She tried to smile, but it didn't quite materialize. "Me, neither."
I wondered if my inner purring was as loud as Bast's. I flattened my hand on the table and it took all my strength not to slide it toward hers. I saw her fingers twitch reflexively. I extended mine, losing the fight with my composure—then a horn sounded outside.
"The locksmith," Aurora breathed.
"The locksmith." She rose to put her mug in the sink. It was completely out of character for me to imagine her nude, gracefully moving across my line of sight. Yet I did so, and realized again that I still had no idea what her hair looked like.
"Thank you for the tea and warmth. I'm sure I'm quite rosy." She glanced at me, one hand on the kitchen doorknob.
"Me, too. You're welcome, I mean." Cary Grant I was not. The ticking of the clock seemed very loud in the silence that fell between us, then I unwillingly looked at it. "Oh my lord, look at the time."
I lingered long enough to watch her step across the snow to talk to the locksmith. She spoke a few words to him, then stole a look over her shoulder. I waved awkwardly, then hurried upstairs.
I paused to make sure Kylie was tucked back in bed. She was draining the last of the water from the glass by the bed.
"I told you she was hot and gay. I was right, huh?"
"You were sure flirting with her."
"Yeah. I'd give you a run for your money if I had a chance of finishing the game." She rested back on her pillows, her eyes going a little glassy from the meds.
"I suppose it's a good thing we never competed for the same women, then. I'd hate to see you lose." I smiled at her as I pulled the covers up.
"Yeah, right." I went for more water and heard her say more loudly, "You promised me you'd go out. So ask her."
"Maybe," I hedged. It was not an onerous prospect, given the electricity we'd been generating in the kitchen. But there was time for that later.
"My dream was about sex," she admitted as I set the refilled glass of water on the bedside table.
"What's wrong with that?"
"It was—I mean, I've seen porn. And it wasn't like that. I didn't know women . .. looked like that. Could be so fierce about it."
I didn't know what to say. My own dream had been explicit and, yes, fierce. "I hope you have more dreams, but that they don't make you so sad."
"Me, too." She sighed softly and her eyes closed. She whispered something.
"What, sweetie?" I leaned close to her mouth.
Gasping, I hurried to my shower, certain I had heard wrong. I don't know what Kylie had said, but it could not have been "plain Jane, rain in Spain."
Classes, office hours—my mind was in a whirl throughout. I felt as if I was waiting for something to happen. I heard Kylie's whispered words from my dream, my father's condemning voice, Aurora's laughter. By the time I got home I was in a state of nervous excitement, but I couldn't have explained to anyone why.
I fairly burst into my study and then I knew what was pulling me there with this bizarre sense of anticipation. The book seemed to gleam in the dim room. After I turned on the lights it nearly glowed.
I opened the page to the spell for memory, reading again. I could hear a voice, very like my own, pointing out that I'd been warned. I hadn't been very careful about my choice of memories before I'd gone to sleep, hence the intermingling of the night with Jane and my interaction with my father the first time Kylie had been hospitalized.
Next time, I began to muse, then I snapped the book shut. Next time? There wasn't going to be a next time. This was absurd in the extreme. There was no such thing as spells and charms, any more than there were gods in the fireplace and fairies in the snowflakes.
Caught between anger, fear and arousal, I dumped the contents of a hutch drawer onto the floor, put the book in the drawer and closed it. I felt better once it was done, but even after I put a chair in front of the hutch I thought I could see light seeping past the edges of the drawer.
It was all absurd.
I measured time by the day, as Kylie's illness demanded. Within a week it was the half-day, as I began dashing home between classes or shaving time off my office hours to check up on her. On one of my two trips back and forth to campus, however, Aurora was usually on her way as well. She did not offer tea or chestnuts again, but half the time we'd arrive at campus or the foot of my walk and I'd realize I had no idea what we'd talked about, just that during those minutes I forgot my stress, forgot my grief for Kylie. Her quiet touch on my arm when we parted was not one of the highlights of the last year.
