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Chapter 9
“Left,” said Lijah.
Elsa yelped, spun around, hands fisted. Lijah stood just a few steps from her on the narrow forest path, flesh and blood, fully realized. She swatted the hood back from her head and scanned around, as if others might have materialized along with him.
“It’s me. Just me. Elsa.”
“Fuck. Lijah.” Heart pounding, she bent forward, took a couple deep breaths. She straightened, ready to lash out her embarrassment and fright, but held back in surprise. Lijah stood tense, eyes wide, on the verge of backing away, bolting. So strange was it to see him like that, tenuous, vulnerable, the ball of ire she’d been ready to spew, frittered away to nothing. She came into her surroundings: chirps and rustles, damp earth and the watery scent of snow melt, a lone rush of frigid air, the oncoming front, prying its way into the hush of the forest.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he replied, visibly easing.
For a time, those were the only words spoken. They took each other in, standing as they were on the path, in the woods, some five feet distant. Lijah wore a scarf, no hat, his ears rimmed bright red from the cold. His eyes were shiny, his hair unruly, the effect boyish if not for the crows feet at his eyes, the definition of his jaw, and the breadth of his shoulder. Taken together she found him intensely attractive, a 37-year-old man with a hundred years maturity. He wore heavy gloves, work boots and the lumberjack coat, the one she’d worn the last time, on that first visit, when they’d toured the property. The memory softened her even more and her smile grew until her eyes crinkled.
“You’re so beautiful. Elsa.”
She could tell, the words came unbidden, just as he thought them, no filter. “It’s the cape. The fairy tale mystique. I’m playing to your weakness.”
“Always,” he said. Then, “Thank you.”
And still they stood, smiling at one another, soaking in each other’s presence. It was midday, crisp and cloudless, the deep blue sky visible through the branches, the ground patchy white with snow, protected from the rain and sun beneath the branches. Elsa’s nose ran and the sweat she’d worked up tromping through the woods was rapidly cooling.
“You’ve been gathering up the markers,” said Elsa.
Lijah looked down at the bouquet of bittersweet in his hand, clearly forgotten. He moved passed her to the tree where another sprig hung, pulled his thick glove off with his teeth, untied the branch, added it to the bunch, and replaced his glove. A simple action, casually executed, but in other company, in any other place, impossible.
“That was the last,” he said. “I didn’t dare mark the entrance.”
“You knew I’d come?”
“No.”
“But you knew I did, long before I was close enough to trip the perimeter alert. How else could you follow along behind me.”
“Phones. Quite useful.”
“I almost didn’t bring it. I turned it off, Lij.”
“Still trackable,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes.
“But you had other means of tracking me, contingences, just in case. You could write the manual, Lijah, ‘Failproof Stalkery’.”
Again at a standstill, a few steps distant, a seriousness settled between them.
“Was it your idea for Nona and Peter to visit?”
“No,” he said emphatically, then shook his head. “No. That was all Nona.”
But he’d known and stayed on the periphery. Whatever the explanation, his absence had hurt. She’d felt abandoned and worse, needy and unworthy. A braver, smarter Elsa might have asked what the fuck he’d been playing at? But in the moment, perhaps since the moment he’d come to her unannounced on a Thursday, being smart and self-reliant no longer took priority.
“Nona. Your mother. I don’t think she likes me.”
Lijah raised an eyebrow.
“She doesn’t understand why her boys, and I quote, ‘circle me like carrion’. Especially you, being a ‘picky eater’.”
Lijah threw his head back and laughed uproariously. Elsa couldn’t help but laugh along with him, although with considerably more chagrin. He stepped in close, cupped her face in both hands, and kissed the top of her head. He tilted her face back to scan her eyes, laughed some more, and pulled her in for a tight hug.
“Brilliant, Elsa. Perfect. We couldn’t have hoped for better.” He stood back, steadying her at the shoulder, then pointed at the path, the direction they should go, and fell in behind her.
“You’re not the first person to say that,” said Elsa.
“You’re grandmother.”
“Martha, actually. The housekeeper. Although I’ve begun to suspect they’re lovers.”
“Interesting.”
“Isn’t it though – completely under the radar. There’s a lot to catch you up on. Hang on,” Elsa stopped abruptly, spun to face him. “A Montrieul. Did you really get it?”
“I did,” he said, with an escape of smile, the words barely audible.
“Wow.” She mouthed the word, the sentiment somehow too big to say aloud. She stepped in and held him tightly, being sure he understood exactly how proud she was of him. Hugging, it was something they did now.
“Gratifying, I admit,” he said into her hair. He urged her loose and forward, continuing their way down the path. “Complicated.”
Impossibly complicated, thought Elsa. His name hadn’t been made public yet, but once it had… Fame and fortune were not conducive to clandestine pursuits. They weren’t conducive to him, his existence. He was thirty-seven but born in the 1920’s, an abomination that no amount of subterfuge could conceal indefinitely. She didn’t know how he’d managed it thus far – aliases, relocation, and when computers came along, tampering with records – but in this day and age, and with the sort of scrutiny he’d be subjected to, she realized the impossibility of his accepting it. He wasn’t in France after all – he must have already declined the honor and all that went with it.
