Confidence

It's Greg Laden's birthday. As has become tradition, Greg, you're getting a story for your birthday. I hope you like it.

Confidence

Claude pasted a smile on his face before driving into the village square and kept it there while he unhitched and watered the horses. It was still there as he opened the back of his wagon and mounted the steps that folded out from the back. It was a calm and serene smile, despite his worries, never wavering as he waited under the awning for the villagers to become curious enough to gather round.

It didn't take long. Quick glances gave way to pulled-aside curtains and whispered conferences. Children tried to pretend they weren't looking at him while pushing their friends to approach him. Smothered giggles surrounded him.

Finally, a large man with his left arm bound up in splints and linen marched up to the wagon with a purposeful stride. Claude wondered, as he always did, whether he was finally about to be caught, but his smile stayed warm and easy. "Can I help you, friend?"

"I figured I'd better find out what you're selling before someone dies of curiosity." The tall man's grin was broad and open.

Claude relaxed slightly. He raised his voice to carry. "Goodness, friend, if they're dying, bring them here immediately! My partner and I trade in cures."

"Ah. You're magickers then?"

Claude bowed. "We are at your service." He preferred to tell only the lies he had to.

The big man winced as he tried to lift his arm. "Do you have something that'll take care of this?"

"We do indeed. Adele!" Claude turned to find her already standing next to him in the back of the wagon.

Adele frowned sympathetically at the big man's arm. "Was it a bad break?"

"Was it bad?!" He twitched his arm and winced again. He went on more quietly. "It's bad enough I haven't been able to work for two weeks."

"Oh, dear." She clucked and shook her head.

The man leaned forward. "I don't mind telling you, miss. I fainted dead away when they tugged it to straighten it out."

"You poor thing." She looked dismayed. "Stay right here. We have just the thing."

Adele retreated into the shadows of the wagon, and the man turned to Claude. "Good to meet you, by the way. I'm Thierry, the carpenter." He held out his good hand. "It's good you came along. Not being able to work sure gets to a man."

Claude shook it. "I'm Claude, and my partner is Miss Adele. It's a pleasure to be able to help, Master Thierry."

Adele returned quickly, holding out a clay bottle stoppered with a plug of wax. "This is what you want." She handed it to him. "Rub some over the break every evening, then wrap it again in a clean cloth. It may itch, but try not to scratch it."

Thierry turned the bottle in his hand. "How long will it take before I can work again?"

Adele sighed. "It'll be another five or six days, I'm afraid, and the arm will be weak for a bit even then."

"Another week beats another month or more, Miss Adele." Thierry set the bottle on the floor of the wagon and pulled out his purse. "How much?"

"It'll be three pence." Real magickers' potions would be worth about twice that price.

Thierry's eyebrows went up. "I don't mean to argue with a bargain, but are you sure?"

Claude's smile got wider. "We can't all be rich men, Master Thierry."

"You'll soon be a richer man than when you started." He handed Adele three pennies and picked up his bottle. "I'll go let the folks know you're okay." He marched off as purposefully as he'd arrived.

Claude winked at Adele. The soft sell had worked again.

The children gathered first, wide eyed at meeting magickers. Claude practiced a little slight of hand for their amusement.

Then came the adults, a couple at first and more as folks saw their neighbors gather. Claude moved down from the steps then, out from under the awning and out of earshot of the wagon. People were willing to tell Adele almost anything, even things they didn't want their neighbors to hear. Claude enjoyed himself, keeping the crowd happy as they waited, telling blatantly modest stories about things he'd never done. He sent Adele another customer whenever she was ready.

As Claude watched Adele work, he was reminded how lucky he was to have found her. She'd started out timid. Customers standing right next to her used to ask her to speak up. She still couldn't work a crowd the way he did, but she'd gotten much better. She had a knack of looking people in the eye and, to all appearances, really listening to what they said. She held hands and patted shoulders. He'd even seen tears in her eyes on occasion. No one could have played her part better.

"Well, that's everyone from the village. I sent some of the kids to run out to the farms, so I hope you're planning on staying for a bit."

Claude turned to see Thierry. He pumped the man's hand as though it had been a year since he'd seen his dear friend last. "We're hoping to stay through the night, if no one minds. We'll stay in the wagon."

"In the wagon? There's no need." Thierry pointed across the square toward a handsome, two-story stone building with a thatched roof. "We've got a perfectly good public house, and you don't need to be a rich man to stay there."

Claude's smile, which had never left his face, deepened. "I'm sure it's lovely, and we'll stop in for dinner, but there are some..." He dropped his voice. "...things that are better not left alone overnight."

"I see." Thierry shot a nervous glance at the wagon, as did several other villagers. Claude hadn't caught anyone snooping in the wagon since he'd started using that line.

Thierry rubbed the palm of his good hand on his thigh and looked around. "So, uh, where are you heading off to tomorrow?"

"We've been mostly heading east. What's the next village in that direction?"

"It's Elder's Ferry, but it's not a village. It's a good-sized town."

Someone else said, "Hope you have enough medicine. Probably be plenty of sick folk for you to cure."

Claude looked around him. "Well, you're a hearty, healthy lot. I don't think you'll clean us out."

Then he sent Adele another customer. He was as fully relaxed now as he ever got. Things couldn't have gone better. He let his eyes twinkle at the crowd as he mentally counted his take.

***

Claude woke himself two hours before dawn. He threw on his clothes in the dark and opened the half door that led from his bunk to the wagon's seat. Adele was sleeping on the floor, lying between the barrels of steeping "medicine" and the bags of dried berries and herbs they used for color and flavor. All they added was water and a little of the local hooch.

It wasn't easy hitching sleepy horses to a wagon in the dark, but Claude had years of practice. Soon he was on the seat and ready to move.

South. He'd had no intention of heading east, but the news that there was a town there had confirmed his plans. They didn't stop in large towns. Towns were big enough to hold garrisons. If and when his misdeeds caught up with him, he wanted a fighting chance to get away.

He shook the reins and clucked softly to the horses. There was barely enough starlight to show where the buildings were. They made a little noise crossing the square, but his experience said honest folk slept soundly this time of night.

Claude was just turning onto the southern road when he saw a tiny blur of motion cross in front of the wagon. The horses started. The rabbit or whatever it was had come from the right, and the wagon turned sharply back into the square. It picked up speed.

Claude braced his feet against the board and leaned back as hard as he could, pulling on the reins, but the horses were having none of it. They wanted to run.

He saw the fence in front of them just as the horses swerved to avoid it. The wagon didn't make the turn as sharply as the animals did. He threw his hands up to shield his face when he heard the fence splinter.

Then he wished he'd been holding onto something. The wagon tipped, one of the front wheels coming up off the ground. As it came back down, Claude heard an ominous crack.

He was riding lower than he should be, even considering he was now sitting on the floor between the footboard and the seat. He heard something dragging, and the horses slowed. They came to rest in the middle of the road leading east.

As soon as the wagon stopped, Claude climbed back on the seat and opened the door behind him. "Adele, are you okay?"

There was no response. Then he heard a tiny annoyed voice. "Wha time's it?"

"Never mind." Mornings weren't Adele's best time. "Go back to sleep."

He thought about climbing down, but it was too dark to see the damage. Instead, he waited for the villagers to arrive and tried to come up with a plausible explanation for leaving town so early. He looked at the road. At least they were pointed the right direction.

***

It was the axle, and that wasn't the worst of Claude's luck. Thierry, with his broken arm, was the only wainwright in the village, as well as its carpenter. The only good news was that the wagon had landed right outside Thierry's shop.

Some of the villagers thought it would be better to send to Elder's Ferry for help and hope that someone had an axle the right size or would be willing to travel to fix it. Others thought that was useless and the magickers ought to wait the few days it would take for Thierry's arm to heal.

Waiting was, of course, out of the question. Those few days would be long enough for everyone to realize the medicine they'd bought was worthless. Claude tried not to show the panic he felt. He held onto his friendly, unconcerned smile, but only just. He couldn't take any useful part in the discussion.

It was Adele who came up with the solution, once she'd had her morning tea. "Harvest hasn't started, right? Otherwise you wouldn't all be standing around like this."

Sheepish grins showed the truth of her statement. She turned to Thierry. "How long do you think it would take you to make us an axle using other people's hands?"

"You mean tell them what needs to be done?" Thierry's eyes brightened at the prospect of work. "Three, maybe four days--assuming you're not all complete oafs." He turned to his fellow villagers.

There were friendly protests, but four of the young men accepted his challenge. They and most of the rest of the village, who'd found the accident a perfect excuse for a holiday, followed Thierry to pick out a properly sized and seasoned log from his stores.

Claude turned to Adele. "Is there anyone who's expecting to be cured before the axle's done?"

She was looking under the wagon at the broken axle. "I don't think so."

He looked around nervously. "Unless you have a way to speed things up, you might want to be sure."

She stood up and faced him. "They like us here." She shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen?"

Claude stared at her, his mouth hanging open, as she casually reclaimed her tea mug from the wagon's seat and wandered across the square toward the public house. It wasn't bad enough he had to worry about them being hung, now Adele was going crazy on him. He hoped he wasn't going to have to find a new partner again.

His other partners in crime had been so...well, dishonest. Claire had been the first. She'd packed up and left with him when he'd passed through her town. She'd left him about a year later, but most of what she'd packed then wasn't hers. He was lucky he'd been in the wagon when she left.

He'd avoided romantic entanglements in choosing his next partner, deciding they affected his judgment. It hadn't helped much. Marc had turned him in to the mayor of a town they'd stopped in, probably hoping to take the wagon while Claude was occupied. Claude had just barely enough warning from the mayor's daughter to escape--leaving Marc to his fate.

He'd been leery of taking on another partner after that, but he couldn't really raise a crowd as effectively from inside the wagon. Adele had seemed so harmless, even if he got the odd impression from time to time that she looked down on him. She was perfect once she'd learned to speak up.

She'd made improvements to how they sold the medicine, too. Gone were the days when he just pulled the nearest bottle from the shelf, telling people it was a cure-all. Adele spent time in the wagon for each customer, and every one of them came away thinking she'd given them exactly what they needed.

She was the one who started telling people that the cures would take several days to work, an improvement Claude appreciated. It gave them a much better start before irate customers could come looking for them. Only now she was acting like she didn't care about angry crowds.

He wanted to chase after Adele to yell at her, but he couldn't do that here. He couldn't wring an answer out of her either. He clenched his fists in frustration and kicked one of the wagon's wheels.

Remembering Marc, Claude made himself a promise. No matter what trick she thought she was keeping in reserve, if Adele betrayed him, he'd make sure she went with him.

***

"Come on, boys, back to work!" Thierry frowned as he gestured with his left arm. He'd taken the splints off and had it resting in a sling, but he kept using it to talk.

Claude nodded at the arm. "Hurt much?"

Thierry looked down and grinned. "No, but it itches like you wouldn't believe. Your partner was right. Mostly I can stand it, but when it rubs against the sling..." He patted it gently with his other hand. "Well, it's all I can do to keep from taking off some skin."

"You don't want to do that, not when it's healing so nicely." Claude turned toward the young men back at work on the axle. He and Thierry were standing in the open doors to Thierry's airy and barnlike shop. "What are they working on now?"

