Christmas in Atlantis Page 9

  Lyric couldn't stand for him to be kneeling. She wanted them to be equals, always. She pulled him to his feet again until he was facing her and then she began to speak, heedless of the tears running down her face.

  "Is this even possible? How can this be happening to me? I've waited all my life for a Christmas miracle – I've always believed – even when my parents died. Even when the doctors told me I'd never see again. I always believed, and hoped, and waited. And now – oh, Dare – now you are my Christmas miracle. I love you, and I'll love you forever."

  He kissed her, then, and the world stopped spinning on its axis for a long, long time.

  "I know your home is important to you," he said roughly when they finally pulled apart. "I would give up the sea for you, were you to ask me."

  "I would never ask you to do that."

  “No. You’re right. I shouldn't ask you to make the choice. You don't have to ask; I renounce the sea for you on my own initiative."

  She shook her head and backed away a step. "No. No, you can't –"

  “Lyric. Are you trying to tell me that you won’t have me? I won’t accept it, after you told me you love me. I don’t want to need you more than air, or light, or life, but I do. You own me now, body and what’s left of my blackened soul, and I’ll never let you go.”

  “Then don’t. Don’t let me go,” she whispered, and she held out her arms.

  When he stepped into her embrace, it felt like she was finally—finally--coming home.

  And when their clothes and inhibitions fell away, and he took her into his arms, she knew that forever had finally begun.

  12

  Jim looked about the room curiously.

  "You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

  "You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"

  Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year—what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

  -- The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1917)

  Lyric woke up slowly, swimming toward the surface of consciousness in a lazy, meandering way. She felt warm and content and utterly, blissfully happy. The man in bed with her murmured in his sleep and she remembered exactly why she felt so content.

  The soul meld.

  When they’d made love…it had been magical. Extraordinary. Music and color and light and feeling—oh, the feeling of his hard body fitting itself to the softness of her own. Silken, sensual, seduction beyond her wildest dreams. He was a man who took and took and took—every ounce of response she could give—and then gave back even more, until she’d screamed his name and soared into the stratosphere.

  And then there had been even more.

  He’d gasped and she’d felt…everything. She’d felt everything. She'd seen inside his soul, and he'd seen inside hers. She knew him now like she’d never known another person, ever, in her life. He’d opened his shields and let her see the lonely child—the battered adult—the pirate who threw himself into a dangerous sea to try to save the lives of a magical pair of very special animals. His bond with Seranth. And then…

  Then she’d seen his love for her. It suffused every part of him with a golden glow. She saw how he saw her; how strong and beautiful she was in his eyes, and she’d fallen in love with him all over again.

  The thing about the soul meld… he’d seen her, too.

  And he’d said her name with such love. Such reverence.

  When they’d made love again with their hearts open to each other—their souls open to each other, the experience had transcended anything that poets of artists or writers could ever capture. They had truly been melded into one, and she’d almost been afraid she’d shatter with the perfection of that moment.

  Now, waking in his arms, the logical part of her felt like perhaps she should've been afraid of such intimacy, such a deep connection. She'd been alone and self-sufficient for so long. Was it too much, too soon? The soul meld was the deepest possible connection, but was it a shorthand for the years of getting to know another person that human relationships entailed?

  But did it really matter?

  She thought back to the jewel tones of the inside of Dare’s soul. This man—this strong, brave, wonderful man. No, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they’d found each other and would never, ever be apart.

  Dare tightened his arms around her and started kissing the back of her neck, and she smiled, relaxing back against him. She loved him, and he loved her. That was the basic truth from which everything else would flow.

  Nothing was easy, of course, even in a magical place like Atlantis. They had so much to figure out between them. But she knew that they could figure it out. They had love. They had understanding. They had--

  "What in the nine hells was that?"

  Lyric bolted upright, pulling the sheet up to cover her breasts. "What was what?"

  "That."

  She sighed. "Really? You’re pointing something out to me? After all these years?"

  Dare drew a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. The thing just caught me off guard. There's a very strong beam of light shooting up from the basket of gems on that table."

  "A beam of light," Lyric repeated, feeling stupid. "I don't – what could that be?"

  He pulled her toward him and gave her a quick but enthusiastic kiss, and then he jumped out of bed. "I don't know, but no time like the present to find out."

  She heard his footsteps padding across the room – oh dear. He must still be completely naked. A delicious sensation shivered up her spine. She didn't know whether she was aroused, worried someone would walk in, or both. She pulled the sheet around herself in a kind of modified toga and headed across the room toward him. "Have you figured it out?"

