She wanted to yell, to throw herself across the floor, anything to warn him. But fear flowed through her like a drug, so deadening it was a relief not to move. She could only watch as the silent angel crossed the floor, until it loomed above him.
Still the boy was oblivious. He kept talking to himself and giggling; now and then he’d feint and punch out at the air, then fall back laughing. The black angel’s harriers sauntered toward him.
Darkness is thine
The stealth of the hunter
That strikes in the field
The joy of the archer
Who brings thee his kill
All this is thine
Othiym Lunarsa…
Suddenly the boy stiffened. He stared at the floor, for the first time noticed the shadow there. He raised his head.
The angel was gazing down at him with unblinking onyx eyes. The boy stared back, his smile gone now, his fists hanging loosely at his sides. Annie could hear the throbbing roar of music as Virgie and the others circled the boy.
His eyes widened, his mouth parted, and he tried to move, but someone grabbed him. Lyla; Annie recognized her little body and the dark crescent upon her cheek. When he tried to cry out, Lyla wrenched his arms back, whispering a warning into his ear.
Above them the tall figure smiled. Something huge and shadowy billowed behind it, a deeper darkness that furled and unfurled like great black wings. The dance music faded, until there was nothing but a persistent thudding backbeat, like waves against the shore. The sound grew louder. The dull percussive thud became words, a string of names that rolled across Annie’s mind in an endless tide.
Othiym, Anat, Innana.
Hail Artemis, Britomartis,
Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtorath,
Bellona, More, Kali,
Durga, Khon-Ma, Kore.
Othiym Lunarsa, Othiym haïyo!
Like the slow soothing blood of poppies the words seeped into her, and as the music had faded, so now did the boathouse, dissolving into a colorless mist. Another room held her. A claustral space, dimly lit by smoking tapers and thick with the smells of flesh and wine. She was lying on her back on a wide stone table. A few feet away, someone else lay as well, sleeping soundly. Dream-logic told her that this was an altar; but it was unlike any church or cathedral Annie had ever been in. And, dazed as she was, she knew this wasn’t a dream. Sweet smoke filled her nostrils, the scents of coriander seed and heated amber, sandalwood and oranges; and why was that so familiar? The fumes clouded her thoughts and she yawned. She wanted only to sleep, like her companion upon the altar—sleep and forget.
You are the secret mouth of the world
You are the word not uttered
Othiym Lunarsa, haïyo!
But sleep wouldn’t come. This was all was too strange, and part of her wouldn’t stop trying to make sense of it—had she been slipped a drug back at the boathouse? But this was more like a movie than an hallucination, albeit a movie with myriad smells and the acute discomfort of lying on a cold stone slab. Flowers were everywhere: orange lilies, cyclamen, purple morning glories already fading to grey. Tiny golden bees crawled over them, and gathered thickly upon the lip of a rhyton smeared with honey, sipped at a shallow salver of wine and one of soured milk.
Annie grimaced and tried to move, discovered that she was bound with cords—strands of vines and dried grasses that smelled sweet but were surprisingly strong. Several bees crawled toward her, drawn, it seemed, by her struggle. Annie stiffened, then sighed with relief as the insects stopped, too drunk on honey and fermented milk to go on.
She tilted her head to get a better look at the other figure on the altar. A boy, she thought at first—he was slight and curly-headed, his mouth open as though he were asleep. But then she noted that his fair hair was tinged with grey, and the torso beneath the hempen ropes was slack and pale—the skin white and translucent as ice, blue-tinged and with a faint damp sheen.
Annie whimpered. Dizziness swept over her: this was all wrong, she didn’t belong here, and neither did that man, whoever he was. Whoever he had been. She tried to struggle but the ropes were too tight. She could hear faint voices somewhere just out of sight, the pad of bare feet upon stone floors. And there was that sweet smoke…
Don’t breathe, try not to breathe!
She exhaled, with all her strength raised one elbow and rammed it against the stone.
She gasped. Her vision wavered; the pain curdled into nausea and a blade of fire jabbing through her arm.
Now! she thought. Because with the pain came a split second of clarity. She recognized the figure beside her on the altar.
