1.31 The Abyss of WonderLand
“We’ll take it in my room, out on the balcony.” He raised an eyebrow at me, and I knew he was asking for my approval. “Yes,” I agreed, with a head nod that might have been a little shaky, but still conveyed the meaning. When Timothy let go of the button, he turned to me and held out his hand. For a moment, I stared at it. I bit my lip and started to speak, but what was there to say? I was frankly in a daze. I stretched out my hand and let him walk me back to his room. When we got there, Timothy slid open the sliding glass door and gestured for me to choose a seat. Timothy Andrew will be pleased. I have finally crossed the border into recklessness. Will Penelope be able to step over the line that humans perceive and follow me into the Beyond? Will she ever accept me? At least she didn’t run. She didn’t act like she was thinking of calling the dogs of hell to chase me into the Otherworlds. But will she forgive me for my heritage? Will she once more allow me to touch her and to kiss her? Will she marry me, or will I receive the same sad fate as Andrew? Will life always be this dull emptiness that has pursued me throughout this overly long stretch of years? Chapter Nine Penelope I’ve seen movies and weekly shows about witches and vampires. The Twilight Series had werewolves, too. People were calm in Buffy, the Vampire slayer when they first learned strange things about the people they were going to school with. Buffy’s friends even joined in on the fun of chasing down evil creatures. I guess it’s all a matter of relooking. Timothy was still Timothy, as he’d said, and I was appreciative that he’d told me the truth. In fact, I felt relieved that he wasn’t an assassin or some horrid, major criminal. But it was still a lot to grasp onto. Timothy had mentioned Fairie. So, were there fairies? Were there other magical creatures walking around among us? I wanted to ask, but Carlos had arrived with a pot of coffee and two mugs for our special brew. The servant poured, asked about cream and sugar or other additions, then handed me a mug. It was a plain white mug. I’d noticed that all the dishes at breakfast had been, too. Undecorated, white dishes were actually what I preferred. No flowers on the bottom of my plates, thank you. No ivy ringing the handle of my mug or the coffee pot. Just plain.
1.30 The Abyss of WonderLand
“Andrew will be very happy to hear that I have told you the truth. He has been needling me since the first week. But you understand why I couldn’t give up the hope I had that you would accept me and not turn away because I was different.” Timothy seemed to have wound down. His head was bowed as if afraid of what I’d say. He was staring down at his hands which were clasping each other nervously. My heart went out to him. Again I felt the urge to throw myself into his arms, but he was something weird, a shape changer he’d called himself. Not human. I sat in silence, taking it all in. I had run out of questions for the moment. My head was hurting. I needed a cup of coffee, but I didn’t want to get up and walk downstairs. I might keep walking if I did that. I might find myself searching for Andrew. Except Andrew was a pooka, too. Or sort of one. “So Andrew isn’t a pooka?” I asked, confused by that point. “No. A pooka is born. The bite only allows longer life, not shape changing. Andrew has no more than a small residue of my magic.” “So, if you bit me, I wouldn’t be a pooka. I’d be the same as I am now.” Timothy looked up and stared at me. His eyes a moment before had been full of agony, but I saw hope blooming. The darkness around his iris turned bronze. He looked as he had that day in the Sandors’ house when I’d first met him. “Do the Sandors know about you?” I burst out. “Yes.” “And Simone?” He nodded. “I have a few good friends whom I’ve known for years, well, much longer than that, actually.” “Does Danny Franco know?” “No. He’s a man who interviewed for the art gallery management position. He comes well-recommended, but he is not someone I’ve known for a long time, nor do I plan to tell him. I hope whatever you decide to do, you will not offer this secret to others. This has to remain between us, or even in this time period, the village, or city we live in, will come for Andrew and me with torches and arrows. Or, I perhaps, guns.” I laughed. “Who would I tell? I’d be committed.” “There is that,” Timothy said, smiling. He stood up and walked over to the door. A button I hadn’t noticed had been placed on the wall. When Timothy pushed it, I heard a bell ring. Someone answered and Timothy said, “We’d like some coffee, please. Anything else, my dear?” he asked, turning to look back at me. I shook my head. How did one swing from crazy to normality so quickly? I guess he’d had years, or even centuries, to practice that. Shape changing was hard enough to understand, but living hundreds of years . . . Wow. Incredible.
