Aye, I am a Fairy

by Dani Haviland

  James went back to the waiting area and debated on whether to call Billy right away—he was probably just going to bed—or should he wait until later. What good would later be? Call now, Melbourne. It's no different than you going to bed at midnight rather than 9 PM. James took out his phone and dialed before he could rationalize, argue, or doubt his convictions for calling.

  "Yo, bro," Billy answered sprightly, "What's happenin' with you and my favorite lady, Lady Leah?"

  James’s first reaction was pride that Leah's best friend was happy that he was going to marry her. Second and now most urgent reaction: ask for help.

  "Billy, we've been robbed," he said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized that he considered the letters hers as much as his. Duh! Her mother wrote them or at least she had written the first one.

  "Robbed? Of what? When? Is Leah okay? Where are you right now?” Billy fired off his questions, not even taking a breath between them or pausing for James to answer.

  "Letters; she's okay, but we're at the hospital," James replied just as rapidly. He suddenly realized how lame 'letters' must have sounded. "They were historical family papers, over 200 years old, Revolutionary War documents, probably worth a fortune, but they were my family's and Leah's, too. Her…” James stopped his compulsion to tell him that her mother had written the letters to her 230 years ago. Damn! I must be stressed. Shut up, Melbourne, and let Billy come over and take care of this before he changes his mind about you and letting you marry his pride and joy. James realized Billy was talking and he hadn’t been listening.

  "Sorry, mate, I'm a little stressed here. We're at Leah's ER and seeing to the motel clerk, Clark. Shoot, I'm sorry. No, Leah wasn't hurt and neither was I. I think the lad was doped with the same stuff used on Leah at the airport."

  "What? Leah was doped at the airport? When? Shit, no, wait a minute. Let me get my clothes on, and I'll be right there."

  James got a flash image: Billy in nothing but his towel again. Thankfully he never got an image of him without the towel. Now that would be very disturbing...

  James looked over and saw Leah exiting the big double doors from the ER ward. The scowl on her face was three layers deep. "What?" he asked, as she walked toward him, looking in both directions, as if to make sure they didn't have any witnesses.

  "Clark's a little dopey, but he'll be okay. He doesn't remember anything except his arms and mouth going numb, and then clutching for the shelf to break his fall. Oh, and you helping him get up. He said to tell you thanks. I told him you stayed with him and called 911. His eyes really popped open at that. I got the gut feeling that he's not used to people being nice to him or helping him out. Uh, do you think we ought to call Billy?" she added, not as an afterthought, but with just a bit of guilt or shame for not suggesting it earlier.

  "We already did; he's on his way."

  Just then, a male nurse came out from behind the closed doors to greet them. "Leah and James?" he asked to make sure he had the right people. James glared at him with mild disgust. Of course, he was James, and then he backed off. The man was only being cautious, which was part of his job. "Yes," Leah replied. "This is James and I’m Leah.”

  "The patient, I mean Mr. MacLeod, asked to speak with you two." The man in green didn’t wait for them to accept his invitation, but turned and pressed in his code to admit them into the inner sanctum of healing. Leah shrugged at James, then the two of them followed through the doors, the valise clutched tightly under James’s arm.

  "Hey, thanks, mate," Clark called out cheerily when he saw James come around the drawn curtains. "I'm sure glad I grabbed for the TP and not the glasses and ice buckets..."

  "That was my first thought, too," said James. He was glad the kid was feeling better. At least, he sure looked better.

  "Um, I need to ask you both a favor. I could be in big trouble. I don't want you to lie for me or anything, but just swear that, well, tell him what happened. You see, as soon as they bring me a phone, I have to call the bail bondsman and tell him that my twenty-four/seven supervision got compromised, but not on purpose. Damn! I don't know what happened. One minute everything's fine, and the next minute…well, you know, you were there."

  "What's twenty-four/seven supervision?" James asked. Just then, an aide appeared with a cordless phone. "Dial 9 to get out," she said. James inhaled deeply, recalling his frustration with that little idiosyncrasy of the American phone system.

