The Splendour Falls (3 page)

John sounded amused. ‘That could have been grim, if you'd experimented on a house cat or something.'

‘No kidding.' He watched, obviously curious, as I lowered myself on one leg, sliding my cast out to the side. I was still impressively limber, and I think the Vicodin was starting to work, making me feel loose in body, and in mind. Because I didn't know why else I was telling him this, or why I was even going through these motions.

‘I came up with this sort of spell of my own.' Working my fingers through the webbing of grass roots, into
the sod, I made a little hole. ‘If there was something important that I wanted to take root, metaphorically speaking, I would plant it. Like this.'

I dropped the boutonniere – a miniature calla lily that echoed the big ones in Mother's bouquet – into the ground.

‘That's kind of sweet,' said John. ‘I thought you hated my dad.'

With a sigh of reluctant admission, I folded the sod over the lump of the flower. ‘I can't hate anyone who seems to be making my mother happy.'

John laughed. ‘Now I know you're drunk.'

I chuckled slightly, mostly at my own whimsy. He must be right. I was never whimsical. Not since The Accident.

Still squatting on one leg, I laid both palms on the bump in the grass and pressed it down. A tingle ran up my arms and back down again. I seemed to see – or sense, rather – a wave rippling out from under my hands, like I'd dropped a rock in a pond.

The world tilted, off-kilter for a moment, and I lost my balance, my arms windmilling to catch myself. I fell onto my butt and things righted themselves with a thump. ‘Whoa.'

‘Nice one, Sylvie.' John bent to pick me up under the arms. ‘Way to use that dancer's grace.'

I was too flabbergasted to retort. ‘Did you see that?'

‘What?' he asked, setting me carefully back on my feet. ‘Your magic spell?'

My mouth opened to say ‘Yes!' when I realized that
he was being sarcastic. Because magic spells were crazy. And I was just superstitious. And probably drunk.

‘I don't feel so good.' My stomach fluttered and twisted, though the dizziness came and went.

‘I'm not surprised.'

The cabbie honked his horn. John turned and marched me – figuratively speaking, hobbled as I was by the cast and all – back to the taxi. He had the big-brother thing down. I wasn't sure I liked it, but at that moment, I wasn't sure I didn't.

‘My shoe,' I said, when my bare left foot hit the pavement.

He grumbled but made sure I had my feet under me before heading back for it with a curt ‘Stay here.'

Of course I didn't. I limped past the taxi, to the other side of the bridge. In the wintertime, I would have been able to see clearly to the Great Lawn – the big swath of level ground where, during the day, dogs would chase Frisbees and kids would play baseball. It was May, so my view was interrupted by the new foliage, but not blocked like it would be in summer. That, plus the moon and the ambient light from the city, left me frowning at the scene.

John came up behind me again. ‘Hey. I thought you were going to get in the cab.'

‘I was, but …' The vista wavered as I stared. ‘Are they doing some sort of historical reenactment?'

‘What are you talking about?'

I pointed through the trees. ‘The village of cardboard lean-tos out on the lawn.' I tried to remember the last time I'd been in this area of the park. I'd been
lost in self-pity for a while, but this was something even I would have noticed.

John glanced towards the lawn, his brows drawn in confusion. ‘You mean, like a Hooverville? The ones built during the Depression?'

That was what I meant, but I didn't understand his confusion. Then I realized, he didn't see it. But the people who moved through the tumbled huts cast shadows in the moonlight. I could see the glimmer of a lantern, hear the crackle of a campfire. The evening chill carried the damp-earth smell of cooking turnips and the mournful whistle of someone trying to cheer himself up after another long day of fruitless searching for work.

I stared at the shades in the twilight, all silhouette and gloom, and the trees around me swayed. No … that was me. I was swaying. Was this what being wasted felt like? I was dizzy and confused and somewhat judgement-impaired, but I still felt in control of my faculties. Certainly not so far gone as to be hallucinating in Central Park.

‘Sylvie.' John caught me by both shoulders and bent to look into my eyes, blocking my view of the town and the sad people in it. ‘Level with me. How much did you have to drink?'

