Mist upon the Marsh: The Story of Nessa and Cassie (9 page)

But then came her voice again, lowered to an angry hiss on the opposite side of the door: “Curse it all, Nessa! Let me
in!”

Nessa voiced a low growl.

“What are you playing at?” whispered Dechtire. “Do you have any idea what your mother will do, if she finds out what
you’re
doing in there?”

Nessa went to the door, balanced herself upon her hind legs, and swatted at the lock with her paws. This to no avail, she lowered her mouth to it, and twisted it in her teeth. Finally it let loose, and she backed away from the door.

Dechtire started to push the door open, talking all the while. “I’ll tell you, Nessa,” she said, “I just –”

When she had come into the room, and dropped her eyes upon Nessa, she gave a short gasp; and threw the door shut behind her. “What
are
you doing?” she asked.

Nessa snarled.

“You put yourself right, this instant!”

Another growl.

Dechtire’s face changed; and she took a hesitant step towards Nessa, whereafter she knelt down on the floor, so that she might look into her face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Nessa stepped forward, and put her paw into Dechtire’s hand. She whined softly.

“Can
you change back?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, dear,” said Dechtire, gaining her feet anxiously. “Oh, my. What are we going to do?”

Nessa cocked her head to one side, as if to offer the assurance that she had already thought of
that;
and had come to no conclusion at all.

“I must tell your mother,” said Dechtire, moving quickly towards the door. “We need her help.”

With every ounce of speed she possessed, Nessa darted to position herself between Dechtire and the door, and thus block her departure. She shook her head, and growled.

“Then what in the world am I to do?” asked Dechtire. “I can’t
leave
you like this.”

Again, Nessa growled; as if to say, that Dechtire most certainly could.

Dechtire shook a finger in her face. “I am coming back in one hour,” she said. “If you’ve not put yourself right by then, I shall go straight to Dahro.”

Nessa moved aside in concession, and allowed Dechtire to depart from the room. When the door was shut fast, she rose up once more, to turn the lock in her teeth.

~

All that next hour, Nessa’s eyes were the constant companions of the clock. She paced restlessly, and fell down onto her side several times, so far did she strain herself in the endeavour to shift. By nine-thirty, she was lying panting upon the floor, having thoroughly given up on herself. She anticipated gloomily the return of Dechtire, and the inevitable coming of her mother and father, who would no doubt call all the elder occupants of the house to her quarters, to join them in the activity of looking upon her, and sharing in their mystification.

And yet, the cure came as suddenly as had the affliction. In the final minutes left to her before Dechtire’s arrival, she felt her muscles expand and extend with no order from herself, and looked down to see her own body, free of any and all traces of fur.

She rose quickly, and dressed herself from the pile of fallen clothes by the window. Then she laid herself down upon the bed, feeling indescribably worn and drained, and incapable of any sort of further movement at all. When finally came the sound of Dechtire’s fist upon the door, she nearly cried with the realisation that she had not undone the lock, and hurled herself across the room so as to admit her caller.

After the door had been opened, she returned upon lame legs to the bed. There she threw herself down, and looked helplessly to Dechtire, unable to flee in evasion of her questions.

Dechtire dropped down beside her. “And would you like to tell me what all of
that
was about?” she said testily.

“I don’t know,” said Nessa.

“You don’t
know?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, that is simply unacceptable.”

“I suppose that’s too bad.”

“And
I
suppose that you would have me say nothing?”

“I would.”

Dechtire sighed. “And I suppose I shall comply.”

“How agreeable of you.”

Here, Dechtire narrowed her eyes; and Nessa was assured that her compliance contained no manner of friendship or goodwill. “I don’t mean to help you,” she said harshly. “If I meant to do
that,
then I should go this instant to your parents. I mean only, Nessa, to remedy the terrible effect that you have been having upon this house. Do you not know that this is a happy time? There is happiness all about you – and you should be
happy,
damn you!”

