Divine Fantasy

by Melanie Jackson

  “Come on,” he said, taking my hand and pulling me close for a comforting hug. He held me close for a minute and I felt something like scar tissue rise up on his chest. It was his lightning scar, the ceraunograph imprinted on his body when he was electrocuted by the Dark Man. “Excuse the liberties, but you’ll freeze if we don’t get you warm.”

  I excused the liberties. I even welcomed them. Being in his arms was like being wrapped in an electric blanket turned up to an unsafe but toasty setting. I needed that badly.

  Brandy, n. A cordial composed of one part thunder-and-lightning, one part remorse, two parts bloody murder, one part death-hell-and-the-grave and four parts clarified Satan. Dose, a headful all the time. Brandy is said by Dr. Johnson to be the drink of heroes. Only a hero will venture to drink it.

  Rum, n. Generically, fiery liquors that produce madness in total abstainers.

  —Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

  Chapter Four

  Ambrose was dressed and had made or procured a pot of hot chocolate by the time I was out of his shower. Feeling infinitely better, I joined him at the small table near the French doors that overlooked the beach, and accepted a vibrant blue mug from his long-fingered hands. A quick sniff told me the hot chocolate was laced with brandy. Fortunately, a quick sip assured me that the chocolate was strong enough to defend itself against the liquor, and the drink was smooth and luscious and completely unlike the stuff I got at the greasy ptomainery where I had often grabbed breakfast and sometimes a late afternoon hot chocolate laced with peppermint schnapps.

  “Have you noticed that there’s a support group for every problem? Except this one,” he added.

  “I don’t know,” I hedged, trying for a bit of lightness as I sipped again at the chocolate. It was delicious. Usually I am surly when fatigued, but this time I was too shocked by what had happened and too fascinated with Ambrose to feel any of the low-grade peevishness that might be cruising through my body. “They might have a Zombies Anonymous chapter in Haiti.”

  “No. I’ve checked,” he said.

  “Well, that’s just disappointing.” Maybe it was my mind protecting itself, or perhaps the hot chocolate, but I seemed unable to return to my previous horrified state. In fact, I felt exhilarated.

  He turned to me with a small smile. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s probably a good thing that zombies aren’t all that common. The world has trouble enough with cockroaches and termites.”

  I nodded at this bit of prosaic wisdom and took refuge in my cup. We watched in companionable silence as a small bird flitted by the window and alit on a flowering bush just outside. It was a strange silvery white shade that I associate with the ghostly winter weather in Munich, and its eyes were red. I found its gaze a bit unnerving and wondered fleetingly if it suffered from albinism.

  “Ambrose, is that all that zombies do? Track people, I mean.”

  “Pretty much. They do whatever they are bidden—as long as it involves hunting and killing and eventually eating whatever they find. They’re not smart enough for anything more sophisticated…at least not the ones I’ve seen. You wouldn’t send one to rob a bank or break into a computer.” We weren’t looking at each other. Instead, we watched the bird as it hopped closer, its red gaze intent on us though our images could not have been clear through the glare on the glass.

  “That’s a very strange bird,” I said at last, forced to voice some of the discomfort I was feeling.

  “Very. I’ve never seen one like it,” Ambrose said slowly, beginning to rise. At the first sign of movement the bird hopped back from the window. Its posture was wary.

  “Is it an albino? Can a bird be born without pigmentation?”

  “Yes, but that isn’t the only way they turn white. Look at my skin. It’s a side effect of Dippel’s treatment.”

  “But…you think this bird got electrocuted somehow?”

  “Maybe. Saint Elmo’s fire isn’t selective with its targets. If an animal just happened to be nearby….” His gaze was fixed on the bird. “I think that it might be best if I had a closer look at our avian friend. It’s native to these islands, so it hasn’t flown in from anyplace far away.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said just as the bird again took flight. This time it landed in the highest branches of a spidery, broad-leafed tree. It stared at us for another moment and then flew away.