“I’m sorry, Lijah. This life you’ve chosen. It’s no small burden.”
Lijah stopped walking. “Not burdensome, Elsa. Full of potential, promise.”
Realizing he no longer followed, Elsa turned to face him. “You live in hiding. Outside the law. Aberrant in your years. Unable to accept your laurels. Always at risk of discovery.”
“At the cusp of discovery, and the next one, and the next.”
“You sound like your mother. Oh the torrent! The rapture!”
Lijah grunted. “Sounds like her. And your grandmother? Did she speak of rules and propriety?”
Elsa ruffled, his guess not far off the mark, not liking his dismissiveness. “Actually, she spoke of stewardship, the common good, helping others.” Elsa let silence say the rest. He’d have known what was said, had he been in the room alongside her. He’d been fully aware of what she’d faced: what Nona was like, what had happened with Peter, and likely too, the history behind the family’s animosity, and yet, unprepared as she was, he’d left her to it.
“I couldn’t come in, Elsa. I couldn’t show Nona you mattered. And Peter,” he waved a hand dismissively. “He’s mostly harmless.”
“Mostly?” Elsa was incredulous.
Lijah pointed past her at a seemingly impenetrable tangle of bramble. They’d reached the entrance through the hedgerow. If she’d been alone, she would have walked right past it. Lijah held back branches while she contorted her way through. Unlike before, they came in by the solar panels, the cottage out of sight and some ways distant.
“It would have been worse with Peter if I’d been in the room. There’s no telling what he’d have done. Something provocative. Something I couldn’t control or ignore. Something that would have revealed too much about you and me to Nona. Goading me is a favorite game; he’s not one to consider consequences.”
“That seems to be the consensus. Nona said as much. Bluntly. She’s no buttercup, your mother. She also intimated he’d earned the right to be a hedonistic playboy.” Elsa paused, waiting for an explanation.
Lijah didn’t comment.
“Well, whatever else you mother is, she’s no prude. She was quite adamant I go skinny dipping.” She paused for effect. “As was Peter. He’d have taken me there and then, but you know, winter.”
No reaction from Lijah. Not a glance, not even a flicker.
“I suppose you came to drop off the drawings. You might have asked Peter to do it. Then again, he probably would have added in some pornographic selfies, his own work of art.” Pause. “A classic pose. Absent the fig leaf of course. He’d be calendar worthy, no question.”
Still no reaction.
She admitted defeat; with his self-confidence, jealousy wouldn’t be a trait he’d lay claim to. “Peter-porn would have drawn Granny’s attention away from the drawings.”
“She saw them,” said Lijah.
“Yes. She was the first to suggest they were an invitation.”
Lijah turned sharply to Elsa. They’d been walking side by side but halted.
“I suggested a religious motif.”
Lijah snorted, resumed walking.
“Pretty much Granny’s reaction. I’m sure she didn’t recognize me in the picture, or the door, or the wood, although she did try to place it. I don’t know. She’s clever.”
“You weren’t followed,” said Lijah with certainty.
“Hmm.”
This drew another sharp look from Lijah and a tight hold of her upper arm, forcing her to stop and face him. His stare grew more severe the longer she held silent. The cottage was in sight. Lijah looked ready to bundle her off post haste. To the cottage or off the property. Seemed a toss-up.
“My enthusiastic student. Luke. He was at the station.”
“Which? Tapley?”
Elsa looked pointedly to the hand gripping her arm. Lijah released her, irritated, and gestured impatiently for her to answer the question. She didn’t immediately. Not because of Luke, but because he, and whatever he was up to, was immaterial, a distraction. She had something much more significant to say but was loathe to. She hated the position she was in. Telling him, not telling him, either way a betrayal.
“Oxford. I was already on the train. Saw him on the platform. I don’t think he boarded, not my carriage anyway. He seemed to be waiting for someone.”
“I see. We should go inside.”
“No, Lijah, you don’t see.” She shook her head. How to explain. She felt a pawn in a game she refused to play. “Look, forget Luke. I’m the spy. Or so Granny would have me be. She sent me here with her blessing.”
“Here,” said Lijah, fierce, demanding.
“Not here, here. To you. To work. Something to the effect of, now that I’ve seen the Morrison’s for what they are, it was time I got on with it. She was no more explicit than that, but I took her meaning. I have a job: soldier, champion, spy, martyr. Something like that. She’d have me choose her over you, or her plan for me over yours and Nona’s. It seems everyone is hell bent on me taking sides. I… I won’t do it. I won’t spy for her any more than I’ll spy for you. I just won’t. And if that’s seen as betrayal, then so be it.”
Her confession felt enormous but hung between them hardly a moment.
“I appreciate your rectitude,” he said. “Come on. Inside.”
“My what?”
“Your moral stance. You’ve acted according to your values despite how said actions will be perceived. Commendable.”
“That’s it? I’ve just said I’m not taking sides.”
