Moon In The Mirror: A Tess Noncoire Adventure

by P. R. Frost

  “Next lifetime. I can’t deal with this now.”

  But you will have to deal with it eventually, babe.

  Chapter 51

  The word moon is probably connected with the Sanskrit root me-, to measure, because time was measured by the moon. It is common to all Teutonic languages and is almost always masculine.

  MOM MADE A GOOD show of quiet dignity as I escorted her down the aisle of St. Mary’s for the memorial of Darren Estevez. Watery sunshine brightened the interior of the old brick building. Tall stained-glass windows sent it sparkling onto the altar. Dust motes looked like Faery dust. The altar guild had recently replaced the egalitarian enclosed box pews with more accessible open benches. Mom had made two of the one hundred new needlepoint kneelers.

  If she leaned a little heavily on my arm to steady her steps, I was the only one who knew. She wore a new wool black jersey dress with a crossover bodice and a skirt that draped on the bias. It made her look twenty pounds lighter and ten years younger. Her hat had a jaunty brim and a eyebrow-length veil that looked like Chantilly lace. The real thing, not some cheap machine-made imitation. The black set off her pale blondeness perfectly for the occasion.

  I looked horrible in black and wore it rarely. It made my skin look sallow and my sandy-blonde hair more like dishwater than ever. Since I was not the widow at this occasion, I relieved my basic midnight-blue dress with a sapphire print scarf draped and pinned to the jewel neckline. Scrap had done the honors and made me look quite presentable.

  Donovan showed up, of course. This was more his ritual than Mom’s as the adopted son, executor, and custodian of the family trust. He looked magnificent in his black suit, blindingly white shirt and a blood-red tie. I’d never seen him in formal clothes.

  My knees nearly melted at the sight of him. I think I needed better knees.

  A vast emptiness opened in my heart that I had to reject him, banish him from my life. With a deep breath and firm resolve I looked away.

  Gollum flashed me a grim smile from the second pew, directly behind where I would sit. Watching my back as always. He looked quite distinguished in a charcoal suit with a pale blue shirt and subdued striped tie. I breathed a sigh of relief as Mom and I took our seats.

  We recited the familiar prayers, sang the usual hymns, knelt and stood at the appropriate times. The service was mercifully short. After all, Donovan was the only person present who had known Darren for any length of time. No one had much to say on behalf of the deceased, including Donovan. Father Sheridan spoke briefly of the tragedy of cutting a life short and how those Darren left behind must move on and make the most of their lives. And that was it.

  An hour later I put Mom and Donovan and Darren in his casket on board a plane to Florida. When we separated at security, I pulled Donovan aside.

  “If anything happens to my mother, anything at all, I will come after you, with every weapon at my disposal,” I whispered to him.

  “Don’t worry. I need her alive and well as much as you do,” he replied with wounded dignity.

  “Remember that!”

  I turned and faced a shadowy figure beside a massive support pillar. The moment Donovan and Mom stepped past into the secured concourse, I approached the figure with a humped stance and a shock of longish gray hair. He might be fifty or seventy, I couldn’t tell. Only that he was of middling height and stood straight and strong.

  A huge and ancient imp sat on the man’s shoulder.

  “You’re a bit late, whoever you are.”

  “Am I?” He gave me a smile that made the few lines around his eyes deepen. But the smile never sent a twinkle in his deep brown eyes.

  Scrap preened and flashed the warts on his bum at the new imp. Must be a male and Scrap was interested.

  The dignified being tasted the air with a forked tongue, snorted, and turned his head away. He had a vast array of beauty spots along his spine. Much more senior than Scrap and not interested.

  “I no longer have need of your assistance,” I said, standing firm.

  “Don’t you?”

  “You’re as bad as Donovan at answering questions. Time to go back to whatever hidey-hole you crawled out of.”

  “Breven Sancroix, at your service, Tess Noncoiré.” He bowed slightly. “I have a farm in western Pennsylvania and I’ve been watching you for a few days. You have more problems than you want to acknowledge.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the security lines.

  “I have banished Donovan Estevez from my life.”

  “If you want to believe that, and that he is your only problem, then you need more help than I can give.” He bowed again and backed up. “We will meet later. If you need me, you have only to reach out through your meditation to find me.” With that he faded into the crowd as if he’d never been there.

  MoonFeather, Larch, and Gollum had followed us to the airport in Providence along with our luggage. My aunt and her protégée weren’t about to be left behind on the next phase of our adventure.

