by Lara Parker
His heart racing, he dug the jacket out and holding it up he could see that it was a chauffeur’s uniform coat. Beneath the jacket was a billed cap. Feeling foolish, he tugged the jacket on over his sweater and dug his hands into the pockets. His fingers found something on a chain, something sharp and hard.
He was about to insert the key in the ignition when he remembered Willie’s admonition to prime the carburetor. He climbed back out and twisted the handle on the bonnet. The hinges creaked a little as he lifted it up and over, and he gazed lovingly at the enormous engine gleaming with chrome. What a sad misfortune it would be if this luxurious machine had not withstood all those years of neglect. It had been well wrapped in its canvas covers, covered up in a protective shroud, and there was hardly any dust, as if it had been preserved in a sarcophagus. He removed the air filter in an almost reverential manner, muttering to himself: It’s perfect, it’s magical, and it has to start.
Positioning himself behind the wheel, the jacket buttoned now and the cap on his head for good luck, he slipped the key into the ignition. He closed his eyes and took a breath, and then another. He put one foot on the clutch and turned the key.
All the lights came on! The headlights flared in the gloom with an almost ethereal glow, and tinkly, rollicking piano music blasted out of the speaker, what he thought was jelly roll blues, Ain’t she sweet … See her walkin’ down the street … The dashboard lit up in a collection of golden glimmers as the taillights, the interior lights, and even those of the radio in the center of the dash all glowed. Although the radio was a minor miracle, he found the dial and turned it down because he wanted to be able to hear the engine if anything happened.
When David stepped on the gas, there was a ticking sound, a rhythmic wheeze, and, unbelievably, the engine lumbered to life. It roared a few seconds, then sputtered out. But it was enough to speed up his heart. He tried again. This time it ran steadily for one, two, three seconds, and the sound of the engine was not like he had imagined. It was quieter, smoother, and deeper because the car barely vibrated. He sat for a long time in the golden pool of light that stopped just short of the barn walls listening to the beautiful noise before it conked out.
Could he drive it? He was shaking all over with excitement, and a reckless impulse was galloping through him. He climbed out of the car and unlatched the gate, then tried to push the wide barn door open. He had to lift it to get it to move and he remembered that one sometimes possessed superhuman strength in moments of overwhelming need. He tugged with all his strength, thinking of Heracles killing the lion of Nemea with his bare hands. The wooden portal slid a little. The twin headlights poured light out onto the snow and what was there surprised him as much as the car starting.
Jackie was standing only a few feet away, very still, as if she were in a trance, her arms stiff by her sides, her silver eyes reflecting the glow.
“My God, Jackie! What are you doing here?”
She looked around in a daze. “I— I don’t know.”
David ran to her, afraid that something had happened. “Didn’t you go to school?”
“No, I ditched. I mean, I started to go but something stopped me.”
“Won’t your mom be mad?”
“I hate that place. I wanted to find you.” She looked small in her dark coat and her face was pinched. “I didn’t know where you were, and then I thought maybe—”
“I got it going.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up.
“Yeah, come see.”
Then she was sitting beside him looking at him, waiting and not expecting much, he could see that, but when he reached down and turned the key, and the engine rumbled into life, she grinned and covered her mouth with her hand, then leaned back and grabbed the door as if she expected the car to leave the ground. Her eyes were dancing, but he could tell she was scared.
“You’re not going to drive it, are you?”
He pushed in on the clutch and, one foot on the brake, grabbed the gearshift and eased it into first; then he gave it some gas as he slowly let the clutch out. The car jumped violently, lurched forward, and then died.
Jackie shrieked, then rolled her eyes at him in fake distress. He put the gears back in neutral.
“The gears aren’t synchronized,” he explained, feeling deflated, but still determined. “I think I have to double clutch.”
“But it started…”
He pumped the clutch again, then gave the car more gas. This time the gears made a horrible grinding sound before the car bucked, then coughed to a stop.
Jackie laughed. “You’re doing something wrong,” she said. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll break it?”
David sighed and sat back, disappointed. Jackie looked at him.
“Who is that man with Quentin?” she said.
“What man?”
“I went to Collinwood to find you and I looked in the window of the library. They were sitting across from one another at a table with a bunch of candles.”
“What did it look like they were doing?
“Some kind of ceremony, maybe. A séance?”
“It’s probably that Dr. Blair. He’s searching for a vampire.” And he laughed, giving her a knowing look. But she didn’t say anything.
David started the car again, pumping the gas pedal, and this time it sputtered, then roared. He grimaced as there was a huge clunking, and the car jerked farther forward before it slid to a stop, the engine still running.
“It sounds like it’s coming apart!” cried Jackie, but he could tell she was thrilled.
Miraculously the valiant automobile inched ahead and picked up a little speed, the engine racing, and he shifted again. Bumping furiously over the snow outside the barn door, the car took off and made it to the road just as the tailpipe belched and backfired, and David jammed on the brakes. The engine died.
