NOTE: As if 2011 hasn't had enough death in it, my great-uncle died (possibly was murdered) in South America on New Years' Day. Sorry for the late update. Let's hope the Grim Reaper lays off for a bit.
Chapter Seventeen
Curtains
(Gangle picks up the story.)
Between the two of them, Maria and Ariel managed to keep me in near-constant mental straits. On the one hand, Maria, whom I was now clandestinely 'seeing' on a regular basis (despite our intial resolve), kept agonizing over her relationship with Giovanni while simultaneously thrilling me. Maria's one of those women who can completely numb a man's faculties. When her dark eyes fall upon you, you're as transfixed as a sailor beholding the most tantalizingly beautiful siren. You don't tell her; she tells you. Softly and beautifully, she tells you, tells you what a man you are, tells you things wonderful to hear. She is rightly named Maria, for she is just like the old Neopolitan folk song:
Oi Maria, Oi Mari!
Quanta suonno ca perdo pe' te!
Famm' addurmi
Abbracciato nu poco cu te!
Oh, Maria, oh Marie!
How much sleep I lose over you!
Let me sleep
Just hugging you!
And how can I ever begin to describe Ariel? How can I begin to tell of how she intoxicates and worries me? She comes to me for help, and suddenly this former gangster has become a knight. She inspires that sort of feeling in a man. So dashedly stubborn, but so tiny and sweet. I look into her watery green eyes and feel as though I'm with her no matter what cockamamie scheme she conjures up, to the very end, to the ends of the earth, but this secrecy stuff was really getting to be the limit. Even now, she still clung to her dreams of a heroic Mr. Y, and in my heart of hearts I had a fear that he was holding something over her head, threatening her somehow. I couldn't let her get thrown to the wolves, even if she seemed content to drop into their den.
They were like a team, Pescatelli and Fleck, unwittingly intent on my mental collapse. Le donne si mettono piacere e dolore!
What's more, Giovanni and Maria had a proposition for me. At a dinner we had together, they brought it up. I can still see it: Maria, flushed and dreamy in a dress of yellow, a buckle fastened around her little waist, innocently eating her fettuccine alfredo, and beside her was Giovanni. His was the appearance of a man deeply disturbed and suspicious as he looked from me to Maria. A stray, unslicked hair curled around his temple. When he ate his noodles, he took a long time twirling his fork, as though he must be ready to stab with it at all times, and all throughout the meal he rarely smiled, though he laughed a lot.
"So, Greg," he said insistently, as though I were trying to make a case against it or something. "We are not having much success in this city."
"Not having success?"
"No." He poured himself more wine. "And so, when our vacation is through, I am taking Maria back to Roma."
Maria ate on, her face not even faintly disturbed.
"I see. Sorry you had no success," I said.
"Does not matter," he grunted, shaking his head, almost desperately. "I have success in Roma."
"Of course we will have success," Maria chipped in. "Greg can help us."
Both myself and Giovanni were surprised, but Maria, in her beautifully elegant way, only sat back and continued, "Think, Vanni. Is it nice of us to go have success in Roma, and leave Greg alone here in the United States? He is a good cook. He is family. I say that we bring Greg back to Italy with us."
Giovanni looked as though she'd suggested she shoot him in the groin, but he quickly re-assumed control of himself.
"Take Greg?" he sputtered.
"Yes, take Greg. Why not take Greg? What does he have to do here? Work in a circus?"
"He will not likely want to leave that Ah-ree-ella girl," my brother countered, eyeing me as though his life depended on my agreement. "She cannot leave this country."
Maria snorted and pointed her fork. "Ah-ree-ella! She does nothing for him. Always, Greg is telling me this. Not enough nerve. Too skinny. You remember how she was in the water?"
I did remember, but I almost felt compelled to get up and defend Ariel from everything she was saying.
"Even so!" countered Giovanni, "The Mafia..."
"Ah, the Mafia nothing!" Maria sat back and waved a hand in irritated dismissal. "That was Milano in 1897, Vanni. This is Roma, the Twentieth Century! What does the Mafia care about Greg anymore? They got a big organization to run."
