Chapter 11
Kris had been delighted when Izzy showed up for lunch at her boss's home. The elderly woman had laughed with tears sparkling in her eyes at Izzy's thoughtful list of quotations. It had been just the thing she'd needed to cheer her, she'd said.
Despite being in terrible pain, Kristen was impeccably dressed and sitting serenely in her wheelchair when Izzy arrived. Her gold coin earrings and necklace shimmered in the afternoon light. She doted on Izzy, adoring the fact that Izzy had been willing to come and see her at her home even though she was only the wife of Izzy's boss.
Izzy waved her hand at Kris' reservations. She assured the woman that she loved her company as much as Kristen loved hers. If there was anything she could ever do for her, even if it was only listening patiently while Kristen talked, then she'd be glad to do so.
She told Kris that she knew how lucky she was to have her boss and his wife for friends, especially since she had so few real friends left anymore. She felt lucky indeed to have a boss who was as genuinely good to her as Joe. He was a far cry from the number of employers Izzy had when she had waitressed in college.
They had spent the afternoon lounging on the overstuffed, white sofa in the elegantly furnished living room, lunching on Chinese takeaway and stale fortune cookies, while watching old Hollywood movies. Izzy swirled the last of her chow mein noodles on her fork as Casablanca played on the widescreen TV in the background.
"Thanks for having me over, Joe. I mean it. You both have become my second parents after a fashion. I dunno what I'd do without you guys." Joe simply grunted and nodded in response as his mouth was full of what remained of the fried rice and orange chicken.
"He means your most welcome, Isabel," Kris translated for him. Joe nodded again to acknowledge that she was correct in translation. Kris smiled and patted Izzy's hand.
"We both love you too. Joe and I were never able to have children and adoption just didn't suit us. We've grown quite fond of you, dear. You're the daughter I always wanted." She paused and smiled sweetly at Izzy. "Now let me see those gorgeous bangles of yours." She winked at Izzy and held her hand out for Izzy's wrist.
Izzy had entirely forgotten that she was wearing her beloved bangles. The bracelets were visible from under the edges of her jacket sleeves. She held her arms out to show off her bejeweled wrists to Kris.
Kristen didn't comment. She simply raised one eyebrow admiring the jeweled, platinum bracelets in silence. "Now tell me dear… who is the young man who gave you such an extravagant gift? Tell me about your fiancé." The woman looked pointedly at Izzy.
Izzy nearly choked on her noodles. She stared open mouthed at Kristen, before looking slowly over at her boss. How had she known that they weren't simply bangle bracelets, but something more? Joe was watching the exchange with a smile on his face. He put an arm around his wife and winked at Izzy. He seemed to know something too, but not in the way that his wife appeared to.
"You see, my dear," Kristen spoke slowly and precisely, her slight accent betraying her upper crust Boston upbringing. "I am what you might call… a witch. But that isn't the correct term. I do not believe in Wicca, nor do I practice magic of any kind. But I have always had a certain… gift, I guess you could say.
Since I was a small girl I've had the ability to see what others could not. I am no fortune teller. I cannot see the future, but what I can see are remnants of the other worldly, the supernatural. I can tell a person's intentions upon meeting them for the first time, as I did Joe. I knew when he shook my hand the first time we met that he was the man I was going to marry.
Just as I knew you were special the moment I first saw you applying for the job at the company just after you graduated from college three years ago. It was I who told Joe to hire you. I suppose it is what one would call the gift of second sight?
Now… tell me about your fiancé, unless you are uncomfortable, dear. If you prefer we can continue this conversation another time."
Izzy had listened to the old woman's speech in shocked silence. She cocked her head to one side in quiet contemplation. Something told her that Kristen was trustworthy and Izzy's curiosity was aroused. She wanted to know if Kris knew anything about Jareth's world, or about the curious note Signora Venti had left her last night. But first thing was first.
Over the course of the next two hours Izzy had poured her heart out to Kris and Joe. She told them of her encounters with Jareth, the Goblin King over the years, to which neither of them had seemed surprised in the least. She recounted the visions Jareth had showed her of him keeping vigil over as a child.
He'd been always in the shadows, waiting, protecting her from harm. But the one thing he had not been able to prevent was the death of her family. Izzy told Kris how she knew it ate at him, that he was unable to erase her pain. He'd tried so desperately to take it upon himself, to shield her from heartbreak. He alone knew how deep her grief and loneliness had been. Though he had not said so, Izzy had the feeling that Jareth too, had been lost in such loneliness for the last 1300 years.
