Immortal Beauty (25 page)

“I need one hour alone with Mr. Hamilton so that we may get this interview completed today. Could you make sure we are not interrupted for any reason and then come and fetch me in sixty minutes?” Sophie grunted again as if incapable of intelligent speech. “Thank you Sophie. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” The maid looked at Celine strangely and then dawdled off into another part of the house. Celine rose and poured them both a brimming glass of water. Taylor had been eying the pitcher like a meth addict since the moment it arrived in the room. He was trying hard to control himself and noticed that his hands were shaking as he accepted the glass from Celine which made a heavenly tinkling sound as the ice collided with the sides.

“Thank you very much. I’ve just been so thirsty since I arrived in France. It must be some strange type of jet lag or something.” He didn’t look up as he finished talking and began drinking.

“Oh yes. I find travel dehydrates me terribly.” She agreed and held up her glass to his. “Here’s to a wonderful collaberation Taylor. I have a feeling that this is only the beginning of many great things for the both of us.” He raised his glass to hers begrudging another second that he couldn’t get more of the water down his throat.

“Cheers!” He said as gaily as possible. He drank. The water tasted so good and it was even better than he remembered. It was more crisp and more satiating than before. It was as if the stuff he had earlier was just a diluted version of what he was drinking now. In his opinion he thought she could get rich just selling this water. He felt so alive and so vibrant as if he could accomplish anything. He realized in that instant that she had been watching him closely. Observing him was a more accurate description of what she was doing. He looked at her curiously while silently questioning her.

“Do you notice a difference?” She asked giddily. “Oh please tell me you do!” She took another sip.

“As a matter of fact I was just thinking how this water is even more pure and somehow stronger if that’s the right word than the previous water I’ve had.” He was more than curious now.

“Yes. That’s it exactly! More pure. I had my technicians filter out all the unnecessary elements found in the mineral spring. It took a log time but I think this is it.” She was very excited and Taylor felt proud of himself for noticing the difference. She ranted on. “Pure. That is what I’m looking for Taylor. That is the perfect word. I’m so glad you noticed. Tell me do you like this water better?”

“I love it!” He realized he was almost shouting and found that her excitement was very contagious. “I almost feel like I’m recharged or re-energized by drinking it. If that’s even possible.”
“Oh yes. It’s the high mineral content. It’s off the charts as far as a naturally occurring phenomena. I was really very fortunate to stumble upon it before anyone else did.” She continued to drink. “More? Have as much as you like. I’m really flattered that you like it. You have no idea.” She laughed at herself and revealed to him in a loud whisper. “To be completely honest I was testing you. I wanted to see if you noticed a difference before you knew anything about the water. You were my lab rat and lucky for you you found the cheese at the end of the maze! You aren’t angry are you?” She was suddenly demure and it rang very false. Demure was one thing that Celine would never be. “Please tell me you forgive me!” She was being silly and coquettish now and Taylor had a hard time not playing along with her. The idea crossed his mind that she might actually be flirting with him but he dismissed it as ridiculous. She could have anyone she desired. Why would she bother with a lowly journalist? He held himself in check and thought of Sasha. He couldn’t wait to see her again and tell her everything he had seen and heard today.

“There’s nothing to forgive Celine. I feel like those people who line up to be part of the experiment. I want in!” He laughed and hoped he was playing it right. He wanted her desparately to drop her guard and now seemed as good a moment as any. Truthfully he felt a little afraid as if he really were a rat trapped in a maze. Ever since he had his first sip of the water it only made him crave it more. Was there such a thing as a mineral that was addicting? His brain was on fire and his thoughts were racing around faster than their usual light speed. It seemed like too many neurons were firing at once and he couldn’t keep his thoughts on any one subject. Celine continued to watch him and her face it up for reasons he could not guess.

