The Five Lives of John and Jillian Read online

  “Let me pay you back,” he continued a little more seriously. “How about dinner? Your favorite restaurant.”

  Jillian didn’t answer. She turned her back and fetched the coffee pot.

  “Do you take anything in your coffee?”

  “No, thanks,” he said, and started to rise to get a cup, but she waved him back into his seat.

  “You should sit a little longer.”

  As if you know, John thought, beginning to be slightly perturbed at her air of superiority and control, and wondering if he should have been so quick to ask her out. You fall too easily, John, he chided himself.

  John took the proffered mug of coffee and breathed deeply. The warmth had returned to his body and he shrugged off the cloak. For cloak it was. Thick, black wool with a narrow band of patterned satin along the edges. The broach, pinned on the left breast, was circular with woven strands of bronze. It looked vaguely Celtic.

  “Are you ready for some soup?” Jillian asked, and without waiting for an answer filled two bowls, retrieved a small loaf of black bread from a wire rack on the counter-top and handed John a bottle of red wine and a corkscrew. Jillian gathered glasses, spoons and napkins while John dealt with the wine. It was a Merlot from a small winery in Maryland, but it seemed appropriate for dinner with a tarot-reading woman in the woods. On the label was a rather unprofessional drawing of a man on horseback with a hawk perched on his right hand.

  Jillian carefully cleared the tarot cards from the kitchen table and John adjusted his chair so he could eat comfortably. Aside from a few bumps and bruises, he felt well, although the sudden warmth after being cold made him feel sleepy.

  Jillian sat down and did about the last thing John expected. She raised her glass and said a blessing before the meal.

  “Fertile in fruits and herbs, may the earth crown the Goddess with its abundance.”

  John raised his glass, unsure if he was supposed to say “Amen” or what.

  “So this garment I was wearing,” he said. “Somehow ‘coat’ doesn’t seem to fit. Did you make it? And what is it?”

  Jillian looked at him a long moment, then laughed, quietly at first, but her mirth got the better of her and she set her glass back on the table and raised her cloth napkin to cover her mouth.

  “I’m sorry, John,” she said. “This isn’t quite the best of introductions. I’ve been so intent on understanding the message of the cards that I’ve forgotten how weird this must all seem to you. Despite appearances, I’m not all that strange. And I don’t wander around Bowie in a cloak, in case you were wondering. It’s part of an old costume, and it happened to be hanging there because I had done some needlework on it earlier today.”

  “Tell me a little about yourself,” she continued. “I don’t go out to dinner with strangers.”

  He took another spoonful of soup and then eyed her suspiciously. “I’m a private detective,” he said. “A funny-looking fellow in a blue robe asked me to check on you, but on my way I was attacked by the wily servants of the Dark Lord.”

  Jillian laughed again, and John noticed for the first time how young and beautiful her face looked when she laughed. Whenever I see your smiling face, I have to smile myself. The lyrics echoed in his mind. He couldn’t help but return Jillian’s smile.

  “Seriously,” he said, “I live a much more interesting life than all that. I’m an architect. My office is downtown, but several of my clients are out this way. I don’t live far from here, in fact, and I was on the way to the train station with a client when I saw somebody in my car.”

  As John narrated the story Jillian nodded appreciatively at different spots, as if she knew the precise place in the woods, or understood why the thief chose to turn right instead of left.

  “I see,” she said when he had done. “Now I understand the cards a little better. You’re an adventurous type.” And then, as if to herself she said, “Perhaps that’s important.”

  “No, I’m not,” John insisted, not least because he didn’t like the idea that a deck of cards had him pegged. “I’m not much of a risk-taker. I don’t even eat sushi. But I can’t stand it when punks get away with petty crime like that.”

  “And ...?”

  “And what?”

  “What made you pursue this particular guy on this particular night?”

  “Extra hot sauce on the burrito, I guess.”

