Enchantment

by Pati Nagle

  When she came back into the kitchen, Dad was still standing there. Holly washed her hands, then opened the silverware drawer and made as much noise as possible getting out utensils for dinner.

  Dad gave up and went into the living room. As Holly was setting the table, she heard the TV come on. She finished the table and quietly slipped back through the kitchen to her room.

  She closed the door and sighed. Her haven, for a little while, anyway. Glancing at her bedside clock, she saw she had a quarter of an hour before dinner. She flopped onto her bed and hugged a pillow, closing her eyes and thinking about Ohlan.

  Tap, tap. “Holly?” Mom called softly.

  Holly rolled over on her stomach, ready to feign sleep. She held still, listening to the heavy silence. Finally Mom’s footsteps went down the hall.

  This would get old. She should figure out what to say to them whenever they decided to insist that she talk. She knew they would do it—only question was when.

  Homework. Books. If she got desperate, she could say she wanted to look through the college brochures.

  What if they asked about Ohlan?

  She’d say they should talk to him themselves. That might work to get them up to the spring.

  The muted murmur of the television went silent. Holly glanced at the clock.

  One minute to six. Time to face the parental anxiety squad.

  She slid off the bed and straightened her clothes, then headed for the kitchen. Salad bowl waiting on the counter; Holly picked it up and carried it out to the dining table.

  Dad was already at his place. Mom looked up from setting a platter of pot roast and vegetables in the middle of the table.

  “Thanks, Holly. Could you bring in the bread basket?”

  Holly went back to the kitchen and returned with the bread and the butter dish. Mom was in her chair. Holly took her own place, not looking forward to the next half hour.

  “How was school?” Dad asked as he served up the roast.

  Holly reached for the iced tea pitcher and filled her glass. “Fine. Got some homework.”

  There. She’d spoken. Proof that she wasn’t sulking.

  She stirred sugar into her tea and helped herself to bread, then she couldn’t resist the smell of the pot roast any more. She dug in, wishing she’d managed to eat lunch so she could play it cool now. The roast tasted too good, though. She had to work not to gobble it.

  Mom asked Dad about his day. Holly ate in silence, not really listening. It was the same conversation they always had. Their evening ritual. Dad talked about whatever project he was working on, and Mom talked about the errands and stuff she’d done. Never varied much.

  Holly finished her first serving and dished up some salad before going for seconds. Mom was watching her with a warm look in her eyes. Mother hen glad to see the chick eating.

  After the salad Holly slowed down. She took one more small slice of roast, a carrot and half a potato.

  She wondered what Ohlan would think of this meal. Since he didn’t need to eat, did he care at all about how food tasted? He seemed to enjoy the cookies and the sandwich she’d brought him.

  Thinking of him, she felt the wonder of it all over again. What was it like to be him?

  “Some good movies on tonight,” Dad said. “Anybody interested in Firebrand?”

  Holly clenched her teeth. More kissing up. She despised it.

  Firebrand was a movie her parents had nixed when she’d wanted to go see it in the theater. It had a lot of sex and violence in it. She’d watched it at Jen’s house on a sleepover, but her folks didn’t know that. The TV version would be toned down, no doubt.

  “We could make some popcorn,” Dad added. “What do you say, Holly?”

  “I think I’d rather get started on my homework.”

  Silence. She kept her eyes on her plate, though she knew the folks were exchanging one of their looks.

  She wasn’t hungry any more. She cut up her food into miniscule pieces and stirred them around, waiting for her folks to finish.

  “Apple cobbler for dessert,” Mom said.

  Holly pushed her plate away. “Guess I took too much. Can I have mine later?”

  “Sure, honey.”

  She carried her dishes out to the kitchen and refilled her water glass, then escaped to her bedroom. Just because she’d said it, she did one of her homework assignments. Then she checked her email.

  Message from Mad. She almost deleted it unread. Just seeing Mad’s email address brought back all the anger.

  She clicked on the email. It was chatty about school, and included hellos passed along from Mad’s roommates. No mention of the photo.

