Kaleidoscope ~ The Circle
Cynthia Hatch
Part VI
At the entrance they stopped to pick up one of the many kerosene lanterns that had been left there and ventured out into the darkness, the sounds of the party receding behind them. The lantern threw soft circles of light across their path. The only sounds, the gentle dripping of water. and the swish of the long, black cloak, as they walked.
“Brooke was asking me about Michael. I only spoke with him for a minute, but I think he feels comfortable now living above."
“Yes, Michael will always be a part of both worlds, like you. Catherine.” He stopped. "Wait, Listen.”
“I don't hear anything.”
They went several yards farther. "Now?" he asked her.
Catherine hesitated. "Wind,” she said finally.
“Father may have been right. These tunnels have never been charted. No one knows what currents may enter here from above. If they cross or become trapped in a pattern, they may grow quite powerful."
"You mean like whirlwinds?”
"Mmm.” When they reached the opening of the huge passageway whose only transit was a narrow ledge, the noise had grown louder: strange whistlings and blasts like fog horns, as the wind fought it's way through the twisted channels. Gradually, the bizarre music faded, and silence returned, a silence so total that she could hear the soft creak of the leather he wore when he moved. “Take my hand, Catherine, and stay very close.” He led her out along the ledge, the lantern illuminating only a few feet in front of them.
They had reached what she thought must be about the halfway point, when an unearthly shriek began somewhere in the tangle of tunnels that emerged at the far wall. It grew in intensity. She felt it first as no more than a breeze. Vincent dropped her hand and threw his arm across her, pushing her up against the rock. Her skirt began to whip wildly around her legs, and she clutched at the frail cloth of her shawl. There was a cold puff of air, as if a malevolent giant were blowing out a candle, and the lantern glow died. At once it was quiet again.
"Don't be afraid, Catherine.”
“I'm not. Do you have anything to light it with?”
“Nothing." He had dropped his arm and now held onto hers. She heard him set the useless lantern down beside them.
“Can you see anything, Vincent?”
“No.” He sounded more amazed than worried. “I have never known such complete darkness. Always, I've been able to see outlines, shapes. There is nothing.”
“But the others will come - with lanterns.”
"No, Catherine, they won't" Father will insist that everyone use the longer way, the safer way, as I should have done."
“You were anxious to take over for Pascal. I understand that. It doesn't matter, Vincent. We've come this way once. The ledge is wide enough. We can just feel our way along the wall."
"Your courage amazes me, Catherine.”
"You're with me. How can I be afraid?”
He sighed, as if reluctant to continue. “You must be afraid. The wind has never stopped. It's still caught in the tunnels across from us. At any moment it might burst through, stronger than before.”
"I don't hear it.”
"Believe me, it is there.”
“Then I'll hold onto you. I -"
"Shh! Catherine, get back!" The urgency in his voice surprised her, but suddenly a great hollow sound seemed to roar up from both directions at once, evoking terrifying images of being trapped in a subway tunnel with a train bearing down.
She clutched at his arm, and the silken shawl unwound from her shoulders and was gone. Vincent turned, pinning her body against the wall with his own. His hair whipped at her face; his cloak snapped in the inferno of sound like a bullwhip. She could feel his arms straining against the rocks on either side of her, fighting to hold them both in place, as the hellish wind tore around them. Dimly, she heard the lantern, clanging and shattering on the rocks below. Then just as suddenly as it had started, the wind was gone. The air was motionless, the silence absolute.
“Don't move, Catherine,” He seemed unaware that she couldn't.
"Is it over?” She sensed that he'd turned his head away from her, straining to catch the slightest sound, but he was still pressed up against her, shielding her, protecting her with his strength. His muscles were tensed. She could feel the rhythm of his breathing against her breast.
Her heart that had been racing with fear seemed to stumble, as if picking up a different signal. In the silent blackness there was only pure sensation. She became acutely aware of all that touched her: the smoothness of his boots on her stockinged legs, the pressure of his thighs. A strand of his hair grazed her cheek. She noticed the faint aroma of the worn leather from his vest, and fainter still the elusive musky scent that was his own. It was as if, robbed of sight and sound, her other senses had been magnified. Through her silk dress, she thought she could feel every contour of the rose she'd given him, pressed as it was between them in its leather pouch. Without the usual clues of what she saw or heard, her mind was losing its will to reason, sinking under a wave of tactile sensations.
