Changespell 01 Dunn Lady's Jess

by Doranna Durgin

  She could tell he wanted to hear her new word as well. With some dignity she said, "Dayna. Eric."

  His eyebrows rose into the unkempt mess of his bangs. "Dayna," he said, touching Dayna. "Eric," he added, touching his own chest. And then he put his hand on her own arm.

  Her own name was one she'd known all along. Delighted, she said carefully, "Dun Lady's Jess."

  * * *

  "Dun Lady's Jess?" Dayna repeated in perplexion, once again second-guessing her decision to bring the woman home. "That's not a name."

  "She seems to think it is," Eric said, grinning at the pride in their new friend's face. "She seems to think it's quite a good one, in fact."

  Dayna regarded the woman thoughtfully. "I wonder what language she speaks. She's certainly got a terrible accent—although it does explain why she hasn't said anything until now."

  "She sounds more like someone who's never spoken at all, not someone who speaks French or German or something," Eric said almost absently, taking the spatula from Dayna's unresisting hand to give the eggs a stir. "These are almost done. Is she having any?"

  "Who knows?" Dayna shrugged, irritated by Eric's characteristic refusal to deal with the important aspects of an issue. She left the egg serving to him and touched the table, naming it for . . . Dun Lady's Jess.

  "Table," the woman obediently repeated. Still nibbling the apple, she followed Dayna around the room with her eyes, repeating the items Dayna named. Her voice was low and throaty, and the words came out thickly, somewhat slurred. Until Dayna pulled at her robe.

  "Blanket," the woman said with assurance before Dayna had a chance to give it her own name.

  Eric set three plates on the table and said, "You'd think she'd tell us what some of these things are in her own language, if she had one."

  "Blanket?" Dayna repeated, sitting and taking a forkful of egg without ever taking her eyes from their guest. She plucked at Eric's shirt as he sat, and waited for a response.

  "Blanket," the woman said, nodding. She sniffed carefully at the steam rising from the scrambled eggs and gave them a skeptical look, checking to see that both Dayna and Eric had eaten of theirs. Ignoring the fork, she took a tentative sample with her fingers. She didn't quite spit it out, but Dayna had the impression it had been a close thing.

  "Maybe she'd prefer cereal," Eric suggested mildly. "Or cantaloupe, if you've got some."

  Without answering, Dayna retrieved the plastic container of sliced melon and cantaloupe mixed with grapes and strawberries, and offered it in place of the eggs. The woman's eyes widened in unmistakable delight and she helped herself, chewing each morsel thoroughly before taking another.

  "I don't think we're going to get much out of her before this evening, unless we can teach her English in one day," Dayna said skeptically, returning to her eggs.

  Eric was watching Dun Lady's Jess, unaffected by the comment. "Jess?" he asked.

  The woman was slow to respond, but when she realized she was being addressed, she carefully swallowed and said, "Lady."

  "That's not much of a name, not here," Eric said thoughtfully. "Maybe we'll just call you Jess. You learn enough English, you can set us straight." He scraped the last of the egg from his plate with a piece of toast and sat back in his chair. "How about I leave you two alone long enough to go home and take a shower, change my clothes. Seems to me she could use some cleaning up, too."

  "You got that right," Dayna agreed. "Just keep in mind that I'm working the hotel's evening shift tonight. We need to come to some kind of decision about her."

  Eric mumbled assent, said, "Bye, Jess. See you later," and dumped his plate in the sink on the way out.

  Dayna looked across the table at Jess and heaved a sigh. "C'mon, Jess. Let's head for the shower."

  She had planned to get things done while Jess cleaned herself up—dishes, stripping the sheets of the guest bed, maybe even get the laundry sorted and ready to go. She hadn't counted on a Jess who still eyed the stairs warily, who acted like she'd never seen the inside of a shower before. Who ran into the door frame in her haste to escape a flushed toilet. Dayna caught up with her at the head of the stairs and calmed her, then carefully explained the fixtures of the bathroom. As with everything, once Jess got the hang of it, she proceeded with confidence, but a stumble into the unknown would stop her short. When Dayna finally left her, splashing happily in the tub in lieu of the obviously scary shower, she plumped down on her bed and put her head in her hands. Good Lord, never mind Eric's half-assed comment about English being her first language—I'd swear this is her first house.

