My
Books
Quicksilver Moon, A Novel
My
name at present is Isolde Bell, though I have of course had other names, other
identities that I picked up and used and threw away when I was finished with them.
I
remember where I was born, though not necessarily when. It seems to have been
between 1375 and 1425, though the date is uncertain because our remote land had
no use for the official calendars of church and empire. The Crusades had passed
and the Inquisition was yet to be proclaimed, though freelance terrorists were
always abroad in medieval Europe, and the Reformation and Counter-Reformation
and the horrors of the religious wars they set off were also still to come. But
I knew them all. I knew them all. Do
you know what Transylvania's claims to fame are? Vlad Dracula and Countess Elizabeth
Bathori, the world's best-known children of the night. King John Sigismund (flourished
circa 1568), the world's first Unitarian king. Transylvania is where I was born,
some time between the ages of Dracula and John Sigismund.
This is the opening
to Quicksilver Moon, originally published in 2003 by Three Moons Media
(www.threemoonsmedia.com. As I write this in 2006, my literary agent, who loves
the story, is submitting it to traditional publishers. So far, she's had a couple
of nibbles.
I started writing Quicksilver Moon (under an earlier title) about the time the
Far Right took out its Contract On America. Vampires are, so to speak, eternally
popular, and though I'd written other (so far unpublished) novels, I wanted to
work with an edgy, ambiguous character as protagonist. Seeing the world in fundamental
black and white has always seemed boring to me, and as Isolde and her friends
of the Quicksilver Moon Coven and Brother Mudge acted their story out in my head,
and then on paper, I began to see how good and evil come in every shade. The
book is narrated in the voices of the characters, mostly, though Brother Mudge's
chapters are based on his sermons. I actually bought a King James Bible so I could
quote correctly. John
8:44 Brother
Mudge looked down upon his flock and was well pleased. Eighteen followers, and
now a signed lease on this modest storefront. Well, he had the assurance of the
Messenger, the promise of more followers. More witnesses. More power. Never again,
he thought, never again would a church reject him. Never again would the more
famous preachers-the men in whose images he had modeled himself until his eyes
had been opened and he saw the Truth-never again would they or anyone else laugh
at him. This was his congregation, his alone. Yes, it was small, but already it
was growing. Yes, he was well pleased. Brother
Mudge looked down upon his flock again, and his voice took on the sexy, saxophone
power that always attracted women, that pulled women into his black Cadillac.
"Lord," he said, "Lord, we know the heathens. We know Thine enemies.
We know those who follow the ways of Satan. And, Lord, we give thanks that You
have opened our eyes and delivered us from our enemies, from their darkness and
sin. We give thanks that You have indeed, yes, indeed, that You have led us away
from temptation. Yea, like holy Lazarus we have come forth from darkest Hell.
For it is written, And I knew that you hearest me always: but because of the people
which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou has sent me. "Yea,
Lord," Brother Mudge was swaying now, nearly singing in the passion of his
sermon, "like Lazarus raised from the tomb, we too come forth. And like Your
Son, we say to the sinners, Come forth! We call out to all who are sinners-the
Satanists, the witches, the free-thinkers, the nonconformists, the heathens and
whores. And we say to the devil they worship, Loose them and let them go." Brother
Mudge raised both hands, palms open as if to shower his personal manna upon his
congregation. "Lord!" he sang out, "Lord, we will do Your Work
on earth. Lord, we will bear witness to Your Work. We will rescue all who have
sinned. We will command the father of lies to let them go. We will bring them
back to Your mighty throne. We will bring them back to Your awful judgment."
And so Brother
Mudge declares war on the witches. And who are the witches? Ordinary women who
look just a bit like some women I have known. Quicksilver Moon Coven was founded
by Loretta (who lives in the house one of my friends owned in Huntington Beach,
California) and her sister Tammy, both born in Mississippi. Other members are
Patsy, a 200-pound lesbian whose day job is technical writing. Debbie, a doctor's
wife and the Queen of Clean. Marian, whose husband is a retired Santa Ana cop.
