Asphodel: The Second Volume of the Muse Chronicles

by David P. Jacobs

  “One day Thomas,” continued the Fates, “your son will graduate from his educational institution and you will hand him . . . this . . .” Atropos brought out a silver chain which held a key with the top portion shaped like a dandelion. The fingernails that held the key were black with mold and gnarled like driftwood chopped by a furious white-water rapid current.

  Seeing the key, Annette gasped. “I’ve seen that key before!”

  “Have you?” Nathaniel asked.

  “I’ll hand him nothing!” Thomas screamed.

  The women shouted with fury. The skin on their faces hung loose. Their eyes shriveled into empty sockets. “Do as we say, Thomas, or you’ll rot along with us!”

  Thomas looked at his hands and shrieked. They, like the Fates, aged exponentially. Thomas reached for the dandelion key but his joints were already deteriorating causing him to wince in pain. The harder he reached the more he felt constricted by the maladies of age. Initially the effects were physical but, as seconds passed, Thomas felt his sanity begin to quiver.

  From Nathaniel’s perspective, Annette looked doubtful that he’d make it out alive.

  Thomas seized the key. Youth swept through his lungs and swam through the blood in his veins. The twelve-year-old Thomas shielded his eyes from the festering Fates by fleeing to the flap which miraculously swung open.

  Normalcy awaited him: laughter, bells, whistles and the cries of carnival employees! Without hesitation, Thomas soared through the flap, escaping his captors, rejoicing in the warm night air toward civilization. Thomas’ eyes set on a familiar and reassuring face.

  Kathleen stood with a prize teddy bear in one hand, cotton candy in another.

  “Is everything alright?” Kathleen asked Thomas as he ran past her out of desire to be far from the tent.

  Seeing her face reminded him of the transformations he had witnessed. As he looked over his shoulder, Thomas discovered that, where the tent sat previously, was only the empty ground. On that ground were crushed dandelions.

  Thomas breathed deeply, looking at a concerned Kathleen. He looked at his hand where he saw the silver dandelion key. Thomas ran from the carnival with key in hand, frantic to return home. Hoping that the farther he ran, the less chance the Fates’ words were to come true.

  A light dusting of snow filtered through the clouds on a January Saturday afternoon twenty years later. Boots of pedestrians crunched indents in the freshly fallen flakes. Streets were slick with ice bringing the traffic to move at a congested pace. It was on a typical residential street when thirty-two year-old Thomas’ Mercedes was suddenly rear-ended by a second vehicle. While inspecting the damage, his blushed chiseled cheeks puffed warm air into his gloveless hands. His head was covered by a black fedora which caught the drifting flakes of snow. The visible hair atop his head showed a bit of white. His eyes were as gray as the afternoon around him.

  “I’m so sorry,” said the other driver. She was flushed and flustered, tightening a red scarf around her neck. “It’s the ice, you see. I couldn’t get control.”

  “Like trying to control the weather,” he told her with a visible breath on his chapped lips. “It can’t be done even in the best of circumstances.” His attention was drawn from the damage to the woman underneath the scarf. “Kathleen?”

  Kathleen, twenty years older, was stunning in her adulthood as she had been in her youth. She looked up from the bumper. A warm smile greeted him; so warm Thomas wondered if it could melt the snow. “Thomas Rothchild? The last time I saw you . . .”

  “Was the night of the carnival, twenty years ago . . .” as he completed her thought, a set of toxic emotions coursed through him in remembering why he had stopped trailing her.

  Despite his dithering, they shared more than insurance information that blisteringly cold day. They discussed similar religious and right-wing political interests over hot cider. During the spring they held one another at drive-in movies. There were days when Thomas would look out from his office window and think of her. He cultivated the love in his heart for her until, one day, when it was particularly sunny, and the sky was the bluest it had ever been, Thomas propped himself on a knee offering Kathleen his hand in marriage. As Thomas slid the diamond engagement ring up Kathleen’s finger, a monarch butterfly skipped in for a closer look. They married in his estate’s backyard and consummated their bond by making love in a patch of lavender lilacs under a waning moon.

