Sunday afternoon, New Orleans. Colin had made it two days ago, and had helped his sister prepare for her wedding. He hadn’t had a lot of time to wonder about the Dew Drop Café, or what had really happened there. He had to be there for his sister, the last living member of his family, and without a doubt the closest to his heart. When he walked her down the aisle, veiled and giggling, Amy, little Amy, he forgot himself entirely.
Colin and Amy had practically raised each other after their parents died. They had moved from one relative to another, until some inevitable disaster relocated them. They had seen the deaths of two uncles, an aunt, and their grandparents. Colin could remember one night when Amy had cried herself to sleep because she thought they were cursed. Colin had told her the next day that he didn’t believe that, and he wouldn’t, not ever. They just had bad luck, and it would pass soon.
And somehow or other, it did. They came into some money when Colin turned eighteen, and they both headed to college. Amy met Brian, and Colin met Diane. Soon Amy was engaged, and within a few months she was here, in a storied plantation on a sunny afternoon. She was a woman to him for the first time, and no longer that frightened little girl. When they reached the altar together, a white podium hung with golden ribbons and decked with magnolia blossoms, she gave him a last lingering hug.
“Love you, doofus,” she whispered.
“Love you too, spaz,” he replied.
The reception was held under a large white tent on the plantation lawn, under the ancient oaks and Christmas lights and violet skies. No expense had been spared, and guests chatted by a champagne fountain, lingered at the dessert buffet, laughed at the open bar, danced to the folksy music of the live band.
Colin sipped strawberry champagne at the family table while everyone else danced. Amy had changed into a simple white dress to dance, and twirled round and round, while her husband raced to keep up with her. When she saw Colin watching, she waved at him emphatically. She was definitely drunk, he thought, and raised a glass to her.
The similarities of this reception and the masquerade at the café were not lost on him, but he refused to think about it. No masks here, no red caps. Here children chased one another across the dance floor. Here aunts gossiped, and uncles talked trash. Here was a family—and although everyone was from Brian’s side, they talked to Colin and Amy as though they had been a part of it all their lives.
Colin polished off his third glass just as an exhausted man collapsed into a nearby chair.
“I’m getting too old for this shit,” the man laughed, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. “You’re the bride’s brother, right? Colin?”
“Yes. You’re one of Brian’s uncles?”
“One of six! So, great wedding, huh? Love this music, what’s it called?”
“Indie, I think.”
“Reminds me of some things from my day.” The man pulled lightly at the collar of his seersucker suit, bobbing his head lightly. Then abruptly he turned. “I’m Ronnie, by the way.”
Colin shook his hand.
“You go to college, right?”
“That’s right. Drove down just a few days ago.”
“Young man on the road! I remember those days.”
“Yeah.” Colin lowered his eyes. Then something occurred to him. “Hey, you live around here, right?”
“Born n’ raised Louisianan.”
“Have you, uh, ever heard of this place called the Dew Drop Café?”
Ronnie leaned back in his chair a bit, eyes narrowing. “Sounds familiar. Describe it.”
Colin briefly went over the look of the place, the river rocks, the stained glass, the earthen floors and wrought iron tables. “It was like a cave inside,” he admitted finally.
Ronnie stared at him for a minute. Then, slowly, he asked, “The waiter was a kid, maybe a girl, maybe a boy? And you thought you spent a few minutes there, but when you checked your watch, a lot longer had passed?”
“Yeah!” Colin leaned forward, a little jolt of adrenaline in his veins. It was real, not a dream, or a nightmare. He knew that, but it was so good to have it confirmed.
“You drove a long way for this wedding, huh?”
“No, just from…Florida. Why?”
Ronnie looked puzzled. “That place was in Massachusetts. Never forgot it, it was somewhere outside Salem.”
“I…”
“Hey, Ronnie!” someone called from the dancefloor.
“Uh, ‘scuse me, kid.” Ronnie got up, and Colin was left staring at his drink.
Massachusetts. I have a feeling that place isn’t a chain.
Colin got up for another drink and ran into his sister at the bar. She hugged him painfully.
“I’m sorry we haven’t had time to really talk!”