1.29 The Abyss of WonderLand
“In one village, Andrew fell in love. He married and wished to settle down. I left him there. He and his wife were blissfully happy. I told him he would need to bite her to give her long life, but when she found out who he was, what he was, she ran home to her mother. They alerted the town. The villagers came for Andrew with torches and knives. He was wounded badly. “Something told me deep in my soul that Andrew was in trouble. I returned to the area. When I found him hiding in the swamp, he was half dead. I restored him to health, and we left. We’ve been together ever since. I think he still grieves for Madeline, and he has never wanted to find another mate. “Am I boring you with my sad history?” Timothy asked, looked up at me with a worried expression. “No, I want to hear. I need to understand everything.” Timothy nodded and then continued. “Eventually, we signed on for a ship that sailed to the new lands. You call it America now, or rather, the United States of America. “Here we felt freer. We became farmers in one period of time, clerks, shop keepers, and then explorers. Andrew had problems because of the color of his skin, so we had to journey far away from the lands where slaves were owned. Of course, I forged papers to say I owned him. It kept Andrew from being sold or worse. “We hit gold in California and Nevada and became wealthy. Of course, Andrew couldn’t own anything. It had to be in my name for a long time. But over the years, things improved, and blacks were not treated as badly, at least if they were under the protection of a rich white man. “After all those years together, Andrew and I share a close bond. He is as rich as I am, with bank accounts in several places, land he owns, everything he wants, but he stays nearby. In fact, he insists on driving for me and doing odd jobs, and I have been grateful for it. He is my best friend.” I nodded and cast a brief smile. “I knew that Andrew and you were close. I could feel that. In fact, I even wondered if you were lovers, except . . .” “Yes, we had that thrown at us now and then, that we were engaging in immoral acts, but there was never that between us. Andrew is not a womanizer, but he prefers his relationships to look like females. I am of a like mind.”
1.28 The Abyss of WonderLand
But Andrew has been with me for as long as I can recall. My parents bought him for me so I’d have a companion. But I have never treated Andrew as anything other than a friend.” “Bought him? He was a slave? But that has not happened in . . .” “Yes, many, many centuries. Andrew and I are long-lived.” “One of your pooka attributes?” Timothy nodded, then sat down on my bed. “Next question,” he said, smiling, as if we were merely chatting about normal stuff: the cat we were going to shop for, the paintings in the gallery, or our favorite foods and books. “Your parents. Where they pookas, too?” I blurted out. Timothy nodded. He looked pleased by the question. His eyes were sparkling like luminous bronze and golden glitter. As if he sensed the appearance of them, he blinked, and they once more took on a more normal hue, still attractive, but human. “My father was a pooka. My mother wasn’t, but she’d been bitten, so she was with him a long time.” “Bitten?” I broke in. “Like a werewolf’s bite? But doesn’t that make the person a . . .” “No.” He shook his head, shifted almost nervously, then glanced outside as if he feared someone might be watching us. (Of course they weren’t. We were on the second floor.) “I bit Andrew when I was just a child. That extended his life and gave him a couple of added benefits. He’s the only one I’ve ever bitten. “My mother received long life from my father’s bite and, of course, the ability to bear his child — me. That’s necessary, you see.” I stretched out my legs and wiggled a tiny bit to get more comfortable. My body parts had finally stopped shivering. Was I becoming accustomed to this strangeness? Had the alarms inside me faded? “What happened to your parents if they both were supposed to have long lives?” I treaded on, filled with curiosity even if I didn’t believe this fantasy. Timothy nodded, as if I’d asked a yes or no question. His eyes when he searched mine looked even sadder. I felt a flash of longing, a desire to run to him and wrap my arms about him. I knew he needed me to say that it was alright, that I accepted him. But I couldn’t do that yet. I needed more information. I needed to understand . . . and to believe. “One day, a hunter’s arrow pierced my father’s heart. It was an accident. The hunter carried my father back to our house and laid him on the bed, but there was nothing that could be done for him. My father died that night. “The hunter helped to bury my father. The man stayed with us for a few days after, but he had his own responsibilities and his own family to care for. When he left, my mother packed up everything she wanted and moved us to another village. I don’t know why. She only lingered there a few days, then crept away. Apparently she passed on, too, perhaps from a broken heart? “The villagers cooed and soothed us two boys. We were told that we would be taken care of. They didn’t know our real age, of course. They thought we were little orphaned boys who needed tending. “Andrew and I stayed in that village for several years. We were almost grown, twelve or thirteen, I think, by then, old enough in that time period to work for our keep. We learned to do many different jobs, which kept food in our mouths. The villagers even gave us a deserted hut that no one was using. “But I knew what I was, as did Andrew. We left when we were probably around fifteen. To have stayed even another year . . . our secret would have caused us great grief. Villagers back then believed in demons and devil men. Any difference, like the failure to grow older, was an unbelievable evil.
