Waking the Moon

by Elizabeth Hand

  Her words lingered in the air. But then I heard another sound, a faint jangling echo as of a glass harmonium shattering, its brittle notes fading into Angelica’s voice.

  “Do you?”

  It was a real choice she was offering me: a deal of some sort. Like Oliver’s opening parry, this was a kind of acid test—but what the hell was I being tested for?

  The jangling grew louder. In counterpoint to it rose another sound, the tremulous sigh of wind in dry reeds. Angelica’s grip on my arm tightened as she pulled me to her, until her body’s warmth enveloped my own. Her perfume was everywhere, musky and sweet. The sound of our breathing faded into the wind.

  “Sweeney,” she whispered. “Will you come with me?”

  I wanted to reply but I felt too sleepy to talk, too sleepy to do anything but lean into her arms. My head lolled back until I was staring at the sky, the afterlight of sunset gone now, given over to a glowing purple the color of hyacinths. The moon was there, just barely—a slender crescent with a silvery ridge of cloud banked against its curving tines, and a single pallid star beside it. The crimelights gave a weird sepia tinge to everything. Moon and falling leaves and even our own shadows seemed to be strewn across the faded dusty plane of an old photograph—everything except Angelica.

  She was so much brighter and realer than everything else. I could feel her arms around me, feel her hair blown against my cheeks and smell her perfume mingling with the scent of decaying leaves and moist earth. The rattling of the wind in the trees grew louder, the scent of sandalwood and oranges filled my nostrils until it all blurred together: the moon sweeping across my vision, Angelica’s warm breath and the soft pressure of her hands upon mine, the beauty and strangeness of the Divine itself joining to claim me as the night grew deeper around us.

  Will you come with me?

  I closed my eyes. A faint earthy sweetness lay upon my tongue, and almost I imagined I could smell woodsmoke, the scent of burning leaves. I opened my eyes and smiled, half-turning my head to look up into Angelica’s face. I could feel her there, just as I could feel the chill wind.

  But I did not see Angelica. What I did see made me gasp.

  There was a woman in the moon. I could see her as distinctly as though she were my own reflection. Her face calm, with the ageless features of a Toltec image—heavy lips, long slanted eyes, high rounded cheekbones. Her eyes were half-shut, and the curve of her mouth mirrored the moon’s bow glittering upon her brow. Milky light washed across her, so that it was as though I gazed at a face in deep water, a shattered caryatid waiting to be pulled from the depths. It was a beautiful face, but what made it beautiful was its utter calm, the overwhelming sense that in aeons and aeons she alone had never bowed before the wrath and fury of time and lust and death. I could have stared upon her forever, I felt, and myself turn to stone and ash and never even care.

  But then the woman began to change. Her hair first, its cloudy mass dispersing into darkness until only a few bright threads remained. Then the rounded contours of her face hardened. Her mouth grew thin and taut. A row of teeth protruded from beneath her upper lip—teeth white and glittering as ice, grotesquely long and needle-sharp. Very slowly her mouth parted in a smile. Behind the row of teeth loomed a darkness more complete than any I had ever seen: starless, formless, not even a mote of light glimmering within it.

  And then the moon began to burn, not brightly but with dull red clouds swelling above it, as though it had been set upon a smoldering pyre. I watched in horror as those bloody clouds grew and finally burst into a poisonous black haze. The fragile arc of moon collapsed. Where it had shone moments before was—nothing—only that immense face with its shuttered eyes, and the sighing wind.

  I was shivering uncontrollably. I could feel the hammering pulse of blood in my temples, feel Angelica’s arms around me, cold and unyielding as iron, and hear her breathing. But my vision was filled with the dreadful visage that took up the entire sky: eyes like charred holes, her mouth a howling void. I was filled with a terror so intense, so sharp and pure and cold, that it was almost like joy. For a long moment everything was so still I thought we might stay this way forever, frozen beneath that implacable sleeping face. And then its eyes began to open.

  I screamed; at least I tried to. But Angelica gripped me so hard the sound was choked out of me. Above us floated that gorgon’s face, vast and ravenous and patient. Once more the moon burned upon her brow with a hard silver gleam. Her hair flowed across the sky, her mouth gaped wider and wider until I thought it would swallow us. But what was most terrible was her eyes.

