Wild Swans

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Wild Swans Page 13

by Patricia Snodgrass


  “It’s scanning us. It knows we’re nearby but isn’t sure exactly where. Take deep breaths and keep your mind as empty as possible.”

  “How?”

  “Shhh...”

  A nutria shot out between the shrubs and bolted toward the levee. It stopped as it crossed the path of the shadow-thing then stood up on its hind legs, its nose twitching as it investigated the intruder.

  The shadow passed over the creature, briefly obscuring it. The thing swayed in the breeze, then moved a few yards towards the right. All that remained of the nutria was dust and bones.

  Althea watched, so shocked that she couldn’t breathe as the shadow creature moved closer to the trees. Her head felt heavy and compressed. The zigzag lines grew worse and more intense, obscuring her field of vision. The searing pain of a summer migraine intensified.

  “Keep your mind still and quiet,” Mr. Lindt advised. “And no matter how much it hurts, don’t cry out.”

  Althea nodded as she pushed her face into Mr. Lindt’s shoulder. She closed her eyes, the bright zigzag flashes of light multiplying, engulfing her entire field of vision. Her stomach flipped as the thing moved closer. She could feel its presence, nearly gagged on a stench that reminded her of soured urine and vomit soaked linens drying in the sun.

  She whimpered. Lindt held her closer. The thing advanced closer. Althea tried not to think, dared not to breathe in the vile stench, not to listen as it mumbled in a language that on one on earth had ever heard. Lindt’s arms tightened, and in an instant she could feel his presence in her head.

  **Now, think,** he told her, **think of something you love fiercely with all your heart and don’t let go, not even for an instant. Just love. That’s all you have to do.**

  The compression in her head worsened. Althea pushed the heels of her palms into her temples. Mr. Lindt was in her mind again, a soothing balm against the onslaught of otherworldly sensation the creature exuded. She pressed her face deeper into his chest. Her mind reeled, but she found the strength and courage to sort through her emotions. What do I love fiercely? she asked herself. What? Is it Jake? No. Jake betrayed me and now I hurt so badly I may never get over it. And Hank? No. I barely know him. She thought about her mother. Mom? She wondered. Do I really love her or do I just put up with her?

  **This isn’t about other people loving you, my dear girl,** Lindt chided softly in her mind. **Think about what you want, what you love so fiercely that you would rather die than to let it go. What could that thing be?**

  It was then that an image coalesced in her mind. The image was of her climbing onto a bus, the driver stowing away her old yellow and brown suitcase she’d used ages ago when she went to summer camp complements of the Sisters of Compassion. She could actually feel her back resting against the Naugahyde seat.

  **The seats are dull green, just like the bus,** she told Mr. Lindt. **The floor is black, metallic and sticky. There are Army women sitting in front of me and I—**

  **There is no need to describe it,** Lindt replied. **I see whatever you do.**

  The creature stopped in front of the tree-fort and stood poised like a dog catching a scent. Mr. Lindt’s arms tightened around Althea and she burrowed deeper into his embrace. She could feel the cool linen of the white shirt, feel the throb of his heart against her cheek, catch a scent of his aftershave. This must be what it’s like to have a father, she thought.

  The creature scanned her again. She squeezed her eyes shut against the mental onslaught as reality warped around them. Lindt muttered something low and guttural in another language and the strange warping of reality stopped.

  **Continue,** Lindt’s mind prompted hers. **Don’t stop now or all is lost.**

  Althea’s mind returned to the bus. **Army women are sitting in front of me. They’re nurses and, ** she paused as she realized she saw herself dressed in an olive drab suit. **I’m one too. But how can this be?**

  **The mind holds many secret treasures,** Lindt replied. **Continue, please.**

  **But the bus isn’t filled with all army personnel,** she told Lindt. **There’s a man in a suit reading a copy of the Times Picayune and smoking a pipe, and a woman with a baby in her arms.** Althea looked out the bus window. Ruby and Cally stood on the platform, waving white handkerchiefs and weeping as if she were about to head out to sea.