  Jillian’s eyes sparkled, and while she didn’t actually turn to look at the cards, John was sure she was thinking about them. Had he referred to what she’d seen in the cards? Or, at least what she thought she had seen. He began to wonder if he was growing to resent that deck of cards, or whether a burning curiosity would get the better of him.

  “Why don’t we do a test?” John suggested with a wicked smirk. “How about you ask the deck?”

  “Why not?” Jillian agreed, almost as if she was expecting the challenge. John took one last sip of his wine and they cleared their bowls and utensils to the other side of the table.

  Jillian deftly laid out ten cards in a strange pattern: one, then four, then one, then four more.

  “This is you,” she said, pointing to the first. “The King of Swords. You were decisive and took action. You were motivated by justice, but also by a sense of adventure, and even vengeance. Yet there was a hidden purpose. There’s evidence here of love lost. Did you recently break up with someone?”

  “Yes, in fact,” he said, but he tried hard not to react. It was a lucky guess. Everybody my age is breaking up with someone, he figured.

  “There’s also an indication of spiritual growth, or enlightenment. Are you religious?”

  John laughed. “I’m agnostic. I’d say I’m an atheist, but that requires a commitment I’m not willing to make.”

  “Then there’s plenty of room for spiritual growth,” Jillian said matter-of-factly. “Don’t be surprised if your faith is tested soon.”

  “Yes. Well. That was interesting,” he interrupted. She clearly wasn’t done, but his tone said that he’d had enough. He reached for his bread with an air of finality. Jillian seemed eager to continue with her reading, but she acquiesced.

  “I hate to bring this up,” he said, noticing her discomfort, “but I’m somewhat stranded. Is it far to the Bowie train station? I lost track of where I was going after the storm hit.”

  Jillian somewhat reluctantly put her cards away. “You’re in luck. It’s not far at all, and there’s a bit of a path that heads that way. I can show you.”

  “I’d rather not impose ....”

  “Don’t worry. I know this area like the back of my hand, and I usually take a walk after dinner.”

  “Okay, thanks. But I’m driving you back here once we get to my car.”

  “Deal.”

  Jillian spent a few moments hunting through her closet for a jacket John could wear against the cold, but nothing was going to fit. She was tall but thin, and John was a big-chested man with long arms.

  “There is the cloak,” she said with a smile. “It might do you good.”

  “Now that I’ve dried off a bit, I don’t think I’ll be cold.”

  “C’mon, John. As a favor to me?” This was clearly fun for Jillian, and embarrassing for John, which spurred her on. John didn’t want to fight about it. Besides, no one would see them in the woods. He laughed, put on the cloak and the two of them headed out into the night.

  The damp, cold air brushed against his face as sudden gusts rattled the trees. John was thankful for the cloak.

  The woods were almost completely dark, but Jillian picked her way through several bits of trail like a forest ranger. At one point they had to stoop through a thicket of Laurel and Jillian led John by the hand to the other side. Something about the cool air, and the events of the night, and wandering in the woods with a ... was she a witch? He wasn’t sure. And wearing a cloak! It conjured the strangest images in John’s mind.

  They emerged from the thicket in a clearing, or perhaps it was part of a wide path or dirt
road. The moon suddenly shone from a patch of clear sky and fell on Jillian’s face. She was still holding his hand.

  All John’s adolescent fantasies about meeting a witch in the woods were flooding his brain and setting his blood on fire. He almost shivered as he slowly leaned in closer.

  They kissed. John felt every cell in his body light up like some phosphorescent creature of the sea, but at the same time the world seemed to slip away into a haze, as if he were living in a dream.

  Chapter 3: How Do You Talk to a Witch?

  “Ah, Susan. Just the person I was looking for,” John said as he stowed his bag lunch in the office refrigerator.

  “That sounds promising, but it’s not even close to quitting time,” she replied in her typically flirty manner.

  “Uh ... right,” John said, always trying to keep from sounding even remotely interested in Susan. “What do you know about tarot cards.”

