The Fire in Starlight Page 6

  He lightly grasped her arm and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Take care,” he said, brusquely avoiding her eyes.

  She waited until he was out of sight before picking up her napkin and wiping her cheek with it. She wasn't concerned about germs, she just didn't like the cold, wet imprint left by his lips on her skin. Somehow it was worse than the mysterious bite on her neck.

  * * * *

  S ofia got home, put away her groceries, and then hurried out onto the porch to catch the golden rays of the afternoon sun lancing through her forest as it slowly began setting in the west. She brought a cup of hot Chamomile tea outside with her, and she sighed contentedly as she opened The Bard of the Dimbovitza and began reading.

  SLEEP*

  Beneath the poplars by my door

  Didst sit thee down,

  And on my door didst look, but never enter.

  Why dost thou love the poplar's shade so much?

  Sleep said: “I know so many things;

  Dreams do I know, and sighs.

  More than the forest that ceaseless murmurs,

  More than the river that weeps, I know,

  More than the wind that sings.

  And I know more than the hearts of men,

  Since I can silence their hearts."

  So then the forest, the wind, and the river,

  And the hearts of men, all said to Sleep:

  "Come, tell us what thou dost know."

  Then Sleep replied: “I will tell you softly."-

  And he said to them: “Rest I know.

  And I know, besides, what the maiden hideth-

  What the wife doth not dare to tell,

  From the breath of their lips I guess it.

  Death envies me, for whoso would find me,

  He need not go down to the grave.

  And Death speaks thus to me: “Why dost thou let them

  Awaken again?” But I let men awaken

  That they may hold me more dear.

  And I lay a smile on their lips, moreover,

  Instead of the tears they have shed,

  'Thou hast the face of my heart's beloved,'

  The maiden saith to me, and the wife:

  'The voice of my husband hast thou.'

  Death suffereth me to seek through the graves,

  And bring forth those who long have slept

  To those who sleep but an hour.

  And those who sleep but an hour, they bless me

  For giving back those who for long have slept.

  'Thou hast the taste of the freshest water,'

  The thirsting traveler saith to me.

  'Thou hast the look of my home,’ saith the wand'rer.

  And in his shade the Past doth let me

  Seek those who have suffered sore, and bring them

  Up before those who made them suffer;

  And those who made them suffer, tremble

  At sight of those who have suffered sore.

  'Lo! thou hast blood upon thy hand!'

  Saith the man who hath stained his knife, to me.

  'Thou hast a dagger in thy hand,'

  Saith the man who hath betrayed, to me.

  I am so gentle, yet so dread,

  That all mankind is fain to have me,

  Because they love me and yet fear.

  I dwell in nests, since they are lofty,

  In graves, because grass covers them.

  And the hearts of men have need of me,

  And I have need of their joys and sorrows

  To fashion dreams of them.

  And he who lies asleep is sacred.

  Men say of one who sleeps: ‘Heaven loves him;

  For see, he sleeps.'

  But he who cannot sleep, arouses

  Uneasiness in all men's hearts,

  They say of him: ‘He cannot sleep.’”

  Beneath the poplars by my door

  Didst sit thee down,

  And on my door didst look, but never enter.

  Why dost thou love the poplar's shade so much?

  It was getting colder, so she set her book down and went inside to make some more hot tea. When she came back outside, a man dressed all in black was sitting in her chair.

  "Beautiful.” He closed her book and set it down as he stood up, but the intent way his eyes were fixed on her face almost made her wonder what he was referring to.

  "Thank you,” she replied breathlessly, her heart racing. “I'm writing a paper on it."

  He didn't smile as he slipped his hands into the pockets of the black leather jacket he was wearing over black jeans and black boots. “Did I frighten you?” he asked in a deep, quiet voice. He didn't have a southern accent, and his eyes looked almost as black as his goatee.

  "Yes ... no ... a little ... it's just that...” She couldn't tell him that he looked impossibly familiar. “I'm Sofia."

  "Those poems are quite dark, even violent, yet you love them."