Thierry started in on the details of how they were shaping the log to make Claude's axle, with lots of pauses to yell at the men as they worked. Claude smiled and nodded in the right places, but his attention was all for the arm.

He was awed and amused that Thierry had decided that the pain was itching, just because Adele had told him it would itch. Two days ago he couldn't even move it splinted. Some people were so desperate to believe they were getting better that they'd convince themselves of anything.

At the same time, he was terrified that Thierry would gesture his arm right into something solid. It should be splinted for weeks yet. If Thierry jostled it hard enough, he'd be likely to pass out from the "itch." Then where would Claude and Adele be? Not that he'd seen much of Adele in the last couple of days.

Claude noticed Thierry's voice trail off. He was staring somewhere over Claude's shoulder.

Claude turned around. Coming across the square were a woman and a girl of about seven. The girl, racing to keep up with the hurrying woman, was quite a sight in this tidy village.

Her curly straw-blond hair was pulling out of her braids and stuck out all over her head. The hem of her dress was torn and hanging down on one side. The dress had probably once been blue, but it was now the same light brown as her hands, feet and the big streak across one cheek. She was carrying a rag doll in worse shape than she was. Obviously a child who liked mud.

The woman, who Claude assumed was the girl's mother, was much neater. Her light brown hair was pulled back. Her dress and apron were clean and pressed, if obviously faded. Claude would have described her as pretty if she hadn't looked so worn and worried.

When the two of them reached the shop, the little girl flopped down on the ground. The woman was winded too.

"Oh, good." She sighed and relaxed very slightly. "You are still here. I...I need..." She blushed crimson and looked at the ground.

Thierry stepped forward. Claude thought he might be blushing too. It was going around. "Is there something I can help you with, Bernadette?"

Bernadette dropped a half curtsy to the blacksmith. "Thank you, but no. It's just..."

"Are you looking for medicine, Mistress Bernadette?"

She looked up at Claude and opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Claude hadn't thought it possible, but her blush deepened.

"My brother's sick." The little girl stood back up and patted her mother's arm. Words came out through her gasps. "Coughing real hard...Aunt Mae says his color's bad...says there'll be one less mouth soon."

Bernadette bit her lip and turned half away. "I can't pay." Her words were almost inaudible.

"The baby's sick? Bernadette, I can--"

She shook her head. "No, Thierry, I can't let you do that."

Claude hadn't heard her approach, but Adele was standing at his elbow. She held out a bottle. "You'll be wanting this."

Bernadette's hands were clenched in fists at her side. She was still turned away from them. "I can't pay."

Claude stared at the woman. What was she doing? "Mistress Bernadette, if your son's sick--"

"I can't pay."

"Here." The little girl held out her doll. "Mama says we don't take...anything we can't pay for."

"Sophie." Bernadette held one hand out toward her daughter.

"It's all right. You can have the medicine." Part of Claude wanted to confess the stuff was worthless, just to make them go away. The combination of need and rigid honesty was making him edgy.

The little girl shook her head, still holding out the doll.

"But I don't need your--"

"Claude, take the doll."

Claude looked at Adele. She looked serious.

"They won't take the medicine otherwise." When he didn't move, she turned to the girl and knelt down. "I've been looking for a good doll. What's her name?"

"Elise."

Adele shook the doll's hand. "Nice to meet you, Elise." She looked back at the girl. "Do you think we can trade?"

The girl nodded. She hugged Elise fiercely, rubbing her face against the doll's. It was hard to say who ended up the dirtier for it. Claude was pretty sure the doll was wetter than it had been.

Then the exchange was made and Adele stood up. "Mistress Bernadette, rub some of that on your son's chest when you get home, do it again morning and night. When he's breathing easier, give him small sips instead for a week."

Bernadette nodded, her eyes wet. "Thank you."

The three of them watched mother and daughter out of sight. Thierry cleared his throat. "Well, I should see how that axle's coming." He wandered away without waiting for a response.

Claude shook his head. "There's a story there."

"There are stories everywhere, if you stop to hear them." Adele was still looking after Bernadette and her daughter. She looked silly, hugging the ragged doll.

"What's yours?"

Adele tilted her head and looked at him through narrowed eyes. "What do you mean?"

Claude decided there were too many ears too close by. He jerked his head to indicate that she should follow him to the other side of the wagon. Once there, he put his head close to hers. "Do you think that was wise?"

"What?"

"Taking the doll. Don't you think they'll have enough to hate us for when the baby dies?"

"But they wouldn't have taken the medicine if I didn't take the doll." She looked confused.

"It's not medicine." Claude spit the words out. "It won't help them."

Adele looked at him for a long moment, opened her mouth and closed it again. Then she shrugged. "It won't hurt."

"Adele!" Claude was shocked at her callousness. She was so good it was easy to forget she was a fraud.

She snorted. "Don't try to convince me that you're growing a conscience. You were doing this long before I came around." She stalked away.

Claude considered going after her, but she was right. What call did he have to talk to her like that? He turned opposite the direction she'd gone and started to walk. He didn't really want to be alone with his thoughts, but he didn't want to share them with anyone else either.

***

That night they held a dance in the square. Visitors seemed rare here, for all they were near a good-sized town. Or maybe it was just that they wanted to do something nice for the people who had helped them. Claude gritted his teeth at the thought. The morning was still bothering him.

Thierry was there. Claude talked to him for a while between dances. He saw him dancing with Adele once, a clumsy proceeding with his arm in a sling. Thierry kept watching over Adele's shoulder as they moved. Bernadette wasn't there.

All the young men and boys wanted to dance with Adele. She laughed and tried to refuse, but they wouldn't let her. She seemed to be avoiding Claude.

When he danced, Claude confined himself to old women and girls under ten. No sense in making more trouble here than they were already in. Mostly he sat to one side and smiled. It was harder than usual. He was worried about how much time they had. The axle was coming along well, but any delay could still mean disaster.

It was odd. The longer Claude thought about it, the less disaster meant arrest or a public thrashing. Truth be told, he'd be sorry to disappoint these people. He didn't want to see their faces when they discovered he was a fake.

Maybe he shouldn't find it strange. After all, he'd gotten into this business because he wasn't any good at anything but talking to people. He enjoyed his job, meeting people and being friendly. He enjoyed telling stories and watching kids' eyes get big when he talked to them. He enjoyed having people look up to him, even if he wasn't who they thought he was.

This was the first time he'd really had to face the fact that there was another part of his job. He knew he was a fraud, but he didn't spend much time thinking about what that meant to anyone else. He'd never stuck around long enough to have to connect what he did with people being hurt. But now he knew these people, and he'd likely to have to watch what happened when they found out about him.

Claude wasn't wearing his habitual smile when Thierry thumped him on the back and sat down next to him. "Not much of a dancer either, eh, magicker?"

Claude waved a hand vaguely. "It's not that."

"Oh, I understand." Thierry smiled conspiratorially. "These small town entertainments, well, it's nice to be neighborly, but you must be used to something more grand."

"No, it's not...." Claude didn't want Thierry to keep guessing about what was bothering him. He changed the subject to the first thing he could think of. "How's Mistress Bernadette's baby?"

He wanted to take back the words the moment they left his mouth. The last thing he needed to do was to draw attention to his failings.

To his surprise, Thierry smiled. If he blushed too, well, Claude was getting used to that. "He's doing real well. Sophie--that's the little girl--she said he's almost stopped coughing. Even Aunt Mae, old pessimist that she is, thinks he'll make it. I can't thank you enough."

"Don't think anything of it." Claude was trying to absorb the good news. He'd been expecting tragedy. He almost missed Thierry's next remark. "What did you say?"

"I said it was right nice of Miss Adele to clean up the doll and 'sell' it to me. Sophie loves that thing, and I'll find some way to get it back to her without bruising anyone's pride."

Claude murmured something noncommittal, but he was too perplexed to make conversation. Was Adele having an attack of conscience? It didn't seem possible after her behavior that morning. Maybe she was trying to ingratiate herself with the villagers, plotting to shift the blame onto him. Or maybe....

Claude hardly noticed when Thierry left him to his own thoughts.

***

If Claude was confused the night of the dance, he was flummoxed by the afternoon they left.

The blow he'd been waiting for had never come. On the contrary, people had been coming up to him for the last day and a half to thank him for his help. A few more folks came to buy medicine. When the time finally came for them to leave, most of the village crowded around him and Adele, shaking hands and pounding backs. There were tears on some faces.

This time, they left in full daylight, and Adele sat beside him on the seat. It took all he had not to ask her immediately what was happening. Then, finally, they were out of earshot of the villagers. He tried to sound calm. "This is hardly the sendoff I was expecting."

Adele hung off the edge of her seat, turned around to keep waving at the villagers. She chuckled. "Thought it would be something less ceremonious?"

"Less comfortable at least." Claude realized Adele couldn't avoid him anymore. "So what happened back there?"

Adele didn't answer, just kept waving until they were around the first bend in the road. Then she turned around and settled in with a sigh.

"I asked you what happened back there."

Adele tried to look blank. "What do you mean?"

"We were there plenty long enough for someone to realize that what we were selling wasn't medicine. But everyone seems to think it worked." He frowned. "We're heroes. That was a grand goodbye. I haven't paid for anything for two days, but we've got enough extra food in the wagon to last us more than a week. What happened?"

"They liked us?" Adele sounded hopeful.

"Adele, stop it!"

"I, uh, I need to get something from the wagon." She reached for the door.

Claude leaned back against it. "You weren't worried, so you know something about what was going on in the village. If you go into the wagon without telling me what that is, it'll be to get your stuff. Then I'll stop and let you off."

Adele's mouth squirmed as though it were trying to flee her face. She turned forward.

"Adele?"

She held up her hand. "Please. A minute. I'm not used to talking about this."

He waited for almost a mile. Finally, she sighed. "It was magic."

"Magic?" Claude was stunned.

She nodded. "I used magic to turn the potion you mix up into medicine. Everybody thought the cures worked because they did."

"But I...but you...." Claude told himself to shut up. He took a deep breath. "How long?"

"Have I been doing this? Since the start."

"Why?"

She frowned at him. "Why what? Help people?"

"No." He thought about what he wanted most to know. "Why is a magicker like you staying with a fraud like me? Don't you have a council somewhere you should be sitting on?" He had a sudden suspicion. "What do the magickers want with me?"

"Nothing as far as I know." Adele grinned. "Why? What have you done to them?"

"Nothing as far as I know." Claude hoped it was true. "Then why stay?"

Adele turned away. "Because the magickers don't want anything to do with me either."

Claude had traveled with Adele for three years. He couldn't imagine her committing any crime bad enough that the council of magickers wouldn't want her. Not with their reputation. "Why not?"

"I'm not very good." There were tears in her voice.

Claude couldn’t believe what he was hearing. "For goodness sake, you just cured a whole village of what ailed them. How good do you have to be?"

Adele wiped her eyes before turning around. "I didn't do all of it. You helped."

"Me?" Claude stared at her. Then he closed his mouth and looked at his hands, holding the reins. They looked the same as they always had. He couldn't see any magic. "What did I do?"

