From the Dust Returned

“Yes,” said Ann Leary. “I don’t know why, but I’ll go with you tonight, Tom.”

Now inside, quick! cried Cecy. Wash, tell your folks, get your gown, into your room!

“Mother,” said Ann, “I’ve changed my mind!”

The car was roaring down the pike, the rooms of the farmhouse jumped to life, water was churning the bath, the mother was rushing about with a fringe of hairpins in her mouth. “What’s come over you, Ann? You don’t like Tom!”

“True.” Ann stopped amidst the great fever.

But it’s farewell summer! thought Cecy. Summer back before the winter comes.

“Summer,” said Ann. “Farewell.”

Fine for dancing, thought Cecy.

“… dancing,” murmured Ann Leary.

Then she was in the tub and the soap creaming on her white seal shoulders, small nests of soap beneath her arms, and the flesh of her warm breasts moving in her hands and Cecy moving the mouth, making the smile, keeping the actions going. There must be no pause, or the entire pantomime might fall in ruins! Ann Leary must be kept moving, doing, acting, wash here, soap there, now out!

“You!” Ann caught herself in the mirror, all whiteness and pinkness like lilies and carnations. “Who are—?”

A girl seventeen. Cecy gazed from her violet eyes. You can’t see me. Do you know I’m here?

Ann Leary shook her head. “I’ve loaned my body to a last-of-summer witch, for sure.”

Close! laughed Cecy. Now, dress!

The luxury of feeling fine silk move over an ample body! Then the halloo outside.

“Ann, Tom’s back!”

“Tell him, wait.” Ann sat down. “I’m not going to that dance.”

“What?” cried her mother.

Cecy snapped to attention. It had been a fatal moment of leaving Ann’s body for an instant. She had heard the distant sound of the car rushing through moonlit country and thought, I’ll find Tom, sit in his head and see what it’s like to be in a man of twenty-two on a night like this. And so she had started quickly down the road, but now, like a bird to a cage, flew back to clamor in Ann’s head.

“Ann!”

“Tell him to leave!”

“Ann!”

But Ann had the bit in her mouth. “No, no, I hate him!”

I shouldn’t have left—even for a moment. Cecy poured her mind into the hands of the young girl, into the heart, into the head, softly, softly. Stand up, she thought.

Ann stood.

Put on your coat!

Ann put on her coat.

March!

“No!”

March!

“Ann,” said her mother, “get on out there. What’s come over you?”

“Nothing, Mother. Good night. We’ll be home late.”

Ann and Cecy ran together into the vanishing summer night.

A room full of softly dancing pigeons ruffling their quiet, trailing feathers, a room full of peacocks, a room full of rainbow eyes and lights. And in the center of it, around, around, around, danced Ann Leary.

Oh, it is a fine evening, said Cecy.

“Oh, it’s a fine evening,” said Ann.

“You’re odd,” said Tom.

The music whirled them in dimness, in rivers of song; they floated, they bobbed, they sank, they rose for air, they gasped, they clutched each other as if drowning and whirled on in fans and whispers and sighs to “Beautiful Ohio.”

Cecy hummed. Ann’s lips parted. The music came out.

Yes, odd, said Cecy.

“You’re not the same,” said Tom.

“Not tonight.”

“You’re not the Ann Leary I knew.”

No, not at all, at all, whispered Cecy, miles and miles away. “No, not at all,” said the moved lips.

“I’ve the funniest feeling,” said Tom. “About you.” He danced her and searched her glowing face, watching for something. “Your eyes, I can’t figure it.”

Do you see me? asked Cecy.

“You’re here, Ann, and you’re not.” Tom turned her carefully, this way and that.

“Yes.”

“Why did you come with me?”

“I didn’t want to,” said Ann.