by P. R. Frost
I craned my neck to look up to the middle of their circle. They swayed back and forth, hands joined, faces blank and empty. I wondered why, and when, the joy of flying and dancing to beautiful music had drained out of them. They performed by rote, perfectly coordinated in time to the music. Not a flaw revealed itself to me. Except for the total lack of . . . life.
They looked like Mom had when the enormity of Darren’s death and his life finally hit her.
The music shifted, became urgent, almost menacing. The fairies broke apart, skittering around the rafters in manic movements.
The light floral scent that had drifted behind them became sharper, spicier with anticipation.
Abruptly everything stopped. Music and dancers. The lights blinked and flashed red.
Movement on stage in the semidarkness drew our eyes. A hint of yellow, suggestive of dawn, brightened the outer edges, partially blocked by a huge set piece that nearly filled the stage.
One by one the fairies converged around the blockage. Moment by moment more details emerged. The set took on the texture of twisted and weathered red rock. Cave openings, big enough for the fairies to enter and disappear, looked like facial features, definition of arms. I stared at a writhing goblin frozen in stone and time.
The dance continued, sometimes sweet, sometimes agonized. Always the intent to enter one of the caves in order to get home. No words. Just the dance and that intense longing.
I didn’t have to be an empath to feel the heartbreak of exile.
When the dancers moved above the audience their faces had taken on animation. Anger. Loneliness. Bewilderment.
Maybe the total lack of expression earlier was part of the story.
Their costumes and makeup became uniformly grayer. A trick of the lights. I had to keep reminding myself this was just a story and didn’t involve me.
A resounding thunderclap startled us all. Gasps all around. I jumped and found my hand firmly captured by Donovan’s. Mom and Penny reached for each other.
Then sighs of relief as the audience realized this, too, was just part of the story.
The thud of raindrops on hard desert sandstone erupted all around the rock formation. A cool breeze wafted through the theater refreshing us. I hadn’t noticed how warm the room had become until that tiny chill of sweat drying in the wind.
Lightning zigzagged across the stage. One of the caves, a little one almost invisible in the fold of the goblin’s arm, showed a different texture behind the opening.
The clouds thinned and a diffuse glimmer of moonlight—I couldn’t tell which quarter—highlighted the opening some more.
The fairies saw it at the same moment I did. They paused for a heartbeat. “Home,” they whispered.
Did they really say it aloud or did I imagine it?
Before I could decide, they rose as one into the air on a level with the opening, formed a straight-as-an-arrow line and flitted in. Quickly. The lights changed again. The hint of moonlight was directly behind the opening, then passed on its eternal pathway. The portal darkened, started to close. One last lone fairy had stopped to pluck a fragile desert bloom. The last in line, lagging behind just a bit.
Too late. She’d wasted too many precious moments gathering that lovely memento, the only bright spot in her exile from home. She slammed into the rock wall and dropped like a stone toward the stage.
I gasped in dismay and sadness. The rest of the audience joined in. I felt like that horrible moment near the end of Peter Pan when Tinker Bell has drunk the poisoned milk and lies dying in Peter’s hand.
Did I begin the slow clap of hands? Someone did. We all did. We clapped as if our lives depended upon it. The fairy’s life did depend upon it.
“I believe in fairies,” I chanted.
Mom took up the litany. In a heartbeat, twelve hundred voices told the Universe that we believed.
The dancer lying crumpled on the stage slowly changed from dull gray to white to palest pink. As the noise rose to a driving demand, a single yellow arm snaked out of the opening, grabbed the fallen fairy, and yanked her through the portal.
She waved a thank you to the audience and smiled. The entire stage seemed brightened by that tiny uplift of mouth and eyes. Layers of chiffon trailed after her, turning hot and vibrant pink.
We leaped to our feet, rejoicing with our applause and our shouts of “Bravo!” and “Encore!”
I had to wipe a tear from my eye, amazed at the cultural icons at play here. I could use these images, this feeling, the sharing of common goals and desires through the medium of story.
