by C. Gockel
Unexpected Visitors
“Open your mouth,” Tara commands.
Lionel does, and she shoves the Tylenol and Advil in, and then considers maybe he’d opened his mouth to tell her to shove off.
With a wince, he swallows, and Tara leans back against the wall, questioning her life choices. Please don’t die. Jesus—Odin—anyone, please don’t let Lionel die. She’d wanted to save him by dragging him into her home, not kill him.
On the floor, Lionel stops groaning. She holds her breath. He inhales deeply, releases it, doesn’t puke, and she relaxes.
Her phone rings with her mother’s tone and she ignores it until it stops. It rings again, and then the texts start coming. Giving the elf another look, Tara picks up her phone and reads: Where r u? Been calling ur office all morning.
Home, she types. Did some xtra stuff for E and got the rest of day off.
Lucky! Her mom types.
Tara’s lips purse. Eisenberg can be generous in many ways … but days off aren’t one of them. He gets cranky when any of his staff are away, and never thinks twice about calling people in on weekends. That he offered the day off is … kind of weird. Had she misunderstood him? She replays their conversation in her mind. If you see anything else, call me first, don’t call the cops.
Was he trying to bribe her with a day off to do something that is probably a felony and maybe treason so he can get more data for another paper in the Journal of Dark Energy? Her eyes narrow. That would be so like him.
On the floor, Lionel lifts his head, his hair hanging like a golden curtain behind him. “I think I could put on those spare clothes now,” he says.
Tara sighs. She’s committing a felony and possibly treason, and she won’t even be getting a journal entry out of it. “Hang on,” she says.
“Hang on to what?” the elf asks, and she barely contains a snort. Delightful cultural misunderstandings are what she’s going to get out of it, apparently. Standing up, she heads to her room. “It’s an expression. It means just a minute.” When she comes back, he’s standing up. He’s a little taller than she expects, and a little broader in the shoulder and squarer in the jaw.
He smiles, revealing a dimple in his left cheek. “That human medicine is amazing! Instead of turning off the nerves that are transmitting the pain to my brain, it is turning off the nerves in my brain that are feeling it.”
Tara actually knew that … she’s a little confused as to how he knows it, and also, how long did it usually take for acetaminophen and ibuprofen to kick in? Twenty minutes maybe? She doesn’t remember feeling this chipper after dosing up before her root canal. “Mmm … hmmm …” she says, handing him some clothes she thinks will fit him.
Dropping them on the floor, Lionel peels off his shirt, exposing a toned stomach and chest. Tara feels herself get warm. Then his hands drop to the waistband of his pants. Tara looks away. “You … ah … might want to change in there.” She points to the bathroom because it’s closest.
Ducking past him, she heads down the hall, trying to be discreet … but her eyes have minds of their own and she peers back. Lionel has a nice back and nice arms. He has that vein that guys have on the back of their forearms when they’re really toned ...
With a groan she looks away and enters the living room. Sinking with a sigh onto her comfy couch and scooping up Inky, her octopus-pillow friend to be her armrest, she takes her recent issue of WIRED off her laptop, plops the device on her lap, opens it, and focuses very purposefully on the screen … Her eyes go to the empty hallway. Lionel had been nice to look at. A little short, but he’s not scrawny, or too bulky … just … perfect. She shakes her head. And he’s not afraid to show it. Taking a deep breath, she checks her work email.
From the bathroom, she hears the toilet flush, the faucet turn on, and then the shower. Tara lifts her head. The toilet flushes again. The shower goes off. The faucet goes on. And off. And on again. She blinks. Hears the shower, and then the toilet. She rolls her eyes. After babysitting, she knows the sound of someone playing with the water when she hears it. Shaking her head, she goes back to her email.
