Aspen in Moonlight

by Kelly Wacker

  “Ow! Shit!”

  Snapping the book shut, Sula jumped off the couch and, unlike the cats, moved in the direction of the sound.

  “Hello?” Sula said loudly, standing by the door.

  “Sula?”

  Sula thought she recognized the voice on the other side, but it wasn’t possible…was it? Opening the door, she was hit by a blast of cold, but more shocking than the frigid air was finding Melissa sitting on the stairs near the edge of the porch.

  “Melissa! What are you doing here?”

  “Slipping on the steps, apparently.” Melissa looked up at her with a grin. She was wearing jeans with cowboy boots, a dark-gray puffy jacket, and a knit hat the color of moss.

  “I see that, but—”

  “I had prepared an eloquent speech to convince you to open the door. Clearly I hadn’t considered falling on the stairs.” She looked down at her feet and then back up at Sula, extending her hand. “But it worked quite well. Will you help me up…please?”

  Sula nodded mutely. Reaching for Melissa, Sula saw that her footsteps had compacted the snow on the steps into ice. She took Melissa’s hand, startled by the sudden contact, and pulled her to her feet.

  “Why wouldn’t I open the door for you?”

  “After all this time, and silence, I was afraid you’d be done with me. And I wouldn’t blame you. I behaved stupidly, just running away. You were going to have surgery and I…I just took off like an idiot. And then I never responded to your message. That was cruel and unkind. I haven’t been myself since I left, but I don’t think that’s a good enough excuse. I should have talked to you. You deserve better than that. And Betty, too.”

  “I thought I’d never see you again,” Sula blurted out, beginning to feel the cold seeping through her clothes. “It’s freezing out here. Come in.” Sula gestured to the open door and followed Melissa, still in disbelief. “How are you here?”

  “How did I get here? I flew.”

  “To Buckhorn?”

  “No. To Denver. I rented a car at DIA and drove up.” She removed her hat and ran her fingers, nervously, it seemed, through her honey-colored hair. She looked as anxious as she was beautiful, although in the light of the living room, Sula saw dark circles under her eyes.

  “How are you?” Melissa said softly. “You look good…really good.”

  “I’m healed. No permanent damage.”

  “I’m so relieved. God, how could I not have asked you before? I just assumed you’d be okay, but what if you weren’t? I was so foolish, so selfish.” Melissa shook her head, pressing her fingers against her lips, looking on the verge of tears. “I’m so sorry. Can you ever accept my apology?”

  “I owe you an apology, too. I kept a big secret from you.”

  “Yeah, you did.” Melissa cocked her head. “Does that make us even?”

  “Well, I don’t know about even.”

  Melissa’s face fell. “What do you mean?”

  “You owe Betty an apology, too. She’s kind of mad at you for running off. And let me tell you, that woman can hold a grudge.”

  “Tell me about it. I had a long talk with her this morning from the airport.”

  “She knew you were coming?”

  Melissa hung her head and nodded, looking so pitiful Sula wanted to soften her words. Melissa’s stomach rumbled, and she put a hand on her stomach, her look of shame shifting to embarrassment.

  “Are you hungry?” Sula asked. “I made a pot of chili and was just about to eat.”

  “I’m famished. I rushed from the plane to the car-rental counter, and when I saw the snow, I was afraid to stop. It’s been a long time since I’ve driven in a snowstorm.”

  “It’s probably good you got here before the canyon road iced over.” Sula gestured to the dining room. “Take your coat off and have a seat. I’ll bring it out.”

  Sula put down bowls of chili, cheese, and crackers and then took a seat across the table.

  “Oh, this is so good,” Melissa said after the first spoonful. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Sula ate two bites of chili and set her spoon down, realizing that, for the first time in weeks, the nagging ache in her chest had disappeared.

  “Is something wrong?” Melissa held her spoon mid-air.

  “I’m just still shocked that you’re here…in front of me. What happened? Why are you here now?”