1.27 The Abyss of WonderLand
You are not imagining me, my love. I am your Timothy. Whether I am in this form or another, I am still the same. My brain doesn’t change. I am never just a wild animal, unhampered by human morals. I am me at all times, even if I don’t seem to be the same. A pooka is magical, you see. We come from the hills of Ireland, but there are few of us left. Perhaps I am the last. I do not know. “A pooka, like in your gallery?” Yes, I was trying to prepare you. I wanted you to know. I needed you to understand what I am. “The last? Why? Can’t pookas have children?” I do not know, Penelope. There is no one to ask. I am hoping that you and I can have children, but that isn’t certain. Something seems to have gone wrong with our species — if that’s what we are. Perhaps, the rest of the pookas went back to Fairie. That is where we originally came from, according to the ancient lore of our kind. But maybe the other pookas were all killed. It is a mystery to me; one I cannot solve without leaving this realm. I was standing with my hand on his shoulder, petting him, when he did his switching. He was suddenly back to Timothy. I dropped my hand and stepped back. “Please, don’t hate me for keeping this from you. I was afraid that you would leave me.” I turned my back and went to the chair where he’d been sitting moments before. I slouched down and tried to think. This was impossible. Magic wasn’t real. Yet I’d seen Timothy transform. I’d petted him as a horse, talked to him, and watched as he switched back. “Can you always control the change? Do you have to be an animal during a full moon or something?” I asked. “No,” he laughed softly, but it wasn’t his full laugh. This one was filled with bitterness and sadness. “A pooka can remain in his human form as long as he desires. The change requires little of me. Magic, it is theorized, drains the person, but that’s not true for a pooka. Changing for us is as easy as clapping my hands or taking a step. It’s a part of me.” Timothy took a step closer. I held up my hand, still unsure, still quaking with the shock of this strange demonstration of what he’d told me and shown me — this impossible, and very melodramatic exhibition, this ridiculous fantasy in a bedroom upstairs of a mansion owned by the man who’d been dating me. “You have not run away screaming. Have I not appalled you?” he asked. I sighed loudly, then waited a moment, thinking. “I don’t know. I think I’m in shock. Perhaps I’m asleep? Or drugged. Did you put something in the scrambled eggs?” I gathered breath like a small child picking flowers. In out, in out. But my hands were still shaking. My knees felt like wiggly gelatine. I closed my eyes, then reopened them, not sure I it was safe to let this individual out of my sight. What might he turn into next? Had I been slipped some LSD. That made people see strange things. Right? “You’ve been given no drugs, my darling, but if that doubt remains foremost in your mind, we can wait a few hours, and I will show you again. Would you like me to change into a rabbit or a cat rather than my horse form?” I ignored the question, my mind flitting elsewhere, to something I was more ready to handle. “Do the people in this house know about you? Do the chef and . . .” “I will not speak of others, Penelope. Each person owns his own story, whether he or she is human, pooka, or other. Andrew isn’t a pooka. As I said, I am the last pooka to my knowledge.”
