Woman King (6 page)

“The angel agreed to walk with him, but only
if they stayed outside the castle. It was dark now, but a full moon
glowed, illuminating the grounds. While waiting for them, I leaned
against the tree, listening as the mountains came alive with the
sounds of creatures in the area, including wolves. I vowed to
myself that I would go to the barn and lock the doors if they
didn’t return quickly.

“After a short while, they returned. But at
that moment, I had never been so frightened. I had climbed the
mountain to the school full of the energy of an ambitious woman in
her thirties, with no idea of the true expense of the knowledge I
desired. Exposed at the doorway to the devil and his brood, I now
understood that some things are too costly to pursue. And
furthermore, I had angered the devil by refusing his wish. If he
won the argument, what would become of me once I was inside the
castle?”

I had the same question burning in my mind
and was beginning to imagine all kinds of torture, images straight
out of all the late-night horror movies I had seen.

“The devil seemed to enjoy my apprehension,
for he grinned broadly and took his time to speak. ‘You are free to
leave,’ was all he said, and then he disappeared into the
darkness.”

“Is that it? You walked away?”

Elsa was about to finish her story when my
doorbell rang. We both looked at each other, wondering who it could
be. I shrugged my shoulders and got up to find out.

When I opened the door, Lily was standing
outside.

“Where have you been?” she asked, pushing
past me. “Why are you blowing me off? You won’t come out, you don’t
answer my texts…”

She stopped mid-sentence when she saw Elsa
standing inside. Both women grabbed me, each trying to tug me to
safety. I yanked free and yelled at them both.

“What is the matter with you two?” I asked,
gesturing with my hands to make introductions. “Elsa, this is Lily,
my best friend. Lily, this is, well, this is Elsa.”

Elsa responded by asking me a question. “Your
best friend is a fairy?”

Lily, not to be topped, asked, “Why is there
a time-walker in your house, Olivia?”

This clearly was not going to be a normal
ladies night at home for the three of us. I wasn’t sure which one
to answer first.

“Elsa is the panther from my dreams. She is
here to help me… it’s a long story. Why does Elsa think you are a
fairy?”

Lily spoke to Elsa, ignoring me. “Who sent
you?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Elsa said.
“Are you supposed to be guarding her?”

Lily looked slightly defensive as she turned
to me to give her reply. “I met Olivia when we were neighbors. I
don’t usually take humans as close friends, but I could see she was
special. I am not officially her guardian, I never asked for
permission. We became friends. I have always tried to look out for
her. She is flying blind, you know.”

“Have you seen the demon?” Elsa asked.

Lily shook her head. “No, but I sensed his
presence. I placed a few minor charms around her home to keep him
away, but since I am not her guardian, I could not intervene.”

This seemed to satisfy Elsa, because she took
a step away from me as she nodded in agreement. But I was not happy
being an invisible third party.

“Hello,” I said, waving my arms at them both.
“I am standing right here. Can you two tell me what is going on?
Lily, you’re a
fairy
?”

Lily smiled. “Yes, but honestly, is that so
shocking to you, after seeing Elsa appear? You must know by now
that there is another world of creatures beyond what humans can
see. When I first met you, I could tell right away that you had
extra gifts.

I expected you to notice what I was, but you
never did. After a while, I realized that you weren’t even trying
to use your senses.”

I was feeling a little embarrassed. Only a
few weeks back, I’d sat across from Lily at dinner, staring at the
tattoo on her neck, which was clearly some kind of fairy marking,
and she did not reveal herself to me. Now, everyone in the room
seemed to know more about me than I did.

“So what is this? Are you my friend out of
pity? I’ve been telling you everything that is happening to me—am I
some kind of project for you to look after?”

“I’m a fairy, Olivia,” Lily said, clearly
annoyed. “We don’t reveal ourselves to
anyone
. I’m your
friend because I want to be. If I pitied you, I would have asked my
clan to assign a real guardian to watch over you, someone you would
never have seen nor met.”

