Christabel

by Karin Kallmaker

  The tree swayed in the light breeze and the patches of blue visible through the branches seemed to wink and tease. The whole world was alive in ways Christabel had never thought possible, and it was right there, just above her head. Just out of her reach. It was closer when she was alone with Rahdonee. She could dream anything, imagine any wonder, when they were alone.

  She wasn’t surprised when a hummingbird buzzed briefly near Rahdonee’s shoulder. Rahdonee drew back, laughing, and a leaf drifted into her hair. Christabel wondered if Rahdonee’s gleaming hair was as warm to the touch as it looked in the sunlight. When the leaf tumbled along her sleeve, Christabel traced the path with her eyes, suddenly out of breath. She would have thought herself sick except these feelings happened whenever Rahdonee was near.

  “It’s getting late for your long walk home,” Rahdonee said. “Shall I walk with you along the way?”

  “Yes,” Christabel said immediately. “Let’s take the path past the blackberry thickets.”

  To Christabel’s annoyance, Bitsy linked her arm with Rahdonee’s and continued babbling on about weddings. She watched the way Rahdonee walked, her feet leaving no trace on the ground next to Bitsy’s heel marks, and tried to imitate the light, unobtrusive tread.

  The blackberries were still tart and small, but Rahdonee seemed to have a knack for finding the sweetest. Bitsy didn’t hesitate to take the offered fruits and they spent some time hunting among the brambles.

  “Over here.” Rahdonee beckoned. Christabel abandoned her current search and navigated her way past the thorny bushes to join Rahdonee.

  “I found some,” Bitsy announced. “Be there in a minute.”

  “This one,” Rahdonee said, “is perfect.” She held the dark berry between her fingers. “Would you like it, little bird?”

  Giggling, Christabel opened her mouth to let Rahdonee put the berry between her lips. She closed her eyes, she had to, because the look on Rahdonee’s face was no longer quite smiling and Christabel’s heart was beating like the hummingbird’s wings.

  Nectar exploded against her tongue and the roof of her mouth and she made a little noise. “That’s the best berry ever.” The next words fell out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Everything is the best ever with you.”

  Even as she wondered how to take back such a foolish admission, Rahdonee said, “Yes, it is. I feel the same.”

  Simple words, but Rahdonee’s expression wasn’t simple at all. Christabel could hear Bitsy making her way toward them. Quick or Bitsy will see, she thought, and then she kissed Rahdonee full on the mouth.

  After that there was really only one thing to do. “We’re going to be late home,” she called to Bitsy, and she ran for the path, her heart flying as high above her head as the trees.

  For the entire rest of the day her feet never seemed to touch the ground.

  Chapter 8

  Dina yawned so deeply she saw stars. She blinked them wearily away as she streaked several more lines with her highlighter. The astroyellow stripes wavered. After a few minutes, she realized she’d stopped reading because it felt so good to rest her head on her hand.

  Jeff sank wearily into the chair across from her and handed over a Milky Way. “Coffee has stopped working for me, so I segued to sugar.”

  She tore the wrapper off and took a large bite. “Thanks,” she managed through her full mouth. After a swallow, she added, “Chocolate has caffeine in it.”

  “Who cares?” He glanced at the stack of already read pages. “I’ll catch up with you. I’ll be glad to see the end of this bloody project.”

  “Me, too. From the bottom of my heart.”

  “Why is this guy such a prick? He designs clothes like a god, but half of our faxes go missing—he needs to fire that assistant of his.”

  Since she and Jeff were alone in the office, she spoke more freely than she otherwise would have. “I think that Goranson wants to have me to blame if things don’t pan out. I’m quite sure he’ll insist I was incompetent.”

  “Asshole.” Jeff’s low blood sugar was showing, Dina decided, even though she heartily agreed with him.

  She hadn’t told him about that so-called business lunch, but even two months later it still sent a chill down her spine. Goranson wasn’t sexually interested in her, but had simply taken pleasure in upsetting her. She hadn’t told Jeff because it would upset him as well, and she didn’t want to start any topic that might lead to her mentioning Christa. She wasn’t certain she could keep her tone disinterested when Christa was the topic of the conversation. Everything Goranson was doing seemed to be about Christa, too.

  “Why don’t you tell George about what an idiot Goranson is being?”

  “Because partners don’t ask other partners to deal with the not nice people.”

  “But you’re not a partner—oh, but you want to be.” Jeff pouted at his candy bar. “I get it. No running to daddy to deal with the nasty man.”

  “After the deal’s done, after we’re all richer than we were, I’ll tell him. At that point Goranson’s out of my life.” But I don’t want Christa out of it, she could have added.

  What was she thinking about Christa like that for? Two months and they’d not exchanged an e-mail or note. “La Christabel” had been unavailable when Dina had called just after the trip to London. There was nothing between them except sparks.

  Jeff shrugged. “I’m sitting here thinking about what to even say. I mean, you’re right, what could we tell George? The guy never argues or gets nasty, he just picks and picks at all that little stuff.”

  “He’s trying to distract me from the larger issues, that’s all. He always apologizes when I redirect his attention.”

