The Deception Dance (15 page)

Dina sets out three more plates, just as Linnie, Nicholas and Stephen
return, in a flurry of movement and laughter.

“We decided on an hour from now,” Linnie tells me, before
taking her first bite. “Nicholas insists you race on the
lawn...”

“Trust me,” he interrupts, “If we’re racing
Stephen, we don’t want to be running on pavement.”

Stephen does a nod-shrug gesture, confirming he’s more than
likely plotting something.

I speak slowly to conceal my desperation, “If I don’t
win, I still get veto rights on where we go.”

Stephen shakes his head. “No, Raven. If I win I might take you
to this bistro I adore in the South of Ireland, but I’ll have
you back by your bed-time.” He pauses, with his fork hovering
by his mouth, “Probably.”

“Don’t worry.” Nicholas’s eyebrows pinch, as
he glares at his brother. “
When
I win, I won’t do
anything that ostentatious.” He touches my arm, where I scoured
the name of the restaurant off in the shower.

Great. I’ll just run like a cheetah.

“Don’t be so sure,” my
management
chimes,
“Raven just finished her fourth year in track.”

Oh yes,
track
,
where I won nothing of more consequence than a trophy for my relay
team sophomore year.

“Does that mean she’ll be wearing those little shorts?”
Stephen gives me a look that makes Nicholas tense in his seat.

“Oh yeah,” Linnie replies. “She’s been
sleeping in them.”

“Traitor,” I mouth, across the table.

“No.” She sticks out her lower lip. “I’m just
looking out for your best interests, little sister. You’ll
see.”

“Well,” I say, as I stand up with my plate, cross to the
sink and start washing, “I better get ready for the race you’re
forcing me into.”

Stephen beams. “Dina is going to love you; she’s pestered
me to clean after myself for years.”

“Learn from this girl,” the Russian woman tells him, as
she reenters the kitchen with a broom.

Fortunately, I did pack my entire track outfit: shorts, team t-shirt,
socks and running shoes. I dress in my room, head out the back door
and run straight into Chauncey, making-out with the chauffeur. Wait,
he’s not the chauffeur, he’s some other guy in a similar
uniform! Clearly, Chauncey’s not taking a nap.

I step around them, murmuring apologies; they glue their faces back
together.

All flustered, I hasten to the pasture, where Nicholas stands, by two
neon-orange cones; I guess cones are orange here, too. Stephen and
Linnie set markers across the field. The noontime sun warms my bare
arms. Though the wind only trickles by, the air carries the scent of
roses and freshly mowed grass.

“You’re both still in suits?”
I sit down to stretch.

He laughs. “Well, we had to give you some chance, didn’t
we?”

“A chance to win my freedom from your extravagant dates?”

“This is all just for fun. You don’t have to go on a date
with me, Raven, even if I win.” He tightens his lips and looks
almost crestfallen.

“No, of course I will.” The Monarchs in my stomach
flutter furiously.

His face lights up. “Perhaps we may have the date, no matter
who wins.”

The word ‘sure’ is about to slip through my lips, when I
stop myself. I’m much too easily manipulated. “Then, you
won’t have any motivation to race,” I tease.

He glares across the field at his brother, “Oh, yes I will.”

After I stretch and Stephen returns, we line up between the cones. I
scoot to give myself some room, but Stephen determinedly crowds me.

Linnie waits halfway down the track. Through cupped hands she yells,
“On your marks...”

Stephen bends forward, in a sprinter’s position.

“Get set...”

He lunges over, yanks my shoelace and takes off running.

“Go!”

Nicholas sprints after his brother. After a moment of hesitation, I’m
close on his heels. Nicholas races ahead; the gap between us
lengthens more and more. I lope forward, I’m an antelope, an
antelope; come on, Raven, catch up!

Ahead, Nicholas passes Stephen.

Stephen leaps and tackles Nicholas and they
crash down in a mess of limbs.

I veer to avoid the grapplers, as fingers snake
around my ankle and I crash forward, onto the grass. Without looking
whose hand grasps my leg, I aim my foot and kick, hard. Then, I kick
again. Someone bellows a satisfying, “ouch!” and the hand
releases me. I scuttle forward, get up and sprint for the cones.

