Phoenix Falling

by Mary Jo Putney

  "In other words, 'Kids, don't try this at home.'" She stood, feeling a little lighter at the prospect of being able to offer Kenzie something that might help. "Thanks so much, Tom. I'll let you know if your suggestions work."

  Tom stood also, his body a protective barrier against the wind. "Is he going to stay your husband?"

  "I surely hope so." Hope had been left in Pandora's box, which was why it sprang eternal.

  * * *

  Kenzie laid a final circular paver to complete a rosette at the heart of the labyrinth. He had the odd thought that the earth welcomed the stone, as if the ancient pattern he'd created in the desert expressed a profound natural harmony.

  Muscles and joints protesting after hours of kneeling, he stood and stretched, mentally preparing himself to test his creation.

  He stationed himself at the entrance of the labyrinth, his gaze tracing the pattern. Eleven concentric circles, with the pathway turning back on itself as it swung unpredictably through all four quadrants of the labyrinth. As in life, sometimes one seemed to be nearing the center only to have the path swing away to an outer circle. The road must be walked with attention and diligence.

  Breathing deeply, he relaxed muscle by muscle, then took his first step onto the walkway he'd laid with blood, sweat, and care. Three steps in, the path swung sharply to the left.

  He'd never believed in God. His childhood hadn't included religious education, and later he decided that no decent God could allow the atrocities that were commonplace in the world. If a divine being existed, it had created the world, then abandoned humankind to pursue more interesting projects.

  A labyrinth worked for more earthly reasons. The mind was a drunken monkey, he'd once heard. Movement could channel off that restless energy, allowing the mind to slow to a meditative state.

  Yet instead of calming, his emotions intensified. Tennyson's words echoed in his mind again.

  Break, break, break,

  On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

  And I would that my tongue could utter,

  The thoughts that arise in me.

  Though his tongue couldn't utter them, the emotions were flame bright, searingly real. Despair. Grief.

  Most of all, anger. Rage at the pimp who'd destroyed hapless Maggie Mackenzie, then dragged her son into degradation. Fury at the uncounted men who'd chosen to believe that a child was willingly selling his body. Loathing of those who'd known better, and enjoyed feeding on a child's pain.

  He wanted to confront his mother, who'd loved him but hadn't the strength to care for him. He wanted to curse Trevor, who'd saved his life but damaged his soul. He wanted to strike out at the men who'd abused him, teach them what it was like to be terrified and alone, but there was no one within reach of his vengeance.

  Most of all, he raged against himself, despising his pathetic weakness. He could have walked up to any kind-looking woman on the streets and begged for help and been saved years of horror. Yet because he'd believed that he deserved pain and degradation, he remained a passive victim.

  He wavered, then forced himself to continue. At some point he would have to hit bottom, and then the tidal wave of pain would begin to ebb.

  But it didn't. The wave continued to build until Jamie's sobs echoed in his ears, Jamie's fear choked him, and Jamie's hopelessness stood revealed as the foundation of his whole misbegotten life.

  Despairing, he stumbled into the center of the labyrinth and fell shaking to his knees as he gasped for breath. Kenzie was Jamie and Jamie was Kenzie and he could no longer separate the two.

  The midday sun blazed like hell's own fire as he slumped onto the newly laid stones. He'd worked so hard to build a life, but nothing he'd achieved, not success, not money, not fame, could heal the primal wound at the center of his soul.

  Ashes to ashes, dust unto dust...

  * * *

  It was dinnertime when Rainey arrived back at the ranch, but there was no sign of Kenzie. Maybe he was close enough to finishing the labyrinth that he'd decided to work on until he was done.

  As Honeybunny and Gray Guy leaped around her, she read Alma's instructions for how long to heat the barbecued ribs the older woman had deposited in the refrigerator. Rainey read the note fondly, amazed at how natural it seemed here to leave the house unlocked so a neighbor could drop in and leave dinner.

