Waking the Moon

can’t be here—”

“The boy,” the woman said simply. She slid her hands into the folds of her robe. “You’re not to harm him.”

“The boy is mine!”

The woman shook her head, just once. Her eyes glinted. “And mine.”

“No,” said Angelica. “Not yours. Never, never yours.”

“A warning, Angelica,” the dark-haired woman said in a low voice. “Don’t hurt him.”

Angelica laughed harshly. “You have no power here, sister,” she said. She lifted her hands to the sky and glared. “Go, before my Mistress loses patience with you!”

“You should be more careful whom you bed, Angelica.” The woman’s voice was low and threatening. “Not everyone wants to embrace an asp—”

“Go!” screamed Angelica. Rage made a sibylline mask of her face, and her hair fell about her cheeks in tangled coils. “You—”

But the dark-haired woman was already gone. Only, on the ground where her bare feet had stood, a sheaf of flowers trembled, and stained the desert air with the scent of hyacinths.

CHAPTER 20 Threnody and Breakdown

HANDSOME BROWN LET US off in front of Dr. Dvorkin’s house, solemnly accepting the wad of bills Dylan pressed into his hand. “It’s good to see you, my man,” he said in his basso voice, and toasted us with a pint of Hennessy. “Take good care of the lady. Always take good care of the lady.” Cab Number 393 lumbered off into the darkness, trailing the strains of Idris Mohammed.

Ninth Street was deserted, the streetlights casting their glow over the crepe myrtles and magnolias, the heaps of fallen petals that had drifted up against the curbstones. We stepped from the street and opened the wrought-iron gate that led into Dr. Dvorkin’s front yard, the little lawn overgrown with myrtle and ivy and a single huge magnolia. The air was so warm and sweet it was like drowning to stand there and breathe it; but I could hardly breathe at all, my heart was pounding so fast, my mouth seemed filled with something thick and sweet and strong, honey wine or Handsome Brown’s cognac. From the hidden garden echoed the burbling song of a mockingbird, so achingly beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.

“Sweeney.” Dylan drew me to him, his long hair warm against my cheek. “What is it, Sweeney? You’re crying—”

He held me gently against his chest, the two of us leaning against the magnolia. For all that his words were soft I could feel his heart pounding like my own. “Nothing,” I whispered. I laughed, wiping my eyes. “It’s just—god, I must be drunk or something, it’s just all so beautiful, and—”

My voice caught. A warm breeze stirred the leaves of the magnolia. From its waxy blossoms scent poured like rain. “I’m—I’m just so happy,” I said, and began to sob.

“Happy?” Dylan’s voice was perplexed, and when I looked up his eyes were burning, flecked with gold from the streetlamps. Panic lanced through me: what was I saying? I tried to move away, but Dylan’s arms tightened around my waist. “Happy? I’ll show you happy—”

He kissed me again, pushing me against the tree, his hands stroking my face as I grabbed him and pulled him tight against me. I didn’t care where we were, I didn’t care who might see or hear. I couldn’t hear anything, except for his heart and breath and the mockingbird singing blissfully somewhere in the green darkness. I thought I would faint: my head was roaring but all I could feel was Dylan’s mouth and the taste of him, and everything about us hot and sweet and liquid.

“Sweeney,” he whispered. “Oh, Sweeney…”

We made love there, the tree wound about with ivy that tangled with Dylan’s hair and fingers, my skirt torn and scattered with bark as Dylan moved against me until he cried out and the two of us slid down, gasping, into the carpet of myrtle that blanketed the earth.

Nothing had changed. The night was soft and darkly golden as before. In its secret haven the mockingbird still sang. Overhead the sky was starless, but I could hear the first far-off stirrings of morning, subway cars moving into Union Station, the rush of distant wheels.

“We should go in,” I said at last. I smoothed my ruined skirt, tried to stand, and slid down again helplessly, my legs were so weak. “Jesus! Where’d you learn to do that?”

Dylan pulled me up, grinning. “You liked it?”

I laughed and plucked a bit of vine from his hair. “It was okay,” I said, and taking his hand started back toward the carriage house.

“Just okay?” His voice was plaintive. “Then maybe we should practice some more…”

And we did.

That was how Dylan missed his dinner with Dr. Dvorkin, as well as breakfast and any invitations for lunch that might have come to him. The next morning I called in sick, for the first time in almost two years. When Dylan wondered, somewhat nervously, if he should call in as well, I just laughed.

“Who do you think you’d call? I’m your boss, and I think you need to spend the day in bed…”

We made love until I ached all over, until I couldn’t tell where my body ended and the damp warmth of the sheets and air and Dylan’s skin began. He was so beautiful, I really did weep, watching him as he slept late that morning, his snores vying with the soft roar of a neighbor’s lawn mower. I lay beside him and still couldn’t keep my hands from him: his skin so warm and smooth it was like marble fitting into the curve of my palm, the swell of his narrow hips where I pressed my mouth so that I could feel the bone jutting beneath my tongue. I wanted to devour him, feel his soft skin break under my teeth like a pear’s and my mouth fill with juice, sweet and hot. When I took him in my mouth again he groaned, his fingers pulled at my hair and once more we tangled together as he came, warmth spurting onto my breasts as he clutched me and cried my name aloud.

“I guess it’s true,” I said when we finally had both slept, and awakened to find ourselves bruised and soaked with sweat and wrapped in each other’s arms. A fan moved lazily back and forth in front of a window, sending a faint coolness through the room.

“What?” Dylan mumbled.

“About guys reaching their sexual peak at nineteen.”

“Yeah? Then you have something to look forward to.” He rolled over and hugged me. “My birthday’s not till August first.”

“You’re only eighteen ?”

He sat up, grinning. “Yup. Wanna know something else?”

I fanned myself with yesterday’s Post. “I don’t know if my heart can stand any more.”

“This is the first time I did it.”

“Did what?”

“You know.” He looked at me sheepishly, and I suddenly noticed he was blushing. “It.”

“It?” I dropped the newspaper, shocked. “You mean, you’re a—”

“A lot of people are,” Dylan said defensively. “I mean, people my age. And—well, I never really wanted to before. Not much,” he ended lamely, and stared out the window.

“Holy cow,” I said, and collapsed onto a heap of pillows. “I think I need a drink.”

I got up, padded downstairs, and got a nearly full bottle of chardonnay from the refrigerator. I found two wineglasses and some fruit that I put into a basket—a bunch of black grapes, a rather wizened orange, a couple of figs that I’d bought impulsively and at an outrageous price at Eastern Market a few days before.

“Here,” I announced when I got back upstairs. I put the basket on the bed beside Dylan and poured some