Jep walked beside her on the curbside, between her and the street. Most of the houses were closed and dark. In the front of one a woman sat on a porch swing, holding a baby and humming to it. Some heartbreak song. By the time Lily reached Mattie’s she felt sober again.
Mattie was sitting in the living room. “Egan called,” she said. “I made you some tea. I know it’s not what you think you want, but it has some herbs in it, very effective against hangover. You won’t be sorry you drank it. It’s a long hike to the caves. You want to be rested.”
Lily sat on the couch beside her. “Thank you. You’re being very good to me, Mattie. I don’t deserve it. I’ve been behaving very badly.”
“Maybe it’s just my turn to be good,” said Mattie. “Maybe you just finished your turn. Did you ever get any dinner?”
“I think I may have had some pretzels.” Lily looked across the room to the phone, wondering if she were going to call David. She looked at the picture of the Madonna. It was not a very interesting one. Too sweet. Too much sweetness. “I should call my husband,” she told Mattie and didn’t move.
“Would you like me to leave you alone?”
“No,” said Lily. “It wouldn’t be that sort of call. David and I, we don’t have personal conversations.” She realized suddenly that she had left her wedding ring back at the bar on the cocktail napkin beside her empty glass.
“Is the marriage a happy one?” Mattie asked. “Forgive me if I’m prying. It’s just—well, here you are.”
“I don’t know,” said Lily.
Mattie put her arm around Lily and Lily leaned against her. “Loving is a lot harder for some people than for others,” she said. “And being loved can be hardest of all. Not for you, though. Not for a loving woman like you.”
Lily sat up and reached for her tea. It smelled of chamomile. “Mattie,” she said. She didn’t know how to explain. Lily felt that she often appeared to be a better person than she was. It was another affliction. In many ways Mattie’s analysis was true. Lily knew that her family and friends wondered how she lived with such a cold, methodical man. But there was another truth, too. Often, Lily set up little tests for David, tests of his sensitivity, tests of his commitment. She was always pleased when he failed them, because it proved the problems between them were still his fault. Not a loving thing to do. “Don’t make me out to be some saint,” she said.
She slept very deeply that night, dreaming on alcohol and tea, and woke up late in the morning. It was almost ten before she and Jep hit the trail. She watched for the painting on her way up this time, stopping to eat an identical lunch in a spot where she could look at it. Jep sat beside her, panting. They passed the rock overhang where she had eaten lunch the day before, finished the climb uphill, and started down. The drop-off was sharp; the terrain was dusty and uninviting, and Lily, who was tired of walking uphill, found it even harder to descend. When the trail stopped at a small hollow in the side of a rock, she decided she would rest and then go back. Everyone else might be excessively concerned that she see the caves, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She dropped the day pack on the ground and sat beside it. Jep raised his collie ear and wagged his tail. Turning, Lily was not at all surprised to see Henry coming down the hill, his hair loose and hanging to his shoulders.
“So,” he said. “You found the caves without me.”
“You’re kidding.” Lily stood up. “This little scrape in the rock? This can’t be the famous Two Trees caves. I won’t believe it. Tell me there are real caves just around the next bend.”
“You need something more?” Henry asked. “This isn’t enough? You are a hard woman.”
“Oh, come on.” Lily flicked her hair out of her eyes. “Are you telling me people come from all over to see this?”
“It’s not the caves.” Henry was staring at her. She felt her face reddening. “It’s what happens in the caves.” He moved closer to her. “It’s what happens when a beautiful woman comes to the caves.” Lily let herself look right at his eyes. Inside his pupils, a tiny Lily looked back out.
“Stay away from me,” said Lily. Was she the kind of woman who would allow a strange man in a strange place to kiss her? Apparently so. Apparently she was the kind of woman who said no to nothing now. She reached out to Henry; she put one hand on the sleeve of his shirt, one hand on his neck, moved the first hand to his back. “I gave you my car and my wedding ring,” she told him. “What do you want now? What will satisfy you?” She kissed him first. They dropped to their knees on the hard floor of the cave. He kissed her back.
