Revel (23 page)

Zuzu, though, was more quiet and solemn than I’d expected. I guessed this was an important day for her and
she wanted to treat it with the pomp and circumstance she thought it deserved.

I didn’t know about healing or beauty benefits, but the water was relaxing. The warmth seeped into my body, into my bones. I closed my eyes and drifted happily, letting the talk around me subside into a comforting hum of companionship.

The distraction was welcome. It kept my mind off the night and what it would bring. But I was curious too. In my imagination Jax’s strong face appeared. He’d said he didn’t believe in all of the traditions of his clan. Was Revel one of them? Maybe that was why he’d looked so shocked when I told him I’d see him there.

When our soak was done and we emerged from the water, the cooler air was a shock. My muscles felt pleasantly loose and my skin tingled. One of the older women handed me a towel and I covered myself quickly.

“We’re all females here,” she chided with a twinkle in her eye. “No need to be shy.”

Zuzu had already left the pool and was holding a crystal wineglass with metal scrolling around the rim. She held the cup with both hands and took a small sip, closing her eyes as she swallowed. She wrinkled her nose delicately.

“Revel mead,” she said, and passed the cup to me. “It’s very strong. Take just a little.”

I stared at the gold-colored drink for a second, inhaled the sweet heady scent, then put it to my lips and took a taste. “Ugh. Tastes like cough medicine.”

“Come on, it’s time to get back,” said Gran, putting a robe over my shoulders.

We returned to the Grange Hall and the rest of the preparations went by in a haze. The older women gathered around each of us, tending to our appearance with clucks of admiration and advice. Hands and feet were massaged with oils. Lips and eyelids were painted with an iridescent paste that contained ground mother-of-pearl. My hair wasn’t long enough to have some of the elaborate braids that the other girls wore, so it was brushed and smoothed and twisted into a gleaming coil at the nape of my neck, then pinned with tiny combs that dangled crystal stars.

Finally we were painted.

An old woman with blood-red hair curled in a bun sat behind a card table in the corner of the hall, smoking a thin brown cigarette. On the table before her sat three shallow clay pots. “That’s Flora,” Zuzu told me. “She does the symbols for each girl.”

“What symbols?” I asked.

“She picks something special for each us. To give strength, confidence, good luck, whatever it is that we need.”

“How does she know what I need?” I wondered aloud.

One by one each girl approached the little card table. Flora scooped a portion of paint into her palm, stirring it with one finger as she tilted her head this way and that, deciding what symbol to use. The paints from each of the pots looked the same to me, like some kind of thick, waxy mud.

Each girl was marked in three places: on the forehead, between the breasts, and on the back. I watched as the girl ahead of me was painted. It was Marisa, I realized, and after scowling at her for a minute or two, Flora waved her closer. She made a circle on Marisa’s forehead and then a star shape on her chest, all the while murmuring something to her in a low voice. Finally Marisa turned and Flora made twin spiraling lines down her back. “Your sister is your strength,” she said.

When Marisa’s symbols were done, Flora wiped her hands and turned to me.

“You’re the newcomer,” she said in a scratchy voice. She squinted at me as though peering through a haze of smoke, probably just from habit, because she’d already stubbed out her cigarette.

“Yes.”

Flora considered me, her penciled eyebrows pulled together in concentration. Then she waved me forward, dipped a thumb into one of the pots and smeared my forehead. I lifted a small hand mirror from the table and saw she’d drawn a triangle shape, then a line cutting through it. The paint felt cool and sticky on my skin, and it smelled like seaweed.

“For transformation,” she said. “So changes can be for the good.”

I stared at her. “What changes?”

“Big changes,” said Flora with a shrug of her bony shoulders. “Little changes. Everything changes. Everything stays
the same.” She hacked a cough and motioned me to open the top of my robe.

The shape she drew on my chest was a green ellipse with a circle inside. “The inward eye,” Flora said. “So you’ll know your heart.”

