by Robbi McCoy
Chapter 11
SUMMER, FIVE YEARS AGO
There weren’t many opportunities to play medieval musical instruments in public, but the Renaissance Faire definitely provided one. Every summer for the past several years, Harper had taken one of the instruments from her collection, dressed in increasingly authentic costumes and spent a long day entertaining the crowd. Roxie and Joyce usually joined her, bringing Joyce’s polished voice and Roxie’s superb Cockney accent to the party.
Harper was dressed as a boy this year. Her small breasts were simply not suited to the cinched bodices that Roxie and buxom Joyce wore. Besides, she enjoyed dressing as a boy. Clad in a tightly laced doublet, a Robin Hood-style felt cap, billowy off-white shirt and brown flannel breeches, she definitely looked the part. A leather flask filled with wine dangled from her belt. When she wasn’t playing it, she carried a mandolin by a leather strap over her shoulder. Joyce was in yellow and Roxie in green, both of them sporting many-colored ribbons and flowers in their hair and on their sleeves. Joyce had painted a red rose on her right breast, which bulged above the top of her bodice.
“Ah, kind sir,” Joyce begged, stopping a wealthy merchant with a huge yellow feather in his hat, “I’m so thirsty what with all the dust and the singin’. Could ye spare a drop of ale for a poor wanderin’ minstrel?”
He laughed cheerily and handed her his mug. “Here ye go, ye wretched creature.”
She turned the mug up, unceremoniously pouring the contents down her throat.
“Hey, there, go easy,” he complained, grabbing the mug back. “A drop indeed! Come here, my pretty wench.” He took her roughly in his arms and kissed her, grabbing her ass through the thick cloth of her skirt. “Ah!” he said, releasing her. “Meet me later, lass, at the wishing well.” He winked and walked on.
“Fun’s fun,” Harper said, “but you’re asking for trouble kissing strangers.”
“He’s no stranger,” Joyce replied. “That’s Lloyd Harkins, my accountant. And it’s not the first time he’s kissed me.” She grinned. It wasn’t that much of a stretch, Harper thought, for Joyce to play the part of lusty maid.
“I tried to get Dave to come,” Roxie said, referring to her husband. “But he has no interest in dressing up and playacting. Thinks it’s silly. It wouldn’t hurt him a bit to loosen up and be a little silly once in a while.”
Harper laughed, thinking of Dave in a Renaissance costume, stockings on his legs, baggy breeches on his lanky frame. “It’s hard to imagine Dave dressing up, I have to say. But if you had brought him, it would have at least given you a fellow to play with.”
Roxie grabbed Harper’s belt. “Oh, we’ve got a fellow. Little ’arper ’ere. Isn’t he cute?” Roxie hugged her playfully and kissed her cheek. In her normal voice, she said, “I should have been a boy. This skirt is damned uncomfortable and insufferably hot.”
“Oh, the summertime is coming,” sang Harper, strumming the mandolin. “And the trees are sweetly blooming, and the wild mountain thyme grows around the purple heather.”
Joyce and Roxie joined in for the chorus, Roxie playing her small wooden flute. When their song was finished, Roxie announced, “I’m hungry. Let’s go find some food.”
Leading the way, Harper played the mandolin and sang, Joyce’s tambourine rattling behind her. “Will ye go, lassie, go? And we’ll all go together to pull wild mountain thyme all around the blooming heather. Will ye go, lassie, go?”
Joyce had a rich contralto voice, well suited to these country lilts. Roxie’s voice was so-so, but her ability on the flute was outstanding. They made a fine trio, and although this was mainly for fun, all three of them took the effort seriously, practicing before the event, for instance.
They succumbed easily to the hawkish speech of a food merchant and each bought a toad-in-the-hole, sitting on bales of hay to eat them. “This is awful,” Joyce said after two bites.
“Authentically awful,” Harper told her. “That’s part of the fun. Go with it.”