  Still numbly shaking her head, Dayna went to gather her laundry, including the stretched old sweats that had served Jess; they were all Dayna had that might fit the significantly taller, rangy woman, and she'd hardly want to put them back on after she was clean. She stared at the pants for a moment, trying to figure out what she and Eric had stumbled into. For once, it wasn't a matter of convincing her lanky friend that he had—again—left reality behind. This time, she wasn't sure what reality was. She thumped down both sets of stairs to the basement and dumped the laundry in the machine, setting the controls with unaccustomed vigor, frustrated by her quandary.

  With the laundry churning away, she ducked into the downstairs shower stall for her own cleanup. When she came out, still toweling her hair dry, Jess was waiting for her, sporting Dayna's own robe. On Dayna it swirled comfortably around her ankles; it now fell just below Jess' knees. For the first time Dayna realized the extent of the scrapes adorning those legs, and she could have kicked herself for forgetting about them.

  Jess didn't bat an eye at the ensuing first aid products. She sat patiently and, it seemed, handed herself unequivocally into Dayna's care. Dayna thought of her cautious reaction to just about everything else she'd seen and added another senseless puzzle piece to her quickly growing collection.

  * * *

  Jess—for Lady reluctantly conceded her name to them—spent the day following Dayna around the house, watching the woman at her chores, listening to her identify the objects around her. Words swirled around in her head, mixing with the countless conversations she'd heard in her uncomprehending equine form. After lunch she retreated to her bed—the sofa, it was called—for a short nap, unable to process any more. When she woke, the patterns of the words, past and present, had begun to grow clearer in her mind. Isolated words in smatterings of conversation combined to make sense, in a way that seemed not at all strange to her; she had no similar learning processes to compare it with.

  At any rate, she woke with the determination to communicate her wants to Dayna. And what she wanted was Carey.

  While she slept, the barn seemed to have undergone some kind of transformation. The random piles of clutter and papers were gone, formerly dusty surfaces shone, and there was a neat collection of blankets in a basket by the stairs. Jess took a careful look around to make sure there were no other, less innocuous changes, then followed the sound of voices to the food room. There she found Dayna amidst an accumulation of neatly sorted papers, waving a small stick at Eric to emphasize her words.

  In front of Eric lay Carey's saddlebags. On the floor beside his chair was Jess' saddle and bridle, the crupper and breast band, and the freshly cleaned blanket. Eric tipped his cap back to look up at her and said cheerily, "Hi, Jess. Sit, have something to eat."

  Dayna took one look at her and sprang from her chair, interposing herself between Jess and Eric to grab the open edges of Jess' borrowed blanket and overlap them, snugging them securely with the girth.

  Eric shook his head in quiet amusement. "She's safe from me, Dayna."

  "Fine. But she's got to learn."

  "Why wouldn't she know already?" he asked thoughtfully.

  Jess only followed the merest outline of the conversation and didn't have the slightest idea what they were talking about learning. At the moment, she didn't care. "Dayna," she pointed. "Eric . . ." and herself, "Lady." Then she touched the saddlebags, a caress that ex
pressed all her devotion to the man who owned them. "Carey."

  "Saddlebags, Jess," Eric said.

  "She does that sometimes," Dayna interposed, licking a small square and pressing it onto one of the rectangular papers. "Just like all our clothes are blankets and that—" she pointed to the robe belt, "—is a girth. She might not know English, but she's got a few words she won't budge on."

  Jess' phantom tail switched in annoyance. She went through the naming routine again and then tugged at the robe on her arm. "Dayna," she named it.

  Dayna gave her a puzzled look. "You know that's not me. That's a robe—or a blanket, if you have to have it your way."

  Impatient, Jess snatched the cap from Eric's head. "Eric." The small stick from Dayna's grasp. "Dayna." The saddle and bridle. "Jess." The saddlebags. "Carey."

  "What—?" Dayna exploded.

  "Wait a minute, wait a minute," Eric said, tumbling over his words so Jess understood none of them. "I think I get it. The robe belongs to you, Dayna, and so does the pen. The cap is mine—and the saddlebags belong to someone named Carey?"