The last symbol, on my lower back, seemed to take Flora a lot longer. Some kind of a circle but I couldn’t see it very well. “What is it?” I asked, twisting to try to see.

“Hecate’s circle. So the moon goddess will give you bravery,” said Flora. “I made it bigger than the others, and darker.” She gave me a thoughtful look and leaned closer. “Because you’ll need that one the most.”

“Thank you,” I told her. Even though her ominous words might have undone all the good of Hecate’s circle in the confidence-building department.

After the paints were thoroughly dry, we put on our dresses. The fabric slid over my skin like water. One knot fastened it at the shoulder.

When I looked in the mirror, the girl wasn’t me.

My cheeks were flushed and my skin glowed with a sun-burnished tan. The dress fit perfectly, molding to me in draping lines that would have suited an ancient Greek statue. Dark outlines drawn around my eyes accentuated their tilt and made their pale blue color gleam. And the painted symbols added a savage element.

I saw Gran’s face in the mirror behind me. There were tears in her eyes that she brushed away with a careless hand
before helping one of the other girls with her dress. Were they for me or was she reminiscing at seeing my resemblance to my mother?

Examining my appearance, I decided that I looked like a priestess from some lost civilization. Going to war.

Did priestesses go to war? Probably not.

Unless they were really pissed off about something.

Yeah
. The girl who was not me in the mirror nodded back in agreement.

I felt so weird. Like none of this was real. I didn’t know what was in that Revel mead, but I had a suspicion it had been spiked with something from Gran’s herbal medicine cabinet.

“You look beautiful,” said Zuzu. Her eyes were as bright as matching emeralds as she spun in front of me, her gleaming hair accented with gold and pearls. She looked so happy.

“So do you, Zuzu.” I grabbed her and hugged her close.

“One last thing,” said Gran, returning with a basket of greens. She took a small circle of pine sprigs and fastened it on top of my hair. Then she did the same for Zuzu.

“A tribute to Poseidon,” she said, and smoothed a strand of my hair with a gentle touch.

“It’s time to go,” someone said.

Suddenly girls who had been giggling and talkative the entire day were quiet. Anxiety hung in the air like the smell of something burning.

But I was in a reckless mood. It was as if I could feel the
blood coursing through my veins. I was past being afraid, being quiet or submissive. If that’s what they expected from me tonight, well then, they were going to be surprised.

“Woohoo!” I shouted, lifting the folds of my sacrificial robes and jumping up and down. “Party time, ladies. Am I right?”

I might have actually done a fist pump, I’m not sure.

“Delia!” said Zuzu in a shocked tone. “Hush. It’s time for Revel.”

CHAPTER 20
 

T
he word
solstice
comes from the Latin words
sol
, meaning “sun,” and
sistere
, meaning “to stand still.” When we arrived at Wreck Beach at sunset, the sun
was
standing still. At least, it looked that way. It hung motionless on the horizon, a lurid red globe beneath pink and orange clouds. And when it finally set, it spilled like a pool of blood into the sea.

I’d never seen a sunset like that before, and it filled me with a sense of dread for what was to come.

As darkness fell, the scene around me became a spectacle of light and bodies and movement. The men had spent the day preparing and had transformed the small beach for Revel. Towering piles of driftwood and pine logs were arranged for bonfires, and tiki-style torches illuminated the sand every few
yards. Up on the dunes more torches marked the shoreline in a necklace of light.

It must have been a spectacular sight from the water.

The thought made me shudder as I imagined the eyes out there in the dark, watching us. Waiting.

Electrical generators hummed and music pulsed from speakers set in the sand. The town band was performing on a platform especially constructed for the night, while couples danced on a makeshift floor of plywood laid in the sand and lit with poles of sparkling white lights. The scene was surreal. Especially when the band starting cranking out the Beach Boys tunes.

Really?

But maybe that was just me, because everyone seemed to be having a good time, and someone even asked for an encore of “Surfin’ USA.”