  “Sure, last time he apologized to me for a fax going missing I knew he was implying I’d never sent it. It was in that smug voice of his. And who’s sitting in their office at—” He glanced at his watch. “Eleven-thirty? Redoing projections again? Not him. He’s at some cocktail party eating brie and caviar.”

  The thought of Goranson at a party with Christa, showing her off like a fancy tie clip, made Dina’s heart pound. Her reaction was absurd, she told herself. Christa had the life she wanted. Overnights from Goranson always contained clippings of the latest publicity, and Christa looked anything but unwilling.

  I’m too tired, she thought abruptly. I’m thinking about her again. “Jeff, go home. I can’t read another page and there will be time in the morning for you to catch up. And we must spare some time tomorrow for the IOL Communications offering.”

  Jeff finished his Kit Kat and nodded wearily. He glanced at his watch. “And to think that I was glad there was a market upturn for IPOs last quarter and we were getting more clients. Home in time for Letterman—nearly.”

  Dina started to apologize for working him so hard, but he shushed her. “I’ll be asleep three seconds after I get home. Oh, and take your umbrella, it’s raining again.”

  “You mean still.” It had been raining for weeks, months even. Dina had fallen victim to what psychiatrists were calling Weather Denial. She refused to believe that it could rain any more and therefore repeatedly went out without coat or umbrella. It was the end of April, for God’s sake. Week-long spates of drizzle and showers and thunderstorms, broken by only a day of mixed clouds and sunshine, were unheard of this time of year. Dina chose to believe that the next day would be the beginning of spring, at last. Jeff, the picture of practicality, carried his compact umbrella every day.

  Jeff lived closer to the office, and took his leave saying, “Get some sleep.”

  “Sure,” Dina said. The last thing she was going to tell him was that some of her hollow-eyed looks were due to a recurring nightmare. It wouldn’t leave her alone, that image of the hungry demon. It was just more of her mother’s so-called gift, maybe. It was an image her subconscious wanted to create from the unclean feelings she got from dealing with Goranson. She’d take a pill or something tonight. No dreams.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, and he
r thoughts turned immediately to Christa, which was useless and more than a little pathetic. She tried putting up bricks and that didn’t work, so focused on the back of the driver’s head, trying to be blank.

  The urge formed to tell him to avoid a fare on the Lower East Side tonight—as if there was any point in warning a cabbie about that. They were always careful in that neighborhood. It was where Dina had grown up. He’d probably throw her out of his cab if she spooked him with silly warnings.

  “Shut up, mom,” she muttered under her breath. She wished any of these impulses made sense. She had her life figured out and turning into her mother—as much as her mother had been loved and admired—wasn’t in them. She clamped her lips shut and stared out the window, thinking about old girlfriends from college and if she should call any of them to get out of her rut. After I make partner, she promised herself again. Then I’ll get a life. Then I’ll date someone, rent a U-Haul, get my heart broken and settle into mid-life bitterness.

  Yes ma’am, that was the life she wanted.

  Christa. Why couldn’t she stop thinking about Christa? It wasn’t the body, but it was. It wasn’t the grace, but it was. It wasn’t the luminous eyes, but it was. You’re obsessing, she warned herself, and as bad as any stalker. The woman doesn’t want what you offer, and her eyes had never said differently. They have the Internet in England, and plenty of ways to get an anonymous account. Christa could have made contact if that was what she wanted, but she hadn’t. So she didn’t want it. End. Of. Story.

  When the cab neared the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fifth, Dina abruptly told the driver to turn on Fifty-fifth. She knew why, but wasn’t willing to admit it yet. They idled in front of Leonard Goranson’s building, and Dina finally got out, after asking the driver to wait. He grunted what she hoped was assent.

  She’d only had to be in the building a few times in the last month, giving tours to a few favored investors who were most likely to be interested in the headquarters for the new corporation. On those occasions, however, she had always waited outside for the clients before entering. She’d never gone in the place by herself. She hoped the key wouldn’t work, but it did. The alarm code unfortunately worked as well.

  Something was calling her inside. She wished she could tell herself that she didn’t know what it was, but she did. She knew where the call was coming from. She knew she’d been wasting a lot of energy these last few weeks shutting out the call. Tonight she was too tired to ignore it. Too tired to ignore her better judgment, either, which told her to run.

  She turned on all the lights, including the floods and spots near the architect and interior-design layouts. Anything to chase the shadows away.

  I’m just tired, she thought. My mind is making things up, all because mother put silly ideas in my head. None of this makes any sense. It’s not real. Her reluctant footsteps echoed through the atrium as she headed for the stairs to the lower floors.

  She was shivering uncontrollably by the time she opened the door to the sub-basement. The light was dim, and water still dripped. Goranson did have the lease, but the capital for renovating the building would come from the proceeds of the initial stock sale. Jason Williams was certain that this room could be made waterproof and that the source of the roots that curled through the cracked cement could be killed with a strong herbicide.

  She’d only gone as far as the top step before. It took all her will to walk down the steps into the semidarkness. She was drawn to the pale and tangled roots. The room seemed filled with anguish and suffering. That anything could live in the foul air was a miracle; it was something very tenacious.

