Heartlight Read online

  To set someone’s feet upon the Path was an awesome responsibility, one not lightly entered into. But to find his chela and train him in his footsteps was the ultimate test of an Adept, for there were many pitfalls along the way, and failure meant a spoiled Adept, one who had tasted the seduction of power and yet lacked the discipline to use it for Good. Such creatures, if they survived the Abyss, came back to haunt their teachers with each turn of the Wheel: dark wraiths who corrupted all that they meddled in.

  Love was the only thing that made such a risk bearable, and in the secret chambers of his heart, Colin MacLaren wondered if he were still capable of such love, after the horrors he had witnessed. In all the years of this life he had not yet met anyone that he felt called upon to teach—was there some lack in himself that caused him to be so blind?

  “There will be time,” Alison said, reaching out and covering his hand with her own as if she had followed the current of his thoughts—and perhaps she had. The feeling of that warm contact was like a benediction, soothing his sense of guilt and of promises unkept. “Our Masters do not ask anything of us that we cannot accomplish through love and trust.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Colin said, slowly. He had never felt less capable of that dispassionate, powerful love that was the sword and buckler of those who warred for the Light.

  Alison released his hand and got to her feet. “But I didn’t come here to scold you, my dear—you certainly deserve better from me than that. I came to invite you to come over to Greenhaven for dinner some night soon. I’m an adequate cook, and afterward we might tour some of the local jazz clubs. There’s more to North Beach than topless dancing, and you can’t bury yourself in work every minute. There’s quite a community of our fellow travelers here; you should get to know them.”

  “You’re right, of course,” Colin said, getting to his feet as well. As he did, his eye chanced on the box once more, and he picked it up. “And we’ll make a firm date for dinner, just as soon as I know how busy my schedule’s going to be. Now let me see what this is. I love presents,” Colin added, as he tore off the gold paper and silver ribbon that covered the package.

  “Oh … my. Alison, this is lovely.”

  “Functional, too,” Alison said cheerily, her earlier somber mood vanished like San Francisco’s famous morning fog. “You can hold down papers, open your mail, stab fellow faculty members in the back … .”

  Colin turned the object over in his hands. It was a substantial piece. A sterling-silver sword pierced an anvil carved out of black jade, thrusting through the anvil into the white granite of the stone on which the anvil sat. Flecks of mica glittered against the pale stone, flashing in the sunlight.

  The “sword” was removable, and was meant to be used as a letter opener, Colin slid it from its niche and inspected it critically.

  “Excalibur?” he said quizzically, setting the paperweight down and sliding the letter opener back into its slot. “I hope you don’t think I’ll be needing that any time soon.”

  Alison laughed. “Those days are over and done with, thank the Light! But I have to dash—I’ve still got half a dozen errands to run and I have to be sure to be home before three. My newest pupil is coming for a music lesson and I’d hate to be late.”

  “Pupil?” Colin asked with interest.

  “In every sense of the word,” Alison said. “I’ve never felt such strength and dedication in one so young—he’s only seventeen, but he’s got the drive and discipline of someone three times his age. You’ll remember his mother—she studied with me for a while, and thank heavens she remembered me when her boy came out with a poltergeist. She had him in a military school, of all places—well! It was an act of mercy to take him in; I gave him lessons, but even then there wasn’t much I could teach him, and when the symphony offered him a position out here, I took him under my wing, as it were—to the great relief of his mother, I might add. You really must come to dinner soon, Colin, so you can meet him—he’s so brilliant that at times it’s nearly frightening. I think the two of you will have a lot in common.

  “His name’s Simon. Simon Anstey.”

  After Alison had gone, Colin sat staring out the window for a long time, his relit pipe smoldering fragrantly between his teeth.

  Simon Anstey. It was the first time Colin had heard the name, but some tolling echo of future memory made it resonate within his mind. Simon Anstey was someone who would matter to Colin in ways he could not yet imagine.

