Waking the Moon

by Elizabeth Hand

  Annie was silent. Martha and Helen exchanged a glance; then Martha said quickly, “I don’t think she really meant that women were literally enslaved—”

  “Oh, but she did!” exclaimed Virgie. Lyla nodded; the crescent moon on her cheek caught a stray mote of candlelight and seemed to flicker. “That’s her whole thing, how we’ve been so incredibly conditioned we don’t even know that we’re nothing more than chattel, I mean look at the way they want to control our bodies—”

  “The way they want to control our minds,” added Lyla.

  “But Othiym—I mean Angelica—I mean, she just makes you aware of this whole new way of looking at the world. A whole old way, really—”

  She pointed at Annie’s Labrys T-shirt. “Like that thing there, the double axe—that’s a symbol that goes back to ancient Crete, to the Great Goddess religion there—”

  Annie gazed at Virgie coolly. “I know what it means.”

  “Well, you should come to one of her gatherings and see for yourself, Annie.” Virgie’s sloe eyes widened as she spread her hands imploringly. “Angelica Furiano gives you a whole new way of looking at the world! And there’s so many of us now! Somebody’s even making a documentary about her—”

  “Oh yeah? Who? Leni Riefenstahl?”

  Virgie frowned. “Is she the one who did that Bikini Kill video?”

  Annie moaned and looked away.

  “You have to admit, Annie, at least it’s a change,” said Martha. “I mean, she really does make you think about things.”

  Annie stared broodingly out the window.

  “I prefer to think of things on my own,” she said at last.

  “Annie’s had some bad experiences with organized religion.” Helen looked at her lover fondly. “You know, that whole lapsed Catholic trip—”

  “Othiym says the reason conventional Western religions have failed is that they don’t take into account the notion of sacrifice.” Lyla’s prim expression was at odds with her tattoo and cropped hair. “She says the problem with Catholics is that they don’t take the idea of sacrifice far enough.”

  “We have to break away from all that,” agreed Virgie in a childish voice. “‘The New Woman will only emerge when she learns to commit every horror and violence that till now society has denied her as foreign to her temperament.’”

  Everyone was silent.

  “Gee, I never thought of that,” said Annie.

  “It’s from the Marquis de Sade,” Virgie confessed. “I read it in one of Angelica’s books.”

  Annie’s eyes flashed. “I think you’re all playing with fire,” she said, casting a poisonous look at Virgie and Lyla. “And I think it’s incredibly rude of you and your friends to interrupt my show yelling your stupid slogans—”

  “They’re not slogans,” Lyla said. “It’s an incantation. Because all great music invokes the Goddess.”

  “You should be flattered.” Virgie looked as though she might burst into tears. “I mean, that your music could invoke such feelings from us—”

  “I don’t think—” Martha stammered, but Annie was already getting to her feet.

  “That’s your whole problem, Martha. You don’t think—none of you think, you’re letting some rich crazy egotistical New Age bitch do it for you. Haven’t you ever heard of cults, girls? Don’t any of you know how to read a newspaper? The name Manson mean anything to you? David Koresh? Bhagwan Rajneesh? Jim Jones?”

  Helen rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Annie—”

  “It’s not like that at all! This is something beautiful, something totally new—”

  Annie snorted. “Oh, give me a fucking break! How much enlightenment can you get in a fucking weekend? And am I wrong, or are you paying for this transcendence?”

  “Actually, Angelica’s practically giving it away these days,” said Martha. “She’s got all these priestesses teaching new initiates—”

  “Priestesses?” howled Annie. “Now she’s got priestesses? Man, are you getting hosed! Do you all dress like her, too? Do you spend fifteen minutes with your eyeliner and—”

  “Annie,” growled Helen.

  “Priestesses! I bet she passes the collection basket, too! Man, what a crock! Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. This one’s got tits and a twat, that’s all.”

  Helen raised her voice above Virgie and Lyla’s angry protests. “Annie, you are being totally ridiculous!—”

  “Oh yeah? Well, maybe you should just go with them and get in touch with your secret lunar self. I’m leaving.”