“We could go somewhere more comfortable,” said Lily.
“No,” said Henry. “It has to be here.”
They removed their clothes and spread them about as padding. The shadow of the rock lengthened over them. Jep whined once or twice and then went to sleep at a safe distance. Lily couldn’t relax. She let Henry work at it. She touched his face and kissed his hand. “Your father did a nice job,” she told him, moving as close to his side as she could, holding herself against him. “You do that wonderfully.” Henry’s arm lay underneath her back. He lifted her with it, turning her so that she was on top of him, facing down. He took hold of her hair and pulled her face to his own, put his mouth on her mouth. Then he let her go, staring at her, holding the bits of hair about her face in his hands. “You are so beautiful,” he said, and something broke inside her.
“Am I?” She was frightened because she suddenly needed to believe him, needed to believe that he might love her, whoever she was.
“Incredibly beautiful.”
“Am I?” Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, she told him silently, too afraid to talk and almost crying. Don’t make me want it if it’s not there. Please. Be careful what you say.
“Incredibly beautiful.” He began to move again inside her. “So beautiful.” He watched her face. “So beautiful.” He touched her breasts and then his eyes closed and his mouth rounded. She thought he might fly apart, his body shook so, and she held him together with her hands, kissed him until he stopped, and then kissed him again.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Henry said.
It hurt Lily immediately, like a slap. So now she was the sort of woman men said this to. Well, she had no right to expect anything different from a man she didn’t even know. She could have said it to him first if she’d thought of it. That would have been the smart thing to do. Nothing would have been stupider than needing him. What had she been thinking of? “But you will if you have to,” she finished. “Right? Don’t worry. I’m not making anything of this. I know what this is.” She sat up and reached for Katherine’s sweatshirt. She was cold and afraid to move closer to Henry. She was cold and she didn’t want to be naked anymore.
“You sound angry,” Henry said. “It’s not that I couldn’t love you. It’s not that I don’t already love you. Men always disappoint women. I’m not sure we can escape it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lily told him sharply. She put her head into the red tent of the sweatshirt and pulled it through. “I should have gotten your sexual history first,” she added. “I haven’t done this since the rules changed.”
“I haven’t been with a woman in ten years,” Henry said. Lily looked at his face in surprise.
“Before that it was five years,” he said. “And before that three, but that was two at once. That was the sixties. Before that it was fifteen years. And twenty before that. And two. And two. And before that almost a hundred.”
Lily stood up, pulling on Katherine’s jeans. “I should have gotten your psychiatric history first,” she said. The faster she tried to dress, the more difficulties she had. She couldn’t find one of Katherine’s socks. She was too angry and frightened to look among Henry’s clothes. She put on Katherine’s shoes without it. “Come on, Jep,” she said.
“It can’t mean anything,” Henry told her.
“It didn’t. Forget it.” Lily left without the day pack. She hurried up the trail. Jep followed somewhat reluctantly. They made the crest of the hill; Lily looked behind her often to see if Henry was following. He wasn’t. She went past the painting without stopping. Jep preceded her through the gate into Mattie’s backyard.
Mattie and Katherine were waiting in the house. Katherine put her arms around her. “You went to the caves,” Katherine said. “Didn’t you? I can tell.”
“Of course she did,” said Mattie. She stroked Lily’s hair. “Of course she did.”
Lily stood stiffly inside Katherine’s arms. “What the hell is going on?” she asked. She pushed away and looked at the two women. “You sent me up there, didn’t you? You did! You and Egan and probably Allison Beale, too. Go to the caves, go to the caves. That’s all I’ve heard since I got here. You dress me like some virginal sacrifice, fatten me up with Hostess cupcakes, and send me to him. But why?”
“It’s a miracle,” said Mattie. “You were chosen. Can’t you feel it?”
“I let some man pick me up in a bar. He turns out to be a nut.” Lily’s voice rose higher. “Where’s the miracle?”
