A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [55]
I ran, ran away as the sun began to crest over the dark tree line.
Chapter 4
The moon waned toward new. She became more and more agitated, unpredictable, explosive. She screamed for no apparent reason, threw things across the room. Anything could set her off. Sitting in the same room with her could be dangerous. Only the sea calmed her, eased her. We spent a lot of time at the cove in the evenings watching the moon drift across the sky, and the waves.
Less than one-quarter of the platinum disc remained now, waning toward the crescent. The tides grew stronger as the new moon approached. And as the tides strengthened, so did her emotional outbursts.
I never knew how she’d be when we left the cove. She might attack for any question, any difference of opinion, any wrong word or facial expression. Or she might be the most tenderhearted, loving, caring person I’ve ever known. She vacillated between extremes, sometimes within moments. Her instability heightened as the moon, and the tides, continued to change.
I couldn’t resist her. I knew I should stay away from her, she wasn’t balanced. But when she rose from the sea, I was powerless to keep myself from her. I watched her hypnotic dance and the raw passion and uncontrollable lust took over. After, the sheer power and depth of the tenderness threatened to crush my heart.
I couldn’t leave her. Ever.
I loved her.
And the moon waned on.
But I worried about her. How much more strain, how much more upheaval, could she tolerate? I worried her mind would snap under the stress of the shifts, as sure as the tides in the cove, just as inexorable. When she was all right, her happy musical laugh lilted, she challenged me with her ideas, thoughts, opinions, insights. When she wasn’t, though, she really wasn’t. She wept as if heartbroken, sobbed so hysterically she couldn’t stand. And if anything opposed her, if any insignificant event caused diversion from what she wanted in those waning moon nights, she exploded in violence and uncontrolled fury like a rabid beast.
We always reconciled soon after, always with physical intimacy. Our carnal times became more brutal during the anger, more tender during storm eyes. She peaked and plummeted, like the crests and troughs of squall-driven waves. I stood in the tempest face and its rain, hurled by violent emotional winds, stung my face like needles, threatened to flay me like pellets. Then the eye broke, the sea calmed, and she’d be herself again. For a time.
Night after night, the tides shifted. I left in the morning, and she was not there when I returned. I went to the cove and waited, found her, and she danced. Every night.
I considered the change in her, its conjunction with the change in the moon, in the tides. I wondered, pondered. But no one, no matter how much they love the water, is linked to the sea, tied to its behavior and shifted when it did. No one.
Coincidence, I asserted. Or perhaps, just perhaps, I’d fallen in love with a lunatic. Literally.
I sought answers, beside myself. I didn’t know where to begin. To ask caused her volcanic temper to erupt. It escalated to violence, devolved into sex, and ended with loving softness and caresses. It was too much sometimes. And I could not drive myself from her. I sought her every night no matter how her actions, or her words, confused me.
She insisted I knew her. I had no memory of her. Surely I’d remember such a remarkable woman, so beautiful, intelligent, such a force of nature. How could a man forget her in his lifetime? I didn’t know her, didn’t know her name. I stopped asking. It only infuriated her.
She promised eternity more than once. I never knew what she