“My goodness, he grew fast. Hi, Krith. My name’s Sara Tuft and I only found out that people like you existed this morning.”
“My pleasure, ma’am. I’m not allowed to whistle at her, right?” Krith poked his flaming head out of the oven and turned to Lira.
Lira said, “Well, if she explicitly tells you she enjoys being whistled at, you may. But tread very carefully.”
“Edofine, your girlfriend is scary,” hissed Krith.
“Eeep!” Edofine bolted straight up, speaking very fast. “Forgive me; matters in another room require my immediate attention.” He almost teleported away, so hurried was his exit.
Kryvek, using his Elf senses, knew what was going on and smiled. Christine and Sara, using their good-female-friend senses, knew what was going on and smiled. Lira, to the best of her senses, completely failed to notice the exchange and grabbed a pocket calculator from the counter to work out how much money she could send to her mother this month without jeopardizing her own ability to pay the rent.
“How is John?” Christine asked.
Sara squished in next to Christine and seemed to deflate slightly, rubbing her pregnant bulge for comfort. “Being a pigheaded drone. He wouldn’t even come take a look at Krith, who obviously can’t be faked, or at least not at the size I first saw him.”
“Have you started with morning sickness yet?” Lira asked.
“Lira!” shouted Kryvek and Krith.
“What, can’t handle the other end of pregnancy?” Lira retorted.
“Lira, honey,” Christine said, “you don’t have to be ultra-feminist one hundred percent of the time.” Oh my goodness, Christine thought, honey. She wanted some honey on thick, melt-in-your mouth waffles, golden brown and crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. She clutched at Kryvek’s arm. “Keep me here. Don’t let me eat!”
Kryvek began massaging her shoulders. “It’s all right, sis. Keep calm. How about you have a bubble bath tonight, rather than a shower? There are lots of nice, soothing things that don’t involve food.”
“Not in my life there aren’t,” Krith said. “Do you have anything more I can eat?”
“You’re starting to get annoying,” Kryvek called back.
“What, am I supposed to be completely silent the whole asbestos-mining time?”
“That would be ideal,” Lira said.
Christine tried breathing deeply, despite the empty ache inside. “I got a call. There’s going to be another important meeting on Monday, which they say is even more vital than the one about the annihilation of the Dance Clan.”
“Nerve-wracking?” Sara asked.
“Oh, yes, yes, yes.”
“No, you can’t have a pint of ice cream from my fridge, Christine, especially since I ate it all last week,” Kryvek said.
“How did you know?” Christine felt a twinge for being so predictable.
Lira added, “I have a vital, secret meeting too. I wonder what’s going on.”
“I hope the FBI hasn’t figured out what OMHI really stands for,” Christine said.
“What does it stand for?” Krith asked.
All others in the room chorused, “Official Magics-Human Institute.”
Christine added, “Magics being the name for non-human peoples.”
“I need to get dinner started, but I have no oven,” Kryvek said. “There’s going to be a real drain on my electricity bill if Krith is here long.”
“Crisis meeting over?” Christine asked.
“Over,” Lira said.
“Over, I guess,” Sara said.
Edofine sang a goodbye for them, off in the distance, and sparks appeared and danced around the females leaving Kryvek’s place. Lira smiled for the first time that evening.
“Incidentally,” Lira said, just before her exit, “since you, Kryvek, and Christine are going to church tomorrow and we don’t want Sara to be watching and teaching Edofine all the time, would Edofine be willing to come to my studio tomorrow? I could use him for some heavy lifting.”
Edofine appeared by Kryvek’s side, eyes the size of billiard balls and the luster of polished silver. “Certainly, fine lady,” he replied, his voice betraying him and croaking. He thought his voice had finished changing, but apparently it had not.
As Lira walked across the hallway, she wondered why Sara was giggling.
Kryvek and Edofine ended up eating Caesar salad and peanut butter sandwiches, which Edofine found tasty but strange. “Is it meant to make the mouth stick in such a way?” Edofine asked.
“Yes. Sorry I don’t have any meat for you—since moving from the Dance Clan I became vegetarian.”
