Aspen in Moonlight

by Kelly Wacker

  “We’ll be back just in time for your father’s wildflowers,” Sula’s mom, Ingrid, interjected. Charles was a botanist, and since they’d been spending so much time in Scandinavia, he’d developed a deep interest in the miniscule tundra plants and flowers that carpeted the ground in that region. With no trees or shrubs, the landscape seemed barren only at a distance.

  “Yeah, and I’m talking to a curator at the Svalbard Museum. I’ve got him interested in a new wildflower display that addresses the impact of climate change.”

  “That’s great, Dad.”

  Ingrid leaned closer to the camera, crowding out her father. “So…we got your message about Melissa.”

  Charles put his hand on his wife’s shoulder, pulling her back so she wasn’t blocking his view. He smiled, but the crease in the corners of his eyes expressed concern. “Yeah. Tell us more about this Melissa.”

  And Sula did. In a rush of words, she related in greater detail who Melissa was and why she was in Buckhorn for the summer. Without going into intimate details, she also explained that they had gone to Denver and had been spending a lot of time together.

  “And you said she’s at your house right now looking at paintings?” Charles asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re not there?” Charles briefly glanced sideways at Ingrid. “You must trust her.”

  “Of course I do, or I wouldn’t let her be there by herself.”

  Charles scratched his bearded chin and squinted, the lines in his forehead deepening.

  “What?”

  “We’ve never seen you this excited about someone before,” Ingrid said.

  “At least not in a long time. Since college, maybe,” her father added. “You must have strong feelings for this woman.”

  “Yes, I do.” Sula resisted laughing. That was an understatement.

  Her mother smiled at her tenderly. “Then I’m happy for you, Sula.”

  Charles raised his eyebrows at Ingrid, who responded by elbowing him gently, prompting him to agree with her. “We both are. I know we don’t need to remind you to—”

  “Be cautious. Yes, Dad. I know that.” Sula’s happy exuberance deflated suddenly, and she felt feel like a teenager again. “I’m always cautious. You and everyone else in the family taught me well.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply you were being careless,” Charles said. “I’m processing my observations here, Sula. You’ve never brought anyone home before, not that I know of, anyway.”

  “You’re right. I haven’t. Melissa is…I don’t know how to explain it. She’s different from anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “You know,” Ingrid said slowly, drawing out the words. “Our family, my side of the family, I mean, has a knack for knowing who the special ones are.”

  Sula understood that her mother was being purposefully ambiguous, given that they were on an unencrypted video chat link. When she said “my family,” she really meant her matrilineal, bear-shifting family. Her father was one of the “special ones,” a regular man who happened to fall in love with a woman who could turn into a bear and who hadn’t run screaming when he found out. At least she thought he hadn’t. She really didn’t know how he’d first responded to learning about her mother.

  “How did you know Dad was a special one?”

  Charles erupted in nervous laughter and leaned back in his chair. “Sorry. I was just thinking that it feels like we’re having the conversation about the birds and the bees.”

  “You know, you and I never did have that conversation.” Sula was teasing.

  “We never needed to. You always liked girls.”

  “No.” Ingrid looked sharply at her husband. “You didn’t have the conversation with Sula, but I did. She still needed to know.”

  Sula nodded.

  “Oh.” Charles looked taken aback. “I didn’t realize that.”

  “Yeah. I know. You were too happy feeling off the hook to give it any more thought.” Ingrid laughed and shifted her focus back to Sula. “You want to know how I knew I could tell your father?”

  “Yes.”

  “I just knew,” Ingrid said flatly.

  “That’s it? That’s all the advice you’re going to give me?”

  “Are you looking for advice about knowing if Melissa’s the one?” Charles blinked in surprise. “Is that what you’re asking?”

  “Of course that’s what she’s asking, darling.” Ingrid shook her head and patted his hand. “I think our Sula’s fallen in love.”

