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Divine by Mistake
P.C. Cast
I get this bizarre mirror world filled with a horse/guy who I have the serious hots for, creatures who are terrorising civilisation, deodorant-less armpits that probably stink and no toilet paper. This sucks. The only excitement Shannon Parker expected while on holiday was a little shopping. Finding herself flung through fire into the world of Partholon (and left with a massive headache, thank you very much), she’s now being treated like a goddess. Somehow Shannon has stepped into another’s role in another world.And while there’s an upside – who doesn’t love lots of pampering? – it also comes with a ritual marriage to a centaur and threats against her new people. Can Shannon survive this new world and ever find her way home?
Divine by Mistake
P.C. Cast
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk/)
PART ONE
1
Finally, on my way. My Mustang felt sweet as it zipped down the nearly empty highway. Why is it that cars seem to drive best when they’re freshly washed? Leaning down, I popped a CD into the player, skipped forward to track 6 and began singing at the top of my very tone-deaf lungs with Eponine about the futility of love. As the next song keyed up, I swung around a slowmoving Chevy and yelled, “God, I love being a teacher!”
It was the first day of June, and the summer stretched before me, pristine and virginal.
“All those days of sleeping in to go!”
Just saying it aloud made me happy. In my ten years of teaching I’ve noticed that teachers tend to have a bad habit of talking to themselves. I hypothesize that this is because we talk for a living, and we feel safe speaking our feelings aloud. Or it could be that most of us, especially the high school teacher variety, are just weird as shit.
Only the slightly insane would choose a career teaching teenagers. I can just see my best girlfriend Suzanna’s face screw up and the involuntary shudder move down her spine as I relate the latest trials and tribulations of the high school English classroom.
“God, Sha, they’re so…so…hormone filled. Eew!”
Suzanna is a typical college professor snob, but I love her anyway. She just doesn’t appreciate the many and varied opportunities for humorous interludes that teenagers provide on a daily basis.
Jean Valjean’s dynamic tenor interrupted my musings, bringing me back to Oklahoma I-44 East and June 1.
“Yep, this is it—the life of a high school English teacher with a sense of humor. Doomed to having no money but plenty of comedic fodder. Oh, crap, there’s my exit!”
Luckily my little Mustang could take the hard, fast right onto US-412. The sign said Locust Grove 22 miles. I drove half with my knee and half with my hand while I fumbled to unfold the auction flyer that held my written directions. Somewhere about midway between Locust Grove (what an awful name for a town) and Siloam Springs there should be a big sign that pointed to a side road till another sign, another side road, and so forth, until I came to the Unique Estate Auction—Unusual Items—All Offers Considered—All Must Go.
“Well, I certainly like weird old stuff. And I really like weird old cheap stuff.”
My students say my classroom is like a bizarre time warp. My walls and cabinets are filled with everything from prints by Waterhouse to posters of Mighty Mouse and hanging Star Trek Enterprise models, along with an almost scary number of wind chimes (they’re good chi).
And that’s just my classroom. They should see my condo. Guess they really wouldn’t be surprised. Except at home I’m a neat freak. My classroom is always in a perpetual state of disarray. I can’t seem to find anything if everything is found. Whatever the hell that means.
“I’ve got to stop cussing!” Saying it out loud would, hopefully, reinforce the idea. Kind of a twist on the Pavlov’s dog theory. I keep saying it; it will begin to happen.
“I can’t take you today, Javert.” Flick! Off went Les Misérables. On goes the jazz station out of Tulsa. It’s cool that I could pick it up way out in the boonies.
The sign read Locust Grove City Limits. So I slowed down, blinked, and the town was gone. Well, maybe it was nominally bigger than a blink. And I stayed slowed down. Time to stop and smell the green of Green Country. Oklahoma in early summer is an amazing display of color and texture. I went to college at the University of Illinois, and it always annoyed me that people talked about Oklahoma like it was a red dust bowl. Or some black-and-white scene of misery from The Grapes of Wrath. When I tried to tell the college gang that Oklahoma was really known as “Green Country” they would scoff and look at me as if they thought I’d eaten too many tumbleweeds or punched too many cows.
I passed through the tiny town of Leach (another unfortunate name) and topped a rise in the road. Oklahoma stretched before me, suddenly looking untamed in its beauty. I like to imagine a time when these roads were just paths, and civilization hadn’t been so sure of itself. It must have been exciting to be alive then—not exciting like facing the principal after he has just heard from a parent who is upset about me calling Guinevere a slut—but exciting in a rugged, perhaps-we-won’t-bathe-or-brush-our-teeth and we-kill-our-own-food-and-tote-our-own-water kind of way. Ugh. On second thought…It’s delicious to dream about the days of cowboys or knights or dragons, and I will admit to an obsession with poets of the Romantic era and literature set, well, way back when (technical English teacher term). But reality reminds me that in actuality they did without penicillin and Crest. As my kids would say, “What’s up with that?”
