“Could well be.”
“I’d love to waltz with you.”
He pulled her up from the bench. Her hand was solid in his. So was her delicate hand resting lightly on his shoulder, her girlish waist under his hand. He pressed with the heel of his right hand, to let her feel which way they were going, and she followed his lead. One-two-three.
“We need music,” she said.
“So sing,” he said.
She began to hum, then to sing wordless tunes. He recognized them. The Emperor Waltz. Blue Danube. And others that he didn’t know. They danced around and around. He should have been too tired to dance. Or maybe he was only just now as tired as he needed to be, to forget his exhaustion and go on dancing and dancing.
And in his mind, in his weariness, he began to hear, not Sylvie’s voice, but an orchestra. And to see, not the light from the worklamp, but the light of a hundred candles in sconces on the walls, in three great chandeliers overhead. Around and around the room, great sweeps of movement, and Sylvie’s dress swayed as if there were a bustle under it, exaggerating the movements of the dance. So did all the other dresses in the room, all the men in tails, whirling, whirling. No faces, Don couldn’t see any faces because everything was moving so fast; nor could he see the musicians, though he caught the movement of a bow, the flash of light on a trombone slide every time he passed the bandstand against the wall separating the ballroom from the serving room. Servants moved in and out of that room with drinks on trays, hors d’oeuvres on platters. Onlookers smiled and laughed, and Don wasn’t just imagining it, they did look up whenever he and Sylvie danced past them. Thank you for this party, they were saying with their silent eyes. Thank you for inviting us. For the lights, the food, the champagne, the music, and above all the grace of the dancers, skittering over the floor as lightly as the crisp leaves of autumn, around and around, caught in a whirlwind, making a whirlwind, churning all the air of the world . . .
And then they clung to each other, no longer dancing. The room still turned dizzily around them, but then even that held still. The music was over. The orchestra had disappeared, and all the onlookers, and the other dancers. Only Sylvie and Don remained, holding each other in the middle of the room. Don looked at the windows and saw that a gray light was now showing.
“We danced until dawn,” he said.
She said nothing. He looked down at her and saw tears in her eyes. “They danced again in their house tonight,” she said.
“And the house is strong,” he said.
She nodded. “It’s the Bellamy house again. It has the right shape for its real name.”
“And you,” he said. “You’re strong, too.” Her face so ethereal, her skin so pure, so translucent. Her lips still caught in the memory of a smile. He bent and kissed her lightly. She laughed, a low chuckle deep in her throat.
“I felt that,” she said.
He kissed her again.
“I felt it to my toes,” she whispered.
He wrapped his arms around her, picked her up, spun around and around. Her legs swung away from his body. Like a child, around and around, flying. Then he carried her to the threshold of the front door. Reached down and opened it.
“Don,” she said.
“This is the only test that matters, Sylvie,” he said.
“No, it’s the one that doesn’t matter.”
“If you can leave, then you’re alive,” he said.
“Isn’t it enough that I’m alive inside?”
“No,” he said. “It’s enough for me, but it’s not enough for you. Unless I can give you back what Lissy took from you.”
“You can’t,” she said. “Put me down, Don.”
“Flesh and bone,” he said. “Heart’s blood and mind’s eye.”
“Oh, Don,” she said. “Is it true?”
In answer, he opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. It wasn’t true dawn yet. Just the faintest of the early light. No lights shone in the neighborhood except the streetlights, and they were shrouded in the morning mist. Don stepped down, one, two, three steps. Onto the mown weeds of the yard. Out toward the junkpile, out toward the street. She clung around his neck.
And then she didn’t.
There was nothing in his arms.
“Sylvie!” he cried out.
Almost he let his arms drop, because he couldn’t see her. But he knew: If she was anywhere, she was here, in his arms. He had to get back to the house. “Sylvie, hold on to me! Hold on!” He ran back.
“Don!” he heard her call. As if from a distance.
He looked and couldn’t see her. Not in his arms, not anywhere.
“Don, wait!”
He retraced his steps, felt with his arms. Brushed against something. Nothing he could see, but something. “Hold on to me,” he said.
“Slow,” she whispered. It sounded like her voice was in his ear. “Slow.”
Trying to gather her like wind, he walked backward, slowly, toward the house. And the closer he got, the more he could feel her. Her hands, clawing at his sleeves, her feet dragging in the weeds. Now he could get his arms around her. Could hold her. Draw her along, then get his arms under her, lift her up again, carry her up the stairs. He could do that, he did it, he brought her to the front door and took her inside and closed the door and then they collapsed on the floor, exhausted, clinging to each other, crying, laughing in relief.
“I thought I lost you,” he said.
“I thought I was lost,” she said.
“The house can’t make you real except inside.”
“That’s enough for me,” she said.
“Not for me,” he said. “Not while she’s alive.”
“Who, Lissy?”