Adele smiled the tiniest of smiles. "Magic requires two things. I have the skills. I know what needs to be done."

"Okay, I'll agree with that. What's the other part?"

"Belief." Adele sighed and looked like she was going to cry again. "That's the part I don't have."

"What do you mean?"

Adele looked at him. "People see you and hear you, and they believe in you. They want to. I...well, I'm not exactly inspiring." She gestured at herself. "I'm not much to look at. I can't carry on an interesting conversation. People just don't look at me and believe I can help them."

"But..." Claude stopped. He realized he was on the brink of saying something that could lose him the best partner he'd had. He wanted to think about what he was doing first.

Then he looked at Adele, twisting her skirt in her hands. She'd spent the last three years curing people. She'd stayed with a fraud so she could keep curing them. What had he done in that time?

There wasn't anything to think about. "People believe in you."

Adele stared at her hands. "You don't have to be nice. I'm used to it." Her expression said she lied.

He whooped with laughter. "Since when do you think I'm nice?"

She looked up with wide eyes. "You're serious."

"I'm serious." He sighed. "I've been admiring your tricks, your way with people, for years. You have a skill I've never had."

She frowned her question.

"Sincerity." He shook his head. "You look at people, listen to them, and they can tell you care. They know--and I should have known, if I was paying any attention--that you're there to help them. When you tell them what they need to take to get cured and how they need to take it, they believe in you. They believe in it."

Adele looked stunned. Claude gave her some time to think.

He thought about the last three years. Nothing he'd done in that time had been what he thought it was. There were places he could go back to, people he could talk to again. They wouldn't be looking to arrest him. They'd think he'd helped.

For that matter, he had helped them--with Adele's assistance. From what she'd said, he'd supplied half of what they'd needed to make them better. Even if he hadn't meant to at the time, it was nice to know the one thing he was good at had turned out to be good for something after all.

The sun had almost reached the horizon when Adele stirred next to him and spoke.

"There's one more thing I should tell you."

Claude braced himself. "What?"

He hoped Adele would stay. If she decided she didn't need him anymore--and he wouldn't blame her--he'd have to go back to being a fraud. Now that there was another option, he desperately wanted to be able to grab it.

"I wasn't completely honest with you." She rubbed her eyes and looked uncomfortable. "I was afraid that if I told you everything, you wouldn't need me anymore."

Claude didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

"The magickers thought I was a novelty. It's pretty rare for someone to have only half the talents needed to create magic. That's how I got so much training before they made me leave. They were sure I'd develop the rest."

When it sunk in, Claude stopped the horses and turned to face Adele. "You mean..." He couldn't say it.

She nodded, a little bit of humor peeking out from behind her nervousness. "If you can raise that much belief, you can probably learn to shape it."

"I, uh...oh." He blinked.

Adele grinned, definitely not the timid person he'd met three years before. "I could try to teach you, if you like."

Claude tried to think about it, but he couldn't give the idea the attention it deserved. On top of everything else, it was just too much. "Could you do me a favor?"

Adele scrunched her eyebrows together. "What?"

"I'm having enough trouble getting used to being legitimate." He shook the reins to start the horses going again. "Ask me again in about a month."

She looked at the wagon and horses then, finally, at him. "I will."

He believed her.

Continue reading...

Hope Visits Pandora

It's Greg Laden's birthday. Last year, I gave him a story. He seemed to like it, so I thought I'd give him another this year. Happy birthday, Greg.

Hope Visits Pandora

Pandora heard the smallest of noises and lifted her head off the table. "Oh, you." She didn't bother to brush the tears off her cheeks, but she did scrub surreptitiously at her running nose. She glared through wet eyelashes. "What do you want?"

Apparently oblivious to Pandora's disgust, Hope smiled. "I didn't want you to be alone."

"Alone!" Pandora snorted, then wiped her nose again. "I'm always alone."

"I know." Hope nodded. "That could change, though. Anytime, really. A friend, a lover, Epimetheus…"

"Stop it!" Pandora lifted her chin and stared steadily at Hope. "Epimetheus went to look for his brother, with more enthusiasm than preparation, as usual. Zeus won't let Prometheus be found, and he certainly won't let him go. Epimetheus won't be coming back." Her words sounded rehearsed.

"But he could."

"Stop." Pandora put out a hand to ward off Hope's words. "Oh, please, just stop. I can't think that right now."

Hope tilted her head. "Or you could go look for him."

Pandora laughed, a harsh sound that became harsher as she choked. "It's Epimetheus. He could have gone anywhere. If he's even still alive."

"I'm sure he is."

"Sure!" Pandora snorted. "Of course you're sure. You're always sure! Why can't you just let me let go? I can't wait forever. I can't. I just…can't." She put her head back down and sobbed.

Hope seated her tiny self on the table. She reached out and began to awkwardly pat Pandora's shoulder. Pat, pat. Pat, pat. On and on she went until Pandora shrugged her away. "Enough."

Hope rested her hands in her lap and cocked her head again. "How goes fighting evil?"

This time, Pandora's laugh was quieter. "Oh, I'm still fighting, if that's what you mean." She looked up. "I have no idea why, but I'm still fighting."

"Surely you make a difference?"

"Do I? I don't know how I'd even know anymore." Pandora nodded toward a box--the box--sitting in the corner of the room. "It's as empty as it was the day I let you go. All the evils are still free."

Hope shrugged. "It hasn't happened yet. That doesn't mean it can't be done. Maybe if you try harder?"

"Harder? How can I try harder?" Pandora looked incredulous, tears flowing freely again. "I'm so tired I can't see straight. Every part of me hurts. I fell asleep sitting right here at the table last night. I was too tired to go to bed. There is no 'harder.' I'm not sure there's even a 'more.' I've been fighting too long to have anything left."

Hope nodded. "So you need a rest. Then you can try again."

"Again and again and again! Always again! More and more and more you want from me! Why can't you just let me be?!"

"Because if I leave you alone, nothing will happen."

Pandora sniffed. "Nothing is happening now."

Hope leaned forward until she was nearly nose to nose with Pandora. Her eyes burned with the implacable fire that Pandora somehow managed to forget between her visits. Her voice was calm and quiet and as undeniable as the light in her eyes. "But it might."

After a long minute, Pandora managed to look away. Her eyes landed on the box. "I thought you were going to save us, but you're the worst of the lot, aren't you."

"Yes." Hope's voice was still calm.

"I don't know why I let you out." Pandora shook her head. "Why didn't I learn after the other evils escaped?"

"Because you needed me."

Pandora looked back into those flaming eyes. She realized her own were clear. She'd stopped crying without noticing. She took a deep breath and nodded. "Tomorrow, then."

Hope smiled. "Tomorrow."

Bought

Tired of Valentine's Day advertising? Or maybe sick of it, with it. I didn't realize how sick of it I'd been until I found a little something I wrote a few years back.

What will I be doing on Valentine's Day? Celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of my first, very noncommercial date with my now-husband in a very noncommercial way. I hope you enjoy yours.

I Bought My Love...

A fine meal of fine meats and fruits and spices picked with care under the cruel, hot sun. She smiled at me.

Scentless flowers raised in otherwise barren ground. She kissed me.

A fur coat pieced together from small mean creatures kept in wire cages. She slept with me.

A diamond ring, clear as refugees' tears and hard as hearts. She married me.

A house furnished with rare woods, tiles glazed with poisonous paints. She sighed at me.

Rugs knotted over many years by tiny hands, paintings sold by nameless men in windowless rooms. She frowned at me.

A white tiger cub, servants with no legal existence. She laughed at me.

She told me she was leaving. She was bored, and I was cruel.

A square of dirt for eternity, marble walls behind lock and key.

For I bought my love, and she is mine.

Never Asked

Then it was time for me to repeat everything I’d told the officers. Having them hanging on my words had been heady, but facing a courtroom full of rapt listeners was almost too much. I’d never had so many people look at me at once. I wanted to hide. Only the knowledge the Carla had to listen to me for a change kept me talking.

A double dose of fiction this week. Get part two at Quiche Moraine.

Fighting the Frost

For those who found my last story a bit difficult to take, well, this one is at least somewhat less hard on the reader. Or at least it's intended to be.

Fighting the Frost

Raelorn stood on the edge of the city and shivered. He didn't know which city it was, nor did he care. They were all the same. Cold, indifferent steel and concrete, air thick with dirt and noise.

He was ready to stop. He'd been searching too long, and he was weary. Too, cities were not known for being gentle to his kind.

He closed his eyes. There. His caged cousins' spirits burned like beacons directly ahead of him. However inimical the city, however weak he felt, that was where his path led.

Raelorn sighed and stepped across the line, invisible to normal sight, that divided not-city from the city.

#

Jen waited with one eye just past the edge of the wall. She clutched a string in her hand and held her breath, hoping, needing.

The small creature moved slowly toward the bait. It stopped frequently, sniffing the air and looking around. Jen was lucky it hadn't seen her, even though she'd learned to hold very still.

Finally, the creature made a dash for the cake. As it tore hunks off in its hands and stuffed them into its mouth, Jen pulled hard on the string. A cheap plastic tumbler came flying across the kitchen at her, but she ignored it. She ran past it to the counter and threw all her weight onto the large plastic mixing bowl the tumbler had propped up seconds before.

She was almost too late. The bowl skidded to one side and she had to lunge for it. Pinned under her, it continued to jerk and shake. A whistling noise, high enough to hurt her ears, squealed angrily from under the bowl, but she ignored the pain.

After about twenty tense minutes, the whistling and shaking stopped. The bowl sat for a moment, then tried a march toward the edge of the counter. Jen braced her feet against the floor and pushed back. The pushing stopped, but Jen hung on. Two minutes later, the bowl again attempted escape, with similar results.

Jen waited until everything had been still for ten minutes before carefully and quietly letting go. She immediately put a cutting board on top of the bowl, then the several cans of soup waiting on the counter.

Then she turned to the kitchen table, where the cage that would hold her new captive lay in pieces. She poked cheap takeout chopsticks through holes she'd sliced in coffee can lids, one lid for the bottom of the cage and one for the top. Then she threaded string through the chopsticks to hold them all together. It felt flimsy, but it should do.

It wasn't difficult work, but Jen was tired when she finished. She looked up at the clock on the stove. Four a.m. No wonder she was beat; she'd been up since two and she wasn't a night person.

Everything had been quiet for almost half an hour. Jen returned to the counter and pulled the cutting board away. She bent down until her eyes were level with the counter and slowly lifted the near edge of the bowl.

It was safe. Jen pulled the bowl away. The cake was gone, except for some crumbs. In its place lay a tiny figure, to all appearances asleep. Jen would have said it looked human, except for the size and the wings. It was naked and obviously female, and its belly bulged with its recent meal.

Jen marveled that this creature, taking up maybe a third of the plate the cake had sat on, had devoured a piece of cake that had filled the whole thing. But the was hardly the only wondrous thing about it. The most wondrous thing was that it was now hers. Jen picked it up gently, set it in her makeshift cage, and pushed the lid back down over the chopsticks. She put the cage with the others on the shelves on the wall between the kitchen and the rest of her studio apartment. This one made eight.

