Chapter 45

I entered the drawing room and looked about. Maw was absent. She must have retired early. The remaining ladies had just risen from their seats. Elsa took her husband’s hand and said they were off to bed. John and Anne decided to follow as well. They offered their good nights to Bruni and me and left.

“It’s just us,” I said.

“It is. What about Johnny?”

“He’s in the back with Robert and Stanley.”

“Would you care to take me outside for some fresh air?”

“Of course. Out the front or the back?” I asked.

“Out that way.” She pointed toward the south lawn.

I opened the drapes, unlocked one of the french doors, and stepped with her into the night.

The moon was full and directly overhead. I had expected darkness, but instead the world lay spread out before us in a blazing tonal print of blacks and blues. The milky sheet that was the lawn stretched to shadowed trunks and silvered leaves in the distance. The cloudless sky of midnight blue had a grayish sheen near the horizon but darkened to blue-black as it rose to a moon too bright to look at. Nothing stirred, not a breath of wind, a leaf on a tree, or a blade of grass. The earth was without sound and without motion. Not a thing, living or dead, disturbed the stillness. We stood side by side barely touching, speechless, transfixed, and dazzled before an alien landscape of enchantment.

“What is this place?” Bruni whispered.

I glanced at her. She seemed mystified as she gazed about. Her bare skin blazed with moonlight. The sapphire above the shadow between her breasts gleamed, the star inside it searing bright and luminescent.

I dared not speak for fear of breaking whatever spell lay upon the land. We were in another time and place, and for just a moment, in a lifetime of moments, we were being given a glimpse of a perfection so exquisite, it hurt to take it in. I knew that nothing I had seen, or would ever experience in the future, would be its equal.

How long we stood side by side outside of space and time, I don’t know. It might have been minutes. It could have been an hour. Time, if it existed at all during that period, held to an ancient, unfamiliar rhythm. There were no stars. Haze above the trees marked the boundary of the world. What lay beyond was mystery.

Bruni reached for my hand. I held it. We were speechless.

“There you are,” said Johnny, with Robert on the leash.

We turned toward him, and in an instant we were back, having never left.

“Extraordinary night,” continued Johnny. “Robert wanted to come outside, and I’m so glad he insisted. It’s quiet as the dead but splendid in its peace. The old ones walk the earth tonight. I don’t know why I said that, but that’s the kind of night it is. Are you ready to go in?”

“Yes,” we said. Bruni looked about as if to orient herself. I noticed the stars were there again. Where had they been?

Once inside, I locked the door and closed the drapes. Bruni said she was off to bed. She came up beside me and said quietly, “Thank you for this evening. Thank you so very much.”

After she left, Johnny asked, “She looked a little shell-shocked.”

“Tonight the house decided to display a different kind of magic. She experienced it herself, firsthand. Your mention of the ancient gods was wonderfully appropriate. I have no idea what happened, but something most definitely did. I felt it, and she did too. A drink before we get to work upstairs?”

“Sure. Why not? Eager to get back to our research, are we? That’s a change. I think you’re becoming more like me.”

I fixed us both some single malt over ice before I answered.

“Hardly, but we’re running out of time, and deadlines weigh heavily on my mind, as you well know.”

“That’s why I mention them over and over.”

“Very clever. How about you tell me how it went with Stanley?”

Johnny and I lit cigarettes and settled on the sofa. Robert lay down in front of the fire, which had burned down to coals. He was asleep in seconds.

“I saw Stanley in his office. I told him that outside of the Bonnie incident, I thought the dinner went very well. I also complimented him on his quick handling of her sliding beneath the table. He said it was nothing out of the ordinary. He had had the foresight to brief his staff because she might come unglued. They knew exactly what to do, and she was packed away into her bed quickly and efficiently in no time.

“He assured me she would not be up and about until tomorrow afternoon, which will be a blessing. As to why he had her put on ice, he told me, ‘She was disturbing that which resides here’ — his exact words. I couldn’t have agreed more. He mentioned that both Bonnie and Maw received documents. What they were exactly he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, say. What drug I slipped her, he didn’t elaborate on either, just that the amount of alcohol she consumed made its effects more pronounced and erratic. She’ll be fine by the big dinner tomorrow night. Other than that, he wondered about our progress on the diary and the notes. I told him we were making headway but that nothing of import had surfaced yet.”

“I can’t believe you guys got away with it,” I said. “Bonnie will have a hangover of epic proportions. Well deserved, I think. Congratulations.” I raised my glass.

“Cheers,” Johnny said. “By the way, just to add to what you said earlier, you and Bruni appeared out of nowhere when I was walking Robert. You surprised the hell out of me. Thought you’d like to know.”

“Perhaps we were very still.”

“Perhaps you were.”

We drank the rest of our scotch and collected Robert, who stretched his rear legs out, shook himself mightily, and followed us up the stairs.