ten

Paul didn’t reach his campsite until early in the morning, and when he did, he was still restless.

His immediate instinct was to dislike and distrust Michael Comus, but he preferred to give people the benefit of the doubt.  He wasn’t surprised that the man had allowed a covey of curvaceous teenaged girls to use his private grounds for their dance parties, but he had a feeling Michael was going to start charging a toll eventually. For some reason that thought hadn’t occurred to Rachel, and it bothered Paul.

Maybe she just doesn’t realize, he thought as he paced on the beach, stepping through the wavelets in his bare feet, that guys are rarely spontaneous when it comes to girls. There’s generally a reason for everything they do.

On the other hand, girls, he had noticed, typically do generous or kind things for guys on impulse without any ulterior motive. This could confuse inexperienced guys, who believed, by default, that any attention given to them by a girl was surely premeditated and significant.

Heck, if I’d known that about girls, I’d have had a much easier time in high school and college, he thought wryly. But I had to figure that out by trial and error. Maybe Rachel doesn’t know. Or maybe her dad hasn’t had time to tell her.

 Someone had to tell her, and soon. This whole thing was getting more and more dangerous, and he still hadn’t had an opportunity to convince the girls to tell their dad what they were doing.  And they were even less likely to be open to that now, especially if they found out Paul knew their secret. I’ll have to try finding some indirect way of addressing the issue with them. But how that was to be done, Paul had no idea.

He shook his head, still not weary but worn out inside. At last, he managed to get himself to go back into his tent and lie down.

Rachel slept late as she dared, then stumbled to the sewing room to begin the project for Paul. She threaded the sewing machine with black thread and rapidly cut out two pairs of simple pants. The rest of the black satin she carefully folded back into the bag, along with the slim packet of expensive bodice material, and secreted it in a corner of the sewing room. Her sisters all knew about her dress plans, so the only person who might find it was Sallie. And Sallie rarely, if ever, tried to clean up or sort through the jumble of fabric and half-finished projects. Her father, who was allergic to sewing machines, never darkened the door of the room.

By the time she was threading elastic through the pant legs and waistband of the second pair, she heard Paul arrive for the girls’ lesson. But Linette and Debbie, who were sleepy and grouchy, had missed their chores and had to make them up. Sallie explained this to Paul, who said he could come back. 

“It’s a hot day. If you like, you can go swimming off our beach while you’re waiting,” she said.

“Thanks,” Rachel heard Paul reply, relief in his voice. “I think I’ll take you up on that.”

The elastic on the last leg was too tight: Rachel re-did it, then cut the garment from the sewing machine with a satisfied sigh. Folding them over her arms, she went downstairs to scout out Paul. 

She paused beside the open door of the downstairs bathroom, seeing her limp navy blue swimsuit hanging abandoned in the corner of the towel rack. It was a hot day. A swim sounded lovely right now.

Rachel slipped into the bathroom and changed into her swimsuit. She put her t-shirt and skirt back on, picked up the satin pants, and went carelessly out the door to the woods that led to the beach.

Once in the woods, she looked down from the cliff to the water.  At first, she didn’t see Paul, only his juggling bag lying on the beach, next to his discarded shirt. She peered through the brush this way and that. Then she happened to look at the swimming rock, and saw him.

At first she saw only his head, bobbing in the water, and his arm. He was walking in the deep water toward the rock holding something above his head, a silver wand. His flute. He was attempting to keep it dry, with mixed success.

She watched, amused, as he attempted to climb onto the wet, slippery rock with one hand, trying to hold the flute aloft and dry in the other. He fell off several times, sometimes spectacularly. At last, he managed to clamber onto the rock with the flute in his teeth, the instrument glistening with water. She smothered a laugh. He sat on the rock, pulled his knees to his chest, and attempted vainly to find something dry to wipe his flute on. A handkerchief he pulled from the pocket of his shorts was wet. He tried rubbing it against his bare chest, but that was also wet.

Finally, he rubbed it through his hair and shook the water out of it. Then he crossed his legs and hunched over his instrument, putting it to his lips. His back was partly to her, and she could see the muscles in his arms and fingers working. A wild trill came from the rock, through the air, and pierced her heart.

