Midsummer Night

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  He watched her the whole night as the moon lit up and shadowed different parts of her face as it swept across the sky. Her beauty, fearlessness, and strength awed him. He’d known several women who’d lost fathers and mothers and had the duties of eldest daughter. He’d not known of one who stayed in the family home and worked to keep the family secure. They’d all married and moved on. Sure, they’d drop occasional coins and small services to their family, but did he know of any who assumed the role of mistress over the home the way Grace had done?

  He couldn’t think of any.

  He inched closer to her throughout the night, wanting to see her more clearly, wanting to memorize her in every detail, from the small mole on her earlobe to the crease just over her brow, there as if she even slept with great concentration. He realized he’d crept too close only when her body shivered and her breath exited her slightly parted lips in a white puff of frosted air. He drew back, but the damage was already done. She stirred and opened her eyes.

  “The sun’s coming up!” She leaped from her bedroll and hurried to tie it up and get her provisions back onto the saddle. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  Arell blinked at her and didn’t answer. What could he say? The truth of him not waking her because she was so achingly beautiful and he didn’t want to stop looking at her made him sound like the worst sort of fool.

  Luckily, her panic to be moving overrode her need for an answer. They were on the horse and trotting away within moments.

  Grace ate hard bread and nuts and dried berries from a pouch hanging from the saddle so they didn’t have to delay a moment stopping for her breakfast. Arell wanted to allow her to do most of the talking since he’d dominated the conversation the day before. He wanted to show her he was not so shallow as to think her thoughts unimportant.

  But was he shallow? He’d been appalled at the disrepair of the farm when he’d seen it the first time, but when he’d gone back, he saw only her. Yes, he’d asked for her brother’s help, but it was her face that had filled his mind when he knew he needed help to wake him from the spell placed on him.

  Her.

  She was something special. Something different. Something worthy and of worth all at the same time.

  She did talk to him, telling him of herbs she planted to help those who were sick. Laughing when a woman in Daven had called her a witch because she’d fed another old woman a broth she’d made that had cured the old woman from shaking and coughing. “I’d imagine Mistress Ryern was only angry because she wanted her mother-in-law to die so that she might lay claim to the lovely silver serving set.”

  Grace seemed to laugh over every wrong done to her. She found humor in the worst of her situations. With each new story she told him, he felt as if she tied a cord around his heart and pulled him toward her.

  In the short time Arell had known her, he’d come to admire her.

  Later that day, when they came across several riders coming from the other direction, Arell had panicked. No one could see him. By all appearances, she was a woman traveling the roads alone. The men formed a line with their horses across the path to keep her from getting around them, but she reined in her horse and kept control.

  She didn’t panic and bolt off into the woods, which any sane woman might have done but which would have led to a chase. A person willing to run is a person who likely has something worth stealing. Grace held her ground, demanded that they let her pass, and told the lot of them that their mothers should be scolded for raising such ill-behaved boys. It was when she brought their mothers into it that the men finally decided to let her go.

  Once they were well clear of the men, she pulled the horse to a stop in a grove of trees off the road where they were out of sight and allowed herself to drag in great gasping breaths.

  “I can’t believe you did that!” Arell said.

  “I can’t believe we’re alive!” she responded before twisting in the saddle to look at him. “Well, one of us is alive anyway.”

  “I already told you—”

  “I know. I know. I’m just teasing, trying to calm my heart from thumping right out of my chest and onto the dirt.”

  Understanding her reasoning, he let the joke pass. “You held yourself more firmly than any man I’ve seen in battle. I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t be too impressed. I feel like fainting here and now.”

  But she didn’t faint. She kept her seat, and after only a moment longer, she clucked her tongue and continued.

  He watched her the second night as she slept as well and the third. By evening of the fourth night, they’d come to the outskirts of the king’s city. He wanted to urge them farther, but the hour was late, and this close to the city, they were far more likely to run into trouble. He watched as she set up her camp and felt guilty that he couldn’t physically handle anything enough to help her. He could move himself to various locations in the physical world but could not act upon the physical world. He’d become as useless as the ghost she accused him of being.

  “Where did you get these quilts?” he asked once she was settled. “They’re quite lovely.”

  Her hands stilled on the branch she’d been using to trace shapes in the dirt. “I made them when I was younger, in anticipation of starting my own family. I don’t know why I keep them locked away in the trunk where they never receive any use. To save them means they’re still meant for their original purpose, and they’re not any longer.” The crease in her brow deepened.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m too old to marry. Any of the men my own age in my town are already married and living their lives. Any older men looking for a wife are really looking to manage the affairs left to them by a deceased spouse. I’d be stepping into someone else’s shoes, and I’m not interested in an arrangement where I’d be a live-in governess rather than a companion.”

  He didn’t understand why it needled him to think of her marrying anyone at all, but he forced himself to say, “There are other towns than your own.”