  "Nurse! Ma'am?" Clark called to the aide. The frumpy woman turned and scowled as if he was interrupting her dinner. "Ma'am," he repeated when he was sure he had her attention, "can you hand me my pants? I need my wallet out of them."

  The aide grunted and left the area to reappear a few seconds later with a white drawstring plastic bag. She set it down hard at his side. "Here," she said gruffly, then shuffled away.

  "Thank you," he called after her with complete sincerity. James was glad to see that he didn't repay her rudeness in kind. He really had caught him at a bad time when they first met. The lad had better manners than most young men his age.

  Clark took his wallet from his pants, dialed the phone, and then held up one finger to make sure they knew he wanted them to wait.

  "Yes, this is Clark MacLeod, and due to circumstances beyond my control, I have lost contact with my brother, Atholl MacLeod the Eighth. I was, am, his twenty-four/seven custodian. I am currently at the emergency room at the hospital, and the last time I saw him was at the motel where I worked. Yes, yes, that’s the right address. He might be in the office or in room 122. Yes, I understand that you have to pick him up. Hopefully, my ride in the ambulance to the ER is validation enough that I didn’t plan something. Yes, I have witnesses, and they’re willing to give statements. I just don’t want to pay a huge fine because I passed out!”

  Leah and James looked at each other with wide eyes. Leah mouthed the words, “Are the letters safe?”

  James turned his head slowly, side to side, and saw her blanch. Now it was his turn. He put up one finger and asked her to wait. He needed to talk to Clark about his brother.

  Clark hung up the phone. “Well, it looks like I’m off the hook. I don’t know if they’ll keep Eight in there for good or let him come back to the motel with me when I get out of here. I need to call them once I’m back up to snuff and at home, er, work. Well, same difference since I live there. Is there something wrong, James?” he asked, stressing the use of his Christian name as opposed to his titled name.

  Leah looked over and saw that James did look off. “You’d better sit down,” she said. “What’s wrong?” she whispered to him once her back was turned to Clark.

  James took a deep breath to compose himself, then told a bold-faced lie, “I guess I’m just a bit hungry. If you’re okay here, Clark, I think we’ll go get our belated lunch. Are you going to need a ride back to the motel?”

  “Nah, the bus comes right by both places. I’ll probably be back there before you are. Not much is going on. I had them call my boss when I was still in the ambulance. He should be there by now. It’ll do him good to put in an hour or so. You know how some of those salary workers are.” Clark grinned. He was feeling better, and if he didn’t have to watch out for his brother, he’d feel even better. He still didn’t trust the man, even if they were related.

  Leah stood next to James, waiting for him to say good-bye so they could leave. She was in a hurry to find out what the big mystery was, but didn’t want Clark to know something was amiss.

  “I’m ready if you are, ma’am,” James said, offering his elbow. “Take care, Clark. We’ll see you soon, I’m sure.”

  Just then, the grumpy nurse-type person came in with a lunch platter. “Ciao!” Clark proclaimed with a broad wave of his hand to his two friends. “Ooh, chow,” he said as a light joke to Ms. Grumpy.

  The aide couldn’t help but let a smile escape at his pun. She put down the food on the swing-out tray beside him, then patted him on the head, “Manga!” she said sweetly, and waddled a
way, chuckling at the silly man-child who had just made her smile.

  ӁӁ

  “So, what’s going on?” Leah asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

  “I got a letter last week just before I left England. It was from a…um,” James closed his eyes, trying to recall the writing on the hastily scribbled note. “It was from a Benji MacKay. It said to watch out for the MacLeods and…um, ‘I need to talk to you about Leah.’ Crap, Leah, I didn’t know you or anyone else with your name when I got the note. And I certainly didn’t know any MacLeods to look out for. It was postmarked North Carolina and had a phone number. I wrote on the bottom of the letter that I didn’t know a Leah or any MacLeods, and gave it back to the postal clerk to return to the sender.”

