by Pati Nagle
He came and stood beside me while I reached for the last orange. Just having him near made my arms tingle.
“I am sorry I had to leave last night.”
ME TOO!
“There’s always tomorrow,” I said, trying to sound light.
“Or tonight.”
My hand slipped and the knife nicked my finger. “Shit! Oh, I’m sorry. I mean ‘Darn!’”
Savhoran stepped back, eyes wide as he stared at the blood welling on my finger. I bit back another curse.
Way to gross out your potential boyfriend, Man.
There were no paper towels on the counter, and I didn’t want to bleed on one of Madera’s nice napkins, so I brought my finger to my mouth.
“It’s just a scratch.”
Savhoran was staring like I’d cut off my hand. A swallow moved his throat, then his gaze met mine.
And he ran.
= 3 =
I followed him to the portal, sucking on my finger. I would have gone after him but Madera came in from the other direction with a small basket of eggs. Savhoran’s door slammed.
Madera turned to me. “What happened?”
“I cut my finger and he freaked out.”
He looked like I’d told him his mother had died, then shoved the basket into my hand and went after Savhoran. I stood frozen, watching until he disappeared into Savhoran’s room.
Great, just great. Let’s see how else we can screw up, shall we?
I went back to the kitchen and stuck my finger under the faucet. I was still bleeding. Some people keep their knives really sharp, which is a hazard to those of us who don’t.
My stomach was in knots. I looked at the oranges and nearly cried. I’d been hungry earlier, but now the thought of food made me sick.
Len came striding into the kitchen, band-aid in hand, smiling but with worried eyes. “Here, let’s put this on it.”
I shut off the water and let her bandage my finger, wondering how she’d known I’d been clumsy enough to cut myself. Maybe Madera told her. She dried my hand with a wad of tissues from her pocket, put the band-aid on me, then threw the tissues onto the fire.
“Sit down, I’ll fix breakfast.”
I sat at the table and stared out the window in the direction of Savhoran’s room. Len brought me a mug of tea from the pot that Madera had made earlier. She checked the oven, took out a loaf of bread and set it on the counter, and continued puttering. I stopped paying attention.
What had happened? It was just a little cut. Why had Savhoran reacted like that?
I had this horrible guilty feeling that I’d done something awful. I couldn’t figure out why.
“I talked to Caeran,” Len said over her shoulder. “He’s on his way up to pick us up, so after breakfast we’d better pack.”
I wanted to protest, but I couldn’t figure out what to say. I was numb with disbelief.
This was surreal. Everything Len was doing was perfectly normal, expect I didn’t understand why she was doing it.
She brought two plates of scrambled eggs to the table and set one in front of me, then brought over the bread on a bread board, cut off a heel, and buttered it.
“Come on, Man. Eat.”
I took a forkful of the eggs and managed to chew and swallow it. All in slow motion.
Madera came in and gave Len a long look, then poured himself some tea and joined us at the table. I watched him butter a slice of bread like nothing had happened.
“Where’s Savhoran?”
Madera looked up at me. “He is resting.”
“What did I d-do?”
“You didn’t do anything, Amanda. He is ill.”
“What, he can’t stand the sight of blood?”
“No.” Madera’s face was grim. “He can’t.”
Oh, jeez.
“I’m sorry. It was an accident. Will you tell him I’m sorry?”
“He knows. This isn’t your fault, Amanda.”
“Can I see him?”
“Not now.”
I sucked a ragged breath, determined not to cry. Madera put down his bread and took my hand, wrapping his palm around my cut finger. His hand was hot. It felt good. I closed my eyes, struggling to keep it together. After a while he let me go.
I opened my eyes and saw Madera eating his breakfast. I couldn’t bear to eat any more but I held my mug in both hands and sipped at the tea. I felt like I’d committed a crime and been condemned for it.
Len and Madera ate in silence. Finally Len got up, put her plate in the sink and came back for mine.
“You finished?”
I nodded. She took my plate away, scraped the uneaten food into the trash, and rinsed the plate in the sink.
“OK, let’s go pack.”
I wanted to ask what the hurry was—Caeran probably wouldn’t arrive for hours—but I didn’t trust myself to speak. We went around the portal to my room, passing Savhoran’s door which was shut.
Len bullied me in to packing my bag, then went off to do hers. I wandered out into the plazuela and watched the birds squabbling in the fountain. Sat on the chair I’d been on last night, trying to make sense of it all.
My fault for getting infatuated with a wounded duck? Savhoran looked fine, but what did I know? He’d had trouble eating dinner. Apparently he was sicker than I’d thought.
Except he’d said he’d been injured. Wounded.
I leaned back in my chair, frustrated. I didn’t have enough information. This must be where Len had picked up the habit of being cagey. Come to think of it, she hadn’t done that before she met Caeran.
“Amanda?”
I looked up at Madera, who was standing a few feet away. He had changed clothes, swapping his usual caftan for cotton pants and a loose cotton shirt. He had a pair of work gloves in his hand.
“Are you still willing to help me in the garden?”
I stared at him for a minute. Gardening? I thought I was being sent home.
