Authors: Elizabeth Hand
“Oh, stuff it!” But a moment later Annie was kneeling, clutching at Helen’s knee. “Oh,
god—
”
Helen bent down to hug her, her eyes filling with tears. “Hush—it’s all right, sweetheart, don’t worry, it’ll be okay …”
“It
won’t
be okay. Something terrible is happening, something horrible and now
I’m
in it but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna drag you into it with me—”
She closed her eyes to keep from crying, but that was when the visions came: those shadowy figures looming around the boy’s ravaged corpse, darkness behind them and overhead the ghostly blurred face of the moon …
Annie moaned, and stumbled to her feet. Overhead the sun broke over the mountain. “I can’t stay here. It’s
Angelica,
Helen, if you only knew what she was
like
!”
“Try me.”
“She’s just so used to getting her own way—I mean everything she wants! Men, women, boys, girls—”
“Beauty,” Helen suggested. “Eternal youth.”
“It’s not funny!”
Helen finished her coffee and reached for a croissant. “So, does she bathe in the blood of virgins, or what?”
“Helen.
They killed that kid last night. And now—now she
wants
me. I don’t know why—I mean, after all this time—but she
wants me
—”
Helen forced a laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart.”
From the bedroom came the sudden hoarse shout of a telephone: an old-fashioned rotary phone to go with the inn’s 1930s decor. Two short rings and then a longer one. Annie stiffened and looked at Helen.
“Don’t answer it.”
“Don’t be silly. I
have
to answer it; it’s probably just Vicki or Ed checking to see if we want the room for another night.” Helen got to her feet.
Briiing briiing.
“Helen. Don’t.”
Briiing.
“Don’t
! Nobody knows we’re here, nobody should be calling, Helen,
PLEASE
!—”
“And
do
we want the room?” Helen glanced back as she picked up the heavy black Bakelite handset. “Hello?”
From the porch Annie watched her. Helen’s sweet round face, the edges of her braids fuzzed from sleeping on them and her kimono falling open around her wide hips, that dark cleft and Annie’s heart aching because they hadn’t fucked, they’d fought, and now it was too late.
This is the last time I’ll ever see her,
she thought with a sort of greedy desperation.
This is it, make the best of it, Annie-girl, because
—
“Annie?” In the bedroom Helen’s expression folded into fear, as quickly and neatly as a deck chair collapsing. She sank onto the bed, holding the phone out to Annie with wide eyes. Her voice faded to a whisper as she said, “It’s Fiona. From Labrys. She says …”
…
because …
“Fiona? It’s only three
A.M.
out there, how the
hell
did she find—”
…
because …
Helen stared at her in a daze, shaking her head. “I—I don’t understand. She says she just got off the phone with Angelica Furiano and she wanted you to know right away—the bad publicity, for some reason Angelica called and threatened them with a lawsuit, something about that boy, and you being there, and—well, they’re canceling the tour—”
Annie yanked the phone from her lover.
—
because this is where things fall apart.
Angelica stood before her bedroom window, watching the moon disappear behind the black rim of the world. It had been a long night. After talking to Elspeth she had called Fiona from Labrys Music, dragged her out of bed and would not let her go until she’d promised to call Annie Harmon immediately. Let Annie wonder how she’d tracked her down; let her twist in the wind for a few weeks. By then it would be too late, and no one would be talking about the police, or anything else for that matter; not unless Othiym wanted them too. Her hand rested upon the lunula at her throat, felt its warmth seeping into her fingers.
You are the secret mouth of the world
You are the word not uttered
Othiym Lunarsa, haïyo!
Already first light was striking the Devil’s Clock. Her fingers slipped from the lunula to pluck at the sleeve of her kimono, wipe a drop of sweat from her wrist.
Dylan had never called. She knew better than to worry about that—did eighteen-year-old boys
ever
call their mothers? Still, it was enough to spark a small
frisson
of fear and unease; enough to keep her from going to bed.
