Among The Cloud Dwellers (Entrainment Series) (41 page)

Clark swung the front door open and cast me a forlorn look. “G’day, Porzia. Nice to see you’re still here.”

Uncertain what he meant by this remark, I arched an eyebrow and was about to reply when I felt Gabe’s hand at the small of my back. “Let’s get inside before anybody spots us, Porzia.”

“So it worked?” Gomi asked, flashing one of his stunning smiles.

“So I reckon.” Clark took a seat on a wheeled chair by an old metal desk.

“What did you guys do?” I asked, intrigued.

“They anonymously tipped one of the local TV crews about having spotted me somewhere else, far away from here,” Gabe explained.

“That’s about right,” Gomi beamed. “Only you don’t know where we sent them.”

“But you’re about to tell me,” Gabe replied, taking off his leather jacket.

“You’re down at the Thai parlor getting a massage.” Gomi grinned from ear to ear.

Gabe chuckled, “Did I have a gift certificate?”

Clark shook his head and unleashed Tess.

“Porzia, you haven’t met the rest of the team.” With a reassuring, if not somewhat possessive, hand at my back, Gabe encouraged me closer to the three intrigued fellows. “Matt, here, is our brakes and suspension expert. Matt, this is Porzia.”

I shook Matt’s strong hand and smiled at his freckle-covered face. “Nice to meet you.” His smile broke wide and his nose crinkled.

Dan, a balding fellow in his mid-thirties, with piercing dark eyes, was next. “Porzia? That’s a Latin name. It almost sounds like ‘portal’.”

“That’s right,” I said, returning his firm handshake.

“I took Latin in school for a while,” he offered.

“Yeah, leave it to Dan to waste time with dead things like Latin and ancient carburetors,” the last fellow I shook hands with said in a friendly, mocking tone. Almost as tall as Gabe, but not as broad, his honest eyes twinkled with barely disguised sarcasm. “Rohan. At your service.” He bowed.

“We keep him around for moral entertainment mostly.” Gabe’s own tone was coated with similar friendly sarcasm. “The fact that he’s the best hot-wire in the country is irrelevant.”

“Hot-wire?” I asked.

Rohan nodded. “That’s only one of my many talents.”

I was afraid to ask what else he was good at.

“What’s going on then, mates?” Gabe asked. He rolled Clark’s chair aside, with Clark sitting in it, to lean against the desk, and folded his arms across his chest. It was becoming a habit.

“The Aborigines released a number of international invitations—I reckon it’s invitations by mail—’bout two days ago, and the international media’s been all over them,” Rohan explained. “We’re getting our fair Oz share.”

“Who’s going?” Gabe asked.

“Everybody we thought of,” Gomi answered.

“So that narrows it down to—what? Twenty at the most?” Rohan snickered.

“Just about,” Gomi continued. “Funny thing is—they’re all keeping quiet. Nobody’s talking.” He shot Gabe a searching look. “They’re all waiting to see what you’re going to do before accepting—”

“Then how does the media know who’s going to participate?” I asked.

“They don’t have a bloody clue, Porzia.” Clark answered my question. “They’re just targeting whoever got an envelope.”

“Boy, we were crowded this morning. This place hasn’t seen so much action since we came back from Dakar—,” Gomi blurted.

As if cued by a maestro’s invisible stroke, the mood changed instantaneously. They all exchanged uncomfortable glances and suddenly found things to do: Matt mumbled something about coffee; Dan silently bent to pet Tess; and Rohan patted a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket and walked out. Dan took Tess and followed Rohan out the back door.

That left Clark, Gomi, and me.

“Would you like me to leave, Gabe?” I asked him. I thought he might need some privacy to discuss things with his father and best friend. I honestly didn’t know if I wanted to be there.

“No, Porzia. Not unless you’d like to.”

I locked eyes with Clark and answered his silent plea. He didn’t want Gabe to accept.

Did I?

“I’m fine for now,” I conceded, not breaking eye contact with a desolate Clark. “But I’m going to walk out if I need to.”

“Fair enough,” Clark accepted, gaining a questioning look from his son. He held the gaze and leaned forward in his chair, reaching for the front pocket of his denim shirt. With his middle and index fingers he peeled out a thin white envelope. “Here it is, son.”

I blinked and he suddenly looked as though he had aged ten years. With a spasm of pain and fear gripping my own heart, I realized Clark was scared to death.

No. Not to death. Of death.

Fear streaked his features like etching on leather. I felt it slither up my skin. He faced the chance of losing his only son.

I selfishly shut him out. Shut out the depth of his pain. I didn’t want to go there. I had my own pain to deal with, my own challenge to face.

Gomi leaned against the hood of a white Subaru covered in sponsors’ decals. The short walk in the crisp air that I had enjoyed minutes earlier seemed a dream; my labored breathing remained the only tangible effect.