  Throughout the spring, and into the summer’s heat, they sat on the porch of their house fanning themselves with patriotic cardboard paddles. On the weekends they drank sun tea with lemon. They made love every evening and shared dreams from the previous night. They played Chinese checkers while cicadas screeched and fireflies tickled the hedges beyond the porch banister.

  There were times when she would ask Thomas what he had been running from the night of the carnival. Thomas would respond by saying “even though it may not have seemed it, I was running towards you and our future happiness.”

  When autumn arrived and the leaves began to crinkle, her stomach grew larger, like an inflated balloon testing its strengths. An ultrasound of Kathleen’s midsection gave proof that, within the shadows of her belly, something precious stirred. Husband and wife would cuddle under the covers, she with her belly facing out, he spooning her fondly from behind. His heartbeat would coax hers to follow in its soothing rhythm. The baby inside her tummy was happy. It kicked. She smiled when this happened.

  As Thomas climbed the economic ladder, scaling a steep mountain of employment to support his family, he forgot about his insecurities relating to the prophecies of the Dandelion Sisters. He dismissed the idea of magic and mythology from his youth while focusing on the practical adult world saturated in undeniable reason.

  Jonas Rothchild was born on January 10th. He was a Capricorn like his father. Cradled in the crook of his mother’s arm, Jonas’ beady little eyes strained to make sense of his life. His tiny fingers tickled the fabric of his mother’s hospital gown while his toes nestled tightly swaddled in a white cotton blanket.

  “Isn’t he beautiful?” Kathleen asked her husband who sat at the foot of the bed.

  Thomas, staring out the window to the falling snow, was lost in thought perhaps pondering the perplexing prophecies from the Fates. It was only then that Thomas reconsidered his feelings. Though Jonas was his son, he couldn’t help but to wonder what purpose Jonas would serve and how the dandelion key he had been given would factor. Shaking himself from such things, he smiled and held out a finger to his son’s which was considerably smaller. As Jonas avoided his father’s finger keeping close watch on the woman holding him, it was obvious who the child preferred.

  “Are you going to hold him?” Kathleen offered their son to Thomas.

  “He prefers you.”

  “Nonsense.” Kathleen transferred Jonas to her husband who held him awkwardly while staring into the baby’s wrinkled face.

  Thomas was reflected in the bulbous steel gray eyes of his son. Jonas started to squirm. He handed Jonas to Kathleen who took him lovingly into her arms. Jonas was instantly calmed, enamored by his mother’s eyes.

  “Home,” Kathleen sighed as the snowflakes thickened on the window’s glass.

  Four days passed. The Rothchilds strapped their newborn, and baby carrier, into the Mercedes. Kathleen was in the passenger seat, her face resting against the cool glass as she watched the snow descend. Thomas shuffled himself into the front seat clicking his seat-belt into place. He adjusted the heat which blew from the vents.

  The prospect of going home far outweighed the journey they would have to endure to get there. The tires bumped and shook over the dunes of snow like a Jeep exploring jungle terrains. Jonas was tucked safely within his restraints dreaming of happier things. The profile of his chubby face puffed with involuntary intakes of breath. Though the windshield wipers swept the snow, heavier snow took its place.

  Both Nathaniel and Annette knew that the trip home wasn’t going to be a safe one.
Nathaniel remembered standing out in the snow with Annette when she first came to the peg to provide the catalyst.

  Annette, who had been witnessing this from the back seat as she had been sitting beside Jonas, darted her eyes out the front windshield where she spotted two figures standing at a distance in the blizzard: a past version of herself having been in a black hoodie and a past version of Nathaniel who accompanied her. Annette fled from the vehicle crunching through the snow in her wedding dress.

  “Where are you going?” Nathaniel called to her.

  “When we came to the inspiration, we saw two other figures, besides us, standing in the snow!” Annette called to Nathaniel over her shoulder.

  “You’re not going to find them, whoever they were!” Nathaniel called back to her.

  She extracted the pistol, running through the snowstorm, as the accident concerning the semi-truck replayed.