  John expected a reaction to such an off the wall question, but Susan acted as if it was as natural as asking about lunch. She fingered the pentagram medallion that hung around her neck, searching for inspiration, then said, “And what makes you think I know anything about tarot cards?”

  Because you’re the office flake, John wanted to say, but he was momentarily distracted. He suddenly noticed a superficial resemblance between Susan and Jillian. He hadn’t seen it last night at Jillian’s house, but it was plain now. Susan was slightly shorter and ever-so-slightly more attractive, but they seemed to be built from the same model, and their faces had some common characteristics.

  Susan misinterpreted John’s gaze.

  “So what’s gotten into you today?” she asked, relishing the attention.

  “Sorry.” He shook his head as if recovering from a daydream. “I just noticed how much you look like a friend of mine. No, not a friend. Someone I met last night.”

  “This is getting better by the minute,” she said. “And she’s got you interested in tarot cards, huh? Did you go visit Madam Matilda for a palm reading?” Susan laughed. John couldn’t help comparing her laugh with Jillian’s, which he could still hear in the back of his mind. Jillian’s laugh sounded innocent and almost childish. Susan’s laugh seemed artificial, as if a habit of forced, unnatural laughter made the spontaneous kind sound awkward.

  “Almost,” John admitted. “So what can you tell me?”

  “Nearly nothing. The serious folk use them for lots of different things, but most people don’t have a clue how to read them. It takes a lot of practice. I’m not into the card thing myself. Sorry. But what’s the story here? John, the office skeptic — the serious guy who wears a tie on casual Friday — is suddenly interested in tarot cards. I’ve got to hear more.” She hoped a slightly seductive smile would add persuasiveness to her plea. It had the opposite effect on John. He wanted to end the interview as quickly as possible.

  He shrugged and gave her an uninspired and woefully inadequate account of his evening. Susan took the clue, made a cursory good-bye and headed down the hall. John hurried back to his office, finished up his morning work early, loaded some internet articles on Wicca onto his iPad, then took his bag lunch to the park.

  * * *

  That Friday night, Jillian directed John to her favorite Chinese restaurant in Bowie, which was on the outside of Freestate Mall. John’s expectations for decor in a Chinese restaurant were fairly low, but this one was actually quite pleasant. A small rock garden, complete with a waterfall and several goldfish, sat next to the entrance. The water poured over a small figurine of a Chinese gentleman at work in the fields.

  Next to the garden sat a pair of marble elephants. A little girl tried to ride one while her embarrassed father tried to get her off. The frazzled parent finally thought to distract her with the salt-water aquarium a few feet farther into the restaurant. The anemones, urchins, corals and several beautifully colored fish of different varieties kept the human urchin occupied until the hostess found them a table.

  John noticed another aquarium right behind the bar, through which he could see the back part of the restaurant. A minute later the hostess ushered them in that direction. He admired the large, Chinese urns placed conspicuously around the room — on top of the piano, on a pedestal, or on other flat surfaces. Two colorful Chinese gowns were suspended on the wall, like tapestries, next to four-stringed musical instruments. It seemed that wherever he looked he saw something unexpected, but it fit together perfectly and created a nice atmosphere.

  The hostess seated them in the smaller back room of the restaurant; the one he had seen through the aquarium behind the bar. The walls in this room were decorated with huge fans, not unlike the hand fans you might win at a carnival by knocking down three milk cans, except that these were exquisite.

  John ordered a Chinese beer, Jillian a glass of plum wine. After she ordered a tofu dish, John wondered aloud if she was a vegetarian. She shook her head and poured them each a cup of tea.

  So what do you talk to a witch about? he wondered. He wanted to find out a little more about her and her past. But that wasn’t good first date material. He knew the received wisdom that it wasn’t wise to talk about current events or politics — on the theory that you might mess up a perfectly good date by finding you were incompatible — but John considered that theory exactly backwards. If she was some kind of a nut — beyond being a witch, that is, he suddenly realized .... Well, in any event, he wanted to get it out in the open from the start. No sense getting attached to somebody only to find out that it’s a dead end.

