Waking the Moon

now, and his eyes were no longer laughing.

“Sweeney? Surely you remember? It was the first thing we ever talked about. Why is a raven like a writing desk? Tell me the next line—”

He gripped me so hard that pins and needles darted from my wrist into my arm. “Tell me!” he hissed.

“I—I don’t—”

“Say it!”

“Your—your hair wants cutting.”

“There!” He cried out triumphantly and let go of my hand. I rubbed it gingerly, and moved a fraction of an inch away from him. “See, Sweeney? You remembered.”

With some effort he stood, moving slowly. He grabbed the hem of his robe and tossed it flamboyantly behind him, as though it were a flowing train. “I knew you would. Sweeney.”

He stopped and stared at me. The front of his robe gaped open and I had a glimpse of white bandages beneath, although maybe it was just his underclothes. “I know about you,” he said very softly. Once more his voice was gentle. He was gazing at me with pity, but also with great tenderness. “You’re in this by mistake—”

I shook my head desperately, but he went on. “It’s okay, Sweeney. Because even after I figured it all out, that you weren’t in on any of this—I mean, you’re not a Molyneux scholar, and obviously you’re not a Benandanti, and you’re not with Angelica, wherever the fuck she is—but, well, you’re still great, Sweeney. Anybody else would have run away screaming from all this, but you stayed, you were my friend and you stuck with me. And you’re great; you’re just so great to have done that. You know that, right?”

I bowed my head, mumbling something about No, well, maybe…

He knelt in front of me. It must have hurt, because he grimaced as he took my hands. He held them very tenderly, his fingertips barely grazing mine.

“Sweeney.” His blue eyes were clear as water. “I’ll love you next time. I promise.”

I bit my lip. Tears stung my eyes, and I shook my head furiously. “Why not this time? Why her and not me? I mean, I know you better, Oliver, I know you—”

He smiled and leaned forward to kiss my cheek.

“—and I love you. Even if I’m not one of them! I could be better, I could be good for you, I could help you out of this—”

I gestured at the pale green walls, that humble little wooden cross, the crooked chair near the door.

“Oh, my stars! Goodness had nothing to do with it, kiddo. Listen—”

He dropped my hands and got to his feet again, pulling his robe tight. “This isn’t new for my family. It isn’t new to me, not really. The Benandanti waited a long time for me, but in the meantime they used my brothers for target practice. Firing off a few rounds of firecrackers while they’re waiting for the Bearna Beill. I saw what happened to Osgood and Vance and Waldo, just like you saw what happened to Magda Kurtz. These guys take no prisoners, Sweeney, especially now. They’ve been expecting me for a long time—but they’ve been expecting Angelica even longer. Waiting for Electra, or someone like her.”

I laughed uneasily, but Oliver shook his head. “I mean it! You read all this stuff about the Second Coming, but no one really expects it to happen, maybe not even the Benandanti. Especially when you consider that when the Second Coming actually Comes, it’s not a He but a She, and she’s taking even fewer prisoners than they are.”

He went on bitterly. “They had me all picked out, you know, they bred me for this. And I was supposed to just kind of go along with them, be the sacred cow, be this sort of lure for Her when She arrived. Like this crazy arranged marriage or something, like once She got hold of me She might just roll over for them and play dead.”

His voice rose to a desperate pitch. “But I’m not going for it, Sweeney. Maybe Angelica doesn’t understand what’s going on, but I do. I’m not the right guy for the job. And if you’re not the right kind of person, if you’re not what they expect, if you don’t do exactly what they want, they throw you away, they use you up and throw you out and that’s it. And I’m not going to let them do it to me.”

“Oliver, this really is crazy, it doesn’t make any sense—”

He slashed at the air in a rage. “No! You saw what happened to Magda Kurtz; Angelica told me. You know what I’m taking about—”

“But, Oliver—you can’t hurt yourself! I mean, you’re playing right into their hands—”

“No, I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.” His voice cracked as he paced to the bathroom. His hands kept fluttering around his forehead, making quick nervous motions as though to keep phantom hair from falling into his eyes. At the bathroom door he stopped, and asked suddenly, “Have you seen Angelica?”

“No. She’s gone. Nobody knows where she is.”

He made an anguished face. “Ahh—she’s really gone, then, it’s too late anyway—” He stopped, ran a hand across his forehead. “Jesus.”

“Do you—do you think she’ll be all right?”

“All right? Angelica?” He laughed incredulously. “She’ll be fine! I mean, probably every guy she ever meets will end up like this—”

He cocked his head, rolling his eyes with his tongue hanging out and gabbling Ngah ngah ngah—

“Maybe we’ll all end up like that, but She’ll be fine. Blessed art Thou among women and all that shit. Listen, Sweeney, don’t you worry about her: Angelica is destined for Big Things.” His voice dropped to a conspiratory whisper. “Very, very Big Things.”

I decided to change the subject. “I got kicked out.”

His eyebrows arched in amazement. “You did? My little Sweeney, expelled from the Divine all by herself? Congratulations!”

“Jeez, Oliver, I’m not happy about it.”

“You should be,” he said quickly. “Oh yes very yes, you should get out of here as fast as your little bunny legs can take you, before this thing starts to blow. Oh yes.”

He fell silent, staring thoughtfully into the empty space between us. After a moment he took a few steps, until he stood in front of the wooden chair beneath the cross. He reached up and took the cross in one hand, lifted it carefully from the wall, and turned it over thoughtfully.

He looked up at me and said, “There is nothing for me but misery.”

I started to protest but he went on as though he hadn’t heard.

“There is nothing for me but misery,
What shape is there that I have not had?
A woman now, I have been man, youth and boy;
I was an athlete, a wrestler,
There were crowds around my door, my fans slept on the doorstep.
There were flowers all over the house
When I left my bed at sunrise.
Shall I be a waiting maid to the gods, the slave of Cybele?”

He lifted the cross in front of him. Around its crossbar tiny green vines moved, twining up and over the dull wood, their leaves so pale at first they were nearly white, but then quickening to yellow and gold and finally a rich deep green. As I watched in horror the vines spread, crept along the spars of the cross and then twisted around Oliver’s fingers, writhing and creeping like elvers or tiny serpents. They covered his arm in a tracery of gold and green and brown, leaves springing out so quickly that his white flesh was completely buried beneath them and I