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Chapter 1
Lijah arrived on Elsa’s doorstep, alone, uninvited, on a Thursday. This was unusual in every respect. He’d been in her apartment before, of course, and she to his, but only on occasion of the Monthly Social, a mandatory event that all faculty were required to host on a rotating basis. These gatherings were crowded, loud and, like all department-wide events, scheduled for Wednesdays. Meaningful discourse was impossible; if they bothered to speak with one another at all, their exchange was polite and perfunctory.
Conversely, they enjoyed frequent, intimate, and intense tête-à-têtes, just not in their homes. The habit started when, as a first-year student, Elsa co-opted Lijah’s office hours. She challenged him relentlessly. He’d been amused and indulged her. When her arguments grew provocative, he expanded and formalized their sessions, then took her on as apprentice, his first in years. Now colleagues, in pursuit of their own independent lines of inquiry, they continued to use one another as sounding boards. She’d wander into his office, or he into hers, and present a premise or conundrum. Sometimes saying a thought out loud was enough to bring clarity. Other times they’d launch into a lengthy discourse that spilled over to the library, a coffee shop or out-of-doors. Once they’d had a vigorous debate at the farmers market and drawn an audience. More than once they’d ended up on the stoop of one or the other’s apartment building. Not a once had they proceeded up the steps and turned the key.
Until today. He’d rung her doorbell and she buzzed him in. Her apartment was a fourth-floor walk-up which gave her enough time to wonder whether she should have met him outside. Any other day, she would have, wouldn’t she? But today was a Thursday. Lijah dedicated Thursdays to his own solitary pursuits. Everyone: students, colleagues, friends, probably family as well although she’d never met any to ask, everyone knew that on Thursdays he was not to be disturbed. Usually he was simply absent; if present, then cloistered. The rule was inviolate, absolute. Thursdays were protected. And secret. Even from her. Of course, she’d buzzed him in.
She wiped the crumbs from the table; closed the armoire. When he knocked, she slid the latch and swung the door wide in a manner more grandiose than she’d intended. He looked bigger, somehow, standing in the hallway outside her door. The weather had just that day turned; perhaps it was his overcoat. Otherwise he looked more or less the same, his jeans a bit more casual than usual, his hiking shoes a curious anomaly. Not until Lijah raised an eyebrow did Elsa remember to step out of the way so he could enter. She stepped back; he crossed the threshold and closed the door gently behind him.
“Please, hang your coat on the hook.” She turned her back and crossed the room, giving him privacy to swap his gloves. She plumped a pillow on the couch, neatened the papers on her desk, crossed to the kitchen area and took a seat at the table. By then he’d removed his outer garments and changed into his regular office gloves: paper-thin leather, dark green and practical. He lingered by the door. From her seat across the room, she watched as his eyes scanned over the armoire that stood tall, wide and shallow against the adjacent wall.
The armoire was unique: old, cherry, simple yet elegant. Two columns of drawers, waist high, comprised the lower portion. Two doors, five feet tall and half as wide, enclosed the top. Between them lay a three-quarter-inch thick, retractable tabletop, its facing edge intricately inlaid in maple. Lijah ran his hand down the length of the door’s two-inch wide beveled border, his focus rapt, the gesture reverent. When he stepped around the side to examine the joinery more closely, Elsa laughed at him.
“The way you’re studying that armoire, it’s practically obscene.”
He looked up, sheepish, a rarity. “Sorry. She’s beautifully crafted.”
“A family heirloom, built by my grandfather’s grandfather.”
“I wondered,” he said and stood back to appreciate the piece in its entirety.
Elsa enjoyed the effort it took for him to tear himself away, prideful to possess something that so intrigued him.
“I’ve been meaning to get a closer look. It’s quite extraordinary,” he said and took a seat opposite her.
Elsa tried to hide her laughter – he’d spoken with such earnest sincerity – but he noticed, and his countenance slipped back to normal: analytic and guarded. She followed his gaze as he glanced cursorily about the rest of the apartment, a tastefully if otherwise unremarkably appointed one-bedroom. She knew his apartment to be nearly identical – most faculty enjoyed top floor apartments – except his was furnished haphazardly and cluttered with an eclectic assortment of oddities. Hers was airy, neat and orderly; empty by comparison but for the late afternoon light that filled the room, making it soft and cozy.
Elsa gestured toward the door that stood slightly ajar. “There’s a matching piece, a sleigh bed, in the other room.”
Lijah stilled. Like a dust mote held in suspension. He cleared his throat. “You have a lovely home.”
