Painted Blind (9 page)

To Eudora, he said, “In her world they call her Venus.”

I choked on a gulp of orange juice.

Aeas stuffed the last of his bread into his mouth. “I’ll send for the horses.”

“Aeas, what’s his name?”

He paused in the doorway and gave me a teasing smile. “I believe we’re calling him Erik these days.”

Grudgingly, I finished my eggs under Eudora’s wistful gaze.

I recognized the village from the frescoes in the palace. Several more shops had sprung up along the main road, and there were more house-lined streets in the rear. Still, it was recognizably the same. Even the people matched the likeness in the painting. The fashion of clothing hadn’t changed. Neither had their market. Yet, most of the frescoes were painted when the palace was built. That meant the village had been here almost two thousand years.

We landed at the edge of the town and dismounted. The horses pranced away and gathered in a field adjacent to the road. At least a dozen other winged horses mingled there. Like horses from my world they were a mixed assortment of sorrels and bays, a few white ones, a black and a grey. Each had its wings delicately folded at its sides. Individually, they were impressive. Collectively, they were downright spectacular.

With Aeas on one side and Eudora on the other, I walked tentatively down the cobble-stone street toward the first row of shops. Eudora carried a basket for the goods she planned to buy. Sensing my discomfort, Aeas promised to translate everything people said to us.

We were approached by one of the boys from the orchard—the oldest. “That’s not your pendant,” he said to Aeas.

“No, it isn’t,” Aeas replied with a smile.

The guy looked closer before the realization struck him, and his eyes widened. “I don’t believe it.” With an embarrassed laugh, he took my hand. “Forgive me.” He bowed and kissed the first knuckle of my hand. “Welcome, Lady.” After politely excusing himself, he ran down the street carrying the news.

Fear ran up my spine. This scene was looking familiar, like the one that began with someone shouting, “Stop that girl! She’s Venus!”

I grabbed Aeas’s arm. “Don’t take me into a crowd.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and steered me toward the shops. “It will be all right.” We went through a gate to the courtyard of the first shop. There cloaks, dresses and men’s half-length robes hung on display. A table nearby held colored sashes and sandals. “You should choose a cloak,” Aeas said. “The evenings are growing cooler.”

“I don’t have any money.”

He rolled his eyes. “You have no understanding of what it means to be a guest. They all know who to charge.”

Eudora took two cloaks from the rack. “You like them?” she asked in hesitant syllables.

“I like this one.” I held up a plum-colored cloak with gold trim. “What do you think?”

They exchanged a momentary look that I couldn’t decipher. “It’s expensive, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Aeas spoke briefly to the shop keeper, then turned to me. “Why did you choose that one?”

“I like the color. It matches the stones I’m wearing.”           

The shopkeeper draped the cloak over my shoulders and fastened the gold clasp in front. She gazed at the pendant and spoke to me in words I couldn’t understand.

“She says she would have embroidered more detail if she’d known you were destined to wear it.”

“Tell her I like it just the way it is,” I replied.

A small crowd had gathered near the shop. Women pretended to admire dresses and sneaked glances at us. When we turned to leave, a few of them approached. Aeas murmured a warning, then translated their words.

“We are so happy for you both,” said the first.

“We welcome you to the kingdom and pray for your happiness,” said another.

The third offered her question with a crooked smile. “Shall we plan a celebration for summer?”

Aeas reply was gentle, but seemed a rebuke nonetheless. He did not translate it.

“I don’t understand,” I said as he led me away.

“Weddings are a private matter, but usually there’s a celebration within the month after.”

“And in this case, it would be a big celebration?” I asked.

“A
very
big celebration. It’s been nearly three ages since he became eligible for marriage. Everyone wants to see him marry.” Aeas motioned to Eudora. “Finish your shopping, and we’ll meet you near the bakery.”

As she walked away, I lifted my chin toward a pair of young women at the jeweler’s cart, who eyed me with pinched expressions. “Everyone except them.”

Aeas followed my gaze. “The ocean would freeze before he would give his pendant to one of them. This way. You have to try the sweets at the bakery. They are like scones in your world, only better.”

