“They’re not fairy princesses…” Virago is starting, but Carly waves her hand, sitting bolt upright, eyes wide.
“Tell me about the monsters.”
“Well…I actually came through the portal with one. A beast,” says Virago, eyes narrowing, clearing her throat. “Unfortunately…I seem to have lost the beast. Which is why I am here. I must find the beast and remove it from your world, or it will create great havoc among your people,” Virago grimaces.
“Wait, wait, wait,” whispers Carly, and then her eyes go all wide, and she’s squeaking, jumping up and down for a second before she waves her hands, speaks: “Oh, my God, you’re never going to believe this…” she tells us, dragging her laptop out of her bag and plunking it with a little more energy than I think any normal laptop could survive on the kitchen counter. “So,” she begins quickly, “I work at our local public access television station—”
“She has no idea what television is,” I tell her, and her bubble bursts…for about a second.
“Well! It’s like…seeing magical pictures. On a magical piece of glass,” says Carly brightly.
Virago nods, considering this.
“And I’m a low-paid producer at this television station, which basically means…” Carly thinks about this. “It means that I make a lot of the very bad magical pictures on the magical piece of glass.”
“Some of them even involve puppets,” I say, chuckling, and Carly shoots me a dirty look.
“Puppet Awesomeness and the Cool Lagoon happens to be the most high quality show I work on, missy, so let’s not be sarcastic about it.”
“They have a shark made out of duct tape,” I tell Virago, knowing full well that she’ll have no idea what duct tape is. But I needed to say it. “They don’t have a big budget…” I trail off as Virago looks at me blankly. I smile, take the grocery bags from her. “…I’m just going to put the fruit away.”
“No, no, stay, this is important…” says Carly, hooking my arm through hers. She turns her attentions back on the laptop. “Anyway, you know how I do that little local news program on Saturday mornings—this morning, actually. Well, last night, we got some great amateur footage, and you know how I’m into this sort of stuff…here, I’ll just show you.”
She brings up her video player and presses “file, open.”
She clicks “monster.”
“What the hell…” I whisper as the video begins.
It’s clearly nighttime in the video, and it’s quite difficult to make anything out, but the “exposure” setting has been turned up as high as possible, separating the shadows and objects from the darkness a little. In the video, you can see trees being thrashed around by a high wind, a ton of rain…yeah, you could assume this is from last night. And then there’s a bolt of lightning, which makes the laptop screen pure white for half a beat, and then, in front of the camera lens comes a…a thing.
A monster.
It’s gigantic. Really, that’s the best word I can think of. Gigantic as it brushes its head against draping power lines, as tall as the trees I can see hardly silhouetted in the video. There’s a crackle of electricity as the power lines fall, tugging out of their moorings on the poles by whatever this creature is. They fall, spiraling around the beast. It stalks forward, lumbering on all fours, and it has two twisting horns out of its sprawling skull, a long, wicked snout with teeth erupting at all sorts of odd angles, and slitted eyes that look reptilian as it turns and takes in the camera. It opens its mouth, and suddenly I’m clamping my hands over my ears, and Virago goes white as a sheet, because the thing is bellowing/hissing/growling/screaming, just like it did last night, and the sound is so harsh, so surreal and angry and frightening, that I can never forget it.
It awakens something primeval in me, something so ancient that my oldest ancestors must have felt it when they were being hunted.
It’s then that I know fear.
“That’s it…” whispers Virago, stepping forward, hands balled into fists as she grips her sword tightly. “How do I get to it? How do I—”
“I don’t know,” says Carly in a stage whisper, clicking “x” on the video as it ends. “That was sent in to us by one of our faithful viewers…” She’s starting to sound like a segue way on a reality television show, and I clear my throat. She flicks her gaze to mine, sighs, and tones down the drama a little. “Anyway,” she continues, leaning back on the counter, “that video you just saw was sent in to us just last night. The guy who got that footage took it on his cell phone. He lives on one of the coastal streets, and he captured this just before he said that the beast dove off the pier into the ocean, and it disappeared. We aired this clip, by the way, this morning on the news, and the phone’s been ringing off the hook, because a lot of people saw it but it wasn’t on a regular news station or anything like that. They said we were reporting the real news,” she says with a big, proud smile.