“There it is! Turnoff number one, as in a road sign, not to be confused with the blind date who comes to your door in navy blue double-knit trousers and a receding hairline.”
UNIQUE ESTATE AUCTION AHEAD and an arrow, which pointed down a side road to my left.
This road was much less traveled (poetic pun intended). Kind of a sorry little two-laner with potholes and deep gravel shoulders. But it twisted and rolled in a pretty way, and “To Grandmother’s house we go” hummed through my mind. I tried in vain to remember the rest of the song for the next several miles.
UNIQUE ESTATE AUCTION AHEAD and another arrow. Another side-side road. This one more gravel, less two lane, than the other. Well, maybe the out-of-the-wayness of the estate would serve to dissuade the antique dealers, whom I considered the bane of every broke auction-goer. The jazz station faded out, which was actually fine because the Grandmother’s House song had also faded from my internal radio—and been replaced with the theme to The Beverly Hillbillies (these words I did remember all of, which I found vaguely disturbing).
Speaking of hillbillies, I hadn’t seen many houses. Hmmm…maybe the “estate” was really an old ranch house, smack in the middle of what used to be a real ranch owned by some Bonanzaesque rich folks. Now they’ve all died off and the land would be subdivided into neat little housing divisions so upper-middle-class folks could commute to…well, wherever. I call that job security for me. Upper-middle-class folks always have the prerequisite 2.5 kids, plus an additional 1.5 kid (from a previous marriage). And those kids gotta pass English to graduate from high school. God bless America.
Over a crook and a rise in the “road” loomed what I had been imagining as an old ranch house. “Holy shit! It’s the House of Usher!” (Summer was definitely not the time to work on the cussing thing.) I slowed. Yep—there was another sign: UNIQUE ESTATE AUCTION, planted next to the gravel trail leading to the estate. A few cars, but mostly trucks (it is Oklahoma) were parked on what at one time was obviously a beautifully maintained front…I don’t know…what the hell do you call something like that…it stretched on and on…yard seemed too simple a word. Grounds. That sounded better. Lots of grass. The drive was lined with big trees, as in Gone with the Wind, minus the weeping moss.
I realized I was gawking because an old guy dressed in black slacks and a high-necked white cotton shirt was waving me in with one of those handheld orange flashlight things, and his face had an irritated “stop gawking and drive, lady” look on it. As I pulled up next to him, he motioned for me to roll my window down.
“Afternoon, miss.” He bent slightly at the waist and peered into my window. A fetid rush of air brought his words into my air-conditioned interior and killed my initial joy at being called “miss,” which is definitely younger sounding than “ma’am.” He was taller than I first thought, and his face was heavily lined, as if he had worked outside in the elements most of his life, but his complexion was a sickly, sallow color.
Good God! It was the daddy from Children of the Corn.
“Afternoon. Sure is warm today.” I tried to be pleasant.
“Yes, miss.” Ugh—that smell again. “Please pull forward onto The Green. The auction will begin promptly at two.”
“Uh, thanks.” I tried to smile as I rolled the window up and moved to follow his pointed directions. What was that smell? Like something dead. Well, he was awfully pale; perhaps he wasn’t well. That would account for the smell and the fact that he was wearing long sleeves in June, and I was a seriously hateful bitch to call the poor old guy Children of the Corn’s daddy. And the front yard is called The Green. Learn something new every day! I said to myself with a grimace. Clichés are the bane of educated mankind.
Before I turned off the car, I took my required several minutes (a man once told me he could always tell how attractive a woman was by how long it took her to get out of a car—I try to take a longgg time) to reapply my lipstick. I also took a minute to scope out the house. Scratch that—mansion.
My first impression held. This place seriously conjured images of Poe and Hawthorne. It was humongous, in a sprawling, Victorian-type of way. I’m usually drawn to unusual old homes, but not so with this one. I tipped my sunglasses down my nose to get a better view. It looked odd. It took a moment to figure out why, then it hit me—it looked as if it had been built in several different parts. The basic building was roughly a huge square, but added on to this square were two different porches, one rectangular with steps leading up to the entrance in a grandiose, sweeping manner. Not twenty feet down from the first porch was a second, rounded gazebo-like structure just, well, stuck on to the front of the building, complete with latticework and gnarly-looking roses. A large turret room was attached to one side of the building, like a cancerous growth, and a slope-roofed wing emerged from the opposite end of the structure. The whole thing was painted an awful shade of gray, and it was cracked and crinkled, like an old smoker’s skin.