It was suddenly hot in the garage. I brought a hand to my throat and felt my frenzied pulse against my sweaty fingertips. No gap between heartbeats. No room for magic.

Gabe reached for the envelope and, without a word, shoved it into his jeans pocket. Unopened.

He took my damp hand and spoke to Clark. “I’ll ring you later. Keep Tess tonight?”

Clark, massaging his eyes vigorously, barely nodded his agreement with shut eyelids.

Gabe steered his gaze toward Gomi, and Gomi nodded as well.

We walked out, climbed into the Rover, and drove away.

“Where are we going?” I asked, buckling up.

“Grocery shopping and then home,” he said, merging into the slow traffic of the Parade.

“Clark is keeping Tess tonight for a reason.”

“Roight.”

I understood. “I don’t know if you need me to be around at the moment.” I looked at him. “I know what the envelope means.”

His eyes never left the road. “You want to talk about it
now
?”

“Yes, why not?” I insisted. “I’m not a patient person, Gabe. We’re not going to have a better time. It’s the feelings involved that rule—not the time.” I was having a hard time controlling such feelings, pushing, spilling out like a launched locomotive. I physically fought my emotions in an unmatched effort to restrain the surging pain. Sparks flared as I braked in the darkness of my chest.

“Don’t keep from accepting because of me.”

“I won’t.”

“I couldn’t bear the guilt. It would kill our love.”

“I know.”

“I think you need to be alone,” I blurted out loud, the last thought of the crashing train running through my heart, leaving a gaping, blackened tunnel in its wake.

“Not yet.” He took my hand in his, and I wondered how much time we had left. How many more times would he touch my hand?

“Your father’s scared.”

“He’s not the only one, Porzia. We’re all bloody scared.”

“No, you’re not, Gabe.” I felt rage spill out of my whole being along with tears. “You’re not scared. You’ve been
Dreaming
your own Aboriginal beginning for this time to manifest. But it’s absurd!

“You can’t believe that now, all of a sudden, you might be invincible. I remember you telling me you defied death once and you could do it again. Are you out of your goddamned mind? How can you think that with only a touch of a superior being inside you you’re no longer facing mortality? Who the hell do you think you are? And who the hell does he think he is? You don’t fuck with the gods! And don’t tell me that it’s not true. He’s kept you alive this long. Why would you think that now you can make up your own rules?”

Enraged, I attacked him, my fears pressing the verbal abuse until the eagle feather hanging off the ignition caught my eye, and I stopped abruptly. All of a sudden, I connected the dots of the bloody wings. The Dhamala Gabe killed in mercy must have been the first, initial contact. Trapped by a broken wing, the warrawarra spirit could not return to its human form. Gabe and his kind sense of justice.
Oddio!
The price he paid! Feeling the pain of killing an innocent creature actually released the powers and, ultimately, a responsibility. The warrawarra was freed but bound by debt—a debt of life proportions. He had eventually returned the favor when Gabe found himself trapped in the gap, in the metal of his wreck. For the eagle, the wizard had to sacrifice wings, but managed to keep Gabe alive through the umbilical power of the Aboriginal goddess Eingana, whom he must worship. What had Maureen said when she met me in her metaphysical store?
“Whatever we seek, we shall find”
? Or did she say
“It shall find us”
? Suddenly her words became a crucial piece in the puzzle of my understanding. And now Gabe would face the ultimate transformation: to challenge the strength of his medicine protection, to rise above his limits and leap. That’s why his ankle’s tattoo wasn’t complete: the ending had yet to be written. Like a true empowered god, Gabe would write it himself. If he survived.

“You can’t help it.” I understood what this meant for him. It was the ultimate race. A once-in-a-lifetime chance to satisfy an ageless hunger. Before he became the man I was in love with, Gabe was a Cloud Dweller.

I wiped my eyes with the tip of my fingers, smearing tears left and right. “I want to go
home
, Gabe.”

“Me too, Porzia.”

*

We drove back up Adelaide’s hills and made it home right before the sun lost its battle with gathering clouds, and rain began to pound against the double-paned windows. As soon as we stepped inside, I asked Gabe to please light a fire. I left him in the living room with wood and matches and walked to the kitchen where I opened a bottle of Umeracha Shiraz and grabbed two glasses. Outside in the darkness, thunder echoed lightning while inside, flames finally flickered in the fireplace. Gabe sat in front of it and accepted the glass of wine.

“We’re gonna get drunk.”

“
Salute
,” I said, sitting on the sofa. I kicked my boots off and tucked my legs under my hips.

“We haven’t eaten anything all day.” He touched his glass to mine.

“I can’t think of food.”

He smiled sadly. “That’s a first.”