After finishing catching up on work stuff, she goes to social media and shares news of a troll under the Green Line (it had been confirmed by researchers in the Dark Energy Department, so she knows the reports are legit). And then she does what she used to do before Chicago was invaded by a crazy Norse God, and maybe not-so-crazy elves: she checks various music sites for new releases by some of her favorites in the hometown music scene. She’s filling her home speakers with some electronica that is beautiful, bluesy and soulful and posting about it when Lionel pads out. He’s wearing her purple University of Illinois sweatshirt and gray matching sweat pants. The purple makes his face look sickly pale. It’s also obvious that the set has been worn by a girl; the chest and hips are stretched, and the ensemble hangs on him like potato sacks. She hits the pause button and bites her lip to keep from laughing.
Lionel picks at the pants. “These are … comfortable.”
“They don’t suit you,” Tara admits, barely containing a snort at his obvious distaste.
“I wasn’t going to say it,” he replies, and Tara does laugh.
Lifting his eyes to hers, Lionel gives her a cautious smile and she stops laughing. From the neck up … he looks … striking? Gorgeous? She swears his hair glows and is impossibly smooth, like girls in magazines who have the benefit of Photoshop.
He inclines his head to the laptop. “The music that instrument plays is … interesting.”
“I like it,” she says, a touch defensively.
Approaching the couch, he says, “I didn’t say I didn’t. But I didn’t hear enough to judge.” He inclines his head. Is he asking her to play more? His ear points are poking through his hair, and she finds herself flushing, remembering how warm they were, and the softness of his skin.
“Hang on,” Tara says, bending over her keyboard, forcing herself to look away from his ears.
“I’ll do my best not to let go,” he promises.
She blinks up.
Spreading his hands, Lionel raises an eyebrow. “I was trying to make a joke … it’s one of the hardest things between languages and cultures.”
Her lips purse.
“Not funny?” he suggests.
Shaking her head, she smiles. “It was kind of a dad joke … and I gotta say, you look a little young for those.”
“I’m a few centuries in age, so even though I’m not a father, I suppose I do have an excuse,” he replies, and this time there is something a little sly to his smile.
Tara’s smile drops, and then his does, too.
“Right,” she says, not knowing why that makes her uneasy. Hurriedly pressing a few keys, she reroutes the sound to the speakers and presses play.
Lionel sits down on the edge of the couch. He looks around the room, speaker to speaker, and then cocks his head. The song is about a love affair ending, the singer’s voice is soft, and her mic, maybe intentionally, has a bit of static in it. It makes her words seem more distant, and the static adds a beautiful texture to the keyboards.
“Oh,” he says when it’s over. “That was … interesting. The instruments were completely unfamiliar to me.” His eyes meet hers, and then scan her face, making Tara feel very uncomfortable, imagining how someone so pretty must see all her flaws. His lips part, he meets her gaze again, and it’s as if his focus has physical weight. Warmth spreads through her, making her feel heavy. She finds herself holding her breath and her pulse quickening, but then his attention shifts to her laptop, its screen a fence between them. She thinks she’s glad for that fence. For a just a heartbeat, she thought she there was attraction between them, and she is obviously imagining things. It’s good to have fences; they help keep your mind in the right place.
He tips his head toward the laptop. “That is not an instrument, is it?”
Shaking her head, she says, “No, I just use it to play recordings of instruments’ music.”
“Recordi
ngs?” he asks. “I don’t understand.”
“The sounds of instruments … it’s like a …” She brightens. “A captured memory!”
His eyes go wide. “Do most people have access to these recordings … and does it play any instrument?”
“Yes, to the first,” Tara says. “As to the second, it doesn’t just play instruments.” She strikes a few keys. “It can play vocals, too.” She fills her living room with the sounds of the Mzansi Youth Choir.
Lionel lifts his head and gazes from one speaker to the other, his lips parted in a look of wonder. When the song ends, he says, “It sounds as though we are in the midst of a great …” He lifts his arms. “Interior space.”
Tara nods, more pleased with the fact that he likes it than she ought to be. He’s an elf, and a fugitive, and he’s got to go home. She can’t help smiling, though. “It was recorded in a church.”
Lionel stares at her a moment, and then he says, “Ah, Jesus Christ.” He nods earnestly. “I’ve read about him, but we’ve never met. He’s not an elf and has never been to Alfheim that I know.”
