A Circle of Celebrations Read online

  She couldn’t get past the feeling that eyes were on her. Not only the Blue Dog’s annoying gaze, but everybody. She used her mind trick on the ones she could see, flinging the charm right and left so they would look away and not see her any more.

  “I can’t stand it, Gib,” she said.

  “This town don’t want us any more,” he said. “We gotta leave. Our flight’s at eight, but we can sit in the airport for a few hours.”

  There was nothing left in the hotel room that they wanted, and they had been planning to skip out on the bill anyway, so they hailed a taxi on Royal.

  “Airport,” Gib said.

  “Sure thing,” the driver said. He was an elderly African-American with a pale, gray-taupe complexion. “You be there before you know it.”

  It seemed like every billboard they went by had a face on it. The eyes reproached her. She glanced under her jacket at her prized necklaces. They stared at her, too. Every bead had turned into an eye, but not human ones. Angel eyes. Or maybe God’s eyes.

  They crossed over Rampart heading northward. Irmani felt a lurch, as though all her guts had been yanked out of her body. She leaned back, moaning. She couldn’t even close her eyes. When she did, she saw masks. Not even the colorful dominos with the curlicues and the feathers. Just the eyeholes. Empty eyeholes, swallowing her up, swallowing her soul. One mask in particular haunted her: the ivory domino from the glass case in the Presbytere. It reproached her. She was a thief. She didn’t need those necklaces to live. They weren’t hers. They belonged to Mardi Gras, and Mardi Gras was over. She couldn’t do her mind trick on the mask, because it wasn’t human. It was speaking for the unseen spirit that was New Orleans.

  “What’s the matter, honey?” the taxi driver asked, his brown eyes on her from the rear view mirror. “You need me to pull over?”

  She nodded, unable to speak. He jerked the car to the curb, waving the vehicles behind him to go around. All the other drivers looked at her as she staggered out and threw up in the gutter. She knew what they were all thinking, as they pierced her with their eyes: a tourist who had had too much partying, but that wasn’t it. The driver and Gib each took one of her arms and helped her to sit on the curb.

  “Maybe you should give it a day, honey,” the driver said, sympathetically, patting her arm. “They won’t let you on the jet like that. Go on back. Maybe you can still get your room back. Everybody else’s leaving.”

  “We gotta go back.” Irmani looked up at Gib. “God’s not letting me get away with it. I have to give it up for Lent.”

  The image of the ivory mask stayed in her mind all the way back to Jackson Square. She almost crawled back into the Presbytere. The guards watched her with trepidation, but she felt as though her strength was coming back with every step she took back toward the glass case. It was locked, as she knew it would be. The only thing that stood between her and those empty eyeholes was getting those necklaces back into the display next to the tiara where they belonged.

  The curator was talking to a fat and prosperous couple that Irmani would normally have marked for a bump and grab, but all she could think of was the keys in the dapper man’s pockets. She waited until he shook hands with the visitors and sent them on their way, then

  “I found something that you want back,” Irmani said. She concentrated her talent on him as hard as she could. “I’m not responsible for taking them, you understand? I brought them back. That’s what counts. I brought them back. I gave them up.”

  The curator looked bemused but pleased at the strands of gemstones and gold that lay across his palms, though later he could never say for the life of him where they had come from or who he had been talking to. He took the keys out of his pocket and locked them away on the purple velvet next to the Comus crown and the lorgnette mask.

  Irmani felt as though iron bands had been unfastened from around her chest. She stood out in the nearly empty square in the bleak February sunshine and took deep breaths of damp, cool air.

  “Thank God,” she said.

  “What are you going to do now?” Gib asked. “We got four hours until our flight.”

  Irmani looked up at the cloudy sky and sighed. “We might as well go to church.”

  Lammas Night

  Sunflower

  Vinory dreamed again of the sunflower: tall, yellow-fringed, with a strong, thick stalk bowing slightly under the weight of its heavy head. Everything about the dream flower seemed normal, except that instead of tracking the sun throughout the day, its face followed her.