Run, run, run! I glance back.

Limbs untangled, the two men pursue; they’re too far behind.

I hurdle over the invisible finish line. “Victory is mine!”
I throw up my arms and cartwheel.

Linnie applauds and kicks out a goofy victory dance.

I peer over my shoulder.

Stephen charges me, at full speed, with Nicholas catching up.

I shriek and run in the direction of the house, smiling. Crisis
adverted. Well, for a little while.

Day Thirteen

"Who is Andras?" Linnie asks, as her fingernail scrapes
from my forehead, through my hair, and stops at my neck, dividing my
hair into two sections.

I inhale through my nose and calm my voice. "Who?"

Linnie ties up one section of hair and runs her fingers through the
other. "Andras. You’ve been saying his name in your
sleep."

"Oh." Did I dream about him again? I thought last night was
my first Andras-free sleep. "Must have been a nightmare."

Her voice fills with repressed laughter, "Yeah sure, I wish I
could have nightmares like...”

I elbow her. "Didn't you have something you wanted to talk
about?"

My interruption sobers Linnie. "Yeah.” She sighs. “I’m
worried about Chauncey.” She loops the hair band, one last
time, around the end of my braid.

I glance around for Chauncey, but Linnie’s hands, separating
the other side of my hair into sections, impedes my head from
turning.

“A car already picked Chauncey up for shopping or something,”
she assures me.

We are sitting on Linnie’s bed; she insisted on doing my hair
before we meet up with Stephen and Nicholas.

“You should be more worried about us,” I say. “Having
seven strangers, possibly homicidal maniacs, in this house, in the
past seven nights, maybe more? That’s dangerous.”

“I’m serious, Raven, there’s something wrong with
her. I mean, she wasn’t
Miss Prude, Prim and Proper
at
school, but she wasn’t like this.”

“People act differently on vacation...”

“No!” Linnie gently tugs my hair.
“Not like this.” Her heavy exhale lands on my neck. “I
know this is wrong to say, but Chauncey is probably the vainest
person I know...”

“I’ve noticed. But she has reason to be, she’s the
best looking girl I’ve ever seen.” Yesterday, I caught
myself gaping at Chauncey, and I strongly dislike her.

Linnie says, “At school she spent hours beautifying in the
mirror; I’d always tease her about her excessive grooming. Yet,
for the past couple of days, Chauncey has been covering all the
mirrors with sheets and towels.”

“She’s the one doing that?” I noticed the odd
assortment of linens, appearing over any reflective surface in the
guesthouse; I had assumed Nelly, our ill-humored maid, covered the
mirrors to give us some type of unwelcome notice.

“I caught her hanging a sheet over the
mirror in the bathroom. When I asked her why, she wouldn't answer me.
She also quit smoking, which
is
a good thing, but she told me, crying, that cigarettes have ruined
her complexion. She pointed to a spot on her face with nothing there.
I don’t get it.” Linnie finishes twining the second half
of my hair and ties the braid with another band. She hugs me around
the shoulders. “I’m scared Raven: I think something
messed-up happened to her.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes and take a deep breath. I need to
be considerate, if not for Chauncey’s sake, then, for Linnie’s.

She rests her chin on my shoulder. “She’s been troubled
since we got here...”

“Then, we’ll leave.” I tap her hand. “We will
leave tomorrow, if you want.”

“Leave?” She sighs. “I’m not sure. That might
be what’s best, but...”

“We’ll have our rock-hopping adventure today, and then,
tell the boys we’re taking off tomorrow. With a few tweaks, we
could go back to our old schedule, starting in France...”

“I don’t know, Raven; we should talk to Chauncey, first.”
She lets go of me and crawls off the bed. “Thank you, though.”
Her gaze meets mine and she smiles, “…for thinking about
what’s best for Chauncey.”

I return a tight smile and hastily glance away. My arms swing back
and forth. “So… rock-hopping.”

Linnie links her arm in mine and does a little
tap-dance. “Yay!”

We
Wizard-of-Oz
skip across the house, laughing and almost
crashing into furniture. Linnie and I topple through the kitchen
door, giggling.

