Draw Down the Moon, page 9
***
The next morning, Derek was still fussing over my impending playdate with the great Zara, even though there’d been no time or place mentioned. In the light of the new day, I was feeling a little woozy after the previous night, but I had come to my senses and realized it was probably a ‘let’s-do-lunch’ sort of thing, the vague politeness that people say when they never actually intend to get together at all.
He was rifling through my closet looking for my most flattering outfit when I got out of the shower.
‘You’re going to have to go shopping,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing here that will do.’
‘Give it up, Derek. Honest to Christ, she doesn’t care about things like that. She’s not as shallow and superficial as... as some other people are.’ I took him by the shoulders and forced him out of my walk-in closet, which really wasn’t large enough for both of us.
The more I thought about the events of the previous evening, the more I doubted that they’d actually happened, at least, not like I remembered them. The glittering magic? That fleeting feeling of oneness with the Pilates wives?
First of all, that drink had been more than mere alcohol. I could still taste the dusty, earthy undertones of the wine, almost like mushrooms in the aftermath. It was a familiar flavor, one that harked back to my twenties, back to my university days. The years that were pre-Derek, at that very time of the year which found me and my friends walking on the tidy lawns of a neighboring golf course and other well-kept spaces, hunting for the elusive ‘shrooms.
‘Oh my God,’ I said out loud. I stood, dumb struck, my blouse in my hands. Magic mushrooms. That’s what had been in the drink last night, and it explained so much. The earthiness of the drink, the imagined twinkling of lights and other hallucinations, being totally mesmerized in the chanting and dancing.
Zara and Ana had spiked our drinks, causing the whole trip.
This realization was such a shock, I had to search in my mind to find how I felt about this. Perhaps, no certainly, I should have been outraged, furious that someone had played such a silly trick on all these mature women. Yet I couldn’t find a shred of the expected anger.
Instead, I was relieved that none of it had been real, that the whole evening had been a sham, an entertainment for bored middle-aged women. There was no such thing as magic, see?
Yet close on the heels of that feeling came disappointment because... that meant nothing had been real. I remembered the moon smiling down on me, and me in turn reaching up towards that friendly warm disc, the feeling of power and of potential being realized, the shimmering air and Zara’s luminous eyes on mine and the absolute feeling of oneness.
Was I crushing on Zara? It would be hard not to, the woman had such a presence with her movie star glamour and sex appeal and I had felt so special when she’d turned her whole spotlight of attention on me. I couldn’t see why Bel was so set against her.
I’d been chosen to be inducted, whatever that meant, for there’d been no ceremony, no formal blessing or whatever a so-called coven meeting should do. Selena had definitely been jealous at the attention given to me, that much was certain, so I must be (perhaps?) something special. Zara had seen something extraordinary in me, Eve Stratton.
My heart suddenly swelled with joy, like it had all those years ago the first time Derek had asked me out on a date. The young naive me had been so flattered at being chosen by that older guy, a man doing his PhD no less, when I’d been merely a lowly undergrad. Someone had wanted me, someone thought enough of me to want me.
My whole day after that was bright sunshine and light. Barry was off sick again with his stress belly, I was back in form and catching up with all the fires that had to be put out and the reports that needed to be written, and life was good.
Chapter 16
My second art class was that evening, and I deserved a treat, with supper and a chat with my bestie before entering the hallowed halls of the Academy again.
In the back of my mind, a voice niggled me that I should have been using the time to search through the boxes for the Books, but it had been such a hectic week already, I argued, that I could do with a break. Besides after last night and the realization that we’d been given shroom tea in the wine, I had just about convinced myself that all the so-called magic popping up in my life was illusion, the result of hormones and stress.
And yet I still brought supper down for the Hob Goblin living in my basement. I didn’t even attempt to rationalize that one.
I hadn’t touched base with Bel since last Monday evening. So much had happened in between, but I wasn’t quite sure how much I could share with her.
I still hadn’t told her about the weird episode of Sunday afternoon. If she didn’t believe me about the Hob Goblin in my basement, how would she take the magic that had I had witnessed at the coven? And the weird fantasy thing of Monday night.
