Ширли Мерфи - The Grass Tower

This morning, yesterday, it had been so lovely, Ninea had been so eager with the newness of the village and the dunes; Bethany had seen her own world come alive all fresh through Ninea’s eyes, the dunes, the grass tower beckoning, alive with silver spider webs and dew-laden blades and with the scurryings of small animals. She had seen freshly, as Ninea saw, the great rolling breakers leaping and pounding along the endless shore, had seen the village for the first time, its gutters blown with sand and eucalyptus leaves, a village coming alive suddenly across the shadowed impressions in Ninea’s mind. She had watched Ninea run across the deserted early morning street turning cartwheels in the sand, and they had stood together on this street and watched, surprised, as the old man came out from the alley, hitched up his trousers, and spat, his baseball cap hanging crooked across his stringy hair. They had watched apprehensively his approach, felt his sudden fear of them. Then seen, in his spinning hazy thoughts a scene which lay, now, against some cool gate of Bethany’s mind.

A vision of the grass tower had come to them sharply from this old man, a vision with the wind blowing hard, lifting and tearing the grasses in great tides. And in the wind, running along the shore like a red bird blown before the gusts, came a woman: a young woman, her red hair ripping and tangling like a great cloak, a woman—the shock of her made them tremble: it was as if each were seeing herself as she would grow to be; she had climbed through the whipping grasses and stood on the peak looking out at the storming sea.

Through the eyes of the man watching from below, they knew wonder and desire. Then a terrible fear. And then hate.

“What made him?” Ninea said now, turning, “What made him—?”

“Hate her? I don’t know. But who— Who is she?

They stared at each other trying to see past what they knew into what lay hidden still in darkness, trying to see past this time to a time when, perhaps, it would be one of them standing, beautiful and free—and hated.

“It wasn’t the future, though,” Bethany said. “It was — Didn’t you feel the strength in him, like a young man? It was a time past.”

“Yes.”

The morning was beginning in earnest; shop doors were being unlocked along the street and the shopkeepers, in their aprons, were coming out to sweep and sweep the sand, to push the dunes back toward the shore. And, seeing the two of them so alike, though the word had already gone the length of the village, some stopped what they were doing and stared. “I have to take you around and introduce you,” Bethany said reluctantly.

“Well—well not now,” Ninea said too quickly, for there were boys in the street: Jack—and Colin. And Beverly and Ciel.

“Missing it?” Jack said, coming up and glancing into the empty mercantile, “Wanting another seance?” Then reflectively, “What could you do, the two of you, I wonder.” He approached Ninea with his eyes, with his charm, already seeing her differences, ignoring Bethany. “What could you do if you tried?” he said softly. Ninea glowed.

Ciel and Beverly moved irritably, looked daggers, made as if to move on, taking Colin with them. Jack ignored them. Bethany watched, curious, half-amused. Amazed, suddenly, to see Ninea outshine, outstrip, the other two. Partly it was her attitude, Bethany thought, the way she looked at Jack. But partly it was her. Then do I look like that? Bethany thought with wonder, not attending to what Jack said until she felt Ninea’s excitement soar.

“You could, you know,” Jack said. “She wants you to.”

“Want’s what?” Bethany breathed suspiciously.

“Wants,” he put his arm around Ninea and looked down at her cozily. “Wants— The lease is for a year. Mother is stuck with it. Wants—” and he didn’t have to finish, it was very plain: Ninea and Bethany, some kind of sign across the front of the shop, newspaper articles. Colin looked from Jack to Bethany expectantly, waiting for the explosion, scratched his ear and waited to see what Bethany would do.

“Telepaths!” Bethany spat out, “Trick performers— like a sideshow!” She felt alarm shake her at the thought of another public exposure, even though she knew quite well that Grandfather and Justin would never allow such a thing. She could feel Ninea’s interest in the idea, feel her eagerness for Jack’s approval. “No!” she said, appalled at her, “And get away from him, Ninea,” she added stupidly. “He’s your cousin.”

On the way home Ninea said, “We’re only second cousins. He asked me to go out. What’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t care what you do.”

“I’ll ask Grandfather.”

“Ask him. I have to go to work.” She strode on ahead, furious. Why did Ninea make her so angry?

“Can’t I come?”

“No! You’re mean to horses. Leave me alone.” She walked fast through the deep sand, then stumbled. She felt Ninea trying to make her wait, trying to make her turn to face her. She felt Ninea’s thought with a clarity and strength that made her catch her breath, felt not only the thoughts but the temperament beneath, the very core of Ninea’s self: competitive and pushing as a young puppy. Pushing. Angry. And very needing—a lonely animal, demanding response. A young hurt animal. Bethany went back and put her arm around her.

In the evening, in the cage of raw, new wood that was Bethany’s room, the studs and rafters stained pink from the setting sun, Bethany stood quietly looking out at the sea. She felt almost as if this room should stay as it was, roofed over but open, like a resin-scented bower with the sea wind blowing through it and the grasses blowing into it. Her own space in the world, framed but not closed away, still a part of the sea and the dunes.

“You’d have flies and seagull droppings,” Reid said.

“I wouldn’t care,” she said, laughing up at him.

“But in the winter you might.” And when they went into Ninea’s room, which already had solid walls, the bay window, with its three sides of glass, was snug and bright, the room dim and cozy behind it.

“Did Ninea do stable work with you?” Reid said incredulously. “Or just mess around and get in the way?”

“Oh, she worked. She—she’s changeable.” She smiled to herself, thinking of Ninea watching Juniper bucking and playing in the corral, feeling Ninea’s sudden rise of wildness and a kind of desperate longing, then her self-consciousness as Bethany grinned at her.

She didn’t dare ask Reid about his black eye and bruised cheek, and the long red scrape on his arm. He looked tired, his eyes looked as if he’d had no sleep. “Had a run-in with Grandfather,” he said shortly, seeing her looking. They watched the sun pause above the horizon so its edge and the line of the sea seemed to pull apart and draw together in an optical illusion.

“Why is he like that?” Bethany raged. “Did he hit your mother too?”

“No, he never would. I’d—I’d want to kill him. He doesn’t want me to come here any more, or take you out. He told me to stop working on the house. He says, now that there are two of you, it’s a sure sign there’s something evil about this family.”

“You’re not going to stop?”

“No, what do you think I am?”

“But if you keep on working, won’t he do it again?”

“I’ll sleep at the stables. I have before.”

“But why— Why does he think my family is evil? What can he—” Then she remembered Mr. Krupp’s vision of the woman on the grass tower, her red hair like a cape. She told Reid how they had seen her while his grandfather stood there in the street staring drunkenly at them, hating them, hating the woman.

Reid laid his hand against Bethany’s hair for an instant almost as if he were remembering something. “I don’t know what’s on his mind, Bethany,” he said gruffly, and took up the broom with which he had been sweeping up wood chips and sawdust. He swept a few strokes idly, preoccupied, then put the broom down abruptly and went to sit on the windowsill, staring across at her. “Ma says, when she was a child, they used to pretend that a witch lived on the grass tower. They used to dance around its base chanting ‘Wind witch, wind witch, witch of the grasses.’ They thought she could change the future, could make evil things happen to them. A witch with long red hair.”