EXCERPT
Three little maids from school are we
Pert as a school-girl well can be
Filled to the brim with girlish glee
Three little maids from school.
~ W. S. Gilbert
Sybil dropped a pebble and listened to its clicks and clacks as it hit every crag and spur on the way down to the water. It took a long time, for she stood very high above the river. She waited, hand to ear, to catch the tinny, far-away splash, then gently tossed another pebble over the cliff.
“Sybil! Where are you?”
The girl turned swiftly, her simple white shift catching on the bark of an ancient elm tree. She pulled at it impatiently, tearing a bit of the delicate lace from the sleeve. “Here I am, Miranda! By the sun house!” She flew up the path.
A woman of about thirty-five, beautiful but stone-faced, waited on a flagstone patio wreathed in a thickly branched wisteria. To her right a large flower garden ambled down to a grassy verge. Behind her loomed a vast, Queen Anne-style mansion complete with tower. She crooked a finger at the girl. “Sybil, Honor needs you. She has to measure the hem.”
“I’m coming. It’s almost finished then?”
The woman began to smile, but then her thin lips tightened as though she’d caught herself just in time. The glow of the afternoon sun backlit a rivulet of well-worn grief seeping from the closed face. “Of course it is, Sybil. You need it for the tea dance tomorrow, don’t you? Honor has been working on it day and night.” A soft chestnut curl escaped from her severe French twist to graze the heart-shaped mouth. She raised a thin, ring-less hand and plucked the strands from her lips. “Do hurry in and help her.” As Sybil ran eagerly past her, she blinked a tear away.
Miranda gazed out over the cliff and down to the river. Directly below her, three small rock formations, known as the Three Sisters, reared out of the water like iceberg babies. When she was young, she loved to observe the intercourse of river and rocks from high atop her hill. In the spring the Potomac River, heavy with silt, rushed headlong past, shooting plumes of whitecaps up and over them. In the summer, the calm water filled with boats—canoes, punts, motorboats. A few months later, when the oaks and hickories turned the cliffs into a mass of scarlet and gold, the water would thin to a gentle trickle, and people forgot how strong the currents could surge, and grow unwary.
She shaded her eyes and looked north, where the steep canyons of Great Falls split the folded metagraywacke rock, the river slicing through it as easily as if it were paper. The Three Sisters marked the upper limit of the Potomac’s navigable waters. There, at a dangerous part of a dangerous river, Miranda and her sisters had helplessly watched many a hiker or kayaker flounder in the treacherous channels between Great Falls National Park and Teddy Roosevelt Island.
She no longer came out to watch the boaters, not after seeing Edward die when he crashed his Donzi 38 ZR on the rocks. He and the woman he left her for. The nightmare still haunted her though. In the dream she waited, hidden in the summer house on the edge of the cliff, as the sleek, sexy, Italian-made speed boat slammed into the half-submerged Sisters in the middle of the river. Alone in the dark she relived the sight of the flames as they shot up almost high enough to singe her bare toes. She heard again Wanda’s Banshee shriek as she died in agony. Her husband never appeared in the dream. True to form, Edward had disintegrated in the maelstrom, leaving nothing behind to remember or bury, not even a belt buckle.
If one rowed out to the rocks, one could see dark splotches on the surface. Miranda never told anyone, but she believed Edward’s blood still stained them. He’d always joked they would someday exact revenge on him for his wicked ways. His family’s firm, Lane & Sons, LLC, had been the principle agent lobbying for a bridge across the Potomac at that point, a bridge which would have immured the Sisters in concrete. In the face of local outrage the idea lost its appeal, and Edward moved on to destroy other landmarks in the name of progress.
The Three Sisters. Miranda sat on an old wrought iron bench by the flower garden and gazed down at them. So many stories had settled on the three islets that rise some ten feet above the water at a bend in the river. There was the one about the three Catholic nuns who drowned. I never liked that version. Sybil’s favorite came from the local Necostin Indian tribe, because, she said, it reminded her of their own father, the Great White Hunter. Foolish girl. She often asked Miranda to tell it on long summer evenings as they tended the fire pit on the patio.
“Come on, sister mine. Tell it again. You do it so beautifully.”
