Seduction

Nineteen

They walked to the area near the bay known as Grève d’Azette, where rows of uninteresting small houses lined both sides of the street. Typical of urban sprawl in any town, Jac thought. Tear down what’s charming and historic and put up new housing designed with the lowest aesthetic-to-cost ratio as you can manage and still ensure high prices.

“This is where Marine Terrace was.” Theo pointed to a group of modest two-story homes so tightly packed in, their side walls were touching. “The area wasn’t at all built up then and there was only a walled garden between Hugo’s house and the beach where he walked so often. From his bedroom on the second floor, he could see the sea.”

Theo took her arm in a companionable gesture and led the way to the end of the block and then took her down a side street to Le Dicq, the beach access pathway. At the bottom of the cobblestone slipway were towering, rugged rock formations lining the shore.

Jac felt sudden recognition. It was as if she’d seen all this before. She knew this place. Was it a déjà vu? A dream?

Theo was talking, pointing to the horizon. “We’re facing France now. Which is why this was such a favorite spot of Hugo’s. He liked to climb these rocks and sit up there and stare out at his homeland. He named this formation Rocher des Proscrits-Rock of the Exiles. He and his friends adopted it as a symbol of their exile.”

“This looks so familiar.”

“There’s a famous photograph of Hugo taken here, looking out at the sea. His son Charles was a photographer who honed his craft while living in Jersey. Hugo seemed to have been endlessly willing to pose for him. There are dozens of shots of Hugo on this beach among these rocks. We have quite a few at Wells in Wood. I’ll have to show you.”

Jac noticed the sun glinting off the rock and walked over to read a plaque commemorating Hugo. Large patches of mold and iron deposits had turned the tablet into a piece of impressionist artwork.

“This being a tourist destination, I’d guess Lucifer’s Lair isn’t here,” Theo said. “There can’t be anything undiscovered in this area.”

“Just because a spot is highly trafficked doesn’t mean it can’t still keep secrets.” She was speaking to Theo but felt as if only part of her was focused on what she was saying. “But you’re probably right in this case. It doesn’t look like there are any openings into these rocks…” She paused, then turned to him. “Theo, how can this all look so familiar? I’ve never been here but I know this place. And not from seeing a photograph, it’s much more.”

He smiled, and it might have been the first time that she couldn’t see any of the ever-present pain behind the expression. “I don’t know. Unless… it has something to do with us. I want to show you something. Let’s go this way.”

“Us?” He had to be referring to the weeks they’d spent together at Blixer Rath. There wasn’t anything else they shared but that curious time they’d spent so connected that it had both scared and exhilarated her.

He nodded but didn’t explain. “Come on, it’s not too far.”

They were walking as close to the water’s edge as they could without soaking her shoes. Sometimes a wave hit a rock and sprayed her face. Smelling the salty brine that hadn’t changed in centuries, she thought about Hugo walking here and smelling the exact same scent. Her father used to talk about how scent connects us to a past we can’t always see, that seems lost but can so easily be conjured up and found.

Theo had gotten a few steps ahead of her. Now she remembered he used to do that on their walks at Blixer Rath. Always in a hurry to get to the next destination. He’d been in a rush the day of the accident too. The memory rolled in like the ocean, surprising her with its vividness.

It had been mid-May. The sixteenth of May. She was surprised she could pull up the date after so long. Since the incident with the stone circle drawing, Jac and Theo had been inseparable. For two months their connection grew stronger and stronger. Several times Jac dreamed of scenery Theo had drawn. All ruins around Jersey. All places that had some special meaning to him.

Yes! That was it.

“That’s why this place looks familiar now,” Jac said. “I dreamt about it at Blixer!”

“Yes,” Theo said. “This place and a few others. Let me show you.”

As they walked through the rocky landscape, she felt as if she were walking through those long-ago dreams. The water, the outcroppings, the barren shore. She’d been here in those dreams that Theo used to joke she stole from him, that Malachai used to attribute to her openness to the collective unconscious.

On that May afternoon she’d been playing piano, and when she looked up from the keyboard, Theo was standing there, just watching her. The sun shining through the window illuminated him, and then as she watched, all the natural light disappeared and he was thrust in darkness as if the clouds had left the sky and come down to get in between them.

