“HAD ENOUGH, Allison? Can we leave now?”
“I'm not through here yet, John. Can't you be a
little more—?”
His cell phone went off—again. He held up his
finger, quieting her with a single, swift motion, pulling the phone to his ear
with his other hand. Moments later he was speaking to a business associate.
Allison, frustrated and offended, sighed. She
resented being shushed for a cell-phone call; she resented that John had even
brought it here to the Renaissance Festival. She had told him just last night
not to. She resented that he wore sunglasses in heavy shade, that she could not
see his eyes. She resented his slacks, how they seemed entirely out of place
here, and how his gut was beginning to hang over them. She resented hearing him
say to his associate in a mocking voice, “Yeah, I’m here at the fake
fourteenth-century fru-fru-a-thon. It’s nothing but a bunch of fairies and
liberal pansies in tights wanting to hug trees and sell me incense. Right.
Twenty minutes? Should be leaving by then. I'll be at the office later. What? What quotes? Hold on a sec …”
He brought the phone down and forced a meek smile
to his fleshy lips. The effort accentuated his contempt. “Baby? Got some paper
in your purse? I just have this little bit of business, then we can keep
walking—”
She had done this before, and came prepared. There
was a small pad of paper in her purse she used to keep track of her own
clients; she yanked it out and shoved it into his chest, along with a pen. She
forced a fake smile in return, making sure he saw it. “Have fun,” she snapped.
She walked away.
“Catch up with you in just a sec, hon ...” he
yelled. “Promise this'll be the last call I take. Promise. Just a sec,
baby....”
But Allison was already lost in the crowd, one
that melted in and out of the hillside shade as folks watched the plays and
listened to the music and browsed the many vendors of the Larkspur Renaissance
Festival.
~~*~~
After a time she found herself at the festival’s
periphery. The crowds had thinned away like early morning fog in bright
sunlight. Dreamy silence lulled her into a quiet sense of timelessness.
Somewhere deep in her spirit a young girl ached for something she had never
seen before but somehow always knew existed.
She raised her chin and looked about. The vendors
here were selling everything from medieval swords to stationery to—yes—incense,
along with silk scarves and clothing of a kind she had never seen before. She
heard laughter and music, but it was as though both were echoes in a barely
remembered dream. They sharpened only when she sought for their source, looking
for them. Several large, proud horses grazed in a flaxen field beyond, black
and rippled with muscle. The vendors here made no effort at all to bring the
crowds to them, preferring to sit well inside their awnings and well beyond the
heart of the festival. They regarded her coldly. Clearly she had wandered too
far, having been preoccupied with her frustration and anger.
As she neared the field to take a closer look at
the horses she heard, “Candles, my lady?”
He stood behind a table full of them, and under an
awning providing shade over his tall, slender frame. His straight black hair
had been pulled back into a ponytail. As he moved from shade into the bright
sunlight streaks of brilliant yellow flashed like lightning through it,
vanishing at his broad shoulders. His hair framed an angular, almost gaunt
face. Ocean-blue eyes watched her. A slight smile played across his face,
inviting and disquieting, a smile framed by high cheekbones and a strong,
almost pointed chin.
Allison suddenly felt as though she was two inches
tall and under a microscope; as if he could, with a simple flick of his wrist,
squash her without any effort whatsoever. For a brief moment she wanted to run,
to wheel about and find her way back to the easy, monotonous safety of John,
but the vendor’s presence was undeniably compelling. The dull, ever-present
ache within her bloomed like a desperate flower. She approached, painfully
conscious of her own form, as if she had entered the presence of some medieval
god, there to offer the sacrifice of her own body to his every desire.
“Candles?” she said, smiling overaggressively,
knowing instantly that he could sense her effort to assert herself.
He inclined his head slightly, affirming her query
without a word, watching her.
She looked over his selection. Most were just like
the hundreds of others she had seen from countless other vendors today,
everything from the tall and thin to the psychedelic to the ornate and Gothic.
None were lit.
She shook her head. “I don't think I need any, but
thanks anyway ...”
He nodded in patient silence.
Perhaps it was frustration. Before she could stop
herself she spoke, the sting of reproach in her voice. “You know, I think you'd
do much better if you were actually part
of the festival, don’t you think?”
“I have no interest joining people who ... annoy
me,” he said with that same slight smile. “And if I may say so, it seems you
feel the same way.”
His voice was low and gentle, not a whisper but
not a rumble either. He tilted his head, studying her.
She looked at him, then down at the table. She
chuckled. “Is it that obvious?”
“Not with everyone, no.”
“So why don't you—?”
He lifted his chin, puzzled. Then he nodded again.
“You mean, why don't I choose to make more money over in the main area? I think
I told you that. And the people who seek me out do so for a reason. They just
don't know why most of the time.”
“You really believe that?”
He let her question linger on the still summer air
for several seconds without answering. Instead he queried, “So why are you here, Miss—? Please forgive me: I haven’t
asked your name ...”
She hesitated. “Allison. I’m Allison.”
“So why have you wandered to the edge of the festival,
my fair Allison?”
“I'm just trying to get away. Away from
my—”
“—lover,” he finished for her.