Joyce, disgruntled, finished her lunch in silence. Harper washed hers down with a good portion of the wine in her flask. As they ate, they watched the revelers. There was a mock fight between two fat women and a man in a pillory begging passersby for water. An itinerant bard was spouting sonnets, doffing his hat at the ladies and kissing hands. On a nearby stage, a band featuring a drum, two bagpipes, a bass and a dulcimer played Celtic instrumentals.
Sufficiently rested, Harper stood, brushed the crumbs off her pants, and said, “I want to have my fortune told.”
“I want more beer,” Roxie announced. “We’ll meet up again in an hour right here, okay?”
Harper struck out on her own under the oak trees. Soon she came to a lane of merchants and weekend mystics of all sorts. Under a striped yellow and white lean-to, a woman with scarves around her head, wearing flowing Madras cotton robes, sat at a small round table covered with gold cloth. She beckoned to Harper with a many-ringed hand. Harper sat down across the table from her. The woman was not as old as her mannerisms suggested. She was close to Harper’s age, in fact.
“How are you enjoying the fair, my dear?” asked the divinator.
“It’s great. A lot of fun.”
The woman introduced herself as Madame Zelda. She spoke with flourishing hand and arm gestures, long red fingernails slashing the air. “So, will it be a tarot reading?”
Harper nodded.
“Have you had a reading before?”
“Once. Several years ago.”
“You must open your mind, my dear, if this is to work. Are you willing to do that?”
“Yes,” Harper assured her.
“Good. What is it that you want to know? Do you have a question?”
“Well, the obvious thing, I guess, would be something about my love life. Am I going to get married or meet someone new or end up alone and unloved.”
Madame Zelda smiled and let Harper shuffle the cards. With exaggerated deliberation, she turned up ten cards, one at a time, and arranged them in a precise pattern, pronouncing, after each, its role, until the cards were on the table in the form of a cross with four alongside.
Madame Zelda sat quietly contemplating the pattern for a moment. “Here is the Fool, “ she announced. “He’s a free spirit and represents an adventure into the unknown. The Fool’s journey requires the ability to act on impulse, to take a chance.”
Harper liked the sound of that. “To follow your heart?” she asked.
“Yes, exactly.” Zelda continued. “We have the King of Swords. The man in your life, perhaps. The King of Swords is an intellectual, a master of reason and logic.”
“Well,” Harper remarked, “that would have to be Eliot.”
“Your boyfriend?”
Harper nodded.
“Here we have the five of wands. That suggests discord between you. There’s a struggle of purposes. You don’t want the same things.”
This is getting eerie, Harper thought.
“The next card, the eight of cups, suggests a dissatisfaction with the status quo, the need to go on a journey of self-discovery. What you are currently experiencing,” continued Madame Zelda, “is growing uncertainty. I see by these cards that you can expect this situation to worsen in the near future. I’m afraid that you and your boyfriend may be heading toward trouble. And here, the Tower, an interesting card. The Tower represents a crisis or upheaval, your world being thrown into a state of chaos.”
“That’s scary,” Harper remarked.
“It doesn’t have to be. It can be the beginning of something new and wonderful. The Hanged Man here tells you to give up control, to surrender to the change, let yourself be vulnerable. If you can do that, you may be able to find a greater happiness than you’ve ever known.”
The fortune-telling continued in this manner until all of the cards had been explained. Madame Zelda paused, looking into Harper’s eyes. “If this is about your man, the cards are saying that you will separate. But eventually, you will find
a new happiness, much greater than this one. The cards indicate so strongly that you need to make a change that you may not want to be merely open to it. You may want to initiate it.”
Harper paid the woman, mulling over what had been foretold. It didn’t upset her, the idea of breaking with Eliot, especially if the result was greater happiness. She wondered, as she strolled a shady path, what this new lover with such huge potential would be like. She knew there was no magic in fortune-telling, but she definitely believed that the seed of an idea, planted in an open mind, could grow and influence events.
