The Elementals Page 13

“Wait,” I said, “this is one of the secret places I was going to tell you about.”

  They were all quiet and I looked back to see Tania and Perry regarding me calmly. Of course, they already knew. I had nothing original to give them. In Laurel Canyon there were the haunted-looking ruins of the mansion where Houdini had once lived and there were castles and cottages where rock royalty had stayed in the 1960s and ’70s. Neil Young. Jim Morrison. Frank Zappa. Joni Mitchell. Fleetwood Mac. Everyone had lived there. Now bands still rehearsed in ramshackle buildings, hoping to channel the music that had been made before. Evening primrose and poppies covered the hills. There were rumored to be underground catacombs. Deer and coyote ran, sometimes to their death, darting across the road in darkness.

  But where we went wasn’t like anything I’d seen before.

  The house tumbled down the hillside, a cascade of crumbling stone steps. There were thick balustrades lining the front and stone lions crouched on either side of the entrance, guarding it. Thick, squat palm trees crowded around and morning glory vines clambered over the terra-cotta-tiled roof. Bougainvillea and oleander bushes added splashes of bloodred and pink color. Luminarias in paper bags lit our path as we climbed up to the front door.

  We heard laughter and a young woman answered. She had elegant features and her long hair gleamed in the candlelight that filled the house behind her. Her dress had the same dark sheen.

  “There you are!” She hugged them all, John last, her fingers tightening around his shoulders so that I found myself tensing with the same force she exerted.

  “Claudia, this is Ariel,” he said, extricating himself.

  She took my hand regally and raised her thin, arched eyebrows. “Ariel. So you’re the missing piece?”

  I blinked back at her and Tania swept past me, pulling me into the house. The paint was peeling off the walls, the lace curtains were torn and the Persian rugs on the tiled floor were faded and threadbare but the whole place still had a feeling of grandeur. Large old oil paintings of vibrant fruits and flowers against dark backgrounds—I thought of Danish still lifes I’d seen in museums with my parents—hung in chipped gilded frames on the walls. Like in the Berkeley house, old books were everywhere. The air inside the place had a cool, piney scent.

  We walked into a large room. There were more paintings on the walls but these were portraits of young people—pale, and with large, haunted-looking eyes. I felt a chill go through me like a ghost on its way across the room.

  “What are those?” I whispered to John.

  “Eamon made them,” he said, nodding at a tall blond in a white suit who had walked in.

  Eamon hugged and kissed Tania, Perry and John, then greeted me the same way. He smelled minty and his hands felt cool.

  “I like your work,” I said, looking back anxiously at the paintings, although “like” wasn’t exactly the right word.

  He smiled thinly. “Thank you, Ariel.”

  John took my arm and led me toward the open window. It looked out over the canyon below, what had once been a gorge made by rainwater now overgrown with wildflowers and eucalyptus trees and built up with houses. The lights of cars and windows shone out of the darkness. Crickets chirped a mating song, creating a vibrating wall of sound. A breeze with a slightly citrusy scent, and fresh from the rain, came in and cooled my neck.

  I wished John and I were out there, in the night, alone, away from this place.

  “Come eat!” called a voice and a girl with rather large ears sticking out from her short red hair appeared at the door of the room, waving her hands around. She giggled hellos to everyone and gestured for us to follow her into the dining room. Large picture windows overlooked a rectangular tiled pool, aglow with blue phosphorescence in the night, and, beyond that, the distant lights of the city.

  The smell of the food made me ache almost like the thought of John did. We took our seats and Claudia, the woman who had answered the door, came in with another young man, also very tall, dressed in black and with long black hair like hers. Both of them were carrying plates of food.

  He and the redhead were introduced as Demitri and Fallon. I smiled vaguely at them, eyeing the food; I hadn’t eaten dinner and my stomach was growling. There were an array of what looked like Italian dishes, bruschetta, polenta, pasta salad, grilled vegetables, fettucini in a light green sauce. There was also red wine to drink, like the kind I loved in Berkeley. I hardly paid attention to anything except the food and the wine. Even the fascinating faces around me seemed to fade—even John’s face seemed to fade.