I tilted my glass and took a long sip. The rich wine splashed in my stomach, a foaming wave against a strong cliff, and warmed me from the inside out. I leaned against the soft cushions and looked at Gabe’s face reflecting the blazing flames. He sipped the wine, inches away from me. My knees almost touched his shoulder. Every contact with his body now took on a stronger, infinite meaning, enhanced by limited time, impossible to enjoy fully.

I finished my wine, poured myself another, and topped Gabe’s. My head was getting lighter and my fears crawled drunkenly toward the recesses of my mind. I locked them back there and drank more wine. At the end of the second glass, sad to say, I felt pretty wasted, all my belligerent arguments, as the gods would have them, forgotten.

I fell asleep on the sofa and barely felt Gabe’s powerful arms lift me up to carry me to the bedroom where he undressed me. A vague idea of blankets covering my body skimmed my consciousness before sleep mercifully took over.

*

I woke up to darkness and silence.

Alone.

Heaven up above had tilted the bucket in one last surge of rain, like a child crying empty tears at the end of a tantrum. The sky was drained, and we both knew it.

I shoved the blankets off and got up, realizing Gabe must have slipped his white T-shirt on me before tucking me in bed. Silence engulfed the house; only dim light guided my steps.

Gabe was on the couch, awake, wearing black boxers and the exhausted look of a warrior who has defeated demons, at a price.

I walked up to him silently but knew he’d heard me.

On the mantel, the clock chimed two
a.m.
, the darkest hour before morning.

The envelope lay open on the coffee table. Unsurprisingly, a pattern of wings was barely visible in the folded invitation.

I sat next to him, and he took my right hand in his. His lips brushed my open palm, and I exhaled.

“I’m going, Porzia.”

His golden hair shone thick and within reach, a mere brush away from my fingertips. Once again—just like that day, months ago on the plane, before I knew him—fear of reaching and pull paralyzed me.

Instead of fighting such fear, I nodded slowly as if the air had suddenly thickened into an amniotic liquid I had forgotten how to breathe in. I was going to drown instead.

I got up and walked back to the bedroom. I lay in bed and closed my eyes, thinking,
If I fall back to sleep it will all go away.

But I knew better.

When I heard his soft footsteps, I spoke quietly to the shadow in the doorframe. “I’m going home.”

Silence.

“Not because—”

“I know why, Porzia. No need to explain.” He stopped me in mid-sentence.

“OK then,” I said to the darkness.

I felt him in bed next to me a second before his heat hugged my chilled body.

“You know I love you.”

I started sobbing uncontrollably. “That’s why it hurts so much.”

C
lark would never forgive me.

He had counted on me to hold Gabe back. But how do you stop the wind from blowing? The rain from falling? A Dreamtime seed from blooming?

Blinded by love, he had underestimated his son and the need consuming Gabe from within.

Gomi knew better and probably suspected some of the mystical. So he’d quietly done his best to prepare, not only securing state of the art equipment, but ultimately focusing on what mattered most: endurance.

The day I left Oz, he hugged me, flashing his dazzling smile. I guess he respected the fact I was stepping back, allowing Gabe to live his life no matter what the price.

“This is ultimate love, Porzia,” he whispered in my hair. “The unconditional, selfless kind. The one that means you love somebody to the point of allowing them a chance to their fate—if that’s what they need to do.”

*

I will not talk about saying good-bye to Gabe at the airport.

Nor will I mention our last night together. It’s impossible to even summon the memory of it. That’s for me to cherish alone.

How do you love that which you don’t know?
I had wondered long ago. Now I
knew
him and love. And what if he was the
one
I shared more than a lifetime with?

Now I faced the excruciating chance he would be taking in two months.

No, I will speak no more about it. But I will talk about the endless flight from hell I endured with distance spreading against my will.

I left him.

For fuck’s sake, I did.

I loved him so much I left.

And we’re not talking about trying to be brave or fishing for a standing ovation. What he loved the most was going to take him away from me.

In the last hours, his heavenly eyes burned with damning fever, the racing in his blood come to life once more.

I didn’t tell anybody about the change of plans.

I wanted to crawl back home unnoticed.

I should have known better.

In a comatose state, I walked out of the connecting tunnel into the airport’s unforgiving, artificial neon light and saw a human-size owl. I squinted and the owl shifted into Evalena. Still dealing with the vision, almost expecting to embrace feathers, I felt her arms close around my trembling shoulders, and, hating myself for thinking it, I wished she was Gabe.

“I know, Porzia.”

“How can you?” I burst into loud sobs.

“I just do, honey.” She let me hide my tears against her shoulder.

We drove away in silence. Still crying, I stared out the window through diluted images. Pensacola looked strange. Adelaide was home.

What the hell?

My future with Gabe hung from a thin line. I knew nothing. How could I even think of Oz as home?

I guess when distressed, the mind plays awful tricks.

“Peridot is at home, Evalena?”

