Excerpt of In Dreams Begin by Skyler White

from Chapter 5. They But Thrust Their Buried Men Back in the Human Mind Again

As children, Maud and Ida had walked thus, deliberate and slow, down Donnybrook Road, both of them

shaking, although only Maud with fear. Arm in trembling arm again now, through the dark October

graves, toward Georges’s tomb, Ida still needed to caution herself against skipping in her first giddy

moment since arriving in France almost a month ago. The country irritated her, the rigorous attention

the nation paid to beauty, the constant wine in small glasses, and how at home Maud was within it.

Ever the hostess...ever the French hostess, for all her Irish color...Maud had brought red wine and

flowers to the crypt. Ida, always more practical, carried candles, blankets, and lap rugs. Maud unlocked

the metal doors of Georges’s little memorial chapel, and Ida stepped into its dark of underground smells

and windless cold.

Ida dropped the furs in a corner while Maud cursed benignly, burning matches, unable to make the

flame stick to the candle wicks. If they lived together and entertained, they would bustle about thus, in

friendly silence, preparing for their guests. But tonight only Lucien was expected, he and whatever

spirits came, invited or otherwise. Ida tore the bloom from one of Maud’s flowers and scattered the

petals over the altar. "Why don’t you let me light the candles, darling?" she suggested.

Maud leaned her back against the cold and unadorned stone wall. "Ida . . ."

"I know." Ida kept her smile sympathetic, and took the matches from Maud’s ghost-white fingers. "Pour

the wine."

"Ida, I don’t think I can do what I . . ."

"Go ahead and have yourself a glassful, dear. We have more than enough for our communion."

Maud took glasses from the wooden crate they had provisioned over several trips to the little

mausoleum. Ida lit the candles, humming to herself. Maud already had a reputation for pleasant evening

gatherings, but Ida would raise the tone of the soirées. She and Maud would talk Art and God with their

guests, not only politics. The tomb’s rich, under-earth smell of graveworms and mushrooms crept over

Ida. Maud had been too frightened of tonight to eat, but when they entertained together, Cook would

serve duck in whiskey sauce, or salmon with morels.

The candles blazed like a birthday cake, dancing in the drafts admitted through the glassless windows

and the open grate in the door. Possibly too from the colder metal doors in the cold stone floor. Maud

sat on the provisions box, wordlessly taking her wine like the poison or medicine it was. "Did you want

some, Ida?"

"No."