ELEVEN

WE SAT IN silence for a while, my sad memories falling like a dark curtain between me and the immediate present.

“How did Richard react to all this?” the detective asked softly. His voice was a gentle intrusion, soft fingers parting the heavy drapery tentatively, permitting only a slim ray of soft light to invade my melancholy reverie.

“He went from sorrow to anger and rage. You’ll find pages and pages in the diary describing his rampages through the city, pursuing every shadow, following every distorted-looking, evil-appearing thing in hopes of trapping the Evil Eye. He went everywhere, driven by his mad energy—from the slums of East L. A. to the streets of Santa Monica. For some reason he thought the devil would take refuge in the body of a homeless person. Richard went charging down Ocean Avenue, pausing before every lost soul to search his or her eyes, probably leaving the poor soul thinking he or she had just looked into the face of hell, rather than vice versa.

“Finally, he calmed down long enough to return so I could metamorphose and properly mourn our mother’s death with friends.”

“How did you determine which of you would attend the funeral?”

“It wasn’t hard; he was in no condition to be seen in public. Afterward, he went to her grave privately. He still goes there often. He suffers from guilt, believing he should have done more to protect her. He forgets how difficult it was for him even to spend time with her during those dark final days,” I added, smirking as if he were sitting across from me and I were reminding him of how he had left me with the problems.

“It was a big funeral. I suppose just about every androgynous being in the city attended, huh?”

“Most did.” I turned to him. “You sound like you were there. Were you?”

“I have to confess I was somewhat infatuated by celebrities in those days and attended in hopes of seeing movie stars.”

“Many put in an appearance, as well as important politicians, businessmen.”

“I remember seeing you,” he added smiling. “And Alison. She was at your side and looked as upset as you were. I recall thinking you were sisters.”

“Yes. My mother’s death was the catalyst for our reunion. Actually, Alison was a great help to me, as was Nicholas. He and Richard patched things up as well.

“But,” I said, “Richard was never the same after our mother’s death. He became far more bitter and that bitterness found its expression in a nihilistic hedonism. He became gluttonous, lecherous, gorging himself on sex, no longer hunting simply to satisfy our biological needs. He would take any kill, make love on a whim, pursue any woman no matter how old or how young.” I sighed, the horror of those days washing over me, weighing me down with bad memories. “And then came his many homosexual experiences.

“It’s all in the diary,” I added sadly, “including his heavy use of cocaine, the orgies he attended, his disgusting ménages à trois.”

“Didn’t all this have a detrimental effect on you?”

“Eventually. I began to resist metamorphosing to keep him in check, but we couldn’t go on like that indefinitely. Finally, after consulting with Mary, I left Los Angeles and went to an ashram. The meditation and simplicity brought us both the inner peace we needed.

“Is this a retreat solely attended by Androgyne?”

“Yes.”

“In California?”

“No,” I said. “In New York.” I wasn’t any more specific because it was still strongly in me to protect my kind, and I couldn’t see why it mattered to my detective anyway.

“Well,” he said, “it must have helped. You returned to Hollywood and became an even bigger star.”

“Yes, for a while I thought of nothing but my acting. It was another refuge, although I never stopped missing Janice and Dimitri. I miss them terribly even now. I suppose one dramatic result of their death was my growing dependence on Richard and his growing dependence on me. As funny as it might sound to you, we became even closer, even more tuned in to each other’s needs.”

“More so for him, however.”

“Why do you say that?”

“His reaction to your developing a relationship with an inferior man. He resented anything or anyone who would come between you, especially if, as you say, you fell in love with this man.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “Of course, you’re right.”

“How did that happen? I mean, how could you…”

“Fall in love with an inferior?” I smiled to myself. “Maybe Richard was right—maybe it was just another way of trying to deny my essence.

“Soon after I received my Academy Award nomination, my agent suggested I employ Michael as my publicist. He had an excellent reputation and was considered more of a quality performer’s publicist, getting me seen in places and mentioned in columns that catered to a higher clientele.