‘Just some champagne and …' I stopped before mentioning the Vicodin. Or, maybe more important, before confessing that I was seeing images he wasn't, some strange five-senses film reel from one of the Park's major moments. And while this seemed surreal but reasonable to me in my buzzed state, I could see
where such a confession could lead to a seventy-twohour hold for observation at some nice private hospital upstate and away from gossip.

Drunk was better than crazy, and as John's face dipped and swam in front of me, I wasn't faking anything when I answered, ‘Maybe more than
some.
I lost track.'

He blew a short strand of hair off his forehead. ‘Great.'

Darkness crawled in from the edges of my vision. ‘I think I'm going to pass out.' Considering how my brain was whirling, my voice sounded weirdly matterof-fact. I had to warn him, because he was going to have to catch me. ‘Don't tell your dad, OK?'

My knees went limp just as he pulled my arm across his shoulders. ‘I won't.'

He'd been so nice to me that I actually believed him. But I'd forgotten: shrinks always stick together.

A
growl brought me back to the present; Gigi had discovered her reflection in the mirror. I heard the toilet flush, and figured I'd better make an exit before Cruella de Vil came out of the stall.

Besides, I'd procrastinated long enough. Cousin Paula might be the type to send airport security to look for me. The public story was that I was visiting my father's family to give Mother and Steve a chance to honeymoon and set up house. But I didn't doubt for a moment that the stepshrink had told Dad's cousin that
I was some kind of teen-starlet substance-abuse cliché, and needed ‘special handling' while I ‘worked through some things'. Which was Upper West Side speak for ‘sobered up'.

I checked my reflection – a matter of habit before going onstage – smoothing back a few pieces of mousy brown hair that had slipped from my bun, checking my teeth for lip gloss. My skin was pale and the fluorescent lighting emphasized the purple shadows under my eyes.Lovely.

My eyes continued downward, over my girly T-shirt and jeans. They were a little loose; I'd kept the weight off, even though I'd never have to worry about lifts again. Just to delay leaving, I moved my sweater from tied around my waist to draped over my shoulders, not because I was cold, but because the pale pink colour made my face look less like the walking dead. It was all about the costuming.

‘In the bag, Gigi.' The dog obediently tucked her front paws into the carrier. Feeling rebellious, I let her ride with her head sticking out so she could watch the world go by. At least one of us should be having fun.

By the time I reached baggage claim, the arrivals had thinned out. I cast my eye over the remaining people, looking for Paula. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure I could pick her out of a lineup, let alone a crowd.

I didn't see anyone searching for me, so I headed for the baggage carousel. Unlike Dad's cousin, my fuchsia suitcase was easy to spot. No porters, though. I scanned the area, trying to look like a big tipper, but realized I was on my own.

Switching Gigi to my right shoulder for counter-balance, I grabbed the handle of my suitcase as it came by. The trick was keeping the majority of my weight on my left foot; the orthopaedic surgeon had declared my right leg healed – finally – but its muscles were still weak. I had physical therapy exercises to do while I was here, and a referral to a Montgomery specialist if I had any trouble. I didn't intend to have any trouble that required a specialist. Not for my leg,
or
my head.

I managed to lever the suitcase onto the edge of the carousel, and stood in an uncomfortable arabesque while I tried to figure out how to pull it down without knocking my good leg out from under me. That would be an awkward headline:
Ex-ballerina flattened by actual baggage. Overdose of irony suspected.

‘Careful there.' The masculine voice startled me, but not nearly as much as the arm that wrapped around me, bracing the heavy suitcase. My normal instinct – the one that told me when someone was coming up behind me, the one that told me to scream ‘fire' instead of ‘rape' if someone grabbed me – all short-circuited with a tangible fizzle so strong that I was surprised I didn't smell smoke.

My inhale of alarm carried in a whiff of herbal soap, but it was the scent of clean air and damp earth that filled my head and took me to a strange place, so I seemed to be simultaneously standing in an airport in Alabama and someplace wild and wet and green. The only constants were the steadying arms around me, and the feeling that my heart was going to beat out of my chest with anticipation, or fear, or both.

