by J. D. Glass
“You do,” she affirmed between kisses, “you do. And I’ve got you too.”
Nadleehi
We can only be
what we give ourselves:
the power to be.
—A Cherokee Feast of Days
We both knew we’d make love again once we got upstairs, and we did, sensual and slow, her lips incredible, her tongue another stunning discovery of sensation as she painted exquisite patterns on me, in me, and when we finally snuggled together, close and warm and tight, I lay draped over her, awake, holding her within the confines of my arms and legs as best I could, grateful for the sound of her breath as she slept, the gentle rise and fall, the faint thump under my palm that revealed the beat of her heart.
I can’t remember really sleeping at all, and though I left her with a soft kiss that made her sigh and snuggle more, the early morning found me seeking my uncle before Fran woke. Since we were up before everyone else for once, he taught me the secret behind the wonderful sliced and fried potatoes that accompanied most breakfasts.
We spoke as he passed me ingredients and I chopped and sliced, passing them back to him so he could make magic over the burners.
“Have you ever heard of a guy named Jonesy or Old Ralph Jones?” I asked him as I cut through the potatoes I’d just cleaned.
I forced myself to breathe carefully as I moved the knife because adrenaline kicked through me, and I didn’t want to carelessly cut myself. I’d known what drug dealers were, I wasn’t immune to the news of the day, but it wasn’t something I’d ever run into personally—I was an American kid from the ’burbs. But even so, I doubted any of the things I’d heard or read in the news came close to Old Jones.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” he asked me in return.
“Yeah.” I nodded as I focused on making slices that weren’t too thick. “There is. I met him last night.”
“Well, I can tell you that Rafael—Ralph now, is it? He’s not as old as he pretends. What did he say?”
I glanced over at him while I scooped the slices and wedges into a neat pile with the edge of the blade, then lifted the board to let them spill into the pan before I carefully put it down. Cort’s attention appeared perfectly focused on the hot iron before him, on the alchemy of onions and spices as he flipped and stirred the concoction, but I knew that despite his relaxed tone and posture, he was listening carefully to every word I said.
“He threatened to hurt Frankie—Fran—if I didn’t, I mean, to make me join his little group or—”
“Have you told her about this?” he asked, his eyes sharp upon me as he shut the burners and set the pan to the side.
“Not yet,” I answered honestly, “I wanted to speak with you first. He also said…” I put everything into the sink and ran the faucet over hands that somehow didn’t shake, and I thanked the cold water for keeping me focused. “He said he knew how my father died—and that he could tell me more about it.”
He took a deep breath and stared at the ground for a moment before looking back at me, his face somber. “Can you finish up here? I don’t mean to leave you with everything, but this requires,” he sighed lightly, “this requires everyone present before it can be discussed.”
“Do you mean Fran too? I don’t want her harmed, and I don’t want her frightened either,” I said. “I’d like to keep her out of this as much as possible.”
Cort crossed the tile and put a warm hand on my shoulder. “You did the right thing by waiting, but she made a decision too, the moment she became bound to you.”
That didn’t seem fair, and as I began to protest, he spoke over me, waving my protests away. “I know there’s no way you didn’t tell her anything, I know you well enough to know you must have told her what it would mean—she made a choice, and that, dear heart, is not something you could or should protect her from. She has the right to make another—respect it, let her,” he said and squeezed my shoulder lightly. “And find out if you’ve made a good one too.”
I could accept that, but there was something else, something I thought I needed to know. “Da…my father…he died on the job, under a sustained flashover in a warehouse fire. They gave me his helmet, his badge, and a flag.” I held my eyes steady on his. “What don’t I know?”
“I promise…I promise to tell you everything, but not right now—this is not the time. You already know the most important things there are to know about Logan. He adored Amanda, your mother, and you were precious to him because you are a part of her. He was brave, he was honest, and he was kind. And you, dear heart,” his eyes crinkled at the corners as he favored me with one of his grins, “you are very, very much his daughter.”
He left with that, and I wondered about all he’d said as I put everything together.
*
“So we agree that the actual sealing and consecration to the Circle has to happen sooner rather than later?” Cort asked as we all sat around the table over the remains of breakfast.
“Surely you don’t mean for Samhain?” Elizabeth asked, shock on her face and in her voice as she set her cup down and stared at him.
“Sow when?” Fran repeated.
“Close enough,” Cort said to her with a smile, “and you know it as Halloween. And yes,” he turned his eyes to Elizabeth, “there’s no time to wait for the winter Solstice. Let it happen with the Astral tide on traditional New Year. Ann.” he turned to me, “the bridge between worlds, a day when the veil between them is thin. Do you understand why then, that day?”
I nodded. “Yes, I do.” The bridge between worlds—what was not to understand? In the belief system that had helped form this part of the world, Halloween, or Samhain as the Celts had called it, was the day between the old year and the new. So many minds, so much collective energy, had gone into making that particular day in the planetary cycle on this part of the planet into something extraordinary, that it had become exactly that: as below, so above. The day between the years was the day the normal barricades between worlds were more permeable, and transfer through more accessible.