It was a fierce, untamed melody; unlike the mellow or cheerful piping she had heard from him before now. It was years away from the practiced, strained flute music of the school band, or the tame cooing of the worship choir’s wind section at church. She hung on it as the music stabbed at her again and again, like a hawk beating its wings against her breast. His tanned skin glistened in the sun, his fingers flew more rapidly than she could follow them, and the song seemed to possess him and change him from the ordinary bland “good boy” to someone from a different reality, a denizen of faery or Olympus or some other alternate world she had never heard of.

Pan, she thought, he’s like Pan, in that book. The Wind in the Willows.

After an unbelievable interval, Paul lifted his head to look at the horizon, and the music ceased. Rachel stood quietly, aware of nothing but the water and wind and the echo of music.

Softly, she made her way down to the shore, wondering if he would play again. She slipped into the willow grove, where the guys docked their boats.  I’ll be a siren and sneak up on him, she thought.

Noiselessly she slid into the water and swam slowly towards him. His back was still towards her. He lowered his head and the music began again.

She let herself drift up against the rock, and leaned against it. It had started to warm from the sun, and she let her crossed arms rest on that warmth. The water pushed her rhythmically against it, and she waited, listening. The melody now was less fierce, more inviting, but still wild and unpredictable.

When he finished, he raised his head to the horizon again. I’ll startle him if I say anything, she thought, but instead he turned his head and smiled at her, squinting in the sunlight.

“Hello mermaid,” he said.

She grinned. He had guessed her thought. “Hello,” she said. “I heard your song, and I came.”

“Ah,” he said, “I must be improving.”

He turned and looked at the horizon. “This is a wonderful rock,” he said.

“I love it,” she responded.

“Am I taking your place?”

“No, I’m fine here,” she said. “The water’s warm.” She kicked out her legs luxuriously.

“Do you come here often, mermaid?”

“Not as often as I would like.”

He nodded. “Do you ever swim at night?”

“Sometimes I have,” she said carelessly.

“I hope you never swim alone at night, mermaid.”

“If I really was a mermaid, Pan, I would swim wherever and whenever I chose,” she said.

He looked at her curiously. “What did you call me?”

“Pan. Like in the book. The Wind in the Willows. I’m reading it.”

“Really?” Now she had surprised him, and she smiled.

“You play the flute like him,” she said.

He toyed with his instrument. “But the great god Pan is dead,” he said at last. “To invite him now is to invite death.”

“Death? Why?”

“Well, according to the legend, he died every year with the harvest of the grain, and rose again in spring. He was one of the corn gods, the god of shepherds.” He was silent, then added, “And of course, he prefigured Christ.”

“Jesus was a corn dog? I mean, corn god?” she pursued, laughing at her gaffe.

“No, He was the true Good Shepherd, the reality behind the fairy tale,” Paul said.

“Hmm,” Rachel said, feeling the water with her fingers. “Why did you say that to invite Pan was to invite death?”

“I was quoting someone from my theology class in college. What it means is, we can’t invoke the pagan gods any more, even the ones that were close to reality. Because Christ has come, and all pagan gods have shrunk into dead tales or demons.”

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t call you Pan?”

He smiled at her, winsomely. “Just call me a faun, if you like, mermaid. They were mythical creatures who resembled Pan, and played the pipes.”

“Yes, like in Narnia,” Rachel murmured. Dad had read her that book, long ago. “All right, faun.”

Paul looked at her again, his lips half-parted. Then he said, “Since we’re talking in this fanciful fashion, mermaid, may I tell you a story?”

“Sure,” she said, bobbing in the water.

“It’s not a happy story,” he said, warning. He put his flute to his mouth and blew a short ffift! then rubbed it.

“I promise not to cry,” she said.

“Don’t promise that,” he said, and set his flute down. “Once upon a time, there were men and women in the world.”

“Just as there are now.”

“Just as now. And there was a devil, as there is also now, and he desired to destroy the happiness of man and woman. So he created a twisted looking glass. This looking-glass was not a mirror, but a piece of glass so invisible that a man could look through it and not realize he was seeing a twisted reality. And it reflected a bit, like a mirror, so that a man could see himself, or what he thought was himself.”