“How are you feeling Taylor? Are you alright? You look a little flushed.” Her voice sounded so very far away. The sunlight was too bright all at once and every little sound pierced his consciousness so that it actually hurt. What the hell was happening to him? He thought he must be having a stroke or an aneurism. He couldn’t answer Celine. His fingers lost their grip on the glass and the sound of the gentle thud as if landed on the carpet was like thunder to his ears. Celine was saying something but he couldn’t comprehend it. Images began to flash in his mind. Images of people and places that he had never seen but he knew them all. There was the grand house on the hill from his dream and Helene, or was it Sasha was beckoning to him. There was a woman with incredibly light hair and violet eyes that was walking in the gardens of the very same house. Suddenly he saw vast plains in his mind’s eye. There were Indians on horseback riding madly to some unknown destination. They vanished and were replaced with a circle of Indians chanting together beseeching the sky above. This too vanished as quickly as it had appeared and he saw ancient Rome or so he thought and room filled with languorous people lying about feasting slowly on a banquet. Sasha was there too but she looked funny. Her hair and her make up were other worldly. They were all laughing and telling stories. The language was foreign but he found he could understand what they were saying. He was listening to his friend, a short and muscular man draped in rich robes describing how they had conquered a new land and had stolen the sacred waters of the pool of Locium. He pointed to a large container that was made from a light red clay with paintings in dark umber all around the vessel. All eyes were on him as he told the tale of a savage witch who guarded the waters and how they outsmarted her and managed to carry off large quantities of the mythical water before she could free herself from the trap they had set. The group laughed at his imitation of the savage. Suddenly the scene changed again and he was on a hillside with hundreds of soldiers. They were Roman soldiers and in front of him was a cave with a primitive woman screaming out curses at them in a language he had never heard before. Her eyes were wide with anger and terror as she tried to make them leave her temple. Her flaming red hair was all tangled in a mess of dirty curls. There was no mistaking it; the woman was Celine. He struggled to banish the images from his mind and for a moment he could see Celine looking at him with an expression of pity. This was it. He was going mad and this is what it feels like to go mad and to have no connection to reality. A great sadness swept over him followed by a feeling of dread. He wasn’t going crazy. This was far worse than insanity. He was beginning to remember! He was beginning to remember. This was his last thought before he passed out into blackness.