  “Why did you come here for Christmas?” Ambrose asked me abruptly, resuming his seat. His gaze was bright like a searchlight on an escaping prisoner and about as welcome. Sensing my discomfort, he looked away. But I knew that out of sight wasn’t out of mind.

  “I didn’t. I came the day after,” I corrected, not wanting to get upset again. My body was already filled with tension; I didn’t want my emotions adding to that.

  “You booked two days before.” His voice was mild but I suspected he’d be insistent. It occurred to me that my arrival had rather coincided with the zombie’s, and that maybe he was wondering about possible connections.

  “You had a cancellation.”

  “Yes. A fortuitous one.”

  “Well, that’s debatable.”

  Ambrose raised a brow.

  I thought for a moment before saying anything else, deciding just how much I was willing to share to put his mind at ease—at least, put it to ease regarding whether the zombie had or had not been after me. Usually life’s small hurts and indignities roll off my shoulders, but this last one had been crushing, and I still felt a bit bruised and disinclined to share anything about Max or my lost baby.

  “I am an only child. My parents are dead. They died on Christmas in a plane crash a decade ago,” I said baldly, because there was no way to soften this story without having it sound like a plea for sympathy. “I expect that somewhere inside I must feel badly about this, but I think it is probably more that I feel sad I never had real parents to begin with.” I cleared my throat. “They should never have had a child. Society doesn’t like to hear this, but some people just shouldn’t. As it was, I was given to nannies and then to schools to raise. I saw my parents only twice a year.”

  Why hadn’t my mother just smothered me in the crib and put me out of their misery? I wondered this for the millionth time. With my bad heart, no one would have ever asked questions about a crib death. If I had to take a guess—and was feeling unusually cheerful—I would say it was my father who stayed my mother’s hand, and sent me away as soon as he could so that she couldn’t harm me. He seemed okay with imperfection as long as he didn’t have to confront it daily, and it hadn’t been his genetic flaw that had been passed on to me. My mother could barely stand to look in my direction.

  I have sometimes wondered if maybe she didn’t try smothering me once. All through childhood I had a terrible time sleeping, and feared the dark. When I had nightmares, I never cried out, fearing my parents would hear me and be angered. Nor did this fear go away when I went to school. Even now I hate to recall all those long nights in bed in the dorm room surrounded by the bodies of sleeping classmates but still feeling all alone and cold in my soul because the certainty existed that if the monster came and got me, no one would really care. I often imagined that I died, and thought about how my belongings would be divided up amongst the other girls.

  In my fantasies, my parents never came to get my body. Some coroner would cut it up—a classmate’s father was a forensic pathologist, and Miranda often regaled us with tales of strange and highly implausible autopsies. The butcher would discover that while most girls were made of sugar and spice, I was actually stuffed full of slugs and snails and puppy-dog tails. And Miranda would tell all the other girls what her father had found and they would laugh at me.

  “Don’t look so…whatever you’re looking.” My voice was too fierce and I moderated it immediately. I was looking at Ambrose but seeing my mother with a pillow in her hands, and at her side was a masked coroner holding a scalpel. “I never lacked—physically—for anything, but…they had all the parental affection
and instincts of a cash register. I was flawed bodily and they didn’t love me,” I ended flatly. “And because a large part of me believed them when they made the judgment that I would never amount to much in my short life, I never expected to live to adulthood. Not too surprisingly, I didn’t develop a lot of the normal social skills other people have. I don’t make friends easily. Especially male ones.” I swallowed. “When the dazzling Max Ober swooped into my life I jumped at the chance to be normal. When this got taken away I…let’s just say that the erosion of the illusion that I could ever be entirely normal was swift and horrifying. It made me rather bitter. And sometimes cruel.” There was probably more I should have said, but I could go no further.

  “Were your parents related to my late unlamented wife, do you think?” he asked after a moment. “Or is it just wealth that makes some people compassionless assholes who have no patience for anyone with flaws?”

  This obscenity startled a brief laugh from me.