Tara blinks, not sure what to make of that. But then he leans toward the computer, and in a conspiratorial whisper asks, “Do you have a recording of … a waltz?”
He says it like a waltz is something deviant. Actually, if Tara remembers her history correctly, it was considered deviant on Earth at one time.
“We learned the dance from the Einherjar, but the nobility does not like us to play non-Elvish music.” He looks sideways. “We do, but only in secret, and we have to improvise as we don’t have the same instruments. I would like very much to hear what a waltz sounds like by the people who invented it.”
Tara has no idea who the Einherjar are, but her mind seizes on “the nobility.” Whatever social group he’s part of isn’t even allowed to listen to the music they like. She’s heard how her slave ancestors resorted to stamping their feet and using their voices as instruments because African instruments were forbidden. She immediately feels sympathy.
“I can find something,” she says, googling, “Best Waltz” and selecting Blue Danube when that seems to be the consensus. When it starts, his mouth opens in an expression of pure wonder. When the prelude ends, and the music begins in earnest, he starts tapping out the rhythm on his uninjured thigh. Bouncing in his seat, he looks like he’s all of five and not a few hundred something. Tara bites her cheeks to keep from laughing.
When it’s done, he looks at her with both eyebrows up. “That was lovely, but too short.” He’s obviously fishing for more … and Tara almost gives it to him. But then her lips purse. “I wonder if you’d like the music of my people.”
“Isn’t everything we’ve been listening to by humans?” he asks, canting his head and spilling his long white-gold hair over his shoulder.
Tara chuckles. “Well, yes, but I wonder how you’d like …” She bites her lip, considering. She should probably start him off gently. “I wonder how you’d like jazz.” She clicks a few keys and fills her room with the sound of Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.
Lionel’s smile melts away, his eyes go wide, and he sits in almost preternatural stillness.
Tara stops the playback. “You don’t like it.”
“I’ve just never heard anything like it,” he whispers, glancing at the speakers almost apprehensively.
Tara doesn’t hit the play button, wondering if that is just a polite “no.”
Leaning toward her, Lionel says, “We’ve known that you have advanced weaponry, and chariots that are possibly self-aware—”
Tara’s mind sputters at that last bit.
Lionel continues. “I had not considered that you’d have advancements in medicine and music.” His gaze meets hers. “Please … if you don’t mind, play more.”
Tapping a button, Tara fills the room with music again. Lionel cocks his head and listens. He doesn’t hop in his seat this time, but he cants his head to the musical phrasing. She has a sudden sensation, like she’s stepped into a painting, or a television show. She is sitting with a handsome magical elf in her living room listening to Miles Davis. She has been dealing with troll and wyrm alerts since Loki arrived in her city, and she feels like for the first time, she might be seeing the beautiful side of the chaos that Loki the deranged maybe-god left behind. The moment feels surreal, and fragile, like it could be shattered by the smallest thing.
“Tara?”
Her mother’s voice from the foyer makes Tara’s finger snap down on the pause button. She spins in her seat. Her mom is standing by the door, bags of food from Bombon Cafe in hand, gaping at Lionel.
Setting down her laptop, Tara stands with a start. “Um, hi Mom, this is Lionel. He’s …” How is she going to explain the ears? Worse, how is she going to explain why he’s wearing her clothes?
She looks frantically at the elf and instead of her baggy sweats, he’s wearing a shirt with blue checks that zips down the front and falls past his waist. A white t-shirt peeks out at the collar. The gray sweatpants have been replaced by tan khaki trousers that are a little baggier than is fashionable and cuffed. On his feet are argyle socks. Her eyes slide to his ears. They’re round where they peek through his still-long hair. For a moment she’s relieved, and then she shivers as she remembers the cop’s words. They can make you see what they want you to see.
For an instant, Lionel hesitates casting an illusion of Earth-like clothing, even though he’s guessing Tara’s culture is modest by the way she’d run from the hallway, and some Einherjar have told him relations between men and women are more restrained in their cultures. But then he remembers Tara will never realize it’s magic he’s not supposed to know how to do. Squeezing the key, he uses its power to disguise himself as best he can and stands up.
