Celeste (Gemini 1)

followed what had been my only real contact with young people my age. I often felt like I was shrinking. The world into which I had been born and in which I had lived with my family seemed to become smaller and smaller, perhaps because I did not venture far beyond the immediate grounds around our house and barn, and perhaps because I began to realize how much I was missing.

With more and more time on my hands. I turned to our wonderful library of leather-bound books and read far beyond what Mommy required of me. The pages of these books, the wonderful stories and characters I met, were the roadways, the pathways, that enabled me to leave the confines of our protected home and its boundaries patrolled by Mommy's spiritual army of ancestors.

These days I hardly ever left any other way. Mommy always seem to find good reason why I shouldn't accompany her whenever she drove off the farm to shop or complete an errand.

"I'll be away only a little while." she would say, or she would tell me she was just doing this or that and there wasn't time to do anything else: therefore, there was no reason for me to go along. She never put any value on my need to see other places, meet other people, or have a change of semen'.

"There will be plenty of time for that later on." she would tell me if I uttered anything that suggested it. "Besides, these people living here don't want to see you, meet you, know you, Noble. They'll just use whatever they see to build more nasty gossip to fill their empty little lives."

I could just imagine what they were saying already. Elliot surely fulfilled his threat and made up fantastic stories about me.

"Believe me," Mommy assured. "I know what's best for you. I've been told," she said with that finality that resonated whenever she said it.

In fact. I've been told became her reason and her justification for almost everything I questioned, and once she said it, there was no other argument for me to make. for I had no doubt as to who had told her.

However, it was on the tip of my tongue to ask. "Why haven't I been told? When will I be party to all these discussions and revelations?"

I began to hope I never would be. Mommy was well into this other world and crossed back and forth at will, it seemed, but look at how isolated she was. I thought. She no longer had any men friends and never socialized with anyone. She refused to contact or return phone calls or letters from any living relative. Would this be my destiny?

Once. when I was very young. I desperately needed to make contact, to cross over, and when I believed I had. I thought I had won Mommy's deepest love forever and ever, but she still hovered over Noble, spreading her wings to protect and cuddle him. To be him was to be loved.

Many nights when I was by myself. I would stare out the window like she often did and wait for some sign. Sometimes I would gaze so long and hard. I eventually did think shadows took shape again. I did believe I saw faces, but they were all like bubbles floating by, bubbles that would burst as soon as they were seen. I also began to hear whispering again. On the shallow waves of the evening tide voices drifted. My brain became garbled with all these images and visions. I didn't know what to believe.

I told her about it, and she said it was normal. I was close. I was always close. Just be good. Just listen and do my work, and it would come. This loneliness would end. and I would be part of this wonderful community that had chosen us and our farm. I would inherit all of Mommy's powers and abilities. This was my real legacy, and how could I doubt it? After all, she had been told.

But this promise didn't stop me from feeling more and more boxed in.

When I read Macbeth, I was stunned by the witches' prediction that Macbeth would be destroyed when the woods came to his castle. Lately, feeling my world shrinking. I thought our woods was coming closer and closer. Perhaps it was just an illusion, but for me it was real. The entire outside world was pressing our boundaries, squeezing. pushing. Eventually, we would be swallowed up and gone. I thought about it often, but this was an idea I never expressed.

Although Mommy saw me reading more and more, saw me curled up under a light with a book well into the wee hours, she didn't say anything.

Sometimes she smiled, and sometimes she looked thoughtful. She seemed unsure. Should she stop me? Should she encourage me? I was sure she thought that at least when I was reading, I wasn't questioning and complaining. Her world was quiet and comfortable, as it should be. We were safe.

The library we had was old. It had what I imagined were very valuable editions of famous novels and books. Great- Grandmother Jordan had begun to collect volumes, and Grandmother Jordan continued to do so. I suspected neither of them really had read what they had brought into the house. I was confident they wouldn't have approved of some of these stories. Nevertheless, they acquired them because of their vintage. They shopped at antiques fairs, used-book stores, and wherever they could find leather-bound copies. Some of them were gifts from Great-Grandfather Jordan and Grandfather Jordan. I saw the inscriptions, the scratchy signatures sprawled over a page: "On the occaision of your birthday," "Merry Christmas," even a "Happy Anniversary. "

Perhaps that was the real reason Mommy never stopped me from reading these books. There was a history attached to them, a family history, and anything that had to do with our ancestry was important. After all, my grandparents and

great- grandparents had at least touched them once, and that touch made them into something sacred, another of the many parts of the spiritual world that circled us like planets in our solar system.