“Go on,” Rachel said.

“Now, this glass was made particularly for men, and the devil made sure that men looked through it whenever they chanced to look at women. And this glass changed the women.”

“It made them ugly,” Rachel said, thinking she had heard this story before.

“No, not really. That’s actually a lot harder to do than you might think. What the mirror did was more insidious. It reduced them.”

“Reduced them?”

“So that, to a man looking through the glass, the woman appeared to be an object, a pretty plaything put there for his pleasure. Now, the man might know that the woman had brains, or talents, or any number of other gifts, but when he looked through the mirror, he saw her only as a toy. And the devil made every effort to push that glass before a man’s eyes when he was as young as possible. So that most men were so used to looking through the glass that, even when it wasn’t there, the images they saw in the glass dictated their reality.”

“Hmph,” was all Rachel could think of to say.

Paul kicked the water with his toe. “There was a further trick to the devil’s glass. The glass taught men to sort all women they saw into two types—worthwhile, and not worthwhile. Or ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ as some men took to calling them. Good toys and bad toys. And so this was the way they had of speaking about women among themselves. And as you can imagine, the women couldn’t help overhearing these conversations. And even though most of the women hadn’t glanced through the mirror, they couldn’t help thinking of themselves in this manner. As toys. Good toys or bad toys.”

“What was the difference between the good toys and the bad toys?” Rachel said, scraping at the rock with her fingernail.

“Nothing,” Paul said.

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“Nothing essential,” Paul said. “Once you’ve decided to see a person as a toy, the degrees between the toys are close to non-existent. But for practical purposes as far as the deluded man was concerned, there was a difference.”

“Which was?” Rachel asked.

“Time,” Paul said slowly. “Only time. You spend more time with a good toy. Lots of time. You date her, you take her out, you pay her compliments. You might even marry her. But in the end, she’s just a toy.”

“And the bad toys?” she asked after a moment.

His face had a rigid, hard look on it. “You don’t waste your time. You play with them, but not for long. Maybe not even twenty-four hours.  And then you don’t care if you ever see her again. Remember,” he said, “From this twisted point of view, a smart man doesn’t waste his time on bad toys.”

“But what about Christian men?” she objected.

“Christian men were taught to look through this mirror, too. Sometimes they attached more importance to the ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ distinction. You have to make sure you marry a ‘good’ toy. Because a Christian man doesn’t waste his time on ‘bad’ toys. Oh, maybe a Christian man might glance at a ‘bad’ toy—say, in the pages of a sports magazine or on a web page. But a good Christian doesn’t waste his time on ‘bad’ toys. You want a good toy—just one. Or at any rate, only one at a time.”

His voice was bitter. She was breathing hard, staring at him. 

“But it’s not fair!”

“Of course it’s not.”

“I don’t believe all men are like this.”

He met her eyes. “They’re not, but don’t underestimate the power of the looking glass. Many, many women do. They think they’re being brave.  But they’re only naïve. Naïve girls who think they’re being bold are girls who are going to get hurt. And maybe hurt beyond repair.”

He looked away. “You see, there’s no place in a deluded man’s world for an old toy, or an ugly toy, or a toy who doesn’t have the right figure, or whose body doesn’t work the way it should—a handicapped toy, a toy who’s fallen ill.  If the toy was once a good toy, you might hang around—after all, she was once a good toy.  And you can feast on the memories, and keep an eye on other good toys from the sidelines or glance at the bad toys in the magazines—but a ‘smart’ man doesn’t let himself get stuck with a broken toy. Particularly a toy who’s been used and is in need of repair.”

She wiped her eyes, angry. “Why are you telling me this? I know all of this already. I know everything you’re saying.”

Now he turned and looked at her, his voice unexpectedly husky. “You do?”

“Yes,” her face was red with shame. “It’s what happens to girls who aren’t careful. Who think too much about their bodies. I’ve been warned all my life about what happens to girls—who become like you said. Who become bad toys.”

His face twitched, as if he were in pain. He said softly, “Don’t say that. Don’t you understand? The whole point is, it’s all a lie. You’re not a toy at all.”

