* * *
Magic Carpet Books
www.magic-carpet-books.com/
Copyright ©2006 by Magic Carpet Books
First published in 2006, 2006
* * *
NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
* * *
The Fire in Starlight
by
Maria Isabel Pita
Copyright ©2006 by Magic Carpet Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher and author.
First Magic Carpet Books, Inc. edition June 2006
Published in 2006
Manufactured in the United States of America
Published by Magic Carpet Books, Inc.
Magic Carpet Books, Inc.
PO Box 473
New Milford, CT 06776
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Date
The Fire in Starlight
Maria Isabel Pita
ISBN: 0-9774311-2-6
Book Design: P. Ruggieri
Dedication
For my love, and our secret forest, which just keeps deepening and growing...
Prologue
S even years of her life gone, wasted ... but that's not true, she was doing a lot more with her time than just being in love with a person she never wants to see again. How these things happen is a mystery millions of men and women have pondered throughout the ages, yet Sofia always believed herself magically immune to such protracted catastrophes. She scarcely noticed the mileage accumulating, the years flowing by before the crash, when she suddenly realized the promising love she had wholeheartedly bought into had degenerated into a routine shell not worth fixing. Towards the end they had sex less and less, but when they did she could somehow make herself forget she had been forced to schedule their lovemaking like an oil change. Afterwards, she was relaxed enough not to think about how unsatisfied she was with so many aspects of her lover apart from his big hard cock. She was the one with all the secret fantasies, he simply provided the erection she writhed around lost in a daydream, her eyes closed and her soul somewhere else—with someone else—entirely. She thought perhaps this was the way of things—that beginnings were always more passionate and inspired—and that she was wrong to continue desiring so much more. She strove to behave like a responsible adult, applying rational band aids to the frustrations she treated like paper cuts, painful but inevitable in the real world where life was much easier if you split the bills. Sofia had not believed herself capable of such denial, but she was now faced with the evidence of how, for far too long, she had murdered her deepest feelings in the name of love in order to remain comfortable; to preserve an illusion of satisfaction and safety. It was appalling how clearly she saw herself abruptly, as though for years her reflective soul had been fogged by steamy sex, and in the end she was left alone staring at her lovely face in disgusted wonder that she had proved to be just another vulnerably confused woman after all.
But that was all behind her now, that bumpy seven-year-long road was history in her mental rearview mirror. Amazingly enough, it took only seven days to drive away from seven years, and since then she had grown (positively blossomed) inside in subtle ways that transported her light years beyond the cowardly, compromising Sofia she had allowed herself to become. The actual road she was cruising down was smooth, freshly paved and painted by the look of it—Highway 956 taking her through Ethel into Clinton. It was late in the day on the ninth of February and she was glad of the brand new reflectors on the central yellow line that helped illuminate the pitch-black asphalt because there were no streetlights this far away from the city. She was only forty-five minutes from her old apartment home in Baton Rouge, but already she was in another world. She had lived in BR all her life, and yet she had never ventured this far north before. The LSU campus had been her universe for over fifteen years, a purple and gold cocoon ripped open by two hurricanes of loss—her relationship ending, and her best friend and colleague dying, both on the same night. The very evening she and Steve were arguing, and his arm suddenly shot out to push her away, dear sweet Robert was clutching his left arm in his lakeside home and dying alone. The symmetry was sinister; uncanny. Perhaps at the exact moment she was stunned to discover herself lying in the bathtub her old friend was falling in the shower, and in her mind she shared the pain of his heart attack the instant she realized her life as she knew it was over. Robert's life as he knew it was also over forever, but she fervently hoped he had moved on to a better, more fulfilling state of being, just as she was striving to do now driving to the house he had unexpectedly left her in his Will.
Robert was the old, steady limb on which her introverted cocoon had hung throughout the years. First he was her professor, and without him she never would have gotten through her dissertation, then finally they were colleagues and best friends. In retrospect, it was his intellectual and emotional companionship that had made it possible for her to mask the problems with her relationship. On campus she always had someone to talk to, to share her every thought and feeling with, so that when she went home in the evenings she didn't miss this intimacy as much she otherwise would have; as much as she should have. She went home to be comfortable and to have sex, in that order. Steve often greeted her with a Vodka Martini in hand, a delectable assortment of deli meats and cheeses artfully arranged on a platter waiting for them on a table in front of the television. Alcohol and COX Cable helped distract her from how little she had in common with her boyfriend besides the monthly bills and the weekend fucks, during which she sought to exorcise the beautiful demons of her fantasies, which sadly melted away on Monday mornings like vampires done to death by the stake of unchanging routine. Cable TV was like a fly with hundreds of eyes showing the same things all the time, an increasingly annoying, deathless buzz in her head when she was trying to sleep and Steve stayed up channel surfing every single night of the week. She could count on one hand the programs she liked to watch, and it was a source of perverse satisfaction to her now that in Clinton she would be lucky to get any reception at all.
