by Blair Aaron
CHAPTER 7
The leaders of the community kept the blond man locked away for several weeks in a cabin by the cliff, near the sea. The house Father O'Grady offered to give him was once occupied by the oldest living member of the community, long since passed, before Elsa was born. She surmised it could have been the blacksmith who followed his children into the forest, in the hopes he could bring them back, the same man Elsa's father told her about when she was just a little kid.
The blond man didn't emerge from the cabin for days, while several village leaders guarded his door, lest the young girls like Chloe and Sarah meddle into his cabin at night, and disturb his sleep. The whole town united in solidarity in protecting the blond man, spurred by Father O'Grady, from any perturbation. Father O'Grady counseled anyone who would listen, both on Sundays in his time at the lectern and on the sidewalk as he came from his home to work every day, about the importance to letting the man be. The man gave every indication that he wasn't wanted by the community, that they would reject or ostracize him. O'Grady also made it clear to the town's people that the man would warm up to the people in time, as he promised he had no plans to inflict harm on his neighbors.
In the weeks since the announcement, the man's residence sat atop a steep hill, overlooking the sea on one side, and on the other side, a wide gradual slope which neared the depth of a typical valley, on which the main area of the town resided. The tiny blue house was a metaphorical star which attracted the attention of every last resident in the town. The children created games around it. The teenagers came as close as they could at night, before the leaders guarding the young man ran them off, into the dusky night, the freshly grown grass of summer just beginning to fade. Autumn was upon them.
And for Elsa, the longer she tried to ignore the house, the more it consumed her attention, lurking in the back of her mind at her job as a waitress in the local tavern, and directly overpowering her thoughts at night, as she sat in a rocking chair on her porch, watching the sun set. She waited and waited for signs that he would come out of his house and join the rest of the town. The idea enervated Elsa's imagination, to think of a magical man from the forest who decided to permanently reside with them in the town. She surmised all the glorious possibilities it would bring to their village. Perhaps, she thought, they might one day leave, with the man as a guide to how to pass into the wilderness. Elsa stopped that line of thinking, realizing how unholy it was. Father O'Grady would never forgive her. The cool air careened down from the cliff on the sea, through the town and onto her porch, bathing her naked neck in a sweet, cold draft, sending goosebumps through her skin's surface. She lay her head back, daydreaming about the man, wondering what to call him, and how he would respond to her once he laid conscious eyes on her.
And one day, despite the nearly intolerable build-up to meeting him, she saw someone familiar in the garden near the cabin. Elsa was coming home from work, and for a moment, she forgot she was passing by his house. The grass on the pavement next to his home grew wild and unkempt, and she looked ahead at a man in a red shirt, plowing the field next to his house, his large and muscular back bent over, so she could not see his face. Elsa simply had not been paying attention, and she thought in an absent-minded way how kind it was that the man standing before her offered his services for that reclusive inhabitant she so longed to see. And like so many times before, her body and heart realized who the man bent over plowing the field was before her mind did. In an instant, she ducked behind the wall, just as the man stopped his work and looked up into the air. He felt her presence, or someone's presence, clearly. He took off his brown hat, revealing shiny, luscious hair. The wind tousled it, drying the sweat from the crown of his forehead. Elsa looked behind the wall, as the blond haired man looked around the area, wondering whose presence he sensed. Elsa looked him up and down, at his statue-like frame, his height, his form-fitting gray pants, and burning red shirt, which outlined massive muscles along his back and chest. Physically the man was imposing and dangerous, but his demeanor, his aura, never approached violent, as his soul radiated goodness and truthfulness. The same foreign, powerful feeling continued to blossom in Elsa's heart for the man, so electrified was she by the first sight of him since that night in the grass. But she dare not approach him now, because she was not ready. She waited behind the wall until he wiped his fit forearms with the towel and went back into his home.
CHAPTER 8
The day's events spurred Elsa to take a walk around town, the energy of meeting the blond man once again, the leaps of joy bounding through her heart upon witnessing his vitality and health giving her a spurt of energy that refused sleep. On her walk, Elsa passed another familiar cottage, separated on the exact opposite side of town, the area some might describe as slovenly, perhaps even dangerous, though there was only one real place that posed real danger, the Forbidden Forest.
Even though the community in which Elsa was raised taught her the importance of brotherly love and the dangers of being judgmental, most of Elsa's friends could never keep themselves from terrorizing the local elderly woman, named Freja Stein, on the other side of town during the autumn months. The children labeled her a witch, building up myths around her back story that involved the leaders of the community, its priests, parishioners, cooks, counselors, and teachers somehow overlooking the fact that Freja Stein had come from the forest. The leaders wanted to forget about the witch in her lonely cottage, the children told themselves, because Freja might cast a spell on them. One particular story most of them believed was this: Freja Stein was feeding her slew of owls one day, while a teenage girl laughed at her for being crazy. Then Freja simply looked up to the girl who mocked her and clicked her eyelids just once. The girl continued walking home from school, chuckling to herself, but soon found owls flying on various perches throughout her walk. They became more numerous the closer the girl got to her home, and soon enough, thousands of owls swarmed the poor girl from all sides. She tried making a run for the house, but the owls pecked her eyes out before she made it inside.