  “On Monday, when I received the spirit-bear sculpture you sent, I was probably as surprised to get it as you were to see me on your porch.”

  Sula looked at her sideways, raising her eyebrows.

  “Okay, maybe not as surprised,” Melissa said with a smile that Sula couldn’t help but return. “Trying to figure out why you sent it to me made me think through our situation. Not including a note was a good strategy. That was like something a professor would do—make the student figure it out so they really learn the lesson.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Sula added more cheese to her chili and stirred it in.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “I started to call you and…you know, the plane ticket was an impulsive decision. Maybe the most impulsive thing I’ve ever done. When I realized I was letting fear rule me instead of being guided by love, I recognized how badly I’d behaved. I should have responded when you said you wanted to talk. After so much time I was afraid you’d say no if I told you I was coming. I didn’t want to take that chance.”

  “I would have said yes in a heartbeat.” Sula smiled ruefully.

  “Really?”

  “Really. Would you believe that earlier today I was thinking about knocking on your door?”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No. I’m going to a conference in Tennessee and was looking at a map. It’s at a place not far from where you live.”

  “That would be really nice.” Melissa smiled gently at her. “It’s funny we were thinking along the same lines.”

  “Mm-hmm. Parallel lines of thought, it would seem. You said the bear sculpture made you realize some things. What things?”

  “It was a puzzle. At first, I didn’t understand why you sent it other than I had said I liked it. But when I thought about how it represents a shaman, a person who moves not just between worlds, but between human and bear bodies, I realized that it represented you, a beautiful woman and bear.”

  Sula blushed and nodded, listening attentively as Melissa continued to explain how earlier that day, she had given a lecture about a minotaur, a hybrid creature, and then, when she was preparing a lecture on Roman sculpture, she came across images of Germanic warriors.

  “Germanic warriors?”

  “Yes. Wearing the skins of wolves and bears. They were hiding in a crowd, just like you. Then I did some research and learned some very interesting things…”

  “Such as?”

  Melissa put her spoon down and looked Sula directly in the eye. “You’re a berserker, aren’t you?”

  Sula inhaled sharply, not expecting the point-blank question, though she anticipated where Melissa’s line of thinking was taking her. No one had ever asked her that question before. “Yes, I am.”

  “How is that possible?” Melissa said, her tone somewhere between wonder and incredulity.

  “It just is.” Sula shrugged. “I mean, I can’t explain how I exist any better than you could explain yourself. You and I are both the product of millions of years of evolution. Can you explain how you came to be? But I’m not a berserker like you’re thinking.” Sula noticed both of their bowls were empty. “It’ll take some time to explain…would you like to sit by the fire? I can make some coffee or tea. Or a hot toddy?”

  “Anything with alcohol would be appreciated. It’s been that kind of a day.”

  “It’ll just take a few minutes. Go enjoy the fire.” Sula carried the bowls to the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil, while she sliced a lemon and got out a bottle of whiskey. When she returned to the living room carrying two steaming mu
gs, Melissa was sitting on the couch. She put a mug on the table in front of Melissa and sat in the chair by the fire.

  Melissa lifted the cup and took a sip. “Mmm, lemon, honey, of course…and is that whiskey? You’d make a good bartender.” Melissa took a second sip and smiled, her expression mischievous. “Or should that be beartender?”

  Sula, the edge of the cup pressed against her lips, laughed and almost inhaled the hot liquid. Making a joke about being a bear shifter was the last thing she expected from Melissa.

  Melissa lifted her mug. “I’d better drink this slowly. Otherwise I’ll end up passed out on this couch. I had to get up really early to make it to the Atlanta airport, and with the time difference, it feels like two hours later than it is here on Mountain Time.” She put the cup back on the table. “Betty said it runs in your family. Your parents are beserkers?”