“It’s okay,” he murmured.
“You all right, Colin? You been thinking about Diane?”
Diane. No, he hadn’t thought about her in days. She had left him less than a week before, and at the time it had been agonizing. Now he found he could scarcely remember her face. “Yeah,” he said anyway. He didn’t want to bother her with something he couldn’t himself understand.
“Well.” She turned to the bar tender so quickly that her ginger hair whipped his cheek. “Make my brother a Hurricane, and make it strong.”
“You trying to get me drunk, spaz?”
“Best thing for heartache, doofus.”
And indeed, after three glasses of champagne and a Hurricane and a half, he was cured of everything: thoughts, feelings, inhibition. He was dancing with one of the bridesmaids, one of Amy’s university buddies, and he was utterly unafraid.
Soon the music changed, slowing, easing, and as couples made their way to the floor he sat once again at the family table to joke with Brian’s uncles. During a break in the conversation, he scanned the floor for his sister.
He didn’t spot her, but he saw a sight familiar and foreign at the same time.
She was swaying alone, arms around herself, eyes closed. Her lilac silk dress whispered against the ground, her blonde braids, set with bursts of jasmine, slid off her shoulders as she tilted her head to the music.
The girl from the courtyard. The girl from the café.
Her eyes opened. It was her all right, and she was looking over at him with the sweetest smile. He tried to be disturbed, even horrified, that she was there. That she had found him.
But he was rising, he was headed toward her. Her cat-like eyes, so large, and just a bit too far apart. Her lips dark rose and gleaming. She was so still; she was waiting.
A couple passed in front of her, obscuring his view for a moment. He craned, but when the couple was out of view again, she was gone.
He saw her the rest of the night, and she always disappeared before he could approach her or speak. She was dancing under the trees, last he saw her. Dancing far beyond the tent on her own, even as the band was packing up.
He thought dimly of what the strange waiter at the café had asked him. What is it you most like? To sing, to dance, or to sleep?
To dance.
* * * *
On the road the next night, he thought of her, the way her white cheek was gold-struck by the Christmas lights. The shine of her waist-length hair. The silvery shift of her graceful limbs in that dress. Why had she been at the wedding? If she had followed him, why hadn’t she spoken to him? Why had he just been allowed to see her? Why did he wish he had pursued her more aggressively?
The feeling returned. An unnatural longing—that same sadness he had felt after his meal at the café. The feeling that it was so wrong to leave. That he should stay.
He had better directions this time, but still, he found himself lost.
This time, in the grip of midnight, the forests edging the road changed. There were no more magnolias, myrtles, southern pines, or kudzu. The forest was lit with such colour it seemed aflame. Trees were bleeding red, winking gold. Their leaves were broad and star-shaped. When he lowered the window the air was brisk and smelt of smoking fires. He glanced at his watch. Midnight again.
He wanted to pull over and touch the trees. None of it felt real. Ronnie’s voice was in his head: “Massachusetts. Somewhere outside Salem.”
Colin rubbed his eyes fiercely. It was happening again, wasn’t it? He was lost, and helpless, and he knew the road would lead him right back to the Dew Drop Café.
And perhaps, just perhaps, back to her.
Surely enough, after a few more minutes he came upon the same shafts of light, the same leafy tunnel, the same shell road. The same river rock building.
The door was open. No one was there. He drove up as though magnetised.
Why am I doing this?
He left his truck, his feet pulling him to the door. A cold autumn wind surged at his back, pushing him forward. The scent of roses and jasmine assaulted him again, but gently, spreading cool fingers over his face and neck.
It was warm in the café. The moss was slightly thicker on the wall stones, and the curtains in the alcove were open, but nothing else had changed. It was as though he had never left. He breathed out steadily. There had to be some method to all of this, but he couldn’t make sense of it.
“Oh can’t you, dear William Grant?”
It was a woman’s voice, low and secretive. Softer than spring rain. He turned.
The blonde smiled at him. The door was still open behind her, but he hardly noticed. He could not speak.
“But that isn’t your name, is it? It’s wise not to give the Folk your name.”
The Folk. That rang a little chime inside of him, but he could not place it.
