I shook my head.
“That’s fine,” Mary Abbott murmured. The other girls were preparing for bed; Eva’s creamy shoulders, her back dotted with black moles; Sissy’s fine, knotty hair, freshly brushed, a pretty gold bracelet on her wrist, which meant Boone would be coming again, two nights in a row. I felt like something awful was going to happen. I could smell it.
“Mr. Holmes came out and gave us a speech. I thought you’d want to know. Was I right?” she asked, suddenly bold, her cold, sticky hand upon mine.
I slid my hand from under hers, nodded.
“I knew you would.” She smiled, but to herself, she’d made a bet and won. “He came out for prayer. He asked us to pray for Decca and his family. And then he asked us to pray for you, Thea.” She paused. “For you and Decca.”
Sissy watched us, from her bed. But I was all Mary Abbott’s now.
“Are you glad he asked us to pray for you?”
“I’m flattered,” I said, and closed my eyes, “and tired.” Though it was not unusual to be mentioned in Mr. Holmes’s prayers, right now his request felt like a betrayal. He hated me. Why had he ever agreed to put me in charge of his children? He knew something of my life in Florida. He knew enough to know I shouldn’t be trusted. But now he hated me, he had to—since I had hurt one of his girls, what choice did he have?
“I thought you’d be glad, when I was walking over here I thought you’d be happy.” Mary Abbot leaned in, conspiratorially. Her breath was dry and hot. “Because he’s not mad.”
I made my voice as cold as ice. “Leave me alone.”
Mary Abbott backed away, but not before leaning forward, so quickly I could not shield myself. I turned, and she caught my lips with hers.
—
I slept dreamlessly, hot and itchy, woke up dozens of times, unreasonably frightened, the tall bunk beds and the white-clad girls in them unfamiliar, terrifying. Then I calmed myself, it was a trick sometimes, remaining lucid, convincing yourself that the world had not arranged its enormity in opposition—to you, against you. I say I calmed myself but truly my mind was merciful in deciding not to unhinge itself as it had in the days before I was sent away, when I wept until my eyes were ugly pouches in my skull.
“Thea.”
I sat up, startled.
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Sissy soothed, “you’re fine.”
“I’m hot.”
“Are you feverish?” She felt my forehead with the back of her hand. “No. You were talking in your sleep.”
“What did I say?”
“Nothing, babble. Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Have you heard anything about Decca?”
She shook her head. “I prayed tonight. I haven’t prayed in so long . . .” She trailed off. “What happened? Everyone’s saying Rachel tried to kill Decca, that she lost her mind.”
“An owl,” I whispered.
“An owl?” she repeated. When I said nothing, she continued, “The doctor is here. Mr. Holmes must be worried sick.”
“Mr. Holmes is alone,” I muttered. Eva stirred above us. “I’d forgotten,” I said, lowering my voice. I brought my hand to my mouth. My fingers smelled of leather.
“Thea, I have to go. Boone’s here.”
“Don’t go,” I said, “please.”
“Oh, Thea,” she whispered, and kissed my forehead. “I have to. But I’ll be back.”
She stood. Her hair was tucked into the back of her coat, her gloves stuck out of her pocket like hands. I felt the unpleasant bite of jealousy: I wanted so badly to be Sissy, going to meet a boy who loved me.
Sissy waited for a second, and then pointed to her bed impatiently.
“Oh!” I whispered, and went to her bed, a little wounded—all of these things had happened to me today, and still a boy was more important.
After she left, I rose, put my coat on, and stepped outside. Then, nervous I might have woken Mary Abbott, peered back into the cabin through the window. Mary Abbott slept almost peacefully. Eva’s arm and head were flung over the side of the bed, hanging inertly. I couldn’t see Gates, but I knew she slept in a tight ball, like she always did.
None of my sleeping cabinmates needed to concern themselves with the danger outside—as far as I knew, there had never been so much as a Peeping Tom at Yonahlossee. Danger presented itself, every girl knew, from within the family—your father’s mistress; mother’s thorny relationship with her mother-in-law, your grandmother; the first cousin who had tried to kill himself. But we were no one, nothing, without our families.