  Another image caught in her mind. She saw herself dressed in white standing next to a nurse’s station. She gasped. How could I have forgotten? She wondered. It’s what I wanted ever since I could remember.

  The image in white grew stronger and brighter. She felt her heart squeeze with yearning. I wanted to be a nurse since fifth grade when I started reading those romance novels about nurses and doctors. Books about Sue Barton, and other favorites came to mind and for a moment she experienced a sharp piercing longing, a deep heart-ache coupled by profound sadness.

  **That’s what I want, that’s what I really want, **Althea thought with all the yearning love in her heart. **I want to wear that lovely white uniform, to help the sick and injured, and to marry a doctor, have children and a career and live happily ever after out of the bayou, away from the swamps of Louisiana and somewhere dry and safe and free from monsters that look like shadows and the terrible headaches they cause.**

  It was at that moment that she realized the vertigo induced headache had stopped. Birds and small animals returned to the forest. The woods that was so quiet and watchful just moments before, was now humming with activity.

  Embarrassed because she was still holding onto Mr. Lindt, Althea moved away, nervously wiping her sweaty hair from her forehead.

  “You did remarkably well,” Lindt said, smiling. “And I think you carried something back with you as well.”

  “I hadn’t thought about nursing school since I was a little kid,” Althea confessed. “Mom said we couldn’t afford it, and wanted me to marry without having to worry about a career, so it just got forgotten, I guess.”

  “It’s a worthy dream and an excellent goal. Helping others,” Lindt replied as he stood, his knee joints creaking as he did so.

  “I still want to do it. But Mom won’t let me. She’s determined to plan my life out by the smallest detail.”

  “You’re mom wouldn’t have any say in the matter. That is if you follow through with your plans. You are, after all, nearly an adult.”

  Althea jumped. “How do you know about that?”

  Lindt shrugged as he peeked out past the heavy curtain of Spanish moss. “It’s gone,” he said, referring to the creature. “We’re safe now.”

  “What was that thing?” Althea asked as she followed him out of the small glade and back onto the path.

  “A remnant from pre-creation.”

  “A what?”

  “Let’s just say it’s a hired gun.” Lindt replied.

  “A hired gun? Like a gangster?”

  “In a matter of speaking,” he replied as they continued their journey back home. “But obviously not the kind of gangster one finds in the movies.”

  “I’ll say,” she said. “I wonder what it’s after.”

  Mr. Lindt grimaced. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “But you know what it is,” Althea said, feeling suspicious.

  “I know what it is but not what it’s seeking. At least not now, although I have my suspicions. All I care about is that it’s gone.”

  Althea tramped along beside him for a nearly half a mile in silence. He knows more than what he lets on, she knew. Especially about that thing.

  Maybe Lindt wasn’t human at all, but maybe an alien from Mars. Or like that space man from the Day the Earth Stood Still. What was his name?

  “Klatuu,” Mr. Lindt said.

  “Huh?”

  “The spaceman’s name in The Day the Earth Stood Still is Klatuu.”

  “Oh,” she said feeling out of sorts.

  They walked another mile in silence.

  He knew what I was thinking. Althea looked at Mr. Lindt’s back. Maybe, she though
t, her mouth suddenly going dry, he has a flying saucer parked in the woods somewhere. Perhaps that’s why he’s out here all alone, she reasoned. But why would he be hiding in the old fort unless he knew that thing was already out there and was certain it was looking for him?

  I bet he was going back to his ship when his enemies spotted him. After all, she realized with a jolt, he was in my mind earlier. I mean really inside my head. Human beings can’t do that. That means he can’t be human. He’s—

  He chuckled. “That’s quite an imagination you have.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  Lindt laughed and shook his head.

  Althea lagged behind him, partly because the path grew narrower here, and partly to see what was on the back of his head. All she could see was a thin fringe of brownish gray hair. But there was nothing to say that he wasn’t hiding a third eyeball back there somewhere.