  Annie stormed from the table. She paused to stare disdainfully at the crescent moon on Lyla’s cheek. “Hey, that’s pretty cutting edge—only you and ninety thou-sand other girls have one of those.” She headed for the door.

  “It’s a sensitive topic,” said Helen, sighing. Martha put her arm around Virgie. Lyla just looked mad. “Look, I’ll go calm her down—but let’s not talk about religion anymore, okay?”

  “I thought she’d understand,” wailed Virgie. “She seemed so in touch with her own inner cycles—”

  “Hush,” said Martha.

  Helen found Annie just outside the front door of the Inn, leaning against the wall. Down the street the usual nighttime crowd was starting to gather in front of Spiritus. A few yards away, a streetlamp’s shining globe cast a rippling silver reflection on the dark surface of the water, the bright circle breaking into fluid coils when the breeze stirred it. From a sailboat at anchor echoed laughter and the strains of dance music.

  “If you think I’m going back in there, you are out of your fucking mind.”

  Helen smiled in spite of herself, reached to stroke Annie’s neck. “Don’t you think you were overreacting a little?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, come on—Charles Manson?”

  “Angelica di Rienzi could eat Charles Manson for breakfast. Probably she already has,” Annie added darkly.

  “I think you’re carrying around just a teensy bit of personal baggage, Annie. I know you said you never wanted to talk about Angelica, and I’ve always respected that, but this has kind of gotten out of hand. I mean, they’re just a couple of dopey kids, that’s all! Virgie’s crying, Martha is totally bummed, and Lyla the Bee Queen looks like she is getting in touch with a very pissed-off inner goddess.”

  “Good,” snapped Annie, but her mouth twisted into a half smile. “Maybe next time they won’t ruin my show.”

  Helen sighed. “Well, I don’t think you’re going to get much repeat business from those two. Listen, Martha says there’s some kind of dance party out at Herring Cove tonight—”

  “Yeah,” said Annie, nodding. From here you could just glimpse where the narrow spit of land curved to face the Adantic, a hazy darkness spangled with a few bobbing lights. “In the old boathouse there. Patrick told me about it; he knows one of the guys who’ve put it together. They’re supposed to have a fabulous sound and light show.”

  “So let’s go and dance. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

  “Oh, sure! A bunch of kids on X and vitamins—”

  “You used to love to dance! Jeez, girlfriend, loosen up a little—”

  Annie shook her head stubbornly. “If I ever loosen up, the world will come to an end. You know that. I’m the only thing standing between you and the dark of Mordor—”

  “Hey. You know what, Annie? Shut up—”

  Helen took Annie’s chin in her hand, stared into her dark eyes, and then kissed her, long and slow, her hand dropping to stroke her lover’s breast beneath the thin black T-shirt. After a minute she drew back and there was Annie, her face slightly flushed, the blazing light in her eyes somewhat softened. “You remember how to dance, don’t you?”

  Annie nodded, her mouth breaking into a slow grin. “Sure. You just put your lips together, and flow—”

  And drawing Helen close, she kissed her again.

  When they got to Herring Cove Beach the party was in high gear, the rickety old boathouse shaking dangerously as music throbbed
inside and the party spilled out onto the sand, hundreds of bodies thrashing and moving ecstatically.

  “Now I know why the bar was empty,” Annie shouted.

  “It’s been going on since this morning,” Martha yelled back. “I’m surprised they haven’t gotten busted.”

  “They will if they stay out on the beach like that.” Annie handed the boy at the door a ten-dollar bill. He glanced at her and did a double take.

  “Yo, Annie Harmony! Great time inside—”

  He stamped her palm with a little smiling Goofy face in purple ink.

  “What, no change?” Annie looked down at the zippered cash bag that sat in the lap of the huge bodybuilder helping guard the door. “Ten dollars so I can get sand in my drink?”

