Illyria (5 page)

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"No," I said. "I can't sing."

Mr. Sullivan shrugged. "Hey, singing isn't everything." He smiled again.

Aunt Kate touched his arm. "You go on in. I need to talk with Maddy for a minute."

"Nice to meet you, Maddy," he said, and went into the carriage house.

"Come with me," my aunt said. "I left some things in the car."

I went with her into the garage beneath the carriage house, where her red Mustang was parked. She opened the back of the car, reached in, and handed me a bag from Gristede's, then gathered her purse and another grocery bag. "Just bring that up for me, thanks. Did you have dinner yet?"

"Yeah, with Rogan and everybody."

Aunt Kate wrinkled her nose. "Roast chicken?"

"It was good."

"It's the only thing they ever eat."

"They have turkey at Thanksgiving."

Aunt Kate sighed. "That's just a big chicken."

We walked out of the garage and climbed the rickety stairway up to the carriage house door. In the uppermost window shone the ghost light that my aunt kept burning, day or night. Above Fairview a full moon was just beginning to rise. Aunt Kate stopped, halfway up the steps, and looked at me.

"Listen, Maddy. I have something to tell you. I got tickets to take you and Rogan to see
Two Gentlemen of Verona"

I looked at her blankly. "Who?"

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"The play," she said. "By Shakespeare. A musical version; it's supposed to be very good."

"A play?"

"Yes. A play. On Broadway. It's at the St. James Theatre. Your birthdays are next week, I thought this would be fun."

I had never seen a play. Neither had Rogan. Nor, as far as I know, had any of our siblings or cousins. There had always been trips to the city, for baseball games and the circus and the Thanksgiving Day Parade, Christmas windows at Macy's, Radio City Music Hall and the Rockettes, Easter Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

But a play?

"Really?" I said. "Me and Rogan?"

"Yes, really." She sounded angry. "And I haven't told your parents yet, so don't mention it until I've had the chance."

"I won't, I swear. Really?" I shook my head, then laughed. "I can't believe it."

"Neither can I."

She turned once more, her boots clattering up the stairs. At the top, she stopped again.

In the brilliant moonlight her face looked drawn, even gaunt. There were glints of silver at the roots of her sleek black hair. The beringed hands holding the Gristede's bag were crisscrossed with blue veins, and beneath the skin the bones of her fingers looked clawlike.

I had never before thought about how old she was, or even how she was related to me. She was a Tierney by birth. But she wasn't my father's sister, and she had never seemed old enough to be a great-aunt, like Aunt Margaret or Aunt Bella.

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But now she looked old. Not ancient; just worn and tired. And resolute.

"Thank you, Maddy." She set her bag down outside the door, then reached for mine. "We have tickets for next Friday. I'll talk to everyone over the weekend."

"What if they say no?"

"I'll kidnap you." She smiled. "But they won't. Just don't make a big deal out of it, all right?"

" They're
the ones who make a big deal out of it." I kicked at a step and looked back at Fairview. "Why? Why is it such a big goddamn deal? Why do they even care?"

Aunt Kate hesitated.

"They don't care," she finally said. "You know why? Because they have no talent. None of them--none of Madeline's children. Or, well, maybe they did, and she was just so vain and selfish she never encouraged any of them. She was insufferable. And once she stopped acting, all she cared about was money. After Rosco died, during the Depression--all she did was buy up real estate. Like it mattered--"

She gestured fiercely at Madeline's mansion. "As though any of this mattered. This--
stuff.
But that was all her children cared about. And when their children were born, your father and Richard and the rest, their parents never encouraged them, either. Rogan's father, Richard--he had a beautiful voice. Did you know that?"

I blinked in surprise. "No."

"Of course not." Aunt Kate laughed bitterly. "How would you? He never sang; it died on the vine. All those children, all those cousins-- just like you and all your cousins, Maddy--and there was Richard

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with this voice. I used to listen to him--he'd sing when he was in the bathroom, it was the only place anyone was ever alone. 'Where or When..."'

She rubbed her eyes. "He never knew I was there. And after a little while I never heard him sing again."

"Did they--do something to him?"

"No, of course not." She shrugged dismissively. "But talent--if you don't encourage it, if you don't train it, it dies. It might run wild for a little while, but it will never mean anything. Like a wild horse. If you don't tame it and teach it to run on a track, to pace itself and bear a rider, it doesn't matter how fast it is. It's useless. And this family?"

She crossed her arms and stared at Fairview. "They have no use for 'useless.' If you can't make money, forget it."

"But actors make money. Madeline was famous. People on Broadway--they make money."

"That's not what your father or your uncle would call money, Maddy. Chump change. But it's not the money that matters. They lost faith. Madeline lost faith, and so the rest of them never had any."

She turned to gaze to where the woods crept up against the edge of the lawn--thin birches and sumac and a few old elm trees, all leafless now and black against the violet sky--then lifted her face toward the moon.

"You could say there were religious differences," she said.

The door opened, and Mr. Sullivan peered out. "Do you need help bringing things in?"

Aunt Kate shook her head. "Thank you, Peter, no. We were just saying good-bye."

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She stepped inside with the groceries.

"I'll see you in a few weeks, Maddy," said Mr. Sullivan, and he closed the door.

I walked slowly back to my house. A light was on in Rogan's window, and I tried to hear his voice in my head, to will him to appear and sing.

But even in my imagination I couldn't give voice to anything that sounded like him. I reached the street and saw my own house, its windows bright and the television blaring from the living room, my mother calling upstairs to my sister. I pulled Rogan's jacket tight around me and went home.

***

ROGAN CALLED ME EARLY THE NEXT MORNING.

"I'm not gonna be around this weekend." He sounded bereft. "I have to go with my parents to see John at Holy Cross. We won't be back till tomorrow night."

