A Darker Place (15 page)

The child looked down at the spool in her hands, and after a moment of silence, the woman spoke up. “She’s thinking of making a rug with it, to put on the floor next to her bed.”

Ana studied the immense pile of soft yarn rope, and raised her eyebrow in puzzlement at the mother, who let go of the last traces of apprehension at being in an empty shop with a stranger who had reacted oddly to the sight of her daughter. She said, “Like a braided rug, you know? Show the lady how it’s done, Dulcie.”

Obediently, the child laid down her spool and crochet hook and slid down from the stool to dig around in the bright mass until she came up with the end, two feet of an almost neon orange dimmed only slightly by collected grime. This she laid on the counter, holding it in place with two fingers, and began deliberately to coil the rope around the center.

“Ah,” said Ana. “I see. In fact, I have one like that on the floor of my bus. Only this one is brighter than most of the ones I’ve seen.”

“A lot brighter,” agreed the woman.

“It’s going to be magnificent,” Ana told the little girl.

This pronouncement brought the child’s head up, so that for the first time she was looking straight at Ana. After a moment, she smiled, a shy and brilliant smile
that acknowledged Ana as a true and kindred spirit, and Ana felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach, because it was Abby, sharing a moment of complicity against Aaron and the world. In another moment she would be crying for the first time in years.

Abruptly, Ana moved away, reaching blindly for the first thing she came across, which turned out to be a crudely thrown pottery mug with a quail drawn into the side. The bird was nicely done, simple, brief lines bobbing with the essence of quailness, even if the glaze had slipped into it, and the shape of the cup was inviting in the hand. She held it for a moment, finding it oddly soothing, then took it over to the counter.

“I broke my favorite mug last week,” she told the woman. “Funny how certain shapes seem just right, isn’t it? And the bird is great.”

“Isn’t it? In fact—is this one of Jason’s, Dulcie?” she asked the child. Dulcie looked up from her work, nodded, and dropped her head again. “I thought so. Jason is Dulcie’s brother,” she told Ana. “Not much of a potter, I’m afraid, but he can draw beautifully.”

Ana asked hesitantly, “Is Jason your son?”

The shopkeeper gaped at her for a moment, and then laughed loudly, a noise more uncomfortable than amused, and shook her head in rejection of the idea. “Oh, no, no. And Dulcie’s not my daughter. She’s just a good friend who’s helping out in the store for a day or two. Aren’t you, honey?” she said to the girl, and reached out to give her an awkward hug, which Dulcie allowed but did not respond to.

Ana seized the small opening and introduced herself. “I’m Ana Wakefield,” she told the woman. “I just got into town, and I’ll probably be staying for a while. You have a great shop.”

“Carla McIntyre,” said the woman in return, and picked up the mug to check on the price. “And the
shop’s not mine, it’s a communal effort.” It sounded like someone else’s phrase, but she chose not to continue with the quote. Instead, she wrote up a sales slip and gave it to Ana, saying, “That’s ten-fifty.”

It was more than the mug was worth, but Ana meekly handed her the money and waited for her to wrap it and put it into a bag. She thanked Carla, said good-bye to her and to the child, and went back out onto the street, the bell tinkling behind her.

Thirty-five minutes later, right on time, the shop closed. On the doorstep Carla, bent over the lock, felt Dulcie tug at her sleeve. She pushed away the brief irritation she felt at the child’s interference with the always difficult task of locking up, which involved inserting the key and then easing it out the tiniest fraction of an inch before jiggling it and hoping it would turn.

“What is it, honey?” she asked absently. She really was going to have to insist that someone fix the lock. One of these days it wasn’t going to work at all.

Her only answer was another tug. Hopeless to try locking the door with the child hanging on her arm. She summoned the patience of the truly wise and reminded herself that a child would lead them.

Probably not this child, but one never knew.

She straightened up and looked to see what had caught Dulcie’s interest, and found herself staring down the road at a human backside emerging from the remains of an exploded engine.

That was an instant’s impression, but on closer examination Carla decided that the assorted parts and tools lined up along the edge of the sidewalk were too orderly for an explosion, and besides, she hadn’t heard anything. Someone was just working on his car.

“Yes, I see, Dulcie,” she said, and turned again to the lock. “The man has just chosen a strange place to fix his engine.”

Ah, success, and the satisfying click of the bolt sliding across. Carla was so pleased at this minor victory, it was a moment before she registered the fact that the child Dulcie had spoken.

“What
did you say, honey?” Carla’s voice slid upward in astonishment and excitement: Dulcie could talk, and occasionally had in the weeks she had lived at Change, but she had been silent all that day.

Now, however, she even repeated herself.

“I said, ‘It’s the lady.’”

Carla had been instructed not to fuss if Dulcie decided to verbalize. However, it wasn’t easy to be natural, thinking how pleased Steven would be when he heard.

“Lady?” she said. “What lady?”

Dulcie apparently thought that Carla could figure that one out by herself, because she did not answer, merely put the hand that was not busy carrying the canvas bag with the future rug in it into her pocket, and studied the blue-jeaned buttocks of the person emerging from the Volkswagen bus.

Ana dropped back to her knee again, holding a length of frayed tubing in the greasy fingertips of a hand clothed in fingerless wool gloves. She reached behind her for the toolbox, rummaged through it a bit, and then seemed to notice her audience.