Resuming her role of wandering minstrel, she played her mandolin among the craft booths, singing, “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more; men were deceivers ever; one foot in the sea, and one on shore, to one thing constant never.” She stopped in front of a jewelry booth, singing to a group of women. “Then sigh not so, but let them go, and you be blithe and bonny, converting all your sounds of woe into ‘hey nonny, nonny’.”
Nearby, a sultry female voice said, “A pretty song, sir.”Harper turned to see a young woman regarding her with round sienna eyes from behind the jewelry counter. She wore an ankle-length orange skirt, white blouse, cobalt blue bodice and a garland of daisies over her long black hair.
“Thank you,” Harper said, hanging the mandolin over her shoulder.
“Tarry a moment and view my wares.” The young woman’s hands were clasped in front of her, her breasts bulging above her bodice in the manner of these costumes. Her eyes stared purposely. Her voice was deep and musical.
Harper looked at the jewelry to humor her. Predominantly sterling silver. Plenty of New Age symbolism—crystals, dragons’ claws, wizards and the like. Several pieces of the same type hung from chains around the girl’s neck.
“Have I anything to suit your desires, kind sir?” asked the girl, the tone of her voice suggestive, so much so that Harper looked up to see if her expression matched it. The girl smiled coquettishly, averting her eyes.
“Perhaps,” Harper said, playing along. That was what she was here for, after all, play. “Have you anything else to show me?”
A seductive smile appeared on the girl’s face. “Come around the counter, handsome fellow. I have some wares that I keep out of sight. I’m sure they will intrigue you.”
What game is she playing? Harper wondered. And do I want to play?
No harm in finding out, she decided. She walked around the counter to where the girl stood. They were face to face now behind a sparkling table of silver baubles and transparent crystals, sheltered only slightly by the structure of the booth from the eyes of passersby. The girl looped a finger in the leather thongs that crisscrossed Harper’s doublet and kept it tight across her chest.
“What did you want to show me?” Harper asked, almost whispering, a nervousness overtaking her.
“Come inside.” The girl nodded toward the tent opening beside them, tugging gently on the thong. “You won’t be sorry.”
They stood so close now that their clothing brushed together. She must know that I’m a woman, Harper thought. I haven’t disguised my sex that well.
“Saucy wench,” Harper said, suddenly emboldened by the wine and the costume. She slipped an arm around the girl’s slim waist, clasping her tightly. The girl let herself fall against Harper, not resisting. Her breasts were mesmerizing, her dark eyes enchanting, her lips sumptuous. Harper could imagine kissing them. As she allowed this image into her mind, a pang of desire gripped her. The girl obviously wanted to be kissed. Harper wanted to kiss her. So why not?
A boisterous greeting rang out, shattering the fantasy. “Harper, there you are!”
She jerked herself away from the girl to see Roxie, beer in hand, on the other side of the counter. Harper forced a smile.
“Perhaps the pretty youth will buy a bauble for his sweetheart?” said the girl, casting her hand toward Roxie with a wry smile. Harper hurried to join her friend, glancing back as they moved on to see the dark head turned in her direction. She struggled to regain her composure.
“What was that about?” Roxie asked.
“I’m not sure. I think I was being propositioned.”
“Sorry I interrupted,” Roxie said, arching her eyebrows. “You might have had quite a lark.”
“You don’t think I would have...”
Roxie laughed. “My God, Harper, sometimes you’re so provincial.”
Harper balked. Provincial? she thought, finding the word distasteful.
“I’m not,” she said, indignant. “I’m not the least bit provincial.” Roxie looked momentarily puzzled. “Harper, I’m just teasing you. Lighten up.”
Harper recognized the confusion in her mind. She tried, but failed, to laugh off the incident. For the rest of the day, images of the girl’s lips and bosom interrupted her fun. Lying in bed that night, unable to sleep, she was plagued by the memory of the desire that had gripped her in the presence of that dark-haired temptress.
