The Closet Pagan

The first time James Denton saw her she was nothing more than a dark blur across the road. He'd been gazing aimlessly out the glassy, smudged window for quite a time before he realized what he was looking at. She stood just below the overhang of a long, open front porch cluttered with several tables and planters. Rain soaked wind peppered her slight form, but instead of retreating through the glass doors, she lifted steady hands towards the explosive night sky. When a burst of blue-white lightning blistered the stars, he caught his breath at the expression on her strong, beautiful face. Like a Pagan Goddess in all her glory she stood serene, the fierce beauty of her features focused on the coming front, errant strands of her hair—dark—clinging wetly to the sides of her face. Even from his perch across the road her clear, pale skin shone like a beacon in the dark; her eyes contrasting midnight hollows. He watched her with intent singularity, straining through the dark to catch a clearer glimpse of her face, of those striking eyes. Although there was no way he could see them clearly, he knew exactly what her eyes would look like; dark and endless, filled with brimming passion and serene calm. Absently, James wondered what it would feel like to have the strength of the woman’s gaze turned directly onto him. A sudden movement pulled his wandering attention back to the nameless woman and he watched, entranced, as she leapt gracefully from the edge of the deck. James frowned slightly as her form receded from the dim light spilling forth from the glass doors and she became lost in the night’s oppressive dark shroud.

He had felt both strangely at peace and caught in embarrassed guilt as he secretly watched her and was seconds from turning from the window when he caught a glimpse of her. Walking smoothly into the cool, gauzy glow of a lawn ornament, the woman dipped her hands into the cool marble pedestal the ornament rested on, her hands cupped as though she held water. The gentle cerulean light that bathed her proud features turned her into some fey creature, and again he felt emotion pounding through his body, yelling that he was watching something secret; something ritual, and forbidden. Ever so slowly she raised her hands above her head, pouring rivulets of water down the smooth, graceful column of her neck. She stood like that for a long time, her eyes shut against the pounding rain, her face a mask of tranquility. James stiffened to his full height as he saw her eyes snap open. Despite the storm, the dark, the blur of the window he more than felt her eyes on him, he knew she was studying him, watching him as he had watched her. She raised a hand towards him as though she was reaching out to touch him, peering through the shroud of night straight into his eyes. Even as he felt unfathomably foolish for indulging in fancies, James could swear he felt those cool hands of hers running across his chest. When he reached up, laying his own dark hand on his chest, he saw the dark outline of her mouth twitch in a smile and he felt a streak of pure lust shoot through him. It might have been ten minutes or ten seconds before the porch light behind her snapped on, and she snatched her hand back to her side. James felt like an entire lifetime had passed. He slowly became aware of  another figure silhouetted in the glass doorway, and frowned in disappointment as she bounded towards it, looking back towards him fleetingly. Now alone in the dark, James turned from the window, annoyed at himself and his whimsical notions. There was absolutely no way that woman, whoever she was, could have seen him. No way imaginable he could have even imagined he could see her features so clearly. Running harsh fingers through his already mussed hair, he carelessly tossed his expensive, formal clothes onto the dusty carpet and threw himself into the bed. He was determined to forget her; forget that he’d just spent half an hour watching a silent figure in the dark; forget that he’d acted like a foolish schoolboy. But he didn’t; he couldn’t. He lay awake for hours, and for the fist time in a very long time, the thoughts that plagued his weary mind were not of his tremulous future but of a fey woman, her fierce eyes boring into his own.


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Anna Deville gazed morosely out her bedroom window, a forgotten book clutched in her short, bloodless fingers. The small, cottage-like house on Sperry Street had quite a few unfortunate aspects. One of them was that her bedroom window faced a somewhat busy street. Anna damned her house to a deeper level of hell as her neighbor's pretty little blonde girl stared at her with ever widening eyes and asked her mother in a high-pitched, overly loud voice,

    "Mama...what is wrong with that woman?"

It was no great shock that the neighbors thought of her only as 'that woman' as she was hardly ever home--and then only at strange times. Anna watched in a disinterested sort of way as the girl's mother shushed her daughter and quickly pulled her out of hearing distance. Wonderful. Although she hadn't looked in the mirror recently, Anna knew she had to look like a pretty pathetic specimen of roadkill. She couldn't really blame the girl, was probably lucky that she hadn't spontaneously burst into tears. With a sort of morbid curiosity, Anna padded barefoot along the scuffed hardwood floors towards her bathroom. The sight that greeted her was easily one thousand times worse than she'd anticipated, and Anna burst into hysterical laughter. That was better at least than the alternative of screaming.

She'd been in the process of fixing her hair and makeup when her cellphone had started the inane ring that she used only for calls from work. The blue screen read "Sylvia" and she'd flipped open the phone to balance it precariously between shoulder and head as she finished painting her nails a beautifully garish scarlet. The conversation flashed through her mind with horrible, perfect clarity.

  "Sylvia! Listen, I know I'm probably already late, but honestly, I'm just about out the door and--"

  Slyvia Matthews, her supervisor at the company she worked for had interrupted with her horribly honeyed voice, "Listen darling, I know it's last minute, but...well, there's not an easy way to put this." Pausing dramatically with a breathy little sigh, she'd continued, "Don't worry about coming to the banquet...Charles and I have decided to...well, let you go."

  Absolute silence.

    "Umm....Annie-darling?" She had cooed, "Are you there? Did you hear me? Shall I repeat--"

    "No!" Anna nearly screamed into the phone, "No of course I heard you...no need to repeat yourself. I...understand c-completely. I'll be in on Monday to pick up my things."

    "Oh, don't worry about that!" Sylvia chirped into the phone happily, "Already taken care of. They were fedexed out yesterday!"

    Yesterday! Anna felt bile rising in her throat. Bile and a vicious anger. "Yes. All right well..."

    "Oh! Darling, you wouldn't believe who just walked in the door! Have to run! Kisses!"

Looking back, Anna had been incredibly calm for about forty seconds. She had perfectly finished painting her perfect third toe, let her towel drop to the floor as she stood, and shrieked perfectly like a banshee. Her eyes, she was pretty sure, had been glowing an unholy red. The beautifully-garish-scarlet nail polish had flown all over her skin. It had covered her face, her torso, and parts of her upper thighs. Her hair, only half-finished in a curled up-do had quickly turned into a frizzy nightmare. She had then spent the next long while demolishing her already messy house, and screaming a litany of swearwords.

    Brought back to reality by the itchy nail polish on her stomach, Anna surveyed the damage with speculative eye. She really and truly couldn't understand why that little girl hadn't started screaming and crying in horror. Her hours-long fit hadn't helped the situation, and now her hair was a tangled mess. It was beyond her comprehension how she'd managed to get leaves from her very nice floral arrangement stuck into her hair. Her eye makeup had smudged and ran down her face like war paint. If a policeman had seen her at the moment, she imagined he would think she'd been the victim of a very nasty, very bloody crime.

    With a grimace, Anna began to think about how long it was going to take to clean up herself. She didn't even want to consider the state her cute, cottage-like house was in. She'd worked for Benton-Anderson Construction for almost five years. Five years! She had been the chipper, up-beat, hard-working PR Director. She had made all the perfect speeches, planned all the perfect advertising for the prestigious building company. And now, now that they'd managed to climb up even higher on the echelon of success, they had dumped her! Over the phone, no less, and with absolutely no warning. Wonderful. She was now unemployed, ugly enough to scare small children, and expecting a visit from her hypercurious mother in no less than a week. Wonderful. Her hand tightened spasmodically on the romance novel in her hand. That was going to be her word of the week, her mantra. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.