After stopping at the bakery, we sat at a table in the village square. Aeas bought a pastry for each of us and wrapped a third in paper for Eudora. I broke off a corner of the treat and tasted it. It was so light that it melted the moment it hit my tongue. The soft flavors of citrus and cinnamon were baked into the buttery crust. “This
is
really good,” I admitted.

“There’s nothing like …” The friendly ease dropped from his face as a man approached us.

The man was a bit younger than my dad with strawberry-blonde hair and stunning eyes of the strangest color. Violet. Ignoring Aeas, the man touched the center stone on my forehead, an amethyst, and spoke to me in what sounded like Greek.

Through his teeth Aeas replied, and the man relented. He spoke to Aeas and let him translate.

“A gift for the lovely lady, with my congratulations,” the man said. He laid open a small wooden box that contained a pair of hair combs with diamond accents. I was no jeweler, but they looked real, and the gold was braided over the stones so delicately, I was sure it was done by hand, though I couldn’t figure how.

Aeas’s jaw clenched tight, and I tried to understand why.

“Thank you,” I said and Aeas gathered his composure enough to mutter my reply.

The older man bowed slightly and walked away.

An awkward silence followed. “That was nice of him?” I offered.

“It was sly of him.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s from another kingdom. Erik will not be happy that he spoke to you.” His eyes fell to the open box on the table between us. “The gift will not please him.”

Chapter 8

The sun sat on the horizon when we arrived at the palace. It would still be an hour before dark fully fell and Erik ventured back into my company. I went upstairs alone. I ran my hand along the wall to find the dial for the lights in the living room. Erik’s society didn’t have electricity, but the upper floor of the palace did. I learned from Aeas that Erik installed the system himself. He diverted a stream into the lower levels of the palace to create the bathing area, and the excess water fell to the valley floor after turning hydroelectric turbines. It wasn’t enough power to run a village, but it was enough for six rooms upstairs.

Sea air blew through the living room. The day had been pleasant, even with the strained encounter in the square, but it was all just a prelude that left me restless. I couldn’t sit.

At the far end of the room was a large cabinet, a built-in that looked like a closet. Curious, I crossed the room and pulled open the door. “Oh, yes!” I exclaimed.

Blessed be Erik’s love of my world. The cabinet contained a stereo, DVD player, and a flat-screened television. Six shelves on one side were lined with CDs, while the four on the other side were crammed full of DVDs. An iPod sat on the shelf in front of the stereo.

I scrolled through Erik’s music, found a song I really liked and set the iPod into the dock of the stereo. The acoustics in a plaster-walled living room weren’t great, but somewhere hidden around the room were surround sound speakers. Music flooded toward me.

The thumping bass soaked through my skin and ran into my blood. Outside day dimmed. I threw a glance over my shoulder. Below was only the orchard and the sea—no homes, no people. Though the windows were open, I was alone, and I let myself get lost in the movement of the music. I had never needed so much to break free from myself and live in a song. I experimented, letting my body remember lessons from long ago and testing the limits of my older, longer limbs.

Sweat trickled down my spine and dampened my waistline. The familiar chorus gave me predictable strings of chords. I danced until the music grew distant and finally still.

In the silence between songs, I heard laughter in the orchard.

How could I have been so stupid? Embarrassment ran hot through my arms and left me chilled. I switched off the music and doused the light.

It was Erik’s voice I heard next, low and indiscernible.

Aeas said, “Wait. There’s something I need to tell you.” He switched back into their language for the rest.    If I was going to visit often, I definitely had to learn that language so I knew what people were really saying about me.

“And he spoke to her?” Erik replied.

“In Greek.”

“What did he say?”

“A flourish of compliments, mostly of her beauty.”

Erik let out a growl. “Bastard.” When Aeas snorted, Erik added, “Oh, yeah. That’s me.”

“He gave her these.” I saw Aeas hand over the diamond hair combs. “She doesn’t want them if they make you unhappy.”

“What else did she say?” Erik asked.

“That he had beautiful eyes.”

Erik tossed the box back to Aeas. “Just what the old dog wanted, I’m sure.”

“You should let her see you.”

The reply was sharp. “Absolutely not.”