There was an awkward silence. And when the three silent people are Italian, you know it's a big deal when they're silent.
At last Giovanni took a deep breath. "I am not against him coming with us," he said, even though the words seemed incredibly forced. "It is just very sudden. Greg would have to quit his job, and his boss..."
"Ah, fuck his boss," swore Maria, and the explicitive sounded downright weird on a woman's lips. "Greg is a big man. It's his life. Why should this boss have him by the palle?"
That's Italian for "balls", by the way.
"Let him make the choice!" Giovanni declared angrily. "I have not heard a word from Greg about what he wants! You talking for him now?"
"Please!" I interrupted. "I will make the choice myself. Not now, but I will think about it."
"Okay, Greg. You think it over," she said. "If you want to come, you come."
I nodded. Maria licked the sauce off her fork with a significant expression. Giovanni smiled nervously, rather like a man who has committed a murder but hasn't got the damndest idea what to do with the body.
)
(
)
Mr. Y taught us how to operate the hot air balloon on a clear, windless day, and one of the most vivid memories I have of it is the sight of the big yellow balloon bobbing against the blueness of the sky. Our fellow freaks were completely thrilled, even if all they could do was enjoy the thrill vicariously, sitting on newspapers in the crumbly grass. At my side, Ariel was quiet but smiling with excitement. On my other side was Alf, who, in stark contrast to his daughter, stared numbly at the balloon as though it were a guillotine, at which he would presently be killed.
Mr. Y was checking the sandbags, and when he was through he gestured to us.
"Alright, it's safe. Come in!"
In we went, and once situated in the basket Mr. Y explained the various mechanisms, how to ascend and descend, how it all worked. It took some time; more than once I heard the restless grumble of our friends on the grass, and Ariel was excitedly swinging her father's hand as she listened, but at length the preliminaries were through.
"Let's ascend, Dr. Gangle," Mr. Y ordered, gesturing to the thing that controlled the hot air, and I turned it.
"Throw out the sandbags, Miss Fleck."
She obeyed. Out they went with a thud, and our friends cheered.
"Mr. Squelch, you..." But after getting a good look at Alf's face, which was a sickly shade of cream, Mr. Y seemed to think it wise not to ask him to move, and merely said, "You just sit down and never mind; I'll take care of it."
The balloon, which had been slightly wrinkly, soon became rotund with air, and I felt a strange levitating sort of feeling under my feet.
"You're floating!" yelled Mr. Geddes, and his excited cry was duly echoed by everyone else as they rose, cheering, to their feet.
"Off they go!"
"See you later!"
For the first time in a while, Ariel's cheeks were dimpled with glee, and her eyes were filled with a child-like wonder as we, the Trio, ascended into the clouds. "Oh!" she cried, watching her friends get smaller all the time, "Oh, Mr. Y, it's just like the Wizard of Oz!"
"Indeed," he replied pleasantly. "I am the Wizard, you are Miss Dorothy, Gangle is the Scarecrow, and Mr. Squelch...well, he's..."
"Is the Cowardly Lion," moaned Alf. "Go on, don't spare my feelings."
Beneath us, Phantasma was transforming into a minature City of Wonders, with streets resembling long ribbons, and buildings that looked as though I could reach out and arrange them under a Christmas tree. It all took on this misty, ethereal look, as though we had suddenly become gods, and could look down upon the earth.
Ariel seemed to feel it, too, for there was a hushed sound to her voice as she observed, "We're nearly level with the top of the Ayrie now,"
So we were. Just a little ways off in the distance, the two eye-shaped windows were staring at us, reflecting back the image of us in our balloon. If we strained to look beyond it, we could see the pale blue outlines of Brooklyn's skyscrapers.
"Turn down the gas a little, Dr. Gangle, so we can stay level for a bit."
I did, and so we drifted about, revelling in the magic of flight.