  Gollum had performed miracles in getting us the right connections to Seattle and then a shuttle to Moses Lake. We arrived late, cranky, and feeling grubby. But Larch rallied and took the wheel of our rental car, a nice sedan with lots of trunk space and leg room. She navigated us the hour north to Half Moon Lake and the Mowath Lodge.

  The flat concrete slab that was all that remained of the run-down motel where Dill had died in the fire lay just across the parking lot from the new lodge.

  Not for an instant did I forget that Donovan owned the hotel made up of fourplex log cabins, two suites up and two down. Each building was constructed of massive logs. Each interior was unique, decorated in more thick slabs of wood around a theme, location, or celebrity.

  From the hotel office building Donovan ran Halfling Gaming Company, Inc. and the spa under construction.

  We took over one large suite for one night—the John Wayne room with memorabilia from his life and movies and western-styled furniture. MoonFeather and Larch slept comfortably in the king-sized bed in the loft. I tossed and turned on the single bed tucked under the stairs. Gollum collapsed familiarly into the armchair with his feet on the coffee table and his computer in his lap. I could never tell if he slept or not. But I was comforted that he didn’t change his habits from the last time we had stayed here.

  MoonFeather roused us in the desert predawn for a light breakfast at the nearby café. I couldn’t eat, so I took a run around the lake. My feet crunched through a crust of minerals that smelled of fish oil and salt.

  I allowed my memory to drift to the time Dill and I had come here. I cherished the vision of him exclaiming excitedly over a special rock specimen. The warm glow of triumph I had felt when I found a fossilized leaf settled on me anew. Then the ecstasy of making love on that last night . . .

  Good memories. A wonderful, if brief, time together.

  Briefly, I considered trying to find the Citadel hidden in a deep ravine some twenty miles north of here. Would they acknowledge me if I pounded on their gates?

  Doubtful.

  I reminded myself that I didn’t need them. They had never truly accepted me. Scrap and I were better off without them.

  I’d welcome a little advice and support, though.

  My stomach churned with trepidation. I could die in the next hour.

  The Goddess had smiled on me.

  As much as my mind rejected belief in a deity, my heart longed to believe in something. The picture frame could have been thrown back out of the ice by frost heave.

  Yeah, right.

  Eventually I had to return to the lodge. Best to get this journey over with. We had to check out by noon.

  Once more, we gather around a magic circle, Tess, Gollum, MoonFeather, and myself. With Larch looking on as an apprentice.

  MoonFeather draws a big circle on the floor with her colored chalk. Gollum sets out the colored candles, red at north, green at east, blue at south, and yellow at west. Larch sprinkles herbs in a circle around the candles.
r />   Tess sits cross-legged in the center, palms resting upward on her knees. She closes her eyes and breathes deeply, evenly. She is open and receptive, going into a deep meditative trance.

  I fear she will lose concentration. She’s never been very good at meditation. Too restless, too eager to get on with the busyness of life, too curious to sit and let life come to her. She has to go and find trouble instead. That is why the Sisterhood rejected her and forced her out of the Citadel.

  Life on the outside is not what I had planned when I attached myself to my Warrior. Life on the outside is not easy. Nor is it dull.

  I like our life. I’ve killed more demons in the last six months than most imps do in a lifetime when locked up in a Citadel that guards a demon portal. And I’ve got the beautiful warts to prove it. Six new ones from the fight with the Windago. Midori count for more than Kajiri.

  So I must be extra careful and bring my babe back home safe and sound.

  MoonFeather is doing what she can to cast a circle of protection. But the onus of this journey is on me. I shiver in fear. And excitement. Not many can perform this feat.

  I gather my energies.

  MoonFeather lights the candles. She uses matches; no one carries a lighter anymore. She recites an invocation at each candle and drops a different herb into each flame.

  I feel the energy building inside the circle. The scent of incense fills my head with new perceptions. Colors twist. The world tilts. Threads of life swirl through the air in impossible hues, blindingly bright. I grab hold of a promising tendril, the same color of pale blue as Tess’ eyes, and whisk my Warrior away.

  Through the chat room so fast no one notices us.

  Back.

  Back farther.

  Back in time and space to a dimension I’d just as soon forget. Violence begets violence begets trauma and barriers in the mind. Those barriers have had three years to thicken and solidify. I’m not sure I have the cunning and intuition to break through them. But I do have a blackness in my soul and violence in my heart. They must serve me well for this journey.

  Gravity shifted. The light became vertiginous. My balance adjusted. Wind swirled around me like a tiny tornado, tossing me here and there. I came to rest with a thump and opened my eyes.