When Erik’s footsteps climbed the stairs, I was waiting on the couch trying not to look like a guilty eavesdropper.

“He wasn’t laughing at you.” He pulled me to my feet.

I didn’t want to talk about it.

“Honestly. You can
move
.” His hands inched lower on my waist, then stopped.

“I was a clumsy kid. A neighbor suggested dance, so Dad signed me up. Stayed in for seven years.” I muttered it all in a rush.

“You can dance for me anytime.”

I turned my face away and shook my head. That was the problem. I could dance perfectly in private but not for an audience.

“You have amazing body control.”

“Came in handy on the runway. Six-inch heels? No problem.”

“Six-inch heels,” he mused. “That would put us eye to eye.”

“You have eyes?”

He pinched my side. “And fangs and big burly paws.”

I touched his fingers, finding the metal band on his right index finger. “I’m terrified.” That wasn’t entirely sarcastic. I traced the curves of his arms to his shoulders and then ran my tentative fingers over his chest.

My breath caught. “You’re not…Where’s your…” I tried to back away, but he closed the gap between his hands and held on.

“Shirt?”

I managed some ultra-intelligent sound like, “Uh,” my mind scrambled by the feel of him, taut and smooth and so warm it made my fingers tingle.

“I was in the kingdom today.” He wore what all the men of this world wore—a waist-to-knee robe with a shoulder sash, but somewhere he’d ditched the sash. “Did you enjoy the village?”

“They
did
stare. I was having frat party flashbacks.”

“Poor thing,” he said, completely unrepentant. “Would you like to go to the beach?”

“Not if it means another dive off the balcony.”

“From the courtyard?”

“Sure.” I moved to the couch and felt around until I found my cloak, which I draped over my shoulders. The soft lining caressed my bare arms.

As we descended the stairs, Erik put his arm around me. “This is nice,” he said, fingering the cloak.

“You bought it.”

“I hope so. You’d disgrace me if I didn’t.”

After I climbed onto Pixis’s back, Erik slid his arms around me and held on tight. “I’m not going to fall,” I said. “I’m getting used to flying.”

He didn’t let go as we launched into the air. “I’m not the least bit afraid of you falling.”

Pixis landed in the cove with a great flap of his wings that threw mist in my face. Erik slid off and helped me down. Since the first moment when he appeared tonight, Erik kept at least one hand touching me. By never breaking contact, he didn’t catch me by surprise and make me shudder.

We wandered in silence. All day I logged questions I wanted to ask him, but as his shoulder brushed against mine, my curiosities drifted off insignificantly. It was enough just to have his fingers gently curled around my hand.

I tugged him toward the water, and he resisted.

“Give me your sandals and your cloak. I’ll catch up.”

I tossed him my shoes as he backed away. Then I ran toward the surf, hiked up my dress and let the waves crash into my knees. “It’s warm!” I exclaimed.

“The current brings the water straight from the equator. That’s why our climate is so mild.” He pulled off his shoes and set them on a rock out of the water’s reach.

“We aren’t near the equator?”

Beside me now, he answered softly. “We are at the same longitude and latitude as we were in your world.”

“Then they can’t be the same world, or the landscape would be the same.”

We continued walking where the water lapped at our ankles. “It’s a phenomenon no one can explain. We are the same distance from the sun, the same distance from the equator.”

“What about the stars?”

He slid his arm around me once again. “The stars are in the exact location here as they are in Bozeman, but where you have mountains, we have a sea. Where you have seas, we have vast continents of land. It is a mystery to even our brightest scholars.”

“Who’d have thought you could grow oranges in Montana?” I mused.

“Not exactly Montana, or Butte would be somewhere out there.” He pointed to the ocean.

All that showed of the moon in the overcast sky was the silver outline on the clouds. Erik stopped and tugged on my hand. We had wandered far, and I assumed he wanted to turn back. I turned, but he stood still and brought me into his arms.

“Does this bother you?”

“No,” I answered honestly. He was familiar to me now, and I relished the feel of his skin on mine.

Erik brushed his lips against my temple and lingered there before dropping his chin and softly kissing my cheek.