“We spent a great deal of time together, first so Michael could get to know me and know how to publicize me, and then because we grew fond of each other’s company. I found him a very sweet and gentle man. Despite the fact that he lived and worked in this mad, hyper world of glitzy glamour, he had an almost angelic peace about him, a quiet, religiously peaceful aura. He had a way of shutting out unpleasant static. Right from the beginning, I felt comfortable and relaxed with him.

“Even our lovemaking was different—we explored each other with soft eyes, always conscious of each other’s needs, never selfish, never demanding.”

“It’s hard for me to believe that an animal lover like you would find that satisfying,” my detective said suspiciously.

“I know. I suppose in a true sense, Michael became another refuge for me. I could go to him after making wild passionate love and fall asleep in his arms with nothing more than the exchange of a loving kiss, if that’s all I wanted.”

“Did he know you had come from making love with another man?”

“Yes.”

“And he was not jealous or disgusted? He still cared for you?”

“He loved me, truly loved me. He was understanding, compassionate.”

“I don’t know if that’s love,” my detective mused aloud. “It sounds more like a form of therapy.”

“Perhaps that’s all love is.”

He looked at me sharply.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Love is merely a bandage, an oasis in hell, a raft in a tempestuous sea. It keeps us from facing the truth.”

“Which is?”

“That no matter who we are or what we are, we are all alone. Ultimately, we are all alone.”

“Is that how you feel now?”

“Yes. Especially with my mother gone and Michael gone, and Richard…”

“Richard?”

“Richard almost gone.”

The detective sat there staring at me, his face expressionless, no pity in his eyes, no warmth, a bland mask. I noted the time.

“I’ve got to get to my script meeting,” I said rising.

“If the ultimate result of all this is your demise as well as Richard’s, why are you…”

“Carrying on? I don’t know,” I said after a moment. “Maybe it’s just like you said before—old habits die hard.”

“Or maybe you don’t know yourself and your intentions as well as you think you do.”

“We’ll just have to wait a little longer to find out,” I said.

“Ooo. A cliff hanger.” He pretended to be terrified and pressed his fists together at his chin.

“Good-bye, Detective Mayer. You can show yourself out.”

“I’ll be by later,” he called as I turned away. “Dinner, perhaps? There is still more for you to tell me, I assume, and there is the matter of Richard’s diary,” he added when I paused and looked back.

“All right, dinner. I’ll let you take me to one of your haunts this time. I feel like mixing with the plebeians, groveling in the masses, inhaling the sweat and the Aqua Velva.”

I sauntered away from him quickly, his laughter in my wake. I couldn’t keep the smile from my lips. Odd, I thought, how my seeing him, my confession, my telling of my story was turning out to be more than a catharsis. It was something of a resurrection as well.

Perhaps I could do it; perhaps I could die as an Androgyne and be reborn an inferior. Had my detective instilled this wild hope in me, a hope that was as much of a sin as a dream?

I wanted to beg for forgiveness. Forgive me, Mother; forgive me, Father.

But I couldn’t utter the words with any sincerity. I didn’t really want forgiveness; I didn’t want to stop sinning. I was like a whore who had stepped into the confessional to cleanse her soul and the moment she opened her mouth to speak, broke into a fit of hysterics, the likes of which her confessor had not heard. In fact, it frightened him to the extent he believed the devil had stepped into the booth alongside her.

He flung holy water at her desperately.

I returned to my room to fetch my purse and check my hair and makeup one last time. Sylvia had just turned down the bed. She looked at me strangely, almost as if something had frightened her deeply.

“Is something wrong, Sylvia?” I asked.

She held up the old bed sheets.

“They’re still very hot,” she said. I had to laugh.

“Passion can sometimes linger and burn like hot coals dying slowly against the dark.” I knew she would understand the words, but since the experience was so alien to her, she would not appreciate their meaning.