If anything happened to Decca, the youngest, the best and favorite of the family, Rachel would have ruined her own life as well as her sister’s.
With a brief and distant shock I noticed a light beyond the Square where Masters was, not a part of the Square but not completely away, either; within eyesight, in case something happened, in case a girl needed something.
My boots stuck in the mud as I walked, their soles made a quick, sucking sound each time I lifted a foot; the noise was disgusting, and that was all I could hear, the night was so quiet, so utterly dead: Florida nights were never like this. There was always a chirping, a scuttling, a howl.
It was cold, the air was still, the sky was dark, but it’s necessary to understand how dark. The stars were barely there, the twin gas lamps that bordered the Castle burned steadily, always, even during daylight, but they meant almost nothing in the face of so much black. So the small light, illuminating a Holmeses’ window—it felt to me like it meant something: the light surged, ignited the reptilian part of my brain, and I wanted to move toward it, I wanted to be inside that house, that home, so badly I could feel the desire rise in my throat.
I began to run, clumsily, through the mud, stopping twenty feet from Masters. I confronted it. I was frantic, I knew that I could not trust myself but I also knew that I needed to speak to him.
I turned and retched into the mud. I felt dizzy, suddenly, unmoored. Beyond Masters was the forest, which led to the mountains; I could disappear into those woods. And who would miss me, if I left? And for how long, before my absence brought relief? I was already mostly gone from my family’s life. Because I had done this once before, I had been careless. I had let desire dictate everything. I closed my eyes, tried to stop the world from spinning. If Decca was hurt beyond repair, then I would disappear into the woods. If Mr. Holmes hated me, if I had ruined another family, I would leave this place.
“I thought we knew each other,” Mother had said, in my parents’ room, where I had gone to find her on that other horrible day; she lay on their made bed, the yellow light of the late afternoon illuminating her delicate features, her head propped up at an odd angle. “You’re not the girl I thought you were.”
Who was I, then? When Georgie was pressed against me, I lost all reason. I acted dangerously with him and I would not have cared if both my dead grandmothers were listening at the door. All the various pressures of a boy against my body, the kneading, insistent pressure of his hands; the light, live pressure of his tongue; the almost unfelt pressure of his penis pushing through the fabric of his pants.
“Enough.” I spoke now, startling myself, one of my tricks.
And because I was acting dangerously, I bridged the distance between myself and the Holmeses’ front door, noticing how Mrs. Holmes or one of the girls had taken care to cover the pots of rosemary that flanked their door with old sheets, then fasten them with a neatly tied ribbon. The door was unlocked, as I had expected; I opened it slowly and slipped through; it was all darkness inside, a warm, dense darkness.
The Holmeses’ stairs were spotless, the walls hung with family photos, silver frames dusted, gleaming. The portraits surprised me: to me, the Holmeses were a family without a place or past, even though I knew everyone had a past, and even though I knew specific details of their past: my mother, Boston.
<
br /> The light came from upstairs.
It had been months, I realized, since I’d climbed stairs in a home—I’d forgotten how noisy they were, and my boots were still on. I half hoped the groaning stairs would announce me. I shrugged my coat off when I reached the top.
I could see the light at the end of the hall, pooling out on the pine floor so clearly.
I passed closed doors. I wondered where Decca and her sisters lay.
I noticed all his books, first, so many books the room reminded me of a library, a place I had been only once, in Gainesville, with Georgie and Sam. Those boys were on the tip of my brain tonight; everything I saw reminded me of them.
Mr. Holmes stood at a desk in front of the window, reading a newspaper. He turned a page, and I saw a grainy photograph, but I could not tell of what. It was an impractical place for a desk, where he could not see anyone enter, where the sun would bleach his things, his books, his letters, his photographs. But I understood why the desk was there: he could see everything below, all us girls coming and going through the Square; and beyond us, the mountains. Always the mountains. I touched the door frame.