  Holly deleted the message without answering. She replied to a couple of text messages from her friends, who were probably at the movie theater by now. Too bad she couldn’t text Ohlan. That would have made life a lot simpler.

  Was he missing her? Wondering what had kept her away this time? She swallowed her loneliness and dug out the book about trains.

  The weekend was all more of the same. Holly stayed out of the living room, a self-imposed ban on sitting in front of the TV. Her room was safer; her parents were less likely to demand conversation. She finished her chores, then her homework, then read the forestry book after finishing the train book. By Saturday evening she was down to online games to pass the time.

  “I was thinking we could do a picnic tomorrow for lunch,” Mom said at supper.

  Holly looked at her, a tingle of hope washing through her. Mom didn’t seem to realize the chance she’d just offered.

  “Sure,” Holly said. “Let’s go up to Enchantment Spring.”

  “Holly.” Dad’s voice was heavy.

  She turned to him. “What? Now I can’t go up there at all, even with you guys?”

  He frowned. “Someplace else would be better.”

  “No, I don’t agree.” Holly put down her fork, out of patience. “Look, you don’t like Ohlan, but you’ve never even met him. You’re just making assumptions about him. It isn’t fair.”

  “If you’d brought him to meet us—“

  “Well, I couldn’t. He can’t come here.”

  “What on earth would prevent him from coming to our house?” Mom asked.

  Holly took a deep breath. “It’s complicated. He has to stay near the spring.”

  “What?” Dad’s frown deepened.

  “Look, I really do want you to meet him. I think a picnic is a great idea. Please, won’t you just give him a chance?”

  Dad looked at Mom, still frowning. He obviously didn’t like the proposal.

  “We’ll talk about it.”

  Holly shut up, figuring that arguing any more would just set Dad against it. She ate a few more bites of tuna casserole, then thought of a question to ask Mom. The subject of the picnic was closed until the folks had a chance to confer.

  Holly ate her share of dessert—chocolate cake—and voluntarily loaded the dishwasher to give her parents time to talk. The TV came on, but when she glanced in the living room they were standing close together, ignoring the screen.

  She stalled in the kitchen as long as she could, even wiping down the counters and putting away the leftovers. Finally she was out of things to do. She peeked into the living room. Mom caught sight of her and went to her chair. End of conversation, though it didn’t look like Dad was satisfied.

  Holly wasn’t sure if she should go in or slip away to her room. Mom settled the question.

  “Come on in, Holly. Help us pick a movie.”

  Holly perched on the end of the couch while Mom picked up the remote and switched to the guide. Dad retreated to his chair and started reading the previous day’s newspaper.

  Out of three movie choices, they settled on an old comedy from the sixties. Holly expected it to be stupid but she stayed as a gesture of peace, and actually ended up enjoying the movie. Mom made popcorn and the mood in the room relaxed, though there was still the unresolved picnic question hanging in the air.

&nb
sp; They must be disagreeing about it. Bad sign. Holly began to resign herself to the possibility that the picnic was a no-go.

  If that happened, she would sneak out and go up to the spring Sunday night. She shivered at the thought. She’d never disobeyed her parents in such a major way before, but they just didn’t understand how important Ohlan was to her.

  When the movie ended, Dad switched to a late night talk show he liked to watch. Holly yawned, picked up the empty popcorn bowl, and took it out to the kitchen. Mom followed her and opened the dishwasher, and they both put away the clean dishes.

  “Holly, how long have you been seeing Ohlan?”

  Holly froze with two dinner plates in her hands. “Um, maybe a month.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “I … just met him up at the spring one day.”

  Mom straightened and crossed her arms. “Why can’t he come here?”

  “I think it would be better if he explained,” Holly said slowly. “It has to do with his … work.”

  “You said he works in the forest.”

  “At the spring, actually.”

  “But he has no employer.”

  Holly winced. “Right.”

  Mom put away the last of the pots and leaned against the counter, watching her. “Is he self-employed or unemployed?”