  “Wait a minute. I didn’t say anything about being in love,” Sula said quickly, though she wasn’t being entirely truthful with her parents. She was experiencing something that she could only imagine was love. When she thought of Melissa, which was all the time, she felt a little woozy and like her heart had expanded somehow and was pushing, almost painfully sometimes, against everything inside her. Still, she wasn’t quite ready to confess her feelings to anyone—not to Melissa, nor her parents. “I was just asking how you knew when you could have, you know, the conversation, with someone.”

  “I think what your mom is trying to say is that you don’t even consider this question unless love is involved. Love makes you want to share that confidence,” Charles said.

  “How did Mom tell you?”

  Charles took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “We were on a summer backpacking trip in the Cascades, and I had carried her engagement ring with me, trying to be quite the romantic. We found a place to camp near a small waterfall with a pool deep enough to swim in. It was marvelous, and I felt like we were the only two people in the world. A lot of wildlife was in the area, and all day I had been talking about what animal I wished I could turn into, although I couldn’t settle on a single one. One minute it was a trout, and the next it was, oh, I don’t know, a deer, or something.”

  “He had good reasons for each of them,” Ingrid said.

  “I’m glad you thought so.” Charles beamed. “I kept asking your mother what animal she’d be if she could be anything other than human, and every time she’d reply, ‘A bear.’ I thought it was funny that she didn’t want to be anything else but a bear and figured she was just being silly. That night, after dinner when we were sitting by the fire, I presented her with the ring and asked her to marry me. I believed she’d say yes immediately, but instead she told me I had to know something important about her and that what she was about to reveal could end our relationship, but she could not, and would not, deceive me any further.”

  “Wow…”

  “Wow is right. She prepared me the best she could, but until I saw her…saw the other side of her, as it were…I thought she was just teasing, and I didn’t understand why. It was very confusing.”

  “And how did you react when you saw this ‘new side’ of Mom?” Sula watched her mother turn and look at her father with an inquisitive expression.

  “What do you think?” Charles laughed. “I thought I’d lost my damn mind! Or accidentally eaten a psychotropic mushroom or something.”

  “But you didn’t freak out?”

  “It was a shock, no doubt about that. But once I realized I wasn’t hallucinating and that I wasn’t in any danger, I was just in awe. And in love. My whole understanding of the world had changed in a flash, but once I realized that my love for your mother had not…” Charles smiled at Ingrid tenderly, and her expression mirrored his. “I knew everything would be okay. I was honored by receiving your mother’s complete trust,” he paused to chuckle, “in addition to her hand in marriage.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve never told me this story.”

  “You’ve never asked before,” Ingrid said.

  “That’s true. I haven’t.” Sula took a sip of her coffee, which had become tepid. She set the cup back down on the table next to the laptop.

  “If you’re going to talk to her about it, think about doing it sooner rather than later,” Ingrid said as the image on the screen pixelated and the sound quality faltered. “It just gets harder
the longer you wait.”

  “Not too soon,” Sula said. “Talking about it right before her parents arrive probably isn’t a good idea, especially if it doesn’t go well.”

  “Her parents are coming?” Charles asked.

  “Yeah. Her father’s into fly-fishing.”

  “You know all the good fishing spots. He’ll be impressed with you,” Ingrid said.

  “I don’t expect to meet them.”

  “Sula, if Melissa is as serious about you as you are about her, she’ll want to introduce you to her parents,” Charles said with a knowing look.

  “Oh…” Thunder rumbled in the distance.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. They’ll love you,” Ingrid said reassuringly.

  “You’re biased, Mom.”

  “I’m a scientist, remember? I can have personal opinions and be objective. Melissa sounds very nice, and smart, too. If you’ve invited her this far into your life, that is more significant than you seem to realize. I look forward to meeting her. And if her parents are anything like their daughter, I’m sure they’ll like you.”

  “I guess I’ll be finding that out soon.”

