When Venus Fell

  “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I finally managed to say.

  “I have enough problems already.”

  “I see. So keeping me here is nothing personal.”

  “I had to cancel all the bookings for this coming weekend.”

  “Gib!”

  He shook his head. “Ella’s sick, you can’t leave her side, Bea’s sick, Olivia’s obsessed with her and Emory, Carter’s gone, and Ruth’s staying away because no one’s speaking to her. I had no choice.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want this to happen. Any of it.”

  He dragged me into his arms and we kissed with the easy wildness I knew so well. When I finally caught my breath and, crying silently, pushed myself away from him, I glimpsed a movement and looked quickly toward the porch. Ella stood there, staring at us woozily. She squinted in the sunlight and rubbed her forehead. Gib and I traded worried looks.

  “Y’all should have told me the truth about your situation,” Ella complained in a soft, tired voice. “Sis, you don’t have to hide your life from me. You never used to.” She fumbled with her hands and her gaze dropped. “Of course I don’t have any right to say that, after what I’ve hidden from you. And … and from my own husband.”

  Gib walked up the steps to her. “He loves you, Ella. You have to believe me. And this family is still your family. Nobody wants you to leave.”

  “I need to talk to Carter. Where is he? At the barns? I have to talk to him right away. I can’t stand this. I’m so afraid of losing him. I know I’m not making much sense, but I’m so afraid.”

  I hurried up on the porch and put an arm around her. “He’s not close by right now.”

  “Where is he? What do you mean—he’s not close by?”

  I took a deep breath. “He’s just taken a little trip to visit Hoover Bird and Goldfish. He left this morning.”

  She clutched her chest. “Is he coming back?”

  “Of course. Of course.” I held on to her and looked at Gib frantically.

  “When?” she mewled.

  “He’ll come as soon as I tell him you want to see him,” Gib assured her.

  “You mean he didn’t say for sure if he was coming back at all. He might never come back!” She hunched over, gagging, sobbing. “Pop didn’t care about me. A man I loved and trusted left me in Detroit. Now the man I love more than my own life has left me, too.”

  I held Ella by one arm. She felt too loose, a little disjointed. Alarm raced through me. She was squinting so hard her eyes were barely open. “Air,” she begged. She put a hand to her head, then began to sink. “Lean this way,” Gib ordered, and she eased against him as her legs folded.

  I cupped my hand under her chin. She wasn’t pretending, this time. “We’ll get you inside and into bed, and you’ll be all right. No more acting. I’ll give you one of your pills.”

  Gib carried her to bed. She hadn’t dressed in days; I pulled her robe off and helped her change her sweat-soaked flannel nightgown. “He’s not coming back,” she whispered. “He left me, Vee. I’ll never see him again. And I love him so much. What have I done?”

  I gave her a migraine pill, then pulled the bed quilt over her and smoothed her hair. I fought a lifetime of cynicism and months of doubt and said simply, “I believe he loves you. And I believe he’ll be back.”

  As the medication took effect she slowly fell asleep.

  I went into the main room. “How is she?” Gib asked.

  “She’s in bad shape. But the pill should give her a good twelve hours of sleep.”

  “Listen, Carter said he was going to head into the hills with Hoover Bird. They planned to build a sweat lodge. I won’t even know where he is before tomorrow at the earliest.”

  “Gib, if he doesn’t come back to her I’m afraid she might do something. Being deserted is her worst fear. That’s why I’ve always worked so hard to show her that I’ll never leave her.”

  “I’ll fly up to Oklahoma tomorrow and find him. But I can’t promise he’ll come back.” Gib walked to the door then halted and looked at me. “I know she swallowed a handful of sleeping pills that time in Detroit.”

  I didn’t like to remember that, or talk about it. She’d downed the pills while in a stupor from a migraine. When she woke up at the hospital the next day she couldn’t remember taking them, but I’d never forgotten. I could only look at Gib. “I wish in all your research on us you’d found a few good surprises.”

  “I did,” he said. “I found you.”