  There were plenty of sunflowers in the garden outside, but why would she dream about them instead of the roses or asters or herbs? All this place was new to her. She had come here only a few days ago. Glad for the promise of shelter against the coming winter, Vinory had not questioned too closely the circumstances under which the position of village wonder worker became vacant. Otherwise, she might have shouldered her pack and pressed on farther down the road, regardless of the holes in her boots.

  Now, those boots had fresh, entire soles, and winter receded to far away in the future. Moreover, there were whole woollen blankets on the feather bed, also blessedly hers, and free of vermin, thank all gods! The three-room cottage was not merely nice, but sound, well-proportioned, and well built. It smelled of dry herbs and dust, but what of that? Half an hour’s sweeping and dusting, and some of her own herbs scattered on the air or boiled for the scent had driven away the ghost of dead parsley and sage. The headman’s wife had made her guesting gift of oats, tea, honey, salt, a new loaf, some dried meat, and a small crock of wine, with the promise of good food every day. Whatever she needed, they would give. Somewhere, they told her, there was a black and white cat for company, but he tended to go about his business as he chose. This could be a nice sinecure, all the benefits to stay with her, or go, as she chose, if only Vinory would at least stay through until spring. The people of Twin Streams had no one else to weave the spells to protect them from the storm of the spirits who rode it. Their last mage had died in the spring. Vinory was a gift to them from the gods, and they treated her as such.

  The dream symbol of the sunflower kept preying at her mind. This was no ordinary bloom. It had a distinctively masculine presence, teasing at her with a faint, fresh-washed scent and the insouciant flaunting of mature sexuality. Did a god’s presence touch the house?

  If such a visitation was troubling her, she wanted to see it off! Vinory needed a whole mind and a whole heart to take care of the villagers. Some of them had been saving up a list of spells and nostrums they needed, against the time that this cottage would house a mage again. Vinory would be busy from morning ‘til night for weeks to come.

  O O O

  “Good morning, Mistress Vinory,” the headman said when she came to take care of his youngest daughter, who was suffering from night terrors. Bilisa also had a head cold and was breaking out in webbing between her toes and fingers from handling an enchanted frog, but those were quietish maladies, not calculated to make her scream in the dark and wake the house.

  “Now, think of something bright,” Vinory told the girl, a mite of six, with big dark eyes and long braids framing a pale, moon-shaped face. “Something that gleams. Keep it in your mind.” Vinory spun a disk of metal between her fingers, gathering sunlight from the beams that came in the window to store in the girl’s mind. “Think of yellow, like buttercups and primroses.”

  And sunflowers, a quiet voice said in the back of her mind.

  O O O

  When the girl’s mind was eased and her other problems treated, Vinory returned to her cottage and hearth. She mustn’t start thinking of the cottage as hers, she warned herself, as she started a pot of porridge to cook. The mage-born really belonged nowhere in this world. They were only loosely tied to physical existence. Love of possessions made it more difficult to travel across the Veil to accomplish their spells and curses. But how easily she could get used to earthly comforts! Her cup and bowl, spoon and knife looked very homey on the mant
el beside the goods of the departed Master Samon. The reflection the mirror showed her had silver threads showing near the scalp in the black wings of her hair; and fine lines ran in patterns on her weathered skin beside her dark blue eyes and the corners of her mouth. Her body would one day grow old. Would this not be a nice place to stay until the time came when she abandoned it? Hastily, she put the thought aside.

  Next to the hearth was a wooden chest that Vinory hadn’t dared to open as yet. It was unlocked, and the hasp was flipped upward as if its owner had been about to open it when.… The villagers said that the last mage had died unexpectedly. Could it have been poison, or was the latch made of a deadly metal? Vinory prayed to be shown the truth, whispering a few words to the void.

  The wind howled outside suddenly, making her gasp with its ferocity. But she saw no black spots or shining, sickly greenness on or about the lock or the chest to suggest that it would do her harm. She reached for it again.

  It seemed to her that a warm hand brushed hers when she pushed the heavy lid open. Cobwebs, Vinory told herself. You’re imagining things.