Edofine nodded. He knew most animals in human consumption were raised in horrible conditions. It wasn’t killing animals for food that bothered Elves, for they did that often, but it was making them live in torment that they couldn’t stand. They pledged to only eat full-grown animals that lived a free, full life, followed by quick and relatively painless death. Christine once pointed out the impracticality of this on a global scale to Kryvek, but he ignored her.
Krith extracted a pack of asbestos cards out of his pants pocket—which had special incantations that made them shrink and grow with his body—and played solitaire all evening. The Elves turned down the heat to keep him three feet tall, unsure how they could deal with a six-foot, one-hundred-sixty-pound Archaedemon. Later that night they heard odd steaming and hissing noises, which Edofine said was Krith crying. He also said Krith should be left alone, for he was bound to incinerate anyone who commented upon it.
Usually Edofine slept in his long, loose green shirt and leggings, taking off the velvety cloak. Before he came to Laconia he possessed three shirts, two pairs of black leggings, and four cloaks—two light cloaks of brown and green, one plain and one with delicate embroidery for special occasions, and two winter cloaks of black for dry weather and white for snow. Now he had only his light-weather clothing.
“I conjecture I should increase my wardrobe,” he said, standing in the doorway of Kryvek’s bedroom. The room was full of ferns, bonsai, shrubbery, and deeply red roses. Kryvek’s bed and lamp, the only furniture there, looked moss-covered.
“They’re moss-covered,” Kryvek, sitting on the bed, said when he saw Edofine staring at it. “I was always good at the plant-related Song.” Kryvek knew that wearing short-sleeved and cropped-leg pajamas with teddy bears on them was not the most masculine way to go, but it was comfortable and he couldn’t stand sleeping in his underwear. “You’re right. Someone should take you to the mall.”
“What is the mall?”
“A place to buy ready-made clothing and other goods,” Kryvek explained, adopting a tone of resigned patience. “But you have to go to the OMHI first. Do you know yet whether you want them to help you?”
Edofine shook his head, hugged himself, and sat down next to his cousin. “Events have occurred at a pace beyond my reckoning. I have been here only one day, yet a thousand things I never dreamt have been thrust upon me. Lady Sara has been very kind.”
“What about the other females, hmm?” Kryvek found himself grinning like a teenager teasing a friend, which was odd because he’d never really felt any affection beyond casual goodwill for Edofine. Edofine awoke in him an even stronger desire for trees, dance, song, magic, and family than he had felt for a long time. The Fletchers were family enough, right? Weren’t they? Were they really?
“I often think humans are fortunate that their emotions are private,” Edofine replied, blushing. “She is a paragon of regality. I dare not touch her. I hardly dare breathe in her presence, afraid to...to...in fact, I know not why I am afraid.”
“Some say she’s frightening.”
“I will smite anyone who besmirches her name in my presence.”
Kryvek looked at the young, downcast, frail form of Edofine and had to smile. He knew Edofine was a skilled fighter, but he wasn’t a very intimidating one.
Edofine scanned his arms and legs, which were definitely more sine
w and bone than muscle. “I am tired of a life of killing those who are not of my kind, but I know of no other way.”
“What about Krith?”
“Krith is my beginning. I enjoy his company but I trust him little. However, I feel that trust is a positive attribute and I seek to cultivate it. Humans, though, they are tricky. I have not come to any conclusions.”
“That’s fine. Take your time.” Kryvek yawned and kneeled by his bedside, clasping his hands in front of them. “Care to pray with me?”
“How do humans pray?” Edofine asked.
“There are many different ways. I use one. Do you want to learn?”
“Will it help?”
“I think so.”
As the two kinsmen knelt by the side of the bed, the Archaedemon in the oven chanted a mantra, his shoulders shaking with regret and loneliness. “May the fire burn forever, may it burn clean and bright, may it hold me together, and keep my eyes alight. May the fire burn forever...”
Chapter Seven
Artists and Critics and Couples
“So this is a car,” Edofine said, observing the green metal body and smooth wheels. He ran his hand along the seat.
