How to stop time: kiss Gabe Miller
How to travel in time: read Among the Cloud Dwellers
How to escape time: still the ticking with Entrainement
How to feel time: dwell in Magic
How to release time: breathe
The Magician and the Two of Cups. The two cards danced in front of me. My hand reached out. And in the darkness I rolled a set of dice. Two. Beside her beloved grandmother’s deathbed, Porzia unexpectedly inherits a legacy of unusual powers, embarking her on an unforgettable journey of self-discovery. A past life regression introduces a distant soul mate, revealing a love so intense it has resisted the tarnishing of time and Porzia abandons the straightforward path and finds herself embroiled in a world of esoteric secrets. When she meets famed off-road racer Gabe Miller, Porzia is swept up in such a fiery, impassioned affair she believes Gabe may be her lost soul mate reincarnated. But Gabe’s elusive past and a private promise which he is unable to reveal complicate matters.Porzia’s journey promises freedom from earthly boundaries; it blurs the lines between safety and the unconventional, between love and fear, and between us and the gods.
PROLOGUE
Firenze, Italia. Galleria degli Uffizi.
The echo of the security guard’s footsteps slowly faded toward the distant museum exit.
Silence.
Silence echoed along the austere arcades on the first floor. Sunset filtered through the ancient windows, the sunrays interrupted in their paths by massive walls. Golden light ricocheted and dispersed off myriads of confused dust motes. At the end of the high-windowed galleria, the heartbeat began to pound within the chilled white marble of Michelangelo’s Davide. Life’s essence stirred through his perfectly chiseled body until strength and heat gave him power to move. He slipped from his pedestal and headed toward Venere in Botticelli’s room.
From the darkening sky, a full moon replaced eternity and cast an inquisitive look down. Davide’s shadow glided undisturbed amongst dozing masterpieces. On the upper level, beneath gilded ceilings, silence reigned.
Venere stepped out of her golden frame, and leaving her seashell behind, she entered reality. The angels’ gazes followed her progress while her ancella gently smiled and wiped a lonesome tear.
Still wet from the scented sea mist, Venere’s long auburn hair trailed, barely covering her glowing body. Desire stirred deep within her soul, conjuring rhythmic waves within her.
She met Davide on a sunset-lit windowsill. Doubts dissipated, washed away by the high tide of her will. The lovers allowed the salt-scented mist to subdue them, slowly, to unfold erotic dreams.
Please let reality be what fantasy was.
As the sun’s light faded away she drew him in, savoring primitive rituals, riding the moist rhythm of the waves to slowly drown their thirst. With the moon silently smiling, they reached for the sky and left agony behind.
That was the night my parents gave me life.
This life.
If I were a color, I would be gold. Born under the blessing of the full moon, protected by ageless winged guardians, I played hopscotch with Giotto on checkered floors and hide-and-seek with masterpieces along marble staircases, among their golden frames and moth-dappled velvet drapes. My tiny hands pressed against rain-streaked windows while outside the river Arno swelled and found its way to the sea.
I grew up by the shadow of the leaning tower of Pisa. And although the colors of Tuscany in August blush my skin, it is the Manouche mystery that pounds through my veins. I know the woods where Dante lost his way like the palm of my hand. I could escort you to the inferno door blindfolded, for I have knocked on it often myself. I crossed the Mississippi River and heard Jesse James ask Huckleberry Finn if he was real.
I swam with dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico and danced with the Queen of New Orleans on a wet, humid winter night. I got drunk with Ezili in Savannah and cursed life, screaming at the moon in rage. I wandered in meadows restlessly and watched the winds with a longing I could not understand.
Absolutely still in a Veronica, I held a crimson cape of fears, enticed a crippled wolf to charge, and defied time.
I challenged the Goddess, belied my powers, and regretted it all. I soared with a majestic eagle toward a sinking sun and caught up to it by Ayers Rock where, anguished, I bowed. Subjugated at last, I embraced magic.
Too wild, too strong to be mortal, I wove a dream with love in my heart, passion in my soul, and the breath of my life.