  Her father squinted and spoke loudly. “Sula, we’re having a hard time hearing you. I think our call might drop.”

  “Okay. I love you both.” Sula smiled at them, but it was hard to tell if they were smiling back. The picture had frozen, and their voices sounded tinny and fractured, but she was pretty sure they had said they loved her back. With a blip, the call ended.

  It was good to see her parents instead of just hear their voices or read their messages. And while she felt comforted and reassured by talking with them, she felt restless. All the conversation about Melissa made her curious about what she was doing right now. She stared at her desk and confirmed that she didn’t have anything pressing to complete before the end of the day. She closed the laptop and put it in her messenger bag. Then she left the office quickly, pausing just long enough at Anna’s desk to tell her she’d be out the rest of the afternoon, but not long enough for her to ask any probing questions.

  As she drove home, the sky darkened, and the rain came in with strong, gusty wind. Big, fat raindrops pelted the windshield, and by the time she pulled up next to Melissa’s car in front of her house, it had become a heavy downpour. She ran through it, bounding up the stairs to the protection of the porch. Not wanting to startle her since she was home early, she called out Melissa’s name as she pushed open the front door. The sky flashed again, and a near instantaneous crack of thunder rattled the windows.

  To Sula’s surprise and growing concern, Melissa was nowhere to be found. The painting that hung in her bedroom was on the dining-room table, with Melissa’s notebooks and camera next to it. Her purse lay on a chair in the living room. Thinking she might be taking a nap, Sula went upstairs and quietly peeked into her bedroom. Finding it empty, she checked each of the guest rooms. Nothing. Other than an empty glass in the sink in the kitchen, she couldn’t find a trace of Melissa anywhere in the house.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sula grabbed her raincoat off the hook by the back door and put it on, pulling the hood over her head as she went out into the heavy downpour. She walked the perimeter of the house looking for Melissa or signs of her presence. Logic dictated that if her car was here, the front door unlocked, and she wasn’t inside the house, she must be somewhere outside.

  Sula began to worry that Melissa had gone out and been caught in the storm or, worse, had been too near a lightning strike. The front of the storm had been on top of the valley when she drove up to the house, and several strikes had been so close that, when she opened the door of her truck, she smelled the sweet, metallic scent of ozone in the air.

  After completing a quick loop around the house, she stood below the porch stairs, the rain cascading off the front of the jacket’s hood, and scanned the meadow, wishing she could shift into ursine form. She could make a fast shift when necessary, though it usually left her with a dull, lingering headache when she returned to her two-legged self, but with the eyes and nose of a bear, she could perceive movement and patterns with more clarity, and her sense of smell, though better than the average person’s, was more finely attuned when she was in fur. Even in this downpour that obscured her vision, she’d likely be able to catch a whiff of a scent that would at least point her in the right direction.

  Although the rain continued unabated, the sound of thunder rolled and rumbled from farther down the valley, and a nearby cloud-to-ground strike was still possible. Electrical storms in the high country were dangerous, and far too many people underestimated them. More fearful of large predators like bears and mountain lions, they lost sight of the fact that they were much more likely to be injured by lightning than attacked by some big animal.

  Sula put her hands on her hips, scowling at the rain as she wondered where Melissa could be. She might have gone up the hill behind the house, or she could have walked down into the meadow. Sula felt compelled to move down, not up. She knew Melissa enjoyed the view from the porch, as she’d commented more than once that she’d like to take a walk across the meadow. Sula had said she’d go with her, but she hadn’t yet made good on her promise—they were easily and wonderfully sidetracked; all conversations seemed to lead upstairs to her cozy bed. A rivulet of cold water rolled down her nose as she turned toward the meadow. If Melissa had decided to take a stroll across it this afternoon by herself, she had certainly chosen the wrong day.