She shook her head and repeated her statement as mechanically as she said anything.

“They’re still very hot.”

“Well, cool them down then,” I said and sat at the vanity table. I heard the detective leave. Almost immediately, the phone rang.

It was Nicholas.

“Can I see you today?” he asked immediately.

“I have a full schedule,” I said.

“I must see you. Alison won’t metamorphose until I do.”

“Ridiculous. She’s trying to intimidate me with this … this identity strike. Who does she think she is performing this sort of protest, Ghandi?”

“She’s determined,” he replied firmly.

“Why doesn’t she leave me alone?” I snapped.

“You know the answer to that,” he said calmly. “You’re in grave danger. She’s concerned.”

“She’s concerned about Richard being in grave danger, not me.”

“Since when is that different?” he asked quickly. I felt tears burning under my eyelids. I gazed at Sylvia, but she was already hypnotized by her menial labor. Her hands moved mechanically, her head following her own movements with a robotlike swing. She wasn’t listening to my end of the conversation. I imagined her mind was like some empty tunnel shut up on both ends, perhaps the echo of the last thought bouncing from one side to the other.

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk with you. That’s all, Clea. You’ve got to talk to your own kind. We’ve got to care for each other.”

I paused. His soft, sincere-sounding voice confused me. My breath grew short, labored.

“Funny way of showing you care—trying to shoot me.”

“I told you: I don’t know what you’re talking about. None of us tried to shoot you.”

“Or the detective?”

“None of us did,” he insisted.

“I guess I imagined it all and there are no bullet holes in the doorway and walls.”

“Clea,” he said softly. “Give me five minutes. Don’t we mean enough to each other for that at least?” His voice was full of pleading.

“All right,” I said reluctantly. Perhaps we should have one final meeting, I thought. “I’ll come to your house after my script meeting. Are you there now?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll come alone?”

“Of course.”

“Is the detective still there?”

“He’s gone, Nicholas. I was just on my way out when you called,” I said petulantly. “I’m already going to be fashionably late; I don’t want to be ridiculously late.”

“I’ll be waiting for you,” he said. “Until then,” he muttered and cradled the phone.

I did a last bit of primping, found my copy of the script, left some last minute orders for Sylvia and walked out of the house.

The sun was so bright that even my Polaroids seemed inadequate. There was a particularly sharp glint of light bouncing off the hood of my car. I had to turn away and gazed at Richard’s Thunderbird. It looked abandoned. It drove a sword of ice through my heart to think that he would never drive it again; I knew how much he loved driving it, but I swallowed my sadness quickly and got into my car. The top was still down and I welcomed the rush of warm sunlight over my hair and face. I took a deep breath, started the car and drove out.

As I descended the hill, my fingers tightened on the steering wheel and my legs grew so heavy that moving my foot from the accelerator to the brake seemed to require a great effort. After I made the first turn, I felt the car speed up and I instinctively pressed down on the brake. I could hear Alison’s laughter and ridicule. “I burn out a set of brakes just visiting you,” she had said almost every time she came to visit.

The car did not slow down. I pressed down harder on the pedal, but the brakes did not respond. Instead, the car built up momentum and I nearly lost control going around the second turn. I pumped the pedal again and again, but still, I had no brakes. The car went faster and faster. I squealed around the next turn and felt the right wheels lift off the ground. My fingers were gripping the wheel so tightly, my wrists hurt. I needed Richard’s strength desperately, but he remained dormant, buried too deeply in his own anger to offer any assistance.

“Richard!” I screamed.

In my mind’s eye, I could see him sitting stiffly in the seat beside me, his arms crossed on his chest, his head unmoving, his eyes stubbornly fixed on the next turn.

“You think you can do everything yourself,” he muttered in my illusion like a sulky child, “so handle it.”