"I guess God Himself doesn't even have a view like this," murmured Ariel, resting her arms contendedly on the edge of the basket. "I could stay up here for the rest of my life. No worries. Just fly away from it all."
"It does have that effect, doesn't it?" mused Mr. Y.
Ariel turned to him. "Mama used to say that flying, even if she was only on her hoop, made her feel special, made her forget about sadness for a while. I never quite understood her meaning until now. I think she would have loved to have been here."
The fear on Alf's face temporarily morphed into tenderness. "Indeed. Polly had no fear of flying. Only thing she ever feared was being tied to the ground."
This phrase brought an air of thoughtful contemplation to Mr. Y. He was quiet for a while, looking out at the view.
"You know, I never did tell you..." he eventually said, a little hesitantly, "Well, mainly because I never quite got the mechanics right, but..."
"But what?" asked Alf.
Only the masked side of Mr. Y was visible as he went on, "I intended to make a robotic arm for your wife, even before Phantasma was on the table. Mechanical limbs would be a fascinating thing to perfect. I always sort of intended to, but it never got past conceptualization. I thought I'd certainly get back to it. In fact, I decided to set a goal for myself and have it ready prior to opening day, but I couldn't have predicted that she'd die."
"None of us could have," said Alf, looking regretfully into the clouds. "But I'm pleased to know that you wanted to do it, sir. At any rate, she has her second arm now."
Ariel nodded. "Mama always used to say how God would replace her arm when she went to Heaven, and teach her to read, too!"
"And read too," echoed Alf with a bittersweet smile. "My father was the same way, always insisting that one day, God would straighten him out and cure all our fellow freaks of their maladies. 'God's the real Physician, Al!' That's all he said, every day of his eighty-one years."
"And if Grandpa were still alive today, he'd be ninety-nine!" chirped Ariel.
Mr. Y did some rapid mental math and asked, curiously, "Your father was born in 1808, then?"
"Yep! In Budapest, Hungary. Family name was 'Felek' then. Darn Ellis Island officials turned it into 'Fleck'. Didn't bother him until he looked up the word 'Fleck' in the dictionary!"
At this, both Flecks had a good, hearty, family laugh.
"Fascinating," said Mr. Y. "Do you know any Hungarian?"
Alf shook his head. "Both of my parents could speak it, but they never wanted me or my brothers to speak anything but English. 'Only thing lower on the social rung than a freak is a foreigner freak', that's what he'd tell me. He wanted us to be just like other Americans. But I know one phrase, one that he used constantly: Ó, jaj!"
"Which means...?"
"Alas! If he knocked over a bottle, Ó, jaj! If he crashed into something, Ó, jaj! It was almost like his catch phrase."
There was a chummy sort of silence that lasted for a bit, as we floated around Phantasma, lighter than air, and then Mr. Y started up again.
"So Mrs. Fleck has a second arm now?"
He asked it as though needing to verify a fact with Alf, like he was signing him up for something. As for Alf himself, he smiled slightly and answered. "She does."
"And you..." Here he addressed Ariel, "Will have your bent leg healed when you die?"
Ariel nodded. "Yes, sir."
"And your back, Mr. Fleck? It will be permanently straightened?"
"Indeed it will."
Mr. Y looked from Alf to Ariel. A beat of silence, and then he said, politely, a mildly amused glint in his eye, "Your faith is admirable."
That ended all our discussions, theological or Fleck-related, and soon it was time to descend to earth again.
"This hot-air ballooning wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," said Alf cheerfully, though he seemed eager to get down nonetheless. "I guess it was all this talking that did it."
Mr. Y pointed to the mechanism. "Certainly. Turn down the gas."
We began sinking, sinking, everything becoming normal-sized again, everything becoming familiar and loud and decidedly un-dreamlike again. Our friends screamed and cheered, gathering in a bunch beneath us.
"Oh," moaned Ariel, growing pale. "Back to earth again. How I wish I didn't have to return!"
I patted her back, but she didn't respond. Phantasma and a whole reflected world drifted in the green of her eyes, occasionally whisked out of view by her eyelids.
"I could fly on forever," she added, sadly.