  “They may have belonged to the same heartless social clubs,” I conceded. It took some effort but I forced lightness into my tone. “You know, we’re not unique. Not for this, at least. History is full of disasters, and disastrous lives and disastrous people.”

  “Sure. Like Pompeii,” my companion said agreeably, and took a gulp of his own hot chocolate.

  “The Hindenburg,” I suggested. He apparently liked natural disasters, but I preferred man-made ones. Most people had screwed-up lives because of something they had done or had done to them by the people they loved; it wasn’t accidental or random.

  “Hurricane Katrina.”

  “The Titanic.” I was beginning to smile.

  “And my wife and her blasted mother—and apparently your mother and father.” Ambrose sipped. “A bad relationship shouldn’t inform one’s every moment, but…”

  “But it does.” I sighed.

  “For a while,” he agreed.

  “I’m fine now, though. I’m over it.” There was absolutely no proof of this, but it seemed obligatory that I say it.

  “So, it wasn’t the sudden lack of parents that sent you to this island.” Ambrose didn’t comment on my assertion that all was well in my brain.

  “No,” I said.

  He waited. I waited too, but he was better at it and eventually I loosened the vise grip on my tongue and told him what he wanted to know. “Have you ever spent winter in Munich? At Christmas?” I asked.

  “Yes. It was charming if rather cold.” I had the feeling he was going to be unyielding about this particular point, so I decided to go ahead and get it out in the open. Then I’d post a no-trespassing sign on this topic.

  “A few months ago I…had a miscarriage.” That sounded better than losing a baby. Babies were people and their loss had to be mourned. Miscarriages were medical mishaps that didn’t require expressions of sympathy from him or admissions of grief from me. “My relationship with her father was already on life support when I found out I was pregnant. He stayed because although he is a philandering, self-involved jerk, he isn’t heartless or entirely irresponsible. He knew I had no family to help me. But once I miscarried there was no reason not to pull the plug on things, so we did.” I looked Ambrose full in the eye, daring him to ask even one more question. I didn’t tell him that my hateful recriminations had started before the first tear could dry on my cheek. That would make me sound like his wife. She had also been a hysteric. Let it remain all Max’s fault.

  “I lost two children, one to suicide,” he said softly. “And I ran away from home too. Hell, I even bought an island so I wouldn’t have to go back and deal with my old life. If you were looking for a lecture on the sanctity of relationships, you won’t get it from me.” This reminder about his losses took some of the hot wind out of my sails. It was rumored that he had told H. L. Mencken that he kept his dead son’s ashes in a cigar box on his desk. The boy had been only sixteen when he killed himself.

  “Don’t feel bad about getting away,” he said. “It would have been worse had you married him. Men who are morally maneuverable are the least likely to change with wedlock.”

  “Was your wife really that bad?” I asked, glad to change the subject. Normally, I wouldn’t have been this bald with my questions, but he had rather invited such a tack. Perhaps it had all happened so long ago that it just didn’t matter anymore.

  “Yes. She was the daughter of a hard-rock miner, and that pretty well describes her heart and soul. In my day, you didn’t live with a woman before you married. In fact, you rarely had a chance to visit with them without some chaperone nearby. I took her measure only weeks after our marriage and did my best to steer clear of her after that. Unfortunately, the children always brought me back. Her beauty did the rest. It’s why we had three children and not just the one. I used to call her Miss Mol-lie,” he said reminiscently “She hated that, said it was vulgar—which was reason enough to do it.”

  “History has been kind to her. She’s usually painted as the wronged party,” I said gently. Was I really still thinking of doing his biography? A part of me probably was. Observing others and telling their story was part of my nature.

  “I know, and I’ve let that fiction stand for my daughter’s sake. My ex-wife died soon after the divorce, and though she may have been devious and cold-blooded where I was concerned, she did love her children in her own selfish way. I couldn’t take away my daughter’s illusions. And, to be just, I was an utter bastard at times. Most times. And it got worse after I took that bullet to the head. I pity everyone who had to live or work with me before I was resurrected. Frankly, it’s a miracle the marriage ended in divorce and not homicide.”

