Waking the Moon

by Elizabeth Hand

  Her voice broke. Beside her Opal jockeyed with the mike so it would catch every breath.

  “—My husband used to beat on me, so bad sometimes I couldn’t go to work. And our children, too. I threatened to leave him but he always said he’d change but he never did. Then I heard you talk at Victoria Community College—”

  She inclined her head and the camera angle jumped to show Angelica listening intently, her brow furrowed and her green eyes glowing with concern.

  “—I heard you talk about the Warrior Goddess inside of us and I went home, I signed up for a self-defense class at the Victoria YWCA and filed for divorce.”

  Opal nodded. “And your husband let you go?”

  “Oh, no.” Amanda Jeffries shook her head. “He came at me with a baseball bat—”

  Gasps from the audience. “What did you do?” urged Opal.

  “Well, I ran outside and threw the kids in the Pontiac and tried to drive off, but he smashed the windshield—”

  Another cut to Angelica, her perfect eyebrows arched, the two women behind her silent and brooding.

  “And?” said Opal.

  “And so I ran him over. I—I—killed him. In reverse.” More gasps; scattered applause and one deep boo. Amanda Jeffries wiped her eyes. “I—I didn’t want to do it, I loved him but—the jury said it was self-defense and the Women’s Defense Fund helped me and my children while the trial was pending—”

  “Let’s hear another point of view.” Opal walked deftly through the rows of seats until she reached a burly young man scowling near the back of the room. “What do you think of Angelica Furiano’s—”

  “I think she oughta be locked up—”

  The camera focused on the man’s face, his brown eyes darting from Opal back to the stage. “My wife and her friend went to one of her workshops in San Diego and this woman—”

  His arm jabbed out as he pointed toward Angelica.

  “This—” bleeep! “—is advocating overthrowing the government—”

  Boos and catcalls, so loud the man looked startled and fell silent.

  “I think,” Opal said gently, “I think that she’s calling for a change in the patriarchal system in this country, not overthrowing the government.” She whirled to face the stage. “Am I correct, Angelica?”

  “Yes,” Angelica’s clear voice rang out. “And—”

  “Can I finish?” The man broke in angrily. “These women, they get together and they all bitch about how their husbands abuse them and they can’t get decent jobs and I’m a rapist and everything comes down to Men Suck, but I work fifty-hour weeks to support my family, I never lifted a finger against my wife or children, I supported the Equal Rights Amendment and what do I get? My wife left me, she says I was condescending to her, she says I—”

  “Well, perhaps she did not correctly perceive your concern,” Angelica suggested smoothly. “Very often men are not aware that they treat their wives in a childlike fashion. You see, we’re still trained to see women in only certain ways—and other countries are worse than the United States in this, when I was in Italy it was very pronounced—the whole Madonna-Whore syndrome. Or you have this whole way of looking at women as either nurturers or as children who need constant protection. Many of the world’s ancient Goddess religions represent the Goddess as having three faces: those of the Mother, Daughter, and Crone or Destroyer. And a number of recent books help women focus on two of those aspects: Gaea, the nurturing Mother, and her daughter Kore. And that’s wonderful. I truly think these books are wonderful and I think that they’ve helped women a great deal; but it’s not enough.”

  The camera moved in slowly for a close-up on Angelica’s face. Shafts of light from the silver crescent on her breast flickered across her cheeks and jaw; she looked as though she were rising up from deep clear water. Her voice grew softer, more intense. Beside me Jack leaned closer to the television set, and I could imagine everyone in that audience shifting in their seats, everyone straining to get closer to Angelica.

  “—Because we can’t just ignore that other face of the Goddess. For thousands of years we’ve pretended that She doesn’t exist, that human history begins and ends with the Old Testament. But now, for the first time in millennia, women are starting to embrace Her again. And that’s marvelous, but we can’t just pick and choose which of Her aspects to honor. We have to deal with all of them. With the Full Moon and the New Moon but also with the Dark of the Moon, Hecate’s realm. We have to acknowledge the Mother and the Avenger. We must embrace She Who Mourns and She Who Creates, but we must also honor She Who Destroys.