  My travel clock read one A.M. when I woke up on the sleeper sofa in the cottage’s front room, where I’d stretched out to leave Ella undisturbed in bed. I felt peculiar—that panicky sensation of waking up lost in time and place. Wandering into the bedroom to see how she was sleeping, I noticed her slippers in the middle of the floor, though I was sure I’d left them neatly by the dresser.

  I moved slowly in the darkened room and brushed a hand out to smooth the covers over Ella’s legs. My fingers met cool sheets and jumbled quilt. “Ella?” I shuffled my hands over the bed as if she might be hiding, then switched on a lamp and pivoted slowly, slack-jawed, searching the room. I ran to the bathroom and flung the door open. I ran back to the front room, calling her name. The door stood ajar. The cold January breeze rattled sheet music on the piano.

  “Oh, my God.” I raced barefoot to the car, snatched a flashlight from the glove compartment, and shone the light into the eerie wall of forest surrounding the cottage. I circled the cottage several times, shouting for her to wake up. My voice echoed back to me. The mountains channeled sounds in startling ways, sometimes carrying a hunter’s gunshot, the bawl of a hungry calf, or the giggle of a screech owl miles from the source.

  Something cold and wet brushed my right hand. I jumped and whirled around. The flashlight settled on Shag’s china-blue eyes. My solemn canine guardian trotted down the driveway then disappeared on the hiking path that led to the chapel. I took a chance and followed him. When I saw a faint light coming from the chapel’s open doors I raced up the stairs.

  My sister lay curled up on a colorful geometric rug just before the altar, her hands pillowed under her head, her bare legs drawn up gracefully. She was sound asleep, still dressed in nothing but her white flannel nightgown and her panties. She looked like one of Isabel’s folk-art angels, recovering after battle.

  I groaned. A fire burned in a jumble of hymn books piled against one wall. Smoke rose from the books. One burst into foot-high flames as I watched. I snatched a small rug from the center aisle and threw it over the hymnals. Acrid smoke curled from underneath as I pounded the rug with both hands. Coughing, I pulled the rug back. The fire was out.

  But a dozen short, fat beeswax candles sat around Ella on the floor, flickering brightly. I knelt beside her. What part of her drugged mind had thought up this ritualistic scene, this attempt to destroy something I knew she loved?

  She might have burned to death if I hadn’t found her.

  Shaking, I bent over each candle and blew it out. The candles were kept in a wooden box under one of the front pews. Olivia had shown the box to us when we visited the chapel with her once. She wrote that the candles had been left from Dylan’s christening ceremony. Isabel had made them herself. I remembered how Ella—who loved candles of all kinds—admired them. Now the small wooden box of candles sat open near Ella on the floor. Matches were scattered around it.

  One lit candle had almost burned down to a puddle of melted wax. In the back of my mind was an agonizing thought: Our father had been the money man for political fanatics who used arson as their trademark. Now Ella had set fire to a holy place. She’d tried to burn down the most beloved, shared part of Arinelli and Cameron heritage.

  I piled all the burnt hymn books onto the rug I’d used to smother the fire, then carried both the rug and the books outside. I hid everything in the edge of the forest then ran back up to the chapel. Ella was still asleep. I hurried around with my flashlight, looking at the floor where the hymnals had burne
d, and then I shone the light on the wall. The bottom of the mural there was singed black. There was no way to hide that damage.

  “Oh, no,” I whispered. Everyone would see this. Everyone would know that someone had set a fire. Of course, no one would automatically suspect Ella.

  But Ella would remember. She couldn’t blank out everything about this incident—walking through the woods for a good ten minutes, barefoot and wearing no coat in the cold, setting up the hymnals and the candles, lighting the fire. Too much detail. She would remember at least bits of the night, until at last she would realize what she’d done.

  She’d never forgive herself. She’d confess.

  Perhaps no one else would forgive her either.

  Carter might be gone forever, and now this.

  My breath coming in short, fast gulps, I knelt beside her again, shining the flashlight on her face. I shook her. She moved groggily and blinked. “Where? Hmmm?” she managed, lightly brushing one limp hand over her face. “Carter?”

