“But that would cost a fortune.”
“No.” Ella was adamant. “No tattoo.”
“Mama, I’m nineteen-years-old. And when have you ever been able to stop me from doing what I want, anyway?”
Ella gave her daughter the icicle eye. “Never, but that won’t stop me from trying.”
Miss Poni rejoined the conversation. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you have for her?”
“Enough!” Gretchel shouted, slamming a casserole dish full of gravy in the middle of the table.
Miss Poni gave Gretchel a laconic glance before addressing Eli again. “Son, can you do an old woman a very small favor?”
“Of course. How can I help?” he asked.
Miss Poni pulled an old notebook from the pocket of her chenille robe and handed it to Eli. “The pages seem to be stuck together.” Eli took the notebook and flipped through its pages with no trouble at all. All the women in the room—Gretchel, Ella, Miss Poni—watched him with curiosity. He began to feel foolish.
“Here you go, ma’am. It seems fine now,” he said as he handed the notebook back to Gretchel’s grandmother.
“I guess you had the magic touch,” Miss Poni said with a smile.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Oregon, 2010s
It had been a couple of weeks—long, slow, painful, weeks—since Ame had gotten in touch with Eli. He had stayed close to his computer anyway, just in case, stepping away occasionally to eat, use the toilet, and dip into his stash. He was well and truly stoned throughout most of this period, but he still retained enough self-awareness to realize that he was behaving in an obsessive manner. Jesus, he thought, I’ve turned into my mother.
He was pretty sure that he had scared Ame away. Every creepy thought he could imagine she might be thinking was rolling through his head. He was having trouble focusing on anything else. He knew he was projecting, but he also knew that he was probably right. He knew, furthermore, that his situation was getting kind of messed up. He hadn’t been out of the house, or taken a call, or seen Rebecca while he waited to hear from Ame. The situation was… not cool.
So, one Saturday morning, he finally put down the one-hitter, shut down his laptop, and made the scenic, hour-long drive to his parents’ place. The estate seemed quiet as he rolled up the long, meandering driveway. Of course, the estate always seemed quiet. Eli’s parents were big into quiet.
“Eli!” his father called from the living room. Peter was perched on the coffee table, arranged in lotus position. “I was just thinking of you, and here you are. Our prince has returned.”
Eli repressed a sigh and ran his hand through his hair as he tried to dispel some of the tension he could already feel constricting his head. Why the coffee table? After reciprocating a very enthusiastic embrace, Eli stepped back to take in his father’s pink paisley bathrobe. “You look ridiculous, Peter.”
“You don’t say?” Peter gave his attire an appraising glance as if it was the first time he had seen it. “Well maybe I should just get rid of this silly thing, then,” and with that, he dropped the bathrobe to reveal that he was wearing nothing underneath.
Eli had seen his father naked so often and in so many circumstances that he might have gotten used to it, but…. No. No, he hadn’t. Eli picked up the discarded robe and held it out to his father with an imploring look.
Peter grinned, and resumed his pink paisley finery with a flourish. As he twirled, Eli got a fresh glimpse of his father’s many tattoos, all various depictions of the Arcadian goat god Pan.
Peter claimed that he was a descendent of Pan, and Eli was convinced his father actually believed this. Which made sense, really, since Peter was the horniest person Eli had every met, and he was quite capable of causing panic among even the calmest of people.
Eli eyed the long growth of hair on his father’s chin. “What’s with the facial hair? You look like you’re channeling Lane Staley.”
“Was going for more of a ZZ Top thing, if I can hold out that long,” Peter said itching the long, grayish, brown beard. “Think I can braid it yet?”
Eli shook his head—no, no, no—as he made his way to the dining room, where a Lego village stretched out from wall to wall. He knelt down, picked up a couple of pieces, added them to a building, and then turned back to his father. “How was Greece?”
“Magical, as always.”
“Right. Stupid question. Is mom here?”
“You’ve actually caught her at home, son. It’s a rare treat indeed. You know where she is.”