I screamed again and barely negotiated the turn, this time leaving the road and driving over a part of the hill. It had the effect of slowing me down some, so I turned the car off the road and permitted it to bounce and heave over rocks and through bushes. Fortunately, no one was coming up the hill when I returned to the road and I was able to use all of it.

Just around the next turn was a flat field. I steered onto it and was able to direct the car toward a slight incline, which slowed it down considerably. I turned off the engine and it rolled to a precarious stop near the edge of a precipice.

I didn’t hesitate. The moment I could, I got out of the car. Suddenly it rolled back and spun around until it began to tip over the edge of the hill. The car tottered for one precarious moment and then went bouncing down the ravine, crashing into the rocks below. Finally, it came to rest in a cloud of moribund dust, reduced to an accordion of metal, leather and shattered glass. As I gazed down at what I knew someone had intended to be my coffin, my relief quickly changed to anger and rage.

Was this why Nicholas had asked me all those questions? Was I leaving now? Was the detective with me? Could it be that he and Alison had planned this with some of the others? Richard invaded my thoughts with the thought: One betrayal deserved another.

I turned and marched back up the hill, fueled by my wrath. When I finally arrived home, I phoned the studio to say I would not be coming in and told them about the accident. The assistant director was sympathetic and concerned.

Sylvia heard me talking on the phone and came out to see why I had returned.

“Did you happen to see Alison or Nicholas here earlier?” I asked.

“No.”

“Anyone?”

“Just that detective,” she said.

“I mean other than him.” Her stupidity could be infuriating sometimes. She shook her head.

“Are you sure because I was nearly killed just now.” I described what had happened, not sparing a single grisly detail. Even so, she nodded as if it was nothing unusual.

“I didn’t see anyone else,” she said and then went off to clean the kitchen.

My fury unabated, I went out and this time took Richard’s Thunderbird, his precious toy. When they saw me driving up in this, I thought, they will know they have much more to contend with than they had ever dreamed.

Alison and Nicholas lived in Brentwood Park in a house that would be better characterized as an estate. It was a two-story brick Tudor with wooden cladding on the gables and the upper decorative chimney pots. All of the windows were tall and narrow with multipane glazing. On the roof were three shed dormers, their windows shaded and dark. The house had an arched doorway with a board-and-batten door. On it Alison had put a brass knocker in the form of a shapely woman. It was her one contribution to the decor.

Alison had bought their house as is, furniture included. All of the furnishings were nineteenth-century vintage Victorian—ornate, flowery carvings in dark woods with patterned upholstery. She didn’t have to buy a single piece, not a vase, not a statue, not a painting, not even a knickknack. The house even came with linens and towels.

“All we had to do was steam clean the rugs,” she had told me, “and of course scrub down the tiles and bath fixtures. The previous owner wanted to start with everything new.”

They had bought it from a widow whose husband had made a fortune in West Side commercial real estate. She had remarried and purchased a relatively new house in Beverly Hills.

Alison always had wanted to live in Beverly Hills, but Nicholas preferred the more rustic and more isolated Brentwood Park. It made coming and going much easier and provided a great deal more privacy. When Alison discovered how many celebrities were living in the vicinity, she relented. A real estate agent, who was one of our kind, found them the property.

I had found the house much too dark for my taste. Beside the twelve-foot-high hedges that blocked it from street view, there were enough trees and bushes to keep the morning and afternoon sun almost completely away from the front windows. Only the rear of the house, where there was a free-form pool set in mauve flagstone and a cabana, got any real sunlight and then only for a short time in the afternoon.

Today the house looked murkier than ever to me. When I drove up, I found the front gate open, but the driveway looked more like a tunnel because of the thick, dark shadows cast by the trees that lined it. The unlit, somber windows reflected the gloom. The breeze turned the silhouettes of branches and leaves framed in the glass into tormented spirits struggling to free themselves of invisible chains.

