Iron Behind the Velvet ~ Chapter 46

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~ By the Surprise of Its Own Unfolding ¹


Someone ...

He knew ... awareness ... without recognition, the moment of even that cut short by the silver fracture of the black mirror. The gravity of his commitment pulled him deep ... away ... not so much below as ... within.  Whoever skirted the gypsum shore would dodge a buckled pack, might bend to the muddle of his clothes; but whoever waited, whoever watched for him would see nothing more than the stir and spume of the lake’s cleaving.

A creature of air and dry land, he was surprised anew by what he, in his most private thoughts, imagined as the water’s acceptance. At the basin of the falls, at the Mirror Pool ... here ... as he slipped through the cool silk, fingers of warmth dabbled at his skin, luring him deeper where insistent palms mapped the hardscape of his body, held him close with welcome, with desire. The science of it he understood, but the drab explanation – hot springs and vents, the measure of atmosphere and pressure – only clouded the truth: that with his half-opened eye, he saw crystalline stars, that at his temple came the sibilate welcome, Yessss ... that in this place of wave-rhythmed harmonies, he was free.

Once that last boyish summer – a vision never shared – first in from the chute, arrowing in the same long trajectory, he saw, emerged from the shadowy edge, a being so diaphanous, so immaterial ... He stopped the scissor of his legs and drifted, borne by the current furrowed far beneath the surface. Surely only light, he thought. An impossible dance of light. Her pale hair and paler dress a rippling veil; her parted lips, her coal eyes beckoning ... she was so sadly, desolately rare. ² The need to touch her burned in his chest, but before he could find her dim hand, he was buffeted by an underwater gust, and when he looked again, she was gone. Seconds later clammy fingers closed around his ankle. His lungs emptied, their desperation rocketing him upward. He gulped the sweet air of his world, whipped the hair from his eyes. Noah bobbed up nearby, sputtery with laughter, pointing at him. Stuart’s shout and splash ricocheted off the cavern walls.

Now he kicked twice for ascent, breaking the still plane with a quiet gasp. With his arms and cupped hands, he fanned the water.

“You!” a voice exclaimed and he swirled toward the sound.

If she hadn’t spoken, she’d have been invisible against the rock formations, her clothes shadow-colored, a sooty gray; her thick rope of hair braided strands of ivory and tea-stained lace. Wren scrambled from an overlook in the swell of flowstone – The Mirador, they’d christened it – and paced the chiseled shoreline.

“When you didn’t come up and didn’t come up! I heard a splash and saw some bubbles but then ... nothing. I was about to dive in! If I’d known ...”  She bent and braced her hands on her knees. Her shoulders heaving;. Then she raised her head and grinned. “Stuart told me you could do the length on one breath. I didn’t believe him though. He says you have the best power phase of anybody he’s ever raced, a great high elbow catch, and I should really study your form.”

He paddled backward into a sliver of shade and a cooler stream. Years had passed since their last competition, an unplanned match at the triple falls. Before Catherine, he realized. Just before. When Stuart found him, challenged him, he’d already swum an hour of fueled laps, unable to lose himself, a vague ambition burning, unquenchable ... and this time, this one time at least, he held nothing back. He won ... easily ... much to his opponent’s vociferous frustration.

Chuckled words bubbled out before him. “Stuart says a lot of things.”

She snorted. “He does, doesn’t he.” Already barefoot, Wren snapped the drawstring at her waist. “That crazy current, the warm one that snakes around. Are you in it?”

“It’s there. In the middle.”

A wisp of steam fog curled between them, a nearly straight trace end-to-end of the tapered pool. Across from her, scrubbed up against a wall of crystal spars, he spread his arms along the ledge. The air chilled his skin. He let himself sink chin-level in the water.

“Vincent?”

“I’m here,” he called, his voice louder than necessary.

Her thumbs hooked in the band of her sweats, she peered in his direction. “Oh,” she said, after a silent beat. Her hands moved to the zipper of her jacket, but she tugged it higher instead of open. “I don’t, ummm, have to get in. Now. But just so you know ...” She laughed, a soft trill. “I’m wearing a suit.”

“And I’m ...” He glanced toward the entry.

Wren followed his gaze. “Pretty far from your clothes?”

“That ... and without a towel.”

“Well, you’re at my mercy then. I’ve stashed a couple extra, but I should make you show me your ‘fly first.” She started at her own words. “I mean your stroke! I’d like to see it.” She squealed and fanned her face. “No, no! Your butterfly! Oh, dear God, Vincent! Help me out!”