Miranda, as usual, would oblige. “Long ago, an Indian maiden fell in love with a white settler, but the chief, her father, refused to allow their union. One night she made up her mind to defy him and swim across the river to meet her lover. As she neared the middle of the channel, her foot caught in one of the jagged rock fissures that rise from the bottom. Her two sisters swam out to save her, but a great storm blew up. The fierce wind gusted across the water, summoning a huge wave that roared down from the canyons. It pulled all three sisters under, where they drowned. But—”
“This is the best part,” Sybil always interrupted at this point.
“—but, the Great Spirit had mercy upon them, and transformed them into the three rocky islets we know as the Three Sisters.” Here she would lower her voice dramatically. “There are some who claim that late at night, when the rumbling noises of the city wane, you can hear their lonely moans wafting across the still waters. Others believe that, to avenge their deaths, they will pull under and drown any man who tries to cross the river there.”
Three sad sisters, three lonely sisters. Just like us. Miranda rose from the bench, picked up one of Sybil’s pebbles, and threw it hard over the cliff. Moping wouldn’t help her move on. She’d been alone for three years now. Edward Lane was gone, never to return. The boat accident that took his life and that of his lover should be the source of a little schadenfreude for Miranda—especially considering where it happened—but it still hurt too much. Both his infidelity and his loss overwhelmed her, even after all this time. Dodie, their housekeeper, sniffed that she’d never trusted him anyway, and Miranda’s lawyer frequently remarked that at least Edward hadn’t had a chance to abscond with her fortune. It made no difference—it still hurt. She wiped another tear away, turned, and marched back to the house.
“Honor! Sybil! Where are you?”
“In the morning room, Miranda! Come see!” Sybil ran out into the hall and spun around. Her long, straight, mahogany hair swirled around her small head like the rings of Saturn. Her deep blue eyes flashed, picking up and refracting the layers of royal blue chiffon floating around her. The dress Honor had made followed the slim lines and curves of the girl’s torso to her tiny waist, where the skirt billowed out in exuberant, diaphanous waves.
“It’s lovely, Sybil. You will be the belle of the…tea dance.”
Pert as a school-girl well can be
Filled to the brim with girlish glee
Three little maids from school.
~ W. S. Gilbert
Sybil dropped a pebble and listened to its clicks and clacks as it hit every crag and spur on the way down to the water. It took a long time, for she stood very high above the river. She waited, hand to ear, to catch the tinny, far-away splash, then gently tossed another pebble over the cliff.
“Sybil! Where are you?”
The girl turned swiftly, her simple white shift catching on the bark of an ancient elm tree. She pulled at it impatiently, tearing a bit of the delicate lace from the sleeve. “Here I am, Miranda! By the sun house!” She flew up the path.
A woman of about thirty-five, beautiful but stone-faced, waited on a flagstone patio wreathed in a thickly branched wisteria. To her right a large flower garden ambled down to a grassy verge. Behind her loomed a vast, Queen Anne-style mansion complete with tower. She crooked a finger at the girl. “Sybil, Honor needs you. She has to measure the hem.”
“I’m coming. It’s almost finished then?”
The woman began to smile, but then her thin lips tightened as though she’d caught herself just in time. The glow of the afternoon sun backlit a rivulet of well-worn grief seeping from the closed face. “Of course it is, Sybil. You need it for the tea dance tomorrow, don’t you? Honor has been working on it day and night.” A soft chestnut curl escaped from her severe French twist to graze the heart-shaped mouth. She raised a thin, ring-less hand and plucked the strands from her lips. “Do hurry in and help her.” As Sybil ran eagerly past her, she blinked a tear away.
Miranda gazed out over the cliff and down to the river. Directly below her, three small rock formations, known as the Three Sisters, reared out of the water like iceberg babies. When she was young, she loved to observe the intercourse of river and rocks from high atop her hill. In the spring the Potomac River, heavy with silt, rushed headlong past, shooting plumes of whitecaps up and over them. In the summer, the calm water filled with boats—canoes, punts, motorboats. A few months later, when the oaks and hickories turned the cliffs into a mass of scarlet and gold, the water would thin to a gentle trickle, and people forgot how strong the currents could surge, and grow unwary.
