The Magic Circle

by Katherine Neville

  I squinted and studied the grid again. I’d now spent an hour on this eye-crossing puzzle, and my starting-to-heal arm throbbed and itched like crazy. I was able to connect the word Toussaint with some words I’d found earlier, such as go and through, but then I was lost again. Damn it, Sam! Get to Toussaint, go through—go through what?

  There were dozens of trails and lower slopes branching off those four I’d mentioned. But I took a deep breath, closed my bleary eyes, and tried to visualize the three-dimensional layout of the mountain. For instance, if you came off the top of the chair lift at Lookout, which fed onto three of the aforementioned slopes—all but Mayday—and if you then skied down around behind the lift, you’d be following a path that from a bird’s-eye view would very much resemble the way the letters that formed this message were laid out on the page! Indeed, even if I backtracked to the very beginning of the message, the words Sun Valley were placed on the page, if memory served me, at the same angle as the ski lift itself was laid out on the mountain!

  I knew I was on to something, so I kept my mind focused on the mountain. When you came off the lift, you dropped over a small ledge, then went through a wide mogul field. I opened my eyes and searched for the word mogul near where the field would actually be. It took a minute, but I found it—a zigzag pattern, exactly the way you’d have to ski it—with the word field just after. My heart started pounding.

  There was still some deciphering to be done, though.

  I had found the word down just after field, but I knew there were five other slopes branching off that mogul field, and I couldn’t recall their names any more than I would have recalled the first bunch if I hadn’t found Toussaint. All I ever recalled were geographical features, lift numbers and where the lifts took you, and the levels of difficulty marked on each run: green, blue, or black; circle, square, or diamond. None of these seemed to help here.

  I reminded myself how well Sam knew me. Just after the word down, I saw the letter b and traced it through a sharp switchback pattern that formed two words: black diamond. The black diamond run below the mogul field emptied out at the base of another lift. If I took that I would arrive atop the next slope. I followed the words on the page just there. They read then follow this path through, and the word then going north was woods. Since the end of a word at an edge of a page meant “exit,” I assumed this was the end of the message. And that it marked the spot where I’d meet Sam at noon on Sunday.

  So I could see the whole pattern now: I would take chair lift three to Lookout, ski through the mogul field, and take the early branch to my left onto a black diamond, or most difficult, run. Everything was simple—except for the steepness of that slope, if I happened to fall with my bad arm. This run, I knew, would put me over around the side of the mountain, away from the tourists, in a backwoods where tracks were narrow and where markers left by Sam could be easily read by me, so he would feel safe to change them at the last moment, if necessary, to redirect my path.

  I felt highly proud of myself, deciphering all this from a 26-by-26 matrix—though I knew it was Sam who was brilliant, putting it into geographical context only to be read by someone who knew the lay of the land as well as he himself did.

  Just as I was about to erase the matrix still looming on the screen, I remembered to hunt for another, deeper layer. I double-clicked my mouse on the asterisk, to no avail. Then I tried the first letter of Sun Valley, and finally I clicked on the exit letter s in woods. The screen vanished at once and a message popped up:

  Keen gnosis of gnosis. Signed: Reg du Coly.

  Reg du Coly was an anagram of Grey Cloud, Sam’s sacred spirit name known only to me—just as were C. G. Loudyer and Lou D. Grecy and all the other rearrangements of letters of our names that we used to make up to dazzle each other when we were kids. So this meant that the other half was an anagram too, and contained the other half of the message from Sam to me.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Not all that long, actually. I was very good at cryptic anagrams—something Sam had counted on.

  The first word of his anagram was keen, which the dictionary at my fingertips told me was a mourning cry or lament for the dead. Highly appropriate, considering that Sam was technically dead and that’s what I felt like doing right now, keening, even if I knew he was actually alive.

  The other word, gnosis, I knew meant knowledge—especially the secret, hidden, esoteric kind one needed in transformations. Once again contextually appropriate to my genealogical bent, my career, and the situation in which I seemed to have found myself while sitting in front of my computer just at this moment.

