by Multiple
“You finding this one kinda, um, nice or something?” Angela squinted, as if unsure how Claire would take it.
“He’s pretty nice, yes.”
“Nice, or hot?”
“Hot.” Claire hadn’t wanted to answer but figured Angie sensed the truth anyway. “I ran into him today in Healdsburg.”
“You’ve touched him?”
“More like he touched me.”
“Uh oh. Houston, we have a problem.” Angie spoke into her sleeve like transmitting something from space. It would have been funny, if not for the circumstances.
“Why do you say that?” Claire asked.
“Get out, Claire. Get out now. Go home.” Angie’s lips formed a thin line, without a smile.
“I can handle it. Just give me some pointers.”
“There are no pointers to give. He’s done with Daniel; he wants you.”
Claire didn’t like the confirmation of her own feelings about this shift in Josh’s trajectory. “I sort of thought so. I’m not worried he will turn me, though, Angie. Call me foolish, but I think I can outlast him.”
“You have one tiny problem, Claire.”
“And that is?”
“You care about Daniel. That, my friend, is what the dark angel is counting on. When you don’t care about Daniel any more, Josh will no longer be a threat. Until then, hold onto your dust. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
Chapter 8
Claire sat on the corner of Daniel’s bed, propped against the wall. Quiet sounds of his slumber made her wonder what it felt like to sleep. Something she’d have to ask Father.
She often got a private audience with Father, initially because of her perfect record, but the more time she spent with him the more she considered him her real father. Something about their relationship was special to both of them.
Claire wondered if he picked up on some of her concern now. Of course he does. He knows everything. Perhaps she should ask to speak to him. Josh was making her nervous. And Angie’s words echoed constantly. “Get out now. Go home.” She had never quit before, and wasn’t about to now.
But as she settled down to her second night, watching him fall asleep, she drove out the niggling thoughts in the back of her head. Time to go to work.
Claire watched Daniel’s dream, finding herself projected onto sand. She recognized it as his home in Brazil. He was a boy of six or seven, running on a wide beach. Squinting from the blinding white sand and reflection of sunlight dripping on the waves in the ocean, he ran free and shirtless in a dirty pair of cut-off jeans secured with a worn piece of rope. The soft foam of the warm ocean licked at his small feet and skinny brown legs. He dug his feet into the wet sand and smiled as he ran toward the waves. He dove in just before a small swell could crash on him.
He floated face up, looking at the blue sky with white clouds changing shapes before his eyes. The water made melodic sounds as it tickled the sides of his face, ears and neck. Above him, in the sky, shapes appeared in the clouds, familiar faces, animals and pictures of houses and birds. Lots of birds.
Claire smiled to herself. She had done the very same thing hundreds of times in her open-ceilinged dorm room in Heaven. The clouds there were identical to those in the human world.
In the ocean, Daniel’s body weightlessly rocked back and forth on the bed of water. A wave drove over him and filled his eyes and nose with salt water. He stood up, coughing. He waded through the waist high foamy water onto the shore. A gentle wave washed over a pair of footprints in the wet sand. Today the ocean had left two gifts for him: a brightly colored piece of glass and a partial shell, a curled piece from a pink and orange home of some sea creature. He held the glass up to the sun and felt its energy as it bathed his eyes in color. He squinted.
His sandy fingers explored the pieces, turning them over and over, looking at the dance of pink and white, light and shadow. A work of art, complete in its own texture and pattern—not something broken.
He put the glass and shell into his pocket and folded over the button flap, safely securing the glass and shell in this secret place. Claire could tell by his ragtag appearance that Daniel was probably unused to holding onto anything of value, but he seemed to treat these items as if they were even more rare than money. She could imagine that when he got home, he would put them somewhere special—maybe in a special box of treasures he kept under his pillow at night.
Next, Daniel was older, seated at a campsite in the early evening, the glow of sunlight giving way to a sprinkling of stars in a turquoise and violet sky. He picked up a piece of charcoal and started to draw on a discarded piece of brown bag. A small group of preteen girls sat in the sand, carefree and laughing as they showed off their smooth tanned bodies. He liked looking at them, especially his favorite. His fingers sketched outlines of her face.
They hailed him over. These were friends from school, slightly older girls who typically made fun of him. They teased him constantly about his good looks. They told him how he would break many hearts when he was older.
The girl giggled at her likeness on the brown canvas, holding the sketches upside down, laughing as she maneuvered it to the right and to the left. He leaned back on his elbows, watching her. She laughed all the time, her bright white teeth a sharp contrast to her bronzed skin. The small hoop earrings on her delicate lobes twinkled gold, playing a bit of sultry hide and seek in her long dark hair. He basked in her warm smile.
The look she had given him one day at school when she turned around and found him staring at her made him wish he were ten years older. She let him stare, without embarrassment, when her friends weren’t around. The stolen gazes became a secret they shared. He thought maybe he could be in love.
Daniel saw other images of a back alley in a poor village without paved streets, all the children running barefoot down the sandy path. He sketched a likeness of a dirty Coke bottle in the sandy soil outside his back door. He discovered he could make the translucent sketches with blue green pencil and chalk resemble a photograph.