They passed the first-floor bathroom as they walked toward the east side of the house, and Eli nearly gagged. “You ate Mexican last night, didn’t you?”
“Si, señor, and I savored every last morsel,” his father said with a devilish grin.
“I thought mom banned Mexican food.”
“I enjoy breaking rules. Bring on the punishment, and I’ll enjoy that, too.”
“You might be enjoying your punishment, but I don’t think Mom’s enjoying this,” Eli said as he sprinted down the hallway, stopping at a set of double doors.
He hadn’t passed through this threshold in a long time, and he wasn’t eager to do it now. What am I doing here? he asked himself. I’m trying to escape my own obsession, and I’m walking right into hers. He opened the doors anyway.
“Eli!” Diana called. She ran and hugged him, then backed up and on tiptoe slapped him on the side of the head.
“What the hell?” he yelped.
“That, son, was for screening calls from your mother. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for two weeks! Answer your phone when I call, damn it.”
Eli rubbed his head and collapsed on a sofa. He regarded his mother. She was dressed in black cigarette pants, a printed black and white silk blouse, and towering black heels. Dressed to the nines even at home—an obsessive perfectionist if ever there was one. “I’m much easier to track down than you are, Mother. I can’t believe you’re even here.”
“I have been here for you anytime you’ve ever really needed me,” Diana insisted as she scooted Eli’s legs off the sofa to sit down next to him
“What about Dad? Don’t you think he gets bored without you here?”
Peter roared with laughter. Diana cackled. “Darling, in our forty-two years together, I have never—and I mean never—known your father to be bored. Really, Eli.”
“Perhaps Eli’s too miserable to think clearly, Diana,” his father laughed.
“You think my misery is funny?”
“A little, yes,” Peter smiled, grabbed Eli’s face, and gave him a big kiss on the forehead. “Lighten up, son.”
Diana shook her head, still chuckling, “What brings you out of your seclusion today, Eli, and why the hell have you been hiding out anyway?”
Eli stammered, “Uh, I’ve just been busy.”
Diana snorted. “That hardly seems plausible. What have you been doing—traveling, writing, taking photographs…?”
“Sure…. I’ve been….” Damn it! Eli realized that he had committed a grave tactical error. He was not a busy man, and his mother knew it. What Eli knew, however, was that, at the first mention of the Solstice Twins, Diana would forget everything else. “Say, Mom, can you explain these numbers to me?” He pointed to a dry erase board covered in numbers and notes.
Diana took the bait without hesitation.
“The thirteens follow a pattern. All the descendants of the twins that I’ve been able to trace were thirteen when they lost their fathers.”
“You know Gretchel lost her father young,” Eli said.
“And remind me again how old she was, Eli?” Diana bristled at any suggestion that Gretchel was part of the prophecy.
“I don’t know.”
“And her mother is alive, yes? And her grandmother, too?”
“They were seventeen years ago.”
“Exactly. None of the women in this bloodline lived past the age of forty. Every one of them committed suicide by drowning. It wo
uld take an incredibly strong woman to break this kind of cycle. What was Gretchen’s grandmother’s name?”
“Her name is Gretchel, Mother, and they called her grandmother Miss Poni.”
“Sounds like a hillbilly. And her mother’s name?”
“Ella,” Eli said quietly. “Her name is Ella.” He descended into memory for a moment before he pulled himself out of it. “What does the twenty-one mean?”
“Surely you remember this from the prophecy, son. Look to the twenty-first to find the second. Find her, and all shall be redeemed. I’m certain that ‘the twenty-first’ refers to the twenty-first descendent, but it might also mean the twenty-first century. And the second, of course, is your true love.”
Eli looked at his father and both men shared a dramatic eye-roll. Eli tried to avoid engaging with his mother when she mentioned this aspect of the prophecy, but he was feeling feisty. “Gretchel’s birthday is June twenty-first, on the Summer Solstice,” Eli said.
Diana looked at her son. “You never told me that.”