  “Ten bucks, ten bucks,” he yelled, his head nodding up and down. “Chem free, smart drinks at the other door, no drinking inside—”

  “Oh, yeah, right—”

  “Enough, Annie!” Martha and Helen pulled her through the door.

  She felt like she was inside a fireworks display, all explosive sound and color and motion. The boathouse was the only structure on this stretch of the protected seashore, a place curiously ignored by the local constabulary, most of the time. You could drink or cruise or engage in just about any carnal pastime you wanted there. Its piers had been bored by sea worms and salt, the roof was missing most of its shingles, the whole thing flooded whenever it stormed. There were ragged holes in walls and ceiling. Annie’s sneaker got stuck in the gap between two floorboards. When she bent to yank it out, she could see through the hole to where black water lapped at the rocks and pilings below. She straightened and found herself alone on a patch of empty floor. The DJ had shoved a new song into the sound system, and everyone seemed to have rushed to the far wall. She could just make out Helen and Martha dancing a few yards away. Of Virgie and Lyla she saw nothing; they had stalked off as soon as they got here, whispering and casting baleful stares in Annie’s direction.

  Forget them, she thought. It was easy enough. The music was so loud it drove any-thing like a coherent thought from her brain, so fast it was like the steady rumble of an aircraft taking off, a mad stuttering sound that sent her blood hammering so hard her vision blurred. Everywhere she looked she saw people dancing, such a mass of indistinguishable bodies that it was like watching footage of bizarre underwater creatures, all waving tentacles and gasping mouths and teeth. Nearly all the boys and men were shirtless, a number of them completely naked except for plastic water bottles taped to a thigh or forearm. A lot of the women were naked too, their breasts flashing white in the steamy air. And of course she saw people humping, too. Not just in pairs, but in threes and fours and fives and serpentine lines too long to count, although there was something oddly sexless about their motion: it was like they were just another part of the machine, tins vast human engine thundering through the old boathouse like a juggernaut.

  It was too much to hope that she’d be able to hold out against it. Within minutes she was moving too, and if she’d worried about being recognized she soon forgot—hers was just another shining face, another pair of arms and legs flickering in the blinding strobe lights. She let the river of light flow across her closed eyelids, a spectral wash of purple and black. When she opened her eyes a moment later she saw a strange tableau against the far wall, frozen in the brilliant glare of the strobes.

  It was Virgie and Lyla and several other women and young men. They stood together, not moving, not even engaging in the incessant nervous gestures of drinking and mopping sweat that, as far as Annie could see, was the closest anyone here came to actually standing still.

  This crowd was standing still. They were utterly motionless, and they were staring at Annie. In the center of the little group was one figure that really stood out—quite literally, since he or she was head and shoulders taller than the rest. Annie slowed her dancing to a sort of halfhearted swaying, staring boldly at the others, daring them to keep looking at her.

  They did. Virgie and Lyla stood by the figure in the middle, their faces stern and watchful. The others formed a half circle around them. Most of the women were young, their bodies taut and muscular as Lyla’s; though one was much older, with greying hair pulled into a coil on the nape of her neck. Boys and girls alike, they all had tattoos. Like a brand, grinning crescents on cheeks and shoulders and swelling biceps.

  Hah! real Moonies, thought Annie. She tried to keep her gaze fearless and disdainful, tried to keep moving. But those watchful eyes made her shudder. Like the multiple eyes of some patient spider, the way they just kept staring, like they had all the time in the world to wait for her to tire and weaken. And the frenzied crowd roiling about her only made it worse—she could scream and thrash all she wanted out here, and they’d only think she was having a good time. And for sure nobody was going to call the cops.

  She glanced around uneasily, looking for Helen. Probably went out onto the beach to cool off. Annie turned back to her motionless sentries.

