new face arrived in the house on Waller Street, it was Sunflower who greeted them, with her blond hair woven with flowers and her gentle smile … Sunflower who had once been Anne … she lived mostly on LSD, and she had never been as happy in her life. And three months after she had come to them, one of the brothers took her as his own. His name was Moon, and he was tall and thin and beautiful, with silver hair and gentle eyes. He took her to bed with him every night, and cradled her, and in some ways he reminded her of Lionel. She went everywhere with him, and often he would turn to her with his mystic smile.
“Sunflower … come to me….” She knew the magic of what pleased him now, knew best how to warm the herb potions he drank, when to bring him drugs, when to touch his flesh. And now, when a newcomer arrived, and they performed the ritual, it was Sunflower who went to the sisters first, gently pouring the warm oil over them, welcoming them to their tribe, and letting her swift ringers prepare them for the rest of the tribe. Moon was always very proud of her, and gave her extra acid tabs because of it. It was strange how different life was now from what it had once been. It was filled with bright colors and people that she loved, people who loved her too. There was nothing left of the lonely ugliness of her life. She had forgotten all of them. And when, in the spring, Moon felt her belly and told her she was with child, and could no longer participate in the ritual, she cried.
“Don't cry, little love … you must prepare for a much greater ritual than that. We will all be there with you when this tiny moonbeam pierces the skies and comes to you, but until then …” He cut down on her acid tabs, although he let her smoke as much marijuana as she wished. And he laughed at her when it increased her appetite. The baby was just beginning to show when she walked down Haight Street one day, and saw a face she knew she recognized from the past, but she wasn't quite sure who it was. She returned to Moon in the house on Waller Street with a pensive air.
“I've seen someone I know.”
It didn't particularly worry him. They all saw people they knew at times, in their minds and hearts, and occasionally in more concrete ways. His wife and child had died in a boating accident just before he had walked out of his house in Boston one day and come here. He saw them in his mind's eye, much of the time, especially during the ritual. For Sunflower to see someone she knew now surprised him not at all. It was a sign of her rising to a higher state, and that pleased him. This child, who was part his, would bring her even higher before it came. “Who was it, child?”
“I'm not sure. I can't remember his name.” He had let her have one of the rare acid tabs he allowed her the night before, and the name Jesus kept coming to her mind, but she was sure it wasn't him.
Moon smiled at her. Later, she would have more mushrooms and acid again, but she had to remain pure for the coming child, she could have only just enough to keep her in an enlightened state. But she could not soar too high now, or it would frighten the child. And this baby belonged to all of them after all. They had all shared in it, the brothers and the sisters. Moon felt certain that it had been conceived during her first night, when she was the center of the ritual. The child would be specially blessed and as he reminded her of that the name John came into her mind, clearly, and then suddenly she remembered him.
CHAPTER 23
“Are you sure?” Lionel stared at him disbelievingly. John had done this to him twice before. They had both dropped out of school three months before, much to everyone's despair, and they had come to San Francisco to search for her. Ward had refused to hear about it from Faye, and Bob Wells was afraid they were using it as an excuse to drop out of school, go to San Francisco, and join the gays living freely there.