Candlemas Eve

by Sackett, Jeffrey

  Though after it none enquires.

  And see ye not yon braid braid road,

  That lies across yon lily leven?

  That is the path of wickedness,

  Though some call it the road to heaven.

  And see you not that bonny road

  Which winds about the fernie brae?

  That is the road to Elfinland,

  Where you and I this night maun gae.

  Come and go,

  Come along with me,

  Thomas the Rhymer . . ."

  Gwendolyn Jenkins looked at the rapt face of Simon Proctor, and she smiled, a smile filled with love and devotion. Sweet man, she mused silently. Sweet, sweet man. How like unto him you are. How like unto him.

  She stepped quietly back from him and withdrew to the door of the large room in which the band had been rehearsing. She leaned her back upon the door and hummed softly to herself, ignoring the lovely music which Adrienne was spinning.

  "'But Thomas, you must hold your tongue,

  Whatever you may hear or see,

  For if a word you chance to speak,

  Never go you back to your country.'

  Thomas got a cloak of the elfin cloth,

  And a pair of shoes of velvet green,

  And until seven years were gone

  Thomas on earth was never seen.

  'Come and go,

  Come along with me,

  Thomas the Rhymer.

  Come and go,

  Come along with me,

  Thomas the Rhymer . . ."

  Adrienne Lupescu repeated the final supplication over and over, her thin body swaying to the rhythm of the melody, her eyes closed and her brow lined with intensity. Simon Proctor stood and watched and listened, absorbed in the sound and the subtle presence of the retiring girl. Gwendolyn was watching him from her position near the door. She was smiling warmly and humming to herself. Then, as Adrienne moved into the final chords of her song, Gwendolyn began to sing softly to herself, her muted melody unheard by most of the others present;

  "Fair was Lizzie Proctor,

  Dark was Abigail.

  Both they loved the same man,

  And both they loved him well,

  Both they loved him well,

  In heaven and in hell. . ."

  Adrienne had to concentrate on the strings of her lute, to be able to conclude the song properly. But she had heard the soft melody drifting toward her from the rear of the room. She recognized the song.

  She shuddered.

  Chapter Eleven

  November 23

  Rowena Proctor gazed distractedly out of the window of the Trailways bus, the fingernails of her right hand making little circles on the top of Jeremy Sloan's left knee. She glanced quickly at the back of the seat in front of her. Karyn's disheveled red hair was hanging down on one side of the head rest, and Lucas's matted, stringy brown hair was mingling with it slightly as he leaned upon her shoulder, sound asleep. Jeremy sat quietly beside her, a bit groggy from the early start they had made that morning. He yawned.

  Rowena did not want to be on this bus, did not want to be riding down to New York City, did not want to be part of the studio audience of the Percy Campbell show. But when Simon had called to remind Floyd to call the repairman about the water heater and had mentioned in an offhand manner that he was going back on the talk show, Lucas, who had been listening in on another phone, broke in to demand tickets. When Simon promised to have four tickets waiting at the gate, Rowena alone felt no excitement at the prospect. Lucas derived a vicarious pleasure from his father's notoriety; Jeremy admired Simon and was eager to take advantage of any opportunity of seeing him in action in full warlock regalia; Karyn was grateful for anything which would get her out of Bradford for a day or two.

  But Rowena would have much preferred to remain in the little country town. She disliked large cities, she disliked long bus rides, she disliked her father's witchcraft act, and she heartily disliked Gwendolyn Jenkins. I just know she's going to be there with him, Rowena thought morosely, I just know it. God, how I hate that woman!

  There were many reasons for Rowena's dislike of Gwendolyn. The imperious, abusive attitude she displayed toward poor Adrienne, the easy way she had around men, the haughtiness, the arrogance, the witchery. The real cause of Rowena's dislike, the root Electral cause, was known to her, of course; but she repressed it, telling herself that her father's dalliances were none of her business. But it bothered her. It bothered her deeply.

  "Isn't this exciting, Row?" Jeremy asked.

