by P. C. Cast
Against her closed eyes the warm evening breeze had picked up. It felt good, almost like a caress against her skin. It made her think of the summer, when dandelions dried and their little white heads blew all over fields of four-leaf clovers. She sighed and relaxed, feeling suddenly sleepy.…
…Until she heard the wild flapping and opened her eyes in time to see her homework papers being lifted by the crazy wind. She leaped up, grabbing at papers, sure she saw translucent pastel wings fluttering in among the notebook pages as her poetry scattered out into the forest.
“Fucking fairies!” she screamed, running after the trail of paper.
An hour later she had still not found the final drafts of both poems. Grumbling about hanging sticky flypaper and a giant bug zapper to get rid of the fairy problem, she gave up, resigning herself to rewriting the finals again. At least she’d just finished both poems that day. It shouldn’t be too hard for her to remember exactly what she’d written.…
He’d gone for a walk. Justin hadn’t even understood why, but all of a sudden it had been very important that he take a walk in the woods, and before he knew it, he was heading south. Toward her house. He’d just realized how close he was to her little log cabin when the wind changed directions and, in a flutter of iridescent wings, two papers blew straight into his hands. He felt a jolt at the familiar writing.
Poetry…her poetry!
Then he started reading, and his heart clenched. Candice’s words were like a mirror of what was going on inside him. Could it be? Could she really care as much as he did? He read on, and images began to form in his mind, and with them a plan. Maybe, just maybe, he could find a way to reach her.
10
To some people it might seem counterproductive to jog to town simply to eat a triple fudge banana split. To Candice it made perfect sense. She sat outside the One-Stop Mart and tried to tune out the sounds of the arguing Desdaine triplets as they fought over God knew what. Those monsters were always into something. And that poor sweet preacher, what was her name? Pastor Harmony? She’d somehow gotten trapped in there with those little demons. Candice could hear the woman trying to end the argument before any of the three little terrors could permanently disable some hapless passerby, which was just damn brave of the preacher. No wonder everyone said she was honestly nice—that she accepted everyone no matter how magical or nonmagical (or how disdainfully horrid).
Something crashed inside the store and Candice cringed. How old were those brats now? Eleven? Twelve? She’d damn sure better be out of teaching before, like a plague of locusts, they descended upon Mysteria High. Just another reason to land that fabulous job as an editor in Denver. Candice ate her ice cream slowly, dreaming of the romantic possibilities of her future profession. She’d have three-martini lunches with authors. She’d wear amazing clothes and have a loft near downtown. She’d discover the next Nora Roberts!
“Candice! There you are. Holy bat shit! You will not believe what the vampire is displaying in his gallery!” Godiva rushed up to her friend, her large round bosoms heaving with excitement.
“More porno dressed up as art?” Candice said, interest definitely aroused. She was always up for some full-frontal male nudity. Actually, it might be just the thing to help her get over the Justin Blues. Unfortunately, Godiva shook her head.
“No. It’s not porn.”
“Damn. Then what’s the big deal? You know I don’t like those bloody pictures the vamps think are cool. I don’t know why vampires are so into art, anyway. You’d think they’d choose a more, I don’t know, nocturnal profession.”
“Candice! Just come with me. I cannot begin to explain what you’re going to see.”
“Can I finish my banana split first?”
“Bring it. This can’t wait.”
Grumbling, Candice let Godiva shoo her down Main Street to Mysteria’s only art gallery, Dark Shadows. A crowd was gathered around the front display window, and as she got closer, she realized that all of them were staring in the window, and they all were crying.
Crying? The exhibition was so bad it was making the populace cry? Sheesh.
Godiva grabbed her arm and shoved her forward so she could get a better look. At first she was so completely distracted by the beauty of the pieces and the amazing talent of the artist that she didn’t understand exactly what it was she was seeing. There were two watercolor paintings on display. Her immediate impression of them was that they were dream images, and they vaguely brought to mind Michael Parks’s sexy fantasy work. One was of a woman who was in a cage that looked like it had been carved from ice. All around the outside of the walls of ice were big tufts of a delicately leafed plant in full purple bloom. Lavender, she thought. They’re bunches of blooming lavender. Candice looked more closely at the woman in the center of the cage. She was sitting on the floor, with one hand pressed against the nearest translucent wall, almost as if she were trying to push her way out. She was wearing only a white hooded cloak. Parts of her shapely bare legs were showing, but her face was in shadows—all except her eyes, which were large and mesmerizing with their mossy green sadness. There was something else about her eyes.…
Candice shifted her attention to the other painting. It, too, was amazingly rich in detail and color. It showed a woman sleeping on a bed that was in the middle of what looked to be a dark room in a castle. Mist, or maybe fog, hung around the bed, further obscuring the woman. A single tall, narrow window slit let in two pearl-winged doves, as well as a ray of moonlight, which fell across the bed, illuminating the side of the woman’s face so that a single tear at the corner of her eye was visible. This woman’s face was also in shadow. Her blonde hair spilled around her on the dark bed, drawing Candice’s eye. What was it about her hair?
