarily. That is, until the child can go back to school. Carla is a dancer too, or was until a knee injury cut her off from professional work. She is still able to teach and, as a protégé of Oriana’s, she taught a dancing class in Charlottesville that Jilly used to attend. Though—sometimes—I’m not sure Jilly likes her.”

  “Why is that? What’s wrong with her?”

  Vivian, her hands in padded mitts, carried a hot baking dish of lasagna to the table, and she answered my question. “Everything! I can’t stand the woman. She’s not a governess, though she tries, and Jilly’s lessons are slipping. Besides—”

  “Let Lynn make up her own mind,” Julian said gently. “We need to be armed in order to persuade Oriana that Carla isn’t suitable. And Lynn may help if she comes to a conclusion of her own.”

  There was no use protesting that I would be leaving as soon as possible and there would be no time to form an opinion about Carla Raines or anybody else. I got up to help Vivian set salads and a loaf of warm bread and whipped butter on the table.

  This dining area seemed a bit more like Stephen’s taste. Paintings on the walls were bold abstracts that lent color and a touch of drama. The Scandinavian dining table and chairs were simple and pure in line, sturdy and beautiful at the same time. Dark green napkins and woven place mats complemented the light wood of the table.

  However, as I sat down, I reminded myself that I knew nothing about Stephen’s taste as it might exist today. Twelve years had changed us both and I must hold on to the word “strangers” in my mind and forgot old comparisons.

  Julian began to talk about a new book he’d picked up at the Quest bookshop in Charlottesville—a book about auras that seemed to fascinate him.

  “I think Jilly sometimes sees them,” he told me. “Though I only discovered this by chance, since she thinks everyone views other people with halos of light around them. She said my golden yellow was turning dark and she wondered why. Of course the human body does have an energy field around it, and some people can see this. Since it isn’t one of my talents, I decided to learn more about it.”

  “You don’t need to see auras,” Vivian smiled. “You can see what’s happening inside, Julian, and that can be scary sometimes. I can’t keep a thing from you.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry. Jilly sees your light as bright and clear and happy.”

  “That’s with thanks due to you, Julian,” his wife said warmly, and I sensed the deep affection between these two.

  Good food and wine from the Shenandoah Valley revived me a little, and I tried to enjoy the moment without thinking about tomorrow. None of my determination to leave had weakened.

  When we finished the lasagna, I helped bring in fruit and cheese, while Vivian poured coffee. The evening had cooled and the hot drink was pleasant.

  While we were clearing the table and still chatting comfortably about nothing important, I heard the sound of someone running along the front deck. A man appeared at one of the glass doors, and when Julian went to open it, he burst into the room. He was a big man with a rugged look about him, and he wore a green jumpsuit that startled with its bold impact. Brown hair curled over his head in a tight cap, and he just missed being movie-star handsome, his features a little too sharp. At the moment he seemed highly excited.

  “It’s Stephen!” he cried. “I just found him out of his wheelchair on the bathroom floor. There was a broken bottle of sleeping pills scattered on the tiles. I don’t know how many he’s swallowed. I carried him back to his bed, but you’d better call for an ambulance and get him to the hospital.”

  “I’ll come right away, Paul,” Julian told him. Then to Vivian and me, “Please stay here. I’ll see to this.”

  He went off with Paul Woolf and I dropped into the nearest chair. Vivian sat opposite me. “Are you all right, Lynn?”

  A water glass stood at my place and I drank from it, steadying myself. I’d never expected to feel so shocked.

  “I’m fine,” I told her, and heard the break in my voice.

  Vivian touched my hand. “You still care about him, don’t you? I’m sorry.”

  “Of course I don’t.” I pulled my hand away, rejecting sympathy, though my words sounded false and I hated my own self-betrayal. “Really, I haven’t thought of him in years. It’s just that the Stephen I used to know would never do something like this.”

  “I don’t suppose he’s anything like the man you remember.”

  “I’m sure that’s true.” I could relax my guard a little with Vivian, where I didn’t dare to with her husband. “But I should never have come here. I’ll leave tomorrow morning. Let me help with the dishes now, and then I’ll go up to my room.” Though I didn’t mean to go until I’d heard what had happened to Stephen.

  “Of course—you must be tired,” Vivian said. She made no effort to discourage me from helping as we put dishes into the washer. Her manner was kind but at the same time a bit wary.

  Julian returned quickly. “It’s all right. Stephen says he took none of the pills, and Paul has counted them to make sure. But he’ll have to watch Stephen more closely. Probably apathy and boredom are Stephen’s worst enemies right now. He thinks he hasn’t anything to live for.”

  “Probably what happened last night has made everything worse—” Vivian began, but Julian’s look stopped her.

  If it had mattered one way or another, I might have asked pointedly what had happened last night. And why Vivian had mentioned the police earlier. But I didn’t really want to know. If I was to escape tomorrow, I needed to shut out whatever was happening under this roof. I must get back to my own life.

  “I was just going up to bed,” I told Julian.

