Waking the Moon (47 page)

Moon-girls.
She recognized them from the club earlier, shouting their goddamn mantra while she was trying to sing. Young, in their early twenties—so many of Angelica’s girls were young, it must have something to do with having missed that whole first wave of feminism and liberation, of growing up under the conservative cloud of the eighties, of being desperate and cynical and incredibly naive all at the same time. Virgie was coffee-skinned, with long thick black hair and tilted black eyes and a
Hothead Paisan
T-shirt. She wore crescent-shaped earrings and a crescent-shaped pendant around her neck, a bad copy of Angelica’s necklace made of cheap Mexican silver. Her companion was slight and short, wiry as a young girl, with auburn hair clipped close to her skull and a small tattoo of a crescent moon on her left cheek. When she extended her hand in greeting, Annie saw that she had another tattoo on the ball of her thumb, the tiny perfectly rendered image of a honeybee.

“That must have hurt,” said Helen. She pulled two extra chairs from another table and scooted over to make room.

“Not really,” said Lyla. She slid into a chair, her grey eyes never leaving Annie. “You let yourself flow into the pain. It’s over pretty quick.”

“I always thought body mutilation was the sin against the Holy Ghost,” said Annie.

“What?” asked Virgie.

“Nothing. Obsolete cultural reference.” Annie reached for her club soda and sipped, staring warily at the newcomers. “Enjoying your vacation?”

“Your show was fantastic, as always,” said Martha. She inclined her head toward her two friends. “It was the first time they’ve seen you—”

“First time we’ve seen you
live.
Your video is great,” broke in Lyla.

“Your music is
so
fantastic,” gushed Virgie. “It cuts so close to the bone, I mean it’s really amazing how you get so much out of your own pain and sense of loss, how you’ve managed to heal yourself and turn it all into those intense songs—”

“It’s a living.” Annie crunched an ice cube. She leaned back in her chair, staring at Virgie’s throat with narrowed eyes. “Nice necklace.”

“Thanks! I got it at one of Angelica Furiano’s
Waking the Moon
workshops. Have you ever been—”

“No.”

“Oh, but you must! I mean, she is
so
incredible, you can just feel the power emanating from her, I mean it was just the most incredibly intense experience of my
life—
”

“Wow,” said Annie dryly.

“It
was
pretty intense,” said Lyla. “We live in Northampton and we’ve started a group there, there’s a lot of us who took the workshops and were awakened. We get together every week and the energy level is just amazing, and—well, you just wouldn’t believe it, that’s all. You really should check it out.”

“Annie’s pretty busy touring these days,” Helen said. “We don’t have a lot of free time—”

“Angelica really is rather remarkable,” said Martha. She gave Annie an apologetic look. “I know you think it’s all kind of dumb—”

“I don’t think it’s dumb. I’m not a separatist, that’s all.”

“Oh, but
all
kinds of people are into Angelica!” Virgie leaned across the table to stare earnestly at Annie. “I’ve even met
guys
there. I mean, most of the women at our workshop were straight, and it was so amazing to see how they blossomed! Most of us—”

She fluttered her hands, indicating the women at the table, the crowds outside. “We’re
used
to feeling outside the mainstream, but for
them
it was like the first time they ever truly realized just how marginalized women are, how totally dependent on this archaic obsolete patriarchal system that enslaves us—”

Annie was silent. Martha and Helen exchanged a glance; then Martha said quickly, “I don’t think she really meant that women were literally enslaved—”

“Oh, but she
did
!” exclaimed Virgie. Lyla nodded; the crescent moon on her cheek caught a stray mote of candlelight and seemed to flicker. “That’s her whole thing, how we’ve been so incredibly conditioned we don’t even
know
that we’re nothing more than chattel, I mean look at the way they want to control our
bodies—
”

“The way they want to control our minds,” added Lyla.

“But Othiym—I mean Angelica—I mean, she just makes you aware of this whole new way of looking at the world. A whole
old
way, really—”

She pointed at Annie’s Labrys T-shirt. “Like that thing there, the double axe—that’s a symbol that goes back to ancient Crete, to the Great Goddess religion there—”

Annie gazed at Virgie coolly. “I know what it means.”

“Well, you should come to one of her gatherings and see for yourself, Annie.” Virgie’s sloe eyes widened as she spread her hands imploringly. “Angelica Furiano gives you a whole new way of looking at the world! And there’s so
many
of us now! Somebody’s even making a
documentary
about her—”

“Oh yeah? Who? Leni Riefenstahl?”