He drew by candlelight in his shared room with two other brothers, looking out the glassless window at the dusty streets to a golden orange and pink sunset. The faint outline of a dark, ominous jungle died into the horizon, filled with the sounds of creatures that squawked and screeched all night long as he lay in his bed.
Next, he was a young man, walking the streets of San Francisco, sketching brightly colored houses, little boats with blue water. He drew in classrooms and coffee houses, smoothing the chalk with his third and fourth fingers, a curl of his dark hair falling across his wrinkled brow as he concentrated.
Claire considered all the images he showed her in his dreams. What touched her most was the little box of “treasures,” those pieces of colored glass and shells washed up on the beach. He probably considered these trinkets as having come from some faceless benefactor. Claire had met that benefactor, knew him enough to call him Father. These were obviously young Daniel’s most precious possessions. In a world filled with wonderful things, she was struck that he chose to cherish pieces of broken shell and glass—miracles of the human world, worn by time and polished by the ocean.
She wanted to wander the streets again as a human, get a feel for the town and Daniel’s world. But tonight she sat at the corner of his bed, propped against the wall, watching his chest rise and fall in peaceful repose. Nothing could touch him now that she was on guard.
Chapter 9
Claire settled herself over Daniel’s sleeping form, loving the pull his body commanded over hers. She could easily fall into the fantasy of his kiss, up close and oh, so personal. Elongating her neck, she angled her head as if his lips had opened and beckoned her. The urge to whisper in his ear pulled at her soul. She was desperate know him, to feel every muscle, every electric current between their bodies. She allowed her thighs and lower torso to bond with him first, then lowered her spine down so her breasts lay against his chest. With outstretched arms, her fingertips extended all
the way to his wrists. Almost joined, their arms prayed, flesh to flesh, mating together from wrist to shoulder. Her forearms felt the steady pulse of his life force as she submerged her chest, and at last allowed her head to sink in the warm cavity under his jawline. Before losing herself in his dream, she filled her lungs with his sleeping scent and enjoyed the resulting vibration in her core.
Was there a little melancholy, because this wasn’t real? She had never before felt this way. She knew her soul glowed amber and wished he could reach out and touch it, aware that a portion of him already did. It was one of the most wonderful things she’d ever felt.
The trick tonight was to direct his dreams, not just watch. She would have to be careful not to become visible to him in her exuberance.
You must make sure that he never knows you exist, Mother had said.
Get out. Go home now, Claire, Angie had warned her.
Oh, but it already has begun, Josh had said.
You were handpicked by Father himself.
She entered the white room and stood behind him as he saw doors open to a freshly washed street. A purple school bus pulled up, opening its doors with a burst of pink steam that engulfed him.
There was no driver, but he got in anyway, the doors closing behind him. He came to a table with a translucent white surface that lit up when he touched it. An easel with white tablet was propped there. His chalk crayons and pencils were laid out in the same order as at home in his studio.
His fingers laced over the crayons, and he felt the vibration unique to each color. They were alive, breathing under his touch. He heard whispers, each color telling him intimate, private stories.
The colors have emotion.
The bus relocated to a sandy road at the edge of a dark jungle. A window next to him became a doorway Daniel walked through. Someone on a red motor scooter buzzed by him with a turquoise dog in a wicker basket, leaving a trail of white dust in its wake.
Curious.
He followed down a path littered with shiny dark leaves as long as his body. The earth beneath his feet felt spongy. Brightly colored birds flew between the curling vines and room-sized blooming flowers, wafting in and out of the scented mist. He turned around quickly, and saw a lighted table and easel behind him, waiting.
Never had a table follow me.
He went on. Hearing water, he came upon a green steaming pool. Looking around and finding no one, he shed his clothes and dove in. The surface of his skin tingled, opening to the feel of the liquid as warm as a bath. He felt someone’s eyes on him, but searched the jungle and saw no one. Underwater fish moved in schools of bright yellows, turquoise, and red. He floated on his back, listening to the sounds of the water tickle his ears. He looked up at the clouds changing shapes, showing him faces of people he knew. Stars twinkled in the daylight sky.
There was that feeling again. A female. He searched the bank for a face.
Could I be in someone else’s dream?
Claire sighed. She could watch him for hours. The way he moved his body through the pool of water was an art form all its own. While colors and shapes inspired Daniel, Claire was inspired by the look of his wet male body floating in the steamy pool. She could easily create another dream, inserting herself in it, but that was a dangerous thought.
Albeit a very nice one.
A path appeared, drenched in a beam of sunlight at the other side of the pool. Daniel thought he saw the faint outline of something in white. As he got out to explore further, he saw a terrycloth blue robe hanging on a branch. He pulled it on, and the material was soft on his skin, hugging his body, warming him when he draped it around him. The path was covered with crystals of sand so fine they were like finely ground diamonds, sticking to his toes and ankles, making his feet sparkle like sunlight on water.
He came to a clearing, a large meadow filled with acres of flowers—snapdragons, foxglove, lavender, and sunflowers—lined with rows of fully blooming rose bushes in deep shades of red and pink. Walking through the meadow, his fingers danced on the tops of the garden bounty. He quickly turned around. Someone’s eyes were on him again. But again, partly in the sun and partly shaded, the lighted table and easel waited patiently. “Odd,” he murmured.
