Page 135

"Bizarre," Cinnamon said. "I bet she performs her death bed scene from Othello often."

We walked on until we came upon a stairway that spiraled up. It wasn't as grand as the one that greeted us on entry to the house, but, like that one, it had a rich-looking mahogany balustrade and carpeted steps.

We contemplated it, and then Cinnamon nodded,

"This has to be the way to Gerta's apartment. Let's go up." she said. and we started up the steps. At the top we found a door with a key in the lock.

"This is it." Cinnamon declared. She turned the key and we entered what we knew to be her living room. The needle was stuck on the record again. For a moment we all stood in the opened doorway, gaping. Then Ice moved to the phonograph and stopped it from grinding.

"Gerta?" Cinnamon called.

There was no response. Cinnamon nodded at the bedroom and we walked slowly across the room to the doorway. She was there, sitting in a chair, her arms and hands resting on the chair's arms. Now she was fully dressed in her manly clothes, a dark brown suit and brown tie, wearing a wig that resembled Edmond's hair with a deep part down the right side, and looking more like Edmond than herself. She sat calmly, staring at us, her legs crossed.

"Whom do you wish to see?" she asked in a deeper and more adult-sounding voice.

It took us all by surprise, and for a long moment, no one, not even Cinnamon, could respond. The only lamp that was lit in the room threw a pale glow over Gerta, deepening the shadows around her eyes, making them look more like small pools of ink in her pale face,

&

nbsp; "We've come to see Gerta," Cinnamon said.

"Gerta? I'm afraid you're too late," she replied. "Gerta is gone."

"Gone?" Rose asked. "Where did she go?"

"She's out, shopping for new clothes," she replied.

"Shopping for new clothes? What is she saying? I don't understand her." Rose complained, with her lips pulled back and her eyes set to shed tears of frustration and fear.

"Let's get out of here," Ice said in a throaty whisper, her gaze cold and full of warnings.

"Take it easy," Cinnamon said. "Relax, everyone."

"I'm with Ice." I said. "Let's go. Cinnamon."

"Wait." She turned back to her. "How can Gerta be out? Doesn't she have to stay in here?" Cinnamon asked. Moving closer to her.

"Not if she doesn't want to, not anymore. She found a way to go wherever and whenever she pleases," she replied with a bright smile.

"What way? How can she do that?" Cinnamon asked more firmly.

"Cinnamon," Rose urged, grasping her arm. "Don't."

"How can Gerta leave?" Cinnamon continued, ignoring Rose's plea.

Gerta turned away. I thought she wasn't going to respond and that would be that, but she snapped her head back so fast and hard. I thought she could have cracked her neck. Her face was now dressed in a rage, her lips pulled up and back so her clenched teeth were showing.

"Don't you blame her. Don't you dare blame her, too," she warned, spitting her words through those teeth.

"We don't blame her. Right. girls? No one here blames her a bit. We just want to know about her. We're her friends. That's why we came back to see her."

Gerta considered us, studying everyone's face very carefully. I thought. Then she leaned forward slowly.

"She was very unhappy where she was. She wanted to go home, even if it meant being Gerta Berta," she said with obvious bitterness in her voice. "But they wouldn't let her go, no matter how she cried and begged. There were bars on her windows and her door was always kept locked until they came to take her out for walks or to go eat or to go to the rec room or to see the doctor."

She sat back.

"No one can blame her," she emphasized again. "How else could she have gotten out?"