  She'd fed the kittens, poured a lemonade, and started for her bedroom when the phone rang. She picked up the call in the living room. "Hello?"

  "Raine, I've got two pieces of great news," Marcus said with rare excitement.

  She flopped full-length on the sofa. "Speak. I'm up for great news."

  "Val's hunch paid off. One of our London researchers found a death certificate for the James Mackenzie that Nigel Stone claimed was really Kenzie."

  Rainey gasped, wondering how that could be. "How old was he when he died?"

  "The poor kid died of a beating when he was twelve. Assailant unknown, probably a trick who turned violent." Marcus sighed. "After I got that call, I went out and hugged the first grandchild I could find."

  Trevor's friend, the intelligence officer, must have created a false death certificate to sever all connection between Jamie Mackenzie and Kenzie Scott. "What is Nigel Stone saying?"

  "He's issued a public apology to Kenzie, saying that obviously he hadn't done enough research and he'd made a mistake. The unofficial word is that he was told by the Inquirer to grovel or find a new job. Kenzie is very popular in England, and a lot of people were unhappy when someone so widely respected was attacked by a mudslinging tabloid. Val's brainstorm about producing other men who looked like a young Kenzie wounded Stone's case mortally, and this drives the final nail into the coffin."

  "So it's over." At least, the public ordeal was. Lord only knew when Kenzie might recover from what Nigel Stone had done to him personally. "Thank heaven. I'll tell Kenzie. What's the other good news?"

  "Universal's big chick flick for the holidays has officially gone splat! after months of rumors about trouble on the set. Problems with stars, script, budget, directing, you name it. No way can they get anything releasable by Thanksgiving, if ever. So the studio has decided to put The Centurion in that slot."

  "Ye gods, how did that happen?" she gasped.

  "I showed the execs a half hour reel, and they loved it. The movie will get a level of promotion it never would otherwise, and with Kenzie as lead, a profit is guaranteed, which will put you in a strong position for your next project."

  "Fantastic! But can we finish the movie on time?"

  "I've sworn on the head of my first-born grandchild that it will be ready. I once produced a movie that started shooting in July and was released the first week in December. We were all more dead than alive, but we did it, and it was a damned good movie. This one will be even better."

  Honeybunny had jumped on Rainey's stomach, so she scratched the kitten's head with tense fingers. "I'm glad I took the afternoon off. It sounds as if I won't get another holiday for months."

  "Probably not, but this is worth it. This evening, think about how you want to handle the sound and music editing. We'll talk about a new schedule in the morning."

  "Okay." She said good-bye and hung up, nerves jumping. With The Centurion committed to a major release, there'd be no time to tweak the editing until it was exactly right. On the plus side, the suits wouldn't have time to make her crazy with minor objections.

  Setting the kitten down, she headed outside to tell Kenzie the news. The sun's rays were long at this hour, and when she reached the edge of the meadow, she had to squint as she looked for him. Where the devil was he?

  She froze when she saw the unmoving figure crumpled in the center of the labyrinth. Oh, God, no. He wouldn't have... He couldn't have...

  Powerful tools release dangerous emotions.

  Heart pounding, she raced into the labyrinth.

  Chapter 38

  He was sliding down a spiral to hell, dragged into the abyss by the weight of his past. Th
en he felt Rainey's cool hand on his forehead, her arms strong as she pulled him onto her lap. He clung to her, so emotionally shattered that he was beyond even the tortured memories that had made touch impossible for weeks.

  At first her urgent words were unintelligible. Gradually he recognized that she was saying over and over, "It's all right, love. It's all right," as if he were a child.

  Strange how such simple, meaningless words could reach him. He whispered, "Rainey."

  She hugged him so close he could feel her heart beating beneath his ear. "What happened, Kenzie?"

  "Walking the labyrinth... made everything worse." He struggled for more breath, as short of oxygen as if he'd run five miles. "Anger. Pain. Confusion."

  "Why confusion?"