  From Nathaniel’s perspective, Annette’s white wedding gown made her transparent in the blizzard conditions. Disinterested in her current attempts, Nathaniel focused on the accident that had re-occurred between the Rothchild’s Mercedes and the semi-truck. He watched as the past version of Miss Redmond had stumbled down a half-hidden ravine to help the victims. Nathaniel stood beside a past version of himself while witnessing the incident. Kathleen was dead. In the ditch, baby Jonas cried into the bleak landscape; a siren casting a plea that was torn apart by a ravaging wind that tossed malicious flurries. The entire landscape, to Nathaniel, resembled a field of fully matured, dying, dandelions.

  *

  Thomas Rothchild’s story ended. Nathaniel was delivered to Annette’s cathedral office and to the colored peg they had rotated counter-clockwise.

  Annette was implanted in a far corner of her office. Realizing her chase proved futile, she relaxed, lowering her arms and pistol. She shook her head, incontestably whitewashed in her pursuit for evidence.

  “I was certain I’d have the answers I was looking for when we turned that peg,” Annette told Nathaniel. With the pistol returned to her holster, she crossed to the desk and opened one of the manila folders. She sifted through pictures. She held a picture to Nathaniel: a photograph of the dandelion key they had seen in Thomas’ life. “On the day before my wedding, this picture came by way of unmarked post from an anonymous source. There was also an address of a residential home which was believed to have been the childhood home of the Thunderstorm Man.”

  She tacked the photo of the dandelion key on the dry erase board with the photos of Lyle, Doris and Sarah Milbourne. “I wonder what the key opens?”

  “What we saw in Thomas’ peg was him being the handed the key by the Sisters. Trinkets transfer hands over generations. Though the key was destined for Mr. Rothchild, it could have ended up in the hands of anyone!”

  “No . . .” Annette stopped him. “During orientation, Fiona had stated that Jonas was wearing the dandelion key around his neck when he disappeared after his twenty-second violet envelope.” She studied Nathaniel.

  Nathaniel brushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose.

  “. . . Or at least I thought Fiona said that.” Annette slumped into a swivel chair. “It’s confusing, Mr. Cauliflower. I felt a sense of clarity when I regained my memories of being Annette Slocum, but now it’s getting befuddled. I can’t make sense of anything! I wish . . .” Annette silently studied the sprouted yellow tulips.

  Nathaniel stepped forward. “You wish what, Mrs. Slocum?”

  “I wish I could forget this business with Jonas,” she explained with her back to him. “He’s been my bully ever since I was a girl in my previous life. He was my enemy even through my adulthood before I was employed as a muse.” She sighed. “And here he is, corrupting my second life!”

  “He’s corrupting your life because you’re allowing him to,” Nathaniel told her. “You’re picturing him as this insurmountable opponent in a case he may not even be affiliated with! Yes, he was here as a Tenth Generation muse, and yes he neglected a violet envelope which brought you and nine other muses here to fix. But Mrs. Slocum,” he took another step closer to her and said tenderly, “you’re giving him too much power.”

  “So I return to my life and marry Adam. Then what? I’ll still be working on a case that’s already consumed my attention. Whether Jonas is responsible or not, the real ‘Thunderstorm Man’ is out there.”

  “Not necessarily,” Nathaniel told her. “The life you’re living as a missing person’s detective can be changed.”

  “Changed?” Annette scoffed. “Like how Jonas stole that violet envelope?”

  “Mrs. Slocum, Management has a way of rearranging things as long as it is on their terms. I’ve appealed with Management. They’ve re-positioned everything so that, after you blow out your candle on your personal pie, you won’t be returning to your life as a missing person’s detective. You’ll be waking up, with your fiancé Adam, as a pie maker.”

  “What about the case?” Annette asked incredulously.

  “I’ll be handling it for you,” Nathaniel told her.

  “Why would you do that for me?” Annette asked, baffled by his generosity.

  “That’s what friends do,” Nathaniel told her. “Despite our bickering and fighting, and despite your shortcomings and my temper, I think we would make fairly decent friends, don’t you?”