“There should really be some unique items to be had here.” Muttering to myself, I got ready to tear my eyes away from Usher’s abode when a shiver tickled down my spine. A thick cloud passed in front of the sun and the “walking on my grave” feeling hit me like a bad dream. Is it late? It seems to me that the light darkens. My English teacher mind plucked the quote from Medea. Greek tragedy, replete with revenge, betrayal and death. Seemed, in an inopportune way, appropriate.
2
“Jeesh, get a grip, Parker!” Ridiculous—I needed to shake out of my gruesome mode, and get into my junkshopping mode.
Oklahoma heat was waiting to embrace me with its humid arms as I stepped out of the car and clicked the lock on my keypad. Set up around the side of the house was a large table with a line of assorted auction-goers milling about it. I figured that was the sign-in table and headed that way, keeping part of my attention on the various piles of “stuff” that began stretching from the side yard around and disappearing into the rear of the grounds. My palms were already all atingle at the thought of digging through those heaped boxes. But first the sign-in.
“Whew! I should’ve put this hunk of hair up in a ponytail!” I was making neighborly small talk with the matron in front of me in line.
“Yup.” She fanned herself with one of the UNIQUE AUCTION flyers, and her eyes slid from my already frizzing and sweaty hair, down past my white silk tank top, which slid just over the waist of my very hip (and short) khaki Gap skirt, to my long (and very bare) legs. “Ugf.” She made a sound like a hen expelling an egg, and I guessed that was the end of my attempt at neighborly conversation.
“This place sure looks like it should have some interesting stuff for sale.” I valiantly tried a second attempt at conversing, this time with the receding hairline behind me.
“Yes, I couldn’t agree more.” The hairline fidgeted, blinking sweat out of his eyes. “I heard that they will be auctioning several pieces of Depression Era glass, and just knew I had to make the trek. I find American glasswork fascinating, don’t you?” By this time his squinty little eyes had found my cleavage, and it was obvious that glass wasn’t all he found fascinating.
“Mmm, hmm, glass is cool.” I stepped forward. It was the matron’s turn to get her ticket, but she was so busy watching the hairline watch me that she could hardly give the registrar her info.
“Actually,” he leaned way into my Personal Space, “I’m in the middle of editing a wonderfully informative coffee table book on the origins of Depression Era art and how to distinguish the difference between authentic pieces and facsimiles.”
“Oh, that’s, um, nice.” He was still in my Personal Space and I tried inching forward, obviously crowding the matron, who was still standing in line pinning her auction number to her Depression Era bosom.
“I would be happy to offer you my expertise if you find any pieces you are interested in bidding on. I would hate to see such a lovely young lady taken advantage of…” His voice cracked and he nervously dabbed the sweat off his upper lip with a folded handkerchief. I noticed the yellowed stains shadowing his pits. Guess that button-down oxford was just a little too warm for this trek.
“I’ll be sure to let you know if I need you.” My turn, thank God.
“Name, please.” I could sense hairline’s ears growing to catch the answer.
“Shannon Parker.”
“Ms. Parker, your number is 074. Please fill out your address next to the 074 slot. Keep the number with you at all times, the auctioneer will refer to your number if you purchase an item. When you have made all your purchases, simply give the cashier your number and she will present you with your bill.”
Typical auction directions—I grabbed my number and fled before Hairline turned into a sticky booger. I will never understand why short men are attracted to me. I’m not an Amazon, but in flat feet I stand five foot seven, and I love high heels so I’m rarely in flat feet. My height aside, I am definitely not a small woman. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not big. I work out like a fiend, but I always seem to carry around about five to ten pounds more than I wish I did. I’m not the lean, lanky, anorexic type that’s so “in” today—I’m the voluptuous, chesty, hippy, leggy type. And I feel ridiculous around small men; I always imagine that I could probably beat them up, which makes me totally disinterested in anything else coming up. Give me a man the size of John Wayne and I melt like a Popsicle in a warm mouth. Unfortunately, my love life is as dead as the Duke.
