"The african," she murmured. "He said the african was holding us there like an anchor, he didn't know why. Are you holding us here, Manda? Is some scared, stubborn part of you holding us here? Holding me here?"
Amanda didn't answer, but Lisey thought that was exactly what was happening. Part of Amanda wanted Lisey to come get her and bring her back, but there was another part that wanted no rescue. That part really did want to be done with all the dirty world and the dirty world's problems. That part would be more than happy to continue taking lunch through a tube, and shooting poop into a diaper, and spending warm afternoons out here on the little patio, wearing pajamas with Velcro closures, staring at the green lawns and the croquet players.
And what was Manda really looking at?
The pool.
The pool in the morning, the pool in the afternoon, the pool at sunset and glimmering by starshine and moonlight, with little trails of vapor rising from its surface like dreams of amnesia.
Lisey realized her mouth still tasted sweet, as it usually did only first thing in the morning, and thought: That's from the pool. My prize. My drink. Two sips. One for me and one - "One for you," she said. All at once the next step was so beautifully clear that she wondered why she had wasted so much time. Still holding Amanda by the hands, Lisey leaned forward so that her face was in front of her sister's. Amanda's eyes remained unfocused and far-seeing beneath her straight-cut, graying bangs, as if she were looking right through Lisey.
Only when Lisey slid her arms up to Amanda's elbows, first pinning her in place and then putting her mouth against her sister's mouth, did Amanda's eyes widen in belated understanding; only then did Amanda struggle, and by then it was too late. Lisey's mouth flooded with sweetness as her last sip from the pool reversed itself. She used her tongue to force Amanda's lips open, and as she felt the second mouthful of water she had drunk from the pool flow from her mouth to her sister's, Lisey saw the pool with a perfect daytime clarity that beggared her previous efforts at concentration and visualization, fierce and driven though they had been. She could smell frangipani and bougainvillea mingled with a deep and somehow sorrowful olive smell that she knew was the daytime aroma of the sweetheart trees. She could feel the packed hot sand beneath her feet, her bare feet because her sneakers hadn't traveled. Her sneakers hadn't but she had, she had made it, she had gotten over, she was
8
She was back in Boo'ya Moon, standing on the warm packed sand of the beach, this time with a bright sun beating down overhead and making not thousands of points of light on the water but what seemed like millions. Because this water was wider. For a moment Lisey looked at it, fascinated, and at the great old hulk of a sailing ship that floated there. And as she looked at it, she suddenly understood something the revenant in Amanda's bed had told her.
What's my prize? Lisey had asked, and the thing - which had somehow seemed to be both Scott and Amanda at the same time - had told her that her prize would be a drink. But when Lisey asked if that meant a Coke or an RC, the thing had said, Be quiet. We want to watch the hollyhocks. Lisey had assumed the thing was talking about flowers. She had forgotten there had been a very different meaning for that word, once upon a time.
A magical one.
That ship out there in all that blue and shining water was what Amanda had meant...for that had been Amanda; Scott would almost surely not have known about that wonderful childhood dreamboat.
Chapter 20
This was no pool she was looking at; this was a harbor where only one ship rode at anchor, a ship made for brave pirategirls who dared to go seeking treasure (and boyfriends). And their captain? Why, the brave Amanda Debusher, to be sure, for once upon a time, had not yonder sailing ship been Manda's happiest fantasy? Once upon a time before she had become so outwardly angry and so inwardly afraid?
Be quiet. We want to watch the Hollyhocks.