With Heart to Hear (2 page)

A lark trilled, announcing the day. She pushed the disturbing, fevered fragments to the back of her mind and turned her thoughts to why she was here. Eager to draw the misty forest in the morning light, she dressed and wrapped a lunch before she headed for the bridge.

With her first step on the weathered gray stone, a heavy feeling like old sorrow tugged at her and slowed her pace. Elise paused at the apex of the shallow arch and looked over the low, crumbling parapet at the gentle stream below. In the diffuse early light, mist swirled and flowed over the softly rippling water like a second spectral stream. Like a heavy mantle, disappointment and longing weighed on her; for what, she didn’t know. She pulled away, thinking to escape the grief that engulfed her, but a strange reluctance to leave dragged at her steps. Near the edge of the bridge she turned and looked behind, not sure what she expected to see. Nothing was there.

When she stepped backward off the stone arch onto the dirt road, the odd feeling released its hold on her, like a cold hand slowly withdrawn. Her heart lightened, and her pace returned to normal. Soon she was swishing through the dew laden grass of the meadow on the far side the bridge.

She chose a spot at the transition between forest and meadow for her sketches. At first, she felt as though the forest was looking over her shoulder like a critical instructor. She’d always hated being peered at by her art teachers, as though they were waiting to pounce. Elise even turned around once to complain and then laughed at herself for doing so. After a while, the forest felt more like an admiring onlooker, and when she stopped at mid-morning for a stretch and a bit to eat, she held her sketch up high. “How is it? Have I got it right, do you think?” Then she looked over her shoulder at the nearby trees and smiled. It was silly, she knew, but she felt approved of.

In the afternoon, Elise returned to draw beside the bridge. Looking at the span that rose above her, she hesitated a moment, but no feeling of sorrow greeted her. She found a promising spot in the shadow of the arch, but instead of pulling out her paper and pencils straight away, she looked at the clear rippling stream. The mist had burned off, and sunlight danced on the water. She bent to remove her shoes and stockings. How long had it been since she’d waded in a country stream? Too long, she decided, leaving her stocking-stuffed shoes on the bank. She’d gather them later when she returned to the tent. Feeling slightly wicked, she bent to knot up her skirts past her knees.

As Elise straightened, a gleam of light near the bridge caught her eye. The brightness came from a lone white flower growing amidst dark green foliage. Two inches across, with six ivory-colored petals, the blossom seemed to glow among the heart-shaped leaves. Elise hiked her skirts higher as she stepped into the stream to make her way around a patch of broken stone. The cool water felt refreshing on her bare feet and legs, and she paused for a moment, wiggling her toes before stepping closer to examine the flower. Then she bent down to admire the blood-red center that surrounded the purple stamen. The fragrance that rose from the blossom lifted her heart like the clean air after a rainstorm.

As she reached into the pocket of her smock for her sketchbook, the birds fell silent and the chirrup of the insects ceased. She felt a sudden watchfulness that hadn’t been there a moment before.

She wasn’t alone.

The hairs on her neck rose slowly, almost one at a time, prickling up and over her scalp and down along her shoulders and spine. Heart hammering, Elise straightened in one fluid movement and turned toward the bridge.

In the darkness, beneath the arched stone support, stood a troll.

He was not a long overlooked species of primitive man or an escapee from a carnival. No, Elise knew he was a troll as surely as she knew that lavender flowered purple. Sailors had once reported wild imaginings from Terra Incognita, but this was England and the nineteenth century. No picture of a
troll
appeared in any book of the fauna of the British Empire. Faerie books perhaps, but not naturalist albums. Nonetheless, she
knew
: this was a troll.

The mottled green and brown of his flesh reminded her of weathered copper. His muscles knotted grotesquely across too-broad shoulders, and his over-long arms made him seem hunched despite his upright and intimidating height.

She was too close, well within reach of those very long arms and pointed claws. His thick lips pulled back to reveal sharp, snaggled teeth, and the gleam in his black eyes conveyed old anger and a grief turned sharp and bitter. The claws twitched. Elise understood immediately that she couldn’t run. One step and the troll would snatch and rend her.