  Resurrected. The word made me shiver. Seeing this, Ambrose frowned and poured me more hot chocolate out of his small porcelain pot.

  “Your…treatment helped with the head wound too?” I found myself rubbing my chest in sympathy, and stopped immediately.

  “Yes, a great deal of the rage went away. I can’t view it as an entirely bad thing, though it rather took away the urge to write. My career was fueled by vitriol, you know.” His smile was wry, his voice self-mocking.

  “So it’s not an entirely good thing.”

  “No, especially not when you throw in the lycanthropy” He paused. “Also, I don’t think the human brain is designed to suffer from the kinds of loss that come with extended life. It isn’t just the deaths of friends and family that amass. It’s the extinction of your era, your culture, even your preferred style of dress and speech. The world keeps evolving and so must I. It’s wearying, though.” He shrugged. “Who would have guessed that I’d end up being one of the things that goes bump in the night? It’s probably what I deserve, but not at all what I expected. At times I have even wondered if I am entirely sane anymore.”

  I stared at him and took his measure, appreciating his toned if pale body but also remembering his mind. I’d always loved his mind.

  After a moment I said, “I’m not that surprised you’ve ended up this way, I guess. You used to write vividly about some pretty creepy things. It was tempting Fate. Look at your last letter to your niece, when you predicted you’d end up facing a firing squad in Mexico.”

  His strangely twisted writings had delighted in being enigmatic and often deceptive. But ultimately the messages of the stories were straightforward, and he herded the reader toward a definite goal—usually the discomfiture of someone he disliked. But sometimes he drove people to confronting the weird and unexplainable that went on all around them. I wondered if he hadn’t had a premonition of what was to come when he wrote “The Eyes of the Panther,” a story about a man afflicted with lycanthropy He had been prescient about other things that happened in his life, certainly. The foremost example of his prognostication was predicting the assassination of President McKinley.

  “And as ye seek so shall ye find?” he asked, again seeming to read my thoughts.

  “Sometimes.” I yawned loudly, unable to fight off a sudden exhaustion rolling over my body. “A
mbrose, is the full moon the only time you…change?”

  He stared off over the water. “Yes. And no. I avoid changing as much as possible now, though I experimented in the beginning. It hurts, you see. And it gives me hell’s own hangover sometimes for days after.” He took a breath and then went on, I thought with some reluctance. “I can change at will, but don’t.”

  “Because of the pain?” I asked, to clarify. This was morbid curiosity that I wouldn’t normally indulge, but he had set the ground rules by prying into my personal affairs, and I figured I would ask my questions for as long as he would answer them.

  “Yes, and the danger of being seen. And…well, the urges.”

  “Urges?” I had to ask.

  “Of both a violent and sexual nature. They shouldn’t be indulged. Sex makes the wolf want to kill. Killing makes the wolf want sex. And food. It’s always hungry. It’s a vicious cycle.” Ambrose wrenched the top off a jar of olives and upended it over his mouth. Half the jar’s contents disappeared. The rest he handed to me. Apparently he wasn’t worried about me catching any of his werewolf cooties.

  “Can you describe it?” I set the jar aside for later. The current subject matter was not stimulating my appetite.

  Ambrose swallowed. “Yes. Imagine having every tooth in your head extracted without anesthetic, while getting an all-over body wax. The hair doesn’t so much push free as get ripped out. I grow a tail from the end of my spine—it’s prehensile, by the way. My knees reverse themselves and joint backwards. And then I have to undo it when it’s done—shove all the hair and teeth and claws back in again. I have to collapse the bones in my tail and pull them into my body….”

  This last part sounded especially horrible, and I started to say so but was overcome by another huge yawn. He continued talking, saving me from having to comment.

  “Then I wake up with the most god-awful tastes in my mouth and I start remembering that I’ve been eating ghastly things. Sometimes I find blood under my nails and I have to recall what I’ve killed. And sometimes I know I’ve done other things, but can’t always recall with whom.”