“Let’s take a walk,” he’d said.

There was nothing unusual about his suggestion. During free periods he often asked her to roam the countryside with him. They’d start off at the same pace and then Theo would see something he wanted to explore and she’d have to rush to catch up. And then once she had, he’d outdistance her again. Like he was now, he always walked as if he had an appointment in a specific spot and he didn’t want to be late. Once another one of the kids had joined them and Theo’s gait was different. He hadn’t moved as if he’d been on a mission anymore. The walk turned into just a stroll through evergreen glades and fields of wildflowers.

Jac hadn’t liked someone else being along. But on that May afternoon there was no one with them. They were alone.

They reached the field that she thought of as the border between the clinic and what was beyond. Once they crossed it, if you looked back, Blixer was invisible. As he always did, Theo stopped to pick various kinds of flora to braid into crowns. Typically he used sprigs of rosemary. It was easy to bend and shape. Lilies of the valley had popped up that week, and so he picked those too and wove them into the rosemary. He placed a crown on Jac’s head and one on his own.

At first the ritual had seemed strange, but now she expected it and loved how the flowers’ fragrance surrounded her. Especially that day. The scent of the small, white bells was delicate but potent. Her father had used it as the base for his well-known and popular Blanc de Nuit fragrance.

Crossing the field, they entered the forest and after about a hundred meters came to a clearing. Here Theo performed what he called the “second ritual.” Together they hunted for rocks, but only smooth, rounded stones because Theo had told her negative energy could stay trapped in crevices and cracks. The gathering usually took the better part of fifteen minutes. They were quiet as they worked, and she never minded when they didn’t talk. The silence between them seemed like its own kind of music.

Once they’d collected two dozen rocks, he made a circle of them about six feet across.

The first time she’d seen him doing it, she asked why.

“Don’t you know?” he said. “Isn’t this part in your dream?”

No, she’d never dreamed anything but the circle itself. Not how they used it.

So he showed her.

They sat down inside the formation, facing each other. Then with the last three rocks, Theo closed the circle. Sitting in the lotus position they’d learned in meditation class, the “third ritual” began. This was what Jac yearned for. And the only reason she put up with the tedium of all the rest of it.

They would begin by meditating, opening themselves up to their connections, as he described it. And then Theo would lean forward and begin to kiss her.

Jac had kissed people before-as a thank-you, a good-bye, a hello, or a show of comfort or support. But those first kisses between them were none of those.

Each was an invitation to a world that was dark in the light and light in the dark. Each began with their lips pressed together but moved throughout her body. Each altered her so that she became feeling, not thought. His kisses found the parts of Jac that were waiting, dormant, and ready to bloom. They set off tiny sparks through her body. Her skin became so sensitive that if he just put one fingertip on her neck she’d spasm. He was the first boy who had ever touched her. Until Theo she hadn’t known the secret ways her body worked. Or the wonder of how someone else’s body could affect hers.

That May day she smelled Theo’s cologne of eucalyptus, honey, cinnamon and oakmoss laced with the lily of the valley and rosemary. The scents combined in a heady mix that made her feel as if she were floating, being held aloft by stem-and-leaf arms. She wasn’t sure if the flowers were kissing her or Theo was. But it didn’t matter. Those first kisses fed her. They began with taste. Sweet like honey, and fresh like mint. They gave her sustenance in a way that no food ever had, were delicious in the way only something you’ve never tasted before can be. They were both gentle and passionate. As light as the fragrance of the lilies and as deep as the color of the green rosemary. Those kisses were as much about discovery as they were about destination.

On previous days he’d brought wine or a joint. On that day he had brought neither. Instead he extracted a folded envelope, opened it and showed her what was inside. The dark and powdery irregular disk looked like dried leather and smelled of mold. He broke off a small piece and gave it to her. Then broke off an equally small piece, put it in his own mouth and chewed. She was frightened but also curious. And she wanted to be his companion on whatever journey he took.