“She made it,” Mom sighed. “I’m so glad she made it home safely.”
“So am I.”
I glanced over to Donovan, to somehow draw him into this wonderful warmth and joy. He stared off at the portal that was now just a shadow on a stage set. His faced creased in some internal pain I could not share.
“I can’t ever go home,” he whispered. “Never. I’m more in exile than they are.”
Chapter 11
Las Vegas averages 3000 weddings on Valentine’s Day weekend.
“YOU’RE VERY QUIET,”I said to Donovan as we picked our way out of the theater. I wasn’t used to seeing his face devoid of animation. It scared me.
Mom and Penny walked a few paces ahead of us, chattering gaily about the magnificent performance.
“I . . . old memories,” he stammered. His gaze kept returning to the stage, now in deep shadow, the rock goblin only a vague outline.
It reminded me of the brooding presence of a gargoyle on a cathedral I’d seen in England.
“Sometimes shared pain is lesser pain,” I coaxed.
“The fairy falling and crumpling a wing . . .” He shook his head, reached for his cell phone, and busied himself turning it back on.
I needed to pursue this. Donovan actually talking about his past was too rare and important.
Jostling crowds and a line waiting for taxis outside the hotel interrupted any opportunity to speak and expect to be heard, or not overheard.
Donovan’s phone chirped discreetly as we pushed out into the cooling night air. He barked something into it, then cursed.
“The limousine got T-boned at an intersection. We’ll have to take a taxi and bill them for the inconvenience,” he explained mildly.
“Oh, dear,” Mom sighed. “I really need to get back to The Crown Jewels. I’m singing again tonight.”
“When did that happen?” I asked. Something akin to disapproval wanted to burst forth. I couldn’t express that to Mom. I needed to support her now, help her regain her life after Donovan’s foster father had nearly destroyed it.
“Excuse me for buttin’ in here,” a tall man in his sixties, wearing a white Stetson and an impeccable gray western-cut suit edged between me and my mother. “Name’s Ed Stetson, like the hat.” He tipped it. “I got a limo heading out to The Crown Jewels. Heard there’s this hot new act there.” He winked at Mom. “Saw her last night and just have to go back.”
“Well, I’ll be. Ed Stetson from Austin,” Penny said. She hooked her arm through his. “If I remember correctly, and I always do, you drink Bushmills, smoke Cubans, and love strawberries dipped in dark chocolate.”
“Only Oregon strawberries in season, sweeter than the California berries. Something about the cold winters sending the plants to sleep. They wake up refreshed and full of sweetness. Like you. How you doing, Penny?” He bent to kiss her cheek.
The conversation went downhill from there. Or uphill. Mom and Penny joined Ed in his big white stretch Cadillac. “He’s harmless and rich as a Texan ought to be,” Penny reassured me just before the driver closed the wide white door on the dim interior. “Your mama is safe with us.”
“Want some supper? I know this lovely place at The Venetian. It’s only a few blocks from here.” Donovan smiled down at me. He didn’t have to say, “Alone at last.” It showed in his reinvigorated posture and the way he gazed at me.
A shiver of delight coursed through me. “Let’s walk.
”
Blocks in Vegas can be irrelevant. Some of the bigger venues stretch for half a mile or more. I set a brisk pace, partly to keep warm now that the sun had set. More out of impatience.
Donovan’s long legs kept pace with me easily.
Traffic on the sidewalks and streets grew heavier the closer we came to the Strip. We jostled other walkers constantly. Donovan threaded his fingers through mine to keep me close. I enjoyed the warmth and tingles shooting from his palm to mine. He cast an aura of protectiveness around me. For once I let it stand, easing away my need for independence in favor of cultivating his semi-loquacious mood.
The massive facade of The Venetian loomed before us. The ever-present sound system played a synthesized version of a bouncy Italian tune I couldn’t name. Its ever-so-slightly off-key rendition—no electronic medium could do it justice—irritated me. I inched closer to Donovan, shying away from the noise.