“Yes, dear. I stopped by Benedetta’s this afternoon and brought him home,” she said. “I thought you’d like to have him waiting for you.”

“Did you see her?”

“Of course. She opened the door to let me in.” She smiled. “I haven’t mastered walking through walls quite yet.”

Too bad.

“You told her I was coming home?”

Evalena nodded in the beams of an oncoming car. “Yes. She didn’t ask questions. She’s a smart girl. Whenever you’re ready to talk, she’ll listen.”

“OK. And how about you?” I asked suspiciously. “One thing is to
feel
I was having trouble, but to be waiting for me at the airport, and for the exact flight, is pushing it.”

“Gabe called.”

My heart shot up my throat. “When?”

“I guess right after you left.”

“How does he have your number?”

“We’re listed, dear.”

“But you’re not even living at your house.”

“Moved back two days ago.”

“
Caspita!
Perfect timing, eh?”

“Why are you surprised?”

A pang of irrational anger tinged my words the color of bile. “Well, since you know everything—tell me why the hell is this happening?”

Evalena pulled into my parking lot and rolled the car to a halt before answering me. She cut the engine and faced me, leaning one elbow on the back of her car seat. “You don’t want to talk about this
now
. You ought to climb upstairs, say hello to your kitty, and take a bath, if you have the energy, then go to sleep. Answers can wait ’til the morrow.”

“I don’t want to wait,” I complained in a petulant tone I didn’t know I was capable of. I hated it.

Evalena smiled. “You have the answers already. That’s why you’re back here.”

I burst into tears and hid my face in my cupped hands. They smelled stale and dirty. The forward motion of flying still rattled my bones. “I want to know if he’s Xavier. I want to know why? And I want to know if he’s going to die. And why didn’t I recognize him?”

There, I said it all out loud. My fears concretized into real enemies in front of me and I wasn’t even armed for bloody battle!

“Porzia, you’re in no condition to discuss these matters right now. Please let me help you get settled upstairs, and we can talk about it calmly tomorrow sometime.”

I finally agreed but only because I was exhausted.

We got out of the car, unloaded my bag, and walked by the oleander. The tree was thriving. In little over a week it had bloomed beautifully.

In a little over a week?

I cast a silent prayer.

Evalena waited for me and then helped carry my bag up to the front door. Right behind it we found Peridot standing at full attention. He welcomed us with loud purring and serious leg rubbing. I scooped him up in my arms and gave him a proper thank you. His fur felt soft and warm to the touch, unconditional comfort and love.
Just what I needed.

Evalena brought my bag to the bedroom, gave me one last hug, and left me alone.

Way past midnight and no moon in sight.

She had switched the bedroom lamp on, and I followed the light with Peridot still curled in my arms. I switched the lamp off, sat on the bed, and kicked off my shoes, then relaxed, stretching my achy back on the familiar softness of my pillows, and closed my eyes to face the demons.

In the dark.

Two months.

The Oz Endurance was set for the end of December, right before the end of the millennium. There was plenty of time to drive myself crazy.

I opened my eyes and released Peridot from the constricting hold I had on him. Purring happily, he snuggled in at the foot of my bed.

The answering machine was blinking furiously, and, impulsively, I reached to hit the play button.

Gabe’s voice came on as if he were standing there in the darkness, one of the demons. I closed my eyes, carefully focusing on his words. “Porzia, I hope you’ve made it. Give a ring when you get in will ya, please?”

A second message followed. “I forgot to say thank you.”

The third message was from my father; to call home and where the hell was I?

I deleted my father’s message, making a mental note to call them tomorrow. I hit play one more time and fell asleep listening to Gabe’s voice thanking me.

*

I slept soundly, like a rock at the bottom of a deep ocean, oblivious to the turbulent surf above.

Trapped under my chest, my right arm was dead asleep. Slowly, painstakingly, I pulled it free and felt it tingle as blood rushed through it, and with blood came the memories.

The fear of the looming day and lacking the strength to deal with it all made me want to crawl back under the covers and sleep through it.

Slowly, groggily, I got up instead.

I walked to the bathroom and jumped at the grotesque face staring back from the mirror. I looked like a frozen pizza. A still-wrapped frozen pizza. How ugly. Red sleep folds streaked my right cheek like stiff mozzarella. My eyes resembled swollen olives and my nose had mutated into a cluster of iced tomato sauce. Let’s not mention the bitter line thinning my lips and the blotched blemishes on my chin.
Mamma mia!

I washed my face and rinsed with plenty of cold water. I looked a bit better but still felt like somebody had rollerbladed all over me. I walked back to the bedroom where I noticed a small aromatherapy burner on my dresser. My nose twitched, catching a subtle scent. No wonder I had fallen asleep so easily.

Evalena,
I thought. The smile cracking my lips felt foreign.