On a day when I'd seen nothing of her, I would chide myself for missing the sight of her heavily swaddled figure, pink-chilled nose and a smile that I would not let myself crave. Today was a good day, as we plodded toward home in the swirling snow.
"I'm telling you this is a warming trend." I batted a snowflake off my eyelash. Between the cold cover and the early sunset, it was unnaturally dark.
"That sounds suspiciously like a chamber of commerce lie. What's so warm about this?"
"Another degree and the snow would turn to rain."
"Freezing rain, you mean." She sidestepped a dog out for a walk. The dog was happy, the owner was not. "I'm not saying it isn't beautiful and that all this snow and cold is unnatural for this part of the world, it's just not natural for me. I thought I'd get used to it easier, somehow. A lot about the countryside seems familiar to me."
"Your people hail from these parts, don't they?"
"Two hundred years ago, maybe. I think—" She yanked her ubiquitous cap down harder on her head. "I think the blood has thinned."
I paused to look up my walk. No lights on, which meant Kylie was still asleep. "I think I'd likely melt in Arizona."
"Maybe not." Her voice was so soft I glanced at her curiously. The look on her face stopped my heart, it was so tender and inviting. "You might like it."
I would if you were there, I wanted to say. I was in no position to utter those words, I told myself. My life was not my own and wouldn't be for—a while. Though I knew Kylie would not see the spring, I would not make any plans. Did that mean I was hoping for some sort of error in the diagnoses to be found? Maybe. Or maybe I just didn't ever want to start a thought or sentence with "after Kylie is dead." I stared at my feet, and said only, "Maybe."
She touched my arm the way she always did when saying goodbye, but this time she added a squeeze. "I understand."
Her boots, which had lost a lot of their new-purchase luster, crunched over the sidewalk toward her own house. I wanted to ask her in for dinner. I wanted to ask her to stay the night. How would that make Kylie feel, watching me... happy?
I made a couple of typical French plates for dinner, and set them down on the table in my study, planning to get Kylie in a half an hour if she hadn't woken on her own. Forcing Aurora out of my mind, I made myself focus on papers to grade. It was several minutes before I realized that Kylie had been calling for me, her voice increasingly upset.
"What is it?" I found her sprawled on her bed, one leg over the side.
Through tears, she answered, "I can't get up. I can't... try."
No, I thought. No—she had at least five more weeks at home. At least, the doctor had said. But he'd also cautioned that her decline, when she took the last turn for the worse, would be rapid. Privately, he'd added that the rapidity with which the inevitable occurred would be a blessing.
I crawled onto the bed next to her so I could take her in my arms. I shushed and rocked her, not knowing what else I could do. "I'm sorry I took so long to hear you. Sorry, Kylie, so sorry."
Her tears calmed, slowly, and when I suggested we try to get her to a sitting position, she agreed.
"It's so frustrating. I tell my muscles to do something and they won't." She swatted weakly at her thigh. "And I have to pee so bad."
She'd once high jumped seven feet, flopping over the bar with a triumphant whoop. I couldn't let memories break me down right now. One of us h
ad to be strong. "Next stop bathroom."
Something was clearly wrong with her legs. For several weeks I'd been imagining the downstairs parlor into a bedroom so she did not have to climb the stairs during the day. Now was the time, I thought. I'd get the home visitation nurse, too, and then wearily recalled that I needed the specialist's concurrence if I hoped for insurance to cover even a part of the cost.
Kylie finished on the toilet, but as I was getting her to her feet, her pallor intensified. Without warning she vomited on both of us, then melted into helpless tears.
"It's okay, it's okay. It's not like there was anything in your stomach. Fresh clothes and we'll be fine. And I think it's time for a trip to the emergency room."
Her hands gripped my arms. "You won't leave me there. You can't. Please, Hayley, don't take me there. I want to be here. I won't... I won't..."
I shushed her, holding her tight against me in spite of the mess. "I will do everything I can to bring you home again." We're supposed to have more time. They promised!
