Free Enter Three Witches by Kate Gilmore Page B

Enchantment.
    The music changed again, and the young men turned, their ferocity transformed into longing and desire. They swept around the girl in ever-decreasing circles, but when it seemed that at last they must seize her, she broke away with a movement as simple and strong as a gust of wind and left them in a knot of upraised arms, clutching thin air as the light faded around them.
    Erika produced an audible sigh in the silence that followed the last low drumbeat. Then everyone was applauding. When it was possible to speak, she said, “You realize you just saw something very special?”
    Bren nodded. Even without any standard of comparison, he knew that this was true.
    “The rest will be a letdown,” Erika said. “At least I think it has to be, but that gave me goose bumps.”
    “Are you cold?” Bren asked, giving the blanket a halfhearted poke.
    “That’s not what I meant, but yes. Now that you mention it. Hush. Here they go again.”
    As the lights dimmed for the next number, Bren shook out the blanket and tossed half of it over Erika, who pulled it up to her chin and moved closer to him. Any anxiety about his next move was forgotten as he watched the fascinating activities on the stage. The second ballet could not have been more different. A man in what must have been a very flexible business suit entered holding a telephone. Hope, frustration, despair, and finally success were clear in every move as he tried to reach his girlfriend, who now appeared on the opposite side of the stage dressed in a filmy nightgown and also holding a telephone. They danced the stormy progress of their conversation, and the audience laughed delightedly.
    A group of spirited folk dances followed. Erika moved closer as the temperature dropped, and Bren put his arm around her. It now seemed the logical thing to do. Before the program was over, his free hand was holding hers, and they were sending each other signals of delight in the performance and in each other’s company.
    In the big kitchen on Eighty-fourth Street, Rose washed the dishes from a frugal meal, and Miranda gazed pensively into the dying fire. Shadow paced the floor and whined, his nails clicking on the tiles. Finally he came and laid his head in Miranda’s lap, something he had never done before. “Well, Shadow,” she said. “Are we lonely? Are we jealous, or what?” The dog thumped his tail. “Boys grow up, you know,” Miranda continued. “They even grow away from their dogs. Oh, yes, they do. You’d better believe it.”
    “You’re a disgrace,” Rose said. “How you ever managed to send him to camp I’ll never understand.”
    “That was different,” Miranda said, “but don’t worry. I’ll be good.”
    “You’d better be,” her mother said. “Now go to bed, and I mean to bed. Keep out of your studio or you’ll be interfering before you know what you’re doing.”
    “Never. I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll go to bed with a silly book. Come, Shadow. We’ll keep each other company.” Miranda rose and swept out of the kitchen with the disconsolate dog trailing behind her.
    In the shadowy courtyard of the Apthorp, Bren and Erika stood holding hands, as they had walking through the park and down Seventy-ninth Street. The curtains were drawn across the few lighted windows, and the doorman dozed in his chair by the gate. Erika shivered in the sharp air, and Bren pulled her close. It was at this moment that he heard his mother call, strongly and unmistakably in the one clear channel of his mind that was always open to her. He stiffened and drew back, and Erika, startled, did the same.
    “Oh, damn!” he said. “Damn, damn, damn damn.” At the same time he clutched his head, which was perhaps the best thing he could have done.
    “What is it?” Erika begged. “You look terrible.”
    “Headache,” Bren mumbled. “Really fierce. I get them sometimes. I’m sorry. It was such a perfect evening.”
    “Yes, it was. Totally perfect,” Erika said,