I have summoned the elements, conjured my yearning into a spell to be taken away across the endless sky. I have swallowed my pride and begged the gods to give me proof that life is worth the fight. Now I walk through sorrow barefoot, careful not to step on the sharp, shattered pieces of my broken dream.
Now I lie still, numb and spent, waiting.
CHAPTER 1
In the anno domini 1300, midway upon the journey of his life, Dante found himself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost . . .
Precisely 699 years later, I wandered as well. And found myself.
Only it wasn’t the inferno I entered.
And God had nothing to do with it. This was more likely the Goddess, subtle and beckoning.
As someone who—up to that point in her life—had never gambled, I claim full responsibility for abandoning the straightforward pathway.
I rolled the dice, and I have no regrets.
Exactly on the eve of one of Florida’s most prolific hurricane seasons, while everyone boarded shut their windows against the wrath of Hurricane Erin, I left mine wide open. And magic stormed in.
Metaphorically speaking, the timing was impeccable.
I had no time to bother with trivialities such as shutting windows. Across the Atlantic, a family emergency demanded me. Although back then I still had not learned how to face Death, I rushed to France and my grandmother’s side.
Beyond the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, over the somber peaks of the Pyrénées, down into the dampness of the Camargue, across fields of fragrant lavender, in a room where someone had remembered to shut the windows against the scorching July sun, my grand-mère Joséphine was dying.
Her delirious eyes swept the darkness in the far corner. “Zut! Attend toi!” she spat. “Je ne suis encore prête.”
Chills ran down my spine. “Who are you talking to Joséphine?”
“La Mort.” Her voice echoed hollowness.
Resigned looks spread across the faces of my family. My father bowed his dark (despite the age), luscious crown of hair and covered his eyes. My mother’s aquamarine eyes welled up with tears, like the sea on high tide, and my younger brother Alex, a born skeptic as myself, turned to see if he could actually catch a glimpse of Death.
I did too.
In the far corner, ghastly folds of shadow quivered.
Alex’s eyes met mine and he shrugged.
Joséphine’s gnarled hand gripped my arm and pulled me closer. My knees met the side of her bed, and yet she kept on drawing me to her. Choking in sorrow, I bent down to give her my undivided attention.
“Ma petite miette—,” she sighed, short of breath.
“Joséphine—” My shoulders shook with grief.
“I kept you in the dark. I thought I would protect you. But how do we love that which we don’t know?” She unclasped her beloved amber pendant from her fragile, birdlike neck and pressed it into my hand. It pulsed warm with her heat. “I renounced The Craft and now it’s too late! A lifetime with no magic wasn’t worth it.” With extraordinary strength for someone in such weak condition she shook her head. “But you must rekindle the power!” Her eyes bulged. “Promets-moi!”
In one inhuman last effort, her shoulders pushed off the pillows. “Promets-moi! Ma petite miette! You must return to magic!”
Tears spilled from my eyes, her face liquefied, and I nodded frantically—against all my principles. I gripped her cold hands in mine. Pain flared as the amber pendant cut into the tender flesh of my palm. “D’accord, Joséphine. I promise.”
Her shoulders collapsed back on the pillows. “Merci.”
*
The very first time my grandfather set eyes on Joséphine he thought, “Le premier soufflé du Divin était la Femme. Et voilà, elle vient.” The Divine first breath was Woman. And here She comes.
And I think: The Divine must have been lonely. We are born alone. We die alone.
Despite my grandfather’s romantic heart, I remain guarded. Why waste time believing in soul mates?
It is perhaps because the Divine created us in her image? And if the Divine is Love, therefore are we, as well, Love? Moreover, in our desire to express our true nature, then aren’t we doomed to Love?
Grief does not heal prettily. Especially when morbidly and persistently poked, it scabs. Then, if we are lucky, it finally scars.
After the burial, this sort of thinking flew with me back to the Florida Panhandle where Hurricane Erin had made landfall only days earlier.
Pensacola was still on its knees. Surprisingly, my place had sustained no damage.
*
A month later, I kept my promise and took my first wayward step.