It was nearly an hour before we were both clean and I had Kylie in the car. The night air was cruelly cold and Kylie shivered all the way to the hospital. The intake nurse knew us, which always helps, and the resident oncologist arrived quickly. Kylie was given a concoction to both calm her and relieve the rising pain, and was quickly wheeled away toward the imaging center.
"I suspect it's not the cancer right now, and I've paged the neurologist." Dr. Gaines gave me a look that didn't even come close to hopeful. "I think she's at another stage of the bone degeneration. How has she been eating?"
"Poorly. Her electrolytes are probably a mess. I've had to coax her to drink anything."
His beeper went off and he glanced at it with irritation. "I have to see another patient, but I will check back. She'll need to stay here for the night."
"Can you sign the paperwork for the home visitation nurse?"
He nodded and wrote something on the chart tucked under his arm. "It's time. You can talk to her while she's in imaging but she's going to be pretty doped up by now."
I wearily made my way across the building and found Kylie extremely groggy. Still, I knew she'd understand some of what I was saying, so I told her everything I knew. Speaking slowly and clearly, I added, "You have to stay here tonight. Tomorrow I will come and get you. Do you understand, Kylie? I will come back and take you home."
She squeezed my hand and closed her eyes with the slightest of nods. After that all I could do was wait for the neurologist, who told me, about an hour later, that Kylie's results needed further review. In the morning he would know more.
By the time I pulled into the driveway I was so tired that only the rapid chill overtaking the car made me get out. I hauled myself up the steps, my body tired but my mind whirling. I told myself to do something useful, but standing in the parlor, trying to decide where to put Kylie's bed, was surreal. We could not be at this mile-post already. We were promised ... it wasn't fair.
I sank to my knees and indulged myself in a bitter, frustrated crying fit. None of this was fair. It wasn't fair that she was sick, and by the flip of the same coin, it wasn't fair that I was healthy. It wasn't fair that we were both so alone. I felt small and useless.
Eventually I made myself get up and mop my face in the bathroom sink. The red blotches and puffy eyes I regarded with some satisfaction. At least I looked as wretched as I felt.
I didn't care that I was exhausted and midnight was behind me. I wanted to get something useful done, something that would make a difference in Kylie's few tomorrows.
My decision to move her bed turned out to be ill-advised. With the mattress stripped and leaning against the doorway I realized, through sniveling tears, it was foolish to do it alone. Sleep for me would be more important. I'd get the local handyman and his helper to come over in the morning.
Bast coiled around my legs and I shooed her away. She resentfully stalked from the room, tail lashing Kylie's now upright mattress, which as far as Bast was concerned, was Bast's rightful nighttime sleeping place. I set her on my bed and turned on the electric blanket to appease her. She didn't exactly purr.
I found myself sitting at my desk, too numb to turn on the computer. Sleep, I reminded myself. It took a great effort to shut off the light and stand up. As I turned toward the door, a soft light caught my eye. Moving closer, I realized what it was: white light seeped from the drawer where I had put the mysterious book.
Mystics throughout the centuries write of crossroads. They tell of the conflict between their old teachings and the new ones clamoring at their minds to be taken in and believed. Hearts pounding, senses overloaded with portents and symbols, they reached into the unknown and pulled a belief formerly outside their world into their being. The transformation became the pivotal moment of their lives. In the most common version of the tale, the mystic would then spend the rest of their lives trying to coax others to their way of thinking.
I was no mystic converting from one faith to another. I did not believe in this book. I did not believe in fairy tales either. My father looked in his book for all the answers and I would not follow in his footsteps.
Because I was so tired, maybe, I heard a little voice of doubt for the first time in forever. What if, the voice murmured, he was right? But I'd never turn to his book—it had too often been pointed at women and gays like a gun.
What if, the voice persevered, your book is right. What if there is a cure for Kylie in its pages? What if it came to you precisely so you could save her?
What if...
