Wolf Moon Rising (33 page)

hand beneath the strap down the girl’s naked back while he

kissed her neck and her breast beneath the thin fabric. Breath-

lessly, the girl said, “Have you ever kissed anyone the way you

kiss me?” and Quentin murmured something into her curly crop

of yellow hair while her white hands clawed his shoulders.

“You are like me,” he said huskily, “thoroughly wicked.

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When I saw you in there entertaining a whole roomful of men,

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Lara Parker

I was driven mad with jealousy.” She laughed and pressed her

body into his.

David looked over at Jackie. She was captivated. He started

to speak again, “Quentin—,” but Jackie quickly placed a hand

over his mouth, still watching the lovers with intense fascina-

tion.

“We can’t make love here,” Quentin whispered, “let’s go for

a drive,” and she nodded with a dev ilish smile. David and Jackie

watched in amazement as the girl threw the car in gear, backed

up in a quick reverse, and sped off down the road with a roar

and a screech of gravel, like outlaws chased by a posse.

“Th

ey stole the car,” said David, dumbfounded.

Jackie giggled. “I think it must belong to her.” She grinned

at him, her eyes wild. “So, there’s nothing you can do now. We

have to stay!”

“Jackie, please talk to me. What do you think is going on?

It’s like we’re walking around in a movie or something.”

Jackie laughed. “Silly. Haven’t you fi gured it out? We went

back in time. It’s the twenties!”

“But how did
we
do that?”

Jackie shrugged. “In that old- fashioned car.”

David shook his head. It was too hard to believe. “But

why?”

“Because we were searching for Quentin’s portrait.”

David thought a moment. “Th

at man Blair said something

about going back in time through a séance. To the year 1929 . . .”

“Th

at must be where we are.”

“Do you think the painting is here?”

“I don’t know . . . maybe . . .” She looked around her. “Th

ere

are spirits wandering around Collinwood, and we have dis-

turbed them. And there’s something we need to fi nd out! Some-

thing about these buildings, or your family, or . . .”

David turned to look at the facade of the Great House, the

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house where he had lived his whole life and was to inherit:

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Collin wood. Th

e tower room where he had spent his childhood

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rose above him, the gray stones smooth and gleaming, and he

could see the window from where he used to look out at the sea.

“But what if we’re stuck here?”

She laughed. “Oh, David, don’t worry. We just have to fol-

low the clues.”

“And if Quentin brings the car back, I guess we should stay

close to it.”

She nodded. “I’m sure the car will take us home.”

“Let’s go back inside,” he said. “Maybe we can fi nd some-

thing familiar, a secret door or something.”

But Jackie had already disappeared through the front

entrance.

When he found her, she was in the library— a room the fam-

ily rarely used— sitting at a desk with a woman who, from her

colorful dress, appeared to be a gypsy. Strange, he thought, until

he realized she might be part of the entertainment at the party.

When Jackie saw him, her face lit up with an impish smile.

“Come see,” she said. “I’m having my fortune told.”

Th

e gypsy looked up at him, her gaze so intense it gave him

a chill. He hesitated and a shudder of foreboding passed through

him. “She can read the future,” whispered Jackie. “We should

ask her about the portrait.”

Th

e gypsy was bathed in the amber light of a desk lamp,

and her many beads and amulets glittered like metal rainbows.

She was swarthy and handsome, with sharp features and copper

eyes set very deep under arched brows. In the lamp’s glow the

angular planes of her face formed and reformed themselves as

though she were made of liquid bronze. Some of her dark hair

was gathered into a turban of indigo silk shot through with gold

threads, but black curls fell about her face. She wore gold bangles on her wrists, and gold hoops hung from her ears.

“Sit down, young man,” she said in a husky voice that al-

most seemed familiar and he wondered whether he had met her

somewhere before. “My name is Magda.”

—-1

Looking around the library, David was conscious of the

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massive walls of books that seemed to be falling in on him,

their red and brown leather bindings oppressive. He realized

that he had spent very little time in that room. It was his father’s retreat, and he wondered at the luster on the leather spines, the

gold embossing so bright. Th

e books he remembered were faded

and dusty.

He had a vague memory of a secret door Roger had shown

to him when he was a boy behind Dante’s
Inferno
beside a large family edition of the Holy Bible. Impulsively, he walked over

and, fi nding the slender red book beside the Bible, he pressed

on it, hard, feeling a faint click. Th

e wall shifted with a creaking

sound and, to his astonishment, slid open slowly, releasing a

blast of cold air and revealing a hidden corridor. Th

e gypsy was

watching him with an amused smile on her face.

“I see you know this place,” she said.

He nodded. “I think I used to live here,” he said, and then

laughed. But leaning inside the passageway, he could see it was

lined with dozens and dozens of bottles of whiskey in rows

that stretched as far as he could see in the dim light. However

did those end up there? Shaking his head in confusion, he

pressed the book and closed the portal again, admiring the

clever way the wall folded up and hid the opening behind

the silent volumes.

Th

e room grew darker as if a candle had been extinguished

and the fragrance of vanilla and cloves rose to his nostrils.

Magda’s eyes were shadowed but eager as she motioned to him

to sit down beside Jackie.

“You are together, no?” she asked, and she nodded at Jackie,

all the time keeping her piercing gaze focused on David as if

drawing him into her circle of light. He could hear voices outside

the door of others waiting for her ser vices, and he felt uncomfortable under her gaze, but he could tell Jackie was intrigued.

