Hiramura was his name and I started to speak the name aloud and tell the others. I never got the chance.
Before I could say a word, Nova came stumbling in the room wearing only a torn cotton nightshirt. She was barefoot and covered with bleeding scratches on her arms and legs. She fell into Mowsel and Geaxi on the piano bench, sending them all to the floor. Ray rushed over to help Nova, while Geaxi got up on her own, pulling Mowsel up with her. Nova was conscious, but her eyes looked glazed and vacant, and her face was ghost white, except for ruby red lipstick smeared across her mouth. Tears mixed with heavy black eyeliner ran down her cheeks in black streams.
“Nova,” Ray said softly, holding her by the shoulders. “Come back, Nova…come on back to us…you can do it…you’re safe, Nova, you’re safe…come back now, darlin’…please…come back, baby.”
Nova’s knees buckled and she collapsed, but Ray held her shoulders and knelt to the floor with her slowly, letting Nova’s head come to rest in his lap. Opari hurried over to check her breathing and take her pulse. Jack said he’d get some water and a wet cloth from the kitchen and left the room. Mowsel asked Ray if Nova was conscious. Ray said, “I don’t know…maybe…her eyes won’t focus.” Ray was worried. This was much worse than anything Nova had been experiencing recently.
“Kiss her,” Geaxi said suddenly, almost laughing.
Everyone turned and looked at Geaxi. Mowsel angled his head sharply to the right and gradually, as he understood what Geaxi had said, opened his mouth in a wide grin and nodded his head up and down.
“What did you say?” I asked.
Geaxi looked at me, raising one eyebrow slightly. “I told Ray to kiss Nova, young Zezen. Was I not clear?”
“Yes, but…I don’t understand.”
“Geaxi is right,” Opari said. She looked up at me and smiled. “This is something you should know, my love, and I had nearly forgotten. It is older than all of us.” She looked back to Ray. “Kiss Nova on the lips, Ray, and she will wake, and wake as herself because she is your Ameq. This ancient gift is yours now, Ray,” Opari said. She reached out for my hand. “And ours, Zianno, if we should need it.”
“You got to be kiddin’ me,” Ray said. “Somethin’ that simple?” He didn’t hesitate and kissed Nova with passion. Nova’s smeared lips responded and she moaned once, as if she were being pulled from some other place. Ray held her close and after a few more seconds, backed away and looked in her eyes. She blinked several times, then focused and found Ray’s eyes. She lifted one hand and ran her fingers back and forth over Ray’s lips. No one spoke or moved. Slowly, deliberately, Nova turned her head to see where she was and who was in the room. She gazed down at her bare feet and felt the scratches on her arms and legs. Then she stared directly at me.
“What happened, Nova?” I asked.
“I had a dream, Zianno.”
“What about?”
Nova turned and glanced at Opari, Geaxi, and Mowsel. She touched Ray’s lips again and smiled, only it was a timid, fearful smile. She looked up at me and started to laugh, then stopped herself. “A balloon,” she said.
“A balloon?” I glanced once at Opari, then back to Nova. “What kind of balloon?”
Just then Jack ran into the little room with a glass of water in one hand and a dampened towel in the other. Nova looked up at him from the floor. “Nova!” Jack shouted. He was surprised to see her conscious. “Here,” he said, handing her the glass and giving the towel to Ray, who wiped Nova’s eyes, cheeks, and mouth clean, then helped her to her feet and into Carolina’s chair behind the desk. Nova took several sips of water and thanked Jack twice. He asked if she was all right, if she needed anything else? Nova said no, she was fine, and sat back in the chair. The faint scent of honeysuckle drifted in through the open window and across her face. Nova turned her head toward the scent and breathed in deeply. She closed her eyes once, then turned back to the rest of us, completely awake and alert.
“Tell us your dream, Nova…if you wish,” a voice said gently. It was Mowsel’s voice and even though he was blind, he knew Nova was herself again.
She turned to me. “It happened so fast, Zianno, it was terrifying…and it didn’t feel like a dream…it felt real.”
“Where were you?”
