A Dark and Stormy Knight

by Bridget Essex

  For a long moment, nothing happens. We stand there, her hand at the small of my back, warm and inviting and heavy, the ultimate comfort. But then Charaxus nods, taking a step back, her hand leaving me.

  I can see deep pain written on her face.

  I can’t breathe.

  “If…if only we were from the same world,” she says, shaking her head, her hair shifting over her shoulders, the soft shush of it filling me with longing. That same hair trailed across my body last night, moving over my skin like dark water. Those same lips found mine again and again, a hundred times. A thousand times. She tastes like cinnamon, like heat, like longings fulfilled, like answers found.

  I will not, cannot, ever forget the way she tastes.

  “If only,” I agree, and my voice cracks at the end of that last word. “I…I wish you a lot of luck, Charaxus.” I’m babbling, trying to find the right words. “I hope…everything works out. And…” My voice cracks again, and I take a deep breath, try to calm down. “I hope you can forgive me for not coming with you now.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” says Charaxus immediately, simply. “You are right. I feel it, too. There is something profound between us,” she says, gesturing toward the empty air with a graceful shrug. “I have felt it my whole life, and last night…this morning…” she whispers, her voice hoarse, “our time together awakened something even deeper and stronger.” She frowns, straightening her shoulders. “To feed that desire would be self-sabotaging. We are from different worlds. And you have a good life here.” She glances around the Ceres appreciatively. “You must be a queen to live in such a castle.” Her voice sounds almost wistful.

  “Oh, I’m not a queen,” I say quickly, but when Charaxus looks at me again, her eyes are bright, and her expression is sober. I grow quiet.

  “I know a queen when I see one,” she tells me, her voice low, husky. “And that is what you are.”

  I am stricken speechless, and I can tell you this: through all of the pain in my life, all of the suffering I have endured…no moment has hurt me more than this one, right here and right now.

  We’re saying goodbye to each other. I’m saying goodbye to the woman who has haunted my dreams—and my heart.

  This feels so wrong. But I don’t know how to make it right.

  “It was so good to meet you, Charaxus,” I tell her, and my voice breaks on every damn word, but I don’t care. It’s the truth, and she needs to know it. “I’m so glad I met you,” I tell her, and then tears are leaking down my cheeks, and she steps forward, enfolding me in her arms and pressing my face to her shoulder. I weep—openly, uncontrollably—clinging to her as if I’m the drowning woman, and she’s the only one who can save me.

  Quickly, I break away from her, grab a paper towel, and dry my eyes. The real world is crashing down around me, and I need to make certain that Charaxus is as well-equipped as possible to deal with what she's about to face—i.e., heading out into a strange world she has no experience with.

  Besides, I need a distraction.

  I snap my fingers, and Sammie—good dog that he is—follows me obediently up to my bedroom as Charaxus finishes the last of the cereal, not because she wants to—I can tell she’s lost her appetite—but because she’s going to need energy for the road.

  I make my way upstairs with my dog, and I take every piece of her armor and place it inside of a really big canvas bag that I got on vacation down in Virginia Beach. It’s the only thing large enough to hold all of the pieces, and it bulges, but at least it’s something that she can carry pretty easily, and it’ll keep her from walking around Buffalo in the armor, which would draw way too much attention.

  Then I rummage around in my bathroom. I don’t know what she’ll need, and I’m kind of blinded by my tears, but I try to anticipate every possible situation, including the likelihood that she might be looking for her brother for a few days. I throw a deodorant into the canvas bag and a small, airline-approved tube of toothpaste with a new toothbrush, a little bottle of shampoo and conditioner and some samples of soap from when Iris took up soapmaking (for an afternoon). I grab a box of protein bars from under my bed and toss it in, too, and then add a big water bottle that she can refill at a water fountain.