“Thank you,” she said. Although pleased her comment had so thoroughly undone him, she didn’t know why, and carefully regarded him. “So. What brings you here? On a Thursday no less?”
He sat back and studied her for a long moment. His fingers drummed the table in an irregular and alternating beat, as if they sounded two sides of an internal debate. His hands settled; his eyes narrowed.
“What do you know of hands?” he asked.
She considered her own, gloved in plain flannel, resting on the table. “Five fingers. Attached to arms. Useful.”
“Useful?” He asked as if the word were esoteric.
“Handy,” said Elsa with a shrug.
“Hands are handy.”
“Generally speaking, yes. Your turn. Would you say noses are nosey?”
“You’re being deliberately difficult.”
“Perhaps if you rephrased the question?”
He planted and elbow on the table and held up his gloved hand between them. “Here is an appendage that completely defines us. We’ve learned that hands, left uncovered, result in oppression, injustice, upheaval, revolution. Decades of concealment hasn’t yet erased the consequence. Politics. Social structures. Disparities in class, health and education. All of our obsessions, taboos, rituals and aesthetics. There is not a single fetish or fashion, belief or behavior that cannot be traced to our hands. And all you have to say is: hands are handy?”
“Yep.”
“If you’re not going to engage in this conversation…”
“This isn’t a conversation, Lijah; it’s masturbation.”
Lijah dropped his hand, sat back in his seat. “Yours or mine?”
“You came to me uninvited.” She smiled. “Not unwelcome, but uninvited.”
Lijah returned her smile. “Welcomed, as you say, but you’re unwilling to engage in serious discourse. Which begs the question…”
Elsa dismissed the point with a wave of her hand. “You asked, what do I know about hands? It’s an absurd question. One that, without context, I couldn’t possibly address meaningfully. You, however, obviously have a point to make. Ergo…”
“Ergo?” he said in that way he did, oh so sardonic.
“Ergo,” repeated Elsa. “You wish to strut your vast knowledge and superior reasoning and require an audience to… get off. I’m not interested. Might I suggest one of your students.”
Lijah crossed his arms. “It’s Thursday.”
“A magazine then. Tell me, are you frustrated, or have you made a discovery?”
“I have discovered that you frustrate me enormously.”
Elsa’s face slowly transformed into a dazzling smile “Don’t I just. Tea?”
“Let’s walk first. Then high tea at my place.” Although he’d made the offer, he looked no less surprised than she did. “I’ve made scones.”
“Had I known scones were in the offing, I’d have been more willing to satisfy your needs.”
“Had I known you could be so easily swayed…”
Elsa laughed in pure enjoyment. “Bawdy banter, Professor. I’m glad you’ve come.”
Lijah relaxed into his chair. His smile, small but genuine, echoed the sentiment. Neither rose from the table and silence fell between them. His gaze drifted, seemed to focus on the window behind her. She glanced over her shoulder but saw nothing to distract him.
“For the record,” she said, “you should know that I’m very particular about my scones.”
She got a weak laugh from Lijah, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
“It’s turned cold with the wind, hasn’t it? I just need a minute to get ready.”
Elsa left the table and headed for the armoire. Propriety would have him busying himself while he waited. Sensing that wasn’t the case, she checked over her shoulder and saw him watching her frankly. She turned back, laid flat palms against the doors, and hesitated. Probably the armoire, she thought, half believing his behavior was quirky, not voyeuristic. Or possibly an experiment; a study of subject response to violation of social convention. She decided to ignore him. With a gentle press she released the catch and spread the doors wide open.
Inside were six evenly spaced, angled and felt-lined shelves on which a collection of thin to medium weight gloves and mittens were neatly arranged. Her body blocked some of Lijah’s view, but assuming he still watched, he could see what lay on the shelves to either side of her. Feeling both vulnerable and emboldened by her own scandalous behavior, she proceeded with deliberate nonchalance as if his observation were perfectly ordinary.
She pushed against the edge of the tabletop, releasing the catch so that it popped out enough to expose the groove underneath, and pulled it out fully. She removed, one finger at a time, first her left, then her right flannel house-gloves, and set them on the table. She noticed the sheaths she wore underneath had already worn thin; durability being the trade-off for improved sensitivity. She selected a pair of leather office-gloves from the top shelf, which would better protect them. She chose a second pair, washable and therefore more appropriate for eating. She chose a third pair, then a fourth, lining them on the table. She was finding it difficult to make a decision.
Lijah cleared his throat. “It’s damp and we have quite a way to walk. You’ll want something heavier.”
God, he was still watching. His apartment was just around the corner. “We’re stopping at college first?” she asked, still turned away from him.