The bulk of the auction was behind the house in what once must have been gorgeously landscaped gardens. Smack in the center stood a crumbling fountain complete with a naked nymph. The auction lots were in a rough semicircle around the fountain—the open end of the circle pointed toward several pieces of farm equipment. Billy Joe Bobs and Bubba Bo Bobs were clustered in groups amidst the equipment, obviously in a feeding frenzy. Carried on the wind, I could overhear the Oklahoma melodies of “y’all” and “yup.” One of them had a piece of straw stuck in a gap between his front teeth. Really, I’m not making it up.
The other items were grouped in lots, and upon closer inspection it was obvious that someone had been meticulous in setting them out. Neatly arranged together were pieces of like furniture (bedroom sets, dinettes, ornate chairs, etc.) in one area, and tables filled with lamps, fixtures, sconces and crystal in another. (I noticed Mr. Receding Hairline making a beeline for that particular table.) Knickknacks in boxes marked with lot numbers were spaced so that customers could paw through them without maiming each other, and artwork was displayed tastefully on folding tables and easels.
The art was where I gravitated. I couldn’t help sending a covetous glance in the direction of the furniture, but a glance was all it took for me to be fairly certain that a schoolteacher’s salary wouldn’t allow for any purchases in that area.
The soon-to-be ex-owner’s tastes were certainly consistent. All of the paintings displayed on the easels had a like theme—mythology. I wandered from watercolor to acrylic to oil. Everything from Venus’s birth to a great lithograph of Wotan’s farewell to Brunhilde.
“Ohmygod, that’s hilarious!” I couldn’t help nudging the Garage Sale Queen standing next to me and pointing to a wonderful full-color print of a huge fiery dragon roaring flame at a blond female warrior on a plunging white horse. She was deflecting the fire with a shield and brandishing a sword. I couldn’t make out the artist’s name, but the title painted on the bottom of the print read, Stamp Out Forest Fires.
“I have to have this one.” I was still chuckling.
“Well, it’s kinda strange.” The Garage Sale Queen’s nasally twang interrupted my smile.
“Yep. But I like to think of it as not normal, versus simply strange.” She gave me one of those sheepy, duh looks and started over to the household items section. I sighed and opened my little notebook to write, “Lot #12—dragon print.” A closer look at the frame made me wonder if I had a chance of affording it, but maybe everyone would think it was “kinda strange” and I would be the only bidder.
Many of the other paintings were interesting, but I had already decided to focus my financial energy on a single print, and maybe a small vase or sculpture or some such “strange” knickknack. Behind the paintings were the lots filled with artsy stuff. Tables held individual pieces, along with boxes of variously grouped odds and ends. Again, there seemed to be a theme. Sculptures were miniature reproductions of stuff that looked very Greek or Roman, and, well, very naked.
This would be fun.
Three male statuettes were placed on one table. They each stood about two feet high. I paused and gave each the respectful, proper attention they seemed to deserve, while trying not to ogle as I read the identification and lot tags: Lot #17 Statuette of Zeus, Thunderbolt at the Ready (very nude—actually naked, and he looked very, um, ready).
“Sorry, sweetie. Can’t take you home—too kinky.” I tweaked his thunderbolt.
Lot #18, Statuette of Hellenistic Ruler, possibly Demetrios I of Syria. Demetrios was a large, muscular, naked man. Very large.
“Oh, baby, wish you were Galatea and I was your enamored sculptor.” I patted his cheeks and giggled, while I looked around to make sure I wasn’t causing a stir.
Lot #19, Statuette of Etruscan Warrior. Too skinny for my tastes—only two things stuck out about the statuette: his weapon, and, um, his weapon.
“Bye-bye, boys. It’s just so…well…hard to leave you.” I chortled at my own pun and moved to the next table, which was filled with about half a dozen large vases. My gaze drifted over the elegant urns…
And the world stopped. Suddenly, and totally, the day stood still. The breeze died. Sounds ceased. I didn’t feel the heat. My breath stopped. My vision tunneled until my awareness was completely filled by the vase.
“Oops, sorry. Didn’t mean to bump ya.” Breath rushed into my lungs and the world started again as a kind man grabbed my elbow to steady me.
“That’s okay.” I sucked air and attempted a smile.
“Guess I wasn’t looking where I was going. Almost ran ya over.”
“I’m fine now. No harm done.”
He looked at me like he wasn’t sure, but nodded and went on his way.
I brushed a trembling hand through my hair. What was going on? What happened? I was looking at the vases and…
My attention turned back to the pottery table, and my eyes were immediately drawn to the last of the vases. My feet were moving toward it before I told them to go. My trembling hand reached out to touch the lot identification tag. It read: Lot #25, Reproduction—Celtic vase, original stood over graves in Scottish cemetery—Scene in color represents supplications being made to the High Priestess of Epona, Celtic Horse Goddess.
