Authors: Gael Baudino
On an impulse, she sat down on a bench, removed her shoes and hose, and rolled up her slacks. The sand felt good under her feet, and as the morning grew in brilliance and clarity, she waded like some graceful water bird, minnows darting about her. A light breeze ruffled her hair, and she self-consciously lifted a hand to smooth it. Her fingers brushed her ear, and she reddened at the physical reminder.
Knee deep in water, she stopped, her hand to the side of her head. The pond rippled, the rushes bent and waved, and, out in deeper water, a fish broke the surface for an instant. Somehow, she had stumbled into a perfect morning, and it was all hers.
If only it could always be like this, she thought. And it occurred to her suddenly that it could. Forever. She had only to accept—
Accept what? Madness? What had she done last night?
She swung back to the shore, wading hurriedly and nervously, her movements furtive and small. The mood was shattered, gone. The calm, the quiet . . . it had all been no more than a matter of numbing and shock. She was mad, crazy; and she had always been so.
Quickly, she pulled on her stockings and shoes, pausing only long enough to work the sand out from between her toes with shaking hands. As she buckled on her heels, though, she heard someone call her name.
She nearly cried out, and furtively, and with a sense of flustered guilt, she looked around. She saw no one. She was alone. Again, though, there came the sound of her name, and it finally occurred to her that the name she had heard was not Joan.
It came once more.
Ash
. She felt suddenly cold. Her name, and yet not . . . and yet it bounced around in her ear, ricocheted inside her skull, and finally settled into some niche meant for it.
The wind ruffled her hair once again. She felt her ears in fear and stumbled to her car.
She was fairly nauseous with fright by the time she reached the agency parking lot. Everything was too bright, too clear, too new, and she gave everyone no more than a quick nod as she entered and all but ran into her office. She wished that the door had possessed a lock—or, better yet, a bar. All she could do, though, was close it, but she looked at the filing cabinet for a moment or two before deciding that it was too heavy to move.
Blinds closed, lights on. Silently, she sat down, put her head in her arms, and wept. She did not want to be crazy. She had not asked for it. She would have liked to have been normal, like everyone else. It was not her fault. It—
A soft tapping at her door. “Joan?”
Her head snapped up and she stared at the knob in fear. She could hardly tell Wheat to go away, but she did not want to talk to the young woman. She did not want to talk to anyone.
“Joan?” Wheat's voice was calm, betraying nothing. She might have been any employee with a problem or a question for her superior, but Joan heard clearly the unspoken part of her sentence:
For your sake . . . you can't afford to hide from me . . . please . . .
Several seconds went by. Joan stared at a spot of brightness on the wall where a sunbeam had found its way through the blinds. Wheat was leaving it up to her. She could speak, or she could remain silent. Free will.
Free will. Of course. She could make an attempt to get help, or she could hide and go silently mad. The choice was hers.
It has to do with love
, she remembered Wheat saying.
That's what I'm here for. Aid. Comfort.
She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “It's . . . it's open.”
Wheat slipped in and closed the door behind her. “I'm terribly sorry about last night,” she said softly.
Joan forced herself to speak evenly. “What . . . what . . . what's going on?”
Shutting her eyes, Wheat sighed as though she were almost as embarrassed as Joan. But she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and when she opened her eyes again, there was something more in them than cornflower blue. “Did . . . did something happen this morning?”
In reply, Joan raised her hands and, very deliberately, pushed back her hair.
Wheat's voice was still quiet and calm, but Joan heard the awe in it. “It's all right, Joan. You're fine. I . . . I guess I should have warned you about that.”
“Warned me about
what
? Dammit,
what
?” Joan dropped her hair and covered her face.
Wheat's voice was gentle. “Do you remember what I told you last night? There's some of the old blood in a lot of people. It wakes up sometimes, and . . . well . . . it . . . it prevails.”
Joan looked up numbly. “What are you saying to me?”
Wheat shrugged with embarrassment, but her eyes were kind. “You're an Elf.”
Joan stared, then exploded. “But I don't want to be an Elf!” She gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes going to the closed door.