  Because they were not a gorgon’s eyes. Instead, when the heavy lids lifted, there in that dreadful white face shone eyes warm and blue and brilliant as the heart of summer. Looking at them my knees buckled. Even Angelica gasped. She let go of me and I dropped to the ground, weeping.

  Because I could have borne the gorgon’s stare, shuddered and kicked and fought some nightmarish vision of Hecate or Kali or Circe. But not this. Never this.

  Because this was my mother. Her summer eyes staring down at me as she woke me in the morning, met me after school, waved a sad farewell in front of Rossetti Hall. But at the same time it was also Angelica I saw there. Angelica as I had first glimpsed her, poised in the doorway of a stifling classroom, Angelica staring at the Shrine as it burst into flame. I wept, overwhelmed by the most primal surge of yearning that I have ever felt.

  And the Woman in the Moon gazed back down upon me. Her eyes, too, welled with tears, her lashes drooped even as her mouth yawned wider and I felt myself falling into Her. All around me was heat and flames, the stench of charred wood and cloth and cinders. My hair burned, my clothes turned to ashes and my hands to sizzling bone as I reached for Her, crying aloud. Because She was my mother, She was whispering my name, the only name my mother ever called me, even as She devoured me—

  “Katie—Katie—Katie—”

  —and in Her burning embrace my tears hissed upon my cheeks, my hair and skin were nothing but smoke—

  “—Sweeney! Sweeney—please!”

  I opened my eyes and blinked painfully. “What…?”

  “Sweeney! Are you all right? Sweeney?”

  In front of me crouched Angelica. Her face looked greenish in the crimelights. I coughed, waved unseen smoke from my bleary eyes. “Yeah, I’m okay. But Angelica—did you—did you see—?”

  Her eyes widened as she shook her head. “I thought you were having a seizure,” she said. “You’re not—well, epileptic or something?”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “No, I’m not epileptic. Didn’t you—I mean, Angelica, what the fuck was that?”

  Angelica said nothing. Above us the night was clear; at least it was clear once you got above the scrim of heat and exhaust that hung above us like the ghost of some other, older place.

  “What was what?” Angelica asked softly. “I mean—you just seemed—well, a little out of it.”

  I glanced at her sideways: her pale face, the way she looked away from me and then back again, her gaze skipping from mine like a stone over cold water.

  A little out of it.

  She was lying. Something had happened, but who knew what? Not me; but then maybe not Angelica, either. I took a deep breath and forced myself to stare into the sky again, looking for the face I had seen there before, the moon like a bright reflection of my own deepest fears and longing.

  It was gone. Oh, the moon was there, all right, but not The Moon: only a whitish blur hanging above the trees. There were no stars, no eyes; nothing but that pale scar in the bruised sky. As I stared, a thick brown haze encroached upon it, slow but relentless, until at last the moon was gone. Where it had been a smudged cloud gave forth a dull incendiary glow against the lowering darkness.

  “No,” I whispered. When I looked at Angelica I saw that she was watching me, her gaze intent and not a little frightened. She opened her mouth and for an instant I thought she would explain, or at least apologize. But she only looked away aga
in.

  A moment later her voice came to me softly more imploringly than before. She drew close to me, rested her hands upon my shoulders, and whispered, “Do you still want to come?”

  I said nothing. Instead I tilted my head to the sky, eyes shut, and listened, wondering how I could ever have thought the night was silent. Distant traffic, far-off laughter, and voices not so far, the pleading whine of a siren fading into the tossing leaves.

  And once more I felt that faint eerie music, truly felt rather than heard it—a deep wild note that hummed through me, resonating within my chest as though I were a drum that had been struck. I trembled, with fear and expectation and yearning. All the exhilaration and uncertainty I had felt over the last few days hardened into a single thought, a small cold nugget that might some day crack and yield an explanation for what was going on. I had had a glimpse of what might be behind all of this, an intuitive flash that told me Yes, something really is happening here, and Yes, you can leave now if you’re afraid, and Yes, this really isn’t your life anymore.