She set up the tumbler and bowl with a new piece of cake and headed for bed. There'd be time later for the contemplation of wonders.

Jen woke up about noon. It was Saturday, for which she was grateful. She'd spent enough nights recently fairy hunting to be really sleep deprived. No matter how little attention anyone paid to her at work, they'd have to notice eventually. Besides, Saturday meant she could spend time with her pets.

A chorus of headache-inducing whistles greeted her the moment she sat up in bed. The shelves buzzed with the noise, and she was afraid it would bother her neighbors.

"Shh. Hush," she pleaded. "Wait just a minute and I'll get your food. Shh."

Jen ran for the kitchen and grabbed the pan that held the rest of the cake she'd used for bait last night. This had been the last box. She'd have to get more today. She didn't bother to cut it, just ran back with the whole pan. The new slice she'd set out had nibble marks in it, so she left it.

She broke off pieces and started stuffing them through the holes in the cages. It was easier with the new ones, where she could slide chunks through the large holes between chopsticks. The colander and perforated steel trashcan were harder. She had to rub the cake into the holes. The toughest was the plastic bin that used to hold her sugar before she'd poked holes in it to turn it into a fairy cage.

As they ate, she wondered again whether she should call them fairies. She was only guessing. She'd have sworn up until a couple months ago that there were no such things. If she hadn't been desperate, she might not have believed it then.

The first day she saw one was just like any other weekday, except that it was her twenty-sixth birthday. She hadn't gotten any calls from well-wishers, but she hadn't really expected any. Her mom wasn't good at that sort of thing--always too distracted by her latest passionate interest to deal with dates, she might remember to apologize later. Dad had his own problems. Her sister had always been too much older to really get close to, and the space between them had widened after Chris had married and had kids.

As for friends, well, Jen had to admit she didn't make friends easily. She never had. Some days the knowledge tasted bitter, but she wasn't going to let it get to her today. She'd do something special for herself, instead.

She took the earlier bus to work and tried to make eye contact and smile at her coworkers as they gathered in the break room, waiting to start the shift. It was hard, but she kept it up.

She got only a couple of weak smiles from Tom and Elena for her efforts, but it was early, and that was still more interaction than she usually had with them. It wasn't that she didn't want to get along. But being part of the crowd seemed to mean being loud and very casual. Jen just didn't know how.

Still, her modest success felt like a birthday present. She resolved to try again at lunch. When the whistle blew and the lines shut down, she grabbed her lunch bag and headed for the break room. In good weather, she usually took her lunch outside, so she wouldn't have to sit alone in the middle of a roomful of noisy camaraderie. Not today.

She marched, without pausing to let herself think about it, up to the table where Elena was sitting with a bunch of female friends. There was one empty chair, and Jen put her hand on the back of it. "Excuse m--"

"Did you guys see what she said to him last night?"

"I know. And he believed her!"

"I'm so ready to give up on him. Anyone in his right mind would know that when she scrunches up her eyes like that and tries to look adorable, she's lying through her teeth."

"I don't know..."

Jen could tell they were talking about a TV show, but she didn't have any idea which one. She waited with her hand on the chair for a pause so she could ask to join them. The conversation rattled on. When it switched to another show a minute or two later, she walked out and ate her lunch in her normal spot on the dock steps. The book she'd brought was almost enough distraction.

When lunch was over, it was a different matter. Counting the screws, washers, and other assorted hardware in each bag coming down the line didn't use enough of her brain.

Normally she used the time to daydream. Today, she wondered, once again, why everyone but her seemed to understand how to deal with other people. Other people knew what to say to start and end conversations. They knew how to chat to pass the time. She couldn't remember a time when those things hadn't been awkward and painful for her.

Was it something about her that made these things so hard? Sometimes it felt like she'd missed a class in school that everyone else had taken. Or that everyone else had been handed a key to life, while she was still searching for the gate in the fence. Silly, she knew, but more pleasant than thinking it was something wrong with her that kept her sitting in life's shadows.

Her memory was all too ready to argue that it was her. There were all the jokes she hadn't gotten, the ones where she'd laughed in the wrong places. There were the conversations that she'd killed as soon as she'd opened her mouth. There were all the times she'd said something she'd heard someone else say the day before, only to have everyone stop and stare at her as though she were speaking another language.

The scenes were still fresh and painful, although some of them were years old. She welcomed the break whistle. Then came Terrie, the plant manager's assistant, over the PA. "Will all employees please join us in the break room for cake and ice cream."

That meant going back outside to read was out of the question. They were celebrating the June birthdays. She had to be there when they announced hers.

She stood in the back of the room, so she wouldn't have to fumble with a chair when it was her turn. She hadn't been enthused enough to hurry, and she got there just in time to hear Terrie, a petite, slightly overweight brunette whose self-important attitude did nothing to endear her to the production staff, start reading off the birthdays.

"June second--Jim Curran. Come on, Jim, stand up."

Jim grumbled but stood up.

"June ninth--Blanca Padilla." Terrie pronounced it blank-uh pad-ill-uh, and Jen winced. "There you are Blanca. June eighteenth--Alfonse Williams."

She'd skipped today, the twelfth. Jen hoped they weren't saving her to make a big deal out of the fact that her birthday was today. She hated having everyone looking at her. She didn't remember them doing it to anyone else, but she usually skipped these things.

When Terrie read the last two names and started leading the singing, Jen changed her mind. People staring at her would have been infinitely better than knowing she'd been forgotten, left off the list. She'd been on it for the last four years, so they knew when her birthday was.

No, they'd just forgotten she existed, and no one in the room, many of them people she'd worked with for years, knew her well enough to remind them. Jen felt a cold knot crystallizing like ice under her diaphragm, making it hard for her to breathe.

Suddenly, she'd had enough. She didn't want to spend any more time with these people, and she certainly didn't want to eat cake and celebrate with them. Clutching the icy mass in her belly, she walked over to Sanchez, her shift supervisor.

"Mr. Sanchez, I'm not feeling well. I'd like to go home." She quailed under the weight of his attention. "I think, maybe, something...my lunch."

"You don't look so good, Jenny. Go ahead and take off. Do you need help getting home?"

Jen exhaled hard, feeling like she'd been hit. She shook her head and fled into the women's room. It was, Jen was thankful, empty. She stepped into one of the stalls, slammed the door shut, and leaned against it, holding her stomach and breathing carefully through her mouth.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

Jenny. He'd called her Jenny. He'd been her supervisor for two years. Two years of some of the best quality numbers in the company, and it wasn't even worth it to him to get her name right. No more than it was worthwhile to anyone else to know when her birthday was. And she'd tried to do something nice for herself by making friends out there.

Jen laughed bitterly, stopping when it threatened to turn into sobs. She pressed her back hard against the stall door, covering that little aching vulnerable spot between her shoulder blades, the one that felt like a bull's eye painted on her back.

She should know better. She had no excuse. If experience had taught her nothing else, it should have at least taught her not to try. If constant failure hadn't driven the lesson home, the talk she'd had with her mother after she turned eighteen, "old enough to know," should have.

Mom had meant to be kind, maybe, in her absentminded way, to explain why Jen's father had never taken the interest in her he obviously had in Chris. But for Jen, learning that she'd been conceived in an attempt to save a marriage--ended by court papers signed three weeks before she was born--had just confirmed something she'd always suspected.

"Useless." As the hissed word bounced back to her off the tiled walls, cold and relentless, Jen felt something crack. Fat, unstoppable tears rolled off her cheeks onto the floor.

The litany that had formed the background of her life poured through her head. She'd outlived her purpose before birth. She wasn't good at anything. She couldn't get close to people, couldn't talk to them, couldn't even act normal. She was a lousy human being. Useless.

She covered her ears and rocked, willing it to stop, but on it went. The ice in her stomach snaked slivers of frost into the rest of her with every repetition. It came with pain but left a welcome numbness, with only a tiny ache of cold, behind it.

Jen knew she ought to fight the frost. Something had warned her, a long time ago, that letting it take all of her could mean her death. Worse, it could mean living as the kind of monster who didn't care about anything or anyone. But the only alternative to ice right now was pain, and Jen thought that might just kill her on its own.

The door to the bathroom opened, and Jen put a hand over her mouth. She tried to take deep, quiet breaths through her fingers, hoping she wouldn't start hiccupping. She really didn't want anyone to find her crying in the bathroom.

That fear and the breathing took up so much of her concentration, it took her a minute to notice the conversation going on in the stalls around her.

"So now I have to go work Q.A." She recognized Elena's voice. "Is there anything more boring?"

"So sorry," replied a voice Jen couldn't place, "but at least it's not me."

"Thanks." Elena was sarcastic. "Oh, well. That's Jen for you: too stuck up to talk to us, and then she leaves us with all the work."

Jen coughed, choking on the unfairness of the accusation. She was maxed out for accruing both sick time and vacation. It wasn't like she had somewhere else more appealing to spend her time.

At the sound, conversation stopped. Flushes were quickly followed by perfunctory hand washing. The last noise Jen heard from them was giggling as the bathroom door closed.

Hearing that hurt, but it helped too. Anger burned away a little of the frost and let her stand up straight again. That was what she'd let spoil her birthday? No more. She'd...well, she wasn't sure what she'd do, but it didn't involve staying here.

Jen grabbed some tissue and blew her nose savagely before opening the door behind her. She splashed some cold water on her face and patted it dry with a paper towel without looking in the mirror. She settled her face into a scowl that she hoped dared the world to talk to her.

She marched out of the bathroom and down the short hall to the door. No one was there to see her. She was half-sorry, half-relieved. Her anger still felt all too fragile.

It was easier by the time the bus stopped for her. Jen sat on the sunny side of the bus, closing her eyes and trying to absorb a little of the sun's warmth. Once the bus reached her corner, she'd settled on a plan. If no one was going to help her celebrate her own birthday, she'd just have to do it alone.

She marched into Harold's, the convenience store on her corner, and picked up a box of yellow cake mix and a tub of chocolate frosting. She grabbed eggs, just to be sure she had some, and headed for the counter.

Abdullah, his white hair in its usual untidy mop, gave her his standard wink and toothy grin. "Looks like someone's having a party."

Jen gave him what she hoped was a mysterious smile and paid for her purchases. She wasn't quite ready to try to talk.

In fact, mixing the cake in her beige, boring apartment took most of her remaining energy. As it baked, Jen reconsidered her decision not to have a television. All the songs on the radio were about broken hearts or parties, like the one she should be having--if she had anyone to invite. She was too tired to read even the books she reread when she wasn't up to tackling something new. She just sat on her couch and waited for the oven timer, trying unsuccessfully not to think.

It was almost too much work to get up when the timer went off, but it would be more to deal with beeping and smoke. Putting the cake on the counter, she wondered why she'd bothered. She didn't want it any more.

Since it was made, one slice, plain because frosting was too much trouble, went on a plate that she carried into the living room. She got a bite into her mouth before the tears overwhelmed her again.

Lying on the couch, she couldn't stop crying. Was it wrong, she wondered, to need more from life than a slice of solitary birthday cake? Anything more was always out of her reach, and it hurt so much to keep trying. Wouldn't she be better off to reach out for the frost and let it take her? Still, she couldn't quite. She cried over her cowardice too.