“Hi,” she said cheerfully. Her frozen hands found a roll of duct tape in the box. “Hello, Dulcie. Going home now?” She began to pick at the end of the tape with a thumbnail, with limited success. Both hands and tape were too cold.

“What are you doing?” Dulcie asked her. Amazing, thought Carla. Three times in a matter of minutes.

“Well,” said Ana, “my old friend here sometimes has things go wrong with her. Today it’s her heater, which is not very convenient, considering how cold it is. So I thought I should try to patch it together before I turn
into an icicle. Can you get that end loose for me?” She held out the roll of silvery tape to Dulcie, who put her bag down between her feet, pulled off her mittens, and worked at the end of the thick tape until she had a half-inch or so of corner free.

“That’s great,” said Ana. “I can get it from there.”

Dulcie gave her back the roll, and frowned as she saw Ana take the loose corner between her right front teeth and tug free a length of tape with a loud, ripping sound.

“You shouldn’t do that,” the little girl said to Ana in disapproval. “Your teeth will fall out.”

“Will they?” asked Ana. “You mean like this?” She worked her tongue across the roof of her mouth and then reached up with her black fingers to pop loose the small plastic plate that held her other front teeth, the two false ones on the left. She then grinned at the child with her jaws clenched, poking the tip of her tongue through the hole left by the missing bridge.

Dulcie stared openmouthed at the gap in Ana’s teeth, and at the thin device of pink plastic and wire with the two neat white teeth attached that lay in the palm of the greasy woolen glove, and then burst into a paroxysm of giggles. Tears came to her eyes at the absurdity of the lady with no teeth, and she bent over and laughed so hard, she probably would have wet herself if Carla hadn’t made her use the toilet just before they left the shop.

There is nothing more contagious than a child’s giggles, and Ana’s mouth twitched, then she started to laugh, and soon she was reduced to a weak-kneed collapse onto the wet street and rather needing a toilet herself. Even Carla, who had little sense of humor at the best of times and who was moreover distracted by the unexpected descent of the problematic, enigmatic Dulcie into an ordinary, silly five-year-old, even Carla began to grin at the two of them.

It took a long time for the storm to pass, because every time Ana looked at Dulcie, one or the other of them would snort and set off the laughter, and when Ana put her bridge back in, Dulcie couldn’t bear it, and demanded—in words—to be taken back to the shop to use the toilet again.

While they were inside, Ana brushed herself off and tore away (with her fingers) the now-crumpled and stuck-together length of tape, bringing on a fresh piece, which she wrapped tightly around the worn tubing and cut off with her pocketknife. She bent to replace it, deep in Rocinante’s guts, and heard the tinkle of the shop bell behind her.

As the child’s footsteps came to a halt behind her, Ana whirled around with her finger out and started to growl, “Don’t you
dare
laugh,” when the words strangled in her throat at the sight of Dulcie stumbling backward in her panic to get away, her face twisted into a mask of sudden terror. Ana immediately took a step back and raised both her hands, palms out in a declaration of peace.

“Whoa, it’s okay, Dulcie. I was just pretending. I’m not angry, not a bit, I was just acting fierce so you wouldn’t laugh at my wet bottom.” She turned and bent to point her forty-eight-year-old rear end at the child, a rear end with a perfect circle of dark denim where she had sat down on the wet street. She looked over her shoulder at the child. “It looks pretty dumb to have a wet butt.”

The admission of adult frailty combined with the mildly rude word brought the beginnings of a smile to the child’s face. Ana straightened up to look at her.

“I’m sorry, Dulcie. I didn’t mean to surprise you like that.”

Carla, who had lagged behind to fight with the lock and had missed the exchange, joined them with a puzzled
look, knowing something had happened to change the mood so radically, but uncertain about asking. Instead, she gestured to the bus.

“Did you get it fixed, then?”

“Not really. It’ll last for a bit and then die when I need it most. She’s an old car, and parts are hard to get.”

“Is that your only heater? I mean, don’t you have a stove or something?”

“That’s not very safe. I have some good warm blankets; I just crawl in and go to bed early.”

Although Ana was prepared to go much farther than that in laying hints, she did not have to say any more. Carla had been thinking hard about Dulcie’s strange openness, and although she wanted to believe that she had been responsible for freeing the child, wanted Steven to look at her with respect and a word of praise, she had to admit that it wasn’t her but this woman who had somehow, unknowingly, pried Dulcie out of her shell. Five times Dulcie had spoken—and laughed! There was nothing to do but bring this odd woman with the ugly haircut home and try to hang on to her until Steven returned. He would want that.

“Why don’t you come back with us?” Carla said. “We live in a community about forty-five minutes away. There’s plenty of room. And lots of fireplaces,” she added.

Dulcie did not say anything; she didn’t need to, the way she stood gripping the lumpy bag, waiting for this lady to say yes.

Strangely enough, Ana was the one to hesitate. She had been prepared to spend days working her way into the community. Instead, she was slipping in after bare hours, but still she hesitated—for a brief moment, true, but a concentrated one.

She could only wish the child didn’t look so much like Abby.

From
Cults Among Us
by Anne Waverly, Ph.D., Oxford University Press, 1996

As soon as Ana opened Rocinante’s door, she knew that Carla had not misled her about the fireplaces. The air was sweet with piñon smoke, that incense of the high country, and the night moved across her face, smooth and cold and clear. It was a sort of night to make even a middle-aged woman with a bad knee want to do something mad, throw off her clothes and raise her arms to the stars, perhaps, or lift her face and howl at the young moon.