The Elementals (18 page)

“But you plus me,” she said. She must have realized Julian still hadn’t confessed his magic, because she righted herself immediately. Standing on her knees, she wobbled toward him. “Ohhh, you have elemental parents!”

Reflexively, Julian shook his head. His parents’ secrets of water and earth weren’t his to tell.

Kate studied his face. “You still haven’t told me what you can do.”

“Maybe there’s nothing to tell.”

“Of course there is. If there weren’t, you would have said so.” Kate smiled proudly. “You keep avoiding the question, which means there is.”

The logic was suspect, but Julian couldn’t honestly say she was wrong. Looking toward the ocean, still frozen, the seagull, still dangling, Julian shook his head. “I don’t know if I should.”

Kate answered that with a look. One brow arched, her lips pursed, she kept her silence until it stretched out so long, Julian replied to make her stop.

“All right. But I’m warning you, if you scream . . .”

“Why would I scream?” Kate asked. “Is it disgusting? Can you take off your own face?”

Shuddering, Julian leaned away from her. “No!”

“Oh.” Sinking down again, Kate frowned. “Well, quit making me guess and do it. I’m going to be disappointed now. I should have liked to see you with your face off.”

If he had no imagination, Julian believed Kate had entirely too much. Planting his crutches, he pulled himself up.

Already, his gift stirred in his blood. It cleared his eyes and, uncommanded, revealed the scarlet lights on the beach again. Some cast a blinding glare; others hardly glowed at all.

Choosing the brightest, closest spot, Julian raked the sand with the foot of his crutch, then pointed down. “Pick that up for me?”

Eager, Kate bounded over. But her smile faded when she scooped up a handful of sand crowned by a dead turtle. It was no bigger than a quarter. Standing with it, she asked uneasily, “This poor thing?”

“Yep.”

“But he’s dead,” she murmured.

“I know.” Reaching out, Julian made her raise her hands. Pale sand streamed between her fingers. The little turtle didn’t move at all, even when Julian righted it. It sat on its dwindling cairn, a perfect deceased specimen.

He felt Kate watching him, even without raising his gaze. His own heart sped, an anxious warning. He’d never let anyone outside his family see this.

“Are you doing it?” Kate whispered.

The question prickled; of course he wasn’t doing anything yet. But rather than argue, Julian drew a breath, and then blew.

He was suddenly too aware of the stillness around him. With the wind and waves conquered, no birds crying out, no beachgoers laughing, the only sound between them was the whisper of his breath, and that went on and on.

It burned as it drained from him. Before it was exhausted, the turtle thrust its head from its shell. Four tiny feet followed, scrabbling around for purchase. Kate’s eyes widened, and she dropped to her knees. Not to pray but to set the turtle free.

Tensed, Julian waited for the darkness to come. The turtle was such a small thing, he believed it would be a blink, a nod of his head, and then an escape from the nothing place. He buzzed with anticipation. What would he see, now that the girl with the silver lock stood in front of him?

But the dark never came. He waited for it, all but courted it. Still, he stood there, watching the turtle escape the edge of Kate’s bubble. She hadn’t lied—or her father had been an honest reporter. One moment, the turtle was there, and when it breached the edges of the spell, it was gone.

Almost exultant, Kate shook his arm, then spun away. Her face glowed, and her laughter echoed all around. “I’ve never wanted to faint more in my life,” she said. “Stars and garters, Julian, that was
spectacular!
”

Zora stood in the barn’s loft door, watching the eastern sky turn shades of purple and night.

She never had learned to love the sunset, but twilight held its own impeccable delights. It trailed an invisible hand over the corn, its touch whispering between the stalks. Night-blooming flowers opened at its call.

And twilight always saw Emerson walking home, his hat a dark spot that moved through the fields.

From the loft, Zora spotted a ripple among the rows. Leaning against the wood frame, she rubbed at the warmth in her breast. It was tender pleasure, that she could still be infatuated with her husband, even after four sons and twenty years.

But then she frowned, because the tremor beneath her feet didn’t come.