Then she realized that displayed beside each painting was a framed poem. She pushed her way farther through the sobbing crowd until she was so close to the window that she pressed her fingers against the cold glass. Candice began reading the elaborate calligraphy of the first poem.
Come, icy wall of silence
encase my weary heart
protect me with your hold, hard strength
till no pain may trespass here.
Make still my battered feelings
within your protective fortress
safe
request I this sanctuary from life’s storm.
But, what of this ensorcelled heart?
Will it struggle so encased?
Or will walls forged to keep harm out
cause love’s flame to flicker low
till silence meant as soothing balm
does its work too well, and
no more breath can escape
to melt the fortress of frozen tears.
Candice couldn’t breathe. She felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. Frantically, her eyes went to the second poem. It was a sonnet, and it was written in the same meticulous calligraphy.
The dreamer dreamed a thousand wasted years
Captive of wondrous images she slept
Swathed close in sighs and moans and blissful tears
Reliving promises made, but not kept.
The moon’s deft watch through narrow casement fell
Its silvered light caressed her silken face
Like a dove’s soft wings colored gray and shell
Shadowy thoughts frozen in time and place.
He watched her breath like silver mist depart
And he longed to join her murderous sleep
But truth rare listens to the wounded heart
Hence even hero souls must sometimes weep.
Now love’s pinions can never more take flight,
Entombed forever in grief’s endless night.
“They’re mine,” Candice whispered. Her stricken voice didn’t carry above the sobs of the people around her. She tore her eyes from the window and looked frantically back at Godiva, who was standing at the edge of the crowd crying softly. She raised her voice so that her friend could
hear her. “They’re my poems, Godiva. I wrote them.”
“Who said that?!”
Heads swiveled to the tall gaunt figure standing in the doorway of the gallery. Barnabas Vlad (a name everyone in Mysteria knew he had absolutely, beyond any doubt, not been born with) was swathed head to toe in black, holding a small lacy black parasol, and wearing huge blue blocker reflective sunglasses.
“Who said that she is the poetess?”
“That would be me,” Candice said reluctantly.
All the heads then swiveled in her direction and Candice heard weepy murmurs of Oh, they’re so wonderful, and They break my heart, but I love them, and I have to have one of my own and the art that goes with it!
Barnabas pointed one finger (fully covered in a black opera-length glove) at Candice. “You must come with me at once!” The vampire turned and scuttled through the gallery door.
Candice couldn’t move. Everyone was staring at her.
“Let’s go!” Godiva pushed her toward the gallery door, ignoring the gawking crowd. Then, still sobbing softly, she added, “And no way are you going in there without me.”
Candice had been in the gallery before. It was decidedly on the dark side—walls and floor black instead of the usual clean white of most galleries. It was never well lit, and it was always too damn cold. But she liked the art exhibits, especially the gay pride exhibits Barnabas liked to have. She could appreciate full-frontal male nudity, even if it couldn’t appreciate her.
“Back here, ladies.” Barnabas called breathily from the rear office. Godiva and Candice exchanged glances. Both shrugged and followed the vampire’s voice.
“You’re sure it’s your poetry?” Godiva whispered, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.
“Of course I’m sure,” she hissed at her friend. “How could you even ask me that! They’re the poems about heartbreak I wrote a week or so ago for that poetry class.”
“Well, it’s just that…” But they’d come to Barnabas’s office so Godiva clamped her mouth shut.
“Ladies, I’m charmed. Come in and sit, s’il vous plaît.” Barnabas fluttered his long fingers at the two delicate pink silk Louis XIV chairs that sat regally before his ornately carved mahogany desk. When they were seated the vampire launched into a breathy speech in his trademark poorly rendered French accent. “Do pardon my abruptness out there, but it’s been wretchedly stressful since I put up that new display. That is no excuse for moi rudeness, though. It is just such a shock—such a surprise. Mon dieu! Who would have imagined that such a magnificent discovery would have been made at my humble gallery? Oh! How rude of me. Introductions are in order. I am Barnabas Vlad, the proprietor of this humble galerie d’art.” He peered at Godiva for a moment, squinting his eyes so that his iridescent pink eye shadow creased unattractively. Then his expression cleared. “Ah, oui oui oui! I do know you. Are you not Godiva Tawdry, one of the Tawdry witches?”