She knew that she was loud enough to be heard in the hall. She tried to keep quiet, but then another surge of pain would come. On it went, and on, until she couldn't think clearly enough to remember what she was crying about. Still she couldn't stop.

When Jen woke, her apartment was dark except for the streetlights shining in the window. Her neck was sore from sleeping with the couch still folded up. Her head throbbed, her throat was raw, and her mouth tasted foul.

She groped her way into the bathroom for some aspirin, then into the kitchen for water. She tried to accomplish the whole trip without waking all the way up. That possibility evaporated when she turned back from the sink.

There was something on the cake, something big enough to see in bad light. Jen wanted to run away, but she couldn't leave whatever it was with her in the dark. She edged around it to flip on the kitchen light--and saw her first fairy.

Not that she knew right away. It took minutes for her eyes to convince her brain that the head of dark gray hair resting in a hollow in the cake wasn't a mouse. But mice didn't have wings. Whatever was in her cake definitely did, translucent gray-green sheeny wings cupped around its sleeping body. Their edges fluttered as the fairy breathed in and out in its sleep.

She prodded the fairy gently, testing the reality of it. It chirruped, poked an arm out from under one wing to wave vaguely in the direction of her finger, and turned over on its back, all without opening its eyes. Opening his eyes, she corrected herself.

He wasn't quite as tall as her hand was long, and aside from the wings, he looked like a tiny man who worked out a lot. Well, wings and one other thing. Jen didn't have any practical experience, but she had taken health class, and she'd seen enough guys in tight jeans to be pretty sure those were not human proportions.

She realized she was staring and blushed. Then she laughed at herself for blushing over a sleeping fairy, or whatever it was. That brought home the fact that she was standing over a fairy in her kitchen at--what time was it? One a.m. Oof.

Jen decided she was probably dreaming, or sleepwalking, or whatever it would take to make the whole thing make sense. It was time to go back to bed.

First, just in case it was all real, Jen pulled everything off her coffee table. She grabbed the colander from the cabinet. She cut into the cake around the fairy and gently scooped fairy and cake together onto a paper towel. She set that on the table and put the colander over the top, with a stack of books to weight it down.

Then it was time to try to sleep. Her brain buzzed with questions, making sleep difficult, but they were far more pleasant thoughts than she'd had earlier.

She must have dozed off eventually, because her alarm woke her up at its usual time. Jen shut it off and glanced at the coffee table. The colander, at least, was still there. Jen didn't touch it. She decided she could wait to prove to herself that she'd been sleepwalking. Before having to face another day of reality, she wanted to relive the magic of discovering a fairy in her kitchen.

The colander trilled and Jen jumped. She looked over to see tiny fingers gripping the colander through the holes. Jen sat up and leaned over the coffee table. Through one of the holes, she could just barely make out an eye staring back at her.

Slowly, trying not to startle him, she reached out one pinky toward the colander. Instantly, he disappeared. Still, she rested her pinky nail just below the hole where his fingers had been. She waited, breathing shallowly.

Eventually, his fingers crept back out the hole. She held her breath. Gently, weightlessly, they crept over the surface of her nail. They came to rest still touching her. He blurbled a question that she didn't understand.

She called in sick to work, not caring for once that someone would have to cover for her. She even hoped it was Elena.

It was Friday, which gave her three days. Except to get more cake mix, Jen didn't leave the apartment all weekend. That wasn't so unusual, but it was the first weekend she could remember that she hadn't been lonely even once.

The fairy didn't do anything special, just chirped occasionally and ate all the cake she could stuff through the holes of the colander. But her apartment wasn't empty.

Monday morning, she saw signs that another fairy had been in her cake pan. She set up her first fairy trap. It hadn't worked, but the second one had. Since then, the fairies had continued to show up on a semi-regular basis. She didn't know why they found her box cake so appealing, but she wasn't about to argue.

Jen was glad she didn't have to try to tell anyone about them. Completely aside from the issue of being believed, there was the question of how to refer to them. She'd decided against giving them names, since presumably they already had their own. They might even have told her what they were, for all she could understand them.

Finding space for them was a more pressing issue. Cages were cobbled together or pressed into service from anything she had lying around that might hold them without suffocating them. She blessed whomever had decided that these apartments could skimp on space but needed almost a full wall of deep built-in bookshelves.

Her books came down to make room and were stacked against the wall underneath the shelves, covered with cake crumbs. They were mostly children's books and fluffy romances. Every one had happy endings and soft covers, making it a little safer to throw them on those occasions when she could no longer stand things working out for everyone but her.

She hadn't picked one up since the first fairy had arrived. They weren't friendly, exactly, but they offered more companionship than books did. They looked at her through the cages, watched her. Occasionally they even trilled at her. She talked back to them, not caring whether they could understand. It was just nice to have someone to tell things to.

Although she wasn't sure what exactly happened to the food she gave them, since she never had to clean the cages, they appeared to need it. She couldn't remember ever being needed.

It was slowly freeing her from the tyranny of other people's opinions. She was able to joke a little with Abdullah and say hi to the bus driver instead of just smiling. Small things, but every time, she felt the frost recede just a little.

Two weeks after her birthday, she'd run into Elena. If there had been a crowd, Jen would have kept quiet. But seeing Elena by herself, Jen hadn't been able to resist the impulse to get a little of her own back.

"Hey, Elena. I hear you had to work Q.A. while I was gone." Jen looked her in the eye. "It must have been terribly boring. So sorry. I just couldn't stop coughing."

Elena had flushed silently and dropped her eyes.

Jen still wanted to jump up and down like a kid remembering it now. She knew it was a small thing, petty even, but it had been so nice to see someone else be speechless for a change. Even a tiny flame could warm you if it was all you had.

The only flaw in her new happiness was the cages. She wished she dared trust that the fairies would stay if she let them out. Still, sitting in her living room on that Saturday morning, surrounded by cages and a burbling chorus, she was as happy as she could ever remember being.

When someone knocked at the door, it took Jen a moment to realize what the noise was. No one ever came to see her. She opened the door, thinking it was someone knocking at the wrong apartment.

When she opened the door, she was sure of it. The stranger in front of her was tall and pale, with black hair that absorbed light and eyes that suggested every color without settling on one. Handsome, even beautiful, felt like inadequate words to describe him. Finally, Jen settled on magnificent. He was definitely not someone who would come to see her.

"I have come for them." His voice matched the rest of him and carried a weight of authority that Jen envied.

He could only be looking for the fairies. Still, she tried to lie. "I--I don't know what you mean." If he'd peered past her into the apartment, looking for the cages, she might have been able to do it. Instead, he stared down at her silently, and she, utterly unnerved by that kind of attention, stepped out of the doorway.

As he walked past her, Jen had the vague impression of something following behind him. It might have been a pair of wings, but when she looked directly at his back, she couldn't see anything unusual.

"Are you a fairy, too?"

It was the only time in her life that Jen could remember speaking without thinking first, and she regretted it immediately. He turned to stare at her again.

"I'm s-sorry." Jen looked at the floor. "I--that's just what I've been calling them to myself."

He sighed, and Jen dared to look up again. "Don't worry, child. Fairy is not what I call myself, but I have been called so before. It will do."

"I could call you by your name?" Jen tried to meet the cool eyes that stared down at her. She couldn't. "Never mind." She didn't know what to say next, and the silence stretched uncomfortably until he broke it.

"It's time to let them go."

Jen panicked. Every little bright moment she could remember in her life had happened in the past two months. Life had stopped being endless work and had started giving her moments to look forward to. Now he was telling her to give that up.

She wanted to say, "No," and make him leave. She wanted to be strong enough to defy this stranger who was coming into her home and giving casual orders. Instead, she could barely hear her own voice, high and thin. "I...I can't."

"You can't?" He paused and considered her. "Oh, I see."

Jen knew that he did, that the truth was plainly there on her face, in her posture. She cringed to have to acknowledge that hers was such a small, easily read story. As the silence stretched, she felt the ache again in that small vulnerable spot between her shoulder blades. She waited for him to mock her.

Instead, his words were as gentle as they were inexorable. "Don't you think they have the same right to their lives that you have to yours?"

More. She knew their lives were worth far more than hers was even with them in it. Her life the way it had been before they arrived--well, if she hadn't known how little it was worth before, she certainly did now.

Knowing it, she couldn't go back. She needed them. She grasped desperately at an idea. "But they came to me."

"You did nothing to tempt them here?"

Jen thought about it and risked a look up. "Just baked a cake."

A sad smile on that majestic face softened his words. "And do you think cake alone would be enough to keep them here?"

Jen shook her head and looked back at the floor. The cages. She should have known he'd see the weakness in her argument as quickly as he saw the weakness in her. The tears fell for the first time since the fairies had started coming to her.

It hurt more than she thought it could to face the truth implied by the cages. It was such a fragile lie she'd built her happiness on. His words shattered it. They had no more chosen to be with her than anyone else in her life had. She'd have to give them up, set them free.

But she didn't know how. How could she go back to her old life, being certain that there was more, knowing that it had once been hers? She'd only been able to bear it because she'd never known anything else. The frost had almost won then. How quickly would it take her now?

She wished desperately that he would just take them all and disappear. She could admit to herself what she had done, but saying it out loud was beyond her. Putting a hand to a cage to free the first one would be impossible. Waiting for the courage to do either, courage she knew wouldn't come, was agony.

He interrupted her misery. "What if I stayed in their place?"

Jen gaped. "What?" She didn't believe what she heard, but her brain couldn't make the words mean anything else.

"If I promised to stay with you, would you be able to let them go?"

Jen couldn't hear anything but sincerity in his voice. Still, she looked hard at him, trying to detect mockery or deceit. He was...he was just too much to be willing to do that.

"You would stay?"

He nodded. "I would, if you would let the little ones go."

"Why?" The question slipped out, more forcefully than she usually spoke, before Jen could stop it. She blushed, but her attention was all for his answer.

He shrugged, implying that the question hadn't occurred to him. "It is necessary."

Necessary. Right. She took a deep breath. Well, she wouldn't have believed him if he'd said he'd stay because he liked her.

In fact, she still had trouble believing he'd be willing to stay at all. She wanted to ask again, to make him confirm it, but it felt a little too much like suggesting he was lying. Some instinct told her it wasn't a suggestion he'd take well.

So, he wasn't lying. But all her experience told her that people just didn't do things like this. Admittedly, he wasn't human, but no one had ever been this generous to her. As much as she hated herself for doubting a creature like him, her brain kept searching for the catch.

"You..." Jen took a deep breath and hoped he wasn't easily offended. "You won't hurt me, will you?"

He sighed, a big, gusty breath that ruffled her hair. Jen cringed for having had to ask.

"No. I will not hurt you."

That should have settled it, but Jen still couldn't reconcile his offer with the rest of her life. There had to be some hidden snag. She couldn't think of anything momentous that could prevent what was happening, so she groped after the mundane.

"Would I have to feed you? I can't afford that much cake."

He laughed, surprising her. "My cousins are greedy, are they? No, you didn't need to feed them, and you would not need to feed me."

His eyes twinkled. "You would also not need to cage me, clothe me, or find me a place to sleep. My needs are very few."

