At midnight, I looked out at the lake, and there she was, the Lake Goddess, riding the white horse circling in front of the cabin, but she didn’t come ashore. “She’s looking at something or looking for something. What is it?” I asked out loud. “Levade is going to have to tell me what the hell she’s doing.”
* * *
Early the next morning, I walked to the Point through the woods. Not hard, I thought. I just need to keep the lake on my right in eyesight. Farther into the dense part of the forest, I momentarily lost my bearings. I reached a fork but could no longer see the lake and didn’t know which direction to take, so I headed for what I thought would be the shore as a cool wind picked up. A tall woman with European features, in jodhpurs and riding boots, intersected my path, startling me.
“If you’re looking for the point, it’s that way,” she said.
“You were on the plane! Angelique.” I was so happy to see her.
“I fly occasionally.”
“I’m sorry, but I thought everyone said you were no longer alive.” I glanced in the direction she’d indicated, and when I looked back, Angelique was gone. I was stunned, and the hair on my neck stood up. That’s way too creepy!
I headed in the direction she’d indicated, ending up in front of a long, rambling cabin with a nearly opaque screen, muting the glow of a long strand of tiny lights, making the place look more like a waterfront restaurant than someone’s home. The water’s edge was directly behind me and across from the porch steps.
Levade lay stretched out on an old slat swing, anchored to the ceiling by silver chains. She rocked above the worn and weathered porch boards and didn’t get up, but spoke through the screen.
“The writer from New York who has writer’s block.” She seemed to enjoy saying it, mocking the small town’s way of labeling people.
“What if I don’t have writer’s block but simply don’t have anything more to say?”
She poked fun. “Spoken like a Buddha.”
The two dogs were at attention, looking at me as if I were a squirrel they might need to decapitate.
“I assume the dogs are safe?”
“Why would you assume that?” She grinned.
I made no further attempt to approach them. “If I’m the Buddha, although that does seem to throw shade on my belly fat, then you’re the lady of White Horse Point, whose horse avoids roads.”
She stood suddenly and opened the screen door. “I’ve known for a while you were coming.”
I have no idea what that means, I thought. Coming over to see her, coming to this town, coming into her life?
Her tone switched to flat and business-like, as if to warn me away. “You would change everything, and I don’t see how that’s possible now.”
Despite her tone and the words she was saying, I felt like she wanted me to talk to her but was fighting the urge. She liked me but didn’t want to, was even angry with herself for liking me.
“What do you mean that I would ‘change everything’?”
“We’ll both know soon enough,” she replied, and I didn’t know what to say about that, so I stuck with what I did know.
“In the hardware store, you answered Frank on my behalf. Why?”
“Because I know him and you don’t.”
Nothing to argue about there. “I’m just curious because you silently paddle in front of my cabin—”
“I can quit doing it,” she said with a grin, as if it didn’t matter to her one way or the other.
This wasn’t going well. “Why do you do it? I mean, late at night in the lake instead of daylight on the road?”
“Too many cars on the road. Alizar isn’t fond of cars. And I can see your parking area under the pines from there. And no one on the road can see me.”
“I see.” My mind registered that she must be an eccentric. Nonetheless, I wasn’t too happy about the cold reception. After all, she showed up at my cabin, and we’d spoken, even laughed together, and I’d treated her with respect, so why was she being so haughty? “I suppose you’re sort of the self-assigned lake patrol and security detail. Well, then, thanks for caring, but I think I’m safe. Nice chatting. See you on your next lap…from a distance, of course.”
I turned to head back into the woods, sorry I’d given the woman that much of me. She is mercurial and rude…and sexy, I thought. Probably her aloofness makes her sexy. Or the way she carries herself in that straight, stately posture, as if she’s the fucking queen of the pines. As if on cue, the pine needles overhead brushed up against one another in the wind and, like an ethereal broom, literally swept me back around.
“I’ve met your aunt, at least I think it was your aunt—twice.” I had no idea why I said that. In fact I felt like Angelique was whispering in my ear and making me speak.
“She told me.”
“So your aunt’s still alive.”
“No…and yes.”
I paused to take that contradiction in. I believed in ghosts in the abstract, but ghosts who insert themselves into your life were, if not unbelievable, at least chilling. Nonetheless, I’d talked to some woman named Angelique who looked absolutely real. “She told you she met me? What did she tell you about me?”
“She likes you, but of course she’s operating from a different plane.”
“Well, you should listen to your aunt. I think she’s a pretty damned good judge of character.” I spotted the tarot card symbol tacked to her porch post. “You do readings?” I don’t know why I asked a woman who didn’t seem to want me around to do a reading for me. She could fuck it up just to torture me. Tell me I’ll be dead in three weeks or that I’ll lose my mind and remarry Ben.
“Would you like me to read for you?”
“I didn’t bring my wallet. Maybe next time.” My chance to escape.
“My ‘welcome to the woods’ gift.”
She joined me on the wide porch steps, signaled the dogs, and they ignored me, going back to sleep under the porch swing. From a black velvet bag, she extracted a deck of worn tarot cards. “Concentrate on what you want to know, relax your mind, and draw several cards.” I was fixated on her long, slender legs and perfect breasts, and on the light on her features that turned her from woman to man, and girl to woman.
I did as she asked, thinking at this very moment, I would like to know if I will ever find someone I truly love. I don’t know where that thought came from. Only last week I’d made a pact with myself to trade true love for fame and fortune.
She touched the cards and stared at them for several minutes. Then she took my hand, turned it skyward, and brushed her fingers across my palm, and the wind trailed after her touch. My skin tingled all the way up my arm and onto my neck, my blood pressure skyrocketed, and I thought I’d pass out. She looked at my palm carefully, slowly drawing her index finger down every line in my hand.
“You’ve never really known love. You are in constant conflict with men. You’ve been waiting…for something or someone. It’s in front of you now…right here.” She pointed to a card with a queen on it. “But danger is associated with it. Some risk. That’s all I see.”
“What kind of danger,” although I didn’t care what kind. I just wanted her to keep holding my hand. Why do I want this strange woman to keep touching me?
“Your voice has been hiding in your work. It’s public yet silent. Until you ‘say it,’ you can’t ‘have it.’” She dropped my hand, got up, took her cards and went back onto the porch, then disappeared into the darkened house.
Well, that was a rude good-bye. I sat for a moment mulling over her mysterious words. What am I not saying? Then I walked into the woods. I could make out a muted image of a car slowly passing by on the road behind her cabin, and I stopped. Maybe she’s in danger herself. Maybe I just don’t like the idea that she has other friends. I’m not her friend. I don’t even know her.
The car disappeared down the road, but I stayed and watched as she came back out onto the porch, opened the black velvet pouch again, and extracted the worn cards, which she laid out on the table. Drawing three, she stared at them and finally shook her head from side to side as if telling herself no, then said something that sounded like “too dangerous.”