  I expected to view the shabby motel room from a distance, through a gray mist, like I did when I witnessed Darren’s murder.

  Instead, I found myself in my own body, the plump and unfit body of three years ago with my tight curls in a tangled mess reaching halfway down my back. Sleep crusted my eyes and left groggy cobwebs in my mind. I lay in bed next to Dill. Warm and gentle, beloved Dill. I wanted to reach out and touch him, hold him close once more, cherish his strength and his love.

  Drowsiness left me enervated and incapable of moving.

  Only your other self from the future is truly awake, Tess. Your body responds only as it did in this past time. You cannot change anything even if you try, Scrap whispered to me.

  I couldn’t see him or sense him. Only hear him.

  A shadow passed across the curtained window of our ground-floor room. The shadow of a very large bat.

  Panic closed my throat and choked my brain.

  The sharp scent of smoke roused Dill.

  Fear sent my heart to racing and my thoughts spinning in circles.

  Chapter 52

  A new moon teaches gradualness and deliberation and how one gives birth to oneself slowly. Patience with small details makes perfect a large work, like the universe.

  —Rumi

  "TESS, TESS, WAKE UP. We have to get out of here!” Dill shook me roughly.

  Damn straight we did. That was we, not just me.

  I threw my arms around him as he guided me into the bathroom. Somehow, I managed to kick the door shut behind us. I hadn’t done that the last time I lived this scene.

  Dill helped me climb into the shower tub. Together we pushed up the tiny window above the tile.

  “You go first, lovey. I’m right behind you.” He boosted me up until I lay half in and half out the window.

  “No, Dill. You have to go first. You have to save yourself! ” I cried.

  He shoved me through the window with a sharp slap to my wide bottom.

  I landed on the frosted grass with a jolt that nearly dislocated my shoulder. The cold kissed my skin but did not penetrate to the bone through my soft frilly nightie. I’d given up my favored less-than-sexy flannel when I married Dill. His body heat next to me in bed kept me warmer than cloth ever could.

  Then I noticed the still healing gash on my arm from a Windago talon. It glowed and pulsed an ugly red.

  I hadn’t had the scar three years ago. Not everything was the same.

  “Dill!” I screamed. Ignoring the pain that ran from the base of my skull all the way to my fingertips, I jumped up and grabbed the windowsill about a foot above my head. “Dill!”

  Thick smoke roiled under the closed door to fill the bathroom.

  “Dill!” Where was he?

  Then I heard him coughing. With a supreme effort I pulled myself upward. The demon scar ached and drove sharp burns all the way through my arm and shoulder. The me of the future with the scar had the strength to climb back through the window. The me of three years ago wouldn’t have dared try.

  I looked down. Dill stood doubled over in the tub, trying desperately to clear his lungs of smoke. “Coming, lovey,” he gasped. “I’m not going to leave you alone.”

  “Take my hand, Dill. You’ve got to get out. Now.”

  He reached upward. I clasped his hand firmly. My shoulders trembled with the strain of holding myself against the windowsill. As I prepared to yank and drop, dragging Dill through the window with me, the bathroom door banged inward. Two shadowy forms lunged and tackled Dill, dragging his hand from mine.

  “We can’t let you escape, Cooper. You’ve betrayed me for the last time,” Darren Estevez croaked through the smoke.

  He lifted his head and stared at me. Darren Estevez.

  The other man kept his head down. I knew his figure was male, nothing more. He wore a dark watch cap and darker clothing. Broad shoulders. A heavy jacket masked weight and stature. No clues to identity.

  “Dill!” I propped my knee on the little ledge, ready to dive back into the fray to free my husband.

  Don’t! Scrap yanked at my mind so hard I slid back down to the ground.

  I scrambled back and jumped for the ledge.

  No. Think, Tess. Think about who you are. Think about what you would become if Dill lived.

  I tried to blot out the mental probe that pierced my mind like a migraine behind the eyes.

  The demon scar throbbed, adding yet more pain to Scrap’s admonitions.

  You can only move forward, not back. You aren’t really here. And you may not, cannot, change anything.

  “Dill,” I sobbed. “Don’t die on me again.”

  Think, Tess. Would Dill have let you become the strong independent woman you are with a successful career? Would he? Or would he have pushed you to give up your writing to cater to his career and push out a new baby every other year? Would he have given you the freedom to grow? Would he have let you sing filk songs at conventions when you have a better voice than he?