“Let’s eat what Mrs. Fennel has worked hard to make for us,” Daddy said, “and then we’ll listen to music, all of us together. I love nothing more than having my girls around me when I’m relaxing. I need to feel your warmth, your love, tonight. You make me feel truly immortal.”
No one spoke for fear of shattering the wonderful moment. I looked at the food Mrs. Fennel had prepared. It was a sort of beef stew cooked in her herbal sauces. As I ate, I thought no one in my current class or even the whole school or any school I had attended had experienced or would experience the unique taste in the food Mrs. Fennel made. I was as sure of that as I was of anything.
From the moment I was brought to Daddy’s world, I ate things no one my age ate. Even as a small child, I knew instinctively that I was different and was living differently. Occasionally, I would ask why or complain, but in the end, I always did what I was told, and when something was given to me that I didn’t like, Mrs. Fennel fixed it so I would like it.
“What does she put in our food?” I once asked Ava.
“Blood,” she said.
“Whose blood? Cow’s blood?”
She simply looked at me and walked away. I wondered, of course, if she had been teasing me, but I wouldn’t dare ask Mrs. Fennel. I thought about asking Daddy, but then I worried that he would be angry at Ava for telling me that, and then she would be angry at me. It wasn’t pleasant having Ava angry at me. It was actually a bit frightening. It was like having a ringing in your ears and a drill buzzing away just under your heart.
One of the consequences of the diet Mrs. Fennel prepared for us was that we rarely had an opportunity to enjoy the food other girls our ages enjoyed. We didn’t go to restaurants very often, unless we were on a trip with Daddy. I could count on one hand how many times I had had a slice of pizza or a frozen yogurt, much less any candy. Why, we didn’t even chew gum. We had a candy Mrs. Fennel prepared, if we could call it candy. It was hard, like a sour ball, but would soften almost immediately in our mouths and satisfy some urge. Once, when I was much younger, I gave one to a classmate. As soon as she put it in her mouth, she spit it out, claiming it burned her tongue. When I told Mrs. Fennel that, she went into a rage.
“You never, never give anyone else what I give you. Never!”
Of course, I started to cry and was sent to my room.
After tonight’s dinner, as Daddy had said, we went into the living room and listened to music, beautiful music, especially waltzes. Daddy loved doing the waltz. He said it took him back to more elegant times, grander days, not that he wasn’t having elegant days now, and he fully expected he would for many, many more years to come.
“And all because of you, my lovelies,” he would say.
He would dance with each of us. Tonight he chose me first. It always was exciting to be in Daddy’s arms, to move gracefully with him. I could feel my heart synchronizing with his, my blood moving as quickly or as slowly as his blood moved through him. Sometimes I felt as though I were floating and actually had to look down to see if my feet were touching the floor. Daddy’s smile washed over me, and I wished the moment would go on forever and ever.
I thanked him again for buying me my dress.
“You really are quite stunning in it,” he said, and kissed me softly on my forehead.
“I will wear it soon somewhere, won’t I, Daddy?”
“Yes,” he said, looking to Ava. “You will.”
It was very exciting knowing that I would finally be permitted to go on a date or to a party, but before I could ask anything more, he reached for her. Instinctively, I knew that pushing Daddy to say or permit something was not wise anyway. Despite the affection he showed me, the gifts he gave me, I always had this nagging feeling that if I failed him or disappointed him in some way, even something simple, he would disown me. He would send me back to whatever nowhere place I came from, a world in which all discarded children lingered, hoping someday to be given a name.
I had no memory of it, of course. I was just born and hardly there, wherever it was, before Daddy and Mrs. Fennel came along. The little that was told to me was told the way a parent or guardian might tell a child a bedtime story.
“Once upon a time, you were born and lay in a cradle alongside other foundlings. You were crying in the chorus, but when we walked near you, you stopped, as if you sensed our presence and welcomed it. Mrs. Fennel picked you up and said, ‘This one, Sergio.’ I touched your cheek, and you turned toward me, and I knew she was right.”
I had the story memorized. Ava, whether jealous of my joy in hearing the story or simply skeptical, always mocked me when I recited it.
“It’s a fairy tale, you fool,” she would say. “Mrs. Fennel didn’t tell Daddy that. He told her, but that was after someone dumped you on the front steps.”
“Is that what they told you happened to you?” I fired back. When I was brave enough to challenge her, she would suddenly take on this impish grin. Unlike other sisters, we didn’t break out into vicious shouting arguments and fights. She could whip me with her words from time to time, and when it was something serious, I would shrink back or close myself off like a clam, but when it wasn’t, I would throw something back at her. Usually, she would surprise me and act as if she were pleased I had the backbone.
Recently, when I asked her about it, she paused and then after a little thought said, “Like all older Patio sisters, I have to share the responsibility of shaping you into someone Daddy will appreciate. You have to develop some backbone, Lorelei. Without it, without confidence, you’ll fail, and if you fail, I fail, too. Not to mention how you will fail Daddy, how we will both have failed him.”
“I won’t fail Daddy,” I said quickly.