Trembling, I pulled the book from the drawer. I had said a word from it yesterday and had a dream. A dream that Kylie had also had. But it had saddened her, I told myself. Hurt her, when she was hurting enough. Kylie did not need to know now what she had not chosen. Knowledge was sometimes cruel. But I was a researcher, an academic. Cruel, knowledge could be, but it was never without a point.
I couldn't not open the book. It would be a test, I told myself. The dream could be a fluke, a twin thing. I needed to do something of which I could be certain.
An index or table of contents had not occurred to the scribe. It began on the first page with a spell to "purify" water. There was a special word to say, but the spell itself was to bring the water to a rolling boil for ten minutes. Basic sanitation. Presto open sesame not required. It was foolish to read any more of them, I told myself, but read I did.
Page after page, I read. Magic words to soothe, rituals to sanctify, recipes for healing cakes and restorative syrups—page after page of silly, pointless information. I did not believe in this. Angrily, I decided I would prove it useless.
"Thought is a river. Distance is a thought. What is desired shall come to thee, even if unwilling or spirit not free," I read aloud. Well, that sounded powerful and amazing enough. All I needed was to light a pure white candle, pick what I desired, and say the word.
What did I desire? A cure for Kylie, more than anything, but the spell seemed to be for tangible objects. An apple from downstairs? A blanket from in front of the fire? Aurora flickered across my mind and I shook my head to free it of her image. I wanted to hold and be held desperately at this moment, if I was being honest. An apple, that would do it. Or not. I was quite certain the apple on the counter downstairs would remain there.
One of the emergency candles from my bottom desk drawer was white. I let the flame steady before I struck the same dramatic pose as last night, clutched the book to my chest, and intoned the magic word. "Ah-null-nath-rackn
Nothing happened. I peeked into the hallway and no apple was floating up the stairs. Quelling a sense of disappointment, I seriously considered putting the book in the fireplace and setting it alight. What a waste of my time and energy, getting me to hope for something that was—
The fireplace was turning into mist.
The andirons were quickly lost in a gray fog that rapidly expanded toward me. I couldn't move. I wanted to, but my brain didn
't seem to have control of my legs. Gasping in the kind of fear that encompasses shock and surprise and outright terror of the unknown, I watched the mist coat the sofa, my desk, the piles of paperwork. It was coming for me.
I held my breath as it billowed to my face. I felt the cold of it on my arms, but it came no closer. Even though it was a freak of air, an assortment of molecules colder than the rest, I felt examined and considered. I wanted to look away but it was staring at me. Staring at the book, too. I wondered if I should offer it up. It wasn't really mine, even though I could read it.
I went on trying to hold my breath and nothing seemed to change until, in the measureless depths of the fog I saw a swirl of vibrant red. It seemed to be dancing, or spinning, or struggling, I wasn't sure.
It was getting bigger, though. I was frozen in place and my heart was hammering as if I had run up ten flights of stairs, screaming. Red... my apple? All this for my apple?
But this apple wasn't just red. There were creamy hues, now, and something that glittered. Rippling and twisting, it came closer and closer to me and it grew. Whatever it was, it refused to solidify. Red spinning, cream twisting, glitter twinkling.
As it grew past the size of a child, the mist began to recede. The chill that had not quite touched me was drawing back, blanketing the figure in its depths. But the gray was no match for the red, and abruptly the shape took on edges and depth. Long, swaying locks of waist-length red hair obscured the woman's body. It was a woman, easy to discern as she wore no clothes and her shapely attributes were quite noticeable.
Hair blew violently to one side as the mist retreated behind her. Around her neck was a strand of sparkling clear stones.
Standing in my study, where only minutes earlier I had been completely alone, stood an unknown woman with vibrant red hair on her head and between her legs, and a slender, yet curvaceous body that my own responded to in a purely Pavlovian way.
"What in mother's name do you think you're doing?"
I looked more closely at her face and realized she was very angry—and familiar. I mentally erased the hair and added a snow cap. The pert nose I tinted with pink.
Bell, Book and Dyke - New Exploits of Magical Lesbians Page 21
