Chapter Fourteen
Chapter
Fourteen
“Death?”
Daphne stood in the middle of the woods in a sky-blue cotton dress that flowed to her knees, spaghetti straps hooked over her shoulders, and stared down at the tarot card in her hand. “I got Death?”
April laughed and tapped the card’s image—roses blooming around a skull. “It’s a good card.”
Daphne scoffed, her stomach tightening. “It’s Death.”
“Which means imminent doom and peril?” Sasha asked as she plucked her own card from the table at the entrance to Moon Lovers Trail, where the solstice bonfire was taking place. Every guest who came to the party got to pick a tarot card, all Major Arcana, according to April, whatever that meant.
“Which means transformation,” April said.
“Change and revolution.” She wore soft flowing pants and a loose cropped top.
The outfit was a set—black silk with creamy yellow stars, moons, and galaxies swirling over the material.
The top was off the shoulder and sported a deep V-neck that showed off the flowering tree on her right upper arm and the barren tree on her left, both of which curled down toward her collarbones.
Daphne shook her head, then forced her gaze to Sasha. “What did you get?”
“The Tower,” Sasha said, frowning at the card. “Sounds innocuous, but people are falling out of a building on fire, so I’m thinking bad.”
“Imminent doom and peril,” April said, chuckling. “Everything’s falling apart.”
“Oh, this is yours, then,” Sasha said, offering the card to April, who laughed and flipped her off.
Daphne laughed too, her eyes following April as she picked a card of her own.
Since Ramona had shown up earlier in the day, April seemed happier.
She and Ramona had arrived a little late to their afternoon art class, but April had been smiling, and that was something Daphne hadn’t seen much since they’d met.
She had a beautiful smile. Subtle and secretive and sort of sly, but also—
Daphne squeezed her eyes closed, and when she opened them, she made sure she wasn’t staring at April’s mouth, intoxicating smile notwithstanding, and instead focused on the lovely night.
The moon was bright and full, spreading silver over the trees and the forest floor.
Ahead, Mia had set up lanterns along the trail that wandered deeper into the woods, the amber glow leading guests to the bonfire.
Daphne could hear laughter and music. It all felt somewhat magical, as though she might find anything in those woods.
“The Hanged One,” April said, staring down at her card. Daphne peered closer at the image, which featured a person wrapped in ropes and hanging upside down.
“Kinky,” Sasha said, and Daphne laughed.
“It means I’m in limbo. Dangling in the unknown,” April said, then scoffed. “Figures.”
“Dangling in the unknown can be exciting,” Sasha said.
April just glowered at her card before tucking it into her pants’ waistband. “Yes, we all know you’re footloose and fancy-free and live in a renovated Airstream trailer.”
“Oh, god, I wish,” Sasha said. “Those things are amazing. But I’ve got a 2015 Subaru Outback—”
“Of course you do,” April said.
“—and I don’t think ole Gertie could handle pulling an Airstream.”
“Gertie?” Daphne asked.
“My car,” Sasha said as the three of them started along the path and toward the bonfire. “For Gertrude Stein.”
“The OG butch,” April said.
“Exactly,” Sasha said, grinning. “She said ‘One must dare to be happy.’ I read that in high school and never forgot it.”
“I love that,” Daphne said as the trees opened into a large clearing.
A huge fire roared in the center, a triangle of flames licking into the night sky.
Log benches surrounded the blaze, where people sat and drank spiked apple cider.
To the side of the fire, underneath a huge oak tree, a small trio performed folky music.
Mia sat at a nearby table covered in flowers.
“Come make your flower crowns,” she called as she handed a bunch of daisies to Ms. Caldwell, a woman in her seventies and one of Daphne and April’s students who had a penchant for turning every subject of her drawings into something slightly risqué.
Apples became boobs, birds somehow turned into thighs or butts.
“Yes, do,” Ms. Caldwell called, her short silver hair spiked up with gel. “I’m hoping these daisies will catch a fairy’s eye and they’ll drag me off into the woods for a magical orgy.”
Mia sighed loudly, pressing her fingertips to her forehead.
Sasha snorted a laugh. “Oh my god, I love her.”
“Up to your old tricks, I see, Ms. Caldwell,” April said, hands on her hips.
“At my age, dear, all I’ve got is tricks,” Ms. Caldwell said, waving her daisies at them before wandering off along the trail.
“I’ll have what she’s having,” Sasha said as the three of them approached the table.
“Me too,” Daphne said, laughing. Suddenly the idea of it all—fairies and flowers and dancing—made Daphne feel giddy. She wanted to be more like Ms. Caldwell, it was true. Up for anything, carefree, and wild.