“No. I, um… I have a cottage. In the woods. I thought to introduce you to it. It’s… It’s where the scones are. It’s where I do my baking.”
This was too bizarre. Elsa pulled her flannel gloves back on and turned to face him. “Your cottage? Where you do your baking?”
Lijah grimaced but offered no further explanation.
“A cottage? In the woods? But close enough we can walk there?”
“We’ll take the metro first. To Tapley. Or I could drive. After that we have to walk. An hour or so, depending.”
“Depending?”
“On how long you delay. How much traffic. On how fast we walk. How dark the night.” Taking a deep breath he continued more calmly. “Rush-hour. The moon is just past full, but they’re forecasting thickening clouds, snow by morning.”
“Lijah…”
“Please. Elsa. Before I lose my nerve.”
Of everything that he’d said so far, this surprised her the most. He was the bravest man she knew. Intellectually, at least, which was all she could be certain of. “Well, I suppose, if that’s where the scones are…”.
She turned back to the armoire and blushed to see it still standing wide open. It suddenly occurred to her, if it was dark when she got there, would she be spending the night? She debated how to broach the subject but Lijah beat her to it.
“Not just scones. A full larder. All the amenities. Plenty of room to spend the night.”
Again, Elsa turned toward him. “A bachelor pad? Really?” She was having trouble imagining it.
Lijah looked at her blankly, then guffawed. “Only insofar as I am a bachelor and it is my ‘pad’. I’d meant to be reassuring.”
“Huh.”
Lijah nodded. “We should take the car. Ten, fifteen minutes, pick you up outside?” He crossed the room, snatched up his coat and opened the door. He waited. “Elsa?” When she didn’t respond, he turned and met her eye. “Please.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Leave your phone here. You’ll have no use for it.” An instant later, the door closed behind him.
Elsa retrieved her satchel, emptied it of books and disappeared into her bedroom. A few minutes later, she returned to the main room packed for an overnight. She returned to the armoire, scooped all four pairs of gloves into the bag and pushed the tabletop closed. She considered bringing a spare under-sheath but decided that was overkill. Next she used her knee to tap open one drawer after another, searching for a particular pair of mittens. At the bottom of the bottommost drawer she found them: heavy, fleece-lined, red leather mitts. She had a red cape to match, boiled wool and hooded. Not at all practical, she’d only ever worn them to the ballet or similar. But going to a cottage in the woods? She couldn’t resist.
Before exchanging gloves for mitts, she rummaged in the back of the hall closet for her hiking shoes and pulled them on. She considered bringing slippers as well – too domestic – and went back to her bedroom for a thick pair of socks. In the kitchen she found her flashlight and spare batteries. For reasons she’d have been hard pressed to articulate, she scooped her swiss army knife, matches, a couple pencils and some Band-Aids from kitchen drawer into satchel. Fourteen minutes total and she was ready to go. She exchanged gloves for mitts and exited the apartment. Thirty seconds later she was back, clumsily rifling her desk for the research article she kept forgetting to show Lijah. In the stairwell, she thought of other work to bring along, but the honk of a car horn kept her from going back to retrieve it.
Lijah leaned across and popped the passenger door from the inside. Elsa climbed in. Before starting the car, he asked, “Your phone?”
“You told me to leave it.”
“Elsa, it’s important this stay between us. You can’t tell anyone about the cottage. Tapley. Any of it.”
“Got it. The scones. A national secret.”
“I’m not joking. You have to promise me, not a word?”
“Lijah, I can’t promise something I don’t understand.”
“Trust me. It’s important.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to trust me.”
Lijah glared at her, jaw working, then turned on the car and pulled from the curb abruptly. He switched on the news, precluding conversation. In town the going was slow and heavy, but as they drove further out, traffic thinned, and with it the tension. He turned off the news. “You’re right, of course. And I do trust you. Just, for now, if we run into someone we know, let me do the talking.”
He fiddled with the car stereo, selected music. She’d heard classical guitar before, lilting soft and melodious from his office; this was livelier and percussive, Spanish flamenco. She liked the music, quite a bit, but noted the choice, not conducive to conversation. She watched his hands on the wheel, keeping time with the music, how he tossed the beat back and forth from one hand to the other. She realized he might turn around at any moment. She realized she desperately hoped he wouldn’t. She shifted in her seat and watched instead city and stone give way to field and clapboard. Patience was required. She would try for patience.
They arrived in the hamlet of Tapley just as the clouds of the approaching front began to pinken, promising a spectacular sunset. They parked at the train station, the end of the line, and walked to the trailhead. Bittersweet, with berries bright red and yellow, covered the arched gate, making the simple wood frame appear grand and ornate.