)
(
)
On the morning of July 30th, Ariel appeared at my door in a walking-dress and jacket that was an unfortunate shade of blue; it brought out decidedly ill-looking circles under her eyes and infected her whole countenance with a shadow of anxiety. More unfortunate still was her choice of hat, with its profusion of wispy feathers that trembled fretfully at the slightest breeze, like a jelly in a hurricane. All in all, it was a self-sabotaging attempt to look smart.
"Gangle, dear," she said timidly, folding and unfolding a little piece of paper, "Today is the 30th of July."
"It is. What of it?"
She swallowed and replied, eyes downcast, "Well, today is the day that the ad specified. The day the person wants to meet us in the cafe, to give us the information."
I had forgotten!
"I guess you needn't come if you don't wish it, if you think it's a waste of time..."
"No, I'm coming along," I replied immediately. "I cannot allow you to wander about in the city alone, no matter what my feelings are. And besides, how would you be able to explain to your Daddy why you wanted to go to the Gypsy Cafe alone?"
The feathers on her hat trembled as she shifted her weight uncomfortably.
"See? You could not. You would have to tell a lie, or sneak away without telling him. And so, I will come with you, Signorina."
"Thank you." Ariel hugged my arm as though fearfully apologizing for something. "But...Gangle?"
"Yes?"
"I wish you wouldn't call me Signorina."
Not call her Signorina? But I had done so for years! I looked at her in surprise, half expecting her to be joking, but there was not a ripple of deception in the green sea of her eyes.
"Why?" I asked in bewilderment.
"Because I think it's...bizarre how we never call each other by our true names," she faltered. "You and me, we call everyone else by their true names, but not each other. From this point on, please call me Ariel, and I will call you Gregory, or Greg, or something like that. Please?"
There was something strange in her expression that made me agree at once, even though I was still confused. "Alright, Signorina...er, Ariel. I will try and remember."
"Thank you, Gregory."
This was the newest thing in a whole parade of strangeness coming from Ariel. Ever since I'd made her zeppole that day and she told me she didn't like Maria, she started treating me differently. Not bad, I think, but in addition to her already unusual behavior, she started acting downright jumpy whenever I came around. Sometimes I'd catch her staring at me. I shrugged it off, but now with this whole "call me Ariel" thing, I was starting to become convinced that something was seriously wrong with her.
I had to talk to Alf. There was just no way around it anymore.
)
(
)
I spoke to him that very day, immediately after his act was through. The asisstants were still in the process of dragging away weights and dumbells when I hurried over to the man (who was heading for his dressing-room) and grabbed his shoulder.
"Alf," I told him, "We need to talk."
His forehead scrunched in surprise. "Talk?" He looked over at his dressing-room door. "Er, now, you mean?"
"Yes, if we can. It's about Ariel. I think something's wrong with her."
A look akin to the dawning of realization spread over Alf's face of tattoos like the first rays of the sun, and with widening eyes, he breathlessly said, "You're noticing it too?"
He ushered me into his dressing room, and once he'd hung up his jacket he sunk into a chair beside me and gave full vent to his fears.
"I thought I was going insane," he groaned. "But it must be true, then. She's not acting like herself. Hasn't been for some time. I just can't place it. Has she actually said anything to you?"
"No." I had my suspicions, but I didn't voice them. "I have just noticed her acting strange, like you said. Jumpy, sick-looking, frightened."
"That's how she is with me. I ask her what's wrong, and she denies it. I think..." Here he swallowed and became quite upset-"I think she's developing some sort of nervous disorder. All this excitement."
"You think?"
"What else can it be?"
Now, I knew that I must take Ariel to see the person who had answered the ad later, and with this thought in mind, I made a proposal.
"Listen, Alf," I said, slapping the man's shoulder. "Ariel may tell me what's wrong if I coax it out of her. Why don't you let me take her to dinner tonight? Afterwards, I'll see if I can get her to tell me what's the matter."