“You slept with Henry,” said Mattie. “Henry chose you. That’s the miracle.”
Lily ran up the stairs. She stripped Katherine’s clothes off and put her own on. Mattie came and stood in the doorway. Lily walked around her and out of the room.
“Listen to me, Lily,” Mattie said. “You don’t understand. He gave you as much as he can give anyone. That’s why in the painting the woman’s hands are empty. But that’s his trap. His curse. Not yours. When you see that, you’ll forgive him. Katherine and Allison and I all forgave him. I know you will, too, a loving woman like you.” Mattie reached out, grabbing Lily’s sleeve. “Stay here with us. You can’t go back to your old life. You won’t be able to. You’ve been chosen.”
“Look,” said Lily. She took a deep breath and wiped at her eyes with her hands. “I wasn’t chosen. Quite the opposite. I was picked up and discarded. By a man in his thirties and not the same man you slept with. Maybe you slept with a god. You go ahead and tell yourself that. What difference does it make? You were still picked up and discarded.” She shook loose of Mattie and edged down the stairs. She expected to be stopped, but she wasn’t. At the front door, she turned. Mattie stood on the landing behind her. Mattie held out her hands. Lily shook her head. “I think you’re pretty pathetic, if you want to know the truth. I’m not going to tell myself a lot of lies or listen to yours. I know who I am. I’m going. I won’t be back. Don’t expect me.”
Her car waited at the front of the house, just where she had parked it the first night. She ran from the porch. The keys were inside. Left and left again, past the bar where the martini glass tipped darkly in the window, and onto the freeway. Lily accelerated way past eighty and no one stopped her. The foothills sped by and became cities. When she felt that she was far enough away to be safe from small-town Madonnas and immortals who were cursed to endure centuries of casual sex with as many loving women as possible—which was damn few, in fact, if you believed the numbers they gave you—she slowed down. She arrived home in the early evening. As she was walking in the door, she noticed she was wearing her wedding ring.
David was sitting on the couch reading a book. “Here I am, David,” Lily said. “I’m here. I got a speeding ticket. I never looked to see how much it was for. I lost my ring playing poker, but I mortgaged the house and won it back. I lost a lot more, though. I lost my head. I’m halfhearted now. In fact, I’m not at all the woman I was. I’ve got to be honest with you.”
“I’m glad you’re home,” said David. He went back to his book.
THE BLACK FAIRY’S CURSE
She was being chased. She kicked off her shoes, which were slowing her down. At the same time her heavy skirts vanished and she found herself in her usual work clothes. Relieved of the weight and constriction, she was able to run faster. She looked back. She was much faster than he was. Her heart was strong. Her strides were long and easy. He was never going to catch her now.
• • •
SHE WAS RIDING the huntsman’s horse and she couldn’t remember why. It was an autumn red with a tangled mane. She was riding fast. A deer leapt in the meadow ahead of her. She saw the white blink of its tail.
She’d never ridden well, never had the insane fearlessness it took, but now she was able to enjoy the easiness of the horse’s motion. She encouraged it to run faster.
It was night. The countryside was softened with patches of moonlight. She could go anywhere she liked, ride to the end of the world and back again. What she would find there was a castle with a toothed tower. Around the castle was a girdle of trees, too narrow to be called a forest, and yet so thick they admitted no light at all. She knew this. Even farther away were the stars. She looked up and saw three of them fall, one right after the other. She made a wish to ride until she reached them.
She herself was in farmland. She crossed a field and jumped a low stone fence. She avoided the cottages, homey though they seemed, with smoke rising from the roofs and a glow the color of butter pats at the windows. The horse ran and did not seem to tire.
She wore a cloak which, when she wrapped it tightly around her, rode up and left her legs bare. Her feet were cold. She turned around to look. No one was coming after her.