She stood frozen in place as long seconds passed by, staring into the beast’s dark eyes while the beast stared back into hers. A shiver tingled from her scalp down to her toes. Did she detect a trace of longing in his gaze? Or was it hunger?

Then he stepped back into the shadow of the bridge and disappeared into the brambles there.

As soon as the troll was gone, the spell that held her shattered. Elise leapt out of the water and ran to her tent. She clutched the rough canvas flap when she reached it, but didn’t go in. She stood there staring, gasping for breath, her attention fixed on the bank where it sloped down next to the bridge. For long minutes she watched, waiting, as the sun crept toward the horizon, but all she saw was a yellow butterfly flitting from flower to flower. All she heard was the low call of a meadowlark.

What had she seen? Had she imagined the whole thing? Elise shook her head.
No. It was real
.

She continued watching, but nothing changed except the length of the shadows. Finally, as Elise turned to go into her tent, she remembered her shoes were still on the far edge of the brook. She couldn’t leave them; they were the only pair she had with her, and the dew would ruin them. She looked back at the now innocent prospect of the bridge. Nothing more menacing than a bee buzzed around the wildflowers.

Elise set her jaw. She wasn’t going to walk back to Lord Crandall’s barefoot, nor did she intend to cower in her tent for the next four days—as if the tent would provide any protection against a troll. She might as well face her fear now, straight on. She stepped forward confidently, but her gait became an awkward mincing as she covered the rough ground. She hadn’t noticed the sharp stones and stickers in her earlier flight. Rather than wade through the cold water in the shade of the arch, she crossed the bridge. As before, the feeling of old sorrow slowed her pace. She wondered if some tragedy had occurred there, or if the feeling was only her imagination responding to her fear and the lengthening shadows.

At last she reached the stream-bank and gathered up her shoes and stockings. Hands full, she turned to leave, but the quiet rippling of the water seemed to whisper,
Stay
.

Elise turned back, and a flash of white caught her eye.
The flowers
. A second bud was just beginning to unfurl its moonlight colored petals. She’d never seen its like in any of the naturalist volumes she’d studied. Ambition surged, in all its unladylike glory. Perhaps she’d discovered a new species. With barely a glance at the darkness under the bridge, Elise dropped her shoes and waded across the rill, pulling her sketchbook and pencils from her smock’s large pockets.

An hour later, Elise looked at her work and frowned. She’d drawn the blossoms accurately enough, but their images lay cold on the page. She’d failed to render their life-filled glow, and without that they hardly looked like the same flower.

It was too late to try again.
Tomorrow
. Tomorrow she’d capture them. She stood, pocketed her sketchbook, and turned to face the mottled-green chest of the troll.

Elise stepped back quickly into the stream and stopped with the cold water swirling around her ankles. Her heart pounded in her throat. How had he approached so silently? Somehow, in the few hours since she’d first seen him, she’d forgotten how horrible he looked. Now she remembered. And his eyes still held that same dark hunger.

Elise returned the troll’s unblinking gaze, afraid to look away. As they stood there, staring, the troll made no move to harm her. Her fear subsided, replaced by excitement. Before her stood a being no scientist had ever before observed. She took in the coarse black hair that sprouted in tufts from his head and upper body. He was clearly mammalian, and was that intelligence she saw in his gaze?

“I mean you no harm. I am Elise Craft. Do you have a name?” She spoke slowly, pointing first to herself and then to him.

His only response was a guttural sound that could have been either a growl or a groan.

She stepped closer. The troll narrowed his eyes, but remained still. Slowly, she reached up to touch his face. His skin was cool and rough; she let her hand rest below a prominent cheekbone. The troll’s dark eyes widened in surprise, and he flinched. Then he turned his face into her palm and his eyes closed tightly. A moment later, Elise felt the monster’s cold tears trailing down her wrist.

A chill ran down Elise’s arm, sending a shiver through her frame, quickly chased by a spreading warmth in her fingertips.

Beneath her hand, flowing outward, he was changing. Racing across the surface of his face like wildfire across a wind-swept field, smooth, healthy flesh replaced the rough, mottled green skin. No longer disfigured and snaggle-toothed, his face reflected nobility in his straight nose, broad brow, and sensuous lips.

