Shelter

by Jayne Anne Philips

  That was right, Alma thought. And all the girls were listening, despite their resistance. Alma felt for the folded pages of her supper speech in her pocket, though she kept her eyes on Mrs. T. It occurred to her that Delia disliked Mrs. T. more than anyone else did. As though Mrs. T. told them things Delia didn't want Alma to hear or believe. It was true Mrs. T. was odd, with all her particularities and her secrets about Communism. But no grownup had ever said before that there were secrets everywhere, dangerous secrets someone should do something about. Alma knew it was true. And Delia knew it too, surely.

  "We wish for a world attentive to our needs, a world perhaps wiser than we are," said Mrs. T. She paused and the table was still, unmoving, as the rest of the dining hall populace ebbed and swirled around it. The girls sat suspended, each holding a numbered tile from the jar. "That is why our system of government is so important to each and every one of us," Mrs. T. finished, and the spell was broken.

  A and B wings ate together, twelve girls lined up on each long white bench. Finally they all began to shift and stand, scraping plates and stacking them. Alma glanced at her tile and saw she was a clearer. It was her job to help take dirty plates to the kitchen and bring back dessert; she began the first of several trips with her arms full of heavy china. The plates were plain and white, sectioned into portions like the plastic plates used in school hot-lunch programs; each had a faded green rim, barely a shadow, as though the plates were older than the dining hall itself. They were solid and dense, like flat stones; Alma felt she carried them from one turbulent universe to another. The clatter of the dining hall gave way to the noise of the kitchen dishwashers, their slosh and hum, and the passings back and forth of the cooks. At every entrance, Alma searched with her eyes for Hilda Carmody, as though to locate the source of gravity and power in this cosmology, but Mrs. Carmody seemed to stay in the rear of the big room, her arms hidden in a deep sink as she sprayed the massive cooking pots. The water from her flat-nozzled hose was so hot it steamed, and she seemed to supervise numerous pourings and tumblings and watery machinations from within a cloud.

  Alma put another stack of plates on the metal sideboard and wondered, idly, where Buddy might be; he was usually scuttling around or crouching under this very sideboard so that the girls had to dodge stepping on him. It was always their peril, not his; he seemed to move so fast and so quickly, Alma couldn't imagine what could ever actually touch him, lay hands on him—he seemed an evasive streak capable of outmaneuvering even a force as powerful as Hilda Carmody. How could someone so big be the mother of a kid like Buddy? Alma could imagine him emerging as vapor from the top of Hilda's head, as swirled smoke from the center of Hilda's chest. Herself and Lenny she saw as logical extensions of their parents: Lenny for Wes, claimed and left to herself, as though he'd drawn a magic circle around her and then stepped away. Alma for Audrey, claimed and reclaimed and fed and pulled. And Delia, well, Delia was her father's, left behind. Alma stared across the big kitchen at Hilda Carmody's broad back, and the look of Nickel Campbell's face came through to her, so strongly, as if from some other place. She realized she'd forgotten the look of him, the expression in his eyes. Not the way he'd looked at her, or at Audrey—that she'd ever seen. It was the way he'd looked at Delia, with such waiting and accepting quiet, like he knew all about her and asked without speaking. Asked what? All those days after school at Delia's house, and the Sunday afternoons, all of them Sundays following Saturday trips to Winfield, Alma would look at Nickel Campbell and he would be looking at Delia. His look was something too old for the world, an idea from one of his books. Like Ivanhoe, one of the novels from the set he'd given Alma. I beseech thee.

  Alma grasped one of the big pans of faintly warm apple crisp with both hands and backed through the swinging door. That's what it was. Wes lived with Audrey and went away, leaving and returning, and Lenny was away, at home, and Nickel Campbell had gone away, farther and deeper than anyone. People went away from Audrey. But maybe people were always moving, on their way somewhere, and Audrey tried to stand in front of them. Maybe it was all older and bigger than Nickel Campbell. The way he looked. Had he always looked at Delia that way? Alma couldn't remember, but she thought she hadn't been awake to know. It was like she'd woken up in her mother's car on the way to Winfield, driving to or from Nickel Campbell. And she'd wakened reading his face, his look that bathed Delia like atmosphere, his look that asked Delia to forgive him, years in advance.