  He directed the last at Jess, who let out a sigh of relief and finally sat. She looked him right in the eye and pointed at herself. "Carey."

  "What!" Dayna repeated. Her voice had risen considerably.

  "Easy, kiddo, now is not the time to push feminist power lingo on her. I think she's really trying to tell us something."

  "What, that she belongs to someone named Carey? Slavery's out, in case you hadn't heard," Dayna said acerbically.

  "Dayna, relax, okay?" He held her gaze until she looked away and nodded, a silent language at which Jess was much more adept. Then he gave Jess his attention. "Jess . . . you understand us, don't you? A little?"

  Jess tried her first nod, a gesture she'd seen many times and finally now understood.

  "The saddle and bridle are yours," Eric said slowly, pointing at her.

  Another nod.

  "The saddlebags belong to your friend Carey."

  She thought about that a moment. She wasn't sure about friend, but . . . "Carey," she affirmed, drawing the saddlebags closer to herself. Then she reached for the bridle. The metal pieces made the comfortable homey clatter she was used to, and she folded her hand around the double-jointed snaffle to enclose the copper roller that had often entertained her tongue. She looked deliberately at Eric and touched her chest, where the old robe was once again beginning to gap between her breasts. "Carey."

  Eric retrieved his cap and thoughtfully jammed it on his head, while Dayna looked first at him, and then at Jess, before finally exploding out of the chair. "I'm not going to encourage this. The sweats should be dry by now—I'm going to get them, and get her dressed."

  Jess had snorted and shied at Dayna's sudden movement, but settled quickly. Eric was still listening to her, and she dismissed Dayna to give him all her attention. She studied him across the table, her thick hair unheeded where it had settled in her eyes. He was a tall man, rangy but without her own athletic build. His face was a little too spare, but she liked his eyes. They were dark, slightly uptilted, and nothing but mild. In them were none of the rules that flickered in Dayna's eyes. Jess had been ridden by men whose eyes reflected such self-imposed rules—but not for long. They invariably started a battle for possession of the reins and Carey never let these unyielding riders continue. Jess thought of Carey's hands: give and take, request and thanks. She stared helplessly at Eric, knowing she just didn't have the words to explain.

  "Jess," Eric said, nothing more, just the name he'd given her. He'd seen the frustration and loss in her face, and that one word held his own helplessness: the inability to fix things for her. He touched the saddlebags, a curious touch nothing like her own. "If these are Carey's, why is the bridle yours? And the saddle?"

  She stared another moment and dredged up what words she could. "Carey . . . feeds me."

  "She takes care of you?" Eric said, seizing gratefully on her effort.

  "Yes." Then she frowned and said, tentatively, "He."

  "Is he your husband? Uh, brother? Father?" Eric tried, sinking back into their failure of communication when Jess responded to each with a slight shake of her head.

  "Were you together in the woods?"

  "Running. Yes." She thought of that chase and scowled.

  "Where did the saddle come from?"

  "Jess."

  "I know it's yours. But surely you weren't running with that thing."

  Jess seemed to grow a little taller where she sat, hearing his apparent understanding. "Yes!"

  Baffled, Eric said, "Running with a saddle. With Carey. We found you and the saddle—" he said, looking bemused over the whole image, "—but where's Carey?"

  Jess lost her grasp on words, leaning forward with a tremble of intensity.

  In a flash of insight, Eric said, "You don't know!"

  "Yes!" Please, please, help me find him.

  The unspoken plea was not lost on Eric. "But you want to know, don't you," he asked softly. "Of course you do. What's his last name? We can call a few places, see if he's there."

  Jess sat back, defeated. She shook her head and looked down at the bridle in her hands.

  Eric put his chin on the heel of his hand and sighed. "No last name. That's going to make it a lot harder. What were you running from?"

  Jess heard Dayna come up behind her and stop. She lifted her head, listening for further movement, and returned her attention to Eric when Dayna seemed content where she was. "Men," she explained, and pantomimed the notch and release of the arrow that had hit Carey. "Jess—I—run for Carey. Until—" and she repeated the pantomime.