  He sighed and shook his head. The future would unfold itself in its own good time—Colin was no psychic sensitive, able to rend the veil and peer into the Unseen World at will. The inspirations he received were only the faintest of echoes from the Akashic Records, meant only to warn, and, sometimes, to guide. He could not judge which this was to be, and in some small corner of his soul Colin feared that it might be a summons to renewed battle in the never-ending war for the Light.

  The first weeks of the fall term passed swiftly, and Colin was soon caught up in the minutiae of scholastic life. Aside from a nagging tendency for his students to call him “Doctor” MacLaren, a title he disliked, he had no complaints to make. These children were not old enough to remember the Second World War and had even been too young to face the consequences of Korea; they seemed curiously unfledged, almost as if they wandered the halls of some waking dream.

  He managed to keep only part of his promise to Alison—meeting her for a quick lunch in a downtown restaurant, and promising a visit to Greenhaven the next time—but Simon Anstey was away on tour, and so Colin missed the chance to meet Alison’s dazzling pupil. Simon had soloed with the San Francisco Symphony by the time he was eight years old, and at twelve had already recorded five albums. When he had come to live with Alison, it was as much for her healing gifts as her musical ones, for Simon, at fifteen, was already dealing with pressures that most men did not face for another twenty years—as well as with a wayward curiosity that led him into little-frequented byways of the Unseen.

  Alison spoke of him often, in ways that—were she a younger woman speaking about an older man—would have been easy to mistake for romantic love. But Alison Margrave had set that possibility aside in order to devote her energies to a professional career. In an era when most women still were married by twenty and mothers soon afterward, Alison Margrave had never married. She had always been a maverick, a loner, on guard against self-immolation disguised as social service. And in any case, Simon was young enough to be her grandson.

  Alison had given Colin one of Simon’s albums, a collection of Scarlatti concertos for harpsichord. When he played it, Colin had marveled at the pure brilliant sound those young fingers had evoked from one of Alison’s antique instruments. The soaring rills of notes had echoed off the walls of the living room of Colin’s little bungalow and streamed out over the Berkeley hills like a gust of starlight, making him catch his breath in wonder.

  He’d listened to the record several times, trying to make up his mind about the musician who had produced such angelic sounds. The music was cold, mathematical, and nearly heartless, but surely that could be laid to the intention of the composer and the youth of the artist? The passions of childhood rarely ran as deep and true as those of their elders; the very young still believed that they would always be just as they were at that moment, heart-whole and immortal.

  There was no reason for Colin to be so concerned about young Anstey. The boy was not his student, he was Alison’s. And Alison Margrave was experienced and skeptical, unlikely to be wrong about her protégé’s motives or capabilities—and certainly not overeager to take on the responsibilities of an apprentice. As a woman, she had sacrificed much for her art and her independence, and would not be eager to seem to be made a fool by unwise choices or impossible romantic attachments.

  So Colin told himself, and was able to ascribe his nagging misgivings solely to a small twinge of professional jealousy. There would be time enough to judge Simon Anstey when he had met him.

  The b
rief brilliant autumn passed through the East Bay in a series of crystalline days and increasingly chilly nights as the whole community held its breath—as it did every year—at the threat of fire from the dun brown, tinder-dry hills. Then at last the winter rains appeared, and as October became November the hillsides turned the brilliant emerald green of a Northern California winter.

  The young president who had been elected that November seemed to have been born to lead the generation of innocents who filled Colin’s classes. Though he kept no more than a weather eye on national policy and international politics, Colin could not suppress the feeling that the wrong candidate had won. His misgivings were nebulous, consisting mostly of the feeling that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was too young, too confident, to be able to deal with the jagged chessboard bequeathed him by the Cold War. Camelot’s Crown Prince was too much the golden hero—despite his family heritage of bare-knuckle back-alley Boston politics—to be able to go into the dark places and emerge unscathed.

  But that, Colin told himself, was why presidents had advisors. His nervous fretting was only the anxiousness of an old polo pony ready to get back into the game. But Alison had been right: his task was over. That match was done.