CONTACT

Sasha sat at her desk and willed herself not to think about last night. It was going to be difficult and she could not stop smiling no matter how hard she tried and she really needed to concentrate on what she was doing which was pretty much impossible. She sat there saying “Bonjour!” to the countless automatons in black who sailed past her desk all morning. She thought if she had to say it one more time she was going to explode. She loved the friendliness of the French people but sometimes she just wanted to be left alone with her work but this was perceived as being rude or a sign that something was terribly wrong with her. Nothing was wrong this morning. Every time she said “Bonjour” she meant it and it sounded great. After most of the workers were settled into their first and most important task of visiting with each other and catching up on the previous day’s events until a manager or the president herself rolled around at which they would instantly switch to business jargon. The funny thing is they were way more efficient than her fellow countrymen yet they managed somehow to keep the “joi de vie” alive and well in the workplace. Now she needed to find out everything she could about Celine D’Aumont before she saw Taylor again. She imagined herself working with him on this story and finding out some riotous fact about her early life that would crush her. It was insane this competition she felt with Celine and now she found herself hating any time that Celine and Taylor spent together. She was jealous of the interview itself. In one date she had turned into the most feminine of heroines in one of those cheap romantic thrillers she loved to read growing up. The books always took place in some exotic location and the main character always spoke three languages and ate things like caviar and canapés while saving the free world and falling in love all at the same time. They were ridiculous but to Sasha they were a lifesaver and when she couldn’t take small town American life any longer she could grab one of these books and sneak away into the laundry room on top of an old steamer trunk her mother had which Sasha had thrown blankets and pillows on top of and she would read until called to dinner and find herself back in her Midwestern world determined to escape. Her thoughts returned to Celine and what she would think if she knew that the woman she had just given a promotion to was looking for dirt on her which could be published in a huge magazine. There had to be a skeleton or two in her family closet, especially if she was from an old French family which Sasha suspected. Once she was sure that the people in her office were occupied she began her search. Her initial efforts revealed little other than what she already knew. Celine D’Aumont listed as the president of Celgen technologies was French but there was no reference to where in France she had come from. Sasha looked for over an hour and still found nothing. It seems that Celine appeared from thin air about ten years ago armed with and endless amount of money and a dream to build a beauty empire. Everything from that point on was well documented. Sasha looked in government records and utility companies and even colleges. There was nothing. In desperation she just typed in Celine’s name and waited for the thousands of listings to begin. There were many sites to choose from and one caught her eye about a Celine D’Aumont that lived in the eighteenth century. She was excited as she started reading and her heart began to beat faster as the facts appeared on her screen. She was a countess and had a glorious home in Paris that no longer existed and even played a part in the French revolution. She was known as a friend to the people and was spared her life in the Terror because she had harbored intellectuals and artists during that time. Sasha felt her blood turn cold. This was too much like her dream. She searched a few more sites looking for a picture of the woman. Finally she found an old portrait painted of the woman from the seventeen hundreds. The woman was dressed in a green gown full of elaborate designs and an endless amount of silk ribbon woven into the fabric. Her hair was done up in an elegant style swooping high up from her forehead. She wore a necklace of large emeralds with pearl and emerald earrings. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. This countess from France’s history looked exactly like Celine. It had to be her ancestor of course but this was uncanny. She went back and looked for the grand old house in Paris and saw that it had been situated on Rue Varenne which was the name of the street in her horrible nightmare. Nothing was making sense at all. How could Sasha have dreamed of a woman in history and her house before she knew anything about her and how could she have dreamed of Taylor in the same fashion? She didn’t believe in psychics as a general rule but now was beginning to have her doubts. Her mother would say that she had “the sight”. It was supposedly passed down by the women in Sasha’s family on her mother’s side. She went back to the portrait and could not get over how it looked exactly like her boss at a costume party. She tried to find out what happened to the countess. Apparently she disappeared about ten years after the revolution. Her house was closed and that was the last history ever heard from her. She was as mysterious as Sasha’s boss. Sasha was frustrated. None of this made any sense at all. She put her things down and reached for her cold cup of coffee. She leaned back in her chair and let her eyes scan the room. So far nobody noticed that she wasn’t doing any work. She looked out the window and couldn’t quite make sense of what she saw. It was the blackbird sitting on the ledge staring at her. It tapped three times on the glass before taking off. Sasha jumped up nearly spilling her coffee and she rushed to the window. She looked down to the street below and saw a woman dressed in a black cloak looking up at her. The bird was gliding downward to gracefully alight on her shoulder. The woman stood there without moving as if she were waiting for a sign and Sasha gave her one. She motioned for the stranger to wait and ran back to her desk to clear the screen before making her way out of the building. She mumbled something about more coffee to one of her managers who barely took notice of her and she ran out of the doors. She prayed the woman would still be there. Sasha wanted some answers and she wanted them now. She ran out into the sunlight and saw the woman sitting on one of the benches near the entrance. She looked bored waiting there all alone and unexpectedly Sasha found that she was angry at the strange woman with the bird. How dare she show up like this at her home and now her work to disrupt her otherwise perfect little Parisian life? What had she ever done to deserve this bizarre behavior from someone she didn’t even know? Maybe it did have to do with Celgen. The thought occurred to her that she might be some sort of corporate mole looking for an insider but this idea seemed so ridiculous she couldn’t really entertain it for too long. She stood in front of the woman who Sasha realized was very pretty in a soft feminine way with large violet eyes that gave her the appearance of being otherworldly. Sasha crossed her arms defiantly and waited. The woman slowly looked at her and gave off the most insincere smile imaginable. When she spoke her voice was a soft flat whisper.