Now came the test.
No conduit.
No half-truth or interpretation.
Belle, the glass, the deep green magic, and the words.
She would find the caves of ice and prostrate herself on their cold, sharp edges until she was accepted, taken or broken, but one with what had been lost.
Dark powerful eyes haunted her, tracking each motion and each thought, seeing through flesh and bone and soul.
Waiting.
She took the tumbler gently into her hands.
Candlelight flickered about her, and the incense, ever-present, grew cloying and thick, a taste that lingered in the back of her throat, drying her out and reaching to the absinthe for succor and warmth.
Belle shivered a final time, so deeply that she shook and nearly spilled the thick green liquid over her hands and the floor.
Her knees rattled on the floor, and she gasped.
Throwing her head back, she brought the drink to her lips and upended it.
The heat was intense, the burn glorious and excruciating and powerful, all at once, washing down through her
in a burst of fire and dripping behind, bringing secondary sizzle to slowly singe her throat. She did not move, fearing it would be too strong, that she might vomit or pass out, that she might fail herself as so many others who had gone before.
They hadn't failed, because they hadn't been reaching out for anything.
Only Belle had failed, and as the hot liquor burned down her throat, she knew it was her courage that had been lacking, not the ingredients, or the mix, not the strength of will of another, presented as her sacrifice.
Placing the glass on the altar, she glanced at her book – her notes – in scorn.
She had been hiding in the research, hiding between the pages, lacking the courage to see.
To know.
She closed her eyes, and the words came unbidden, slowly, then with growing force.
She recited in a steady, throaty voice that purred with strength and resolution.
"
In
Xanadu
did
Kubla
Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where
Alph
, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery..."
Belle clamped her eyes tightly, her hands out to her sides for balance.
The absinthe leaked into her thoughts and drew her deeper, thickening her tongue as she fought for completion.
Images opened in her mind.
Art's painting flashed into view, but with details he had never seen.
The ice rippled with fire.
The ground shook with the marching cadence of a horde of booted feet.
The landscape surged with greenery, and huge, spouting geysers splashed into the air and fell to the earth, all in the rhythm of a huge heartbeat, drawing her inward.
Her body arched once more, prone against the floor, the altar before her and her knees spreading wider, inviting.
She wore a short, soft linen dress, nothing beneath, but it didn't matter.
The sensations that washed through her had nothing to do with clothing, or the room surrounding her, or the world where she lived and breathed and lusted for ... what?
"For he on honeydew hath fed,"
The words seeped up from beneath her, hands fashioned of letters that lifted her and offered her... .
"And drunk the milk of paradise."
She saw a young man, long flowing dark hair and a broad nose, dark eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
In his hand he held a quill, dark with ink.
He seemed to see her in that same instant, studying her, every inch and curve, eyes bright.
His hand trembled, and a droplet of ink threatened to fall to whatever surface he penned upon.
Beside him a bottle sat, aged and crusted with sugar crystals, the cork removed.
A crystal tumbler sat beside it, and Belle felt his fingers as he reached for that drink, felt them stroking her flesh and drawing her up, her hips rising to meet the fall of his lips.
His eyes never left hers, and the hand that did not hold the quill slid beneath her, curling into the small of her back.
Belle cried out, trying to close the eyes that had opened when she clamped her own shut, trying to avoid the intensity, the absolute pleasure and terror and impossibility of that touch and that moment, but she could not give voice to the sound, or, if she did, she could not hear it.
Nor could he.
He leaned closer, and she knew him, from portraits and descriptions, from the twist of the lips that would one day sneer at his own work, questioning its value and releasing it only at another's whim.
Those lips so close his breath, hot-sweet with absinthe, brushed her thighs.
Belle's entire being clenched.
The air shattered with a sharp sound.
Belle clamped her eyes more tightly still, concentrating, but the moment was shattering around her, falling away.
The sound repeated, and she cried out.
She arched so violently that her back crackled, spine rearranging to try and compensate.
She ground her head into the floor, feeling the tug and tear as the motion pulled against her hair.
His face had faded and though the heat remained between her legs, the touch had never come.
The ice had faded to molten carpet that burned her as she stroked against it, and again, the sound, and again, blaring and bursting through her thoughts.
Then there was nothing.
Art turned his key in the lock at last, determined, if this was his last night in the house, that he would spend it painting.
He could not block the images, and though he'd poured drink after drink down his throat, doubling the shots when the first few rounds failed him, his heart pounded and his head spun, not with drunken stupor, but with the images, drawn from the memory of Sammy's voice and the faces floating in air, the words and the incense, and the failure.