"That sounds reasonable to me." Alf nodded his head and looked at me like I was the greatest man alive. "Thank you, Gangle. I'll be pleased to reimburse you for whatever you spend..."
"No, no," I insisted, knowing full well I wouldn't spend a dime. "I will not accept money from you for helping her. She is special to me."
Alf's eyes misted up. "You're a stand-up guy," he growled emotionally. "A stand-up guy."
)
(
)
With the aid of a borrowed wig, an eyebrow pencil, a headscarf, and an old dress, Ariel managed to work wonders with her appearance, transforming herself from Ariel Fleck to Prudence Puckett, a little Jewess. The line of her brows was altered, her makeup was completely unlike what she usually wore, and brown little curls stuck out from under the patterned headscarf. You'd never know that she truly had black hair. Hearing Ariel's voice coming from this stranger was amazing.
"Prudence Puckett," she sighed, leaning against the dressing room door. "I ought to have named myself Rachel Rubenstein. Do I look convincing, Gregory?"
She was really sticking to her word, and hadn't called me Gangle once all day.
"You do, S..." I almost said 'Signorina', and hastened to amend, "You do, Ariel. No one will ever know it is you."
)
(
)
The Gypsy Cafe was full of dinner-time patrons as the two of us drew near. The windows gleamed merrily, looking like Christmas-time shadow boxes against the blueness of the dusk, with silohuettes of smoke and smiles within, and as we crossed the threshold, Ariel grabbed my hand.
"The person never said what they looked like, but I should think they'd try to be conspicuous somehow! Maybe we should ask about!"
But after only a brief bit of scanning, we noticed a lady in plain, dark clothes, sitting in a shadowy booth at the rear. Her hair was brown. She wore a lot of jewelry, gathered about her wrists in beads and bangles. She held a small handwritten sign that read: and !
"There she is," I whispered to Ariel, and I tucked my voice trumpet into my coat. "You do the talking. I will sit nearby."
"Okay."
We crossed the floor; I sat at a vacant table, and "Prudence" approached the woman. They shook hands, exchanged a cautious sort of greeting, and the payment -three dollar bills and a fifty-cent piece- was exchanged. Then "Prudence" pulled out her pad and pen, and the woman started speaking as she translated it all into shorthand.
What was said, I don't know. I couldn't hear very well, and I had to act as though I wasn't involved, but as I ordered coffee and took little glances in "Prudence's" direction, I examined the face of the lady. Where had I seen it before? It was relatively young, but was creased and shadowed with unhappiness. The eyes were nervous. As she spoke, she twisted her hands and snapped her knuckles, and "Prudence", though writing feverishly, was watching her with interest.
"Coffee, sir?" a waiter's voice intruded upon my conversation, and after a brief moment of surprise I ordered some. By then, "Prudence" was doing some talking, and the lady was answering. Then more writing. It looked like an interesting conversation.
I hoped it wouldn't last too long, for I had a feeling that I'd soon be expected to buy a meal, but as I finished sipping the last dregs of my coffee, "Prudence" rose to her feet and shook the lady's hand. They were through. The customary bows and goodbyes, and then the lady pressed by me with a waft of perfume, squeezed around an entering party, and was quickly gone.
Mer-cy me!" breathed Ariel in awe, her little scarved head bobbing merrily. "Oh, Gregory, I felt just like a real spy!"
"Me too," I replied. "But you must tell me everything you learned."
Her merriment dimmed as she looked at her papers, as though they weren't particularly exciting. "Well, some of it we knew," she said matter-of-factly, shrugging. "But there are a few other things we didn't."
Her demeanor confused me. "You don't seem very excited, Signori...er, Ariel."
"Oh, no, I'm...excited," she insisted, but her tone was like someone insisting that brown checkered socks were precisely what they wanted for Christmas. "Here, we'll walk along, and I'll tell you about it."
The streetlamps were being lit as the two of us left the restaurant and headed down the sidewalk. I still see the sight, even to this very day: the dusk was falling across the street and misting over the windows, and the flames cast little pools of light that gleamed on the coats of the horse teams and glistened in Ariel's eyes. It was an evening when you felt as though everything could be made right somehow. I don't even understand what I'm trying to say.