Godiva looked pleased at her notoriety. “Oui!” she said. Now that she’d stopped crying she was able to appreciate the humor of the undead guy’s foppishly fake Frenchness.
He turned to Candice with a smile that showed way too many long, sharp teeth. “And you are our poetess! You look familiar to me, madam, but I’m sorry to say that I have misplaced your name.”
“I’m Candice Cox,” she said.
The vampire’s pleasant expression instantly changed to confusion. “Mais non! It is not possible!”
“Okay, this is really starting to piss me off. I wrote the poems a week or so ago for an online class I’m taking for my master’s. I can prove it. I turned them in last Friday. Now I want to know how you got them, who this artist is who has illustrated them, and why you all”—here she paused to glare at Godiva—“think it’s so impossible that I wrote them. I may be a high school teacher, but I do have a brain!”
“Madam! I meant no disrespect.” The vampire definitely looked flustered. “It is just…” He dabbed at his upper lip with a lacy black hankie before going on. “Are you not the English teacher whose magic is nonmagic?”
“Yes,” Candice ground from between gritted teeth.
“Then that is why it is impossible that you have written the poems.”
“What the hell—” Candice sputtered and started to get up, but Godiva’s firm hand on her arm stopped her.
“Candice,” Godiva said. “The poems have magic.”
“Exactement!” Barnabas said, clearly relieved that Godiva had stepped in.
“Magic? But how? I don’t understand,” Candice said.
“You saw the people. Your poems made them cry. They made me cry. When I looked at the paintings and then read your words, I thought my heart would break with sadness. It was awful—and wonderful.” Godiva teared up again just thinking about it.
“That is how everyone has been reacting,” Barnabas said. “Since I put them on display this morning. Weeping and blubbering, blubbering and weeping.”
“But where did you get them?” Candice felt as if she’d just gotten off a Tilt-a-Whirl and couldn’t quite get her bearings.
“They were in a plain brown package I found by the rear door to the gallery this morning. I opened it, and my heart began to break. Naturellement I instantly put them on display.”
“So who left the package?”
He shrugged. “It did not say. There was only this note in the package.”
Candice snatched the paper from his expensively gloved fingers. Typed on a plain white piece of regular computer paper it said:
If the poet would like to work with me again I would be willing. Tell her that I will meet her here at the gallery tonight at sunset.
“But there’s no signature or anything,” Candice said.
“Artists.” Barnabas sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Okay, none of this makes any sense. The artist seems to know who I am, but I have no idea who this person is, how he or she got my poems. I mean, I just wrote them for the online class. I typed them into the computer, attached them to my e-mail, and sent them to the creative writing professor. Then I put the originals into a file labeled with the proper class. I suppose someone at the university could have gotten to them. The only other copies were blown away one day in a freak wind-storm.”
Godiva shifted guiltily in her chair.
Candice shot her a narrowed look. “What do you know about this, Godiva Tawdry?”
“Nothing!” she said quickly.
“So you did not print them in such lovely calligraphy?” Barnabas asked.
“No! Not even my handwritten copies looked anything like those.” Candice got up and marched to the front window. She yanked both framed poems from the easels on which they were displayed. As an afterthought she made little shooing motions at the gawking, crying people. Then she hurried back to Barnabas’s office.
“Let me see them,” Godiva said. Candice gave them to her and the witch studied the poems. “This is hand-lettered with a calligraphy quill—nothing computer-generated about it.” She kept staring at the poetry, and suddenly her eyes widened. “It’s not working!”
“What?” Candice asked.
“The magic. I’m not feeling anything.” She looked apologetically at her friend as she handed the poems back. “They’re perfectly lovely poems, but I’m not crying.”
“So the magic’s gone?” She should have known it. No way would she really have magic. She glanced at Barnabas. The vampire looked stricken.
“Wait. I have an idea,” Godiva said. Flouncing herself over to the window, she grabbed one of the paintings, noting that all the criers had dried up and drifted away. She returned with the picture. “I need the poem that goes with this one.”
Candice looked at the green-eyed woman in the cave of ice, and was in the process of handing the free verse poem to her friend when she gasped and stared at the painting.
“The eyes! I knew there was something about them. She has my eyes.”
Barnabas looked from the painting to the teacher. “Mon dieu!
You are right, madam.”
“The other one has your hair,” Godiva said.
“Holy shit,” Candice said.
“Give me the poem.”
Candice let Godiva take it out of her numb fingers. The witch held the poem up beside the picture. Almost immediately the vampire started to sniffle. Through his tears he said rapturously, “It has returned! The magic has returned!”
“It never went away,” Godiva said. “It just doesn’t work without the paintings.”