Nessa spread her hands in admission, but did not apologise.

It seemed that Dechtire was growing quickly upset; and as her face contorted in a sort of rage, a thick scar above her eyebrow (granted her by Arog) twisted and furled like a pale snake.

“For a month,” she said, “your shadow has hung over us all. You think we do not see it? Oh, we see it. I see it, your brother sees it; your mother sees it, your father sees it; poor Orin sees it! Why do you hurt him so?”

Nessa turned her face away.

Dechtire threw up her hands, and rose from the bed. “I’ll not bring another of your problems into this house,” she said. “Not now. Not after all you’ve done.”

With a look of contempt that cut to shreds any part of Nessa’s heart which was not already ruined, Dechtire turned upon her heel, and fled from the room; leaving nothing behind her but the resounding echo of the slamming door.

Chapter
XI:

The S
tar

A
fter Dechtire had gone, Nessa found that she no longer knew what to feel. Her sentiments, of course, had not changed at all; but she was beginning to think that perhaps it was all her own doing, all a disaster of her own creation. For, surely, it made much more sense that she was wrong, and all others were right; rather than to continue to believe that she was right, and all others were wrong.

Unable to bear even a moment more of the lonely silence, she went to her window, and propped it open. She was on the second storey; and considering the size of the house, it was no small distance from the ground. Yet she propelled herself out of the window, and with near unmatched agility, scaled down the side of the house.

She had not, however, left unprepared. There was the ongoing formulation of a thin sort of plot, held lightly inside her mind; and before she dropped out of the window, she readied herself a small bag, which contained a set of clothes, a pair of shoes, and her Turin. She wore nothing, as she stood in the cool evening grass; but this time, she had no trouble at all commanding the changing of her shape, and so fell a moment later onto all fours, and took the bag up in her mouth. She started, then, towards the tree-line, which she intended to follow as near as she could to the fork at Junction Road. From there, she would slip through the shadows to the underbrush at the West-hand of the road – and run it all the way to Wiley’s Diner.

~

She knew not entirely what she was doing; for, as mentioned, her design was as of yet unfinished, and had not been clear to begin with. So she only went on with what she had come to decide fully upon, and ran with the light of the moon upon the grass, to her left; and the shadows of the darkness through the trees, to her right. She came quickly to the three-way junction, and dashed to her place on the appropriate side of the road, so as to continue on the remainder of her journey unseen.

Quick as she was, the entire distance was completed in a shorter space of time than it would have done, were she to be driving that unreliable, unresponsive, disrespectful heap of metal, which suffered her further not even to be painted in a singular colour. There was a warm and pleasant wind created by her prodigious speed, which whipped all round her ears. She felt a portion of her despondency begin to drift away, upon that gracious wind; and so was in much improved spirits, as she darted into the open field which would open up behind the diner, and thence leave her a clear pathway to her objective. Full of shadows, most thankfully, was this field, and she delved into perhaps the deepest part of them, some half a mile from the diner itself, to change her shape, and dress herself carefully. Her bag, emptied of its contents and having served its full purpose (and threatening perhaps to lend her something of a conspicuous air), she threw down to the ground, to lie lonely for some indeterminate length of time.

Taking care to ascertain that her pathway was clear of ears and eyes, so that her strange appearance from behind the building might not be noticed, she rounded the diner, and mounted the concrete walk that stretched towards the entrance. This she followed to its end, and passed through said entrance, with so very much silence and grace, that she sincerely doubted her arrival to be perceived by anyone. These two elements she continued to impose upon her movements, as she took a seat at the end of the full counter. Her own stool, at the counter’s extreme right-end, was the last to be had; for all the others were full of both truck drivers and gloomy-looking men (the latter of which could be said to constitute the greater part of the former category, and indeed not even to be a group within itself), the rigs and vehicles of which occupied the sand-filled lot at the left-hand of the diner. Some drank coffee, and feasted upon suppers consisting solely of breakfast foods; the sort of suppers of which some people tend to be so fond. Some drank bottles of pop, and scarfed down in rather an animal-like fashion plates full of hamburgers and French fries. Some, however, had nothing but a small cluster of shot-glasses before them, emptied of whatever strong liquor seemed to be hid there beneath the counter, specifically for their own benefit.

