“Why am I here?” Precious Bane smiled, lipstick seaming the cracks in her mouth. “Honey, this is what I do. You think there’s a lot of job opportunities for a girl like me? I make movies for Axel, help to entertain the troops. And I schlep people like you back and forth”— she waved her hand dismissively, but her expression was enigmatic, almost teasing. —“here and there, hither and yon. Look, it’s a living. And when I say it ends badly, that doesn’t mean it ends badly for you, personally. You got spunk,” she said, her Jersey City accent suddenly bursting through. “Plus you can be a real little bitch if the situation demands—hey, don’t look like that, I meant it as a compliment. But you know, honey,” she added, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “let me give you some advice. Lose the hair—”
She flicked at my tangled curls. “It’s all the wrong color for you. And it’s too long. You want my advice?”
“No.” I yanked away. “I want to get the hell out of here.”
Precious Bane laughed. “Well. Just remember, nothing makes a girl feel so good as a new do. Now let’s just look over here and see what Carol has for us behind Door Number Three—”
She took my hand and gestured to where a door was set into a deep alcove. In front of it stagnant water pooled, and blue-white flickers traced the outlines of the doorframe, as though a live electrical current flowed through it. When Precious Bane reached for the knob I stiffened.
“What’s in there?”
“Wonderful things,” she murmured, and opened it.
The flickering light flared, the door creaked inward and thudded against a wall. Before us was a room. Not a large room, but it seemed cavernous after that endless twisting hallway swept with rain and the sound of wind. Shadows flowed along the walls, blood-red, violet. When I followed Precious Bane inside I saw that they were not shadows at all but threadbare velvet drapes hanging from long metal rods. Strands of ivy had been braided around the rods, ivy and grapevines and evergreen boughs heavy with pinecones. The floor was covered with candles, stuck in mason jars and upended terra-cotta masks. The scent of wax mingled with incense, a sharp head-clearing scent of juniper. On one wall glowed the bright square of a film being projected without benefit of a screen, or even a sheet. The projector was on the floor, balanced shakily atop a pile of coffee-table books. The scene juttering on the wall was badly out of focus; it seemed to involve a number of women and a very large animal.
“This is where I leave you.” Precious Bane’s expression was grave but not unkind. “Don’t!” she commanded, and pressed her finger to my lips. “Don’t freak out. You want my advice, pretend you’re in a movie—”
I stared at her, disbelieving, then tried to bolt for the door. But she pulled me back to the center of the room, where a large mattress was set on a low platform, covered with paisley scarves and an old Victorian crazy-quilt. Bottles were arranged around the platform—dozens of them, burgundy and brandy and Southern Comfort, sloe gin and Boone’s Farm Apple Wine—bottles and incense burners, brass trays and vials, decanters and long-stemmed pipes and even a hookah, its tubes spilling onto the floor like entrails.
“A movie? Christ, it looks like a fucking head shop exploded—”
“Name your poison,” advised Precious Bane. “It’ll make it easier for you.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I mean it. Have a little drinkie.” She hesitated, head tilted; then leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth. “Good luck,” she said, and crossed to the door.
Despairing, I watched her go. She stopped to look back at me, her oversized frame filling the narrow space; drew one hand to her mouth and blew me a kiss.
“Remember, honey—don’t get even. Get mad.”
The door closed. I was alone.
“Great. This is fucking great.”
I went to the platform and sat. A more comforting scent hung here, patchouli and the musty smell of mothballs. I ran my hand through my hair and sighed, fighting tears, stared down at the ludicrous assembly of liquor waiting for me. After a minute I picked up a bottle.
There was no cork. I sniffed it, then took a swig. A spark of heat on my tongue, sweetness and a tart aftertaste like unripe apples. I drank some more, finally set the bottle down, knocking it against a dark-green decanter that sloshed as it toppled over. I caught the decanter before it fell, but when I replaced it I saw a cloisonné tray alongside, patterned with ivy and honeybees. There were little squares like fudge on the tray, wrapped in foil. Not aluminum foil but some thinner material that you could see through, like cellophane. I frowned and picked up one.
It was heavier than it looked, with a thick, perfumey smell. I peeled back a corner of the wrapping. The square beneath was sticky and dark, the color of burnt toffee and with the same faint sickly scent I had caught on Ali’s skin. As though it had hissed at me, I yelled and threw it as hard as I could across the room.
With a thunk it struck the projector, ricocheted off and landed somewhere in the shadows. The jerkily moving figures on the wall trembled, then continued their monotonous posturing.
“God damn it!” I picked up the tray and sent it skimming toward the projector. Silvery cakes flew everywhere. This time I made a direct hit. The projector thudded to the floor; a blue-white arc swept across the wall like a comet and disappeared. The projector lay on its side, reels grinding as its lens glowed like a small imprisoned moon. There was a flash, the stink of burning film. With a soft pop the projector’s lamp went dead.
I stared at it, a little fallen monolith surrounded by glints of silver where the opium cakes were strewn. My skin was cold and my heart beating much too fast. The wall hangings moved slowly in and out. A candle sizzled and there was a scorched smell, like burning hair.
From behind me I heard something walking; something far too big for that room. Its stride was heavy and uneven, as though it limped or dragged a broken limb. Where its head scraped against the ceiling chips of plaster fell. I held my breath as its shadow fell in front of me: the shadow of an enormous tree, branches like black lightning. It stood behind me, unmoving, inexorable. Finally I turned to face it.
It was not a tree, but a stag, the same monstrous creature I had seen slain upon the mountaintop. Its antlers curved upward, so huge it seemed they must hold up the massive roof of Bolerium; its legs like columns, ending in scarred hooves splotched black and green with lichen.
The stag lowered its head. Droplets of rain fell from the ridge of stiff hair upon its humped back, and I saw that one hind leg was badly wounded. Blood oozed from three long downward slashes in the matted fur. There was a shimmer of white within, the glossy pink bulge of exposed muscle. Its breath came in short bursts—huff huff huff—that smelled of sun-warmed bracken, goldenrod and yellow coneflower, hawkweed and beechnut. As it staggered toward me I cringed, helpless: it was too huge, it would crush me as it fell…
But it did not fall. Its shadow swept across me, and for an instant I felt its warm breath upon my face. When I looked up again, the great stag was gone. In its place stood Axel Kern. The emerald-green kimono drooped from his frame. A wreath of entwined ivy and grape vines sat crookedly on his brow, leaves tugging at his hair. Like the deer, he swayed slightly. His breath and even his sweat reeked of wine.
Yet when he reached to lay one hand against my cheek, his touch was steady and reassuring, the brilliant green-flecked eyes nearly incandescent; but not the least bit drunk.