I sighed and got up. “Sure.”
He handed me the gloves and led me through the south side of the house, out into a huge, gorgeous garden. It was bigger than the whole back yard of the house I’d grown up in, laid out in a patchwork instead of rows; squares of different kinds of plants.
Madera held out a straw hat he’d picked up on the way through the house. I put it on and followed him between patches of leafy stuff, down to an area where nothing was growing. There were several small mounds of dirt, maybe a foot and a half across, in a square pattern. A tray of baby plants in pots sat nearby.
“If you would dig places for these, like this…”
He took up a trowel and crouched by one of the mounds, carefully making a hole in its center. Then he handed the trowel to me and went to get one of the plants. I watched him set it in the hole and gently press dirt around it. He looked up at me and I nodded.
The sun was warm, baking the earth and raising the smell of summer. I bent to the work, thinking he was just humoring me, getting me out of the house so I wouldn’t bother Savhoran. I bit my lip, determined to stay cool.
Madera went and got a hose that he used to water the plant he’d just put in the ground, then brought two more pots from the tray and went to work on the holes I had made. “Savhoran has been ill for some time,” he said as he eased another plant from its pot.
“He said he was attacked.” My voice sounded accusing, which I hadn’t intended.
Madera nodded. “His illness is a result of that attack.”
I swallowed and stabbed my trowel into the dirt. “Will he get better?”
He sat back on his heels and sighed, looking at the plant in front of him. “He will never be free of this illness. He will find ways to cope, but it will always be with him.”
Sounded like AIDS. My throat tightened up. I went back to digging.
It wasn’t fair. I find a guy—a wonderful guy—who actually likes me, and now this. Not fair.
“The illness is … rare,” Madera said. “It has not been studied.”<
br />
I moved to the next row, frowning. Something wasn’t right. Things didn’t add up, but I couldn’t figure out how.
“Some day there may be a cure, but for now, he must learn to live with it.”
“How can I help?”
Madera stopped working and looked at me. “Truthfully, the best thing you can do for him right now is leave.”
But he liked me! He said he was lonely!
“Why?” I said in a choked voice.
“The disease has just become active. I cannot really explain it to you, but he needs to be away from people just now.”
I went back to digging, blinking back tears. “Can I come back?”
“I don’t know, Amanda. I wish I had better answers for you. It will take a little while.”
Dammit, dammit, dammit! Not fair!
“I think that is deep enough.”
I looked at the hole I had made, twice as deep as the others. Shit.
I put down the trowel. “I’m sorry.”
He came and knelt beside me, gently laying an arm across my shoulders. “So am I.”
I lost it. The sobs just came shuddering up and I couldn’t hold them back anymore. Madera gathered me into his arms and let me bawl all over him.
After a while I was cried out. He kept holding me until I sat up, wiping my eyes with my hand. He then produced a handkerchief—a real, cloth handkerchief—and gave it to me.
“Thanks.”
I mopped my face and tried to pull myself together. Madera went back to planting, scooping some of the dirt back into the monster hole I’d made and setting a baby plant on top of it. After a while I shoved the soggy handkerchief in my pocket and picked up the trowel again.
We finished the planting in silence. Madera gave me the hose while he gathered up the empty pots. There was something soothing about the gently flowing water, the young, green things we’d put in the ground. When all the plants were watered we went back into the house.
Len had made some sandwiches. I was surprised at how late it was—almost noon—and that I was actually hungry. I pulled off the work gloves to wash my hands, and the band-aid came off with them. I started to cuss, then realized my finger didn’t hurt.
The cut was healed. Hell, it was gone. I couldn’t find it at all.
I looked around for Madera, but he’d slipped away, probably to check on Savhoran. Len beckoned me over to the table, and I gave in.
I had intended to challenge her about why we were leaving early, but after what Madera had said, I understood it. Was not happy about it, but understood.
If the best thing I could do for Savhoran was leave, then I’d leave. I wished I could say goodbye, at least. It hurt to just go.
Caeran arrived as we were finishing lunch; I heard Len’s car pull up to the front of the house. Amazing how quiet it was out here.
I went to my room to collect my bag and met Madera on the portal carrying it out. I glanced past him toward Savhoran’s room. The door was shut. Nothing to do but follow Madera to the entryway.
Len was there with her bag, talking to Caeran and one of his cousins. The cousin looked at me, smiled briefly—Nathrin, I thought—then said something to Madera and went through the door into the plazuela.
Caeran looked worried, but greeted me with a smile. The four of us went out to the car. Caeran and Madera put the bags in the trunk, then it was goodbyes all around.
When Madera came up to me, I held out my hand. “Thanks for your hospitality.”
He took my hand and clasped it with both of his. “Be safe.”
His eyes were blue, I noticed. Filled with kindness and regret.
“Thanks,” I said, and got in the back seat before I could make a fool of myself again.
The back seat was my territory, safe from prying eyes. I buckled in and hugged myself and didn’t look back as we drove away.
We drove for a long time along one side of a big, empty field on the right and a fence on the left. Madera’s property must be huge.