How about if I didn’t mention the magic at all? I took a deep breath and began to text.
Free after work? Am thinking a pub meal before my art class. My turn to treat, I think.
The reply came almost immediately. Ooh lala. Love it.
Sitting at our table in the pub, Bel didn’t waste a moment in questioning me.
‘So, you’re sparkling, glowing, haven’t seen you like this for years,’ she began. ‘I can only think that all this is perhaps because of the art teacher and a possible affaire de couer?’
I choked on my beer, inelegantly sputtering. ‘God, no!’ I said, wiping my mouth. I frowned as I realized I hadn’t done any of the drawing homework Arthur had set. ‘Although, yes, he did seem interested.’
She shrugged. ‘He’s not that much of a catch anyway, to be honest. What else have you been up to?’
‘Well, I went to a meeting last night...’ I frowned again. How could I explain the magic of the evening, the enchantment? I still didn’t believe it myself, and I was reluctant to tell my oldest friend how I’d been drugged and had hallucinated on the best trip ever. ‘A lot of women were there. Ana, and you know Zara?’
Her eyes opened wide. ‘The Zara?’
I nodded.
She whistled.
‘Who is she, anyway?’
‘Zara Portensky,’ Bel began. She knew everyone in town, knew all the stories. ‘Extremely wealthy. Flits in and out of the city at whim. Generous supporter of the arts. A bit of a recluse, really, everyone knows about her, but few people have actually met her.’
She sipped her beer thoughtfully, then leaned in closer. ‘She’s got this air about her, untouchable and cold and heartless. Are you saying you actually were introduced to her? What’s she really like? Is she as awful as she seems?’
‘She’s...’ I sat back, my glass between both hands as I stared off at the distance. The river flowed softly behind us, the trees rustled in the breeze and in the distance I could hear the wings of ducks landing on the water. ‘She’s not evil. She’s really nice.’
The lameness of that adjective hung in the air between us, and Bel cast a disbelieving eye on me.
I shrugged. ‘I mean, she was nice. To me. She didn’t care about how I looked, she singled me out, drew me into the center of the circle and...’
‘Circle? What exactly was going on?’
I looked down at the glass between my hands, and gently sloshed the liquid around. It had been a magical evening, all of it. Zara’s special inclusion of me, making me feel like I was so much more than a middle-aged, past-her-sell-by date housewife. That I mattered. The magic in the moonlight, the beauty of the singing. Zara casting the golden net, then dispersing the glitter amongst the women in the circle as they spoke their hearts’ desires.
My own wish, to realize my potential, and Zara’s warm understanding of this desire.
Was Bel going to get all this?
‘We all got high and danced and sang,’ I said finally, choosing to give her the expurgated version. ‘There was ‘shroom tea involved, and dancing and moonlight, and...’
She sat back and leaned against the painted lumber of the fence. ‘You’re serious.’ Bel didn’t sound as if she believed me. ‘They really are witches.’
I nodded, keeping my gaze on the amber liquid in my beer stein.
‘Sounds great, and fun, but not normally your kind of thing,’ she said slowly.
Could I tell her of the whole magic of that evening? Where to start? Or was it as I’d painted it that morning to myself, just a bunch of middle-aged women getting high in the moonlight? Taking a deep breath to stall for time, I bit my lip and looked up.
Before I could begin a garbled explanation of the previous evening, my eye was caught by the man who’d just entered the patio and quietly moved off to the side overlooking the road. The Lynx-man, as I had come to think of him, for he had a sleekly groomed, feline look about him. I sensed his feral nature as he glanced up with those amber eyes and caught me in his gaze.
Memories of that intense orgasm the other night ran through my body like a hot flash, how my fantasy had felt so real, the heat of his solidly muscled body over me, the exquisite almost-pain as he had plunged inside me, claiming me for his own.
‘No, don’t tell me,’ Bel said, shaking her head and not looking at me as she pushed herself up from the table. ‘I probably don’t want to know every detail of your trip. Still, that’s one for the books, isn’t it? Who would have thought that’s how the fabulous Zara spends her time.’ She snort-chuckled. ‘The secret lives of the rich and famous, huh?
