Bells of Avalon (6 page)

“Well then why did you say you’d been there, said you had seen it. Why would you say that if you didn’t remember?”

“I said maybe I’d been there…I never said for sure.”  He shrugged and smiled.

“You did that on purpose.” 

“Did what?”

“Tell me you’d been there. You’d know if you’d been there. You never forget anything.”

He pointed a finger at her, looking pleased.

“
See
, there you go. When you’re angry you sound almost normal...none of that weepy, fluff-talk.”

“I’m getting down from here before I’m tempted to push you off,” she said, starting up.

“Oh c’mon. I promise I’ll stop. The Kittredges aren’t nearly done getting soused.  If we go inside now we’ll have nothing to do but wait—wait inside with whatever or
whoever
you were running from.”

She considered it and frowned. She looked out towards the island then sat again on the ground. He studied her profile carefully from the side.

“You really won’t tell me, will you?” he asked.

“I can’t.”

The words hung until the strain of them faded with the rolling breeze.

“So you want to know about Catalina, do you?” he asked.

“I thought you said you didn’t remember?”

“Well, I can tell you what I do remember. My father told me once that the Cubs practiced there. He said the man who owned the island also owned a chewing gum factory along with the whole baseball team.  When we docked, I had my eyes peeled.  I guess I expected to see them in their uniforms, tossing around a ball on the beach. Something stupid like that.”

“Did you see anything?”

“Nah”

“So your father made it all up?”

“Hmm?”

“About the chewing gum and the baseball men?”

“Oh, that. No it was all true, he really does own the island—Wrigley, that is, and the Cubs to boot. They still have training on the island. They could be there right now.”

“How long were you there?”

“A few hours. It was just a small crew, wasn’t a lot of work to be done. But once we got there everything went wrong. The director started to yell at me. I guess I was bored and fidgeting around a lot. It made him angry. He took me by a tree and told me to wait there and not move until someone came to get me. I was so scared of him I didn’t move at all. After a while, I saw the crew had left.  I didn’t know where anyone was at, but I just sat there in the cold. I thought I could warm up by walking. I set out towards this hill. I thought maybe if I could get over it I could see someone, maybe I’d see the baseball players and they would help me.”

“Did you find anyone?”

“Nah. It was wartime, Katie. No baseball. They had the whole place strapped down for military training. It’s a wonder they let us on to film.”

“Well, what happened then?”

“I don’t know. The last thing I remember was the big hill. A few years ago I ran into one of the crew guys. He told me how they’d forgotten me. No one realized I was gone til they were on the boat back to the Los Angeles.”

“They left you? How could they?”

“They didn’t mean to.”

“Well, yes, but how awful. Were you scared?”

“I don’t think so. I just remember being cold and the sky getting dark. The next thing I knew I was waking up in my bed at home.”

“At home? How did you get back?”

“A midshipman found me walking along the beach. I don’t remember that either, but I guess I told him who I was and what I’d been doing there. He must’ve radioed someone to get me back with the group.”

“Was your mother angry?”

“They never told her about what happened. I didn’t say anything either.”

“How horrible.”

“Nah, I wasn’t hurt or anything.”

“But Danny, what if you had been and didn’t know it? What if something horrible happened to you—or you saw something horrible and you just didn’t remember? If they left you alone and you didn’t remember, anything could have happened.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Katie? I was fine.  Nothing happened other than me walking around in the cold for a few hours like an idiot, little kid.”

“It just doesn’t seem right for you not to remember, though. I think something must’ve happened for you to make yourself forget so much.”

He looked away and lowered his head.

“Well, I do remember one thing. I didn’t really think of it until just now, but something strange did happen.”

“What?” She shifted her body a bit closer to him.

“Well, when I was walking around I came up on this old house.  It was a ragged place that probably hadn’t been lived in for years. The windows were all broken out, but there was some old furniture still inside. It was a creepy looking old place. I didn’t want to go near it, but I did anyway.”

“Why did you?”

              “I don’t know. It was like something was making me. I wanted to see it up close. I wanted to see what was inside. I’d never seen anything like it. Like it’d been fancy a long time ago. I thought the door was locked, but it turned out it was only jammed. The door made an awful screeching sound—like an old woman crying. It was so dark when I got inside. I could barely see anything at first. Then I saw something.  It was a really tall grandfather clock against the wall—you know, like the one we have at home?”  

She nodded.

              “At first I couldn’t tell what it was. I was scared it was a person. But then I knew for sure it was a clock.”

“How did you know it was?”

“Because it started...ticking,” he whispered, his face coming close to her ear, “and that was worse.”

“Why was it worse?”

“Because it wasn’t ticking before. It started up out of nowhere on its own.”

“Oh no, what did you do then?” she whispered.

He looked at her with a flash of amusement before becoming serious again.

“You really want to know?”

“Yes. Well, I think so—unless—is it really horrible, Danny?”

“Pretty horrible. Like you said, why else would I make myself forget?”

“Oh then, I don’t want to hear—I couldn’t stand it.” She shook her head.

“Oh but you have to. You’re the one who made me remember. I think you have to hear it now, so I can make peace with it all, right?” He shrugged.  She took a deep breath and braced for the words to come.