He nods at her mother and looks at Tara expectantly.
“This … is my mother … Lionel,” she stammers, not meeting his eyes.
Searching his memory for what he’s learned of human manners while talking with Einherjar in the palace, he says, “Nice to meet you, Missus Gibson.”
“Call me Rosa,” her mother says, and looks at Tara with one eyebrow cocked.
Lionel finds himself smiling at their utter lack of guile. They are so ignorant of the games he could play with the name, Rosa Gibson. Although he won’t … Tara hasn’t demanded payment of his debt, and he’s her guest, not the other way around. It would be rude. And … his eyes trail down Tara’s striking profile. He’d really like to know her better.
“He’s a friend, Mom … from college,” Tara says, wringing her hands. “Lionel is originally from … ah …”
He blinks and realizes that both of the Gibsons are looking at his clothing. It’s possible he didn’t get it quite right.
“… New York,” Tara finishes.
The words twist in Lionel’s brain. “New Amsterdam?” he blurts. It’s a city on the eastern coast of the continent he’s read about in a book he isn’t supposed to look at.
“And he’s apparently a fan of They Might Be Giants,” Tara says, her voice dry.
The words are gibberish and Lionel repeats them to himself. “They might be giants?” On repeat, he suddenly knows the meaning, and his eyes go wide. “Giants?” he whispers worriedly.
Tara narrows her eyes at him, and he doesn’t say another word on the subject. He finds his eyes darting nervously to the windows, though.
Rosa says, “Wasn’t that the band …?” She stops in what was obviously the midst of a question.
“Yes, Mom, the one I heard way too much of in AV Club,” Tara finishes.
Lionel tries to look like what she just said didn’t sound like complete nonsense.
Rosa smiles nervously at Lionel, and then says to Tara, “I brought you lunch, but you didn’t tell me you had company.” There is no missing the accusation in her tone. She walks past them both without further invite. The food does smell … interesting, and now that he isn’t hurting, he feels hungry. Actually, he’s very hungry, famished f
rom all the magic he’s been working … without the key, he’d probably have passed out from hunger and exhaustion by now.
“So, what are you doing in Chicago, Lionel?” Rosa asks.
“He’s here for work, Mom. He just rang me up and showed up out of the blue,” Tara responds, sounding slightly vexed.
The lie makes Lionel pause. It’s what, the sixth she’s said in the span of a few minutes? He’s been enchanted by the novelty of this world—the home that is neither opulent, nor peasant humble, the recorded music that can make a small room sound like a church, the clear canteens that aren’t glass … and frankly, by Tara’s beauty. It’s not Elvish beauty. Tara’s taller. Her shoulders are wider and so are her breasts and hips, like an Aesir, Vanir, or Jotunn Frost Giantess, and her face is symmetrical, but her features are so strikingly different. Despite himself, he’d been delighted when he’d made her generous lips smile, and seen the way her tongue flicked against her teeth when she’d been trying to stifle a laugh.
With all that, he’d forgotten that even the least of creatures have means of self-defense. The ease with which Tara has disambiguated is astounding. Some elves can lie, but it is hard if not impossible for most. For Lionel, it’s like pushing against the natural flow of magic.
Setting down some strange white containers, Rosa says, “Lionel, why don’t you tell me all about yourself.” She smiles sunnily at him.
Tara shifts nervously on her feet. Grasping his key tightly, Lionel glances at her … and his mouth falls open in shock. Between him and Tara is an open doorway. Behind her are open skies, not the muted colors of her abode …
“Don’t be shy,” Rosa says.
Tara tilts her head. The door slams shut and vanishes. It’s just Tara, in her comfortable home, and the feeling of magic buzzing in his fingers.
“Well?” says Rosa.
Lionel has the right to use his race’s natural defenses, too. Letting all of his Elvish charm flow through him, he says, “I’d much rather hear your story.” For good measure, he adds extra compulsion. “… Missus Rosa Gibson.”
