Page 64 of Magdalene Nox

As the Eye of the Dragon’s beacon lit in the distance, she took a deep breath, the wound in her chest singing with the effort, tendons, and muscles stretching to accommodate the newfound fullness.

The wind ruffled her hair, and the feeling of having it tickle her cheeks in just this manner was so familiar, so comforting. Magdalene closed her eyes and finally allowed the memory to bloom fully, a peony opening up, all gentle pinks and blushing reds.

She had stood here before, holding back tears, on the brink of being cast out, and these same gusts of salty air had blown through her hair. It had been longer then. And she had been younger. But she had been home then, and she was home now.

And it wasn’t at all a wonder that Sam’s relentless defense of Dragons, of stone and rock and soul, was something that brought them together, bound them, and matched them in their quest for home.

Home.

A sob escaped unbidden, shocking her in its intensity. An ivy branch under her fingers curled into her palm, satiny leaves thick and comforting. Her heart beat loudly in her ears again, the realization that the past thirty years had not been in vain, had not been a mere obsession, causing the tears that her sixteen-year-old self had kept at bay that day to finally spill.

Magdalene let them. It felt cathartic. The weight of the years had lifted, as if blown by the same wind that was drying her tears. She faced it head on with the scents and sounds of home surrounding her, propping her up, strengthening her resolve.

She turned around, the tempest now behind her. The Eye of the Dragon illuminating from afar the dark silhouette of the building in front of her.

In the encroaching darkness and by the beam of the distant lighthouse, Dragons looked majestic, the rot and decay invisible in the waning light. The cracks in the walls and the sagging of the roof. And so Magdalene saw it as it once had been–the creation of the old masters, the masons and the carpenters from two centuries ago, a work of art, of wood and stone. But above all, a home.Hers.

She wasn’t aware that she was holding her breath. She wasn’t aware that the ivy in her hand was now cradled to her chest, or that Willoughby, perhaps sensing the gravitas of the moment, was suddenly quiet and still at her ankles. All Magdalene knew was that she was home. And that home was safe with her.

17

OF FALLING IN LOVE & PUCCINI’S VIOLINS

Her feet seemed to take her where she didn’t even realize she wanted to go. One moment she was standing on Amber Cliff, staring the tempest in the eye, and the next she was shaking out her umbrella and knocking on a now familiar door in the faculty quarters.

Her heart hammered in her throat, the pulse beating a faltering tattoo. Of all the places to go, Magdalene had ended up at this door, and she licked her dry lips as she realized why. She didn’t go to George, her friend, her confidante. She went to Sam. She went to Sam because, out of every soul on this island, she was the one who would understand how Magdalene felt. Because Sam, too, loved this place like no other, and like no other, she saw Magdalene.

When the door opened, Willoughby waltzed in without as much as a backward glance at her, unceremoniously winding his way past Sam—who no longer seemed surprised at seeing him—and made himself very much at home in a chair where her ratty sweatshirt was bunched up. It looked soft, though…

Magdalene shook her head as the thought came and went and watched the cat make biscuits on it for a moment before he settled down with a large yawn.

When she turned her gaze back to their host, standing calmly in the doorway—a picture of amusement and sensuality in perfect repose, a shoulder propped on its frame—the air slowly left Magdalene’s lungs, to be replaced with the pure elixir of elation. And yet the sight of Sam, her presence, and that subtle scent that was lily of the valley and woman, settled her skittering heart, soothed the raw edges of her emotions that the day had stripped bare. The lanky body, long and lean, the endless legs, the nonchalant pose, made Magdalene want to rub herself up against her like her cat. It was such a cliché.Shewas such a cliché. Any moment now, there would be trumpets.

No, not trumpets, what nonsense. Surely Puccini. Violins.

Because when one falls in love, they get Puccini as their soundtrack. Turandot. Nessun Dorma. And if she didn’t get that to accompany her falling all the way into this honeyed feeling, both sticky and sweet and golden, like the woman in front of her, then Magdalene would be forced to file a complaint.

Because the woman was bejeweled in the evening’s stormy dusk and candlelight, and Magdalene was in love.

It was such a curious feeling. Magdalene had been walking towards it for months, and now that she had arrived, the journey was finally making sense. Every step she took led her here, to this room bathed in candlelight and shadows, to the rain weeping against the windows outside, to this woman looking at her with such adoration and so much welcome. This beautiful human, honest, loyal, stubborn… Goddess, even the stubbornness was hot. She’d genuflect any second now.

She took a deep breath. Being in love was no reason to make a fool of herself, even if Sam was magnificent. Framed in that eerie light of the dim lamps and candles Magdalene had learned Sam preferred, caressed by the subtle scent that so reminded her of something just out of reach, something warm and lovely, she looked ethereal.

Looking back, years later, Magdalene would feel like she had been thoroughly outplayed. Like a champion boxer missing a perfectly executed strategic gambit. Because it had all the markings of a combo punch in boxing. A jab–Sam’s staunch defense and Magdalene’s heart lifting, finally trusting fully. A cross–the realization that Dragons had been her home all along. And an uppercut–finding love in the most improbable of places, at the most inconvenient of times, and in the most perfect person.

Standing here now, in the old drafty hallway, it only took Magdalene one look—one long look—at the small smile playing on Sam’s lips, to realize that she had been approaching this very moment, teetering on this very brink, since the first time she’d set eyes on Sam inside the smoky Manhattan bar.

Koi no yokan…

The age-old Japanese concept, the one that meant falling in love, not at first sight, but knowing it would come if only given a second glance. A deeper, more meaningful one. Hadn’t she felt all those possibilities, all those probabilities in that elevator, in that shadowy hotel room, under the caresses of these gentle, sure hands?

She must have known, because the words, the name of what she’d been experiencing in those moments, had been on the tip of her tongue even then.

Magdalene smiled, amused at herself now, still standing, swaying slightly in her four-inch heels which, she supposed, could be blamed for appearing drunkenly, loopily in love, completely swept away by the force of her realization and her emotion. And wasn’t it a wonder how perfectly her love for Sam mirrored her love for Dragons?

* * *

Still,she was Magdalene Nox, and love was no reason to stay in the cold and wet and draft. She raised an eyebrow, waiting for Sam to beckon her inside. Once allowed entrance, with her host’s simple gesture of moving aside and closing the door behind them, she decided not to beat around this particular bush and share what had transpired earlier.

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