From the Dust Returned

“Why, then?”

“Something made me.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” Ann’s voice was faintly hysterical.

Now, now, hush, whispered Cecy. Hush, that’s it. Around, around.

They whispered and rustled and rose and fell away in the dark room, with the music turning them.

“But you did come,” said Tom.

“I did,” said Cecy and Ann.

“Here.” And he danced her lightly out an open door and walked her quietly away from the hall and the music and the people.

They climbed in and sat together in his open car.

“Ann,” he said, taking her hands, trembling. “Ann.” the way he said her name it was as if it wasn’t her name. He kept glancing into her pale face, and now her eyes were open again. “I used to love you, you know that,” he said.

“I know.”

“But you’ve always been distant and I didn’t want to be hurt.”

“We’re very young,” said Ann.

“No, I mean, I’m sorry,” said Cecy.

“What do you mean?” Tom dropped her hands.

The night was warm and the smell of the earth shimmered up all about them where they sat, and the fresh trees breathed one leaf against another in a shaking and rustling.

“I don’t know,” said Ann.

“Oh, but I know,” said Cecy. “You’re tall and you’re the finest-looking man in all the world. This is a good evening; this is an evening I’ll always remember, being with you.” She put out the alien cold hand to find his reluctant hand again and bring it back, and warm it and hold it very tight.

“But,” said Tom, blinking, “tonight you’re here, you’re there. One minute one way, the next minute another. I wanted to take you to the dance tonight for old times’ sake. I meant nothing by it when I first asked you. And then, when we were standing at the well, I knew something had changed, really changed, about you. There was something new and soft, something …” He groped for a word. “I don’t know, I can’t say. Something about your voice. And I know I’m in love with you again.”

“No,” said Cecy. “With me, with me.”

“And I’m afraid of being in love with you,” he said. “You’ll hurt me.”

“I might,” said Ann.

No, no, I’d love you with all my heart! thought Cecy. Ann, say it for me. Say you’d love him!

Ann said nothing.

Tom moved quietly closer to put his hand on her cheek.

“I’ve got a job a hundred miles from here. Will you miss me?”

“Yes,” said Ann and Cecy.

“May I kiss you goodbye?”

“Yes,” said Cecy before anyone else could speak.

He placed his lips to the strange mouth. He kissed the strange mouth and he was trembling.

Ann sat like a white statue.

Ann! said Cecy. Move! Hold him!

Ann sat like a carved doll in the moonlight.

Again he kissed her lips.

“I do love you,” whispered Cecy. “I’m here, it’s me you see in her eyes, and I love you if she never will.”

He moved away and seemed like a man who had run a long distance. “I don’t know what’s happening. For a moment there …”

“Yes?”

“For a moment I thought—” He put his hands to his eyes. “Never mind. Shall I take you home now?”

“Please,” said Ann Leary.

Tiredly he drove the car away. They rode in the thrum and motion of the moonlit car in the still early, only eleven o’clock summer-autumn night, with the shining meadows and empty fields gliding by.

And Cecy, looking at the fields and meadows, thought, It would be worth it, it would be worth everything to be with him from this night on. And she heard her parents’ voices again, faintly, “Be careful. You wouldn’t want to be diminished, would you—married to a mere earth-bound creature?”

Yes, yes, thought Cecy, even that I’d give up, here and now, if he would have me. I wouldn’t need to roam the lost nights then, I wouldn’t need to live in birds and dogs and cats and foxes, I’d need only to be with him. Only him.

The road passed under, whispering.

“Tom,” said Ann at last.

“What?” He stared coldly at the road, the trees, the sky, the stars.

“If you’re ever, in years to come, at any time, in Green Town, Illinois, a few miles from here, will you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“Will you do me the favor of stopping and seeing a friend of mine?” Ann Leary said this haltingly, awkwardly.

“Why?”