Anyhow, Ariel dove right into what she'd learned, though she didn't look at me when she said it.
"First of all, the lady used to work in the Opera Populaire as a janitor lady, but she was always interested in the Opera Ghost and did all sorts of prying. Rather like us!"
"Ah. She is Sherlock too."
"Eh? Oh, yes, of course. Sherlock." Ariel momentarily lost momentum but went on. "Well, anyhow, she actually got to go into the Opera Ghost's lair, and took a lot of his things. His writings."
"Like a diary?"
"Sort of." Her voice grew increasingly disinterested; it was strange. "She told me lots of things about its contents."
Here she stopped, and I had to encourage her to go on. "Well? Tell me!"
"It turns out that the Opera Ghost wanted Christine to be famous because he loved her. He had loved her and her voice for a long time. He loved her so much that it became twisted; he murdered and destroyed anything that got in her way. He even almost destroyed her when she turned away from him. His love was that intense."
"Go on, go on!"
She swallowed. "She also told me that his lair was filled with amazing inventions. He was interested in robotics, little things, alternate modes of travel, coins, styles of buildings, Persian motifs..."
"And?"
She stopped walking and murmured, almost hopelessly, "And he had an automaton of her behind a curtain."
And in that moment I understood why she was not happy. Rather than present evidence to the contrary, this lady's information had essentially confirmed that Mr. Y was the Opera Ghost. How much more similar could the two be? The inventions, the interests, the appearance, the same knack for making Christine Daae automatons! One could not possibly draw a different conclusion.
"And so that ends our research, doesn't it?" I said.
Her eyes watered in despair for a moment, but then, all at once, they hardened, as if a winter gale had suddenly frozen them. She kept walking, and said nothing, looking like a lost little stranger in her borrowed costume.
I was dumbfounded. Denial? Even now? I could've grabbed her shoulders and screamed in her face, I was so mad, but instead, I ignored it and moved on to what Alf had requested I do.
"Ariel," I said. "Your Daddy is worried about you."
That snapped her out of it. "Daddy?"
"Yes, him. He says you're acting funny, and he asked me to see if I can't figure it out. That is what I intend to do. And do not tell me nothing, or I am going to be very mad with you."
I did not like to be so stern, but I'd had enough of all this wondering.
"When did Daddy talk to you?"
"Today. And now, you must tell me the truth."
Standing there, she seemed to become smaller, and her eyes were scared. "Now?"
"Yes," I insisted, still very stern. "Right this minute."
Nearby was a bench, and after a few moments of frightened silence, she gestured to it. We both sat down.
"Okay, now we are sitting. Now you tell me."
In hindsight, I wish I hadn't talked so severely to her, but it did work. After one more trembling silence, she twiddled her Mama's ring and said, in a feeble voice, "I have been feeling very bad lately because..."
"Go on."
"Because I don't know what I am anymore."
Two big tears gathered in her eyes, but they did not fall. Ah, now we were getting somewhere at last. I dug out my hanky.
"You don't know what you are anymore? Why, Ariel?"
She took my hanky and wiped her eyes. "I feel like I'm living a double life. In the mornings and evenings, I'm Ariel. Plain Ariel. Nothing special. And then I put on my makeup and I'm Mr. Y's Miss Fleck, and I'm...different! I'm this other person. Nobody can see me. I feel as though my body doesn't belong to me anymore. It's just a thing to be used."
This was very troubling talk; I had not expected it.
"Your body doesn't belong to you?" I remembered the hickey. "What do you mean? Somebody hurting it?"
"No, not hurting it."
"Then what do you mean when you say it's a 'thing to be used'? That sounds very bad." I looked at her very seriously. "Ariel, if any man is trying to coerce you into anything, you cannot allow it, no matter who he is. You must tell me, and I will beat his ass."
My swearing surprised her for a moment, then she said, "There is no man, Gregory."
"You promise?"
