Orenda - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

By the time Jenny's shivering had ceased, and the goose-bumps had smoothed out of her skin, the sun was beginning to fade over the horizon. Paul handed the child gently to Bimeler, said goodnight, and left the restaurant.

He began the drive back towards the interstate highway, and his motel room. He hadn't accomplished much in the way of historical research, he reflected, but it had certainly been an interesting day. He was preoccupied with the drawing Jenny had made for him, and barely noticed the darkening road. He abruptly realized that he could hardly see the white centerline, and switched on his headlights.

The road twisted around itself, climbing innumerable small, steep hills. It was the type of road the Porsche was engineered to handle, but Paul was not paying nearly enough attention to his driving.

The Porsche crested a small hill, and swung into a tight left curve at the top. Suddenly, Paul's attention was riveted to the appearance of two bright headlights bearing down on him as an oncoming car dove into the tight curve. Paul realized, in the instant before the screech of metal tearing into metal reached his ears, that the on coming car was way over the center line. In that split second, without time for conscious throught, Paul whipped the agile Porsche to the right, and gained the fraction of an inch that saved both their lives. He stabbed on his brakes, and watched in the rear view mirror as the other car skidded sideways along the roadway.

"Jesus Christ!" He breathed, as he saw the older sedan slide to a stop, blocking both lanes of the highway. He stepped out of his car, and without pausing to look at the damage to it, headed for the silent sedan. The adrenalin pumping through his system made his knees tremble as he strode, getting angrier with each step, toward the offending automobile.

"You dumb bastard! You almost killed both of us!" He shouted, as he came abreast of the quiet car.

"Ohhhhh, My God." A female voice quavered weakly.

Paul angrily jerked at the dented driver's side door, swinging it open. He saw a mass of brunette hair, spilling across folded arms on the steering wheel. She nearly tumbled out onto the pavement when he pulled the door. Paul grabbed her shoulder, roughly steadying her, and helped her from the sedan.

"I'm so sorry. So sorry!" She said weakly, her voice still quavering.

"You should be! What's the matter with you, you drunk or something?" Paul's eyes were flashing.

"Don't know. No, not drunk. Guess I went to sleep." She stammered, shaking her head, as if coming awake.

"Are you hurt?" He asked, his voice growing slightly softer.

She stared at him dumbly. Her wide eyes conveyed shock. "I. . .I don't think so. I think I'm just frightened."

He noticed that she was shaking badly. "Can you drive your car over to the side?" He asked, scanning the roadway in both directions to see if they were in imminent danger of an approaching vehicle.

She stared at the sedan, then at Paul. Her eyes were still wide and vacant.

"Here, I'll do it for you." He took her by the elbow and led her to the edge of the paved surface. "Need to pull it over before someone comes along and hits it!"

He returned to her car and slid behind the wheel. It started without a problem, and Paul drove it up behind his Porsche. He noticed her smell about the car. It was not a heavily perfumed odor, but held a hint of femininity about it; clean and alluring. Letting the sedan idle, he walked back along the darkened roadway and again took the woman by the elbow. He began leading her to the two vehicles parked one behind the other on the side of the road. His anger had cooled considerably, and he realized that this was an exceptionally attractive woman.

"Sorry I got so upset." He apologized

"You had every right to. I'm sorry about your car." Her voice was beginning to return to normal. "Guess I fell asleep at the wheel."

Paul looked directly at her and noticed large, black welts under her eyes. They appeared as if painted on in the dusk. "I can get you to a hospital if you need it." He offered.

"No, I'm alright. Just shook up." She leaned against the side of her automobile. "I have insurance to take care of the damage to your little car."

Paul smiled at her comment. Few people referred to his expensive Porsche as a `little car'. He walked around to the passenger side of her car, and then around to the dented side of his. "Looks like mine got much the worst of it. Your bumper's much higher than mine, and it caught my car about halfway up. Whole side's smashed in!" He frowned at the amount of damage his car had sustained. "That was closer than I realized!" He said, thinking just how quickly he could have been dead. A matter of a fraction of a second, and they would have hit square in the center.

"Thank heaven you're not hurt!" She answered. "That is the important thing."

Paul looked around at the deserted landscape. "I guess we should head back up the highway a bit to the motel I'm staying in, and call the police to get an accident report and all." He suggested.