  Walking, Alma saw Mrs. T. at the head of their table, standing and gesturing. She looked to be a sort of island, imperious and pink in her flowing dress, smiling expectantly. She took the warm pan from Alma and leaned close, as though to impart some confidence.

  "Dear," she whispered, "whipped cream?"

  "No, thank you," Alma said.

  "Ask Hilda for it," said Mrs. T., nodding pointedly back at the kitchen doors.

  "Oh." Alma turned to retrace her steps. She realized dessert was in full swing all around her and the whipped cream was late. She heard spoons tapping on glasses and the first of the supper speeches begin as she pushed her way back through the swinging doors.

  Hilda Carmody's realm had grown quieter. The dishwashers rested mid-cycle and a group of counselors stood in the middle of the room. They stopped speaking as Alma entered, but she saw them hurriedly packing backpacks from a big first-aid box sitting on the sideboard. Alma recognized Lenny's counselors, and McAdams was among them as well. Hilda Carmody suddenly loomed close and gave Alma a big stainless steel bowl of white puffed cream. The bowl was so cold that Alma flinched when it pressed against her, and then she heard something. The windows were open—of course, the windows were always open—and the rear of the dining hall was downmountain from Highest camp, directly below it, and sounds seemed to fall straight down, like water pulsed from a rapids. There were screams. Shrill screams, edging a continuous howl. But the refracted sounds seemed to circle, approach from all angles. The sounds bounced around and faded and came on stronger, like sonar and interference, like something tracked through weather.

  The counselors turned abruptly, nearly running, moving through the back door of the kitchen; they turned on their powerful flashlights though it was barely dusk. Alma saw the weak beams of light cross and lengthen through the kitchen window, then there was no one, but the sounds kept on. The other two cooks had gone outside to listen, but Hilda Carmody stood by the sideboard, touching its metal rim with both hands.

  She didn't look at Alma, but she seemed to want someone to hear what she said. She spoke toward the open window, as though the words moved through the old screens into the blush of the evening. "He always helps Frank stack wood for the bonfire," she said. "He thinks the sun rises and sets on that Frank."

  Alma realized she'd never heard Hilda Carmody's voice. Its timbre was purely soprano, melodic and slow, the words drawled quietly. Alma leaned closer, wanting to hear more. There was something miraculous about Hilda's voice, and surprising. As though she cradled that voice and kept it carefully apart, a last remnant of what she had been before anything happened to her.

  "You better get on in there with that cream," Hilda said. She spoke in the same calm tones, so slowly that the words seemed important.

  Alma had backed up to the swinging doors into the dining room, but Hilda was still talking. "Don't you worry," she said, like a lullaby. "It's just those girls, into some foolishness or other. Girls will do some fool things..."

  The door closed and cut off the sound, and Alma turned to walk the main aisle between the rows of tables. But the atmosphere had changed, as though what was in the kitchen had entered stealthily as smoke. The speeches had stopped. The big windows all around the walls of the room were cranked fully open, and everyone was listening. Most of the girls had stopped eating. Someone, one of the little Primaries, began to cry. Two or three others began to whimper, and Mrs. Thompson-Warner stood up. She banged a serving spoon on the table in front of her, then clapped her hands.

  "Girls!" she said. "
We will postpone tonight's speeches and go directly and quietly to campfire. Please leave your tables as they are and line up as usual. Girls! Proceed quietly—"

  Everyone stood and began a rush for the doors. Mrs. T. was clapping her hands and shouting. Alma and Delia fell in beside each other and Delia linked their arms to make sure they weren't jostled apart. Alma looked for somewhere to put the whipped cream.

  "This is going to be easy," Delia said.

  "What is?" asked Alma.

  "Turtle Hole," Delia said. "Let's go."

  She reached into the bowl of cream with one hand and filled her palm with froth. Then she blew it away.

