just waiting for a key
to sleep inside the house of old serenity
so i climbed onto your altar
begged, please don't let me falter
we'll put our oaths at stake
in a heaven that all icicles make
all my devotion
compelled by an ocean
of all of the years to come
all of the years to come
so we'll work until the night is quite
what once all our dreams were like
doing all the housework
returning all the schoolbooks, for good
and all my devotion
compelled by an ocean
of all of the years to come
all of the years to come
let's go on pretending
that the light is neverending
we still have the summers
to be good to one another
You've got a nerve to be asking a favor
You've got a nerve to be calling my number
Hello, Sunshine,
Sorry to vanish like that, but I've got some family business. You ought to come and visit -- there will be all kinds of scandal for you to pry into, all kinds of property for you to rifle through, and all kinds of reasons to feel terribly sorry for me and obligated to cook for me. Kitchen here's tops, by the way.
Address is inside, if you want. And bring my maid, will you?
Your pitiable, suffering alchemist,
-- AMB
-----
Dear Milla,
I apologize for taking a leave of absence from your current program of care, but I have been called away to consult on a family case involving some of the most unfortunately unstable individuals I have ever had occasion to treat.
As your clinician, I must recommend your attendance at this particular away-care program. It's a lovely lakeside retreat; very private, and my professional opinion is that at this stage of your treatment, such a residency would be advisable for the near term. Of particular interest is the water therapy program on offer here; I believe we've discussed in the past the benefits of hydrotherapy for schizophrenia, so I recommend you bring a bathingsuit. You would be under my care, of course.
I imagine your current guardians will wholly support your participation in this program, if they value your health. I am enclosing address information for the location of the residency.
Best Wishes,
Dr. A Marshall
-----
RK,
Call it telepathy, but I think you need to get out of town for a little. Right?
Probably that's the only place we'll be able to talk about Nao Chri my your things.
You remember the place, right?
See you.
Fidelis,
AMB
------
When I used to go out I'd know everyone I saw
Now I go out alone if I go out at all
You've got a nerve to be asking a favor
You've got a nerve to be calling my number
I'm sure we've been through this before
She was still such a beautiful woman that it seemed an obscenity to dress her even a little like a nun.
Perhaps time really did stop on the Sicilian island where the matriarch Luciana Vega had been staying with the Sisters of Mercy and she simply hadn't aged -- but then again, she had married Augustus so young, so very young, practically a child-bride, and after everything she'd gone through, maybe there was some truth to the idea of being a virgin of god.
Those who knew her well would laugh at the idea, though.
Two stewardesses smoking air-legged outside of the charter airport straightened and paused to watch as the black mirage of a prince, wrought in heat shimmer (black? In summer, has there been a death?) moved like a plume of smoke across the near-empty lot for the entrance. From a distance, the way the pavement smogged and warped in the beating heat made it look as if his feet didn't quite touch the ground.
He had to be one of the family Vega, who so often used this private airstrip -- something about the arrogant cast of the shoulders, maybe, the lazy beauty that became evident the closer he approached. Yet this one was different somehow; foxglove gleam to the golden eye, yes, but it was really the way his look pierced, constricted the chest like a gathering squall the nearer he drew, as if he were some gravitation that sucked all the air from the lungs at proximity, as if the environment seemed to pull, to crumple toward him. Had to be the dizziness, the heat, that made it look like the very gravel and dust rattled on its surfaces, skittered toward him, like the dull air and dry flowers were sounding his rhythm, calling --
"Aden Brande," the man told the security officer at the door. "I'm collecting my aunt."
Yes, the aunt, the poor fragile thing, standing in a small air conditioned room as if lost, flanked by two frocked Sisters who'd come to ensure the poor dear's stability, holding her by the arms while the security officer read the nephew's driver's license. Subtly they stole a grip at their rosary at the way the air changed, like they could hear Hell in the very sound of his name aloud, Aden --
"Marshall--" gasped Luciana breathlessly, like a benediction, or a curse.
Brande. Quick, quick, calculating, those horrible-wonderful citrine eyes, those compelling sulfur chasms that put the heat under those dresses, and then the black ghost was just a pretty rake, a prodigal son, who tipped his head and said only, "It's good to see you, Aunt."
And the Sisters of Mercy (oh, Aunt, couldn't you have chosen a madhouse with a different name?) had no choice but to surrender her, to worry all the while whether all those Good Works they'd done were being thrown into a firepit, because no aunt ought to look at her nephew the way poor, mad Luciana gazed desperately into the face of the young man who, placid as a centurion at victory, led her to his car as if he carried no queen but only a white pawn in a great plasticine war.
There was the face you saw above you
In the fever of a hot black dream
But it was made of paper and glue
And you were hoping for something a little more realistic
You were hoping for the head of the queen.
Luciana and Marceline. Marius had been born by this point -- I, obviously, had not.
She died because of all of their sins, I think. Or, that's what I'd say if I believed in sin.
