A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [65]
The chill of the ocean was a shock. Maud squealed as the water climbed to her waist. She ducked so that it came up to her shoulders and fanned out her skirts. All at once the next wave was upon her, curling like the top of a question mark. Maud hopped upward, trying to catch the surge. Her timing was wrong. The wave slapped her face, knocking her headlong into the water.
Maud flailed. Salt burned her throat; she could not breathe; she was choking to death. Instinctively she worked her arms and kicked, but the force of the wave had disoriented her. With increasing desperation, she pawed and thrashed, forcing herself deeper into the water. Her mouth opened for air. Her mind shrieked that she could not be drowning: nothing so disastrous could happen so fast. But her toes had lost bottom, and the water was dark; no matter how frantically she punched and kicked, she could not get free of it. At last her muscles went limp. She stopped propelling herself sideways. In that moment, a wave bore her up, and her face touched the air.
She was saved. Her toes scrabbled, seeking the touch of sand and finding it. Coughing, spluttering, sobbing, she stumbled back to the shore and collapsed. The salt in her sinuses was agony, and she thought she was going to be sick. She snorted and spat, rubbing her eyes with fists of sandpaper.
Little by little, the salty anguish subsided. “I almost drowned,” Maud said to the darkening sky. She had always heard that it was possible to drown in a small amount of water. Now she knew it was true. For the first time, the horror of Caroline Lambert’s death struck home. She had imagined it wrong. Whenever she thought about it, she had pictured Caroline floating on her back and falling asleep, while the water slid over her face like a blanket. Now she knew better. Caroline had died fighting, her body battered by a power too fierce to resist. The words of Hyacinth’s singsong came back to Maud:
They row’d her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,
The cruel hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea.
Maud shivered. She thought of the figure in her dreams — the ghost-child Caroline. It frightened her that she, who was impersonating Caroline, had nearly shared her fate. She wanted Caroline to leave her alone — she wanted to stop thinking about her — she wanted the dead girl to get out of her dreams.
Maud leaped to her feet. She would leave the ocean and the solitude of the shore. She wanted lights, people, noise, Hyacinth — or Muffet. . . . But Hyacinth was not at home and Muffet mustn’t see her all sandy and wet. She couldn’t risk either of them knowing what had happened that night.
The Amusement Park. Maud broke into a run. Even if she couldn’t ride the carousel, she would be among people. There would be crowds, laughter, the smell of good things to eat. Caroline’s ghost would not haunt her there.
She felt better the moment she passed under the brightly lit arch. As she had guessed, the park was crowded, and the crowds seemed particularly merry. Maud eavesdropped and lollygagged, wending her way toward the merry-go-round.
By the time she reached it, the sky was black and the stars were coming out. Maud wormed her way to the front of the crowd and drank in the music of the calliope. Lips parted, she gazed at the animals: which would she ride, if she had a nickel?
She had daydreamed through four rides when the red-haired man beckoned. He was holding up a fragment of cardboard. Maud plunged forward, agog with hope.
“What’s that?” demanded Maud, though she knew.
“That’s your ticket,” answered the man. “A nice lady saw you watching and bought you a ticket.”
A nice lady. Maud’s heart sank. She had forgotten all about Mrs. Lambert. Her eyes raked the crowd, catching sight of a fashionably wide-brimmed hat. Yes, Mrs. Lambert was there. It would be Mrs. Lambert. She was watching expectantly, waiting for Maud to betray some sign of pleasure. Maud imagined