Hasel Bright.
“No!” Annie shouted, but her voice was lost among the others singing.
All You have loved
All that is best
Is thine, O Beautiful One.
They emerged from the shadows, nine priestesses forming a half circle before the raised stone table. Behind them three male acolytes carried rhytons shaped like the heads of bulls. The women were tall, breasts exposed above long shirred skirts that swept to their ankles. The skirts were striped black and gold, bold and surprisingly modern in such an archaic-seeming place. They might have been wasps given women’s form, moving in a slow measured dance. In their arms they carried a boy, a boy with very white teeth and tanned skin and sun-streaked hair.
Annie stared, entranced. They were so close that she could smell the boy’s sweat, coconut oil, and the faint chloroform odor of XTC. When the priestesses raised their arms she could see silver crescents gleaming between their breasts. She could hear the papery rustling of their skirts, their low voices—
Strabloe hathaneatidas druei tanaous kolabreusomena
Kirkotokous athroize te mani Grogopa Gnathoi ruseis itoa
Each word with its echo of threat and fear—
Gather your immortal sons, ready them for your wild dance
Harrow Circe’s children beneath the binding Moon
Bare to them your dreadful face, inviolable
Goddess, your clashing teeth
The male acolytes approached the altar, gathered Hasel’s limp form, and bore it away. Annie fought the panic boiling up inside her, but for the moment it seemed she was forgotten. The priestesses came forward, and gently placed the boy upon the altar. He lay upon his side, naked, his mouth stained from the libation. They had painted his lips and eyes with ocher, and drawn a half-moon upon his smooth chest. Against his honey-colored skin strands of ivy gleamed. He looked like a child at rest, eyes closed, his mouth in a sweet half smile; a child dreaming of his Mother. And his Mother came.
Without a sound she approached the altar, passing through the ranks of chanting women. Taller than any of them, and naked, her bronzy hair unbound and flowing past her shoulders, her lovely face calm, unsmiling. Between her bare breasts the lunula shone. Her priestesses fell silent as she stepped between them.
When she reached the altar she stopped. As Annie watched through a haze of smoke, Othiym’s fingers tightened around the lunula. She moved until she stood directly above the boy. She raised the lunula over her head. Before Annie could flinch, the glowing crescent fell to strike the boy beside her. Sudden warmth splashed onto her face.
Othiym, haïyo!
Annie screamed. When she blinked her eyelids felt sticky. A salt-scorched taste burned her mouth. Through the roaring in her ears she heard Othiym’s voice crying Eisheth! And Eisheth came.
It was no longer the black angel she had seen earlier. It was a vulture, so vast the shadow of its wings blotted out everything behind it. The stench of rotting flesh flowed from it, and she could see white grubs and blowflies rooting in the wattled flesh of its neck. It made a soft gurgling sound, like laughter, then pecked at the boy’s eyes.
Annie gagged. The acolytes darted to the altar, vying with each other to catch the boy’s blood in their rhytons. The vulture stared at them balefully, its black tongue clicking against its beak.
“Eisheth!”
“Angelica,” she whispered. It was almost a relief to say it.
The woman smiled. She looked improbably youthful and lovely as ever, with her tawny skin and hair, her slanted eyes. But her breasts were stippled with blood, and blood ran from her nipples to streak her belly. In her strong peasant’s hands she held a rhyton shaped like a bull’s head. Steam threaded the air above the vessel’s opening as she lifted it, tilting it until a dark stream flowed from the bull’s open mouth and into her own.
“All I have loved is mine,” she said. Her mouth and tongue and teeth were black with blood.
Annie broke into hysterical gabbling. Beneath her the cold stone altar disappeared. The smoke dispersed, and with it the vulture’s carrion stench. Once again she was crouching upon the wooden floor of the boathouse.
On the other side of the room people danced, oblivious. A few yards from Annie, Lyla and the others stood above a limp form. Annie’s voice became a sob. Virgie glanced at her, then back down at the dead boy.
His eyes were gone, and his tongue. His torso had been split, the twin arches of his rib cage pried apart and his organs removed. In the empty cavity there was only a black-and-crimson feather, like a blossom sprung from his heart.
