Masque of Moonlight and Shadows Read online

It was beautifully wrought; a delicate frieze of black fabric leaves edged in lacey silver frost. Dead leaves, winter-killed. She shivered, wondering what had made her buy it in the first place. She and Dylan and Conrad lived in a world of eternal summer; why on earth bring up the ugly reality that summers always ended, leaves always withered, and flowers always died?

  From outside, the clarinet's plaintive lament rose in volume, underscored by a moaning saxophone. She could just hear a man's voice through the instrumental cover; something Gershwin-ish. A somewhat loose interpretation of the melody, but that was to be expected. She rose and crossed to the French doors, peering out over the canal. A boat filled with musicians, a short, rather swarthy young man in a white suit, and a grinning boatman approached, the prow gently slicing the thick, brownish water into manageable chunks. From the balcony next door, a bevy of lovely socialites laughed and toasted the singer with raised glasses as he passed beneath them. He returned their smiles with a flash of brilliantly white teeth and a graceful salute as he ended his song.

  Then he glanced up and saw her; at once, the instruments softened, falling into a new melody. It took Tiffany a moment to recognize the opening stanzas of Cole Porter’s Easy to Love, sung in only slightly accented English.

  She stopped her automatic recoil and pulled her lips into a smile of positively diabetic sweetness. There was, after all, no need to be churlish in the face of slavish adoration. Even if it was becoming more than a little tiresome. She blew her latest admirer a kiss, then stepped back and pulled the curtains together with a sniff. This was probably Dylan's doing anyway. He'd gleefully seized on the song when it appeared last year, treating it like a private joke between them. Think of it as our song, Tiff. Our anthem.

  She had no idea how to tell him it wasn't really funny.

  She returned to her dressing table and picked up her cake of mascara. One more coat should do it. She didn't usually wear much, but the dress called for it. She had to hurry; half an hour really wasn't much time, and, virtually alone among her peers, Conrad actually meant thirty minutes when he said half-an hour.

  The song drifted through the gauze of the curtains.

  "...You'd be so easy to love

  So easy to idolize all others above..."

  The boat must have stopped beneath her balcony. She pressed her lips together and concentrated on getting her eyelashes to attain the consistency of cardboard. No time to dally. Thankfully, she already had her stockings on.

  "...So sweet to awaken with

  So nice to sit down to eggs and bacon with..."

  Time for the dress. She'd have to be careful not to snag her hair on—

  "...That it does seem a shame

  That you can't see your future with me

  'Cause you'd be oh, so easy to love..."

  Finally: the last line. She breathed a sigh of relief, even though she was really trying very hard not to listen.

  But the clarinet, repeating the last verse, sent notes floating hopefully behind her, begging for her attention like a puppy while the dark and alien dress slithered down over her skin. It finally gave up just as she slid her feet into the matching shoes, but the saxophone took up the refrain with smoky enthusiasm as she donned the mask.

  "This is really much too much," she said to herself, to Dylan, to no one. She turned toward the balcony, intending to convince the serenaders to move on.

  Across the room, a woman swathed in swirling darkness stepped toward her, stopping her. "Oh," she gasped, hand flying to her face in surprise. Only as the other woman did the same did Tiffany realize the wardrobe door had swung open, putting the mirror almost in her path.

  She lowered her hand and took a step closer, then another. She knew she should feel foolish, letting herself be surprised like that, staring at herself this way, but she could not take her eyes from the image facing her. Garbed in winter midnight, the woman in the mirror moved in a halo of stars. Hoarfrost glittered in her hair, her skin, edged the blackened leaves that seemed less a mask than something revealed, the captured expression of an elemental. She paused in mid-step, made a graceful pirouette ending in silent stillness, while wisps of black silk floated around her, drifting into place like the strands of a spider web, frost-touched.

  The saxophone coaxed from beneath the balcony, the words forming beneath the notes in Tiffany's mind.

  …so easy to idolize all others above…

  "I see now," Tiffany breathed, and the woman in the mirror mouthed the words back at her, a secret smile lurking at the corner of her lips. They sang the last line to each other.

  "'Cause you'd be oh, so easy to love"

  Dylan would paint this woman, many times and in many forms. The woman in the paintings was eternal, and eternally her.

  "Let the masque begin," she said, and turned toward the knock on her door.

  * * *

  Author's Note:

  Every year, the Fairwood Writers Group has a "Christmas/Holliday Challenge," where all members come up with a short story to be read aloud at the Christmas party. The length is anywhere from 1500-2000 words, and we randomly select 2 or 3 characteristics that the stories all have to have in common. Eventually, we added a Halloween Challenge. In 2005, the 3 elements were: a mask, dead leaves, and music.

  If you enjoyed this story, you might also enjoy other works by Darragh Metzger at:

  www.TFAPress.com

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