"Isn't there something in Zoar village?" She asked. "It's just down the road a piece, I think." She pointed in the direction of Zoar, and Paul noticed that she did not wear a wedding ring. He saw the tiny bones play sideways in her delicate hand as she moved her fingers, and let his eyes travel slowly up her arms to the rest of her. `Stunning' was the only word that came into his mind.

"Just a run down old cafe. No motels or anything," Paul said. "He's closed up by now, anyway, so I believe that the closest phone will be at the motel." He paused, "Are you able to drive yet?"

"I think so. My knees have stopped knocking anyway," she answered, standing straight and pulling her car door open.

"Follow me, then. I'll lead you to it. . .even buy you a cup of coffee while we're at it" His anger was completely

dispelled, and he was feeling a twinge of guilt for cursing the pretty brunette with the soft almond eyes. He was anxious to get a better look at her in the light of the motel.

After the state police completed the accident report, Paul offered to buy dinner. She accepted, and ate it ravenously. Although her manners were impeccable, her plate was empty long before Paul's.

Paul noticed, in the brighter light of the restaurant,that she was indeed exhausted. The deep purple welts under each of her eyes served only to highlight the depth of her tiredness; adding emphasis to the ever so slight tremors in her hands, the slight tinge of slowness in her movements. He had seen these signs before. His grandfather, Johan, had shown these same symptoms when he approached his seventieth year. And a young man, that the police had tracked for weeks in the countryside near Buffalo, had displayed this hauntingly drained look when they had finally apprehended him. He knew that she had not yet reached thirty, and he doubted seriously that she was on the run from the police. Yet the look about her was one of being prey to something; quarry always alert and moving; but nearing the time when it must seek refuge in a tree, or place its back against a wall and play out the last bitter segment in its fight for life.

Underneath all this, he saw true beauty. He saw a woman who knew how to be beautiful, but in her flight from whatever was stalking her, she had neglected it. Now, like a limb unused to exercise, she was awkward in her use of it. It seemed as if she were out of practice, as if she had not been around a man in a long time, and fumbled girlishly at a long forgotten ability to be flirtatious. This intrigued him all the more.

She asked him what he was doing in Zoar.

"My family were among the original settlers of the village," Paul answered between mouthfuls of desert. "So, I sort of have a built in interest in the place. I'm working on my PhD in Political Science, and studying the reasons for the failure of the commune. Also, I guess I'm just interested in digging a little into my family's roots."

"It is a small world!" She said. "My family also had connections to Zoar. My mother's family traces back to here. It seems that my great-great-great grandmother married a military man who was stationed here during the Revolutionary War."

The name popped into Paul's mind from Bimeler's tale. "Sullivan?" He asked, equating it to the name on her driver's license. "Your ancestor here wasn't General John Sullivan, was it?"

"Yes, he was a General.~ She paused. "How did you know?"

Paul told her of his encounter with the old man and his granddaughter earlier in the afternoon. He repeated some of the legend Bimeler had recited to him, stopping when he got to the part where her relative was mentioned.

"Well, I need to talk to Mr. Bimeler too, then. The reason I'm here is to research my family history, although my reasons are for personal gratification, and not academic." She smiled for the first time at Paul. "Tell me more of Mr. Bimeler's tale."

As he told her of the picture that Jenny had drawn, he noticed a drastic change come over her face. She paled, and her eyes took on a glittering hardness. She stared into his eyes with the same intense raptness that Jenny had as Bimeler recited the old tale.

"Uh, hope you don't think I'm the nut case, here." He said pointedly.

She quickly lowered her eyes. "Oh, no. . .not at all".

"You seemed to be giving me strange looks. What I've been telling you really happened this afternoon." His voice sounded a little too pleading to suit him.

"I don't mean to. Actually, your telling me about the little girl somehow gives me a sense of deja-vous." She brought her eyes back up to meet his. Although they had softened somewhat, they had lost none of their glitter.

Slightly mollified, but unconvinced, Paul reached into his sweater and retrieved the yellow sheet of paper from his shirt pocket. He carefully unfolded it, and slid it over in front of Patty. "See? Here's the picture she drew." He paused, "I don't pretend to understand it," He paused again. "But I do think that the child needs psychiatric care." Paul re-lived the repugnant feeling he had felt toward the old man for terrifying the already confused child with horror stories.