Unlike most times when I had arrived at Alison and Nicholas’s residence, there were no gardeners mucking about, no service people of any kind caring for the property. It had a deserted, lonely appearance, the look of a house that hadn’t been lived in for years. Leaves blown loose of limbs performed a macabre dance freely on the slate walkways and the tile patio as well as the driveway. The grounds were so strikingly desolate, I came to a stop about three-quarters of the way up the drive. Nicholas had presumably dismissed everyone so we could have our private, undisturbed talk.

I went to the front door and clapped the ridiculous knocker. The subsequent tap could be heard echoing through the vast and grand entryway toward the spiral staircase with its hand-carved mahogany balustrade. How Alison loved making an entrance descending the carpeted stairway when guests arrived, the hem of her long dress or skirt floating over the steps. I waited, listening keenly for Nicholas’s footsteps, but I heard only the silvery sound of the breeze whistling through the trees and around the corners of the estate.

I knocked a second time, striking the plate harder this time. Again there was no answer, no sign of life within.

Of course, I thought, Nicholas never expected I would appear. He assumed by now I’d be flattened at the bottom of that ravine.

Suddenly enraged now, I cried out, “Nicholas!”

In my angry tone, my voice suddenly sounded more like Richard’s than mine; it resonated that deeply. Frightened at the hint of a change, I placed my palm against my breast. My heart was pounding.

“Nicholas!”

Had he gone to my mountain road to see my wreckage?

I stepped to the left and peered through the window. There were no lights on in the sitting room within and no one visible.

“Damn you, damn you both,” I muttered and stepped off the patio to go around the building. Every time I reached a window, I gazed in, but I saw no one until I reached the windows of the office. Although it was really too dark to be sure, it looked like someone was sitting in the winged back chair that faced the desk. There appeared to be an arm and a hand resting on the arm of the chair. Why didn’t whoever it was come to the door?

I continued around until I reached a side entrance. I didn’t have to wonder if it was unlocked; the door was slightly ajar. I stepped in quickly, finding myself just outside the pantry. There were no servants inside, no maids, no cooks, no one.

The corridor led me to the kitchen and then to the enormous dining room with its twin chandeliers, its fifteen-foot-long table and its gold-lined satin drapes. I entered the main downstairs hallway and walked quickly to the doorway of the office, which was open.

There was definitely someone in the chair.

“Nicholas?”

I looked around when there was no response. Everything looked in place; nothing I had seen in the house so far had been disturbed. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked with the regularity of a calm, mechanical heart. I gazed at the figure in the chair again and then stepped forward slowly. When I came around the chair, I saw it wasn’t Nicholas after all. It was Alison drowned in Nicholas’s clothing.

She was slumped over, her chin to her chest so that the bullet hole in the back of her head was clearly visible, the now dried trickle of blood drawing a maroon line down the back of her neck and disappearing within the collar of Nicholas’s dark gray silk sports coat.

I gasped, involuntarily putting a hand to my mouth. I suddenly felt Richard nudge out of his sulk. Both sides of my nature were stirred by this grisly sight.

Before I knew what was happening, we were screaming in unison. A caterwaul reverberated through the deep well of our mutual essence until the spirit of all of our ancestry joined in the cry.

The sorrow was horrendous. One of our own had been taken. Vivid memories of our mother’s gruesome death returned. I felt Richard lash out inside me, his soul flaring madly like a prisoner too long in solitary confinement, precipitously beating on the walls of his prison until his knuckles bled. I did all that I could to keep him contained. I closed my eyes to shut out the view of poor Alison. For a long moment, I saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing.

Richard’s fury subsided like a passing storm, but his clouds remained ominously on the horizon of my consciousness. After regaining my composure, I opened my eyes again. Alison was dead in Nicholas’s clothing which could only mean one thing: whoever had fired the shot had murdered Nicholas. Androgyne could die only in their female state. A fatal blow, a deadly arrow would trigger them into instant metamorphosis.