She was laughing, holding on to the door handle. “Are you sure you know how to drive this thing?” she said, and she grinned at him. She was the prettiest girl he had ever seen.
“Where did you get that?” she pointed to his chauffeur’s jacket.
“It was in the car.”
“It looks good on you.” She pulled the lapels even. “Wait,” she said, “I want to put on that dress.”
She scrambled out and his heart sped up as he heard her bumping the suitcase in back, and then she must have slipped off her sweater and jeans because he caught a glimpse of her in her bra and panties, hopping up and down from the cold, before she pulled the pleated skirt over her head. Dancing into the headlights, she twirled around in the flapper dress for him to admire her before she put on her coat and climbed in the front seat and whispered, “Looks like we’re ready for the party!”
He started the car again, and this time it kept running, and bumped slowly along, gathering speed. So filled with triumph he could hardly breathe, all David could think was that he had her beside him in his chariot of fire, his brilliant roadster, her small frame in the huge leather seat, her hair lifting away from her face. When she looked over at him, her eyes sparkled as he had dreamed they would. In fact, she was absolutely giddy, taken up in a rush of delight.
He gripped the wheel and tried to steady his foot on the pedal, thinking he had pulled her out of that rootless lethargy and given her something to hold on to, a reckless adventure where the rules were different, where the norm was gaiety and glamour. They were characters in another time and place, he the dashing chauffeur and she the daughter of the estate, running away to find a new life together. The uniform was dark blue on his chest and the pleated flapper dress she wore in honor of their first real drive together shimmered on her thighs and cast a pale reflection in the front window.
At first he stared hard at the road, his teeth gritted together, his whole body vibrating, and leaned in with both hands grasping the wheel as though it could fly from his grip. His leg shook so hard he could barely keep it on the accelerator, and he oversteered, weaving back and forth, afraid of the ice beneath
the wheels. Jackie gasped and squealed each time they swerved, reaching for his arm to steady herself. There was a bump from a flat spot where one of the wheels had sat too long in one place, and every half-second they were jarred. But the car moved along, humming like a perfectly calibrated machine, which of course it was.
The snow was falling softly, large flakes like floating petals drifting off blossoming trees, and even with the air hovering near freezing, it felt much warmer than when they had started out. Now he seemed to get the hang of it; it wasn’t so hard after all to steer, after the gear-changing part was over and the car was up to speed, purring with a silken roar. He glanced at the speedometer as it crept up to twenty-five, then thirty, then thirty-five, and they seemed to fly down the road away from Collinwood, sailing into a future of glamorous dreams.
They headed toward the cemetery just as he had only a week earlier on his snowmobile. But now he was driving this marvelous car, grander than anything he had ever imagined, quiet and glowing, with so much power beneath the pedal that he leaned back and straightened his arms, imagining himself a duke or the lord of a manor, or even a god behind the wheel. He glimpsed the graveyard coming up, the iron gate and the fence with its tall black spikes, the tombstones looming, and the mausoleum crouched like a tank.
When he could stand the excitement no longer, he let the car roll to a stop and turned off the engine. His heart was racing and he was panting as if he had been the one running down the road. They sat for a minute not saying a word, staring at the snow falling in the trees, breathing softly. They were aboard a ship in a white sea.
“This is amazing,” she said with a sigh. “It’s unreal.”
“I know. I feel … free, as if I were about to … to float away.”
“It’s like a dream.”
“We could, you know,” he said softly.
“Could what?”
“Fly away and never come back.”
Jackie turned her face away from him, and after a moment he realized she was crying.
“What is it?”
“I should get home,” she said. “We haven’t found the painting, and I promised my mother…”
David reached for her hand and felt how cold it was. He blew on her fingers. “Is she still mad at you?”
Jackie wiped her tears away with her other hand. “She’s changing, almost as if she’s sick. Every day she seems paler, and weaker. Quentin doesn’t come around anymore. I think he has broken her heart.” She hesitated. “Can a person die of a broken heart?”
“I don’t know. I think they used to think so.”
“Why don’t you ever talk about your mother?”
“Because I never really knew her. She died when I was ten.”
Jackie drew in her breath. “Oh, David…”
“I don’t remember much about her,” he said, his lips touching her fingertips.
“How did she die?”
“Well, not of a broken heart. She burned, in a fire.”
“That’s awful.” She squeezed his hand.
They sat in silence and watched the snow falling, every flake a tiny piece of the moon tumbling through a black sky.
Seeing the frown on Jackie’s face, he added, “She tried to take me with her.”
“What do you mean, tried to take you with her?” Jackie looked at him, and after a long hesitant moment in which he suddenly felt able to trust her, David poured out his most carefully guarded secret.