  "Yes...” She couldn't take her eyes off his face. “I discovered that book buried in the LSU library. It hadn't been checked out in decades. I was nineteen-years-old and I thought it was so incredible that I read parts of it to all my friends, and suddenly everyone was whispering behind my back that I was a Satan worshipper."

  "Are you?"

  She laughed.

  His eyes held hers. “Did you enjoy your welcome, Sofia?"

  "Excuse me?” She remembered her dream and all the men surrounding her naked body hungrily waiting to fuck her and to suck her blood, and God knew what else all night long ... His brief smile struck her as a spark ignited but her hot erotic thoughts until she suddenly realized he was referring to the basket she had found on her doorstep. “Oh ... oh, yes, thank you!"

  "Did you like it?"

  "Yes, it was all wonderful, thank you so much...” She was getting so excited she actually had to remind herself what they were talking about. “Everything was delicious. Did you ... did you make it all yourself?"

  "No, my hens laid the eggs."

  She laughed again nervously. “Well, they were delicious, and so was the spinach, thank you."

  "Anything fresh from the ground tastes better."

  "I'd love some chickens myself,” she declared, at once unnerved and elated because the way they were staring into each other's eyes seemed to have nothing to do with what they were saying. “I've been buying organic eggs for years, but they're nowhere near as flavorful as the ones your hens laid."

  "They're good girls, and I spoil them to do death with scratch."

  "Scratch?"

  "It's what makes the eggs taste so good."

  "Really? What's in it?"

  "Seeds."

  "What kind of seeds?"

  "A variety, it all depends on the mix. They're particularly fond of sunflower seeds. Are you looking for Rhode Island Reds?"

  "I have no idea, should I be?"

  "They're excellent layers. I could build you a coop, if you like, and give you the phone number of a woman in Slaughter who breeds them."

  "You would build me a coop?” She couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice. He had just offered to make something for her! Was he merely being a friendly neighbor or was this the rustic equivalent of asking her out? She prayed it was. “That would be wonderful, and it's very nice of you,” she added more sedately.

  "I only do what I feel like doing, Sofia."

  She liked the sound of that so much she couldn't speak for a moment.

  "It's important you keep them locked up at night,” he warned quietly, “otherwise, they won't survive. There are lots of predators out here."

  "Yes, I know, one of them bit me last night,” she heard herself confess as she caressed the hair away from her neck. “Do you have any idea what did this?” She showed him her bite mark.

  He moved closer.

  Beneath her sweater her nipples were so erect they felt electrified as they nearly touched his cold jacket.

  "It looks like a vampire bite, Sofia."

  "Ve
ry funny.” She dared to look up at his face. His features were hard ... as hard as the hilt of a sword ... yet she couldn't grasp how she knew him even though the dangerously exciting knowledge was poised at the very edge of her consciousness ... but it wasn't possible, she was only imagining he was the man in her dreams simply because of his goatee and dark hair and because he was wearing leather ... black leather like the gloves of the knight who possessed her ... “Do you have any hawks?” she said out of the blue.

  "Not at the moment. Why do you ask?"

  "I was just wondering ... So, you have no idea what bit me?"

  "I told you."

  "Right!” She stepped back. He was scaring her a little by taking deadpan humor to an unnerving extreme, but still she asked, “Did you mean that about building me a coop?"

  "I usually say what I mean."

  "Well, I would love that ... just tell me what you need..."

  "I'll take care of it all for you, on one condition."

  "Anything,” she said without thinking.

  "That you invite me to dinner."

  "Of course,” she promised. ‘When ... when would you like to come over?"

  He walked lightly down the porch steps before turning to face her again, his hands still thrust deep into the pockets of his jacket. “Soon.” His first real smile sharpened how handsome he was even as the whiteness of his teeth made his goatee look even more sinisterly dark. “It's full moon tonight, Sofia.” He didn't head back down the gravel drive; he disappeared around the house in the direction of the field where she had seen a bonfire burning her first night here...