  “We’ve already established that I’ve never before left Daven.”

  “But you have now,” he said, not sure why he pressed forward with the conversation.

  “True. I’ll just stop by one of the shops and pick me up a husband on the way out of town when we’re done saving your life.”

  He didn’t respond, because what could he say? Tell her she need not bother with a shop? He was being absurd.

  “You’re brighter tonight,” she said after a moment.

  “Brighter?”

  “More defined. I can see you. It’s like you’re made from moonlight, but I can see you.” She shook her head. “We should sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll put you back in your body.”

  He mumbled an agreement as she burrowed into her bedding and fell asleep. She didn’t pretend to be sleeping, which meant she had to be truly exhausted. He felt sorry for his part in her exhaustion but not sorry to have enlisted her help, not sorry to have her with him. He watched her the entire night, watched and thought that if he died on this adventure, he wanted the last thing he saw to be her.

  Grace

  Getting into town was not as complicated as Grace had feared. With her ghost looking more like a liquid man than nothing at all, she was certain someone would see them and have her hanged for witchcraft, but they left early and were on the roads before most people had left their beds. In no time at all, they were at the mausoleum. She slid off her horse and tied it up. Inside the mausoleum, the ghost led her to the stone covering his crypt.

  “So what do I do?” she asked him.

  “Remove the stone.”

  She arched a brow at him. Was he joking? What kind of strength did he think she had? “Is that really the whole of your plan?” With a grunt, she wandered the building and the surrounding outbuildings until she found a shed with tools. She returned with a sturdy pry bar.

  It took some effort, and she sweat profusely, but she managed to get the capstone off. With a breath for courage, she peered inside
. “Well?” she said.

  “Well what?”

  “Get back inside your body so you can go warn the king.”

  He tried and failed.

  “You certainly look dead,” she said, trying not to shiver at the task set before her. She tugged the body, which was quite heavy, out of the crypt into daylight. She hoped the sunshine would do him some good. That didn’t work either. “At least you don’t smell bad.”

  “I’m not dead.”

  She looked from the spirit to the body, both perfect in form. He was a handsome man, and now that she knew him, she really wanted him to live. “You look dead. But let’s see what we can do to fix this. Think of what the man who did this to you said. Was there anything?”

  “He called it a moonlight spell. He said, ‘When the moon phases full, he’ll expire, unless moonlight actually touches the body.’ Do we wait until moonrise?”

  “It’s worth hoping for. I don’t know what else we can do. I’m no magician.”

  “But moonrise is too late. Tonight is the night. The royal family could die while we wait.”

  “No. We won’t wait. I might not be a magician, but I’ve been cooking for my family for years. I know my way around a kitchen. You stay and do what you have to do to be yourself again. I’ll stop dinner.”

  Grace bent over his body and kissed his cold forehead. “For luck!” she called as she leaped to her feet and bounded off to the palace. She felt the ice of him in front of her, forcing her to a halt.

  “You don’t just kiss a man and run off like that,” he said.

  She felt the heat on her cheeks. “It was for luck.” What had she been thinking? If he survived the night, she’d have to face him, and what would she have to say for herself? “And you shouldn’t be here scolding me. You should be keeping watch over your body. You don’t want to miss the chance to fix your situation.”

  “I’m not here to scold you. I’m here because you don’t know where the kitchens are. And I’d rather miss my own chances than take chances with the lives of others. I’ll help you get in the palace.”

  He led her to seldom-used doors and coached her on what to say to anyone she might run into. He had to hide himself several times because he’d become more substantial as the evening deepened into night. By the time she found the kitchens, he looked solid enough to pass for a regular breathing man.

  “Look at you,” she said, aching to reach out to him, to offer comfort, to drag him back to his body so he didn’t die. “You finally look whole.” She touched his shoulder, but her hand felt as though she’d doused it in ice water. “It’s enough,” she said, forming an idea. “The king knows you, doesn’t he? He trusts you?”

  He understood immediately. “Yes, of course! I can go to him, but you’ll need to open the doors. I still can’t grasp anything.”

  Together, they stormed the dining hall where the family waited for the princess’s birthday dinner.

  A man jumped to his feet and said, “What mischief is this? Depart here, spirit!”

  “He’s not a spirit!” Grace cried out, assuming the man was Norton. “But how dare you cast a spell on him and then bury him for dead just so you could poison the royal family’s dinner tonight!”

  “What is this?” A man at the head of the table stood, his robes declaring his position as king. “Arell, is it really you?”

  “Yes, sire.” Arell bowed low to the king. Grace knew she should too, but she didn’t want to take her eyes off of the betrayer in case he tried to run. “I came here tonight with the aid of this woman—Grace of Daven—to warn you that Norton is conspiring against you and your family. And he has done it with the help of Simmons and Simmons’s lady friend who works the kitchens. They mean to poison you and your family. I had to warn you. You can verify my word by checking the food. It’s poisoned, sire.”