Claire almost pinched herself she was so annoyed. If she wasn’t careful, she would give him too much and he would wake up confused and disoriented. Belief was important. Disbelief was unproductive. She didn’t want him thinking he was losing his mind.
A flock of green parrots flew overhead and chattered noisily in the trees at the sides of the clearing, dropping fruit and making the large flat leaves and vines shed their drips of water, bobbing in the sunlight. Their screeching made the sunlight dim as the jungle became dark and covered in shadow. He sensed something evil lurking, watching him, at the other side of the pool. He felt dark eyes on his back as he ran through the jungle path until he got to another sunny clearing. All of a sudden, he was filled with unspeakable joy and peace, as if being held by some invisible golden arms.
I must remember this.
He quickly turned. He still felt eyes on him. Her eyes. My muse is playing hard to get. It brought a smile to his face. He saw the table in the distance, next to a little cottage covered in moss and green vines.
Muse of my paintings, are you there, where I can see you?
He walked under the open doorway, ducking to avoid hitting his head. A massive chair made of tangled branches called to him. He sat. Sprigs of moss and ferns adorned the back and arms of the massive chair, tickling his fingers.
He closed his eyes and leaned back, listening to the chatter, inhaling the steamy scent from the flowers in the meadow.
Where are you?
He exhaled, opened his eyes and, just as he thought, the lighted table sat before him, the chalk calling to his fingers.
In Daniel’s bedroom, Claire heard a loud scooter pass by his window. She quickly put her hands over his ears so the putting sound wouldn’t affect his dream. The horizon was starting to turn pink as the real world came back to life.
In the distance, Daniel saw a golden dome with spires of brightly colored flags flapping in the breeze. There were gardens, and golden paths … figures in white almost floating along the paths. Is this the land of muses? Does my muse live here?
The scene began to break up, the edges turning black, blotches forming in the middle. His last thoughts as he sailed off to sleep were filled with a longing for this place of the golden spires.
Or is this Heaven?
Oops. Claire had caused her homesickness to creep into Daniel’s dream. She’d showed him the playhouse and teaching garden. Note to self: stay present with Daniel. Only show him things he would see in the human world. Exaggeration was acceptable. Revealing parts of Heaven, not.
She sat in the corner of the room as the light through the window showed a softening sky, and watched her charge. He grew a smile. His bare chest rose and fell with his deep breathing. Then he rolled over to his side, exposing his muscled shoulder. She traced the line from his tanned bicep, down to his elbow, his forearm with the dusting of black hair extending to his wrist. The backs of his hands showed the veins of someone who used them often. His long fingers splayed on the sheet next to his body, delicately holding onto the night air.
She could wait or she could go, as he probably wouldn’t dream any longer tonight. She decided to just wait and watch him. She had a feeling this could become one of her favorite things.
At last, the first glow of sunlight started coming through the window. She stirred, realizing she’d been daydreaming what she would do if she took him there.
It would be Heaven.
Can’t wait to see what he paints today. She knew it was going to be magic.
Several days and nights passed, and Claire settled into a routine. Daniel would dream every night, then he would get up, shed his pajama bottoms, and jump into the shower. Each morning, Claire resisted the temptation to jump in with him, imag
ining what his tanned body would look like all lathered up. His morning showering and shaving routine became her reward for a long night of dream work. She blushed to herself. There were no words to describe just how curious she felt.
Daniel would emerge from the bathroom, his familiar scent surrounding him, and would get to work and paint every morning. Gone were his urgency and concern. He had not dreamed about Audray now for almost a week. Claire took credit for this permanent change in his mood.
Through his dreams, she fed him things she liked to do when she wasn’t with him, or things she’d done on previous trips to the Real world, like going to some of the flower shows, craft fairs, and the planetarium. She even threw in a couple of tours to a Laundromat to smell the fresh scent of clean clothes, and the perfume counter at Macy’s.
A couple of times she felt he was looking for someone. Is he looking for me?
Claire had no need of sleep, so there were large stretches of the daytime when Daniel was going about his daily life that she replenished herself. Even an angel couldn’t go forever without these necessary recharges. And humans didn’t sleep usually as much as they were awake, so it was never a problem for an angel to find the time.
She let Daniel initiate the dreams now. Often this could be a tug-of-war with her charges, but not Daniel. He seemed especially susceptible to her suggestions, as if he walked beside her, holding her hand. He’d start out on his own in some scene, but then she would creatively take it further, exaggerating and embellishing the dream. Usually it was something he thought about during the day, sometimes very briefly. She would take him there sometimes in a roundabout route, but she always started with his idea. The goal was to show him the beauty of the world in which he lived. She revealed to him small wonders that he could find around him.
Occasionally, Claire heard him murmur, “Thank you,” as he dreamed. She was sure it was an expression more appropriately meant for Father.
This isn’t work. This is communion at the altar of life. She worshiped human life, especially those gifted souls who could understand the magic and majesty of the creative process.
