Spires of Spirit (26 page)

Ash nodded slowly. “Yes . . . that's usually the way it is.”

Lauri blinked at her tone. “Ash?”

Ash seemed to turn her sight inward. The starlight in her eyes flickered. “I was married years ago, and divorced. There were . . .reasons for that.”

“And you blamed yourself for it all?”

Ash shrugged. “We grow up that way sometimes. I finally realized that nothing I did rated a beating from another human being. I ran. Eventually, he stopped trying to get back at me.”

“He
what
?”

“I'd run away,” Ash said simply. “I had to be punished.”

Hadden rubbed at his nonexistent beard. “And Amy? What about her? The blood isn't going to wait. We need to be ready.”

“She can stay here,” said Ash. “One wing of the Home is finished. There is water, and the lights are working. We can put her up until her man gets tired.”

“But then what?” Lauri felt the power that Ash had once wielded, that she could possibly wield again.

As though looking back on a life that had taken an unexpected turn or two, Ash smiled quietly. “Then she is her own, to stay or go as she wishes. She will be a kinswoman.”

***

It rained heavily most of the next week, autumn storms presaging the coming winter. Flooded streets mirrored the slate gray of cloudy skies, dirt lots turned into swamps, construction halted, and at TreeStar Surveying, field work was, by necessity, suspended. Lauri had paperwork to keep her busy at the office, but she made sure that she occasionally took time out to chat with Amy.

Yes, the young woman was changing. Now even Amy herself had noticed, though it was obvious that she did not know what to make of it. She moved with a sense of ease and grace through the office, and if she smiled, she smiled without nervousness or appeasement. Her mistakes dwindled. A potted plant appeared on her desk. There was a gleam of starlight in her eyes. On Friday afternoon, Lauri found her examining her hands in wonder.

“How's it going, Amy?”

“Fine . . .” Amy's voice trailed off thoughtfully, then she caught herself and looked up at Lauri. “I think I might need glasses.”

“Is my handwriting giving you problems? Don't worry: it gives
everybody
problems.”

“No, honestly,” Amy giggled, “I look like I'm glowing.”

“Uh . . . well . . . maybe you are. Have you thought of that?”

Amy shrugged and shook her head. “I wouldn't be surprised if I was, with all the other crazy things going on.”

Lauri shoved her hands into her pockets, sensing that she was going to have to do some fast thinking in the next few minutes, sensing that, as usual, she was not going to think quite fast enough. “Crazy things?”

Amy looked up, and starlight flashed in her eyes. “It's like when we were up in the mountains last weekend. I see stars when I sleep. And I think I see them when I'm awake.” She blinked. “Am I nuts?”

“No more than anyone else around here.” Lauri was conscious that, from across the room, Hadden was watching her. “How do you feel about it? Besides being nuts, I mean.”

Amy gazed out the window, out onto the lawn that adjoined the office building. “I was sitting in the park today . . . eating my lunch. I wasn't paying attention to anything, but a robin came and sat on my shoulder. It . . . it let me pet it.” She looked up at Lauri. “It wasn't just begging for a handout. It really seemed, like, glad that I was there. And then a squirrel curled up in my lap. Just like the fawn did. A-and I feel like . . . like I'm them and they're me.”

“Are you frightened?”

“No.”

Lauri considered. She felt Hadden watching her still, and she knew what he was thinking. Getting close. Time to say something. Healing and comfort.

She ran a hand through her black hair, brushing past an ear. The change was profound. She was twenty-nine, but she looked almost ten years younger than that, and the set of her cheekbones and face had altered enough to make her ears fit in better, so that she looked complete, all of a piece. Even some of the inflections of her voice had changed.

She checked Amy. Physical changes? Not yet. Soon, though. Very soon.

“What do you know about Elves?” she said casually.

Amy looked startled. “Oh, my God . . . we've got
them
around here too?”

Lauri was conscious that Hadden had turned away, shaking with suppressed laughter. She frowned. It was not fair. She had no idea what she was doing. “Well . . . uh . . . who knows?”

“Don't they sit on mushrooms?”