‘I’m off to the little girls’ room,’ she announced. She began to walk towards the pub door. ‘Order me the special, would you?’
And she left me alone on the patio with the Lynx man, who was slowly prowling along the fence as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do.
***
I watched him from the corner of my eye as he slowly made his way over to our table. My hand squeezed my glass, I was ready to run at the slightest threat. My heart pounded in my head and my breath caught in my throat.
He stopped short near the fence and leaned against the wood, looking over to the traffic placidly flowing behind us.
‘Lovely evening for it,’ he remarked as he glanced back at me. His body was relaxed, and his voice had a burr in it, a Scottish lilt almost, but there was a tinge of foreignness as if English was not his mother tongue.
‘Mmm,’ I said, torn between my natural inclination towards politeness and my wariness of the strange man. He’d appeared, uninvited, onto my page and into my fantasy the other night, my face was growing hot again at the memory of it. Lynx Man had no way of knowing this, yet still there I was, blushing like a teenager.
‘You have beautiful evenings here in September,’ he remarked. ‘The heat of summer has passed, yet the night is still gentle. And the moon, it is full.’ He looked upwards. The lowering sun was hiding behind the tall building next door, but yes, there was the full moon already coming over the horizon, a ghostlike wraith in the still bright sky.
I didn’t reply. Instead, I stared back down into my wine, hoping he wouldn’t see the evidence of the full-on hot flash working its way through me right then. If I ignored him, then he’d give up on trying to engage me in conversation, right?
It didn’t work. When I looked up again, he had sidled even closer.
‘You know, I have a feeling we know each other, but I really can’t put my finger on it,’ he said. I felt naked in the force of his stare, yet he wasn’t being creepy or anything. His eyes were soft and friendly. ‘Any idea?’
I shook my head resolutely. But he was right – I’d thought him familiar the very first time I’d seen him here the other evening. Yet surely I would have remembered him with his unmistakeably lion-like air and his presence. If I had ever met him before, that is, which I knew I hadn’t.
‘No, I’m pretty sure we’ve never met,’ I stated clearly, directing my stare at the fence behind him. Fantasies didn’t count.
And then suddenly there he was, sitting on the bench where Bel had been only moments before. I looked over in outrage at his complete lack of respect for my personal space. The patio door opened, and a crowd of students poured onto the deck, starting their weekend early and already half in the bag.
‘My name is Lox.’ His voice carried clearly beneath their noise. There was a genial smile on his face, but calculation in his eye. ‘And you’re Eve.’
The hormonal disruption to my body was all but forgotten now. I felt the indignity of being at a disadvantage, till I realized he must have heard Bel call me by name. Still, I bristled at his boldness.
‘As I said.’ I spoke in the coldest voice I could muster. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met.’
‘No, Eve, you’re right, we haven’t.’ He smiled gently and shook his head regretfully, his amber eyes warm on mine. ‘And yet, I’ve known you all your life. I’ve tried not to interfere, but the time has come now, and you can no longer ignore your birthright.’ The Lynx man, or Lox as he called himself, took a sip from his glass as he watched the effect of his words on me.
‘What?’ I spat the word out. What the hell was he talking about – birthright? My mind was inevitably, reluctantly, drawn back to my last meeting with my mother. I searched around the patio desperately. Where was Bel? How could she leave me alone with this man? How long did it take a gal to have a piss anyway?
‘I don’t know who you think you are,’ I began hotly.
‘Lox,’ he reminded me in a reasonable tone. ‘My name is Lox.’
‘Well, Lox, I don’t know you. And I’m pretty sure you’re completely making that up, about knowing me all my life. I advise you to get your ass off that bench and away from me before I scream.’
‘Okay, okay,’ he said, holding up his hands in surrender. He wasn’t the least bit flustered. ‘I’ll leave you to your obstinate blindness.’
The patio door opened again, but I didn’t look to see who it was, I was too busy staring him down. How dare he call me blind?