Across his shoulders and chest, the sweeping change continued. Elise’s gaze followed the edge of transformation down his torso as it revealed his nakedness, as beautiful in its symmetry as Michelangelo’s David. Heat rose in Elise’s face as her embarrassment flared, but she didn’t turn away.

The man, for man he now was, raised his face from Elise’s palm. Wavy, chestnut-colored hair fell to his shoulders. His eyes, now green, still held a hint of grief, but the anger and bitterness were gone. A sudden smile transformed his face still further as he stretched his strong, clean,
human
hands before him. He threw his arms wide and laughed like the sound of bells ringing. Then he lifted Elise and twirled her in a circle.

Instead of feeling alarmed, Elise found herself grinning foolishly, caught up in the man’s joy. When he set her down again, the splash of cold water on her feet and legs did little to dispel her giddy happiness, despite the oddness of the situation. None of the etiquette books had prepared Elise for a moment such as this, but the awkwardness she expected to feel was absent as the nude man took her hand and inclined his head. “I am Garth, Lord… Sheehan.”

Habit came to her rescue. “My lord,” she said, curtseying.

Lord Sheehan reached for her other hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. The touch of his lips sent a shiver reminiscent of her dream through her body. Then he pulled her gently to the bank of the brook.

In the back of her mind, Elise was aware that any proper lady would have long since run screaming or collapsed in a dead faint. She’d always striven to behave appropriately, but her interest in science and the natural world often overrode her best intentions. Her curiosity, however, wasn’t what now made her go with him. Something drew her, like iron filings to a magnet. The absolute strangeness of events and the unfamiliar sensations tickling her awareness colored her thoughts and inclined Elise to follow, unresisting.

As she stepped out of the stream, Elise felt a faint vibration against the soles of her bare feet, subtle and varied like the rhythm of distant music. Lord Sheehan helped her climb the steep bank, and when they reached more level ground Elise began to sense, more than hear, a subtle melody. Almost out of reach, many voices contributed to its whole. The bird flitting from stem to branch, the field mouse’s scurrying, the clouds flowing past the distant hills all added to the song.

Her companion reached behind her and unbuttoned the two large buttons of her work smock .

“Lord Sheehan?”

His hands stilled but remained where they were, holding her in a partial embrace. “Garth. And may I call you Elise?”

Using first names was too familiar for propriety, but it felt right, fitting smoothly into the music surrounding them. She nodded. “Garth.”

He pulled the smock from her, causing the knotted hem of her skirts to fall down around her wet legs. Her petticoat stuck to the dampness, and she kicked at the clinging fabric.

“Take it off.” Garth’s resonant voice matched his handsome face. It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it.

The suggestion was outrageous. His removal of the smock had been presumptuous enough, but Elise didn’t feel outraged. She heard the meadow grass singing of freedom in the evening breeze and the confining fabric of the petticoat suddenly seemed too much to bear. Elise hiked up her skirt and untied the strings. Then Garth’s hands were on her hips under her skirt, sliding the garment down. Elise felt the heat of his touch through the fabric as they traveled down her thighs. The rhythm of her blood sang harmony with the chorus whispering around her.

Garth took her hand, and they walked across the road and into the tall grass of the meadow. Her mild surprise that her bare feet took no offense at the rough ground was swept aside by the music that thrummed just beyond hearing. The rhythm of the song around them altered, leaving room now for the questions rising in her mind.

Garth must have felt it too. He stopped and turned Elise to face him, his fingers resting gently on her shoulders. “I cannot tell you how I came to be here in any way that will make sense to you, Elise. I can only tell you that I am grateful beyond words for your touch.” His palms ran softly down her arms, leaving a delicious tingling in their wake. He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed each in turn.

“I think I deserve more explanation than that, sir.” Her smile softened the severity of her words. “Irrational or not, I would like to hear it.” A small part of Elise’s mind wondered at her conversing calmly with a naked man in a meadow, but the thrumming of the symphony around her, and in her, became more powerful. Wordlessly it commanded her:
Listen!