  “Self-employed!”

  Holly wished she’d thought to say that sooner. It was true, pretty much. Ohlan was definitely his own boss.

  “And he’s older than you.”

  “Um. Yeah. A bit.”

  “And what does he want from you? Dating? Sex?”

  “Mom!”

  “Does he know you’re going away to college?”

  “I haven’t decided if I’m going away.”

  A look of shock crossed Mom’s face. Holly could have kicked herself. She hadn’t meant to talk about that yet.

  “I mean, I’m thinking about going to school here. At the UNM satellite campus. I could live at home. Save money.”

  Mom’s frown faded to confusion. Holly figured she’d better escape before she said something else unintentionally.

  “You’ll see when you meet him. Goodnight, Mom.”

  She hurried off to her room and got ready for bed, half-expecting a knock on her door, but the folks hadn’t settled anything by the time she turned out the light. She could hear their voices occasionally, blending with the drone of the TV.

  She lay in bed gazing up at the painted Milky Way, wishing she was looking at the real one with Ohlan. Eventually she fell asleep and dreamed she was in the comedy movie, racing a dozen other people to get to the prize, but she’d forgotten what it was.

  ~

  “We’ve made a decision.”

  Dad sounded ultra-serious. Holly looked up warily from her breakfast.

  “We’ll go on this picnic, and give your friend Owen—“

  “Ohlan,” Mom said softly.

  “—Ohlan. We’ll give him a chance to explain himself.”

  Holly’s heart tried to fly up out of her chest. “Thanks. You’ll like him, you’ll see.”

  “And I do mean explain himself. I want to know why he wouldn’t come here.”

  “To be honest, I didn’t ask him to. I knew he couldn’t.”

  Dad frowned. Mom tried to redirect the subject. “Ohlan sounds like a Scandanavian name. He looks kind of northern-European, too. Where’s he from, Holly?”

  She bit her lip. “I think he’s from here.”

  “Maybe his family came over.”

  Holly couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so she took another bite of French toast. Ohlan should be the one to explain things to her folks … she hoped. What she wasn’t sure about was how much he would explain.

  He’d said most people just assumed he was human. Would the folks do that? Or would Ohlan think it was important to make them understand the truth?

  She tried to imagine their reaction, and couldn’t. It worried her.

  Mom went all out on the picnic, enlisting Holly to help her make fried chicken and potato salad. Holly was just as glad to have something to do; she was getting nervous about this meeting. She fetched paper plates and napkins and plastic cutlery while Mom wrapped up the leftover cake and packed it into a rolling ice chest along with the food and a half-dozen sodas.

  “Will this go up the trail all right?” Mom asked.

  Holly looked at the ice chest. “I don’t know—it’s rough in some places.”

  “Well, we can always lift it for a few steps.”

  “Too bad they haven’t done that improvement project already,” Dad said. “Is this ready?”

  Mom nodded. Dad hefted the ice chest and carried it out to the car. Holly stood still, thinking about the trail project. It was scheduled to start tomorrow.

  Maybe this was all for nothing. Maybe the folks would meet Ohlan and like him—or hate him—and none of it would matter. If the spring was destroyed, he would die.

  Holly closed her eyes. She’d been avoiding that painful thought, but she was going to have to face it soon. Too soon.

  “You OK, honey?”

  Holly looked at Mom and forced a smile. “Yeah. Just thinking.”

  “I’ve never seen you this way about a boy. He really means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes. He does.”

  “I thought it might be just a crush, at first.”

  Holly shook her head, smiling for real this time. “No.”

  “You’re reminding me of when I met your father.” Mom glanced toward the garage, her eyes soft. “Would you get the sunscreen, honey? And a hat.”

  “It’s mostly shady,” Holly said, but she headed off to fetch the sunscreen anyway. Mom was kind of fanatical about UV protection.

