CHAPTER TWENTY: Sunny Comes To Dinner
On the thirtieth floor of a tower stone cold, Dante fought to his spirit withhold.
It was midnight. The power was out. Back-up generators provided dim orange lighting in the halls and some of the meeting rooms. Otherwise, shadows prevailed. Blackness hovered at either end of the room Dante occupied. Before him stood a long table of imitation wood. It gleamed by candlelight. Empty swivel chairs, some of them pulled out as if recently vacated, circled its top.
“There’s something looking for you,” a voice whispered.
Dante squinted to make out its owner. A tall, masculine shape stood on the other side of the table. Clues to its identity lay hidden in its posture, as well as the roundness of its belly.
“Mr. Donati?”
The opera singer stepped into the candlelight. His face looked calm. A vague smile turned the corners of his lips. Yet this was not a face of happy tidings. Bad trouble lurked nearby.
“Remain calm,” Donati said.
“Where am I? What’s going on?”
“We’re on the thirtieth floor—“
He was interrupted by a long, high-pitched shriek from below. The shriek sounded female, though not necessarily human.
Dante looked at the floor. “What was that?”
“Echidna,” Donati replied.
“Who?”
“A very large, powerful creature that wants to eat you. She’s on the twenty-seventh floor. This is the thirtieth. Dante—“
Another shriek, this time from directly beneath their feet.
“Leave the building, Dante. Go straight down. Don’t stop anywhere.”
“Does the elevator still work?” Dante glanced at the door. It stood open. Beyond he could make out—just barely—dim glare on glass walls, a polished floor, a drinking fountain. He turned back to Donati.
But the opera singer had gone. Vanished. Dante was alone.
Leave the building…
He went into hallway on trembling knees. The harsh orange eye of an emergency light glared from the ceiling. To his right lay an exit—the stairs. In the other direction were doors to an elevator.
He chose the elevator. To his relief, the down arrow came on when he pressed it. A motor whirred somewhere. Cables spun. Then the doors whispered open on an empty car lit weakly by a dying bulb.
Dante stepped inside. His finger searched duel columns of numbered buttons. He pressed the letter G. And like curtains over a stage, the doors hushed closed.
Except the show hadn’t ended. Was, in fact, only beginning. The car descended. A red digital read-out near the ceiling moved from 30 to 29. From 29 to 28. Dante held his breath. His lungs were far stronger than Sunny’s. Once he had lasted for two minutes underwater.
28…28…28…
…27.
The car jerked to a stop. Letting out his breath, Dante watched in horror as the doors slid open. The hallway beyond, silent as a buried coffin and nearly as black, seemed to reach toward him, chilling his heart. Visible though the gloom lay a trash can, tipped on its side. Garbage littered the floor in a spray. Something had hit the can hard.
From down the hall, faintly, came a slithery bump. Glass shattered.
Dante pressed the G button again. The doors vibrated on their tracks and slid closed. But the car would not move. Looking up at the display, Dante willed it with all his might. It did no good. The red number 27 refused to change. Instead, the doors slowly moved back open.
Now the can was gone. A body, female, lay in its place. Had that been what it was all along? The head was severed. Dead, horrified eyes shimmered through a thick veil of black hair.
Once more Dante pressed the G button—
And Echidna, wailing, swept into the car, seizing Dante’s throat with thorny claws. He didn’t have time to see much. A pair of yellow eyes, a hissing head of snaky hair, drooling venom. Hungry screams deafened him. Snapping teeth tore him to bits.
Dante’s eyes flew open.
He was in his bedroom. Early morning. Light from State Street’s arc-sodium lamps touched the bed, the desk. His watch read 3:27.
“Sunday,” he said to the ceiling, between deep breaths to slow the race of his pulse.
Dinner day with Sunny. Try as he might, Dante still couldn’t get his mind around how things were going to go with her at the table, munching away on bread and pasta with his parents.
No poisonous snakes, please.
His head settled on the pillow. No snakes—that didn’t seem like a tall request. But with a girl like Sunny, he had to consider whether it might already be too late to ask.
∞
Everything went fine until about half-way through the meal.