The next morning, driven by those images, Harper put her costume on again and returned to the faire by herself, making her way directly to the jewelry booth. She had no plan. She only knew that she had to see the girl again, to try to understand her feelings. And there she was, just like yesterday, standing behind the counter, her demeanor jovial, her smile, which she flashed to each of her customers, flirtatious. Harper watched for a few minutes from some distance, unnoticed. The girl sold a necklace and then her booth was clear of visitors. Harper approached, wondering if the girl had been trifling with her and it had meant nothing, if she played this seduction game with everyone.
As soon as the girl looked up to see Harper, it was obvious that she recognized her. “Ah, sir,” she said, “you have returned. You saw something here that you liked, after all?”
Harper felt nervous in a way she hadn’t anticipated. “Yes,” she said. “Very much. Are you going to invite me in?”
The girl laughed her musical laugh and said, “No, not today.” She jerked her head toward the tent opening and scowled, and Harper realized that there was someone inside the tent. Just then he emerged, a bald man with massive arms and tattoos on his neck.
“Zoë,” he said, “where are those yellow zircons?”
“In the red tool box, the big one,” Zoë answered.
“I looked there. I’ve been through it three times already.”
“All right. I’ll look.” Zoë turned to go into the tent.
“Wait!” Harper said, too loudly.
Zoë turned back to look at Harper and shook her head almost imperceptibly, frowning. Then she slipped into the tent. The man smiled at Harper. “Is there something I can show you?”
Harper shook her head and left, feeling disappointed but not really knowing what it was she had come back for. She wanted to kiss that girl, Zoë, she knew that, but beyond that...? She had no idea.
Chapter 12
SUMMER, SIX YEARS AGO
The heavy wooden door swung open a few moments after Harper rang the bell. Mary Tillotson’s gorgeous custom-built house would be the setting for Harper’s project in the video production class she was taking. She tried to squeeze in at least one class a year, generally something in the arts, to keep herself engaged and current. Her instructor, Bob Lerner, had assigned them the daunting task of producing a half-hour show, subject open. Harper had struck upon this idea after seeing one of Mary’s watercolors hanging in the school cafeteria. A biography of a charismatic and successful local artist, that’s what she’d do. Couldn’t miss.
Harper was only a little surprised to see Chelsea Nichols in the doorway greeting her with a bright smile. Over the past two years she had become Mary’s satellite, at least on campus. Whenever Mary came into view, you could be sure that Chelsea was not far off.
Harper’s contact with her had been slight, limited to helping her find reference material on the occasions she came into the library. In almost every case, the presence of Mary could be discerned in her activities. “We’re reading Eudora Welty,” she woul
d say about one of her English classes. “Mary says I must read her autobiography, One Writer’s Beginnings.”
Harper wondered what it would be like to have a disciple. The rumor mill was going full force again, of course, regarding Mary and her predatory sexual forays among the female student body. Harper hadn’t heard Chelsea named but assumed it was her presence that was fueling the gossip. Shock, horror and titillation accompanied the rumors, spread primarily by male professors, many of whom, given the opportunity, would certainly have taken their own turn with such a pretty young coed. But the idea that a woman should do such a thing filled them with self-righteous indignation. Harper found the rumor mongering extremely repulsive, but that didn’t keep her from being intrigued by the real-life situation.
So finding Chelsea here at Mary’s house threw Harper off for just a second. Adjusting quickly, she noticed that the twenty-three-year-old’s long, sunny-blond hair was tinged slightly green, the result, no doubt, of hours spent in the enormous pool she had glimpsed on the north side of the house.
Chelsea, the epitome of health and youth, wore shorts and a cap-sleeved shirt, revealing tanned arms and legs that were smooth and muscular. “Hi, Harper,” she said familiarly, hooking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Come in.”
Harper followed Chelsea into a huge living room, ornately decorated with furnishings from a jumble of styles—Victorian, Oriental, Edwardian, Early American, Scandinavian and Shaker. The walls were almost obscured by paintings, dozens of them, all sizes and styles. Small statues and curious ornaments occupied the tables. A baby grand piano stood on a raised landing on one side of the room in front of heavy, forest green drapes, closed against the afternoon sun. Harper turned to see Chelsea grinning at her. “Cool, huh?”