  How to transmute raw pain into words? "Looking into the mirror at a face that isn't mine. Knowing that even though I loathed what was done to me, sometimes I... I felt physical pleasure, and despised myself for it." He had to stop to breathe. "Owing Trevor so much, yet I couldn't forgive him for being what he was."

  "Is that ambivalence why you seem to have been closer to Charles Winfield than Trevor?"

  "Charles and I could be mentor and student together without the ugly undercurrents there were with Trevor. Even though Trevor never touched me the wrong way or asked me to role-play for him again, I could feel him watching and wanting.

  "I hated that because it reminded me of every man who'd ever abused me. Yet how could I complain when he'd saved me and never asked anything in return?' Kenzie shuddered. "Except to be loved, and I... I deliberately withheld that because I was so angry."

  "And you feel the guilt of that still." She stroked back his hair, her fingers cool on the throbbing veins of his temple. "This afternoon I visited Tom Corsi, my friend Kate's brother. He's a novice at a monastery not far away, and he knows about labyrinths. He said that in periods of great stress, walking a labyrinth can trigger emotional upheavals. Having had your life stirred up by Nigel Stone, everything was ready to erupt this time."

  "So I was playing with a loaded gun, and it went off."

  "Luckily Tom had a couple of good suggestions for dealing with past horrors. He says that writing down the ghastly memories will put distance between them and you, and make the past easier to bear. It worked for him." Her gaze went to the surrounding tiles. "He also said that walking into the labyrinth takes a person inward. The center is for release of emotions, while walking out integrates the experience. It's worth a try. I'll walk with you if that might help."

  "It... might. But first walk to the center yourself. Then we'll go out together."

  "If you want me to." She rose, fingers tenderly brushing his beard.

  Cutting across the circles to the outside, she turned and composed herself at the entrance as he'd done. Then she pulled the hood over her hair and entered the labyrinth, walking straight toward him until the first sharp turn to her left. Her lowered gaze and dark, flowing outfit reminded him of a medieval nun, or an ancient pagan priestess.

  He clambered to his feet and watched as the path took her back and forth. Twice she came so close he could have touched her, only to move away again. The labyrinth as metaphor for their marriage.

  Her pace gradually slowed. At the center she lifted her head, tears coursing down her face. He raised his arms, and she walked straight into them.

  "Tom was right," she said unsteadily. "This is powerful medicine. I don't know why it affected me so much more this time."

  "We have too much in common, Rainey." He rubbed her back, trying to ease her trembling. "Operatically dreadful childhoods. Not knowing our fathers, losing our mothers young. The drive to be performers, you to prove yourself, me to lose myself. We connect on so many levels that whatever affects one affects the other, I think."

  "Maybe that's why I just remembered something I haven't thought of in years." She drew a ragged breath. "Once one of my mother's druggie friends put me on his lap and... and touched me. I was horribly uncomfortable but didn't know how to say no to an adult.

  "Luckily Clementine came in before he went too far. She attacked him with the fireplace poker when she saw what he was doing. I think she'd have killed him if he hadn't run away. She held me and cried and said that I was safe and it would never happen again. It was a minor incident, nothing compared to what you endured, but I had nightmares about the man for years." She hid her face against his shoulder. "Remembering gives me a faint, horrible idea of what it must have been like to be you. Dear God, Kenzie, how did you survive?"

  "Because it didn't occur to me that I had a choice." He rocked her in his embrace, wishing she'd never had to endure an event that had given her so much empathy.

  She sighed. "I want to be angry at my mother for not protecting me better, but there's no point in anger for anger's sake. What matters is learning how to release the pain."

  She stepped back and caught his hands in hers, raising her tear-stained face. The hood had fallen back, revealing the tightly drawn flesh over her exquisite bones. "Why stir up the past if we can't let it go?"

  "I don't know if I can let it go," he said with painful honesty.

  "Try." She closed her eyes and began to recite. "I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth."

  He involuntarily looked up at the mountains, magnificent in their austerity. I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. Even if he didn't believe in religion, the idea of God was appealing.