Dina waves us to the table. “You’re worse than the boys!”
She gives us a playful bonk on the back of our heads. “Go, eat
your breakfast.”

I grin over. Even if I tried, I doubt disliking
Dina would be possible. She treats Stephen and Nicholas more as her
sons than employers. The one time Albert popped his head in (what I’m
now considering) “our” kitchen hang-out, she treated him
the same way.

We gobble down most of our omelets, before the boys wander in.

I examine Nicholas and snort-laugh into my hand.

He looks down at his clothes, then back up,
“What?”

I try to hold it back, but fall onto the table laughing.

Linnie spins around in her chair, takes in
Nicholas, then points at him, cracking up.

Nicholas glances around, bewilderment pinching his eyebrows, making
us laugh harder.

Stephen claps his brother on the back. “Face it Nicholas, the
girls think you look ridiculous in your running shorts.”

“No,” my objection is ruined by my new wave of giggles.
“It’s just, you’re usually so formal.”

Nicholas picks up a piece of omelet with his hands and throws my
breakfast at my face. “How’s that for formal?”

I wipe the egg off my cheek and give him one fleeting look, before I
grab up the rest of my omelet.

Linnie throws her arms over her head, while Nicholas dodges out the
door.

“No, no, no, no, no!” Dina yells, “Get out of my
kitchen and act like adults. You are not some little children getting
in fights.” She shoos a reluctant Linnie away from the table.
“Out!”

We get out, fast.

“Now look what you did.” Nicholas bumps against me with
his arm.

Indignation drops my jaw. “Me?”

“Well,” Stephen says, as he walks
backwards, away from the house, “we might as well go.” He
leads us through the gardens, across the grounds and to another door,
central on their giant stone wall. A large wood plank secures the
door. Nicholas crosses to the wall and flips open (
what
I thought was another cobblestone, but is) the cover to a scanner
.

Nicholas pivots. “Why don’t we try
your thumb-print, Raven?”

They had scanned my, Linnie and Chauncey’s
prints into their security system. I rub my fingers together at my
sides
.

Linnie doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll
do it!” Her thumb flattens on the panel.

Immediately, the board slides up and the door swings outward.

“Cool.” Linnie walks through.

We step into a large building with no roof. Stacks of lumber fill the
entire space.

“What are these for?” I ask Stephen, as Linnie and
Nicholas walk ahead.

Stephen traces a finger over one of the boards. “Reconstruction.”
His gaze rests on mine for a second, then he picks up his pace.

I whisper, “You’re going to make this church enormous.”

The wood stacks tower fifteen feet into the weather-beaten ruin. From
the quantity of lumber in the space, they could build a church
skyscraper. We exit the thin shadowy pathway between woodpiles and
out a stone doorway.

The guys and Linnie wait across a road by an open gate, when I turn
from the church ruin. I skip to catch up.

“Is this your land, too?” Linnie asks, as we walk into a
pasture with several grazing horses.

“No.” Nicholas closes the gate behind us.

Linnie and I hang back. She asks, “Are we trespassing?”

“Oh,” Stephen shrugs as he walks. “That’s not
a problem here.”

Linnie and I glance at each other, but we follow. We walk through a
few gates and pastures until we wander down a road, leading us to the
rocky shoreline. As soon as we reach the expanse of boulders,
Nicholas and Stephen hop away like goats. It takes a few minutes for
Linnie and me to swallow our nervousness. After fifteen minutes, I
catch up to Stephen; five minutes later I’ve left him in my
dust; well, not literally.

The sea relaxes beside us, leaving her rocky shore to dry in the sun.
A breeze kisses me with a light salty ocean scent. My continuous
hopping beats a rhythmic tempo. I scout my next spot to step, two
rocks ahead. Next rock, next flat spot, hop, hop, hop.

Without meaning to, I catch up with Nicholas and follow his path
across the boulders.

“Whoopee!” Stephen calls out from somewhere far behind; I
don’t dare break my concentration.

Nicholas calls back: a yodeling sound.

We pass an hour moving this way.

Nicholas stops and, before I can catch up, he
rips off his backpack, shirt and shoes, and dives into the ocean.
Although a large rock outcropping isolates the area Nicholas swims in
from the open sea, the water still sloshes up the rocks.