  “Ella, Ella, we have to leave. Get up.” I slapped her lightly on the cheeks. “What?” she mumbled, shifting and rolling her head.

  “Get up, Ella! Do what I say. Come on, Sis.”

  She had done what I told her for so many years that habit took over. I helped her sit up and roll over onto her hands and knees. She wobbled, her nightgown hiked up to her waist, her pale panties gleaming pristinely in a cold patch of moonlight that crept through the open doors.

  I latched my arms around her waist and pulled her to her feet. I don’t know how I did it, except that the thought of anyone discovering us there gave me a surge of strength. “You can make it, just walk, we’ll take it slow,” I begged, with me holding her up and her sagging against me.

  “Have to … try, hmmm, where … are we?”

  “Shhh. Concentrate on walking. Walk! It’s a dance! It’s music. Keep the beat! It’s four-four time and it’s simple!”

  We shuffled precariously down the stone steps of the tall, earthen, ancient mound and into the forest. It seemed like hours before we reached the cottage. I was drenched in sweat and my back felt as if it might break. Ella’s head drooped. “Hmmm?” she said occasionally.

  “I’m putting you back in bed for a few minutes. That’s it. A few more steps. There. We’re here. Sit. That’s it. There you go.” She collapsed gracefully on the mattress. Before I covered her I wiped dirt and debris from her bare feet with the tail of the long sweater I wore over baggy sweatpants. She tucked her hands under her chin and fell asleep. I was staggering, exhausted.

  I knew what I had to do. I began to pack. I loaded my luggage and portable keyboard into the car, then gathered the few things of Ella’s we’d brought over from the houseboat. I’d get her out to the car somehow, and she’d keep sleeping while I drove.

  By the time she woke up in the morning we’d be hundreds of miles away. I decided we’d drive west, look for work in the casino lounges of Las Vegas, or even go all the way to Los Angeles.

  When she began to remember what she’d done tonight I’d help her deal with it somehow, and if she wanted to come back here and face Carter and the rest of the family, I’d bring her when she was stronger.

  I was fairly certain she’d never be that strong.

  I sank down on the piano bench with a piece of paper and a pen. For a minute I ran my hands over the yellowed keys, fighting emotions that threatened to play out in sheer agony. But the only music I heard was the silent song of Gib’s touch, his voice. Finally I wrote:

  Gib—

  Keep the money. Keep the piano. Take care of Allegra. I give it all to you openly and freely and with love. There’s no way I can pay you and your family enough for making us feel wanted, at least for a few months. Please don’t look for us. I know you can find us, but I won’t come back even if you do. I have to do what’s best for Ella. Whatever you think of me, don’t ever doubt that I loved you even before I met you, I love you now, and I’ll always love you.

  I had a home here, with you.

  Nellie

  I left the note atop the piano then walked out onto the porch and looked up at the clear, star-filled night sky.

  I was running like a thief in the night.

  Like a criminal.

  Like a true daughter of Max Arinelli.

  I threw back my head and sought my namesake planet, glimmering low over the horizon. I thought about Gib, and all he’d expected from the baby girl he’d helped to name. That was the only time that night I cried.

  As I turned to go inside, I smelled smoke.

  • • •

  Ella’s candles had outwitted me. Some spark, some smoldering filament of wool deep in a dusty old rug, had caught fire again by the time I ran back to the chapel. It was the details, as Gib always said, that ruined people.

  I raced up to the steps and saw the yellow glow of flames inside the building. I darted inside and halted, choking. A soft, breathable cloud of smoke swirled around me. Flames rose from a rug and had spread on the varnished wooden floor around it, curling under one of the front pews. I looked around for anything I could use to beat out the fire again, but no other small rugs remained.

  I heard a human sound. Swinging my flashlight frantically, coughing, I yelled, “Who’s there?” The beam of light landed on Olivia’s pale, wrinkled face. She lay on the floor beyond the front pew. How she’d gotten there, and why she was there alone in the middle of the night, were questions that darted through my shocked thoughts for only a second. I ran to her and knelt down. When I shoved her long gray hair away from her face, I saw that an egg-sized knot had risen on her forehead. Her eyes flickered. She moved weakly. She was dressed only in a gown and robe.