“No, this is a bicycle,” Lira replied. “I have no need to travel out of this town except on foot, to see my mother, or on public transportation, and within this town I choose to not pollute.” She also used up most of her salary supporting her mother and buying up as many chunks of wilderness as she could, so Elves could live there without fear of discovery. She owned forty acres so far. This, however, was not something she thought Edofine needed to know. Her current attire was sweatpants and a baggy old World Wildlife Fund t-shirt, and her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, revealing her Elf-shaped ears.
Edofine knew she was concealing something harmless, so he didn’t push it. “I did not know Kryvek worshipped new spirits. How do I ride on this?”
“I will be in front, like so.” Lira strapped on her helmet and sat on the bike, “You sit on this cushion behind me and hold onto my waist so you don’t fall.”
“Your waist?”
Lira handed him her spare helmet; cheap foam. “Does this present a problem to you?”
Edofine quickly donned the helmet, shook his head and climbed aboard, smiling broadly.
“About the new spirits, it’s not altogether surprising,” Lira explained as they rode past Wal-Mart, Trader Joe’s, McDonald’s, and other chain stores. There were also a fortuneteller, two fitness centers, an antiques shop, a few clinics, and eventually a school. All were nondescript dull brick buildings with flat roofs; simple squares. As she pedaled, Lira gave a quick summary of the origins of Judeo-Christianity, the Reformation, and all the splinter churches that developed from it, constantly arguing with one another.
“Why? They believe the same man was the son of a supreme being, do they not?” Edofine asked.
“Humans can be very petty,” Lira said. “There are other faiths that follow other spirits, all around the world. Some are similar to the faith we were raised in.”
“Kryvek is of the Baptist leaning,” Edofine concluded.
“Yes. Both him and Christine.”
“I believe those two share a bond beyond one shared by siblings.”
“You noticed too. It’s best not to bother them about it.”
After about twenty minutes they reached the outskirts of town, where trees grew thicker and the grass was knee-high. There was a barn two stories high, large enough for a dozen cows, crumbled brown and decrepit, everything metal rusting and everything wooden creaking. Lira stopped the bike and the two dismounted, and then Lira chained the bicycle to a white oak tree.
“Many humans worship on this day; this is my house of worship. You can let go of me now.”
“Oh! Forgive me. Ah, could we speak in Elvish? I grow weary of English.”
Edofine clasped his hands behind his back and breathed in deeply, inhaling the clarifying scents of clover underfoot, thistles, wildflowers, milkweed, half-Eudemon female, himself in clothes that needed to be washed, and—acorns. Edofine automatically bent and pulled out his shirt to serve as a basket, and gathered up all the acorns on the ground. Usually in August there weren’t many, but this had been an unusually cool summer. He blushed when he sensed that Lira found this charming.
“I have not eaten acorn flour for many a month,” Lira said, in Elvish.
“It pays to not be wasteful. I hope Kryvek has a grinder. Do you have any sort of container where I could store these? Or any way we could roast them?”
“I have a kiln for pottery.”
“We could make an attempt.”
When he stepped into the building, Edofine cast his eyes about the expanse and those eyes grew deep with excitement. The rafters, high above them, were covered in barn owls’ nests; white owls blinking and turning away from the light. The upper loft held all manner of supplies, rows of paintbrushes, stacks of paint, heaps of clay, reams of old clothes, and glitter, feathers, dried leaves, and things Edofine did not recognize.
Down where they stood the walls were lined with completed paintings, which were realistic in style but not in subject matter. One depicted a wolf with a girl’s head, another a black-and-white crowd with a single man in vibrant purples and reds, and there were scenes of families flying up to the stars. Two paintings showed an Elf and Eudemon battle—in the first the Elves were winning, in the second the Eudemons were triumphant. The second was bloody enough to make Edofine breathe in sharply.
In the middle of the first floor were sculptures of wire, clay, plaster, and junk: an old bicycle bent around a tree stump, a wobbly mass of water balloons in the shape of a giant teddy bear. One peculiar piece was a being with one pair of legs, but three torsos leaning out, bending over backwards at right angles.
