The Elementals Read online

  The air outside smelled warm and yeasty, like fresh-baked bread. We drove into the city, just kept going along the sharp angles of broad, twinkling streets, up the steep hills of the residential sections, past storybook gingerbread houses and the shadowy shapes of trees, hedges and gardens. There was something so lonely about San Francisco—maybe it was the cool weather and the fog. Maybe it was the threat of earthquakes and the proximity to the rocky coast; you never felt entirely grounded. Maybe it was the ghosts of bohemians and prostitutes and sailors and AIDS victims, none of whom ever really wanted to leave a city that already looked like a place you’d go after you died. That’s what we talked about as we finished our tour and drove into the Tenderloin, the city’s “worst section” according to the guidebooks. John parked in an alley and we got out.

  He came around and draped a black velvet coat over my shoulders. The street smelled like ammonia and I heard cats screaming in an alley as we walked up to a small door and knocked.

  Identical young men in top hats and tails, with the thin faces and sinewy bodies of junkies, glared at us from the stairwell.

  John said something to them, something I could hardly hear and didn’t understand—it almost sounded like a different language—and they exchanged a look, then turned back to us, frowned menacingly and moved the velvet rope that barred the way. We descended into a dark room that vibrated with industrial sound and prisms of light. John handed me a small flask and I took a large gulp to wash away my anxiety and self-consciousness among so many beautiful people.

  Some girls swayed in a circle, half-clad, long hair braided with flowers like the three graces from a Botticelli. A boy dressed as a court jester leapt around ringing bells and pelting everyone with petals. Tall men with shaved heads and long sheer robes strolled arm in arm. Boys wearing fur loincloths wrestled on the floor. Go-go dancers of indistinguishable gender gyrated on pedestals, casting rainbows from their fingertips. Everyone was covered with a sheen of glitter and perspiration.

  We danced together for a while, the four of us, and then John led me away to a smaller chamber with red velvet walls.

  “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  The woman was tall and thin with thin wisps of black hair, a receding chin and deep-set, unfocused eyes. She wore a long black dress, high platform fetish boots and a chain leash around her neck. A man with a black Mohawk and slashed black clothes was holding her leash blithely while he chatted with some women at the bar.

  The woman’s eyes looked as if she were trying to light me on fire with them. She said, “You don’t belong here. You have not caught any souls for us.”

  John said, “Catalan, this is Ariel. She belongs with me.”

  The woman stared from him to me and back again. “What does she want?”

  “She has someone she needs to find,” he said. He turned to me. “Catalan can sometimes help with these things.”

  The woman began to laugh, a high, sharp sound, and the man with the Mohawk jerked her chain. She shut up and hung her head but John whirled around and took the leash from the man, who, to my surprise, let him without a fight. Then John tried to hand the leash to Catalan but she shook her head and wouldn’t look at him so he let it drop to her side.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said. Her hands worked the air like she was doing some strange origami.

  “Sorry.” John looked back at the man, who had his hand on the bare ass of one of the women at the bar. “Can you help us? Show her the picture, Ariel.”

  I always carried one in my purse. I took it out. The woman grabbed it from me, brought it close to her face. She shook her head, biting her lip with small, sharp-looking teeth. When she stopped biting there was a bead of blood on her chin.

  “No,” she said and her voice was lucid now, the mineral-glitter of hysteria gone from her eyes. “I can’t help you.” She looked at me. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  John grabbed my hand and pulled me close to him before I could turn away. “Why did I do that? Fuck. I’m so sorry. Let’s go.”

  When we drove back it was almost dawn. The sky, as we crossed the bridge, glowed with pink, purple and gold clouds and there was a breath of warmth in the air but it could have been storming and black. I wondered if John would take me back to the dorm, or at least offer to, but he went to the house instead. I was relieved; I wasn’t ready to be away from him after what had happened. I didn’t blame him; he had tried to help but he had only made things worse.

  Tania and Perry scampered obliviously inside holding hands, tossing good-byes like bright scarves over their shoulders. John led me up the stairs and into the house, then upstairs again but not to the sunporch room.

  This was another room I hadn’t seen before, much darker. Heavy pale green damask drapes covered the windows, a mirror with an ornate frame hung on the wall and there was a large carved bed painted with faded wreaths of flowers. John sat on the bed and pulled me down gently beside him.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said again. “She’s crazy. It didn’t mean anything. I don’t know why I did that. She helped me once…” He trailed off.

  “How?” I asked. I wanted to be angry at him but I couldn’t find it in me.

  “She told me to leave Tania and Perry for a while. Things were very hard and it helped. Then she told me to come back, that someone important was coming into my life through them. That was you, Ariel.”

  I was so drawn to the hollow of his armpit, the warmth and the smell, that I had to struggle not to fall down against him.

  “She’s known as being an intuitive but she’s wrong a lot. Jeni could be okay still. You can’t listen to that psychic bullshit. I’m an asshole. You’ve been through too much.”

  Without thinking, trying not to think about anything anymore, I took his face in my hands and leaned in so our lips were touching. Then as we fell to the mattress I slid back into the otherworld.