  Then, as my stomach ached full and I leaned back against the green velvet chair in a stupor, I heard someone say, “If you partake of the food of fae you can never leave. Isn’t that how it goes?”

  * * *

  I woke in a candlelit bedroom, in a large canopied bed. I sat up, startled, and looked around, trying to place where I was.

  “It’s okay,” I heard John’s voice say. “It’s okay, sweet one, I’m here.”

  He was beside me, I saw, fully clothed. I could smell a warm, sleepy scent wafting off of him. His hands stroked the hard lines of my back. My bare back. I realized I was only wearing my underpants and a thin cotton nightgown. My hands reflexively covered my breasts as I sat up.

  “Tania undressed you,” he said. “I hope that is okay. The dress seemed so heavy and hot.”

  I could hear the worry line on his brow in his voice. “It’s okay,” I said. “Thank you for staying with me. What time is it?”

  “About five in the morning.”

  “Shit! I have to call my mom.”

  He handed me my bag and I found my cell phone and called. No one answered so I left a message saying I was fine, still out with my friends. Then I dove back against John’s side, snuggling up to him, winding my bare legs over the rough, heavy fabric of his jeans.

  “Who are they? Your friends?”

  “They’re old friends,” he said. “Eamon and Fallon are brother and sister. Eamon’s the painter like we said. Claudia’s an actress and Demitri is independently wealthy, although no one knows exactly from what.”

  “I’m sorry I passed out again,” I said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe I should see a doctor.”

  Now I could hear the smile on his lips. “You’re fine. Just sometimes it takes a while to get used to us, especially the drinks.”

  “But I felt like I was going to pass out the night I met you.”

  He stroked my hair, pushing a strand behind my ear. “Maybe you were overcome with wonder at my charm, as I feel when I am with you.”

  “Weirdo!” I said, poking his rib cage.

  He slithered down so we were face-to-face on the pillows. “May I kiss you?” I tilted my face up and his lips fastened to mine with a gentle pressure that made me feel as if I were falling, falling down through the earth among the roots of a tree, in a cascade of leaves and flower petals. I clutched at John’s shoulders through his shirt. I didn’t think I could wait much longer to have him naked beside me.

  “I want to feel your skin,” he said as if he’d read my mind. “May I?”

  I nodded and pressed my fingertip against the pad of his lower lip, staring up at the planes of his face. A glimmer of light was coming through the curtains. My hands traveled down to his collar, to the buttons of his shirt. I slowly pressed the button through the buttonhole with my thumb and forefinger. His chest was smooth and hard, very pale with only a little hair. He winced slightly.

  “Are you okay?”

  “My heart is very open right now,” he said.

  “Should I stop?”

  He took my hand and moved it back to his heart. “No.”

  I finished unbuttoning his shirt and slid it off his shoulders. They curved white and defined as sculpture against the dim background of the room. I gasped to see him and he silenced me with his lips again.

  I could feel myself going to the otherworld but I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay here with him. I held onto his back t
ightly, trying to remain in the room.

  My hands found his belt buckle and fumbled with the metal.

  “I should take that off,” he said. “I don’t want it to hurt you.”

  I laughed. “Yes, that’s a good reason.”

  He unbuckled it with one hand, the other still holding me close to his chest, then pulled the belt out of the loops. I could see the long, hard shape in his jeans. My hands went there of their own will, my fingers running along the ridge of his zipper. Now, in turn, he gasped.

  “I need to lie with you,” he said. “I want you so badly.”

  I nodded, suddenly mute. Words seemed impossible to find.

  John took off his jeans and lay naked on the large bed. His body gave off a pulsing white light. There were framed mirrors all over the walls and they reflected us again and again. I put my arms around his chest. He was broad enough that I couldn’t encircle him, but I tried, stretching myself out. He shuddered softly. He was erect and I wanted to stare at him but I kept my eyes on his face. I pulled myself closer, lying on my side, my legs over his. I couldn’t tell if the shaking came from him or from me.

