Across the Spectrum (20 page)

Sarah dropped the tea tray and ran for the stairs, took them
two at a time. When her shawl caught on something, she pulled at it angrily and
a small table crashed down behind her; a vase broke. Sarah ran blindly down the
stair, out the door, calling Joe’s name.

He was a pale blur in the moonlight, making his way across
the smooth darkness of the lawn toward the north woods. As he walked he was
talking, still in gibberish, and his hands flew up in gestures to an unseen
listener.

Sarah followed after him. The smooth kid of her slippers
skidded on the damp grass and she kicked them off, running barefoot across the
lawn, aware of the chill and the brass taste of fear in her mouth. She called
to Joe over and over, but the words were jolted as she ran, lost in the
darkness, unintelligible. He was almost in the woods; Sarah did not realize at
first that he had stopped walking. His small pajamaed body was framed against
the dim trees as he waited for her. When she reached him, Sarah was out of
breath, unable for a moment to do more than gather him into her arms. For the
first time in hours, his skin was cool to touch.

“Mama,” his croaking voice broke the silence. “Mama, look.”

Then Sarah looked into the edge of the wood and saw. First
the eyes, a dull violet glitter in the dark. The same jolt that had gone
through her years before when she first saw the baby in Dr. Pratt’s spare
bedroom went through her again. Sarah held her boy closer to her, rocking him
slightly, crooning, “Baby, baby, it’s all right. Joey, come back to the house.
It’s all right.”

The boy squirmed in her arms, twisted around to face the
waiting shadows. Sarah thought she saw more eyes, more indistinct figures
deeper in the woods.

“They’ve come to get me,” Joe said simply.

Her heart contracted. Sarah shut her eyes tightly for a
moment. “Shhh, baby,” she whispered, and stroked his long cheek. Like an
answer, the creature in the shadows stepped forward into the moonlight and
spoke to Joe in a grating stream of language.

“Mama, he’s kin of mine. They’re my people.” Joe’s voice was
full of wonder, joy; the words said
at last
and
of course
. They
cut Sarah to the quick.

She looked at the creature. Tall he was, taller than a man,
with a slanting forehead and heavy brow that shadowed his glittering eyes. The
creature’s body was broad and muscular, his face long and narrow, his nose more
like a beak; his ears were large and sharply pointed, twisting an inch or so
above his head. Behind him there was a rustle of movement; wings, Sarah
realized. Huge, powerful wings that sprang, she was certain, from bony ridges that
ran parallel to his spine.

“What does he want?” she asked at last, although she knew.

The creature broke into harsh speech again. Joe listened,
seemed to understand.

“His name is Hreu, Mama. He’s come for me. It’s time. Do you
see?”

So soon, Sarah thought.

“They are my kin. I never belonged here, except to you, but
I’m one of them.” Joe raised one hand ruefully and gestured over his shoulder
at the reddened, bony lumps on his own back. “They’ll know how to take care of
me, Mama,” he added softly. He was still holding her hand tightly.

Sarah stared ahead of her at the creature, her mouth set
like pale stone. “They will take care of you? Where were they when you were a
baby? Where were your kin when you were left in the woods? Joey—” she tightened
her grasp on his hand. “It’s too soon. It’s not time yet.”

“It’s time, Mama. It’s how they do, leaving the babies to be
found and raised up by others. When the change comes, they know, and they come
to get them. It’s my turn now.”

Sarah dropped down to her knees, holding the boy, and
suddenly it was as if he were the adult and she the child. He spoke to her
slowly, in a considered manner, with inexorable reason. “I love you. But this
is so strong. I can’t not go with them. I have to, Mama.
They’re my people.
”
In those words Sarah heard echoes of years of taunts and bruises.

Then Joe giggled, a high, giddy sound. “In another year I’ll
look like Hreu. You couldn’t explain that in town, not wings!”

Briefly he looked like any ordinary little boy, his face lit
with mischief. A profound sorrow washed over Sarah; it took her a moment to
control her voice. “I won’t ever see you again.”

Joe stopped giggling. He looked at Hreu, struggled with
broken syllables and his own vehemence, then turned back to Sarah. “Come with
us, Mama. Hreu says you can, if you want. There aren’t many of us left, but
enough. You could come.” In the dark his eyes flickered back and forth, from
Sarah in the moonlight to Hreu in the shadows. “Please come.”