  To her delight the chest was full of books. That made sense. It was placed handily so one could reach for a book and read by firelight. Vinory hummed with pleasure as she took the clothbound volumes out one by one and laid them on the fleece that served as a hearth mat. There was a Geographicus Mundi, a handsome herbal in Latin, and several books of charms and spells. Some of the books were handwritten, all in the same strong, beautiful hand, and peppered with tiny illuminations. Among the goods on the wall shelves were pots of paint and brushes made of twigs and hair. Had these drawings been the work of Samon? Then he was a scholar and an artist! She was sorry now not to have met him. And now these lovely things were hers to use. Vinory felt an unexpected sensation of warmth, as if the house gave her its blessing.

  O O O

  The dream of the sunflower came again that night. The seed-heavy head leaned closer to her; its leaves rustling, whispering. If the flower had had eyes, it would be looking deep into her soul. The image grew larger until it took up all of her mind’s eye. Vinory woke in the dark, panting with fear. It wasn’t that she disliked sunflowers, she told herself, except that the damned shells kept getting stuck between her teeth, but what was the meaning of the recurring dream? She sought peace as she concentrated on it.

  Her mind had to be affected by some stimulus around her. Vinory thought again of the unseen hand that had touched her when she opened the box of books. It was almost as if someone had brushed her arm lovingly. She put her hands up into the shadows, feeling, sensing. The air was empty, as it was supposed to be.

  Movement near the fire startled her. Vinory sat upright to see what had thrown that shadow against the wall. No one else was in the room with her. It must be the cat, she told herself.

  No. The thought came unbidden. Vinory started.

  There was a consciousness here. Who—or what—was it? Vinory crawled from her bed and flung a cloak around her, determined to learn more. From her basket, she took a thin copper ring and a thread, and crouched by the fire. She set the pendulum spinning, catching glints from the faint embers.

  “Are you malevolent? Do you mean me harm?” she asked the pendulum. Without hesitation, the ring began to rock back and forth. No. Twice. And the shadow fluttered into the light again.

  “Who are you?”

  That question the pendulum could not answer. The intruder could have been from anywhere and any time in the beyond. Vinory reached outward with all the delicate fingers of consciousness that she used to touch the other side of the Veil. The presence seemed to have a connectedness to the place in which it was now. Was it an entity called here by the previous owner of the cottage, or an unfortunate spirit tied here by who knew what bonds? She couldn’t guess what had gone before. Perhaps in the daylight she could peruse the books and notebooks for a clue.

  An unexpected rush of air flowed past her cheek and brushed her hair. Chilled, Vinory crept back to bed and tucked the blankets around her.

  O O O

  She treated the presence with careful reverence, in case it was the tendril of a god’s mind. When Vinory rose in the morning, she greeted it, and put the first crumbs and drops of her breakfast on a dish to one side as an offering. If it was not a god, then it had another name, and she meant to find it out. As she worked on a charm for a spinning wheel for Lenda, the village fine-weaver, they chatted idly.

  “What sort of man was Samon?” Vinory asked, tying threads together through the spokes of the wheel.

  “Oh, he was a fine-looking man,” Lenda said, rocking her plump self back on her three-legged stool. “Not as big as some, but with white skin like a girl’s, and dark eyes and lashes that looked painted on. I wanted to picture him as a tapestry, but he wouldn’t let me make an image of him. Said it tied him down.”

  “That’s true,” Vinory said. “How did Samon die?”

  “Caught a chill sitting up for six nights in a row to cure a sick child,” Lenda said. “Or at least, that’s what I thought it must be. The next day, I was bringing him food, and found him. I thought he was sleeping, but he was dead. Not a mark on him. Such a shock it was.” Lenda clicked her tongue.

  “Six nights! Such devotion to healercraft,” Vinory said, impressed. “He must have been most caring.”

  “Oh, well, any man would do the same, since it was his child,” Lenda said, peering at the mage-woman under her heavy lids. “The girl he got it on was too young to marry, our headman said, but plenty old enough for dalliance among the daisies at the spring planting, in Samon’s eye. Said it was the god’s doing. He shouldn’t have taken her, but what could the parents say? You can’t make a cow back into a heifer.”