Inside, the rich carpets, faux marble walls, and pseudo-classical statuary muted the music enough that I relaxed. Our shoulders brushed, and I let my hand linger in his.
We followed the signs around the edge of the smoky casino toward the Grand Canal. The last half flight of stairs opened up into . . .
“Wow!” I stopped short, amazed by the lovely blue sky and fluffy white clouds above an open plaza flanked by quaint buildings. The broad painted sky looked too real and gave the impression of a long horizon beyond the rooftops. Nothing felt closed in. A hint of pink just above the roofline suggested we neared sunset. But outside, in Vegas the sky had gone full dark.
A Venetian piazza opened before us with shops and trees and jovial crowds. A group of Renaissance costumed singers performed while a Pierrot clown on stilts in traditional baggy white costume with black-and-white domino makeup manipulated a dancer/puppet in jester green, purple, and red playing the marionette.
I caught a hint of sweet citrus and sharp olive on the warm and gentle breeze, a full ten degrees warmer than the desert chill we’d left behind, but cooler than the hot and crowded casino.
“Have we zipped through the chat room and transported to Italy?”
“Not quite,” Donovan chuckled. “Shall we take a gondola ride before we eat?”
“Why not.” I kept turning circles trying to take it all in at once. “I think I need to set my next book in Venice so I can go there for research. If it’s half this nice, it will be wonderful.”
“The real canal smells of sewage and brine instead of chlorine,” he whispered conspiratorially.
“I don’t care.” I turned in a circle, trying to absorb it all, while still following him toward the canal. My heels caught on a crack in the tiled pavement.
Donovan caught me as I tilted downward. With a laugh, he held me close to his side.
I grinned goofily.
“It will all be here on the way back,” he chuckled, tucking my hand into the crook of his arm. “And it will still be just before sunset, no matter what time it is outside.”
Comfortably close, we made our way across the arched bridge over the artificial waterway. The incredibly clear, blue water and pristine white stonework sparkled with an invitation to follow it along its twisted pathway, alternately narrow and private and open and jovial.
I resisted the urge to lay my head against Donovan’s chest. Even in three-inch heels I couldn’t reach that special place on a man’s shoulder meant for snuggling.
“Watch your step, my dear.” A gentle tug on my hand and I paid enough attention to my feet to walk down the seven white steps lapped by blue water to a waiting boat. A fancy white one with gold trim.
Donovan stepped in first, then held my hand while the gondolier steadied the craft. At the last moment, just before I put both feet firmly on the deck, it rocked and threw me off-balance. Donovan caught me and we tumbled onto the seats laughing and clinging to each other.
The boatman pushed off from his mooring with a long pole. He wore the traditional black knee pants, striped shirt, and flat-crowned skimmer hat. He sang a soft ballad in Italian as he guided us into the center of the narrow waterway.
The subdued lighting caught the shimmer of sequins on my dress. They might have been stars in a midnight-blue sky.
“Thank you for this evening, L’Akita,” Donovan said, kissing the back of my hand. His lips lingered and nibbled up my wrist. Then he turned our hands over and kissed my palm.
Delicious flashes of electricity wandered up my arm. Memories of last night came back with renewed intensity.
Coherent thought fled.
“After eight hundred years of watching silently, I need to take action, do things, follow through.” His mouth shifted to my brow, my nose, my lips.
Oh, yeah, I was supposed to ask him about those eight hundred years before he became human fifty years ago, though he only looked forty—tops. And a very fit and vibrant forty at that.
The primal energy we shared deepened.
He bent down, reaching beneath the seat, while somehow never removing his mouth from my face. Velvety flower petals trailed along my scar after his caresses.
I managed to look down as the softness met my chin. A single red rosebud, absolutely perfect, with a bit of dew still on it. A matching red ribbon dangled a bright and shiny object from the stem.
A huge, honking, square-cut diamond in an antique gold filigree. The most beautiful and enticing piece of jewelry I’d ever seen.