  “Because otherwise we will never be whole. In traditional patriarchal societies, men have always acknowledged their own aggressive tendencies—that’s why they’ve always been the warriors and the football players, the generals and bank presidents and—”

  “The serial killers!” a shrill voice shouted. Uneasy laughter from the audience; but Angelica only nodded seriously.

  “—and yes, the serial killers—but also the great artists and writers and composers. But until we as women acknowledge our own personal need for power and our own capabilities for aggression and independence, we will never be whole. We’ll continue to be good mothers and daughters, we’ll continue to be muses, we’ll continue to be victims—but we won’t be whole and strong. We won’t be the Supreme Goddess that we can be. We need to acknowledge all the aspects of the Goddess within us; we need to embrace the chthonic darkness, to welcome and awaken the Moon; and then we will be whole again. Then we will be strong, unconquerable, sovereigns of the Sacred Earth.

  “Then we will be One with Her.”

  Riotous applause and a few enraged shouts from the audience. A quick cut to the burly young man shaking his head and mouthing something obscene. But Opal had already abandoned him and was walking briskly back to the stage.

  “Well, thank you, Angelica! I know I’ve read your books and found them incredibly empowering, and I took your Dark of the Moon workshop up in Vancouver last summer and—well, it was wonderful, absolutely wonderful! Thank you so much—

  “Angelica Furiano, on a cross-country tour promoting her new best-selling book Waking the Moon: Toward a Supreme Spirituality of Women.”

  Opal held up a book: I could just glimpse its title, in bright gold letters against a black background, and the glinting foil crescent that surmounted Angelica’s name. Cheers and excited yelps. Angelica stood. The studio lights made a golden aureole of her hair, and while she should have looked like a thousand other talk show guests, sheepish or giddy or simply inane, she did not. She looked as she always had, beautiful and poised and utterly regal. Very slowly, as though performing in a Noh drama, she rested one hand upon her breast, her fingers spreading to cover the lunula, and then raised the other hand to the audience as though in benediction. Once again glittering letters flashed across the screen.

  ANGELICA FURIANO: WAKING THE MOON.

  I stared at her and shivered.

  “Boy, she is a looker, huh? And she looks just like that in real life, I mean in L.A., some of these girls you see on TV or in the movies, you see ’em in real life and pffft—” Jack made a disgusted sound, his eyes still fixed on the screen. “But she’s the real thing, I tell you.”

  “Her eyes aren’t real,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Her eyes—those are green contacts; her eyes aren’t really that color.”

  Jack stared at the screen, then shrugged. “Well, whose are? You think she’s a dyke?”

  “Angelica?” I said softly. “I don’t think so—I mean, I don’t think she used to be. I always sort of thought of her as pansexual.”

  Jack snorted. “Yeah, sure. Her and what’s-his-name. And I’m the Ludovicher Rabbi.”

  From behind the couch strode Angelica’s two bodyguards. The black tank tops flowed into army-style khaki shorts, and they wore lace-up black leather boots with thick clunky toes and nasty-looking metal spurs. The one with the crescent moon tattoo had a long
thin braid falling down her back, its end tied with a leather thong hung with crimson feathers and what appeared to be bones. Jack stared at her admiringly, then sighed and wiped the corner of his mouth with a paper towel.

  “Well, listen, kiddo, I got to go.”

  The two Amazons flanked Angelica, their heads held high like pro wrestlers. I had to admit it made a striking tableau, those two black-haired beauties guarding their golden idol. Angelica smiled and nodded as her guardians looked around the room, eyes glittering. As Opal’s theme music surged Angelica turned. Her bodyguards smiled, thin mirthless smiles like those of a dreaming cat, and escorted their mistress offstage.

  “Wow. I still can’t believe that was Angelica.”

  Jack grinned. “What a piece of work. ‘Angelica Furiano.’ The Avenging Angel. Sounds like she made it up.”

  “When I knew her, her name was Angelica di Rienzi.” I sighed and shook my head. “God, I can’t believe it’s been that long. I completely lost touch with her, you know? For a couple of months it was like we were bonded at the hip, and then—” I stared sadly at the TV screen. “I never heard from her again. Christ, I’d love to see her.”