“In the dream, I awoke as I would in this world, except I was standing by a gate at the entrance to a castle. I don’t know where I was, but I was waiting for someone. It was late morning on a beautiful summer day and the castle was deep in the hills. I could see the coastline of a large bay in the distance to the west. The only sound I could hear was the sound of wind blowing through pine trees. Then the gate opened and an old woman walked out. She was no taller than me and kept her head bowed. Her hair was elaborately braided and she wore a blue silk kimono covered with embroidered pink and white cherry blossoms and birds of every color. ‘I am Murasaki Shikibu,’ she said. ‘I see you have found me.’ She raised her head and smiled, staring at me with green eyes. She had brilliant white teeth and her smile was bitter and sardonic. ‘Look to the west, Nova,’ the woman said, and I knew who she really was. I turned and far to the west across the bay I thought I saw a balloon rising high in the air and changing colors like a kaleidoscope. Yet, somehow, I also knew it wasn’t a balloon; it was something else, something evil beyond description. The old woman turned to me and threw off her kimono and wig, laughing long and loud. It was the Fleur-du-Mal. He looked me in the eye and inside I felt the deaths of a hundred thousand souls passing through me at once. I screamed and tried to run away, but I don’t remember where I ran. I just ran and ran.” Nova looked down at the scratches on her arms and legs. They were already healing. “I must have jumped out of Carolina’s room into the honeysuckle bushes. The next thing I remember is waking to Ray’s kiss.”
For a moment no one spoke. I glanced from face to face to see if anyone knew what the dream might mean or portend. Geaxi asked Nova if she had dreamed of the Fleur-du-Mal before. Nova said, “Never.” Mowsel leaned forward and asked if she had ever been to Japan. “Never.” Opari asked the central question: “If the balloon was not a balloon, what was it?” Nova couldn’t answer; she only knew it was unspeakable. I asked, “Who is Murasaki Shikibu?” Nova shook her head back and forth. “I’ve never heard of her, Zianno.”
“I have,” Jack said. He was standing by Carolina’s bookshelves. He scanned the shelves until he found a certain book and tossed it to me. “
I looked at Nova. “Have you read this book?”
“Never.”
A few seconds passed in silence. No one knew what any of it meant, but we were all in agreement that the appearance of the Fleur-du-Mal in Nova’s dream must not be ignored. Geaxi said, “Zeru-Meq is due to arrive soon. Perhaps what he has to say will shed some light.”
Ray walked over to the open window and looked up through the trees, surveying the sky. It was cloudless and bright blue. “Well, I just hope he don’t come tomorrow. He won’t like it.”
“Why not?” Jack asked.
“There’s gonna be thunder, rain, and lightnin’ all day long, maybe worse.”
“How do you know that? Today’s a perfect day.”
Ray swiveled his head and grinned at Jack, but didn’t say a word.
I said, “Because he’s the Weatherman, Jack,” and Ray gave me a wink.
Ray was right, of course. Just before dawn, booming thunder woke us all and by the end of the day three separate storm systems had moved through St. Louis from the west. Ray grinned every time he saw Jack that day. On the sixth of June, the Cardinals played a doubleheader against the Phillies at Sportsman’s Park. Jack, Opari, Ray, and I went early and took our seats in Carolina’s box. Opari had become an avid fan of baseball. She even wore a Cardinals’ ball cap to the game, but took it off when she overheard someone behind her say, “What a cute little girl!” The Cardinals won the first game 7–2 and the umpire, “Ziggy” Sears, ended the second game early by calling a forfeit in the fifth inning and giving the win to the Cardinals. The Phillies had gone into a stall, trying to slow the game down until the Sunday curfew would cancel the game. The fans booed the Phillies off the field. On the way home, Opari asked about the unusual event. I told her in the game of baseball, the Phillies had tried a tactic that was more cheating than strategy, and such a play was against the rules. And in baseball, the umpire starts the game and can end the game, if necessary. On the field of play, he is the final authority.
“Zeru-Meq will find this game amusing,” Opari said. “He will like these odd nuances.”
