On land and sea, motors roared. Sea gulls screamed and dipped. Benj let out his breath. Like a summer person he stared at the sea and the eternal waves, hoping the rhythm of the world would ease his tension.
Frankie’s boat was visible. Her mother would be standing by the rail, hungry to see Christina. Frankie’s nasty dog Rindge was barking; his tourist-scaring yap crossed the waves ahead of the boat.
She remembered her grand idea of telephoning all those principals to get the names of girls who had had nervous breakdowns while the Shevvingtons were there. But the personnel secretary — married to that Mr. Gardner — had alerted the Shevvingtons, who doubtless had alerted their allies back in Louisiana and Oregon and Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Christina would never know.
And even if she did get the names, none of those families of the past would blame the Shevvingtons, either.
That was the whole key — make it be the girl’s fault. Make her be weak, or stupid, or nervous, or uncooperative.
Never use words like Evil.
People could not accept the presence of Evil. They had to laugh, or shrug. Walk away, or look elsewhere.
Look at Benj, furious with her for not trusting him, and then when she trusted him and told him what was happening, he got even more furious with her for making it up.
My mother will be exactly the same, thought Christina. She wants to talk about buying a dance dress. About summer coming, and her restaurant on the Isle, and how Daddy is repairing the tennis courts, and how summer people are trespassing on the bird nesting preserve again this year. I am alone in the battle.
Unless …
Christina was suddenly shot through with hope. Little crystals of hope tumbled through her mind like fireworks in a distant sky.
… unless I can get hold of the briefcase! The one where they keep the Fear Files: the folders with our photographs on them: the only part left of the girls who are in rooms 1 through 6.
I’ve tried before … but I can try again. You can always try again. That’s what I am. Granite of the Isle.
The wharf came to life. People waiting for Frankie’s boat emerged from cars and off benches. They brought packages to carry to Burning Fog and waved to their friends coming in. The sea gulls screamed for sandwich crusts and the last of the popcorn.
A horn honked in the parking lot on the hill. It beat a tattoo until everybody on the wharf turned to look. “Chrissie!” came a shout. “Hey, Benj! It’s me, Anya!” Anya — who had left Schooner Inne so fragile she hardly breathed on her own? Anya — who without Blake would have folded like paper, shut in the envelope of her mind?
Today’s Anya danced over the sunburned rocks, tripping down the long, steep wooden steps. Light as a cloud, Anya came to rest against Christina and Benj. “Chrissie,” she said, cuddling. “It’s wonderful to see you. I’ve missed you so, living with Blake’s aunt in the city. But it gave me time to calm down.”
“And be free of the Shevvingtons,” said Christina.
Anya’s chuckle hit the waves and the waves tossed it back. “I’m healed, Chrissie. I can hardly wait to be home.” She breathed in a great lungful of restorative sea air.
“What healed you?” said Christina.
“Blake’s aunt. She made me finish my senior year after all. Did you know you can go to night school, with adults, and still get your credits? And she said the most calming thing is to read how other people stayed calm, so she made me read ancient books of truth: Plato, Isaiah, Marcus Aurelius.”
Christina could not imagine choosing a “calming” book. She liked her books packed with action and excitement, preferably murders and chases.
“I need to go to Burning Fog, Chrissie. I need to smell it and see it and walk it!” She was the island princess again, sea spray misting her hair like diamonds. “Here’s Frankie’s boat! Here’s your mother. Oh, Christina, I’m so glad to be going home.” She whirled around, shading her eyes against the bright sun, calling upward, “Blake! Hurry!”
Blake was here! Blake, whom Christina had adored with all her strength and mind and soul. Her heart soared, carried by Anya’s high, happy voice.
“See, Christina,” said Benj. “Nothing evil touched Anya. She just needed a rest. It’s true what they say about island girls. There’s something about all that isolation. It touches each of you when you get to the mainland. It’s harder for you.”
He rambled on about Anya and Dolly and Christina. But Christina had forgotten Benj. Forgotten the Shevvingtons. Forgotten evil.
