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“Ah, you recognize him,” Soheila said.
I tore my eyes away from the painted face and stared at Soheila, aghast.
“What do you mean? Why would I recognize him?”
“Because you’ve made a study of him,” Soheila replied calmly, but giving me a quizzical look. “That is the Ganconer, as he’s called in Celtic myth. His name means ‘love talker.’ InSumerian myth he was called Lilu. He’s the incubus who rides his horse, the night mare, into the dreams of women whom he seduces. The women he comes to in their sleep fall under his spell and begin to waste away. He sucks them dry like a vampire. He’s what you write about in your book—the demon lover.” Soheila wrapped her sweater more tightly around her chest and tucked her hands into her long sleeves. She looked like she was freezing. “In my country we have a long history of dealing with demons,” she whispered. For a moment I thought I saw her breath condensing into a little puff of smoke, but I must have imagined it; it was warm in the room. “But he is the most dangerous of demons because he is the most beautiful. The others…” She tilted her chin to the far right side of the painting—the woods that were the destination of the procession. The dense thicket was inhabited by shadowy figures. While the creatures in the procession were beautiful winged fairies and elves, the creatures lurking amid the vines were stunted goblins and lizard-skinned dwarves, forked-tongued devils and bat-faced imps. “These creatures are easily recognizable as demons, but the Ganconer assumes the shape of your heart’s desire.”
“Why is he at the head of this procession?” I asked. “Is he with…her?” I pointed toward the Fairy Queen, feeling an odd pang of jealousy.
Soheila gave me a long, level stare before replying. “Some say the queen stole him as a young man from the mortals and enchanted him, and that when he seduces a human woman he is trying to make himself human again by drinking her spirit, but always before he can become human he drains his lover dry.”
“Oh,” I said, “that’s…sad.” And then, trying to assume an air of scholarly detachment: “I’ve heard stories about young men kidnapped by the fairies, of course…” I faltered, reminding myself that this was the kind of story my fairytale princehad told me. “But never a version in which the young man becomes a demon lover.” I turned back to the painting. “Where are they going?”
“Back to Faerie,” Soheila said. “Legend has it that once all the fairies and demons lived with mortals, coming and going between the world of mortals and the world of Faerie freely. But then the mortal world grew more crowded and mortals lost belief in the old gods. The doors between the worlds began to close. The fairies and demons had to choose between worlds. Most went back to Faerie, but some who had fallen in love with humanity remained. The doors closed and then even the doors themselves began to disappear. Only one door remained, and it was carefully hidden and most dangerous to pass through. Deep thickets grew up over the last door,” Soheila continued, “barring the way between the worlds. They grow thicker every year. Few try to pass anymore, and those who do are often lost between the worlds…caught in a bodiless limbo of pain. That is why the doors of the triptych are closed. We open it only four times a year, on the solstices and equinoxes, which are the times that tradition tells us the doors between the worlds may open…”
As she faltered to a stop I heard the pain in Soheila’s voice. Startled, I turned away from the painting to look at her. Tears shone in her almond-shaped eyes—and not just in hers. Her story had drawn a small circle. Alice Hubbard and Joan Ryan stood with their arms around each other, dabbing their eyes with cloth hankies. Fiona Eldritch, her face rigid with pain, stood beside Elizabeth Book, who was patting the hand of a tiny Asian woman. The three Russian studies professors hovered at the edge of the group looking uncomfortable but riveted to the painting. I wondered why this fairy story spoke so strongly to them. Were they all, like Mara Marinca and Soheila Lilly, exiles from war-torn countries?
The somber mood was broken by a familiar voice.
“What are y’all looking at?”
It was Phoenix, in an attention-getting slinky red dress and four-inch-high stilettos. She was hanging on the arm of Frank Delmarco, who looked as if he wasn’t quite sure how he had acquired this particular piece of arm candy. The circle quickly dispersed, the Russian studies professors, especially, seeming to melt into the far shadows of the room, although I saw one of them glancing back over his shoulder at Phoenix.
“Soheila was telling me the story of this painting,” I answered. Frank struck up a conversation with Casper about baseball, using it as an excuse to detach himself from Phoenix. Soheila, who looked exhausted and chilled from her recounting of the fairy story, excused herself to go look for a cup of hot tea.
“I thought y’all were having some kind of séance when I came in, the mood was so gloomy. I’m very empathic, you know.”
“It was kind ofodd,” I said, lowering my voice. I recounted the story of the painting and everyone’s reaction to it.
“Huh,” Phoenix said, squinting up at the dark man on horseback. “Ifhecame into my dreams I don’t think I’d ever want to wake up.”
I nodded, turning away to hide my blush. There had to be an explanation for why he looked like the moonlight lover of my dreams. The painter of the triptych must have also designed the pediment over the door of Honeysuckle House…or used the same model…and that’s how I’d fashioned the face of the man in my dreams.
“…and when Frank told me I thought it sounded just perfect. What do you say?”
I realized that I’d been so intent on looking at the man in the painting and explaining his existence to myself that I’d lost the thread of Phoenix’s conversation. “I’m sorry, it’s so loud in here…what did you say?”
“Your spare room. Frank says you’re looking for a lodger for it. I was going to stay in an apartment in one of the dorms, but between you, me, and the lamppost, I don’t think I’m the dorm mother type. I’m sure the two of us together would have much more fun!”