  Mr. Lindt laughed again, startling a flock of starlings nesting in a nearby tree.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh nothing,” he said in a way that meant everything. “I was out for my afternoon stroll. I find walking in the woods exhilarating.”

  “I see.”

  “And I came across the shadow being. I hid in the underbrush and heard you approaching and the rest, as they say, is history.”

  “Yeah. History.”

  Lindt quickened his pace. Althea followed, studying the back of his head. There might be one at the base of his head or even on the back of his neck, she thought. He could cover it up neatly with his shirt collar. But then he wouldn’t be able to see anything from behind, would he?

  “Surely you don’t really think I have an extra eye back there?”

  Althea pulled herself up short. Stunned she asked, “How did you know about that?”

  “You were mumbling to yourself,” Lindt said affably without breaking his stride. “You’re a charming and imaginative young lady.” He laughed again. “An eyeball in the back of my head. How very amusing. I’ll have to remember that.”

  “Well I didn’t imagine that black shadow back there and you did say it was a gunslinger.” She said feeling angry, embarrassed and certain that she wasn’t mumbling earlier.

  “Did I? I don’t recall.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t remember anything about what happened back there?” she asked.

  Without missing a step he said, “I’m certain I don’t know what you’re talking about. Ah,” he added as he climbed a slight rise, “we’re nearly home. Maybe your lovely aunt has made some lemonade.”

  “You’re not fooling me for a minute,” Althea said, snatching his shirtsleeve and forcing him to stand still. He regarded her with cloudy grayish blue eyes that seemed to change color and pupil shape as she stared at them. Feeling suddenly frightened, she stepped back.

  “It’s best not to make too close an inquiry my darling girl,” he said gently. “All you need to know is that I’m an old man retired from the construction business and that I’m looking forward to a lovely holiday.”

  “But that thing—”

  “I know,” he interrupted. “Put that out of your mind. Forget you saw it, don’t even think about it.” He paused, his eyes unfocused. “If you think about the shadow man he’ll come back and with reinforcements too.”

  “Are you saying he’s some kind of bogyman?”

  “The Cherokees had a name for it. But it too is best not to say it aloud. There are some things you can mention and they won’t hurt you, at least during daylight. But at night—” He broke off, contemplating. Althea watched as his face changed from a tense to a thoughtful expression. For a moment, his features blurred and she saw with a start that his face had a vagueness to it, as if she were looking at his reflection in a dirty mirror. Within an instant it cleared up and his face came back into focus. My eyes are playing tricks, she thought. It must be the heat, with him being a spaceman and seeing things that aren’t there but make you sick anyway.

  “A remarkable people the Cherokees,” he said resuming his journey back to the plantation house which had become visible beyond the tree line. “A very insightful people.”

  “You know them?”

  “Some yes.”

  “I didn’t know there were any Indians left, except for the ones you see in the movies. Like Tonto on the Lone Ranger.”

  “Oh yes, there are still American Indians left on the continent and they will be making a comeback. It will be a long arduous journey for them but I know that they will remain until the end of time.”

  “I’m beginning to think this walk home is going to last until the end of time,” Althea said stopping long enough to dislodge a pebble from her shoe. “I have walked home from town since I was a kid. It didn’t seem to take as long as it is now.”

  “You’d forgotten. How long ago was it when you took this path?”

  “Oh I don’t know, a couple of years ago I suppose.”

  “Your mother is keeping you close to home.”

  “You could say that.”

  “At the risk of sounding like the meddlesome old fool that I am, I don’t believe that you have any real desire to get married at all, to anyone at all.”

  “You’d be right,” Althea stated.

  “Perhaps then you should focus on what you’re greatest desire is and pursue that.”

  “Fat lot of good that’s going to do,” Althea grumbled. “As you already know my mother has my life planned out right down to the very last detail.” She grimaced as she recalled the last lecture she had with her mother. Ruby told her that she only had to fulfill her wifely duties long enough to produce an heir. Afterwards, she could blissfully forget about that one awful thing and pursue her own goals. Charity work and other things ladies of quality do. Althea almost told her she didn’t think that sex was particularly awful, but clamped her teeth down on her tongue instead. The last thing she wanted was a trip to the gynecologist in Barlow to certify her virginity...again...