  Because in my life the moon did not call out my name. Angels didn’t appear in my room at night and leave their plumage upon the floor. Eerily beautiful boys and girls didn’t befriend me, and I didn’t hear distant music like bones and flutes. In my life I would gently take Angelica’s hands from my shoulders, then turn and walk away from the Mound. I would go to call my parents, or return to my room to study and maybe make some other new friends, misfits like Annie or myself who had been let into the Divine by mistake.

  But this wasn’t my life anymore. I knew that. Because I only nodded, and raised my hands until they closed around Angelica’s.

  “Yes,” I whispered, my fingers tightening about her wrists. The sound of bones and flutes died away into the laughter of others coming up behind us on the path. “I’ll come with you, Angelica. Of course, you know I will.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The Reception

  GARVEY HALL WAS A domed Italianate villa dating from the mid-1800s, with kudzu-wound porticoes and twisted cedars hunched against the crumbling walls.

  “Look at that.” Angelica sighed rapturously. “It’s like a set from Les Enfants du Paradis.”

  I thought it looked more like Tara on bad acid, but Angelica didn’t waste time discussing the architecture. Instead she swept past the dozen or so people scattered about the patio and on into the crowded reception.

  I hesitated. Inside all seemed to be smoke and scarlet and gold, with touches of black and white where groups of tuxedoed men bowed their heads.

  I can’t go in there, I thought. But Angelica was already in there, smiling and nodding. So I hurried to catch up, my bootheels echoing loudly on the parquet floor. I was sure that someone would stop me, question me, ask to see my invitation.

  But Annie’s comment about Angelica conferring invisibility was borne out. No one noticed me at all.

  “Just act like you belong here,” whispered Angelica as I clunked past an aged monsignor chatting with a young man in a kilt.

  “Oh, sure,” I muttered, but Angelica only grinned. The monsignor started in annoyance as we elbowed our way past, only to beam when he saw Angelica smiling down at him.

  “Hello, dear,” he murmured. The boy in the kilt eyed her appraisingly before turning to his companion. Angelica and I went on.

  It was an enormous round room, with faux marble walls and columns, parquet floors, a frieze of fanciful creatures circling the high ceiling around the dome’s perimeter. From somewhere rose the sweet strains of a string quartet. There was no air-conditioning, and the heat and humidity were intensified by the smoke. I felt as though I were swimming through some warm grey pool, washed by currents of expensive pipe tobacco and perfume and the fumes of about seventeen different kinds of exotic cigarettes, including clove, camphor, and what could only be hashish. Everyone smiled at Angelica, one or two of them greeting her by name. A few people even smiled at me. I smiled back, trying to put all of my charm and energy into my teeth, so they wouldn’t notice my clothes.

  And everywhere I looked in vain for Oliver. I remembered what he had said about the Molyneux scholars—

  “What are they?”

  “Magicians—”

  Though if anything, this looked like an assemblage of some very wealthy if eccentric alumnae, with a few flushed undergraduates and faculty members thrown in for good measure. And, whatever the Molyneux scholars were, they gave a loose interpretation to the term Formal Attire. I saw tuxedos of every vintage, as well as morning coats, evening gowns, beaded miniskirts, tribal robes, kimonos, velvet yarmulkas, and every kind of ecclesiastical attire, including a woman who appeared to be wearing a cardinal’s biretta and dalmatic. What I did not see was anyone else wearing a Blue Cheer T-shirt and black stovepipe jeans tucked into battered cowboy boots.

  “I’m dying of thirst,” Angelica announced. She paused, smoothing her dress against her thighs, and peered through the smoke. “Come on—”

  The bar was a long mahogany-and-brass affair that might have been imported from a 1920s cruise ship. Behind it a phalanx of harried undergraduates in ill-fitting white jackets poured drinks and opened bottles of champagne. I got a vodka tonic; Angelica took a fluted glass of mineral water. Then we walked to the end of the bar and staked out a spot by the wall. Angelica leaned back so that her dress rode up her legs, her stockings and high heels stark black against the creamy painted marble. I stood beside her and knocked back my vodka tonic.

  “Nice bunch of folks,” I said, crunching ice cubes. “You think Oliver’s coming?”