For a moment Sarah played with the possibility. Standing in
the chilly night air with dew on her feet, she thought of her years of waiting
for the flash of difference that would conquer her, the flash she had seen in
Joe’s eyes and in Hreu’s. Joe was right. Hreu was right: she could not keep her
boy with her any longer. At best he would become a prisoner in her house; at
worst he might be killed by the people of Tannesburg. She thought yearningly of
flight, of adventure, of Joe’s voice lingering over the words “my people,”
making even Sarah an alien.

Very slowly, very deliberately, she said, “If you have to
go, go with my blessings, Joseph.” Her voice said
darling, baby, little one,
sweetheart
. “I couldn’t go with you; I’d only slow you down. You’ll be
learning so much, growing up.” Sarah drew a shaking breath and looked over
Joe’s head into Hreu’s violet eyes. Did they understand what they did to the
people left behind? “I love you, baby.”

He flung his arms around her neck, tight, and hung on for a
long moment, his narrow cheek pressed against hers. “I love you too, Mama. I
won’t forget you, I promise I won’t . . .”

It was Sarah who pushed him away, gently. There were tears
on his face when he turned to follow Hreu and disappear into the wilderness.

∞

Sarah was discovered by the cook the next morning, huddled
on the steps in the kitchen, the hem of her robe still damp, ruined with dirt
and dew. She was so deeply asleep that the cook was afraid and sent for Dr.
Pratt, seeing to it that Miss Eamons was wrapped in blankets and settled in a
chair by the fire. When Sarah woke, surrounded by the ruddy concerned faces of
the cook and the maids, she began to cry, huge, gasping sobs that echoed
softly, hoarsely in the kitchen.

“Sweet lord, the boy’s died in the night.” The cook sent
Bess upstairs to see, and in a few minutes the girl was back, as pale as Sarah,
to report that Joe was gone, his bedclothes all twisted up and the door wide
open. Sarah wept, unhearing.

Dr. Pratt and the cook pieced together what must have
happened, the boy’s delirium and fevered escape, Miss Eamons’s waking and
fruitless pursuit. The doctor did what he could; left laudanum for her, and
went home to tell his wife.

The forms were observed. Advertisements were placed in the
papers, letters to the sheriffs of neighboring counties—but nothing more was
heard of Joseph Eamons, and he was at last regarded as dead, gone as
mysteriously as he had come twelve years before. Through the fall and winter,
Miss Eamons did not mix with her neighbors, and it was said she took the boy’s
death far too hard, and he only an orphan and not even real kin. Still, people
were kind to her and solicitous. Through her veil of grief, Sarah came to
realize this and was distantly grateful.

When spring came, she began to go about more, started
concerning herself with church work and the library committee. She was again
the handsome Miss Eamons, crisp and deliberate in her lawn dresses and cashmere
shawls, her civility careful but warm. Only once did she break the calm, when a
well-meaning lady from the Women’s Auxiliary suggested that Sarah might adopt
another boy. Then her smile disappeared and there was only bleak anger when she
spoke. “They are not like dolls, Mrs. French. You do not replace one with
another.”

No one mentioned the idea to her again.

In May, when it was warm enough to spend afternoons on the
sun porch, Sarah took her knitting there and sat, looking out at the empty
green of the lawn. One afternoon as she sat, Carrie appeared. A man had called
and was asking to see her.

“What is his name, Carrie?”

“He says it’s Mercier, ma’am.” Carrie struggled with the
pronunciation. “He’s from clear up in French Canada. Should I show him in?”

Her curiosity piqued, Sarah nodded. Carrie returned with a
tall man, dressed in a light summer wool suit. He was middle aged, handsome in
a quiet sort of way; his red-brown whiskers brushed the collar of his shirt
when he smiled. About his eyes there was a look of tiredness, and something
more than tiredness in their expression.

His voice was low, attractively accented. “Miss Eamons? Thank
you for seeing me. I realize it may seem strange to you, a man you don’t
know—you will understand. I think. I read your advertisements.”

It took Sarah a moment to remember. “Advertisements?” she
repeated blankly.

“Yes, ma’am. And I have been in Tannesburg for a few days,
asking questions. I hope you do not mind this, but I think you are the person
who can help me. I had a daughter.”