  John brought up some of his favorite topics: zero-tolerance policies in the schools, extreme feminist ideas — which, in John’s opinion, accounted for almost all feminist ideas — and radical environmentalism. He pushed some of his rhetoric a little further than he actually believed, just to see how Jillian would react. He was particularly surprised that Jillian shared his conservative views on sex and marriage.

  She passed his tests with flying colors, neither politely demurring — John hated that — if you’re not willing to discuss opinions, what good is it to have a brain, he thought — nor agreeing or disagreeing too much. She had her own opinions, wasn’t afraid to defend them, and, best of all, wasn’t offended when he didn’t share them.

  Through dinner and a couple drinks they perused the cultural landscape and found a lot of the same demons: sitcoms and hip-hop music and those weird adolescent gestures that had worked their way into every commercial. John would have liked to stay longer, but he knew the table was a source of revenue for the restaurant, and it didn’t seem fair to monopolize it. He picked up the tab and they stepped out into an unseasonably warm evening.

  “Can we take some back roads and lower the top on your car?” Jillian asked as they got to John’s convertible. “We won’t have many more warm evenings like this.”

  John smiled and offered Jillian his arm.

  * * *

  They wended their way back to Jillian’s home and she invited John inside.

  “Can you get some wine and glasses from the kitchen? Thanks,” Jillian said. “I’ll put on some music.”

  As John tried to guess where the wine glasses were hidden he heard a haunting tune softly playing in the other room. It was instrumental, and reminded him of Medieval churches and frolics in the woods and King Arthur’s court all at once.

  “That sounds like something from the ‘Thistle and Shamrock Hour,’” he said as he left the kitchen with the wine. “What instruments are they playing?”

  “Hmm. I think there’s a harp, a violin, a lute, a hammer dulcimer. Various percussion and a 12-string guitar. Some of the other songs have a flute or a recorder. It’s one of my favorite CDs. It helps me relax and puts me in a good mood.”

  “Music is amazing. It’s magical the way it can change your mood,” John said, hoping a positive reference to magic would win him some points.

  “It’s not magical,” she said, surprising him. “It’s sacramental.”

  “What does that mean?” he aske
d, showing a little too much frustration in his tone.

  “A sacrament is a physical thing that carries an invisible grace,” she said. “At least, that’s what I mean. There’s more to music than sound. People say that music is the language of the soul. It conveys emotions, paints pictures in your mind, and excites the imagination.”

  “I don’t know enough theology to talk about sacraments, but isn’t that just psychology?”

  “Now what does that mean?” Jillian said, trying to imitate John’s tone of voice in a mocking, playful way. “You can’t explain something away because you name it. Of course the effect of music is ‘psychology,’ but that’s the same as to say that music affects your mind, which is what I was saying. If a psychologist finds some equation to calculate the effect, he hasn’t explained it, he’s just described it.”

  John raised his eyebrows in surprised approval of her monologue. She’s a thinker, anyway, even if she is a nut. He distracted himself with the wine bottles while his favorite stereotypes wrestled for dominance. Contestant One didn’t believe in the brain power of religious people. Contestant Two said the same in spades for New Age devotees.

  “All of life is sacred,” Jillian went on. “It’s mysterious and ‘sacramental,’ and I like it that way. It makes water and air and wind and rain and food and music that much more enjoyable.”

  “Okay, I see,” he said, not sure he wanted to get any further into it. His materialism was tugging at his mind. Wind is moving air, he thought.

  “I don’t think you do,” Jillian said, pressing the point. “I’m sure you’ve heard people argue about mind and body — mind over matter, and that sort of thing. I think the whole argument is wrong. People aren’t ‘mind’ and ‘body,’ they’re minds in bodies. What you do affects what you think, and what you think affects what you do. All of life is inter-related. That’s one reason why I like Wicca.”