by Lisa Cach
“It is not for you to decide. It is not even for me to decide, now that I have used the boon.”
“She was right about you, was she not?” He was past surprises now. “You are the changeling in the tapestries.”
Lady Annalise sighed. “I would have been wiser to have let that cursed wish die with me.”
He strode to her and grasped her shoulders. “Tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
“I do not see that it will help.”
“Humor me. How did this all start?”
“Why, it started with you, of course.”
He released her and stepped back. “Me?”
“You thought I was not listening. Do you remember, coming in to see me a month or so before your wedding? Trying to talk yourself into thinking the marriage was a good idea. Telling yourself that the estates were more important than your personal feelings about the girl, when it was clear to anyone with eyes that you were miserable.”
“So you had her murdered and replaced?” he asked and fell back into the chair across from her.
“No, no, no one ever meant to harm Eleanor. That part was an unfortunate accident. My wish was for your marriage to Eleanor to be happy and joyful for you both. Nothing more sinister than that.”
“So what went wrong?”
“Well, as you know, Eleanor Moore had a rather nasty disposition. The fairies saw that a happy outcome was unlikely with her as she was, so they set about trying to change her. Their efforts weakened her, and when she fell ill, she did not have the strength to fight off the fever.”
“And that is when she died?”
“Yes. And my wish was unfulfilled, for how could you and Eleanor have a happy marriage if she was dead? So they sought someone to become Eleanor, a look-alike with a better personality, someone who would be happy to marry you. I am afraid they took my wish to literal extremes.”
“And the only such person they could find—”
“Was Wilhelmina March,” she finished for him. “From, I believe, the America of the end of the twentieth century.”
“And just how,” he said slowly, “do they think I am going to have a happy marriage with a woman not yet born?”
Chapter Twenty-five
Elle opened her eyes to the dripping underside of a sword fern. She was wet and cold, and when she pushed herself into a sitting position, her hand sank in the deep layer of muddy fir needles that was the forest floor. She shivered and looked around, recognizing the path she so often walked in the woods. It was raining, the light dim and gray.
“Is it over?” she asked Tatiana, and meant more than the trip through time. The dog had no answer for her. Her own heart was too numb to respond, to tell her if her return would mean joy or everlasting misery. She did not want to think on what it meant that she was back.
She stood and staggered a few steps down to the path. She wondered how close in time to her original departure Mossbottom had dropped her. Had her brother had time to miss her?
The thought of Jeff gave her something to focus on, and she continued down the path, Tatiana trotting at her side. Her silk slippers, damp before, were soon soaked with mud. The rain that fell and dripped through the high branches overhead plastered her light cotton gown to her skin, and she shivered. She wrapped her arms about herself and started to jog.
Her patio was just as she remembered it, with the basket of aluminum cans for recycling and the sisal mat upon which to wipe her feet and leave her hiking boots. There were no boots there now. She stepped up onto the concrete, rain water trickling down her scalp, her teeth chattering.
Tatiana shoved past her legs, wanting to be let inside. The sliding glass door reflected back the scene of grass and trees, and her own pale shape. She grasped the handle and pulled, half expecting to find it locked against her. The door slid open on its runner, and Tatiana disappeared within. Her knees shaking, she followed the dog.
Everything was as she had last seen it. The apartment was warm, and there was a faint scent of toasted bagel in the air, left over from the breakfast she had eaten so many weeks ago. She flipped on the lights and stared at the living room and kitchen that were completely familiar, and yet utterly alien at the same time. They felt lifeless and small. Dreary, even.
The phone rang. She stared at the black contraption, the ringing setting the bones of her skull to vibrate in turn. On the third ring she regained enough of her senses to answer it.
“Hello?” The receiver felt strange in her hand.
“Willie! Were you in the shower?” a male voice asked.
Elle glanced down at her sodden dress, now dripping on the worn beige carpeting. “What? No. Who is this?”
“I was thinking we could go out tonight.”
“Toby?”
“Who else? Lady, lady. What am I going to do with you?”
“Not very much, by my reckoning.”
“Ha ha. Really, how about going—”
Why was she listening to this? “Toby, I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression,” she interrupted. “I’m not interested in you.” She could hardly recall his face even as she spoke with him.
Silence met her from his end of the line. Finally his voice, considerably diminished, came through the hiss of space. “Oh. Okay. Sorry. I thought . . . oh, never mind. See you around.”
“Yeah, see you.” The line went dead.
She hung up the phone, feeling no guilt. She should have been that direct from the beginning.
She looked around the apartment, feeling a roiling dissatisfaction grow in her gut. She thought of the job that she still held and would be expected to return to on Monday. Three years she had held that job, and it meant nothing more to her than a paycheck. She’d never had the guts to look for something more challenging.
Had all her decisions been motivated by fear? Afraid she wouldn’t get a better job, afraid she’d have no money, afraid a nice-looking guy wouldn’t give her a glance, afraid of transients on the street, afraid to walk downtown at night—afraid, afraid, afraid. Afraid to say no. Afraid she’d end up alone. Afraid no one would love her. Afraid to love someone else, because he might not love her.