  Jack took a last bite of his chicken vindaloo and shoved the paper plate beside a video monitor. “Well, like I told you, she married this count guy from Italy. Erica said he was like one of the three richest guys in the country. When he died it all went to Angelica, and I can tell you his first three wives weren’t happy about that at all. Ah well, gotta fly.”

  He stood and picked up his bag, a worn Guatemalan rucksack. “Have fun at the festival. I’ll have one of my boys see if they can track down a local distributor for Pink Pelican and send you a case.”

  I walked him to the door. “When will you be back in D.C.?”

  Jack hugged me to him, gave the top of my head a swiping kiss. “Shit, I dunno. Christmas I’ll be visiting my dad in Florida, maybe I’ll be through then. We’re test-marketing this new software program in the fall, a tie-in with the big dinosaur exhibit reopening at that other museum in New York. Maybe I’ll be out then. We can check out the mosh pits downtown.”

  We walked down the hall, Jack stopping at every door to read the cartoons posted there and hooting with laughter. Finally we reached the end of the corridor. At the head of the broad curving stairway he stopped.

  “Well, listen, Sweeney, it’s been a slice, like always.”

  He took a few steps, then turned to look back at me. “And listen—I was going to call Erica when I get back, she’s still got all my Arvo Pärt CDs. You want me to see if I can get your friend Angelica’s number from her? She and Erica have mutual friends or something, they used to run into each other a lot.”

  I nodded eagerly. “That would be great, Jack! I mean it—I’m sure Angelica remembers me, tell Erica—”

  He waved me away. “Sure, sure. See you, kiddo.”

  I watched him descend the steps, taking them two at a time like a kid eager to get out of class. Then I went back to my office.

  The little room smelled of cumin and fenugreek. From outside came the high skirling wail of flutes, the carousel’s ghostly fanfare. Billowing smoke from the Aditi’s outdoor grills mingled with the yellow dust of the Mall’s wide walkways. I turned from the window and for a long moment stared at the TV screen. The credits for Opal’s show were still running—This program was previously recorded in front of a live audience—the music soaring until it was rudely cut off by a commercial for tooth powder. I turned off the TV and closed my door, settled into my chair, and for a few minutes rocked thoughtfully back and forth.

  Angelica Furiano. The Avenging Angel. I thought of those two Amazons, of Opal Purlstein and women across the country crowding her workshops, listening to her talk about the rights of women and becoming empowered. Kickboxers and former nuns and slacker dykes, New Age hausfraus and fin de siècle suffragettes.

  “What a crock,” I said out loud.

  But then I thought of when I had last seen Angelica, nearly two decades ago: a beautiful young girl rising naked from the water in the shadow of the Orphic Lodge, a young girl striding through the dust, dancing around a lowing bull in a dark field. I thought of her lying in the grass with Oliver; I thought of Oliver himself with his poor mutilated scalp and his mad blue eyes, making that last leap of faith from the window of a closet at Providence Hospital. I thought of all these things; and of Balthazar Warnick staring at me from atop a curving staircase; of Francis Xavier Connelly helping to push Magda Kurtz into the wasteland; of a boy’s reedy voice cutting through the darkness like a heated wire through black glass.

  From the gargoyles to Stonehenge

  From the Sphinx to the pyramids

  From Lucifer’s temples praising the Devil right,

  To the Devil’s clock as it strikes midnight—

  I have always been here before…

  I thought of them all, and of Hasel Bright lying facedown in a pond in the Virginia woods. And Angelica so rich and famous that she had homes in Los Angeles and Italy and god knows where else; of Angelica writing best-selling books and having a following that could number in the thousands, maybe in the tens or hundreds of thousands for all I knew. I had no idea at all what she’d been doing all those years—writing books, I guess; teaching people to go whoo-whoo at the moon. Above the haunted strains of the carousel and the faint cries of children, I heard Oliver’s voice the last time I had seen him alive—