“Who’s—” He turned and glanced at me, startled. He was fully clothed, in a white dress shirt and herringbone trousers. He wore monogrammed slippers.
“You shouldn’t be here, Thea,” he said. He set the newspaper onto his desk, and I thought how different this man was from my father, or Uncle George. Or Sam or Georgie, for that matter. He didn’t know me—that was why, and how, he was different.
“How is Decca?” I asked.
Mr. Holmes tilted his head, as if he were trying to discern me. I lowered my head; I hadn’t been looked at so closely in such a long time.
“Are you worried, Thea? I’m sorry. I would have sent word sooner. Decca has broken her collarbone. The other injury is superficial—a cut on her hand. Her head wasn’t hit; the doctor was very grateful for that.”
The iodine had been for her hand. My eyes blurred.
“Thea?”
But I could not look up. Her head.
“Thea? Please look at me.”
His voice was firm; he was still my headmaster. And so I lifted my head and saw Mr. Holmes now held a glass in his hand. Whiskey.
“Her personality is intact,” I whispered.
He nodded, slowly.
“I left the gate open,” I said. “I was distracted.”
He set his glass down and directed me to sit, on an overstuffed armchair next to his desk. He pulled his desk chair opposite me—it looked so small in his hand, so light—and sat down.
“Thea,” he said, “Decca will be fine. Just a bit of a scare, but nothing that can’t be mended.”
“She could have been badly hurt,” I said. I thought of Rachel.
“That is true. But she was not.”
I started to speak again, but he held up his hand.
“She was not,” he repeated. “It was a series of events, Thea. Thank God they ended well, and leave it at that.”
A door closed in my brain, then, unexpectedly. My understanding of our world shifted: it was a series of events, I thought, all of it.
“And I can’t reach Beth. She’s somewhere in Alabama, but I don’t know exactly where. This day was already bad, to begin with. Our sponsors are not sponsoring. Our donors are not donating.” He smiled, and took another sip of his drink. He was less guarded than I had ever seen him; this must be how he always was with his wife. But perhaps not. Perhaps Henry Holmes was rarely so undisguised.
“And the worst of it is that I don’t blame them.” He shook his head. There was a bitter note in his voice. “Forgive me, Thea. You always strike me as older than your years.”
“Rachel?” I asked.
“Rachel,” he said, and paused. “Rachel is beside herself.”
“Are you angry with her?”
“Yes,” he said, “of course I am.”
“Don’t be.”
“But how will she learn, Thea, if I’m not?”
“She made a mistake,” I said. I leaned forward in my chair. I could feel a flush creep up my chest, across my cheeks. “A mistake!” I thought of my brother and cousin as I had last seen them. It was all a mistake. “If it is a series of events, then let her be. She’s learned her lesson.”
Mr. Holmes seemed surprised. He finished his drink and set the glass on the floor, next to his feet.
“Has she?” he asked. His speech was looser. The alcohol, combined with his wife’s absence. “I’d like to think so. But as a parent you never quite know what your child is learning.”
Mr. Holmes turned his head at the sound of a door closing. He started to stand, and I caught the edge of his sleeve. He looked at me.
“Don’t hate her.”
“You never hate your child, Thea.” He gazed down at me. I made myself meet his gaze.
He did not look away, so I did. I stood, then, and put on my coat. I realized all of a sudden how improper it was, me in front of a man I was not related to without even a robe to cover my nightgown. And yet I did not want to leave. I wanted to stay, to be with him, to go wherever he went, to be enveloped by Mr. Holmes and his books.
“I should leave,” I said, “I’m sorry to come here like this.”
He nodded and took a step forward, and he was so close I could smell him, the pomade in his hair, and it made me think about the time he had visited me in the infirmary, and told me I would grow to love Yonahlossee. He had been kind. It was only now, months later, that I was able to see how kind he had been.