She slipped off her muddy shoes and headed towards the bathroom. Tatiana was in the kitchen, sniffing at her dish of dry dog food. Eighteenth-century kitchen scraps had apparently made more appetizing fare.
She ran the hot water in the tub and looked at her bedraggled reflection in the mirror. She looked tired, and her eyes were empty. The fan whirred behind its vent in the ceiling, barely audible above the running water. She looked around the bare, antiseptic white bathroom, so small and sterile, the light harsh on her eyes. So bright, so clean, so cold.
She stripped off the dress and undergarments, pulled the lever for the shower, and stepped under the harsh spray. She closed her eyes and let the hot water course down her face, the world cut off by the sound of the water.
Henry was now no more than bones in a mouldering grave. She would never see him again. She felt her face draw downwards, the muscles pulling her mouth into a painful grimace, and a high, almost silent keening rose from her chest. She sank to the floor of the tub and put her head on her knees, letting the water beat her, inhaling water as she sobbed.
Through the murk of her pain the thought rose that once again fear had been her dictator. Fear of being thought crazy, fear of living in a world where giving birth might mean death, yes, but biggest of all was the fear that Henry could never love someone like her. So she had run and lost her only chance to fight for what she wanted.
She squeezed her knees with her arms, rocking on her buttocks on the hard fiberglass. Stupid, stupid girl. She had thought she was being so decisive, so quick to act when she had forced Mossbottom to bring her back, when the truth was that she was in the full flower of her cowardice.
Exhaustion finally lessened her tears, and as she snuffled into her knees her mind skipped through the past several weeks. She remembered her wedding dance, which she had performed s
o poorly, and telling Henry she wouldn’t sleep with him on their wedding night. She remembered pulling Freddie to shore. A smile slipped through her pain. Maybe she had learned a little bravery along the way.
Unbidden came the memory of the last time they had made love. Had it only been yesterday? Her lips began to tremble again, and she buried the thought. “I won’t think of that yet,” she whispered to herself.
She had made her choice, and she was going to have to live with it.
“Thirty,” Mossbottom said.
“Yes, I know. Thirty minutes.”
“I wait.”
“You had better,” Henry muttered under his breath and set off down the muddy path.
The forest was different from those he was used to, the trees taller and darker, but at least the rain was the same as at home. Did she really walk here every day?
The path spilled out of the woods and across a lawn that led behind a long, two-storied building. He stopped to look it over, seeing the small patios in front of glass doors, one after the other. At first glance they were identical, until he noticed the personal touches. Wind chimes hanging above one. Chairs and a small table on another.
He counted down from the end, and there was Elle’s house. He jogged up the path to it. The mat was there, and the basket with shiny metal, just as Mossbottom had said.
Elle heard a thump against the bathroom door and froze, listening, her eyes closed against shampoo suds. When it didn’t come again she resumed her scrubbing. Must have been Tatiana. She sometimes lay against the door if Elle was in there for a long time.
The rings clattered on the rod as the shower curtain was yanked open and cold air rushed in. She screamed, and strong arms reached into the spray to enfold her, dragging her from the tub and squeezing her breathless against a hard chest, her feet dangling above the ground.
She blinked her eyes, then yowled anew at the sting of soap.
Kisses rained down upon her sudsy head and across her wet face. “You shall never leave me again, never! I have crossed the bowels of Hell to fetch you back, and I will not be made to do it again.”
She felt herself carried back into the shower, only he didn’t release her. He stepped in as well, holding her as the water rinsed away the soap, one hand pushing back her wet hair, his fingertips brushing aside the last drops of water from her lids so she could open her eyes.
“Surprised?” Henry asked.
He was soaked from the shower, his linen shirt transparent against his skin, the front of his hair misted with spray. Her only answer was to throw her arms around his neck and bury her face in his chest.
He broke the hold first. “There is little time, Elle.”
“How did you get here? How did you find me?”
“There is no time to explain. Only time to ask—Hell, I cannot do this here.” He got out of the shower, dragging her after him. She reached back to shut off the water, and then the room was quiet but for the soft whir of the ceiling fan. Elle grabbed a towel off the rack and wrapped it around herself as he pulled her from the bathroom and into her bedroom. He sat on the end of the bed and pulled her down onto his lap.
“What is there only time to ask?” she asked, only slightly curious, too overwhelmed by his living, breathing presence to think. This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be happening. It was a hallucination brought on by shock and grief.
“If you will come back with me. I love you, Elle. I loved you even before I knew you were not as crazy as a bedbug.”
She must be dreaming.
His arms tightened around her. “Can you forgive me? For not understanding? For not trusting in you?”
“I could ask the same of you.” She traced his face with shaking fingers. “I gave you up without a fight.”
“Then come back with me. Stay with me, Elle. Be my wife in the true sense of the word.”
“To have and to hold?”
“From this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health—’
“To love and to cherish, till death us do part.”
“And thereto I plight thee my troth,” he said solemnly and slipped her wedding ring back onto her finger.