Some of these novels, however, were about great loves, and the descriptions of the beautiful women and the handsome men, the wonderful and gala events, the dresses, the celebrations, and the eloquence of their worlds fascinated me. It filled my nights with dreams in which I saw myself throwing off my jeans, flannel shirts, and boots and then plucking beautiful stylish dresses out of a magical closet.

The moment I put one on, my hair grew longer and was softer and more glamorous, the calluses left my hands, my eyebrows thinned and took shape, my lips were moist and bright with sexy lipstick. I was dainty, and I could spin about and laugh with a melodic sound that would fill the hearts of men who longed to hold my hand, to kiss my lips, to touch my breasts, my poor concealed and smothered breasts that sometimes ached and tingled beneath the tight wrap.

Perhaps because of my reading, memories of a little girl returned more and more vividly. Yes. I remembered my dolls, my teacups, my dollhouses and coloring books, and my beautiful ribbons, Yes, I remembered the scent of my clothes, my crinoline and silk, my beautiful pinks, my little fur jacket Daddy had bought me for one of my birthdays. All of it rested beneath the earth outside our house. I even dreamed of digging all of it up at night secretly.

But of course. I never would.

Nevertheless, these feelings that I kept in

my heart as securely under lock and key as I could were heightened with every passing day. They clamored to be heard more and more as winter began its inevitable retreat and the fingers of warm spring and renewal crept in everywhere. The ice and the snow melted under the warmer, more frequent sunlight. Trees began to bud, and our meadow turned greener and greener. Side by side. Mommy and I worked the softened earth. turning it over in our garden. We planted, we cultivated, and then we began to freshen everything up around us, restoring color to the wood cladding, painting the porch floors with protective stains, washing down windows and shudders. There was always a lot to do after winter unshackled the earth and fled the warmer sun.

I was happy to have the work, to be able to occupy myself as much as I could. I wanted to be tired at the end of the day. It helped me fall asleep, which was something that lately had become more and more difficult to do quickly. Too many nights I lay awake for hours and hours hearing the music I read about in my books, seeing the handsome men flirting or dancing with the beautiful women, listening in on the whispered words of love between them. words I had memorized and whispered myself. Their silhouettes moved on my walls. I felt sure it was better than watching television Mommy forbid anyway.

Sometimes. when I thought about a love scene I had read. I let my hands move over my body. I thought about what Elliot had told me about his sister Betsy. and I recalled the sensuous way she touched herself and gazed at her body. The tingling I felt surging through me frightened and yet delighted me. If I longed for it too much. I pressed my face into my pillow as hard as I could. Mommy's footsteps would also set me into a mad retreat, holding my breath while I chased away the images and visions. But it was impossible to stop the dreams, dreams in which I felt lips on mine, hands on my breasts, and dreams in which I recited pages and pages of wonderful romance.

I tried to repent, to pray for forgiveness, to avoid Mommy's powerful eyes. The work did help, but it didn't completely stop it all from happening. Time's not on my side. I thought. Every passing day, passing hour, makes it harder and harder. How would it end? I wondered. Or more important, how would it begin? So much of my life was in limbo. I thought, so much had yet to start.

Of course, the promise that Mommy made to Daddy long ago, the promise that we would someday attend a public school, drifted away like smoke. To further ensure that, she made special arrangements for my scholastic testing this particular year. As if she anticipated how much mare I wanted to see other students my age, she fixed it so that I was brought to the school hours after dismissal. There were very few students in the halls or on the school grounds. She whisked me into the building, hovering so close to me as we walked down to the classroom that she practically had me in blinders. I was in and then out with little delay. I wasn't there long. The test was easier than ever, which pleased Mommy.