Elsa grew out of those silly little superstitions faster than her peers did, but even she was not immune to the petty torments most children are prone to. On the dark days in October, Elsa played with Priscilla and the others, throwing rocks through the poor woman's window, breaking the glass, and sending dirty drafts through her house. Freja never retaliated to the girls, and looking back, Elsa's heart broke for the damage she helped inflict on the woman's home. A few days later, she hobbled out of her home early in the morning to tape some cloth over the holes the rocks made. Beyond that, the children never saw much of Freja, and the adults gave her the space she obviously wanted. She never made it to church, or weddings of young couples, or the birth of children. Although, at an elderly man's funeral, she did make an appearance, several years ago, her hair disheveled and her face ragged in the way people stricken with sudden grief often look. The girls speculated that Freja wanted to make sure the man was dead as a doornail, so that she could know her black magic worked its course.
Elsa herself had an altogether different theory, that the man, who was married at the time of his death, secretly fell in love with Freja and pursued a relationship with her, meeting her sugar cookies in her cottage at night, when no one was watching. It was possible that Elsa's romantic personality concocted this fantasy from no actual evidence in real life, but even the possibility it was true made Elsa feel somewhat better about how she had treated Freja as a child. That Freja might have had a true friend, let alone a romantic partner, lifted her spirits in response to Freja's otherwise lonely existence. But since that funeral several years ago, not a single person heard from Freja Stein. She crawled back into her sad, broken down cottage, ready to pass into another plane existence, where she might be wanted.
Elsa's thoughts circled back to the blond man again, and how she would approach him. She wondered about his reasons for staying away from the other members of the community for so long. Did he not want to get to know th
e townspeople? She feared he would reject her, but ultimately decided she couldn't wait any longer for him to make his way out into the wide world. It was time she took her fate into her own hands and resolved to knock his door the next morning.
CHAPTER 9
When she stepped on his porch, she was wearing the same dress as the day before and the night Chloe and Sarah revealed their vicious little present to her. Elsa looked down at the red stain on her dress, the moment after she knocked on his door, anxious that his eyes would go straight to the area. She became severely self-conscious in that moment.
“Hello,” a voice said, Elsa still looking down at her shameful red stain. Her face blushed as she realized the man had already opened the door and was standing there, waiting for her response. She braced herself before looking up. She bravely locked eyes with him, falling deeply into his blue orbs. He smiled at her, knowing she would arrive sooner or later, it seemed. “My name is Theo,” he said, extending a paw in salutation.
“Hi, Theo,” she said, placing her small dainty hand in his. He shook her hand gently, and Elsa's knees seemed to weaken. Theo had grown a ruddy mane around his neck in the time since the accident, and for all his sculpted beauty, he struck Elsa with a dose of masculinity hidden underneath that angelic prettiness.
“Please, come in. You just happen to be the second visitor to pay me a visit today,” he said, turning back into his house. As Elsa followed him in, her face flushed hot with the possibility that someone had gotten to Theo before she did. She resolve to determine just who exactly it was. “The place is much cleaner than when I found it,” Theo said, a wry smile forming on his lips. Elsa was again struck by the beauty of his smile as well, perfectly aligned teeth, which gave a cat-like impression to anyone watching close enough. She looked around the open area of his cottage, which only one small wall dividing the living area from the kitchen area, and a large window on the back wall of the place, revealing a scenic view of the cliff's edge and the ocean beyond that. Elsa's soul floated out that window into the infinity of the sea, along with Theo. She looked over to him, the connection between him and her sedating her, intoxicating her. Her world faded into black, and she woke up later on his bed, vaguely recalling him gently picking her up from the floor and carrying her into his bedroom, his bed covered with soft downy sheets and cloud-like pillows. Theo was a stranger, yes, but for some reason, Elsa knew him. He sat next to her, his arm propping him up on the side, smiling over her. She breathed in a big waft of his scent, a pleasant mix of freshly cleaned skin, along with faint but heavy dirt and grass. Her ran his thumb across her forehead, caressing the side of her cheek, and her heart shuddered with the gesture. Despite her ever-knowing certainty when it came to their connection, she was still human, with doubts and second guesses about her hunches.
Theo saw she was awake. “You took quite the fall there. I assumed there was something wrong.”
“No, just nerves,” she said.
“I have some work to do outside, if you would like to join me,” he said, getting up and moving toward the door. She got up and followed him outside, where he sat down on the ground, digging a hole with a wooden spade. Elsa sat down with him, and they worked together for a while in silence, in the way a couple might work when they have said everything there is to say between each other. But then Theo said something which suggested Elsa's feelings might not be returned.