A place to sleep. Jen felt herself going pale. She hadn't thought about that. She hadn't thought beyond having someone to come home to, to talk to, someone who would listen to her. Really sharing her apartment hadn't been a consideration. Still, it would be worth changing in the bathroom for the rest of her life if that was what it got her.

That brought up one more important question. "How long would you stay?"

He stepped up to her and smiled brilliantly. "You ask excellent questions." He picked up her hands in his. "I will stay until you no longer need me."

Jen didn't know where to look or what to say, but there wasn't any question of not accepting his offer, not now. As much as her past told her to disbelieve in him, he was undeniably present and wonderfully real. She'd just have to adapt to the idea that he was willing to stay.

Jen realized the cages had been quiet throughout their conversation. It was odd. Letting the fairies go had been unthinkable just a few minutes ago, life without them impossible. But with one simple promise, she didn't need to hold onto them anymore. She could give them back their own lives, and that knowledge lifted a burden she didn't know she'd been carrying.

She started toward the shelves.

"Wait."

Jen turned back to the fairy slowly, feeling a heavy fear. The relief she'd felt evaporated. She waited for this one sliver of life to be snatched from her hands too.

The fairy smiled. "You haven't told me your name. If I'm to stay, I'll need something to call you."

Jen could breathe again. She thought about his question. Somehow she didn't want him to call her by the same name her parents had, the name the rest of the world had used indifferently. Something new and untainted would be so much better. She returned his smile. "Call me Jennifer."

Then she reached for the first cage.

#

Raelorn allowed himself to sag a little. That had taken almost more than he'd had left. It had been more difficult than he had expected and would be, it appeared, less productive than he had hoped. Still, he had accomplished what he needed to.

He looked to where Jennifer was dismantling her "fairy" cages, apologizing to each little one as she released it. She was a slight, pale thing who might have been pretty with a little animation. Instead, she huddled and cringed and apologized for existing. Her only distinguishing feature was the need that blazed though her like fire, big enough that she couldn't contain it and hide it away.

He marveled anew at what humans could do to their own. He didn't know the specifics of her story, but he'd heard enough of them to know the general outlines. There were only so many things that could be done to stunt a human life this badly.

Still, he admired her. She was more resilient than she knew. She had to be, to have contained her need this long without burning herself out. Even now, she was releasing the little ones cheerfully, apologizing for keeping them captive, when an hour ago they were what kept her life livable.

As they were released, his kin flew to him and chirped their welcome.

"Little cousins," Raelorn said in the liquid language native to them all, "you are looking fit and well fed."

An angry buzz of insults fluttered around his right ear.

Raelorn turned to face the little female who had arrived in Jennifer's apartment just before he did. The faint flush of pink that was just visible on his other cousins was missing on her. Her skin was a pale, pale cold blue, though not as blue as his.

He made her a bow of apology. "Ah, dear one. I apologize, but I couldn't wait. The frost would have taken me shortly."

She warbled at him some more, and he listened politely. She was tired and disappointed. He understood, having been in her position more times than he liked to think upon. Still, her situation was not as desperate as his had been, and there was nothing he could do to reverse what had been done. She had been released. She'd have to go.

Eventually her anger spent itself, and she followed the others, flitting through the solid outside wall to continue her travels. Raelorn wondered whether Jennifer noticed and if she understood what it implied about the cages. He wished the little one a quick end to her search.

He allowed himself a moment of sorrow that his kind had been reduced to this, to stealing scraps of human warmth from one another for survival. It hadn't always been so. They had once been gods and the emissaries of gods. But that had been in the infancy of humanity, when mankind had needed them.

They had never considered that they also needed humanity.

His people's beginnings were shrouded in legend, so it was a matter of great debate among them which had come first, his kind or humanity. Some thought that as mankind had slowly freed itself from instinct, learning to doubt everything, they had created a burning need for comfort in themselves. They thought his people had arisen to answer that need, learning to live off it in the process.

Others thought that his kind had shaped the development of humanity to provide more potent sources of the delicacy that slowly became their only food. Raelorn suspected that the truth was more complicated, that the development of his people and Jennifer's were intertwined and interdependent. He doubted that either could have reached maturity alone.

But the humans had moved on. Perhaps it was his people's fault. They were known to be capricious, to devise torments that kept humans in that constant state of uncertainty that breeds the most potent need.

Whatever the reason, humans had reached out for more certain answers to their needs. Slowly, they had built societies and civilizations, learning to depend on one another instead of their gods. They developed rules and customs that took the place of instinct and kept fear at bay. They had worked hard to discover certainties, constants and laws that made their lives more predictable and muted their strongest needs.

Raelorn's people started to go hungry. Their fires burned low, and lower, until many of them simply stopped.

There was still need left in the world, but not like it had been. All too often it was vague and fleeting. Humans who are regularly fed don't cease to feel hunger, but they forget the sharpness of near starvation. They forget to worry. Distractions, amusements, intoxicants--all of these dulled need, making it thin and unpalatable.

The small, half-articulated needs of children never faded, but they were just barely enough to feed one of the little ones. Times of great trouble created a feast of need, but it didn't last. It took something unusual to make a Jennifer, an adult who found no comfort in the world, who needed as much, as persistently, as she did.

Even Jennifer's need wouldn't last long, although it radiated now so strongly that he could feel its warmth against his skin. His willing presence would slowly heal the wounds that made her need so great. The protections with which she had ringed herself so well would see to it that he couldn't stretch that need by prolonging her pain.

Still, he was glad that she had been cautious. Watching her covertly look at him, trying to figure out what would come next, he had no heart for adding to her burdens. The promises she had extracted from him would ensure he could never be tempted. Hurting her would be a poor price to pay her for saving his life.

Raelorn walked over to Jennifer's couch and sat. He looked her squarely in the eye and patted the seat next to him.

"Jennifer, if I am to stay, we should know each other better. Will you tell me about yourself?"

He saw tears return to Jennifer's eyes, but this time, they looked like the right kind, the kind that could melt the frost in both of them.

Continue reading...

Homecoming

In case you were curious, science fiction and fantasy aren't the only kinds of fiction I write.

Homecoming

Mollie studied the table one more time, desperate that everything be perfect. She'd been waiting two years for Jeff to get out, and today was finally the day.

Her to do list was in the living room, but she knew it by heart. The table was set with her grandmother's bone china and silver. The new cut-crystal tumblers looked good, even if Jeff would be expecting wine glasses. The tulips in the matching vase were fresh from the yard. The breadbasket was filled with buns from the bakery in town. Candles sat on the table for the first time since Jeff had been arrested, ready for him to light when he came home.

Mollie walked into the kitchen. She wasn't sure it had been this clean when she and Jeff had bought the house almost twenty years before. The steaks, rubbed with oil and salt, were in the fridge next to a cucumber salad, which was waiting to be tossed. Sliced mushrooms were ready to be sauteed. Asparagus, picked from the garden this morning, sat in the steamer on the stove. The potatoes were pricked and in the oven.

Her strawberry-rhubarb pie had turned out well. It was cooling on the counter. Mollie turned the pie so the sugar on the crust caught the dull light from the window.

Mollie looked out at the grill, sitting on the deck. Its cover was already off, the fresh propane tank hooked up. She squinted at the clouds, dubious, but the weather looked like it would cooperate. The forecast said heavy rain before morning. She was hoping it would hold off a little longer.

She worried about the roses. If it rained hard tonight, it might be a couple of days before the ground was dry enough for planting. She turned reluctantly away from the window.

Upstairs, Mollie looked hard at the bedroom walls. She'd painted them a light yellow winter before last. They'd needed paint for years, and she'd decided not to wait anymore. She liked the color, but she wasn't sure about Jeff's reaction to the walls and matching bedclothes. At least everything was tidy.

She stopped in the hall outside Tony and CeCe's bedrooms. CeCe's was the cleaner of the two, but it still contrasted sharply with the rest of the house. Mollie had swept the dust and cobwebs from all the other unused corners of the house, but she hadn't had the energy to tackle these rooms. She shut the doors and went back downstairs. Her footsteps on the wooden stairs rang hollowly.

Mollie hoped today would fix that. She was so tired of living in an empty house.

Stepping into the living room to pick up her purse, she froze. How could she forget the most important thing? She moved the hinged silver picture frame, polished to a soft glow, from the mantle to the buffet in the dining room. Jeff's picture was in the center frame, and CeCe and Tony looked out at her from their seventh and ninth grade school pictures.

It was only right that the kids be there when their father came home, Mollie thought as she got into the car and pulled out of the garage. Without the pictures, it might never have happened.

She swatted at the thought, trying to bat it aside. She didn't want memory to intrude today. She already had too much to deal with. Still it came, hard and sharp, pushing aside all her plans. Her knuckles went white against the steering wheel as she unwillingly relived the shock she'd had when she'd heard about the accident.

Jeff had been at his monthly poker night. He'd promised to bring the kids home from the last dance of the school year, using the Suburban to play chauffeur to a pile of teenagers from across the county. She'd gone to bed early, reveling in the decadence of a full evening of freedom and the sweet scent of chokecherry blossoms drifting in on the breeze.

The doorbell had dragged her into consciousness--but not for long. She'd opened the door to find two nervous uniformed deputies. When they told her why they were there, she passed out.

"Mrs. Curran? Mrs. Curran, please talk to me. Are you okay?" The voice came from far away.

The floor felt hard and cold as consciousness crept back to her, but that wasn't why she shivered. Mollie resisted waking up.

"Mrs. Curran?"

The deputy sounded ridiculously young, almost as young as.... Mollie opened her eyes. "I'm--I'll be all right."

"Can we help you up?" Both deputies crowded over her, all anxious eyes.

Weren't sheriff's deputies supposed to be prepared for this? Mollie suppressed an urge to laugh at the pair of them. Laughing wouldn't be right if.... She gasped for air. "Please."

They helped her to the couch in the living room. "A glass of water?"

"No, thank you." Mollie's hands didn't feel quite steady. She didn't want to spill.

The deputies still looked ridiculously uncomfortable. She hoped they didn't have to do this often. They fluttered their hands from belt to chin to behind the back, to holster, briefly folded, scratching at the head, and on, never settling for more than a moment. With British accents, she thought, they'd make a great Laurel and Hardy.

More to stop the laughter she was afraid would come than because she wanted to know, she clutched her robe around her and asked, "What happened?"

Laurel, the taller deputy, who'd stood back as his partner blurted the news, cleared his throat. "The Suburban went into a ditch off County 22. It rolled going down, and the passenger side was crushed."

Hardy, almost as young as he sounded, stepped in gently. "We think the kids were killed instantly."

Mollie felt that should mean something, but she was numb. She wondered whether the other parents getting this news tonight felt anything. "How many were in the truck?"

Laurel glanced at Hardy, who nodded briskly and trotted out. "There were two kids in the Suburban. Should there have been more?"

"I hope not." She looked at the clock. It was almost two. "When did it happen?"

"A bit before one. We think."

She sighed. "No. The dance was over at ten. That was plenty of time to drop off the other kids."

"Your husband was giving rides to other kids?"