Nessa sat in rather a hunched fashion, beside a very large man in a red cap, who was occupied with a specimen of the aforementioned, thoroughly American meal of dead-cow-over-round-bread. On her opposite hand, atop the counter, sat a large glass box filled with doughnuts and pies, which hid her quite as effectually as did the red-capped fellow. Positioned advantageously as she was, she glanced furtively about the diner, searching for a sight of her objective. There, she saw the blue-haired waitress. There, she saw the waitress from whose mouth flew angry woodpeckers. The mousy-haired waitress was not to be seen; and Nessa took this to mean, that perhaps what she wished to see, was not there to be seen, either.

A front of heavy disappointment was just beginning to set in, when there came the awaited voice to greet her ears, sounding quite as sweetly and clearly as the soft chime of a bell. From the left, it came; and Nessa turned a little in that direction, so as to peer past the bulk of the red-capped man, and lay her eyes upon the waitress named Cassie. There she stood, shining brightly as a star under the harsh lights of the lamps; there she stood, with sweet voice chiming still as that perfect bell, repeatedly upon the air – to bring a smile not only to Nessa’s lips, but upon observation, also to the lips of all three young men to whom she was presently attending.

As Cassie turned away from the young men, and made her brisk way behind the counter, Nessa quickly averted her gaze, and concealed herself once again behind the red-capped man. Once, this man had turned to her, and proffered a smile and a wink which he no doubt considered quite charming; but upon Nessa’s baring her teeth at him, and calling forth a shadow into her black eyes, he looked away somewhat fearfully, and returned to his meal.

As Cassie conversed briefly with a man behind the serving station, and bestowed upon this man the most beautiful and radiant smile which Nessa could ever remember seeing, Nessa looked on almost greedily; eager for the sound of her voice, and the sparkle of her eyes; but unwilling to make her eagerness known. Yet finally the red-capped man finished his meal, and rose from the counter. He threw a bit of money down, and hurried away.

Then turned that smile, in mid-sparkle; and without the protective bulk of the red-capped man to cover her, Nessa was found out. She nearly expected the smile to falter, at the strange suspicion that it had been watched too intently – but no such thing occurred. It
seemed, instead, only to widen, and perhaps even to brighten. Glad of this turn of events, Nessa returned the smile as best she could, albeit somewhat weakly.

The mouth behind the smile offered a last line to the man in back of the serving station; and then started down the counter to Nessa. Nessa was filled with a fierce sort of panic – for in truth she had not anticipated this particular moment. This night, she had hoped only to watch, and to derive some small semblance of comfort from the watching; but she was faced now with the obligation of something more than that, and knew not how to act.

“Hello, Nessa.”

“I – it’s a – I – hello.”

“No brother here tonight?” asked Cassie. “Hiding again in the bathroom, maybe?”

Nessa laughed nervously. “He – I – he – no.”

Again came the sparkle; though perhaps, this time, it sparkled something at Nessa’s expense.

“Well, it’s nice to see you, anyhow,” said Cassie. “Can I get you something?”

Nessa only shook her head, thinking it much safer than attempting again to speak.

“Not a thing?”

Again, her head swished to and fro. It seemed that Cassie was preparing to say something else; but Nessa interrupted her with a third incoherent string.

“I – it’s a – I – goodbye.”

She leapt from the stool, and flashed no more slowly than a particularly elusive lightning bolt, out the door – down the concrete walk, and around the building once more.