He had painted, but now he knew that he had not been true to himself, or the images.
He hadn't failed, he'd been a coward.
He knew, and he wanted to share that knowing, but the only way to do it was the painting.
He opened the door and burst inside, and he found her, Belle, prostrate on the floor, bent nearly double and writhing against the carpet.
The incense was so thick he could barely make out the bar beyond the altar.
He saw the bottle sitting there, and a glance at the floor showed the empty tumbler.
Belle was unconscious.
He didn't know why, or how, but he knew she was breathing.
Art lifted her in his arms and carried her to his room.
He placed her on his bed, covered her tortured features with his sheets and blankets and turned away.
She was alive. She was safe.
He had to paint.
Art never knew when Sammy returned.
One moment he was lost in the painting, and the next he realized he was lost in the painting and the sound.
She had entered, opened the case, pulled out her dulcimer, and she was playing, matching the notes to his motion, or was he matching his motion to the sound?
It didn't matter.
As he neared completion, he was aware of something more.
Belle had risen, first to sit on the bed, staring at him in wonder, then to rise and slip closer, molding herself to his body and pressing closer.
Other times, other worlds, and he would have worried that she would jostle him, drive him from the images or vice versa, but it was right.
Each counterbalance she caused brought the brush closer to perfection, and she held tightly.
The eyes glared back at them from the canvas, the ice glistened, and the heat throbbed.
Sammy began to sing along with the tune she was playing, the words distant and familiar, though neither Art nor Belle had ever heard them spoken.
The final words of the poem passed, and the milk of paradise ran green in rivers flowing from Art's brush.
The eyes of Samuel Taylor Coleridge glistened with longing as he watched them, lost in a corner of the canvas, as they passed.
Beyond, seated in a garden, beneath lush fruit trees and near a fountain another sat, also watching.
Again they passed, and as they did, the man's tortured eyes slid over Belle and he whispered:
"She walks in beauty, like the night."
But they were gone.
The words, so long forgotten, whispered over Sammy's lips, softer and lighter, fading to the sound of traffic passing on the street beyond.
The smoke of incense wisped about the room.
On the floor, soaked in deep green paint, the brush lay still, soaking its contents to the carpet.
The painting was spectacular, image torn from image, blended to other worlds and back.
The room stood empty.
In the next room where she'd left it closed, Belle's book fell open silently.
The candles burned low, but the light was bright enough for reading.
Leaning low, a long-haired, oddly dressed man gripped the volume, holding it up and apparently marveling at the binding and the lined paper within.
The book had fallen open to a page etched with verse, and he read.
His eyes filled with an odd pain, then he placed the framed book on Belle's altar.
Before him on that altar, sat the bottle.
One final shot remained within.
He lifted it, took a whiff of the contents, and smiled.
He knew that scent, one thing very familiar in a world suddenly gone mad.
Without thought, he poured the last of the absinthe into the tumbler, closed his eyes, and poured it down his throat.
Lifting the pen, he stared at the paper, mouthing the final words.
"And drunk the milk of paradise."
Slowly, mind awash with images, he began to write.
It was getting dark, and the road ahead was fading quickly to shadows.
Dave looked about himself nervously, hoping against hope that he'd see something familiar, something that would let him know he was on the right track.
For about the thousandth time that hour, he cursed himself for forgetting to bring Beth's phone number.
The Virginia mountains were no place to be lost at that time of night, especially when the only landmarks you could remember that might make everything all right were three giant grain silos off to one side of the road, and you could barely
see
the side of the road.
It was not starting out to be the best night of his life.
In the seat beside him, Jo was squirming uncomfortably, trying to look unconcerned, but not doing a very good job.
She was taking it like a real trooper.
It was their first time away together, and they hadn't been dating that long.
His first fear had been that she'd be furious, and that their weekend would be ruined, all by his own ridiculous mistake.
The roads that turned off to either side were all numbered with identical signs.
He knew that the road he needed was eight hundred and something, and since he couldn't make out a thing along the roadside, he opted for the one that seemed to ring a bell.
813.
It might not be the right one, but it was a place to start.
"I'm sorry about this," he said, turning to Jo with a lopsided grin.
"I can't believe her phone is unlisted!"
"It's okay," she said, returning the smile, if a bit nervously.
"Is this the road?"
"I'm not sure, but it looks familiar.
If this isn't it, we'll come back out here, make our way into town, and I'll figure something else out."
She nodded, and he drove on down the dark, deserted road, paying close attention to the many potholes and the steep ditches.
She had offered up her car for the trip, even letting him do the driving, and he had no intention of taking advantage of that trust.