It occurred to me that Nicholas might very well have been innocently awaiting my arrival. He may have called me from the phone on that very desk. Whoever had killed him had snuck up on him, shooting him before he had had an opportunity to turn about. The killer must have moved on air. Nicholas would have surely heard him otherwise. Androgyne are keen; our senses are sharp; we are rarely taken by surprise.

Could it be that some other Androgyne, angered by how Alison and Nicholas were handling me, had done this? But in that case why would they not warn me first?

And if Nicholas hadn’t tampered with my brakes, then who had?

I spun around. I heard a sound. There was someone in the front of the house.

Richard began clamoring to come forth. I was not the strong one; I couldn’t face an opponent. It was the role of the male to defend the female part of us, he reminded me.

What would I do? If I permitted him to metamorphose, he would go wild and do something to prevent me from returning.

I was positive I heard someone approaching slowly, the steps were ponderous, heavy, deliberate.

“It’s the great Evil Eye,” I whispered. Or was it Richard warning me?

I backed away from Alison’s corpse. Poor Alison, I thought. Her complexion already wan, her skin drying, her beautiful eyes that had glittered so with life, with sexual energy, were now as dark as blown bulbs. In death, her features barely resembled those I had known. Without the blush in her cheeks, the ruby red in her lips, the softness in her skin and the sheen in her hair, she was mortal.

And then it occurred to me: In death we were no different from the inferiors. Death reminded us we were all of one family, a family at war with itself, but nevertheless, a family spawned of the same seed.

Why did God put us through this torment then? Why burden us with all these curses and weigh us down with the baggage of hate and fury, a luggage of wrath that was particularly His and not ours? We are as damned as the inferiors, I thought. Even the Androgyne become dust.

I turned and fled the way I had entered. Every time I stopped and listened, I heard those footsteps. Now they were following me, I was sure. I rushed on through the kitchen and past the pantry to the side door. When I emerged, I caught my breath and listened again. I heard nothing, but I hurried to the car and got in quickly.

Richard was crying, pleading, demanding I settle back and let him take charge. He chastised me for fleeing. This was our chance to face the devil, our chance for revenge and I was running away from it. But I couldn’t help myself; I had things yet to do.

I drove out quickly, not looking back until I reached the bottom of the driveway.

I was going to go directly home, but when I reached the Pacific Coast highway, I turned south toward Venice Beach. I needed advice; I needed help; I was afraid of being alone.

The streets were very busy. The slow-moving traffic irritated my already inflamed nerves. Impatient, I wove the Thunderbird in and out of traffic, threading it through openings barely wide enough to accommodate its width. Horns blared at me. Complacent faces turned furious as I lurched by, but I was lucky. I had no accidents and I didn’t attract any police.

When I reached Washington Boulevard, I turned left and drove to a building with a clouded storefront window. The structure was a Pueblo revival with a flat roof and stuccoed walls. It had projecting wooden roof beams over the parapeted front entrance. The walls were gray and streaked with soot and pollutants now. Whatever it had been originally was lost in the smudged print fading on the window. Of course it was dark, but I knew that did not matter. Diana would be there. I sensed it and knew that she sensed when she was needed.

I parked and went to the door, but before I had a chance to knock, a handsome young man opened the door. His big, dark, piercing eyes, firm lips and almost Oriental bone structure immediately told me who he was. I couldn’t forget what I had envisioned. This was Diana’s daughter, Denise, the androgynous child Alison had brought to see me. She had gone through her first conversion.

His good looks nearly stole my breath. I saw the look of recognition in his eyes and in the tight, small smile at the corners of his mouth.

“My mother is waiting for you,” he said. Then he widened his smile. “She anticipated your arrival. I’m sorry,” he said extending his hand quickly, “I should introduce myself. I’m Thomas. You’ve met my sister.”

