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Chapter 12
“Here, try this.” Lijah placed a thin leather-bound book in front of her. Its cover appeared calfskin-supple and its spine slightly curved, like a flat wallet long worn in a back pocket.
The two of them were cozied up on the bed in the great room, Lijah propped on an elbow, Elsa curled against him. It was late, or maybe very early, and they were loosely clothed but for their hands, which were bare naked. They’d been like this more or less since the big reveal. She’d expected that showing hands would be followed by what, frenzied, impassioned carnality? She hadn’t given up on that idea. But the enormity and novelty of the deed resulted in something closer to childlike fascination. They’d held their hands up to compare, left to left, right to right, and they’d examined each other’s minutely, testing joints, tracing creases. Since then, a sort of quiet awe took over, and caution. Lust banked, they’ve stuck to tender affections, occasional smooches, lots of spooning. Their hands were naked. That was enough. That was plenty.
In front of them lay an assortment of objects that Lijah had scrounged from around the cottage and piled onto the bed for Elsa to attempt to read. They’d been at it for hours. A rock, a prism, a piece of driftwood. An earthenware plate, a paperclip, a blank sketchpad. A pair of wool socks, new, the tag still on them. An apple. They’d also tried the framed picture that hung above them and the long board that ran the length of the bed frame. They’d even tried the wall. Elsa hadn’t been able to read any of it.
“I thought we were sticking to impersonal objects for a purer signal,” said Elsa. Her eyelids felt leaden. Every fiber of her being felt leaden.
“I’ve reconsidered the premise,” said Lijah.
“The premise that I’m Crafter?” She spoke around a giant yawn, “Sorry to disappoint.” She didn’t have to say ‘I told you so’ aloud – he heard it.
“I meant the premise that simple objects would be simpler to read. I’m not disappointed. More like, perplexed. I thought to try a new tactic; instead of simple, noisy. This is a book of poetry. The author is anonymous, and possibly of no renown, but to me the poems, they resonate deeply. I’ve been carrying it off and on for half a century. Your connection to me and my connection to it may serve as a conduit.”
“Don’t you think it more likely that if I can read it, the book I mean…” Elsa’s brain tripped over the word read. “You know, read, not the words…” Which were poems. Lijah read poetry. No surprise, really. He was reflective and his interests expansive. But what poetry would speak to him profoundly enough to hold his interest for… decades?
Lijah tapped the book. “You can read it later if you like. The poems.”
Right, later. Another yawn. The topic was powers, reading not the words, but the thing, the object. “Don’t you think if I’m able to read anything from it, I’d be reading it as Knower. I’d be picking-up on some sort of, I don’t know, Lijah-residue, instead of reading the object itself, like a Crafter.” She was rather proud of herself, speaking coherently, back on topic.
Lijah, relentless, ticked off his counterpoints as if at the lectern. Elsa barely paid attention. He’d removed his hand, the right one, that had been resting on her hip: warm, heavy and anchoring. She hadn’t realized how good it felt, not until he removed the hand to enumerate his points. Which he did, bare fingered, right in front of her face. The same old gesture, from all those times they’d sat across from one another at work: contesting, clarifying, convincing. But here, now, like this, naked handed, the mannerism itself had her riveted.
“One,” he said with his thumb, fingers folded flat to palm. “Results first, then interpretation. At this point, any object that elicits a response is a step forward.”
His nails were ridged, short and blunt, but clean, tended to. Likewise the digits, tan and strong, neither fleshy nor bony. Held so, his hand was broad, square, and powerful. Handsome.
“Two.” His index finger: long, nicked and creased. A mature finger, accustomed to rough surfaces, capable looking, experienced.
“We already know that powers interact. Before you called it mindreading, the way Peter distilled a thought, by reading my feelings for you and knowing them as a word, a fact.”
Breathtaking. His word for her. There was nothing soft or gentle about his finger, and yet her thoughts veered indecent, imagining how it would feel sliding deep inside her.
He paused; she might have made a sound. She held her breath. He continued.
“Reading sentiment from an object, or, as you say, picking-up Lijah-residue, would be the same, one power augmenting another.”
Extending his middle finger, “Three.” He waggled it for emphasis. “It’s Feelers who read sentiment, not Knowers, so any so-called Lijah-residue you sense would be evidence that you have more than one power and therefore a breakthrough.”
Skin mounded alongside the top knuckle, with ink smudged into the layers. A writers callous, if she remembered the term correctly, the once-upon-a-time damning mark of a Knower. No one wrote anymore, not beyond a jot as necessary. He wrote long and often, though, exposed, hands naked. She imagined watching him, concentrated, dexterous. Her eyes slid shut, hoping he’d finished, fantasizing about his intellectual-crafter-lover hand and her hip reuniting.
“No comment?” asked Lijah.
“Okay,” she said, vaguely aware her response didn’t fit the question.
“You’re tired. That’s good. Tired works to our advantage.”
Silence.
“Here, come here,” he said. Lijah pulled her in closer, blanketing her in his weight and scent, an earthy mix of sandalwood, lemongrass, and cinnamon. His arm served as her pillow, their left hands held loosely together. He placed her right hand atop the book, his hand atop hers. Their fingertips interlaced, featherlight and tender. She felt his warm breath on her check and neck, his heartbeat, soft, rhythmic. Breathing deeply, she caught scents from the room: wood smoke, beeswax, herb and wine; she felt herself drifting.
This lasted about 30 seconds.
“Elsa.”
“What? Lijah.”
“Stay with me. No sleeping.”
