"Don't you worry yourself about any of that," she repeated. "Go on. Do what I say."
She released me and stepped back.
I glanced at the forest and then I walked into the house. I stripped off my clothes and threw them in the hamper and then, after removing the corset, went into a hot shower, When I was drying off. Mommy appeared with one of her salves and put some on my scratch. Then she gave me one of her herbal pills to help me relax.
"I want you to lie down for a while. Noble. I want you to take a good rest, a good long nap. I'll be gone for a while. Don't answer the phone. Don't go to the door. Understand'?"
"Where are you going?"
"I have an errand. Just do what I say, and all will be well," she said.
She kissed my forehead and then she left me. I was tired. Every part of my body ached. I had jerked and twisted myself in a frenzy when I ran from that house through the woods. Now I was a little ashamed of my show of panic. Could I have made a more graceful exit?
I crawled under my blanket and hugged my pillow. In moments I was asleep, and when I opened my eyes again, it was dark.
It confused me, and for a few moments I couldn't remember what had happened. The pill Mommy had given me had been quite strong. I thought when I began to recall all the events. I sat up and listened. There was music. Mommy was playing the piano. Full of curiosity now, I rose and put on my bathrobe and my slippers. Then I started down.
She wasn't playing anything melancholy. The tune was robust, and when I looked in at her. I saw she was pounding with great energy, the strands of her hair flying about her face as she turned and twisted at the keyboard. Usually she sensed my presence when she played, but if she did this time, she didn't acknowledge it until she had completed what she wanted to complete. Then she sat back, exhausted but satisfied. Finally, she turned to me and smiled.
"How are you, darling?" she asked. "I slept so long."
"That was what you were supposed to do," she said. "Are you hungry?"
"A little," I said.
"Good. I have some cold chicken and some wonderful potato salad with string beans waiting for you," she told me as she rose. She approached me and then turned my head to look at the scratch. "It will be gone in a few days," she muttered, more to herself than to me. I thought.
She started toward the kitchen.
"Where did you go, Mommy? What did you do?" I asked her.
She turned at the doorway and smiled. "I told you not to be concerned."
"But I am. I can't help it."
"Yes," she said nodding. "I guess you can't. It's only natural." She paused and then said. "I went to see that man."
"What man?"
"The man who bought the property, who has that miserable son," she said. "I went to where he works, and I pulled him aside and told him everything you told me. He nearly passed out. I never saw a grown man turn so pale. I had to comfort him. Can you imagine? I was the one giving the comfort when I should have been the one receiving it. He went on and on about how difficult it has been for him to raise two teenagers alone.
"Of course, he couldn't thank me enough. He babbled like a fool, apologizing for not coming over to introduce himself, for listening to stupid gossip about us. It became embarrassing, if you want to know. How I miss a man like your father, a man of strength. These people have children and then they shatter like brittle glass. What was a family crumbles into shards of selfish stupidity," she said. "I thought he was going to break out into tears.
"He blamed everything on his wife." She looked away and then she turned to me with fire in her eyes. "She didn't die, you know. That was a blatant lie you were told. The woman left them. She left her own children. She was so self-centered, she couldn't stand the idea of being tied down with children and ran off with someone, leaving this soft noodle of a man with the responsibility of raising two young children.
"Well, he's obviously made a mess of it. He told me more than I wished to know. Apparently, his daughter is an even bigger problem than that boy who tempted you.
"But," she said, punctuating the air with her closed fist. "that's all behind us, all behind our wonderful wall of protection. That imaginary moat and castle you once built with Celeste is all there again. Noble. You need not be afraid. Tomorrow," she said. "is just another day, another wonderful day for us.
"Let me get your dinner now," she concluded and left me standing there. trembling.
After hearing what she had done and what would follow. I lost my appetite, but with Mommy standing over me, I forced myself to eat everything on the plate.
"I want you to take it easy for a few days. Noble. You've been through terrible things. Just concentrate on the reading I've given you and some of the science manual work. Don't worry about the chickens or any of our chores around the property," she said.
I did what she asked, but it was very difficult to remain so confined. I missed Cleo very much. too. Everything conspired to make me feel even lonelier. At night. when I listened to Mommy playing her piano or when I went up to my room to read. I couldn't stop the flood of images from passing through my head, Repeatedly. I saw Roberta taking off her bra. I relived that kiss. It all nauseated me, but at the same time, for reasons I couldn't understand, it titillated me and made me think more and more about my own sexuality.
Terrified I'd be caught, but unable to prevent myself from doing it. I went into my bathroom and gazed down at my naked bosom. Of course. I was no way near as chesty as Roberta, but my breasts were becoming fuller and rounding out. It would soon become very difficult to flatten my chest enough to satisfy Mommy, I thought. The prospect of that day when she would look at me with such terrible disappointment was frightening. What would she do then? Would she make me eat more, become fatter, erase every possible curve? Could she erase the curves inside my head as easily?
