Totally 70's

We were walking together outside when we saw the roof through the tops of trees. I pointed out to her the way the windows of that elevated room (clearly not an empty attic) would catch the sun. The entire room probably fills up with light and gets warm, I told her. She, within a space of patience, smiled at me. It was the smile which seems to hit normal limits, and then trespass well beyond in a guilty, grudging allowance that I always imagined was hers for me alone. Though I have no evidence or faith. Just as she smiled the sun did hit the glass faces of that room, the only peak of a large building above the leafy puffs of very late summer. For that we held each others eye, acknowledging the world's immediate response to our expectations. We didn't say anything as we continued into the valley where the house was resting. For a brief distance the ground was more difficult, the gradient steeper and littered with cones. The entrance of the place was there when we looked up again. We'd held out our arms, towards increased stability rather than to hold hands, though in the shadows our knuckles grazed closer than we noticed.
It's only a museum, I said, never normally one to respond negatively to a place with art or artifacts but disappointed by the cold hard marble. It's going to be closed, and cold, and we'll have to pay! I sighed, thinking a price tag on entrance ruined the thing to a greater extent than simply being locked out. My sister was paused next to a sculpture of an animal made in tangled wire and rough metal, hunks of stone for eyes. I looked back at her with a down turned face, embarrassed at my voice. The face she turned toward me was blank and I was angry at her for not challenging me, for not questioning or responding, so that my vague error in logic just laid there in front of us like one of the pinecones that I would step around or over and she would be able to steer clear of or not as she saw fit. I was most angry because I hadn't actually said anything. I glared at her once and then led us to the open doorway and through and immediately turned down the hall with steadily increasing speed. She followed just a step behind me and then we were in an enormous elevator.
From the hall the dead-end room looked like an office, the grate and floor keys had been hidden. The stubborn momentum of our pace hadn't allowed for a more thoroughly considered destination. Turning as we faced the vertically striped walls, the pretty little table and lamp, we saw the discrete number pad and one of us pushed a key. I can't ask her now, so I may never know who's finger that was. As the grate closed and the floor began to lower, a dark haired woman in a pale yellow skirt came from a direction we hadn't seen and turned about-face to quietly watch us descend. Her face was beautiful and her eyes may have locked but not with mine. Her polite heels blinked out of view and from that point on it was much darker. The end of natural daylight.

When the door opened again my sister looked at me and I shrugged with shoulders held back. Her pupils were widening, held just below her brows now, as she took the leading steps into the hall. There seemed to me to be an echo or other footsteps with hers, and I leaned into a door to our side. It was a better lit stairwell, with narrow wooden steps leading up to a higher floor- we were at the lowest level now. A wall sconce highlighted the uneven texture, the painted surface, the cozy space. A glance back showed, though, that she hadn't followed me aside and so I let the door slowly close and cautiously followed after her. Her determined walk went straight into the darker main auditorium and beyond, while I paused again just within the entrance.

The ceiling was astrological with twinkling pattered lights. We'd emerged on an elevated balcony with a grand spiral staircase to the near right and a railing bordering this upper, c-shaped escarpment. To the far left there were tables and a gathering of figures in evening dress. They varied in style, some in gowns and others in ultra-modern or vintage hip, but everyone of them moved elegantly and calmly, regal. My sister veered toward the table where three characters seemed to hold lose fisted court, ready to face this situation and her curiosity full on. As I hesitated in following her, a slightly more casual gentleman with a trim beard passed me and smiled, gesturing to follow him to the opposite distance of the crescent. From there we had a view of the group beginning to mill with interest around the newcomer that I could hardly recognize anymore.

We leaned together against the railing, tucked into the space remaining beside the arc of the stairs. Below I could see even more people, many more, milling around the auditorium. He began to comment on the extremely high quality of the experience of his time, in a monotone that implied this was typical. It was also clear that he was describing the time since I had seen him last, that he had been concerned, and then he referred to me by name. Did he call me Margarette? No, I'm sorry, you've mistaken me for someone else, I told him and he turned fully toward me with a look of great alarm. Quickly, he turned back to the room and mechanically assumed his previous stance. Miss, this will not be good for you, he said in a low tone. You, or too close a version of you, is already here.

