Spires of Spirit (25 page)

Lauri got out and took off her shoes. Amy looked at her curiously.

“You don't need them here,” Lauri explained. “This place is safe. There's nothing here that will hurt you.”

Amy looked unbelieving, as though there were indeed no place in the universe like that, but she got out of the car and, after a moment of hesitation, even went so far as to remove her shoes. “I'll . . . take your word for it, Lauri.”

“Good enough.” Lauri reached into the back and picked up the picnic basket. “Let's walk. There are some nice meadows around here.”

She offered her hand, recalling as she did a time, now four months past, when Ash had reached out to her. At the time, the action had seemed fraught with meaning, as though it would reshape her entire life. And, indeed, it had, for when, after a moment, she had taken Ash's hand, that gentle woman had led her into another world, just as she herself hoped to lead Amy. The blood had awakened, and it could not be denied. But the trauma could be eased, the uncertainty done away with. Healing. Comfort. Yes, that was it.

But though Amy grasped her hand and willingly accompanied her toward the path, she moved stiffly, as though in pain. “You aren't well?” said Lauri.

“I'm OK.” Amy dropped her eyes and turned her head away.

Lauri sighed. “Come,” she said quietly. “You can leave it behind you here.”

Amy, startled by her tone, looked up, her eyes deep blue now with the awakening of the blood, the shimmer a faint presence about her body. “What?”

She stared at Lauri, and the Elf knew that Amy was sensing the starlight. But just then a sparrow hawk skimmed by over their heads, swept up and away and, wings beating, hung as though beckoning above the clearing that Lauri knew was ahead.

“Hello, old friend,” said Lauri.

“What?”

Lauri laughed. “It's the welcoming committee!”

Their steps took them into the trees and along quiet paths where the moss and pine needles seemed especially soft. Lauri padded silently. Amy stepped gingerly. The sparrow hawk had doubled back, and it flitted from tree to tree above their heads, keeping pace with them, now and then peering down, head cocked to one side, curious.

The meadow opened before them like a green chapel, surrounded by trees, bordered by a stream that tumbled among smooth stones. The sparrow hawk flicked out over it, circled, and with firm wing beats, mounted into the sky. Amy shaded her eyes, looking after it.

The grass was thick and soft, the sun warm. Lauri spread the blanket while Amy wandered first down to the water, then up along a patch of white flowers.

“Isn't this better than watching the tube all day?” Lauri called to her.

Amy turned around. She was holding one of the small blooms. The wind lifted her hair out and to the side, and though she was wearing designer jeans and a football jersey, she was, for that moment, timeless, as though this meadow and these flowers had always been visited by young, fragile women who knew what it meant to pick one and hold it in just this way, wondering at it.

“It's . . . it's beautiful here,” she said, and her voice carried softly to Lauri. And it seemed that she had, in fact, left behind her what the Elf had hoped she would.

But at the same time, linked as they were in that instant, Lauri could sense the dark bruises that covered Amy's back, the reddened welts on her breasts . . . and she knew why the young woman had walked stiffly.

She dropped her gaze, staring for the moment at the blanket, and then beyond, letting her stars calm her, settle her. As much as leukemia had silently eaten at Ash's little neighbor, so did a different, less tangible ailment gnaw at Amy.

And so, Lauri hoped, would it be dealt with by elven hands.

“What's that, Lauri?” Amy was pointing out over the treetops. There was a tower there. It was white, with a roof of blue stone, and a silver filigree wound along just under the eaves.

“It's a house.”

“Who lives there?”

“It's sort of a communal-type place.”

“That must be nice. This is a pretty place.”

“I'll take you there sometime,” said Lauri.

She opened the basket and began setting out the food. She had packed it herself—chicken salad, bread, wine, cheese—and while she had done so, she had felt the sacredness of her task, for this simple lunch could, as far as Amy was concerned, make all the difference in the world.

The sparrow hawk swooped down and alighted on her shoulder, then nuzzled through her hair at her ear. Lauri blushed. “Hey, come on, give me a break,” she whispered to it. “You want the poor thing to freak?”

Amy was staring again. “How . . . how are you doing that?”

