CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Laurel and Bess

think I hate the dark,” Laurel said.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Bess’s voice replied.

“Maybe I’ve always hated it, but I just didn’t know till now because I was never anyplace so dark before.”

Normally, all Laurel had to do was close her eyes and she could call up Bess’s features in her mind’s eye. But here, where it was black as coal whether she had her eyes open or not, she couldn’t do it. There was only the unending dark and it was getting to her.

“If we were Girl Scouts,” she went on, “we’d have come prepared with a flashlight.”

She couldn’t see Bess’s smile, but she could feel it.

“Or at least a candle and matches,” Bess said.

“Exactly. And maybe a bag of chips or some cookies.”

“Except, if we were Girl Scouts,” Bess said, “we’d still be working in the garden, because Girl Scouts do what they say they’ll do. They don’t go chasing off after fiddlers in the woods.”

“So we’d be lousy Girl Scouts from the get-go.”

“Pretty much.”

Laurel sighed. “I guess we should have been looking out for some little old lady to help on our way into the woods. Or a talking spoon. Or a lion with a thorn in his paw or something.”

“What for?”

“Well, you know. In the stories they always come back to help you when you get in a pickle.”

“I hate stories like that,” Bess said. “People should help each other just for the sake of doing a kind deed—not because they’re scared not to, or for some reward.”

“You mean like Sarah Jane helps Aunt Lillian.”

Now it was Bess’s turn to sigh. “And we’re always teasing her about it. I guess you’re right. We should have been looking for talking spoons and the like.”

“Nobody even knows we’re here, do they?” Laurel said.

“Except for the little man who dumped us here.”

Neither said anything for a long moment.

“Did I mention how much I hate the dark?” Laurel finally asked.

“Maybe once.”

Laurel squeezed Bess’s hand. If she had to be stuck in a place like this, there was no one else she’d rather be with. This was how they came into the world, the two of them, together in the dark womb. Perhaps they were going to go out in the darkness as well. That made her think about her life and what she’d done with it. Sarah Jane had a few years’ worth of good deeds in her favor. What did she have?

“So, do you think we’re shallow people?” she asked.

“No,” Bess said. “We’re passionate about music, aren’t we? I don’t think that shallow people are passionate about anything.”

“Music. That’s what got us here in the first place. There was some kind of magic in that fiddling, wasn’t there? You knew right away, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know, exactly,” Bess said. “But I knew something wasn’t right.” Laurel thought Bess was finished, but after a moment Bess added, “Maybe we should make our own magic music.”

“With what? We don’t have any instruments.”

“We could lilt a tune.”

“And do what with it?” Laurel asked. “If you’ve been taking magic lessons, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Well, at least it would help to pass the time.”

“That’s true.”

They both fell quiet until Laurel finally said, “I can’t think of a single tune.”

“This from the girl who was ready to have a tune contest with a woody fairy man.”

“I can’t believe I was so stupid.”

“You weren’t stupid,” Bess said. “You were enchanted. It’s not the same thing.”

“I suppose. Oh, I know. We could try that version of ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ that we never got to play at the dance last night.”

“I don’t know. I think it’d be too hard without my banjo. How about ‘Sourwood Mountain’ instead?”

“Okay.”

Bess started to hum the tune. When Laurel came in with a high “diddly-diddly” lilting, Bess joined her, the two of them taking turns harmonizing on the melody. They went from tune to tune, sticking with those that were associated with the Stanley Brothers, since that was how they’d started, and it was as though they were sitting in on a session with instruments in hand. Everything went away, except for the music. It didn’t particularly help them in their present situation, but it did make them feel better.