  * * *

  There was a path wandering up a hill among the shattered stone ruins of what looked like some kind of mansion. It was overgrown with roses and trumpet vines. I smelled spicy leaves and heard water rushing in the distance. Shadowy figures watched me with luminous eyes from behind pale pink, green and silver peeling trunks. Were the creatures animals? One of them lowered its horned head and lapped at a shiny trickle of water on the ground. My body shivered with pleasure and anxiety. I was looking, looking for someone …

  On the bed, John took me by the waist and lifted my body easily onto his. Our forms locked together, every hollow met with fullness, every sharp edge finding a curve to settle into. I could feel his hardness through his pants and I rode against it. He was saying my name over and over again, as if it hurt him. I gasped for breath. Tiny jolts of electricity moved back and forth between us and I shuddered.

  “Are you okay? Is this okay?”

  “Yes,” I breathed back. I could feel his heartbeat inside of me. I didn’t want it to stop.

  “Is it just me or can you feel the energy between our bodies?” he asked. “I mean, I can almost see it.”

  I moaned a yes; it was getting harder to speak.

  “I could hold you like this forever,” he said.

  We did not take off our clothes, only kissed and kissed, traveling to other worlds in the dim room, until I finally fell asleep on top of him as if I were floating there, completely weightless.

  I woke to John hushing me. There were tears on my face.

  “Oh, God,” I said. “I was talking in my sleep again?”

  He kissed my forehead. “You were asking for your mom.”

  “Damn. I’m such a mess. I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not a mess. Under the circumstances. Believe me.”

  “I’m so scared of everything,” I said.

  He paused and I could feel his thoughts welling up, filling the room. Then he said, “I don’t want to upset you, and I know you’re worried and you have the right to be but it seems, from the little you’ve told me, as if yo
u’ve gone pretty far in the direction of this thing with your mom having a bad outcome.”

  I tensed. His expression showed he noticed, but he went on anyway. “But do you think there is room for some hope?”

  I wanted to clutch onto him but I turned my face away a little instead. “I’m afraid,” I said. “If I hope and then…”

  “You can prepare yourself but you can come from a place of hope,” he told me. “I know it sounds so cliché to say it, but I think it might help.”

  There were tears in my eyes again and I didn’t try to hide them.

  “I shouldn’t have said that?”

  The obstruction in my throat burned. “No. You’re right.”

  “Because there is magic that protects, that you can’t see. Everyone is entitled to some and I know there are a lot of good spirits around you.”

  He pulled me down beside him and I curled my legs up with my knees against his hip. As he stroked my hair I pushed my face into his neck. “John?” I said. That was all I could say. But I meant, thank you I need you are you really here? should I be afraid?

  We fell asleep like this and I woke again later, disoriented, trying to remember where I was, who I was, once more. The old-fashioned clock on the wall said six and when I parted the thick curtains of the strange room, the wild garden was dim with evening. I checked my reflection in the mirror. A pale girl with long, brown hair. Ariel Ilana Silverman. Then I looked at the man lying asleep on the bed. John Graves. His face seemed much younger in repose, except for the thick, bristling eyebrows and the shadow of whiskers on his cheeks and chin. His eyelids trembled in sleep and I leaned over and kissed both of them before I changed into my own clothes and left.

  * * *

  By the time I got to my room there was a text from John. It said, if u need co. 4 spring b. we can drive u 2 l.a. 2 c yr mom.

  18. If you partake of the food of fae can you ever leave?

  John Graves and Perry and Tania did drive me to Los Angeles for spring break. They picked me up at the already nearly deserted dorm late at night and we took the highway, riding fast so the lights blurred, loud music—a mix of industrial, punk, gothic and the mysterious stuff they played at home—making the dashboard vibrate. The air got warmer as we traveled south. I opened the window and let the wind run its fingers through my hair. I smelled scents animal, vegetable, mineral and poisonous. There was a queasy feeling in the base of my belly. I wasn’t sure what it meant, though I could have called it fear, but fear mixed with hope. Maybe John was right; Jeni was still gone but I had not given up on her yet and my mother was still alive. Who was to say she couldn’t stay that way for a long time still?

  They dropped me off at my house. The eucalyptus-lined street was dark and quiet except for the crickets chirping wildly in the bushes, seeking their mates.

  “You have a good home,” Tania mused, surveying it. “Good parents who love you. You’re luckier than you realize.”

  “We’ll call you tomorrow night,” John said.

  They’d told me they’d be staying with friends but that was all I knew. Tania and Perry leaned over from the backseat and kissed my cheeks.

  “Blessings, Sylph,” she said.

  John got out of the car and hauled my bags from the trunk. He carried them up to the front door. I wished we weren’t illuminated (illumined was a better word) in the spotlight of the front porch like that, where everyone could see—Tania and Perry in the car, my parents inside, if they were watching. John hugged me quickly and then ran down the steps, the path, out the gate back to the car.

  My parents hadn’t waited up, which surprised me, but only at first, since I was getting used to this different behavior from them. There was a note on the kitchen table telling me they had tried to wait up but had finally gone to bed and that there was some soup in the refrigerator. I heated up a bowl. It was watery and thin; I was sure my dad had made it. I poured most of it down the sink, then went up to my room, got in bed in my clothes and went to sleep.