  “Plans change,” Mr. Lindt replied amiably. “People change too.”

  “You did say that everything changes,” Althea said as she thought back to their earlier conversation. She shivered. He made decades sound like hours.

  “That is true.”

  “The way Mom is about sex,” Althea began, shocked that she could even say the word in front of a man, “you’d think she’d stick me in a convent or something.”

  “Ladies don’t talk about their sex lives,” Lindt replied. “At least not in mixed company.”

  “Or even in polite company or impolite company, women don’t talk about it at all,” Althea said.

  “True enough,” Lindt agreed.

  “I still wonder why she didn’t have me put in a convent.”

  “I’m certain you’ll have to ask her that.”

  They walked in silence. Althea wondered about Mr. Lindt and how much he knew about the situation between her mom and herself. All of it I suppose, considering that Mom is always busy with my trousseau. I wish with all my heart I could get out of it.

  “You could get up the gumption and do, as I suggested earlier, as you’ve been planning.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “You do want to become a nurse, don’t you?”

  “If I had my way? Yes, more than anything in the world.”

  “Then pursue that course my dear, with all your heart.”

  “But how will I pay for it? Mom sure won’t.”

  “There are other ways,” he said reasonably. He smiled down at her as if he knew a secret about her that he wasn’t about to share. “You’re a bright young woman, and you’ve guessed about that already, or have you forgotten? Either way, I know you’ll think of a way to free yourself from both your mother and from a lifetime of living inside a gilded cage.”

  “I sure hope you’re right,” Althea said.

  Mr. Lindt stopped short. He gasped, and then thrust his arm outward, barring her path.

  “What is it?” she asked, alarm clattering up her spine. />
  “Hush,” Lindt said. His voice was authoritative, urgent. “Stay here. Don’t move and whatever you do don’t say anything.”

  “Why? Has it come back?”

  He put his index finger to his lips and hurried up the incline that led out of the forest and onto the plantation house’s sprawling lawn. She heard him utter a muffled oath, immediately followed by pounding footsteps. She was suddenly and profoundly frightened. Ignoring his warning, Althea scrambled up the incline and gazed out at the lawn.

  Lindt bolted toward the house, his thin hair waving behind him, his white shirt billowing in the hot stale summer air. Althea was astonished that a man his age could run so hard and so fast. For an instant, his image blurred, the way heat radiates off asphalt in August, and when his image sharpened, he was rushing past a black lump in the driveway. She blinked, and realized with a start that Lindt was nearly to the house. Althea bit her lip, confounded. It was as if she had been watching a film with several small pieces cut out in succession. Had he really run as far as he seemed in so short a time? She had run from this very spot many times in her childhood back to the veranda and it always took at least five minutes. But she was certain that Mr. Lindt hadn’t run for five minutes. He had to have traversed the lawn in under a minute. It simply wasn’t possible.

  For an instant Althea felt disoriented, as if she’d been gazing through the wrong end of a set of binoculars. She looked out across the wide expanse of the yard, darkened by something she couldn’t comprehend. She looked for Lindt and saw that he was already standing on the porch and slamming on the front door with his fist. She saw the door open and he rushed inside.

  It wasn’t until Althea climbed down the hill that she saw what he did. The lawn was littered with an uncounted number of fireflies, their lights blinking pallidly in the late afternoon sun. It made her think briefly of dying Christmas lights. She gasped, shocked, because amongst the fireflies, sprinkled like amethyst gem fragments amongst the emeralds was what she presumed to be fireflies but looked larger, more hostile, and dangerous, even as they lay dying. She took a short step backward. There’s no such thing as violet moiselles, she told herself. Yet there they were, glinting in the dying afternoon light. She scanned the yard again, then realized with a shock that the black lump in the driveway had to have been a car.

 

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