Though in truth she did not really sleep anymore. As the power of the lunula waxed, as Othiym Herself grew stronger and Angelica waned, she found that she had little need of sleep. Instead of dreaming, her waking mind burned with random images. Annie in the shower, her face raw from crying. The black angel Eisheth rising into the darkness above the Atlantic Ocean, huge and ravenous, its mouth a flaming hole, its fiery wings billowing until they were swallowed by the clouds. A Circle in a Kansas wheatfield, adolescent girls and boys with knives raised above the cowering figure of a young boy scarcely more than a child; another Circle in the old growth forest of the Pacific Northwest. Older women here, the last ragged edge of the failed separatist movement, their prey older as well, and the sound of invisible wings beating fiercely at the air. Angelica saw all these things and more; they chased sleep from her mind as though it were a gnat.
But of Dylan she saw nothing, and that was strange. And try as she might, she could not find Sweeney Cassidy.
From the room behind her static crackled softly. Angelica turned. She had forgotten about the radio. Whatever station it had been tuned to had gone off the air hours ago. The hissing of white noise had become part of the ambient fabric of the night. She crossed the room slowly, to the neat array of stereo equipment stacked atop an antique secretary. Her finger was poised above the OFF switch, when abruptly the static cleared.
“Now what?” she murmured, frowning. There was a moment of silence. Then the radio picked up some distant signal. Music caught in mid-song, a sonic blur of feedback and echoing synthesizers; then a voice. An unfamiliar voice, repeating unfamiliar words in a near-monotone.
But there was a thread of melody there as well—a familiar melody, it nagged at her, tugged at the carefully woven tapestry of memories she had cloaked herself in.
From the long harrows of Wilshire to the Pyramids
From the stone circles that challenged the scientists
And the Neolithics that tread the ancient avenues
Your children that died forevermore exist
“Enough,” whispered Angelica. She stabbed at the OFF button. There was a gentle click, an electronic sigh; but the music did not stop.
I have always been here before …
The sound filled the room. Everywhere around her, the voice overdubbed so that it formed its own echoing chorus, the same voice ringing in her ears like the aftermath of an explosion.
The childish man comes back from the unknown world
And the grown man is threatened by sacrifice
Whosoever protects himself from what is new and strange
Is as the man who’s running from the past
I have always been here before
The song ended. As though someone had dropped a bottle of perfume, a thick fragrance filled the room, a cloying scent that made her head ache. The smell of the festival games, when great armfuls of flowers were strewn upon the graves of all the golden athletes given to her in tribute. The smell of hyacinths.
She could hear her own heart, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Then another sound, so soft she thought at first she’d imagined it. A ticking noise like fingers rapping at a glass.
Angelica whirled, hands clenched at her sides. In the arch of the Palladian window, something beat against the panes. The shadow of its wings ballooned across the floor and up onto the wall behind her, but when she darted to the window she saw that it was actually quite small, no larger than her hand. She flung open the casement but before she could thrust her head outside it flew into the room. The smell of hyacinths grew overpowering, the syrupy odor so strong her tongue felt coated with it, she felt as though she were drowning in petals, stamens showering her with pollen until she could hardly breathe. She staggered back and it flew toward her, its wings slowly rising and falling, sending the faintest of currents through the warm air.
It was a butterfly, purple and yellow, its glittering eyes fixed upon her, its antennae wafting back and forth like sea hair. It hovered mere inches from her face. When she extended one hand it floated down, gentle and hapless as a falling leaf, until it rested upon her palm.
Angelica stared at it, the dusting of gold and violet scales think as ash upon its wings, the tiny hairs upon its legs brushing the ball of her thumb. Its wings fluttered languidly, and the smell of hyacinths flowed into something else. The smell of rain-washed earth, of burning sand and the sea at Karpathos, of coriander and red sandalwood; the smell of autumn leaves and applewood burning in the chimneys at the Orphic Lodge.
“Oliver,”
she whispered, as she drew the butterfly to her face; then crushed it between her hands.
W
E WALKED OUTSIDE ON
the Mall, pausing to watch a magician who made a boy sharp-eyed and brown as a weasel disappear. The boy crawled beneath a rattan laundry basket scarcely large enough to hide him. The magician, a toothless man younger than I was, uttered some words in Hindi; when he lifted the basket, the boy was gone. Dylan and I inspected the packed earth, the laundry basket, the fringed edges of the silk tent: nothing.