The word jolted her, and she blinked blankly. It
occurred to her then that she had never thought of John as her lover. Boyfriend, yes. “Significant
other,” yes. But—lover? They had sex,
yes; when John got drunk, which was often, they fucked. But the way this man just used the word lover made fucked, a word which Allison hated, sound even more disgusting.
She rallied. “He's just really not into this
gallantry and chivalry and medieval stuff. He thinks it's gay. I mean—I, er ...
I hope that didn't offend you.”
He shook his head indifferently.
“And he's just ... well, he’s just such a damn
yuppie, and I’m ...” She shook her head with a couple of violent shakes, as if
to clear it of an invisible but persistent gnat. “I'm … I’m just frustrated, I
guess ... I mean, I don't know why I'm telling you this, I don't even know
you....”
She watched his smile warm toward something that
felt like empathy, so she continued, feeling increasingly stupid: “I guess I'm
just aggravated that he can't come here and enjoy the woods and the fields and
the smells and the foods. He's always got to be 'productive,' whatever that
means. He's probably still on his cell phone. Jesus, that makes me angry! I
mean, we only get to see each other weekends, if that, and here he is, still at
the office!”
She saw that he was listening intently. But it was
more than that. Somehow she felt as if he already knew everything she was going
to say and was only waiting for her to realize it. His look asked her to
continue.
She stood in uncomfortable silence, shifting her
weight from her left foot to her right and back again. She brought her eyes
from his to the candles on the table. She felt embarrassed over her confession.
She randomly spotted a plain white candle mounted on an equally nondescript
pewter base: a bright, thick stalk maybe four inches in diameter and perhaps
that tall. It was lost in a garish forest of wax and fairly close to him. To
break the unspoken thoughts lingering in the air she pointed at it. “How much
is that one?”
He followed her finger, then turned his head to
look at her. For a fleeting moment he saw surprise reflected in those
oh-so-sure eyes. After a brief pause he slowly shook his head. “It is not for
sale, fairest one ...”
She brought her gaze back to it. “So if it isn't
for sale, why is it here on this table?”
“You may have it for free.”
She chuckled. “What? Is it a joke candle? Blow it
out and it sputters back to life?”
“No,” he said. “It won't light.”
She stared at him, then back at the candle,
puzzled. She bent over the table. “How do you know? The wick hasn't been touched!
There are no burn marks on it at all! The wax is perfect!”
“Perhaps I should be clearer. It will light—but
only for the right person.”
She was beginning to enjoy this. “A magical
candle? Designed by a witch?”
“A sorcerer.”
He was dead serious.
“You really believe that?”
“Do you really believe you can find love with a
man who can't stop making love to his own image?”
She pulled up, startled. She felt no reproach in
his question; it had been asked plainly, almost as if he whispered it in her
ear, almost as if he knew that she had been thinking that very question the
entire day. He stood above her, chin steady, blue eyes deep as the sea.
Her answer was barely above a whisper. “You didn't
answer my question—”
“What is so unbelievable about it? Why not believe
it? Indeed, this candle will light, but only for the sorcerer's true love. He
has sought her for a thousand years. A million of the fairest maidens across
time and space have tried lighting it, but none could match the passion the
candle demanded of them, and they failed. Their souls were inadequate to the
task. He finally gave up and gave it to me. He instructed me to sell it. But no
one has ever offered to buy it—until you. It has been long enough. You may have
it for free.”
His voice reflected a profound sadness and
resignation, like an autumn wind that could find no more leaves to blow
through, for all had died and fallen.
“The sorcerer—he is dead now?”
“No.”
“His fair maiden never came, and now he is too
old! How sad!”
He smiled in silence.
“So you have carried it around for these many
years as a favor to him? And now even you are quitting? He would be so
disappointed in you!”
“Perhaps.”
“So what happens if I take it home and try to
light it, and it actually lights up?”
“The candle will never exhaust itself. The wax
lasts forever.”
She wanted to patronize him, to humor him, to
lighten the mood. She wanted to laugh at the thought of an eternally lasting
candle. But she looked in his eyes, and could not.
“The sorcerer would come for you,” he added. “You
would become his princess, the only one worthy of him and his magic. Together
you would leave this dirty plain of existence and return to his world, where
you and he would live in great passion and peace forever.”
She knew without question that he believed every
single word he had just spoken. She found herself wanting to believe him, to
feel the great passion he felt in telling his tale, to lose herself in its
emotion. She found she wasn't frightened of his unwavering belief in it; in
fact she wanted to hear more.
“He would know it is me?”
“Yes.”
“How long before he came for me?”
“When you no longer believed in him.”
That stopped her. “Huh?”
He lifted the candle from its base and produced a
small brown box, and placed it inside.
“With my compliments,” he said, offering it to
her.
“Thank you,” said Allison, taking it.
“The candle will not light. But if it does, I must
warn you: never touch the liquid wax.”
“Why, is it really hot?”
He shook his head. “It is wax from a magical
place, created by the sorcerer's living passion. If you are indeed his
princess, and you touch that wax, you will eventually be overcome by the angels
of the heights—and the demons of the depths. His passion mixing with yours, a
passion unrealized for a thousand years, a passion unrequited. A passion your
eternal soul knows, but you don't. It would be too much for you. Now ...”
He came around the table and grasped her hand, brought it up to his lips, and gently kissed her middle finger. “Go back to your lover. It was nice making your acquaintance ... Allison.”