  BUDDY CARMODY: CARRY US

  You know how you blow music through it, the stranger was saying, and he held the knife in his hand tight against Dad's neck. Buddy and the stranger were standing by the car again, like before Dad woke up. The woods were quiet and the trees watched. The stranger brought his hand away slowly. He held the knife down for Buddy to see, and the head of the snake lay aslant on the blade, wide as the silver metal. The snake's head was so close Buddy's face that he could see inside the mouth. The snake had fangs now, like a copperhead. Something was lodged inside. Buddy put his hand close the blade and the slit of the mouth drew back, exposing the delicate fangs to their roots. A round white pearl emerged, like a tiny egg, and dropped into Buddy's palm. The stranger pulled away. He took the head of the snake in his fingers and pocketed the blade. Then he held up one finger, as though for silence, opened Dad's mouth, and fixed the head of the snake between Dad's teeth. The head stuck out from Dad's lips like the whole snake wound its way down his throat, and the stranger was pulling Buddy away, tugging him by his wrist, and as Buddy woke up under the folds of the sleeping bag he knew from the moist, mossy smell and the dark that he was still in the cave.

  It was Dad pulling at him, and his wrist was still tied to Dad's. Dad was moaning like he did, asleep, calling out in small words, and Buddy struggled to pull back, sink again into his own dream. He pulled his knees in tight with his free arm, tucked his head, rolled his forehead hard against his knees. He wanted to call out for Mam but he stayed still and he could hear her say, in a deep whisper like a secret, words from the singsong rhyme she used to tell him: white owl's feather. He saw the feather standing up in the dark like a slender torch. Suddenly, behind and around it, all of space reverberated. Whomph: the big air flew through the cave and moved the earth, filling all of space with a pulse that might light up like the sun if it were bright. But the air was blind in the darkness and searched without eyes, whomph, again, rolling through, knowing Buddy, what he was. In his dream the rolling air was Mam, standing by the diving rock and bending down to peer in through the slanted opening that looked too small to be the door of a hole that tunneled through a mountain. She was too big to get in, so she put her hands on either side of the rock wall and threw her mind inside to fill it all until she found Buddy. Her mind so big she didn't even need to say his name, he didn't have a name, he was like the marks on the high wall and the ceiling of the cave, older than names. Buddy knew she wouldn't be looking for him now at the camp—he always helped Frank carry wood for the bonfire and lay the kindling. But Turtle Hole wasn't camp anymore. And somehow she'd found Buddy in the narrow, dark crack Dad had made in their days and nights, the crack Dad filled if she left the house too early in the morning, too late at night, so it wasn't safe for Buddy to sleep late, not safe to say he wouldn't go to church of an evening. Not safe to sleep at all because all of night was cracked and turned around behind the blanket she'd nailed to the ceiling, the blanket that hid their bed, hid the voices and dark shapes. Dad had her and she had to do things. And Buddy had to. But she would never let Dad make Buddy stay in the cave; if she knew, she would come, and it was Mam pouring through in the flash of a second, shaking rock in the black dark with her searching eye. Buddy saw her eye, big and wise as the world, peer in at the opening of the cave, the colors darting and moving, and the iris of her beautiful eye was hard with facets like a jewel, and her gaze lit a path through the dark. Buddy could stand up and walk in the light, dragging Dad along behind him. Dad was still tied to him but Dad would never wake up. Wasn't so hard, walking. Buddy only had to pull Dad along to get out, and then Mam would know what to do.

  But the light that lit a path guttered like a flame and went out. Buddy felt himself curled flat on the rock floor and Dad was behind him. Dad was talking in the dark. He was saying those foreign words and then he stopped and Buddy felt him twist around, tugging the rope at Buddy's wrist and talking on.

  "Off'n me," he said, "get off." He made a low whine, like a dog might, pulling at a trap.

  Buddy waited.

  "Get outa me," he said, and jerked, and when he moved Buddy heard the pint bottle skitter away across the rock floor. It slid like something empty.

  Buddy heard Dad move, sit up maybe.

  "Ah," Dad said.

  It was so quiet Buddy heard a rushing trickle of water, far off, deeper in. The water sounded, a whisper and a clatter.