  She shivered, abruptly feeling the cold. The sun was just dipping below the horizon as she picked up her book and hurried inside. It wasn't until later that night, when she was pouring herself a glass of wine, that she realized how inconceivably rude she had been by not even asking him his name.

  Chapter Seven

  S ofia kept as busy as possible. She unpacked all the candles in her possession and arranged them in the bathroom, creating cathedral-like tiers of wax columns in every shape, size and color. She lined them up across the black marble counter and erected a wax army on two edges of the lion-pawed tub. She felt as though she was in church lighting a flame in honor of all the souls she loved who had moved on, except for the fact that she was completely naked. Only two people she had been close to were dead, but dozens of spirits claimed one wick after the other as she filled the dark bathroom with men and women she had never met and yet which she mysteriously missed anyway as she shivered in her lonely flesh. She had turned down the heat and her breasts and nipples looked carved from rosy marble in the flickering illumination. She had also turned off all the lights in the house, transforming the bathroom into a sacred shrine dominated by the altar-like tub with its animal paws. She was possessed by the need for intense sensual stimulus and contrasts this evening. She deliberately took off all her clothes before she began lighting the candles in order to fully experience the cold, perversely enjoying the way it harvested hundreds of goose bumps on her warm skin like the neat bundles of hay she had seen spread across open fields as she drove back from the city today. All the thoughts corralled in her head depended on the complex landscape of her incarnation; all the parts of her body growing and working together to sustain her sense of self as her soul lorded it over everything in a metaphorical castle of dark desires and lofty hopes.

  When all the candles were lit she passionately hugged herself, shivering. It turned her on to sense the subtly warm lick of each little burning tongue as she closed her eyes and concentrated on the sensation. Behind her eyelids she saw candles burning on a stone altar and men and women in beautifully rich clothing ... they were being brutally murdered, heartlessly run through with swords where they had sought refuge inside a church powerless to protect them because it was the earthly representative of God who had ordered their deaths...

  She opened her eyes and turned eagerly, desperately, towards the hot water. She was so cold ... as cold as one of the bodies, stripped of its finery, lying across the stone floor miraculously picking itself up and finding sanctuary in the gloriously warm ocean of another woman's womb ... The tub was full. She turned off the tap. The old pipes stopped whining like dogs crying to be let inside and she was plunged into a sepulchral silence that truly made the bathroom feel like a small chapel in the forest's living cathedral. She raised her leg and dipped a cautious toe into the water. It was hot, almost painfully so, but that was just what she craved tonight—violent sensual contrasts that rooted her deliciously in her body. She gradually lowered herself into the bath, whimpering as her chilled flesh seemed to dissolve in the steaming liquid. She slipped beneath the surface with excruciating slowness, but once her hips were submerged the pain was suddenly alchemized into a feeling of fulfillment so intense that she cried out as if in ecstasy, and swiftly sank all the way down to her chin. The tub was unyieldingly hard against her bones ... a flooded sarcophagus over which her face floated with its eyes blissfully closed like a painted funeral mask ... a marble bath in ancient Rome full of healing thermal waters rising up from the center of the earth ... a stone altar where she was being baptized to a whole new life in which she never took the magical dimension of her senses for granted...

  She was possessed by strangely vivid images and feelings, and they were all made possible by the man she had caught sitting in her chair reading her book that afternoon, the man who had left her a wicker basket full of small but vital sensual pleasures. She didn't know his name, only that he was apparently her closest neighbor despite the fact that she couldn't see where he lived. The most important thing about him could not be explained. I know him in my bones, she kept thinking, writhing restlessly in the tub trying to understand, and remembering the definition of “marrow” she had looked up earlier that evening:

  "A soft, highly vascular modified connective tissue that occupies the cavities of most bones; the substance of the spinal cord; the choicest of food; the seat of animal vigor: the inmost, best or essential part: CORE."

  Yes, she could say without doubt that she knew this man in the very marrow of her bones. Every pore in her skin penetrated and filled with heat, she thought languidly, Marrow ... Marry: to unite in close and usually permanent relation ... Language was a fascinating thing, it was why she loved verse, because the best poerty made use of each word in such a way that all its meanings could come into play and seduce the brain into believing in the eternal mystery of everything...

