Chapter 16 #3
The lights dim. A few oohs go up from the crowd, followed by giggles.
People clearly not taking the enterprise seriously.
One of the white figures gets up, the one that I guess must be in charge, because he wears a red rosary around his belt, unlike the others, and takes to the center of the dais next to Father Dennis.
“I thank you,” comes his voice. It’s deep, resonant, accented, and unsettling to hear from no mouth. From behind him, I see Lanz and Callahan get up and move something from the side of the dais to in front of him: a candelabra. I realize my heart quickens in my chest.
Around us, servers are passing out thin white tapers held in paper skirts, one for each. I take one with a trembling hand and look up to see Morgan, her face pale.
“I’m sorry,” she mouths. “I forgot all about this part.”
“It’s okay,” I mouth back. I’m not sure it is, though. I don’t want to hold a lighted candle, light in the darkness be damned.
“As it is written,” the prior is going on, “Fiat lux. So today we remember that Christ will come again, and we pray for a grey and stormy day tomorrow.”
Some laughter from the faculty, a joke I don’t get. With that, the prior produces a long candle lighter, which he snaps into flame and bends to the candle in front of him. He makes a sign of the cross and pulls away, the flame now dancing.
Behind him come the four of them: Kingston, Kai, Lanz, and Callahan, all holding long tapers.
They take turns dipping the wicks into the candles, lighting their candles, and then proceed down the side steps of the dais to all of us around, going table to table.
Kingston and Callahan take our side of the room, alternating as they weave between the white-tableclothed islands, and when they come to us, it’s Kingston.
“A light in the darkness,” he says, and bends his candle to Morgan’s.
“Thanks, bro,” she winks. “So mote it be.”
Kingston says nothing, just inclines his head and glances once at me before moving on to the next table.
Morgan leans her lighted candle toward Brian. “You want?” she offers, but Brian is blinking at her open-mouthed.
“Kingston Pendragon’s your brother?”
“Stepbrother,” Morgan and I say in unison, and she cackles. “Yeah, and?” Without waiting for his response, she shoves her candle against his. “You didn’t really ask much about us, so…”
“Shit,” Brian whispers. “I’m fencing him first tomorrow.”
“Isn’t that funny,” Morgan says. “I did think you looked familiar. Maybe from the Y-12 circuit?” She reaches to her other side and lights the candle of the girl on her left, and slowly the flame makes its way around the table to me.
On my right, Eric nods to me, offering his candle.
I hesitate for just a moment, but what can I do?
Everyone else has lighted theirs. There’s no good reason that this stranger should know I don’t want this.
So I just nod back, hold my candle to his.
It takes a moment to catch, but when it does, it flares into life.
A tiny, dancing piece of orange, throwing the faintest heat onto the paper I can feel through my fingers.
I inhale, slowly, then exhale, not too hard, not to blow it out.
I can endure this, I think. I can endure however long I need to hold this, the same way I can endure all of tonight.
I’m looking everywhere but at the candle, as if I don’t fix it in my vision, I can pretend it doesn’t exist. But then, ouch, a hot drip of wax hits my fingertips through the slit in the paper skirt.
I wince and look at my hand. It’s already hardened into a little white drop.
And then I look at the candle, stare at it, wait for the impact, for the rush.
And I realize I’m not afraid of it anymore.
It’s just a candle. It’s even a little nice. Maybe it was all that EMDR. Maybe I’ve just truly gone off the deep end. But… but there’s nothing. I’m okay. I’m just looking at the candle, and it’s looking back, throwing its heat and light onto me, a light in the darkness.
From the corner, the music picks up, the quartet playing something a bit more lively, and people’s candles start to fizzle out, extinguishing from the first tables all the way through the back.
I let mine sputter to the very end as people around us get up, find the bar, vacate the tables so that they can be cleared and rolled away as servers set down a gleaming dance floor.
“You all right?” Morgan whispers in my ear, clutching my elbow. “I really should have—”
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m actually fine. Isn’t that nuts?”
Morgan considers, then shakes her head. “Not at all.”
In what feels like five minutes, the staff has turned the place over from dining room to ballroom.
The head table clears and the musicians make their way to the dais as things start to get lively.
I instinctively retreat toward the wall, and Morgan does too, her glass of wine in one hand, which she sips pensively as she stares at the still-empty dance floor.
“Someone’s got to break the seal here,” she says. “This is incredibly awkward.”
“Don’t look at me,” I say. “I don’t know how to dance.”
“I do,” Morgan says.
“You do?”
“Sure, finishing school.” She throws back the rest of her wine. “Want me to teach you?”
I shake my head vigorously. “No thanks. Let’s be wallflowers.”
Morgan pouts briefly, but doesn’t protest. “Let’s be barflies,” she corrects. “Come on.”
I don’t want to argue with that. If there’s another hour or maybe even two left, I might as well find something to do with my time. We get more glasses of wine, situate ourselves at a high top, relatively in the corner, and I decide to press Morgan for more information about Imbolc.
“I don’t know if anyone practices it for real.
Back in Ireland,” she says, sipping her wine.
“Except for the neo-pagans, but they’re full of shit.
I mean, like, actual magical practices are, well, kind of sporadic.
But it’s the same kind of idea. Something to tide you over in the darkness of winter.
And the girls would all make a Bríde, a Brigid, in other words, dress her up in nice clothes and then go door-to-door, asking people to give them stuff for her. ”
“Like trick-or-treating,” I say, the wine making my cheeks hot.