  I pull open the drawer in my bedside table, and I open up what I’ve always called my treasure box. It’s from my eighties-era childhood, and it has this magnificent flying horse on the top, and I pull out a wad of twenties. Cecile taught me, a long time ago, that if you have a wad of twenties saved “just in case,” you’ll feel safe, knowing you have the means to make any rainy day just a bit better. So I take the wad of cash—it’s really not as thick as I’d like, but then, it was never as thick as I’d like, and there have been a couple of rainy days recently—and I stuff the money into the back pocket of my jeans.

  I rise, hefting the canvas bag onto my shoulder (wow, is it heavy), and, after grabbing the katana, I leave Sammie lounging in my room as I pad quietly downstairs.

  Charaxus has placed her bowl in the sink. I’m assuming she decided to do that because the sink is full of dirty dishes—a very common sight in the Ceres, dirty plates nearly stacked to the ceiling. Nearly, but not quite. She's standing with her back to me, leaning against the kitchen island, her arms crossed and her head bent. When I round the island and set the canvas bag beside my feet, she still hasn't opened her eyes or lifted her chin. Her head remains ducked, her inky black mane sweeping down around her shoulders, her lips pursed.

  For half of a second…I think she’s praying.

  Charaxus glances up at me then, her mouth drawn into a thin, tight line, her eyes pained. “I am ready.”

  “Um…”

  I’m not. I’m not ready to let her go.

  But she has to go.

  I pick up the canvas bag, hold it in an outstretched hand, my arm shaking because the contents are so heavy. “Here,” I tell her, voice quiet. “I packed your armor, some things you might need. And, um, here…” When she takes the bag, I reach into my back pocket and bring out the wad of twenty-dollar bills. I press it into her other hand. “This is…just in case. Just in case you need it,” I tell her, swallowing.

  She glances down at the money, perplexed. “What is this?”

  “Oh. It’s money. See?” I take the wad of bills from her hand, unroll the first twenty, hold it up for her. “Do you have money on Agrotera?” I ask her, a little mystified as she takes the bill, examining it closely.

  “Of course,” she says with a slight shrug, “but it is all coins. This is only paper.” She hands it back to me.

  “Well…” I stand there in the kitchen, the lights glaring down brightly on us, my heart breaking as I try to figure out how to explain our monetary system to her, and I realize it’s not really that important, considering the circumstances. “It’s paper, yes,” I tell her simply, and then I place the bill in her hand and roll her fingers up and over the wad of money…not letting go of her. “Just take it. In case you need it, in case you need a place to stay…” Inside my head, I’m thinking, This is so stupid, what are we doing, this is a once-in-a-lifetime, across-worlds meeting, and we’re throwing it all away, but I know we’re not throwing it away. We’ve met. We’ve made love. We’ve found out that, all along, our dream person existed. If we go farther down this path, if we learn to love each other more deeply, we’re going to break our hearts far past mending.

  “You can come here anytime you need to,” I say quickly, gulping down air. She glances at me, surprised, her eyes a little wide.

  “But…the whole point of this,” she tells me, waving her hand between us, “is to…make the break clean.” She says it almost apologetically, holding my gaze with her bright blue eyes. “If the break is messy…” She trails off, her jaw clenched.

  “Once, a long time ago,” I say, and I’m inhaling deeply, my pulse erratic. “Um…there was this girl. That I knew,” I say, stumbling over the lie. “And she was… She was homeless. She didn’t have anyplace to go. And she w
ould have done anything to find a place to stay with someone she trusted, but she didn’t have anyone. And that was…really hard for her.” I swallow. “So, because of her, in honor of her, I always make sure that everyone I care about knows that they have a place to go. Should they need it.”

  Charaxus watches me carefully, her eyes hooded, her expression guarded. I know she’s caught me in the lie, but she doesn’t know what’s the truth, and there’s no time to tell her. And I don’t want to tell her. I can’t bear the thought of telling her something so sad, so dark…so shameful.

  “All right, yes,” she says, and she stands straight, lifting her chin. “Then I guess…this is goodbye?”

  We stare at one another, and this parting feels wrong. So wrong. But what can we do? Charaxus has to go back.

  “Goodbye, Charaxus,” I say, blinking back my tears. But they leak out, anyway, tracing shining paths down my cheeks.

