Vermilion

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  She obeyed gracefully enough. At the moment she was wearing brown slacks and a beige blouse, and I studied her. Alice Rainsong was fairly tall and rather squarely built. Good shoulders that would allow a dress to drape well, hips that would need to be watched, the long legs of a model. For now, I would pin muslin over her clothes and make allowances.

  “You’ll do,” I said, and smiled at her. “Schiaparelli used to say that a woman must train the body to fit the dress. That’s good advice, but hardly anyone minds it. I always like to think of a particular woman in a special background, and then I design for her. Now I have you, and I have this beautiful blue cloth, so I want to put you together. In New York I do the sketches and the beginnings myself. Then I turn the detail work over to others. Here I’ll need to get back to basics—I’m the whole show again—and what a good thing that is for me now!”

  “For me too, if you can give me something to do,” Alice said. “I’m pretty good at sewing.”

  “That will be useful when we have a machine. First I’d like to do some draping.” It helped me to talk as I worked. Talking could fill spaces into which frightened thoughts were too eager to pour.

  “Explain as you go along, so I’ll begin to understand,” Alice said, and I knew we had the same need to fill those empty spaces.

  “Some designers start right in with the cloth,” I told her, “but I like to make a muslin toile first on the form. That’s you, right now. Later I’ll cut a pattern from this shape when it suits me. I wish we had a long mirror, so you could see what I’m trying. I’ll get one as soon as possible because it helps me to see all around a model.” As soon as possible? I wondered when that would be. At least we were managing to hold off the waves of anxiety that threatened to engulf us.

  As I worked, Alice talked about some of the symbols I could think about using in my designs. Kachina dolls and masks would offer great ideas. And there were so many symbols—the whirlwind that was so familiar in this country, the rain, the lightning.

  “You haven’t seen a storm over the rocks yet, Lindsay. It’s breathtaking. And there’s always the sun, of course—the life-giver—and clouds that sometimes bring rain we always need. Then there are the birds and animals, the eagles and antelopes and snakes. Of course the dancing gods, and the endless geometric patterns that can be very precise. If you want to be authentic, you mustn’t invent there.”

  “You’re my guide now,” I said, and stopped in my pinning to look up at her from where I knelt. “And so much more—so quickly.”

  She smiled. I knew that she’d begun to feel what I was feeling, and that was something to marvel over.

  What a strange afternoon we spent together. While I draped, pinned, scissored, and talked about dress designing, Alice stood patiently, moving only as I indicated, and we both managed to hold time at bay. Strangely enough, in the midst of threatened disaster, I found that I could still kindle a feeling for what I was doing.

  “The Indian designs can be done in appliqué for this dress,” I said. “Eventually, I hope I can meet and talk with your family of weavers.”

  “Your cousins, and an aunt,” Alice told me.

  I was kneeling as I cut and pinned the length, and I looked up at her. “Then I’m all the more eager to know them. It’s still not real to me, I’m afraid—this blood relationship. With you, yes. I already feel that we are sisters. But not all the rest.”

  “Perhaps it never will be. Because you belong wholly to the Anglo world. I’m mixed up in both, and that’s a lot harder.”

  I went on pinning, using the little tomato cushion. The first lesson every dressmaker learned was never to put pins in her mouth. Not only because of the risk, but also because lipstick smears were easily transferred to materials.

  When a telephone rang in the room, I started and dropped my shears. I hadn’t known a telephone had been put in. Now I saw it sitting on the floor in a corner, and its ringing seemed a dangerous threat.

  “They connected it just a little while ago,” Alice said. “You’d better answer.”

  I picked it up doubtfully, to hear Rick’s voice at the other end.

  “Lindsay? I’m glad you’re there. Is Alice with you? … Good, I’ll talk with her in a minute. I’m going to Flagstaff now, and I expect I’ll be gone overnight—if not longer. Don’t worry. They haven’t anything real to use against me. The sooner they find that out, the better. They want me now for more questioning. Take care of Marilla, will you? I have an uneasy feeling about her, and this is going to frighten her a lot.”