She shaded her eyes and looked north, where the steep canyons of Great Falls split the folded metagraywacke rock, the river slicing through it as easily as if it were paper. The Three Sisters marked the upper limit of the Potomac’s navigable waters. There, at a dangerous part of a dangerous river, Miranda and her sisters had helplessly watched many a hiker or kayaker flounder in the treacherous channels between Great Falls National Park and Teddy Roosevelt Island.
She no longer came out to watch the boaters, not after seeing Edward die when he crashed his Donzi 38 ZR on the rocks. He and the woman he left her for. The nightmare still haunted her though. In the dream she waited, hidden in the summer house on the edge of the cliff, as the sleek, sexy, Italian-made speed boat slammed into the half-submerged Sisters in the middle of the river. Alone in the dark she relived the sight of the flames as they shot up almost high enough to singe her bare toes. She heard again Wanda’s Banshee shriek as she died in agony. Her husband never appeared in the dream. True to form, Edward had disintegrated in the maelstrom, leaving nothing behind to remember or bury, not even a belt buckle.
If one rowed out to the rocks, one could see dark splotches on the surface. Miranda never told anyone, but she believed Edward’s blood still stained them. He’d always joked they would someday exact revenge on him for his wicked ways. His family’s firm, Lane & Sons, LLC, had been the principle agent lobbying for a bridge across the Potomac at that point, a bridge which would have immured the Sisters in concrete. In the face of local outrage the idea lost its appeal, and Edward moved on to destroy other landmarks in the name of progress.
The Three Sisters. Miranda sat on an old wrought iron bench by the flower garden and gazed down at them. So many stories had settled on the three islets that rise some ten feet above the water at a bend in the river. There was the one about the three Catholic nuns who drowned. I never liked that version. Sybil’s favorite came from the local Necostin Indian tribe, because, she said, it reminded her of their own father, the Great White Hunter. Foolish girl. She often asked Miranda to tell it on long summer evenings as they tended the fire pit on the patio.
“Come on, sister mine. Tell it again. You do it so beautifully.”
Miranda, as usual, would oblige. “Long ago, an Indian maiden fell in love with a white settler, but the chief, her father, refused to allow their union. One night she made up her mind to defy him and swim across the river to meet her lover. As she neared the middle of the channel, her foot caught in one of the jagged rock fissures that rise from the bottom. Her two sisters swam out to save her, but a great storm blew up. The fierce wind gusted across the water, summoning a huge wave that roared down from the canyons. It pulled all three sisters under, where they drowned. But—”
“This is the best part,” Sybil always interrupted at this point.
“—but, the Great Spirit had mercy upon them, and transformed them into the three rocky islets we know as the Three Sisters.” Here she would lower her voice dramatically. “There are some who claim that late at night, when the rumbling noises of the city wane, you can hear their lonely moans wafting across the still waters. Others believe that, to avenge their deaths, they will pull under and drown any man who tries to cross the river there.”
Three sad sisters, three lonely sisters. Just like us. Miranda rose from the bench, picked up one of Sybil’s pebbles, and threw it hard over the cliff. Moping wouldn’t help her move on. She’d been alone for three years now. Edward Lane was gone, never to return. The boat accident that took his life and that of his lover should be the source of a little schadenfreude for Miranda—especially considering where it happened—but it still hurt too much. Both his infidelity and his loss overwhelmed her, even after all this time. Dodie, their housekeeper, sniffed that she’d never trusted him anyway, and Miranda’s lawyer frequently remarked that at least Edward hadn’t had a chance to abscond with her fortune. It made no difference—it still hurt. She wiped another tear away, turned, and marched back to the house.
“Honor! Sybil! Where are you?”
“In the morning room, Miranda! Come see!” Sybil ran out into the hall and spun around. Her long, straight, mahogany hair swirled around her small head like the rings of Saturn. Her deep blue eyes flashed, picking up and refracting the layers of royal blue chiffon floating around her. The dress Honor had made followed the slim lines and curves of the girl’s torso to her tiny waist, where the skirt billowed out in exuberant, diaphanous waves.
“It’s lovely, Sybil. You will be the belle of the…tea dance.”
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