As the mushroom invaded her bloodstream and altered her consciousness, Jac’s hearing became more attuned to the sounds of the forest. She listened to a chipmunk scurrying across a log, a bird chirping and water dripping. Her sense of smell, always intense and precise, was even more exaggerated. Resins, molds, the spicy and sharp scents of the woods, assaulted her. The Perfume of Dark, she thought, automatically playing the game she and her brother had indulged in for years.

“Shut your eyes,” Theo whispered.

He did. She didn’t. She wanted to be able to see. She watched Theo reach out, find and take her hands. As soon as he touched her and their connection was made, strange things began to happen. First she felt a warmth coming from the stones, as if heat were emanating from their cold surface.

Then the air around Theo began to waver, as if affected by another frequency.

They each had been given mantras to help them meditate and were told they were private-to hold close and keep secret and speak only inside their own minds. But Theo was chanting his, low and under his breath and just loud enough for her to hear. She listened to the foreign sounds. Felt compelled to mouth them also. She was chanting his mantra. Except the words didn’t sound Indian. They didn’t sound like any language she’d ever heard. These words had tastes.

Honey. Berries. Malt.

“Budh Vid Dru Budh Vid Dru Budh…”

Tastes of something bitter and burnt. Charred toast? Marshmallows crisped to ash?

Jac didn’t think this was the mantra the teachers at Blixer had given Theo. If it was, he was breaking yet another rule by speaking it out loud. Did that even matter anymore?

Jac felt the mixed emotions that came with doing something forbidden and risking danger all at the same time. She was exhilarated and scared. Theo had told her they were exploring Carl Jung’s shadow world. In search of something that would explain their strange connection to each other. That they needed to go beyond reality into the darkness where mystics and shamans quested for answers and find their own.

For several minutes, or a half hour, or even an hour-she didn’t know-the two of them sat on the pine-needle carpet and chanted. The sound became the wind. The birdsong. The rustle of the leaves. The roar of a distant waterfall.

Peace descended on Jac. Energy flowed out of her and into Theo through the tips of her fingers on her right hand into the tips of his left and back into her from the tips of his fingers on his right hand into the tips of her left. Centuries of understanding moved in them. She saw moving mandalas made of brilliantly colored yarn. Elaborately woven designs like the sacred Buddhist art she’d seen in books in her grandfather’s library and that Malachai used in their therapy sessions, but now come to life and given dimension.

And then she realized she wasn’t just looking at them, she was inside them. She was the red thread, Theo was the blue. They were each creating patterns as they circled each other, moving closer and closer to the center, where she knew they would become the very oneness the drawings were supposed to help the viewer find.

Sitting together in the sun, in the woods, Theo was taking her on a journey into the cosmic soup of eternity.

As these thoughts welled up in her, she felt as if she was finally understanding concepts she’d always been confused by. And being introduced to thoughts she’d never even contemplated before. Time was disappearing. In this new dimension everything that had ever happened to her and to Theo existed on the same plane. All their histories were present in the same moment. The two of them were connected through all these events, tied to each other through their overlapping pasts. Tangled up in the threads of each other’s lives.

And then he let go of her hands and broke the connection.

In a great rush all the sounds and smells and sensations left her.

Theo had left her too. He’d risen up and was running away from her, running through the woods. Fast, as if he were being chased. She ran after him, calling out his name.

She couldn’t catch up, but she managed to keep her pace steady so he remained in her sight.

At first she was so intent on following him that she didn’t focus on where they were going. Then she realized they were going up a staircase of rough stone carved in the mountain. Up. Up. Farther up. She hated that she couldn’t see where the steps were leading. All their hikes before had been on sloping hills with gentle inclines. But this landscape was different. They were on a rising path that hung out over the forest. At every turn Jac saw a threatening edge. But she kept going, following him.

And then he stopped. He’d reached the summit. He dropped to his knees. Knelt on an outcropping of rock. His head dropped into his hands. His back shook. He was in some kind of crisis. She barely heard his choked sobs over the sound of the rushing water. No, they weren’t sobs, they were two words he was saying over and over.

“I can’t,” he said, as he beat his fist on the dirt. “I can’t. I can’t.”

The heartbreak of a lifetime in just two broken words.