“Maybe,” she said, and then warned me again about doing something stupid with one or more of the boys at school. I had to listen to her warnings. She was more of my guardian now than Mrs. Fennel was.
Marla looked up to her for guidance as much as I did, but after that night when Daddy asked me to wear the dress and made so much of it in front of her and Ava, Marla began to look up to me more, asking me many of the questions I had once asked Ava. I suppose it was because I was closer to her in age than Ava. Marla was very pretty as well, with sea-blue eyes and soft light brown hair, just a shade or two darker than blond. She had dimples in her cheeks and perfect features, but, like me when I was her age, she had not yet matured enough to be popular with boys. I knew she yearned for it but, like me, kept it to herself.
I hated having to tell her I didn’t know the answers to many of her questions or that it wasn’t for me to tell her these things, but there wasn’t much more I could say.
“Maybe you should ask Ava that,” I would tell her.
She thought I was deliberately or jealously guarding something.
“You could tell me, Lorelei. You just don’t want to,” she complained. “And you know I won’t ask Mrs. Fennel or bother Daddy.”
“That’s not true. I would tell you anything you wanted to know if I could. Believe me, I wasn’t treated any differently from the way you’re being treated when I was your age, Marla.”
“You just don’t want me to know,” she insisted.
Frustrated, she complained about all the mystery in our lives. I couldn’t disagree, although I couldn’t do much to help her. It was as if every shadow had a voice whispering, every dark room had someone in it before the lights were turned on, every window had someone looking into our home before I turned to look out. Every creak was a clue, a letter, and a word to a sentence that would tell me something I didn’t know. It would be the same for her. The fact that I couldn’t satisfy her added to my own frustrations.
Later that night, when I was in my room getting ready for bed, Ava came in. She came in the way she often did, silently, as if she walked on air. Many times she had told me we had to practice being soft. We had to catch people, especially young men, unaware. It added to the mystery when we suddenly seemed to appear beside them as if what they wer
e fantasizing about had come true. Those sorts of little things, she said, were important. “Nuances of your sexuality,” she called them. “We finesse men, turn and twist them about like puppets on a string.”
She certainly caught me unaware. I was in the bathroom, gazing at myself naked before the full-length mirror beside the tub. I didn’t know whether it was normal for someone to be so fascinated with her own body. Most of the girls I knew at school seemed to complain constantly about their bodies. They were too fat or had noses and ears that were too big. They were jealous of this one or that one. No one seemed to be satisfied. Sometimes I thought they hated me because I didn’t voice similar complaints or envy.
“You think you’re so damn perfect, don’t you?” Meg Logan snapped at me one afternoon in P.E. All the girls were running through their litany of complaints about themselves, and I remained silent as usual. She realized I was just listening and not offering anything in common. Maybe it was the slight smile on my face that annoyed her.
Actually, I was so curious about them, how they thought and what they said, so I just wanted to listen, almost the way someone from another country might. I couldn’t help wondering if I really was dramatically different from them in ways I was just beginning to understand.
“No,” I told her, annoyed with how she had come at me so viciously. “Just not as imperfect.”
“Huh? You’re weird,” she said. “No one knows who you really are and why you’re so damn secretive, slinking around here like some ghoul and guarding your precious privacy. Frankly, I don’t want to waste my time finding out anything more about you. I know enough to disgust me.”
The others agreed, shook their heads at me, and moved away. I couldn’t argue with what she had said, although I wasn’t secretive in order to guard my precious privacy. I really didn’t know as much about myself as I would have liked to know. Sometimes I felt like someone inhabiting the shell of someone else, wearing my body and face like a costume and mask.
Now, when I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt as if I were looking through a window at another girl, one who had just emerged from within. The tightening of my waist, the curve at my hips, the lift in my rear, and the soft lines now in my neck and shoulders made my heart race. I brought my hands slowly to my breasts, in awe of how they had filled and firmed. The excitement shot down to my thighs, and I moaned with pleasure.
“Not bad,” Ava said, and I spun around, my face reddening. She nodded. “Daddy’s right. You’re looking more and more like me every day now. No wonder my clothes fit you so well. For a moment, I thought I was looking at myself when I was your age.”
“Really?” I asked, reaching for my bath towel.
“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t so, Lorelei. I don’t flatter.” She sounded as if she wished she didn’t have to say it. “Stop fishing for compliments, anyway. You’re way past that need now, or should be.”
“I’m not fishing for compliments. I’m just so happy about…”
“Okay. I get the point. I came to tell you that you’re going out with me this coming weekend, but as I explained before, it’s just to observe and follow my orders. Consider it a field trip.”
“I am? Oh, that’s terrific, Ava.” I clapped my hands and bounced on my heels.
She shook her head and made a ticking sound with her lips the way Mrs. Fennel sometimes did. “I don’t remember being as naive and as innocent as you are. When Brianna took me with her for the first time, I didn’t gawk and gape and squeal like a tween or something.”
“I won’t do that. I promise.”
“We’ll see,” she said, and turned to leave, but then she paused to look at me again. “Daddy doesn’t see it in you, but I do.”
“See what?”
“Fear,” she said.
“Fear? Fear of what?” I asked.
“Yourself,” she said. I watched her walk out.