  She remained immersed in the bath until the bracing heat relaxed its hold and the water gradually began growing cold. She was reluctant to leave her sensual candle lit little cathedral, but it was time for communion. Dinner tonight would consist of a hot loaf of bread and a glass or two of red wine. She really wasn't hungry, but she needed to eat something because she definitely wanted to drink. She had a freezer full of organic entrees, one of which she could always microwave later if she wanted, but right now all she felt like doing was thinking about the sexy stranger she couldn't believe was actually her neighbor.

  She stood for a timeless while with a lavender towel wrapped around her staring into the vigorous flame rising from a blood-red pillar candle. The more she went over their brief conversation in her head, the less she could believe it had actually happened. After her conventional lunch date, and all the politically correct topics they had pecked at like chickens, the few exquisitely tense minutes she spent on the porch with a man dressed all in black felt like encountering a wolf. The unexpected sight of him sitting in her chair reading a book that meant so much to her had frightened her, and part of her remained nervous the whole time they were talking because it was unsettling to have her dreams so casually made flesh. She kept wondering what he had thought of her. He couldn't have known the reason why she was so foolishly tongue-tied in his presence, but he seemed to admire her taste in poetry; at least she had that going for her in his eyes ... His eyes!

  Clutching the towel tightly around her, Sofia
walked through the dark house into her favorite room. Before she ran the bath she piled a generous amount of kindling in the fireplace beneath three split logs, so all she had to do now was set a match to it. Tongues of flame eagerly licked the branches, hungrily growing in strength. She knelt on the cold hearthstones and spread open her towel like violet wings on either side of her naked body. The dry, caressing heat of the fire was very different from the embracing warmth of the water, but they were both delicious in their own way. Fire and water were the core elements of most ancient religious rites, and even Catholic priests lit candles on an altar and sprinkled their parishioners with holy water. She had gone without sex for less than a month, and already her libido was out of control. She couldn't seem to tell the difference between her erotic desires and her metaphysical sensibilities. Yet if she wanted to develop a friendship with her neighbor which might grow into something else, she had to see him for who he was; she had to distinguish him from the fantasy figure who was really only a part of herself and the intriguing subterranean realm of her subconscious.

  When her knees began to protest and the fire grew too hot, she returned to the present by turning on the lamp in her bedroom so she could get dressed. She slipped into her favorite black cotton pajama pants, sweater and slippers, and then began blowing out the candles in the bathroom one by one. By the time she finished she was lightheaded, and even more confused by her encounter this afternoon. This man was in no way typical of Clinton; he was not from around here, she could tell that from the way he spoke and just by looking at him. Even though he didn't have an accent she could discern, she imagined there was a European aura about him. His features were strikingly distinct, almost hawk-like, yet there was a softening sensual curve to his firm mouth, and his eyes were large, dark and hooded, slightly evocative of Medieval paintings. His goatee was so thin it looked like a line drawn in ink around his lips, accentuating the strength of his jaw, and she sensed his hair would have been sleek, almost luxurious, if he hadn't apparently taken a pair of scissors to it himself in a fit of impatience ... or penance...

  She kept busy, toasting half a loaf of French bread in the oven while inexplicably vivid images kept invading her mind and exciting her imagination. Solitude was getting to her, she concluded, unhinging the normal control she possessed over her moods and daydreams. She opened a bottle of Merlot feeling it was too cold for Chardonnay. The gloves all the men in her dream were wearing had her thinking about the Dark Ages and Medieval Europe. The dream itself was undoubtedly inspired by the peasant songs she was writing a paper on, poems that felt much more hauntingly significant out in the country than they had in the city. It would probably be a good idea to read something lighter for a while, she wasn't in any rush to publish, but she didn't feel like reading anything else right now. She loved those lute player songs more and more, especially now that the man she somehow knew in the very marrow of her bones had held the book in his hands and confirmed that they were indeed beautiful...