To perform my Rite on that day carried weight on many levels. I was trained to consciously, purposefully, move between worlds; the easier access to the levels on that day would mean there would be more energy for the ceremony, thereby making my sealing stronger, and there would be the symbolic echo of the day itself—it was between and so was I, in so many, many ways.
“How ready are you for this?” Cort asked, but his gaze rested on Fran.
“Wait, why do we need to involve her with this? I’m sorry,” I turned to Fran, “I’m not trying to make decisions for you.”
She took my hand in hers. “I know,” she said, her lips quirking softly.
I gazed back at Cort. “Is that really necessary?”
“But Sammy,” she interjected quietly but firmly, “we’re already…” She flushed and glanced down at the table before she spoke again. “Bound. So I am involved.”
Yes, she was right. We were bound, but I hadn’t thought she’d view it like that. She curled her fingers into my palm even as she straightened her shoulders and focused on Cort.
“Whatever you need from me,” she said as their eyes met, flame matched to flame, “I can do it,” she told him, her voice steady and strong. She held my hand with the same strength, and I returned the grasp, grateful for the unquestioning support. “Whatever it is.”
“I’m glad you feel that strongly,” Elizabeth said, giving her the slightest nod of approval. “You’re not ready yet, but you will be—you’ll have to be. Part of Annie’s future rests on you.”
I focused on Elizabeth for a long moment. I wanted to know more about what she meant by that and I would ask, but for now there was something about the way she held her mouth that told me she was either angry or scared; and considering what I’d learned of anger and how much it was rooted in fear, I was guessing fear. “And what’s the plan to protect Ann before then, now that you’ve upped the ante?” she asked Cort point-blank. “
I’ll make the calls, I’ll happily train Francesca, but what will you do to keep Ann safe? I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said, redirecting her gaze to mine, “but if you didn’t know before, you do now—any testing that is to come your way now will likely be physical, and more than likely will be through the use of deadly force, since they haven’t managed to lure you out on the Astral.”
“They won’t,” I said, the words calm as I spoke them, even as Fran’s grip on my hand tightened. I wasn’t scared, not for myself, not for anything other than Fran’s safety and that of this little group I lived with that I supposed was my family for now.
“You’re thinking Aberdeen?” Cort asked Elizabeth.
“Wait,” I said, wanting to make certain I understood the shorthand conversation between them as he stood. “You want to leave?”
Elizabeth favored me with her favorite quizzing expression. “Do you have another suggestion?” Had I not known better, and perhaps I didn’t, I would have thought that this was yet another test.
“I do,” I said and gave Fran’s hand a quick squeeze before I released it and pushed my chair back. “We stay. I’ve already left one home and I may still need a map, can’t figure out the roads well enough to drive anything other than a roller skate, and don’t understand the fascination with warm beer, but I’m not going to leave another.” I stood and picked up my tea. “Besides,” I said and grinned at her and then at Cort, because this would give me the opportunity to try something I’d always wanted to, “the best place to hide something is in plain sight.”
The twinkle that shone at me from Elizabeth’s eyes told me that maybe this had been a test of sorts after all—and I was certain that if it had been, I’d passed it.
*
It would be a few days before I’d be able to speak with Graham, ask the questions I had in mind, and while I continued at an accelerated pace with Cort after dinner, Fran now had her own work with Elizabeth while I trained.
The schooling was so intense there was barely time to answer my question of why, and Cort explained it to me through the furious clash of steel in the study. This time, there were no weights involved.
“You,” he began as we paced one another, searching for openings, “are connected to the Circle through your heritage, your training, and through me.”
The attack went left and I parried, followed it with a single beat—the smart smack of my weapon on his—to change the direction of the sturdy practice blade he used, then a direct attack that went for the inner shoulder joint. The quick flick of his wrist deflected the strike and I blocked the blow aimed for my gut. We parted, only to circle again.
“I understand that,” I said, recovering from the ballestra lunge that he nimbly avoided even as I instantly followed it with an upward rip.
“Nice!” he enthused as he tossed it aside.
“But why does Fran have to be so fully involved?” I asked and went for the outer crescent kick—he sidestepped it and we both went for the same overhand strike, the deadly scissoring of metal. Close, too close. There could be no stepping back, that would leave my entire torso vulnerable, and to step forward would be to bring the scissors closer to my own head and neck.
I had to think quickly and act in miliseconds—a double beat and riposte wouldn’t work; I could never match his upper body strength and reach. But my own biology provided me a different advantage: my push kick was strong enough to break the fatal blade lock and with that gone, a single beat and lunge brought, for the first time, the tip of my sword to the delicate spot just under the center of his sternum.
“Beautiful!” he said admiringly as he gazed down at the point that hovered before him. He grinned at me, a grin I couldn’t help but return.
“Good work,” he said, “take a break,” and pointed over to the desk where a pitcher of water stood next to the food we kept there during our sessions.
After carefully placing my weapon in its stand and pouring myself a glass of water, I realized he hadn’t fully answered my question.