  She continued through the psalm, the poetic words flowing like music, until she reached the end. "The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore."

  "Amen," he whispered.

  Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he guided her onto the outward-bound path. What had Rainey said about this part of the labyrinth journey? Integration. He'd lived his life in a state of separation. Jamie cut off from Kenzie, childhood divided from adulthood. His deepest feelings severed from the life he'd created with painstaking care.

  Since starting The Centurion, integration had been forced on him, and it had been disastrous. Was it possible to accept the whole of himself without madness or paralysis?

  It had to be possible, because he couldn't continue to dwell in the abyss. Rainey had thrown him a lifeline. It was up to him to summon the courage and willpower to rebuild without the suppression and detachment that he'd used as a shield for too many years.

  By the time they left the labyrinth, he was calmer than he'd been in weeks. He glanced down at Rainey. "How are you doing, TLC?"

  She managed a smile. "Better. Tom was right, I think. The outward path does help integrate what's been stirred up. The spiral can lead up as well as down."

  Tucking her close to his side, he turned to the path down the hill. She slid her arm around his waist, her closeness a blessing. As they walked, he said, "Three years of marriage, and I haven't the faintest idea of your spiritual beliefs, if any." •

  "Clementine didn't believe in fettering my childish mind with dogma, but when I went to live with my grandparents, they promptly enrolled me in the Sunday school of their church. They also sent me to the local Quaker school." She paused, collecting her thoughts. "Though I've never thought of myself as religious, whenever life has gotten difficult I've been supported by a kind of bedrock faith that's kept me from going off the deep end, so I guess that early training worked."

  He looked up at the mountains again, the peaks tinged with molten gold from the last of the sun. "Faith sounds like a good thing to cultivate."

  "Walking a labyrinth is a form of seeking. Maybe faith will sneak up on you someday." Hambone had joined them, so she paused to ruffle the dog's ears. "Will you try writing a journal? Tom said it doesn't matter how well you write, and no one will ever have to read it. In fact, he suggested burning the pages. The idea is to make your journal a cheap, disposable therapist."

  He'd heard about journaling. The point
was to dig as deeply into one's horrible memories as possible. Charming. But maybe effective. "I will if you will."

  "You drive a hard bargain." She grimaced. "But it's a deal. By the way, Marcus called. A death certificate for James Mackenzie has turned up. An example of Trevor's intelligence friend at work?"

  He whistled softly. "It must have been. Sir Cecil was an amazing chess player who always saw a dozen moves ahead. When he was creating new papers for me, he must have done a death certificate as well, to sever all links between James Mackenzie and Kenzie Scott. What about Nigel Stone? Is he standing by his story?"

  "Marcus said he apologized, with his newspaper's metaphorical gun in his back." She slanted a glance up at him. "You probably could get him fired rather easily."

  Kenzie thought of the hell Stone had put him through, then shook his head. "I'll have Seth issue a statement accepting Stone's apology, along with the suggestion that next time he have his facts lined up before he goes public with his suspicions."

  "You're generous. I'm all for chopping him up and leaving the bits for buzzards."

  "Bloodthirsty wench. But considering that his story was true, it would be unfair to use my influence to cost him his job." Kenzie smiled faintly. "Besides, you know the old saying: Love your enemies—it will drive them crazy." After another dozen steps, he said quietly, "Thanks for being there, Rainey."

  "I will be for as long as you'll let me."

  He was too emotionally bruised to consider the future. But at least now he felt that he had one.

  Chapter 39

  In a movie, Rainey would have cut away after they left the labyrinth. In real life, high drama inevitably descended to the mundane. When they entered the house, she asked, "Shall I heat up the spareribs Alma left?"

  "Please. I'll shower while they're warming." Scooping Honeybunny onto his shoulder, he headed for the bathroom. He looked drained and far from happy, but the brittle tension she'd felt seemed to have dissipated. Though the marriage might not survive, Kenzie would, and so would she.