  “You talked to Management and rearranged everything?” Annette wanted to know.

  Though he had told her many lies since she had been here, mostly in effort to keep her from harm, this was an honest moment. “Yes, Mrs. Slocum. It’s arranged.” He lifted a feathered white swan mask from her desk handing it to her. “We have enough time to visit the retirement masquerade . . .”

  With that settled, Annette allowed herself to abandon her damaging fixation. She removed the pistol from the holster and emptied the magazine, contemplating her last moments as a missing person’s detective. In the process, she mentally prepared herself for the life of a pie maker. She placed the pistol and magazine into the desk drawer, sealed it shut and whispered an almost inaudible goodbye to her past occupation. She faced Nathaniel free of the burdens that once tied her down to a dismal, outdated reality.

  The masquerade ball Nathaniel mentioned commenced in the hallway which had been expanded into a large rectangular ballroom of polished floors and gothic windows with crimson drapes. Bronze candelabras with erect flame-tipped wicks lined the perimeter of the dance floor. A single Victrola record player was in a far corner playing a somber ballet. The muses, donned with their own masks and formal wear, waltzed fashionably. Paul Lawrence Dunbar danced with Anna Pavlova; Harriet unenthusiastically swayed with Mr. Andrews; Lucas and Icarus held one another as they moved in their own romantic tempo. A handful of clients danced on the floor with their own respective partners while others watched from the sidelines awaiting their turn.

  Nathaniel stood to the side by Fiona observing the events. He hadn’t worn a mask to the ball, believing the natural mask of his own harmless mendacity was sufficient enough. As a groundswell of evening gowns and tuxedos waved in front of him, Nathaniel couldn’t help notice Annette who sat in a lone chair as the “odd man out” watching Lucas who wore a sleek, black shiny Pinocchio mask with small eye holes masking his face.

  “You should dance with her,” Fiona whispered to Nathaniel.

  Nathaniel chortled. “And risk losing my ten toes under the misguided steps of her probable horrid dance moves? I think not.”

  The thought crossed his mind of taking Annette’s waist. He rolled his eyes and stepped forward but someone beat him to it: the same black Pinocchio mask. Focused on Annette and her and her new dance partner, Nathaniel stealthily circled the perimeter listening in.

  Annette held his shoulder and hand while he, with his own hands, touched her waist and wrapped his other hand around hers. She looked into the small eye-holes of the mask.

  “I’ve missed you,” she told him.

  “I’ve missed you too,” he responded.
r />   “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant.”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t do this sooner.”

  “I can’t think of any place I’d rather be,” Annette said to him.

  He smiled at Annette, beaming. His eyes then shifted slightly to the side as if seeing someone, or something, distracted him.

  Annette looked discouraged, knowing he was no doubt looking at Icarus wanting to be with him.

  He frowned. “I have to go.”

  “I know,” Annette sighed.

  They stopped dancing but he still held her hand telling her, “This moment is something I’ll forever treasure.”

  Annette wrapped her arms around him, holding him close. “I love you.”

  He smiled, leaving Annette on the dance floor.

  Annette wasn’t alone for long as Nathaniel tapped her shoulder. She turned and smiled at Nathaniel as he took her waist. She tilted her head back slightly and laughed as she took his hand in hers. They waltzed flawlessly, looking into each other’s eyes. Her steps were pre-calculatingly precise. The music built to a crescendo and ended replaced by a slower piece that required less movement. Nathaniel stood awkwardly beside her. Annette intentionally guided Nathaniel’s other hand to her waist and her arms went around and extended behind his neck. The distance between them shortened by a few inches as they swayed.

  “You host a spectacular party, Mr. Cauliflower.”

  “Oh,” Nathaniel told her. “There are few surprises yet to see.” He batted his eyes to the right.

  Annette followed his gaze where she noticed a pasty man with a prominent forehead and moustache. He had deep set eyes and black hair parted to the side. He wore a black suit and bow tie. He walked through the crowd, studying the details of the dance hall.