Sabbatical ... such a sweet word. It was all hers, for over a year, maybe for two if she could stretch her savings, and she was determined to. Sofia was very glad now that she and Steve had never even entertained the thought of a joint bank account. At the time she hadn't realized how meaningful it was that she had no desire to merge all her assets with his, yet now it struck her as an obvious symbol of how much she was holding back, and of the fact that she didn't truly trust him. It could be said he had stolen some of the best years of her life, but the truth was she had given them away freely and had only herself to blame for their loss, really. She had always known he had a violent temper he managed to keep under control with her, but he had never once hit her until that night when she ended up in the bathtub, the shower curtain crumpled beneath her helping to break her fall.
The bruises had faded, but for days they served as reminders she was doing the right thing by leaving him. And yet if Robert hadn't passed away and given her a place to stay, would she have been able to so quickly and single-mindedly pack all the stuff she had bought with her salary and credit cards, and in seven short days abandon the man she had theoretically loved for seven
long years? There was no point asking such a question; circumstances, and her response to them, told her in no uncertain terms that she needed not only to define but to defend her thoughts and feelings with a boldness she had never had the courage to exercise before. Steve was an atheist, and even though she hadn't been to church since she was a little girl, she had never lost her faith in something. It was high time she did some serious soul searching to figure out exactly what it was she believed. She had the time and the space now, she was free of students and boyfriends and all responsibilities except to herself.
The first decision Sofia made was that she definitely did not believe in chance or coincidence. Too many times the experiences of her life seemed choreographed to get her to move in a certain direction, and these last dramatic events felt like a cosmic slap in the face. She never would have imagined twenty acres of land in Clinton, LA were part of her fate, but they suddenly were, and she was grateful that, in a sense, Robert would still be with her while she was feeling more alone than ever.
After consulting the directions printed out for her by the attorney, Sofia took a right turn at a crossroads. The setting sun's golden-red head appeared in the rearview mirror, encouraging her with its beautiful intensity to defy the sedate speed limit and accelerate due east towards a new beginning.
Chapter One
I t was a race against the darkness. Sofia cursed herself for not having left the city earlier in the day. The fact that circumstances had been beyond her control seemed a lame excuse now as the absence of traffic fortunately allowed her to switch on her high beams. On the other hand, being completely alone on the road made her nervous, and intensely grateful for the two luminous swords defending her, even though it was a relief to sheathe them for a few seconds when she saw another car heading her way. It had taken her less than three minutes to drive through the quaint old town of Clinton. Vaguely, she recalled reading somewhere that there was a local farmer's market in front of the historic courthouse every first Saturday of the month. She slowed down to obey the speed limit, and took note of several little antique shops, consoling herself with this evidence that she had not left civilization completely behind. The city felt much farther away than it actually was, as if it was on the other side of a black hole opening up onto another universe the darker it got and the farther she drove. Dusk in Baton Rouge had threatened her with nothing more than terrible traffic, statistically more dangerous than lonely country roads, yet paradoxically she had felt safer on I-10 than she did in what, to her, felt like the middle of nowhere.
The moving company had been three hours late, and tried to make up for it by carting away her boxes, and the few pieces of furniture she had decided to keep, with breakneck speed. Her back increasingly tense from the stress of making sure they didn't accidentally load any of Steve's stuff into the truck, Sofia was glad she didn't have time to linger sentimentally in the comfortable Jefferson Place apartment she had shared with him for so long. She was almost late for her appointment with Robert's attorney. He was surprisingly young, and coolly indifferent in a powder-blue suit as he informed her the house was only minimally furnished, so there would be plenty of room for her own things. The utilities had been turned on and switched over into her name, and a cleaning crew had been there yesterday. She could move in right away. The Deed to the property was in her briefcase, the incredible fact that she was now both a house and a land owner spelled out in neat black-and-white on 8 x 10 paper, nevertheless, the lawyer's glib Southern twang pronouncing, “It's not too far, just a few miles north of Clinton, is all” had been completely misleading. She was not prepared for the visceral vastness of the country; for the sense of profound distances winding themselves through her gut as she followed the serpentine curves of increasingly darker and narrower roads. The silhouettes of trees were sharply drawn against a hauntingly pale, almost silver sky. The sun had set, but the day was taking a blessedly long time to die. The glowing blue displays on her dashboard as she kept anxious track of the passing miles had never looked more beautiful. Her car kept the atmosphere of civilization reassuringly around her, and she was more grateful than ever for its reliable comfort.