Help you out!? I’m– He expected a wash of embarrassment, perhaps the brush of her wariness against his own, but it was impossible to mistake her enjoyment of their situation, her ease with him. He liked her, though he’d expect to like anyone Stuart loved. Why would it – he – be different for her? For others chosen by the hearts of his friends? By ... Catherine. He shivered, not from the cool cove waters, but from the realization that perhaps ... it wasn’t.

Wren’s laugh, deep rumbly notes, resounded in the chamber. Just for a moment, he considered gliding into the channel, building speed for a somersault at the wall of the lake, imagined the in- and outsweep of his arms, the undulating drive of his body, first his shoulders, then his hips rising ...

Hey! he heard – and it was Stuart’s rumble, close, as if he hunkered just behind him, his laugh an octave lower but so like Wren’s – You’re stone-buck nekkid, pal, whatever that meant. And that’s my wife. From habit, he clamped his arm to his ribs, expecting a jab. He cleared his throat. “I don’t think, given its ... mechanics ... I’m prepared to demonstrate.”

“Oh my God,” she repeated. “Stuart will love this. I won’t hear the end of it. You wait. He’ll tell it at Thanksgiving dinner. At Winterfest!” She shook her head. “All this ... freedom down here. Really, it’s a lot to get used to. Please, Vincent, finish your swim.  Were you headed back to camp? I’ll go with you, carry something.”

“I was. But you ...”

“I can come back later or in the morning. I don’t have court ‘til ten tomorrow. Use my towels. I’ll wait for you. Outside.”

A half-lap to the end of the pool warmed his muscles and the length, taken at full crawl, was a rejuvenating meditation. The last vestiges of his headache shimmered away; the rock dust cleared from his lungs. Long repressed to a dull, red ache, the gash across his cheek kindled to fire, but in the sluice of healing minerals, the sting soon ebbed. A last knife into the deep stirred the sand, but he arched away from the swirl of glitter and silt, lured only by the velvet caress ... Catherine.

Three thick towels were stacked with his clothes and he used them all, after he dressed, wringing each one in his grip, spreading them on the rocks to dry. When he hoisted his pack and the crate, the tools clinked and clattered together, their purpose and his duties sharpened into focus, nearly a surprise.

His torch was righted in a holder at the top of the stairs and still there, still used, the Arrow Rock pointed left. He ducked through the Needle’s Eye, wove the short maze of The Knees into Wall Street. The wedge-shaped cavern was just as magnificent as when they discovered it, its ceiling just as soaring, but a string of electric lights burned there now, a pick-off he knew from the main corridor’s line, a corridor not one hundred feet away through an inconspicuous pass, their secret lands – had they ever truly been – no longer so. He snuffed his flare in a sand trough, stowing it with a cache of others in a tall urn.

Wren lounged in The Hammock, a smooth scoop of stone opposite The Stacks. The niche was brightened by yellow tapers studded in an awkward copper candelabra, one he’d made himself from scavenged pipe fittings and plumbing parts.

“I sat in that very place,” he began.

“And read by this very light,” Wren finished, closing her book. He bent his head to read the title and she flashed its cover – What to Expect When You’re Expecting – before she scooted to the edge of the recess.

It was only polite, no less than he’d been taught, and instinct – he held out his hand to her aid. So new she was to their family, her home with Stuart so far from his daily occupations, he hardly knew her. Certainly he’d never touched her, not even in welcome or congratulations, and there was an instant when he thought to withdraw his offer, to retreat before she could recoil. And she did hesitate; after curling her fingers with his, she did frown ... before she leveraged against his weight and popped to her feet. He released her and stepped back, that warm sheen of confidence, of ... normalcy ... drying on his skin, dulling him.

Four tiered ledges were jammed with books and she wedged hers in at one’s end, a shaky smile on her face. “I have three copies,” she said. “No, four. One here, one in our chamber, one in my briefcase to read at work, one in the apartment. What happened to your cheek?”

“A scrape, a ... nothingness. How are you feeling?” he remembered to ask.

“Iffy, sometimes,” she said. “When I get up too fast, like, uh, umm, like a second ago, out of The Hammock.” Her face paled and she swallowed hard. “Erg.”

“Should you sit?” Chagrined that her discomfort granted him some measure of relief, he assigned himself an evening session of self-examination. A longing flared, a necessitude, and though it died back, was not put out – to admit his diffidence, to explore his nature, learned and inborn, with someone, someone not Father. Not ... not even Catherine. He let down his gear and grabbed up his cloak, folding it to a cushion. “Here.”  And he reached for her again, took both her hands and steadied her to a padded seat on the pack. “Water ... shall I get some for you?”

