The Shells Of Chanticleer (27 page)

“I want our last memories to be good ones,” I said.

“I want more than memories,” he answered, putting his arms around me and holding me tight.

More than memories.
In Chanticleer, that phrase should have put me on high alert. It should have reminded me of a previous, disturbing conversation but, as usual, I was better at imagining danger than recognizing it. Or maybe it was love that had caused me to foolishly put my guard down.

One morning, only a few days after that sad conversation with Sebastian, I woke up out of a deep sleep, shivering. I pulled the covers tighter around me, but could not warm up. I looked to my window to see if there was a draft coming in. Had it accidentally been left open? I raised my head to glance at the window. No, shut tight. As I laid my head back down on the pillow, something cool brushed against my cheek. It was a strand of my hair and it was damp. I could feel another clump of damp wet hair at the back of my scalp. I ran my hand through my hair. Had I washed it before bed last night? No, I never did that.

I looked to the ceiling to see if there was a leak, but I knew there would not be one. There was always only one plausible explanation for waking up with damp hair in Chanticleer. I tried to deny it but there it was. What I had feared most had come true. I had been dipped in the tank during the night and they had done a lousy job of drying me off.

I knew immediately that there was only one person who could have instigated it. Crispin Sinclair. I had always had a bad feeling about him, and my gut had finally been proved right. I blamed Bing, too. Somehow I knew he had to have been part of the scheme. Bing thought getting dunked would be fun, like swimming. I shook my head in anger and frustration at his lies. I had never had a choice; I had never been safe in Chanticleer.

I didn’t stop to think. I threw off my nightclothes and got dressed, not bothering with the dress code, instead throwing on my old clothes from home in rebellion. I bolted out of Summer Hall swatting away the butterflies as I took the stairs two at a time. My anger propelled me down the path covered with an early morning frost; the furies could not have caught up with me. When I reached the shell museum I threw open the heavy doors and vented my rage as I screamed his name.

“Sinclair, where are you?”

I ran past the dimly lit display cases and tore down the hallway to the tank room. The door was locked. All the lights were off. No one was there. I stared through the window at the empty tank. Had I really been lying in there, crumpled and wet on its floor, only a few hours before?

Sinclair had to be somewhere. If not there, then at home. And, thanks to him, I knew how to get there. I ran back outside to the main road and ran until I saw the cutoff to his driveway. The gates were open. Without hesitating, I kept straight ahead down the center of the driveway past the silent, untroubled trees. I wished I were a tree right then, it seemed an easier existence. I ran until there was no breath left inside of me, and then I found some more. At last I reached the house. I bounded up the steps and pounded hard at the door. I kept pounding until I heard the doorknob turn.

The same old butler answered the door. “Good morning,” he said, but I was not feeling polite.

“Where is he? Where is Crispin Sinclair? Take me to him now.” I was slightly hysterical but would not calm down. I was intent on making a racket.

“I am right here, Macy,” a voice said calmly. I looked toward the voice and saw Crispin Sinclair leaning on his walking stick, standing at the door of his grand sitting room.

“It’s okay, Bertram. I was expecting her.”

He gestured me into the room.

I brushed past the butler. Minsie the white fox was curled up in the window seat, soaking up the morning rays. She raised her sleepy head when I came storming in and looked at me for a second, but I must have bored her, as she put her head back down and closed her eyes again.

I sputtered, “Why is my hair wet? What did you do to me? What gives you the right? I did not fail here and you did not have my permission to make a shell of me. I do not deserve to be treated like this. How could you?”

Crispin Sinclair made no response.

“Answer me!”

His cool blue eyes bore into me but when he spoke he was completely calm. “Go ahead, be angry, I can take it,” he replied. “Yes, you are correct. We did dip you last night. Your hair is so thick, it was taking too long to dry, and the drugs were wearing off. I had you brought home still a little damp. I knew when you woke you would figure out what had happened and that you would come here, eventually, to finally face me. You would do everything, always, to avoid me; your fear of me was so strong. The damp hair was my only hope.”

“Why did you do it? Why me?”

