The Shadow of the Bear: A Fairy Tale Retold (24 page)

A car roared past her in a terrifying wind and she jumped back from the curb as someone shouted something at her—her name? Insides quaking, she walked a bit faster.
That was just a freak thing
, she told herself.
The car just swerved too close to the curb. It’s ridiculous to think anyone is after me.

But her inner sensitivity was agitated. There were dragons in the area.

Why not run, just to look as if I’m in a hurry? But that’s silly
, she told herself firmly.
No one’s after me.

Straining her ears as she walked forward, she thought she heard car doors slamming behind her, and footsteps running.

 
Should I look? I might as well look.

Keep walking. Everything is fine. There’s no such thing as dragons.

“Blanche Brier!” someone shouted, and she turned to see Lisa and Eileen hurrying towards her as the car they had gotten out of sped away. Her stomach lurching suddenly, she kept walking.

“Hey there, Blanche, how are things?” Lisa said, coming up on her right side. Eileen came up on the other side of her.

They had surrounded her. Blanche froze and said nothing.

“Don’t be scared, Immaculate Complexion. We just want to talk to you. Now that school’s over, we’ll never get to see you,” Eileen said in a friendly voice that didn’t fool Blanche at all.

“I’m on  my way to meet my sister. What do you want to talk to me about?” Blanche managed to ask, looking at her shoes. She could see on either side of her feet, Lisa’s sneakers and Eileen’s tan feet in leather sandals.

“You know what your problem is, Blanche? You never hang out. We would have gotten to know you better if you’d have given us the time of day.” Eileen sounded offended.

“I’m always doing something wrong, aren’t I?” Blanche heard herself say in a flat voice. “It’s three o’clock, if you want to know.”

Both girls laughed, and Eileen put a hand on Blanche’s shoulder. “Let’s talk for a minute.”

Traffic sped by over the crosswalk. It was just Lisa and Eileen, hungry for some gratuitous verbal torture. Blanche took a deep breath and forced herself to look up into Eileen’s tanned, thin face. “So what do you want to talk about?” she said in as strong a voice as she could. Eileen’s face wore a sweetened smile, but her eyes were nervous.

Eileen sucked her lip and looked at Lisa, who silently looked back at her with dark cold eyes. Blanche saw Lisa squeeze her eyes half-shut. Eileen smiled again and said, “Well, actually, Blanche, I wanted to ask you about this boyfriend of yours.”

“I just picked it up. Perfectly exquisite piece. I’d had my eye on it for years, and it just fell into my hands, yesterday. Isn’t it magnificent?”

The voice came from the vent as Rose stood on tiptoe beneath it.

“It’s lovely. So you got a good price,” the other man said in a tired voice, as though not really interested. Rose recognized the voice of the principal, Dr. Freet.

“A good price indeed. All that remains is for me to obtain the last piece. If I can get that, then I’ll have the entire set—chalice, ciborium, and paten.”

“I really don’t understand what you see in these old church artifacts,” Dr. Freet said. Rose heard the sound of a briefcase being snapped shut.

“That’s precisely the difference between us, isn’t it? To you, a mere museum piece. To me, a work of flawless craftsmanship and beauty. Perhaps that’s why I am the flourishing gallery owner and you are the washed-out idealist bureaucrat.” That disdainful voice undoubtedly belonged to Mr. Freet.

“That’s about all of your sarcasm I can handle just now,” Dr. Freet said shortly. “I have to get home.”

“Well, I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to be leaving very soon on that overseas vacation I’ve been planning,” the other Freet said. “I just have to finish negotiations on the last piece of the set.”

“Congratulations. Send me a postcard.”

Rose heard a door shut and the voices continued, but now muted so that she couldn’t make out what they said.

“Who?” Blanche said, blankly enough.

Eileen patted her shoulder consolingly. “You know, the one you went to the prom with. Cute guy. Quite a set of muscles on him, hmm?”

“Why do you want to know about him? He’s just a friend,” Blanche said woodenly.

“Just curious. How’d you meet him?”

“Through my mom,” Blanche said.
Let them figure that out.

“You still seeing him?” Eileen asked, not missing a beat.

“Not lately.” Blanche looked around in the bright sunlight flashing off of the windshields of the passing cars. She wished they would stop their game, whatever it was, so she could go find Rose.

“Break up with him?”

“We weren’t dating. He’s just a friend.” Blanche tried to sound more irritated instead of pathetic.

“Yeah, right.” Eileen dug into her shoulder playfully. “That’s not what I heard.”

“I can’t help what you heard,” Blanche said.

“Heard you weren’t as ‘immaculate’ as we thought,” Lisa added, showing a shark’s smile.

