"This is a porch-rocker moment, baby," Marlene said, her smile widening. "When you're an old lady, and you two are sitting out there watching the sun set, and you chuckle softly to yourself, and he asks, 'Baby, whatcha thinking about?' your response will be, 'Oh, nothing, honey. Just about how much I love you.' He don't even need to know all. But you might wanna let the old girls on the Neteru Council know, for a little help."
"Black box."
"Steel vault."
"Never happened."
"I don't know what you're talking about." "Sho' you're right, Marlene."
A high five was exchanged and Marlene ran her finger over her lips, sealing them.
"Not even Father Pat?"
"He's a priest, and he can't give up no tapes--it's in his oath. He's the only one I can sit with to figure this out." "Shabazz?"
"You crazy?" Marlene said. "Oh, hell no. Too close to home."
Damali nodded and chuckled. "Thanks, Mar."
"For what?" Marlene said with a shrug. "Nothing happened."
The bathroom door opened and startled them. Both women practically fell into the tub.
Shabazz's gaze shot from Marlene to Damali. Suspicion laced his tone. "Everything all right?"
"Of course, baby," Marlene crooned. "She's nearly packed and ready to go. I just wanted her to come back in here with me to see that there was nothing to be afraid of."
Shabazz relaxed, the melodic tone of Marlene's voice seeming to quiet his suspicions. "All right. But y'all hurry up. There's a lot of tension in the other room."
"I'm hurrying," Damali said, swallowing a smile.
"Cool," he said, his fatherly gaze roving over her, still inspecting her for damage. "It'll be good to have you home again, baby girl. Never liked you out here all by yourself alone."
CHAPTER FIVE
D amali gently closed the bedroom door within the new family compound behind her. A sense of weary resignation claimed her. Marlene was right, she had to clean up this mess, and clean it up fast--the Juanita fiasco notwithstanding. It would be a lapse and an episode to take with her to her grave. She loved Carlos. But this dangerous new situation went beyond that. Something was seriously wrong with the very fabric of the universe. She had to address that as much as she had to address her personal dilemma.
She dropped her duffel bag on the floor before the dresser and glanced around the room. They'd put her in the east wing of the house, in a plant-filled sanctuary replete with floor-to-ceiling windows that would allow maximum daylight, and had seduced her to accept her fate of temporarily living with them all again by creating the illusion that she was free. But, once again, she was anything but free.
The sad part of it all was that only when she was creating her music did the problems in her life seem to melt away. Music removed the barriers, lifted the burden of being a Neteru, and stilled her troubled mind. And if her muse had simply remained in the spirit, she could have loved him with her whole heart for all of time. That's how things were supposed to be. But, as usual, she always wound up with the complex end of the bargain.
As Damali slowly put away her clothes, she glanced around at the beautiful teak woods and ebony that Marlene had selected. Patterns from the motherland swathed every surface. Strong mojo was in here with her, she could count on Marlene for that. She smiled sadly as she glimpsed the protective ring of salt around the king-sized sleigh bed that
Marlene had discreetly laid on the floor. No doubt the windows had been anointed, too.
In the quiet of the room, she could feel the fractured nerves and team hysteria beginning to ebb and give way to returned calm. There were so many questions that demanded answers. She wondered if the being that had visited her was one of a kind, or were there more that had accidentally tripped over the invisible line between dimensions? And if every action had an equal and opposite reaction, him becoming flesh meant what in the grand scheme of karma?
It didn't take much to remember how pure inspiration had dragged her out of bed night after night like a jealous lover to answer his desire at three a.m., the bewitching hour, when she was too young to go out alone clubbing. Then as she got older, it would accost her midday, when she went on huntress night shifts, forcing her to contend with the need to create, even when she was half-asleep standing up.
She wondered if Beethoven and Mozart had been driven to near-mad obsession by a female muse that demanded their all. Did Van Gogh finally go insane and cut off his ear for an earthly love or a cosmic one, or did Leonardo Da Vinci give in to the whispers of his muse, risking his life during medieval times to dare challenge the church for her?
Damali's hands lent themselves to the task of putting away clothes by rote, but her mind studied the complexities of the cosmos.
Pure inspiration was divine. It covered one with the very essence of pure love. It stopped time, made the sun come up on you from the dead of night, could keep the inspired at a task without eating or sleeping for hours on end, energized by the sheer explosive drive to complete.
Mad scientists, insane artists, crazed musicians, intense writers... what could make a man hang upside down on scaffolding for years painting the Sistine Chapel but a driving muse? Or what could make an architect envision the pyramids, and then be crazy enough to actually think he could build them--and do it? Or make two brothers jump into a mechanical contraption and believe they could fly--and do it?
Damali closed her eyes. Every creative person knew that this jealous lover was hard enough to deal with as raw ether... but flesh-- incomprehensible. This thing could keep her locked in a studio for hours, had done that in the past, or had kept her sequestered in her bedroom until a song was finished. She thought of the others in the compound, how they'd go off with their muse lover and create in sublime isolation, only to return to the group haggard, worn out, dehydrated, malnourished, but deeply satisfied. A low, knowing chuckle coated her insides as she thought of her early times with Carlos. It wasn't different at all--same thing... coming back to the compound all beat down, raggedy, exhausted from being at it all night, ready to drop where she stood from giving a pint of blood, but oh, so very content.