by Joan Hazel
Modern Tales of Fantasy
JOAN HAZEL
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Joan Hazel
Author Website: www.joanhazel.com
Reflections of Perfection
Yael lifted her face toward the afternoon sun. She reveled in the feel of the warmth as it flowed across her skin and down her body, chasing away the coldness that seemed to have taken up residence in her bones. This had been the coldest winter she could remember in seven years and she refused to consider her breakup with Alistair had any impact on the weather or her perception of it.
Hot tears cooled on her cheeks. Why did she have to cry? He was not worth her tears. He had deceived her. I did it all for you, he had told her. I wanted to make you happy.
“Bah,” she spat at the ground. “The only person he wished to make happy was himself. Damn little troll.” Stabbing her staff into the earth she continued
Until this moment, Yael could not believe it possible that a person could feel this much anger toward another living creature. Her rage had become a living breathing entity all its own. The only thing she could not figure out is who was she madder at, Alistair or herself?
The piercing shriek took her attention to the sky and the falcon that flew above her head. Lifting her arm, she called back to the bird. With languid precision, the falcon altered course. Yael smiled as the bird landed solidly on her forearm.
Cooing to him, she gently stroked the birds head. She knew how unusual it was for a falcon to be so accommodating. It was not in their nature, but Jethro was different. Yael found Jethro when he was still a youngling. She had been foraging for herbs and berries when she heard a whining from beneath the brush.
Getting down on her hands and knees, Yael peeked beneath the foliage and found the young falcon. She was not sure who was more scared of whom of whom. Her heart went out to frail, wounded creature. There was no way she could leave him there to die. Taking the scarf from about her shoulders, she wrapped the falcon in the worn woolen material and cradled him in her arms all the way back to the home she shared with Alistair.
She worried he would not make it through those first few days. Patiently she would mix together crushed huhu beetles with medicinal herbs and fee him by hand. Yael refused to name him. She did not want to bond with him. He was a creature of the wild and eventually would have to return. Losing him would be too painful.
As the falcon grew, so did her connection with him, and the mutual respect the two creatures had for each other. When he decided to stay with her, she decided to give him a name, Jethro. She had no specific reason for the name. It was just what came to her.
“We still have a way to go,” she said, to Jethro. Her voice sounded odd to her own ears. It felt creaky like an engine in need of oiling. She had forgotten how long it’d been since she spoke. Again a tear escaped, splashing onto the front of her dusty, plaid shirt.
“No,” she whispered. “I will not cry for him again,” she sniffed. “Go hunt my pretty.”
She dropped her arms slightly as the birds took flight. Finally she understood why her falcon had such a dislike of Alastair. Unlike her, Jethro could see through the lies and the façade Alastair projected.
The sun’s position told her it was well past lunchtime. No wonder her stomach made such a ruckus. Pulling a small tin from her satchel, Yael found the closest shade. It was time for a rest. With a familiar metallic pop, she opened the tin. Beans with a bit of bread and a slice of cheese awaited her this day. It may not been a four-star meal, but it would give her the nutrients she needed to finish her job.
What she would not give for a meal in a restaurant, to be waited on and served by others. Heck what she would not give for a bath in a tub with bubbles and an unlimited amount of hot water. That lifetime was long gone. She had no idea if her family would even recognize her now.
Her coal black hair hung down past her waist not in a short bob like when she last saw them. Her business suits have long been replaced by genes and cotton shirts. She did not even remember what happened to them. Maybe a family member had taken them. Who knew? Certainly not Yael.
She had lost touch with family and friends over the years. Looking back on it now, she realized that was what Alastair had wanted-he wanted her to need only him. Yael was no idiot. She knew theirs was not the healthiest of relationships.
For her it had not been love at first sight between them, though Alastair was good-looking. However, she had dated “good-looking” before. Not long before they met, Yael described her perfect man. As she and her friend sat on the porch she spoke in detail not only about his looks but also how he would be kind and giving and she would be the center of his world. A few days later she bumped into Alastair.
It seems odd that he showed up in almost every place she went. From convenience stores to the library, he was there. Over the course of a few months, she learned to trust him and fell madly, hopelessly in love with him. So much so that she agreed to leave the city and her job for life with him in the forest.
During the first few months, Yael would venture down the mountain and returned to see her family. But as time went on, she kept more and more to the home she and Alastair had built. He taught her how to garden, which wild plants were edible and which were not. He also taught her how to heal anything with the help of Mother Nature and the Earth.
Once a month he would go into the nearest village for supplies. Occasionally he would bring her presents from his trips to the nearby post. The rest of his time was spent making woodcarvings, or working in the earth planting and growing crops to be sold at the post. He would barter them for flour, lamp oil and such.
“How could I’ve been so naïve?” She chomped into the bread.
She really needed to cut herself some slack. In all honesty how was she to know the man she fell in love with was actually a gnome? A glamorized gnome at that. If she had not seen it for herself she still would not have believed it.
During their time together, Alastair struck a bargain with Yael. He would be the one to go for supplies alone while she stayed at home tending to the garden and whatever needed to be taken care of. She never asked why. She simply accepted his conditions, except this last time. That trip had been Alastair’s undoing.
That morning she pleaded with him to let her go. In the light of everything that had happened, the reason she wanted to go had lost its importance. As usual Alastair gave her every excuse he had as to why she could not go with him. The more she persisted, the more enraged he became until he blurted out that he forbade her from going to the village.
He forbade her? He forbade her? Those words were a non-physical slap in the face. In that moment, she saw side of Alastair she had never seen before. Even the loving light in his eyes seemed to dim and his voice turned gruff. It was if she looked into the eyes of a stranger.
Yael finished her meal and placed her belongings back into her pack. She needed to finish and get back to her home. She searched the sky for Jethro. Although she could not see them, she knew he was not far.
She had collected most everything she needed to make her healing salve, but one ingredient was missing. Luckily she had saved it for last since it was closest to home.
At least Alastair
had given her way to support herself. If it wasn’t for him, she would not have learned how to be an herbalist or a healer. She enjoyed working with nature and knowing that because of her others felt better. Then again, if had it not been for Alastair, she was not have needed to learn such things.
Alastair. She wanted to be mad at him. To hate him. In a way she was too tired to hate them, that he had done the unforgivable. He had lied to her. Not a small lie. Not “no babe, your butt does not look fat in those jeans.” This was a seven-year lie of who and what he was.
If only I had not followed him to the village, she thought. If only… Why the heck was she blaming herself? She was not the one who lied. She was not the one who took a glamour spell to hide the fact she was a gnome. A freaking gnome! Who even knew of gnomes existed? Well, she did now.
“Excuse me,” she said, bending down to scrape Moss from the tree. “Thank you for allowing me to use your moss for medicine. It will help many people and fairies and gnomes.” She let her voice trail off.
She thought of the last time she saw Alastair. She had waited almost an hour before following him that day, wanting to give him ample time to get ahead of her. If she timed it right, he would be busy bartering with the shop owners and