“Rachel isn’t bad. She made a mistake. There is”—here he looked at the ceiling, as if deciding how to phrase it—“a difference.”
He departed then, mumbled something about checking on Decca, leaving me to quietly observe his office and all its books: neatly ordered, in bookshelves; stacked on his desk, with little slips of paper sticking out of their pages; one open, on the sofa.
I went to this book, and picked it up. I touched the pages he touched, the spine. I could see how Mr. Holmes lost himself in other worlds in here.
{13}
Dear Thea,
Did you like the coat? How was Christmas at school? Your father says we need to go away somewhere for a while but where? Here is where I want to be. I’m not lonely. Your father is working more than ever, even if everything else is changed there are always the sick and dying. And there seem to be more of them here now, the sick and dying.
I wish I could see you, Thea. I wish things were not how they are. You should have been my child longer. All three of you should have been children longer. I’ll stop with that. Does it surprise you to read a letter like this, your mother so maudlin?
I cut back all the roses, mulched all the beds, hacked away everything dead. I worked for days, perhaps did too much. Sam helped. Your brother is still your brother. There is more to say, surely, but I can’t think of it. I know you wrote to him. I know he has not written back. He is still reeling, Thea; I hope I am right in telling you this. I mean not to hurt your feelings, only to explain his.
Georgie is fine. Sam said you asked.
Bundle up in those mountains. Don’t ride too long or hard. Remember your health.
Love,
Mother
I sat in the Hall with Sissy, in our usual spot, on a threadbare red velvet sofa, and read Mother’s letter. I was exhausted. I’d been sleeping poorly since my nighttime visit to Masters, three days ago.
We weren’t supposed to have roses in Emathla, in that humid, hot climate, but Mother loved them. She worried over them, and when they bloomed in the spring they were beautiful; you would not have known they did not belong.
My feelings were hurt. She had known they would be; I felt stung, crumpled. It was one thing to think of my family separately, going about their lives; another entirely to think that an all
iance had been formed against me.
Katherine Hayes started playing something cheerful on the piano. Decca’s accident had hushed Yonahlossee—girls had cried into each other’s shoulders, and sported grave expressions, and looked sadly at Masters—but only for a day. Jettie stood at an easel, painting a watercolor of the view of the mountains from the window. I could see from here that Martha Ladue, who sat next to her, was idly flipping the pages of a magazine, and that Jettie’s painting was very bad. Martha Ladue seemed to be interested in only two things: speaking French and being beautiful.
The day after I had gone to Masters, Mr. Holmes had told everyone during morning prayer that Decca had broken her collarbone, that she was recovering nicely. He seemed exhausted as he spoke to us. His eyes were tired. Since then he had appeared at most, but not all, meals. In his absence, Miss Metcalfe, the French teacher, presided. This was the first time I’d paid any attention to Miss Metcalfe. She fell into the boring category that most teachers and girls here did: plain but not ugly, nice but uninteresting. I knew she must go to Masters and speak to Mr. Holmes. I knew she must lend him her sympathetic ear. I wanted to do that. I wanted to bring him comfort. I felt a little like he belonged to me, now. He had let me into his office in the dead of night; he had comforted me, and I wanted more of that: more letting in, more comfort.
Henny had left with Sarabeth and Rachel yesterday, to chaperone them on the train to New Orleans to their grandmother’s house, where they would be reunited with their mother. Decca stayed behind, because of her injury. Before they left, though, both girls had eaten their meals at the head table when their father did, and though I watched carefully for signs of distress, Rachel seemed unchanged. She seemed happy, even, and I understood that her happiness was an accident: it could so easily have turned out worse. I tried to be glad for the happy Holmeses. I tried to swallow the envy that rose in my throat like tar.
I was glad Sarabeth and Rachel were gone. I knew the feeling was base, petty, but I wanted to be closer to Mr. Holmes, and their absence would make this easier. He thought that I was good. Or at the very least he did not think I was bad. And that he thought so made me wonder: perhaps I was not as bad as I had thought.
The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls Page 18