Lira saw Edofine’s stare, and explained, “That one’s not finished yet. It is meant to be the three divisions in genus Homo: Elves, humans, and demons.”
“Are the Archaedemons and Eudemons the same species?”
“No one has been able to classify Archaedemons yet, for humans meet so few. Krith will be a great boon to the researchers. I promise you they will not harm him.”
“Where should I place these acorns?”
“I have a jar over there, and the kiln’s in the corner.”
Lira told Edofine she was preparing the barn for some visitors to the town in two weeks, hoping they might be interested in buying something. Her main pieces were ready, but she wanted to clean the studio up and decorate it. She had Edofine help her carry several buckets of paint down to the right-side wall, where she wanted to paint a mural. First, though, they had to cover much of the walls with white paint for a base.
Edofine appreciated art but never created it, except for short spells, and he accidentally got much paint in his hair and clothes. After a while Lira took pity on him and sent him to mop and wax the hardwood floor. As she painted, shadows of Elves, all green and violet and blue, took shape, dancing around a campfire, flickering like the flames themselves.
“How did you adjust to human society?” Edofine asked.
“It was difficult, and I missed my mother, but I still believe it was the best thing I could have done.” She swept her brush in a smooth curve to convey long, flowing hair.
“Why did you leave her?”
“You would not understand.”
“Yes, I would. You have sorrow, and regret, but also a sense of beauty and wholeness.”
Lira looked at him and sighed, shaking her head. “One of my reasons was everyone knowing instantly how I felt, with no privacy at all, while I could not do the same. A woman blind from birth would rather live among the blind, rather than know everyone was staring at her.”
“I could tell you what everyone felt, so you would not feel cut off.”
“Thank you, but you see, no one offered me such a thing then.”
“So you had no friends at all?” A little owlet, still fuzzy with childhood, twittered as it fel
l out of the nest. Edofine caught it with one hand and held it there, watching the bird as it stared and shivered. “Owlet here, here where I hold you, be not afraid someone has sold you; gain the gift of flight early, till you are safe, till you are free. Spirits guide you to your home, as I sing, let it be so.”
The confused owlet fluttered up to her siblings and fell asleep. Lira smiled slightly, but was still serious. “No, I would not say I did have friends. In the houses of learning I had to work with all my might at all times, for though I won a scholarship to...” here she switched to English, “...Harvard I knew little about the other aspects of life. I read a great deal, children’s books, classic literature, and I studied slang dictionaries so I could communicate naturally. I had enough money for school, but not enough to live on, which required me to find jobs. First I was a waitress, then a cashier, and then I was fortunate enough to work as security in an art museum.” She used a few broad strokes to denote a tree, a tree that Edofine found gnarly and forbidding, out of place in the idyllic scene.
Edofine walked the length of the barn, pulling the mop behind him, and soon turned around and made his way past Lira again. “What was the other reason?” he asked, still speaking Elvish.
Lira went back to Elvish as well. “I was afraid I would hurt everyone.” Her pain trickled across the floor and crept over the walls, infiltrating Edofine’s ears. It was a slow but strong current of sorrow.
Every word Lira uttered made Edofine love her more, want to help, and comfort her. He said, after much thought, “If they drove you to such straits, they deserved it.”
English was the language now. “Do not say that. I understood why, every moment I knew why. I am my mother’s shame, I am a symbol of all that the Elves suffer, and my blood is poison. Sometimes I desire gore and violence, I wish to snap necks in two, watching how they isolated my mother, and now seeing what the humans do to each other every day. I considered a career in police work, but I knew I would fail because I would slaughter the criminals. I hate the Eudemons for what they have done, but I fear the Elves because I see the Eudemon inside myself. The Eudemons are too dark for me, and the Elves are too bright. At least humans have more shades of gray.” She did not turn her head, and she spoke in a low monotone, with a calm even voice. Her shoulders clenched rigid even though she was painting a gorgeous picture.
Humans and Demons and Elves Page 6