“Ehhhh,” Wren muttered, her head bowed.

“Crackers? Do you have ...” He searched the pigeonholes and crannies for emergency rations, wishing he could blink back into existence their once well-stocked stash. “I don’t ...”

“Mmmmm--mmmm.”  She held up one finger, then rocked forward, her elbows on her knees, her forehead in her palms. Helpless to do anything else, he watched her.

Minutes passed. Crouched at her side, he offered what he hoped was a reassuring touch. “Shall I send for Stuart?”

She shook her head – barely. “Gingerroot?” she mumbled. “Peppermint?”

Is she teasing me? Now? He wasn’t sure, but as if the possession were possible, he patted his pockets.

“Grruummphh.” She flapped her hand, dismissing ... relieving ... him, but when he didn’t rise, she opened one eye. “I’m all right,” she said, showing him a cautious smile. “Really, I’m fine. Or I will be. It’s ... it’s passing. One minute, okay?” She caught her breath. “Maybe five.”

He nodded and pushed to his feet. If she were Catherine ... what would he do? He slammed into the question, his hands flat, his cheek turned against the cold stone wall of it. No picture materialized through the haze suddenly clouding his vision or past the queasiness that made him breathe so shallowly and through his mouth. Something fluttered ... though if he’d tried, he couldn’t touch the place ...

I could ... read to her, he decided, crossing to the library shelves. Yes. A reassuring passage from her manual. But as he plucked at the volume, he cast a last look over his shoulder. Wren sat tucked around her distress, alone with it. No, he realized. Private with it. Protective, determined. Willing. He pushed the book flush and waited, careful not to pace.

With Stuart’s the deciding vote, they’d once debated the name of this place – The Bellows, he’d suggested; Wall Street, Noah proposed. He’d never seen the avenue except in pictures – still had not – but the analogy fit. From where Wren rested, the narrow path through the high, slotted crevice rose and fell, switchbacked and flattened as did many a topsider’s fortune. Noah’s was a good choice, the best; his friends perplexed by his. And likely only he could feel it, hear it. At times, a rush of air like an indrawn breath breezed past, spiraling to the far reaches of the ceiling, held there ... its release a warm purr. He imagined it the carrier of the singing wind through these northern tunnels, the powered source of the Whispering Bridge of home. He heard it now, its voice just separate from shadow, from silence, a voice neither Wren’s nor Catherine’s. Be here. Be still.

And in time, Wren blew out a long and grateful “Ooooooosh.”

“Better now?” he asked.

“Weird,” she said, looking at her shoes. She tapped one toe, then the other. “It comes; it goes. It’s supposed to be a good sign. The book says it’ll likely be gone altogether soon, but I hear some awful stories. Maybe below ... mornings, evenings ... get mixed up. OH!” She gulped and bent over crossed arms.

Leaping to her, whisking her up he knew was ... unnecessary ... and yet ...

“No, no. I’m good,” she said, though he’d not spoken aloud. She straightened, her gaze soft, inward, on intimate landmarks known only to her. “Yep. Almost good to go.”

“Until then ... how might I ... ”

“Talk to me. That helps. Tell me a story, one about you and Stuart and Noah.” She touched the back of her hand to one cheek, to the other. “All those books. Were they your favorites?”

He studied the tattered spines – browned, brittle paperbacks, tooled cloth and leather bindings. The Riddle of the Sands, Captain Blood, The Man Who Would Be King. Verne and Burroughs and Sir H. Rider Haggard. “Our imaginations knew no bounds.”

“Tell me the truth. The Odyssey? Moby Dick? Did you really, really like those? I mean, Robert Howard, all his Conans? I get that, but the Aeneid? Beowulf?”

“Father sent those along.”

“Did you read them? Wait ... was there a test?”

He shrugged and nodded. “The others, we, umm, collected.”

“Sounds like a story in itself,” she said and they both grinned. She pointed to the shelves. “The Decameron. Remember that one? Jacob’s idea ... or yours?”