The pleasure drained away. She didn’t know what a stranger was doing in their fields, but she didn’t like it. Boots thumping on the ladder as she climbed down, Zora grabbed the closest pitchfork and stalked outside. Her hair, already half-loose from a day of work, broke free in unruly waves around her face.

“I’d go right back where you came from, if I were you,” Zora called.

No one answered, so she hefted the pitchfork with authority. Lights from the kitchen outlined her; her shadow cast long and dark across the lawn. A man emerged from the field, and Zora swallowed a yelp. It wouldn’t do to sound afraid; the only way to handle intruders was confidently.

“Zo?” Emerson asked, pulling off his hat. Bafflement marked his brows, but he took slow steps—probably just in case. When his wife wielded a weapon, she was a dangerous creature indeed.

Slowly lowering the pitchfork, Zora said, “Em? You snuck up on me.”

Relieved, Emerson flipped his hat toward her, then followed after it. “Looks like.”

Zora put a hand up, intercepting him. Her palm skimmed his arm, its familiar shape comforting and warm. But she went a little cold inside, repeating more emphatically. “You snuck up on me. How?”

It was an excellent question. Emerson’s tremor always announced him; he’d told Zora once that he heard the whisper of new snow whenever she came near. They’d always known Julian would have some gift. From the moment he was born, he added a low, electric sort of hum to the house. When he left, the hum fell silent. And now, something else had fallen silent, too.

Slipping an arm around Emerson’s waist, Zora exhaled and gazed into the dark. No ghostly waves rose up, though she knew every stream, every well, every puddle on this land the way she knew the freckles on Emerson’s shoulders. She called to the water, but the water had no answer.

Zora murmured, “Make the corn turn.”

Rippling beside her, Emerson moved in subtle ways. But the corn stood straight, disinterested in his mastery. Stubborn, Emerson tried again, waving a hand as if their magic had ever required more than will. Her touch gentle, Zora reached out to catch that hand and pulled it to her lips.

A kiss for his dusty skin, and Zora gazed up at him. “It’s gone, isn’t it?”

“Looks like,” he replied.

Grief, the thinnest ribbon of it, wound through her. Whatever strange providence had granted the gift had reclaimed it. All the glorious details of it, being able to call to Emerson through the fields, to feel him coming home to her—that she would miss.

But a weight lifted too—the fear that one day she would simply become water and drain back into the sea had dissipated. No more would she worry that Emerson would walk into his fields and never emerge, made one with the land that sustained them.

The ache lingered, and she asked, “Are you all right?”

“We’ll get by, Zo. We always have.”

Moonlight brushed the age from his face; it smoothed the lines and freckles wrought by long days worked in the sun. Nothing would bring back the softness he used to have in his features.

But for a moment, he was exactly the sooner who’d stopped his buckboard in the middle of the night for her. The boy who’d played waltzes that broke her heart, who’d met her at the river to make her heart whole again.

Zora pressed her cheek against his hand and sighed. “You’re probably right.”

“Probably?”
Emerson tugged her hair, then dipped her back for a kiss. “That’s the best I get?”

Looping her arms around his neck, she said, “Unless you earn more.”

At that, Emerson swept an arm beneath her knees and picked her up. He hefted her easily and took advantage, kissing her lips, her chin, her throat. He didn’t try to carry her home, those days were past. But the thrill was ever the same, at least until he arched an eyebrow at her.

“How’s that,
Mother
Birch?”

“I’m glad you think you’re funny,” Zora said. She wriggled out of his grasp and backed toward the house. “You’re the only one who does.”

And then she ran; not as fast as she used to, but he couldn’t chase as fast as he used to either. They let the things they’d lost peel away, left behind for the life they still lived.

They had a homely supper in the kitchen, and afterward, Zora insisted that Marjorie play the piano along with Emerson’s fiddle.

Once the night settled, Zora took out two sheets of her best stationery. Flipping to the
V
s in her address book, she smiled. Beneath Amelia’s name, she’d crossed out so many addresses over the years. It was a map of World’s Fairs, kept in her own neat hand. Paris, Norfolk, Turin . . . and lately, San Diego.