She intended, of course, to employ her little bag, left alone till now in the dusty earth just past the grass of the field; had in fact even begun to unlace her shoes, when she was struck by a strong realisation. She had run alone all this way, so that she might gain something she desired. But so far she had gained nothing; and she decided that this was not enough. Therefore she crept again round the building, and settled down into the shadows beneath the eaves, to await the closing of the diner.

~

She lay in wait for some long minutes; and had in fact even begun to doze, when there came the sound of car doors slamming, in the parking lot beyond. So she scurried forth, and looked out into the lot, dark now with the light gone from the diner; and spotted the old black Pontiac, with its owner striding quickly towards it. She debated for thick seconds what she would do; and, just when she had decided to turn back into the shadows, she stepped out into the lot.

And yet, what with the darkness of the place, it was clear that Nessa would not be seen at all, if she did not give some sort of sign as to her presence. This fact brought about another fit of indecision; and, just when she had decided to keep her silence, and return to the blackness that dwelt beneath the eaves, so as to weep solitarily over the misery of the evening, augmented now by her failure to cheer herself with the inexplicably pleasant light of this bright new star, she stepped forward, and cleared her throat.

Doubtless, it would have been wiser to speak, and to make her voice known to Cassie; for, as it was, she left her in a state of fear and confusion, which no doubt
stemmed from an anticipation of some physical harm. And so she screamed; and the small, unmarked box which she held in her hands was nearly lost to the parking lot; and the occupant of the only other remaining vehicle, who just so happened to be that waitress, keeper of the woodpeckers, jumped back up to her feet; and Nessa leapt backwards, intending a quick return to the shadows in which she should have remained to begin with.

In that instant, however, a look of relief spread across the face of Cassie MacAdam; and she waved to the keeper of the woodpeckers, and assured her that all was well. The keeper peered in Nessa’s direction; and, upon viewing her, fixed her with rather an angry expression; but immediately afterwards settled back into her car, and drove away.

“What are you
doing?”
asked Cassie, stepping forth to meet the instigator of her alarm, with a hand over her so recently jolted heart. “Have you been sitting out here, all this time?”

“Not so long,” said Nessa, defending her own inexplicable behaviour in quite the best and briefest manner she knew how.

“But why?” persisted Cassie.

“I – it’s a – I – oh, no.”

Nessa dropped her face into her hands, thwarted again by her own inability to speak, this night before the brightness of this new star.

“Is everything all right?” asked Cassie, reaching out to lay a hand upon Nessa’s arm.

Nessa looked down at her hand, struck nearly insensible by its touch; but managed so far as to shake her head, accidentally; and then to nod quickly, in correction of the mistake. “Quite,” she added; though the word was hardly audible, so constricted was her throat.

“Were you waiting for me?” asked Cassie, with a hint of that familiar sparkle coming to play across her lips – amused, again, at poor Nessa’s expense.

“I – it’s a – I –” (She passed a hand over her face, to clear the confusion.) “What would you say, if I told you that I was?”

“I would say,” said Cassie, “that you should have just said that to begin with.”

“Should I have? Oh, well – perhaps I should have.”

Cassie crossed a single arm over the front of her pink uniform, necessary as the second arm was for the balancing of the box; and in so doing covered with her elbow her little blue nametag. “You told me you would come back,” she said; in a tone almost accusatory.

“I did,” said Nessa. “Or, I am.”

“What took you so long? I was beginning to think you’d forgotten.”

“Oh, no,” said Nessa. “I only – well, you know.”

And so Cassie smiled again; and gestured for Nessa to follow her, as she started towards the Pontiac. “Come on,” she said.

Nessa looked from the car, to the bag in her hand; and then tossed the bag back into the shadows whence she had reclaimed it. As she climbed into the passenger seat of the car, Cassie glanced round the parking lot, and asked, “Did you park your truck someplace else?”

“No.”

“Then how did you get here?”

“I – it’s a – I –” She sighed. “Never mind.”