Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance) (55 page)

“It is magic,” she said. “It’s
our
magic. That’s the magic part of the world that brought us together. It’s the one kind of magic you and I will always have. Together.”

“Baby, you are right. Right now, all around the world, people are doing everything they can to make computers feel just like magic. Although, computers aren’t really magic.”

“No,” she agreed, “but on the very deepest level, they are magic.”

“Well, no, precious. On their deepest, deepest level, computers are just electrons and circuits and logic.”

“I mean the level
below
the logic.”

“There
is
no level deeper than the logic. It only
feels
that way.”

“Well, a
feeling
is a
fact
.”

“Why do we argue about this? Hey, that reminds me,” said Gavin. “I just asked your brother what the date was, and he told me the date. For him, the date was two days ago. That means these plots of Pancho’s that he was warning me about? Those things have already happened. I mean, they’ve happened
to me
, anyway — I don’t know if they happened
to you yet
, because you are living ten days behind me.”

“Tell me the date,” she said.

Gavin drew a breath. “It’s February 14. It’s Valentine’s Day. It’s your birthday.”

“But that
is
today’s date. It is my birthday. You finally got it right, Gavin.” She smiled in triumph. “So you can marry me, now, today, on my birthday, and you should never marry anyone else! I’m the only one in the world who can manage your crazy schedule.”

Hepsiba brought over a steaming teacup.
“Porque o seu amado robô está tão preocupado?”
²¹

“He’s had a setback in a business deal,”
said Farfalla.

“This herbal tea will calm him down,”
said Hepsiba.

Gavin accepted the brimming cup of poison with a philosopher’s resigned smile.

“Let me make sure I’m completely with the program here,” he said. “I drink this witch’s potion, and then I start hallucinating. I go completely out of my head.”

“I’m drinking it, too,” she said. “We’ll go on a sleepwalk, Gavin. And I will sleepwalk with you.”

“No. Forget that. No way that
you
are drinking this crazy stuff. Let me drink it first, and you can wait to see if I drop dead. I’m sure there are weird Amazonian alkaloids in this booze that spaced-out William Burroughs beatniks could only dream about.”

“It’s just herbal tea.”

“Yeah, sure it is. The point is that I drink this poison, and I go into a space I can’t reach. But then,
then
, I finally tell you your magic words. I finally say this magic thing that totally proves I’m your One, the magic words you’ve been waiting for me to say, ever since I met you. If we can do that, then it’s all worth it.”

“Gavin, it’s just herbal tea. It’s a ritual. It’s all about faith.”

“Cookie, drugs don’t scare me. Drugs are just chemistry. It’s the idea that drugs make you a better person. That’s pretty bad. That is a lie and a snare. To live a lie is against my principles. I refuse the path of self-deception. I am doing this now, because I want to see you happy and for no other reason. But never again, no other time will I do this, all right? I don’t want a life where we’re we’re both strung out, just so we can be together.” He looked moodily into the teacup.

Farfalla wiped at her eyes. “What a sweet thing to say! I know you’ll never be a junkie, my darling. I’ve met plenty of junkies, and you’re not the junkie type.” She leaned closer, to whisper to him. “This is all just a silly ritual, all right? Voodoo is all about the power of suggestion! No one is going to poison you. It’s a placebo. Voodoo has no real power over you. Not unless it can trick you into believing in the power of voodoo.”

“Yeah. Okay. I knew that all along.”

“Drink it, just to make our hostess happy. They’re going to all kinds of trouble for us.”

Gavin held the cup steadily, but did not move it to his lips. “There’s another thing first. I’m expecting an important phone call. It’s about my family’s business. It’s a phone call from my Dad.”

“Your Dad will have to wait.”

“No. He can’t wait. That is not in his nature. It’s a critically important business deal that’s worth thirty million dollars. It can make all the difference between the survival and collapse of my family. This is a deal I’ve been pursuing since before I ever met you. It’s based on an important secret that my father has guarded for thirty years.” Gavin sighed. “Responsible men do not take narcotics when they are patching together top-secret Italian-Brazilian-American techno alliances.”

“I’ll talk to your father.”