My vision was blurred and my eyes felt strangely hot as I looked back at the vase. Blinking my vision clear, I studied it, attempting to ignore how strange I was feeling.
The vase was a couple of feet tall and shaped like the base of a lamp. A curved handle balanced off one side. The top was open with a gracefully ridged circumference. But it wasn’t the shape or size that drew me; it was the scene painted into the pottery, stretching from one side all the way around. The background color was black, which made the scene seem to jump out with the other colors all highlighted in golds and creams.
A woman reclined on some type of cushioned lounge chair. Her back was to the viewer, so all that could be seen of her was the curve of her waist, one outstretched arm with which she motioned regally to the supplicants on their knees before her and the cascade of her hair.
“It’s like my hair.” I didn’t realize I had spoken aloud until I heard the words. But her hair was like mine, only longer. The same red-gold, the same wavy semi-curls that never wanted to stay put. My finger crept forward of its own accord and I found myself touching the vase, transfixed.
“Oh!” It felt hot! I yanked my finger back where it belonged.
“I didn’t know you were interested in pottery.” Mr. Receding Hairline squinted up at me. “I am actually quite knowledgeable about several categories of Early American pottery.” He licked his lips.
“Well, I’m not really interested in Early American pottery.” Hairline’s reappearance into my Personal Space had served to dash cold water on whatever weird feelings I had been experiencing. “It’s way too Southwest for me. I’m more of a Greek/Roman-esque kind of girl.”
“Oh, I see. What a fascinating little piece you were admiring.” He reached his sweaty hands out, and in a jumpy, cockroach-like movement he lifted the vase, turning it upside down to peer at the bottom. I observed him for any signs of weirdness, but he just kept on being his normal, nerdy self.
“Um, you don’t notice anything, well, odd about that vase, do you?”
“No. It’s a rather well-made reproduction, but I don’t detect anything odd about Epona or the urn. What do you mean?” He put the vase down and dabbed at his upper lip with a damp handkerchief.
“Well, it seemed to feel a little, I don’t know, hot, when I touched it.” I stared into his eyes, wondering if my neurotic breakdown was obvious.
“Might I suggest—” he leaned even farther into my Personal Space, practically resting his pointy nose on my cleavage “—that the warmth may have been generated by your own generous body heat?”
He was almost salivating. Ugh.
“You know, you might be right,” I purred. He stopped breathing and licked his lips again. I whispered, “I think I have been running a low-grade fever. Just can’t seem to get rid of this nasty yeast infection. And it sure is sticky in this heat.” I smiled and squirmed a little.
“Goodness. Well, my goodness.” Hairline quickly receded from my Personal Space. I smiled and followed. He continued backing up. “I feel that I had better go back to my Depression Era glass lots, I certainly want to be there to open the bidding. Good luck to you.” He turned and scuttled away.
Guys are such a pain in the ass. But really easy to get rid of, just call into play the dreaded Female Problem card and watch them freak out. I like to think it’s just one small way God lets us get even. I mean, we do have to give birth.
“Now what’s up with this damn vase?” It was just too Dark Shadows for words. Blurred vision—loss of breath—hot pottery—same hair. Oh, please, I was probably just having a premature hot flash (twenty years early—okay, fifteen years early, at least). So, I decided I’d simply confront the source. The Dreaded Mystery Vase/Urn/Friggin Pot.
It sat innocently enough just where Receding had left it, vaguely moist spots glistening where his sweaty little fingers had smudged the glossy surface. I took a breath. A deep breath. It certainly was an intriguing-looking pot. I squinted and bent to get a closer look, careful not to touch it. The Priestess did have hair that looked like mine, only longer. Her right arm was draped in a creamy, gauzy white cloth, and there was a definite grace and beauty about the way it was stretched, palm held up and forward, slightly tilted. She seemed gracious in her acceptance of the offered gifts from the kneeling supplicants. A rich-looking gold armlet snaked around her bicep, and golden bracelets adorned her wrist. She wore no rings, but the back of her hand seemed to be decorated with a design—
“Oh, God!” My own hand flew to my mouth to stifle my screech. I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach, and all of a sudden it was again difficult to catch my breath. Because it wasn’t a tattoo or a jewel that decorated the back side of her hand. It was a scar. A scar from a third-degree burn. I knew because my right hand was “decorated” with the exact mark.
3
“Ladies and gentlemen, the auction will now begin. Please make your way to Lot #1, directly east of the fountain. We will open this afternoon with bedroom and living-room furnishings…”