She reached a river. Its edges were green with algae and furry with silt. Toward the middle she could see the darkness of deep water. The horse made its own decisions. It ran along the shallow edge but didn’t cross. Many yards later it ducked back away from the water and into a grove of trees. She lay along its neck, and the silver-backed leaves of aspens brushed over her hair.
• • •
SHE CLIMBED INTO one of the trees. She regretted every tree she had never climbed. The only hard part was the first branch. After that it was easy, or else she was stronger than she’d ever been. Stronger than she needed to be. This excess of strength gave her a moment of joy as pure as any she could remember. The climbing seemed quite as natural as stair steps, and she went as high as she could, standing finally on a limb so thin it dipped under her weight, like a boat. She retreated downward, sat with her back against the trunk and one leg dangling. No one would ever think to look for her here.
Her hair had come loose and she let it all down. It was warm on her shoulders. “Mother,” she said, softly enough to blend with the wind in the leaves. “Help me.”
She meant her real mother. Her real mother was not there, had not been there since she was a little girl. It didn’t mean there would be no help.
Above her were the stars. Below her, looking up, was a man. He was no one to be afraid of. Her dangling foot was bare. She did not cover it. Maybe she didn’t need help. That would be the biggest help of all.
“Did you want me?” he said. She might have known him from somewhere. They might have been children together. “Or did you want me to go away?”
“Go away. Find your own tree.”
• • •
THEY WENT SWIMMING together and she swam better than he did. She watched his arms, his shoulders rising darkly from the green water. He turned and saw that she was watching. “Do you know my name?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she said, although she couldn’t remember it. She knew she was supposed to know it, although she could also see that he didn’t expect her to. But she did feel that she knew who he was—his name was such a small part of that. “Does it start with a W?” she asked.
The sun was out. The surface of the water was a rough gold.
“What will you give me if I guess it?”
“What do you want?”
She looked past him. On the bank was a group of smiling women, her grandmother, her mother, and her stepmother, too, her sisters and stepsisters, all of them smiling at her. They waved. No one said, “Put your clothes on.” No one sa
id, “Don’t go in too deep now, dear.” She was a good swimmer, and there was no reason to be afraid. She couldn’t think of a single thing she wanted. She flipped away, breaking the skin of the water with her legs.
She surfaced in a place where the lake held still to mirror the sky. When it settled, she looked down into it. She expected to see that she was beautiful, but she was not. A mirror only answers one question and it can’t lie. She had completely lost her looks. She wondered what she had gotten in return.
• • •
THERE WAS A MIRROR in the bedroom. It was dusty so her reflection was vague. But she was not beautiful. She wasn’t upset about this and she noticed the fact, a little wonderingly. It didn’t matter at all to her. Most people were taken in by appearances, but others weren’t. She was healthy; she was strong. If she could manage to be kind and patient and witty and brave, there would be men who loved her for it. There would be men who found it exciting.
He lay among the blankets, looking up at her. “Your eyes,” he said. “Your incredible eyes.”
His own face was in shadow, but there was no reason to be afraid. She removed her dress. It was red. She laid it over the back of a chair. “Move over.”
She had never been in bed with this man before, but she wanted to be. It was late and no one knew where she was. In fact, her mother had told her explicitly not to come here, but there was no reason to be afraid. “I’ll tell you what to do,” she said. “You must use your hand and your mouth. The other—it doesn’t work for me. And I want to be first. You’ll have to wait.”
“I’ll love waiting,” he said. He covered her breast with his mouth, his hand moved between her legs. He knew how to touch her already. He kissed her other breast.
“Like that,” she said. “Just like that.” Her body began to tighten in anticipation.
He kissed her mouth. He kissed her mouth.
• • •
HE KISSED HER MOUTH. It was not a hard kiss, but it opened her eyes. This was not the right face. She had never seen this man before and the look he gave her—she wasn’t sure she liked it. Why was he kissing her, when she was asleep and had never seen him before? What was he doing in her bedroom? She was so frightened, she stopped breathing for a moment. She closed her eyes and wished him away.
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