“I'm not sure.” Lauri was watching Hadden. “Maybe they smoke them.” He did not turn around.

“But what about Elves?”

“It's . . . well . . . like they really existed,” said Lauri. She was suddenly terrified that Amy would laugh. “Right along with humans. They disappeared somewhere around the fourteenth century, but before that they'd, well, like, intermarried. Lots of people have some of the blood now, and it's waking up in some. Aquarian Age or something like that.”

Hadden straightened, and though he was still facing away from her, Lauri saw his nod.

“Cute story,” said Amy, who had gone back to staring at her hands. “Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm turning into one.”

Lauri chuckled. “Maybe.”

“What happened to make them disappear, though? Didn't they have the Black Death in the fourteenth century?” Lauri looked at her, and she shrugged. “I majored in history.”

“Yea . . . OK . . . uh . . . well . . . I don't think it was the plague. I think it was . . .” She recalled Amy's bruises, her scratches . . . her fear. “. . . uh . . . persecution.”

“That wasn't a good time for a lot of people back then.”

“No,” said Lauri. “No, it wasn't.”

Persecution. Lauri thought about it on her way home that night, wondering what it had been like to be an Elf in 1350. Though in one way she could see Amy's bruises as only a symptom of her society and her age, the brutalization of woman by man that made her glad that she stood apart from heterosexual relations, in another—and here she was stretching back in time, wondering—she could see it as simply one more episode in the story of what had become her people: piled on top of her anger at the wounding of a woman was her outrage at the thought of an Elf being struck by a . . . a
human
.

The memory of the gutter at Elvenhome and of the fused nail came back to her. If she, but four months an Elf, could wield power like that, what then could one born to the race do? And why, in that age of intolerance, inquisition, and burning, had that not been done? What had held her forebears back from reaching out among the stars and throwing greater-than-human energies at those who persecuted them? Was the power valid? Or did it fail in time of need? What good was power if it could not save one's race? What good was it if it could not even save one fragile woman from a beating?

She pulled into her parking space, switched off, and sat for a while, staring at the brick wall in front of her as the rain pattered on the roof and the engine ticked away its heat. She was still helpless. Much as she wanted to reach out to Amy, drag her away from the man who abused her, the action was not hers to take. Amy had to do it herself, or not at all.

Maybe . . . maybe Amy even
liked
the way he treated her.

She got out and strode into the apartment complex as though stalking some evil destiny.

She drove out to Elvenhome the next day. The sky was like slate, gaps in the overcast yielding views only of more and darker clouds that increased her worry and the sense of oppression that accompanied it. She had forwarded her calls to the telephone at the Home, but though one ear cocked for the ring, she spent the day putting down the parquetry floor in the dining hall, it never came.

Ash and Hadden were upstairs, laying carpet. They all met over sack lunches and under the trees.

“Do you feel it?” said Lauri. She did not specify. She did not have to.

Ash, in the middle of an apple, nodded. “I do. I've gotten a bedroom ready.”

“She won't come. She loves him. She thinks he loves her.”

“Who can say?” murmured the healer.

“How are you at broken bones, Ash?”

“I can try.”

Evening again, and night. Lauri stayed up at the Home, sleeping bag unrolled under the trees, physical stars blending with those within her. The overcast had departed, the skies were cold and clear, and the trees seemed to whisper to one another, telling stories about the old times, the starlight, and about the Elves and their return. She wondered how her people had lived before . . . before the Loss. The histories were silent, and racial memory gave her only vague and obscure images of firelight in peaceful clearings, warm embraces, and soft words.

And the stars. Always the stars.

There was something infinitely precious there: that peace, that feeling of wholeness and of completion. It was something worth fighting for, something even worth dying for.

And she wondered then if that was not what had happened. Persecution, intermarriage, fading . . . but by that fading the blood had been spread throughout humankind, slumbering through the centuries, but waiting to awake, to bring something precious to everyone: human, Elf, one transformed into the other, a fighting through storm and strife to azure sky and blue water. Amy was finding her way now, and her path was painful, even dangerous, but Lauri now felt sure that she was going to make it all the way. The skies, the stars, the trees and stones would soon be hers. As could be the case with everyone. Even . . . even . . . Rob.