This coming from the woman who said her highest rated news program, to date, had been about the local babies-in-diapers 500 race that happens every fourth of July…I suppose that’s pretty good. I sigh, put my chin in my hands and gaze at her with a rueful smile—but my skin is still covered in goosebumps.
I hadn’t been able to see it clearly last night. Seeing the beast somewhat clearly now…I shudder. It was…terrifying. Like a sort of reptilian bull. Urgh.
…Could it really be that goddess from the story Virago’s mother told her? The Goddess Cower?
“So,” says Carly, spreading her hands. “I guess it went into the ocean. It’s aquatic?”
Virago shakes her head. She’s mulling things over now, pacing in small, tight circles, her new shoes squeaking on my kitchen’s tile floor until she goes out into the living room to pace on the carpeting there. Shelley follows her loyally around and around the coffee table, her tail in a constant state of wagging-motion as she keeps her nose about a foot behind Virago, never wavering as Virago’s shadow.
“It went to the ocean…” Virago muses, head tilted up, eyes gazing at the ceiling as if it holds all the answers. “Perhaps…” She turns, her hands balled into fists, gazing at me, eyes wide. “Perhaps it did need to heal. Ocean water can be used for healing magic. But this means that it will be able to heal much faster and better, if your oceans are anything like ours. And I have a sinking suspicion they might be.”
I shrug, rub at my arms and my shoulders, sigh. “Well, I doubt your world has pollution, so our oceans might not be as great at healing as yours.” I grimace. “But this means…”
“That the full moon is in three days,” says Virago, gazing at me. “And the beast might rise again before three days comes.”
I bite at one of my nails, my stomach turning as I close my eyes, as I consider the implications.
“Whoa, whoa…” says Carly, glancing from me to Virago back to me again. “What about this monster?”
Virago tells her. And about the story of the Goddess Cower. At the end of it, Carly’s sitting on the edge of the couch, her chin in her hands, her mouth open as she stammers: “But…but…it could destroy…everything?”
I sit down beside her and Shelley comes over to put her pretty pointed nose in my lap, ears perked forward a little, one ear up, one ear down—classic Shelley. She’s trying to cheer me up.
But that’s kind of impossible.
The monster could rise in less than three days.
And then…well. I don’t want to imagine what will happen then.
Virago sits across from me, mouth closed in a tight line—just watching me with those brilliant ice-blue eyes, her true gaze a million miles away as she turns inward.
I want to reach across the space between us, take her hand. Tell her this will all work out. But I don’t. I sit, still and stiff, with my dog pillowing her head on my lap forlornly.
We sit together in silence.
---
I can’t sleep. Maybe it’s because every single time I close my eyes, I see images of the monster from the video flic
kering in my line of vision, and the images of the monster keep merging with the lightning flashing and how I saw the beast last night, only as a shadow, but so enormous, so monstrous. So…huge. All of this merges together in my mind’s eye, and I can’t tell the images apart anymore, how the monster looked in the video, and how the monster looked in my backyard. I sigh, my hand over my eyes, and turn over one last time. The sheets are hot, and Shelley is sleeping on my legs, her dead weight pressing me into the mattress, and both of my feet are fast asleep from her weight against them. At this rate, I’m never going to get to sleep.
I need tea.
And the book that’s always given me comfort when I needed it most. I need The Knight of the Rose.
I get up as quietly as I can, but Shelley still grumbles because her pillow of my limbs is now removed, and—crazy dog—the actual fluffy mattress is apparently less comfy than sleeping on my limbs. I put on my fluffy pink robe, shove my feet into my slippers, and then pad gently down the steps, avoiding the top one because it creaks.