“Is it against the rules to be friends with
humans?”

Lily and Elsa looked at each other and
laughed. “It’s not encouraged,” Lily said.

“Why?”

Elsa held her hands up. “I think you’ve heard
enough for the time being, Olivia. Why don’t we go into the kitchen
and make some dinner.”

****

“Make some dinner” actually meant ordering
Chinese food from around the corner. Once the food arrived, I
opened an app on my iPhone to listen to a San Francisco Giants
baseball game. We sat for a few moments eating pot stickers and
listening to the sounds of the local announcers calling the
plays.

There are probably plenty of people who
wouldn’t expect sports to be a family interest in a house primarily
full of women, but they would be wrong. My grandfather loved the
Giants, and I have fond memories of listening to the play-by-play
coming out of every radio, in every room of the house. When we
would drive into the city, the sound of the cheering crowd from the
car’s radio would envelop us as we crossed the Bay.

My mother is not as enthusiastic about
baseball as I am. But she does enjoy soccer, a result of her many
sojourns to Europe over the years. She calls it football, but few
people in the U.S. understand what she means, since that name is
reserved for the large, hulking creatures that hurl themselves at
one another every Sunday. Soccer, on the other hand, is a sport
that involves very thin, agile men (usually very handsome men)
running up and down a field for 90 minutes in shorts. Who wouldn’t
enjoy that? My dinner companions appeared not share my love for
baseball or soccer, however.

“Baseball is not a sport,” was all Elsa could
muster as she sampled another dumpling. “There is no blood
involved.”

Changing the subject seemed like the best
idea. “Tell me about being a fairy, Lily.”

Lily put down the container of garlic green
beans. “What do you want to know?”

“Why do you work in the library?” was my
first question, followed by “Where is your family and what kind of
powers do you have?”

“I come from a clan of fairies that has
always lived in the human world,” Lily said. “We’ve dedicated our
lives to public service. Although we make visits to the Other Side,
we mostly stay in this world. I’m one of a long line of librarians.
And yes, I have added a little magic to the library system. Who
would return to a library if it never had the book you wanted?
Having a well-run, popular library system is good for San
Francisco.”

“Why libraries?”

Lily finished chewing before she spoke again.
“Because fairies are voracious readers of books and texts in many
languages. Working in a library affords us the luxury of being
surrounded by words and information. There is no better way to
learn about humans, and the world in general, than to work in a
library.”

“What does that have to do with public
service?” I asked, putting another dumpling on my plate.

“That is easy,” Lily said. “Libraries are
important for humans. In the human world, being able to read is the
key to all of your activities. It’s pretty clear that the less
people know, the worse their fate is. Allowing people to have
access to the same kinds of information for free is important. When
people are uneducated it …well, it creates opportunities for others
to manipulate the situation.”

Elsa snorted. “Humans want to be controlled;
they appreciate limited choices.”

I decided to ignore Elsa’s pointed remark for
the moment. “Tell me about the rest of your family.”

“Everything you know, the story I’ve told
you, is true. My father and mother are retired, but did work as
librarians. They do live in San Jose. My sister really lives in
Seattle and my brother really lives in Portland. He’s a
firefighter, but that’s rare; normally we’re terribly afraid of
fire.”

“And your powers? What kinds of things can
you do?”

“I’m not a circus act,” Lily said, again
sounding slightly annoyed. “I don’t do tricks.”

“I’m sorry, Lily. That came out badly.”

Elsa placed herself into the conversation and
turned to me. “I think we need to focus our energies on freeing up
your gifts.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

“I have to run an errand,” she said, “but
tomorrow we’re going out on an overnight adventure.”

“Overnight? Are we camping?” I asked,
wondering what destination she had in mind.

“You could say that,” she said with a smile.
“I need to leave in a few moments to look for some supplies.
Assuming I’m successful, we will leave here tomorrow night after
sunset.”