I can't say that I was surprised. I immediately understood that there could only be one of each of us, that this would be trouble, because he'd recognized me immediately. I didn't have the option of a disguise, and I could sense an inability in myself to fight to remain here. Hands pressing my body away, I began to cross toward the entrance without a word. Midway I could hear my (or my alternative's) name being called. Margarette! Once, twice, and then a hand was wrapping warmly around my elbow and an arm around my torso. I couldn't help but smile as I was turned around. Despite the elegance of the underground ballroom, it was not warm as I had hoped it would be- until that wool sleeve pulled tight around me. Margarette what are you doing here, you know where you are supposed to be and why! He was saying. He'd turned my body so that I could see my bearded friend disappearing on the stair and my sister disappearing into the crowd and the two distinct figures (now separated from their third in overseeing the room) both turned toward us with worried posture. His hand was on the back of my neck, looking only at me but perhaps directly through to my spine, his face showing concern and some confusion. I'll take you back to your room, you know we set it aside for you especially. He held my arm as he led me out, to the elevator, and with a complicated combo of keys, apparently upward. His hand no longer felt warm. At the end of a squeaky hall he opened a wooden door with a rattling porcelain knob and showed me into the an empty room. French doors along one wall, and a loose tangle-laced pair of white ice skates in one corner. Your special yellow room he says, and smiles before closing the door behind him. We'll figure something out, he voice says. The sound of the lock, which he'd also turned in opening the door, was louder from the other side.

I circled the room once, trailing a finger along the molding and fully opening the doors to let my reflection bounce off glass back at me. Margarette! I whispered. Where are you really hiding? Leaving both sets of the doors open I crossed to put on the ice skates and laid down. When I opened my eyes again the light was a bright rectangle across my legs, making them golden to the knees above the ankle-high white skates.

Tottering to the veranda again, the blades dull against the boards, I passed the glass door open behind the bent french doors. A white wrought iron railing crossed, with only a foot's length of ledge to step out onto. One corner of the railing swung lose at the lightest touch, and looking below... it seemed I was 5 or 6 stories high. There were shrubs along the building,and within them I could discern the shape of Margarette, spread tangled. She had certainly been there all night, missing for a few days perhaps. Even from the distance I recognized us and with my eyes locked on her shape I felt myself lean too far before a movement in peripheral made me look away. There was an officer of the law beginning a circumference of the building and in an unexpectedly intense reaction I knew I did not want him to see us that way. Stepping both feet onto the edge of the railing, I grabbed the door sill and leaned forward to wave to him. Help! Help! I cried, making a show of a perilous grip in the breeze, when both feet slid and substantiated my need for rescue. The officer took one look and ran for the front of the building and moments later the same gentleman who had brought me to the room was there to grab my hand and pull me to safety.

I slid the glass door closed behind me as I stepped back onto firm ground. The faint reflection there showed wild eyes and windblown hair, a top that had reached nonchalance in the course of such sustained wear. Margarette? The man said the name as if no longer certain, but a bell was ringing through the building and taking my hand he led me quickly back to the front hall. The door had been closed and he opened a new door which we had not seen in entering that first time. It was just beside the grander entrance, but was basically a typical front door. It had it's own little set of steps, and that is where the officer of the law was standing with his weight against the door chime button. It's fine, officer, the man was saying immediately. I'll be taking that railing down myself, right away. I'll take that entire room out of the building, he added, with a side glance in my direction. She's fine, he said in a lower tone, gently guiding me closer to his side in the doorway. You see? The question sounded strange, multidimensional.

No, no, the officer was saying, calming with deep breathes. You can't do that sort of thing, even out here in the country. You have to get permits, you have to do the proper paperwork. I don't know what brought me out here today, the middle of nowhere, but maybe I should take a look around? You never know what else might be going wrong, he was already looking around but the man beside me and I both said 'No' at the same moment. He looked at me with surprise. No, everything is fine, we assured him as we closed the door together and stood facing one another. In the decreased light he hardly looked human, his skin luminous and his eyes not quite fixed in color. Margarette, he said softly. The railing will be fixed, he said as I slowly eased back a step. But then... he said it sympathetically, then paused and considered me a moment. Then we... then I will come and find you. His voice indicated that he was making an authoritative decision and with a last look at his lips making the decision to let me be free for a short time, I turned and walked away. Just as the officer had leaned away from the door, I had heard a creaking noise from yet another direction within the deceptively simple room. Before I could lose my orientation on that direction, I was slipping through a door. Expecting the wall sconce and pleasant light again, the walls were instead very narrow and laced with dripping pipes alternated with sealed fuse boxes. Dark shapes moved through the unlit corridor, in which there was no stair. Ducking, I followed them, falling into line.

There were joists to step over, maybe refuse on the floor, each footstep equally noisy. The others were sensed as much as seen, black outlines against a moment of grey, the curve of a head or shoulders. When the path widened slightly they convened, glancing at me without surprise, communicating intentions with incomprehensible hand gestures and then disappearing completely. A moment later there was the squeal of slicing plaster board directly behind one shoulder and tracing down my side. I stood still as he traced a new opening through the wall. Neither of us spoke. I stepped forward and into a great lighthearted kiss on the mouth.

Behind me, there was the dark corridor of indecipherable distance and slope. To our side through this new gap in the wall, I could again see that staircase that had been in the back of my mind throughout. Behind him, the two most regal stood watching only us now, my sister slightly to their right and in formation with them.