Chapter Eight - Take Me Away
Dell
The bell rings. I answer. She stands there leaning against the door. With a cigarette in hand, she is looking beautiful, dangerous and fragile. She looks like a bomb about to explode. Her face is red like chili, caked with powder, hiding her features with a plastic facade. Her eyes are brimming with tears, her head cocked up. She juts her lower lip and exhales lightly.
“Cyrene,” I say, happy to see her.
“I can’t do this,” she says.
“Can’t do what?” I ask. She looks away, not trusting herself to talk.
She raises her hands in resignation. “This, with you. Anything. Everything.”
“Come on, come inside,” I say. She follows me into the living room and leans on the couch, her legs on the table.
“Wine?” I ask. She nods. I get two glasses and pour red wine, hand one glass to her. She downs it in one go and pours herself another.
“You are the weirdest witch I have ever seen,” I tell her.
“Join the club,” she says through gritted teeth. “More power to you.”
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”
“What does it matter?” she says. “Everything I do always seems to go awry, blowing up in my face. I fuck everything up. I don’t know where my life is headed, what I am doing and nothing makes sense anymore. It never did.”
I refill her glass and sit next to her and put my arm around her neck. “I am not in the mood for sex,” she says. “Not everything is about sex,” I say. She remains stiff for a minute, lights another cigarette, takes a sip of her red wine and then leans back with her head on my chest.
“I can hear your heartbeat,” she says.
“Can you hear what it says?” I ask. She turns around, straddles me again and slowly pushes her cigarette into my mouth.
“I don’t smoke,” I say.
“Just this once,” she says.
I take a drag, blow it out. “Just for you.”
“I need to get away,” she begins. “If I continue, I will fall apart.”
“You are stronger than you know, Cyrene.”
“Wow,” she says, coughing as she laughs suddenly while blowing out smoke. “You sound just like Minerva…that bitch.”
“Want to get out of here?”
“Yes, please,” she says, her eyes literally begging me to take her away.
We walk out into the empty street behind my house.
“Have you ever rode a dragon?”
“I am about to, ain’t I?”
I nod, shifting into my dragon. I see her eyes widen as I shift, marveling.
“Hop on,” I say.
She walks to my outstretched wings and clambers up.
“This could be more comfortable,” she says.
“Hold tight,” I say, as I feel her arms around my back, her fingers tightening for a better grip. I lurch forward, batting my wings, picking up speed. She leans her head back as I take off, her hair loose and free, flying wildly, like her spirit.
“I can show you the world…” I begin.
“Don’t fuck up the moment,” she interrupts.
We break out laughing.
“Take me to your world, take me away,” she says.
***
The night smells like a potpourri of jasmine and roses, as I slowly descend over a glade by the river in my kingdom. The sky is mirrored in the river below. The stray clouds, stars and the moon glisten in its murky stillness. We circle around the glade, descending slowly and land on a patch of Irish grass.
She slides off my wing. “So, this is your world.” I shift again, back to human form.
“This is where my father met my mother,” I say. I see acknowledgment in her eyes. She nods, gives me a hug without speaking and then looks into my eyes.
“Your eyes,” she begins. “They are burning. The irises are dancing like flames.”
“That’s how they are in my world. No disguises here.”
“Cool,” she says and lights another cigarette. She walks to the river, “I can’t even tell which one is the real sky—this, here,” she points to the river, “or that, up there,” pointing to the sky.
“This is a magical place,” I say. “The Kingdom of Dragons.”
“And you must be a dragon prince looking for an eligible princess,” she says, blowing rings of smoke, leaning against a jacaranda tree.
“No, I am not a prince.”
“Too bad, that won’t do for me.”
I grab her hand and pull her up. “But I do belong to the dragon nobility, one of the oldest lines of dragon blood. Would that do?”
She takes a step away, her hand still in mine, “Maybe.” I pull her back to me.
“I want to know you. I want to give us a chance, Cyrene. But you…you are unpredictable. You are tantalizing to my heart, my soul. If you are fooling around, just let me know and I will save myself from the heartbreak.”
“The moon looks so beautiful,” Cyrene says. I look into her eyes and see the giant pearl reflected in them. We get down on the floor and lie in the grass, cuddling, looking at the moon.
“I am serious, though, about what I said,” I reiterate.
“I don’t know, I have never done this stuff before. I have always used a love potion,” she says. “I don’t know how things work or how to make them work.”
“Is that a no?”
“I didn’t say that,” she says, rising on her elbows, propping her chin in her hands. “I just suck at being an adult. I can’t do what people…”
“I like you just the way you are,” I interrupt. “I wouldn’t want you to change.”
“Everyone says that in the beginning…”
“You have been hurt before, haven’t you?”
She doesn’t respond.
“Whatever happened to you, Cyrene, forget it. Leave it behind. Stop taking it everywhere with you or you will never be able to move on.”
She smiles wistfully.