  Dad heard it too and he leaned forward, pulling Buddy with him. "Who's there?" he rasped, "who's in here?"

  Buddy sat up from under the sleeping bag and found he could see Dad's shape in the dark. Just barely, in the black. Like he'd learned how to look in his sleep. He knew Dad couldn't see nothing at all. Dad turned his head side to side, fast, like he was blind and had a panic in his ears.

  "It's just the water," Buddy said. "There's a stream back there."

  Dad jerked the rope and pulled Buddy in tight. "Where you been? Where did you go?"

  "It was dark," Buddy said. "I fell asleep."

  But the cave wasn't so dark as before, when everything was black, sucked in deeper and deeper. Buddy couldn't tell why. He thought he knew which direction was front, toward the opening, but there was no light at all that way or the other, like they were stuck mid-throat in some big animal. A thing so big it couldn't feel them or be bothered to swallow them.

  "Asleep." Dad nodded. He flailed his arm out sudden and fast and nearly knocked himself over. "That's right, I went asleep."

  He kept on rubbing at his face, like he was spooked by spiders, like he was wiping at spider webs. Buddy could see his arms moving. There were tracings in the dark where Dad moved, some outline that barely shone. Buddy watched Dad, looking hard, then he felt something and wanted to turn, look behind him. But he nearly couldn't. He had to breathe deep in his stomach and try hard, slow, turning, and he faced the wall of the cave and saw how the writing in the rock glowed up. He couldn't see the light if he looked straight at it, but when he moved his eyes across the sweep of high stone he saw shapes glimmer, and a gold dust swim the air. Buddy thought about magnets: he had him a magnet that was shaped like a horseshoe, painted in red stripes, and nails stuck to it, and tacks, and the powder that came from the writing in the rock shifted in the air like it was pulled. It didn't fall or sift like dust. It was more like a smoke that moved, drawn together, and Buddy could see it around Dad's face. It clung to Dad's arms and shoulders. The cave had lit him up.

  Dad stared out blind. He lurched to the side and rubbed his face with his sleeves.

  Afraid of the rope now, Buddy thought, scared of the feel of it. Aloud, he said, "It's that there rope. Got to untie that rope on your arm. It's dragging over you, ain't it?"

  Dad fumbled with one hand at his wrist. "Gimme that flashlight," he said, and his hand was on Buddy, feeling him, pushing him aside.

  The dark was chocolate around Dad's shape. Buddy could make out the little box of the flashlight beside Dad's leg and he grabbed for it, pushed it into Dad's hand, but Dad dropped it so Buddy picked it up and turned it on. The slant of light was bright yellow and Dad brought his arm to his mouth and pulled at the rope with his teeth, his fingers, till the loops came undone and the rope was off him.

  Dad was lit up in the circle of the flashlight and he pulled at his face with both hands.

  "All that rope," Buddy said, "th
e rope's all got them things in it." And he thrust his wrist into Dad's face and Dad worked at the rope and pulled it loose, and threw it far from them like it was alive.

  "Gimme that light," Dad said. "Don't think you're goin anywhere. You can't see nothing."

  And the yellow beam flared around wildly, Dad taking hold of it and fumbling like he was burnt. Buddy could only see the light, how the black against it was dead again, so black they could fall into it, and Dad did fall, standing up, but he got to his feet and stood behind the light. He aimed it at Buddy and Buddy stared straight in. He knew not to turn away or shield his eyes.

  He could hear Mam talking, behind the light. There's a spirit goes along with us, she said. Sometimes it goes along and sometimes it picks us up and carries us.

  The light was so bright it seemed to flare red at the edges, vibrating. "You still got that ring?" Buddy said it loud, into the center of the fiery circle. "We got to go and get them other rings."

  An arm came out of the light and picked Buddy up. He was gathered up at his neck, the collar of his shirt bunched into a knot that held him. He felt himself lifted high and pulled into a heat that flared at his face, tasting him.

  "Course I got the ring," Dad said. "You want to wear the ring, little girl?"

  His words steamed, like an animal's insides steam when it's gutted and the entrails lay out sudden in the air, smoking.

  "You want the ring," Dad said, "you got to do some favors."