“There's a dance tomorrow, Father O'Grady told me. For me and Lili, commemorating her return and the things I did to help her.”
“Are you going?” Elsa asked.
“I think it's necessary. She would be very upset if I didn't, I would think.” He continued digging a hole in the ground, planting red seeds, using a wooden bucket to water the area. Elsa watched his blue eyes to determine if her presence held his interest. He looked at her hands digging along with him, and stopped, seeing the red stain on her dress for the first time.
“Oh no,” he said. “Did these seeds do this?”
“Not at all,” she said, anxious to please him, or at the very least unwilling to say anything that might upset him. She walked on a thin sheet of ice with him, terrified of falling through and losing the opportunity. And despite her attempt at hiding that, he could tell.
“What happened here? There's only one kind of ivy that leaves a red stain like this,” he said. “Where did you find it?” She could tell he was curious about whether she had been into the Forbidden Forest.
“Well,” she said, “it kind of found me.”
“What do you mean?”
“A couple girls gave it to me. They found it around her your head when you were lying unconscious on the edge of town.”
“I see.” Elsa could not figure out what he thought of the ivy stain. Mentioning Chloe and Sarah brought up the idea in her mind that one of them had visited Theo before Elsa did. That possibility posed a far more optimistic problem for Elsa to solve than the alternative one--namely, that the first visitor was Lili. She wondered if Theo truly desired her, as Lili definitely gave the impression that she desired Theo. While Elsa knew Lili had been through a lot in the past few days, Elsa did not want to give up her connection with Theo. He sat there, continuing his work in the garden, planting the same red seeds into the ground.
Elsa decided to bite the bullet. “Tell me Theo. Just who was your first visitor today?” Her stomach turned in anticipation of his answer, hoping perhaps that the person was someone she didn't have to compete with, such as Father O'Grady or maybe Priscilla.
“Lili paid me a visit today,” he said, sending Elsa into an abyss of jealousy. She knew it was wrong, as Father O'Grady taught her from her childhood where those emotions led. But she couldn't help feeling that way about Theo, and it was clear then that the evil inside her was winning its war for her soul. She despaired at the knowledge.
“What did she want?” Elsa asked. Theo looked up at her with his blue eyes fiercely looking into her soul. She wondered if her question angered him, because she was prying into his private life, his secret relationship with Lili that he didn't want Elsa knowing about. Elsa imagined the most horrific things about Theo in that moment, that maybe he had just finished making love when she knocked on the door, on the same bed he had put her on when she'd fainted. Red hot anger flushed through her cheeks, and the embarrassment that came from Theo witnessing her change in complexion made it that much worse. But he didn't say anything to her. She was burning with fire on the inside, her heart aflame, and he couldn't give her at least a sign her worst fears were unfounded. But then he grabbed her hand in his, looking down at her red stain.
“I'm sorry those ivies stained your dress. I guess it means we're connected somehow, huh?” he said, as Elsa breathed a huge sigh of relief. “You're going to be at the dance tomorrow, I hope.” Elsa nodded her head, as Theo got up, wiping the dirt off his pants. She followed him back inside his house, as he dug through a cloth bag, his giant thighs draped over the kitchen table. He was such a hulking man, she thought, and she longed to know him physically. Watching him sent her into an emotional tailspin, mixing the good and forbidden qualities into one new experience. When Theo pulled out a damp cloth from the bag, he handed it to her, and said, “This should work. Dump the powder on your dress tonight when you take it off before bed. Toss a little water on it and let it soak overnight. Should do the trick.”
“OK,” she said, breathless.
“I'll show you out,” he said, smiling at her as he opened the front door. Elsa found herself so confused when she left. If he liked her, why did he make a point of seeing her out of his place? She also wanted to know why he didn't let her know she had nothing to worry about in the garden when she asked who had visited him first. Elsa didn't want to a pawn in a man's game, manipulated for the joy of it, and she wondered if Theo's origins in the Forbidden Forest had anything to do with his mischief.
CHAPTER 10
Father O'Grady and his clerks transformed the town hall into an altogether different place, in ord
er to honor Theo for his heroic deeds.
“Ladies and Gentlemen! Please do your best to crowd on the other side of the room, as Theo and Lili enter from this end,” one clerk said, gesturing the crowd onto the other side of the tent. The crowd mostly consisted of young couples, though some adventurous old ones made it out that night. Elsa couldn't remember the last time her village put on a dance, as Father O'Grady and the others made it clear parties put you on a dangerous path. But this was a special time, and the town jumped at the opportunity for ceremonial engagements, given their rarity.
As half the town poured into the tent from one end, Elsa looked around the familiar faces for signs of Theo. But he was nowhere to be found.