“You never asked. You never cared about anything concerning Gretchel,” he shot back.
Reluctantly, Diana when to the dry-erase board labeled Gretchen. Her name was written across the top in big letters, but there was very little written underneath. She jotted down this new information. Eli stepped up behind her, erased the N with his finger, and replaced it with an L. He returned to the couch.
“I never cared about Gretchen because the Cailleach specifically said that the second woman to wear the amethyst would be the descendant. Gretchen was the first, Eli, and she’s not the one! I’ve told you this a million times. And she betrayed you! I don’t want you to have anything to do with that woman. I won’t have your heart broken again.”
Eli looked to his father for support, but Peter was smiling at something no one else could see. “What are you doing?” Eli asked him. Peter didn’t respond. He let out a chuckle, as his eyes followed some invisible delight. Eli shook his head in frustration.
“Mother, I’ve told you that Gretchel’s family is Scottish, right?”
“That doesn’t mean they are descendants. It will be the second woman to wear the amethyst, Eli!”
“Well, they were witches, too. Miss Poni had advanced magical skills. I saw her start a bonfire with a flick of her wrist.”
Diana looked at him skeptically. “Were you stoned, Eli?”
“No, mother, I was not stoned.” Eli rubbed the vein in his temple that was beginning to throb. He sounded like a teenager, he knew he sounded like a teenager, and he hated it. When the throbbing subsided somewhat, he managed a slightly more mature tone. “I saw that at Gretchel’s nineteenth birthday party. Does that matter at all?” Diana turned her back to him, and, somewhat grudgingly, added a note below Gretchel’s name. Eli could tell that she wasn’t sure it didn’t matter, and that she was slightly perturbed by that fact. He suppressed a triumphant grin, but just barely.
Eli stood up again. He went to the board that traced the descendants of the Solstice Twins from the 1600s—when the first twin had burned—as far as Diana had been able to trace them. He counted the names. There were only sixteen. “So, Miss Poni would be seventeen, Ella eighteen, Gretchel nineteen, and Ame twenty.”
“Ame? Who the hell is Ame?”
“She’s Gretchel’s daughter.”
His mother stared at him a moment.
“And how do you know that Gretchel gave birth to a daughter?”
Busted.
“I met her. Entirely by chance. We’ve chatted online a couple of times.”
Diana was clearly torn between upbraiding her son for having any kind of contact—even vicarious contact—with Gretchel, and trying to figure out what, if anything, this new data meant. She couldn’t resist the pull of the whiteboards. She scanned them for a full minute before saying, “Let it go, Eli. This Ame is irrelevant. Gretchen is not the one.”
Eli felt rage stirring in his chest. “What, exactly, are you planning to do when I find this promised girl? What is your role in this mystery, anyway—besides playing pimp for your son?”
Diana let that last remark go. “Once you lead me to the second girl, I’ll listen to her stories and try to help her and her family. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but I do know the amethyst pendant is the key that will unlock a box, and that opening the box is the next step in ending the cycle of violence that has plagued the descendants of the Solstice Twins.”
Eli wondered if his mother knew how absolutely insane she sounded. Doubtful. Both his parents lived in some kind of parallel universe. It was a wonder he wasn’t in a padded cell by now.
“The amethyst isn’t the key, honey love.”
Eli and Diana had forgotten that Peter was even in the room, but there he was, curled up in the Eero Aarnio ball chair in the corner, lighting a bowl carved from a piece of stag’s antler.
“What do you mean it isn’t the key?” Diana’s affection for Peter was limitless, but her patience with him was not, and the Solstice Twins were her territory.
“For a transpersonal psychologist, you have a pronounced tendency towards literalism, Diana.” Peter smiled at his wife while she scowled at him. “But I truly believe that the key works figuratively. I’m not saying that the key isn’t real. I’m just saying that the amethyst might not be a physical tool that opens a mechanical lock. Maybe it’s a symbol, a sign, a metaphor….” Peter’s voice trailed off as he took a hit.