She took a deep breath, forgot about her tarot card of Death, and wove a crown of lavender and sunflowers, the dreamy purple and bright yellow fitting her mood perfectly.
Sasha’s crown was pure eucalyptus, and April had chosen peonies, the voluminous blooms heavy but somehow perfect on her petite frame.
Topped with her crown, Daphne moved toward the dancers, who were now engaged in a sort of group routine.
Her ankle still smarted a little, but she needed to move, to tilt her head toward the open sky.
She loved dancing, despite the confusing memories of the other night.
She pulled Sasha and April with her, and they all linked hands and joined the circle, laughing as they followed a woman across from them, lifting their hands in unison, stumbling over a turn, but smiling all the while.
The music was magnetic, simple and full of possibilities all at once.
“You look like a wood nymph,” April said to Daphne as everyone in the circle hopped left and then right.
“And what’s that look like?” Daphne asked, slightly out of breath.
April looked her up and down, her own crown falling over her left eye a little, and Daphne’s stomach undulated like a stormy sea.
Since the night of the dance party, every time she was around April, her body reacted without her permission.
Daphne’s thoughts would start whirling like a printing press, spitting out sheet after sheet filled with the details of their dance, of lying on the floor talking, of the way Daphne had touched herself while imagining how April’s mouth might feel on her—
“Daphne?” April said.
Daphne blinked the night back into focus, realizing that she’d stopped dancing for a second and was messing up the circle. She quickly fell back into the movements. “Sorry, what?” she asked.
“I said I imagine that a wood nymph looks just like you—flowing dress, flowing hair, sandals made out of tree bark or something,” April said.
“Don’t forget beautiful and unassuming,” Sasha said from Daphne’s other side. Her flower crown perched on top of her head at a mischievous angle, reminding Daphne of Puck from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
“How could I ever forget?” April said, laughing.
Daphne nearly stumbled again but managed to correct herself before landing in a heap on the forest floor.
“She thinks you’re beautiful,” Sasha whispered theatrically out of one side of her mouth.
“Shh,” Daphne hissed, but Sasha just grinned. Puck, indeed.
After the revelry, people dispersed for drinks and snacks, but Daphne didn’t want to sit. If she sat, she’d think, and wasn’t this party all about the opposite? Feeling and doing. She grabbed three cups of cider and offered two of them to April and Sasha.
“We should go on Moon Lovers Trail,” Daphne said, sipping on the potent brew. She coughed a little.
“Aren’t we on it?” Sasha asked.
“Not quite,” April said. “But we definitely do not need to go on Moon Lovers Trail.”
“Why not?” Sasha asked, eyeing April. “Scared?”
“Scared?” April asked. “Of what? It’s not haunted.”
“It’s haunted by true love, the way I hear it,” Sasha said.
April rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Am I?” Sasha asked, grinning.
“Wait, what?” Daphne asked. “I thought it was just a nice trail.”
“Oh, it’s very nice,” Sasha said, smirking. “Plus, you can’t get much wilder than kissing on Moon Lovers. Right, Daph?”
“Kissing?” Daphne said, her stomach fluttering.
“Kissing who?” April asked.
Sasha just laughed and started walking across the clearing to where the trail continued into the woods. “Let’s go.”
“I swear to god, she makes me dizzy,” April said, then groaned and grabbed one of the tiny solar-powered torches sitting in a basket by the drinks table. “You can’t go in the dark!”
Daphne hurried to follow, her drink sloshing onto her wrist as she went.
“What is Sasha talking about?” she asked as they dived into the thickening woods, the trail a thin line along the floor.
April sighed. “Moon Lovers Trail. It’s a local legend. They say any couple who walks its path under a full moon will fall in love and live happily ever after or some shit.”
Daphne smiled at April’s explanation, which was somehow romantic and cynical all at once. “Do you know anyone who has?”
April was silent for a second as they walked. Sasha was a few feet ahead of them and started singing the song “Moon River.”
“Wow, she really can’t sing,” April said.
“I heard that,” Sasha said. “Now answer Daphne’s question.”
“So bossy,” April said.
“I’m a power top,” Sasha said.
“I’m shocked,” April said, and Sasha resumed her singing.
“So?” Daphne asked.
“Fine, yes, I know some people. Owen, the guy who owns Clover Moon Café. He took his high school sweetheart on the trail when they were, like, seventeen, and they’ve been married for eight hundred years. And Ramona and Dylan.”
“Really?” Daphne said. “That’s really cute. Who else?”