“It’s here?” He scanned the rows again. He remembered – of course he did – the book purloined from Father’s library, secreted in his frayed carpetbag until he arrived at Noah’s, their passing of it hand to hand behind his mother’s back into the knapsack of treats she’d readied. Bawdy, they’d heard it described. Banned. Finding it, when they settled around the campfire, the covers opened at last to the first page, seriously disappointing. They’d stuffed it in among other, more accessible stories and when he walked home at summer’s end, he left it behind, forgotten. But Father had noticed the absence – the copy from the turn of the century, gilt lettering on still-supple burgundy cowhide and, in Father’s final word, valuable – and he’d been sent back, but it was not to be found. Neither Stuart nor Noah confessed to its whereabouts, though Noah asserted that it belonged in the abyss.

Wren laughed at his tale and he was thankful color petaled her cheeks again. “I did a month of extra Latin translation,” he continued. “Plus an essay on the two-fold character of borrowing – the take and the return.”

“Imagine Jacob’s delight to have it in-hand again.”

“But I paid for it, long ago. And I shouldn’t wish to provoke an old ... exasperation. It’s best to leave it here, I think. It’s been safe enough.”

Wren rose and reached back for his cloak. She shook the creases free. “Uh oh,” she said. “You’ve got a big rip. Want me to mend it? Stu’s mom gave us her old treadle machine. I could use the practice.”

He took it from her, refolding it into the crate, brushing at the shadow of a stain on the leather inset, on the satin trim of the hood. “It’s an old one,” he said, quick to sidestep the curiosity he saw in her eyes. “Are you, as you described, good to go?”

“If we go right now.” Her playful spark had returned, and not for the first time, Vincent thought her an exclamation point to Stuart’s solid squareness. “I’ll get the pack,” she said, bending to it.

“It’s heavy. Wren, please ...” He hooked a strap with a fast hand and shifted into the harness.

“I can manage,” she protested. “I’ve carried heavier things before.”

“I’m sure you have ... and will again. But not this. Not today.” The crate settled again on his hip, he stepped back, letting her pass in front. Single-file they climbed the last steps, rounded the last corner, Wren reaching up, brushing two fingers to a groove worn in the stone before slipping through The Slice with ease. He maneuvered the tools and his shoulders past crags lower and rougher than he recalled and touched the same smooth place.

“We had good news today, from Kanin,” he said, once matched with her in the corridor. “The ... situation is containable. We know the priority of work now, where we should concentrate our resources.”

“Stuart did seem relieved. I'd just gotten in and he'd come home to change clothes, but he gave me the condensed version on his way out again. He wants to get as much done as he can before he has to go back to work next week.”

“We won’t leave until you’re secure. This concern – the uncertainty, the disruption – has surely colored your impression of our world. I’m sorry for that.”

“No, Vincent. Don’t be. The commitment, the efforts ... remind me of home.”

“How?”

“You’ve heard of barn raisings, haven’t you? Harvest suppers? Those things really happen where I’m from. Anytime there’s an emergency, an illness in the family, neighbors pitch in. Us farm kids even had storm families, a home in town we’d go to if a blizzard closed school. We’d stay until our folks came for us, days, sometimes a week or more.”

“People looking out for each other,” he said and she nodded. “Is it beautiful, where you’re from?”

“The buttes and spires, the canyons – it’s a lot like here without the roof. But at night, you can’t believe the stars. And on the prairies ... the wisp-grass and flowers in the wind, the eagles dark against the sun ... I wish you could see it.” Her sigh, wistful at first, choked to awkwardness. With steepled fingers, she tapped her lips. “I’m sorry, Vincent.”

“Don’t apologize. Please.” He stopped and called her name and though she turned to him, her head was bowed, her fists tucked under her chin. “You must believe me,” he said. “I go west on your words, Wren. Without them ...” He spread his arms, erasing the thought. “With them ... I am ... unbound.” His head tipped in invitation, he beckoned her to follow. “Our friendship is just begun,” he said. “You need not watch what you say. And you must stop biting your lip. Truly ... you must stop.”

They walked in silence to the next junction, where Wren, after a stuttered step, chose the corridor not to her chambers but to camp. “You’re learning your way,” he said and the tension eased at the corners of her eyes, from the curve of her posture.

“When this is all over, you and Catherine will visit, won’t you?” she asked.

“We will. You two have much in common. You’ll be fast friends.”

“I hope so. Stuart misses you, Vincent. He told me the upside of all this worry is having you around again. Sounds like you had some really good times together.”

Good times. Yes. After Devin left, he’d not expected to smile again and that first summer, when he realized he was enjoying himself, he’d felt almost guilty. He’d been free here, his hours unscripted, his quiet spells unchallenged. Expected to do little beyond make up his own bunk, wash the dishes after breakfast or supper, once a week to make the rounds of the farthest dwellers’ chambers with bread and oranges and candles. Be polite and be careful were Stuart’s and Noah’s mothers’ only admonitions. Keep it to a dull roar after midnight, either father would demand. Stay together, Levya would remind them every morning. Be grateful. Laugh out loud.