Annie shook convulsively. A single maddening thought raced through her mind—there should be more blood, she had seen how he’d died, there should be blood everywhere…
Without warning they were upon her, clawing at her arms and face as they dragged her to her feet. Annie screamed, she kicked and fought and yelled but they were everywhere, a mindless hive tearing at her clothes, pinning her arms behind her back.
“Be careful, be careful!—
Annie saw Virgie looking at her with round black eyes.
“Agape, Annie—you’re so lucky you’ve been chosen—”
Annie moaned, closed her eyes against the pain. When she opened them again she saw a crescent flashing in the darkness. A few inches from her face someone held a battered silver vessel. She smelled blood: that choking thick smell, its ferrous taste as they prised her jaws open and it scalded her gums, blinded her where it splashed into her eyes. She couldn’t scream, there was blood everywhere, filling her nostrils and ears and mouth. Through a film of red she saw the lunula, the Moon poised to rise and blot the sun from the sky…
“Let her go!”
A voice cried out. The hands upon her tightened; then the same voice cried again.
“Ne Othiym anahta, Ne Othiym—praetome!”
Annie blinked. The others turned, gazing at a screen door that had blown open behind them.
“Ne Othiym anahta, Ne Othiym—praetome!”
Her captors let go. Annie staggered across the floor.
“You fucking amateurs,” she spat, and started to cry.
A few feet away Othiym’s followers stared at the door, their faces angry and bewildered. Virgie let out a wail.
“Ohh—she’s ruined everything—”
Like insects they scattered, and disappeared among the crowd. Annie tried vainly to stop sobbing.
“You better call someone. I mean like 911—” she choked, wiping her eyes and staring repelled at her blood-streaked fingers. “God, I don’t fucking believe this—”
From the doorway came a muffled laugh.
“Funny?” Annie whirled, hoarse with rage. “You think this is funny?”
For the first time Annie saw her savior: a striking long-haired woman in a purple dress.
“Funny ha-ha or funny strange?” the woman asked.
Annie gasped. “B-but you—you were—”
The woman only smiled. Not with mockery or amusement, but with the purest joy and longing Annie had ever seen. Smiled and nodded, just once, whispering—
“Oh, Annie—I’ve missed you so—”
—before the wind sent sand like rain raiding against the floorboards, and without a sound she melted into the darkness.
CHAPTER 15
Ancient Voices (Echo)
I DECIDED TO WALK home. The Metro would have been quicker and cooler, but the mere thought of all those thousands of happy tourists exhausted me. I stopped at a bookstore to order a copy of Waking the Moon, then headed back out.
More than ever I felt like a failure. Compared to Angelica—beautiful, eternally youthful Angelica, with her gorgeous hair, her string of books and villa in Santorini and bewitching (if false) green eyes—I was a failure. Here I was, thirty-eight years old, never married, no kids, no serious love affairs, still renting a house because I didn’t make enough money to get a mortgage. The most interesting thing that had ever happened to me occurred half a lifetime ago, but even that didn’t really count because whom could I tell about it? Who would believe it?
Or—and this was worse—who, after all this time, would even care? The only real friend I had was Baby Joe, because he was the only person who remembered me the way I was at eighteen.
And that was the way I still liked to think of myself. Not as Katherine Cassidy, the loyal civil servant who’d paid her dues at the National Museum of Natural History and after thirteen sober years had an office with a view, a government pension, five weeks of annual vacation and the occasional professional junket to New York or Chicago; but Sweeney, who had dreamed of discovering buried pyramids and sacred tombs, who could drink and dance all night and all day and still find her way home in one piece; whose friends were beautiful and magical and who for some reason, however briefly, seemed to find Sweeney enchanting too. Sweeney, who read poetry and saw angels and had glimpsed the Benandanti’s wasteland behind a hidden door; Sweeney, who had known the answer to the magic question when it was asked of her, and who had tried to remain loyal, courageous, and true till the end. Sweeney, whose one great love had taken a swan dive from the loony ward at Providence Hospital.