Slowly she climbed the last half-dozen steps, trying not to look at what lay beyond. How far a drop was it? If he fell would he survive? Would she? Panic washed over her. She couldn’t keep going. But she couldn’t leave him there. Her breath was shallow. Jac could feel her heart racing. She forced the last few steps and finally reached Theo.

The rock where he was kneeling was hanging out over a large pool of cool blue water being fed by a waterfall. Dizziness overwhelmed her. What if she lost her balance? Tumbled headfirst into the water? She retreated two steps. Three. Four. She was starting to panic. Wanted to run away. But she knew she couldn’t. She had to get him away from the edge.

Using the method Malachai had showed her, Jac took a deep breath, inhaling to the count of four. Held the breath in to the count of four. Then exhaled to the count of four. Then held to the count of four. And then repeated the exercise.

If she couldn’t control her anxiety, she wasn’t going to be able to help him. And he needed help. He had stood up now and was perched even closer to the edge of the rock.

Jac pushed herself back up those four last steps and approached Theo. Should she talk to him or not? Was he even aware of her? If she startled him, he might try to get away, fall over the edge, somehow take her with him. For a moment she was absolutely certain that his action was going to be her destruction no matter what she did. That by being with him she had doomed herself. But that was crazy.

Go, grab him, pull him backward, save him.

No, run the other way, down the hill and away from here. Save yourself.

It was as if she had two totally separate sets of emotions fighting a battle inside her.

Jac watched his hair wave in the breeze, his long, lithe body shake with sobs.

“Theo?” she whispered. “Theo, it’s me, Jac.” She inched closer. “We have to get off this ledge.”

She didn’t look down, just kept her eyes on him.

“Theo? We have to get off the ledge. Take my hand.”

He didn’t respond.

She crept closer, then reached out and very gently and slowly took his hand. He didn’t resist, but his fingers were icy. For a few moments both of them stayed like that, rooted to the spot. Her hand holding his. A skin-and-bones, flesh-and-sinew connection. She clung to his hand to bridge the gap between her fear, his survival and hers.

“Theo, what is wrong?” she asked.

His only answer was to take a single step closer to the ledge, pulling her with him.

She didn’t want to, didn’t mean to, but she let go of his hand. She couldn’t follow him. But if she didn’t, what would happen to him? She should grab him again, keep talking, and try to get him to retreat. But to do that she’d have to step out farther on the rock.

The sky rapidly and unexpectedly turned gray. Even though Jac knew the clouds had moved in front of the sun, it seemed as if Theo himself were sucking up the light. She was worried that in this sudden darkness, she might lose her footing, might step off the ledge.

But she wanted to step off the ledge.

Suddenly Jac wasn’t afraid of the dizzying height. Instead, she wanted to accept its invitation and jump.

What was wrong with her? Whatever drug Theo had given her was producing hallucinations worse than any she’d suffered at home. Those were confusing but at least linear. They were fragments of made-up stories. This was just terrible chaos.

The sun was still behind the clouds. Jac was cold. Spray from the waterfall was blowing back on her. Soaking through her clothes. The rocks below her feet were slippery. Wet rocks, wet soles. Easy to fall. Wanting to fall. Fear. Longing. The push-pull of conflicting needs.

The part of Jac that was worried about the fall was not afraid of the water. She was a good swimmer, having spent endless hours at the beach in the south of France with her grandmother and brother. She loved the surf. The smooth sand. Even the waves when they were a little rough. She reminded herself of that now. Even if she did fall, it would be into water. She would swim. The drop really wasn’t that far.

There was no other option.

Reaching out, Jac took Theo’s hand once more. They were connected again. She felt safer. Then more terrorized. Safety. Terror. All that kept her from falling was his hand. What propelled her forward was his hand. Where their cold skin was touching felt suddenly hot, like molten metal, bonding them, soldering them. Even if she wanted to let go, she couldn’t anymore. They had merged.

Maybe he would jump and decide her fate for her. She was incapable of action. As desperate to step back as to step forward. To throw herself over the edge. To back up away from the edge.

Theo was talking to her now. Saying something, but she couldn’t make out what. The waterfall was too loud. It was too beautiful. She pulled away. Finally free. His fingers were no longer clutching hers. The water was coming up to meet her, and then it was cold. So very cold.