“Where are you going? And how will you get
there?” I asked casually, not expecting the reply I received.

Elsa looked at Lily when she spoke. “I travel
using a portal in the park.”

“Can I come tomorrow?” Lily asked.

Elsa nodded. “Yes, it will be better if there
are two of us.”

“What’s a portal?” I asked, worried.

Lily and Elsa exchanged knowing glances. “It
will be better if we show you,” Elsa said.

“OK,” I said, feeling relieved to avoid, if
temporarily, yet another hidden detail about the world I’d missed.
Lily and Elsa left the house in unison and I watched as they walked
down the street together into the night’s thick fog. One minute I
could see them very clearly, and the next, they were gone.

****

For the first time in many days, I woke up
alone in the house. I confess I missed my roommate, or at least I
missed the feeling of having someone nearby. I don’t have a great
track record with men. There have been no great romances in my
life. Instead, I have amassed a collection of single-night
memories. To be sure, there have been a few multi-week excursions,
but they never transformed themselves into repeat engagements.

It would be nice to feel great passion for
someone, to feel my body long for another with every fiber of my
being. But that has not been a sensation I’ve experienced. Perhaps
watching my mother come unraveled has made me timid. From where I
sit, spilling over with emotion looks messy, and if unreciprocated,
humiliating. As a result, the only male voice heard emanating from
my living room on a regular basis is the baseball radio announcer
Jon Miller.

Even without Elsa, I followed my normal
schedule, rising early to eat a banana and then heading straight
for the park to work out. I entered at Ninth Avenue and ran west
toward the coast. I managed to reach the graffiti scarred retaining
walls of Ocean Beach in less than an hour.

To cool down, I decided to walk onto the
broad beach and stretch on the sand. The fog from the night before
had retreated, perching along the edge of the horizon as if it
couldn’t decide what to do next. The sun was coming up into the sky
and the air around me was cool and mild. It felt delicious to be
outside. I decided to prolong the feeling by walking over to Judah
Street for a cup of coffee at a nearby beach café.

The Java Shack was fairly busy, with other
people apparently also working at extending their morning. I
managed to find a table outside and picked up a rumpled copy of the
San Francisco Chronicle
someone had left behind. For several
minutes I sipped my cappuccino, gazing at the sea, enjoying the
first moments of quiet I’d had in days.

As I regarded the foamy waves rolling in and
out with the tide, I worried about what was coming next. I was
rapidly moving toward a moment when I would have to open myself up
again to feel my emotions and those of others, something I had
avoided for a long time. I felt like Pink at the moment when the
bricks of the Wall are set to come tumbling down. What would I
discover, I wondered, when the dust settled?

I pushed aside my worries and settled in to
scan the day’s news. Within a few minutes I came upon a headline
that surprised me, “Internet CEO Seeks Return to Congress.” I read
with interest a story about my former boss, Levi Barnes, and his
decision to run for office again, this time as a congressman
representing Silicon Valley. My first job in Washington had been
with Levi when he was a congressman from Salt Lake City. After
losing a particularly tough re-election bid, he’d left politics and
moved to the Bay Area to become an entrepreneur. It seemed
unthinkable that, after losing so badly before, he would give up
his privacy and success to reenter national politics. What had
changed for him? It had been more than a year since the two of us
had spoken, and I made a mental note to call him to catch up. I was
also curious to see who he had hired to run his campaign.

The high-pitched squeak of the N-Judah
streetcar jarred me out of my thoughts. It was time to head home.
Seeing that a train had reached the end of the line, and was
turning east again toward downtown, I decided to hop on and ride
back to my house.

By mid-afternoon, a few hours later, Elsa had
returned. She walked straight into the kitchen and began brewing
some kind of concoction that gave off a quite unpleasant aroma. I
came into the kitchen just as she was placing small button-shaped
fruits into boiling water with what looked like cinnamon sticks and
a vanilla bean.