“Yes.” I took his hand and entered a small sitting room with a rattan sofa and settee and one rocker. There was a rectangular glass table in front of the sofa. At the center of the table was a large piece of jagged crystal set in a red clay leaf.

“Please, be seated. I’ll tell her you are here.”

“Thank you,” I said and quickly sat on the settee. Moments later, Diana appeared alone. She was an ageless Androgyne who had long passed through her menopause. Although her hair had streaks of gray, it was still long and thick, falling to the middle of her back. She had deep blue, serious eyes. They were her most striking feature. I could gaze nowhere else but into those searching orbs that were themselves two small crystal balls. Centuries of our history spiraled within. How could I look away?

Afterward, I would have trouble recalling much about her. Perhaps she changed with her visitors—growing larger with some, smaller with others. In a sense she reflected whoever had come to see her. She became a mirror revealing that part of her visitor that she or he could never see for herself or himself.

“Alison is dead,” I said quickly. She nodded, her eyes closing slowly, her face, for one fleeting moment, becoming the face of a corpse: Her lips were bland, her eyes shut as if by death, her skin yellow and parched.

When she opened her eyes again, I felt myself drawn into them, falling through them. My screams trailed behind me like long, bone-white ribbons.

Down I descended, down through a tunnel of the dead. Their faces appeared around me, faces of Androgyne who had lived and died since time began for us. Each seemed trapped in some terrible agony. Suddenly, I saw my mother’s face: her mouth twisted and distorted, her eyes leaking a grayish white ooze that turned into bright red blood as it passed over her pockmarked cheeks. Her chin was nothing but bone and tendons. The skin under the streams of blood was smoking as if my mother’s blood itself was an acid scorching away whatever trace of beauty remained.

I screamed and reached out for her, but she was sucked back into the dark. I fell on, passing other faces in similar torment until I saw Alison. She was as beautiful as she had been in life; her eyes sparkled with that same joyful glint, that joie de vivre that had always set her apart. It brought me some relief until suddenly a spidery shadow appeared in her cheeks. Her skin began to sink into the shadow. I saw the pallid bones within, and then her eyes popped as easily as egg yolks. Maggots emerged and began to cover her forehead, consuming her skin, her eyebrows, tearing down her nose and feasting hungrily on her lips.

I cried out for her, but she, too, was drawn back into the darkness. I began to fall again until I reached a mirror and my descent ended.

“What do you see?” Diana asked.

“Myself.”

“How do you look?”

“The same.”

“Yes,” she said, “but there is a place for you there, a place prepared.”

Her words brought me back to the moment. I blinked and looked at her.

“Do you understand?” she asked. “You are in grave danger.”

“Yes, I understand. But where was I?”

“You were in our hell,” she said. “All those you saw, including your mother and Alison, were taken by him.”

“He’s waiting for me. And for Richard,” I said. She nodded.

“I can’t tell you where or when.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m almost at the point where I would welcome him,” I said.

“That’s what he hopes.”

“What should I do?” I lifted my eyes to hers.

“Find yourself again. Love yourself again. Find a way to stop denying who you are.”

“What if I hate who I am?”

“Then you belong in the darkness, imprisoned in the place prepared for you.”

“Why?”

“All of us must bear the burden of our own creation and find a way to turn that burden into a blessing.”

“Even if it brings us pain?”

“Find a way to turn that pain into pleasure. You had it once. There are some things we must accept just as God had to accept that Man is imperfect.”

She pulled herself back, her shoulders high, her face suddenly becoming radiant.

“We are the Androgyne,” she said. “He chose us to help Him overcome His own pain.”

I nodded. She reached out and touched me, and when I looked up again, I saw my mother’s face in hers. It brought tears to my eyes.

“Thank you,” I said and I left her, my mind in a turmoil. I felt carried off in a river of confusion. It seemed too hard to continue to swim and so easy to just stop and let myself be carried down.

But I had the sense that Richard was standing on the shore waiting for me, waiting to rescue me from myself.