It was dizzying, unnerving, like confusing a memory with a dream. For an instant – the nanosecond between information coming in and my brain processing it – I was certain that if I turned round, I would
know
this guy.

My heart squeezed with real fear then, at the thought that reality was going slippery on me. Again. But before panic could do more than flex its claws, the moment ended. The eerie feeling of recognition vanished, leaving just a perfectly normal rush of
Wow, someone smells really nice
in its wake.

A calloused hand covered mine on the suitcase handle. ‘I have it. You can let go.'

I couldn't place the accent. Not the expected drawl, but a rounded, liquid slurring of syllables. Vaguely British, but too soft to be Scots or Irish. A tiny echo of remembrance tingled down my neck, but that might have merely been the musical inflection of his voice so close to my ear.

Belatedly, I snatched back my hand and took a discreet step out of the way while he, whoever he was, got the luggage under control. I covered, hopefully, my lapse in composure by checking on Gigi – who had prudently retreated into her carrier during the suitcase wrangle.

I can be very pragmatic about personal space. Doing lifts and holds with a partner, you don't have the luxury of modesty. I'd probably had more guys' hands on my no-touch zones than any other virgin in America. Yet there I was, flustered and blushing, tingles zipping over every point where our bodies had touched.
This, at least, was normal, even if it wasn't exactly normal for me.

Jeez, Sylvie! Stop being such a
girl. He could be hideous, or old, or have three eyes. And it wouldn't matter, because he was a random Good Samaritan whom I would never see again.

‘Sylvie Davis?'

Or he might be a stalker. A crazed ballet-fan stalker. Stranger things had happened. It figured they would happen to me. It had been that kind of year.

‘Hello? Miss?'

Gigi prairie-dogged up from her bag to acknowledge the greeting. I steeled myself and turned, clamping the carrier securely against my side in case I had to run.

A tall young man stood holding my suitcase. Not hideous. Not old. The normal number of eyes, at least where I could see. They were unusual, though, an earthy sort of green that darkened around the edge of the iris. His hair was brown, curling where it touched the top of his ears and the edge of his rugby collar. His face was handsomely chiselled, with the clean, symmetrical lines of classical art. The Romantic period – strong brow, straight nose, firm jaw. Gainsborough, maybe. There was a rustic look to the fall of his hair and in the way his cheeks and nose had been painted warm by the sun.

He didn't look much older than me; I guessed twenty or so, the same age as John the fink. But much more … just
more.

‘You
are
Sylvie Davis, yes?' He waved a hand
in front of my face. Gigi lunged playfully, a mile off the mark, but the stranger drew back his hand anyway.

I blinked, and shut my gaping mouth. It was a little harder to get my thoughts back into line.

‘Do I know you?' It was a rhetorical question. Momentary weirdness aside, I knew I would have remembered if I'd met him before.

‘No.' The word was blunt, but not unfriendly. ‘I'm Rhys. Rhys Griffith.' He pronounced it like ‘Reese', but with a tiny flip of the
r.
‘Your cousin Paula sent me in to fetch you.'

I hardly knew Paula, but that didn't seem right. I was ‘kin', after all. ‘Is there something wrong?'

He smiled, slightly. Apparently I was easier to read than I liked to think. ‘She's waiting with the car in the loading zone. Not to worry.'

That was more in keeping with the woman I'd spoken with, albeit briefly, on the phone. It didn't explain this guy, however.

‘Is it only the one case?' he asked, while I tried to fix my mental bearings.

‘No. There's a smaller one for the dog.' I pointed out Gigi's suitcase on the conveyer belt, and he grabbed it and set it down in front of me, giving my brain a chance to catch up a bit.

‘How did you recognize me?' I asked.

He looked me over, teasing, I think. ‘Skinny girl, hair wound up tight in a bun, posture like the Queen of England? There's really no mistaking you, Miss Prima Ballerina.'

Now
my native suspicions kicked in, and I narrowed my eyes. ‘How do I know Paula really sent you?'

‘She said you'd be prickly, and likely too stubborn to admit you needed help with your baggage because of your leg.'

I tightened my jaw – stubbornly. ‘The whole world knows I broke my leg.'