  "Yeah," she muttered. "I can hardly wait to get there." I can hardly wait to get home, she thought. It was only the prospect of time spent with Jeremy which had prompted her to devote Tuesday of her Thanksgiving week off from school to this expedition; and she would rather have spent the time sitting in front of the fireplace with Jeremy, reading, talking, cuddling. But Jeremy had been determined to go, and Rowena had no wish to sit around the old house all alone all day. Floyd was going to spend the day in Piermont, and her poor little cat had been put to sleep, so the house would have been oppressively empty had she remained at home. And yet, to have to see that—that—

  "That bitch," she muttered.

  "Huh?" Jeremy said. "You say something?"

  "No, Jeremy, no," she snapped, and then regretted it. "I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I'm just a little cranky today. Just ignore me."

  He smiled at her and then leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips. "The last thing I intend to do is ignore you," he said in a soft voice.

  She returned his smile without conviction, took his hand and squeezed it, and then released it quickly, turning once again to gaze out the window. Jeremy stared at her for a few moments, puzzled by her attitude, and then leaned his head back upon the head rest and closed his eyes. Probably getting her period, he thought, following the age-old custom of men in ascribing to the lunar cycle female moods which they did not understand. Such an explanation has always been generally satisfactory and usually wrong. This instance was no exception.

  The New England Thruway sped by outside the window, and Rowena watched with growing apprehension as the hours passed and the green and rocky environment of New England gradually changed until it became the sooty, broken face of the Bronx. God, she thought, I hope he doesn't introduce me and Lucas on that show! What would I say, what would I do? I should have stayed home. Why didn't I stay home? I hate this, I hate it!

  A short time later the bus pulled into the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Eighth Avenue and Forty-Second Street, and the passengers shuffled out of the front door of the vehicle. Most of the people on the bus had suitcases and other types of luggage which had been stored in the compartment beneath the seating area, but the four young people from Bradford had, in Rowena and Jeremy's case, only backpacks and, in Lucas and Karyn's case, no luggage whatsoever, so the four proceeded to walk immediately away while the others milled about, waiting for their bags.

  Lucas, both more familiar and more comfortable with Manhattan than either Jeremy or Rowena, led them all out of the Port Authority onto Eighth Avenue, pulling Karyn with him, his arm around her waist though he was a step ahead of her. "Hey, slow down, man!" she said testily. "I can't walk that fast." She placed one hand upon her swollen belly as if to illustrate her point.

  "Sorry, babe," he said. "I'm just, like, anxious to get there, you know?"

  "Eager," Rowena muttered.

  "Huh?"

  "Eager, not anxious," she said coldly, obviously ill at ease and discontented. "'Anxious' means nervous, worried. You mean that you're eager."

  Lucas stared at her with irritation. "Holy shit! Rowena's like a werewolf, 'cept when the moon rises she turns into an English teacher!"

  "Oh, Lucas," she muttered. I want to be home in Bradford, she thought. I hate this, I just hate this!

  "Come on, you two, play nice," Karyn said. "Where do we have to go from here? Where are we, by the way?"

  "Eighth and Forty-second," Luc
as said. "We gotta go over to Sixth and then up to Fifty-third."

  "Oh," Karyn nodded. "You gonna hail a cab?"

  "A cab! What do you think, I'm rich or something?" He laughed derisively. "It's only thirteen blocks from here to—"

  "Thirteen blocks!" Karyn exclaimed. "Are you out of your mind? I'm pregnant, for Christ's sake! I ain't walkin' no thirteen blocks!"

  "Hey, do you know what a cab costs in New York City? It's like a hundred dollars for the first ten feet or somethin'. We ain't taking no cab!"

  He pulled on her to impel her forward, but she planted her feet upon the pavement with a mule-like obstinacy. "Goddamn it, Lucas! I am not walking thirteen blocks!"

  "Hey, Lucas, come on," Jeremy said soothingly. "Let's just take a cab. If we run short of money, you can always grub some off your dad."

  He laughed. "My dad! Are you kidding?! He's probably gonna grub off me pretty soon!"

  "Okay, okay, so I'll pay for the cab, all right?" Jeremy said. The implication was clear: You cheap bastard, making your pregnant woman walk!