  The king signaled other guards in the dining hall. Some of those men took hold of Norton while others went off to find Simmons and the kitchen girl.

  “There will be an investigation.” The king approached Arell. “Thank you. I’m glad you’re alive and glad for the service you’ve rendered this night.” The king placed a hand on Arell’s shoulder and gasped as his hand went straight through.

  Norton laughed. “You’re not here! Which means,” he looked to the tall windows and the rising moon coming up over the hills, “you’re too late to save yourself. You may have caught me, but you caught yourself as well. A little self-preservation would have served you well.”

  “Shut up!” spat the king. “Get him out of my sight!” The guards dragged Norton away, but as they did, Grace cried out.

  Arell had disappeared.

  Norton’s laughter rang through the stone halls.

  Arell

  Grace’s cry filled Arell’s senses and cut off in abrupt silence. He saw nothing but the depths of black that went forever. Was this what death felt like? A painful, fiery, pricking that flowed from his feet to his fingers? He hadn’t even told Grace thank you and goodbye. He hadn’t told her how extraordinary she was.

  The light exploded in his eyes. And he realized the light was the moon. He was on his back, in his body where he’d left it behind the mausoleum.

  Am I alive?

  He twitched his finger. That seemed to work. He wriggled his toes. Doing both of those things made his nerves prick and tingle with agony as the blood flowed to his extremities again.

  “I’m alive!” His hoarse voice did little to magnify the awe he felt in that one statement. He tried to sit up, but the pain in his head forced him back down again.

  And they’d done it! They’d really done it! They’d saved the king and the queen and the little ones. They’d saved him too. Tears leaked from his eyes even as he fell asleep, exhausted by all his body had been through.

  When Arell woke again, he was in his room in the guard house. His eyelids scratched open over his eyes. “Grace?” he asked for her before anything, before the water his throat so achingly required.

  “I’m here.”

  “Course she’s here. Fool woman hasn’t left your side since we brought her to you. A week it’s been, as you’ve come in and out of consciousness. And she’s been here the whole time. She’s as underfoot as the queen’s awful dog.”

  Arell recognized the apothecary’s voice. A gentle hand gripped his own as the bedsprings sagged under the weight of her warm body. He tightened his fingers around hers. “A whole week?”

  “How could I leave until I knew for myself that you’d live? Are you all right?” she asked.

  “I’m all right because you stayed. You could’ve gone back to your life, but you stayed.”

  “My family is well. The king sent a servant to Daven to help with my family when I refused to leave.”

  He brought her hand to his parched lips and kissed her soft skin. “I think you should not stop in any shops to find a husband when you return home. I think you should stay a while longer and see if you’ve already found one.”

  Grace gasped. The apothecary did as well.

  Arell laughed.

  Healing from his ordeal took several months. Grace stayed by his side reading to him things she found interesting and talking with him about everything. And when he offered a bride price to her mother that more than took care of Grace’s family and Grace accepted him, he knew he could not find any greater happiness.

  As a surprise to his newly betrothed, he decided to return to Daven to see her family. They could bring her family back with them to the palace for a wedding fit for a member of the king’s personal guard.

  But first, Arell stopped on the outskirts of the town just across the bridge on the other side of the river from Daven. He wrapped a blindfold around Grace’s eyes, hoping she didn’t recognize where they were yet. “What is all this?” she asked, smiling.

  “Something you deserve.” He trotted the horse the rest of the way into town where he helped her down, blindfold and all, and walked her to the artisan’s shop. He waited until the right
moment and removed the blindfold.

  “The glassblowers!” she breathed. She clapped her hands as she watched them spin the blue and green blobs into bottles. He smiled as he watched her. When she turned and looked up, she tilted her head toward his face. “I love you, my moonlit ghost,” she said.

  “And I love you.” He met her mouth with his own and, for a moment, lost the sense of himself all over again as he held her warmth to him. But losing himself in everything Grace was, he realized he didn’t want to be found.

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  Julie Wright started her first book when she was fifteen. She’s written over a dozen books since then, is a Whitney Award winner, and feels she’s finally getting the hang of this writing gig. She enjoys speaking to writing groups, youth groups, and schools. She loves reading, eating, writing, hiking, playing on the beach with her kids, and snuggling with her husband to watch movies. Julie’s favorite thing to do is watch her husband make dinner. She hates mayonnaise but has a healthy respect for ice cream.

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  Ritva, the village healer, finished her examination and turned from the bed, where Saara’s sister lay sick and weak, getting worse all the time. Saara tried to read the healer’s face, which age had lined so deeply that not a knitting needle’s width existed without a furrow of some kind. The old woman’s downturned mouth and pitying eyes gave no solace. “I am sorry,” Ritva began. “But—”