VACANCY & ARIEL

I came to dwell less and less on Ariel, immersed both in a new career and a relationship with a local high school teacher. I came to think of West Virginia as my home. But two and a half years later, while doing research on the net for my fourth book, I pulled up a web page that—though it didn’t shatter the comfortable niche I had carved for myself—caused me to understand that my obsession had been dormant, not dead. In conceptualizing the book I had decided to put my first three books in historical context and do a fictional treatment of Springheel Jack, tying him in with the story of the Willowy Woman. I’d been inspired in this by my long-ago suggestion that Ariel might be Springheel Jill, and my plot was to involve a bond between Ariel and Jack, a shared purpose that ultimately cast the two characters adrift in the multiverse. I had not expected to find anything to support this fanciful proposition, but the website I accessed contained several sketches of Jack done by nineteenth-century newspaper artists and one bore an amazing similarity to the elongated face that Ariel had sketched at the Krishna temple. Though the face in Ariel’s sketch was considerably more deviant from the human than those in the newspapers, I had little doubt they were all attempts at depicting the same creature. This discovery, while shocking, did not entirely rekindle my obsession. Ariel was still lost in California and the evidence of a possible link between her and Springheel Jack did not make the task of finding her any easier. But if only in terms of the book, I began to think about her again, to wonder what she might be doing and what the strange creature she once was had intended.

In November of the following year, after I had finished the book, my agent, Jannine Firpo, persuaded me to travel to New York City. There was to be a party at the Algonquin Hotel, an annual affair attended by large numbers of writers and editors. Jannine thought it might be beneficial to my career if I were to mingle with my peers. I was not thrilled by the prospect. On the other hand I was tempted by the thought of eating in decent restaurants and listening to music more sophisticated than roadhouse country and western.

The party proved to be a cattle call. Hundreds of people, most of them middle-aged men, jammed into a conference room outfitted with a bar. Abandoned by Jannine, I found myself pinned against a wall, trapped in a conversation dominated by a strident, adipose woman with a fruity voice and wearing what appeared to be a maroon pup tent. Eventually I escaped to the bar, where I threw down a couple of vodkas. I was considering seeking a more convivial atmosphere in which to do my drinking, when—feeling someone brush my elbow—I glanced down and saw Ariel beside me.

Dressed in a blue silk blouse and tight cream-colored skirt; black hair loose about her shoulders; the fine shape of her mouth redrawn in crimson; she was a foot shorter than when I had last seen her, her figure far more voluptuous. Her beauty had a concentrated quality, as if her vitality, too, had been compressed and was now barely contained within her body. Like a star grown more radiant as it collapsed. She asked the bartender for a glass of port, pronouncing the word “pawt,” then noticed me staring and, with a puzzled look, asked, “Do I know you?”

Hearing her speak startled me as much as it had when she had spoken in the woods years before, but I managed to get out, “I was wondering the same thing. I’m Dick Cyrus.”

“Ariel.”

Again she glossed over the R. Back in West Virginia I had not been able to determine the color of her eyes—now I saw they were dark brown, the irises almost indistinguishable from the pupils. Curiosity neutralized my sense of tact and I asked what her surname was.

She made a sad mouth. “I’m using Lang, but actually I don’t remember my name. I’m an amnesiac.”

She went on to tell me that over a period of days she had gradually wakened to the world and realized that she was lost in the woods. Disoriented, unable to speak coherently, she had wandered out to a highway, where she was given a ride by a man who shortly thereafter tried to rape her. After dealing with him, she made her way to Moundsville and there had been attracted to the golden dome of the Krishna center.

“I’m from West Virginia myself,” I said.

“That explains why you look so familiar. I must have seen you down there.”

“It’s possible.”

“I don’t suppose you remember seeing me?”

I understood that she hoped I might have knowledge about her past, but I had no intention of telling her anything—I was afraid she would think me insane. I said I was sorry, but I couldn’t recall having met her before, and asked what she was doing at the party.

“My agent thought I should be here,” she said. “My first novel’s just come out.”

I offered congratulations and, remembering the fragments of writing that I’d read in Moundsville, I asked if she had written anything previously.