  The easiest and quickest way to decipher an anagram is to take all common letters and sort them into clumps, then see what words they produce in common. For instance, in Sam’s eighteen-letter message Keen gnosis of gnosis, there were the following numbers of vowels and consonants: e=2, i=2, o=3, f=1, g=2, k=1, n=3, s=4. There weren’t that many meaningful sentences you could construct from so limited a set. To simplify even those options, he’d provided two clues in the words keen and gnosis.

  If a keen was a lament or moan, then it was a sound, a cry, maybe even music. And given that my mother and grandmother had each been among the top singers of her day, it was a good bet that by keen Sam meant a song.

  With the letter set Sam had given me there were enough letters to spell song not once but twice—which was all it took. Of the letters left over, after borrowing from my crop to create two songs, I quickly spelled the words seek and in. Ergo: I Seek in Song of Songs was my message.

  So that’s what I would do.

  Olivier had the Book of Mormon in his top desk drawer, though there was no Bible. But good lord, there were so many religious fanatics here at the site that they even had brown-bag scripture readings at lunchtime. There must be a copy of the Bible somewhere. I dashed around a few offices until I found one. Then I flipped through and located the book.

  And I read: “The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s …”

  It didn’t escape me that this wasn’t the only reference Sam had made to Solomon. The first was the Solomon’s knot he’d hung from my rearview mirror: his first contact with me since being born again. Not feeling I really had time, tonight, to decipher the hidden meaning in a seven-page poem that had inspired zeal on the part of so many over the millennia, I slaked my immediate interest just by flipping to the last stanza:

  “Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices …”

  And I knew I must make all due haste, to the mountain.

  THE MERRY-GO-ROUND

  Woe to Ariel, to Ariel … yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow …

  For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations and his fury upon their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.

  —Isaiah 29, 34

  One cannot say it is pleasanter to look at a battle than at a merry-go-round, but there can be no question which draws the larger crowd.

  —George Bernard Shaw

  Sunlight glittered like black diamonds off the volcanic cones of the Craters of the Moon National Monument. Wild, twisted lava beds sprawled across the valley floor as the car shot down the deserted road heading toward Sun Valley.

  We’d taken my car because Olivier’s was still on the fritz, but he did the driving. Jason sat, or stood with front paws on the dashboard, checking out the panoramic view and keeping close tabs on the navigation. My arm had recovered enough to drive, so Olivier was surprised when I asked him to drive the whole 150-mile trek so I could sit in the backseat and read the Bible. Maybe he thought my recent troubles had driven me to find solace in the Good Book, but that’s not what I was seeking in the Song of Songs, now lying open on my lap—nor did it seem a likely tale to provide much solace.

  I found it odd that Sam would pick the Bible to hide his message in. Neither of us had much expertise in the religion department, a
nd this particular chapter, which I’d never actually read, was about as steamy as you could get in a book with no brown paper wrapper. The torrid, heavy-breathing account of a romance between King Solomon and the Shulamite, a young woman who works down in the vineyards—it’s more or less in the same league as the Kama Sutra. By chapter seven, he’s even drinking liquor from her belly button. I tell you: a real bodice ripper.

  It’s hard to imagine such verses being read aloud from a pulpit, especially falling as they do, in biblical sequence, between the ashes-to-ashes of Ecclesiastes and the hellfire and brimstone of Isaiah, both of which I skimmed for perspective, hoping they’d give a hint of what Sam was trying to tell me. To no avail.

  When we reached Sun Valley, Olivier unloaded the few bags and our skis, and we checked in at the front desk. Then I took Jason to my room and rang up Laf to let him know we’d arrived. Earlier in the week I’d left a message here at the Lodge for Laf, saying I might bring two friends this weekend. Laf had wired back saying he’d await our arrival and take us all to brunch. But Wolfgang’s later message said he had been detained in Nevada, so today it would just be Uncle Lafcadio, Olivier, and me—or so I thought. After dumping our gear upstairs in our respective rooms, Olivier and I went together to the Lodge Dining Room to meet Laf.

  The dining room’s massive stone fireplace, richly paneled walls, high ceilings with crystal chandeliers, crisp damask tablecloths laden with place settings of heavy silver and steaming coffee urns, and its vast windows displaying snowy meadows beyond—all spoke of a time of quiet elegance between the wars, when Sun Valley was built by the railroad to attract the rich and famous to the unknown, therefore exotic, wilderness of the Idaho Rockies.