They picked Sunny up at 5:30 on the button. She was waiting on the porch, dressed in a yellow cotton skirt and soft blue sweater. A leather jacket, open, hung on her shoulders. Tiny jewels rimmed its pockets.
“Hello Mr. and Mrs. Torn!” she sang, springing down the stairs in her traditional black boots. “It’s a pleasure to meet you!”
She and Dante held hands in the back seat while Mr. Torn navigated the car between large, puffy flakes of gently falling snow. From the passenger side Mrs. Torn, cradling Dukey in her lap, smiled over and over at Sunny, until Dante felt the rear-view mirror must soon arc into a smile too.
“Dante told me you were beautiful…oh, probably a hundred times. I never doubted him, of course, but he does have a tendency to exaggerate—“
“Mom!” Dante shouted.
“Not this time, though. You really are very beautiful.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Torn.”
“Mom.”
Once home Sunny insisted on helping in the kitchen. This pleased Dante’s mother even more. Dante watched her cut garlic bread. Her tiny arms—bare now that her jacket was off, and the sweater sleeveless—moved with dainty, feminine confidence. Each cut looked precisely like the last. Not a crumb touched the plate. Nor, for that matter, did the blade of the knife, as it did so often when he or his father cut, protesting their clumsiness with glassy, jagged barks. With this same confidence she sliced onions and brushed them into the sauce. Then she helped set the table, arranging the silverware just how Mrs. Torn liked it, though she’d never been told.
“Perfect,” she said, standing back to admire her work.
Mrs. Torn had to agree. “It is, Sunny. Wow, do I love having you in the kitchen. I wish you could come over every night. Dante? You lose this girl and I’ll chuck you out your dad’s rover at full speed!”
“Speaking of Dad, where is he?”
“Where do you think? In the living room with the dog.”
A dinner of quiet, thoughtful conversation followed. Dante and Sunny sat across from one another, exchanging diagnostic glances. Occasionally the toe of her boot would give his leg a flirty brush.
“Have you lived in Norwalk all your life?” Mrs. Torn asked.
“No,” Sunny replied. “I was actually born in Ravenna. Portage County. But my dad moved us here when I was very young.”
“What does Mr. Desdemona do for a living?”
Dante’s eyebrows perked up at this. All year he’d never once asked Sunny about Brenton’s occupation. What did he do, anyway?
“He’s president of a company that services very old boilers,” Sunny said. “New boilers, too, but it’s the old ones that bring in the money. Parts for those are so hard to find. Hardly anyone makes them anymore.”
“And no wonder,” said Mrs. Torn. “Aren’t those things dangerous?”
“The old ones? Absolutely. You never want to get near one with low PSI tolerance.” Smiling, Sunny put down her fork and made a sweeping gesture with her hands. “Boom! You know?”
“Not intimately, thank goodness. But I can imagine well enough.”
“Mrs. Torn I’d just like to say that this pasta is delicious. It tastes just like my own mom’s. I love it.”
“Why thank you!”
The boot touched Dante’s leg again. How am I doing? her face asked over the table. Dante reached down to give her bare knee a gentle stroke. There were freckles on that knee, he knew. Cute ones. They would drive him crazy if he let them.
“Dante tells me your grades at school are very good,” said Mr. Torn.
“Yeah,” Sunny told him. “I keep my head above water.”
“You do better than that according to him. Straight As.”
“Reading interests me. Non-fiction. My dad says fiction is a waste of time.”
“He’s right,” came Mr. Torn’s assertive reply. “Very, very right. I’m always trying to get Dante away from his comic books.”
“I don’t read comic books, Dad,” Dante protested.
Mr. Torn grinned. “How sheepish your face suddenly looks. Would you care to show Miss Desdemona some of the posters in your room?”
“Yeah, Dante,” Sunny came in, voice purring. “Show me your room.” Then the flare in her eyes dimmed a little. “I’d love to see your posters.”
“Wasn’t there some excitement at your school last month?” Mrs. Torn asked. “A student disappeared?”
Sunny took a sip of Diet Coke before answering. “That’s true,” she said. “Billy Large. Funny name for a kid so short.”
“Did you know him?”
