Because all of a sudden I was eighteen years old again, sitting in a stifling classroom and gazing at the most beautiful boy I had ever seen, the only person I had ever loved, waiting with my mouth parted for him to ask me a question only I knew the answer to…
I took a deep breath and stumbled to my feet. I pushed the hair from my eyes and smoothed my skirt—a short linen skirt; I had long legs and wasn’t above flashing them around in the summer, not that anyone ever seemed to notice.
Dylan noticed.
I glanced up and there he was, staring at me like I was something in the downtown window of Victoria’s Secret. When he saw me looking at him he smiled.
Slowly this time, a smile utterly without guile, sweet as a child’s and so completely, unabashedly carnal that my legs buckled and I sank back into my chair.
“Hey,” he said, and tugged at his shirt collar. “It sure is hot in here, isn’t it?”
I decided we should go for a walk. Outside my office a steady stream of people hurried through the corridor, all of them heading for the steps or service elevator.
“Mayday, mayday.” Laurie stuck her head through the door. “Hey, Katherine. They’ve put the Liberal Leave policy into effect, because of the heat. Everybody’s taking off—”
“What an excellent idea,” I exclaimed. “Thanks, Laurie—”
I started from my chair, and a wave of dizziness crashed over me. Before I could catch myself Dylan grabbed my arm and was helping me to my feet.
“Oh, that’s all right, Dylan, I’m fine, really—”
I shrugged him away and put my hand up, trying not to sound rude. “Thanks, thanks, I’m okay—I just stood up too fast, that’s all.”
I tried to catch my breath, wondering if I looked and sounded ridiculous: an aging proto-punk Baby Boomer having a heart attack while getting out of an ergonomic chair. “Look, let me go tell Dr. Dvorkin that we’re leaving—”
Dylan followed me into the hall. Dr. Dvorkin stood outside his office, his face bright red. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and no tie, practically unheard of for him.
“Oh, Katherine! I see you found my houseguest”
I stopped. “Your houseguest?”
“Yes—Dylan’s grandfather was a very dear friend of mine—but of course you knew that, didn’t you?” He mopped his face with a handkerchief, looked up at me and shook his head. “You know, I’d completely forgotten you knew the di Rienzis. You were friends with Angelica, weren’t you?”
His questioning eyes were mild but I could see something else in them—a spark, a quiet intensity that I had never glimpsed before. A look like desperation, desperation or fear.
I waited a beat before replying. “Yes. But we haven’t talked in almost twenty years.”
“Then you and young Dylan here have a lot of catching up to do.” He smiled, that familiar ironic melancholy smile, and suddenly was the man I had always known. “I think they’re sending all the staff home. Apparently the heat and ozone levels up here are dangerous. Central Engineering’s diverting all our power so they can keep the public areas open downstairs.” He turned to Dylan. “We curators are always the scapegoats when something like this happens. Little lambs to the slaughter.”
Through all this Dylan stood beside me, his boyish face composed into a serious mask, the good scout on his best behavior. And that’s all he was, really, just a kid, for all the sculpted torso and earrings and scary shoes.
“Dylan, would you mind waiting for me by the steps? We can talk outside, but I’ve just got to grab some paperwork first—”
“Sure.” He ducked his head in farewell, but before he could go Dr. Dvorkin put a hand on his shoulder.
“You have your key, don’t you, Dylan? I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to greet you last night, but we’ll have dinner together this evening, how would that be?”
Dylan nodded earnestly, then walked slowly down the hall, glancing back once or twice. Dr. Dvorkin turned to me. “Did you need something, Katherine?”
“Uhh—well, Dylan’s internship application, I never saw any of the paperwork that came through on him. I thought I was getting that girl, Lydorah Kelly…”
Dr. Dvorkin dabbed at his cheeks with his handkerchief. “Yes, well, Lydorah put in a request to go out to Silver Hill, to work in the forensics lab. It seems that’s more what she’s suited for than photo archiving. And then Angelica called me about her son, and, well I’m sure you understand how that works; and then of course you were without an intern, and he’s studying film ethnography, and so it seemed like a good idea to place him on the videodisc project. But he’s a very bright young man, Katherine. I think he’ll contribute a good deal to your work.”
