“Could be,” Fran said. “I wish there was a book told you everything that went on. Come on. I’ll show you the room you can sleep in.”
They went up the stairs. BE BOLD, BE BOLD, BUT NOT TOO BOLD. The moss carpet on the second floor was already looking a little worse for wear. “Last week I spent a whole day scrubbing these boards on my hands and knees. So, of course, they need to go next thing and pile up a bunch of dirt and stuff. They won’t be the ones who have to pitch in and clean it up.”
“I could help,” Ophelia said. “If you want.”
“I wasn’t asking for help. But if you offer, I’ll accept. The first door is the washroom,” Fran said. “Nothing queer about the toilet. I don’t know about the bathtub, though. Never felt the need to sit in it.”
She opened the second door.
“Here’s where you sleep.”
It was a gorgeous room, all done up in shades of orange and rust and gold and pink and tangerine. The walls were finished in leafy shapes and vines cut from all kinds of dresses and T-shirts and what have you. Fran’s momma had spent the better part of the year going through stores, choosing clothes for their patterns and textures and colors. Gold-leaf snakes and fishes swam through the leaf shapes. When the sun came up in the morning, Fran remembered, it was almost blinding.
There was a crazy quilt on the bed, pink and gold. The bed itself was shaped like a swan. There was a willow chest at the foot of the bed to lay out your clothes on. The mattress was stuffed with the down of crow feathers. Fran had helped her mother shoot the crows and pluck their feathers. She thought they’d killed about a hundred.
“I’d say wow,” Ophelia said, “but I keep saying that. Wow, wow, wow. This is a crazy room.”
“I always thought it was like being stuck inside a bottle of orange Nehi,” Fran said. “But in a good way.”
“Oh yeah,” Ophelia said. “I can see that.”
There was a stack of books on the table beside the bed. Like everything else in the room, all the books had been picked out for the colors on their jackets. Fran’s momma had told her that once the room had been another set of colors. Greens and blues, maybe? Willow and peacock and midnight colors? And who had brought the bits up for the room that time? Fran’s great-grandfather or someone even farther along the family tree? Who had first begun to take care of the summer people? Her mother had doled out stories sparingly, and so Fran only had a piecemeal sort of history.
Hard to figure out what it would please Ophelia to hear anyway, and what would trouble her. All of it seemed pleasing and troubling to Fran in equal measure after so many years.
“The door you slipped my envelope under,” she said, finally. “You oughtn’t ever go in there.”
Ophelia yawned. “Like Bluebeard,” she said.
Fran said, “It’s how they come and go. Even they don’t open that door very often, I guess.” She’d peeped through the keyhole once and seen a bloody river. She’d bet if you passed through that door, you weren’t likely to return.
“Can I ask you another stupid question?” Ophelia said. “Where are they right now?”
“They’re here,” Fran said. “Or out in the woods chasing nightjars. I told you I don’t see them much.”
“So how do they tell you what they need you to do?”
“They get in my head,” Fran said. “I guess it’s kind of like being schizophrenic. Or like having a really bad itch or something that goes away when I do what they want me to.”
“Not fun,” Ophelia said. “Maybe I don’t like your summer people as much as I thought I did.”
Fran said, “It’s not always awful. I guess what it is, is complicated.”
“I guess I won’t complain the next time my mom tells me I have to help her polish the silver, or do useless crap like that. Should we eat our sandwiches now, or should we save them for when we wake up in the middle of the night?” Ophelia asked. “I have this idea that seeing your heart’s desire probably makes you hungry.”
“I can’t stay,” Fran said, surprised. She saw Ophelia’s expression and said, “Well, hell. I thought you understood. This is just for you.”
Ophelia continued to look at her dubiously. “Is it because there’s just the one bed? I could sleep on the floor. You know, if you’re worried I might be planning to lez out on you.”
“It isn’t that,” Fran said. “They only let a body sleep here once. Once and no more.”
“You’re really going to leave me up here alone?” Ophelia said.
“Yes,” Fran said. “Unless you decide you want to come back down with me. I guess I’d understand if you did.”
“Could I come back again?” Ophelia said.
“No.”
Ophelia sat down on the golden quilt and smoothed it with her fingers. She chewed her lip, not meeting Fran’s eye.
“Okay. I’ll do it.” She laughed. “How could I not do it? Right?”
“If you’re sure,” Fran said.
“I’m not sure, but I couldn’t stand it if you sent me away now,” Ophelia said. “When you slept here, were you afraid?”
“A little,” Fran said. “But the bed was comfortable, and I kept the light on. I read for a while, and then I fell asleep.”
“Did you see your heart’s desire?” Ophelia said.
“I guess I did,” Fran offered, and then said no more.
“Okay, then,” Ophelia said. “I guess you should go. You should go, right?”
“I’ll come back in the morning,” Fran said. “I’ll be here afore you even wake.”
“Thanks,” Ophelia said.
But Fran didn’t go. She said, “Did you mean it when you said you wanted to help?”
“Look after the house?” Ophelia said. “Yeah, absolutely. You really ought to go out to San Francisco someday. You shouldn’t have to stay here your whole life without ever having a vacation or anything. I mean, you’re not a slave, right?”
“I don’t know what I am,” Fran said. “I guess one day I’ll have to figure that out.”
Ophelia said, “Anyway, we can talk about it tomorrow. Over breakfast. You can tell me about the suckiest parts of the job and I’ll tell you what my heart’s desire turns out to be.”
“Oh,” Fran said. “I almost forgot. When you wake up tomorrow, don’t be surprised if they’ve left you a gift. The summer people. It’ll be something that they think you need or want. But you don’t have to accept it. You don’t have to worry about being rude that way.”
“Okay,” Ophelia said. “I will consider whether I really need or want my present. I won’t let false glamour deceive me.”
“Good,” Fran said. Then she bent over Ophelia where she was sitting on the bed and kissed her on the forehead. “Sleep well, Ophelia. Good dreams.”
Fran left the house without any interference from the summer people. She couldn’t tell if she’d expected to find any. As she came down the stairs, she said rather more fiercely than she’d meant to: “Be nice to her. Don’t play no tricks.” She looked in on the queen, who was molting again.
She went out the front door instead of the back, which was something that she’d always wanted to do. Nothing bad happened, and she walked down the hall feeling strangely put out. She went over everything in her head, wondering what still needed doing that she hadn’t done. Nothing, she decided. Everything was taken care of.
Except, of course, it wasn’t. The first thing was the guitar, leaned up against the door of her house. It was a beautiful instrument. The strings, she thought, were pure silver. When she struck them, the tone was pure and sweet and reminded her uncomfortably of Ophelia’s singing voice. The keys were made of gold and shaped like owl heads, and there was mother-of-pearl inlay across the boards like a spray of roses. It was the gaudiest gewgaw they’d yet made her a gift of.