“A little. Dante knew him, too.” The green eyes flared again. “Didn’t you, dear?”
“I sure did—“
But his mother’s face had burst into joy before he could finish. “Oh my goodness, Sunny, are you calling him dear, like he’s your husband? That is so, so cute!”
Dante dropped his fork. “Mom! We’re only thirteen!”
“Sunset Desdemona Torn,” Sunny said, nodding thoughtfully. “Yeah. It sounds nice!”
“It sounds beautiful!” Mrs. Torn gushed.
“Yes, Dante,” Mr. Torn arrived with his two cents. “Perhaps Captain America can be your best man at the wedding. The Fantastic Four can cater.”
Sunny began to giggle.
“The ice is getting thin, people,” Dante warned, though he too had begun to laugh. “Time for my good deed for the day. I’ll fetch dessert.”
His mother rose to help. Dirty plates were cleared away. Clean, small plates took their place. Sunny offered to put on coffee. Mrs. Torn sniffed and said she would have none of that from a guest who had been so pleasant to spend an evening with. Sunny’s response was somewhat cryptic, and cast a strangeness over the table that would not lift until, an hour later, she went back home.
“But I can’t leave Dante to be punished all alone for his good deed,” she said.
“Who said he’s going to be punished?” Mrs. Torn asked, filling a decanter with water.
“All good deeds get punished, Mrs. Torn. I think they do anyway.”
“Oh, pish-posh!”
But Sunny was insistent. As the smell of coffee permeated the room, and ice cream was scooped into pretty little parfait glasses, she told a story about two brothers who loved each other dearly. They lived long ago, in a time of peace between two great wars, in a city of corruption. Whilst growing up their parents taught them to care for one another, and to never betray the family, nor honesty, nor valor and courage. It was a lesson easily learned, as each brother seemed to naturally love the other. Favors passed between them like flower petals between two gardens, caught up in the trees with their lovely scents of lilac and primrose and sweet alyssum. They loaned each other money. They helped with choosing gifts for their ladies. One brother proved quite adept at repairing automobiles, and would always make certain his sibling’s Jordan ran smooth. The other was a gifted painter whose works sold well. He did many pieces for his brother, never once charging him a single cent.
Things went on this way until the end of that wondrous, lost decade, or close to it, for the stock market had not yet crashed when one brother, the auto mechanic, decided to open a small café in a district of the city lacking such. He asked his brother the painter for a loan, and you can just guess what that brother said. The café opened not a year later. It served coffee, cake, pie, tea. A little pasta, a little ice cream. Tomato soup with delicious sprinkles of oregano.
But it didn’t last. Oh, no no no. Most business go under five years or less after opening day. For the auto mechanic brother it was less. One evening, six months after the café’s ribbon cutting ceremony, a robber came through the door. He pointed a gun at the brother and demanded he empty the cash register. The brother complied. It did not matter. The robber smiled and shot him in the head, killing him instantly.
News of this incident absolutely crushed the painter brother. The blame was his. All of it. Had he not given that loan to open the business, you see…
Well, tragedy would have been averted. Both brothers would have lived full, happy lives. Instead, the painter began to drink, which was really too bad, since all of this happened during an era of prohibition. Alcoholic beverages were not only hard to come by, but quite illegal. The brother was eventually caught and arrested. Wracked with guilt, sick from withdrawal, he died miserable in prison. One good deed was all it took. The perfection of love gleamed perfect no more. Or rather love, it seemed, had died by its own hand.
“Suicide,” Dante said, thoughtfully poking a spoon into his ice cream.
“That’s how it played out,” Sunny agreed. “And then there’s the story of Breezy, the little fairy who tried to steal back her friend’s pearl from the bottom of a giant’s fish aquarium. Things did not end well for her. Oh no.”
“Tell it,” Mr. Torn said. “I’d like to hear.”
And Mrs. Torn: “I thought you said you didn’t like fiction.”
“I don’t,” replied Sunny. “But what happened to Breezy isn’t fiction at all. My father insists it happened for real.”
“To a fairy?” Mrs. Torn asked. She was smiling. Maintaining her politeness.
