Grave Danger (39 page)

“
What’s the matter with me?” she said as she
once again tried to turn away from him. Again he refused to let her
hide from him. “I’m not naïve, I know how this goes. So why can’t
I… ”she trailed off.

“
I don’t care,” he said, though the damn
‘rigor mortis’ cried out, ‘I fucking care!’. He refused to listen.
Moving back into a safer position on the couch he pulled Clarissa
so that she was sitting half on the couch, half on him. “This isn’t
something we have to jump into because social standards say that’s
what we’re supposed to do. If we need to go slower to get to that
point when we’re ready to
faigh muin
then we can do that.”

You burraidh,
his sex
drive raged at him.

Clarissa wiped away several more tears from
her cheeks, looking up at him with a questioning frown. “I want to
though,” she said, placing her hand on his chest, just over his
heart. “Tha an t-eagal orm,”
I’m
frightened.
She uttered the truth, her face against
his side. He’d been teaching her some Gaelic and she was a
surprisingly fast learner. He cupped her head as she continued.
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you; that I’ll forget myself and make a
mistake and truly hurt you.”

Clarissa’s fears weren’t entirely unfounded. Her
gifts as a bokor coupled with the fact that she couldn’t remember
how to control them at times made her feel as if the wrong move on
her part could heap terrible disasters. But Corrigan knew that not
only was he safe from her gifts, he’d never let her believe that
her gifts were purely evil. A bokor could use their talents for
dark magick. He had firsthand experience to the evil wrought from
such a person. But Clarissa was not Elmira; the purity of her soul
outshone the withered one that beautiful bitch carried.

“
Tá grá agam duit,” I love you, Corrigan said
against her hair, “Tá grá agam duit, a-chaoidh.”
I love you, forever
. It wasn’t the
moment he would have picked to finally tell her the truth of his
heart, but he found it vital that he tell her now,
nonetheless.

He wasn’t usually one to believe in the instant
bonds of love between two people, he was more inclined to believe
that love had to be formed over time and hardship. But the fact
that Clarissa could love him despite the knowledge that he should
be her most hated enemy. That she was the only woman in his entire
existence who had ever sought the light inside the soulless beast.
It was proof enough that someone, God perhaps, had deemed him
worthy of the elusive flame of love. Corrigan would hold that
gently burning flame forever tending it so that it would never burn
out.

Clarissa wrapped her arms around him, moving fully
onto his lap as she held onto him as a boat to its anchor. Her face
buried against his neck she whispered, “Tá grá agam duit. Tá grá
agam duit, Corrigan. Tá grá agam duit, Corrigan, a-chaoidh.”

Corrigan was glad she couldn’t see him, her face
buried against him. His face held an expression that read both pain
and pleasure, the blurring of emotions that did something odd to
his face as it drew lines into the usually relaxed, smooth skin
around his mouth. He’d exist a thousand lifetimes on this planet
and never forget the moment he first heard those words from
Clarissa’s lips, spoken in a tongue that he’d not heard in decades
or more. He wiped the evidence of this moment off his cheeks just
as she drew back to look up at him, all the love in the world
reflected in her angel blue eyes.

“
I almost forgot,” he said, trying to speak
normally around the lump of emotion that had set up residence in
his vocal passage. “I have something I wanted to give
you.”

Clarissa scooted off his lap at his urging. He
walked on awkward legs over to a corner of the room that had been
blocked off by a bed sheet that had been strung up. Clarissa held
back an unladylike laugh as he discreetly put himself back in order
while he turned to face away from her. He slipped behind the
curtain for several seconds then reappeared moments later with two
objects.

Coming back to her on the couch he handed her the
first item which was wrapped rather poorly in cream colored paper
with big blooming roses all over it. Clarissa smiled as he sat back
down on the couch next to her, a hesitant, worried look on his face
as she started pulling open the wrapping. Who ever had wrapped it,
Corrigan, had used about a roll and a half of scotch tape on the
package, even going so far as to winding it around and around like
he was wrapping up a mummy. It took several really hard tugs to get
just a little of the paper to tear.