But Virago isn’t asleep on the couch, like I thought she’d be. She’s not in the living room at all, or the kitchen, and the door was open to the bathroom, so she’s not there either. She’s not in the study, and she’s not in the library. I stay very still for a long moment, holding the robe closed over my chest, my heart beating wildly against my hands as I stand in my living room, listening to the stillness of the house. Did she leave?
She wouldn’t have left—would she?
And why does it matter so much if she did?
Yeah, right, Holly. I grimace, sigh, biting my lip. You know the answer to that.
As I stand in the middle of my living room, my heart pounding, a flash of light to the left makes me turn. I’d drawn the blinds over the back sliding door before we got ready for bed, but they’re pulled up now, and the sliding glass door to the backyard is very slightly left ajar, maybe by a few inches. I cross over to the door, my fingers brushing against the handle as I peer out into the darkness.
It’s not that dark out—after all, it’s almost the full moon, and the light from my neighbors’ porch lights and the street lamps out front make the backyard pretty illuminated.
So I can see that out in the center of the yard is Virago.
The flash I that drew my eyes to her was light glancing off the blade of her sword, for she stands, holding the hilt in both hands, as she crouches on the lawn, the blade hefted high and at attention over her head. The sleeves of her new shirt are rolled up, and she’s not wearing her tie, her vest or her jacket, and the shirt is no longer tucked into her pants. She’s unbuttoned a handful of the bottom buttons, and I can see her tanned, muscular stomach through the inverted “v” that the two sides of the shirt make, framing her skin like it’s a work of art. Because it is. Virago crouches low, her thighs tight, in a sword-fighting stance. I only know that because I’ve seen the knights do mock sword-fighting “matches” after the jousting, because I’ve looked at medieval tapestries of knights, because I’ve read books about them and watched a ton of medieval dramas and movies. I’ve never actually seen this happen in real life. For…well…real.
I press my hands to the glass panes of the door, mouth open, as I watch her stand, statue-like, her body in perfect form, beautiful beyond description. She exudes this raw sensuality, and this great, pulsing power that renders me speechless. I am in awe as I watch her stand, head held high. Proud.
And then she bursts into motion, whipping the sword around in a seamless, circular arc as if a thousand opposing knights stand in front of her. The sword moves through the air like quicksilver, flashing and darting, jabbing and thrusting, and Virago is at the center of this maelstrom of blade, moving as effortlessly as a dancer, as graceful as one, too.
And that’s exactly what it is that she’s doing in that moment, I realize: she’s dancing. It’s deadly, but still beautiful, the way the sword glitters, there and then not there almost in that same instant, she moves so quickly. She’s effortless in her speed so much so that it looks like she has multiple arms with multiple swords, the arcs she creates hanging suspended in the air for a heartbeat, a crescent of light, before they fade away.
It’s beautiful. She’s beautiful. I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen something more beautiful.
I back away from the door, clutching at my robe, and then I turn and walk quickly back to the stairs, then run upstairs. I take the steps two at a time, actually, pausing at the bathroom because The Knight of the Rose is still by the tub, exactly where I left it last night. I stand, shaking, my slippered feet against the cool linoleum, soaking up the cold, even through the soles. The solidity of the cover of my book is now between my fingers, and then I hold it over my heart like a shield.
I close my bedroom door behind me as I enter, leaning against the wood, and folding forward and down until I’m sitting on the floor. My bedside lamp is still on from when I got up, but Shelley’s ignoring me, fast asleep and dead to the world.
The first tear slides down my cheek. I’m surprised, reach up, touch the warm wetness with my finger. And then another comes. And another.
Even if I broke up with Nicole, this is never going to work. Virago and me. There are so many obvious problems. I don’t know if she’s like me, if she loves women. And let’s not forget the ultimate and most painful clincher: she’s from another world. If we’re able to vanquish the beast, she’s going back, and I’m going to stay here. In my world.