I put my modified corset on again. I trimmed my hair myself. I pushed aside the memories of the makeup and what it would do to my face and what it had done to Betsy's and Harmony's and Roberta's eyes and lips. I fought back every urge to be Celeste and went about my work with new determination. I was back to my heavier chores, swinging an ax with vengeance, raking, shoveling, hammering until my shoulders screamed. Mommy looked pleased at my exhaustion every night,
"You're a good boy," she would say. "You'll be fine. We'll be fine. Our home is sacred again."
I hoped she was right. She did look quite revived herself and stopped complaining about headaches and didn't doze off as much. I looked for her spirits, the spirits I seemed to see easily once. and I waited for Daddy's whispers from the shadows to tell me I was fine. I was redeemed, and as Mommy had said, all would be well.
But all I heard finally was Elliot's anger and threats.
He popped out of the forest as if he had been waiting for days and days behind some tree to approach me at the first opportunity. I had just finished feeding the chickens and repairing a gate when he came charging across the meadow. I thought he was going to leap at me, but he stopped a few yards away, his hands on his hips.
"You're a freak," he began, "You probably are a homo. I don't know why I tried to be your friend." He waved his fist at me.Youll get yours someday."
"Look. I'm sorry my mother went to your father. but I didn't want to be with Roberta. She's disgusting."
"Disgusting? Why? Because she wanted to have sex with you? Is that disgusting? Is that what your mother teaches you? I feel sorry for you, even sorrier than I feel for myself, even though thanks to you, my father took my car away and grounded me for a month."
"I didn't mean for that to happen to you. Elliot."
"Yeah. right. Don't bother trying to make friends with anyone in this community. By the time I finish making up stories about you, no one will give you the time of day." he threatened. "You're a pathetic excuse for a man." he added, turned and marched back to the woods, his head down.
I felt tears burning in my eyes. I wanted to call to him, to find some way to apologize. but I was too ch
oked up to utter a sound. I stood there watching him disappear.
Then I turned, my own head down, and started for the house.
When I looked up. I saw Mommy standing there on the porch, her arms folded under her breasts. She wasn't wearing a coat, just a blouse and skirt, but she didn't seem to care about the cold. As I drew closer, I saw she had a smile on her face. I was sure she had witnessed my confrontation with Elliot.
"Did you see that?" she asked "What?"
"He couldn't get near you. He couldn't get close. He had to stand away from you and shake his fist and I'm sure make his stupid threats."
She looked off toward the forest.
"There is a wall between us and them. Noble, forever and ever, there is a wall."
She looked down at me.
"You are safe," she said. "You will always be safe."
She held out her arms. I stepped up on the porch, and she embraced me. Together we walked into the house, me pausing only for a instant to look back at where Elliot had entered the forest and disappeared.
He disappeared like a dream would when I woke up.
15
Awakened
.
During the weeks and then months that
followed what had been my only real contact with young people my age. I often felt like I was shrinking. The world into which I had been born and in which I had lived with my family seemed to become smaller and smaller, perhaps because I did not venture far beyond the immediate grounds around our house and barn, and perhaps because I began to realize how much I was missing.
With more and more time on my hands. I turned to our wonderful library of leather-bound books and read far beyond what Mommy required of me. The pages of these books, the wonderful stories and characters I met, were the roadways, the pathways, that enabled me to leave the confines of our protected home and its boundaries patrolled by Mommy's spiritual army of ancestors.
These days I hardly ever left any other way. Mommy always seem to find good reason why I shouldn't accompany her whenever she drove off the farm to shop or complete an errand.
"I'll be away only a little while." she would say, or she would tell me she was just doing this or that and there wasn't time to do anything else: therefore, there was no reason for me to go along. She never put any value on my need to see other places, meet other people, or have a change of semen'.
"There will be plenty of time for that later on." she would tell me if I uttered anything that suggested it. "Besides, these people living here don't want to see you, meet you, know you, Noble. They'll just use whatever they see to build more nasty gossip to fill their empty little lives."
I could just imagine what they were saying already. Elliot surely fulfilled his threat and made up fantastic stories about me.
"Believe me," Mommy assured. "I know what's best for you. I've been told," she said with that finality that resonated whenever she said it.
In fact. I've been told became her reason and her justification for almost everything I questioned, and once she said it, there was no other argument for me to make. for I had no doubt as to who had told her.
However, it was on the tip of my tongue to ask. "Why haven't I been told? When will I be party to all these discussions and revelations?"
I began to hope I never would be. Mommy was well into this other world and crossed back and forth at will, it seemed, but look at how isolated she was. I thought. She no longer had any men friends and never socialized with anyone. She refused to contact or return phone calls or letters from any living relative. Would this be my destiny?
Once. when I was very young. I desperately needed to make contact, to cross over, and when I believed I had. I thought I had won Mommy's deepest love forever and ever, but she still hovered over Noble, spreading her wings to protect and cuddle him. To be him was to be loved.
Many nights when I was by myself. I would stare out the window like she often did and wait for some sign. Sometimes I would gaze so long and hard. I eventually did think shadows took shape again. I did believe I saw faces, but they were all like bubbles floating by, bubbles that would burst as soon as they were seen. I also began to hear whispering again. On the shallow waves of the evening tide voices drifted. My brain became garbled with all these images and visions. I didn't know what to believe.