  Dare whistled, long and low. "I don't believe this. I just scooped all these gems into the basket, but I never really looked at them. You told me that it didn't matter what they were, just that they helped you in your painting. I've had this group in my collection for years and years and years, and the stone has never done anything like this."

  "What is it doing?" She was consumed by curiosity crossed with a hefty dose of impatience. "Tell me already!"

  "I'm picking it up now. It's a large rock, the size and shape of one of your baseballs. I love that game, by the way. The--"

  “Dare. The rock?”

  “Right. It's a reddish orange color, and it's pulsing with light, directing a pretty strong beam – oh, Poseidon's balls."

  Lyric heard him mutter a string of what sounded like English mixed with Atlantean cursing.

  "What happened?"

  “It burned my fingers, but before that, it told me what it is."

  She heard him cross to the bathroom and then heard the sound of running water, so she followed him across the room. "Are you badly burned?"

  "No, it's nothing. I just wanted to run a little cold water on my fingers. It's a Wish."

  Lyric was confused. “What do you mean it's a wish? Whose wish?"

  "I don't know much about it or how it works. I just now that it's old. Not even old as much as ancient. Older than Atlantis. Older maybe than the gods. We have stories of Wishes-- that’s wish with a capital W – in our histories, but no one alive today has ever seen one."

  Lyric grabbed his arm. "What does it do, already?"

  She felt him shrug. "It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a Wish. According to the stories, it presents itself to a person whom it considers to be worthy. That person then gets to make one wi
sh. Any wish. There's a legend that a stable boy was once king of Atlantis for a year and a day after he found a Wish." Dare laughed. "Hell of a story. No idea if it's true."

  "That's true of all the best stories," Lyric said, smiling. "What are you going to wish for?"

  He turned and pulled her close, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "Oh no, mi amara. The Wish isn’t here for me. It told me. It's here for you."

  Her mouth fell open. “It’s what?”

  “It’s here for you,” he repeated, excitement in his voice. “Lyric, you can wish for your sight!”

  Ice coated her skin with its cold fingers.

  So fast.

  He’d come to that conclusion so very fast.

  She pulled away from him. “So what you’re telling me is that I’m not enough for you the way I am now. You want to fix me, too.”

  It wasn’t a question. More of a statement, really. A realization. She’d been fooling herself—she’d been a fool.

  “Look, Dare. If you--"

  His arms came around her like steel bands, and he swung her up into them and carried her across the room and tossed her on the bed. Before she could think, or breathe, or protest, he was on top of her, holding her face in his hands.

  “If you really think that, you haven’t been paying attention,” he said roughly, just before he took her mouth with his. “You’re not enough for me. You’re everything to me. You are the star that guides me and I will never, ever let you go. I love you. Exactly. The. Way. You. Are.”

  And then he proceeded to prove it to her, slowly and very, very thoroughly, for the rest of the morning, until a knock at the door called him to a meeting with the king.

  “I’ll be right back,” he promised, kissing her again.

  “I’ll be here,” she promised. “Bring food.”

  He laughed. “As you wish.”

  She opened one eye. “Hey. Did you just Princess Bride me?”

  His footsteps stopped. “Inconceivable!”

  And then he was gone, and she sank back down in the pillows and thought that this might be the most hedonistic way anybody had ever spent Christmas Eve in the history of time.

  Then she sat bolt upright in the bed.

  It was Christmas Eve!

  And the painting—her gift to Dare—wasn’t finished.

  Time to get to work.

  13

  Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

  "Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."

  White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

  For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window.

  Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jeweled rims—just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

  But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"

  -- The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1917)

  Lyric painted and painted with every ounce of emotion she'd felt during the time since she’d first come to Atlantis, and everything she’d felt for Dare for so long –the six long years that had led up to this moment.

  She was possessed. The muse was riding her. Driving her. This would probably be the best painting she'd ever done, and yet she suddenly knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  He loved her.

  He loved her.

  He’d offered to give up the sea for her. How could she give him only a painting, even the best painting of her life? No. She needed to give him something else. Something more.

  This was Dare. This was the man she loved more than life itself and would love for eternity. He deserved the best gift that anyone had ever given, and she knew exactly how to get it.

  She put down her paintbrush, walked to the table, and held out her hand. Warmth surged into her skin, emanating from the large round stone.