1.26 The Abyss of WonderLand
I let out a smothered scream since I’d thrown my hand over my mouth, like that would stop the terror inside me. I bolted up. My instinct said to run, to head for the door, and to thunder down the stairs in an avalanche of fear, but my feet were frozen. Trembling frozen, if that makes any sense. My mouth was opened, yet I struggled for breath. I thought for a moment that this magic trick, or whatever it was, had emptied all the air from the room, but then I took in a feeble breath, a shallow one, but with enough air to reassure my parched lungs that I could still breathe. I hadn’t somehow been transported into the vacuum of outer space or . . . My mouth opened wider, then closed. My hand had fallen, clutching air. I think I was trying to speak, but what could I say? A horse was standing in my bedroom, looking at me. A horse in an upstairs bedroom, right inside Timothy’s house. A black horse like the one I’d ridden in my dream. I still thought there was some trick to this. I suspected it was like in a magic show when the magician has a box that allows his helper to slip away so he can ram his knife into the box. But there was no disappearing box. The closet was on the other side of the room. The huge picture window, equally far away, was open. I could see out, see past the room and across the grass. A golfer was nearby, striking at his little white ball. “Timothy, how did you get a horse up here?” I asked, pretending to a calm that my racing heart was not feeling. The truth was that I was a mere breath away from screaming, a breath away from hysteria, a breath away from calling 911. The stallion took a step closer, too close if you asked me. Horses had teeth that bit and hooves that stamped or kicked. Horses weighed a thousand pounds. They were unpredictable and dangerous. They . . . this horse had Timothy’s eyes, that strange color: gold, bronze, hazel. Against all wisdom, I reached out and touched the beast. His coat was smooth and soft. I wouldn’t have thought a male horse would have soft fur, but then I’d never touched a horse before, except the one in my dream. But dreams didn’t count, did they? My mother had said she was allergic to horses, so the only horse I’d ever gotten close to was on a carousel. Those shiny steeds had gentle expressions. They were bolted to a metal platform and sentenced to an existence melded to a large metal pole that lifted up and down. Carousel horses weren’t loose like this huge animal. The stallion seemed to like my petting him. He nickered softly. Then he spoke. “I am the pooka from your dreams, Penelope. When it is night, I can carry you on my back if you like. Would you enjoy another ride?” The horse’s lips weren’t moving, but his eyes were fastened on me. They were intelligent eyes, eyes as I’d said that matched the exact hue of Timothy’s. “Are you tame?” I asked. I know that was a strange question with so many exclamations swimming about in my mind: What! How! It’s not possible! I’m imagining this! I’ve fallen asleep! This is a trick! Timothy! The animal gave a quiet horse laugh for my spoken question, then said, I am not tame, except for you. A pooka cannot be tamed except by his fated mate, which is you, Penelope. I shook my head and glared up at the ceiling. “Horses don’t talk. I’m going mad. The stress must have been too much for me,” I exclaimed.
1.25 The Abyss of WonderLand
“I love you as I have not loved any woman for centuries. In fact, never. If you marry me, I will bite you, not hard, just enough to break the skin. That will give you the same span of time as I have left. Then, we will live centuries together.” I would have pulled away if he weren’t blocking my way. I scooted backwards. “You’re serious, then. You think you are a shape changing animal that can become a wild black stallion or a cat or a . . .” “Yes,” he said, nodding his head and looking completely serious. “Would you like me to show you? What would you like me to become? My most prevalent changeover is the stallion you met, but I can be something else if you’d feel better about that.” I shook my head. “I’d feel better if you saw a psychiatrist, Timothy. I know you can afford one.” Ok, that was a cheap shot, but this whole line of conversation was dropping all my hopes into the dumpster. I was going from high on the beginnings of love to ” just get me out of here” — and fast. Timothy let go of my hands and stepped away. “I will change into the stallion, then. You are acquainted with him, but remember, I won’t hurt you.” I couldn’t take my eyes away, spellbound by his air of drama. I didn’t believe him, of course, but there was still the panicky question about what he’d do when his fantasy didn’t materialize. Would he go berserk then, or would he believe he’d actually transformed into an animal? It was called illusional lycanthropy, which I’d learned about through my roommate, Cara. That was where a person thought he could turn into a wolf. Would the psychiatrist call it lycanthropy when his patient thought he could become a horse? Maybe this psychosis was the beginning of schizophrenia? There were meds for that. Perhaps, Timothy could be helped. I saw a brief blurring in the air. Not a color change or a wind. It was just the oddest sensation, like looking in a mirror that rippled, if such a thing were possible. I’d once seen a silly TV movie where the werewolves were changing their shapes. They were human until the moon came out, but then their bodies contorted. Pain wracked them. Their faces turned nightmarish from the agony their bodies were undergoing, all that twisting, bone breaking, and transforming into something they weren’t supposed to be. But that didn’t happen with Timothy. As I said, there was nothing more than a ripple of air, something I’d never seen before and couldn’t really describe. Timothy had been human, standing right in front of me, his eyes focused on me, then, that strange wave-like flash of air, and what was in his place was no longer Timothy, but the black stallion from my dreams.