“No, don’t joke about that. My father might really call me. We have a very serious family crisis going on. Deadly serious. It’s top-secret, there’s a lot of money and military power involved, and it’s... Well, you know about that. You were there. You were translating that.”

“Yes. I was there.” She took the phone from his hand. “Gavin, try to be here for me now. If we are ever going to make our life work, even though we are Futurists, we will have to be together in the moment.”

Gavin thought this over. “Right.” He gulped the teacup.

Then, he waited.

“It’s not bad,” he said. “It’s just like that weedy junk that hipsters drink in Seattle health-food joints. So, now what happens?”

“Now, we have the ceremony,” said Farfalla. “A ceremony can’t be rushed, it will take a while. There is incense, repetitive trance music, voodoo chalk outlines on the floors... We have to anoint ourselves in the sacred blood of the Lamb...”

“Fantastic,” said Gavin, belching politely into his hand. “I mean, our hosts are true professionals. This is a ceremony, and they mean to do this up brown.”

“Yes. They are the magic people, the voodoo people. They exist, and I am one of them.”

“And I’m marrying you. You know what? I will never understand this, but I can get behind this. For your sake. Farfalla, I feel such a sense of tenderness and devotion to you now… Because our marriage is like pagan warpaint, it’s a Burning Man freak scene. So, listen. Since it’s like that, I am going to get naked. That’s what! I’m going to cover my flesh with mud and body-paint! I’ll be naked! A naked spiritual warrior!”

“No, Gavin.”

“Oh yeah! Heck yeah! Occult Futurity! Sleepwalking naked! Bare-ass naked, sister! Orgiastic! Eyes like two dinner saucers!”

“Gavin, no. Put your shoes back on.”

“Why not? I want to do it! If a woman throws off her robes in a magic ceremony, it’s like, look, she’s nude, ooh, everybody look at the spiritually heightened atmosphere... What about me, what about
my naked male sexuality
, where is my naked truth, where is my freedom?”

“Gavin, this place is a church.”

Gavin looked at Hepsiba, who gazed back at him with stern, judgmental eyes. “Why are women always such pills about all this?” Gavin grumbled. Then, he swooned.

“He certainly is gullible,” Hepsiba observed.

Farfalla sighed. “He just trusts me. That’s all.”

“Well,” said Hepsiba, “at last, we have him helpless. He is silent now, and he is helpless. His robot story can end right here. Now, his narrative becomes a horror story. One hour from now, and he is dead as a stone. The eyes are gouged from his head, and the heart is cut from his body. He is dangling from his heels from bloody ropes in a concrete cellar fifteen stories in midair. Rats will eat his flesh and maggots will drip from his carcass. He is there beside the other bodies of people who will never, ever be seen again. The vanished people. The disappeared people.”

“That story doesn’t scare me, you know,” shrugged Farfalla. “I’m from Italy. The Italian Mafia has been vanishing people for a thousand years.”

“But, he doesn’t know that your story is that scary,” Hepsiba persisted. “The true darkness of your story will always be closed to this man. His silly little story can
end right now,
and you can
go on
with your dark, tremendous story, and he doesn’t have to be in it. It’s just your story. Yours alone.”

“I understand why it would give me joy to kill him,” said Farfalla. “Because I am dark inside, and my passionate love for him has many elements of
hatred,
and there are times when his stubborn lack of sense truly makes me
crazy,
and the deep pangs I feel in my heart truly
wound me,
and I can feel myself truly
bleeding
over him, but, well, even the suffering is sweet. It is sweet to be in love, it is wonderful. I’m so mixed-up over this guy that I even enjoy my suffering. Sometimes, my urge to kill him even makes me laugh. In the black and dirty depths of my witch’s heart, maybe I will want to kill him, but I never will. Instead, I will love him with all my heart. I will always cherish and protect him, every day, as long as I live. Do you know why?”

Hepsiba handed over a brimming teacup. “Why, my dear?”