“What is it you wished for?” she asked, taking his hand and leading him to the plush couches. “What is it you desire most in the world? Love. You said as much, and you are worthy of it. You yearn for a love as strong as your sister’s. You have lost so much, and now you have lost her. She has her own life now. She will tuck your love into a box and set it aside. You have feared this. But you know it is true.”
Her voice was mellifluous, light as sugared petals, fresh as a mountain stream. He ached when she stopped talking, absolutely ached.
She plucked a flower from her hair and tucked it behind his ear. The brush of her fingers against his face made him shudder.
“It’s true,” he said at last, quietly. He wanted to fall forward in her arms.
“Yield, then,” she whispered. “Yield to your desire and do not be afraid. Know that if you come with me, no one, and nothing, can harm you again.”
He believed her. It was incredible, but he did. He would have believed anything she said.
The café was filled with the smells of pumpkin pie and cinnamon apples. He could have fallen asleep.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Whatever you want it to be. Come with me, and feast every night. Dance every night. You never need bother with this world, its death, its pain, or its fear ever again. I will open mysteries to you that you cannot imagine.” She slid a finger under his chin. “Do you ever wonder why you are always lost? Do you care to be found?”
“This place…”
“We can go far from here. We can go to meadows untouched by man, to forests flooded with fireflies, to mountains that veritably pierce the skies.”
“Please don’t stop talking.”
Her laugh was tenderly indulgent. “It is time for you to make a choice.”
“Choice?”
“Yes. Will you come with me, and be mine?”
“Be yours?”
“My lover, undying.”
Undying. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to feel!” He pressed himself to her neck, taking in her honey-berry scent.
He was at the lake again with his sister. Jars full of fireflies and his mother called them back inside. Blueberry pie and laughter, the drowsing quiet of an autumn night. A fire in the hearth, sputtering, crackling, going out.
“Would you like to know such a world always?” the fey woman asked. “Would you like the wind to call your name, and the flowers sing you to sleep? You can have this and more. But come with me, and never leave. Never return to this world of loss and pain.”
Yes, he wanted to say. Yes, all of this, and I don’t care anymore, I’m no longer afraid. It’s so easy to fear what you don’t understand. I’m so sick of being lost, even when I know where I am and where I’m going. I know you wouldn’t lie.
Amy. Colin pictured her in her white skirts, with ruddied cheeks. She had kissed his head as he left the reception. “Visit soon, okay, doofus?”
“No.” Colin sat up, all enchantment broken. “No, I’m sorry, I…I can’t.”
The woman smiled at him sadly. “We all must pay love’s tithe, dear boy. Go now, and see to the one you love. Know always that the choice was yours.”
He got to his feet and tried to look away from her. He couldn’t. “She’s my family. I want to stay with you, but I can’t just disappear on her. Or my life. I have a life. I go to college, I—” Then he stopped abruptly, because none of this mattered. “I’m never going to find anyone of my own, am I?”
The woman rose, and the colour of her eyes shifted with the light. She did not respond.
“I’m not going to, am I? There’s only you.”
“Your choice is made.” She turned, and headed for the back door, head lowered.
“Wait!” he called. “Wait. I’ll tell you my name, if you want it.”
She stopped, but did not turn. “It is yours, and keep it close.”
“Colin. My name is Colin.”
The woman’s laugh was spritely, and when she turned she was much changed. Her cheekbones were high and sharp, her eyes glistening black and iridescent. Her ears pierced through her hair, knifelike, and her lips were bloody red. “Colin,” she repeated. “You may call me Mab, but you will never see me again. You may see me only in your dreams.”
With that she was gone. She disappeared on the spot, there one moment and erupted into shimmering air the next.
Colin was out the door and back in the truck by dawn again. He laid his head on his steering wheel, breathing in the scents of worn beaten pleather and faded cigarette smoke.
When he raised his head, he was in Louisiana again. The dawn was unfolding on dove wings above, and behind his truck, an empty forest clearing. He whispered the name to himself, “Mab,” and then drove off.
The road unfurled before him, but he wasn’t headed home. He was headed to New Orleans to see his sister. And after that? To Massachusetts.