Crazy to be leaving like this. Poor Caeran had been driving a lot—and I knew for a fact that he hadn’t gotten his license until a few months before.
Somewhere past Mora I fell asleep. Woke up when we stopped for gas in Las Vegas. I went into the convenience store to pee, and picked up a soda after eying the ice cream.
While I was waiting in line to pay, my gaze drifted across a rack of newspapers. An Albuquerque Journal had a big black headline:
“CAMPUS KILLER RETURNS?”
= 4 =
I picked the paper up and started reading the story. “A man’s body was found on the UNM campus early Friday morning, apparently…”
“Is that all for you, miss?”
I looked up at the cashier, then nodded and put the paper and my soda on the counter. I hadn’t bought a newspaper since my pet parakeet died when I was in middle school.
I pocketed my change and went back to the car, where I read the news story until we pulled out. There was a picture of the victim—nice looking guy, vaguely familiar—and one of police tape tied around some trees. I skimmed the story for details.
The dead guy was a grad student. He was found by the duck pond, throat slit and bled out. My gut twisted into a knot; that pond was right next to the library where Len and I worked. The library where she’d seen the campus killer last fall.
Except she’d said he was dead.
Len got in the driver’s seat and put on some music, then pulled out and got back on the highway. Reading in a moving car always made me sick, so I put the paper on the seat beside me. I’d read enough.
I watched the scenery go by, puzzling about the killer. My thoughts went around and around, and finally I gave up in favor of a less gruesome and, to me, more interesting subject: Savhoran.
I liked him enough to want to see him again, whenever he got well enough. I definitely was not just going forget about him. I decided to write him a letter and enclose it in my thank-you note to Madera. Spent the rest of the trip composing it in my head.
None of us were hungry when we got to Santa Fe, so we continued on home to Albuquerque. By the time we hit the outskirts of town I was starving. I leaned forward.
“Hey, you guys hungry? Dinner’s my treat.”
Len glanced over her shoulder at me. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. It’s a thank-you for taking me up to Madera’s.”
“You didn’t get to enjoy it much. I’m sorry about that,” Len said.
“At least I got to see it. You were right about Madera’s place. It’s wonderful. So what do you say? Dinner?”
They were silent for a moment, then Len said, “Sure. Where do you want to eat?”
We ended up at Pappadeaux, a great guilty pleasure, best when you’re very hungry. I ordered my usual huge platter o’ fried stuff. Len ordered the planked fish special and Caeran got a salad. In a fit of self-indulgence, I splurged on a fondue appetizer.
I’d brought the paper in with me. After we ordered, I laid it on the on the table in front of them.
“Talk to me.”
They traded a long look, then Caeran turned to me. “Yes, we believe that was done by the person you saw.”
A chill ran down my back. I swallowed. “And?”
“And that’s why we took you up to Madera’s,” Len said. “These guys are serious hunters. He could have tracked you down.”
I still had trouble buying that, but I let it pass. “Why are we back in Albuquerque, then?”
They didn’t answer, and neither of them would look me in the eye. I started drumming my fingers on the table top.
“The killer probably won’t strike again for a while,” Caeran said, looking uncomfortable.
“And you wanted to get me away from Savhoran?”
Caeran frowned. Len met my gaze.
“Yes, but only because he’s so ill. It’s not that we don’t want you to be close to him. It’s just that right now he can’t…”
I waited, but she
didn’t finish. “You’re telling me he can’t see anyone? Or he just can’t see me?”
“Anyone,” said Caeran roughly. “Even staying with Madera is a risk. It is likely he will leave once he has adjusted.”
Leave? No!
“Adjusted to what?” I demanded, panicking. “What is this disease, anyway? It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard of.”
“It isn’t.”
“Well…” Len said, then the waiter arrived with our drinks and some bread.
I sucked down half my soda and pulled a chunk off the loaf of hot bread. I was mad, and more than that I was scared that I’d never see Savhoran again. I had wild thoughts of going back to Madera’s on my own, except that it would probably piss everybody off.
“Why don’t you come stay with us for the summer?” Len said, helping herself to bread. “It would save you some money on the room.”
“I’m not a mooch.”
“Then buy some groceries. What do you say?”
It was tempting. I loved their house, and they did have a spare room. Len used it for an office, but there was a bed in there and it was a lot nicer than my dorm room. I’d crashed there on New Year’s Eve.
“You’re changing the subject,” I said.
She sighed. “We’re worried about you, Man.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not. You’re mad, and confused, and stressed-out. I’m sorry. The truth is…”
“There are some things you can’t tell me. Yeah, I’ve heard that. Why not?”
“You would not believe us, for one thing,” Caeran said.
“Try me.”
I stared straight at him. I hadn’t ever been that rude to Caeran before, but Len was right. I was frustrated as hell.
Caeran stared back, his eyes cold. I’d never seen him like this. He reminded me of his cousins with the names I couldn’t remember, of the way they had looked at me like I was a gnat.
“How old do you think I am?” he said.
“Caeran, don’t—”
He raised a hand and Len shut up. I saw her swallow before she looked down.
“Trick question?” I asked.
“No.”
“I dunno…twenty-five?”