1.24 The Abyss of WonderLand
He sighed, long and heavy. That sigh told me more than mere words could have. It said that he was afraid of the truth. But I needed to hear it. Unfortunately, he went into silence mode. “How did you get so rich?” I asked. That was a simple question. Perhaps it would bridge whatever horror he was keeping from me. Had he been an assassin for the FBI, a mafia hitman, a jewelry thief? My mind kept turning over possibilities, but not the one he gave me. “I invested wisely, Penelope. That’s the main part, but it also helped that I’ve lived a long time. And that’s the mystery your brain wants to weasel out of me. That’s what I’m afraid to tell you.” “You’re not that old. Did you inherit from your parents to get your starter funds?” “No.” Timothy picked me up and set me down on the bed, then he kneeled down on the carpet in front of it. “I’m going to explain, Penelope. I was hoping to put it off, but I can’t. You need to know now. But promise me, please promise me, that you won’t make a run for it and beg Andrew to take you home. That would be dangerous. No matter what I tell you, promise me, even if you don’t want to see me anymore, that you’ll stay here until it’s safe.” “What you did must be really, really bad if you think I’m going to run from you. Did you kill someone? What did you do that is that horrific? What is your deep, dark secret?” Timothy took my hands in his and searched my eyes. “I promise you that I have not killed anyone, other than during battle, and I’ve never worked with the mafia in any capacity.” “You’re a computer geek who stole from the government or from banks, then?” “Penelope, I can’t explain if you don’t let me. Are you prepared to listen?” I nodded my head, He hadn’t gotten a promise from me not to run if I thought there was a need for it, but I was hoping the secret wasn’t something so dark that I couldn’t accept it or accept him. “Do you remember the special room at the Caldwell Fine Arts Gallery?” Did he mean about the pookas? “Yes. It’s strange. I dreamed about that black stallion. He let me ride him through the moors.” “Yes, I did.” I froze. Was he joking? Was this meant to make me laugh? “You asked me how I became rich, my darling, and I told you that it was from living a long time. A pooka seems to live a very, very long time.” “But you’re not a horse, or a rabbit. I don’t understand. What are you trying to say? Is this a metaphor for something?”
1.23 The Abyss of WonderLand
I sighed again. It wasn’t exactly that. I think it was more that I had so little confidence in myself. Timothy was, as the newspaper had said, “San Jose’s most eligible bachelor,” and I was just a glorified secretary of sorts, one who was not sophisticated, well-traveled, or model gorgeous. I just didn’t fit. His hold on me suddenly tightened, and he squeezed me, then released. “What can I do to make you feel more secure in our relationship, Penelope? Should I get Judy to vouch for me again, to explain that I’m not a playboy or someone who flits through girlfriends like I need to verify my virility. I have nothing to prove. I’m yours. I knew that the moment I saw you and talked with you. You are the person I’ve been waiting for.” He was silent then, not arguing further about my indecision or my fears. I rested my head at the crook of his neck. “I’m not the innocent you think I am, Timothy. I was involved with someone, but he hurt me badly. It is difficult for me to have faith in someone again.” “I know.” Timothy was so calm and so encouraging that I reached forward and pressed my lips to his. He accepted the kiss, then pulled me down into his lap and just held me. I’d never had anyone do that before, or at least not since I was a small child. “My parents loved each other,” I said suddenly, pulling that thought out of the air as if we’d been discussing my childhood. “They were always touching each other: a tap on the shoulder, a pat on the back, or a quick kiss. I remember that so clearly. It’s how I want love to be — an always thing. A surety. “But love isn’t like that anymore. It’s a quickie in the dark, a secret afternoon rendezvous in a hotel room. It’s an addition to the marriage, a casual affair, sometimes a disturbed drama that ends in heartbreak.” “The Sanders have a loving marriage,” Timothy said with a quiet, comforting voice. “And that’s exactly what I want.” “You say that now, but you’d get tired of me. I