  They hadn’t stirred. They were still in their silent half circle, staring. It was the one in the center that made Annie’s blood freeze. Tall, almost seven feet tall, with broad naked shoulders rippling with muscle. Yet it had breasts, too, small swelling breasts each tipped with a dark nipple. It had a narrow waist and hips, shadowed so that Annie couldn’t tell what it wore, or even if it was a girl or a guy. It had no body hair at all that she could see; nothing except for a pair of breasts more suited to a thirteen-year-old girl, and beautiful long auburn hair. A wingless watchful angel struck down from its pediment. A fallen seraphim.

  A black angel.

  Annie swallowed. So what the fucking hell is she—or he, or it—doing here, and why is it watching me?

  As if in answer to her thoughts, the tall figure looked away. Lyla and the others turned as well, as though they were all bound to it by invisible cords. Before they could look back and see her, Annie darted to where a bank of speakers rose above the dance floor.

  “Whoa, Nellie.” She caught her breath and leaned backward, until she was hidden between the speakers. From there she could watch them without being seen; from here they looked like just another group of partygoers.

  So maybe that’s all it is, she thought, a little desperately. Just some of Angie’s girls from Brown, and their friend the Incredible Miss Hulk.

  Then, in the darkness, someone begin to sing.

  All that is holy is thine

  All that is meat

  All that flowers and gives birth

  All that is fecund.

  Darkness is thine

  The stealth of the hunter

  That strikes in the field…

  A frail, quavering, voice—an old man’s, or a woman’s?—impossible to tell; but hearing it Annie shivered.

  All that rots in the earth

  All that is lovely

  All that decays

  Is thine, Devourer!

  Is thine, Great Sow.

  Haïyo! Othiym!

  Othiym Lunarsa

  The song flowed through Annie and she trembled.

  All that is beauty,

  All that is bone

  Is thine, Ravaging Mother

  All You have loved

  All that is best

  Is thine, O Beautiful One.

  Haïyo! Othiym!

  Othiym Lunarsa

  As abruptly as it had begun, the song died away. Annie stood motionless with dread—it had done something to her, devil-music, she had been turned to ice or stone! Then across the room a screen door banged open. A gust of sharp salt-smelling wind raked her face. She sneezed, clapped a hand over her mouth, and shrank against the speakers. The spell was broken; she could move.

  And so could the black angel.

  Annie gasped. It really was as though a statue had come alive, some beautiful malefic creature, half-gargoyle and half-gigantic child. From here she could watch it striding through the crowd, pulses of crimson and white marbling its bare arms and chest
. Now and then it paused, one foot poised above the floor, its great head swaying back and forth like a mastiff’s. Annie was too far to see all that clearly, and she was certainly too far away to hear, but she had a horrible certainty that it was sniffing for something.

  Once it stopped, and slowly turned. Annie almost fainted—it was staring right at her, it saw her where she crouched in the shadows. The tip of its tongue flicked between its lips, a tongue white and fat as a mealworm; but abruptly it looked away again, as though it had scented bigger prey, and strode off.

  Behind it, Lyla and Virgie and the rest trailed in alert silence. Annie let her breath out, shuddering. Whatever it was hunting, it wasn’t her—yet. She dared another peek out onto the dance floor.

  Obviously it was going to take more than a murderous seven-foot androgyne to get the attention of this crowd: no one gave it a second glance. Hell, no one gave it a first glance. Its black eyes stared fixedly at something just out of Annie’s range of vision, and as she watched she could see how the attention of its followers was turned as well.

  It was staring at a boy. Like Annie he was by himself.

  Just a stupid kid! Annie thought in a sort of bitter panic. Probably taking a few days off from his family vacationing down at Wellfleet or Chatham or Rock Harbor. Tanned and muscular, his short dark hair given ruddy highlights by the sun. He wore a pair of baggy tie-dyed shorts and a pair of sunglasses hanging from a cord against his chest. And he was wasted—that was obvious, he was laughing and talking to himself, his eyes shining, sweat glistening on his cheeks and brow. A little psychedelic fun in the shade, that was all; another harmless mindfuck.

  All that is beauty,

  All that is bone…

  “Hey.” Annie’s mouth was so dry it hurt to whisper. “Hey, wait—no—”