  She stopped in her room, dumped the contents of her pack on her bed and put the sunscreen into it, along with the book about trains. When she got back to the kitchen, Mom was geared up with her garden hat, bandana around her neck, and gigantic sunglasses. Dad stood beside her, ball cap on his head and shades around his neck. They looked up and went silent as Holly came in, then Dad smiled.

  “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  The drive took less than five minutes, barely enough time for Mom to slather herself with sunscreen. The hike would take a lot longer; hauling the ice chest up the trail was going to slow them down. Holly took the first turn, pulling it up the dirt trail a few steps while Mom and Dad paused to read the sign about the rehabilitation project. The chest’s wheels were pretty small, and she wound up half-dragging it.

  She wondered if Ohlan knew they were coming. He usually seemed to be expecting her when she reached the glen. She’d have to refrain from hugging him, she thought, slightly surprised to realize that she was in the habit of walking straight into his arms.

  They all took turns pulling the ice chest and lifting it over the places where the trail was too rocky, of which there were a lot. By the time they got close to the glen Holly was wishing they’d left the damn thing at home. It was her turn to haul it as they walked up the last, fairly smooth stretch to the spring.

  Nervous, she peered through the trees, hoping to catch sight of Ohlan. Instead she saw a couple of hikers, a man and a woman, sitting on the big rocks in the glen. The woman was leaning back on her elbows, soaking up the sunshine that came through a gap in the trees.

  Crap. They didn’t need this complication.

  Mom said hello to the hikers, and Dad nodded to them. Holly pulled the ice chest right up to the spring and glanced into the water.

  Ohlan?

  Could he hear her? She took out the picnic blanket and spread it beside the concrete coffin. The sloping ground made the spot less than ideal, but Holly wanted to be as close to the spring as possible, knowing Ohlan needed to stay near the water.

  She got out a can of ginger ale, opened it, and sat on the blanket with her back against the coffin. The hikers traded a glance, then with a show of resignation, got up and headed down the trai
l. Dad turned to Holly.

  “So, where do we find your friend?”

  “He’ll show up.”

  Mom crouched beside a bush. “There’s something under here, I think.”

  “Careful!” Holly stood and hurried over to her. “That’s an injured squirrel. Ohlan’s been taking care of him.”

  “A squirrel?” Dad sounded incredulous.

  Holly leaned forward until she could see a furry grey flank, and an abdomen fluttering with rapid breathing. He was scared.

  “Hi, there, little guy,” she said softly. “Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you.”

  “Holly?”

  She caught her breath at the sound of Ohlan’s voice. Trying to keep her face calm, she straightened and turned.

  He was standing by the spring, wearing jeans and a plaid shirt instead of his normal silky clothes, and his long hair was pulled back into a pony tail. He looked very ordinary, compared to how he usually glowed. Holly wondered if he had done that on purpose. She walked toward him, smiling.

  “Ohlan, I’d like you to meet my parents.”

  ~ 15 ~

  Mom and Dad followed Holly, forgetting the squirrel. Mom looked curious; Dad suspicious. Holly turned to them.

  “This is Mary and Gordon Parker. Mom and Dad, this is Ohlan.”

  Dad held out a hand. “Ohlan …?”

  Last name! Crap, they’d never discussed it!

  “Forester,” Holly blurted.

  Ohlan glanced at her with an amused smile, then shook Dad’s hand. “I’m honored to meet you.”

  Holly could tell by the muscles standing out in Dad’s forearm that he was doing one of those macho, testing handshakes. It pissed her off, but Ohlan just kept smiling. After a moment Dad let go, looking puzzled.

  Ohlan turned to Mom. “Mrs. Parker. I see where Holly gets her beauty.”

  Mom blushed and said, “Oh, pish,” but she looked pleased. “We’ve brought a picnic lunch. I hope you’ll join us.”

  “Thank you.”

  Holly went back to where she’d left her ginger ale by the spring. Ohlan sat beside her, leaning against the coffin. She glanced at him, looking for any sign of fatigue, but he seemed all right. While Mom fussed with passing out plates and napkins, Holly watched Dad watching Ohlan.