Some Enchanted Dream: A Time Travel Adventure (Seasons of Enchantment Book 2) (7 page)

The scent of roasted fowl was curling about Dan's nose with exotic tendrils of seduction. He could not argue with his companion. Hopefully, he'd be able to return the favor and buy Arthur a few pints later this evening. "Are you a poet as well as an artist?"

Arthur sliced a piece of breast meat from the sultry brown carcass between them. He offered it to Dan by reaching across the table and placing it on his plate. There were steaming potatoes, and green beans. Dan smiled with wicked delight. If Paul hadn't become so foul tempered, he'd be eating with them now. Well, then, all the more for himself and Artie.

"I do write verse from time to time, but that quote is not my own. It comes from Keats, written long ago. Do you not know your English Poets, my good man?  "
'I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful--a  fairy's child, her hair was long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild'
. To Keats, the beautiful woman without mercy is actually a fairy maid."

Dan choked on the mouthful of roasted duck he was trying to swallow.
Fairy
. He'd been slapped upside the head recently over that odd business. And wasn't that what got him into this wild mess of time travel in the first place?
Fairy magic
. Tara's fairy magic, to be precise.

"I say, good fellow?" Arthur stopped fussing with his plate to regard Dan with concern.

His eyes were watering. Dan grasped the glass of green juice and guzzled it in an attempt to get liquid into his throat. The liquor didn't help. He coughed more and took to wheezing.

Arthur was on his feet, shouting to someone to bring water to their table. He started thumping Dan on the back with more gusto than Dan thought possible for such a sparse man.

The waiter and several others hovered over the table as Dan tried to recover from the embarrassment of choking in a public place. He grunted a few times, and tugged at the opening of his shirt.  "I'm fine. Please . . . please, away." He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. Arthur, his host, nodded and herded the others away with his arms.

Fairies
.
Yeah, right
. Dan was still trying to wrap his head around the reality of having a friend on the inside of that secret club. Tara and her brothers were actually
fairies
. He didn't like to think about it too much. But when some jolly fellow like this made a random comment about creatures he had believed all his life were merely cartoon characters, Dan found himself choking and sputtering.

"Travelling by sea can cause a fellow's insides to become unsettled." Arthur said as he sat down again. "You should eat lightly for a few days, and avoid strong drink."

"You have no idea," Dan quipped. "I find I don't travel well at all of late. But, never mind me, tell me more about this fairy woman without mercy."

Arthur made a face, as if considering his next words cautiously. And then he leaned in close, so those about them could not hear his low whisper. "My friend, you may think me mad, but there has been talk for many years of a fairy woman strolling the streets of Montmartre. She visits those who practice the creative arts and bestows the gift of inspiration upon a rare few."

"You're talking about the muses." Dan interjected, warming to this philosophical discussion on this warm spring night. He was not the type to wax poetic or pursue profound thought, but this place, the company and the green drink all seemed to have an usually uplifting effect on his perceptions. He felt light, expansive, almost a little euphoric. "The daughters of Zeus are the muses. There were nine, each one had a creative talent. Let's see, there was one for writing, one for music, and dance  . . . "

"No, no, this has nothing to do with the Greeks." Arthur made a cutting gesture with the flat of his hand. "This is a French legend. The old men around here claim a fairy created Absinthe. The Green Fairy. She supposedly seduced a Frenchman who escaped the city during the Revolution and hid in the mountains in the region of the Swiss Alps. It is said he brought her back to Paris with him at the turn of the century, and she provided the magic ingredient that gives Absinthe the power to inspire creativity in the human soul."

Dan pondered that tidbit of knowledge. "So, you believe those with special talents are given their abilities by a fairy, simply because they drink her secret potion?"

"Yes, and no," Arthur replied, weaving a little to the left in his chair. He poured Dan a second glass of Absinthe, and one for himself. He lifted the glass between his fingers and held it up to the light to peer at it as if searching for that special bit of magic he was talking about. "It is not merely the mixture of herbs steeped in alcohol that awakens the creative side of the mind. She has to have touched it, imbued the elixir with her magic. There are plenty of cheap brands flooding the market, all of them claiming to be the original recipe that was lost to us when the old man died. Since his death, the Green Fairy is said to have taken many lovers among those who worship at her shrine--but none have charmed her as he did. So, she keeps searching."