don’t belong in your realm. I’m not a model. I’m not sophisticated. I don’t know how to be the wife you need, one who can deal with CEO’s or class rich businessmen from other countries.” Timothy dabbed a kiss on my forehead, then across my left cheek, the one facing him. “That’s what you don’t understand, my darling. You are exactly the person I want you to be. If you feel that you lack certain qualifications, you can get that experience at my side. I’ll hire tutors for foreign languages or for anything else you want if that’s important to you. But none of that matters to me. It’s the essence inside you that has brought me to my knees. I love you. Simply. Completely. Forever.” How many women ever found a guy who would say that to them. I was lucky, and I knew it. Timothy was holding me as if I were fragile, as if this were the perfect moment, well, almost perfect since I kept sticking my nose up in the air and saying more or less that I wasn’t worthy or that I didn’t trust in him enough to make this a permanent relationship. I lay in his lap, surrounded by the warmth of his body, by the strength of him, and the lips that occasionally kissed whatever part of me he could reach. I was thinking, turning it all over in my mind. Why did I resist so hard? What was causing my indecision? But I knew. Some instinct inside me told me to journey cautiously, a subconscious warning that there were untold secrets. Timothy was too perfect. It was probably five minutes or more before I finally spoke. “I want to believe in you, Timothy. I want to give you my heart, but something inside me says that there are things you’re not telling me, skeletons in your closet that might break my heart. Am I right?”
1.22 The Abyss of WonderLand
“And how or what is that?” I asked, hoping he’d suggest something that would permanently halt the blitz he was talking about. “Marry me.” “Do you ever stop?” I whirled about and rushed over to the window, half-expecting to see newsmen in the yard, but there was no one there. In fact there was nobody on the velvet green of the golf course. My room might not have the sliding glass door vista with a balcony that Timothy’s room had, but I still had a nice view. I was looking at more green than I’d seen since my friends and I picnicked at the Japanese Friendship Garden. “I usually get what I want in the end. And what I want is you at my side. Willingly, of course.” I turned to look at Timothy. His words were frightening, but he was grinning ear to ear, which told me that he was mostly joking, I think. “Thank you for adding the willingly bit. It still feels a little like a kidnapping, bringing me here, flooding me with new clothes and fancy shampoos that you’d prearranged to fulfill my every desire.” I might have been laying it on a little thick, but this whole thing was a bit spooky. When had Simone done all this? “No pressure. If I’d been wanting to bully you, I’d have insisted you join me in my room.” That was the first time Timothy had ever made a sexual reference to the future of our relationship. With a bed in the room, and the way I was stranded in this rich person’s world without a single soul who knew me, the goosebumps ran up and down my spine with a little Twilight Zone music playing quietly in my ear. “Come here,” Timothy ordered, spreading out his arms so I could walk into them if I felt like doing so. “Please.” I didn’t want to. I stood there staring at him, reassessing, I suppose. I think I wanted to march into his embrace, but my feet were frozen. My body said wait. “I will never hurt you, Penelope. Not physically or emotionally. I am prepared to wait until you are ready. I suppose I shouldn’t have said what I did. I see that it frightened you. I didn’t mean it that way. I was trying to show you that I wasn’t pressuring you. I guess I failed at the subtleties. Andrew will take you back to your apartment anytime you ask.” That was the key to unlocking my feet. They moved me forward. I buried myself in Timothy’s hold, but he kept his arms loose. No firmness in his grip. It was if he sensed I was only one step from running away, screaming as I bolted down that gorgeous staircase, out into the green of golf country. “You are not a prisoner. I offer you a relaxing stay with me, and I will not again suggest anything else.” I sighed. “It’s just that everything has happened too quickly. I trust you . . .” “But you don’t know me, right?”