I turned my face to him, and our lips touched feather light and warm for an instant before he pulled back.

He didn’t quite push me away. It was more subtle, the way his hands dropped from my waist, and he put three or four gaping inches between us. It might as well have been a canyon, the way I felt the void open and myself falling into it.

Erik kept hold of my hand as we returned to the cove, but the intimacy of it was lost. I had overstepped the bounds, wanted too much, and the sting of his refusal rang in my ears louder than the surf. Embarrassed and confused, I wished he would disappear. If he would just vanish, I could curl up on the sand, cover my head and own my shame.

His gate quickened slightly, and his posture stiffened. “It’s late,” he said. He wanted to be rid of me.

Storm clouds threatened the horizon. The air smelled of rain. I could see nothing of his face, but I knew what was there: a strained jaw line and tight expression, the same things I felt in my own face.

I swung onto Pixis’s back without Erik’s offered hand, and when we landed in the courtyard, I entered the house before he left the grass. In my cowardly retreat I felt his dismissal like needles in my back.

“Psyche.” His voice softened now.

I stopped and listened. When he didn’t say more, I moved on without answering.

The wooden door closed behind me with a comforting thud. I leaned against it in the solitude of my room. His footsteps passed to his bedroom. The rooms stood too close together for the distance between us now. It had all been so fragile, the trust and the intimacy. One false step, and it was lost.

I rummaged through the dresser and found a modest nightgown, which I pulled on, then left the dress and the cloak and all of Erik’s gifts on the dresser by the door.

Pain, I could handle. Failure, too, was easy to live with, and loneliness was simply a fact of life for a girl so different from her peers. But misread intentions and offering something of myself that wasn’t wanted—that was unbearable. I crawled under the covers and closed my eyes. My only consolation was that I would never have to face him in the light of day.

I lay there unable to sleep and helpless to stop the silent trickle down my cheeks. Somewhere in the distance thunder bellowed, and a flash of lightning showed through the open window.

The door slid open, and Erik crept past. He closed the window and locked the latch, then turned and stood over me. I lay perfectly still and slowed my breath to convince him I was asleep. He sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh and touched my hair. When his fingers hit on a damp spot on the pillow, he drew a sharp breath and stood. I waited for him to slink away, but he drew back the blankets. He slid his arms under my shoulders and knees and lifted me to his chest.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I pushed against him, trying to wiggle out of his arms. Rain struck like hundreds of soldiers marching across the roof.

“It will storm like this for hours,” he replied as he carried me toward the hall.

“I can walk.”

“I know my way around the palace without looking.” The hall was completely black and so was the living room. Even the foyer downstairs had been closed off with heavy doors. I could see nothing as he moved toward his bedroom. When the door opened, the blackness stretched unbroken before us. He moved through the dark and set me against a pile of pillows on the bed.

Another clap of thunder rumbled on the mountainside, closer and more fierce than before. We were in the master suite, which hung over the cliff.

“Wouldn’t we be safer downstairs?” I protested.

“We’re perfectly safe here.” He moved to the other side of the bed and sat down, easily able to keep his distance, because the bed was huge. He waited in silence, then, “Here it comes.”

Suddenly a rush of water swept overhead. “What was that?” I asked. “It sounds like we’re under a river.”

“A waterfall,” he corrected. “All of the rooflines divert water over this room, where it runs off the balcony and falls into the valley. If you were standing in the valley, it would look like the palace disappeared completely under a wall of water.” With that he fell silent again, and I wondered if he, like me, was thinking of our botched embrace on the beach and those stupid tears on my pillow.

Apparently he was, because he said, “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

I forced a laugh. “I’m fine. Seriously.”

He touched my arm unexpectedly, and I flinched. He slammed his fist into the bed between us. “We were past this.”

I folded my arms across my chest. What right did he have to be angry? He was one who drew me closer and put his lips to my face. Refusal was my right at that moment not his, but somehow the whole thing fell apart.

He moved toward me. His hand felt around where my arm had been and didn’t find it there. He found my shoulder, slid his fingers down my arm and tugged on my elbow until I released my grasp. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“Whatever.” I tried to pull away, but Erik’s grip tightened.