by Tanai Walker
“Thanks, Jimmy. I owe you one.”
Once home, I hurried to my study and the rolltop desk. I pulled out the box, found the two postcards of my goddess, and laid them on either side of the flyer. I studied the three photos side by side, black-and-white, and sepia tone, and full gloss color, until no doubt remained of the resemblance.
I sat back in my seat. Of ancient lady cults, beasts, and Mexican gypsies, this was the one thing I just could not fathom. As if on cue, Sandra called to tell me she had texted directions to the restaurant and that she was leaving her house.
I left right away. Sandra’s directions led me to a red-brick building around the corner from a small park presided over by a large oak. She waited for me at a corner table with a bottle of wine. My heart lifted at the sight of her, waiting for me, and smiling once she spotted me.
She wore a soft, pink T-shirt with some designer logo over her breast. The collar dipped into a deep V that revealed a nice view of her cleavage. She smiled at me when I sat.
“You look cute.”
“I bothered to go home and change,” she said tartly.
“Didn’t know that was a prerequisite.”
She grinned and poured me a glass of wine and we toasted.
“How is everything with…you know?” she asked. “How do you feel?”
“I feel great, now.”
She sighed and rested her chin on her hand. She looked beautiful, and I felt compelled to append my previous comment on her cuteness.
I glanced at my menu. “I’ve been very hungry lately. That usually happens around this time.”
“Oh?” Sandra put down her wineglass. “Is that a heads-up?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder how that works,” she said. “Like is it totally metaphysical, or are there some traces of it, like in your blood or your bones?”
I shrugged. “I try to avoid the doctor. And I’ve never gotten sick since the initiation.” A waiter came and took our orders. Sandra insisted that we split a plate of veal parmigiana so we could have room for an appetizer and dessert. We had fritto misto, a mix of meats and calamari deep-fried in batter, and after our entrée, panna cotta, which reminded me of the Mexican flan, drenched in black raspberry liqueur.
I hardly ever ate out. I saw it as more of a social thing and always felt weird when I found myself in a restaurant alone. Sandra was of course in her element. We went through a bottle and a half of wine by the end of dessert and chatted until the staff began to stack the chairs.
We paid and walked out, where we found the night hot yet breezy. The clouds moved fast above us, and I knew there would be rain before morning. Sandra leaned on me and giggled on our way to the parking lot.
I directed us to the little park and we walked along the semi-lit path. She stopped as we passed beneath. “What?” I asked.
She grinned and her eyes glinted, even in such low light. “There is something about you, Tinsley Swan. And I’m not just being desperate and horny right now.”
“Don’t forget drunk,” I added.
We laughed. We kissed. She tasted of raspberry liqueur.
Behind us, someone cleared her throat. Sandra stepped away from me, but held on to my hand. I muttered an apology to the person offended by our lesbian PDA.
“Hello, Sister of Flame,” the stranger said with a French-tinged accent. I tilted my head. No one had referred to me by that title since the summer of ’83.
“Juliette?”
She stepped from the shadows, as lithe at ever, and still heartbreakingly lovely. She reached out for me and I pulled her into a limp hug. When we pulled away, I could feel Sandra’s eyes on us like daggers.
I turned to her. “This is Juliette.”
“The Juliette? The Sisterhood Juliette?”
I nodded. Juliette hissed. “What have you told her?” she asked.
“Everything,” I said. “It’s public knowledge, you know. The press had a field day. Everyone was up in arms about satanic cults—”
“An old wound that the Sisterhood has nearly recovered from,” Juliette said. “We need your help, Tinsley. The goddess walks.”
I took Sandra’s hand and walked away from the woman I had not seen in over twenty years.
“We’ve always watched over you,” she called behind us.
“Sure,” I said without turning. “Quinn continues to burn the great pyre every seven years, and turn me into a beast.”
“Quinn is dead, Tinsley.”
I stepped back, not sure how I should take the news. The woman who had cursed me was dead. Sandra moved next to me in the semi-darkness and took my hand.
“I lead the Sisterhood now,” Juliette said.
“You’ve been lighting the fire?” I asked.
“I have to, Tinsley,” she said. “There is so much you missed out on learning.”
“Trust me, I’ve gotten all the education I need.”
“The goddess walks.” Juliette said that strange phrase again. “The beast seeks her. That is what’s different about this cycle and why I’m here asking for your help.”
I stopped and she stepped around me, next to Sandra. I could see her face better, and the scars left by the beast’s attack, slanted welts across her cheek, above and below her eye, a different texture than the smooth ebony of her skin. She wore black jeans, boots, and a black T-shirt.
“You may have forgotten us, but we have struggled on,” she said with conviction. “The Sisterhood never fully disbanded. We went underground, and believe what you will, but we watched over you.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry my aunt stole your life like she stole mine.”
She reached out and touched my arm. “I stayed willingly, at least to learn more about the Sisterhood, and why the things they did were necessary.”
“Why?” I asked. “There is no reason you can come up with where I can forgive this curse.” I put my hand on my chest, on the mark of the seven-sided star beneath my shirt.
Juliette looked to Sandra, who watched silently, expectantly.