“We want to know,” Jackie said breathlessly, “about the

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meaning of— of a lost painting.”

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Th

ere was a spark in the gypsy’s eyes and she shifted in her

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chair. “What kind of painting can this be?” she asked. Her voice

was throaty and her accent thick. Hungarian, perhaps.

“It’s of a man wearing a uniform.”

She frowned. “How is it lost?”

David chimed in. “It was left in the basement when a house

was being restored and then— and then, we think it ended up in

a graveyard.”

“I see.” Magda turned her gaze to Jackie. “And whose por-

trait is it painted there?”

“His name is Quentin,” said David, answering for her.

“Quentin Collins. He’s a member of my family.”

Th

e gypsy woman caught her breath. “Quen- tin Col- lins?”

She drew the name out slowly as if savoring each syllable. “Your

family?” Her black eyes gleamed. Th

en she drew her hand across

her forehead and lowered her head. Th

e bangles on her wrist

tinkled softly, and a musky odor rose off her. “And this painting is missing, you say? Hopelessly lost, or only misplaced?”

“We don’t know,” said David, covering. “It may only be

damaged.”

Magda’s eyes darted from Jackie’s face to David’s and back

again. “I will look for you,” she said, and then she was all busi-

ness.

Her crystal ball, which was large and opaque, rested on the

table in front of her. She lifted her hands above the globe, and

her body began to tremble. Her lips moved silently, and she

peered deeply into the sphere cupping her hands around it, her

breath misting the glass. Even though Jackie was mesmerized,

David found the per for mance bizarre.

Th

e woman closed her eyes and fell into a trance. Her breath

grew shallow and whistled between her lips, and her shoulders

hunched as she hummed what David thought must be an incan-

tation. He began to feel warm, and embarrassed for the gypsy

whose methods were so obviously a sham. And he became even

more anxious to leave.

—-1

He leaned over to Jackie. “Let’s go.”

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“Wait.” She put a hand on his arm. “Do you see it?” Jackie

asked softly.

But the woman merely droned on, her lips fl uttering in her

dark face, and fi nally David was able to make out the words. “A

curse,” she muttered, “a beastly curse. A curse that is revealed

when the moon is full.” David and Jackie exchanged glances.

“We were right,” Jackie whispered.

Th

en the trembling abated, and the gypsy’s trance seemed

to come to an end. With some rocking and touching her fi ngers

to her forehead, she slowly regained her composure. David looked

at her in amazement. What had she seen?

“What did you mean by a curse?” he asked. But the gypsy

turned indiff erent and pushed the crystal ball to the side.

“Never mind, children,” she said in a dismissive tone, dust-

ing off the top of the desk with her hand. She leaned into them

both in a conspiratorial manner and David could see the dark

yellow on her teeth from smoking strong tobacco. “You are only

beginning your life’s journey. And you must forgive me because

I cannot waste my time looking for lost paintings.”

Magda rose abruptly from her chair and turned to a colorful

sack on the settee. She wore a long full skirt of many panels of

various colors and textures. A deep fl ounce at the bottom was

trimmed with a fi nal border of dust. “Let us turn to the tarot,” she said with a hint of weariness. “Th

ese symbols which will guide

you from this point on.” And she took out a deck of brightly col-

ored cards and returned to the desk.

“Oh, my mother does the tarot,” said Jackie.

Th

e gypsy eyed her with disdain. “Does she really?”

With a practiced fl ick of one hand, she spread the cards

facedown on the scarlet cloth, forming a fan. “Choose,” she said.

“Concentrate and choose. But fi rst, a few coins?” And she held

out an open palm. David realized she was asking for money and

he had none, even though, in pretense, he dug into his pocket for

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change.

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“Please David,” said Jackie. “Don’t you have anything?”

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Luckily he found a folded dollar bill in his shirt, and he

handed it to the gypsy whose face dissolved into a greedy grin.

She unfolded it and fl attened it out as if it were a fortune. “Now you may each choose two cards and turn them over.”

Jackie reached her hand out over the deck and then with-

drew it self- consciously. She looked over at David and said,

“You go fi rst.”

David felt restless again. Th

e couple might have returned

from their drive, and he and Jackie were wasting a chance to

fi nd the car by staying with this crazy fortuneteller. “Let’s get

out of here,” he said to Jackie.

But Magda reached out and took his arm. “Choose,” she said.

Th

e cards were old, their edges frayed, and they seemed to

emanate a subtle power, a whisper of secrets, as he ruffl

ed them,

selected a couple, and turned them over. Th

e pictures meant noth-

ing to him but Magda’s face lit up. She smiled and pointed to a

card with a young man in a fl owered jerkin “Perfect,” she said in

a slightly nasal voice that for one absurd moment reminded him

of Dr. Hoff man. Her bracelets tinkled as she picked up the card.

“Th

is is a good card for you.”

“Why is he wearing a dress?”

“Th

is is the Jester,” she said, “sometimes called the Fool, in

colorful motley clothes, a pack tied to a staff , a small dog, and . . .

a precipice!”

“Yeah, I see the cliff .” David shrugged and grinned at Jackie.

“I guess I am a fool,” he said. “I’m the one who got us lost.”

“Pay attention, young man, and you might learn some-

thing,” the gypsy said sharply, and David felt he had been chas-

tised. “With all his worldly goods in his pack, the Fool travels

he knows not where. So fi lled with visions and questions, he