“I’m glad to tell you, Macy, if I can bore you first with a little background. I think I made a mistake here in Chanticleer, casting shells of our failures and parading them around. Oh, we had the right intentions, and it has served its purpose well. It has been a good deterrent, a little kick in the butt to keep you all from getting too comfortable here.

“Casting shells is a wonderful technology and we keep getting better at it. I think it’s the wave of the future, honestly. I can see parents making shells of their beautiful little children. Who needs statues like these,” he asked, pointing to the ancient works of art dotting his room, “when you can display one of your loved ones? And childhood, so beautiful yet so fleeting. It needs to be captured in more than photos.”

“But I digress. Of course, no one likes the shells here in Chanticleer. The yellowish skin is quite repulsive but I leave it like that for shock value. Yet I can do so much better. I got to thinking that we should consider making shells of anyone who is special to us, and that it be voluntary, and not done in the middle of the night. Why, it could be a fun thing to do!

“I had my eye on you, but you were not ready. That is why I had Bing bring you here that day. It was my mistake. I was too eager. Since then there has been another willing volunteer who we dipped and shelled. It came out spectacularly, truly a work of art. Would you be surprised to know that it was Violet?”

I was. So Bing had gotten to her, convinced her instead of me.

Crispin continued. “Casting a shell is just a contemporary form of art. What is the difference between a portrait, a sculpture, a photograph, or a shell? There is none. Still, I understood your resistance. It is odd, I know. It takes getting used to. However, when word came to me that you were to tip back soon, I realized I could not wait to slowly bring you around to the idea. Yes, you were taken last night and dipped in the tank. I have your shell here already. Don’t be afraid to look at it, or to have others look at it. No one will judge you. It is beautiful.”

“How did I not wake up?” I asked.

“Why, the warm caramel sugar. In addition to tasting good, it has marvelous medicinal value. Whatever we need done, we do through that. After all, we run toward a more skittish group here, naturally nervous and high strung to begin with. The warm caramel sugar takes the edge off. Sleep through the night without waking. Keep homesickness at bay. Sedate our soon-to-be shells. Have you never wondered why there is no other choice to drink here?”

“Yes,” I said, “when I was at the festival I was hot and wanted ice water.”

“It keeps thing running smoothly here, and deliciously, I must say. Would you like to see your shell, Macy? Come and see it. Don’t be afraid.”

I wanted to resist, but he had a way of twisting everything around so that it all sounded so sane and rational that I ended up feeling like I was the crazy one. Plus, my hysteria was getting me nowhere. The worst had happened. I was tired of resisting. I was slightly curious, and slightly mortified, but to settle it once and for all I’d take a look. I nodded and said I would see it. We walked to the back of the grand sitting room and out the same French doors I had once thought I could escape through. I stepped gingerly into that long gallery.

Standing on a pedestal in the center of the gallery was my shell. I stepped up to it. It looked amazingly like me.

“We got the formulation just right for the skin color. I think it looks just like you.”

My flesh was not a jaundiced yellow but a fresh and healthy pink. My long hair wasn’t suspended in mid air. It was combed neatly and fell straight around my shoulders. I wore my blazer, the white Chanticleer sweater, the plaid shorts. It was the sweater I had accidently left on the moss ledge and had never retrieved.

“You fixed the hair.”

“Yes, we got that right as well. We’ll keep the floating hair for the failure shells. Look, there is Violet.”

He pointed to the other end of the gallery. I wandered up to it. Her beautiful hair was softly gathered and placed on her left shoulder. It was pretty, I admitted. Not so terrible, after all.

“Bing did a good job talking her into it,” Crispin stated.

“Oh,” I murmured. “That’s what they were doing.”

“Pardon?”

“They were always together. I guess he was just convincing her to volunteer for this.”

“He failed with you. He was upset that you were so against it. He thought you would take a chance.”

“He really tried. I fought him over it, desperately. I was too scared.”

“Macy, I won’t ask you to approve of this shell. I can take a hammer right now and destroy it if you are still too upset with the idea.”

He walked to the side of the room and picked up a hammer. He’d had it there, waiting.