  “Oh,” Vinory said, disappointed. “Too true.” The wretch. Her image of a lost scholar and saint tarnished around the edges. Technically Samon had been correct. Mere mortals could not dictate whom the god said should play the spring queen in the planting dance, but one could temper his whim by leaving unwed children out of the range of choice. Had the god stayed around too long after the dance, and swept Samon away while leaving a thought-shadow in his place?

  “No, indeed,” Lenda said, reminiscing. She sounded fond of him, as she stared past Vinory through the door at the bright autumn sunshine. “Couldn’t keep his hands to himself, no, not if they were tied behind him. He needed a strong woman to keep him in line. Not that women here aren’t of sound mind,” she added, warningly, in case Vinory would think they were all vow-loose, “but none wanted to say no to him.”

  I could, Vinory thought.

  The presence teased at her the next day as she rooted through the cottage’s storerooms. It seemed to have a courtier’s manners, going here and there with her, moving aside while she was walking, crouching close as she knelt to examine a box or basket. It certainly was not a god, since when Vinory had chosen to ward herself the night before, she was not troubled by the dreams or the mysterious touch. Instead, Vinory could feel the presence hammering unhappily at the wards she had set up, pleading to come in until she drew a veil across her thoughts so she could sleep. Who or what could the presence be?

  “I don’t know whether it would have been a pleasure to know you or not, Master Samon!” Vinory said, sorting through a bag of dyed threads. “Dallying with children, though I grant you lived up to your responsibilities afterward. You stood right on the fulcrum of the Great Balance, didn’t you?” The presence said nothing, but she was beginning to feel that it might indeed be Samon lingering there.

  What had taken his life? Over the years, she had sat up many nights with patients. Sometimes she’d caught what disease they had, but she always manifested the usual symptoms. The women said there were no signs at all, and yet Samon’s soul had fled. Vinory’s mind spun with unanswerable questions. Could Samon have been ripped from his body by some powerful force? A curse? Could what happened to him happen to Vinory? Should she flee this place while she could? No wonder the townsfolk were so
desperately glad to have her stay.

  When she went to bed that night, she surrounded herself with wards and protections so thick that the cat couldn’t find a place on the bed. He hunkered down next to it, grumbling.

  The next morning, the sun poked a gleaming finger through the curtains of the cottage window and tickled Vinory’s nose until she woke up with a sneeze.

  Goodness, she thought. I hope I’m not coming down with Bilisa’s cold. A few experimental sniffs proved that her nose was clear. That was a relief.

  The cottage was tidied nearly to the homey stage. Vinory though that today she would ask the fuller or the blacksmith for a little polishing sand to shine up the fine metalwork that decorated the doors and cupboard fastenings. That would be the finishing touch that would make all perfect. She could perform some small service for the craftsmen in exchange, but so far everyone had been too shy to ask their due. The courtesy would pass soon enough, Vinory knew, so she would keep offering so as not to seem arrogant in her power.

  Vinory thought a slice of meat and some broth boiled from the dried meat would taste nice this morning. The black and white cat wound between her feet while she put the pot onto the fire and made her toilet for the day. She gave him a piece of the meat. He gulped it down and begged for more.

  “There, now,” she said, picking up a cloth to swing the hook holding the pot out of the fire, and flicked it at him. “You’ve had your bounty. Go and catch something for yourself. Fresh meat’s better for you anyhow.” The cat sat down and nonchalantly washed his shoulder to prove to her that he did’t care. Smiling, Vinory ladled broth into her bowl and took it and the remains of the loaf to the table.

  Beside her plate was a yellow flower. Vinory hadn’t noticed it before, but that did not mean it hadn’t been there when she arose. She was touched by the gesture, thinking that a villager had decided to show her a kindness by leaving her a posy of autumn flowers. Then she took a close look at the bloom. It was a daffodil. Another sunflower, not heavy with autumn, but fresh with the dew of springtime. She’d always known it as a gage of the laughing young god, in his youngest and most playful incarnation. And yet, she reminded herself that the dancer was also faithless, flitting from woman to woman, whoever would have him. There were no daffodils in the village. They withered by May. July was long past their season. Who had reached through time for this lovely thing?