“I— I watched her die. She was caught in the shed, and— And it was on fire. She was hysterical and she kept calling me, beckoning to me. She kept saying that I must go with her and we would die together and we would live again. I thought she had lost her mind. I was terrified. I couldn’t— I saw her, but I couldn’t—”
“Shhhh…” Jackie reached over and touched David’s arm. And then she said what she had said in her bedroom, the night they had found Barnabas. “She’ll come back. She’s a Phoenix.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s just something I feel.”
“Because you are a witch?”
She looked out the window of the car, and he could see the tears still on her cheeks. “Jackie … I want to spend my life with you,” he said.
“You mustn’t,” she said in a whisper. “David, please, please, don’t…”
“Don’t what?”
“Think of me … that way.”
“I don’t— I mean— What do you mean?”
She sighed and started to speak, but stopped herself.
“Tell me, Jackie…”
“You know I’m— You must have seen, how I can do things…”
“You mean those little spells? But that’s what I love—I mean, that’s what I like about you. You’re magical.”
She sighed again, then wiped her cheek with her sleeve. “You don’t know what you’re saying. There is something inside of me, something dark, and … evil…”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
She uttered a bitter little laugh. “You really should stay away from me.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“I don’t want you to be disappointed, David…”
“Listen. I’m not afraid.” He took a deep breath. “I love you.” He placed his forehead against her hair. Without breathing he moved his fingers behind her ear and stroked her neck. She tensed, but only for a moment, and then she said, “I’m so cold.” He reached around her and pulled her close, her head on his shoulder. With his lips he gently touched her cheek and searched for her mouth until his own found hers. It was only a simple kiss, very soft and warm, and he kept his lips close to hers and breathed in her breath.
“I think it’s great that you started the car,” she whispered.
He leaned in to kiss her again, but this time she dropped her head and he pressed his lips against her eyelids, grazed her eyebrows and the dimpled place in her temple. He touched her mouth with his thumb, and her lips pursed. His fingertips caressed her cheek.
Outside the car the snow gleamed like silver. The air inside was warm and the windows were misted over from their breathing. He took off his coat and helped her off with hers and making a cover for them both, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her again, her brow and the space between her eyebrows, as she curled against him. The radio began to play softly, and he thought it sounded like one of the big bands from the Benny Goodman era: It must have been moonglow … way up in the blue …
He reached down and undid the top button of her dress, then slipped his hand inside where her skin was soft, and her warmth flooded him. She giggled softly and snuggled closer. He tugged at her sleeve and pulled the dress off her shoulder, and felt her against him all in a rush, holding her as she trembled, and breathing in her odor, like the forest in the spring. The air was humid, the windows paled with fog, and they both were shivering, but clinging to each other beneath the jackets. His heart beat in his ears and he could feel hers beating as well in the palms of his hands. He tugged her down on the wide leather seat, and she slipped beneath him, seeking warmth, while his mouth found hers and he kissed her. A wave of longing swept though him, and he ached to merge every cell of his body with hers, feel every curve and dip of her shape, her soft hair, the small bones beneath her skin, while the tinny band music pulsed and beat out its swinging rhythm. ’Cause moonglow gave me you. The car with the snow outside the windows was a cocoon wrapped around them, and they were new moths waiting to unfurl.
For many long minutes they lay close together, their coats pulled over them. Then, unable to resist, he reached for the skirt of her flapper dress and tugged it up toward her waist. Would she let him do this? He slipped his hand along the warm inside of her thigh, just above her knee where the skin was like silk. This was all new to him, but he didn’t want to stop. He wanted to be closer to her, merge his body with hers. His fingers brushed the edge of her panties. She lay very still, but then, just as he was about to touch her there, she stopped breathing for a second.
He lifted up and looked at her. Her eyes were dark.
“We can’t. Not here,” she whispered.
“Why?” He could barely speak.
“Someone died in this car.”
He moved his hand away and was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “How do you know?”
She shivered. “That’s what I told you. That’s what I mean. I have something inside me that no one understands, not even me.”
He lay very still, waiting for the tremors inside him to subside, and then he sat up, pulling her with him. Gently, he tugged her dress back over her shoulder and reached around her. His body ached all over, but it was a kind of relief because he didn’t want to hurt her. He held her close and looked out the frosted window at the snow falling softly and the iron fence of the cemetery like a shadowy line of crooked spears, wondering whether he had missed his chance. Should he have kept her lying beside him, and—although the thought terrified him—made her his forever?
As he looked into the graveyard, he could barely make out the mausoleum through the snow, a squarish shape. He felt a sharp tingle in the space behind his knees.
“Jackie,” he whispered.
“Hmmmm?”
“Let’s go for a walk in the cemetery.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Really?”
“I have an idea. Are you game, or what?”
She hesitated for a minute and gazed out the window, her dark hair framing her white face and setting off her delicate profile. He thought she had never looked so beautiful. Then she laughed. “Sure. I will if you will.” She was the happy sweet girl again, so normal and silly as they pulled on their coats and climbed out of the car. She ran behind him and took his hand.