“So why does Fran have to train with Elizabeth?” I asked after I swallowed. I was grateful for the brief rest—we hadn’t even begun to do Astral work yet for the night and already I was sweaty, tired, and hungry. Still, I’d managed to not only not be “killed” during this practice, I’d actually managed to land a kill strike, and I was not only pleased with myself, it also gave me a new sort of confidence as I waited for his answer.
Cort grabbed a bowl from the desk and quickly popped a few raisins into his mouth. “Fran is bound to you,” he said simply, “and untrained. She has no barriers, no protections. Anyone can reach through her, to you, to the Circle—and destroy it. We eliminate that threat if she too becomes sworn to the Light.”
He handed me the bowl and I squinted at him as I picked through for the almonds I preferred. “So it’s sort of like an ungrounded circuit?”
“More than ‘sort of,’” he said as I chewed, “more like exactly.”
*
Fran and I met after our respective personal study sessions in what had become our room, too mentally tired to take the time to discuss the direction our lessons were going in or what we were learning, and too roused from the work, too heightened by the energies we channeled, to do anything other than to wrap around and sink into each other, let the bare hot slide and the slick wet rhythm of the urgent give and receive shove it all into the background until there was nothing left but the breath and the beat, the bodily reality of existence as the overload threat dissipated in a raised cheer to the triumph of life, of my own binding to the Material through Fran and her to me in a gasped and choked expansion and explosion into the Aethyr.
That’s not to say I didn’t try, albeit very briefly, to discuss some of my ideas for hiding in plain sight with her, on an afternoon we got caught out in a rainstorm.
Fran hadn’t been to Carnaby Street yet, an area filled with interesting shops and stands, and it was purely for the eye candy that we went. Well, that, and I wondered what would catch her eye, perhaps give me a hint as to what she might want for Christmas or her birthday which came right before it.
I took her there on Friday and let her drape different shirts and jackets across my shoulders as we went through the different shops. We found some T-shirts with funny sayings—my favorite pictured a shepherd standing in the midst of his flock wearing an evil grin and the caption “I Fuck Sheep”; Fran picked one that said, “God’s coming: look busy”—and while she teased me a bit on my monochromatic choices, since with the exception of a navy blue wool peacoat, everything else I’d chosen was black (although Fran insisted the coat was too), I made sure on the way back that we stopped over on Regent Street so she could visit Hamley’s, London’s answer to New York’s FAO Schwarz. It was over five stories of toys for kids of all ages, where the good lighting, the cheery music, and the bright multihues made it seem like the CandyLand game had come to life.
The weather changed abruptly as we walked back to Dean Street. “Oh, man!” I complained when the skies opened up to pour viciously down and force cold wet drops beneath my collar and down my neck.
“C’mon—we’ll wait it out here,” Fran suggested and I grabbed the door handle for the shop we happened to be in front of, one whose window posters advertised comic books, music, and other novelties. I quickly ushered her in before me.
As the bell tinkled behind us and the door closed, it took about an entire thirty seconds to realize that gag items were not exactly the sort of novelties the store sold.
There were two, maybe three standing racks of comic books, a low shelf filled with magazines of all sorts, and a section of wall behind the counter that was covered with films, the most innocent of which had a title along the lines of “The Uncut Boys of Brazil.” A clerk glanced up at us with a bored expression beneath the green strand of that hair hung down to his chin, the fluorescent light a quick wink on the ring that pierced his lip, before he dismissed us and continued to flip through a magazine. Rain slapped unceasingly
, the sound of hundreds of pebbles being thrown against the glass windows.
At least we were drier than we would have been otherwise, and since we were there… “So,” I turned to Fran and said brightly as I shuddered off the last bit of chill, “wanna look around? Might as well make the best of it, right?” I grinned at her and she shook her head at me with an amused smile. We headed down the aisles.
The blow-up dolls were pretty funny, as were the packages labeled “Prisoner of Love” with the pictures of a black plastic eye mask, purple feather, and fuzzy purple handcuffs, and I managed to get a giggle out of Fran with the line-up of flavored and sensation-inducing lotions and their caricatured labels. But it was the harnesses and the assortment of multisized, shaped, and hued phallic replicas—there were bins of them—that made her snatch at my sleeve.
“We should leave,” she said rather tersely and I glanced at her in surprise.
“It’s pouring out,” I said unnecessarily as thunder crashed down and shook the worn wood floor we stood on, and in that moment, the light rapport, the connection that had existed between us snapped, a recoil into my own head that resounded through my body like a physical blow and left me equally confused.
“It’s only water—it won’t hurt me,” she said, her eyes dark on me and her face somber and still. “I’ll meet you back at the apartment if you want to stay.”
I stared at her, unable to speak for a moment, because the sharp disconnect wasn’t only from her, but also from the world that surrounded us. It was horrible: I felt the heavy layers of my skin, the barrier between me and the environment. How can people live like this? I wondered. How do they live, unable to feel, to connect, to measure, mark, and map the environment in its entirety?
But even without the extra senses that made me feel comfortable in the world as I knew it, I could still tell Fran was upset, because the last clear sense I’d received from her had been an almost crawling discomfort in her skin, and that was what mattered.