  Lucas grimaced, recognizing defeat when it struck him in the face. "Okay, okay, we'll take a fuckin' cab. Jesus!" He grabbed Karyn roughly by the arm and dragged her from the Port Authority entrance toward the corner and began waving wildly at the taxis which drifted by. He became rapidly annoyed at their reluctance to stop for him, not aware that his appearance did not inspire the drivers with confidence. Lucas presented his customary scruffy, unwashed, outcast form to the passing cabs, and he was consequently ignored. "Shit!" he muttered. "It's gonna be time for the show pretty soon."

  "Well, let's take a bus or something," Karyn said.

  "Yeah, yeah, right. We gotta walk over to Seventh Avenue to get a bus uptown—wait a minute, wait a minute. Which avenues go uptown and which ones go downtown? I always forget that."

  Karyn sighed. "Lukie, sometimes you are such an asshole. The even avenues go uptown and the odd avenues go downtown, except for the ones east of Fifth Avenue. Everybody knows that!"

  I didn't know that, Jeremy thought. Rowena did not care.

  "Okay, so we take an Eighth Avenue bus and then walk east two blocks." He turned to Jeremy and asked sarcastically, "I mean, if you think poor Karyn can make it two blocks on foot."

  Jeremy looked down, intimidated. "Come on, Lucas, cut it out."

  "Yeah, right," he snorted, satisfied that he had scored a point. "Let's go to the bus stop." He pulled Karyn behind him as he strode across Eighth Avenue toward the bus stop. Rowena and Jeremy followed them, each looking nervously at the multitude of automobiles, trucks, and taxis which sped to and fro seemingly from all directions. God, how I hate this! Rowena thought.

  They stopped walking near a metal pole upon which at one time a sign proclaiming the spot to be a bus stop had once hung. It had long since been removed, or stolen, or had dropped off into the gutter to be swept up and discarded. But the yellow paint had not yet totally faded from the curb, and this, coupled with the queue of people who stood numbly along the yellow line, still testified to the fact that buses did in fact stop there.

  As they waited for a bus to arrive, Rowena gazed around with undisguised distaste. There were so-called adult bookstores and pornography emporia everywhere she looked. She turned away from the broad expanse of Eighth Avenue in an attempt to shield herself from the offensive vista, and found that she was standing in front of a large theater which dwarfed the other sex shops in size and audacity. A large flashing neon sign proclaimed Girls, Girls, Girls to any and all onlookers, advertised Live Sex Show, One-on-One Booths, and Peep Show-25 cents. She snorted her disgust and turned to Jeremy, saying, "Isn't this the most dis—"

  Jeremy was gazing at a large poster of a presumably well-known star of pornographic films who was appearing live at the theater. His eyes were wide and his jaw hung open with fascination. Rowena grew suddenly incensed, and she punched him hard in the stomach.

  "Ouch!" he said. "What did you do that for?!"

  "Because you deserved it!" she said without further explanation. She turned away from him in a huff. He stood staring at her in confusion, trying to decide what to say just as the bus pulled up.

  They mounted the steep steps into the bus—another bus! Rowena thought glumly—and sat, all of them silent, as the bus gasped and hissed and rumbled up Eighth Avenue. Karyn was angry at Lucas, Lucas was angry at Karyn and Jeremy, Rowena was angry at Jeremy, and Jeremy was totally confused. They were not a happy group.

  It was a short ride from Forty-Second Street up to Fifty-third, and they left the bus on the corner of that street and Eighth Avenue. "This way," Lucas said disgruntledly, and proceeded to drag Karyn and lead Rowena and Jeremy down Fifty-third Street toward the Avenue of the Americas, which the locals and everyone else familiar with the city still called Sixth Avenue. They walked the two long blocks quickly—more quickly than Karyn would have liked, in fact—and soon arrived at the studio in which the Percy Campbell show was taped for subsequent broadcast over the syndicated networks of local stations.

  Lucas pushed open the doors, which swung back with a velvety swoosh, and preceded the others into the theater lobby. There was a desk in the corner of the large high-ceilinged room, and he walked over to it. An attractive young woman sat behind the desk, examining some papers. Lucas coughed so as to attract her attention, and she looked up at him with a quizzical austerity and said, "Yes? May I help you?"