“Do you mind? Could we take a few sprigs?” Since Lijah wore gloves, not mitts, it was understood he would help her. She pointed to the ones she wanted, up high and thick with berries, and he broke them off for her. He tucked one through the large buttonhole at the shoulder of her cape and the rest he stuck like a bouquet in an outside pocket of her satchel.
Stepping through the gate into the old growth forest felt like passing from real-world to fable. Light dimmed and sounds hushed. The fresh, still air smelled sweetly of balsam, pine, and fern. The wide path, thick with needles and soft like peat, muffled their footsteps to no more than susurrations. They spoke intermittently as they walked, Elsa commenting on their surroundings, an area which she had not previously visited, and Lijah supplying tidbits of local history. When the path forked and narrowed, Lijah took the lead. He kept a steady but comfortable pace and, despite the deepening shadows, guided them through one fork after another without hesitation. Half an hour into their hike, the forest thickened, and what had become twilight blackened to night.
“Lijah, hold up. I need my flashlight.” Again, with her heavy mittens, he would have to assist her. “Sorry. I’ve made you a slave to fashion.”
“Not at all, I appreciate the aesthetic,” said Lijah, waiting for her to catch up. “You know, of course, that fairy tales have origins that predate Enlightenment. Nowadays we think of Little Red as hooded and mitted, but the earliest illustrations had her bare-handed.”
“You’re kidding. You’ve actually seen one?”
Elsa had caught up to him. They stood on the trail within arm’s reach of one another. The woods felt inordinately still, as if holding its breath. “Stumbled across it, somewhere along the line. You know I spend a lot of time in the archives.”
It was true, he did, and not just at their own college but whenever they traveled to lecture or attend conferences. He’d disappear for a few hours only to reappear, squinting against the sun, gloves grimy, covered in dust. Whatever he found, or didn’t find, he kept to himself, presumably because it pertained to his private Thursday research. But his mood would betray him. Elsa knew him well enough to guess that when he met her with studied neutrality, he’d likely found something significant. Like now. She’d hit on something that mattered; she had no idea what.
“Here, you can use my headlamp,” he said. By feel in the dark, Lijah assisted her much like a parent might a child. He found her shoulders and squared her in front of him. He pushed her hood back, slipped the straps of his headlamp over her head and tightened them. Warning her to watch her eyes, he turned on the light and adjusted the beam so that it illuminated the ground just in front of her. Beyond that tight circle of bright light, she could no longer see anything. Elsa reached behind her to dig for her own flashlight, but her awkward movement caused the light of the headlamp to dance about crazily.
“Hold still,” said Lijah, stilling her head between his hands. He then lifted her satchel from back to front so that it hung between them. She lifted the flap and bobbed her head, trying without success to angle the beam so it shone inside.
“Elsa, hold still.” His hand beneath her chin, he tilted her head back upright so that she faced directly forward and the beam of light illuminated the satchel. He then proceeded to root around inside her bag for her. Elsa kept looking down to see what he saw. Each time he used her chin like a lever to readjust the light.
“You’re enjoying this aren’t you,” said Elsa testily.
“If you’d just hold still, I could get on with it.”
“Do you say that to all the girls? Because I’m here to tell you, it’s not a winner.”
Lijah chuckled and kept digging. “Five pairs of gloves. Just 2 pair underwear. Fascinating.”
“This grows intolerable.”
He kept digging.
“Lijah. It’s the metal tube. With a bulb at one end. Kind of heavy.”
“Ah. Here it is.” He clicked it on and shined the beam up the path. “Shall we?”
They continued along the trail as before, Lijah leading the way with her flashlight, Elsa behind with the headlamp, their world reduced to the two circles of light directed at the path. If not for the smells and sounds of the forest around them, they could be anywhere.
“You brought a weapon,” said Lijah after a time, his statement loud after the quiet.
“What? Oh, the knife, you mean? Something to sharpen the pencils with.”
“Ah. That explains the paper and matches. You planned to build a campfire, do some whittling.”
“That is what one does in the woods, is it not?”
Lijah did not answer her.
“That was the segue for you to tell me what you do in the woods.”
They kept walking. As time passed, it became clear, he did not no intend to answer. Thirty minutes or more later he broke the silence. “How many years have you lived?”
Elsa stopped short. Lijah continued a few paces before registering that she no longer followed. He turned and waited, then walked back to her. “You’re offended. That’s rather old fashioned of you.”
“I’m not offended. Twenty-seven years. You?”