"Oh, God." I stretched the phone cord as far as it would go and looked out the front window, down to his house. "Are you downstairs?"

"Yeah." There was a fitful motion in a dark window. "Can you see me?"

"Yeah." I told him about going to the theater with Aunt Kate. "You think they'll say yes?"

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"Yours probably will."

This was true. My parents' attitude in most things was one of benign neglect. Or perhaps it was just fatigue, spiking into occasional rages of guilt-fueled retribution for minor infractions, a bad grade, or the expression of an imprudent political view.

"Well, maybe she'll tell them first. That'd make it easier for you."

"Maybe." He sounded grim. "I gotta go. I'll call you when I get back."

I spent the day in a funk. The weather was glorious; my friend Nancy called to see if I wanted to go shopping but I said no. All I could think of was Rogan, all I
wanted
to think of was Rogan, and what we'd seen in the secret attic above Fairview. I paced the house, restless and angry, avoiding my mother (who would have put me to work) and picking fights with my sisters, until late afternoon when my father returned home from playing golf.

"I'm going to five o'clock Mass." He announced this every Saturday as though it were news. "Anyone want to come?"

"I will."

My father looked at me with mild surprise. Since Rogan had stopped singing in church, I attended the sloths' Mass at noon on Sunday. "Well, get ready," he said.

An idea had come to me. I sat in church and worked out the details, then rode home with my father.

"Rogan went with Uncle Richard and Aunt Pat to see John at college," I said.

My father looked absently out the car window. "Yes, I know." I made my voice sound as casual as possible. "Do you know if Michael and Thomas went?"

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"No, I don't, dear." My father frowned. "Well, yes, they might have. I think they did; I think Pat said they were going to stay with the Garlands."

I nodded, holding my breath in case he wondered why I'd asked. But he said nothing more.

Early Sunday morning my father went to play golf again. I slouched around the house till my mother and sisters left for church. Then I pulled on Rogan's jacket and hurried across the street to Fairview. I walked as quickly as I could down the drive, hoping I wouldn't run into my aunt. Not that she would have questioned why I was there, or cared.

But I didn't want to see anyone. I darted onto the porch, pulled open the great oaken front door, and slipped into the foyer, closing the door carefully behind me.

It was the first time I'd ever been in Fairview when no one was home. The rugs and old furniture made it look more like a shabby museum than a house where people lived. Golden sun streamed through the downstairs windows, but did nothing to warm the place. It was spooky and silent and cold. I felt uneasy, even frightened, with none of the exhilaration I felt when Rogan and I did something forbidden. I stood at the foot of the broad curved staircase, shivering, and watched my breath cloud the air.

"Hello?" I called out softly. No one was there.

I went upstairs. When I reached the third floor my anxiety faded somewhat, though as I walked into Rogan's room, I didn't feel the relief I'd expected. Without him, the old nursery looked impossibly, almost cruelly barren and sad. It was even colder than downstairs. There was a glass of water next to the unmade bed, a flashlight, a

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notebook I prodded with my foot. Rogan's school clothes were strewn across the floor, corduroy trousers and a new jacket, dirty socks and T-shirts.

I picked up a flannel shirt and brought it to my face. It smelled of Rogan, smoky, slightly acrid. It smelled warm. I removed my jacket and my own shirt, and pulled on his. I closed the door to his room, got the flashlight and turned it on, and went into the outer attic.

I stepped gingerly between cardboard boxes until I reached the back wall. I balanced the flashlight as best I could, then began to pull out the stack of cartons. Once or twice it nearly toppled onto me, and I swore under my breath until I could get everything back into place. Finally I moved the cartons enough that I could unlatch the hidden door and open it enough for me to slip inside. I pulled the door closed behind me and shone the flashlight across the narrow space.

Everything was as we'd left it, blankets in disarray and the few books scattered. The loose board hadn't budged. I leaned the flashlight against the door, knelt, and folded the blankets and stacked the books; retrieved the flashlight and turned it off, and sat cross-legged in the darkness.

Silence. I held my breath as long as I could, and listened. But there was still nothing.

"Rogan," I whispered.

I lay down on the blankets, pulled up the flannel shirt until it covered my face. I breathed in his scent, squeezed my eyes tightly shut even though there was nothing to see. I found the place where the blankets still smelled of us, murmured his name, and tried to bring back the sound of Rogan singing, his voice strung between us

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like the glimmering thread that stretched from Arden Terrace to the city. Only the faintest echo of it came to me; but when it did, there was an instant when I imagined I saw Rogan moving beneath me, darker even than the room, darker than anything; the shadow of the song.

I shuddered and lay without moving, my tear-streaked face pressed against his shirt. Minutes passed. I listened to my heartbeat slow. Then I heard another sound.

It was the same rhythmic tapping I'd heard the other day with Rogan, the same oddly surging whistle, like wind or waves. I pulled my shirt down, wriggled forward until I could touch the wall. I pried my fingers under the board until it came loose, set it down, and looked through the opening.

At first I thought my vision was blurred. The toy theater was exactly where I'd last seen it--perhaps four inches from the wall, lit by those same unearthly footlights.

But now the stage seemed distorted and unsteady, as if it were underwater. I rubbed my eyes, squinting to get a better view, then sucked my breath in.

Snow was falling. Not everywhere. Only behind the proscenium, on the tiny stage itself.

Not real snow. Fake snow.

And not white but silver and palest blue, finer than any glitter I had ever seen, finer than salt or powder, like something that would flake from the most microscopic shining matter you could imagine: glitter's glitter. It sifted onto the stage floor and whirled in tiny eddies, as though stirred by tiny unseen feet, and where it fell too near the