  “I will make love with you soon,” John said. “If you will have me. But I want this part to last as long as possible.”

  I nodded and kissed him again.

  * * *

  In the woods a small thatched cottage shone with firelight. Smoke swirled like ghosts from the chimney. I walked up, leaves crunching dry under my feet. An owl whoo-ed in the tree above me. I saw it take flight, a span of white wings ruffling the darkness.

  An old woman opened the door. Her hands were gnarled and she was smiling toothlessly. She beckoned me in. The room was small and cozy with large pots of boiling liquid on the stove and bunches of dried herbs and flowers hanging from the ceiling.

  John was there, seated by the fire, hunched over with his back to me, holding something in his hands. I came and knelt before him. He kissed my forehead. His lips felt cool on my burning skin. He offered me the object he was holding and I took it—a locket on a chain. I opened the filigree heart. Inside was a portrait of a girl, very similar to the paintings Eamon had made.

  The girl, with her soft-looking hair and big dark eyes, was Jeni.

  * * *

  I gasped and reached out my hands in the dark and John held me close to his chest so that I felt the reverberations of his voice.

  “I’m here. We’re here,” he said.

  We lay in that bed with the thick canopy, in that room of mirrors, and kissed and touched each other and dozed and woke and kissed again throughout what was day but felt more like a timeless floating. I went in and out of the otherworlds. John, he tugged the nightgown down over my shoulders and kissed my breasts, massaging them with his hands, his tongue flicking against my nipple, then his whole mouth sucking. I groaned and threw back my head and his fingers found my throat, lightly circled it so that when I swallowed I felt the slight pressure of him there. I kept thinking, This is John Graves here with me. This is his body that contains his brain and his lungs and his heart. This is where his soul lives. This is not just sex; this is us going somewhere together. This is us finding each other. Again.

  He lifted the hem of my nightgown up over my thighs and kissed my legs slowly. I felt the roughness of his unshaven chin against my skin. I was slippery wet, entirely ready, when he got up between my thighs. He parted them gently and rested his hand there. His cheek lay against the place where the marks from the concert still showed on my belly. I had gotten used to the increased sensitivity around the shadowy prints but I flinched a little and he moved his head to look. “What’s this?” He squinted at the marks. “It looks like a bruise or something. Does it hurt?”

  “I think it’s from you.”

  “What?” He sat up with a start and I reached to bring him back where he was.

  “They just won’t go away. They came after the concert.”

  He looked into my eyes. The candlelight reflected so that there was a thin shimmer beneath the rim of his eyelids. “They’ve been there the whole time?”

  I nodded.

  “I don’t know what those marks are or how you got them but I promise I would never hurt you.” He paused. “Ariel? Do you hear that?”

  “Yes.” I pulled him back to my belly and this time he let me, careful not to lean on the bruises. We lay quiet for a while. I could feel the pulse beneath my hip beating against his cheek. Slowly his fingers began to move over my abdomen.

  “Is this all right?”

  We were both panting.

  “Yes.”

  “You tell me if something hurts now.”

  I felt his fingers touching me in ways I’d never known anyone could touch, soft but with just the right amount of pressure, tips circling on the small hard knob of me, then sliding down and up inside where I was opening to him. He found a place I’d never felt before, a soft, padded, aching spot and he played it again and again like an instrument that gave off different notes, which came out through my mouth.

  That was when the otherworld and the room with the canopy bed became the same place. There was nowhere further to go than this.

  * * *

  It was night when I woke from a fitful dreaming. More candles were lit around the bed and the flames were reflected in the many mirrors. They reminded me of the eyes of spirits. I smelled a sweetness—night-blooming jasmine?—through the open casement window. John wasn’t there. I wondered for a moment if I’d dreamed the whole thing between us.

  My skin was sticky and damp, I realized, as I threw back the covers and got out of bed. I wanted to shower. My dress was on the floor and I put it on, but my underpants were gone.

