Gowan says, “Wait” at the same moment I rush off into the dark.
By the time he’s reached me, bringing the flame of his lighter with him, I am standing stock-still. I don’t understand what I am looking at.
Before me, on the floor, is a crumpled pile of cloth. Only, no—not cloth. Clothes.
“Silla, wait.”
“What’s…”
And then there is a light. Off to the right. I frown into it, leaning closer, trying to see the something beyond it.
“Silla.”
The light is blinding. Like the sun decided to take a nap in front of my face. As it fades and my eyes blink through tears of pain and light spots, a kitchen table comes into focus.
It’s our kitchen table.
La Baume. We’re inside La Baume.
But it can’t be. I’m about to turn around and ask Gowan if we made it back to the house, when I see the paint. Buckets of yellow paint, stacked on the cloth-covered table.
Yellow.
And then Cathy drifts into the room, paintbrush in hand. She is wearing a long yellow sundress, and she is smiling.
25
dare you
Grab some twine to twist and thread
some dirt plucked at night with dread
cloth to make his suit and tie
finish before dawn or else you’ll die.
BROKEN BOOK ENTRY
My favorite food is vegetable pie. All you do is chop up as many different kinds of vegetables as you like, like potatoes and carrots. You could even have parsnip in there if you like. You chop them up fairly well, pop them all into a pastry base. Cover it with a pie crust, and pop into the oven for about forty-five minutes. This pie answers every question of hunger, I’m telling you. What’s for dinner? Veggie pie. Hungry at midnight? Leftover veggie pie. I’ve made one already, so you’ll need to make your own.
1980: “Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies…”
Catherine and Anne and Pamela skip in a circle, their hands joined. Cathy is wearing a blue dress. Anne is wearing red. Pammy is wearing yellow. Each has her hair in curls, as their mother prefers. Each a perfect flower.
“Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!”
Cathy loves this part. The part where they all collapse. She doesn’t understand what the rhyme means—none of them do—but she knows that the end (collapsing) is the best. For a moment, the sisters lie on the grass, staring up at the sapphire sky. In another hour they will be called inside, their adventure over for the day. Cathy closes her eyes, and feels the earth tilting as it does sometimes.
Then Anne is kicking her in the foot. “Let’s go into the woods for a while!”
She tries not to get cross. Anne is always wanting more. Mother says she has too much spirit for her own good, and Cathy is beginning to see why.
Cathy leans up on her elbows. “We can’t, Anne. It’s getting dark.”
“So? We’ll be quick. Come on! I saw rabbits!”
“Imagine if we could catch one,” Pammy says. “We could have it for supper.”
Anne scrunches up her nose. “Ew.”
“Nobody is going into the woods,” Cath states, getting to her feet. She brushes grass from her dress and reties her bow. “Anyway, we should be going in right about now.”
Anne rolls her eyes and Pammy giggles. “You spoil everything.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Anyway,” Anne says, sniffing and lifting her chin. “I don’t need you to have fun, and I don’t need the woods. The woods can come to me. The protector will make sure of that.”
“I think we’re getting a bit old for the protector game.”
“He’s real,” Anne says. “And maybe you’re getting old. So old you can’t even see him anymore.”
“I see him!” Pammy declares.
“Neither of you sees him. We made him up.”
Catherine hasn’t got time for silly games anymore. Mother told her that she was growing up, and now she can see it is true. She does feel much older than both Anne and Pamela. Well, she is older, but now her age is accompanied by a feeling of superiority. She can see so much more than they can. They are still lost in a game about a make-believe man that they sewed from sackcloth one day in the woods.
I’m growing up, she thinks again, and smiles, closing her eyes and turning away so that her sisters don’t see her pride. She envisions a future of long dresses—the kind Mother wears—dinner parties at the long table at La Baume in the grand hall, and long hours alone with all those books Papa won’t let her touch. One day, it will all be hers, and she will know how to care for it. She has such dreams for La Baume and her life!
“Come on,” she says again. “We have to get inside. Mother will be waiting.”
She turns back to her sisters and finds that they are gone.
She clenches her teeth, watching their tiny figures rushing toward the forest boundary in the fading light.
They are leaving her behind more and more.
Well. She’s moving forward without them.
What babies they are.