“Why? Is it working?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I need you to tell me what you’re sensing?”
“Nothing. Blue. I’m sleepy.”
Elsa felt Lijah raise his head, shift about, then settle back in position. That was fine, she could stay as she was, soft and heavy as molasses.
“I don’t see anything blue,” he said. “Try closing your eyes. It might heighten your other senses.”
“They’ve been closed. You should try it.”
Lijah stilled. “How can you see blue if your eyes are closed?”
Elsa groaned. “You’re right, as always. I’m sleepy.”
Lijah sighed. After a time, he began stroking the fingers of her hand that rested on the book.
Drawn back to the edge of consciousness, Elsa sighed. “What? Lijah.”
“This is good. Just like this. Half awake. Half asleep. Sinking. Never landing.” He kept speaking in slow monotone. “Feel me here with you. My fingers on yours. Your fingers on the book. The book on the bed. The bed in the room. The room in the forest.”
His words, his voice, the deep, vibrating timber. Following along both focused and expanded her perspective. An image emerged, barely there, a peripheral awareness more than a vision. Elsa clung to it, the moment, holding herself exactly as she’d been: soft, eyes closed, steadily breathing, but her brain, in the background, quietly ticking.
“There’s a hammock in a patch of sun. Warmth on your cheek. A stream babbling nearby. The tymbal of cicadas. You’re holding the book open, one handed, and in your other arm, a woman, sleeping.” As realization dawned, she fought to hold herself quiet, latched to the moment. “Lijah, the woman, she’s…”
“My first wife.”
“She’s dying.”
“Of heart failure, a late complication of childhood rheumatic fever.”
“She died a short time later. Lijah, I’m reading you. This is an intrusion.”
“You have my permission. I’m sorry if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“I… It doesn’t.” She supposed it should, except… “There’s such contentment in that moment. Serenity. Acceptance.”
“You feel it? You feel the sentiment as Feeler?”
“I don’t know. No. I don’t think so. More like I know it as Knower. Because you knew. You knew what was coming and you consciously froze the experience into something you could hold and cherish.”
Lijah breathed. “Maybe. The level of detail, though, down to the sound of cicadas. Your power is extraordinary.”
“Honeysuckle. I smell honeysuckle.”
“Yes.” His voice a whisper. “Honeysuckle. I’d almost forgotten. Which, Elsa, your power… You can call it Knower if you must. But recognize it as extraordinary.”
Extraordinary. Was it? Like anybody, she had almost no context. People gloved. They didn’t allow themselves to exercise their powers casually. That was Enlightenment’s gift; the willingness to sacrifice selfish pursuit for the principles of social justice. Lofty language, learned in school, for what nowadays felt neither noble nor altruistic. Self-constraint with powers felt more like an aversion to touching a hot stove – wholly ingrained – reaching for it a kind of mental derangement. Elsa couldn’t judge. She was power-naïve. As naïve as anyone.
Lijah, though. He had his own special brand of derangement. He’d risk the burn if only to study the impulse. He better than anyone could discern ordinary from special powers. But really? Between them? She knew whose powers were extraordinary.
“Come on, Lijah. Your memory. Your power. Face it. You handed that memory to me.” Elsa chuckled softly. Good one. ‘Handed it’. Man, she was funny.
“You’re pleased with yourself, but for all the wrong reasons.”
Was he reading her mind? “Are you reading my mind?”
“You always chortle when you think you’ve bested my thinking. But consider this. Of all my associations with this book, is the one with my wife in my arms the one I would have chosen to pass to you… in our current configuration?”
Fair point. “Inadvertently, then. Subconsciously.”
Lijah thought. “Possibly, maybe. It’s hard to confirm or deny an act performed unconsciously. But consider this also. I did not consciously recall the memory, not until you told me about it. And the honeysuckle, I had forgotten it entirely.”
“Buried deep.”
“Too deep for me to find. You extracted it.”
“Says you. But you don’t actually know that any more than I do. Maybe I read it, maybe you gave it.”
“Powers can’t be given.”
“Whatever. Maybe you boosted my power which is otherwise quite ordinary. Maybe I boosted yours enough to evoke something forgotten. The point is, we don’t know. All we can be sure of is that I didn’t read the fucking book.”
Releasing her hands, Lijah rolled over flat on his back. “So it seems.”
Neither spoke. They just lay there. She didn’t know for sure, since she faced away from him, but she imagined his eyes were open, staring into space. Eventually she sat up, swung her legs around, padded to her satchel and carried it to the bathroom. When she came back, her teeth were brushed, and she wore her flannel sleeping mitts. She stood by the bed, unsure, waiting for Lijah to take notice.
He did, eventually, with a start. He sat up quickly. “You wish to sleep. I can go upstairs.”
“You don’t have to,” she said. “Or, I could, if you prefer. If you’re comfortable here.”
Lijah stood, faced her in the darkness, but didn’t touch her. “There’s something, Elsa. Something I’ve missed. Something you told me, that I heard, but haven’t taken in consciously.”
“Lijah.”
He placed his finger to her lips. “You should sleep. Take the bed upstairs.” He leaned in, cupped her chin, and kissed her softly. He dropped his hand and stepped back. “Go on. I’ll join you later.”
Elsa dutifully turned and shuffled toward the stairs, half asleep already.
Lijah called out just as she made the first landing. “Elsa. You don’t have to prove yourself one way or another. The truth will out. All I ask is that you suspend disbelief.”
Her wild will out. That was what Nona had said. She resumed her slow way up the stairs, too drained to deny or agree.