A flash of white anger came over Blanche, followed by cold disgust. But her retort was cut off by seeing Eileen give her friend a warning look.

“Lisa has such a sick mind,” Eileen said, putting her arm around Blanche’s shoulder. “She can’t help it, really.” She was looking daggers at Lisa.

Now this was curious. Why was Eileen so anxious to be nice? Something was aroused in Blanche, and she began to study her interrogators surreptitiously as they studied her.

Rose’s fertile brain was whirling.
Chalices. Ciboriums. Church vessels.
It might not mean anything, but then again, it might mean a good deal. It might be worthwhile to follow him to see if she could find out anything more. She debated with herself. If Mr. Freet had been so enraged by them this morning, who knew what he might do if she spied on him? But if she were very careful, he might not even know she was there. It was certainly worth the risk, wasn’t it? After all, what could he do to her except call her names?

Rose went to the bathroom door and cracked it open. She saw Dr. Freet come out of his office with his briefcase and papers, followed by his brother, who was also carrying a briefcase and the brown paper package of this morning.
Ah
, thought Rose.
That’s why he was so upset with Blanche for picking it up. He doesn’t want anyone else to touch his precious vessels.
She marveled at the accuracy of her insight about Mr. Freet’s dwarvish habits.

The two men walked down the hallway towards the side entrance. After they disappeared through the door, Rose walked into the hallway as casually as she could and strolled to the window overlooking the faculty parking spots. She saw Dr. Freet get into his car, but Mr. Freet set off down the street on foot.

Quickly Rose scanned the parking lot and the surrounding streets. There was no sign of Blanche. Probably her sister was buried behind the sewing machine and had decided not to come.

Well, that was probably better anyway. Blanche wouldn’t like the idea of stalking an irritable old man. No doubt it was best for Rose to go on this adventure herself.

Rose raced down the steps to the door, then halted and walked outside casually. This whole thing might be a waste of her time and she could be worrying her sister unnecessarily. Still, there was always that chance…Feeling the drumbeat of a quest beginning in her mind, she began to walk after Mr. Freet as idly as she could, while pretending to look for something in her purse.

“So tell me more about this guy. Is he a nice boy?” Eileen was saying.

Blanche said, “Yes,” hesitantly, watching for Eileen’s reaction.

“Does he call you a lot?”

“Uh, no—” Blanche made herself sound scared and uncertain.

“Where’s he live?” Eileen asked nonchalantly. Lisa stared at Blanche intently.

So that was what they wanted to know.

“Why do you want to know?” Blanche looked from one to the other.

“Has he ever taken you to his home?” Eileen prodded.

“Why should I tell you?”

Eileen suddenly tightened her grip on Blanche’s shoulder, making her wince.

“Didn’t he tell you where he lives?” Eileen asked, as though nothing had happened.

Blanche struggled, but Lisa moved in on the other side and held her tightly at the elbow, jabbing her nails into Blanche’s skin. The pain hardened Blanche’s resolve to fight, but she played at becoming more frightened. Twisting, she complained, “Ouch! No. I have no idea. He always came to our house. What are you asking me all these questions for? Come on, let go!”

Eileen eased up. “So, where’d you go when you went out?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Oh, come on, Blanche—where did you go?”

“Different places,” Blanche said, stalling. Lisa was still digging into her.

“Like where?”

“We went to the Metropolitan opera once.”

“Rob told us that,” Lisa murmured.

Eileen ignored her. “Anywhere else?”

“Not really. Please, let me go!” Blanche had determined to say nothing about St. Lawrence church.

“She doesn’t know anything,” Lisa said.

“Shut up!” Eileen said to her abruptly, pinching Blanche harder.

“Please, let go of me!” Blanche made her voice more frightened than she actually felt, and Eileen released her. Lisa withdrew her claws, but still held onto Blanche’s arm tightly.

She couldn’t tackle Lisa in a fight: that was certain. Blanche looked up and down the street, wishing desperately that Rose would come by on her way home from school. But there was no sign of her sister.
Oh, where was Rose when you needed her?

But before she could figure out what to do next, a car pulled to a stop right in front of her. Rob Tirsch was in the front passenger seat with two other guys, Tom and Carl Lester.

“What’s up, girls?” He leaned out the window at them, grinning. He looked handsome, wearing sunglasses and a sleeveless blue shirt that showed his tanned muscular arms.

“We’re just talking with Blanche here,” Eileen said.

“Want a ride?” Rob flashed a smile at Blanche.

Blanche ignored his charm. “Look, I have to go and meet my sister.”

Rob shrugged. “So we’ll give you a ride there—get in.”