She had drifted far and long within herself when the darkness among her stars suddenly flamed red, blinding her, driving her through jagged spaces. She looked through holes in the sky into emptiness, and she came to herself screaming, clawing at the sleeping bag as though it were devouring her, hands clutching at the cloth, at the air. Somewhere inside her, an abyss had opened up and was pulling her stars into it, spiraling them into its maw, tugging at her mind . . .

. . . trees . . . bending over her . . . reaching . . .

. . . eyes . . .

Far off, she thought she hears someone calling her name, but the roaring in her ears was drowning it out. The abyss had grown, stars vanishing into it, draining out of her consciousness.

She was still screaming. With her physical sight, she caught a glimpse of Ash's features, hovering ghostly as if in moonlight, eyes gleaming, lips pressed together.

Ash! Help!

And then she felt hands on her: soft hands, but bright with power. Ash's voice suddenly rang within her:
I'm here.

Her fall ceased. The abyss still gaped, but the stars had halted their flight. From out of the red sky came a dull muttering.

Hadden.
Ash again.
I need help.

Here, beloved.

Light wove around Lauri like a down comforter, calming her, easing her. She snuggled into it with a sigh, let it merge with her, fill her.

Breathe, Lauri. Gently now.

Slow and steady, she told herself. Just like with Amy. But then she had a brief, compelling vision of a sparsely furnished room, of a dark form that lifted a greasy hand—

The abyss gaped once again.

Lauri! Hold!

The words snapped her back to herself, and she searched among the stars for something with which to center herself. A hot blue primary burned in her field of vision, and she concentrated on it, clung to it as light poured down into the abyss, dragged its edges together, bound and sealed it with a tracery of starlight.

Her inner vision cleared. The sky was once again a field of gems, safe and calm. She shuddered and went limp.

She opened her eyes and managed to focus on Ash and Hadden. “I . . . I don't know . . . what . . .”

“Rest, Lauri.” Ash passed a hand over Lauri's forehead, and strength came with the touch. “Give yourself some time.”

Lauri worked her mouth soundlessly while she pulled her thoughts together. Then: “I can't rest. That came from Amy. I
know
it came from Amy. She's in trouble.”

Despite Ash's protests, she stood up. Though she was unsteady at first, her bare feet felt the life in the cold ground and drank it in; and when, inside the Home, the telephone began to ring, she managed to sprint for the door. But she picked up the receiver just as the connection was broken with a loud pop.

“Amy? Amy!” Dead air. Dialing Amy's number brought nothing more than a ring . . . and no answer. Lauri slammed the handset back into the cradle. “I'm going out there.”

Hadden was already pulling on his Levi's. “I'm going with you.”

***

Four in the morning, the eastern sky paling faintly, Lauri and Hadden in the Bronco, traveling full-bore down the twisting mountain highway that led to Denver. Speed laws were things to be ignored. Time and Amy were all that counted.

Spurred to recklessness, Lauri did not slow down even when she reached the city limits, but the residential streets forced her to cut her speed, and her hands were tight on the wheel as they rumbled into Glendale and its clutter of apartments. She knew the way to Amy's building, but even if she had not, the dull oppression that glowed like a hot iron in her mind would have guided her. She double-parked directly in front of the building and flicked on her emergency flashers.

“I'm going in,” she said.

“Do you want help?” Hadden was speaking calmly.

“I want to do this alone.”

“Hang in there.”

She shrugged and started to swing out of the doorway, but Hadden detained her with a hand on her arm. He was looking at her meaningfully. “Hey,” she said, “it suits me just fine.”

“Healing and comfort?”

“I don't think that's a fair question.”

“You might want to think about it, nonetheless.”

She jerked her arm out of his grasp and ran for the stairs. Two flights up, down the hallway, and the oppression was burning in her face.

She listened at the door. Silence. But the lights were on, and a bare bulb formed a bright spot where a lamp was leaning crazily against the venetian blinds.

She called into the spaces between the stars.
Amy!