“She killed you with her bare hands. Not just one blow struck in anger. It takes a long time to strangle somebody to death, five minutes of tightly gripping your throat. She could have stopped any time, Sylvie. But she never stopped. She hung on even after you were unconscious. She hung on till she knew you were dead.”
“So what can we do about it?” she said. “We have this house.”
“I want you to have your life back.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I know who might, if anyone does.” He got up and walked to the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Next door,” he said. “The Weird sisters.” He turned away, started through the door, then stopped, turned back inside.
“Please,” he said. “Be here when I get back.”
“Cross my heart,” she said.
17
Questions
Don walked around the fence, then slogged through the damp mass of leaves that covered the front lawn of the carriage-house. Autumn had struck with a vengeance. He was a little surprised they didn’t have the door open for him before he mounted the porch. What, were they slacking off on their spying?
He rang the doorbell. Nothing. Knocked. No answer.
He waited, knocked, rang, knocked again. Nothing.
Around the back it was the same. The curtains were drawn. No sign of life within. These were elderly women. Was something wrong? He tried the doorknob, just to peer in. It was locked.
Back to the front porch. That door was also locked. He knocked again, louder, rattling the windows. “Miss Judea!” he called. “Miss Evelyn!”
Then he realized. It was barely dawn. Old people didn’t sleep all that much, he knew, but maybe they still slept past first light. And he couldn’t keep shouting, he’d wake the neighbors. He shouldn’t be here. And yet he had to ask them what they knew. What they understood about the house. What hope there was for Sylvie cutting loose from the place.
One last ring of the doorbell, and he turned away to head back to the Bellamy house. Naturally, that was when he heard the door being unbolted behind him.
It opened only a crack. No one peered out at him.
“Go away,” said an aged, weary voice. He couldn’t be sure whic
h of the Weird sisters it was. It didn’t sound like either of them.
“I need to talk with you,” he said. “You told me if I had any questions—”
No answer.
“About getting somebody free of that house. I have to talk to you.”
“Talk,” she said scornfully. Now he knew the voice. Miz Evelyn. Probably. Maybe.
“Are you all right?” asked Don.
“What do you care?” she asked.
“Of course I care,” he said. “Can I get you something?”
“Are you really that stupid?”
No. It was definitely Miz Judea.
Her voice came again, a whisper now, fierce but broken. “Don’t you know you’re killing us?”
The door closed. The deadbolt turned.
Don turned away and surveyed the front yard. Covered with leaves. These ladies spent every waking moment either fixing food for Gladys or working in the yard. And yet the yard had been so neglected that not a leaf had been raked.
Why? The answer was obvious. Now that he believed in the power of the house, he also had to believe what these women had told him about it. Every bit of work he did on the house had sapped their strength. They had begged him to tear it down, for their sake. He had done the opposite, restoring it closer and closer to its true shape. What would happen when he finished? Would they come feebly staggering around the fence to knock at his door and beg him to let them come inside their prison? Or would they remain stubbornly in the carriagehouse until they were too weak to feed themselves?
Who would the killer be then?
And yet if he weakened the house now, what would that do to Sylvie? Now that she knew the truth about herself, now that he also knew, their ignorant faith could no longer help them maintain an illusion. They depended on the strength of the house to keep her there, to make her real, until . . .
Until what?
He couldn’t think. He was too tired. He hadn’t slept at all last night, had done two days’ worth of work, and there was nothing left.
He turned back to the door and shouted through it. “Can I bring you something!”
But there was no answer.
He walked back around the fence and into the Bellamy house. To his surprise, his cot had been moved back into the ballroom. It looked small, almost pathetic compared to the vast space around it. He remembered dancing with Sylvie, how the room had sparkled with the memories of the people who had danced here. Did the house hold all these memories? Had the breaking down of the false walls released them? Why was this house so powerful, when others had no such power? What magic had been done? And how, how could it be undone without hurting Sylvie?
Or maybe it was being here that was hurting her. Maybe if she had gone on she’d be happier. Instead of being trapped here. Maybe he should tear down the house, burn it right now, let her go, and free the Weird sisters.
Even the thought of wrecking the house made him sick with grief. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.
Is this what it comes down to? My need for her? Is that more important than what the ladies next door need? What Sylvie herself might need?
He would gladly do whatever it took to set everything to rights. But what was the way things should be? Simple: Sylvie not dead, the Weird sisters free. But Sylvie was dead, except for the power of the house. And the Weird sisters were trapped because of the house. He could not save one without harming the other.
And somewhere Lissy was free as a bird, unharmed by any of this. He knew that, even though he had no evidence, even though for all he knew she was tormented by guilt and living in a hell of her own making. He knew that she was unharmed because that’s the way the world worked. A decent person like Cindy lived in hell for a crime she only almost committed. While Lissy, a selfish, lying, conniving murderer, was probably doing just fine.
Wasn’t there something he could do? Wasn’t there some choice that didn’t lead to somebody’s destruction?
There was no one to ask. All he could do was lie down on the bed Sylvie had prepared for him and sleep at last.
