Chapter Fifty-Nine

Tawny Port

I returned less than an hour later with two well-filled brown paper grocery bags. Evenfall greeted me at the door and helped me unpack. The first two items she found were a package of red Bic disposable lighters and a light blue laminated map of the Door County peninsula. The latter she opened up to survey the lay of the land. The map showed ten miniature red lighthouses, placed in their respective geographic locations. Evenfall stared inquisitively.

“Cana Island Light,” she called out triumphantly. She looked deep into my eyes.

“I’d like to know what you did back there.”

I stared back but only for a moment. This is a woman who may have witnessed the binding of a soul. Has that experience led her to see the error of her ways?

“There’s a lot I’d like to know,” I replied and then unpacked the rest of our bounty.

We had one pound of frozen duck breast, one half-pound of mango Stilton cheese, one pound of dried Door County cherries, and two dozen extra-large brown eggs. We had seven hundred and fifty milliliters of Death’s Door whisky, made from wheat locally grown on Washington Island, three bottles of Merus Cabernet, and one bottle of a very rare thirty-year-old tawny port. Other goodies included freshly baked pumpernickel bread, two pounds of smoked turkey breast, one pound of rare roast beef, sliced sharp cheddar, roasted red pepper and asparagus salad, mostaccioli with olive oil, pine nuts and goat cheese. We also had two pounds of chocolate-covered Door County cherries.

“You went to Top Shelf, didn’t you?” she asked with unfettered delight. Apparently she knew the place, although from their prices I would have suspected they catered only to wealthy Chicago tourists.

“So you enjoy some of the finer things in life, do you?” I asked. She eyed the half-dozen A. Fuente Hemingway cigars I thought I handled with clandestine grace.

“Apparently you do too.” She lifted one to her nose and breathed in its spicy aroma. “I thought doctors were opposed to smoking,” she said accusingly.

“We’re also opposed to kicking people in their skulls, but a fella has to do what a fella has to do,” I replied.

I reached for the bottle of whisky, but Evenfall shook her head. “Something redder,” she requested.

I opened the Death’s Door port, which I confess I had contemplated saving for a different time, and poured a generous serving into two wine glasses. The Baptistes did not have more delicate glassware.

“We have much to share and very little time,” Evenfall said as she took her glass.

“Time has rarely worked to my advantage,” I answered.

She began to take a sip of the deep burgundy wine, but I stilled her hand.

“Death’s Door Port,” I announced proudly, “thirty-years old.”

Evenfall eyed me quizzically until I explained.

“The grapes are harvested from a vineyard on Washington Island,” I lied. She looked out the lakeside windows into the black night, trying to picture the fifteen miles of turbulent water that separated us from the picturesque little island to the northwest. Washington was one of the chain of islands that ran along the Door of Death.

“The members of the family-owned vineyard press the grapes at sunset every day in autumn and age them in oak barrels in their cellar. The oak is harvested from the island as well. Two people who are no longer with us bottled the port we are about to consume. It now equals you in years, more or less.”

Perhaps I was wrong about her age, but she didn’t seem to hold it against me. We clinked our glasses in memory of the deceased vintners and took a measured sip.

“This is amazing,” Evenfall gushed.

Hints of blackberry, currant, almond, and spice exploded on my tongue.

“This stuff makes me want to be a better person,” she declared.

We both broke into heartfelt laughter.

We cut into the mango Stilton and tore several pieces of fresh pumpernickel. I helped myself to the roast beef and mostaccioli as well. It felt good to eat again. I could no longer remember my last meal. We made our way onto the leather sofa and allowed the fire’s warmth to penetrate our bodies. We could have been two long-lost friends visiting with each other, sharing the details of our lives. Staring into her lovely chestnut eyes and sipping one of the finest ports ever produced would have made for a wonderful evening. My job was unfinished, though, and Evenfall was not what she seemed. Promises to keep and miles to go and so forth.

Sensing my thoughts, Evenfall got up from the sofa and walked back to the kitchen. She retrieved her satchel and then retraced her steps to take a seat beside me again.

“Do you want to know why I painted the black-cloaked rider?” she asked, not bothering to adjust the hem of her bathrobe, which came to rest above mid-thigh. Evenfall’s hair showed subtle streaks of premature gray at the temples. I wondered if the tarot exacted this effect upon her.

“Hey, Prophet, you listening to me?” She tilted her head slightly to study the aloof man seated to her right.

I had been listening but didn’t have an answer. Her tarot card had come to life before my eyes. Had I brought alchemy to her art or did her skills exist apart from me? How much had the Miskenupik influenced her? Her homemade tarot card lacked something...power. Perhaps she had not made the necessary sacrifice. It would be a pleasant turn to trust someone again. Someone other than a hunter and his wolf.