Pondering a moment, Zora finally wrote:

Dear Amelia,

The elements have moved on from our house, and I wonder if they’ve abandoned yours, too. Julian left home to find his fortune, and now Em and I find ourselves ordinary. Perhaps they’re connected. Katherine’s too young yet to leave, so I may be writing to warn you. How funny that I put pen to paper to tell your future for once.

An answer came by telegram, two days later.

KATE MISSING. MAGIC TOO. ALL IS LOST.

How many people could say they’d seen a miracle?

Kate spun around, then ran back to Julian to marvel at him. Planting both hands on his shoulders, she stood on her toes to look him directly in the eye. She couldn’t stop smiling, not that she wanted to at the moment.

“You’re amazing,” she said, experimentally moving her hands until she felt his pulse. It didn’t race nearly so fast as hers, which was a shame. “Is it only animals? Could you revive a person? What if they were dismembered, could you put them back together?”

Gingerly, Julian covered her hands with his own and said, “You have a diseased mind.”

“But that doesn’t answer the question,” she replied.

“I don’t know, Kate.” Julian peered down at her, like he was examining a particularly unusual discovery. “Could you only stop time on half a person? Would they look like you’d sawed them in two
?
”

Pleasure threaded through her, embroidering her enthusiasm. His hands were rough and too warm, but they kept her—he kept her. Instead of pulling away, she pressed closer. He smelled like sunshine and soap and some alien spice she couldn’t place.

Swaying against him, she said, “I never thought of trying before. Now I have to!”

With a helpless laugh, Julian surrendered. Grasping her arms, he pried her off of him and said, “Let me know how that goes. You probably can now. You made my gift go funny, so why not yours?”

Offended, Kate asked, “Funny hilarious or funny bizarre?”

“Mostly bizarre. I usually have a spell after I do that. I usually can’t see a . . . a spark left in something. And you’ve kept us stopped for a lot more than thirty seconds.”

Tipping her head back to consider that thread of lightning, that still bird, she had to agree. She wound around him again, marveling. All her life, her gift came with that flash—that glimpse of him. And now that he stood before her, her magic was wild and free. “It’s the two of us. We were meant to be together.”

Though he was gentle doing it, Julian peeled her off again and held her at a distance. “I don’t know about that.”

When he released her, Kate collapsed on the inside. They’d been having such a good time together. She’d met a world’s worth of people with elemental graces, but Julian was the first one like
her.

He didn’t fit either—his gift was a breath too. She wanted to peek in his pockets, and look into his ears. Hungry for his details, she’d thought of a legion of questions to ask him. If they went unanswered, she thought she might die.

And less dramatically, though she hated to admit she was being dramatic, if he left, she’d have to go back to The Ems. There was nothing there to recommend it at the moment; Mollie waited to ignore her.

Except, of course, to insist that Kate keep her pallet on the floor instead of sharing the bed. A whispered ache ran down her spine. The floor was hard, and the carpet smelled of formaldehyde.

Much more sober than before, Kate asked, “All right. So, you’re leaving?”

“It’s late,” he said. “I’ve got to find a new job tomorrow.”

“What happened to the old one?”

Julian’s eyes darkened. “I lost it. Doesn’t matter.”

There was a story there, she could tell. But he looked stony enough that she decided it was a story for another time. If there would be another time.

Sweeping her hands beneath her hair, she caught the whole length of it. “I’m sorry.”

An unreadable expression flickered through his brown eyes. Then he lifted both legs and dangled between his crutches for a moment. “Not your fault. It turned out all right. I finally got to meet you.”

Maybe things weren’t so dire after all. Smiling, Kate said, “Excellent silver lining, Julian. But I have a really important question.”

“It better not be about decapitation.”

“Why, do you know something about it?”

Groaning, Julian started to back away. “Important question, Kate?”

“We’re going to see each other again, aren’t we?”

Inwardly, Kate groaned at how pitiful she sounded. She would have needed to fall to her knees and cradle a dying, three-legged puppy, in the rain—no, in the
snow
—and possibly cough a delicate plume of blood into her dirty handkerchief, to come across more pathetic than she just had. It was embarrassing, and awful, and—

“I’m not even gone yet,” Julian said. Then, in disbelief he said, “You didn’t think I was gonna let you walk home alone?”