  “No. Just my mother.” Sula held the warm mug between her hands. “It seems to be a matrilineal-gene expression. That’s what I meant about not being a berserker like you think. Those berserker warriors were men wanting to be like us. I guess they sort of stole our identities, in a way. They wore the animal skins and worked themselves into a bestial frenzy before going into battle, but they weren’t true shape-shifters. More like wannabes.” Sula eyed Melissa, monitoring her responses to this information. She leaned forward while Sula spoke and seemed intrigued, not frightened.

  “But what about the story of Eydís Bersa that I came across in that book with my grandmother’s photographs? She was a berserker warrior, wasn’t she?”

  “In that story, yes. As I’m sure you know, sagas like that were based on oral tradition. The original stories probably had bits and pieces of truth and fiction, and the first person who wrote them down probably altered the stories, too. I think Eydís Bersa weaves together the stories of women who could become bears, the true berserkers, and the male-wannabe berserker warriors.”

  Melissa looked lost in thought for a moment. “If berserkers are real, are the ulfhednar, the wolf-warriors in that sculpture, real, too?”

  Sula shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never met one. If they exist, I imagine they live in secrecy like we do. There aren’t that many of us, you know, and we try to live quietly and go about our lives. If our truths had ever been revealed, we would probably have been hunted to extinction.”

  “And your father? He knows about your mother?”

  “Of course. My mother told him when he proposed.” Sula paused, taking a deep breath. “They kept asking when I planned to tell you, but I just couldn’t get up the nerve.”

  Melissa’s eyes opened wide. “You told them about me?”

  “Yeah. I was trying to figure out how to explain it all to you in a way that wouldn’t make you think I was crazy or scare you. And then you saw the hamask—that’s what we call the shift—in the worst form. Having been injured, I had no control over it.”

  “Does it hurt?” Melissa grimaced. “It seemed awful.”

  “It’s not so bad when I initiate it. When I don’t have control of it, it is…unpleasant.”

  “And by ‘unpleasant,’ I assume you mean it’s horribly painful.”

  “Yeah.” Sula laughed, a lightness coming over her from being able to be so open, so unguarded. Melissa’s expression shifted to apparent bewilderment. “Oh, I’m not laughing about the pain. Trust me, that’s no laughing matter. It feels good to talk about this with you.”

  “Yes, it does. I think I was still in shock when I left. It was like my brain couldn’t process everything I’d seen. I just shut down everything except school and teaching…and I’ve been so miserable. And I’ve missed you terribly.” Melissa searched her eyes. “Sula, can we start over?”

  Sula’s heart skipped a beat. “Even knowing all this, you still want to be with me?”

  Melissa nodded. “I’d like to try.”

  “I would, too.” Sula grinned. “You know, they say the third time’s a charm.”

  “The third time?”

  “Yes. Remember when we first met? In the bar with Kerry?”

  “Oh! I didn’t even ask about Kerry!”

  “Yeah. I’d like to forget about Kerry, too,” Sula said bitterly, taking a sip of her toddy.

  “So, what happened to her?”

  “She lost her job, and charges were brought against her, but she’ll probably just get probation. I wish she’d go back to Wyoming, where she came from.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it before, but you tried to protect me from her in the bar just like you did in the woods.” Melissa’s face lit up. “And after the incident at the bar, we agreed to reintroduce ourselves at the visitors’ center the next day. That would have been our second time.”

  “Yes, making now the third time.” Sula stood and stepped over to Melissa, extending her hand. “Hello, Dr. Warren. It’s nice to meet you, again.”

  Melissa stood and took her hand. “Why, hello, Ms. Johansen. It’s nice to meet you again, too.”

  “I hear you’d like to talk with me about some paintings,” Sula said, joking.

  “Yes, and I still want to.”

  “Yeah? What’d you want to talk about?”

  “For starters, you know the one I was calling Aspen in Moonlight?”

  “The one upstairs in the bedroom?”

  “Yes. Can we go look at it?”