  Charaxus nods, her jaw tense, a flicker of uncertainty dimming her blue eyes, and she’s going to say something else…but she doesn’t. Instead, she straightens, pushing her hips off of the kitchen island, stretching a little languidly, like a big cat might, before she inclines her head, glancing at the center of the island…

  To the little goldfish bowl that’s sitting there on the counter.

  I stare at it, blinking. The bowl is almost impossible to see since a pizza box lid is set on top of it, but she reaches over, removing the lid, leaning her elbows on the counter.

  All of this started with a goldfish.

  This woman from my dreams, standing right in front of me…I never would have found her, never would have saved her life, if it hadn’t been for this goldfish.

  What’s that saying about the butterfly effect? How, with a simple flutter of a butterfly’s wings, a tremendous hurricane can be created?

  Yeah…my butterfly is a goldfish.

  Charaxus clears her throat, glancing sidelong at me as she curls her shoulders forward, bending at the waist, her elbows firmly planted on the counter. She nods toward the goldfish bowl. “This little creature said that you left the house last night because of him.” She's glancing sidelong at me. “You left to get him food because you felt sorry for him—is that true?”

  I blink. Okay, is Charaxus implying that…she can speak Goldfish? But is it really that weird, considering the fact she came from another world, that she’s a knight from another world, and that she can do magic?

  Yeah, not so much.

  “So, you can talk to goldfish,” I say calmly, and despite the tears gathering at the corners of my eyes, I smile a little.

  “I can speak to all animals,” says Charaxus with a wave of her hand, as if that’s nothing remarkable. “It’s a trait of my people. A gift.”

  “Sure,” I say with a little shrug. Because...why not?

  “Anyway,” she says, sniffing a little, and I can tell she’s struggling with her emotions but masking them mightily. She stiffens a little, suddenly very formal: “The goldfish said that it was very kind of you. And, without him, I would not have been saved by you.” She holds out her hand to me. “So…here.”

  And she hands me a bottle of fish food.

  The bottle is bright yellow, and the top of the food canister is covered with a thick layer of dust, and beneath that dust is the unmistakable, clearly-from-the-late-seventies price tag of Wiggs, our corner store.

  I glance up at her, my eyes as round as saucers. “How did you get this…” But then I’m shaking my head. “Wait, no, don’t tell me.”

  Charaxus is smiling softly at me, her eyes narrowed with fondness. Then she takes a step forward, and she curls her fingers gently around my right elbow. She leans down toward me, and my breathing intensifies, my heart rate skyrocketing as she presses her lips against my right earlobe. Her mouth, her breath, is so warm, and this close, I can smell her cinnamon, the scent of her skin, and it kills me. It kills me how much I want her, how much I can’t believe this is happening… How much I hate letting her go.

  “Magic,” she whispers, her voice low, throaty, a growl, and then she leans back, an expression of deep regret on her face before she carefully masks it again. “I brought that food here with magic. I displaced one of these,” she says, holding up the wad of twenties, “for that canister of food. Was that enough money for the exchange?”

  I glance at the price tag on the top of the bottle; it reads “$0.95.”

  “Yeah,” I tell her with a soft sigh. “That should cover it.”

  “Feed the fish. He is very hungry,” murmurs Charaxus. And then, again, she looks like she’s going to say something else, but she doesn’t. She nods vaguely, and she’s stepping forward, brushing her mouth against the corner of mine.

  “Take the katana, okay?” I tell her, catching her gaze. I carried it downstairs with me, and now I’m presenting it to her, gripping the hilt. Her fingers drift over mine as she takes the katana’s sheath from my hand, and she nods gravely.

  “I am so glad to have met you,” she whispers to me, tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes as she kisses me once more. So I close my eyes, my body shuddering at her touch, beneath her soft, chaste kiss, because I can’t bear to see her, can hardly breathe. My entire being is crying out that this is wrong, that she shouldn’t leave…

  I keep my eyes closed as she steps away from me. As I hear her pick up the canvas bag of armor.