“More. Why have you chosen to age beyond your years?”
“Because. Why no phone? Why search my bag? Why lead me in circles?”
“Circles?”
Elsa did not elaborate.
Lijah shown the light at her from head to toe and at her satchel. He tucked the flashlight under his chin and stepped closer. “Forgive the intrusion.” He gently uncovered an arm from beneath her cape and held it like an object between them. He manipulated her hand and wrist beneath the light as if testing the joint’s mobility and repeated the same with her other arm. He was checking for something; she had no idea what. Next he stepped past her and studied the ground as he followed their tracks back a short distance. Elsa stayed put, immobilized by his peculiar behavior. He came back, keeping his distance. “Bittersweet marking the path. How very Hansel and Gretel.”
“The metaphor apt in more ways than one.”
“Scones instead of gingerbread, and me the witch. In that case, it’s worth considering how different the tale might be, if told from the witch’s perspective.” He flicked the light in the direction from whence they came. “You want to go back?”
“No. Not particularly. You’ve changed your mind?”
“No. Not particularly.” He closed the gap between them. As he continued to speak, he plucked the sprig from her lapel, pulled what remained of the bittersweet bouquet from her satchel, and tossed them aside. He patted down her pockets and loosened the scarf from around his neck. “The cottage is hidden. It has been for so many years that no one but me, now you, knows of its existence. The property where it sits does not appear on any maps. No roads lead to it and no markers point the way. It can only be reached deliberately – it is impossible to stumble upon it. To find it, you have to know exactly where it is. I am the only one who does. It is my sanctuary.”
“You intend to blindfold me.”
“If you allow it.”
“Otherwise no scones?”
“You frighten me, Elsa. There’s danger in this. Not from me, but to me and by association to you too. You have to take this seriously.”
“Lijah, I am in the middle of the woods, in the dark, about to be blindfolded. I’ve left no message and have no phone. Should I disappear, no-one could find me. I can assure you, I’m taking this quite seriously.”
Lijah tapped the flashlight against his leg, the light on the ground bounced about violently. “Good. Okay. Good.” He grabbed her in a rough hug and kissed the top of her head. He clicked the flashlight off and tucked it in his pocket, then took the headlamp, still lit, and settled it on his own head. He held his scarf stretched taut in front of her. “Ready?”
Elsa didn’t answer immediately. He’d kissed the top of her head. It was unprecedented.
Lijah, still poised to cover her eyes, wiggled the scarf to prompt her.
“Do you have sisters?” asked Elsa.
Lijah laughed softly at the incongruity of the question. “Yes, one. Brothers, too. She and I, we’re close. You’d like her.”
That explained it, how he’d kissed her. The gesture had the familiarity of kinship; genuine and unguarded.
“You’ll guide me? You won’t let go?”
“Not even for a moment.” He held the scarf against her eyes, leaned her against him and tied the knot behind her head. “Too tight?”
Elsa was practically vibrating. Unable to speak, she let silence answer the question.
Without letting go, he swiveled behind her, wrapped an arm across her front, and rested a hand on her shoulder. He spoke, his mouth so close to her ear she cringed, and he softened his voice to a whisper. “Elsa, we’re going to dance here for a moment, in circles. Then we’ll walk together for a ways just like this. I promise you won’t fall, and no harm will come to you.”
“Your fucking scones better be worth it.” She tried to sound fierce, dangerous, but her voice shook, and it came out more like a stutter.
“Shh, shh. Here we go.” They circled to the left and then to the right, a ridiculous slow dance, the reason anything but funny. “Okay, and forward.”
First one step, then another. Awkward at first until they found a rhythm. They walked for long enough for Elsa’s heart to stop pounding. Her left cheek was hot with his breath, but on the right, she felt cold, wet tingles.
“It’s snowing,” she said. The air smelled of water and she could hear it now, the heavy hush of snow falling around her.
“Elsa, we need to maneuver a bit. Relax and let me guide you.”
“Again, with the sweet nothings.” This was bravado, all that she could muster.
“Come on, almost there.”
“You should be so lucky.”
Laughing softly, he gripped her across her body, one hand on her hip, the other on her shoulder. “Step to the side, now down, to your left, and upright.” They sashayed one way, folded double, then side stepped the other way. He pulled her erect, pivoted sideways, wiggled them through a narrow space, then stepped long through an opening. Elsa sensed they’d arrived in a clearing, the air cool, a breath of wind and snow falling freely.
“Almost there,” said Lijah. He led her in what seemed like zigzags and circles for another long minute, then removed the blindfold with a flourish.