He dreamed that he was a house. He dreamed that he felt the bones of it when he moved his hands, his arms. That he knelt to form the foundation, strong and steady, that the wind blew across his body, and inside him a heart was beating strongly, and it was his daughter there. She was in the most beautiful alcove in his body, playing, laughing. He heard her laughing. And then . . . silence. She was gone, and no heart beat there.
He grew cold. Snow piled on him, the wind tore at him. He bowed under the blast of the storm, empty. He did not understand why he was still kneeling there, why he hadn’t simply ceased to exist. Why he was not dead, with his heart no longer beating.
And then it beat again. His heart was alive again, only he looked and there was still nothing there, nothing at all, and yet he was coming alive. Where was his heart? Why was he alive when he had no heart?
His eyes flew open and there she was, sitting in the alcove. Sylvie.
Why hadn’t he been able to find her in his dream?
Because she wasn’t there.
She did not know he was awake. She sat there, holding her knees, her head leaning back, her hair free, as she looked straight above her at the apex of the alcove. Was something carved there? What did she see?
For that matter, what did he see? What was it, exactly, that he wanted from her? With Cindy there had been no doubt about what was driving their passion. But what kind of passion bound him to Sylvie? Certainly he had taken her under his wing—reluctantly at first, but completely. So there was that fatherly, protective element. But she wasn’t his daughter. When he thought about it, she might be a year or two older than he was. Except that she hadn’t aged these years in this house, so she was still younger. Oh, but what did their ages matter? A man has his children under his protection, and his wife also, and his parents—it’s part of what defines a man, to provide and protect. It’s what you do when you grow up.
It was partly Sylvie’s beauty, he knew that. It wasn’t a traditional beauty, not the beauty of models or the fresh-faced beauty of the cinematic girl next door. She had a moody face, and her hair, while it couldn’t possibly hold a coif, he was sure of that, had a kind of freedom to it, a contrariness that echoed her elusiveness. What was the beauty of her, really? Was it the line of her slender neck? Was it, in fact, how lean she was? A beauty that would be lost if she filled out to a more womanly shape? He didn’t think so.
At last she sensed his eyes on her, and turned to look at him. She smiled. “What are you looking at?” she said.
“Beauty,” he said.
“I laugh.” But she didn’t laugh.
“I’m trying to figure it out myself,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“I start with the beauty, Sylvie, and figure from there.”
“Truth is beauty.”
“Is that it?”
“I was just quoting Keats,” she said.
“Are you the truth?” he asked. “That’s pretty heavy. The truth is dead but still beautiful, haunting us but always out of reach.”
She rose lightly to her feet and came to kneel beside his cot. She kissed his cheek. He touched her face and kissed her lips, warm and sweet and slow. “Not out of reach,” she said.
“Oh, Sylvie,” he said. “Don’t you know how tempted I am just to live here forever with you? Keep the place up, leave only to earn enough money to come home to you?”
“Then do it,” she said. “Oh, do it, please.”
He rolled onto his back, looked at the ceiling. “For how long?” he said. “Until I’m sixty and you’re still whatever age you are now?”
“I won’t mind.”
“I will,” he said.
“Then you’ll die and we’ll be together.”
“This is a good plan?” asked Don.
“The Ghost and Mrs. Muir,” she said. “Did you ever see it?”
“There are some old ladies next door who are being destroyed b
y this house.”
“Only because they fight it.”
He turned to her. “They should come and live with us, too? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t know why this house is so strong, Don. I didn’t make it that way. They were trapped before I was born.”
“I want to do the right thing, Sylvie.”
“The right thing for whom?” she asked.
“The right thing.”
“The greatest good for the greatest number? Did you ever take ethics?”
“Sylvie,” he said. “I’m blocked. I’m stopped cold. There’s nothing I can do that doesn’t ruin somebody’s life.”
She kissed him. “I know.”
“And if I don’t do anything, that also ruins lives.”
“Beginning with your own.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Because you need children,” she said.
He shuddered.
“Don’t you?” she asked.
“I don’t know if I could ever do that again. Now that I know what it does to you when you lose one.”
“Is it any worse than losing a parent?”
“Yes.”
“Worse than losing yourself?”
“I’ve never lost myself, Sylvie. Neither have you.”
“I must have,” she said. “Because it feels so good now that I’ve found myself again.”
“You think because we danced, because we kissed, because we love each other—we do love each other, don’t we?”
She kissed him again.
“You think,” he said, “that this means our problems are over. But they’re not.”
She sat crosslegged on the floor. “Something’s still wrong.”
“Right. But what is it? What’s the thing that if we fix it, everything will be all right?”
“It’s not the house,” said Sylvie. “The house isn’t aware, really. It’s strong, but it doesn’t know anything. It . . . holds people. That’s all it does. It makes them yearn for this place. It’s a home.”
“And that’s not bad.”
“That’s not bad if you want to be here. My point is that the house isn’t what’s wrong. It just is.”
“The ladies next door don’t feel that way.”