I nodded. He stared down at me, unsmiling, his pale eyes wide with concern. Instead of faded coveralls and carpenter’s belt he wore a shiny ultramarine jacket, and his gray-blonde hair hung loosely to his shoulders.
“…mellow out,” he went on. “Right? And tell me what happened…”
My terror faded. I felt disoriented, slightly dizzy; as though I’d been yanked from deep sleep into daylight. And seeing Ralph Casson there unsettled me, even more so than when I’d watched him rolling a joint in his kitchen. I fidgeted, but Ralph only held me tighter, so that I could feel his heartbeat, and smell the too-sweet scent of jasmine oil.
“Let’s go,” he said.
We headed toward the back of the mansion. Above us, Bolerium’s chimneys and crumbling turrets rose like the skyline of some fantastic city. The north tower’s famous stained-glass windows had an infernal glow; figures could be seen moving behind them, small and serenely intent as spirit puppets in a shadow play. On the lower stories, the casements of all the arched gothic windows had been flung wide, voices and music drowning out the wind. Laughter, a man’s falsetto shriek; the mingled strains of Telemann and “Rebel Rebel” and an old song by the Nursery’s house band. I was so conscious of Ralph Casson’s arm around me that I thought I might pass out. I swallowed, my mouth dry, and pointed at the base of the house, where a broad flagstoned patio extended out onto the lawn.
“What’s—what’s that?”
Along the border of the patio, all the French doors were open. A strange velvety light poured out onto the flagstones, so rich and deep a blue it was like spilled paint. I blinked: the light made the edges of things appear soft, as though grass and trees and wrought-iron furniture had all grown cobalt fur.
Ralph shrugged. “Black light. Axel’s doing the whole light-show trip, hired some company from Far Rockaway—”
As he spoke, a woman in a gypsyish dress with absurdly long sleeves stepped outside and began dancing by herself, eyes closed, hands drawing imaginary pentagrams in the air.
“Oh, goody,” said Ralph. “I was so afraid Isadora wouldn’t be able to make it.” He gestured at a stone bench overlooking the patio. “Your chaise awaits, ma princesse tenebreux. Sit.”
I slipped away from him, sat down too hard on the bench. It was cold, the surface crinkly with lichen. “Ouch,” I said, moving as far from Ralph as I could. He just fixed me with that brazen stare.
“So. Speak.”
“Do I have to play dead, too?”
He laughed and settled himself beside me. I looked away, at the baroquely weird scene in front of us. The Stooges had edged out Telemann and David Bowie in the Background Music Sweepstakes. In some of the downstairs windows banks of candles had appeared, silvery sparks flickering against a lurid blue cyclorama. The wind shifted; instead of woodsmoke, it carried the headier fragrance of marijuana and roasting meat.
And the woman on the patio had stopped dancing. She stood with her head slumped, arms hanging limply in front of her. After a minute or so she began to lift them. She swayed back and forth, eyes still shut tight and mouth slack. Her long skirt was hitched up so that I could see she was wearing only one desert boot; her other, bare, foot was black with grime. Watching her I felt the return of that horror and strangeness I had felt on the mountaintop; a growing fear that it might break through here. When Ralph touched my knee I jumped.
“I actually would like to hear what spooked you up there,” he said. “You looked pretty freaked out.”
I bit my lip. “I can’t,” I said at last, hopelessly. Because how could I ever explain anything about Kamensic to someone who hadn’t lived there all his life? Especially a grownup; especially Jamie Casson’s father. “It’s—it’s just so…”
“Listen. Lit.” Ralph lowered his voice and let his hand rest upon my knee. “Is this some kind of—drug thing? Because if it is, I won’t tell your parents—I can help you, but you’ll have to tell me what it was you—”
“No! I mean, I wish it was—but it wasn’t, I wasn’t—I’m not on anything.”
“So…?” He turned and took my chin in his hand. His fingers were rough and calloused and smelled of jasmine. “Hey, come on—you know you’ll feel better if you talk about it.”
So I talked about it. Somehow the angry music and marijuana smoke and velvety light made it seem not so strange to be telling an adult I barely knew about something I wasn’t sure I had seen.
“…was like I went the wrong way up to the house, but there’s only one road, and anyway the road was gone…”
As I spoke Ralph Casson nodded and his eyes widened, not with disbelief but as though I were confirming something he already knew. When I faltered, trying to think of a way to describe the stone column I had seen, or the terrible sound the stag had made when it was wounded, Ralph didn’t interrupt, or question me. He said nothing at all; only let his gaze lift from my face to rest upon the black hillside behind us. All the while he continued to hold my chin in his hand, and gradually he let his fingers creep upward until they splayed across my cheek, stroking it.
I didn’t pull away. His touch was hypnotic, it made me feel as though he were gently pulling the story from me, as one carefully plays out the string of a kite against a steady wind. He didn’t say a word, until I mentioned the slight sharp-featured man who had chanted over the slaughtered deer and a living corpse bound with ivy.
“Describe him,” Ralph broke in. The scent of jasmine flooded me as he trailed a finger across my upper lip. “Tell me.”
I shook my head, puzzled.
“Describe him.” Ralph’s voice rose slightly. He moved his hand so that his fingers knotted in my hair, then pulled my head back. Not forcefully but irresistibly, so that my neck was exposed to him. He ran a finger down the ridge of my windpipe and probed at the hollow of my throat; then traced the skin above my breasts. “Lit. You have to tell me. What did he look like?”
“He—he was small.” I wasn’t sure if I should be frightened; if so, what precisely I should be frightened of. “About as tall as me, and he had sort of gray hair. Black hair, but turning gray. And blue eyes. I think.”
“Balthazar.” Abruptly Ralph let go of me. He smiled, those intense eyes glowing with reflected light. With deliberate slowness he slid his hand beneath the front of my dress, until it caressed my breast. I felt my nipple harden as he circled it with one finger. But he drew no closer, made no move to kiss me; only tipped his head to regard me measuringly.
“Well,” he murmured. “Aren’t you the lucky girl.” His palm covered my breast and for a long moment he held it there, so that its warmth seeped into my skin. A sharper scent cut through the smell of jasmine. Unexpectedly he slipped his hand free, and raised it to brush a strand of hair from my face.
“‘Meet the new boss,’” said Ralph Casson lightly. He stood and stretched, his back to me, and stared at Bolerium’s glowing violet windows, the patio empty now save for a cigarette smoldering on the flagstones. “‘Same as the old boss.’”
I shook my head, trying to hide confusion and arousal, and anger that he’d drawn away from me so suddenly. “Who—who was it? Do you know him?”
“Know him? Sure.” He didn’t bother to glance at me. “Balthazar Warnick. I studied under him at the Divine. Cultural anthropology. Comparative religion. We had a falling out, over—well, call it structuralism.”
I looked at him blankly. “What’s that?”
“The way the world is arranged. I thought he was wrong, but I’ve come to see the error of my ways. Now I can find him and tell him he was right all along,” he added.