Virgie frowned. “Is she the one who did that Bikini Kill video?”

Annie moaned and looked away.

“You have to admit, Annie, at least it’s a change,” said Martha. “I mean, she really
does
make you think about things.”

Annie stared broodingly out the window.

“I prefer to think of things on my own,” she said at last.

“Annie’s had some bad experiences with organized religion.” Helen looked at her lover fondly. “You know, that whole lapsed Catholic trip—”

“Othiym says the reason conventional Western religions have failed is that they don’t take into account the notion of sacrifice.” Lyla’s prim expression was at odds with her tattoo and cropped hair.
“She
says the problem with Catholics is that they don’t take the idea of sacrifice far
enough.”

“We have to break away from all that,” agreed Virgie in a childish voice. “‘The New Woman will only emerge when she learns to commit every horror and violence that till now society has denied her as foreign to her temperament.’”

Everyone was silent.

“Gee, I never thought of that,” said Annie.

“It’s from the Marquis de Sade,” Virgie confessed. “I read it in one of Angelica’s books.”

Annie’s eyes flashed. “I think you’re all playing with fire,” she said, casting a poisonous look at Virgie and Lyla. “And I think it’s incredibly rude of you and your friends to interrupt my show yelling your stupid slogans—”

“They’re not slogans,” Lyla said. “It’s an incantation. Because all great music invokes the Goddess.”

“You should
be flattered.”
Virgie looked as though she might burst into tears. “I mean, that your music could invoke
such feelings
from us—”

“I don’t think—” Martha stammered, but Annie was already getting to her feet.

“That’s your whole problem, Martha. You
don’t
think—
none
of you think, you’re letting some rich crazy egotistical New Age bitch do it for you. Haven’t you ever heard of
cults,
girls? Don’t any of you know how to read a newspaper? The name Manson mean anything to you? David Koresh? Bhagwan Rajneesh? Jim Jones?”

Helen rolled her eyes. “Oh, come
on,
Annie—”

“It’s not like that
at all
! This is something
beautiful,
something totally
new
—”

Annie snorted. “Oh,
give
me a fucking
break
! How much enlightenment can you get in a fucking weekend? And am I wrong, or are you
paying
for this transcendence?”

“Actually, Angelica’s practically giving it away these days,” said Martha. “She’s got all these priestesses teaching new initiates—”

“Priestesses?” howled Annie. “Now she’s got
priestesses?
Man, are you getting
hosed
! Do you all
dress
like her, too? Do you spend fifteen minutes with your eyeliner and—”

“Annie,” growled Helen.

“Priestesses! I bet she passes the collection basket, too! Man, what a crock! Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. This one’s got tits and a twat, that’s all.”

Helen raised her voice above Virgie and Lyla’s angry protests. “Annie, you are being
totally
ridiculous!—”

“Oh yeah? Well, maybe you should just go with them and get in touch with your secret lunar self. I’m leaving.”

Annie stormed from the table. She paused to stare disdainfully at the crescent moon on Lyla’s cheek. “Hey, that’s pretty cutting edge—only you and ninety thou-sand other girls have one of those.” She headed for the door.

“It’s a sensitive topic,” said Helen, sighing. Martha put her arm around Virgie. Lyla just looked mad. “Look, I’ll go calm her down—but let’s not talk about religion anymore, okay?”

“I thought she’d
understand
,” wailed Virgie. “She seemed so in touch with her own inner
cycles
—”

“Hush,” said Martha.

Helen found Annie just outside the front door of the Inn, leaning against the wall. Down the street the usual nighttime crowd was starting to gather in front of Spiritus. A few yards away, a streetlamp’s shining globe cast a rippling silver reflection on the dark surface of the water, the bright circle breaking into fluid coils when the breeze stirred it. From a sailboat at anchor echoed laughter and the strains of dance music.

“If you think I’m going back in there, you are out of your fucking mind.”

Helen smiled in spite of herself, reached to stroke Annie’s neck. “Don’t you think you were overreacting a little?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on—Charles
Manson
?”

“Angelica di Rienzi could eat Charles Manson for breakfast. Probably she already has,” Annie added darkly.

