Dancing Days

by Val St. Crowe

  * * *

  “Out of the question,” said Laura, standing in the kitchen of the double-wide where Nora lived. “And if he doesn’t leave in five minutes, I’m calling the police.”

  Laura had caught Nora trying to sneak out the back door to go meet Owen. It was ten o’clock in the evening on Christmas Eve. When Owen had realized Nora couldn’t get out, he’d come into the house. Now, Owen stood in the doorway to the kitchen, his hands in his pockets, glaring at Laura. Laura was seething too. Tim, Nora’s foster father, looked caught in the crossfire from where he perched on a chair at the kitchen table.

  “Christmas Eve is a time for family,” Laura said.

  “Owen is my family,” said Nora. “We’ve been together for eleven years. He—”

  “No,” said Laura. “I told you before that I didn’t want you seeing him anymore.” She put a finger in Owen’s face. “You are not taking her out of this house and knocking her up, when you’re too irresponsible to even stick around for longer than a couple months at a time. She is too young, and I’m not letting you screw her up anymore than you already have.” She turned to her husband. “Back me up here, Tim.”

  Tim shot a look at Owen, who smiled easily at him. “Well, they did grow up together, hon. Maybe it’s innocent—”

  “Nothing about that boy is innocent,” said Laura. She turned to Nora, her expression softening. “Sweetie, I know you can’t see it, because you are just a girl, and he is the only boy who’s ever paid a bit of attention to you, but there is nothing good about this one. I know his type, and I don’t want you mixed up in it.”

  “Mrs. Gore,” said Owen, “I know you and I got off on the wrong foot, but let me assure you that my intentions toward Nora are—”

  “Don’t talk fancy at me,” said Laura. “I can tell you think I’m some dumb cunt, but I’m not. I see right through you, buddy.”

  Nora had known trying to get out of the house on Christmas Eve wasn’t going to be easy.

  “I would never refer to you with words like that,” Owen said, shock all over his face.

  Nora knew him well enough to know he was faking it. Owen was good at faking things. She knew that. Owen was good at convincing people of stuff. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t wondered before if Owen couldn’t convince her to do things the same way he did other people. It didn’t matter, though, even if he could. Owen was all she had.

  “It’s Christmas Eve,” said Laura.

  “I realize that,” said Owen, “and I won’t keep Nora out late. I promise.”

  Laura shook her head, closing her eyes. “I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything in my power to keep this girl away from you.”

  Owen was getting annoyed. Nora could tell. His jaw was twitching the way it did when he was trying to keep himself under control. He didn’t get really mad often, but when he did, Owen could be a little terrifying. Nora went to him, taking his hand. “Maybe it’s just not meant to be, and we should let it go.”

  He glared at her. “You’re coming with me tonight. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Oh, no, she is not,” said Laura.

  “Could we give them an hour or something?” Tim suggested. “She’d have to be back by eleven or—”

  “When you turn eighteen,” Laura said, ignoring Tim and locking eyes with Owen, “I will turn you in for statutory rape so fast if you put a finger on her.”

  Owen’s whole face twitched.

  “Owen,” said Nora.

  “You have no clue about anything, do you know that?” Owen said. “That is not what any of this is about. And for all you know, I already have knocked her up. For all you know, I’ve performed eighteen coat hanger abortions on her myself.” He took a step closer to Laura. He looked taller, and his face was twisted and enraged. “Someone like you cannot keep me away from Nora. Nobody keeps me away from Nora.”

  In spite of herself, Laura was cowering. She caught Nora’s eyes with her own. “Does he ever hit you, honey?”

  “Of course not.” Owen’s voice was ice. He took another step closer to Laura. “I don’t have to hit people, Laura.” His gaze bored into hers.

  Laura suddenly went slack, collapsing back against the counter, still staring into Owen’s eyes. Her mouth had fallen open. Drool was starting to trickle onto her chin.

  “Go get in the car, Nora,” said Owen, still staring at Laura.

  “What are you doing to her?” Nora said. Sometimes Owen kind of freaked her out.

  “She’ll be fine,” said Owen. “Just go.”

  Nora looked at Tim, who didn’t look the slightest bit upset at this turn of events. He was already under Owen’s thrall. “I’m sorry about all this,” she muttered, and then she turned and ran out of the double wide.

  A few minutes later, Owen got into the car, slamming the door after himself. “Why’d you apologize to that jerk after what he tried to do to you?”

  “I...” Nora wasn’t sure. “Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair, you know. What you do to people’s heads. You keep them from thinking for themselves, and it’s sort of...” Scary. But she didn’t say that out loud.

  “I only do what I have to do,” Owen said.

  They were quiet for the rest of the drive to the barn. It had snowed since they’d been there before, and Owen had a tougher time pulling the car in front of the chain on the road. Also, they had to walk through the snow to get back to the barn. Nora was wearing boots, but the snow was almost a foot deep, and it soaked into the bottoms of her jeans, chilling her legs. She didn’t even want to think about what she’d be going back to after this ritual was over. Owen might have permanently damaged Laura in some way. Owen could do things to people’s minds, and sometimes they weren’t exactly the same afterwards. Even if he hadn’t, Laura would be terrified. Nora was going to have to move out again. And maybe her living situation was less than ideal, but Laura had always been nice to her. Why did Owen have to do things like that?

  They traipsed through the snow back to the barn. Owen had apparently already been there, because Nora could see the glow of a fire inside coming through the cracks in the barn. When they went inside, she saw a small fire in the middle of the floor, surrounded by a ring of stones. Snow had fallen into the barn, and a faint trace of white powder covered the stalls. Inside one of the stalls was a goat, tied up and bleating.

  Nora turned to Owen. “I thought you said that no one farmed here anymore. What’s with the goat?”

  “I brought it here,” said Owen. “We need it.”

  Nora wandered close to the goat, peering at it. “For what?”

  He ducked into another stall and came out with a bottle of wine. He pulled out a pocket knife and started screwing the corkscrew into the top of the bottle. “Look, this ritual is different, Nora. It’s a little more intense. That’s why it’s going to work.” He pulled the cork out of the wine and handed the bottle to Nora. “Drink up.”

  She held the bottle up for a second before taking a sip. “Intense, how?”

  He got another bottle of wine out of the stall and began to open it. “It’s part of the Dionysian Mysteries.”

  “We need two bottles of wine?” Nora was feeling confused. The rituals were always a little weird, but they’d never really involved alcohol before. Or goats.

  “We have to be drunk,” said Owen. “It’s part of the thing with Dionysus. He’s the god of wine, you know.”

  Dionysus. She hadn’t heard Owen say that name in a long time, not since they were both much younger. Back then, he’d been determined to find Dionysus, the Greek god. Owen claimed that Dionysus was his father. And given the weird things that he could do, maybe he was right. “Are we trying to find your dad again?”

  “No,” said Owen. “Not exactly. But this ritual is supposed to open the dimensions. It’s supposed to let us through, back to Helicon.”

  Helicon. Home. The world of the muses. Would this work? “So what do we do exactly?”

  “First we get drunk,” said Owen. He
clinked his wine bottle against hers and took a long swig.

  Nora surveyed her wine bottle. Well, it wasn’t as if she had a foster home to go back to anymore, not really. She might as well get wasted. It was the holidays. She tipped the bottle into her mouth.