But she was too upset to listen to him. Pushing away from the rock, she swam back to the shore, and sprinted onto the beach. Snatching up her clothes, she hurried up the path to the house, not once looking behind. For some reason, she had a panicked idea that he was following her, but when she glanced back as she reached the top of the cliff, she saw he was still sitting on the rock, his flute in between his hands, his head bowed.

Who does he think he is?

Who is he? Pagan or Christian? Man or god? Good or bad?

He didn’t seem to fit onto any side of the scale, and Rachel decided, as she got dressed, that it was in her best interest to pretend that this conversation had never happened.

It was almost midnight. Paul straightened his scapular, then pulled on his black hood over a black shirt. He was already wearing the black pants and fitted shoes that completed the outfit. It was time to go.

Paul had learned a lot about stealth and tracking in the military, which was an asset to him now. And in college, he and his friends had done war games in the woods near the campus, involving nighttime reconnaissance, and to that end, he had acquired a black outfit that resembled a ninja costume—the same black pants and fitted shoes he wore for juggling, and a black shirt and hood. He had brought it along on vacation because it was comfortable and light, and one never knew when one might need a ninja outfit.

Though I didn’t think I’d be wearing it every night, he thought, as he started weaving through the trees to the Durham’s property. There was no moon tonight. At least his job would be a bit easier, but it still wouldn’t solve his problem.

It was difficult to stand in the shadows and watch. In the beginning, he had kept himself occupied with the logistical problems of tracking and following the girls, of getting on and off a boat unseen. But now those problems were mostly solved—each time the boats were docked, they were in deep shadows, and he merely had to wait for the odd moment to get on or off. And the routine for the evening was rapidly fixing itself in concrete—every night from now on, he guessed that the girls would be getting on the boats, going to the island, and having their dance.

The island itself brought up contradictory feelings in him. It was indeed a place of enchantment. The nights had been particularly beautiful lately, and the island was itself extremely lovely. The willow trees, pines, and oaks provided ample cover for him, as well as a fitting background to the pageant of girls dancing in the moonlight.

And the girls were very beautiful, all of them in their individual ways, and if he had nothing else to do but watch them dance, this was going to get frustrating. Already it had become a bit difficult for him to actually watch them dance, particularly the ones who chose to wear the skimpier outfits. 

But his way to salvation was through beauty, and he kept forcing himself to appreciate their beauty without reducing them to objects. Sometimes that meant looking away from the girls up at the beauty of the waning moon, or the frothy leaves of the willows, or the stars. The wonders of nature were not his personal treasures, he told himself. And neither were the girls. In particular, not the girls.

Now he left the campsite stealthily and wove his way down the bayside, across the remainder of the campsite, through a stretch of woods, across three private lots (fortunately the beaches weren’t clearly in view of the houses) to the Durhams’ grounds. The far edge of the Durham property was woods, mostly willows and vines. He had cut a path for himself through the brush so he didn’t have to make much noise. Eventually he reached the willow tree that overhung the deep water where the boys docked their boats. He slid behind the trunk into a little hollow that was conveniently shadowed and waited.

Eventually, he heard the sound of the girls’ voices from the bike cave above, and then, one by one, they started to make their way down the bank to the beach, giggling and sliding. The younger girls were usually ready the quickest—Debbie, Linette, Brittany, and Melanie came down together in bare feet, holding their sandals by their straps. Debbie started splashing around in the water, and Brittany picked up stones and started to shy them across the bay water, seeing how many times she could make them skip.

“I wish we could just go swimming,” Linette said wistfully. “Do we have to go to the island every night? It’s so boring.”

“Yes, this used to be an adventure, but now it’s all about chasing boys,” Debbie agreed. “There’s no boys our ages on the island. They’re all in high school or older.”

“Doesn’t make a difference to Becca and Liddy,” Brittany observed, letting another stone fly expertly over the waves.

“They’re silly,” Debbie said loftily. “I’m smarter than them, and I’m only eleven. I hope I don’t get so dumb when I’m a teenager.”

Brittany’s stone skipped five times and she shouted, “Score!”