“Your grandmother was half right. You’ve seen us for what we are: myself, Nona, Peter. Her mistake is to consider us of a side, aligned in purpose. My plans for you have nothing to do with Nona. I haven’t taken sides any more than you have.”
“Granny wouldn’t see it that way.”
“No, nor would Nona. They’re like queens on a chessboard, incapable of seeing the pieces on the board in their own right, moving of their own volition. So be it. She’s given you sound advice. It’s time we got on with it.” Lijah nudged her toward the cottage.
Elsa refused to budge. “Not what she meant. Pretending otherwise is duplicitous.”
“No more duplicitous than a child growing up into adulthood.”
“Nope. Too simple. I’m keeping secrets. Your secrets. So are you. Your whole life is a secret.”
“Necessary. For now. Until the game changes.”
“And that’s your plan. Revolution. How is that not taking sides. Your plans may not be Nona’s, but they’re just as contrary to Granny’s.”
Lijah erupted in frustration. “My plans, Elsa? My plans. Here are my plans.” He counted them off, thumb first, then fingers. She knew this only from experience, his gloves too thick to show the gesture. “One, get you inside that cottage before my head freezes. Two, put a trace on that strapping young student of yours to be sure he’s not in the vicinity. Three, castrate Peter. Four, exact further disfigurements as necessary to make him UN-calendar-worthy. Five…”
“Lijah,” yelled Elsa, cutting him off neatly. Hugging was nice, but good to know railing at one another was still their modus operandi.
He glared at her.
She tried to hold his glare, throw his displeasure back at him redoubled, but she couldn’t. She cracked up. She tried again, covering her mouth, but couldn’t keep her laughter from spilling over. “You were rapidly running out of fingers.”
His lips twitched. He pulled her in close, rested her head against his chest, sighed heavily.
“Elsa, I have a thousand hopes and aspirations,” he said. “Some of them revolutionary. All of them involving you and I, together.” He released the hug, kept his hands at her shoulders. “But my only true plan is to explore powers with you. Today. Now. With what little time we have available to us. Whatever comes of that is open, unknowable, and as dependent on you as anyone. I don’t pretend to control the outcome. Not where you’re concerned, possibly not ever. My plan, the only side I’m asking you to be on, is the side of willingness and possibility.”
Well, if he put it that way…
He tensed, straightened. His focus moved past her, to the trees and hedgerow, rotating one way and then the other, keeping her close to him. Elsa too looked to the surrounds, checking for sensors. Most were green. But the one behind her, closest to where they’d entered the property, was red. Not for long. It switched to yellow and very soon after green, remaining that way while they watched and waited.
“Most likely a deer. I should check.” He looked at her, waiting. “Please, Elsa.”
“And if it’s not a deer?” she asked.
“Then we act accordingly.”
That was no answer. She didn’t know, didn’t want to speculate, what actions were within the realm of possibility.
Lijah placed his thick and rough gloved fingers gently to her lips. “You’ve come. This far, this close, because you wanted to. I couldn’t be happier. We have some checking to do, some logistics, and in any event at most a day to play with. That’s the extent of it. Nothing greater has been decided. You are not bound to any eventuality. Only possibility. Please. Elsa. I’d not squander this moment fretting over the queens and their agendas.”
He was right. She’d come because she wanted to. No plan, just hope and curiosity. Sure, she wanted Granny’s trust and she wanted to trust Granny. More than that, though, she wanted Lijah. No amount of love, loyalty or guilt could contradict where she now stood. She’d kept Lijah’s secrets and foresaw continuing to do so. She’d forgiven him his unforgivable experiments. She’d believe showing hands with him could hold traditional meaning. And as much as she doubted that she herself had powers worth investigating, she’d do it. She’d seen Lijah’s. It was enough that he had them. Enough to pose the question. Damn her for it, but she couldn’t deny she was exactly where she wanted to be.
Lijah shook, a giant shiver passing over him. The cold front was well and truly on the march. Thickening clouds, plummeting temperatures. Without the break of the trees, the wind bit mercilessly. She had the protection of her hood, her back to the wind. His eyes watered, his red ears incandescent. He’d said his peace. Now he waited.
“You could have just kissed me, you know. Saved yourself some frostbite.”
“You could have told me sooner. My face is frozen. It’s no longer an option.”
Elsa stepped in close, put her fat mitted hands over his ears, and kissed him. Damn, no lie, his lips were frozen, like kissing plastic. She burst out laughing.
“God, Lijah, you have a scarf. Did you not think to use it?” She tugged at it clumsily, trying to raise it up to his ears and over his chin, only to crack-up more as he stoically endured being bandied about the head and face by her increasingly ineffectual efforts. Eventually she gave up, having rendered him more exposed than ever. She tried, really she tried, to stop laughing at his suffering.
Lijah spoke in his most pedantic tone. “As charming as it is to see you entertained, my thought was to use the warmth and protection of the cottage. It’s just there, 20 feet from us, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Oh, that. You might have said. Come on then.” Elsa marched forward.