  “I’ll go straight out to the house,” I assured him.

  “Fine. Now put Alice on.”

  They talked a while and Alice made notes. Apparently Rick was asking her to call a lawyer they both knew, to get him up here soon. When she hung up, I removed the muslin toile carefully and folded it away.

  “This can wait,” I said. “Let’s go back to Rick’s.”

  We locked up and went downstairs and out to Alice’s car. When we reached the house, Marilla came running to greet us, asking for her father. Alice and I explained as well as we could. Not that he might be accused of anything, but that there was police business that might keep him in Flagstaff for a few days. She understood that an investigation of her mother’s death was under way, and I was sure she sensed more than we were telling her.

  “Let’s go over to the guesthouse now,” I said. “It will be a lot cozier there.”

  “Like a castle on top of a rock.” Marilla’s imagination was already at work.

  With plans for the night shaping up, we felt a little better, safer. We filled a basket with groceries, then went across the bridge.

  All I wanted was to be shut away in safety for the night—though even the guesthouse hadn’t been safe night-before-last. Another part of me fretted impatiently because I was only marking time, whatever I did. I wasn’t in the least sure that Rick’s confidence in the future was justified. He had needed to reassure me, just as I must reassure Marilla. If only there was something I could do.

  Shiny new deadbolts were in evidence on the doors—Rick had thought of that—and Alice had the keys. Nevertheless, I walked in cautiously. By mutual agreement we looked in all the closets and the bathroom before we relaxed.

  Alice was, as always, perceptive, and she’d been watching me. “Marilla is going to help me get dinner, Lindsay. So for tonight you do as you like. I have a feeling you want to be by yourself for a while. So why not run along and do whatever you wish.”

  There was something. It had been at the back of my mind ever since my last effort in that direction, though I hadn’t given it my full attention. Now the urge was there, and I still wasn’t strong enough to resist it. Perhaps she was the only one who could help me now.

  I thanked Alice a little absently and went into the bedroom. There I pulled open the draperies and stood before the glass panels looking out at the now familiar view. It was late afternoon. The sky had grayed so that the sun was setting behind clouds and the usual flaming sunset red of the rocks had been subdued. I hadn’t noticed until now that the sky had a stormy look. Rain would be welcome if it came. Clouds often piled themselves high in the afternoon, only to soar away to drop their moisture elsewhere.

  After a moment of watching, I turned my back on the view and sat down in an armchair, closing my eyes. Softly I spoke to her in my mind.

  Come. I need you now. Tell me what to do.

  There was only a deep silence inside my head, and no figure with swirling red-orange hair danced into view.

  “Vermilion, do come!” This time I spoke her name aloud. I even tried to flatter her a little, because sometimes she responded to flattery. “You’re wiser than I am—help me to help Rick. Please come.”

  A small voice spoke in my mind. Why should I?

  I still couldn’t see her. It was almost as though I’d forgotten how she looked, though she’d been vivid enough at the hospital.

  “You want me to stay alive, don’t you?” I said. “So h
elp me now to know what to do.”

  Why should I? the faint voice repeated. Why should I help you to go away from me?

  So that was it? She was jealous of Rick. I tried to empty my mind, merely waiting for her to fill it. When nothing happened, I permitted myself a question not addressed to her. Were Vermilion’s powers growing weaker, vanishing?

  She caught that thought at once, and in a burst of angry energy she was there, flowing through my consciousness, burning as brightly as a flame. Not for a long while had she given me such an angry performance, and I made no effort to resist. I let her take possession and command my thoughts fully, though even as I let myself go, a part of me wanted to check her. If I allowed her in to this extent, might it not give her a life that could overpower my own? Was there an edge that led to madness?