I told her about it, and she said it was normal. I was close. I was always close. Just be good. Just listen and do my work, and it would come. This loneliness would end. and I would be part of this wonderful community that had chosen us and our farm. I would inherit all of Mommy's powers and abilities. This was my real legacy, and how could I doubt it? After all, she had been told.
But this promise didn't stop me from feeling more and more boxed in.
When I read Macbeth, I was stunned by the witches' prediction that Macbeth would be destroyed when the woods came to his castle. Lately, feeling my world shrinking. I thought our woods was coming closer and closer. Perhaps it was just an illusion, but for me it was real. The entire outside world was pressing our boundaries, squeezing. pushing. Eventually, we would be swallowed up and gone. I thought about it often, but this was an idea I never expressed.
Although Mommy saw me reading more and more, saw me curled up under a light with a book well into the wee hours, she didn't say anything.
Sometimes she smiled, and sometimes she looked thoughtful. She seemed unsure. Should she stop me? Should she encourage me? I was sure she thought that at least when I was reading, I wasn't questioning and complaining. Her world was quiet and comfortable, as it should be. We were safe.
The library we had was old. It had what I imagined were very valuable editions of famous novels and books. Great- Grandmother Jordan had begun to collect volumes, and Grandmother Jordan continued to do so. I suspected neither of them really had read what they had brought into the house. I was confident they wouldn't have approved of some of these stories. Nevertheless, they acquired them because of their vintage. They shopped at antiques fairs, used-book stores, and wherever they could find leather-bound copies. Some of them were gifts from Great-Grandfather Jordan and Grandfather Jordan. I saw the inscriptions, the scratchy signatures sprawled over a page: "On the occaision of your birthday," "Merry Christmas," even a "Happy Anniversary. "
Perhaps that was the real reason Mommy never stopped me from reading these books. There was a history attached to them, a family history, and anything that had to do with our ancestry was important. After all, my grandparents and
great- grandparents had at least touched them once, and that touch made them into something sacred, another of the many parts of the spiritual world that circled us like planets in our solar system.
Some of these novels, however, were about great loves, and the descriptions of the beautiful women and the handsome men, the wonderful and gala events, the dresses, the celebrations, and the eloquence of their worlds fascinated me. It filled my nights with dreams in which I saw myself throwing off my jeans, flannel shirts, and boots and then plucking beautiful stylish dresses out of a magical closet.
The moment I put one on, my hair grew longer and was softer and more glamorous, the calluses left my hands, my eyebrows thinned and took shape, my lips were moist and bright with sexy lipstick. I was dainty, and I could spin about and laugh with a melodic sound that would fill the hearts of men who longed to hold my hand, to kiss my lips, to touch my breasts, my poor concealed and smothered breasts that sometimes ached and tingled beneath the tight wrap.
Perhaps because of my reading, memories of a little girl returned more and more vividly. Yes. I remembered my dolls, my teacups, my dollhouses and coloring books, and my beautiful ribbons, Yes, I remembered the scent of my clothes, my crinoline and silk, my beautiful pinks, my little fur jacket Daddy had bought me for one of my birthdays. All of it rested beneath the earth outside our house. I even dreamed of digging all of it up at night secretly.
But of course. I never would.
Nevertheless, these feelings that I kept in
my heart as securely under lock and key as I could were heightened with every passing day. They clamored to be heard more and more as winter began its inevitable retreat and the fingers of warm spring and renewal crept in everywhere. The ice and the snow melted under the warmer, more frequent sunlight. Trees began to bud, and our meadow turned greener and greener. Side by side. Mommy and I worked the softened earth. turning it over in our garden. We planted, we cultivated, and then we began to freshen everything up around us, restoring color to the wood cladding, painting the porch floors with protective stains, washing down windows and shudders. There was always a lot to do after winter unshackled the earth and fled the warmer sun.
I was happy to have the work, to be able to occupy myself as much as I could. I wanted to be tired at the end of the day. It helped me fall asleep, which was something that lately had become more and more difficult to do quickly. Too many nights I lay awake for hours and hours hearing the music I read about in my books, seeing the handsome men flirting or dancing with the beautiful women, listening in on the whispered words of love between them. words I had memorized and whispered myself. Their silhouettes moved on my walls. I felt sure it was better than watching television Mommy forbid anyway.
Sometimes. when I thought about a love scene I had read. I let my hands move over my body. I thought about what Elliot had told me about his sister Betsy. and I recalled the sensuous way she touched herself and gazed at her body. The tingling I felt surging through me frightened and yet delighted me. If I longed for it too much. I pressed my face into my pillow as hard as I could. Mommy's footsteps would also set me into a mad retreat, holding my breath while I chased away the images and visions. But it was impossible to stop the dreams, dreams in which I felt lips on mine, hands on my breasts, and dreams in which I recited pages and pages of wonderful romance.
I tried to repent, to pray for forgiveness, to avoid Mommy's powerful eyes. The work did help, but it didn't completely stop it all from happening. Time's not on my side. I thought. Every passing day, passing hour, makes it harder and harder. How would it end? I wondered. Or more important, how would it begin? So much of my life was in limbo. I thought, so much had yet to start.