The diamond flashed. I caught a brief glimpse of a jagged lightning crack in reality.
The ring called to me, begged me to wear it. Forever. If I but touched it, I could rule the Universe.
My heart skipped a beat. Three beats. I forgot to breathe.
“L’Akita, Tess, will you marry me?”
Huh?
I opened my eyes to find myself looking into the dark chocolate depths of his own. Fire sang through my blood.
I wanted to say yes.
Well, my hormones wanted me to say yes.
The ring demanded I say yes.
My brain stretched and snapped awake.
That was the biggest diamond I’d ever seen outside the crown jewels in the Tower of London. Greed reared its nasty head.
“I know I’ve messed up since we met.” He had the grace to look sheepish. “But I figured it out. Well, most of it. And I want things right between us. Will you marry me?”
“You sure did mess up. Like knocking up the wicked little witch who murdered your father right after I refused to have your children without the commitment of marriage.”
And he never said the crucial words: “I love you.”
“Well, yeah. I really wanted you to be the mother of that child, our child. I want to fill your house with our children. WindScribe was, I don’t know, I was just so very angry with you at the moment. I don’t love her.”
“Good thing since she’s locked up in a mental hospital for the rest of her life.” And my Aunt MoonFeather, the most honorable person and witch I knew was under orders from the prison warden of the universe to gain custody of that child by hook or by crook.
She’d filed suit in the mundane courts as soon as WindScribe’s doctors confirmed her pregnancy. Donovan had countersued. I couldn’t help but think that marriage to me might help his case.
He’d seemed obsessed with having children since I met him last autumn.
Children to fill my house. My house! The rambling monstrosity on Cape Cod sat smack dab in the middle of neutral ground. A place where peace treaties could be signed in safety. A place where neither demon nor magic ruled.
But a neutral place that lay vulnerable to those seeking to open a new and rogue portal between dimensions.
The most valuable plot of land in Human space to those who knew what it was and how to manipulate it.
Donovan didn’t want me. He wanted my children and my house.
My body calmed down and began listening to my head.
The gondolier listened raptly to our conversation as well. Did Scrap?
I sudd
enly missed his acerbic comments.
“Why can’t Scrap come near you? You have to know that I can’t marry you until that little issue is resolved.” Scrap and I were bound together by magical ties that stretched through several dimensions and the chat room. If he died, I died. If Donovan came between us, I think I’d shrivel up into a mere shadow of myself.
Come to think on it, I hadn’t seen Scrap since theater intermission.
Where are you?
Busy.
I felt like a door had slammed in my face.
A wave of loneliness washed over me, chilling any lingering ardor.
“What do you know of Scrap’s past?” Donovan asked, so quietly I didn’t think our boatman could hear.
“More than I do of yours.” Not a whole lot more.
“If the imp is repelled by me, then there must be a darkness in his soul.”
“And there isn’t in yours? You fell from something. I know that much.” And now I also knew he’d been a silent watcher for eight hundred years before that fall.
“What did you fall from? Grace? If that’s the case, you have a darkness in your past worse than Scrap’s.”
His face went still as stone. Redness spread across his cheeks, making them seem sharper than ever and highlighting the faint copper coloring.
“Gondolier, I’m getting out.” I stood. The boat rocked.
Donovan steadied me. I slapped his hand away.
“Sorry, ma’am. You have to wait until we reach a landing.”
I looked up and down the artificial canal. Tall walls flanked us as we approached a miniature Bridge of Sighs.
“Can’t wait that long. Ciao.” Oblivious to stares and shouts from people watching—including Donovan—I stepped onto the seat with one foot and launched myself upward. I clung to the smooth white faux marble of the bridge and swung one leg up to the railing.
The gondolier kept poling the pretty white-and-gold boat along.
The wedding boat.
All the others were plain black. Donovan had planned well. Too bad I couldn’t go along with his plans.
“Tess. Wait,” he shouted, half standing on the wobbling gondola.