But if Sunny noticed such condescension, she didn’t let on. “To a fairy,” she said. “Breezy Woods was her name. She lived near a farm just up the road from here, a long, long time ago…”
∞
Spring swept through the trees in bright petals of pink and yellow. This because a garden near the edge of the wood was in bloom, as the warm winds of May had arrived, and the flowers were spreading their joy. And if one were to follow these petals into the woods, leaving footsteps in the moist, rich dirt from last night’s rain, he or she would most assuredly never find, even after hours of brooding, patient pursuit, amongst the squirrels and the chickadees, a tiny, winged creature, such is so often described by that gifted Scottish author who once told of little lost boys, and iron bars which closed out dreams. No, never. Never once would one come across a fairy.
But of course they exist. And yes, most of the things you’ve heard about them are true. For instance, they are quite mischievous. They love to play tricks on humans, some of which are indeed nasty. I once knew a female fairy who managed to sprinkle a rather sweet-smelling and delicious detergent in with a farmer’s cat food. The cat became poisoned and died horribly, while that fairy’s friends all laughed.
Female fairies are generally smarter than the males, but also much smaller, as well as considerably weaker. They cannot fly as fast, nor lift heavy stones. However their leadership skills, as you may imagine, are superb. They love to plan out projects, then put the males to work, bossing them all over the grove. Nor do the males ever mind. Most of them are in love, even to this day, for female fairies are like those petals that sweep in the spring, colorful and dainty and ever so pretty. And when a female fairy gets an idea in her head…
Oh! Oh, they are even more so!
Her eyes become as slivers of snow, all alight in a blizzard caught up in the rage of that great thunder god. And her cheeks flush with the glow of our fifth planet’s red storm, and her tiny, devious mouth curves into a smile that speaks tomes about plots conceived at midnight, where candles burn in basement rooms, and whispered words slither from oak beamed shadows.
These things happened to one particular female fairy quite often. Her name was Breezy Woods. She was, of course, small and pretty. She had short, brown hair with locks that sliced through the air, especially when she flew. She wore a pink top and skirt, stolen from the cloth of a child’s nightgown one night, whilst the child slept in that very same gown, to wake up next morning with holes along the hem, which her mother took to be the work of bed beetles. Breezy had brown eyes the color of moist acorn. The freckles on her cheeks were like sprinkles of warm cinnamon. And please let us not forget her wings, which were slightly longer than most, and more slender, and when in the light captured similar hues to that great bow laid down in peace long ago by the god of Israel.
She was gorgeous, is what I’m trying to say. A lovely, lovely little lass. And her pretty head was so full of ideas on how to improve the grove where she lived. And she implemented them often. And what’s more, she didn’t like to lose.
“Breezy! What are you thinking of now?”
These words came from her friend, Taxi, who liked to fly into childrens’ rooms at night to steal the tiny stuffed toys they sometimes collected.
Breezy smiled. It was a pretty smile, yes, but also rather serpentine. “I’ve made up my mind,” she said.
“Not again?”
Breezy had been sent to the square to fetch water from the well. Not looking at her friend, she lowered the bucket until a faint splash echoed from below. As I recall, that morning was quite lovely. Fairies walked in droves along the streets of their little wooden village, enjoying the sun. Birds twittered from on high. And happiness, at least for the time being, seemed to glow from every obscure place that happened to catch the sun’s rays.
“Again and again and again,” Breezy sang. “At which it stays until I change it. But not this time. Goodness, no.”
“What are you on about?” Taxi demanded to know. She was somewhat taller than her friend. More gangly. Breezy loved her because many times, whilst trying for those stuffed toys, she got caught, and came home with the wildest stories to tell.
Breezy began to crank the bucket back up. Weighed down with water, it strained her puny arms, and she grunted as she spoke. “I’m on about the pearl. Mmph! The pearl at the edge of the forest, where the giant—gn!—lives.”
“Oh, that,” replied Taxi.
Gritting her teeth, Breezy gave another pull on the handle. This time it wouldn’t budge. Her muscles were utterly spent. “Get a boy,” she groaned. “Now.”
Her friend dutifully fetched one of the passing males, who had no trouble pulling the bucket up. Afterward, Breezy’s eyes flared. “Yes, that!” she gushed. “The pearl of the southern sea! The one stolen from our great-great-grandparents by his great-great-grandparents!”