  Almost in the same breath, however, I knew she wasn’t trying to take me over completely. At least not yet. She had come because I called her, and she still knew that she depended on me for her existence, that if I refused her she would be lost. So, having vented her annoyance in the burst of energy that had swept through me, she did what I asked—she spoke to me. And it was almost as though I heard her voice there in the room with me:

  Think about those who loved Celia. Maybe there’s an answer there.

  Having offered what could only be further suspicion of Brian—and no use to me at all—she was gone in a flash. I felt an annoyance that was entirely my own—because she’d given me nothing that I didn’t already have. Brian had loved Celia. Who else? Alice, of course, though she wasn’t the one I searched for. Otherwise, there was only old Mrs. Jessup in Jerome, who had dearly loved her granddaughter. It was possible there was still some sort of answer there, but it was out of my reach.

  So must I really focus on Brian? He was a strange, haunted young man, who appeared to be reaching out at times toward another dimension. Reaching out rather dangerously, perhaps, as he asked the very questions that I was asking.

  I opened my eyes, feeling weary, and wondered if this time I had simply been dozing. I hoped that was the case, because I must stop this nonsense about Vermilion and her powers. It had been foolish to think some answer might come to me from that direction. I could excuse myself only for the reason that I needed to try everything.

  In any case, she was gone now—far away into her own mysterious silence—and I knew that if I was to be of any use to Rick, I must act on my own. Yet the thought was not entirely a strengthening one.

  15

  The three of us dined that night at the small round table at one end of the living area nearest the kitchen. The wind had begun to rise outside and towering thunderheads rode a darkening sky.

  “It’s really going to storm,” Marilla said. “I love it up here when it storms. It’s exciting. Look at those clouds, Lindsay. You can see the unicorns are out riding them tonight, and the dragons and griffins and firebirds!”

  Her last word caught my imagination. I remembered the ballet with its stormy Stravinsky music. That’s what Vermilion was! If Alice was a quiet Rainsong, Vermilion was a Firebird.

  I watched the sky and saw that the clouds beyond our window had indeed taken on wildly imaginative forms that kept changing even as we watched them roll above the rocks, sometimes touching down and hiding them from view.

  “Perhaps the kachinas are out there tonight,” Alice said softly. “The spirits of our ancestors riding the wind. Listen—do you hear the drums?”

  My scalp prickled, but it was only distant thunder that I heard, and moments later the sky brightened for an instant with lightning, then turned dark again. The storm was still far away.

  Inside, the house was cozy, sheltered, safe. By candlelight we ate Alice’s savory meal with good appetite. There was a lightly browned omelet and a salad into which Marilla had mixed everything she could collect, including bits of Swiss cheese and crunchy pecans. Alice had even made hot muffins that we piled with butter and marmalade. She’d found a bottle of white wine, and milk for Marilla.

  Later, when we’d finished, I washed dishes while Marilla wiped, and Alice stood at a window watching the storm blow closer. If I had felt sure of Rick’s future, I could have been quietly happy that night.

  Contrast between the wild sky and this peaceful interior brought a heightened sense of safety. Perhaps a false sense? Even the candles Alice had lighted added to the sense of stillness and peace as their flames burned high and straight, untouched by the outer turmoil that rumbled around the house. Yet always, the thought of Rick’s danger was there—a danger that could threaten all of us—until we knew the one name that could free us from danger. Or open us to attack?

  I shook off the edging of terror that wanted to intrude. We could only live in this moment, and for now we were secure.

  I was almost right.

  When the storm broke, it was more spectacular than any I’d ever seen. Alice pulled the living room draperies wide, and we stood together at the great window. I had seen storms in New York. I had seen lightning play around granite and concrete towers and listened to booming thunder in city canyons, but here it was far more terrible. The lightning was very close. When it darted its arrows at red peaks and thunder crashed, all the rock echoes took up the sound and clattered it back and forth above the red stone mountains that cut into an attacking sky.

  The rain came, and it was like none I’d ever seen. Sheets of water slanted across the deck outside our window as though a solid wall had struck the house. Though we could feel the shock of wind and water, the house was solidly based in rock, and it barely trembled.

