“Do you want to go back?”
The answer shot out from me before I could hold it back. “No.”
The woman vanished. The ground lurched; I looked up to see trees swaying wildly. I jumped up and grabbed for a tree limb as the earth yawned under my feet. Roots were sinking all around me, groaning as they burrowed into the ground. I guessed what it meant. The tree had reached out with its roots and would now send them deep into the world to entwine them around the earth’s heart. Then I lost my grip and was suddenly rolling down the hill until something hard rushed up to meet me.
I must have lain there throughout the night, because when I opened my eyes, the forest was green with light again. I was afraid to move, expecting to feel bruises and aches, fearing that I might have broken bones. But when I finally sat up, my body obeyed me easily, bringing me to my feet as effortlessly as it had when I was younger.
Most of the roots had vanished, but I felt them pulsating beneath me. The giant root still lay across the hill, and now I noticed that the trunks of the trees around me were marked by lines and patterns that pointed upward. My backpack lay near me; I slipped it on. I had as much chance of reaching safety by following the carved markings as I did doing anything else.
I hurried up the hill, then climbed the root, clinging to ridges in the bark, resting my feet in its cracks. The backpack tugged at my shoulders and pressed against me with its weight. I kept going until the ground was far below me and it was too late to turn back. I climbed, afraid to look up or down, until I reached the top.
There were no giant roots in the valley below me, only maples and pines of normal size. They stood around a field planted with corn and squash, and in the distance, I saw the wide leaves of tobacco plants. Smoke rose from the roofs of the longhouses beyond the field; people waited in the doorways, men and women in deerskin robes adorned with beads.
I don’t know where this land is. It may be the past, or a far future, but I don’t know enough astronomy to look up at the night sky and find out. It could be a world that might have been. Whatever it is, something has guided me here, to the place where I will make my home and live out my life.
I stumbled down the other side of the root and went to find my clan.
The Shrine
Christine heard the childish, high voice giggling out an indistinct sentence; the woman’s voice was lower and huskier. She waited. A door squeaked open and then she heard her mother’s rapid footsteps on the stairs.
Christine stepped into the hall and peered at the slightly open door. Her mother had been in Christine’s old room again; she had been there last night when Christine first heard the voices and had recognized one as her mother’s. She went to the door, pushed it all the way open, and gazed.
Her mother had done no redecorating here, as she had everywhere else. Christine entered, turning to look at the wall of framed photographs and documents above the slightly battered dresser. A young Christine with wavy blond hair and a wide smile stood with a group of other little girls in Brownie uniforms. A thirteen-year-old Christine wore a white dress and held a clarinet; an older Christine, slightly broad-shouldered but still slender, grinned up from a pool where she floated with other members of the Mapeno Valley High Aquanettes; a bare-shouldered Christine in a green formal stood at the side of a tall, handsome boy in a white dinner jacket. Her high school diploma was framed, along with other certificates; another photo showed her parents beaming proudly as they stood behind Christine and her luggage at the Titus County Airport, waiting for the plane that would take their daughter to Wellesley. There, as far as the room indicated, Christine’s life ended. She had lasted less than one year at Wellesley.
She gazed at the top of the dresser, where her high school yearbook had been opened to her page. A pretty girl with flowing locks smiled up at her.
Matthews, Christine
“Onward and Upward!”
National Merit Scholar; National Honor Society, 3, 4; Student Council, 2, 3; Class Vice-President, 4; Aquanettes, 3, 4; Assistant Editor, Mapeno Valley Clarion, 3, 4; Dramatics Club, 3, 4; Orchestra, 2, 3, 4; Le Cercle Français, 2, 3, 4; Yearbook Staff, 4.
She closed the yearbook. The room was suddenly oppressive. She was surrounded by past glories; the room, with its embroidered pillows and watercolor paintings, was a shrine to what she had once been. Her mother could drive to her brother’s house, only forty-five minutes away, to view his athletic trophies and his various certificates, but Christine’s had remained here. She had been a good daughter, as Charles had been a good son. He was still a good son. Christine had not been a good daughter for a long time.
“Just coffee for me,” Christine said as she entered the kitchen.
Her mother looked up from the stove. “Now, Chrissie, you know how important a good breakfast is.”
“I never eat breakfast.”
“You should.”
Christine sat down at the small kitchen table while her mother served the food. “Well,” she said, and sipped her coffee.
“Well,” Mrs. Matthews replied. She poked at her eggs, took a bite of toast, then gazed at her daughter with calm gray eyes. “So it really is over between you and Jim.”
“He moved all his stuff out.”
“I was sorry to hear it. Maybe if you and Jim had gotten married—”
“Oh, Mom, that would have been great. The lawyers would have made everything even worse. I suppose you think a divorce would have been more respectable.” Christine caught herself, too late. “I’m sorry.”
“I meant that if you had been married, you would have had more of a commitment, and you both might have worked harder to stay together.” Mrs. Matthews lowered her eyes. “Your father and I had almost thirty pretty good years. Maybe we wouldn’t have had that much without a strong commitment. We had more than a lot of people have. Actually, I’m not alone—I think a third of my friends are divorced. Or widowed—that’s probably worse.”