According to the advice we got at the Grange Hall, we were free to mingle and enjoy ourselves until they signaled the arrival of the guests, meaning the First Ones. Even so, most of us clung together. Zuzu didn’t seem nervous, though; she drifted through the crowd, looking perfectly at ease. I just stood there, probably looking like an awkwardly posed store mannequin.

We were close to the water’s edge, but for the first time since I’d been on Trespass, I couldn’t hear the waves. The laughter and talk of the hundreds of gathered people, the blaring music and the crackle of fire drowned out the surf.

The smell of smoke and cooking food drifted over the beach. Five huge pits as deep as a man is tall, lined with rocks, seaweed and hot coals, were being used to cook the vast quantities of lobsters, clams and corn it would take to feed the crowd. Long picnic tables set end to end ran along the sand, forming a giant banquet table. Bowls of fruit and bread, pots of melted butter and pitchers of iced drinks were piled on the tables. The dining wasn’t formal; it was more like grab food and sit when you liked, drink, dance and then eat some more. But I couldn’t eat. I was just too jumpy.

Cool, salty air licked my skin and I shivered. There was nothing to be afraid of, I told myself. My friends were here. So was Gran. Somewhere. People mingled, walking barefoot through the soft sand. The islanders laughed and talked quietly about their kids and their gardens, the day’s catch, tomorrow’s weather. The little kids ran in shrieking gangs, kicking up sand and skirting the adults as if they were traffic cones. A few yards away the ocean’s surf glowed blue-white in the dark.

I looked down at myself and clasped my hands together, feeling a little silly in the white tunic. Finally I sat down on the end of a bench, watching and listening to the festivities but not really being there. I still felt a dull sense of detachment, probably thanks to that Revel special sauce Zuzu had given me.

A shaggy black body came frisking through the crowd. “Buddy!” I called out with a smile. “Come here, boy.” I held out a hand.

Buddy lowered his head at me and growled deep in his throat.

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked, puzzled. Then, as if he’d suddenly realized who I was and felt ashamed, Buddy whimpered and ducked his head beneath my hand. “Did the toga freak you out?” I asked him, ruffling his fur and searching the crowd for Sean. He couldn’t be far behind. Through the crowd of faces, dim in the flickering lights, I glimpsed him. I thought he saw me too, but when I made my way over to the spot, I couldn’t find him.

Ben Deare was standing off by himself near the water’s edge, facing the sea. As I watched he raised his glass silently before him.

“Who are you toasting?” I asked him.

“Old friends,” Ben replied.

We stood silently for a moment. The stars over Trespass were brighter than I’d ever seen before, fierce and white against the night sky. Ed Barney walked up to us. He was beaming officiously, a plastic cup in his hand, and his round head gleamed in the reflected light of the bonfire.

“Miz McGovern,” he said pleasantly. “Shouldn’t you be over there? With the other young ladies?”

I really didn’t like Mayor Ed. Suddenly I felt like this was a good time to let him know. That reckless, detached feeling still pulsed in my blood. I didn’t know if it was still the effects of the Revel mead or the nearness of the water or the tension that made me feel so giddy. I poked him with a finger. “You have an
egg
like a
head
.”

Ben Deare snorted and I frowned. That didn’t come out right.

“I beg your pardon?” Mayor Ed demanded, blinking at me from behind his glasses.

At that moment a low horn sounded and all the noise on the beach stopped abruptly. I hurried to join Zuzu and the other young women where they stood in an uneven group. This was away from the central part of the beach and more dimly lit, with only one tall blazing torch.

We all watched as the First Ones came from the water, a handful of the young men of the clan. Looking at them, I couldn’t help but be a little awestruck. They were beautiful. As a race they could be cruel, domineering, even barbaric. But there was no denying that they were beautiful too. As they emerged, firelight glimmered on their pale, strong bodies and on the shimmering fins that protruded behind them like multicolored plumage.