Lauri offered the small hawk a bit of chicken salad. “Well, it's like this. Just like we're safe here, so are the animals. They know we wouldn't hurt them.” The sparrow hawk gave up on her ear and took the dab of chicken salad politely. “It
was
you the first time I was here, wasn't it?” Lauri said to it. The bird eyed her wisely and busied itself with the food.

Amy wandered over and sat down, moving slowly, wonderingly. A deer bounded out of the forest and, leading a fawn, went straight to her. The fawn took one look at her, curled up beside her, and went to sleep. The mother looked on approvingly. Amy reached out and stroked the dapple fur. “I don't understand any of this,” she said. Her voice was hoarse, her eyes moist.

“Just take it for what it is,” said Lauri. She let the starlight fill her, feeling the cool wash of energy expanding within her until it reached out and touched Amy, who relaxed and rubbed her eyes. Lauri let her rest.

But, abruptly, Amy broke down, eyes pressed tightly shut, hands going to her face to hide her tears. Lauri put her arms around her, thinking:
It's not supposed to hurt. Dear God, it's not supposed to hurt.

Locked as she was in a personal and physical grief, Amy was oblivious to Lauri's arms; and though the Elf could feel Amy choking and heaving, she could also feel more: the grief itself, the confusion, the frantic searching for escape.

Ash had healed her neighbor, but even Ash did not know how. Lauri herself had no healing to offer. She had, in fact, nothing to give but her presence and her arms, and she could only hope that, coupled as they were with the safety and peace of this place, the chosen valley of the Elves, they would not prove deficient. And, indeed, Amy's sobs gradually grew less frequent, wrung her body less. She had buried her face in Lauri's shoulder, her hands clutched into fists; but that was easing now, and eventually she quieted, her hands relaxed, and Lauri cradled her gently, letting her drift in peace.

“What am I seeing?” Amy said at last. “Are they stars?”

Lauri lifted her head. It was happening. “They are.”

“Inside me?”

“Some people have talent,” said the Elf. “This place can bring it out. Breathe slowly. Pretend you're breathing the starlight.”

Amy seemed to understand. She breathed, and a deep calm surrounded her. “Where am I?” she whispered.

“Inside yourself. We all have places like this inside us. We just have to find them. It's a place you can go to for quiet, or . . . for . . . well . . . for strength. When you need to.”

After a minute, Amy appeared to realize where she was and what she was doing. She shifted, opened her eyes, drew away from Lauri. She kept her gaze elsewhere. The fawn, still beside her, looked at her with concern. The doe watched.

“Rob likes to beat you up, doesn't he?” Lauri's voice was quiet.

Amy would not look at her. “I make him nervous,” she said. “I twitch. He doesn't like that.”

“That doesn't give him the right to hit you.”

“It's my fault. He works hard, and he's tired when he gets home. He needs to rest . . . and I get in the way. He gets so angry at me . . .”

“And he drinks . . .” Lauri was surprised at her certainty. “So he knocks you around.”
Damn human . . .

Amy still would not look at her. Her blond hair, damp with her tears, straggled down on either side of her face.

Starlight or no starlight, Lauri could not understand. “Why the hell do you stay?”

Amy at last looked up. “I need him,” she said. “I love him.”

“It sure doesn't sound like he loves you.”

Amy looked baffled. “Of course he loves me.”

***

The next day was a Sunday, and Lauri was crawling across the blue slate roof of Elvenhome to caulk the flashing around the chimney. The slope was not great, but the stone was slippery, and she was not used to heights. She held the stars in her mind to keep her acrophobia at bay.

She reached the chimney and straddled the ridge. In most directions, she could see trees, pine and aspen, her view level with or above their highest branches. To the west, beyond the trees, were the mountains, clear and sharp against the unspeakably blue sky. Below her, beyond the eaves of the house,w as the ground, forty feet down. She tried not to think about that. It was even preferable to think about Amy.

The picnic had ended on a better note, and Amy had been laughing again when Lauri had dropped her off at her apartment.

“I'll see you on Monday,” Amy had said. “Thanks. I had a great time. I'd like to go back up there someday.”

“Just name the time, Amy. I'll be more than happy to take you.”

