It was gone. Oh, the moon was there, all right, but not The Moon: only a whitish blur hanging above the trees. There were no stars, no eyes; nothing but that pale scar in the bruised sky. As I stared, a thick brown haze encroached upon it, slow but relentless, until at last the moon was gone. Where it had been a smudged cloud gave forth a dull incendiary glow against the lowering darkness.
“No,” I whispered. When I looked at Angelica I saw that she was watching me, her gaze intent and not a little frightened. She opened her mouth and for an instant I thought she would explain, or at least apologize. But she only looked away again.
A moment later her voice came to me softly more imploringly than before. She drew close to me, rested her hands upon my shoulders, and whispered, “Do you still want to come?”
I said nothing. Instead I tilted my head to the sky, eyes shut, and listened, wondering how I could ever have thought the night was silent. Distant traffic, far-off laughter, and voices not so far, the pleading whine of a siren fading into the tossing leaves.
And once more I felt that faint eerie music, truly felt rather than heard it—a deep wild note that hummed through me, resonating within my chest as though I were a drum that had been struck. I trembled, with fear and expectation and yearning. All the exhilaration and uncertainty I had felt over the last few days hardened into a single thought, a small cold nugget that might some day crack and yield an explanation for what was going on. I had had a glimpse of what might be behind all of this, an intuitive flash that told me Yes, something really is happening here, and Yes, you can leave now if you’re afraid, and Yes, this really isn’t your life anymore.
Because in my life the moon did not call out my name. Angels didn’t appear in my room at night and leave their plumage upon the floor. Eerily beautiful boys and girls didn’t befriend me, and I didn’t hear distant music like bones and flutes. In my life I would gently take Angelica’s hands from my shoulders, then turn and walk away from the Mound. I would go to call my parents, or return to my room to study and maybe make some other new friends, misfits like Annie or myself who had been let into the Divine by mistake.
But this wasn’t my life anymore. I knew that. Because I only nodded, and raised my hands until they closed around Angelica’s.
“Yes,” I whispered, my fingers tightening about her wrists. The sound of bones and flutes died away into the laughter of others coming up behind us on the path. “I’ll come with you, Angelica. Of course, you know I will.”
CHAPTER 6
The Reception
GARVEY HALL WAS A domed Italianate villa dating from the mid-1800s, with kudzu-wound porticoes and twisted cedars hunched against the crumbling walls.
“Look at that.” Angelica sighed rapturously. “It’s like a set from Les Enfants du Paradis.”
I thought it looked more like Tara on bad acid, but Angelica didn’t waste time discussing the architecture. Instead she swept past the dozen or so people scattered about the patio and on into the crowded reception.
I hesitated. Inside all seemed to be smoke and scarlet and gold, with touches of black and white where groups of tuxedoed men bowed their heads.
I can’t go in there, I thought. But Angelica was already in there, smiling and nodding. So I hurried to catch up, my bootheels echoing loudly on the parquet floor. I was sure that someone would stop me, question me, ask to see my invitation.
But Annie’s comment about Angelica conferring invisibility was borne out. No one noticed me at all.
“Just act like you belong here,” whispered Angelica as I clunked past an aged monsignor chatting with a young man in a kilt.
“Oh, sure,” I muttered, but Angelica only grinned. The monsignor started in annoyance as we elbowed our way past, only to beam when he saw Angelica smiling down at him.
“Hello, dear,” he murmured. The boy in the kilt eyed her appraisingly before turning to his companion. Angelica and I went on.
It was an enormous round room, with faux marble walls and columns, parquet floors, a frieze of fanciful creatures circling the high ceiling around the dome’s perimeter. From somewhere rose the sweet strains of a string quartet. There was no air-conditioning, and the heat and humidity were intensified by the smoke. I felt as though I were swimming through some warm grey pool, washed by currents of expensive pipe tobacco and perfume and the fumes of about seventeen different kinds of exotic cigarettes, including clove, camphor, and what could only be hashish. Everyone smiled at Angelica, one or two of them greeting her by name. A few people even smiled at me. I smiled back, trying to put all of my charm and energy into my teeth, so they wouldn’t notice my clothes.
And everywhere I looked in vain for Oliver. I remembered what he had said about the Molyneux scholars—
“What are they?”
“Magicians—”
Though if anything, this looked like an assemblage of some very wealthy if eccentric alumnae, with a few flushed undergraduates and faculty members thrown in for good measure. And, whatever the Molyneux scholars were, they gave a loose interpretation to the term Formal Attire. I saw tuxedos of every vintage, as well as morning coats, evening gowns, beaded miniskirts, tribal robes, kimonos, velvet yarmulkas, and every kind of ecclesiastical attire, including a woman who appeared to be wearing a cardinal’s biretta and dalmatic. What I did not see was anyone else wearing a Blue Cheer T-shirt and black stovepipe jeans tucked into battered cowboy boots.
“I’m dying of thirst,” Angelica announced. She paused, smoothing her dress against her thighs, and peered through the smoke. “Come on—”
The bar was a long mahogany-and-brass affair that might have been imported from a 1920s cruise ship. Behind it a phalanx of harried undergraduates in ill-fitting white jackets poured drinks and opened bottles of champagne. I got a vodka tonic; Angelica took a fluted glass of mineral water. Then we walked to the end of the bar and staked out a spot by the wall. Angelica leaned back so that her dress rode up her legs, her stockings and high heels stark black against the creamy painted marble. I stood beside her and knocked back my vodka tonic.
“Nice bunch of folks,” I said, crunching ice cubes. “You think Oliver’s coming?”
Angelica shrugged, but I noticed how her gaze kept darting about the room. I was thinking of getting another drink when I spied a stocky figure off by himself, smoking a cigarette as he leaned against a medieval-looking tapestry.
“Hey! There’s that guy from Warnick’s class—what’s-his-name, you know—”
Angelica turned quickly, then nodded, disappointed. “Oh, him. José Malabar. He kept hitting up on me at orientation. He’s a commuter, lives here in D.C. with his parents.”
“And he’s a Molyneux scholar?”
“Yes—one of his brothers was, too. He’s an English major. Writes poetry. He showed me some of it.”
I rattled the last ice cube in my glass. “Any good?”
Angelica grimaced. “Not really my taste. Sort of raw. But it was okay.”
I looked back at the dark figure. He nodded and lifted his cigarette in greeting.
“Listen, I’m getting another drink,” I said. “You want something?”
“Maybe in a minute. But I’ll get it myself.”
At the bar I smiled gamely at the guys pouring drinks.
“You know her?” one asked, pointing his thumb at Angelica.