  Angelica shrugged, but I noticed how her gaze kept darting about the room. I was thinking of getting another drink when I spied a stocky figure off by himself, smoking a cigarette as he leaned against a medieval-looking tapestry.

  “Hey! There’s that guy from Warnick’s class—what’s-his-name, you know—”

  Angelica turned quickly, then nodded, disappointed. “Oh, him. José Malabar. He kept hitting up on me at orientation. He’s a commuter, lives here in D.C. with his parents.”

  “And he’s a Molyneux scholar?”

  “Yes—one of his brothers was, too. He’s an English major. Writes poetry. He showed me some of it.”

  I rattled the last ice cube in my glass. “Any good?”

  Angelica grimaced. “Not really my taste. Sort of raw. But it was okay.”

  I looked back at the dark figure. He nodded and lifted his cigarette in greeting.

  “Listen, I’m getting another drink,” I said. “You want something?”

  “Maybe in a minute. But I’ll get it myself.”

  At the bar I smiled gamely at the guys pouring drinks.

  “You know her?” one asked, pointing his thumb at Angelica.

  I took my vodka tonic and downed most of it in a gulp. “Yeah.”

  “Huh.” He stared admiringly at Angelica, then flashed me a grin. “Well, you’re shitting in some high cotton, sister. Have another.” I traded my empty glass for a full one and stepped away. Angelica had floated toward the center of the room, deep in conversation with a white-haired man who could have been her grandfather. I turned and walked to the tapestried wall.

  “Hi,” I said. José Malabar looked startled. “You’re José. You’re in Warnick’s class with me, right?”

  He took a long drag of his cigarette and regarded me warily. He was my own age, heavyset and olive-skinned, with dark straight hair falling unevenly about his ears and small, almond-shaped eyes. He wore an ancient black suit over an open white shirt, flocked with burn holes and a dusting of ash.

  “Joe,” he said at last, in a low voice. He had an accent that I couldn’t place. “Baby Joe.”

  “Baby Joe.” I nodded and raised my drink to him. “I’m Sweeney Cassidy.”

  He stared at me through a halo of grey smoke. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Sweeney. I know you. You’re the one got tagged by Beauty and the Beast this morning.” He began to laugh, a childlike wheezing giggle, and reached for my
glass. I smiled uneasily and gave it to him. He took a sip, raising it in mock salute. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I came with Angelica.”

  “Huh.” Baby Joe frowned, then finished my drink. He handed me the empty glass and shook his head. “Yeah, I know her too. She’s okay. But you’re not one of them.”

  “Who’s ‘them’?”

  Baby Joe’s voice was derisive. “You know. The Benandanti. Brujos.”

  “No.” I looked around uncomfortably, then set my empty glass on the floor. “I mean, I guess not. I never even heard of them until today.”

  “That’s good.” He dropped his cigarette. “Because I hate them.”

  He stared at the floor, waiting till his cigarette had burned a tiny black hole in the wood; then ground it out with a filthy high-top sneaker bound with electrical tape. The sneakers matched his shapeless suit, which was baggy even on his ungainly form. On the lapel was a small red button. I squinted as I read the tiny letters.

  IT’S NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS WHAT IT SAYS.

  I laughed, but Baby Joe’s expression remained enigmatic. He tapped another cigarette from a pack of Pall Malls, then began to speak with exaggerated slowness.

  “Let me tell you something, Sweeney Cassidy.” He spoke so loudly that several people turned to frown in our direction. “You shouldn’t be here. This scholar shit is dangerous, di ba?”

  I grew hot with embarrassment and stared at the tips of my boots, but Baby Joe seemed to enjoy the glares we were getting.

  “You think you’re getting in for some nice schoolgirl fun, you and Barbie Doll over there, but you’re gonna get fucked.”

  He paused and turned an insolent stare upon two elderly women who regarded us with tight frowns. “YOU—ARE GOING—TO GET—FUCKED.”

  The women moved off in disgust. Baby Joe smiled, then looked at me and added, “And your friend Oliver? Talagang sirang ulo—fucking crazy bitch! He’ll be pushing a shopping cart down Fourteenth Street one of these days. He’s crazy, that whole family is crazy. My brother was here with his brother, Walter—”