Christine ate part of an egg, then nibbled at some sausage. “You haven’t redone my room. You’ve redone every other room in the house. Every time I come here, the whole house is different.”
“I only do a little, once in a while. If you came home more often, you’d see I don’t redecorate that much.”
“You know I don’t have time.” Christine’s voice was harsh.
“I know, dear. I was only making a point, not an accusation.”
Christine sighed, trying to think of what else to say.
“You never hung up my degree from State.”
“I guess I never got around to it.”
“You didn’t put it up because you expected more from me.”
“Now, Chrissie, you know that isn’t true. I only wanted you to be happy.”
Christine said, “I heard voices last night, in my old room.”
Her mother’s head shot up; Christine saw fear in her eyes. Mrs. Matthews’s once-blond hair was nearly all gray. Her face was thinner, too, the hollows in her cheeks deeper; her long blue housedress seemed looser. One blue-veined hand pushed the plate of sausage and eggs aside; Mrs. Matthews had barely touched her breakfast.
“It was the radio,” the older woman said at last. “One of those plays on the public station.”
“It didn’t sound like the radio. I heard your voice, and someone else’s. A child’s.”
“It was the radio.” Mrs. Matthews’s voice was unusually firm.
“Maybe it was.” Christine drummed on the table top with her fingers, then stood up. “I’m going for a walk.”
“I’ll clean up here. Your brother jogs now, you know. Three miles a day.”
“I don’t jog. I only walk.”
Colonial houses stood on each side of the winding road. Christine searched the neighborhood for signs of change. Three houses now had solar panels; others had cords of wood stacked in yards under tarpaulins.
A young woman hurried down a driveway, juggling a box and a large purse. “Toni!” Christine shouted.
“Ch
ris!” The woman opened her car door, threw in the box and the purse, and strode toward Christine. “God, I haven’t seen you in ages. You haven’t changed.”
Christine smiled at the lie, grateful that her raincoat hid her heavy thighs. Toni was stockier, her dark hair shorter and frizzed by a permanent. “Mother told me you were back.”
Toni hooted. “Back! What a nice way to put it. I guess she must have told you about my divorce.”
“She mentioned it.”
“My parents have really been great. Mom takes care of Mark when he gets home from school. I have a job at the mall now, with Macy’s.” Toni glanced at her watch. “How’s that guy you’re living with?”
“We broke up.”
“God, I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Don’t be. I wasn’t.” Christine tried to sound hard and rational. “This place looks the same.”
“It’ll never change. It’s stuck in a time warp or something. There’s a couple down the street with four kids—can you imagine anyone having four kids nowadays? I don’t know how they afford it. Mrs. Feinberg’s running a day care thing in her house—you can’t afford these houses without two incomes. Maybe a few things have changed.” Toni paused. “How is your mother, by the way?”
“She’s all right.”
“I don’t want to sound nosy. She looks kind of pale to me. She’s in your old room a lot.”
Christine looked up, startled.
“I can’t help noticing,” Toni went on. “I see the light at night. She’s in there almost every day after she comes home.”
“She likes to listen to the radio there while she does her sewing.” Christine hoped that she sounded convincing.
Toni looked at her watch again. “Hey, why don’t you come over tonight? We can talk after Mark goes to bed.”
Christine saw two girls standing by a pool, giggling; they would swim through life as they had swum through the blue, chlorinated water. “I can’t. We’re going to Chuck’s for supper.”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“Mother has tickets for the symphony. And I’m leaving the day after.”
“Well. Next time, maybe.”
“Next time.”
“See you, Chris.”
As she approached her mother’s house, Christine looked up at the window of her old room. The window was at the side of the house, overlooking the hedged-in yard.
A shape moved past the window; a small hand pressed against the pane. A little girl was looking at her through the glass; her long blond hair curled over her shoulders. The child smiled.
Except for the child’s bright, golden hair, thicker and wavier than hers had ever been, she might have been looking at herself as a little girl. The child continued to smile, then reached for the curtains and pulled them shut.
Christine hurried around the yard to the back door and pushed it open, entering the kitchen. The house was still. At last she heard her mother’s footfall in the hall above, and then the creak of the stairs.
“Chrissie,” her mother said as she entered the kitchen. She still wore her long blue housedress; she had always dressed early in the morning before.
“Who’s that little girl?”
“What little girl?”
“The one I saw in my room, looking out the window.”
“You must be mistaken.” Her mother’s voice was flat. “There was no one in your room.”
“I saw her.”
“You’re imagining it.”
Christine passed her mother and pounded up the stairs. The door to her old room was still open; she hurried through it.
The little girl was not there. The room felt cold; Christine pulled her coat more tightly about her. Abruptly the floor shifted under her feet. She staggered, righted herself, and heard the sound of a child’s laughter.
Christine covered her ears, then let her hands drop. The room was warm again; everything was as it had been. Her mother had said that there was no little girl; that meant she had imagined it all. She would have to put it out of her mind.