It’s totally star-crossed is what it is. I almost laugh to myself as I cry, because it’s so ridiculous. Why am I falling in love with a woman I can’t have? Aren’t I smarter than this, smart enough to realize that this was doomed from the start?
No. I don’t think being “smart” has anything to do with it.
I crack open my book, my beloved book, the book that’s saved me my whole life. And there, on the page, is something that does make me laugh, but just a thin, faint, humorless chuckle. And then I weep again, silent tears tracing themselves down my face, plunking hollowly against my robe.
Miranda knelt before the Lady Seraphina, a blazing intensity to her gaze. “I have journeyed every day until the nightfall, have journeyed every night until the daystar rose,” she whispered. “I have fought through the perils of the Fangheart valley and the desolation of the Shadow Mountains, have ridden on the dragon of the moon and out-witted the sirens at Briar Cove. All of this, and more, I have done to come now to your door, and kneel at your feet, beloved Seraphina. For there is no other woman in all the world for me, and I would do anything and everything in my power to prove that to you. And if your curse is not yet broken by all I have done, then will I continue to journey across this world, to every end of it, and I will fight and I will outwit and I will find more courage still, beloved lady, and I will do all of this for you. Please be kind, lady…tell me what I must do that I can free you, that I can prove to you the depth of my affections. For there is not a moment in the day in which my heartbeat does not whisper your name. All I am, all I have done, all that I would do, is for your love alone.”
And Seraphina knelt down, too, her skirts billowing about her as she took the knight’s face between her two soft hands, and Seraphina kissed the knight Miranda passionately, thoroughly and deeply.
For through Miranda’s tireless and relentless journey, through her courage and her love, she had lifted the curse that bound the Lady Seraphina.
And they rose together, the knight lifting the lady in her arms as easily as if she were a doll, though Seraphina was most certainly not. And Miranda carried Seraphina to the edge of the bed and set her gently down upon the coverlet.
“I have done everything for you, and I would do more still,” whispered Miranda to the lady. And the lady gazed up at her with darkening eyes, pulling the knight down beside her.
“There is only one thing more I would have you do,” Seraphina whispered, wrapping her fingers in Miranda’s hair.
I close the book, push it away from
me on the floor. I remember the first time I read that scene. I was crying then, too, in high school of course, falling in love with my best friend…Carly. It was totally star-crossed, too. Carly was very obviously straight, but we don’t often want what we know we can have, do we? She’d just met David online (this is before it was super cool, and was—in fact—actually a little creepy to meet anyone online, back when there wasn’t so much an internet as various chat rooms hooked up by a modem), and was gushing about him, because he loved paranormal stuff as much as she did, and he actually had the same theories for the Loch Ness monster and the Jersey Devil, and it was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to her, meeting him, because they were obviously meant to be together, she said, and that she was falling in love with him.
And that was the very first time I wondered if I was meant to be alone my entire life.
I read that scene in the book that long ago day, read it three times in a row, tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes as I calmed down my breathing, still felt the rush of my heartbeat. I wanted something, so desperately, like what Miranda and Seraphina had found, wanted something like that so much that, that like Miranda, I was willing to do whatever it took to find it. My passionate declaration to myself to find that kind of passionate, forever love fizzled out and disappeared as life went on, as I realized that I could never be with Carly, as I went to college and met girls who were like me and fell in love with them and had my heart broken multiple times.
I was always the one with bad luck in love. It’s like my thing. And then Nicole came, and just cemented that.
I fall in love with the wrong people. With the people I can’t have. It’s what I do.
I’m almost famous for it.
Down below in my backyard is someone so amazing, I can’t even understand it.
And I’m falling in love with her.
And we aren’t meant to be.
Chapter 9: Things Left Unsaid
I wake up to Shelley, who’s weaseled her way up from the foot of the bed to lay beside me on top of the coverlet, licking my face ferociously.
A Knight to Remember Page 12