I tried not to roll my eyes. Whatever was going on here, it seemed like a whole lot more than just some kind of insane coincidence. “I’m sure he will. Is there a 171 on him, though? Anything at all that’ll give me some idea what he’s done, what he’s studying?”
“Oh, absolutely. Come on in, if you can bear it—”
He rifled through a heap of 171s, finally pulled one out.
“Here it is! If you’ll excuse me, Katherine, I’m supposed to be at some kind of emergency powwow, and I’m already late.”
I trudged back out into the hall, dragging my briefcase. The 171 form he’d given me was green and white, limp as wet lettuce. It was the standard government employment form, with a cover sheet detailing the particulars of the summer internship program. The empty spaces had been filled in neatly with a slightly italicized European hand.
Dylan W. Furiano.
I flipped through the Xeroxed pages. UCLA film school, majoring in film-and-video ethnograhy. Four years at the Lawrenceville School. Elementary education, the Cathedral School in London and private tutors, Florence, Italy. Reads and writes English, Italian, German, French. In case of emergency notify Angelica Furiano, Los Angeles, California, and Sedona, Arizona. I stared at the page for a long moment, then slipped it into my briefcase.
“Ms. Cassidy?”
I started, turned, and saw Dylan. His cheeks were pink and the knot in his tie had slipped halfway down his chest. “Someone fainted! They’re sending everybody down the back fire stairs, but I wasn’t sure where they were—”
I laughed. “Well, you’re certainly having an exciting first day, aren’t you?” I raised my briefcase to point down the hall. “Thataway.”
“I figured you’d know.”
The fire door had been wedged open with a chair. Squeezing past it I looked up at Dylan, his long hair falling into his eyes and his hands swooping to pull his hair back into its ponytail, his face red and glowing as with uncontained excitement. When he’d gotten his hair out of the way he stared down at me, his blue eyes so brilliant it was like the sky reflected there, or the ocean; like some wonderful dream of a warm blue place, some secret haven by the sea and for the first time in almost twenty years I was waking, waking—
“Hey, Ms. Cassidy—?”
I shook my head, dazed.
“Ms. what!” Suddenly I grinned, and nudged him with my briefcase. “Please, Dylan, do me one favor, okay—”
I swept past him, taking the steps two at a time, heedless of the heat or the blood singing in my ears, heedless of anything at all except the sound of him bounding after me, the metal banisters clamoring as he tugged at them. When I reached the landing I paused and looked back, out of breath and panting, laughing, really laughing, for the first time it seemed in decades.
“—Call me Sweeney.”
CHAPTER 16
Black Angels
AT THE DESK IN her room at Huitaca, Angelica Furiano sat writing a letter. It was evening, hot enough that the petals of the oriental lilies in their Waterford vase had crisped into brittle orange tongues, and their leaves all fallen to the floor. In spite of the heat she had turned off the air-conditioning. She liked to hear the night come alive, she liked to hear the sound of small creatures splashing in the shallows of the pool outside, the muted voices o
f Kendra and Martin wafting up from the gardener’s cottage and the radio behind her playing the Kronos Quartet.
Through the French doors she could see the tiled patio, and beyond that twisted spires of stone still flushed with sunset. Above the nearest rocky tower, named the Devil’s Clock by the locals, the full moon dangled like a lantern hung there by a tired deity. Angelica stared at it, then sighed and looked away.
A small brass tray sat on her worn desk. Balanced on its edge like a cigarette was a smudge-stick of dried sage and coriander leaf bound with hemp, smoke rising from it. Beside it was the lunula. Angelica took a deep breath of the pungent smoke, then picked the necklace up idly. She rubbed the smooth surface with her thumb, feeling the faint impressions of the pattern etched there, the small gaping mouth where the lost portion of the triskelion was missing.