I turned my attention briefly to the lakeside windows. The sun would soon rise above the emerald water. A gilded line would connect us to a distant shore. Evenfall used her unoccupied hand to rub warmth back into her other arm.

“I’m listening,” I answered. It seemed just yesterday that the last fires of sunset lit the horizon with a burst of orange, magenta, and gold. In reality it had been much longer than that. A loneliness filled the passage of time that I could not explain.

“Your painting reminds me of the cry of the seagulls,” I answered at last. “They sound so mournful and hopeless when they hover over me.”

“What exactly does that mean?” she asked.

“Billie used to say they were the souls of the damned, searching for redemption. Your rider is like that.”

She knew I named my deceased wife. She also knew I referred to the figure from her tarot. She turned her well-sculpted torso toward me.

Her robe was secured conservatively but not enough to hide the top of the beautiful and tender line separating her exquisite breasts. As I drank in her beauty I wondered why I had taken on this melancholy line of thought. Maybe it was the port. I was filling myself with its thirty years of dark, burgundy solitude. Maybe it was the unknowable woman seated next to me. She smelled of something rare and intoxicating, amber notes of musk, vanilla, and something else… blood orange? I was not quite sure. What does she want?

“Redemption is in the eyes of the beholder,” she said, enigmatically. “I’ve viewed your card many times, and I’ve enjoyed watching that side of you.”

Watching that side of me? I pictured her sitting alone somewhere, watching me ride to the border. Did she see me slay the Soul Binder? Her tarot had power that existed independently of me. Such power was not given out freely.

Evenfall took a generous sip of the rare vintage. In the firelight it looked like blood. Her slim fingers were wrapped elegantly around the glass. She stared long and hard at my profile, tracing the sharp lines and unshaven ruggedness of my jaw. My hair was auburn and longer than she had been told before she painted me. I was leaner, as well. Hard. She was not put off by the leather eye patch. I suspected she already knew how I had come by it. I returned her stare.

“It’s not my best side,” I commented, referring to my position of honor within her tarot. I looked at the delicate lines of her nose and cheekbones and marveled at those long black lashes. “You are quite lovely.”

Evenfall seemed to enjoy the effect she was having on me. “Perhaps we’ll have time for more than work,” she said flirtatiously.

I lifted my Riedel glass, swirled it carefully, and then took a measured sip. “Many wonderful things come through the Door of Death,” I announced.

Evenfall eyed me worriedly and reached over to brush a lock of hair back behind my ear. “All right, Prophet,” she said. “I need you.”

She was referring to her tarot. I grew slightly wary.

The painter sat close to me now, and I could again smell her exotic spice.

“You are a capable artist,” I told her. “You have seen what I am capable of, as well.” Her pupils dilated slightly, an effect she seemed unaware of.

Evenfall caressed my cheek softly with one hand and with the other sipped the ruby fruit of a very old vine. “There is a place I need to reach,” she explained. “That is why I need you.”

A place? Where? Why me? In my mind I could sense the revolving light of a tower upon a distant point. Not her destination but rather an admonition. I needed to start listening to those. On the other hand, being needed by someone other than a dead child was pleasant. Especially someone so enchanting.

“It seems a shame to travel when the sun is just beginning to rise.” I directed her attention eastward toward the lake without attempting to answer her most immediate concerns. Evenfall looked through the picture windows and out across the water to the pink sky. We were facing east and morning was upon us. She was slightly tipsy and to her the eastern sky must have been pure color. Its beauty now touched everything.

“Paul, I need your protection,” she pleaded.

She seemed genuinely intimidated. A damsel in distress. The last remnant of self-control dissolved. I pulled the raven-haired warrior into me until her breasts and belly were pulled up tight against my body. I breathed in her intoxicating scent and pressed my lips against her, sweeping the tip of my tongue lightly across hers before she pulled back.

“They have the power to commit acts of atrocity and retribution against All-Father,” she whispered to me. “You’ve no idea how powerful they can be.”

In point of fact I did know that and much more. I wondered about her end-game.

“Have you decided,” I asked, “whether you will only follow the Broken Path?” Evenfall licked her lips nervously and pulled further away from me. She smoothed the hem of her robe, which gave her the excuse to turn her eyes downward.

“I don’t need to pick sides.”

“You know exactly what I am talking about.” I drew the separated upper halves of her black cotton tight into my fist, but my intent was more seduction than threat.

“If the need were not pressing,” I said as I engaged her eyes with mine, “I would spend all morning breathing you in.” I released her from my tight grip and let my hand fall softly upon her breast. “The children of the bay remain trapped. For some reason, the True Path led me to you, an artist. You haven’t awakened your tarot, have you?”

Evenfall dropped her glass of port. It shattered upon the red oak floor.