A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [68]
“I know,” Maud agreed. “My hair feels awful — I think it’s the salt water. Do you suppose I could wash it today?”
Muffet took out her tablet. She scrawled MAUD NOT GO IN WATER OR MAUD DEAD.
Maud read the message, appreciative of the fact that Muffet was using the word or, which was new to her. It had taken Maud some pains to teach the meaning of or. Maud wrote MAUD NOT DEAD, tapped her chest as if to prove it, smiled placatingly, and returned the tablet to Muffet.
Muffet snorted, exasperated. She sat down on the bed and proceeded to draw. Maud gazed over her shoulder, fascinated as the seascape took shape — a long line of rocks leading from shore to sky, the curving waves, last night’s waning moon. Between the waves there was a head, and two arms raised in desperation. Muffet put down her pencil, lifted her hands, and began to gasp for air. It was a vivid and ugly pantomime of a person drowning.
Remembering the night before, Maud felt her skin prickle with gooseflesh. Had Muffet seen . . . ? No. The shore had been deserted. Maud pushed the thought aside. The ocean had frightened her the night before, but she had every intention of going back to it. She took the tablet and tried to draw a picture of herself playing in the sand. She mimed making a castle, pulling the bedsheet into peaks. She assumed her most pleading expression. I only play in the sand.
Muffet’s eyes narrowed.
Maud pinched the grains of sand from the sheet and let them trickle onto the tablet. Beside them, she wrote the word SAND. Then she wrote MAUD WORK IN SAND — Muffet hadn’t yet learned the word for play.
Muffet snatched the pencil and wrote MAUD IN WATER. She went back to the dress and wrung out the hem, producing a few drops of moisture. You weren’t just playing with the sand; you were in the water.
Maud threw up her palms, asking for mercy.
Muffet jotted down MAUD IN HOUSE and held the tablet so Maud could see.
Maud shook her head. She took the tablet and wrote HOT IN HOUSE. MAUD GO OUT HOUSE. She stopped with the pencil in her hand. She wished she had the words to tell Muffet how much she wanted to go out. The attic was not just hot; it was suffocating. She was sick of being a secret child, of feeling lonely and invisible and forlorn. Outside was the freshness of the wind and the ocean and the magic of the carousel. An idea came to her. She seized the pencil and began a sketch more complicated than any she had tried before.
She began with an upside-down triangle, for the carousel’s canopy, and drew four stick horses, two up and two down. She drew herself standing to one side and made a dotted line going from her eye to the merry-go-round. Surely Muffet would understand that staying in the house was hopeless when there were things like that just beyond the back door.
Muffet was interested. She sat back down on the bed and watched the drawing take shape. After the fourth horse appeared, the light of recognition came into her face, and she raised one hand, miming the up-and-down motion of the flying horses. Evidently she had seen the merry-go-round.
Maud nodded. She wrote MAUD GO OUT HOUSE. MAUD GO SEE — she drew an arrow and printed CAROUSEL under the flying horses.
Muffet took the tablet from her. Her pencil moved rapidly, fleshing out the horses, changing the upside-down triangle into a cone. She often corrected Maud’s drawings — Maud suspected that her stick figures were as distressing to Muffet as Muffet’s clothes were to Maud. She watched respectfully as Muffet rounded out Maud’s self-portrait with sleeves, a sash, and hair.
Muffet finished correcting the drawing and wrote MAUD GO SEE CAROUSEL. Then she wrote MAUD WORK IN SAND. And afterward, with such pressure that the tip of the pencil broke, MAUD NOT GO IN WATER OR MAUD DEAD.
Maud took away the tablet. With the nub of the pencil, she drew a pair of feet, with a wavy line just up to the ankles. MAUD GO IN LITTLE WATER.
Muffet shook