Like a catalog advertisement — windblown hair, fine physique, excellent clothing — Blake leaned against the shining red triangle of his sports car. The car was nothing but an accessory: his was the beauty. When he descended the steps, he was taking over the world. He radiated exciting plans.
Christina yearned to run up to him, fling herself upon him, tell him that he had just lit up the world. But she held herself still. If she touched Blake, she would turn hot and gasping with love. And what would she do with all that love? Blake was not hers. He was Anya’s. And even if he were not, she was — rounding off — only fourteen to his eighteen. He would have no use for her puppy love.
“Christina,” said Blake, holding out his arms. In his mouth the world was perfection and romance.
“Hi, Blake,” she said, not moving. Without permission, her heart took off anyway, thundering down the road to love. In a one-second daydream, Blake forgot Anya, begged Christina to love him, took her to Paris, asked her to marry him.
“No hug?” teased Blake, hugging her anyway. “I’ve missed you, kid. What a senior year I’ve endured — Anya off with my aunt in one town, you here at home, and me at that ridiculous boarding school.” He grinned. “But I triumphed. Graduated with honors and went back to claim Anya. Knight in shining armor that I am.”
Next to this conqueror, how quaint, how dull Benj was.
I am granite, Christina reminded herself.
But she was not. She was Silly Putty.
Frankie’s boat docked. Ropes were tossed, mail carried off. Rindge barked like an attack dog. Christina’s mother leaped into the huddle of Anya, Blake, Christina, and Benj. Hugging them separately and then all together, she cried, “What a pleasure! How is everybody?”
They all claimed to be “Very well, thank you.” They kissed, hugged, said how their parents were, how the weather had been, when graduation was. How well-named was “small talk.” This group had no lack of “large” topics: they could talk of Evil, Jealousy, or Nervous Breakdowns, but no, they said how blue the sky was.
“Guess what we’re off to do,” said Mrs. Romney to Anya and Blake. “Dress shopping.” She giggled. “Benj and Christina are going to the sophomore dance together next Friday.”
Anya shrieked joyously, the way girls do when romance appears. Blake grinned and shook hands with Benj, who remained solid and silent.
“A landmark occasion,” said Mrs. Romney. “My daughter’s first dance. I’m so excited.”
Benj did not look the least bit excited, but nobody expected him to.
Her mother rattled off department store and dress shop names. “Mother,” protested Christina, “some of those are miles away.”
“This is an all-day expedition,” said Mrs. Romney. “We have to find the perfect dress and you can’t do that in a minute.”
Frankie leaned on the whistle of his boat. Tourists scrambled on. Groceries, dry cleaning, engine parts, new screen windows were carried aboard. Anya cried, “Good-bye everybody!” She and Blake, holding hands, dashed gracefully onto the boat.
Christina ached to be that hand. To be tightly clasped by Blake.
How could life be so unfair? The only two escaped victims of the Shevvingtons — Anya and Blake — were vanishing again, without admitting the war was still on. What did they think of Christina still living with the Shevvingtons? Did Anya choose not to remember what had really happened to her? Did she, too, think that it had been her own imagination and weakness? Did she think Evil was d
isposed of forever?
The wind increased. A deep, cruel cloud covered the horizon. The ocean stopped laughing. It slapped the cliffs with its usual anger. On top of Breakneck Hill, Schooner Inne stood alone: its white-clapboard bulk perched on the very edge, ready to tumble off the cliff.
Christina’s mother ran up the steep stairs toward the parked cars. She always had energy to spare. “Come on,” she cried to Christina and Benj. “Benj, do you want to come shopping with us?”
Benjamin Jaye touched Christina’s hair. She could feel her colors. He was touching the gold. He wound her hair around his wrists, binding himself to her by golden ropes. “I’m not going, but get a pretty dress,” he said.
She saw that he loved her as a faithful, uncomprehending dog would love her. That he would adore, accept her flaws, and be hers.