Taeko Jean, whose mother was a Japanese war bride. Riana, an adult college student
whose husband left her with two teen-agers and AIDS. Lavender, an actress who
does temp office work to pay the rent. And their good friend, the Rev. Donnathea,
a metaphysical minister who is the story's voice of true Christianity, a voice
of love, charity, and reason. Quicksilver
Moon stages a public ritual for Beltane and somehow the vampire shows up for the
spiral dance. Women at the ritual have received anonymous, threatening letters.
There is a discussion about persecution, and the vampire decides to help them
defend themselves. My
grandmother always told me I was too passionate [she tells us], too greedy. It's
true. I am not always reasonable, and I'm seldom friendly. Given my circumstances,
can you blame me? If you were thrust into my circumstances, what would you have
done? Would you suffer passively or take action? What would you do? Do
you know better than I do? I
must confess: I liked the women of Quicksilver Moon. I liked all the women in
that room, all the women I spiraled with that May Eve. I liked their humanity,
their questioning and asserting and quarreling, which arose as soon as I finished
speaking. There is not, alas, as much unity among Witches as we would wish. Dear,
simple, short-lived ones. They're still too much a part of the culture they try
to reject and reform, and it's not a culture that promotes equality and the sharing
of power. Darling short-lived ones. They read a few books, invoke a few minor
goddesses, and they think they are wise. Still,
that night I loved them, for they were, by turns, passionate and frightened, foolhardy
and brave. I've
been alone too long. Now I must help them find out who is sending misogynistic
quotations from a highly edited holy book.
Of course, Isolde
has to tell the short-lived ones what she is. She invites herself to Loretta's
home for a meeting with the coven. Loretta tells us what happens that night:
"Yes,"
said Isolde Bell, sitting down again in my antique chair, "I learned this
blessing from my Honored Grandmother when I was a child. That was around the year
1400." Well!
None of us thought we heard her right. I could see Tammy's lips moving. "Yes,
my friends," said Isolde Bell, forestalling our questions, "I call you
friends tonight, though if tonight does not go well, we will not be friends and
you will remember none of what I am going to say." What
could we do? We sat still and listened. But, you know, actually we couldn't have
said anything, even if we'd wanted to. We were a captive audience, if you know
what I mean. "My
Honored Grandmother lived in a little village where she was the Wisewoman. She
gave me to the Old Lady of the Cave of Earth and I was transformed. I am about
six hundred years old, and since age twelve, I have been what some call undead.
Nosferatu. Wampyr. I am a vampire." Well
again! Maybe it's a good thing we were speechless. Maybe it's a good thing we
couldn't move. Isolde
Bell smiled a narrow smile. "You will have questions, yes? My friends, do
not fear me now. I do not 'vant to drink your blood.' I'm not Vlad Dracula."
Her second smile was ironic—and suddenly her teeth showed, and they really
were pointy—as she waved one hand, palm out, at the candle. It flickered
again, and something in the room changed. "Please," she said, "let
me satisfy your curiosity about me. Then we will have something much more important
to discuss." More
important than finding out that the lady sitting in your family room is a six-hundred-year-old
vampire? When
I sent the book to Three Moons Media in 2002, I added an author's note to the
book: On
September 11, 2001, a gang of Islamic fundamentalists hijacked four passenger
jets, turned them into gigantic bombs, and deliberately crashed into the two towers
of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.,
murdering thousands of innocent people. Two
days later, the Reverend Jerry Falwell appeared on The 700 Club, which is broadcast
on national television and hosted by the Reverend Pat Robertson. "I
really believe," Falwell said, "that the pagans, and the abortionists,
and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that
an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them
who have tried to secularize America—I point the finger in their face and
say, 'You helped this happen.'" "Well,
I totally concur," Robertson said, "and the problem is we have adopted
their agenda at the highest levels of our government." Brother
Mudge is a fictitious character, created to be the antagonist in this novel. Mr.
Falwell and Mr. Robertson are real people who claim to speak for the same jealous
god to whom the Islamic fundamentalists sacrificed themselves and thousands of
Americans. How
can fiction possibly equal the hate that extremists acted on during that week? With
the ascending power of the Far Right, in both religion and politics, today, Quicksilver
Moon is more relevant now than it was when I first wrote it. If you want a signed
first edition, just send an email to me. top |