  She lifted both arms into the air but made shoving gestures at me. “Stop it! I’m not leaving you here!” I shouted. I dropped the flashlight and wound my hands under her arms then heaved with all my strength, pulling her down the center aisle and out the front doors. Tugging desperately, I pulled her down the grassy slope of the mound beside the steps.

  When we reached the cool, safe ground at the bottom of the mound I bent over her. “I’ve got to go back up there! I can’t let it burn!” Olivia waved weakly but furiously, trying to hold on to me.

  I hugged her as if she were some elderly daughter of mine, but she couldn’t stop me. I wouldn’t let anyone be hurt or killed by a fire one of my own family had set. No Arinelli would ever be connected with death and destruction again, if I could help it.

  I climbed the mound and staggered into the chapel. The fire crackled louder. I gathered an armful of hymnals and threw them outside. I went back in, got yellowed stacks of sheet music from a table beside the organ, and carried that outside, too. But when I returned the next time the heat was escalating, making me gag. I had just one chance to make any serious difference in the damage being done. Hail Mary full of grace.…

  The clear crystal oil lamps on nearby wall pediments now had a sinister gleam. The bases of the lamps were filled to the brims with oil. I had to get the lamps away from the fire. I went to a pedestal, reached up, and grabbed a lamp around its delicate base, but the glass was already so hot I juggled the lamp between my palms as I ran to the door. The heavy glass globe tumbled off, along with the glass chimney, thudding on the doorsill and rolling aside. I nearly dropped the base. As I ran out into the yard warm lamp oil poured over my hands.

  I dropped the lamp onto the grass, fell to my knees and scrubbed my greasy hands on the grass as best I could, then ran into the chapel. I repeated the trip with eleven more lamps.

  The last time, I glimpsed myself in the globe of a lamp, just the flicker of a distorted image, my eyes wild and glowing with reflected flames.

  Like father, like daughter.

  No.

  Pop deserved better than that memory. I would save his soul from this fire, in this holy place where he and my mother had married.

  One more time. I went back in. The antique organ was small, almost delicate by modern standards. I crouch
ed and hooked my hands around the frame on one side. I pulled. The organ creaked and slid. I got it off the raised platform behind the altar. I stood behind it then, and shoved. I was gagging, I felt as if I were burning up, I couldn’t see much through the smoke. I only knew that I was moving down the side aisle on the right, that I was just a few feet from the door, and if I could somehow get the organ over the sill and out onto the porch, both it and I would survive.

  Its ornately carved feet caught on a rug runner that lay under the last pew. I made some guttural, furious sound then tried to hoist the organ’s front feet over the edge of the rug. They snagged. Sparks shimmered down on me. My lungs filled with smoke, suddenly, and I reeled backward, dizzy and confused. My head slammed into the wall and I turned blindly, completely disoriented.

  I was going to die in this chapel.

  But then I felt arms reaching around me, and I heard Gib’s voice. “I’ve got you,” Gib shouted. He began issuing orders to Jasper and Kelly in a loud, firm voice.

  “The music,” I moaned, and grabbed for the old organ obsessively. He fitted his hands under its side and heaved. It moved. We pulled it to the door. I heard shouts and screams outside and closer. Min and Isabel bolted into the chapel and helped us.

  The organ popped through the door and onto the porch. I was aware of Gib telling Jasper and Kelly to carry it farther away, then suddenly his hands closed on my shoulders and he dragged me forward. Another shower of sparks drifted down on us, and Gib raised one arm to shield my face. He pushed me like a human bulldozer.

  The residue of lamp oil on my hands ignited in a soft aura of orange-and-blue flames. I screamed as we stumbled into the smoky fresh air. Gib snatched my hands against his stomach and bent over. He smothered the flames instantly. But pain like a million lit matches blossomed.

  My hands. Gib hoisted me over one shoulder then carried me down the steps to the flat, grassy area in front of the ancient ceremonial mound. The night air smelled of burning wood. I heard a siren in the distance. It made my groggy brain conjure up images of men in dark suits arresting Ella for arson.