“I am not sure how I feel. What does Violet think?”

“V loves hers. You don’t have to feel the same.”

“I don’t think I like it. I don’t think I want this left here when I tip back. I don’t want people staring at me as if I am not still alive, as if I am in a museum. What would be the point?”

“Hmm. I see. You are right. No point to it. No point at all. I do agree,” he said. He paused, thinking, his finger at his lips.

“Unless it would make it harder for certain people to forget you after you are gone, if your beautiful shell is standing right here?”

Sebastian. How could he forget me when my likeness would be left in Chanticleer forever? I couldn’t physically stay, but my shell might be better than nothing. It might make him feel a little guilty when he moved on. Crispin smiled triumphantly as he hit my weak spot. He was always a step ahead of me.

He said: “It is hard to leave the ones we love in Chanticleer and tip back to our old lives. We understand that. It is also hard for us who stay behind, although we might not admit it. My son serves me well here. He does what I ask. Yet sometimes I forget he has a heart too, a young one, and I hate to see him sad.”

I only heard bits of what he was saying. I was thinking about Sebastian having a lifelike reminder of me. Maybe this was my solution. Maybe this is what my heart needed to finally let him go.

Meanwhile, Crispin wasn’t making sense. “Wait, your son?” I asked, confused. “What do you mean your son? Who is that?” I never thought that Crispin Sinclair might have a family.

“It’s me Macy” a familiar voice said.

I pivoted slowly toward the voice, but I didn’t really need to turn around. I recognized it immediately.

Sebastian was leaning against the doorframe of the gallery, his hands casually jutted into his front shorts pockets, his feet bare. He looked like he had just rolled out of bed, completely at home.

“Crispin is my dad and this is my home too. I’m sorry to spring it on you like this. It’s just that you two got off to an odd start somehow and, well, I’m embarrassed to say it, but I was afraid to tell you.”

“Oh, I see,” I muttered, my mind racing to comprehend the implications of what I was hearing. I wanted to protest, to say it couldn’t be, but I had known in my heart for a long time that I didn’t know all there was to know about Sebastian. Bing had been trying to tell me as much that afternoon down at the loch, but I didn’t want to know. I only wanted the surface. I just never imagined far enough. Sebastian Sinclair. Did it change anything?

I looked at Crispin, at my shell, at Sebastian. How did the only thing I ever wanted and the only thing I never wanted end up jumbled together here? There had to be a way that this was not the ridiculous joke it appeared to be.

Crispin saw my confusion, and tried to explain. “Ever since word came down that first day that you had kicked Bing in the shins, we have had our eye on you. I liked your fighting spirit. Obviously, we run toward a more timid bunch here, so you were noticed. You already know that after Bing took you to the shell museum off schedule we had to provide closer coverage of you, and Sebastian did a good job with that. You were our perfect muse, we decided. We wanted you to take the chance and be the first in our collection of pretty shells. We hoped that it would work if you were handled the right way. We wanted to bring you around to the idea slowly. That’s why we asked you here for tea that afternoon. But as we all know, that day did not go as planned. Then when Bing spilled the beans and scared you off the idea, we were at a loss as to how to ever bring it up to you again. We thought if you saw Aria dipped it would help our cause. And it did calm you down about the shells. But we ran out of time.”

I looked at Crispin, then at Sebastian.

“So you also thought I should volunteer to be a guinea pig for the pretty shells?”

“No, that’s not true,” Sebastian insisted. “Macy, my dad and Bing were the ones pushing the idea at first. I pushed them back on it. I knew you hated it. But listen to me. We were going to talk to you together, my dad and I, that day Bing brought you here. You remember that was right after we crossed the bridge in the Fir Forest together.”

He looked at me, intimating that he was referring to the other events of our night together.

I nodded.

“After we spent that night on the bridge I made up my mind that I would come clean with you about being staff, and who my dad was. I was going to tell you that day but you ran out, obviously terrified, and we hesitated, not knowing exactly whether or not the truth was what you needed at that time. Then when you figured out I was following you at the pond it all came out wrong and, ugh, I am just so bad at this kind of thing. I have no practice.”