Wheat looked, at once, amused, affectionate, and concerned. “Oh?”
“It's . . .” Joan turned away, clenching her hands as if trying to drive her nails through her palms. “It's not right. It's crazy. It can't be happening.”
For a moment, Wheat was silent. Then, suddenly: “What's your name?”
“Ash,” said Joan. She realized in an instant what she had said and started to cry again. “Oh, my God . . . I don't even know my own name anymore.”
“But you do,” said Wheat. “Many of us wind up with a new name when the blood awakens. Please, Ash. You can't deny it. It's really happening.”
Joan got up, went to the window, pulled the blinds open so violently that she nearly brought them down. The field outside leaped into her, filling her with yellow sun and yellow flowers. She caught her breath. “I . . . I think I need a drink.”
“Ash,” said Wheat behind her, “what you need is some time to think. Take the day off.”
“I can't take off two days in a row.”
“Yes, you can. You're the boss. Take the day off, go home, and think. Tonight, I want to take you—”
“Up into the mountains, right? To meet the rest of the loonies, right?”
“Ash—”
“Don't call me that.” She closed the blinds almost as violently as she had opened them. “My name is Joan.” She went back to the desk and began shoving papers into her briefcase.
“Your hands are shaking,” Wheat ventured.
“I know, dammit. I know.”
“Are you going home?”
“I'm going where I want to go, and it's none of your damn business.” Joan picked up her purse and turned to Wheat. “Stay away from me. Just stay away.”
“Ash . . . uh . . . Joan . . . I . . .”
“You heard me.” She felt her hair catch on her right ear and freed it with a vicious shake of her head. The unfamiliar style brushed against her cheeks. Wheat offered a hand, but she knocked it away. “Back off.”
She glared at the young woman, but wound up looking into her eyes, finding there . . .
. . . stars. Shining. Twinkling whitely in the firmament. A nebula glowing softly at the edge of sight.
With a small cry, Joan pulled away and ran for the door.
“Joan!”
She did not stop. Muttering something to the receptionist about an emergency, she swung the plate glass door open and made her escape.
When she reached her Mercedes, she threw her purse and briefcase into the back seat, heedless of how they might fall. She gunned the car out of the parking lot, but she was not going home.
***
As the mountains grew around her and the trees thickened, she realized that she had made a mistake. Her plan had been to return to Elvenhome, to confront it in the bright daylight, to do her best to stare it down. She had thought to be free in that way, to leave Wheat and her friends to their lunacy, to return herself to her occasional days that were odd but controllable.
But the impending confrontation was doing nothing to lessen her symptoms. On the contrary: it was increasing them. The trees, the sky, the mounting spires and walls of rock that now hemmed in the highway—everything was drawing her farther and farther away from what she had been. Now her hands shimmered on the steering wheel, and when, briefly, she closed her eyes, she realized that the stars were with her now, burning clearly in the firmament within her.
But she pressed on. She had no choice. The call was irresistible, and it kept her foot on the gas, her hands on the wheel, her eyes on the road that turned and twisted into the hills.
This was not confrontation. This was capitulation.
She knew the turnoff instinctively, and her wheels were on dirt almost before she was conscious that she had arrived. When she reached the pancake of bare earth, it was only by an effort of will that she kept herself from getting out of the car after switching off the ignition.
About her, the trees stood straight, the ground beneath their branches shadowed. They were calling her, and it was simply a matter of how long she could hold out against their call, of how much resistance she had left.
Her hand was, in fact, already on the door release, but she heard the sound of an engine on the dirt road as a light-blue van crested the hill and descended. She slumped in her seat.
The van stopped a short distance away, and two men in Levi's and work shirts got out, opened the side doors, and began removing what she vaguely recognized as surveying equipment. One of the two waved at her, and when she gestured weakly in return, he set down a metal box and approached.
“Hello, good morning,” he said, leaning his elbows on the edge of her open window. His hair was black, with hints of silver peeking through, his eyes sea gray. His smile was open, frank, gentle. “My name is Hadden.”
She nodded at him nervously. “Hello.”