Four weeks from now would be Lammas; four weeks from now she would be Waking the Moon. She stared out at the evening sky, the limbs of the crippled piñon pines stirring gently in the hot breeze; then looked down to read over her letter.
July 2, 1995
Dearest Dylan,
I was so happy to hear your voice last night and know that you arrived safely! I sent the package with your T-shirt and your sandals, also you forgot your glasses case. Don’t worry, I’m sure Sunday will find your notebook.
I got confirmation of my tickets to D.C. for your birthday next month. A limo is supposed to meet me at Dulles, but maybe we can arrange it so you can be there too—I’d love that!
I know you won’t have had the opportunity yet to look for the lunula, but it’s probably a good idea not to wait too long, in case it’s more difficult to track down than I think. I can’t imagine that it’s been moved since June Harrington’s time. Her notebook said it had been misplaced among artifacts from Indonesia and Malaysia, so that would still probably be the best place to start. Please be sure to eat this letter when you’ve finished reading it.
Only kidding! But remember what I said about being careful.
I know you’ll have a wonderful time out there, even though I’ll miss you horribly. Andy Ludwig called, also Serena, and I gave them your number at Dr. Dvorkin’s house. Please be sure to use your calling card, we don’t want him to have to pay for your phone calls! Of course you should always call me collect.
Give my love to Dr. Dvorkin. I love you!
Mom
As she reread the letter, the strings in the background soared into a sweet motet. Spem in Alium, Sing and Glorify, Judith seducing and then beheading Holofernes to save her people. Today, men would judge her actions as a crime, but three thousand years ago Diis aliter visum: it seemed otherwise to the gods.
Angelica pushed aside the letter, listening to the immeasurably sad music, the violin straining like a lover bidding a last farewell. She knew it was foolish, writing to her son like this—he never wrote back, preferring the telephone—but it made her feel close to him; alleviated some of the loneliness she felt. Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at a photo of Dylan on her desk. Dylan at four, playing on the rock-strewn beach near Akrotiri on Thera. He was naked, his dark hair burned to copper by the sun, wind-tossed as the waves behind him. His tiny fist held something, shell or stone, he was holding it above his head and laughing. In the background Rinaldo stood knee-deep in the water and smiled, his grey hair a bright aureole. It had been the first time Angelica had visited Thera and seen the excavations at Akrotiri. They had left the island the next day, to return to the villa near Florence, and had not returned for two years.
That was the only other time she had ever used Dylan to smuggle something for her: a thumb-sized seal of the Cretan bee-goddess that she had sewn into the waistband of his training pants. He had been as innocent of the seal’s power as he was of the missing piece of the lunula.
“Oh, Dylan,” she whispered. She moved the photo so that she could see the others behind it. An old Lucite frame held a picture of Hasel Bright, looking so young it almost took her breath away—he’d been a child, really, they’d all been little more than children! Hasel had given her the framed photo after they slept together that once, over Columbus Day weekend.
“It can’t happen again, you know,” she’d told him. Hasel so serious he looked like a cartoon owl, with those enormous blue eyes and a blinded, stricken look.
“Never?”
Angelica laughed. “I’m sorry, Hasel. But those are the rules.”
He sat up on her bed—they were in her dorm room, Annie having gone to stay with friends for the holiday weekend—and took her hand in his, raised it to his mouth, and kissed the little cleft between her first and second fingers. “Rules? What rules? Do you, like, turn into a pumpkin or something?”
Angelica had laughed softly, drawing her hand away and leaning forward to kiss the top of his head. “No, sweetie—you do.”
She pursed her lips, tracing the edge of the frame with a fingernail. It had been Hasel’s destiny to the for Othiym. She leaned forward to blow a little thread of ash from the burning sage, then pushed aside Hasel’s picture, moved several others where she could see them better. Frames of heavy darkened silver; frames of real tortoiseshell and delicate coral. Within them were more photographs: faded Polaroids, amber-tinted Kodachrome, crisp black-and white.