“I don’t know what a troth is, but yes, Henry, I’ll plight thee mine.”
He kissed her, then stood, scooping her up with him. “We have to go.”
“I’m not going outside in a towel.” She could see the protest forming. “Trust me, Henry.”
He grimaced and set her down. She ran to the dresser and yanked out jeans and a sweatshirt, and pulled them on in half a minute. Bra and panties were forgone in the service of speed. She slipped on a pair of loafers.
“Okay, done.” She smiled up at him. “Bet you never saw a woman dress so quickly.”
He shook his head, grabbed her hand, and pulled her through the living room. “Tatiana!” he called. “Come on, girl.”
“Wait, wait, do we have to go this moment?” She pulled against his hand.
“Yes.”
“But . . .”
“What, Elle? They promised me only a sliver of time.”
“My brother, I wanted to call him, maybe see him.”
Henry stopped his tugging at her. “I did not even know you had a brother.”
“Two minutes? Can I have two minutes?”
His expression told her that he could not deny her. She dashed to the phone and dialed Jeffrey’s number. She had to at least hear his voice before she went. She had to say good-bye.
The machine picked up after the second ring. She listened impatiently as every member of the family capable of speech said their name, and Jeff went through the completely unnecessary litany of how to leave a message. The beep finally came, and she found herself at a loss for what to say.
“Jeffrey, this is Elle.” She paused, listening to the tape fill with silence. “I love you.” There was nothing else to say.
She hung up the phone and put her hand in Henry’s. “Take me home.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Elle watched the fluffy white cumulus clouds drifting across the clear blue summer sky, her mind wandering as freely as those puffs of wind-borne vapor. It had been a month since her return to Brookhaven, a month that had wrought deep changes not only in her relationship with Henry, but in the lives of the inhabitants of the estate as well.
The saddest occurrence had been the death of Lady Annalise, on the day of her return. When Henry brought her back through the hill, Lady Annalise had been waiting, bundled in layers of blankets, sitting on the ground with the dignity of a queen. It had been through her efforts that the fairies were persuaded to open the window of time for Henry, and it had been the final act of her long life. She was buried now on the hill that overlooked Brookhaven, the fairy hill. It had seemed more suitable than a churchyard.
Elle shifted her head on Henry’s lap, turning to look at his sleeping face. He was leaning against the trunk of a chestnut tree, the hand that had been stroking her hair now palm-down against the grass. The ground was bumpy beneath her, but she didn’t want to move. She had learned to take full pleasure from the present and had no intention of spoiling the moment, even if he was emitting the slightest of snores.
The matter of Louise and ethical concerns over Eleanor Moore’s money had been difficult to settle. The issue of truth was weighed against reality, and they had reluctantly decided that reality carried the stronger weight. The Moore family simply would never believe that Elle was not their daughter, Louise notwithstanding. The best solution she and Henry had come up with was to claim that Elle’s bout with influenza had erased significant portions of her memory and altered her personality, but that she was completely sane. If Dr. Simms could argue the influenza could give a person an accent, why not a new personality, as well? Useful thing, influenza.
They had also made it a priority to use Henry’s position to find Louise a wealthy, aristocratic husband who would love her for herself. And who wouldn’t ask for a big dowry.
&nbs
p; Elle shifted a bit, her physical squirming a reflection of the moral ambiguity of the situation. She still didn’t know if they had made the best choice.
Her eyelids fluttered closed, and she was almost asleep when Henry’s fingers resumed their stroking of her hair. She opened her eyes and smiled, and lifted her face to meet his as he bent down to kiss her. This relationship as well had changed, as she had known it must. There was so much they didn’t know about one another, but somewhere, in the events that had brought them together, they had learned to accept that they would see the world from different eyes and to value that difference.
Henry pulled her up into his lap, and together they gazed out across the farmlands of the estate, and the glittering water of the lake. The house stood sentinel, strong and protective, its stones silently promising to stand beyond the length of brief human life. Her sons and daughters would grow up here, and hundreds of years from now someone with her eyes would look up at her portrait in the gallery, and ask her mother who she was.
Epilogue
The electric chime of the doorbell barely penetrated the wailing maelstrom of human activity within the house, but Tina’s ears, so well-trained at picking out the anomaly amidst the chaos, managed to discern it.
“Jeff, the door! Someone’s at the door; can you get it?”
Jeff dragged himself to the front door, his eyes sunken from two weeks of grieving for a sister who had mysteriously disappeared, only to be found buried beneath a mudslide. It was Sunday morning, and he hadn’t shaved. He was wearing old sweat pants, athletic socks with holes in the toes, and a T-shirt covered by an unbuttoned flannel shirt. His hair stuck out at odd angles.
He opened the door. A small woman in a brown uniform stood there, holding a clipboard out to him.
“Sign here,” she instructed, tapping a line with a ball-point pen.
“I didn’t think anyone delivered on Sundays.”
“It’s a growing market,” she said cheerfully, her odd green eyes sparkling. Two short men came around the corner of the garage, carrying a large, flat crate. “Do you want it inside?” the woman asked.
