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That was easy to say.

"That's all I will ask of you, Ruby," he whispered. "But I have more to ask of myself," he added, and then he looked up at the moon. "I, Paul Marcus Tate, do hereby pledge to love and protect Ruby and Pearl Dumas, to take them into my special world and make them as happy as it is possible to be on this planet. I pledge to work harder and keep all that is ugly and unpleasant from our doorstep and I pledge to be honest and truthful and understanding of any and all Ruby's needs, no matter what I might feel."

He kissed me quickly on the cheek.

"Welcome to the land of magic," he said. We both laughed, but my heart was pounding as if I had really been part of some sacred and important ceremony. "We should have something. . . a toast to our happiness."

"I found a little of Grandmere Catherine's blackberry brandy in a jar at the bottom of a closet," I said. We went inside and I poured the few precious drops into two glasses. Laughing, we tapped our glasses and swallowed the brandy in a gulp. It did seem fitting that we top our pledge with something my grandmere had made.

"No ceremony, nothing any priest or judge could say, will top this," Paul declared, "for this comes from the bottom of our hearts."

I smiled. I didn't think I could feel so good so soon after my ordeal with Buster Trahaw.

"How should we get married?" I wondered, and thought about his parents again.

"A simple ceremony. . . Let's just elope," he decided. "I'll come by tomorrow and we'll drive up to Breaux Bridge. There's a retired priest there who will marry us, legal and all. He's an old friend of the family."

"But he'll want to know why your parents aren't at our sides, Paul, won't he?"

"Leave it up to me," he said. "I'm to start taking care of you from the moment I wake up tomorrow until the day I die," he said. "Or as long as you'll have me around to do so," he qualified. "Be ready at seven. Just think," he said, "all the old biddies who have been quacking about us will finally stop."

Paul remained with me talking about the house, the things we had to buy and do even after we moved in. He was so excited, I barely got in a word. He talked until I grew so tired, I couldn't keep my eyes from shutting.

"I'd better get going and let you get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow." He kissed me on the cheek and then I watched him go off toward the canal to take his boat home.

Before I went back into the house, however, I walked out to the mailbox and took back the letter to Daphne. I wouldn't mail it, but I couldn't get myself to tear it up. If I had learned anything in my short life, it was that nothing was forever, nothing was certain. I couldn't close all the doors. Not yet.

But at least tonight, I thought, I would go to sleep easily, dreaming of that great attic and my wonderful studio and all the exciting paintings I would do in the days to come. What a great place for Pearl to grow up in, I though

t when I looked in on her. I fixed her blanket, kissed her cheek, and went to bed looking forward to my dreams.

3

My True

Wonderland

.

Pearl's baby babble woke me. It was a heavily

overcast day, so there was no warm sunlight to slip through the curtains and caress my closed eyelids until they fluttered open. As soon as I awoke, the significance of what I was about to do returned. I'm going to elope, I thought. Questions rained down from everywhere. When would I actually move Pearl and myself into Cypress Woods? How would we announce our marriage to the community? Had he informed his family by now? What, if anything, did I want to take from the shack? What kind of a wedding were we about to have?

I rose, but I had the strange sensation that I was caught in a dream. Even Pearl had a distant, quiet look in her eyes and was more patient than normally, not crying for her breakfast, not demanding to be plucked out of her crib and held.

"It's a big day for you, my precious," I told her. "Today I'm giving you a new life, a new name, and an entirely different future, one I hope is full of promise and happiness.

"We've got to pick out a nice dress for you to wear. First, let me feed you, and then you will help Mommy choose her own wedding dress, too.

"My wedding dress," I muttered, my eyes suddenly filling with tears. It was in this shack, in this very room that Grandmere Catherine and I talked about my future wedding.

"I always dreamed," she had said, coming over to me to sit beside me and stroke my hair, "that you would have the magical wedding, the one in the Cajun spider legend. Remember? The rich Frenchman imported those spiders from France for his daughter's wedding and released them into the oaks and pines where they wove their canopy of webs. Over them, he sprinkled gold and silver dust and then they had the candlelight wedding procession. The night glittered all around them, promising them a life of love and hope.

"Someday you will marry a handsome man who could be a prince, and you, too, will have a wedding in the stars," Grandmere had promised.

How sad she would be for the now. How much I was feeling sorry for myself. A young woman's heart should be filled with so much excitement on the morning of her wedding day that she would be afraid she would simply burst, I told myself. Every color should be brighter, every sweet sound, sweeter. It should seem like every single creature that lived around her was delighted, too. There should be happy, deliriously excited voices around her, and everywhere she looked, she should fix her eyes on some preparation, some activity related and solely de-voted to the wonderful ceremony she was about to undertake with the man she loved.

And love. . . it should have blossomed and overwhelmed her. She would stop for a moment and wonder if it was possible to ever again be as happy and content as she was. Could any event bring her as much joy? She should be surrounded by dozens of friends, each and every one electrified, thrilled, the whole bunch of them chattering away, no one particularly listening to anyone else, but everyone listening to everyone, a cacophony of laughter, giggles, shrieks, and exclamations.