Fear wasn’t a word we used in this family. As far as I could see, there was nothing either Daddy or Mrs. Fennel feared, and Ava acted as if she could face down a stampede of elephants. Was I that different from her, from everyone else? How could I be afraid of myself, anyway?
I thought a moment, worried, and then I shook my head. No, she was wrong. To claim that she could see something Daddy couldn’t see was ridiculous. If Daddy didn’t see it, it wasn’t there. It was just jealousy, I concluded. Lately, Daddy was spending more time with me and giving me more of his attention, and I could tell she didn’t like that. It was the sibling rivalry at work, just as he had described it. It flattered me to think that Ava could ever be envious of me, but if anything also could frighten me, that might be it.
Happy again, I put on my nightgown and slipped under the blanket. Just as I was about to reach for the light switch, I heard a gentle knock on my door.
“Yes?”
Daddy entered. He hadn’t come to my bedroom for quite some time. As far back as I could remember, no one really tucked any of us in. There were no bedtime stories. Mrs. Fennel certainly wasn’t going to do anything like that. One thing we were taught especially was never to fear the dark. Even when I was a very little girl, Daddy told me the darkness was our friend.
“We exist because of the darkness,” he told me. “All of you are daughters of darkness.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that back then, but I was sure now. Darkness, secrets, and anonymity were tools that helped keep us alive and safe.
Maybe that was why Ava thought I was different, why she thought I might be afraid of myself or for myself. She knew that I was never completely comfortable in the dark, or at least as comfortable as she and, apparently, Marla were.
“How’s my new beauty?” Daddy asked, and sat at the foot of my bed.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Ava just told me I’m to go out with her this weekend. Only to observe, but at least I’m going out, going to exciting places, and I’ll be able to wear the beautiful new dress you bought me. Do you think I’ll do all right?” I asked, this time admitting to myself that I was fishing for a compliment.
He laughed. “I know you will. When I first set eyes on you, I knew you were one to drink deeply of every pleasure this world has to offer us. When you were an infant, I saw the way you ate and drank, enjoyed a bath or simply being comfortably wrapped in a blanket. Even the way you slept told me you were soaked in pleasure.”
“Really?”
“Of course, but none of this will be anything close to what you will be experiencing in the time to come, Lorelei. In fact, consider it all to be nothing more than a taste.”
“A taste? Now that you’ve told me all that, I surely won’t be able to sleep, Daddy,” I said, and he laughed.
“You’re a delight, Lorelei. You are, in fact, one of the brightest little girls I’ve ever had. You were precocious at the age of two. I see how well you do in school, and I see how curious you are about everything. Just be patient and never frustrated with time or the care taken to educate you properly, okay?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll fall asleep,” he said. “Mrs. Fennel always includes something in our food to help my little girls sleep and grow more beautiful.”
“What does she put…”
He put his finger on my lips. “Don’t ask for details. Just enjoy,” he said, then leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. The aroma of his cologne filled my nostrils and made my head spin. Like almost everything in a bottle in this house, it was surely something Mrs. Fennel had prepared, some magical scent that would stir any woman’s libido. Where did she learn how to do all these things? Where did she live when she was my age? Who taught her all that she knew?
Sometimes I wondered if she was ever my age. Maybe she was created in some laboratory like Frankenstein’s monster. I knew I could think these thoughts, wonder, but never voice them unless Ava voiced them first. Daddy certainly wouldn’t. It was because of how muc
h he obviously respected and depended on Mrs. Fennel that I did all I could not to cross her. It certainly wasn’t because I had great affection for her. I did everything for Daddy. Sometimes I thought I was breathing only for Daddy.
He rose slowly. I held his hand until it slipped softly from mine. His smile fell on me like soft, warm rain, and I snuggled in my blanket. I watched him leave the room. He slipped out as if he walked on the darkness itself and softly closed my door.
There was no moonlight tonight, but the sky was clear and the stars as brilliant as a full moon. I listened to the breeze licking at the windows and closed my eyes. He was right; I did fall asleep. But sometime later, I woke with a shudder and listened. It sounded like howling right outside my window. It didn’t stop, so I rose slowly and went to my window.
When I looked out, I saw what looked like dozens of young men. They were all looking at my window, and they weren’t just howling some horrendous sound.
They were howling my name, stretching it out as if the sound of it were caught on the wind. Their faces were pale yellow, their eyes black, tears spilling out and down their cheeks like streams of tar.
“Loreleiiiiiiiii.”
In unison, they all reached out toward me and then took a step closer, slowly turning their heads to show me their opened necks, as if they hoped I would do something about it, something to help them.
I gasped and quickly stepped back from the window, my heart pounding. After I caught my breath, I waited and listened hard. The howling stopped. Slowly, I returned to the window and looked out again.
There were no young men there.
I looked as far to the right and the left as I could, but there were just shadows, twisting and turning as if the wind were toying with them.
Was I in a dream? Was I walking in my sleep? Was my imagination running wild?
I hurried back into bed and listened for the howling until I was too sleepy to keep my eyes or my ears open.
I remembered it all when I awoke, but I dared not mention it to anyone.