"My God!" She said, explosively, her eyes widening.

"What is it?" Paul asked, alarmed at her sudden show of fear.

"I've got to meet this little girl!" She said. The chill that had run up her back when she first saw the picture now made its way back down her spine. She shuddered.

"You can probably meet her after she returns from school tomorrow," Paul said hesitantly. He wondered what about the drawing was causing such an almost panicked reaction in the woman. What did she see in this product of a disturbed youngster that he couldn't?

"I, uh. . .did tell you she's mute, didn't I?" He asked.

"Yes, you did. But this picture! It's almost as if she . . ." Her voice trailed of. Almost as if what? She thought. Almost as if the child had seen inside her dreams? It didn't make any sense to her, yet the picture held her attention. Like a key! She thought, a key to a lock. The lock that held her mind in bondage? Was the child a prisoner of the same horrible. . .? Horrible what? Figment? She wiped at her eyes wearily with her hand, and glanced at Paul.

He cocked his eyebrow in question.

Patty looked back to the picture, and was again absorbed in it. She could not take her eyes off it, as if memorizing every detail of the complicated drawing. Perhaps, Paul thought, she's knowledgeable of child psychology, and understands what Jenny's problem is. Finally, after quite a while of sitting quietly, he tried to break into her meditative concentration.

"Would you like to drive in with me in the morning?" He asked, bafflement at her absorption in the picture showing in his voice. "After all, we will be looking in the same place for generally the same things."

She did not answer. She did not look up from the drawing.

"We could do our research together?" He suggested, a bit louder.

She nodded, absently, in compliance. Paul wondered where she could be; it was obvious that she was not in this cozy restaurant with him, at least not mentally. He was a little disappointed, for he had hoped to turn the progress they had made in becoming friends, after such a disastrous start, into perhaps a deeper, more romantic relationship. He took one more stab at it.

"Could I interest you in a drink before bed?" He asked brightly, but being very specific in tone with the word `bed', in hopes that they might share one.

She finally looked up from the picture, and directly into his eyes. He saw that she had grasped his meaning, and thought for a short moment that she was going to say yes. He hid his disappointment when she shook her head negatively. She gave him a small, tight smile, which dimpled her cheeks.

"Thanks for the offer," She said softly, placing her hand over his, "But I'm completely exhausted. I need to go straight to my room and get a good night's sleep."

Paul was somewhat surprised by the sincerity in her voice. It baffled him that this most desirable woman would thank him for offering to take her to bed. Surely she had droves of suitors back in Roanoke. Perhaps that was the answer, he thought, perhaps she had a long term commitment to another man. But the look in her eyes and the subtle impression he got when she placed her hand over his seemed to be saying `later' rather than no.

"Perhaps some other time?" He asked, and again recognized the pleading tone in his voice. He almost blushed. Why did this woman, who he had met less than four hours ago, have this debilitating effect on him? He asked himself, helplessly.

"See you in the morning," She answered, ambiguously. Standing, she thanked him for dinner, and headed for the door.

For the first time, Paul noticed the slight limp in her left leg. It was nearly imperceptible, and if he had not been following her movements so closely with his eyes, would probably not have seen the diminutive dip of her torso with each small step. It did not detract from her attractiveness, he decided, but somehow added to her mysterious allure; as a beauty mark on an otherwise perfect face will.

He had never been drawn to a woman so strongly before. There was a mystique about her which made his interest in finding out more about her almost a compulsion. He felt helpless in the face of it.

She seemed to consist of many layers. Outside, she appeared bland, almost non-communicative. He had had to wheedle and question to drag what little information he had from her. Under that facade, he saw another Patty.

This one seemed helpless, afraid, hunted; as if set adrift in a world she did not understand, comprehend, nor cope with. Or perhaps as if she had been shattered, like a fine ceramic vase, then somehow put back together with some of the pieces missing.

He had caught only the tiniest glimpse of her inner-most layer. He had seen it in the glittering hardness of her eyes when she first saw Jenny's picture, and what he had seen caused him to believe that she was looking for the missing pieces, and would surely find them; for her inner core seemed to made of solid stainless steel.