Goldie turned her face slowly from side to side, studying the woman in the mirror warily, as if she was a stranger. But of course she wasn’t. She was Ondalune. She was staring at herself.
It wasn’t only her hair. Gone were the softened curve of her jawline and most of the fine lines that formed the map of her face. Only a few faint traces of old age remained, as fine lines radiating from the corners of her eyes. Her lips were fuller, her eyes opened wider, and even her lashes were thicker.
When she jumped to her feet, her legs felt stronger. She pulled up the hem of her nightgown and marveled at the muscles beneath the firm flesh of her calves. There was no sign of her allergic reaction. Not a single mark or hive. Her feet, both of her them, were in perfect shape. She held out one foot and then the other, pointing and flexing her toes. When the orchestra music swelled, she danced across the room and spun on tip-toes, nearly getting caught in the billowing curtains.
She was dreaming. Surely she was dreaming. This wasn’t, couldn’t be, for real. It was just a strange fever dream. A continuation of the dream she’d had about meeting Cosimo on the beach last night. But if she was dreaming, why was there sand spilling out from the boots she’d discarded on the floor next to her bed? And why was her raincoat crumpled on a heap beside it?
“Did you listeners catch the amazing bioluminescence last night?” The host returned, her perky voice chasing the clouds away from the sun. “We haven’t seen that kind of activity in ages. Local naturalists are predicting these conditions to come and go all thru the coming week, right up to the big eclipse. So book your tickets and get on out here!”
Goldie wasn’t dreaming. She didn’t imagine this. There was no explanation for it, but she appeared to be agingbackward.
She shook off the grains of sand still clinging to her hem and padded out to the kitchen to make coffee. She still required caffeine to think clearly.
Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she leaned back against the vintage formica kitchen counters, waiting impatiently for the mocha pot to boil. Without thinking, she vaulted onto the counter to sit beside the kitchen sink. She stared at the polished pink seashell resting in a ray of sunshine on the windowsill. She knew what she would hear if she lifted it to her ear.
“Ondalune…” The distant voice that always called her name. Was it Cosimo’s voice?
She closed her eyes, picturing his distinctly unique accent. The exotic way he said his Os. The teasing softness of his Ls. Just thinking about it produced a wave of goosebumps. Thewayhe said her name. It was enough to entrance her.
The pot began to sputter and spit with steam. She jumped nimbly down to move it before the coffee scorched.
What a gift it was to move and flow like this without a single thought. At what point in her life had she started needing to make plans before standing, bending, and reaching?
She much preferred this spontaneity.
Goldie set the Moka pot aside and frothed some milk until it resembled sea foam. Finally she pulled out a mug and combined the two, swirling the foam to draw a scalloped seashell in the cup.
She didn’t bother putting on shoes when she carried the cup outside to sit with Octavia. Settling onto the bench swing, she fluffed the damp throw pillow and pulled her feet up. She rocked gently, Cosimo’s last few words coming back to her as she sipped.
She was certain that he knew something. Why she was the way she was? What she was. But he’d refused to tell her.
“It’s not for me to say, Ondalune. I’m so sorry.” He’d looked so inexplicably sad.
“At least tell me about yourself. Tell me what you are. Who are you really?”
The more she’d studied him in the moonlight, the more certain she’d become that Cosimo was no ordinary man. His strangely smooth skin, his coolness, and his heat and those vaguely feral eyes... She could have sworn he didn’t have a heartbeat when he held her. And how could any man without a pulse be a mortal?
“Can you believe I’m imagining people might actually be mythical creatures? I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?” she said to Octavia, running her fingers along one of the pebbled purple tentacles that wrapped along the back of the bench.
“Are you?”Ocatavia’s wise golden eye seemed to say.
Goldie considered her feet again. There was no denying her own transformation.
It was one thing to age much slower than her peers. Strange as it was, she could rationalize it as an anomaly. Some stroke of fortune or fate that had blessed her with unusual genes.
Aging backward was an entirely different thing. And so was the man with the breath to blow the damp of the ocean right off of her, healing her. Had he brought about this sudden transformation?
“If I told you what and who I really was, you could only hate me. I’m sorry, Ondalune.” He’d stood up abruptly. “You should go home and get some sleep.”
He’d turned to run away, and she’d reached to grasp his hand. She’d been too slow. Or he’d been too fast. He disappeared so quickly; she hadn’t even been able to find his footsteps in the sand.
“Look at this.” Goldie shook a fistful of her wild mane at the Octopus. “I am not imagining this, am I?” The bench swung back and forth, sideways, a sure sign that Octavia agreed. “What will people think? I’m not sure what I’m going to do to disguise myself,” she mused.
Would a headscarf and sunglasses be enough to maintain her ruse? She no longer resembled the image on her driver’s license so much as she resembled the woman on the posters for the film festival.
“What if someone recognizes me?” She felt the squeeze of her heart beginning to race. And then, almost immediately, she relaxed, realizing how foolish of a fear that was. So what if they did? Did she really think anyone sane would accuse her of being a one hundred-and-twenty-year-old starlet? There weren’t even any color photos of her from that time.
The bench bounced as if Octavia were chortling with her.