  Yes, I'm yours. I'm your Wish. Use me as you will.

  The voice was tantalizing, and she spared a moment to wonder about the stories of all those who’d come before her in the thousands and thousands of years since the Wish had first come to be.

  But it was Christmas Eve, and she had no time for wondering or stories or imaginings. She needed to make a wish – and for that, she needed to call Poseidon.

  Lyric walked out to the balcony that ran the length of the bedroom and adjoining room Riley had given her. She hadn’t spent much time on it, because she'd been at her easel so much. But it faced the sunset, and she knew that if the sea god would be anywhere, he would be presiding over the sun setting across the waves of his ocean. She grasped the railing with one hand and held the Wish out on her palm with the other.

  "Poseidon, I'm calling you. I don't exactly know how this goes, and I have the highest respect for you and your warriors. In fact, I'm choosing one of them – one of yours – for my own. He's why I'm calling you. Please hear my call.”

  She felt a little silly, but the Wish was whispering in her ear, so she repeated its words: "Poseidon, I invoke the power of the Wish. Please come to me now."

  WHAT DO YOU ASK OF ME, HUMAN? aND WHATEVER IT IS, DO YOU REALLY THINK DARE IS WORTH IT?

  She raised her chin in defiance, sparing a brief thought for how much she would have liked to actually see Poseidon’s face. That would've been some story to tell Meredith when she went back to Florida to pack up her studio and retrieve her cat.

  Oh, well. Dare could describe it to both of them.

  "Poseidon, by the power of this token, I ask to exchange my Wish for Dare’s sea spirit bond with Seranth to be whole again.”

  YOU ARE A VERY FOOLISH WOMAN. YOU COULD HAVE ANYTHING IN THE WORLD. ANYTHING FOR YOURSELF. VAST RICHES. POWER. YOUR SIGHT. AND YOU ASK FOR THIS? FOR THAT SCOUNDREL?

  “He’s my scoundrel.” She smiled fiercely, even though she felt a few tears rolling down her cheeks. "I don't want riches, or power, or anything else but this. I only want Dare. And I exchange this Wish freely, because Dare is my Christmas miracle. He gave me his whole heart, and I want to give my whole heart back to him."

  I HOPE HE CAN DESERVE YOU, WOMAN. VERY WELL. I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO AGREE. THE MAGIC OF THE WISH IS FAR OLDER THAN MINE.

  A cool wind circled her body, twirling up from her feet and then around and around her until it rose past her head and vanished. When the wind was gone, she realized that the heavy weight of the Wish was gone, too. When she wrapped her fingers around the object that had taken its place on her palm, she could tell by the size and shape that it must be the copper band that symbolized Dare's spirit bond with Seranth.

  Poseidon had fulfilled his part of their bargain.

  Joy filled her soul until she almost worried that she might float right off the balcony. She'd seen inside Dare’s soul; she’d seen his love for her and his longing for the sea. There could be no better gift for this man – her man.

  And it was Christmas Eve – a time for miracles. Now all she had to do was wait. And perhaps she'd finish that painting after all and give it to the queen. Because a little Christmas magic had come her way from Riley, too. She walked back into her room, absolutely incandescent with happiness, and wrapped the armband in a scarf and put it under her pillow.

  Her only tiny regret was that she wouldn't be able to see the joy on Dare’s face when she gave it to him. She’d feel it, though, in his arms. Oh, how she’d feel i
t.

  And that, after all, was the most important gift of all.

  14

  And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"

  Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

  "Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."

  Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

  "Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."

  -- The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry (1917)

  It was nearly midnight by the time Dare made it back to the palace. His mission had been more successful than he could have dreamed. He raced up the stairs to Lyric, wanting nothing more than to share her joy at finally regaining her sight. She must have used the Wish by now.

  Or perhaps she was waiting for him, so he could be there when she did. He hoped that she had. And when she saw…

  Almost before he knocked, she threw open the door and launched herself into his arms. He barely had time to put the long, thin package down on the floor before he caught her.

  He whirled her around, kissing and kissing her, and kicked the door shut behind them. When he finally managed to let her go, she was laughing and breathless.

  “Lyric. Tell me. Did you use it? The Wish? Can you see?”

  She took a deep breath. “I did use the Wish, but not for my sight. Let me show you.”

  She rushed over to the bed and drew a small wrapped object from beneath her pillow. “This is it, my darling. Isn’t it wonderful? I think you’ll be the happiest captain on the high seas now, my love.”