“I mean, that’s Samhain, but sure,” Morgan says. “You really don’t know too much about magical practices, do you?”
“Is that so surprising?” I say. “All I really know so far is what Emerus has filled us in on to try and crack this whole”—I widen my eyes, shake my head—“thing.”
“Yeah,” Morgan exhales. “We do have the distinct disadvantage of pre-literary customs and a lot of stuff just being destroyed. Thanks for that, crusaders.” She shoots daggers across the room to where the four of them are, standing next to Luther and the white brothers making some kind of conversation, although I can’t imagine what.
“Chin chin,” Morgan says, clinking her empty glass to me. “Want more?”
“Sure, why not,” I say. “This time it’s not poisoned, so…”
Morgan laughs a surprised laugh. “Wow, that’s dark.”
“That’s my life,” I say. “I’m allowed to make jokes about it.”
“Of course.” She taps me on the nose. “I’ll be right back.”
As she sweeps away, she clears my view of the room: more people are dancing now, with plenty of others just chatting.
Including, I notice, Elena and Claire.
Elena’s in a black, shimmering gown this time and Claire in pale pink. They’re two high tops away, but not so far I can’t hear what they’re saying, and I’m halfway to vowing I’ll ignore them entirely when I catch a few snatches of their conversation.
…grippy-sock vacation…
…loony bin…
…just let her out like that…
“They didn’t have anymore Sauv Blanc,” Morgan says, “so I got Pinot Grigio. Hope that’s…”
She trails off, seeing where I’m staring. Just Claire darts a glance at me. Smirks.
Morgan grimaces. “Ignore them,” she murmurs, patting the top of my hand.
But I pull it away.
“No,” I say, a little louder than necessary for Morgan to hear. “No, you know what? Hey, Elena. Hey, Claire.” I swear to God the whole ballroom turns and looks at me. Well, let them look, I think. I don’t care.
And I don’t, I realize. It’s shocking, actually, how little I care, my habitual, instinctual need to shrink away from human observation just…gone. I guess after having someone literally watch you on the toilet, a few catty side-eyes just don’t register the same.
“You’re right,” I go on, taking another step toward their table. “I came back. Here I am. Hello.”
“How…” Elena stammers.
“Chewed through my straitjacket,” I deadpan. Claire gasps a little. Elena huffs.
“I’m just kidding,” I add. “They kicked me out. Cut me loose because I kept…biting the orderlies.”
Behind me, Morgan snorts with laughter.
“I’m, um, glad you’re feeling better,” Elena says, sweet as pie. “Hopefully you’re…catching up with your schoolwork quickly.”
“What, like it’s hard? I’m doing this wacky little thing called paying attention in class.”
I hear Morgan sucking a breath behind me, like maybe I’ve gone a little too far. This is the girl who burned our dorm room to a crisp, I want to tell her, I don’t think we’re even approaching that universe.
“Yeah, well…” Elena falters, clearly struggling to maintain her facade. “At least I’m not being babysat by—”
“Gwenna.” A deep voice interrupts us.
It’s Kingston. “I’m sorry, Elena,” he says. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, you…” she stammers. “It’s…”
“Gwenna,” Kingston repeats. “Would you like to dance?”
“I…” Before I even fully answer, he’s taken me by the hand and started to guide me toward the dance floor. I follow like an automaton, stunned, knowing I can’t just pull away and cause even more of a scene for Elena to delight in.
We get to the dance floor, and he turns me gently to face him, puts his hand on my waist. Then, after a moment’s pause, guides my hand to his shoulder and takes my right in his left.
The music swells, and he starts across the floor, his grip on my waist firm but flexible, warm and steady, tiny movements guiding me this way or that.
I’m still too stunned to say anything, to look him in the eye, but something’s bubbling up inside me. Not tears, not gratitude, not even fear. Anger.
I turn to glare at him. “What are you doing?” I say.
His face looks blank, puzzled. “Rescuing you?” he says, like a question.
“From what?” I say. “A vicious gang of coeds?”
Kingston’s mouth falls open and he shuts it.
“What were they going to do, Kingston?” I mutter. “Throw a drink on me? Light something on fire? They’re out of options.
“I suppose I didn’t…” He trails off, never missing a step, even as he is visibly cogitating through what I’ve said. “I just know they’ve given you a hard time in the past, and—”
“A hard time?” I give a short laugh. “I’m sorry, that is putting it incredibly lightly. The only person who’s been crueler to me than them is currently trying to dance with me.”
It’s mean. I know it is. But it’s the truth.
Kingston’s handsome face falls.
“I apologize, Gwenna,” he says. “I can understand why you wouldn’t trust me to protect you, but—”
“I trust you,” I interrupt him. “I do. I trust that you will protect me. Honestly, that’s never even been in question. But I don’t need to forgive you to trust you.” Step, step. “And I don’t. I’m sorry if that’s hard for you, but I don’t need to.”
The song ends on a long, sustained note. Kingston lets me go, wordless, and I try not to relish the satisfaction I feel at the stricken look that’s still on his face.
“Thank you for the dance,” I say politely, tipping my head a little, keeping it all completely ordinary for anyone observing from a distance. “Now please leave me alone for the rest of the night.”
I turn to leave the dance floor, but not without catching someone’s eye.
Kai.