  I walked out of the bedroom and into a dimly lit hallway with faded green-and-gold wallpaper. As I took a step into the hall something scuffled away among the shadows. A cat, I thought, but I couldn’t see it. I could hear soft voices speaking somewhere below me.

  My heart still beating from the surprise of the creature in the hallway, I leaned over the banister and listened. I could hear Tania’s laughter—or maybe it was Claudia’s?—and the deeper voices of the men. I couldn’t make out the sound of John, though.

  I suddenly felt abandoned by him. Why hadn’t he stayed? The thought of him down there with the others made my face heat up with shame, although I wasn’t quite sure what I had to be ashamed of. The memory of his touch made my thighs watery so I steadied myself and then I walked as quietly as I could down the staircase.

  I could see them through glass doors, sitting in the large room with the paintings. They were drinking wine and laughing. Claudia and Eamon lay on one sofa, legs tangled. Tania was there, too, sitting on the ground while Claudia stroked her hair. Fallon sat on Demitri’s lap in an armchair. Perry was cross-legged on the floor beside them. John sat in another armchair a little bit away from the others. He was reading, his head lowered, glasses on.

  My heart was trying to rush to him.

  I moved closer. They didn’t see me.

  Then I noticed a tiny painting on the hallway wall I had missed the night before. How had I missed it?

  Because the painting looked exactly like Jeni.

  I stepped into the room. “What the fuck!” Everyone turned to look at me. “Is this why you brought me here?” I shouted. “Because of this?”

  John jumped up. “Ariel, what are you talking about?”

  “Jeni!” I said. “What do you think?” I pointed to the painting. “Where did you get this image?” I demanded.

  Eamon observed me coldly. “It upsets you? I’m sorry.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “The obits, the papers, missing-children posters. I don’t recall with that one. I make so many.”

  “What are the chances you’d actually have seen my best friend? And drawn her?”

  Tania stood and approached me carefully, her voice a caress of sound. “It’s okay, Ariel. I promise. Everything’s okay.”

  “Don’t talk to me!” />
  “Listen, sweetie, I know you’re upset. But there’s an explanation.” Perry was behind Tania now.

  “We won’t let anything bad happen to you,” John added.

  “It already has!”

  He went up to the painting and examined it. “I’m sorry, Ariel. It looks a little like her but it could be anyone.”

  “Oh, Ariel.” Tania shook her head; her eyes looked like the oil paint of an Italian master in the candlelit room. “It could be her,” she said. “Eamon paints every missing child he can find. I’m so sorry, Sylph.”

  “It’s a sick world,” Eamon said. “I try to see the beauty.”

  Tania pushed his shoulder and hushed him with her masterpiece eyes.

  I wanted to vomit. “Shut up,” I said. “Stop talking about her. You have no right!”

  John put his arms around me and I let him, but stayed rigid. How could they have brought me here?

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  On the car ride home they tried to explain to me that—if the image were even Jeni at all—Eamon painted everything he could find for inspiration; how Jeni’s picture had been in the papers a lot for a while; how they had not meant to upset me, had not known this was there, would not have brought me if they had. I let them talk but I felt myself drifting away from them.

  It’s better, I told myself. I needed to stay focused on my task. When I got home I looked up Eamon on John’s Facebook page. Eamon R. Collins. There was a Web site of his art—all those dark, candlelit Caravaggio-esque portraits of young faces. The Missing, they were called. Jeni’s portrait wasn’t there and, for a moment, I wondered if I’d imagined it. But I e-mailed the link to Rodriguez anyway, asking if he had any concerns about what I’d seen.

  John texted me five times the next day but I didn’t respond; I had to clear my head. The following day I wrote back and said that I was going to be spending the rest of the vacation close to home, to be with my mom, and that I’d be flying back before school started. (By then I’d also received an e-mail from Rodriguez politely dismissing my latest “clue.”) John tried calling me but I didn’t answer. His voice on the message sounded worried and he said he hoped everything was okay and that if I changed my mind he’d be happy to drive me. But I ignored him. I couldn’t get the image of Jeni’s eyes, depicted in oil paint, both luminous and dark, out of my mind.