  The maître d’hôtel escorted Olivier and me to a large circular table reserved for our party at the prime location before the windows. A bowl of bloodred roses graced the center of the table, the only one so ornamented in the room. A few diners discreetly glanced our way as we were seated, our water glasses were filled at once, and a basket of fresh warm breads magically appeared. The maître d’ himself took the Dom Pérignon from the icer beside our table and filled our crystal champagne flutes.

  “I’ve never been treated this way here before,” Olivier said when we were alone. “It’s generally cold shoulders and colder food.”

  “You mean the instant wine and roses?” I asked. “It’s all for my uncle Lafcadio; he’s the prince of splash and panache. That’s just the audience warmup.”

  Just then, with impeccable timing, Laf swept through the double doors across the vast dining room. His entourage included the maître d’ as well as Laf’s personal valet and an unknown woman and several waiters. He paused, removing his gloves finger by finger, before advancing toward us, his trademark floor-length cape billowing in waves, sucking in its wake the attention of the other diners. Uncle Laf didn’t care to be lost in the crowd—nor was it likely: he enjoyed a brand-name recognition enhanced by the fact that his mug shot appeared on as many album jackets as Franz Liszt’s.

  Crossing the room with long strides, Laf swept his gold-handled cane before him as if scattering wildfowl from his path. I rose from the table to greet him. As he threw his arms wide to embrace me, the cape slipped from his shoulders. It was caught from behind (on one finger, before the hem touched earth) by Volga Dragonoff, Laf’s impeccable Transylvanian valet, who swirled it in midair with a flourish, then dropped it over his own arm—a choreography so artistically executed I knew it had been rehearsed.

  Ignoring the byplay behind his back, Laf embraced me. “Gavroche! What a sight for the sore eyes!” he said, beaming and holding me away, the better to see me.

  In unison, the waiters pulled out our chairs and stood there holding them, waiting for us to take our seats. That meant we’d be standing awhile, because Laf disliked being dictated to—even in body language—by those in the serving classes. He tossed back his shoulder-length mane of white hair, looking at me with sharp blue eyes.

  “You are even more beautiful than once your mother was,” he told me.

  “Thanks, Uncle Laf. You look terrific, too,” I said. “I’d like you to meet my friend Olivier Maxfield.”

  Before Olivier could speak, the young woman who’d arrived with Laf stepped from the group behind him. As if proffering assistance to ford a stream, Laf crooked his arm and she rested one long, elegant hand there—a hand almost ostentatiously devoid of paint or jewels—and smiled at us.

  “Delighted,” Laf said. “Gavroche, I present my companion: Bambi.”

  Bambi? I mean, this chick was some item, as by now everyone in the room had noticed.

  I really had to hand it to Uncle Laf. This was not your ordinary run-of-the-mill exotic sleeve decoration of the sort Laf had watered in his stable ever since Pandora, the great passion of his life, had died. Au contraire, this one was a thoroughbred, one of the most breathtakingly beautiful women I’d ever laid eyes on. She had a face that managed to be at once both sculptural and sensual, with languid eyes, full lips, and high cheekbones framed by long blond hair. She was wearing a creamy, clingy, one-piece velour body suit that was unzipped sufficiently low to reveal plenty of what was beneath—which in itself was truly astonishing. But it wasn’t only her voluptuous beauty that had vacuumed the room into total silence. She had a rarer quality still. She exuded a kind of glimmering luminescence, as if she were made of living, breathing gold. Her hair shimmered like a waterfall when she moved; her flesh had the glow of a rich, ripe fruit; the wide-set eyes glittered from the depths with a sea of little gold sparkles. Yep, this was definitely the face that launched a thousand ships and sent the fabled towers of Ilium up in smoke.

  Okay, maybe it was sour grapes, but—there had to be something wrong with her. Then she opened her mouth and spoke.

  “Grüss Gott, Fräulein Behn,” she said. “Your Onkel hass told me so much about you. It hass been my lifelong dream to meet you.”