The house Robert had built for his family so long ago couldn't be far now; it was located somewhere in this endless landscape of rolling pastures and trees. Every now and then her headlights washed over a mailbox and she glimpsed the crouching shape of a house warm with lights burning inside it that kept her hope alive. Then at long last she came to her street—Rosalyn Lane. She took a left turn onto a purported dirt road actually covered with gravel that made a raucous banging, pinging symphony beneath her crunching tires that had her fearing for the insides of her Mitsubishi. The distant surreal silhouettes of cows eternally grazing disappeared as she found herself surrounded by trees, and she realized with a stab of disbelief that all the naked limbs caressed by her high beams belonged to her. Here and there the jade-green gleam of Magnolia leaves relieved the starkness, rooting the wintry scene in the Deep South where it hardly ever snowed and where it was never cold long enough to pain the soul.
She slowed down when a mailbox leapt into her headlights. 3610 was painted by a steady hand in glowing white numbers on the black metal. She was here, she had made it, and she was so happy and relieved she cried out in triumph at finding what, at that moment, felt like her own personal Holy Grail. Right on cue, her stomach grumbled. It's all about surviving, hunger reminded her, deepening the pleasure she took in this landmark moment as she thought about the big cooler in her trunk filled with cheeses, cold cuts, and bread—the bare essentials she needed to live until she did her first grocery shopping. And of course she had also brought two cases of wine with her, one red and one white.
With reverent slowness she turned into the driveway of her new home, following a winding path between the trees. A structure loomed to her left, but she lost sight of it as she was forced to do an almost 360 turn. Then there it was, directly before her at last, a real, solid house, her headlights making the windows look even more unwelcomingly dark.
Sofia did not turn off the engine right away. She rested her head back against the seat. “Oh Robert, Robert!” she murmured. “I'm sorry ... thank you!” A deepening sense of shame overruled even her hunger pains. She had a Ph.D. in obscure folk poetry, verses written where nights were as impenetrably black as the one pressing against the technological shell of her car, but always she had read these silent songs in rooms lit up by electricity. It filled her with a humbling awe to suddenly realize Robert had always known that, one day, she would be forced to face what she most loved along with all the things she most feared. However, she had more than enough time to begin deconstructing herself tomorrow, at the moment she was avoiding the scary thrill of walking alone into a dark house that had been empty for years but that was now all hers to do with as she willed.
Thankfully there was a flashlight under her seat, a weapon she could use even though its light was powerless against subconscious shadows and all the irrational fears they inspired. She told herself very firmly that there was no one hiding in the house waiting to attack her. The cleaning crew had been there yesterday and locked the doors behind them; she was perfectly safe. She shut off the engine and the lights and got out of the car, and the first thing she noticed were the stars, followed a close second by the half moon hanging directly above the black pyramid of the roof. The beauty of the sky was a shocking surprise. She had lived in the city all her life and had never seen so many stars. She didn't turn on the flashlight, because with her head thrown back she felt absolutely no threat emanating from the darkness. Intellectually she had always understood fewer stars were visible than ever as a result of light pollution, but she wondered now how she could possibly have lived for so long with that sickly yellow glow above her instead of what she was seeing now. Right away she recognized Orion's belt, the universe casually slapping her with it and reprimanding her for not recognizing any other constellations. It was a cold night, the atmosphere was crystal c
lear, and how many stars she could see wasn't just a beautiful sight, it also mysteriously lifted her spirits. The flashlight in her hand which had felt so vital just a minute ago was forgotten as she made a 180 turn. When she faced away from the moon the stars became even more profuse, adorning the highest branches of trees like Christmas lights that never got turned off and stored in a dusty attic.
Reluctantly, Sofia lowered her gaze back down to earth and the exciting challenge before her. She flicked on the flashlight and shone it's beam across wooden steps leading up to the front door. She walked slowly, savoring the anticipation. She slipped her car keys into the pocket of her jacket, exchanging them for her new house keys as she noted with pleasure how big the porch was, stretching the whole length of the house. There were more windows than there were solid walls, and double French doors. From inside she would be able to see the woods stretching all around her.
She slipped the key in the lock and it turned smoothly. She held her breath as she crossed the threshold, scanning the walls on either side of her for a light switch. She found one, and flicked it up just as the door closed from its own weight behind her with a click! that echoed significantly while she and the house felt each other for the first time.
"Oh my!” she breathed. The walls were a forest-green that looked almost black at night beneath two atmospherically dim track lights set high in the walls on either side of a large, open space. Already she could tell that on lush summer days the house would seem to dissolve, blending with the foliage outside. She turned the circular knob next to the light switch clockwise, flooding the room with light. To her right was a rectangular dining room table that looked as if it had been fashioned from the bark of a single fallen tree, and six chairs that were equally rustic-looking and beautiful, their hardwood seats softened by violet cushions embroidered with green vines sprouting tiny red flowers. The rest of the room was empty except for a red, black and beige Oriental rug that covered a good portion of the polished wooden floorboards.
The Fire in Starlight Page 1