  The next day I spent sitting on my mom’s bed with her, reading my term papers out loud and watching The Red Shoes, which was one of our favorite old movies (and Jeni’s). The girl on the screen danced and danced while outside in the garden the jacaranda trees were blooming with purple flowers that seemed surprised at their own intense color and concerned about their brief life span, and the sunlight shifted through the feathery leaves. My mom still looked fragile and pale and seemed distracted but she told me she was glad I was there with her and she asked questions about my papers as if she were really interested, the way she always used to be. She also asked me a little about what was going on with me and Bean, whom I hadn’t mentioned in a while. I told her that Bean had recently hooked up with a boy but that I’d made some new friends. I thought that talking about John, Tania and Perry might show some hope in the situation, like John had suggested, a way to express that I hadn’t given up on my mother.

  “Who are these people now?” she asked. She sounded a little suspicious. At least I hadn’t made them up.

  “They’re really cool. I met them at a party at their house.”

  “Are they students?” she asked, peering at me over her glasses.

  “Grad students.”

  “So they’re older?”

  Part of me was glad she was asking this way; it meant she felt well enough to worry about me the way she used to. But part of me wanted her to drop it. “Not that much older.”

  “And they have a house? Those places in the hills are expensive.”

  “They’re kind of independently wealthy. Trust fund kids. And they’re very artistic,” I said. “Their house, the way they dress and everything.”

  My mom was frowning. I knew how idiotic I sounded.

  “I used to know everything that was going on with you.” She stroked my ponytail. “You seem far away from me, Ariel.”

  I wanted to tell her it was she and my father who were far away but I didn’t want to upset her. “It’s okay, Mom. It’s normal. The way we were before was too close.” I tried to smile.

  “Just promise you’ll take care of yourself,” she said. “I wish I could do a better job of it.”

  “I do.”

  “You look thin.”

  “These guys? They cook almost as well as you do. They feed me all the time.”

  She smiled. “Well, that’s good to hear. I haven’t been cooking much lately.”

  I pulled my T-shirt over my knees and sat huddled like that, looking out the window. She kept watching me. Then she said, “I didn’t want to bring this up, but that thing you said about Jennifer Benson a while back, about looking for her before you started therapy? I was wondering if you’re still doing that.”

  I could tell by the tone of my mom’s voice that she really didn’t feel like talking about it but had worked herself up to ask me anyway.

  “I was freaked out when I got there. It’s better now. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  She smiled a little and I was glad I had lied to her. “That’s good to hear. I know this has been hard.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “You need all your energy to get better.” And I meant it, too. But part of me wanted her to be my mommy, to worry and fuss and ask countless questions and not let me go away again.

  She did not ask questions, though, when I asked to take the car that night. Besides, she always went to sleep by nine now.

  I drove by Mr. Kragen’s house and parked in the shadows. His Taurus wasn’t there and only the porch light was on. I wanted to run to the back, smash a window with my sweater-wrapped fist, stalk around that bookless house to find the evidence I needed. If Kragen came home I wanted to slap him in that pudgy face and tell him to fuck off before I ran. But my body wouldn’t move from the car seat and my thighs were sweating so much they stuck to the leather upholstery.

  My phone signaled a text and I jumped as if Kragen’s eyes were peering bulbously through the window at me. When I saw it was from John, the adrenaline c
ontinued to pump, but for a different reason now. pick u up 2morrow nite 8.

  Then a car—pulling up into Kragen’s driveway; the headlights shone in my face and I ducked my head reflexively, turned the key in the ignition and drove away.

  * * *

  The next night I sat waiting on the front porch. It had rained that evening—an unexpected spring shower—and the air was still fresh. The streets were greased with rainbow puddles and the roses were hung with quivering drops of water. I didn’t smoke, but sitting there made me want to take out a cigarette and light it, watch the tip smolder against damp darkness.

  They pulled up—it was all of them. Part of me had hoped it was just going to be John. They were dressed up as usual and I was prepared this time. I’d rummaged through my mom’s closet and found a velvet dress with an embroidered corseted bodice that she’d worn to the Renaissance Faire when she was young. She even had a pair of brocade slippers. I’d curled my hair and put it up on top of my head with some loose strands falling around my face. I’d also found some fake pearls to decorate it with.

  Perry whistled as I lifted my skirt a little around my ankles to get into the car.

  “You look beautiful,” John said.

  I smiled at him and he leaned over and kissed my cheek. I was blushing right away, thinking about Tania watching us.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. I felt bold and free, much less self-conscious than usual. This was my world now, I thought, a city whose secrets I knew, not the dreamworld of the house where they had all the control.

  “Our friends are having a party,” John told me.

  We headed east down the broad, flat expanse of Ventura Boulevard. If you came from outer space you’d think all we did was drive and eat and shop; perhaps it was true—then south up Laurel and into the canyon itself where the road narrowed, twisting among the trees where water had once cut out a path in the rock.