And Lauri, perched on the roof, recalled the faint nimbus that she had seen about Amy as the young woman had gone up the walkway and into the apartment building. Amy herself was probably not yet conscious of it, but it would still be a while before the blood would begin to manifest directly for her. Now, with Lauri's help, she could see the stars. Soon, they would be with her always.

But other recollections of that day made Lauri's hands tighten on the caulking gun. Her own attitude toward men had always been one of indifference. She had been gay for as long as she had known that there was something more between adults than talking, and men had never been anything more to her than friends or co-workers. While the affair in Los Angeles that had blown up and propelled her to Denver had been a maelstrom of conflicting emotions and psychological games, it had not contained even a hint of physical abuse, and she had, it seemed, forgotten about those kinds of love in which intimidation and violence played a part.

Those bruises, those welts: they made her blood boil. Worse, they made her feel helpless. How could she reach out to Amy, separated as she was from her by an abyss of conditioning, sexuality, and lifestyle, of which Amy's studied polish and femininity were only surface indications? And what, in any case, could starlight do against a raised fist?

Immersed and aggravated by her thoughts, she missed her footing as she inched back toward her ladder. In a moment, the caulking gun had gone flying, clattering down the roof and off into the air as she scrambled for a hold. The slate, though, offered little for her hands to grasp, and she slid rapidly toward the edge, following the path of the caulking gun.

She heard it hit the ground, a harsh
clank
, probably on the walkway and she hoped it hadn't cracked any of the flagstones and
dammit where the hell is a hold on this slate . . . ?

Her body was off the edge before her fingers closed on the rain gutter. She was strong, and, thanks to a combination of Tae Kwon Do and starlight, her reflexes were good, and though she wound up dangling in the air, she felt confident that she could pull herself up. If the gutter did not give way.

As if in response to her thought, the gutter creaked, a masonry nail two feet from her decided that it was not up to the added load.

“Lauri,” she heard from below her. “Are you—oh, shit!”

The voice belonged to Wheat, and Wheat, she recalled (her mind pursuing with maddening efficiency her previous train of thought), had been Amy's employment counselor.

Petulantly, the nail continued to yield. The gutter creaked even more. Climbing back onto the roof was out of the question: any movement on Lauri's part would cause the nail to give way, would, in fact, more than likely pull out the entire section of gutter.

Lauri heard Wheat shouting for Hadden and Web. She forced herself to stay calm, turned inward, found her stars.

The gutter creaked. It was obviously not going to hold. Lauri could feel it pulling free, could imagine what a forty-foot drop would do to her. She stared at the nail, willing it to hold, seeing it through a haze of starlight.

The gutter sagged.

“Hold on, Lauri!” It was Ash. Well, Lauri reflected, in about half a minute a healer was going to be exactly what she needed.

That damned nail. She glared at the traitorous hardware, and in her mind, a blue star was blazing directly in her line of sight, the nail eclipsed by its brilliance.

Hold. Dammit. Hold.

And then she suddenly felt the ladder under her feet, felt it rise and steady until she could put her weight on it.

“You got it, Lauri?” Wheat called.

“Yeah,” Lauri shouted back. “Yeah . . . I got it.” Her arms were suddenly rubbery. “Lemme . . . lemme just rest for a minute before I try to come down.”

As she steadied herself, though, she noticed the nail: it looked as though it had been partly melted. She looked closer, saw that it was, quite perceptibly, fused not only with the gutter but with the stone behind it. Remembering the star she had seen, she stared, swallowed, and then, slowly, inched down the ladder.

Hadden, Wheat, and Web all grabbed her when she came within reach, and they bore her bodily over to the bench under the big aspen tree that grew in the front courtyard. Ash pressed a glass of water into her hand. “Find your stars, Lauri.”

“I've . . . I've got them,” Lauri panted, half from fright, half from the sight—and import—of the melted nail. Power. First Ash, and now Lauri. Nor did she remember how she had done it. “I'm . . . I'm . . . I'm . . . all right.”

Hadden's face was grave. “What happened?”

She shrugged. “I got sloppy up there. I was thinking about Amy.”

“Hmmm. How did it go yesterday?”

“We talked. The animals accepted her, no problem. We talked. I was right: her guy beats her up. But she thinks it's her fault.”