“I think you’re carrying around just a teensy bit of personal baggage, Annie. I know you said you never wanted to talk about Angelica, and I’ve always respected that, but this has kind of gotten out of hand. I mean, they’re just a couple of dopey kids, that’s all! Virgie’s crying, Martha is totally bummed, and Lyla the Bee Queen looks like she is getting in touch with a very pissed-off inner goddess.”

“Good,” snapped Annie, but her mouth twisted into a half smile. “Maybe next time they won’t ruin my show.”

Helen sighed. “Well, I don’t think you’re going to get much repeat business from those two. Listen, Martha says there’s some kind of dance party out at Herring Cove tonight—”

“Yeah,” said Annie, nodding. From here you could just glimpse where the narrow spit of land curved to face the Adantic, a hazy darkness spangled with a few bobbing lights. “In the old boathouse there. Patrick told me about it; he knows one of the guys who’ve put it together. They’re supposed to have a fabulous sound and light show.”

“So let’s go and dance. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“Oh, sure! A bunch of kids on X and vitamins—”

“You used to
love
to dance! Jeez, girlfriend, loosen up a little—”

Annie shook her head stubbornly. “If I ever loosen up, the world will come to an end. You know that. I’m the only thing standing between you and the dark of Mordor—”

“Hey. You know what, Annie?
Shut up
—”

Helen took Annie’s chin in her hand, stared into her dark eyes, and then kissed her, long and slow, her hand dropping to stroke her lover’s breast beneath the thin black T-shirt. After a minute she drew back and there was Annie, her face slightly flushed, the blazing light in her eyes somewhat softened. “You remember how to dance, don’t you?”

Annie nodded, her mouth breaking into a slow grin. “Sure. You just put your lips together, and
flow
—”

And drawing Helen close, she kissed her again.

When they got to Herring Cove Beach the party was in high gear, the rickety old boathouse shaking dangerously as music throbbed inside and the party spilled out onto the sand, hundreds of bodies thrashing and moving ecstatically.

“Now I know why the bar was empty,” Annie shouted.

“It’s been going on since this morning,” Martha yelled back. “I’m surprised they haven’t gotten busted.”

“They will if they stay out on the beach like that.” Annie handed the boy at the door a ten-dollar bill. He glanced at her and did a double take.

“Yo, Annie Harmony! Great time inside—”

He stamped her palm with a little smiling Goofy face in purple ink.

“What, no change?” Annie looked down at the zippered cash bag that sat in the lap of the huge bodybuilder helping guard the door. “Ten dollars so I can get sand in my drink?”

“Ten bucks, ten bucks,” he yelled, his head nodding up and down. “Chem free, smart drinks at the other door, no drinking inside—”

“Oh, yeah,
right
—”

“Enough, Annie!” Martha and Helen pulled her through the door.

She felt like she was inside a fireworks display, all explosive sound and color and motion. The boathouse was the only structure on this stretch of the protected seashore, a place curiously ignored by the local constabulary, most of the time. You could drink or cruise or engage in just about any carnal pastime you wanted there. Its piers had been bored by sea worms and salt, the roof was missing most of its shingles, the whole thing flooded whenever it stormed. There were ragged holes in walls and ceiling. Annie’s sneaker got stuck in the gap between two floorboards. When she bent to yank it out, she could see through the hole to where black water lapped at the rocks and pilings below. She straightened and found herself alone on a patch of empty floor. The DJ had shoved a new song into the sound system, and everyone seemed to have rushed to the far wall. She could just make out Helen and Martha dancing a few yards away. Of Virgie and Lyla she saw nothing; they had stalked off as soon as they got here, whispering and casting baleful stares in Annie’s direction.

Forget them,
she thought. It was easy enough. The music was so loud it drove any-thing like a coherent thought from her brain, so fast it was like the steady rumble of an aircraft taking off, a mad stuttering sound that sent her blood hammering so hard her vision blurred. Everywhere she looked she saw people dancing, such a mass of indistinguishable bodies that it was like watching footage of bizarre underwater creatures, all waving tentacles and gasping mouths and teeth. Nearly all the boys and men were shirtless, a number of them completely naked except for plastic water bottles taped to a thigh or forearm. A lot of the women were naked too, their breasts flashing white in the steamy air. And of course she saw people humping, too. Not just in pairs, but in threes and fours and fives and serpentine lines too long to count, although there was something oddly sexless about their motion: it was like they were just another part of the machine, tins vast human engine thundering through the old boathouse like a juggernaut.