He stood up to leave, took his glass in his hand, and leaned over to speak in a low voice. ‘But I have to tell you, you need to be careful of whom you get high with. Zara?’ He shook his head firmly. ‘She’s using you.’
Before I could summon a retort, a shadow fell over the table.
‘Lox, darling,’ Bel’s hand came down on his shoulder. She seemed delighted to see the Lynx Man, and didn’t even glance my way to see the anger which must surely be written all over my face. ‘You’ve met Eve, then?’
Bel greeted the intruder like an old friend. But they hadn’t known each other the other evening when Lox had been here. Or perhaps she hadn’t seen him. Perhaps he hadn’t actually been there, he’d just been a figment of my imagination. What was going on? I scowled at each of them in turn.
‘You know this guy?’ Of course Bel did. She was like that, Bel couldn’t help but pick up and attract people, it was as natural as breathing.
‘Yeah, Lox just moved into the offices next to the gallery,’ she replied flicking her head toward the building next door. ‘Must say, it’s refreshing not to have more lawyers in the building.’
This was beginning to get extremely creepy. Was his move to Bel’s building a coincidence? Was this weirdo stalking me? ‘And what is it that you do in these offices, Mr. Lox?’
I sensed rather than saw Bel stiffen at my tone, and knew if I looked at her she’d be staring at me with a puzzled expression. I kept my hard gaze firmly on the intruder, waiting for him to answer.
‘I integrate worlds,’ he said, quite seriously.
Bel laughed as she took her seat. ‘That’s as good an answer as I’ve heard yet for what engineers do with their skills,’ she said. ‘Come and join us, Lox.’
The stranger shook his head slowly, his eyes still on mine. ‘Thank you, but no,’ he replied. ‘I fear I have overstepped my welcome. And time is moving on, more quickly than we realize.
‘But Eve,’ he continued, reaching into his jacket pocket and withdrawing a card. ‘When you wish to continue our discussion, please call me. And you will need me, very soon.’ He held out his business card to me. When I didn’t move, he shrugged and laid it on the table before me.
He gave a short bow, then turned and walked quickly and gracefully to the door.
‘Well, then,’ Bel said in a sly voice. ‘Looks like you’ve made a conquest. Wink, wink, nudge nudge.’
‘It is not reciprocated, believe me,’ I said firmly. I refused to pick up the card. ‘He’s a creep, and he’s weird.’
‘Nah, he’s fine,’ Bel said, in disbelief. ‘I’ve gotten to know him at the cafe in the mornings. Such an interesting man, been to so many places in his life.’
She leaned closer to me and spoke only loud enough for me to hear. ‘In fact, I think he’s a far better candidate for your affair than Arthur the artist. Lox is European, so suave, and did you notice the build under that suit?’
‘Bel, he knew my name.’
‘I probably mentioned you in passing, he knows we’re good friends. And I haven’t forgotten the scorching look that passed between you two the other evening. You thought I wasn’t looking, but I was.’
‘He claims to have known me all my life!’
‘Sounds romantic to me,’ Bel said. ‘Couldn’t you see the way he drank you in with his eyes? I think he has the hots for you.’
‘He... he warned me against Zara,’ I pushed, trying to get Bel to understand why I felt so uncomfortable around Lox. ‘Told me she was just using me.’
‘How the hell did the Ice Queen come up in the conversation?’ Bel laughed. ‘See, I told you she was evil. Besides, from what you’ve told me, I think he may be right. ‘Shrooms, Evie? Dancing in the moonlight? Sounds a little wacko if you ask me. The very wealthy can be really out of touch with reality. He’s probably doing you a favor.’
‘How dare you?’ I turned on her. I was not only frustrated, but furious now. A picture of Zara flashed in my mind, Zara in the moonlight, the shimmering all around her. So okay, maybe that was the drugs, but I couldn’t help but remember the fellowship and the lightness of being I’d felt during the dance. Zara had singled me out. Me, Eve Stratton. ‘How can you be so mean? She’s wonderful. Zara is gorgeous and lovely and... and I think we could be very good friends.’