After Christine had greeted her sister-in-law, said hello to her nephew, and peeked into the baby’s room, Charles led her to the basement. His bar sat in one corner in front of a stainless steel sink. He poured her a bourbon, then opened the refrigerator and took out a light beer. “My refuge,” he said. He came around the bar and sat down next to her.
“Shouldn’t we go upstairs?”
“It’s all right. Jenny’s got to nurse Trina again, and then she’ll have to put Curt to bed, and then she and Mom’ll watch the ‘MacNeil-Lehrer Report’ before supper. We can go up then.” He paused. “I heard about Jim.”
“He moved all his stuff out finally.”
“I thought you two would be together forever. I kept expecting you to call and say you’d gotten married.”
Christine sipped her bourbon, then gazed at the glass. “After he left, I came home one day and started fixing drinks. Jim always had a vodka and tonic and I always had a bourbon. Well, I fixed myself a drink and then I suddenly realized I’d fixed his, too. That was when I finally cried about it.” She shook her head. “You seem to be doing all right.”
“I guess so.” Charles’s ash blond hair was already thinning around his temples; his moustache was thicker, as if to compensate. “One thing about being a dentist—the customers can’t talk back to you while you’re working.”
“You’ll be all right. You always were. You were always the good child. I screwed up.”
“Chris. Mom worries about you sometimes.”
“No, she doesn’t. She’s never forgiven me, not since my breakdown. It was as if I was saying she was a lousy mother because I didn’t turn out right. And I’m not married, and I don’t have kids, and I don’t have a lovely home and a fine husband. She hates me for it, but she won’t say so.” Christine gulped at her bourbon. “If she says she worries about me, it’s only because she thinks she’s supposed to say it.”
“Oh, Chris, come on.”
“She never came to see me when I was in that expensive bin. She never asked me why I broke down. After that, I was damaged goods as far as she was concerned. As long as I was perfect, she loved me. When I wasn’t, she just turned herself off.”
“What do you want her to do, say she’s sorry?”
“That wouldn’t change anything.”
“Then forget it. It’s your problem, Chris. You can’t keep feeling sorry for yourself.”
She glared at him. “It’s easy for you to talk, Chuck. You didn’t fail.”
“You think so? Every time Dad visits, he asks me why I don’t keep up my sports more, maybe coach Little League. I know he would have liked to see me pitch in the major leagues—hell, I wanted it, too. Nobody grows up thinking, ‘Boy, I’m really into teeth.’ But I’m not going to get depressed over it.”
“Chuck, Mother’s been spending a lot of time in my old room. It worries me. She—” Christine was about to mention the little girl, but changed her mind. “That room gives me the willies. I wish she’d put all my old crap away.”
“You could take it with you when you drive back to the city.”
“I don’t have room. And I wouldn’t care to be reminded of how wonderful I once was.”
“Chris, you’ve got to stop it. You have the rest of your life—don’t poison it. Grow up. Everyone fails in some way. You have to learn to live with that.”
She heard the voices again.
Christine threw off her sheet and coverlet and tiptoed toward the door, opening it slowly. Creeping into the darkened hallway, she moved cautiously toward her old room.
A child’s voice giggled. “Do you like it?”
“I think it’s beautiful. But you always do everything well.”
“I’m glad. I love you, Mommy.”
“I love you, too.”
Christine trembled as she recognized her mother’s voice.
“Read to me, Mommy.” Bedsprings squeaked.
“Which book?”
“You’re such a good little girl. You won’t disappoint me, will you, Chrissie?”
“Never.”
Chrissie. Christine backed toward the guest room. How long had the child been living in this house, and what had enabled her to appear? She knew the answer to the second question—her own failure, and her mother’s disappointment. She shook her head. It was a dream; it had to be.
She got back into bed and lay there, awake, for a long time.
Christine had slept uneasily and her eyes felt gritty in the morning. She got out of bed, pulled on her robe, and darted into the hall before she had time to change her mind. As she entered her old room, she closed the door behind her.
The bed had been made, or had never been slept in at all. The artifacts of her childhood and youth still hung on the walls in their usual places, and The House at Pooh Corner was back on the bookshelf between Winnie-the-Pooh and Stuart Little. The yearbook was open once again, this time to a picture of Christine and a boy named Lars Heldstrom under the caption, “Most Likely To Succeed.”
She gripped the dresser; her hands became claws. “Come out,” she muttered. “Damn you, come out.” The room was still. She was having another breakdown; the breakup with Jim and the visit home had unhinged her. But her mother had been in the room, and she had seen the child in the window.
“Who are you? If you don’t come out, I’ll take Mother away. You’ll never see her again.”
“No, you won’t.” The voice seemed to hover above her; she clutched at the dresser, afraid to move. “She’s mine now. Go away.”
Christine spun around. The little girl was standing in front of the closet door, dressed in a pair of blue overalls and a white turtleneck. Her small hands held a clarinet; her blue eyes were icy.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Chrissie. Don’t you know that?” The girl’s voice was low and harsh. “This isn’t your room any more. Mommy comes to visit me every day.”
Eye of Flame Page 14