“I . . . don't recognize you. Have you been here before?”
She shook her head abruptly, then caught herself. “Uh . . . last night. Just for a minute.” She noticed that his hair was long enough to cover the tops of his ears completely.
“Can I . . .” He smiled as if he understood her confusion, as if, indeed, it was something he had himself experienced. “Can I ask what your name is?”
“Ash—” It was out before she could think. “I mean . . . Ash is . . .”
“Ash is a lovely name,” said Hadden. “It suits you.”
She nodded vaguely, wondering if she would ever answer to anything else now.
“Feel free to wander around, Ash,” he said, straightening up. “There's nothing here that will hurt you. Web and I are going to be doing some elevation work, so we'll be around.”
“Elevation work for . . . for Elvenhome?”
“Elvenhome of the Rockies, yes,” he said. “The first we've had in centuries. We all put up the money to buy the land. We'll do the building ourselves, of course.”
“Elvenhome of the Rockies,” she murmured softly. The name was comforting, as though it filled some long-neglected need.
Hadden smiled. “We're finding ourselves again. We meet up here almost every night, just to get the feel of the place. Just to enjoy it.”
Without invitation, he unlatched her door and swung it open, reaching gallantly for her hand. She looked at him for some moments, hesitating. “I . . .”
“I know. Wheat told me. It's a little scary sometimes.”
“You came up here for me?”
“No. We have work to do. Do you want to call it Fate?”
“I . . . believe in a Deity . . .”
Another smile. “Call it that, then.”
She gave him her hand, and a moment later she was standing on the hard earth. The wind sang through the pines, the sun shone golden, and the shade under the trees was inviting. “I . . . I think I'll take a walk,” she said. Bending, she removed her shoes and stockings, then dropped them on the driver's seat. Barefoot, she looked at Hadden and faltered. “I really don't know what's going on, you know.”
The wind caught her hair for an instant and flipped it back. Instinctively, she grabbed it. Hadden grinned sympathetically.
“You're not going through anything that the rest of us didn't,” he said. “We all had to take our walks.”
She turned to face the shadows beneath the trees. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Be at peace,” said Hadden. “Like I said: we'll be around. If you need us, just call. After all . . .” She heard the smile in his voice. “. . . we certainly should be able to hear you.”
She giggled nervously, though what came out was halfway to a sob. “I . . .” She turned around to find that he was walking back to the van. “I'd just like to know what the hell's going on,” she said to the empty air. But it was a foolish question, she admitted, for she knew exactly what was going on.
***
She moved in wonder through the forest. All about her was the delicate interplay of plant and earth, root and stone; and not only did she feel it, but she felt herself to be a part of it. She saw the patterns in the bark of trees. She saw their mirrorings in the interlacing of branches and the veins of aspen leaves. The pine needles and moss seemed to be particularly soft here, as though they were meant for the comfort of bare feet, and she glided, elven and silent, among the shadowed trunks.
With her eyes closed, she saw stars, and with them open, she saw the forest, and she did not know which awed her more. Inside and out, she had changed. She was Joan Buckland, and yet she was Ash, and, whoever the latter was, she found herself wanting more of her.
She stretched out her hand, and a bluejay alighted on it, stared at her curiously, and then hopped onto her shoulder and peered through her hair for a moment before saucily tapping her ear with its beak. She laughed and blushed, and the bird craned its neck at her once more before it flew off.
Everything . . .
everything
was different. The compulsion of the odd days had fled—forever, she now knew—to be replaced by a sense of surety and calm. She sat on a fallen log, and chipmunks came to play at her feet. A raccoon waddled up and nosed her hand, wordlessly demanding to be petted. A young sparrow hawk seemed to keep watch over her from a high branch.
Green-gold, gold-green, the sunlight flashed through the pines and the aspens as she rose and made her way up a slope. She waded through a stream, the water icy and pure. It rippled through the shimmer that surrounded her, rippled through her body and mind. For a moment, she was the water itself, stretching unbroken from snowpack to sea. It swirled through her and swept her even farther away from the person she had known as Joan Buckland.