“Breezy, we’ve been daring each other for years to steal it back. We both know it’s too dangerous.”
“Too dangerous,” huffed the haughty sprite, “for some. As in, girls who tend to bump their hips against dirty dishes, or trip over piled carpet.”
“Ladies?” the male fairy cut in. “Am I done?”
“No, you’re not!” Breezy snapped. “Carry the bucket to Gossamer Gwendolyn’s house! She’s the one needs water!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When he’d gone, Taxi repeated her fear about stealing the pearl. “It’s at the bottom of his fish aquarium, you know,” she warned.
Breezy folded her arms over her chest and nodded.
“And how long can the great Breezy Woods hold her breath underwater?”
“Almost half a minute,” she said proudly.
Actually, it was more like twenty seconds, with some kicking and squirming thrown in.
“And besides,” Breezy went on, “if I run out of air I can just swim to the top.”
“He keeps two black convicts in that tank. They’ll eat you.”
“Not if they’re busy eating something else.”
“Breezy…”
But Breezy’s cheeks were red. Her eyes looked cold and cutting. In a word, she was determined.
“When are you going?” Taxi asked.
“Tonight.”
“Take one of the men with you.”
Breezy stamped the ground with one of her little brown boots. “No. The men are clumsy and noisy. They’ll wake up the giant.”
“What if he wakes up anyway?”
“Now I’m offended. I’ve never woken up anybody. You know that.”
“Sorry. Can I see the pearl when you come home?”
“Everyone will see it, my dear,” replied Breezy, standing on tip-toe to hug her friend. “Everyone.”
∞
She used a crevice in the attic window to get inside, careful of spider-webs, and rats, and roach traps and stray cats. Wings sparkling in the moonlight, Breezy next flew down a flight of old wooden steps. A dark hallway led past the giant’s bedroom, which she easily avoided, to an open door at the far end. Inside that door was a den. And inside that den…
Dainty as a butterfly, Breezy alighted atop the aquarium. It was long and rectangular. The shape of a coffin. Moonlight glowed in its deep waters. This pleased Breezy a little bit. She would be able to see while she dove. It also upset her. Deep waters they were indeed. For the first time Breezy began to seriously wonder about the capacity of her lungs.
Stop wondering and find out! her thoughts chided.
But first the fish. From a small petal-pouch around her waist, Breezy removed several slices of fresh minnow meat. She tossed them into the water. Instantly, the convicts swam up to gobble them whole. Ah, yes! This was going to work!
She took off all her clothes before going on that final, dreadful, deadly swim. And let me just pause here to mention how pretty she looked, standing naked before the water, her slim, soft body all aglow in the moon, her wings like the blades of polished swords, her pointed ears listening, listening oh so intently, for any sound down by the giant’s door. But they just couldn’t hear anything, you know? Not that they were bad ears, but that the giant was so very quiet, and of course he knew where to step so the floor-boards didn’t creak, and could hold his breath for a long time, much longer than a female fairy, so that Breezy just…didn’t…hear him at all.
Her bare, boney chest filled with a practice breath. And another, and another. And when her lungs felt good and ready to go, Breezy tossed some more minnow meat into the water. The convicts attacked. Good for them. They were probably both male. Noisy and stupid.
Breezy took another deep breath, and this one she held before diving into the water, making nary a splash with her glass-shard frame. Down, down, down to the bottom she swam, kicking her legs. The pearl rested on a mound of stones between two large rocks. It looked like a moon itself. Its pale glow made Breezy’s heart skip a beat.
Happy thus far with her adventure, she swam up for air.
“HAHH!” she gasped, breaking the surface.
A shadow fell over the water. Breezy screamed. The shadow belonged to the giant. Now his face loomed above her, grinning.
“And whom do we have here?” he inquired. “A pretty little insect. I thought I heard wings outside my door.”
Screaming some more, Breezy made to climb from the tank. But her wings were all wet. She couldn’t fly.
“A late night book is just the tool,” said the giant, “to catch a fairy in your pool! Reading keeps me awake!”
With his thumb and