“Shhh!” Becca hissed, skittering down the sandy slope in a floral dress. “We’re still home, remember?” On level ground, she dabbed at her hair with her hands. “It’s too windy tonight.”

Paul became aware that Rachel was coming down the bank now, slender and sylphlike in her navy blue dress, and he felt unusually self-conscious. He hadn’t seen her since she had left him abruptly at the swimming rock that morning. She was back to her usual air of cool indifference, and he wondered if anything he had said to her had affected her. Most likely not. Her angry exit still stung in his memory.

Now she clapped her hands. “Come on kids, look alive,” she said easily. “We’re going to a party tonight.”

“But we go to a party every night,” Debbie said resentfully, sloshing water on her dress.

Rachel set her hands on her hips and swayed. “Yes. Aren’t we lucky?”

“I wish we could do something else,” Debbie said frankly. “All we can do is dance or talk. It’s boring.”

“I’ll ask Michael for some paper so that you can draw,” Rachel said, and the other girls snickered. Rachel punched Debbie’s arm gently. “Come on, isn’t it better than staying home?”

She looked at the older girls, and said, in a general sort of way, “I noticed that everyone seemed to be ignoring Kirk yesterday. Why was that?”

“He’s such a hick,” Taren said. “He always smells like gasoline.”

“That’s because he works at the auto body shop,” Brittany said. “He fixes cars all day. He can’t help it.”

“You only want us to be nice to him because he has a boat,” Tammy said.

“And because that’s only fair to him,” Rachel raised an eyebrow. “He’s given us a ride every time we’ve needed one.”

“I wish we had our own boats,” Taren fretted. “Then we wouldn’t have this problem.”      

“Well, until then, we have to deal with the situation at hand,” Rachel said coolly, shaking her head. “And I’d hate to see Kirk stop coming because he feels you all are giving him the cold shoulder now that we know—this rich guy.”

“Hey, the boats are coming!” Liddy called, from the middle of the cliff path. Paul heard cries of panic from the girls above in the cave, who were still dressing. He could hear the boat motors coming closer, and soon the water splashed below him as the boats pulled into their temporary dock.

The girls crowded around, greeting the guys, and Paul waited until he heard them leave the boats. Fortunately the girls were never all ready when the boats arrived, so necessarily the boys left the boats to go on the beach and hang out for a while. That was when Paul made his move.

He peered around the tree to ensure the boats were deserted, and stealthily crept through the shadows to the biggest one, Alan’s boat, and slipped beneath the canvas covering part of the back. There were mostly deck chairs and old boat parts beneath the canvas, and he had found a place for himself amidst the jumble. He crouched into a small ball and waited once more.

Soon the parties started clambering into the boats, finding their way in the darkness and settling themselves.

“So how are you tonight, Alan?” Rachel asked. Paul saw her long legs, quite noticeable in her short skirt, slant down in his direction, and adjusted his position so that he wouldn’t be staring at them.

“Pretty good. Hot day.”

“I’m glad the wind picked up,” Rachel said lazily. “Hey Rich.”

“Hi Rachel.” Rich’s voice came in. Paul heard his heavy footfalls dropping on the boat, and his brawny legs stretched out next to hers.

Debbie clambered over the canvas, landing for a moment on Paul’s back, and scrambled into her seat. Melanie edged around beside her.

“Prisca!” Rachel’s voice had impatience in it.

“I’m coming! Gee whiz!” And there were two light footfalls, and Prisca landed in the boat. “Gosh I’m so hot!”

Alan started the engine, and they were off.

Paul found it difficult to hear any conversation that went on while the boat was moving, as his ears were so close to the floor of the boat and its motor.  He focused on keeping still, and out of Debbie’s sight. Lately she had been surreptitiously lifting up a flap of the canvas, trying to catch a glimpse of him.  He hoped he was too far back to be seen.

When they reached the island and docked, Paul heard Michael come out to greet the party, as he usually did. Paul listened for the other boats, and counted them as they docked. It was only after about ten minutes had gone by that he edged out from beneath the canvas. The night was dark, and Michael had put floodlights on the portico. Fortunately, the boats were out of the range of the lights.