  He studied me thoughtfully for a moment, then seemed to come to some conclusion.

  “I hope you’ll sleep well, Lynn. We’ll see you in the morning. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” He went off toward the stairs a bit abruptly, as if he wanted to hear no more about my leaving.

  I shook my head despairingly at Vivian. “Please make your husband understand that I mean to start my vacation tomorrow.”

  “He won’t let you go,” Vivian said.

  “What do you mean? How can he keep me here?”

  “I don’t know. Something will happen. He has the gods on his side.”

  “Why is he so determined that I must help Jilly?”

  Vivian put the last of the dishes in the washer and turned it on. “Why don’t you ask him?” she said above the sound.

  “There’s no need.” We moved toward the stairs together. “I don’t expect to see him again. I want to leave early in the morning—before you’re up.”

  Vivian seemed to turn again into the decorative still life she could sometimes emulate, unmoved by emotion—her own or that of others. A protective shield she could put on at times?

  I ran upstairs, meaning to go directly to my bedroom and close the door. Something stopped me. Just before I reached my room, music drifted down to me from the top floor. Someone was up there playing a recording of oriental music. A tinkling sound—p
erhaps the gamelans of Bali. My first impulse was to run from the music and shut my door upon it.

  Instead, I started quietly up the top flight of stairs, letting the dissonant sounds swell and reach out to me, pulling me upward toward their source.

  3

  Though the music would probably hide any sound of my approach, I moved softly, knowing what I might see. At the top of the stairs, I found myself in the gloom of an unlit section of this high space. Here the house plans I remembered had been changed.

  A small bedroom opened on my left—where Oriana could rest if she wished, after dancing. An adjoining door opened on a bathroom with a shower stall. I walked past these, but stayed in shadow where I could look out across the long, wide room that had been designed for Oriana and no one else. Here all the lights had been turned full on and the area was as bright as a stage setting.

  A ballet barre stretched before mirrors that covered a space of wall. Above them small clerestory windows would bring in daylight, though now they were black glass set against the night. At the far end a small stage extended its apron above where an audience might sit, the space framed by a backdrop of neutral curtains. Nearby stood a small grand piano, though no accompanist sat at the keys. Instead, a tape player had been placed on the black surface and plugged into a wall outlet. This was the source of the music that continued its exotic strains.

  I took all this in at a glance, and then gave my full attention to the small figure in a black leotard moving down the room. Jilly’s hair hung down her back, shining in the light like dark satin and swinging as she moved. Her steps were slow and measured, like the music. Obviously she performed a ritual. In raised hands, with her palms turned up, Jilly carried a lamp that Aladdin might have rubbed—probably an old prop of Oriana’s. Clearly this dance offered homage to the gods. I had seen Jilly’s mother move like this the one time I had witnessed her performance.

  Her daughter, however, moved almost fearfully, glancing sidelong at herself in the mirrors, her expression one of both concentration and dissatisfaction. For a few steps more she continued, and then came to angry life. She flung the lamp—already battered—furiously across the room. It was as though she knew she could never move as beautifully as her mother—as though she rejected her own imperfection mercilessly in the hurling of the lamp.

  I stood frozen, watching as she turned into something small and wild and out of control. Paying no further attention to the stylized sounds, ignoring the mirror, she whirled into a dervish dance of hopelessness and despair. Her every movement was graphic, speaking of desolation, of terror—and of grief. All that Jilly could never put into words was being unleashed in the wild movements of her dance.

  At the same time, something magical made itself felt in her furious leaps and pirouettes down the floor. Or perhaps “demonic” would be closer to what the child was dancing. Her astonishing performance—outburst!—came to an end as suddenly as it had begun. At the finish of a leap, Jilly threw herself to the floor with such impetus that her small body slid along the boards for a distance before it lost momentum and she lay motionless, stretched at full length. The tape player clicked off and the music that had become a futile background sound ended abruptly. Jilly lay facedown, her arms outstretched, her long black hair strewn over her shoulders and above her head, fanning out on the floor. As she lay there, sobs were wrenched from her, shaking her in an abandonment of grief.

  More than anything else, I felt afraid. Emotion as stormy as this was something I had never seen or tried to cope with. Children who were dying often accepted without despair, too preoccupied with their illness and its treatment, counting days by the number of needle pricks, but accepting whatever life they had left. This seemed a far more destructive emotion, and I didn’t dare to let my presence be known, or to offer comfort from a stranger. What Jilly needed now was the help of a loving parent—when such a parent didn’t exist. For the first time I thought of Stephen without personal pain, only angry with him for the neglect of this needful little girl.

  Even a loving friend might help, but where in this house was there such a friend? Neither Julian or Vivian could be right for her, no matter how much they might want to help. And neither of the Forsters had sounded enthusiastic about Carla Raines.

  I could only stand there in the shadows and wait for the storm to spend itself. When I was sure the child was winding down, I would go downstairs and alert Julian.