The waiter came to clear away their dinner. Arthur was silent as he studied his glass of bright green liquid beneath the lights hanging from the canopy above them.

Living with Tara and her fey brothers, Dan knew fairies actually did live in mounds or inside mountains. And they sometimes took humans as lovers. Art made a good argument. The legend of the Green Fairy might actually be true.

Dan sat back in his chair and gazed out at the city lights below as he considered the finer points of keeping his own counsel on the reality of fairies while sharing a drink with a stranger. "That's a captivating story. I'd write it down if I were you, before you forget it. Gives this," he lifted his glass, "a unique allure. Here's to the Green Fairy, may her legend always inspire you."

"She's quite real." Arthur tipped his glass at Dan for emphasis. "And pure Absinthe, the true formula given to men by this lovely fairy--that will be my conduit to finding her."

"Best of luck." Dan sighed, and reached for his cigar inside his coat pocket. He had a bad feeling about this.

"I've met her. I was transported to her court. It is an experience one can hardly forget. A beautiful garden cloaked in the night, with an amazing swirling green pool that glows, and iridescent flowers that wave and undulate in the night like fireflies with large, billowy illuminated wings."

Dan brushed his hand over his jaw, wondering if this Absinthe the man ingested regularly was similar to LSD when taken in heavy amounts. "I see. Was it a dream?"

"No," Arthur was adamant. "No, she kissed me. The Green Fairy kissed me, on the lips!"

"Hmmm," Dan refrained from commenting. He could imagine his new friend stoned out of his mind, half passed out in the alley and some pretty prostitute coming upon Arthur while he was dreaming of the green fairy and bending down to give him a kiss. "How about we go to a dance club, and find some naughty women with long legs to admire?" 

Chapter Six

Another week passed since Gisele came to visit Tara bearing a huge carpetbag of clothes.

The kind woman stopped in frequently in the following days to drop off fashion magazines to cheer Tara and to share a pastry from the corner bakery to add to the cup of tea Tara brewed for them. Gisele shared tidbits of neighborhood gossip. The woman across the street had kicked her husband out and taken to drinking Absinthe alone at the Chien Blanc Cafe in the evenings. Gisele warned Tara about the artist in the one room studio on the top floor of their building. He was an eccentric hermit who wanted everyone he met on the stairs to come up to his studio and pose nude for him.

A bond formed between them quickly. Tara was the only woman amid the troupe of men she'd brought to nineteenth century Paris, and she hungered for a woman's companionship. After two weeks of cloistering herself in the apartment and mourning her lost babe, Gisele coaxed Tara into an excursion to the dress shops in Paris.

She fidgeted in the rigid corset she'd been laced into by Gisele earlier. The woman insisted on helping her dress for her first outing since arriving in the city, almost as if Gisele believed Tara were an idiot when it came to proper Paris fashions. The beige linen skirt and white blouse served her well on this warm spring day. Almost a little too well, as the warm sun made her feel moist and confined under all the 'proper' under things she was expected to wear as the two of them walked down the hill of Montmartre to the bus stop below.

They caught a ride on the omnibus into the shopping district of the city. Tara suggested they take the top level of the bus, as they could sit on the bench in the open air. It was exhilarating to sit so high above the sidewalks and gaze about as the horses slowly pulled the two story bus through the streets.

She watched people swarming through the tree lined boulevards, all dressed in their Victorian best.
In vibrant colors
, not the stark black or sepia tones she recalled from old photos of this era. That was an eye opener. Tara always imagined this time as being rather dreary due to the absence of color in the photo plates from the period. That, and the poses for portraits were always so serious, as the subject had to sit for so long--several minutes--for one image to be caught on film. No wonder they all looked so grumpy and drab!