  Hmm: her lifelong dream. Not a major contender in the goal-setting department. And despite the hochdeutsch accent, her manner exuded the vacuous wispiness of a none too clever child. She offered her fingertips like a limp washcloth to me; her eyes, which a moment ago had seemed of impenetrable depth, now seemed only impenetrably vacant. I glanced at Olivier, who shrugged and grinned back a little sadly. There was definitely room for rent upstairs.

  “I hope you two will be like sisters,” Laf said, pressing Bambi’s arm.

  Laf turned toward our table of waiting waiters, at last prepared to be seated, the signal for the rest of us to do likewise. The Transylvanian factotum Volga Dragonoff—who could divine Laf’s every whim as if they were connected at the frontal lobes—found himself a chair across the room by the door and sat there holding Laf’s cape on his lap. I’d never known Volga to take a meal with my uncle or any of the family, even when stranded for two days inside a lean-to in the Tyrol with nothing to eat but trail mix. I tapped my brow to Volga and he nodded back, not smiling. Volga never smiled.

  “Bambi is an extremely talented cellist,” Laf was telling Olivier, which got my attention. I knew what that meant. “Everyone knows,” he went on, “that deft fingering and the action of the bowing wrist are hallmarks of all great string artists. But very few realize that, when it comes to the cello—”

  “It’s how you grip it with your thighs that really counts,” I finished up.

  Olivier glanced at me, choked, and reached for the water.

  “Yes, indeed,” Uncle Laf agreed as the maître d’ arrived with the menus. “The performer’s body itself must become the instrument, completely enfolding the music in a hot and all-encompassing embrace of passion.”

  “I can see that,” Olivier managed to croak. His eyes were riveted in astonishment on Bambi’s Olympian body.

  “I’ll have the oeufs Sardou,” Uncle Laf was telling the maître d’. “But with béarnaise, and plenty of extra lemon.”

  Olivier leaned toward me and whispered: “I am breaking out in hives.”

&nb
sp; “Gavroche, perhaps you young people will like to go skiing this afternoon, after brunch?” Uncle Laf asked when he’d finished ordering for Bambi as if she were a child.

  I shook my head and pointed to my injured arm.

  “Then we two can have our private chat while the others ski. But just now, while we have our meal, I thought I might tell a story of more general interest—”

  “A family story?” I asked, with what I hoped was a tone of cautionary reserve. Hadn’t Uncle Laf told me on the phone that what he had to say was confidential?

  “Not really family,” said Laf with a smile, patting my hand. “Actually, this is my own story, a story I’m sure you’ve never heard, for your father doesn’t know it any more than did my half brother Earnest. Nor does Bambi here, who thinks she knows every dark and hidden secret behind my transparent and public life.”

  This seemed an odd characterization of the vapidly beautiful Bambi, whose demeanor suggested an incapacity for sustained interest in any topic.

  “Despite my long and full life, Gavroche,” Laf continued, “I still recall every sight, every taste, every scent. Sometime I must discuss my philosophy that aromas are indeed the keys to unlock such early memories. But the strongest memories are those associated with either the greatest beauty or the greatest bitterness. The day when I first met Pandora, your grandmother, was a combination of the two.”

  The procession of waiters arrived, set down our dishes, and simultaneously whipped the lids off with a flourish. Laf smiled at me, and went on, “But to explain how it all began, I must tell you first of the bitterness—then the beauty.

  “I was born, Gavroche, toward the end of the year 1900, in Natal province on the east coast of South Africa. The place itself was named four hundred years earlier by Vasco Da Gama to commemorate the Nativity, for he’d sighted the place on Christmas Day. The astrological portents at the time of my birth were extraordinary: five planets at once were passing through the sign of Sagittarius, the archer. The most important of these was Uranus, bringer of the new world order, the planet that was expected to usher in the new age of Aquarius nearly upon us. Or one might call it, rather, a new world disorder, since from ancient times it was prophesied that the Aquarian age would begin with the violent destruction of the old order, crushed and washed out to sea as though by a tidal wave. For my family there in Natal, that upheaval had already begun: I was born at the very height of the Boer War, the event that baptized this century in fire and blood.