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I raised my glass and clinked it against Fiona’s. The crystal rang clear as a bell, echoed by the chiming of all the glasses as my guests—my new friends and colleagues—clinked their glasses against their neighbors’. It sounded like a hundred tiny crystal bells chiming in a large echoing hall—I could almost see the hall, a vaulted cathedral ribbed with tree branches and paned in brilliant stained glass—a sound that took all the sadness, thehomesickness, I’d been feeling and made it swell into something else.
“To new friends,” I said, holding my glass up to the assembled company, “and absent ones,” I added, thinking of Paul.
“Hear, hear,” someone—and then everyone—said. Then there was silence as we all sipped our champagne. A thousand icy bubbles exploded in my mouth. It was so dry I felt as if I were drinking air—delightfully clean mountain air. Only the aftertaste—a strange and subtle combination of oak, crisp apples, and honeysuckle—told me that the liquid had gone down my throat.
“Mmm,” Phoenix moaned, a hand dramatically splayedover her heart. “It tastes like the first drink I ever had, which was a champagne cocktail at the Plaza on a hot summer night.”
“The first drinkIever had,” Oliver said while passing a plate of sweet potatoes to me, “was a tequila sunrise at Studio 54. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”
“Mine was a vodka martini at the Lotus Club,” Dean Book volunteered, blushing as she spooned mashed potatoes onto her plate.
We all went around sharing our first drink stories, Mara and Nicky demurely abstaining, as we passed the serving dishes among us. The room filled with the smells of turkey and sweet potatoes, and the clink of china and silverware. The food was delicious—the turkey moist, the sweet potatoes glazed with a delicate carmelized layer of brown sugar. There were roasted chestnuts in the stuffing and tiny translucent pearl onions in the peas. The conversation sailed from first drinks to first kisses to first memorable movies. At first the older—and less human—among us kept their reminiscences somewhat vague or at least confined to the last century. But as we all drank more—although I had seen Fiona arrive with only one bottle of champagne there seemed to be an endless supply—the fairies and other supernatural creatures at the table told stories of parties on Cleopatra’s barge and at King Arthur’s court. Those who weren’t in on the secret of Fairwick seemed undisturbed by these incredible details. Jen Davies was more interested in hearing the details of Phoenix’s childhood than in Casper van der Aart’s tale of sailing on a merchant ship to the West Indies; Nicky Ballard seemed to think that Dory Browne was describing the plot of a historical novel she was writing; and Frank Delmarco was talking sports with Brock and Ike. Only Mara Marinca sat wide-eyed and silent. Perhaps the single drop of champagne she’d drunk hadn’t been enough to put her under the same spell as the rest of us—or perhaps she simply mistrusted her English.
I wondered what Paul would have made of all this. I couldn’t imagine him falling under any spell or suspending an atom of disbelief. What would he say if I tried to tell him what had happened last night? Would he think I was crazy? Perhaps it was better he hadn’t made it. I felt guilty thinking that, but then Fiona refilled my glass and I forgot about everything but the present moment.
After dinner we repaired to the living room where we all rubbed our stomachs and moaned, although in truth I didn’t feel uncomfortably full despite all I’d eaten, or drunk despite all I’d had to drink. I just felt content. Brock built up the fire and Casper produced a bottle of very old cognac. We drank it with pumpkin pie and played Trivial Pursuit. Frank Delmarco won twice, which was pretty impressive considering he was playing against a gnome and two ancient Norse divinities.
After the third game, Nicky and Mara said their farewells and left with a pile of leftovers that Dory had packed for them. Phoenix took Jen into the library to show her press clippings. I suddenly realized that Fiona, Soheila, Diana, and Liz were all in the kitchen, no doubt doing dishes. Guiltily, I collected the pie plates and headed back, pausing at the door to pick up a fork that had fallen to the floor—which put my ear level with the old-fashioned keyhole.
“Are you sure he’s gone?” I heard Fiona ask.
“Diana and I performed the banishment spell while Soheila chanted the…”
I missed the next few words in a clatter of dishes. Fiona asked something else in a low, urgent voice and Soheila answered.
“He was moments away from incarnating. I’ve never seen an incubus gain flesh so quickly. He must be very drawn to her…”
“It has nothing to do with her,” Fiona spat back. All her lovely graces had fallen away. Even with a wooden door between us I felt waves of cold rolling off her. Even Liz Book,who had managed to remain poised and calm in the face of a demon’s tantrum, sounded cowed.
“Of course not, my lady. We were afraid he’d try to find an entrance back through anyone who lived in this house. She is merely a conduit, but perhaps a powerful one. She opened the door on her first day here and today I saw her reach into it and pull a satyr to safety.”
Fiona sniffed. “So she’s a doorkeeper. Good. We can always use one of those—especially after what happened to the last one. Just be careful whom she lets in. You know as well as I do that there arethingslurking on the threshold that make my incubus look like a puppy dog.”
I stood up then, tired of eavesdropping in my own house. I rattled the dishes in my hand to give them some warning and shouldered open the door. By the time I was across the doorway they were talking about Diana’s recipe for pecan pie as if they were on the Food Network.
The last of my guests left by eight, except for Jen Davies, who was curled up in the library drinking Casper’s cognac and listening wide-eyed to Phoenix’s adventures growing up dysfunctional in the Deep South. I excused myself and went upstairs to call Paul. He was at the hotel bar, eating Buffalo hot wings with “Stacy, Mack, and Rita,” his three new “survivor” friends.
“Stacy and Mack live in Ithaca and Rita’s in Binghamton so we’re all going to split a car tomorrow. I should be there by one at the latest.”
“That’s great,” I said. “I really missed you today. I’ve been thinking…Well, we really have to try to find some way to spend real time together. I could spend the Christmas break in California…”
“I thought you wanted to spend Christmas in your new home,” he said.
“That doesn’t matter.” I gripped the phone hard to give myself the courage to say what I had to say. “What matters is thatwe spend it together. I wantyouto be my home, Paul, and for me to be yours. If we can’t be that for each other…Well, then, what are we doing?” I swallowed back the tears—a pause long enough that Paul could have filled it with some reassurance, but he was silent. Maybe he didn’t know any better than I the answer to my question. “Because whatever it is we’re doing, I’m not sure I can do it any longer.” I bit my lip and made myself be quiet to give Paul a chance to answer. I waited…and waited. Then I held the phone up and saw that AT&T had dropped the call. I had no way of knowing how long ago.
Fifteen minutes later when I was in the tub, Paul texted me.
Lost u! CU tom. <3 P
I texted back a heart and my initial, but I was beginning to wonder if we hadn’t already lost each other.