"It's over,” he said finally. "The wind has gone."
She tilted her face upwards, as he turned his head, and his hair brushed across her nose and sightless eyes. For an instant, the fine stubble of his beard grazed her lips. The only sound was the sharp intake of air, as he froze.
The breath she took was his as well. Whatever infinitesimal distance remained between them was as meaningless as time or thought. She had no sense of being separate from him. They were one, a single design that had been shifting, changing into patterns of light and color all along. Each pattern was beautiful, and she hadn't understood that there was no need to feel fearful and scattered when circumstances forced then to part. The design was merely rearranging, forever encircled in some vast kaleidoscope that was their bond. Now it had simply achieved a splendor whose perfection required no decision by either of them. It melted them together in a kiss, so soft, so gentle, that it might have been a dream.
The unfamiliar sensation of his mouth on hers awoke a storm of new responses throughout her body with an intensity she couldn't have imagined, yet on some other level of consciousness she knew this kiss, had known it always in some secret part of her. The rightness of it did not seem bound by her own life. It represented something that had always been, always would be, unlimited by the concepts of time and space.
It was brief, but when it ended, he didn't pull away. The trembling - was it only hers? The idea of herself as distinct from him, had no meaning. She had known in that swift moment of rapture what it was to complete their oneness, and now she remained electrified, pinned to the spot as surely by her need for him as by his powerful body.
Her hands moved slowly up over his chest to encircle his neck, noting the thud of his heartbeat as they passed. His arms came around her, pulling her away from the cold stone and into him. He breathed her name once, and the word was an incantation, a question, an answer, fragile with wonder, terrible with desire. It rumbled through her, setting off an avalanche of tumbling, dizzying need. She heard her own soft moan, as his mouth found hers. The sweetness of it was almost unbearable, yet this time there was an urgency too. She knew the taste of his lips, his tongue, the moisture that was both of theirs, mingling in an ever deepening kiss. She wanted to melt into him, be absorbed by him, until there was nothing left of either of them but a single point of inextinguishable light.
When he broke from her, he was panting, muttering words into her ear that she didn't so much hear as feel. Her mind had no need to grasp their meaning; they spoke straight to her heart, her shivering body.
“Oh, God. Vincent, I love you. I love you so much.” She was clutching his back, tangling her fingers in the glory of his hair. She kissed his eyes, his nose. Her fingers trembled over his face, memorizing every precious inch of it, as her eyes could not. She trailed kisses down the pulsing strength of his neck, loosening the ruffles at his throat. As her lips found the little hollow place at its base, he gasped and drew her face to his. His mouth whispered over it, exploring; each place it touched sent echoes through her of some sweet and exquisite madness. She felt the healing touch of his love on the scar at her temple, his warm breath in her ear.
His left arm came up to her shoulder, cradling her, and he bent to claim her lips again, as deftly as if he'd done it a thousand times before. She was vaguely aware that with his other arm, he had swept her up to hold her against him. She let her head fall back over his arm, and his mouth found her neck, nuzzling and kissing along its length, until he buried his face in the warmth between her breasts.
It was too much for her heightened senses to bear; the countless separate points of desire that infused her instantly gathered in one vast cataclysm of sensation, and she was lost.
It might have been only seconds or an eternity when she had no sense of anything, but gradually, she came back to an awareness of her own body, weak and throbbing, and of the fact that she still lay in his arms. Lifting her head, she opened her eyes and looked into his. She saw her own myriad emotions mirrored there; love and awe and - suddenly they both realized that they were seeing with their eyes, as well as their hearts, that light and shadows were passing over them.
He set her down swiftly, delicately. His left arm was still wrapped around her, steadying her. She leaned against his chest, quite incapable of standing.
“Someone's coming, Catherine,” His voice was shaking uncharacteristically, and instinctively she reached up to stroke his hair, soothing him.