  Sula headed downhill, wincing as the rain pelted her face. The possibility that Melissa might have found shelter in the old barn at the meadow’s edge struck her suddenly. She tugged the hood of her jacket forward and marched toward the old building. Framed with logs and sheathed with wide planks that were likely milled from trees felled on the property, it had been constructed to store grass hay, as well as to house horses and probably a milk cow or two. Since Sula didn’t put up hay or keep large animals—the two cats were her only pets—she used it for a workshop and to store a small tractor. She walked around to the side door and grasped the handle of the side door, pulling it open. The lights inside were on.

  “Melissa? You in here?”

  “Sula! Over here.”

  Sula pushed the hood of her jacket back and looked around. “Oh, there you are…” She laughed at the unexpected sight in front of her. “Going somewhere?”

  Melissa, her hair wet and plastered against her head and neck, was seated on the old tractor parked at the far end of the barn. She waved and climbed down off the weather-beaten Case, its trademark bright-orange paint having long ago faded to its current pale version of the original. Her expression was sheepish. “This rain wasn’t letting up, and that was the only place to sit.”

  “You could have found some folding chairs in the workshop.” Sula pointed to one of the converted stalls.

  “I should have snooped around, then.” Melissa laughed and glanced at the tractor’s contoured metal seat. “Who ever thought that was a good design? That seat isn’t very comfortable.”

  “It’s functional,” Sula said with a grin. She was glad to have found Melissa safe and not lightning-struck out in the field. “You weren’t in the house, and I thought maybe you went for a walk and got caught in the storm. I figured I’d better come looking for you.”

  “That’s exactly what happened.” Melissa crossed her arms. Her T-shirt and shorts were soaked through, and her leg was smeared with black grease that must have come from the tractor. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

  “I’m just glad you’re in here and not out there.” Sula gestured with a hooked thumb toward the door. “Geez, you’re soaked.” Sula took her jacket off, put it over Melissa’s shoulders, and gave her a tender kiss on the forehead. “Let’s get you back to the house and warmed up.”

  “But you’ll get wet.” Melissa started to remove the jacket. “I’m already wet.”

  “Keep it on.” Sula slid the jacket back over her shoulders. “More important, I’m warm,
and you’re not. Believe it or not, you can get hypothermia in this temperature.” Thunder rumbled outside, punctuating Sula’s words. “The worst of the storm has passed. Let’s get back up to the house, and I’ll make you a hot cup of tea.”

  Melissa didn’t protest. When they stepped outside the barn, the rain was still coming down, but the sky had lightened considerably. By the time they made it up the hill and back into the house, Sula was equally drenched.

  “Do you have some clothes here to change into?” Sula asked.

  “Not anything clean. Just what I was wearing yesterday.” Melissa clinched her arms against her torso and was now shivering visibly, the edges of her lips a little bluish. “I’ve got such a chill.”

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and take a shower to warm up? I’ll put the kettle on and then come up and find you something to wear.”

  Melissa nodded and practically ran up the stairs. Sula went into the kitchen, filled the kettle with fresh water, and set the burner to a low flame. When she got upstairs, steam was billowing into her bedroom from the partially open bathroom door. She leaned in and grabbed her towel off the hook on the back of the door, then quickly stripped off her wet work clothes and dried herself before putting on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. She rummaged through her chest of drawers to find another pair and a soft flannel shirt for Melissa. They would be too big, but they’d suffice until she could wash and dry Melissa’s clothes. Sula picked up the wet clothes off the floor, intending to take them downstairs to the laundry room, when Melissa sauntered out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, hair dripping wet, skin pink from the heat of the water, and green eyes sparkling.

  “Mmm…maybe I should warm you up,” Melissa said when she saw Sula.

  “Well, now that you mention it, I do feel a bit of a chill.” Sula stepped forward, closing the distance between them.

  “Poor baby,” Melissa cooed, putting her hands on the edges of the towel, lifting the fabric. “I’m sure I could raise your temperature.”