  A nearby sound caught my ear, and I saw a woman coming up the stairs. There was no doubt about her identity. Julian had called Carla an “exotic bird.” She was striking rather than beautiful, with long brown hair falling thick and loose and curly from a circular comb. Her eyes were large and dark and touched a bit too heavily with green on the lids. She wore a long dress, cut perhaps from sari cloth woven in an emerald and scarlet print of leaves and flowers. When she reached the top of the stairs she stopped to stare at Jilly sobbing on the floor.

  I remained in shadow, unnoticed, watching as the woman moved toward her, her dancer’s grace evident. Leather sandals hardly touched the floor, and her bare toes were long, the nails tinged with rose. She moved soundlessly until she stood above Jilly.

  “Stop that and get up,” she said coldly. “Get up at once!” The music of Carla’s movements was not echoed in a voice that grated.

  Instantly Jilly’s shoulders quieted. She turned her head and looked up at the woman who stood over her. Before Carla could speak again, Jilly scrambled to her feet and ran away from her down the room in my direction. Her face looked white in the bright lighting, and streaked with tears. Carla Raines came after her, running. When she caught up with Jilly she took her by the arm and spun her around.

  “You are never to leave your room without telling me. You know that, Jilly!”

  “I—I had to,” Jilly said, sounding frightened.

  I stepped out of concealment to face them both and spoke directly to Jilly, ignoring Carla.

  “I watched your dancing,” I told her. “When you stopped imitating your mother, you were wonderful. You’re special as a dancer in your own way, and I hope you know that.”

  Jilly stared at me in surprise for a moment, but her main attention was on Carla.

  “Who are you?” Carla demanded, recovering from her own surprise, and then added, “Never mind—I know.”

  For the first time I looked directly into the woman’s eyes. They were dark eyes that should have seemed passionate in so striking a face, but they were chillingly devoid of feeling. This woman didn’t even like Jilly.

  “I’m an interested visitor,” I told her, looking again at the child.

  Gray-green eyes—Stephen’s eyes—met my own, and for an instant beseeched. As though a silent cry welled out of her helplessness. Then Jilly ran past us both and down the stairs. Without further interest in me, Carla went after her charge.

  As I followed them down, Julian appeared in the door of his study, watching as Jilly fled past toward her rooms on the same floor, with Carla Raines just behind. Neither paid him any attention, but when he saw me he beckoned.

  “Come in, Lynn, please, and tell me what that was all about.”

  I stood in the doorway, not going in, and explained as quickly as I could what had happened. “It’s now that matters,” I finished. “Jilly needs to be held and loved and comforted—by someone she can trust. That woman isn’t going to help her.”

  “Jilly used to invite hugging,” Julian said sadly. “I’m not sure she’ll let anyone touch her now. But if you think I should, I’ll try.”

  “Somebody should—and who else is there?”

  I didn’t think Vivian could help. All her concern seemed centered on Julian. I watched as he went off toward Jilly’s rooms, and then turned wearily back to my own emptiness—inner and outer.

  The moment my bedroom door closed behind me, physical and emotional exhaustion took over. I couldn’t endure any more tonight. Nevertheless, I could still see in my mind’s eye Jilly whirling through her dance of de
spair, and I ached to comfort her. Not because she was Stephen’s child, but because she was lost and alone, and all the compassion I had brought to children I had cared for was filling me toward this child. But now I must stop thinking and try to sleep. Most of all, I mustn’t think about Stephen trying to take an overdose of those pills—because he too despaired. This was a house in which I could affect nothing, and where I would only raise old memories and despair of my own. If I had been brought here for some purpose—as Julian believed—I didn’t have any idea what it was, or of what use I could be.

  I had brought my small tape player with me and a few of my favorite tapes. I put on a Brahms recording that I’d found soothing in the past. Tonight it did nothing for me, and after a time I turned off the music. Too many emotions I’d thought buried long ago were surfacing, making me angry all over again. Though this time my anger was more for Jilly than for that young wife who had been so desperately hurt.

  Stephen was Jilly’s father, whom she loved. He was the key to rescuing her, but who was there to turn the key? Certainly not Carla.

  Sleep was still far away. Perhaps if I walked a little while on the deck outside my room, I could clear my mind of its turbulence. I put a coat over my robe and tied a scarf around my head.

  As I slid open the glass door and stepped outside, a gust of cold wind swept along the deck, skittering dead leaves across the planks. I walked head down into the wind and let physical discomfort take over.

  No one was around, and though muted light shone onto bushes from windows on the level below, I could feel safely alone up here. The deck above, set back from where I walked, was dark and empty, and I felt as though I sailed through the universe on some spaceship, with only a dark sky and stars for company. Foolishly, I wished that Stephen could walk here with me—that young Stephen I’d lost in the years so long ago.

  For a few minutes I moved briskly, breathing the stinging cold mountain air, aware of its fresh scent of pines and raw earth. As I walked I became aware of another sound that was not the wind rushing through trees on the nearby hillside, but something faint and far off—almost like harp strings singing out there in the night. If there was a tune, it rose and fell repetitively—utterly disquieting. No human hand played that harp.