  It—the calling—wanted her to do something. She inhaled with a shudder and realized the smell was right out of her nightmare of the demon. The demon’s presence was all around her. And yet there was something else, whatever was calling her. It wasn’t helpless, but it needed her.

  All she had to do was touch it.

  She didn’t believe in her mother’s so-called gift.

  She didn’t believe this was happening now.

  She hesitated, her hand an inch from the smallest of the curling tendrils.

  She snatched back her hand as she swayed toward it, and then scrabbled in her pocket for a tissue. Shielding her hand with the tissue, she touched the root.

  Waves of warmth and tingling awareness shot up her arm.

  She stepped back in surprise, and a piece of the root broke off in her hand. The remaining tangle quivered for several seconds.

  She backed across the room, stumbling over the steps sooner than she expected, and bolted upward, not pausing until she stood at the alarm panel.

  With shaking fingers she punched in the code, and then she got the hell out of there and into the back of the cab.

  “You okay, lady?”

  “Yes, fine. I don’t like being in buildings on my own is all.”

  “Creepy. Lots of bad people on these streets.”

  He quickly turned toward their original destination and by the time they reached Dina’s building she was feeling more in control.

  That is, until she paid off the meter and found herself saying, “Don’t pick up a fare at Mott and Spring.”

  The look she got left her in no doubt that the poor man thought she was possessed. The cab disappeared into the darkness in record time.

  Her arms trembled as she dropped her briefcase and shrugged out of her suit jacket. Clutched in her left hand was the tissue and root. Her arm had stopped tingling, but a little tickle remained against her palm.

  She hurried to the picture of her mother that looked most like her and stared at what was almost her own reflection. “What do I do now?” The picture didn’t answer, of course, but now that she was thinking of her mother, she felt calmer. After a deep centering breath she could almost hear her mother’s soothing voice, explaining what was necessary.

  It felt so right, and she was so tired, that questioning was a waste of time and energy. Following the quiet instructions, she gently placed the tissue and root in front of her mother’s picture, stripped out of her clothes and took a hot shower. She shampooed her long, dark hair and left it to dry by itself after a vigorous toweling. Her hair felt strange against her bare back, and she realized it had been years since she’d let it loose for more than a minute or two.

  Naked, she scrubbed the top of her oak dining room table with salted water and then fetched the tissue. She turned off all the lights, turned up the heat, and opened the kitchen shades so that the white light of the moon and stars could drift over the table.

  She was forgetting something. Thoughts not quite her own hurried her to the bedroom where she unhooked her mother’s dreamcatcher from its place on the wall opposite the bed. She hung it from the fixture over the table and felt ready.

  Sprinkling salt behind her as she went, she walked backward around the table. When the circle was closed she stood inside, a container of cornmeal in hand. Her mother had insisted a house wasn’t safe without cornmeal. Now she understood that her mother hadn’t been talking about electrical fires.

  She took the tissue in her left hand again and sprinkled cornmeal generously over the tabletop and chair she was going to use. Then she dusted her body with it and sat down.

  Great Mother, tell me of this thing.

  Was that her own voice? She had no awareness of speaking, but the voice was within the circle. After several deep breaths, she carefully lifted the tissue and tumbled the piece of root into her right hand.

  The images came instantly, and with a vividness that was intense to the edge of pain.

  Her sisters sang stories of the Great Mother and her consort, the Sky. Above, the moon blazed with silver heat, and everywhere the orange glow of the bonfire did not reach was limed in shimmering white light. There was a flash of skirts and red hair in the lower limbs of the tree, and she smiled to herself. She had no regrets as one of her sisters disappeared into the trees with the boy she had once thought she loved. That was past. A child would c
ome of their coupling, that she knew. The child would have green eyes.

  Laughter in her ear made her turn. The lovely red hair brushed past her cheek, and she was captured again by the laughing shimmer of shining gray-brown eyes.

  “You said you’d show me the dance.”

  They joined the circle of dancers and her entire body sang with the joy of being alive and of being in love.

  They swirled and turned, chanted and sang. When the bonfire burned low, they, like everyone else, found a dry, private place in the trees. Their skin cooled in the warm night air.

  “What happens now?”

  “We sleep, and we will dream of our one true love.” For her, there was no need to dream.

  Through the heavy air came the long moan of a woman in ecstasy and the soft sighs of other lovers finding joy in life.

  Rich auburn curls spilled out over the leaves. In the moonlight it seemed to glow. “I’m not a child.”

  Her heart beat fast and so high in her throat she could not speak for a moment. “I know.”

  The leaves rustled, and that exquisite face, grown more so in the last few months as she came into her grown body and beauty, blotted out the moon. This beautiful creature, not of her own people but more dear than any, put into words what she felt. “I don’t think I’m supposed to feel this way. I don’t need to dream.”

  Thundering rapture rolled over her as the kiss kindled the longing she had been unable to deny for months now. When they parted, she gathered the thick hair against her mouth. “Do you understand what you are doing? What we are doing?”

  “No, but I have to do it,” came the low answer. Her fingers fumbled with the ties of her gown, and she slipped it off her shoulders, and it fell to her waist.