“
Here,” Corrigan finally said after watching
her struggle for several minutes. “I don’t know anything about
wrapping. Two rolls of the tape might have been
overkill.”

Clarissa handed over the gift as he set the larger
one on the floor. It was about the size of a picture window. She
had an idea of what it might be, but didn’t want to ruin it by
saying anything. In a matter of moments Corrigan had the wrapping
paper off the first gift and he handed it back to her, that
hesitant smile still on his face.

“
Thank you,” Clarissa said, holding the
back-pack out in front of her so she could see it from all angles.
It was light blue which for some reason reminded her of Corrigan’s
beautiful eyes. It was a little smaller than her old one but it was
new and very pretty.

Corrigan forced her to turn it around until the
front pocket was facing them. He pointed to a personalized
stitching that wasn’t done by a manufacturer. In thread a few
shades darker blue than the back-pack itself were two letter C’s,
one placed backwards so that the ends formed a circle or a bloated
symbolic heart shape. Inside sat a blooming rose with the center
holding a flame that burned blue at its core. It was a beautiful
symbolism for the bond that held herself and Corrigan connect. The
C’s which represented each of their names connected with the
blooming flame of their new borne love.

“
It’s wonderful, perfect,” Clarissa managed
through another set of tears. “My old one was looking a little beat
up wasn’t it? I’ll try to keep this one in better
shape.”

Corrigan kissed her cheek, wiping away the liquid
light from her slightly warm cheeks. “Don’t leak out on me yet,
love, I haven’t given you the other one. You’ll turn into a little
ghost puddle if you keep that up.” He tried to lighten the moment
with a joke, but found he had to keep wiping at his own face as
well as hers. There was a lot of floating dirt in the attic, he
told himself.

“
Nothing could be better than this,” Clarissa
exclaimed, holding the back-pack to her chest like it contained a
million dollars instead of the paper stuffing that the store put in
it to keep its shape.

Clarissa’s curiosity however got the best of her and
she finally set the back-pack aside close to her on the couch as
she accepted the second and larger gift from Corrigan. Holding it
on the floor in front of her she pulled the paper off finding it
easier than when she’d tried to open the other present. She looked
to Corrigan who was watching intently as she opened his second
gift.

Seeing her curious questioning face he answered
simply. “I ran out of tape.”

“
Someone in this family must know how to wrap
a gift properly,” Clarissa said as she pulled away another strip of
cream colored wrapping paper. It was really too pretty to
destroy.

“
Maude,” Corrigan spoke his sister’s name.
She’d tried to show him how he was only supposed to use three
pieces of tape and the different folding techniques he could use on
odd shaped gifts. He hadn’t been a very good pupil to her tutelage.
There might have been a moment when she threw the roll of tape at
him. “She helped me with the stitching of the decals.” He’d done
better with the sewing and had only broken the needle four or five
times and kept the cursing to a minimum. Margaret Ann hadn’t been
there and Maude was more lenient of cursing than she was or else
she didn’t voice herself as strongly.

Clarissa had extracted the last strip of paper and
was looking at her gift was an intense frown on her face as if she
couldn’t quite come up with a response. She tilted her head to the
left then to the right like she were an art dealer trying to make
sense of a new artist. Then she made her eyes into tiny squints
before opening them real wide like she was surprised.

“
What are you doing?” Corrigan questioned her
when she continued through several bizarre expressions. “I assure
you no matter how you distort your face the canvas won't change on
you.”

“
Am I looking at this wrong because all I see
is a blank canvas?” Clarissa ran her fingers over the pristine
white canvas. Then she caught Corrigan with a fixed grin on his
beautifully handsome face. “What, am I missing something here?
Maybe you have to have a fleshy body to understand this kind of
art. Thank-you by the way for my – not blank canvas.”