  “Sure. But bring your drink. Otherwise one of the cats will stick a paw in it.” Sula led Melissa to her bedroom, as she had done before many times, only this time her intentions remained chaste. She turned on the light. It wasn’t seduction she wanted right now.

  Melissa stood next to the bed, near the headboard, sipping her drink and staring at the painting hanging over it. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this painting.”

  Sula sat on the edge of the bed, holding her mug in both hands, looking up at it. “About what?”

  “About how works of art don’t change, but we do. As our perspective changes, it impacts how we interpret the things we see. I didn’t understand this painting before, and it seemed like some dreamlike fantasy. My experience in the woods changed my outlook beyond anything I could have ever imagined.” Melissa glanced at Sula with a soft smile. “And then I unexpectedly received your bear sculpture. I considered it from new angles, and that caused me to think differently about this painting.” The tone of Melissa’s voice was gentle, but she spoke with professorial authority. Sula liked it. “I think your grandmother, Ursula, is the bear and my grandmother, Evelyn, is the woman. If I’m right, then this painting acknowledges that Evelyn knew Ursula’s secret.”

  “How so?” Sula felt like she was a student again.

  “For starters, how can she not see that big bear in the foreground? It’s as if they went out for a walk together to enjoy watching the moonrise. Remember that comment in one letter about how they were looking at the moon at the same time but from different places?”

  “Of course. It was very romantic but sad and full of longing.”

  “What if this painting was made in reference to that love letter? That letter, among others that makes their relationship explicit, was hidden in this painting. It seems possible that Ursula hid the letters in the painting to protect Evelyn. We know her parents disapproved of her.”

  “Or Evelyn herself might have hidden the letters there. You told me that the paper backing had been cut and re-glued clumsily.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t even thought of that.” Melissa’s eyes grew wide. “That’s an equal possibility, isn’t it?”

  Sula nodded. “Back to the painting, you’re saying that it demonstrates that Evelyn knew Ursula was a bear. That’s an interesting idea. These are the only two paintings that I know of with bears and women in them, and one belonged to your grandmother, the other to mine. So maybe they do contain hidden messages about their relationship and what Evelyn knew.”

  “Exactly. Bonus points for you. You should have studied art history.” Melissa flashed a smile. “Now, with my new knowledge and per
spective, when I look at these paintings, they tell me that Evelyn knew and loved Ursula for what she was. I can’t help but think that they might have had a life together if it wasn’t—”

  “For the bullet that ended Ursula’s life,” Sula said gravely, touching her arm where a different bullet had passed through. “It’s weird, isn’t it? The parallel?”

  “Don’t you mean parallels? Our great-grandmothers were lovers, and you were shot by a hunter, just like Ursula, your namesake, was shot by one.”

  “Fortunately, I survived being shot.” Sula finished her drink and put the cup on the bedside table.

  “Life is strange. If Ursula had survived, then they might have found a way to stay together. Evelyn would have never gotten married and had a child…” Melissa put her fingers to her lips as an idea seemed to jolt her, “and I wouldn’t have been born.”

  Sula frowned at the thought that she might never have met the love of her life. “That just reinforces this feeling I’ve had that it’s like we’re completing something left unfinished.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure exactly, just a feeling of setting something right,” Sula said.

  “Maybe you’re feeling us setting ourselves right. You know, Sula, there is something that seems unfinished…for me, anyway.”

  “What’s that?”

  Melissa drained the contents of her cup and placed it next to Sula’s. “I need to see you as a bear again.”

  “Really?” Sula bit her lower lip, anxious. No one had ever asked her this. Of course, because she’d never allowed herself to fall in love, she’d never let someone get close enough to know, let alone ask.

  “I need to see it, in part to replace the bad memory I can’t get out of my head. But also, because I need to see you fully as you are. I know this Sula,” Melissa put her fingertips against Sula’s chest, then pointed to the bear in the painting, “but I need to see the other one, too.”

  “You want to see me in fur? Right now?”