“I don’t want to explain in front of her,” Juliette said.
“Who am I going to tell?” Sandra asked. “Who would believe me?”
Juliette didn’t reply. “It’s just strange that you’ve been alone so long, and this woman…”
Sandra straightened. “This woman?” I said.
“That she should enter your life at this moment, and you tell her everything. Has she seen the beast?”
“Yes,” I said. “She was there when I transformed.”
“When the goddess walks, the beast will seek her out.”
I chortled. “You think Sandra is a goddess.”
Sandra gave my arm a push. “Why is that so hard to believe?”
I looked to Juliette, who reached behind her back and pulled a metal box from a knapsack. I recognized it immediately.
“The embers from the last pyre,” I said and glanced at Sandra out of the corner of my eyes.
“No way,” she said in disbelief.
Juliette opened the box, the glow of the bits of burning timber illuminating her face. She reached in, scooped out some embers, and flung them out at Sandra.
Sandra stepped back, but it was too late. The embers broke into pieces at her feet, bounced off the pink slingbacks beneath the cuffs of her jeans, and fell in little explosions of sparks on the gravel. She looked up as she kicked at the little fiery pieces.
“Goddamnit, these are Zanotti.”
“What was that all about?” I asked Juliette.
“The embers would have harmed the goddess,” she said solemnly. “I’m sorry.”
“So explain,” Sandra insisted.
Juliette sighed. “Every seven years the stars here in the physical realm and those of the underworld line up identically. The wall between the worlds weakens and so we light the Sacred Fire to strengthen it.”
“And I turn into the beast.”
Juliette shook her head. “The beast is drawn to the fire, like all creatures o
f the underworld. Every seventy years, the Lost Goddess walks the earth and must be burned in the Sacred Fire. The beast is her familiar, and she needs to claim it so she can return to the underworld.”
I exchanged a puzzled glance with Sandra, and then asked Juliette, “What does that have to do with anything?”
Juliette looked to Sandra. “The Lost Goddess. You know her as the red woman who rides the red beast of the apocalypse. La Gran Ramera de Babilonia.”
“The what?” I asked.
Sandra stepped away; that sparkle I enjoyed earlier was gone. “The Whore of Babylon,” she said.
I frowned, vaguely familiar with the allegory from the Book of Revelations. “Really? Isn’t that a bit patriarchal for your all-female cult? I thought the trend was to turn all the whores of the Bible into heroines.”
“Tinsley,” Sandra gasped. “She’s talking about the end of the world.”
“She’s full of shit,” I said. “The Sisterhood is just a bunch of depraved old biddies with a little bit of knowledge and power who like to ruin the lives of young girls.”
I claimed Sandra’s hand and marched away from Juliette and her lies.
“You’re the last of Alexandrine’s line,” she called.
“Then let the curse die with me,” I said over my shoulder.
I stalked to my car and climbed in. My heart stopped when Sandra didn’t join me. She peered at me through the driver’s side window, her eyes haunted. At last, the curse had driven her away, just as I predicted.
“I drove here, remember?” Sandra said.
“Come home with me,” I said, prepared to beg.
She nodded. “Lead the way.”
She trailed me in her car, and once she parked inside my gate, she followed me silently into the house. I offered her a drink, but she refused and told me that I shouldn’t. I ignored her and went for the bottle of Old Raj.
“You don’t actually believe that nonsense Juliette was spouting?”
Sandra came into the kitchen and took my arms at the wrist and gently pulled me to the couch. She hugged me around the waist.
“It frightened you,” I said.
“Yes,” Sandra said. “You should have heard her out.”
“Really?”
“She sounded really desperate and scared,” Sandra said. “She seems worried over what this Lost Goddess can do.”
“She’s brainwashed,” I said. “A fanatic.”
“Why would she come to you after all these years unless something was up?”
“I don’t care what she’s got going on,” I said.
“She was talking apocalypse,” Sandra said gravely. “The end of the world.”
“Bullshit.” I paced around the couch. “How dare they? Aunt Quinn disappeared before she could answer for her crimes, and my mother killed herself that winter. They’re both dead and gone.”
Sandra peered up at me. “You didn’t tell me that, Tinsley.”
“They all chose the Sisterhood and left me alone with the beast,” I said. “Even Juliette. You know, for years, I fantasized that she would show up and we would be together.”
Sandra put her arms around me and rested her head on my chest. “I’m sorry that you had to be alone for so long.”
I held her close. “It doesn’t matter. The beast is my responsibility. It’ll die with me, and in the meantime I’ll just have to live my life in seven-year increments.”
“You don’t know that,” Sandra said against my breast. “You hardly know anything about the Sisterhood.”
I backed away from her a bit. “Which side are you on?”
“She just looked so haunted,” Sandra said.
I dropped my arms. “And me?”
“You should have heard her out,” she said.
“They fooled me once. I won’t allow them to drag me into their shit again.” I returned to the couch and sat down. “Are you frightened of me now?”
“No,” Sandra said. “Never.”