Mostly they were pictures of Dylan and her late husband, taken during her long Mediterranean exile. But here was her beloved uncle, at his villa near Poggibonsi, and there was her father, and there her beautiful cousin Rafael—her first cousin, twice-removed, ah! he had been so handsome, she was truly sad when he died—and here was another of poor sweet Hasel.
And one of Annie Harmon, taken by Angelica herself during one of their afternoon interludes. Annie looking very cross but also rather stunned, her worn old quilt pulled up around her breasts. And here was the young Sweeney Cassidy—not caught in flagranti delicto like Hasel or Annie, but looking quite gamine with her cowboy boots and cropped hair. And here was a more recent picture of Annie, clipped from an issue of the Advocate and stuck in the corner of a large framed picture of Dylan’s graduation.
“Come here, you,” murmured Angelica. Gingerly she teased the newspaper photo of Annie from the frame. She had been focusing all her will on Annie lately. She did not dare confront Annie as she had Hasel—Annie was another woman, after all, and had a better understanding of Angelica’s true nature. She would be wary of a meeting with Angelica.
And rightfully so! Angelica thought, her mouth curving in a smile. But even Annie Harmony could not escape the naphaïm. She took Annie’s photo in one hand, and with the other picked up the lunula. For a moment a pang of real sorrow made Angelica’s eyes fill with tears.
Because while each sacrifice was holy, and each one made her stronger and stronger still, it was only those who had loved her who made the Goddess real, who made Her epiphany complete. That was the bridge between the worlds of Othiym and Angelica di Rienzi Furiano—a bridge formed of all those who had truly loved her, those who had died for her over the centuries. And for each of them she had wept, as she had wept for Hasel and Rafael and Oliver; as she would weep for Annie, and Dylan. As Ishtar, Au-Set, Isis, Artemis or Cybele, as the thuggees’ Kali or Wilde’s Salome, she had always received a tribute of souls—and blood. The bridegroom who lay with her but one night a year, and died before sunrise; the man who served as her consort for twelve lunar cycles and then was slain within her sacred grove. Even in modern times her ancient worship was not utterly forgotten. All those nineteenth-century artists who had painted her as sphinx and panther and vampire sensed the truth of it: Woman was a perilous country.
Angelica blinked her tears back, and ruefully smiled. In the tarnished mirror nestling between the photos, her reflection smiled back. Oh, men had feared her then, and women too—they had always feared her! But they had loved her as well, and perished for her willingly.
And so they would again. And each death, each loving offering, would be another stone in the bridge that swept from Angelica to
the Queen of Heaven. Already she had received so many, nameless men and boys. But then there had been Hasel, an ardent sacrifice if ever there was one. And Oliver…
Her heart beat too fast, thinking of Oliver. She forced herself to stare at Annie’s photo again, Annie with her freckles and her cowlick and her soft white skin. Tonight, perhaps, Angelica would finally see Annie again. When the Goddess came to her, when Othiym would be her. And someday soon, she would see Dylan, too, would cradle him within her as she had all those millions of others…
She took another deep breath, the scent of coriander and sage making her think of temples made of clay and earth and dung, of malachite and mammoth ivory. She raised her head to stare at the swollen globe in the eastern sky.
“For I so love the world that I will give unto You my only Son,” she whispered.
With Dylan’s death it would be done. Her epiphany would be complete: Othiym would awaken from her aeons-long sleep.
I am wife and mother and sister of Osiris
I am mother of Horus
I am She that riseth in the Dog Star
I am she that is called Goddess by women!
For me was the city of Bubastis built
For me was raised the City on the Hill
I divided the earth from heaven
I put the stars in their courses
With me doth true justice prevail!
I am the Queen of rivers and winds and the sea
I am the Queen of war
I am Queen of the thunderbolt
I raise the sea and I calm it
I am Queen of the storm
I overcome Fate
I am the secret mouth of the world
I am the word not spoken
Othiym haïyo, Othiym Lunarsa!
Her words faded into the plaintive strains of the string quartet. Her reverie ended when the telephone chimed. Angelica smiled, that would be Dylan, calling to tell her how his first day at the museum had gone.
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