  "You ran for him," Eric repeated without comprehension. "You mean you ran with him?"

  "No," Jess said confidently. "For him." She flung her head up, and her clean, strong features held her pride. "Fast. Strong. I," and she touched her chest again, "run for Carey."

  Eric shook his head again. "Sorry, Jess, I just don't understand."

  Jess picked up the bridle, splaying the fingers of one hand to spread the crown piece and the other to hold the bit out in front of her. "Horse," she said, clearly, watching his face for comprehension. "Dun Lady's Jess."

  Eric stared, first in the bafflement of noncomprehension, then the shock of understanding. "Jess—" he protested, as Dayna cut in from behind.

  "That's just great. I don't think there's anything we can do for her, Eric."

  Her voice held the finality of judgement, the finality of her rules. Jess' pride drained away, and fear took its place, for in that finality was rejection, and the loss of this safe place.

  * * *

  Dayna couldn't believe she'd let Eric talk her into this pointless little trip. Jess was probably on the loose from some institution, and the only thing to do was see to her return—and to the return of the saddle, bridle, and saddlebags, which were no doubt stolen.

  It could do no harm, he'd argued. She was less sure of that, but somehow, here they stood, in the aisle of The Dancing Equine Dressage Center, waiting for Jaime Cabot to finish cooling out her horse so Jess could have a better look around.

  "I don't know what good you think this is gonna do," she muttered, once again, to Eric, while Jess waited between them and stood very tall, drinking in the scents and sounds of the stable.

  Eric, once again, shrugged. "She says she's a horse. This'll give her a chance to see, well, that she can't possibly be."

  "If it was that easy, someone would have straightened her out long ago."

  Another shrug. "Maybe Jaime can talk some sense into her. Anyway, she knows a lot more about horses than we do."

  That was true enough. Jaime competed in the upper echelons of dressage and could swap horse jargon with the best of them. "It's pointless," Dayna intoned, crossing her arms. She leaned against the plank wood wall and stared sourly at Jess' tall straight back. Her choppy hair was more evident from this vantage; although the front strands fell just short of her shoulders, there were also coarse l
engths that fell unevenly to the middle of her back. And though Dayna had classified the odd color as similar to dark wet sand, there seemed to be some kind of darkened stripe running through the middle of the unparted mess.

  Jaime, a short woman who was dwarfed by a tall young Hanoverian, led the animal to its stall at the far end of the aisle and hauled the heavy stall door closed behind it. She twitched the end of her long dark braid behind her shoulder and came to meet them, looping the lead rope around her hand. "Hey, guys, what's up?" she asked cheerfully.

  "We found a friend who's . . . interested in horses," Eric said, casting Dayna a glance as he spoke up before she had the chance. "Jaime, this is Jess. Think she could look around?"

  "Sure," Jaime said. "Just let me turn Silhouette into the ring first." A few minutes was all it took to turn the stalled mare loose in the indoor arena at the end of the aisle. Dayna glanced at her watch, a distinct message to Eric that she was not about to show up late for work because of this futile venture.

  Jaime took them on a stall-to-stall tour, telling Jess a little about each of the horses—boarders, competition horses, retirees. Jess was a bundle of curiosity and intensity and movement, greeting each animal with an exchange of puffing breaths—and, for two of the horses, squeals of annoyance. Jaime's expression changed from curious to poker-faced; when they reached the end of the aisle they left Jess leaning on the arena gate, watching Silhouette play, while Jaime led Eric and Dayna to the opposite end of the stable.

  "Who the hell is this woman?" Jaime asked bluntly. "She's damn odd, I can see that much for myself."

  "Dun Lady's Jess," Eric said, and offered a smile.

  Jaime's hazel eyes narrowed. "That's a horse name, not a woman's."

  "Exactly," Dayna said, staring hard at Eric. "That's the problem."

  "Come on, you two. I don't know what you're up to, but as long as you brought it here, you might as well let me in on it."

  "Both barrels," Dayna warned her. "We found her at Highbanks yesterday. She was naked and scared to death; she had a saddle and bridle with her. She doesn't know much English, or much of anything else for that matter, but she did manage to tell us that she's a horse."