“Okay, tell me.”

“Well, I tripped back over something once I heard the ticking. I thought I would lose my balance so I reached out for whatever I could catch myself with.  But I didn’t fall, something kept me.”

“What was it?”

“Well, a hand.”

“A hand?” she gasped.

“Yeah. It was cold, but for sure a hand. It caught me and pulled me up—a strong, cold hand.”             

“Oh Danny, it wasn’t really was it?”

“It was, and when I looked up…I saw a face.”

“Whose face was it?”

“A little girl. Her face was so white, like a…”

“A ghost?” she finished off for him.

“I think so, had to have been. I looked at her face, looked away, and then she was gone.”

“She disappeared?”             

“Yes. Isn’t that what ghosts do?” he asked. Not really knowing what ghosts did or didn’t do, she couldn’t answer.

“What did she look like, Danny?”

              She watched him think for a moment as his eyes looked over her.

“You really want to know?”

“I think so.”

“Well, she was white, like I said. The whitest skin I’d ever seen.”

“Was she hideous?” she asked, unable to stop her morbid curiosity.

“Oh yes, I’d say so...hideous in so many ways. Her face was covered in this—slime I guess.  But there was one thing about her face that was the most awful. A terrible thing, but—no…I don’t think I should tell you.”

“Oh for god’s sake, Danny, just tell me.” she shouted, feeling she would burst if he didn’t finish the strange tale.

“Ok then, don’t say I didn’t warn you. The most horrible thing was...her nose.”

She glared at him, the eerie thrill of the story having evaporated.

“Her
nose
? What was wrong with it?”

He leaned into her, examining her face with careful scrutiny.

“Well it just wasn’t
right
. It looked like...an
acorn
.”

She hit him, strong enough to his shoulder that he tumbled back a bit.  Rather than resist the momentum, he rolled to his back, laughing.

“You’re terrible, Danny. I’ll hate you forever for teasing me like that.” She rose to her feet and began to climb down.

“Oh c’mon, Katie,” he said still laughing, “it wasn’t so bad, under all the slime she looked an awful lot like Esther Ralston.”

She walked briskly back towards the club.

“Awe, Katie, it was just a joke. Don’t be such a pill,” he called happily from behind.

“I’m not speaking to you. You’re a liar and a horrible boy.”

He picked up his pace until he caught up from behind.

“Well, I wasn’t completely lying. I was there—in Catalina at least. And the nimrods did leave me to freeze.”

“Good. I’m glad for it.”

“C’mon, you just seemed like you wanted some big story, so I gave you one.”

Katie stopped abruptly at the club’s elaborate doorway. She glanced up, not believing they were back to where they’d started.

“Was any of that really true, any of it at all?” she asked.  He stopped smiling. Placing his hands in his pockets, he took a step towards her.

“What do you think?”

She considered him, waiting for his seriousness to break at the edges towards his teasing nature. But his face didn’t falter. The same horrible notion as before gripped her:  the moment was not real. Maybe this version of Daniel Gallagher was just a hopeful rendition she’d invented while she lay dying beneath the Dancer’s heavy body.

“I don’t believe you,” she said, not believing anything that would come from Daniel Gallagher—or any version of him she’d manufactured.

“I’m not lying,” he smiled.

“Then why did you tell no one?”

He touched the small of her back and opened the door for her with his free hand.

“Because. Not everything that happens is worth talking about,” he said as the doors shut behind them.

As they drove home, she glanced at Daniel’s face barely visible against the inky pane of glass. They had never returned to the party. They sat in the coatroom under the bottom fringes of hanging jackets until the Kittredges were ready to leave. When Irene spotted her, she’d looked her up and down like soiled laundry. She’d gotten that look before. Usually when people met her and realized she wasn’t what she appeared to be in the movies.  They didn’t know that the image they expected wasn’t real either. Their version of Katie Webb had been man-made, fabricated by hundreds of people over the years. A pretty sugar egg with only oddities inside…and Irene had finally sensed what wasn’t right about her like a bad smell.

“Well there you two are. We’ve got to be along now,” she’d said in a way too similar to the sing-songy voice of her mind. She pilfered through the jackets until she found the flimsy shawl Katie had taken from the house in case of chill. She looked at the thing as it curled around her arm like strands of a broken cobweb. She tossed it to Danny before gathering the rest of their things.  Mr. Kittredge followed his wife, but a different Mr. Kittredge too. The man who’d been so chipper hours before, now followed Irene with shuffling, dispirited steps—hat in hand. Danny smiled when they were alone again in the coatroom. He handed her the shawl. It was a trivial gesture, but in some small way it meant they were no longer at odds with each other. When they arrived home, Mrs. Gallagher’s car was in the driveway and a soft light glowed from the downstairs windows. Albert had fallen asleep in the backseat, and when his mother slammed the car door, he stirred and groaned against the noise. She looked at Daniel. He nodded, and they followed behind. When Mrs. Gallagher opened the door, her hair was undone and swaying at her waist. She was barefoot, but still stood inches taller than Irene Kittredge.