“Because the world is
full of other people
who want to destroy this guy. They hate him, and hate everything he stands for, and he doesn’t even know that. He’ll never know. He’s not the kind of man who can know such dark things. But, the thought that they would ever hurt him — when he belongs to me, when he is
mine
— that thought fills me with fury. Not the small anger that I feel at him sometimes, but a deadly, vengeful, serpentine rage. You want me to stay here in Sao Paulo with your Brazilian boy, but with this man at my side — my futurist Prince Consort — I will become Queen Cassandra.”

And then, Farfalla stopped speaking. But, she did not stop thinking aloud:
Royalty. Not the shrieky drop-out priestess with her hippie hairdo, but Cassandra as royalty. I will be the queen-mother of the coming century, and I am going to litter the earth with the foes of this man. They are going to perish from history in a way so tormented, twisted, sneaky and occult that they will never guess who pulled the trap beneath their gibbet. They will be expunged from history, erased from the narrative entirely, they will be so bewildered, lost and despairing that they will lose the will to live and embrace death like a lover. Not because of what I told them about the future, but because of things I didn’t tell them. Not because Cassandra cursed them aloud, but because I was so near and dear to them, because I was so quiet, kind and understanding. At their graves, with their tattered handful of scared, scarred mourners, I’ll be the only one who brings them flowers. ‘Always a class act, Queen Cassandra,’ that’s what they will say about me. ‘Those whom history forgot, high or low, rich or poor, they always had one final friend in her.’

“What a very scary thing you are thinking, my dear.”

“Nana, when it comes to Sao Paulo, I don’t amount to very much. But outside this place — well, I am a priestess. And outside this place, I rank. I am tomorrow.” Farfalla lifted her cup in a toast.

Gavin’s phone rang.

“Go ahead,” Hepsiba urged. “Drink that.”

“Just one minute.” Farfalla stooped carefully and set the brimming teacup on the floor. “This must be Gavin’s dad.” She glanced at the screen of the ringing Blackberry. “Yes, Gavin knew this would happen. He predicted this. It’s his father calling.”

“Don’t answer that.”

“Are you kidding? This old fool is the torment of my boyfriend’s life. Everything in Gavin’s life is frozen because of his father. I’m going to have it out with this curse of his life, right now.”

Farfalla put the phone to her ear. “Hello?” Then, she listened.

“No,” she said firmly, “he is not available. He’s sleepwalking.” Pause. “No, that is not a problem. I know all about that. I can handle that.”

Squeaking noises.

“Yes, of course,” said Farfalla. “The electronic chips, the flight control systems, the autonomous military drones. The Brazilian defense market. I
grew up
here. I
am
Brazilian. I translate electronic documents into Portuguese. For a living.”

More squeaking.

“Stop that,” Farfalla broke in, “because I don’t care. I don’t care about your big so-called secret — I can tell
you
what happened. Pancho Pola brought in one of the open-source control chips from his lab in Ivrea. He took your Space Age military secret, and he made that secret obsolete in thirty minutes. You think that is such a great secret of yours? Nothing that he did is secret to
me
. I translated that document myself. Why didn’t you come to
me
? I know more about those stupid chips than he does. I have to translate all their boring technical stats, and all he does is fly up to Brussels and win his design awards. What a stupid, dirty thing this whole business is. My God, you men are impossible.”

More scratchy noises.

“Look, I’m sick and tired of your millions of dollars!” shouted Farfalla. “It’s all I hear out of you Tremaines! You know what you people need? You need someone in your family who doesn’t believe you’re all dead.”

Faint squeaks.

“Quit whining, old man! What have you lost here? You didn’t sell your precious secret plans to your supersonic jet-plane! What is your big American problem, you think Brazil will land on the Moon when you’re not looking? What is wrong with you Americans, these days? All you do is sit on the couch, play video games and eat cake!”

More squeaks.

“That’s right. I do have a lot to say for myself,” said Farfalla. “And if you give my boyfriend any more trouble about these stupid broken business deals of yours, I’m going to fly up there and tell the truth to you. In three languages. I’ve got a Green Card and frequent flyer miles, and I can be there by morning. That’s right. On your doorstep. In Capitol Hill, in Seattle. No, I
know
where your house is. I used to live two blocks away.”

More static.

“Really,” scoffed Farfalla.

More silence.

“Well, maybe. If you really mean that.”

More silence.