“The Mysterious East,” I said at last. We wandered on. After the airless inferno inside the museum, the Mall felt comfortable, although the temperature was well into the nineties. Dylan removed his tie and slung it around his neck; I took off my linen jacket and was glad that I’d gone bare-legged that day. Our museum IDs still were clipped to our breast pockets; apart from that, we might have been any two tourists goggling at the acrobats and sitar players and contortionists at play in the shadow of the Washington Monument.
“So, Boss,” Dylan finally asked, “what do I do to earn my keep?”
I shrugged. “Not much.” Summer interns weren’t actually paid at all; the exceptional experience of working at the museum was supposed to be worth far more than any one person could possibly earn in the space of six short weeks. “To tell you the truth, interns don’t actually
do
very much. At least mine never do. Laurie’ll show you around the archives, I’ll show you how the videodisc system works. I’m sure we can find some stuff to keep you busy. There’s a new collection of photos that came in last week that needs to be cataloged; I’ll get you started on that. But mostly just have a good time, take advantage of being here.”
“I’m already doing that.”
I blushed, glanced over to see if he was being smarmy. But no, Dylan had the same earnest open look as before. As a matter of fact, the way he was staring at me was pretty dopey: like a kid longing for a new skateboard or the latest Boink CD.
“So,” I asked hurriedly, ducking into the shade of a great oak tree. “How’s your mom?”
“My mom.” Dylan kicked up a cloud of dust, flicked a strand of hair from his intense blue eyes. “Well, you know my mom.”
“Actually, I don’t. I haven’t seen Angelica since—well, since before you were born. I really only knew her for a couple of months.”
He stared at his feet. “I guess she’s okay.” He flashed me a crooked grin, a look that was so much like Oliver’s I felt a stabbing at my breast. “To tell you the truth,
I
haven’t seen her much since I’ve been born. My dad and I, we used to do a lot of stuff together. Riding, sailing, flying—my dad had a Cessna 150, he was gonna teach me to fly. But my mother—well, you know she’s always been into all this strange stuff. Like digging up our place on Santorini, looking for tombs and artifacts. She’s a real field archaeologist, at least she was until my father died and she started getting more into her books. I mean, she’s a great mom and all. But I’ve always gone away to school, I
liked
going away to school; and so I didn’t see her much except at vacations. And summertime she was always off on her digs, and Christmas we’d go see my grandfather …”
He leaned against the oak tree, staring across the long downward slope of green leading to the Tidal Basin, where little paddleboats like fat blue beetles swam through the water. “She’s just one of these driven professional women you read about,” he said at last with a sigh. “Over here, at least. In Italy you don’t read much about them, because there aren’t any. Not as many, at least.” He fell silent again, gazing into the hazy distance.
“So,” I said. So maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to talk about Angelica. “So you like UCLA?”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s a lot of driven professional students. I guess I’m just not as motivated as I should be, I dunno.” He looked at me sideways and smiled. “I actually wanted to take the summer off and go cross-country with these friends of mine to Nantucket, but my mother had other plans. It was her idea to apply for this internship.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” I said, and grinned. “Really.”
“Me too.”
His voice was sweet, with that hint of an accent and Angelica’s theatrical phrasing. His glittering green-flecked eyes remained fixed on me. I wiped a bead of sweat from my nose.
This is insane,
I thought.
I’ve known this kid for, what? an hour? ninety minutes? and already I’m totally wiped out by him.
Although he
is
incredibly fantastic-looking,
I told myself, like that was a good excuse.
Although he is exactly half my age, and I am his supervisor, and old enough to be his mother.
Shit, if I’d had my way with Oliver, I
would
have been his mother. I shook my head, feeling slightly delirious.
“You okay?”
I started. Dylan was just inches from my face, his sea blue eyes wide with concern. “Sweeney? You look a little—I dunno, sunstroked maybe. Maybe we should go inside—”