  “…don’t you worry about her: Angelica is destined for Big Things. Very, very Big Things—” I thought of Hasel’s letter. After a few more minutes I got out of my chair. I walked to the door and made certain it was shut, then reached for my phone and called Baby Joe in New York.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Priestess at Huitaca

  WHY DON’T YOU ALL take the night off? I don’t think you’ve had a day off since Opal.” Angelica di Rienzi Furiano reached for her glass of chardonnay. She raised it, toasting the sun where it struck bolts of violet and gold from the edge of the butte that rose above her home. In its delicate goblet the wine glowed. A tiny bee with green eyes hovered above the lip of the glass. Angelica flicked at it with a carefully sculpted fingernail. The bee spun off and disappeared into the late afternoon light. Angelica sipped thoughtfully at her wine, suddenly smiled. “I know! Dr. Adder’s playing in Flagstaff, you could go see that. It’s supposed to be pretty good.”

  In the pool, Cloud and Kendra and Martin lay on inflatable plastic floating chairs. The two bodyguards wore plain back one-piece bathing suits; Martin an ancient pair of surfer’s baggies appliquéd with yellow smiley-faces sewn on by Kendra. Cloud’s dark pigtail drifted across the turquoise surface behind her like a dozing water moccasin. A few feet away Kendra and Martin held hands, their floats bumping noses every now and then in a companionable way. They were all three burnished copper by the sun, though Martin’s hair was white-blond, straight and fine as a baby’s. He was Angelica’s personal trainer, and lived in a casual ménage with the two girls in the adobe gardener’s cottage down the hill from the main house.

  “Girls?” Angelica inquired softly.

  “You sure?” Kendra lifted her head drowsily, shading her eyes as she squinted up at their employer. She was only eighteen, taking a year off between high school and Bennington. She had a black belt in karate and for the last two years had won the Idaho State Martial Arts Competition. “Cloud said she heard something outside last night—”

  Angelica shook her head. “I saw it later—a coyote, looked like it had a jackrabbit. No, you all go on; I think the early show’s at seven.”

  “A coyote?” Cloud repeated dubiously.

  Angelica nodded. She tipped her head to gaze at Cloud from above the rim of her sunglasses. “Isn’t that amazing? It came right up to the house. They’ve never done that before.”

  Damn straight they’ve never done it before, thought Cloud. They haven’t done it yet. The night before she’d been up late, reading a new Pasolini biography, when she’d h
eard it. Something was struggling on the path that led from the cottage to the pool, something too large for any animal, and besides, she’d distinctly heard a voice, a boy’s voice, she thought. She hadn’t been able to make out any words; she hadn’t waited around to hear more. By the time she got outside, arms and legs taut and ready to strike, whatever had been there was gone.

  “You really should put the surveillance system back on, Angelica,” said Kendra. “I mean, someone could walk right up to the house—”

  Angelica shook her head, her hair escaping from beneath a huge sun hat. “That’s why I have you, bambina. Besides, the animals would set it off every night—I told you, it was a coyote.”

  Her tone was light, but Cloud heard the soft threat in it: the topic was closed. “Listen, Artie down at the Soaring Eagle said he was getting in a shipment of Dungeness crabs today—you all should go there for dinner, check it out for me. Elspeth”—Elspeth was her agent—”Elspeth will be coming out next week and I’ve got to figure out where to take her.”

  Cloud grimaced but said nothing. She loathed the Soaring Eagle. The others were more cheerful.

  “Aw right” Martin sang. He slid from his float into the pool. “Man, I need a night off.” He yawned and absently flexed his arms. “Thanks, Angelica. We’ll bring you back some Ben & Jerry’s.”

  Angelica smiled. “Pomegranate sorbet, if they have it.”

  “Cha, boss.” Martin gave her a thumbs-up, turned to pull Kendra from her float. She slid into the pool silently and smoothly as an otter. Then she and Martin swam to the steps and climbed out, Martin squeezing water from his long hair, Kendra shaking her feet off like a cat before they gathered towels and sandals and sunscreen and began to pick their way across the terra-cotta-tiled patio to the path that led to their cottage. In their wake a string of tiny garnet butterflies rose from the tiles, and fluttered tipsily about Kendra’s closely shorn head.