For a terrible moment, he seemed nothing but a burden. She wanted to run or fly. To skim away like the terns fluttering so close to the waves. Motionless, Christina stood on the wharf, while her mother and Benjamin Jaye ascended. The bones on her face seemed truly carved of granite. She had been quarried from Burning Fog’s deep abandoned pools.
In the cupola of Schooner Inne, sun glinted off a pair of binoculars.
Chapter 18
THE AFTERNOON HAD A cycle.
Mrs. Romney would say, “Darling, that dress looks perfect. I love the neckline.”
Christina would say, “Mother, you know what?”
“What, dear? Do you think we want larger flower patterns, like this, like splashy watercolors? Or tiny flower patterns, like this one, sort of Early American?”
How, in the petite section of the dress shop, surrounded by linen and cotton, rayon and blends, was Christina to talk about Evil? She would say, “I’m not sure I want any flowers on the dress at all, Mother. I’m not that much of a flower person.” I’m granite, she thought. But none of the dresses looked right for granite.
“Mother,” she tried again, “the Shevvingtons are being really awful.”
“I know you don’t get along, dear, but there are only a few days till school is out. In fact, let’s count up so you can start ticking the hours off. Next year they’ll be gone, and we’ll have better arrangements. I feel terrible that you’ve had such a difficult year, but you have to remember poor Mr. and Mrs. Shevvington have had a grim year also. Imagine struggling for twenty-five years to bring up your son, and you think at last he’s managing on his own — even if it is just a furnished room a few blocks away above a coffee shop — still, you have hope — and what do you learn? He’s completely crazy and trying to torment the very young girls you have under your own protection.” Mrs. Romney shook her head. “I feel so sorry for them, Chrissie. It breaks my heart. It’s every parent’s nightmare, that her own child will turn out wrong.”
“But Mother, they really are terrible people. I just can’t get through to you. The Shevvingtons …” but her voice dwindled away. Even to Christina, it no longer seemed possible. This was Maine. The United States. America. Pine woods and crashing seas. Blue skies and loving mother.
Instead of Evil, they talked of Benj, and whether he was romantic and what this dance would lead to. She saw that her mother misunderstood. Her mother thought this was For Eternity. … The Future True Love. All it was was a dance, and Benj was asking the girl he knew best.
“Nonsense,” said her mother. “I’ve seen plenty of boys in love and that one’s in love. Now tell me everything. Absolutely everything.”
But of course her mother did not mean that at all. Her mother did not want to hear that the Shevvingtons were stuffing her pockets with matchbooks to prove she was a wharf rat. Her mother wanted to hear that Benj had swept her away, kissed her by candlelight.
“Let’s go for ice cream,” said Christina. “Butterscotch sauce on buttercrunch ice cream, just what you like.”
“I love when you remember details,” said her mother happily. “We’re so close, you and I.”
Through the countryside they drove. The road passed between two wide meadows. “Look!” cried her mother, slowing. Three bright blue dots fluttering across the grass. Indigo blue: the color of postcards from the Mediterranean. “Bluebirds,” whispered her mother reverently. “I haven’t seen a bluebird in years. Chrissie, that’s when you know God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world. When you see bluebirds again.”
Christina could think of several arguments against this. All’s not right with the world, she thought. I don’t know how things will ever be right in Val’s world again. I don’t even know what world Val will have.
“Mommy, have you heard anything about Val?” she asked.
“Everybody’s still searching for her, I guess. She was in Anya’s class, I think. A jinxed group if there ever was one. Just one nervous breakdown after another.”
“Did you ever think it was — well — planned?” said Christina. “That somebody made all those things happen on purpose?”
“Don’t be silly,” said her mother, and quickly drove to another dress shop. Like Benj, her mother wanted only a pretty world, where bluebirds danced in green grass.
The dress they finally found was stark, blinding white. Its shoulders were narrow, laced with tiny ribbons. It had no waist, but fell straight, doubling up at the thighs in pleats and runs of ribbon. “What a twenties’ flapper would wear to communion,” giggled her mother. “Wild but pure.”
If I wore this dress to the storm cottage, thought Christina, you could not tell me apart from the walls and the floors.