  Only each time he told himself that, some faint instinct told Colin that he was wrong … .

  In late November, circumstances finally conspired to allow Colin to meet Simon Anstey.

  The days were shorter now, hurrying into the dark half of the year, and more days than not the sun that had seemed so omnipresent when Colin had arrived in the Bay Area never showed its face at all. Veils of mist shrouded the Berkeley hills and wrapped the entire East Bay in a mask of grey gauze, making a New Yorker yearn for the bright blue days and pale clear sunshine of an Eastern winter.

  Berkeley closed for several days around Thanksgiving, and Alison had demanded his presence for long enough to pay a proper visit to Greenhaven and see something more of the City than he’d been able to manage in his brief visits earlier in the year. So Colin had packed an overnight bag, taken his page of careful directions in hand, and turned the battered but dependable Ford (Colin had nicknamed it la Bête Noire, faithful beast of burden that it was) in the direction of the City by the Bay.

  The new highway took him across the Oakland Bay Bridge, where the dependable Ford shuddered in the grip of winds severe enough that the local morning radio stations commonly posted “small car warnings” along with the usual weather and traffic reports. Though the Ford was in no danger, Colin was glad enough to get off the bridge and down onto the city streets. Less than an hour later, he was pulling la Bête into Alison’s steeply tilted driveway.

  Despite Alison’s characterization of it as “an old barn,” Greenhaven was a little brown-shingled Victorian with a pair of matched bay windows on either side of a recessed red-painted door. Warm golden light spilled through the leaded-glass fanlight above the lintel, as welcoming on this grey day as a glad “hello.” As he cut the ignition, and the Ford’s powerful engine stilled into silence, the door opened, and Alison stood framed in the doorway, wearing a long tartan hostess skirt and a ruffled white blouse.

  “Colin! So you actually found your way here to us,” she said in pleased tones. One of her white cats—Alison had several, as she’d had for almost as long as Colin had known her—wove back and forth about her ankles, shedding abundant white hairs on the gay red plaid.

  “At times the outcome seemed to be in doubt,” Colin commented. “I’d gotten used to navigating around the Village—but S.F. always throws me for a loop.”

  Alison laughed. “The City does take some getting used to,” she said with proprietary pride. “But come in—Simon’s here—his plane arrived early—and you know how much I’ve been wanting the two of you to meet.”

  Colin handed her the gift-wrapped bottle he’d bought and stepped inside, followed by Alison and the white cat. A sense of profound peace settled over him as soon as he crossed the threshold of her home: Alison worked with those of troubled spirit, and as a result, she kept her home rigorously cleared and shielded. Greenhaven was filled with the peace and joy of a dedicated holy place.

  On either side of the ivory-painted foyer a broad white door led into a set of rooms separated by glass doors. Alison led him through to the set on the left. The front room contained a desk, couch, and file cabinets—Alison obviously used it for her consulting work—but the room behind it ran the full length of the house, with the back wall dominated by a huge picture window that looked out over the Bay. Today only the tips of the Golden Gate towers were visible through the mist, but Colin could tell that on a clear day the view from these windows would be stunning.

  “The kitchen’s on the other side; you can get out into the garden from there,” Alison said. “Not that this is much of a day for outside explorations. I even built a fire in here.” She gestured at the marble fireplace. “And here’s Simon.”

  Colin had been watching his hostess. Now he turned to face the other occupant of the room.

  Little Lord Byron on a scooter, was Colin’s immediate, unkind assessment. Simon Anstey was the sort of youth the ancient Greeks might have written poems to—his curling black hair was theatrically long, brushing his collar in the back, framing a face beautiful enough to grace a kylix. He was standing in front of the small black marble fireplace in a pose that managed to look formal and natural at the same time, and a cut-crystal wineglass stood behind him on the mantle. He held another of Alison’s white cats in his arms.