Corrigan laughed then at her adorable whit. “It is a
blank canvas,” he said taking the canvas from the floor and holding
up to her, “but already I see you absorbed in its fibers. I see
your face and hair and that beguiling smile.” He traced the line of
her cheek then a spot on the canvas where he thought it should be.
“I want to paint you on to this canvas just as I see you now. In
truth it’s more of a gift for me. I haven’t done a portrait work in
a long time.”

Corrigan yanked her from the old leather couch,
pulling her over to where the bed sheet was hung like a curtain.
Holding back the sheet he gestured for her to go behind the
curtain. He followed in behind her, letting the curtain fall in his
wake.

It was dark outside and the attic wasn’t really
built for making into rooms. There were two windows that looked out
onto the front and back yards of the main house. But on either end
the walls rose up at angles with no way for light to penetrate;
moonlight or otherwise. The nook made by the curtain was
illuminated by several oil lamps and hurricane lanterns and nothing
else, making Clarissa feel like she were living in an older time.
Or when Hurricane season was in full swing and the power was out.
But in this moment she felt it was the former.

A chaise lounge had been placed near the wall with a
decorative antique table set just in front of it. Several old tin
lanterns hung from the ceiling, the cut-outs creating eerie shapes
on walls. Placed a few feet in front of the ‘set’ was an easel and
stool. Sketches and paint splatters marred the wooden floor and at
once Clarissa realized this was where Corrigan did his painting
work.

Corrigan led Clarissa over to the chaise lounge,
pushing on her gently until she sat down on it. Clarissa couldn’t
stop the smile from showing on her face as Corrigan, with an
artist’s serious face, moved her limbs around on the chaise until
he was satisfied. Like a puppet she was adjusted and rearranged,
her hand at one time up close to her face then down by her
side.

Clarissa reclined on the lounge chair which was
surprisingly comfortable despite it being as old as her boyfriend.
She reached to grab a cobweb that dangled in front of her face,
caught and hanging from the lighted lanterns from above her.

“
Don’t move,” Corrigan barked the order as he
sat on his stool holding a pad of sketching paper in his hands. The
canvas was set up on his easel but he wasn’t ready to start there.
First he needed to practice. Soothing his voice he said, “I need
you to be very still so I don’t mess this up. I haven’t worked with
animate objects in awhile.”

“
Yes, Mr. Artiste,” Clarissa quipped, feeling
like Kate Winslet in
Titanic.
She adored that movie. She’d watched it recently at Eleanor’s
house and Eleanor had made the statement that if she had been Rose
she would have managed to get her fat ass over on that door and let
Jack have room so he didn’t have to die. But that was only much
later after the movie had ended. When she could talk without crying
‘I’ll never let go, I’ll never let go’ over and over again to the
television screen as poor Jack Dawson sank into the cold depths of
the Atlantic Ocean.

Corrigan ripped the top sheet off his sketch book,
crumpling it up as he threw it on the floor next to him. He’d
sacrificed a few of them in the last few minutes he’d been
sketching and a small set of paper tumble weeds were rolling around
the floor, moved by a portable fan he had set up next to him. He
made grumbling comments to himself as he looked between the pad and
Clarissa who couldn’t help but mimic his expression.

Several more minutes ticked by. She could almost
hear them ticking in her head.

“
Shouldn’t I be naked or something,” Clarissa
questioned, breaking the silence in the room. “Don’t all painters
have their models in the nude to create the perfect expression of
human nature?”

He didn’t comment. More silent minute’s glugged by
as Corrigan continued perfecting his sketches.

Clarissa saw a particle of dust as it flew by her
face and reached out to capture it like a bug in her hand. “I’m
sure I could manifest a look-alike diamond necklace.”

“
No,” Corrigan finally drawled as he once
again added to his collection of tumbleweeds. “This isn’t
Titanic
and I think it would be best
if you kept your clothes on while I work.” He adjusted his posture
on the stool while he tried to dispel the image of Clarissa lying
naked on the chaise with an encouraging sirens smile on her
beautifully otherworldly face. “You’re moving too much.”