Something in his tone made Mollie look up. He had a notebook out and was frowning at her.

"Yes. Jeff was--" Mollie gasped. "Jeff! You said he'd be okay. What happened to him?"

"He's resting comfortably in the hospital. It looks like he escaped with just a few cuts and bruises, but they're keeping him for observation."

Mollie stood up. "Can I see him?"

He started the dance of the hands again. The notebook and pen made it even more absurd "I don't...uh...think that's...uh...wise right now."

"Why not? What's wrong?"

"He's..." He coughed. "He's pretty well sedated right now."

He wouldn't look at her, and at last, Mollie felt something. A cold knot of suspicion formed just under her ribs. She had trouble sucking in enough air to ask the suddenly all-important question.

"How drunk was he?"

The look in the deputy's eyes was far kinder than his words. "About twice the legal limit by the time we got him into the ambulance."

It wasn't enough to lose the kids. Jeff had...he had.... She felt light-headed again.

It was only the start of the nightmare. She had to come up with the names of children whose parents were about to get unpleasant midnight visits. Then she had to answer questions about Jeff's drinking. Some of them were questions she knew she should have asked herself years before.

After that came the long trip to Lafayette, the county seat. Riding in the squad car, she fought to keep from hoping. It was harder than she could have dreamed. She reminded herself that if they weren't her children waiting in the morgue, some other mother would have to live through this.

It was cold in the basement of the sheriff's offices. Sitting in the observation room, she could hear sound echoing harshly from the hard surfaces on the other side of the window. Waiting, nothing felt like it could touch her, and Mollie blessed the thin film of unreality between her and the world.

They apologized before asking her to look at the bodies. It was CeCe and Tony, but they looked so horribly, horribly wrong. She fainted again.

They made her call someone to come get her. She couldn't think of anyone but her mother, although she really didn't want to face her right now.

Mom was decent, though, after the one habitual crack about how she'd always said Jeff wasn't good enough. She stopped when Mollie didn't argue. She was quiet through the drive back to Mollie's to pick up a suitcase and on the long trip to Braselton, where Mollie had grown up. There, she made Mollie a cup of cloyingly sweet chamomile tea and dosed her with Ativan. Finally, Mollie slept.

Mom decided Mollie needed a hero, and she appointed herself. She didn't look the part, with her constant cigarette and her teased hair an unnatural shade of dark red. She was remarkably effective, though.

She stood alone on the front step and berated the media who set up camp on her lawn. She called them vultures and ghouls, challenging them to go find some real news to report. This would only be news, she told them, if CeCe and Tony were to suddenly be available for interviews. Since her vocabulary was completely unsuited to either print or broadcast, they soon disappeared.

The sound of her voice drifted back to Mollie through the open windows, and Mollie was hit again with that horrible urge to laugh. She stifled the impulse, afraid laughing might open a door to other feelings. She squeezed her ribs with crossed arms and rocked, willing herself to hear nothing, understand nothing.

Daytime was easiest. Mollie could listen to the bustle of traffic going to work and returning, watch the sunlight travel the length of the room's floor, and tell herself she'd survived another day.

The nights though.... Mollie tried not to be awake at night, but sometimes the drugs failed her. Then she lay alone in the timeless dark. She couldn't set aside memory and feeling for later when night promised to go on forever. When it hurt more than she could stand, she buried her face deep in her pillow to scream. She didn't want to wake her mother.

While Mollie huddled in the room that used to be her bedroom, Mom handled calls from the relatives who meant well but wanted to hear all the details. She made the funeral arrangements, only asking Mollie to sign the papers.

She refused to pass along the papers from the bail bondsmen that said Mollie agreed to put the house up as collateral to spring Jeff from jail. Jeff must have arranged his own way out, because she sent him away when he showed up. After that, the slamming of the phone, which had dropped off as the reporters gave up, became more frequent again.

Mom stuck tightly to Mollie's side at the funeral, glaring at anyone who threatened to add to her daughter's pain. Mollie drifted through the service and the brief reception afterward. She nodded at well wishers and briefly accepted hugs and condolences, not really noticing who she talked to.

Then Mom was suddenly tugging hard on her elbow, trying to steer her. Mollie didn't have time to react before Jeff stood in front of her, determined to have his say. She resigned herself as he opened his mouth.

"Mollie, I have to talk to you. Please listen. I'm so sorry. I...."

Mollie looked at him and listened to his frantic words, but she couldn't make them mean anything. She only knew that he was talking and the whole room was watching them. She couldn't even make herself care about that.

Eventually Jeff must have seen that something was wrong, because Mollie realized he had stopped. She let her mother lead her away.

Mom told Mollie when Jeff pled guilty to vehicular manslaughter. Mollie decided against going to the sentencing hearing. She didn't have anything to say that her absence wouldn't say for her, and she was afraid to face the other parents whose children's lives Jeff had risked. She didn't think they’d direct their anger at her, but something told her it wouldn't be good to spend much time in its presence.

She did go to court to finalize the divorce, since Jeff was in prison by then. He didn't contest it, even though the lawyer Mom retained made an aggressive property division request. Mom said it was because Jeff knew he'd never find a sympathetic judge. Mollie wondered whether there might be more to it, something closer to remorse, but she didn't suggest it.

Mollie didn't know how long she would have been content to hide from the world if it hadn't been for the check. Mom was so good at handling everything.

She walked into Mollie's room one day and lay the check in front of her. Mollie didn't understand what it was. She was too tired to want to puzzle it out, but Mom stood there, looking proud and waiting for Mollie to say something.

It was obviously a check, but it came from a company Mollie had never heard of. She couldn't figure out why they'd make a check out to her, much less one for.... Mollie blinked. That was a ridiculous number of zeros. Numbers like that belonged on one of those big prop checks in the ads, not on little scraps of paper.

She looked up at her mother. "What's this?"

"It's your settlement check." Mom beamed.

"Settlement check?"

Mom's smile dimmed a little. "For the accident. Patrick Connors' insurance company settled the wrongful death suit."

"I don't...." Mollie thought hard. She didn't remember authorizing a suit, but Mom had asked her to sign a lot of things in the past few months. She'd explained most of them at the time, but Mollie usually hadn't listened.

There could have been a suit. Pat was Jeff's best friend, and the poker party had been at his house. That much made sense--or more sense than the number on the check.

Looking at the amount, Mollie felt nauseated. She didn't want money. She wanted the whole thing to have never happened.

"Mollie, are you okay?" Mom looked worried.

Mollie was sorry for taking away her triumph. "I...I'm fine, Mom. Thank you. You've taken very good care of me."

After that, Mollie read anything Mom brought for her signature. The simple act was terribly difficult. She felt that she'd stepped out of the world the night of the accident. It had flowed on without her. She couldn't get up to speed, and stepping back in was bruising.

At least catching up gave her a goal. She started doing small things, taking walks and washing dishes.

There were still times when she just couldn't keep up. She rocked in the day and screamed at night. But these occurred less frequently as Mollie discovered that she could do mundane, everyday tasks without allowing the whole world to crash in on her.

She waited until after Christmas to move back home. Mom fussed at her through the long drive, but Mollie wouldn't let her do more than drop her off at the other end. An audience wouldn't make this easier.

Mollie hyperventilated as she unlocked the front door, but stepping inside wasn't as hard as she'd feared. The pile of shoes and jackets that she expected to see by the door, the clutter of her family life, wasn't there. Someone had cleaned while she was gone. The place was so tidy it looked like someone else's house.

Mollie hoped that whoever it was had gotten one of the thank you cards Mom had given her to sign. The strangeness of the clean house gave her the little distance she needed right now. The panic she felt when she approached certain parts of the house--the kids' rooms, Jeff's closet in the bedroom--told her how foolish she'd been to think she was ready to come home. But now that she was here, she was staying.

Mollie debated going back to work at the bank, just to give herself time away, but she didn't think she could face all those people who had known her before. They'd be as kind as they could, but they'd want to know how she was doing, and they'd have a thousand other questions she wasn't ready to ask herself yet, much less answer.

She gave her notice instead. If she got tired of living off the settlement, she'd find a job where fewer people knew her. She hid upstairs when her manager dropped a box of her stuff off on the front step.

When she had to close her eyes to get down the hall, Mollie considered moving. She decided against it. If she wasn't ready to face the accident, she wasn't quite ready to leave all signs of her past life behind either.

The seed catalog came when Mollie needed it most. She didn't know how she'd gotten on the mailing list, since she'd never had a garden. The yard was all lawn and trees. It had been Jeff's domain. Still, she wasn't going to question anything that promised an end to winter and a chance to spend time outside the house.

She wiled away the claustrophobic hours until spring planning a small bed and a tiny vegetable garden for the back yard. She bought graph paper and plotted out bed after bed. She never ordered plants, afraid she'd change her mind about what she wanted before they arrived.

On the first warm, dry day in March she was back in Lafayette, walking out of the garden center with a shiny new spade in her hand. She even had some new ideas after finally seeing the plants in person. She went home to tackle sod.

The next day she stayed in bed, her middle-aged back a mass of aches and twinges. Still, she thought when moving made her wince, strictly physical pain was a nice change. She was back outside two days later, digging up more of the turf that Jeff had worked so hard to establish.

Gardening saved her. She loved the quiet, the weirdly right smell of dirt and bug spray. The trees surrounding the back yard gave her plenty of privacy from the neighbors. She liked the imperfect symmetry of the annuals she finally planted.

In Lafayette, where no one recognized her as a local tragic figure, she was able to have long esoteric discussions with the garden center staff about the best types of edging and sprinklers and the right brand of compost for tomatoes. It almost felt like being human again.

One stormy afternoon in August, when she was stuck inside, she decided it was time to tackle the box from work. It was still sitting inside the front door, where she'd left it after Kara dropped it off, and it kept getting in the way. She felt that if she could reclaim two hundred square feet of yard from grass, she ought to be strong enough to clear out one simple box.

She wasn't so sure when she opened it. Someone at work had packed it for her, so she wasn't prepared for what was inside. Sitting at the top of the box were the pictures from her desk, one of Jeff and one of each of the kids. Family pictures were one of the things she'd avoided all winter, but these she saw before she could panic.

It was a bittersweet moment. They brought back memories of how she'd talked about her family at work, nearly bragged. She'd been so proud--of all three of them.

The panic stayed away.

She spent some time over each picture, refreshing every well-known detail--CeCe's crooked smile and deep blue eyes, Tony's strong chin and his cowlicks.

Then it was Jeff's turn. She expected anger when she looked at him, but what she felt was more complex. Even the accident couldn't entirely obliterate the feelings of seventeen years of marriage. There was anger, but it was jumbled up with too many other emotions to sort out.

She put the pictures in their tri-fold frame on the mantle. There wasn't really anything else she wanted from the box, just logo gear from the bank, the extra nylons she'd left in her desk for emergencies, and a few cartoons that weren't funny outside of work. She threw it all away.

She made herself look at the pictures every day when she came in from outside, when she felt strongest. It was good to see the kids, good to know she could look and remember without collapsing again. She couldn't get them back, but she could at least start to reclaim the happier memories.

She started spending time with the photos, talking to the kids, discussing garden plans. It made the house feel less lonely, even at Christmas. Once or twice, she found herself waiting for answers. She had to remind herself they were never coming back.