It was a brilliant, sunny Saturday in mid-May. The leaves on the trees were vivid light green, having just unfurled their new buds recently. The ladies walking past had big bustles on their skirts, wide brimmed hats and most carried parasols. The group of boys chased after a large metal wheel. They were in shorts and knee high socks instead of trousers like the men striding past with their canes in carefully gloved hands.

It was like visiting a living museum. Except, this wasn't make believe.

"You are from America?" Gisele asked. "You must know the little sure shot, Miss Oakley,
non
?" Gisele was watching Tara with wide, curious eyes. She seemed fascinated by Tara's reaction to the city around her.

"No, I don't." Tara wanted to laugh at Gisele's simplicity, but didn't dare. She couldn't know Annie Oakley personally. How could she when they lived in different centuries, not just different regions of the country. "America is much larger than Western Europe, if you can imagine it. I came from the Midwest, from Wisconsin. Just trees, bears and deer there. And loggers. The logger barons make their fortune from lumber."

Gisele seemed disappointed. "Is your papa a logger baron?"

"No." Rich he wasn't, but Dan was resourceful. Tara didn't have the heart to confide in her new friend that Dan wasn't her father, he'd just been playing that role due to complications in their past time travel expedition in Ireland.

"You must convince your Mr. Dillon to take you to the Wild West Show. It's at Park Neuilly, just beyond the Arc de Triomphe. Your Buffalo Bill, he is . . .
tres magnifique
. I've attended the show several times. I never tire of watching him handle his . . . big guns."

Tara giggled with Gisele. They exchanged a knowing look. It was refreshing to have female companionship. "So, he's a fox, I take it?"

"A fox,
et
renard
, Madame?" Gisele's eyes widened. "I know not what you mean."

"A fox is what we call an extremely attractive man where I come from." 

"Oh . . .
Oui, il est un renard
."

They reached their stop. A male conductor dressed in uniform hovered near them as they carefully stepped down the winding staircase to the first level, and then the two steps to the street. Several others followed, men who had waited for Tara and Gisele to ascend first. The bus moved on, and they walked along the sidewalk beneath the lovely green canopy of new spring foliage. Tara had questions about Gisele's life, but she did not wish to offend the kind woman. Gisele gave her clothing and personal items, and seemed genuinely willing to be a friend.  At first, Tara had been jealous when she learned Adrian had spoken to the lovely woman, but she soon realized that his intentions had been on her behalf.

Gisele was a dancer at a popular nightclub;
Le Coq Bleu
--the Blue Rooster.

Tara tried not think of the deeper meaning to the name, excluding the blue male chicken--known in English as a cock. She worked late into the night. She came home only to sleep for a few hours in the morning. She was a cheerful woman, not broken or hardened, as Tara would expect from such a life.

Tara wanted to suggest a different line of work to the woman. It was natural to do so, coming from a time in the future were women were given choices about a career. Here in Gisele's world, it seemed there was little a single woman could do to support herself. Work at a dance hall, or work in a factory. A dance hall was certainly a more jovial place, but there would be men there who would take advantage of a woman in that situation. She bit her tongue, and tried to not think about her friend's form of employment. Tara didn't consider herself a prude by any means, but Gisele was the equivalent of a pole-dancer in the twenty-first century. She got paid to entertain men by exposing herself on stage, and perhaps by schmoozing them afterward.

You can't save everyone
. The thought brought a heaviness to her chest as Tara remembered Lord Edward Fitzgerald, her husband's friend. Edward had been handsome, idealistic, charming and so full of life. But Edward was in prison, dying from a gunshot wound when they left Dublin of 1798. Despite her best intentions, Tara couldn't save him. He stubbornly embraced his fate and ignored her warnings about his future.

Adrian had been snatched from death, but even her husband had not gone along willingly with her attempt to save him. She had to drug Adrian, and then he was shot because he was not at the place fate had destined him to be.  A man invaded their home and accused him of being the traitor to their cause, all because his wife kept him home on the day the British Soldiers decided to raid the United Irishmen's meeting place. She saved Adrian's life, but sullied his reputation in the process. Could he ever truly forgive her for that?