She brought her body close to mine until she was practically sitting in my lap, her legs wrapped around me as we kissed. Her arms enveloped me as well. I buried my face in her neck and ran my tongue over the flesh there. She shivered all around me. I lost myself for a moment in her kiss and embrace. The pull of her limbs constricted and loosened.
Her lips found my ear. “Take me upstairs,” she whispered.
Out of habit, I felt a twinge of anxiety at having another person in my home and so close to my secrets. This was Sandra, though. She was safe. She wasn’t afraid. The embers had ruined her designer shoes, but she hadn’t gone up in flames.
I took her hand, and for the rest of the night, did everything she asked of me and more.
*
I woke sometime during the night. A voice from an unknown dream. Sandra snored softly next to me. I reached under the covers and stroked her hip. She muttered in her sleep but didn’t stir. I slid out of my bed and padded down the hall clad only in my underwear.
I went to my office and opened the rolltop. In the cover of darkness, I removed the box of postcards and found my Golden Goddess and the flyer by touch. I lay them side by side on the big metal desk and turned on the light.
They certainly looked to be the same girl.
I had discovered many things that summer in ’83. The armored woman was the only thing I willingly absconded with that eighth night, a full day after I changed back into myself.
The Golden Goddess. Why had I chosen that name?
“I was a fourteen-year-old kid, that’s why,” I said. “With a penchant for mythology.”
I remembered Juliette’s words from earlier: “The goddess walks. The beast seeks her.”
Alone in my office, I answered her. “There’s only one way to find out.”
I packed the original pictures into a Mylar pouch and slipped them into my briefcase. I then returned to bed and snuggled next to Sandra in spooning position. I smiled a bit to myself. I had never imagined myself as a snuggler. This time, she did stir. She turned around in my arms and began to kiss me.
She giggle-mumbled something unintelligible in a sexy, sleep voice.
“What?” I whispered.
Sandra snaked an arm around my neck, placed her hand at the base of my skull, and pulled herself closer until we were pelvis to pelvis.
“Are you even awake?” I asked.
She relaxed against me and rested her head on my pillow. In a matter of seconds, I could hear her light snores.
I smiled. “Good night.”
Chapter Four
I had never been to the Shady Oaks Assisted Living complex before. The place looked generic enough. The lawns around the place were well kept. Several residents wandered the smooth cement paths with their various walking aids, enjoying the day before the sun rose too high.
A security guard allowed me past the main gate, and I parked in the visitor’s lot. I felt nervous to be visiting Uncle Charles. I had only met the man several times during my life, the last being my mother’s funeral. I controlled the trust that provided for his stay at Shady Oaks, just as other Tinsley women had controlled other stages of his life. An attendant led me to Uncle Charles, who was playing chess in the game room with another attendant.
He glanced up at me, and his peanut butter skin actually blanched. His white brow furrowed, and he used his rook to put his opponent in check. The attendant let out a short, disappointed groan.
“Take your time,” Uncle Charles said. “It seems I have a visitor.”
The man turned from the chessboard to give me a distracted once-over. “Your daughter?”
“My grand-niece.”
“Hello,” I said. “How have you been, Uncle Charles?”
“Fine. Fine,” he said. “Though I’m not sure now.”
“I wanted to ask a question about something I found at Salacia,” I said.
He gave a dry chuckle and stared at me with cold, rheumy eyes. “I doubt there’s anything I can tell you about Salacia that you don’t a
lready know.”
I straightened and looked around the room. At least we were on the same page. I wondered if he was angry with me about the disappearance of his niece, and the death of another. I had always assumed he felt no ties to the family, being a male.
“Well, there are some pictures I found in the library, and as I understand, that was once your domain.”
Uncle Charles didn’t seem to hear me. He had returned to studying his chessboard as his opponent made another move. He clucked his tongue and muttered something under his breath.
“Pictures,” he said. “Pictures.”
“Yes,” I said. “Perhaps you can help me identify the person in them.”
He looked up at me again. “Of course. Tinsley. That name,” he said in a musing tone, as if he were just realizing who exactly I was. “They were very excited when you were born. You would have thought Quinn was having the baby herself.”
He chuckled again. It sounded like a dusty, rarely used thing. “There was a big party, the last one that involved everyone, not one of those where only the women were invited. We all posed for a picture together. Your father didn’t come along. A wise man indeed.”
I cleared my throat and glanced at the attendant, who turned around to look at me with a bit more interest. I looked back to Uncle Charles, who narrowed his eyes bitterly. The light from the window suffused his white hair with a sunny glow, and he looked like Moses returning from the mountain.
“Let’s see your pictures,” he grumbled. “So Miss Tinsley can return to her life, and I can finish out my days here.”
He waved the attendant away, and I sat in his place. I removed the pictures of Leda from my satchel and passed him the one of her dressed in armor. He caught it between trembling fingers, a slight grin on his face.
“Letty,” he said simply.
“That’s her name?”
“Yes,” he said, longing in his voice. “I met her through my older brother, Malcolm, when I ran away to New Orleans.”
“So she was there?”
He nodded. “Your great-grandmother was very displeased with Malcolm. He rebelled against the matriarchy, you could say, and he hated those others that would come every seven years and look down their noses at him as we were shipped off to camp.”