Page 5 of It's You
Her Great-Aunt Lucy waved at her cheerfully from beside him and took a quick photo with a disposable camera.Great. There’s a shot to remember.The stuffed quail on the old woman’s hat bobbed up and down, nodding at Darcy, as if it might coo, “Maybe someday. Maybe someday,” with its singsong call, if it could only escape Lucy Turner’s chapeau.
Step-together-pause, step-together-pause.
Her best friend and roommate, Dr. Willow Broussard, had her lips curled tightly inward between clenched teeth, and her eyes danced merrily, taking in Darcy’s “Sunset Delight” gown in varying shades of hot pink, fluorescent orange, shiny gold, and metallic lavender. Darcy could see her shoulders quaking with laughter under the straps of her simple dress. It was Willow’s favorite: soft black jersey with a scoop neck, empire waist, and a hem that barely allowed her always-black-lacquered toes to peek out from underneath. Darcy crossed her eyes momentarily at Willow during apause, then resumed her serene pace up the aisle.
Step-together-pause, step-together-pause.
Darcy’s mother, Cassie, sat in the second row and twisted her neck to see her daughter—her still-single daughter—then rolledher eyes, covering her mouth with a delicately embroidered handkerchief. Darcy could see the disappointment in her mother’s eyes, almost feel the heaviness of her mother’s heart.
There’s my good girl. Always a bridesmaid…
As she approached the altar, Darcy breathed in through her nose, only to be assaulted by the thick scent of gardenias. Huge bunches of the pungent sweeter-than-honey blooms had been arranged in large vases in the front of the church, and Darcy’s stomach rolled over, offended by the strong smell.
You cannot get sick, Darcy Turner. Breathe through your mouth, for heaven’s sake.
She turned left into the empty pew in front and stepped lightly to the end, thanking God that she was sitting closest to the long floor-to-ceiling windows that had replaced the centuries-old lead glass windows in the old Second Congregational Church of Carlisle, New Hampshire. Some parishioners had taken offense at the newer, simpler plate-glass windows, whose bottom halves could be opened to allow fresh air into the ancient church. Great-Aunt Lucy and her sister, Darcy’s Great-Aunt Mildred, had refused to attend services for a year complete after the installation of the new windows, protesting by holding weekly Sunday Bible study in the front parlor of their Victorian house on Main Street, dressed in their Sunday best.
Since there was a snowball’s chance in hell that she’d ever wear this dress again, Darcy slid back to settle comfortably into her seat, crushing her bustle and closing her eyes. Still wary of her churning stomach, she tried to focus on the fresh early-spring air coming in from the window.
Her cousin Theodora snapped her gum—classy—and elbowed Darcy in the side. “Saw your girlfriend.”
Darcy rolled her eyes at Honoria’s nineteen-year-old sister, took a deep breath, and sighed. Despite what half the town thought, Darcy and Willow were not lesbians.
“This should be good.”
Theodora chewed her gum like a cow with cud, and Darcy wondered how distracted her Aunt Bess must have been not to notice her gum-chewing youngest daughter.Then again, I guess a knocked-up daughter and a shotgun wedding are pretty distracting circumstances.
“Willow-the-Witch and Darcy-the-Spinster. Thirty-five may as well be a hundred. Kill me if I’m not married by then.”
“Gladly.”
Theodora’s eyes widened, and she turned away quickly, just in time to see her older sister take her place at the front of the church, a big, poofy, pregnant bride who took up most of the altar space in a mockery of a white dress, practically dwarfing the skinny groom beside her.
The minister took his place before the couple. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today…”
Darcy closed her eyes again and tuned him out, propping her elbow on the side of the pew and leaning her head toward the window.
And then it happened, as it always did when she least expected it.
Shewent inside.
That’s what Willow called it when Darcy shut out the world for a little while and escaped inside her own head. Either that, or she referred to it assoul flight,in the manner of the Métis, a tribe of Indigenous people located north of Carlisle near Quebec. Like dreaming without sleeping, Darcy would close her eyes and mentally wander away from wherever she was. When she opened her eyes inside, she’d find herself somewhere else.
Sometimes her soul flight took her to a pleasant clearing where she’d fan her fingertips against tall grasses that shuddered lightly in an afternoon breeze. Sometimes she found herself in a cathedral of pine trees, dwarfed by the greatness of the forest around her. Sometimes she wandered high into the mountains, eventually gazing down at the woodlands with wonder.
Two things were consistent when Darcy went inside without exception. Shealwaysfound herself in the woods, and without exception, the illusionalwaysended the same…withhisvoice from long ago, and the whispered words “It’s you,”as hot as flame, as still as breath, in her ear.
This time, when she opened her eyes, she was kneeling in a clearing on a thick mattress of long pine needles at dusk. She could feel the soft needles piled high under her knees, so she spread out her hands by her sides to run her fingers over their hay-like texture. Looking around, she realized she kneeled in the middle of an intersection of pathways, smoothed trails flattened to tidy dirt paths by years of tread, one to her left and one to her right. She breathed in and smelled the fresh pine trees all around her. A loon called from the distance, its sad howl drenched with longing. As she sat back on her heels, the simple white cotton shift she was wearing settled around her in a perfect circle of brightness in the dying light. To her left, she heard a noise, like a foot snapping a twig, and turned to see, but there was nothing there. Still, she felt she wasn’t alone. No, sheknewshe wasn’t alone.
Are you here?she wondered.
It’s you…
Theodora nudged her. “Wake up, Darcy. Geez! Ruder! It’s almost over!”
Darcy’s elbow slipped off the side of the pew, banging painfully into the sharp, elaborate molding below. She wincedand opened her eyes, reorienting herself. She didn’t need to put her hands to her cheeks to know they would be flushed bright pink with heat. She could still smell the pine needles, but it was fading like mist, its welcome freshness being mercilessly replaced by the nauseating gardenias.
She turned to the window again, sucking in a cleansing breath, squinting her eyes against the bright sun that bathed her face in light.