It was spring again before she realized that, while CeCe and Tony were gone forever, Jeff didn't have to be. Not unless she wanted him to.

She shoved the pictures back onto the mantle and all but ran outside. Her heart was pounding.

She walked over to one of the flowerbeds and, with shaking hands, started to weed. She slowly let herself think about the idea.

Why was it so frightening? He hurt us, he hurt them, he'll hurt us, babbled a little voice in her head.

She pulled more weeds, took deep breaths and waited for the litany to stop. Doesn't being alone hurt? He hurt us...

As she weeded, Mollie kept dropping questions into the well of her mind, each one creating the same rippling terror. Would it be better to be with someone who couldn't understand what she'd been through? Would the kids want them to be apart? Would it help them if she kept him away? Had he meant to hurt his own children? To hurt her? Didn't she have some responsibility for what had happened?

The answers were always the same: he hurt us, he hurt them, he'll hurt us....

How? What did she have left that he could take away?

She almost laughed in the silence that followed, but it wasn't that kind of victory.

Walking into the prison the first time was the hardest thing Mollie had ever done, harder than walking into the morgue. She was afraid the prison doors were going to slam behind her, telling her that what she was doing was criminal.

Jeff cried when he saw her, just put his head in his hands and bawled until their time ran out. Mollie realized she had to be positive she could follow through before coming back. Raising Jeff's hopes, only to smash them by sending him away, would be crueler than she'd considered being even in the darkest moments after the accident.

She'd worked it out in the garden. She was expanding, putting in perennials and adding some taller flowers for contrast. She put in a row of sunflowers along one side of the vegetable garden, a clump of foxglove in the center of a new tiered bed, and a patch of delphiniums along the back fence. She enjoyed watching them grow and reach for the sky.

It was two months before she was sure enough. She still didn't think he could hurt her, but she'd prepared herself for the possibility. She thought she knew what she was capable of, what she could and couldn't live with. She'd even told her mother--and sat silently through the tirade that followed.

She had some hard words for herself over her decision too--she was afraid it was the weak thing to do, a surrender to loneliness--but it was made. The kids looked, if not approving, then at least accepting.

Jeff controlled himself on her second trip, making things easier. His desperation was visible, though. Mollie thought he was checking himself to avoid scaring her away again.

They didn't have a lot to talk about. Jeff didn't hear much from anyone outside, not even his family, and Mollie hadn't seen anyone in so long she didn't have any news.

Glancing nervously at the clock after a long silence, Jeff blurted out, "This reminds me of our first date."

"What?" Mollie looked around at the sterile concrete walls, guards in dark uniforms, and the hunched shoulders of other prisoners. Off to her left, she could hear a woman crying quietly. She couldn't think of anything less like the amusement park they'd gone to.

"Don't you remember all the standing in line we did, waiting? We had no idea what to say to each other."

Mollie nodded as it slowly came back to her. "What I remember most is how neither of us was willing to admit we didn't like roller coasters."

Jeff smiled. "We went on that thing, what, five times?"

"Something like that. I still don't know whether it was the roller coaster or the cotton candy that made me sick."

That set the tone for future visits. They always talked about the distant past, good times while they'd been dating and their first couple of years as newlyweds.

They never talked about the future, and by an unspoken mutual agreement, they never talked about CeCe and Tony. The closest they came was at the end of each visit, when he told her he was sorry--not for what, only that he was sorry.

Mollie didn't know why he kept silent aside from the apology, but whatever his reason, it suited her fine. She wasn't ready to talk about the kids, not to Jeff.

Still, by Christmas, the idea of Jeff coming home had seemed natural. In March, the date of his parole had been set, and Mollie had started her serious preparations.

Now that the day was finally here, Mollie was nervous, even though everything was as ready as it could be. She told herself she was being silly. She'd known Jeff for almost twenty-five years, had spent more of her life with him than without him. She stayed nervous.

Jeff looked uncomfortable too, when she picked him up from the release center. They were both quiet on the ride home. Mollie wanted to say something, set the right tone, but she couldn't think of anything.

It was Jeff who broke the silence once they were in the house. "Wow! This place looks great. I didn't expect...well, it looks just great."

He kept talking about how good the house looked and how nice it felt to be home. He complimented her on the yellow bedroom, the nicely made up dining room table, and the choice of food. When he walked out onto the porch to start the grill, he shouted her name.

Mollie ran out to find out what was wrong.

"Nothing's wrong." Jeff shook his head. "It's the gardens. They're amazing. You never told me you liked gardening."

"I, uh, thanks." Mollie caught her breath. It hadn't occurred to her that Jeff might not like the gardens.

“What’s that?” Jeff pointed over the railing at the new raised bed, a neat twelve foot long oval of empty black dirt penned in by two tiers of green timbers, and the plants sitting in pots around it.

“It’s a rose garden.” She'd prepped it over the last week when she wasn't cleaning. She'd dug and mixed compost and fishmeal deep into the soil. It had been a good substitute for thinking, but she could hardly tell Jeff that. “The roses came this morning. They were late.”

"Boy, you've been busy. You've hardly left me any grass to cut back here."

All Mollie could think was that without the kids, they didn't need a big lawn anymore. Again she kept silent. This might be harder than she'd expected, although Jeff seemed to be settling in.

Dinner was easier. Her grandmother's china had been a wedding gift, and it set off another round of do-you-remembers. Jeff didn't even ask about the lack of wine glasses on the table, although Mollie saw him look to where they sat in the buffet.

She never saw him look at the pictures.

He helped her with the dishes, drying them and putting them away. Then they moved into the living room. He took his usual chair and she curled up in her corner of the couch.

For the first seventeen years of their marriage, this had been their time, even after the kids were born. They'd talk over their days, complain about work, make plans for the future.

Mollie didn't know what to say. There was too much to talk about and too many subjects to be avoided.

"Ah." Jeff settled into his recliner. "This really is the most comfortable spot on earth." He picked up the remote from the end table. "Just where I left it. Didn't you watch any television while I was gone?"

"I put it back this morning." She smiled. "You can watch if you want."

He met Mollie's eyes, and she knew he was thinking the same thing she was. It would be better not to try too hard to entertain each other. Besides, watching television would make things feel more normal. He turned it on.

Mollie grabbed one of her catalogs. She wanted to try planting bulbs this fall, but she hadn't decided what kind or how many. As she debated a front lawn peppered with grape hyacinths versus clumps of oriental lilies scattered among the perennial beds, she kept half an eye on Jeff.

The chair might be the most comfortable he'd ever sat in, but he was twitchy. He shifted every couple of minutes. He drummed his fingers on the armrest. He flipped channels faster than she'd ever seen him, and she didn't think it was because almost three years in prison had made him a more discriminating viewer.

Her courage failing her, she pretended not to know what was making him edgy. She buried her nose further into the catalog, but she couldn't concentrate.

After about the eighth time she caught Jeff out of the corner of her eye, looking at her mournfully, she gave up. "What's the matter?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it. He shook his head.

"Go ahead. Tell me." She sighed. "You're going to have to say it eventually."

He looked startled. "I was, well, I was thinking..."

His eyes were wide, and Mollie realized that he must be almost as scared as she was. "Thinking what?" Her voice held a gentleness she didn't entirely feel.

"I just, uh.... Do you know what would make this perfect?"

CeCe and Tony? She didn't say it. "What?"

His mouth worked, but no sound came out. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He let it out. He took another. Mollie was ready to scream with tension.

"A little glass of whiskey." The words rushed out. "Just a tiny one, you know, like you used to fix me back when...before." He opened his eyes and looked for her reaction.

She couldn't face him. She closed the catalog in her lap and studied the cover, trying to think. She'd made her plans, but now that the moment she'd been half expecting, dreading, was here, she didn't know what to do.

She wanted to scream, "Haven't you learned anything? Didn't prison and treatment and killing our children make any difference to you?! Are you really so ready to risk the one thing you have left?"

Instead, she tried to remind herself that she had no reason to be unprepared for this. She'd understood about Jeff and alcohol for most of their married life. She could hardly have forgotten about it since the accident. She'd told herself she was prepared to deal with this.

Forcing her emotions back down where they wouldn't show, she stood up. "There's a bottle of Windsor in the kitchen. Why don't I pour you a drink?"

The walk to the cupboard seemed interminable. Part of her was yelling, telling her she was making the biggest mistake of her life. It wanted her to keep walking, go back and shake Jeff, anything but pour that drink. She ignored it.

She'd bought the whiskey last summer, but as a compromise with herself, she hadn't decanted it for Jeff the way she used to. She opened the bottle and swirled the liquor inside before pouring three fingers into a lowball glass.

She held the glass up to the evening sunlight coming in through the window. The tawny liquid looked so harmless and inviting.

She carried it back and wordlessly set it next to Jeff. He was sweating. She wondered whether he'd also been thinking she might leave. Then she went back to her catalog.

"Whoo!" Jeff shook his head after the first sip. "No matter how well you think you remember, that first sip always has more kick than you expect."

Mollie smiled politely. She debated getting both hyacinths and lilies. Maybe some daffodils, too.

Jeff relaxed after a couple of swallows, looking cheerful as he settled on watching a baseball game. When he finished the first drink, Mollie got up without being asked and refilled the glass.

The first sign something was wrong was Jeff rubbing his eyes and squinting at the television. Mollie didn't think it was the whiskey. Even after three years without it, she didn't doubt Jeff could hold his liquor better than that. She'd never seen him do more than speak very precisely when he was drunk. She went back to the catalog.

When Jeff closed his eyes and leaned back, Mollie was relieved. She'd been hoping he would just drift off to sleep. It was the best possible end to the evening.

It wasn't to be, though. Soon, Jeff was awake again.

"Mollie?" His voice was weak.

"It's okay, Jeff." Mollie didn't want to look at him.

"Mollie, I don't feel so good." Jeff belched. "Think I'm gonna be sick."

She grabbed the bucket she had standing by. Jeff fumbled at the handle of the recliner but didn't have the strength to move it. She had to help. She put the bucket between his knees.

He leaned over and rested his forehead on the far edge of the bucket. "Mollie? My head hurts."

She leaned down and smoothed his hair. "I know it does, dear." She reached for his left wrist where it loosely gripped the bucket. His pulse was getting slow. "It'll all be over soon."

"I'm sorry, Mollie." His voice was barely above a whisper. "I didn't mean to."

Mollie sat back down on the couch. "I know, dear. You never did."

In the end, he died as quietly as she could have hoped. She wasn't even sure how long he'd been dead when she checked his pulse for the last time.

The sun had gone down, but she decided to wait a couple of hours just to be safe. She'd only worry about the body tonight. Even in loose dirt, that was plenty of digging.

The weather had cleared up enough that she'd wait until morning to plant the roses. She wanted to be able to read the tags and get everything in the right place. The border would be alternating Anthony Meillands and Saint Cecilias. In the middle, over the body, would be half a dozen Peace roses.

Then it would be time for more planning. It was really time she figured out what to plant where the foxgloves used to be.

She thought it should be something Jeff would approve of. She'd been so glad he'd liked the gardens.

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