Something in the way he said it made Sarah really look at
him for the first time. “I see,” she said slowly. “Mr. Mercier, may I offer you
some tea?”

He nodded gratefully, and Sarah rang for another cup. By
common consent they spoke idly about the weather until Carrie returned with the
teacup and hot water. When she was gone, Mr. Mercier began his explanation.
“Adele, my daughter, was an unusual little girl. We adopted her, my wife and I,
when she was only a few weeks old. A foundling discovered near our village.
When my wife died, Adele and I became even closer, all in all to each other,
you would say. Then, about eighteen months ago, she was taken ill, dreadfully
so. I lost her.”

“You lost her,” Sarah repeated deliberately, considering.

“I lost her,” he agreed. “She was different from other
children, Miss Eamons. Adele was—”

“Thin and bony with a funny voice and a nose too big for her
face,” Sarah said, conscious of a mounting excitement. “Am I right, Mr.
Mercier?”

He smiled, not happily but as if he had found a resting
place after a very long journey. “You are right, Miss Eamons. When she left, I
didn’t let go easily. I tried to follow after her.”

“Did you ever find—”

“No. I’m sorry, Miss Eamons, I never did. But Adele told me
before she left that there were others, other children like her, other people
like me and you who raised children and loved them and lost them. I have been
searching for someone like you since I knew she was lost to me.”

They talked quietly for a long time. The sun set, and they
sat in the lavender twilight, still talking, while Carrie rattled dishes
noisily in the parlor, trying to remind Sarah that it was past the hour when a
gentleman could sit unchaperoned with a maiden lady. Finally, Sarah asked Mr.
Mercier if he would like to stay for dinner.

He smiled and glanced toward Carrie’s officious silhouette
in the parlor window. “Not tonight, I think. But I would like to come back
again, if you will permit me to.” He rose and gathered up his hat and stick.

“Tomorrow. Please.” Sarah urged. For the first time in
months, her smile was generous and touched her eyes. “We have a lot to talk
about.”

He took his leave, and Carrie saw him to the front door.
From the sun porch Sarah could dimly see him on the path and then on the road,
walking toward Tannesburg. When he was out of sight, Sarah sat down again,
thinking of Joe without pain for the first time in months. Cuckoos, Mercier had
called Joe’s people, for the bird that left its young to be raised up in other
nests. Cuckoos, a sign of spring.

It was warm enough, but Sarah did not sit outside long.
Dinner would be ready shortly. Paul Mercier would be back in the morning.

I wrote this story for a friend as a Solstice gift. “Write me
a story about Charlemagne’s horse,” he said. I sat down to do that, and this is
what came out. I’m quite fond of it, because it’s so very me: medieval historical
setting, fantasy twist, and of course, all those white horses.

∞ ∞ ∞

For Jonathan

∞ ∞ ∞

The king’s grief knew no bounds. His nephew whom he loved,
his Paladins, his wise and worldly Archbishop, were dead. Betrayal and treason
had killed them—and the fault, in the end, was entirely his.

He had a kingdom to grow and defend, pagan Saxons raiding
again in the north and east, Rome demanding that he render unto it what was
God’s and a good part of what was his as well, and a pack of obstreperous
nobles baying so loud he could barely hear himself think. He sat in his camp
outside of Narbonne, which was not his ally nor exactly his enemy, and found in
himself no desire to move. He could not even weep. He had shed all the tears
that were in him.

His cooks tried to tempt him with fine meats and local
delicacies. He had no appetite for any of them. His mayor of the palace brought
him accounts to figure and decisions to make. He turned his face away. He was
empty; a hollow king. He was not sure that he would ever be full of either life
or joy again.

In the morning—it might have been the third day in that
place, or the fifth; it did not matter—he thought he might shut himself in his
tent and simply not come out again. But the wind was blowing off the sea,
buffeting the walls; each gust smote harder than the last. Even in his state of
dire accidia, he observed that the rear wall was close to slipping its
moorings.

He watched as the pegs worked their way loose, dazzling him
with glimpses of merciless sunlight—for the storm was all wind; the sky was
bitterly, brilliantly clear. The wall tore free and boomed like a sail, with a
hapless page clinging to one corner.