  His dark blue eyes were so intense that their color was the first thing that one saw from across the room, and his strong features—hawk—nosed and high-cheekboned—added to the impression of maturity, giving young Anstey the look of eagles. He was wearing a black-and-white tweed sportcoat and dark slacks with a light blue turtleneck, adding to the Bohemian air about him.

  But for all Anstey’s professional poise, Colin could sense that the boy was nervous, keyed up. He wondered what Alison had told Anstey about the man he was to meet today. Probably a lot of exaggerated twaddle, Colin thought, and advanced into the room, his hand outstretched.

  “Simon Anstey, isn’t it? I’ve heard so much about you,” Colin said warmly.

  Simon gently deposited the cat upon the floor, then took Colin’s hand and shook it. The cat, miffed, darted from the room on urgent business of its own.

  Simon’s grip was surprisingly strong, and Colin remembered again that the boy was already a professional pianist, with thousands of hours of practice behind that hearty grip. He’d glimpsed some of Alison’s harpsichords across the hall when he’d come in, and wondered which of them Anstey had used for the Scarlatti he’d recorded.

  “Professor MacLaren. I’ve heard so much about you from Dr. Margrave.” Anstey’s voice was low and strong, a trained voice to go with the trained hands. “I’ve looked forward very much to this meeting.”

  “As have I,” Colin said warmly.

  “Let me leave you two gentlemen to get acquainted while I check on the progress of dinner and put this bottle in to chill,” Alison said. “I’ll have to change before we go out, but I’ll be switched if I’m going to try cooking dinner in high heels. Simon, why don’t you fix Colin a drink?” she added. “I’ll be back in a jif.”

  Alison had sworn she intended to take him to hear something called “The Kingston Trio,” at a nightclub with the improbable name of “The Hungry I” down in North Beach.

  (“As a psychologist, I find the name marvelously appropriate, Colin—the ‘I’—the ego—is always hungry. But you’ll love the place; you’ll see,” Alison had said over the phone.)

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Colin asked automatically, but Alison only laughed. She disappeared through the sliding glass doors and left Colin alone with her young pupil.

  “Would you like a glass of wine, Dr. MacLaren?” Anstey asked courteously. “There’s Scotch, if you prefer; I’m not quite sure what Dr. Margrave has in her drinks cabinet.”

  “Wine�
��s fine—and it’s ‘Mister,’ not ‘Doctor,’” Colin said. “I’m only a Doctor of Psychology, and I’m afraid I’m old-fashioned enough to feel that the title should be reserved for the medical profession.”

  “As you say, Professor,” Simon said with a smile. He moved toward the low table set in front of the enormous picture window—one of Alison’s renovations to the hilltop Victorian, Colin was sure—to pour a second glass from the bottle there on the silver tray. He crossed the room to hand it to Colin, then indicated one of the two armless Danish Modern couches upholstered in olive linen that occupied the room. The spare sculptural lines of the modern furniture harmonized well with the room’s graceful Victorian proportions.

  Colin sipped at his wine, then drank deeper with appreciation. “An excellent vintage,” he commented.

  “Yes,” Anstey said. “I brought Dr. Margrave back a case of it the last time I toured France.”

  Was it Colin’s imagination, or was there a touch of belligerence in Anstey’s voice, the attempt of a very young man to stake a claim to his own adulthood? He smiled at the thought, and strove to put young Anstey at his ease.

  “It’s a beautiful country, isn’t it? Were you able to see much of Paris while you were there? I understand that traveling on business doesn’t leave much time for sight-seeing.”

  “I saw a bit,” Simon said, seeming to relax. He retrieved his own glass and sat down on the couch nearer the fire. “But a visit can’t possibly compare with being able to live there. Dr. Margrave told me that you’d spent some time overseas?”

  “I was there during the war,” Colin answered, before he realized that there was no longer only one war. Was he getting stuck in his own past? “During World War II, I should say. After the surrender, I stayed on for a few years, working on projects of my own.” Which was the best way to handle the time he’d spent with the army; some of the things he’d done with Department 23 couldn’t be talked of, even a decade later.