  “Do you happen to remember the phone number?” she asked hopefully.

  “No, it’s a miracle that I even remember the names.” James shook his head. “Well, I guess if it was meant to be, we’ll catch up with this Benji MacKay. I guess we could look up the name in the phone book or Google it, but I don’t even recall what town in North Carolina it was from.”

  “Well, you’ve already met Leah,” she said, batting her eyes at him playfully, “and we found out the hard way to watch out for the MacLeods—at least, for one of them.”

  She sighed, then grabbed James by the inner elbow, ready to escort him away from the drama and trauma of the hospital ER area. “So, life goes on, even if you didn’t get the message like you were supposed to. Maybe that was all there was to it. And, like you said, if it was meant to be, then he’ll catch up to you or us.” Leah stopped suddenly and turned to James. “Do you think we’d better call Billy and tell him that he doesn’t need to come down here?”

  “Yes, that would be a good idea. He’ll want to conduct a thorough investigation, though, no matter what. You see, I…um…kinda let him know you were poisoned at the airport, but that you’re okay. Shoot.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I got this.” Leah pulled out her phone, speed dialed Billy, and started right into her diatribe, bright as a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school. “Hey, Billy. James said he called you about the fiasco at the motel that ended up with a trip to the ER. It turns out it was no big deal. Please, go ahead and go back to bed. I promise we’ll talk about it later. You need your sleep, and James wants to eat out.” Leah grinned as she listened to Billy’s reply. “No, not that way. Clean up your act, mister. We’ll see you later.”

  Leah turned to James. “See, no further explanations needed. Now, we have lots of work to do and…” She shook her head quickly. “I don’t want to have anything else to consider—my plate is full. As it is, I feel like I have to eat with my fingers because there isn’t even enough room on the dish for the knife and fork!”

  James grinned and visualized fancy Rogers sterling silverware, Waterford crystal, and fine Haviland china, then decided he had better push back the thought of her licking her fingers after a fried chicken dinner. Hurry up, seventeenth of August!

  **35 Interim and Waiting

  It was still relatively early—three in the afternoon—but Leah was done for the day. Four long days in a row, hunched over projects on the wide tables under the bright lights of the library, had taken its toll. Her shoulders ached from the unaccustomed posture, and her eyes were teary from the constant focusing and refocusing required for her research and transcription.

  Leah got up and walked away from her pile of tomes on 18th century etiquette and grooming, and stood behind James. He was totally involved in his drafting and hadn’t heard her move. She didn’t want to disturb him—he was making good progress—but she was done, at least for now. She watched as he traced the lines of the library’s original map with his fingertip, then use the same finger to mark an invisible trail on his own ‘old’ parchment paper. Next, he’d pick up his pen, look at the nib each time to make sure he wasn’t going to start a stroke with a blob of ink, then scribe his memorized finger-traced trail. She watched for several minutes, how long she didn’t know. Time seemed to be standing still for her right now, but he must have recreated over a half dozen paths on his masterpiece while she stood behind him. She hated to interrupt his work, but she was starting to sway, and her head felt too heavy for her neck.

  “Is it okay with you if we leave the library early? My eyes won’t focus, and I’m afraid that if I keep pushing myself, I’ll make more mistakes than progress. How about you? How are you feeling?”

  James pushed his papers away and let out a big sigh. “I’m getting a bit bleary-eyed myself. How about just a break, though? If we give our eyes a rest, maybe we can come back here later or, then again, there’s no reason why I can’t finish this at home.”

  She smiled at the word home. “Yeah, I’d appreciate that,” she said, grateful that she didn’t have to be pushy. She helped him gather their works and let him pack everything into his leather valise.

  “You know—well, you probably do—lying down in the middle of the afternoon is a luxury we may not be able to indulge in next month, or even next week. Well, at least on a bed with a comfortable mattress. Did you know that they stuffed mattresses with corn husks and/or straw?”