But Sweeney was gone, as surely as Oliver was. And to the rest of the world, to everyone except for Baby Joe and maybe Angelica or Annie Harmon, she had never even existed at all.
Dr. Dvorkin’s house was on one of the myriad little cross streets that make up the residential blocks of Capitol Hill. From the street, the house looked much like its neighbors, a wide three-storied century-old brick town house, the walls painted a dark red that had faded nicely over the years and went well with the butter-yellow roses tumbling across the black wrought-iron fence.
The real wonder of Dr. Dvorkin’s house could not be seen from the street. Because, for all the loneliness and boredom I’d lived with since leaving the Divine, the Benandanti had granted me this: a secret garden, my own hidden cottage in the woods. The garden itself was so lovely I was surprised it had never been written up in Washingtonian Magazine or one of the national shelter rags. But then I learned that Dr. Dvorkin had, indeed, been besieged with requests to photograph the garden, and always gently refused them.
“It’s my secret place. And yours now, too, of course. And I would like to keep it that way.”
The garden was behind the town house. It was bound on all sides by high brick walls overgrown with Virginia creeper, climbing yellow roses and morning glory and wisteria. There were flagstone paths winding through hostas and astilbes and a low dark green mantle of pachysandra, and around its perimeter all kinds of gorgeously exotic lilies. At the back of the garden, pressed up against one of the crumbling walls, was the carriage house, a nearly perfect square with a flat roof interrupted by a small belfry. It was made of red brick that had weathered to a soft rose that was nearly white. Ivy covered it, and wisteria that twined above the flagstone path that linked it to the main house.
Inside, the carriage house was cool as the hidden recesses of my own heart. From the rafters hung bunches of herbs I had bought at Eastern Market—valerian, lemon balm, mint. I inhaled gratefully, kicked my shoes off, and let my bare feet slide across the cool slate floor. I was home.
Downstairs the carriage house consisted of only one largish room, with a tiny bath
room tucked beneath the stairs and a miniature kitchen like an afterthought added on to one side. The main room had slate floors and the original exposed oak beams and joists. One entire wall was filled with bookshelves, and there was a small harvest table that held a lamp and a few domestic artifacts: a shadow puppet, a vase of oriental lilies, the sea urchin lamp that Angelica had sent me for Christmas so many years before.
Like the carriage house itself, most of its furnishings were borrowed from Dr. Dvorkin. He had more money than I did, I liked his taste, and so for all these years I’d just lived with his things. Against the back wall was a sagging Castro Convertible sofa bed, draped with a heavy kilim rug. Shaker chairs hung from hooks in the beams, and there was an abandoned hornet’s nest perched on a rafter in the corner. The tiny bedroom upstairs held a beautifully carved wooden bed from Sweden, a heavy armoire from Java, another kilim on the floor. Outside there were a couple of deck chairs and an old wicker table I’d salvaged from the curb.
Right now it was too hot to sit outside. I changed into an old T-shirt and turned on the radio. “All Things Considered” was starting, but I felt like I’d had enough news for one day. I fiddled with the dial until I found something more soothing—some nice madrigals, very dull, very pretty—then checked my answering machine for messages. There was only one, from Dr. Dvorkin, saying that he’d forgotten to tell me someone was staying in the main house, so I shouldn’t worry if I saw lights there later in the evening. I reset the machine and went into the kitchen and poured myself some wine, then flopped onto the couch.
“Well, here’s to Angelica,” I said. I finished one glass and poured another, then another. I didn’t usually make such a dent in a bottle of wine, especially on a work night, but this seemed like a special occasion, an evening for elegies and repining. The sad strains of the madrigals filled the little room, the slate floors cooled beneath my bare feet as the sun died and violet shadows crept across the deck and into the carriage house. From Ninth Street came the occasional hushed sound of a passing car, and I heard soft laughter from one of the neighboring houses. One or two stars glimmered in the darkness, and fireflies moved in a drowsy waltz above the hostas outside. I watched for lights to go on in the main house, trying to guess who Dr. Dvorkin’s newest guest might be—someone connected with the Aditi, probably, a visiting curator or diplomat. Maybe even one of Jack Rogers’s fire-eaters.
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