  "Yeah," Lucas said. "We're here to see the Percy Campbell show. There are supposed to be—"

  "I'm sorry," sir," the girl interrupted in a peremptory manner, "but there are no more tickets available for today's taping."

  "Yeah, yeah, right, I know," he said, "but there are supposed to be some—"

  "If you would like, you can put your names on our list, and we will send you tickets for the next available show."

  "Hey, listen to me, will you?" Lucas said heatedly. "There are supposed to be some tickets waiting for me."

  The girl raised her eyebrows skeptically. "And your name, sir?"

  "Lucas Proctor. My father is on the show today."

  The girl looked at him blankly for a brief moment, and then her face dissolved into a pubescent smile of unsullied adulation. "You're Simon's son?! Oh, wow! I love your father, I mean I just love him!"

  Lucas grinned. "Hey, great, that's great. Uh, you got the tickets my dad said he'd get for us?"

  "Oh, sure, sure, absolutely!" The girl fished about in the drawer of the desk and drew out an envelope which she handed to Lucas. "I'm really sorry. I didn't know who you were."

  Lucas grinned sheepishly, basking in the worshipful gaze. "Skip it," he said magnanimously.

  He walked away from the desk and moved toward the row of doors which led to the theater seats, with Karyn, Rowena, and Jeremy following in his arrogant wake. The girl jumped up from behind the desk and rushed over to Lucas, saying "Do you think maybe you can get me in to meet your father? I mean, like, I've been a fan of his for, like, years and years!"

  Lucas smiled at her and glanced sideways at Karyn, who was already waiting impatiently at the door to the auditorium. He leaned forward toward the girl and softly whispered, "What's your name?"

  "Nancy," she breathed. "Nancy Kaufmann."

  "Okay, Nancy Kaufmann," he said, grinning. "Give me your phone number and I'll see what I can do."

  "Oh, sure!" she said and rushed back to the desk in search of paper and pen.

  Karyn lumbered over to Lucas and asked, "What's the problem?"

  "Oh, uh, nothing, babe, nothing. She's, uh, she's just, uh—"

  The girl returned to Lucas, scribbling on a small notepad as she moved. "Here it is," she said. She tore of the sheet of paper.

  Karyn glared at Lucas. "And what's this all about?"

  "Nothing, babe, nothing," he said quickly as he stuffed the slip of paper into his pocket. "Come on, we'll miss the opening of the show." He hustled her into the auditorium, tossing the four tickets to the usher as he passed through the do
or. Rowena and Jeremy followed behind them nervously.

  They made their way down the aisle which stretched from the doorway nearly to the studio stage, and found to their chagrin that there appeared to be no empty seats close to the stage. The tickets were admission tickets, not reserved seat tickets, and they had arrived so close to show time that the best seats in the house were already occupied. An usher stood complacently against the right wall, staring off into space. In a well-lighted studio without reserved seats, there was precious little for an usher to do.

  Lucas walked over to him and said, "Excuse me?"

  The usher started, as if awakened from some private reverie. He gazed impassively at Lucas.

  "Excuse me," Lucas repeated, hoping to elicit some response from the usher.

  "Yes?" the usher said impassively. He was a self-important, middle-aged man who apparently strove to make the most of his meager prerogatives.

  "I'm Lucas Proctor. My dad—Simon? Simon Proctor?—is on the show today. He told me that Mr. Campbell had reserved four front-row seats for me and my sister and our friends."

  The usher seemed to collapse into obsequious solicitude. "Oh, yes, of course, certainly, certainly, certainly. Wait just one moment please." He scurried away from them and began whispering feverishly to the people who were sitting in the front seats. A few long moments passed, and then four obviously annoyed people rose from the front row and began to make their way reluctantly to the rear of the studio. The usher returned to Lucas and the others and said, "Your seats are available, Mr. Proctor." He looked at Karyn. "Miss Proctor."

  Karyn swung a lazy thumb at Rowena, who tiredly raised her hand halfway. "That's me," she muttered.

  "Oh, oh, I am sorry, Miss Proctor. This way, please!"