“Let’s go to the hairdresser,” said her mother.
Christina had never had her hair professionally done. It was so tangly, long and thick, there had never seemed any point. Her mother simply trimmed it straight across when it needed it. Their timing was perfect. The mall stylist had an opening just as they walked in.
He washed her hair. The sweet perfume of the conditioner wafted around Christina like mist. He divided her hair into its separate colors, setting them in long, twisting curls. “Banana curls, your grandmother would call those,” said her mother. The stylist lifted the gold into a separate section, catching it with a ribbon and letting it fall: a bouquet of golden locks on a silver sea.
When she looked in a mirror she could not see herself. An island nymph sparkled back: a sprite, formed not of earth or flesh, but a swimmer in the sea. Around her, shoppers paused and stared. Other hairdressers, other customers, stood still. She felt all of their eyes, as if they had no bodies: only eyes. Eyes. Eyes.
I am separate, thought Christina, like my hair. I am not one with the world. When I need help, no one will come. No one will recognize me.
Her mother had to rush to catch Frankie’s last run back to the Isle. Dropping Christina off in front of Schooner Inne, she barely even stopped the car. “Say hello to the Shevvingtons for me,” she cried. Christina’s heart answered, Say hello to Blake for me! But aloud she called after her mother, “Say hello to Daddy.” Her mother drove down Breakneck Hill, honking madly to signal Frankie not to leave without her. Frankie waved his baseball cap in acknowledgment.
Time stopped.
They turned into a photograph: an old, sepia-colored photo in which they would stand forever: Frankie waving a baseball cap, her mother opening a car door. She wanted to scream, Wait for me! Wanted to run down there, leap into Eternity with them, and be saved.
But Frankie lowered his cap. Her mother dashed down the wharf steps.
Christina slipped inside the Inne and ran up the stairs, dress box in hand, and on up to the cupola for the best view of the boat returning to Burning Fog. As she rose up the stairs in the old sea captain’s house, a sick feeling rose with her, engulfing her like rising tide. Her mother would never return for her. Or, if her mother returned, Christina would not know. They were parting — minds and souls — forever.
The stairs went on and on. Flight after flight after flight. She seemed to climb into the sky. Into other worlds. Outside the ocean whispered, FfffFFFFFFFFFF.
It whispered inside her head, tangling in her hair like seaweed.
FfffFFFFFFFFFF, said the house.
FffffFFFFFFFFFF, said the sea.
Christina clung to the curly banisters. She was wading in seawater. Tides yanked her under. Her head spun. Her hair blinded her. The house smelled of low tides and rotting fish.
Chhhhhrrrissssssstinahh, whispered the sea.
Chhhhhrrrissssssstinahh, whispered the house.
She dropped the dress box. She fell to her knees. The sea sucked her down like mud. Dark, thick, oily mud. “Hello, Christina,” whispered the house, in a voice as furry as a leopard’s. It wrapped its arms around her. Christina and the sea washed into the empty guest room.
How tired she was from all that shopping. How she yearned to lie down. Perhaps she, like Val, would lie down forever. She would rest and not talk. Sleep and not think.
The bed was soft and welcoming.
Chhhhhrrrissssssstinahh, whispered the world.
She felt herself turning white and formless, like the furniture in the storm cottage, shapeless beneath the sheets. She was no longer separate from the world, but one with it. Sinking into it by losing her grip on it. She thought of her hair, of its separate colors, but she could no longer feel them. She thought of Blake, but could no longer remember what he looked like. Thought of Benj, but he did not matter.
“Here I am,” she said to the house and the sea.
When her eyes closed, she knew she would never open them. She lacked the desire. She would stay deep inside herself, where all was known, all was safe.
She thought of Christina Romney, but even Christina Romney did not seem to matter. She was a person, but the person was not Chrissie Romney, nearly fourteen, end of seventh grade, Maine, USA, the World. She was someone else, floating through time and weather.
Someone ancient and new.
Someone at war and at peace.
“Here I am,” she said to the house and the sea.
The Fire Page 11