Throughout the course of her story Kris and Joe had listened patiently with looks of understanding and love. Izzy came to the morning that Jareth had proposed. She retold the tale of the magical bracelets that granted her immortality as long as she wore them.
She paused as she told them how passionately he'd kissed her when she'd relinquished to marry him, but then he had disappeared, leaving her alone. Izzy couldn't help but smile at this point when Joe leaned over to kiss his wife on top of her head. Kris squeezed his hand and rested her head against his shoulder.
The conversation had fallen to silence as Izzy and the loving couple were each lost in their own thoughts. The iconic lines of the 1924 film, Casablanca coming from the TV captured their attention:
"You're saying this only to make me go". Ilsa pleaded with Rick.
"I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Startled, Ilsa inquired, "But what about us?"
"We'll always have Paris. We didn't have… we…we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night, Rick answered her."
"When I said I would never leave you." Elsa gazed lovingly at Rick.
"And you never will," Rick continued sincerely. "But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that". Ilsa lowered her head and began to cry.
"Now, now..."Rick gently placed his hand under her chin and raised it so their eyes met. "Here's looking at you kid."
Izzy watched Kris and Joe for a moment. Their eyes were filled with tears as they sat absorbed in the classic film. Such hopeless, romantic schmaltz, Izzy mused. She supposed if anyone had seen her and Jareth together that'd say the same thing. It was funny really.
Her attention was pulled back to the movie as Rick exclaimed,
"Louis, I think this the beginning of a beautiful friendship." He and Louis strolled off into the fog after watching Ilsa and Vicor Lazlo's plane depart.
As the credits rolled, silence returned to the living room. It was Kris who broke the silence. "I've always loved that movie. But Humphrey Bogart was never the most attractive man for the part for such an iconic role, I always thought. But of course Ingrid Bergman is just flawless."
Izzy sat up remembering the note Mrs. Venti had written. She abruptly changed the subject from Casablanca.
"Kris, what do you know of any Italian folktales? Or more specifically what do you know about goblin legends of Tuscany?"
Joe and Kristen looked at her with puzzled expressions, waiting for Izzy to continue with an explanation.
"You see, Signor and Signora Venti, the elderly Italian couple that own the vegetable market below my loft? Kris and Joe nodded while Izzy continued.
"I stopped to chat with them yesterday morning and from snippets of their conversation I caught the word, folletto. I looked it up. It means goblin. And then I caught Signora Venti spying on me as I got out of my cab last night on my way home. She left me a note under the apartment door telling me the she knew Jareth was magic from an enchanted place. She seemed to feel she had to warn me that I could possibly be in danger. What does it all mean?"
Kris was silent in thought for a moment.
"The sun is setting, love. Why don't we take our conversation out on the deck to watch the sunset?" Joe cut in. Kris nodded silently, continuing to think.
Joe wheeled his wife's wheel chair through the double French doors out onto the deck, overlooking the backyard swimming pool. Izzy followed. Streaks of cotton candy colors blazed across the sky. A glowing orange ball of fire in the center, the setting sun, gave the appearance that it was sinking into the swimming pool. The blue, chlorine water sparkled in the light, casting a serene glow up onto the deck as the trio sat at under the large umbrella at the outdoor table and benches.
"I take it that Signora Venti is originally from Tuscany?" Kris asked. Izzy nodded. Kris looked pointedly at Izzy, then back up the sunset.
"I do know of a few legends of the area. It would seem that Mrs. Venti has been raised on them, which of course is why she recognized Jareth for what he was right off the bat even though he is human in every respect."
Izzy had forgotten about the strange dream she'd had the night before. She began to tell Kris about climbing after the pink mountain goat, high in the Italian alps. And then the goat being snatched by a mountain goblin out of the thin air, before the goblin appeared in a threatening stance in front of Izzy.
"I do remember one such story," Kris ventured. When I was about 7 or 8, not long after my family discovered I was gifted with the second sight, my grandmother told me a story that has stuck with me ever since. It went something like:
While Saint Pellegrino was praying in a wood, spirits, devils and goblins attacked him. He lifted his cross and escaped in the sky towards the sea, creating a hole in the mountain that since that day was called Pania Forata, or drilling hole.
The story refers to Mount Forato in the Italian alps, a treacherous area that to this day has an ominous reputation. Apparently every year hikers go missing in the area. The locals of course say that they were taken by goblins."
She paused. "But who knows if what they say if the truth, or not? I don't think I'd put too much stock into that dream of yours for now, dear Izzy. Chalk it up as only a dream and maybe you can ask your Jareth about it later. Perhaps he'll have the answers."
When Izzy went to bed that night her head was still spinning with unanswered questions.