Diana shook her head—once, decisively. “No. You’re wrong. Carlin said the amethyst was the key. I heard it with my own ears. The amulet will open the box.”
“What box?” Eli asked.
He was ignored.
“The amethyst may open the box, but it isn’t a key like the one that unlocks our front door. I’m just looking at it from a different perspective.”
“You don’t know anything about this, Peter. I’ve been researching this for forty years. You’ve caused enough trouble by encouraging your son’s useless, destructive hope.” Diana turned to Eli, “And you, you leave that girl—that Ame—alone. Her mother ripped your heart out once, and she’ll do it again if you let her.”
So much for telling her I was thinking about flying to Illinois, Eli thought forlornly.
Diana grabbed her coffee cup and marched out the room. Father and son watched her go without saying a word until she slammed the door. Eli was surprised to note that her hands were shaking when she reached for her mug.
“Your mother’s hitting the caffeine a little hard these days. She’s a bit on edge,” his father remarked. Given how high-strung Diana was without stimulants, that was really saying something.
“She’s pissed now. Why did I even come?” Eli asked.
“Because you’re still hopelessly in love with Gretchel, and you want your mother to back the fuck off so you can go after her,” his father answered. “Did I come close?”
“Dad, is it wrong for me to still want her after all these years? Is there something wrong with me that I can’t move on without her?”
Peter blew out smoke rings that danced around the sunlit room. Eli felt a stoned disquisition coming on. He eased into the sofa and made himself comfortable. This could take awhile.
“You saw yourself in Gretchel; that’s what love is, son. You were drawn to her because, in her, you saw some aspect of yourself that you thought was missing. You’re still trying to recapture that recognition. You don’t think you’ll be complete until you find her.
“But I’m not sure that’s true, Eli. You’re complete now and you always have been; you just don’t recognize yourself anymore. Gretchel helped you see yourself and your true potential with open eyes. When you were with her, you were wide awake. When it ended, you fell into a deep sleep—metaphorically speaking. You’ve convinced yourself that getting her back is the only way to wake up again, even though you know that’s not the case. Your upbringing might have been deficient in some respects—” Eli was shocked to hear this
admission from either of his parents—“but, at the very least, you had a solid education in opening the doors of perception.” Peter paused to relight his pipe. He offered it to Eli, who declined. Peter had access to weed of truly astonishing quality. The contact high was enough for his son. After an impossibly long inhalation, Peter continued.
“That said, I have to admit that there is no more joyful way to live a life knowing the self than being in love with a beautiful woman who fills up your world with vibrant light and truth. So, I say go after her. Devil may care. Let’s say she breaks your heart again. So what?”
Peter paused again to make sure that he had his son’s attention, and he looked more serious than Eli had ever seen him look. “But if she is going to break it again, son, make sure she does it in a way that makes you feel so utterly insane that just the shock of it wakes you up and makes you cry out for change. If she’s going to break your heart, at least give it your all. Go in with open arms. Reach out and embrace the insanity. Dance in the flames of her desire. Run through the fields of her ecstasy. Go in like a beginner, as if you’ve just met her for the first time. Be a fearless child and ask to be taught. If she cries, cry with her. If she laughs, laugh with her. Jump up and down and shoot a million sparks out your ass. Let the sparks engage the wick of the explosive that will wake you up. Who cares if she breaks your heart again, if that pain turns your pitiful pining into action? What better way is there to know you’re alive than to feel love and pain so deeply?”
Peter paused again. This time he availed himself of the opportunity to take another hit. “But what if she doesn’t break your heart? It’s quite possible she has an ongoing hard-on for you, too. Have you considered the possibility that she’s waiting on you to finally grow a pair and chase her down the rabbit hole?”
Peter took one more draw on his pipe and blew out a few contemplative smoke rings. “I’m not saying I know the answer, because there isn’t one. There are an infinite number of ways this scene could go down. But I do know this, Elliot: You have got to quit whining about Gretchel, because you’re totally fucking up my flow.”
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