  After a time, even such a spectacle grew to be more than one could bear to watch. We turned back to the room, switching on lamps we’d left dark so we could see outdoors.

  “Let’s read aloud,” Marilla begged us. “It’s a wonderful night for reading. Alice, you begin, and we’ll take turns. I have a book.”

  Alice was willing. Marilla got out the Lewis Carroll she’d brought with her. It seemed a proper night to follow the adventures of another Alice, and our Alice Rainsong read about her beautifully. Together we went down the rabbit hole and into a Wonderland no more strange than I had found in coming to Sedona.

  Nervous energy still surged in me, however. I couldn’t sit still. While I listened, I moved from window to window, following the course of the storm as it swirled around the house, lighted by splitting skies.

  When I came to the window that looked out across a deep arm of the wash, I found myself studying the main house intently—as though I expected something to move over there. Alice had left lamps burning and draperies open, so I could see dimly into the living room, its glass panes awash with rain. The great room was empty. I could imagine that high row of wooden heads from Oraibi all staring hard at nothing, heads my great-grandfather had carved!

  A gust of wind knocked over a chair on the terrace. In the light from the mushroom standards I followed its tumbling course as it crashed into an anchored table and stopped. At that moment something else moved out there—something human. The rain had lessened and I could see the terrace clearly—wet and glistening with water that flowed across it but no longer blurred by solid sheets of rain. Thunder had rumbled away into the distance and no lightning flashed nearby. But this was what something in me had feared all along—human movement on the terrace.

  A figure stepped out from the shelter of the overhang onto the tiles. A man stood looking off toward the peaks of rock, and even as my attention fixed upon him in a sudden wave of fear, I saw who it was. Brian Montgomery faced into the blowing wind, hands in jacket pockets, his bare head tipped back so he could gaze at the sky. As I watched, he flung both arms upward in a gesture that seemed to evoke the powers of unknown gods. He braced against the wind, with legs apart, arms reaching for the heavens, and I turned from the window, meaning to call out to Ailce.

  Before I could move, she was there—Vermilion.

  All of her this time, shining and shimmering in my mind in bright flaming light—s
tronger than I’d ever seen her before. And her voice seemed stronger than I’d ever heard it. A firebird indeed!

  “Go to him,” she said. “Go out there to him. Now!”

  I could neither resist nor disobey. Near the door a raincoat hung on a rack. I pulled it on, turned the key in the new lock, and stepped out into the wind.

  It struck me like the flat of a giant hand, and I staggered as I caught at the bridge railing. Planks under my feet shuddered. I waded in water that flowed over my shoe tops. Yet the rain had stopped and was hardly more than a misting now, so that the water left behind was flowing away. I went over the bridge, clinging to the rail, hurrying lest the wooden planks be swept from under me. Far below, I could hear the voice of the water, where Oak Creek had grown to a river, pouring down the hill past town, heading toward the valley at Poco Diablo. All the black, glistening surfaces of rock were chutes for the water, hurling it through every gully in Oak Creek Canyon. At least the rising flood was far below our rocky crags.

  I was safely across, and Brian still stood as I’d seen him, his wet face lifted toward the sky. The wind released me, gentled its pressure a little, so that I could move out toward him. Once I glanced toward the house, looking into the lighted living room, but nothing stirred inside.

  Vermilion was still pushing me. In my mind—or outside it?—she laughed, knowing her own power now, growing stronger than ever. I had let her in deliberately, and this time I didn’t know how to stop her.

  Brian paid no attention as I came to stand beside him. His face was rapt, his eyes wide and staring. I spoke to him softly.

  “Brian, what do you see out there?”

  If my presence startled him, he didn’t show it. He simply took me for granted, as he might have taken any wild thing that appeared suddenly beside him in the night.

  “All the answers are out there—in the sky and in the rocks,” he said.

  “Why did you come here?”

  He seemed to return from some faraway place. “I was looking for Rick. But the house is empty. Do you know where he is?”