“You know, there’re guest chambers,” Wren was saying. “Nice ones and never used, not far from us. You could make one a holiday house.”

“I’d like that.” And he would. He crossed the threshold of a room yet unseen, unclaimed, where nevertheless candle flame danced to a scrap of fluted melody and friends old and new crowded a laden table. “But when your baby comes, won’t you be moving above?”

“What? Why? Why would you think such a thing?”

“Your friends, your work. Your family, Wren. How will you explain ...” And if she could not, how might Catherine?

They were nearing camp and since Kanin’s return,  a portion of vigilance had relaxed. A burst of laughter echoed from a side corridor; footsteps sounded nearby. On the closest circle of pipes, short messages were softly tapped again. To hear her answer, to have it uninterrupted, he’d take a wrong turn, the longer round-about if necessary. His paced slowed, and hers.

“Remember, I haven’t been in the city long,” she said. “Just a couple years. People come and go; no big deal. Not like at home, where they let school out to watch somebody move in from out of town. And Mom’s not likely to surprise me with a visit. It’s not an easy thing to get from Sage Creek, South Dakota to the Bronx without a phone call or two, not to mention how hard it is for Dad or my brother to leave the ranch. When Mom comes, we’ll use the shared apartment over Dix’s place. That’s where she thinks we live. I’ve sent pictures. She knows it’s too little for her to stay over.” Wren chuckled. “She says we’re crazy to live there. If she knew the truth, she’d be happier for us, dollars to doughnuts. Anyway,” she continued, “a friend from work lives pretty close, and she volunteered to put her up. After that, well, I don’t know. Since it looks like the entrances are saved, maybe we’d pretend to move to Sal’s building. If we have to, we’ll find a little place of our own, with access. Woodlawn’s nice. Or maybe Bedford Park or Belmont. There’s Stu’s job to think about.”

“And yours”

“Oh, I’m taking a leave. A long one. I haven’t officially told anyone at work, just a few close friends there, Eimear and Zivah. Maybe Catherine knows someone, someone with child advocacy experience, because we’ll have to start looking for my replacement soon. I’m raising this baby Below.”

Eimear. At her name, he lost the rhythm of his stride and the crate banged against his thigh. Then what is all this?³ Once he countered Catherine's disbelief with the question, but there was no denying this confluence. The circumstance that drew them north had been urgent, its remedy necessary, and they would seal a dozen doors at the perimeter before the boundary was declared safe. Had not as many doors opened? He uttered a short gasp. I dwell in possibility and so ... what dreams may come …? ^{4, 5} Yours, Catherine. Mine. He would not stumble on the path now, so near the center. What steps were his, he would make.

“You’re surprised!" She misunderstood, and yet she didn't. "You shouldn't be" she went on. "This place ... made Stuart who he is. My baby will have grandparents just under Riverdale. Liz and Noah’s kids will be like cousins. They’ll shoot the chute together, Vincent. Scheme in The Mirador. I want her to have the education you have, even if it does mean reading Virgil on summer vacation. I want her to run these tunnels, to take for granted all the freedoms I’ve unlearned or never learned, to be touched by the magic of here.” She reached out, closing on the taut strap of the toolbox, turning him. “I want my children to know you, Vincent.”

He met her gaze. The corridors were lantern-lit and in their glow, Wren’s eyes were the color of ripe wheat. Once, blushing, his voice husky with wonder, Stuart had called her his Black Hills gold, describing her fine mettle belied by her pale delicacy, painting her warm like the the sun on a Badlands mesa, open as the Great Plains. Now, he sensed no fear in her. No fears dismissed or overcome or whittled away by familiarity. Simply none.

“I must ask you something, and Wren, you should ... feel free ... to be truthful. Tell me. How did Stuart prepare you ... for me?”

Click HERE for Chapter 47.


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1. John O'Donohue. Fluent. from Conamara Blues, Poems. Harper Collins. 2001.
2. Edgar Fawcett. To T.S.S. from Fantasy and Passion. 1878.
3. When the Blue Bird Sings.  Season 2. Dialogue: Vincent.
4. Emily Dickinson. I Dwell in Possibility.
5. William Shakespeare. Hamlet. Act 3, scene 1. 1600.