Stars of Fortune(4)

She’d file them, and take a trip. Get away from home for a week or two, let herself think and decide.

On her hands and knees, she began to gather the sketches, organizing them in her way. The woman with the fierce eyes, the man with the sword, sketches of her dream people together.

Seascapes and landscapes, a palace shining on a hill, a circle of stones.

She laid one of the dozens of the man she’d just dreamed of on a pile, reached for another.

And knew.

She’d drawn the sickle-shaped island from various viewpoints, and this one showed its high cliffs, its undulating hills thick with trees. Showed it floating in the sea, washed with sunlight. Buildings jumbled together to form a city in the foreground, and the stretch of land, speared with mountains spread in the distance.

The pencil sketch took on color and life as she studied it. So much green, a thousand shades of it from dusky to emerald. So much blue, deep and rich or frothing with waves surrounding it. She saw boats sailing, figures diving off seawalls to swim and splash.

And she saw the promontory where she’d stood with him as the storm flew in.

“All right then, I’ll go.” Was she giving in, she wondered, or standing up? But she’d go, she’d look.

It would either end the dreams, or bring them to life as the sketch came to life in her hands.

She went over to her little desk, opened her laptop. And booked a flight to Corfu.



Giving herself only two days to pack, arrange details, close up the house meant she couldn’t change her mind. She slept on the plane, dreamlessly, grateful for the respite. And still the cab ride from the airport to the hotel she’d chosen near Old Town was a blur. Disoriented, she checked in, struggling to remember to smile, to exchange the expected small talk with the front desk, with the cheerful bellman with the cheerful eyes and thick accent as they rode the narrow elevator to her room.

She hadn’t asked for a particular floor or a view. It was enough she’d taken this step, wherever it would lead her. But she wasn’t surprised, not at all surprised, when steps into the room she barely noticed, she faced the windows, the blue sea, and the spread of the sand she knew so well.

She smiled away the bellman’s offer to fetch her ice, or anything she might wish. She only wanted solitude again. The airports, the plane, so many people. They crowded her still.

Alone, she walked to the window, opened it to cool spring air that smelled of the sea and flowers, and studied the scene she’d sketched weeks before, and carried with others in a portfolio in her suitcase.

She felt nothing, not now, but the fogginess of jet lag and travel fatigue. And some wonder that she’d actually traveled so far on impulse.

Turning away, she unpacked to give herself some sense of place and order. Then just lay down on the bed and dropped into sleep again.

Lightning and storms, the beat of the sun, the beat of the sea. Three stars so bright and brilliant her eyes stung. When they shot away from the curve of the moon, fell in streams of light, the world trembled from the strikes of power.

Blood and battle, fear and flight. Climbing high, diving deep.

Her dream lover taking her mouth, taking her body, making her ache with feelings. So much. Too much. Never enough. Her own laughter, barely recognized, sprung from joy. Tears shed, flooding from grief.

And in the darkness, a light burned through. In the darkness she held fire in her hand. As she held it up, for all to see, the earth quaked, rocks tumbled. What was fury flew at her with claws and teeth.

For God’s sake, Sasha, wake up! Get your ass moving.

“What?” She woke with a start, the voice still echoing inside her head, her heart still thumping with fear.

Just another dream, she told herself, just one more to add to her collection.

The light had softened, and lay now like silk over the water. She had no idea how long she’d slept, but the dream voice had something right. It was time to wake up.

She showered off the travel, changed into fresh clothes. Since she wasn’t working, she left her hair down. She ordered herself out of the room. She’d go down, sit on the terrace, have a drink. She’d come, given up her quiet and alone, and come.

Now something or someone needed to come to her.

She found her way out, strolled under a pergola thickly twined with wisteria already starting to bloom. Its scent followed her as she turned away from the pool, the canvas sling chairs lined up around its skirt, toward a stone terrace. Clay pots gloriously crowded with flowers of hot reds and purples glowed as the sun wheeled west. The fronds of palm trees hung still.

Tables under shading umbrellas—all in bright white—scattered over the stone. She noted only a few were occupied, and was grateful. Not solitude perhaps, but quiet. She thought to take one a bit apart from the others, started to angle away.