She looked like she meant it. "I do. But, dear..." She grabbed my arm and drew close, "It seems as though all the world loves Miss Fleck, but they don't know Ariel. Miss Fleck is this fake dream, someone Mr. Y invented. Ariel is real, but no one was ever amazed by her. She's not special."
Something in the way she said that brought me back to the terrible night, ten years ago, when she tried to kill herself. There was that same despair, the same feeling that there was nothing inherently loveable or special in her. It hurt me.
"No one is amazed? What about me, eh?" Love, the love that would not let me go, it came rushing into my veins as I looked at her. "I am amazed by you."
And in that moment, looking into the watery greeness of her eyes, so much like a child's, I really was amazed by her, amazed at how, even now, I could love her this desperately. Even with Maria and Giovanni on the brink of taking me back to Italy, Ariel could still reduce me to this awestruck, starry-eyed pilgrim.
Something seemed to suddenly make sense to her in that moment, as she looked at me.
"I have always thought you were special, Ariel," I said, and when I looked at her ring, I felt compelled to add, "And your Mama did too, didn't she?"
At that, she wiped her eyes again.
"Oh, Gregory," she mourned. "That's the most painful part of all. She's gone."
"You've been missing her a lot lately?"
The grief in her voice was awful to hear. "Yes." She wiped her eyes yet again. "Almost more than when she actually died."
"More?" I hugged her, wondering how that could be. "That must be terrible. How long have you felt this bad, Ariel?"
"A long time."
"Why haven't you told anybody? Your Dad?"
"I thought I'd get over it," she sniffed. "And Daddy doesn't need to be burdened with my issues. He's sick. In fact, nobody needs to be. I don't want to bring sadness to everyone."
"Missing a mama is something that is hard to get over." I spoke from personal experience. "It is a hard thing to admit, but if you let sadness go on and on, it turns into anger, or something worse. I wish you would let me help you."
She kept hugging, a sad little bird shivering in the cold. I felt bad at the way I had insisted she tell me this sad news.
"I'm sorry for forcing you to tell me like this, but your Daddy..."
"No, no, I don't blame you." She sat up a little. "And I'll be the one to tell him. I won't get you tangled up in all our family problems. But, but...I'll tell you, Gregory, sometimes I just feel that all the people who love me are either dead, or sick, or...leaving somehow."
It was as though we were in that tunnel again, the one under the Ayrie, and she was telling me she didn't want me to go. I couldn't resist her.
"Well, I'm still here, no?"
For a long, wonderful moment, she looked at me, her face trembling, and then she smoothed her hand across my cheek, and pressed her lips against mine. Those lips! So soft and little! My heart leapt. For a moment she hesitated, and then she leaned in and deepened our kiss. I tell you, it was so wonderful that I could've cried.
And then, as abruptly as she'd kissed me, she stopped.
"Gregory," she breathed, blushing.
I was all ears. "What?"
She looked into my eyes. "I... made you curtains."
My lips felt numb, as did my brain and all my major mental faculties, as I looked at her. "Cur...tains, Ariel?"
"Yes." She stood up, and extended her hand, and the lamplight brought a tender beauty to her flushed face. "Let's go back, and I'll...fetch them for you."
That was one weird walk back, let me tell you what, but it was not an unpleasant one. And she actually did make me curtains. Knitted ones. Even had lace on them, though not enough lace to make me flustered. I hung them up that very evening. As I lay in bed, watching how the stars peeked through the clever little yarn-over pattern, I remembered her kiss, and what a funny -and maddeningly confusing- little woman Ariel was.
(Gangle ends the story for now.)
Notes From Authoress:
1. Woot! We're headin' for the end! More twists n' turns to come. Next chapter (Fleck's) will also be slightly shorter than normal, like this one, then there will be "One-Armed Angel Part III" and then the "LND storyline" kicks in. Then back to Mr. Whittington, then the END!
2. This is the longest ANYTHING I've ever written. 120,000+ words? Where'd my life go?
3. I named this chapter "Curtains" because I had no idea what else to call it.