  I love you, I think, but I’m frozen—I can’t speak the words.

  I keep my eyes closed as I hear her boots cross the floor.

  I love you, my soul screams.

  I keep my eyes closed as she opens the door.

  I love you.

  I keep my eyes closed as she shuts the door.

  I only open my eyes when Charaxus is gone. Disappeared, like she never was here at all.

  I hold the bottle of goldfish food in my hand, and I stare down at it, trying to see it through my tears.

  My heart isn’t breaking.

  It’s too shattered to break.

  Chapter 9: When the Battle’s Lost and Won

  “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  Cecile glances up at me in surprise, her white hair a little askew in its bun, tendrils dangling down around her face. There's quite a lot of blue paint in her hair, offsetting its whiteness. Her glasses are perched on the top of her nose, and there’s a little blue paint on the lenses, too, smudged across the glass.

  It looks like she’s been painting for hours: I notice a new canvas on her easel, and it’s boasting a gorgeous, evocative, dreamy seascape (with wings all over it, because Cecile's work is a little surreal). She seems tired, exhausted. I stand in the doorway, twisting my hands in front of me, and I hate that I’m bringing this to her when she looks so worn…but I don’t know what else to do.

  My heart hurts so much that the pain is vacillating toward numbness.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you, Cecile,” I say, choking around the words as the tears stream over my cheeks, dripping off of my chin. I wipe them away quickly with the back of my hand, self-conscious as I sniff a little and give her a watery smile. “I can come back, maybe after you’ve rested. Did you get any sleep last night, or did you paint the whole night through? Actually, you know what? Don’t even worry about it. I'll talk to you later.” I mutter all of this at once, as if everything I said was one long, mumbled syllable, without a single breath between the words, and I’m already backing up, ready to shut the door behind me.

  “You get in here right now, young lady,” Cecile tells me firmly, her mouth forming a thin, hard line: she's wearing her no-nonsense expression, and I know better than to argue. Cecile is still perched on her painting stool—I’ve never done my painting while seated on a stool, and I have no idea how anyone would think it’s comfortable for such long periods of time, but Cecile’s always laughed and said it’s simply the way she’s always done it, and she can’t imagine painting any other way. She’s leaning forward on her stool now, dipping her brushes in her water pot
as I step inside, shutting the door behind me. My knees wobble beneath me, weak.

  “Now, what's the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Cecile tells me, getting up and wiping her hands on her apron. Light blue smears from her palms, blending with the other colors on the once-white apron. I’ve always loved looking at that apron, seeing the history of Cecile's work in the colors merging there. She paints primarily in blue hues, and it’s exquisite to see all of those shades of blue, millions of different shades...

  “No, I haven't seen a ghost,” I whisper, my mouth so dry that it’s hard to force the words out. I cross the room quickly, sit down on the futon. The couch is covered with saris, and I sink back into the silky softness, drawing my knees up toward my chest.

  “Come on, my dear. What’s happened?” asks Cecile, crossing over to the rickety table that holds her percolator and box of dollar-store brand tea.

  The minute she turns the kettle on and draws out the tea packets, the soft scent of herbs permeates the room, and I’m a little comforted by it.

  “All right,” says Cecile, after she fills the percolator with water from the tap in her bathroom and plugs it in. She comes to sit beside me, and she watches me, one white brow raised, her head tilted to the side. “Tell me what's bothering you, doll.”

  “Last night was...” I begin, staring down at my hands, clasped tightly in my lap. I try again: “Something…really weird...happened.” I look at Cecile, and her expression is perfectly neutral. She’s good at this, drawing out what people need to say, listening as attentively as a saint. It’s one of the reasons I love her so much.

  And it’s one of the reasons that I have always trusted her so deeply.

  Still, I don’t know what I was thinking coming to her with this. If I tell Cecile the truth, she might not believe me. Oh, she’d be awesome about it, of course, let me down gently, murmuring something about bad dreams. She'd say that, yes, I may have brought a woman here last night, but she most definitely was not from another world.