  “Or feathers,” he reminded her, as they walked out of the library into the afternoon sun. “Maybe we ought to see if we can invest in a gaggle of geese. Goose down is both soft and warm. I really don’t think straw can be that comfortable, no matter how much it’s romanticized.”

  “Besides, it’s dusty and mice brood, pee, and poop in it. Gee, that motel bed is sounding more enticing all the time. Come on, do you want to drive this time?” she asked, partly out of courtesy, but mostly with a perverse sense of humor. She knew he hated to drive in America.

  James opened the driver’s side door for her, “Sure, if everyone drives on the ‘correct’ side of the road. No, thanks, I’ll just balance the load in the car by sitting in the passenger seat.” He got in and reclined the seat back, closed his eyes, and pasted a fake—well, sort of fake—smile of bliss on his face in an exaggerated parody of a pampered commuter.

  “You did drive in England, right?” she asked. James nodded, then realized she couldn’t hear him nod—she was concentrating on negotiating the exit from the parking lot onto the highway. He brought the seat back up. “Yes, I did, and I’m proud to say I was never in an accident nor received any driving citations.”

  “So what kind of car did you drive?”

  “A black sedan.” He didn’t want to sound boastful, so left out the fact that it was a classic Bentley Corniche, and that he had given it away to a near stranger—a nice public works employee—rather than risk it going back to his ex-wife. Quick, change the subject. “Morning or evening?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “What is not an option,” he said sassily, “morning or evening?”

  “Both!” she said with a bold self-assuredness.

  “Ooh, what a greedy one, you are, aren’t you?” he said with the same playfulness. She smiled and nodded briskly, as if she had won this round of rock, paper, scissors.

  “Okay, five o’clock tomorrow morning we’re going for a run, or maybe just a walk, depending on what shape we’re in. And then, since you said both, we can take another one after the afternoon traffic has died down, and the air isn’t so smoggy.”

  Leah groaned. “Yeah, well, you’re right. Walking and riding horses are the most common modes of transportation there—I mean here, back then—or riding in a wagon or a coach. And,” she added with exaggerated exasperation, “Since we can’t take horses back with us, and a wagon would be extremely awkward to carry in our backpacks…”

  She looked over to see if he was listening. He was and didn’t even try to stifle his chortle at the mental image of a buckboard wagon poking out of the top of a hiker’s backpack. “Well, I guess you’re right about working out. But since our shoes aren’t finished, I’m going to insist on buying a pair of cross trainers, so I can at least be comfortable getting my legs and lungs into sh
ape. Are you game?”

  “Oh, very game,” he replied, squeezing back the image of her legs and what covered her lungs getting into shape. Shoes, shoes, think of shoes: colors, tread designs, lace the shoes, pull out the tongue, no, no, wrong tongue image. Put in a sock-covered foot, tie the laces…

  “We’ll have to have lace-up shoes, for sure,” Leah added, for no apparent reason.

  “Why?” he asked. He knew the real reason why she had spoken of laces, but now wanted to continue the mental game of ping pong that bounced the invisible ball of a thought back and forth, using only their own wits as paddles. “I mean, if we’re going to leave the shoes here, what difference does it make? Velcro closures are faster to get on and off, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but, gee, I don’t know. I keep trying to be era correct in everything we do, and I guess I got carried away.”

  Round one to Leah. She was fast with her excuse. Even if he knew the real reason for her train of thought, it was still possible she didn’t realize she was sharing his mental images and feelings.

  “Hey, do you think that we can stop at the mall and get the shoes now?” she asked. “We can put off the afternoon nap until the shopping’s done. I really don’t want to get into a hot car one more time than I have to. This shouldn’t take too long. They have lots of shoe stores to choose from.”

  Afternoon nap, snuggled down… “Yes, let’s do that,” he said quickly before the thought of lying next to her in the middle of the day for no reason other than their shared relaxation, blossomed into a size he couldn’t contain. He should have taken a longer time in the shower this morning. He had a bad—or at least an overwhelming—case of Leah overload.