Beauty and the Beast (53 page)

between Jamie and Dresden. Dresden had been taking Jamie every day to remote caverns in their world, where she could safely teach him how to string and fire a traditional bow and then help him practice with both a bow and a crossbow and arrows. He loved the feel of her tiny hands as she gently guided his arms to the correct positions and helped him to improve his firing technique.

A week after waking Catherine up, Jamie had left Marina’s and Michael’s home quite early, and she was wandering around the Tandin world exploring on her own. When she arrived just outside of the orchard chamber, youngsters were leaving it carrying bows and quivers of arrows. She heard one of them say, “Today’s class was really fun!”

Another one laughed and said, “What do you mean?

It’s always fun!”

Jamie was curious about who was teaching this archery class, so she entered the orchard to see. She walked several yards into the cavern, and then she stopped and stared. Dresden had a traditional bow and quiver of arrows slung over his left shoulder, and he was holding a double-loaded crossbow in his right hand. His back was to Jamie, and she watched open-mouthed as he fired the first arrow from the crossbow at an apple on one of the trees. It sliced through the stem of the apple so that it fell from the tree. Then, with lightning-fast aim,

Dresden fired the second arrow so that it hit the apple

squarely and sent it flying until it was skewered to the tree with the arrow through the middle of it. He dropped the crossbow, took the traditional bow off his shoulder, reached back for an arrow from his quiver, and loaded the bow. Then he fired it, splitting the arrow in the center of the apple. The apple then fell in two halves to the ground.

Dresden heard a feminine cry of dismay behind him, and he whirled around in alarm as he recognized Jamie’s voice. Her painful look of shocked hurt sliced through his heart, and he whispered, “Oh, Jamie!” Jamie spun around and took off running, and he dropped his weapon and quiver and took off chasing her. He called after her, “Jamie, please stop!” On she ran with amazing speed for her petite size. Dresden thought to himself, “Oh, no, I am in so much trouble! I have got to fix this, or I am going to end up at the bottom of the nearest ravine with Mouse throwing rocks in after me to make sure I did the job properly!”

Dresden chased Jamie out of the orchard chamber and down the corridor. He finally caught up with her, wrapped his arm around her waist, and snatched her off her feet from behind. She screamed in fury and kicked and struggled like a little wild thing. Jamie pummeled Dresden’s powerful arm and then tried prying unsuccessfully on his huge hand tearfully crying out, “Put me down, you big Brute!”

Dresden managed to keep a grip on Jamie as he gently set her on her feet and then turned her around to face him. Hot angry tears were running down her cheeks, and she began beating his chest with her tiny fists as she cried out, “You big monstrous Brute! You lied to me! You didn’t need any teaching! You’re a more advanced and skilled archer than I could ever be! You were just humoring me!” Then, she collapsed against him sobbing, and he enveloped her in his arms and stroked her hair.

He said in a soothing tone, “No, Jamie, I was just enjoying you! I am so sorry that I hurt you. I was afraid that if you knew how proficient I was with a bow, you would be self-conscious about showing me your very unusual style. Believe me; I have learned a lot from your lessons. It has improved my own technique, and I am using some of what you showed me in the archery classes I teach.”

Jamie had finally calmed down, and now she looked up at him with wet cheeks. “You aren’t just telling me that, so 111 stop beating you up?”

Dresden chuckled and picked her up in his arms. He went to the nearest chair in the corridor and sat down on it with her on his lap. He softly wiped the tears from her cheeks. “No, Jamie, I’m not just telling you that. It is the truth. Oh, and speaking of the truth, I didn’t exactly lie to you. I simply told you that the stunner was my weapon of choice. You know, I promised Mouse that if I ever hurt you, I would leap off the nearest cliff.”

Jamie raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “You did what?”

Dresden chuckled again. “Mouse told me that if I ever hurt you, he was going to come after me.”

Jamie giggled at him. “Mouse really said that?” Dresden was still smiling. “He did, indeed, and I told him that he wouldn’t have to, because I would be leaping off the nearest cliff if I ever hurt you. You want to come and watch?”

Jamie gave him an amused look and said, “You silly Brute! I really should, you know. I tell you what, though,

I won’t tell Mouse if you won’t.”

Dresden hugged Jamie and said, “Deal!”

By March 13
^th
, eight days after waking up, Catherine was strong enough to take a tour of the Tandin world with the others. When they stopped to let her rest in the botanical garden chamber, she sat down by Diana on one of the benches, while Vincent was discussing some of the medicinal herbs growing in this chamber with Tanimus.

Catherine smiled at Diana and said, “Vincent tells me that I have you to thank that I’m not an hairy cave-woman with scary claws after all of that time asleep.”

Diana giggled at her. “None of us would have allowed that to happen, Catherine, but Vincent did insist on taking care of your grooming needs himself. He was a very apt pupil and anxious to learn how to do it all perfectly for you. Vincent was completely fascinated by the whole process. He told me that you had always taken the time to look and smell the way you did, and that it was a small thing for him to take care of that for you while you couldn’t.”

Catherine smiled softly. “Vincent went to a lot of trouble to take care of me.”

Catherine then appeared puzzled as she looked at Diana’s short-cut practical nails, and Diana laughed. “You’re wondering how a gun-toting-crime-fighting-tomboy like me could teach Vincent how to do a professional manicure.” Catherine giggled, and Diana explained. “I had no interest in girly stuff like that as I was growing up, but my sister did. She insisted on teaching me how to do manicures, so I could do her nails for her. I actually found it fun, and I became so good at it that all of my sister’s friends had me doing their nails for them too. It was about the only activity that my sister and I enjoyed doing together, because our interests were so different, but it was enough to keep us close.”

Catherine smiled and said, “That is a really happy memory to have. Vincent says that you also had a list of my scented toiletries from when you were profiling me and that Susan did the shopping to find them. Thank you so much!”

Diana replied, “You are most welcome. It was really fun teaching him what to do with all of it. Did Vincent tell you why that scent of honeysuckle and roses was so important to him?”

Catherine was curious. “No, tell me, Diana. We’ve talked about so many things since I woke up, but that

subject hasn’t come up yet.”

Diana told her the story. “When Vincent was a baby, before he was lost to the Tandins, his mother, Loren, used to take him into the solarium in the home of his grandparents, Porter and Doreen. His favorite flowers there were a pink rosebush with blooming honeysuckle vines growing up through the center of it. He loved that combined scent of roses and honeysuckle, and she took him there every day while they were blooming together. Vincent told us that your scent of roses and honeysuckle was what drew him out of the tunnel the night that he found you. He couldn’t remember then why that scent seemed so familiar. He said it was an happy memory at the edge of his mind that he couldn’t quite reach, but it helped him to find you!”

Catherine shook her head as she explained. “My mother always wore that scent before she died. That was why I never wore anything else. It made me feel closer to her. That explains the vase of pink, red, and white roses everyone keeps making sure we have fresh cuttings of. I understood the red and white ones because of my rosebush, but I didn’t understand the significance of the pink ones until now.”

Catherine smiled as she watched Father with his arm around Mary as they walked by them. They were completely oblivious to anyone but each other. Catherine commented to Diana, “Vincent told me about the new romance between Father and Mary and how many years

Mary had waited for that to happen. They sure do look happy together now, don’t they?”

Diana nodded as she watched the couple too. “Everyone is blissfully happy for them. Both Father’s world and the Tandin world sure do encourage love to flourish and grow.”

When the group left the botanical chamber, they were taken to an enormous engineering chamber. This cavern was brightly lit with full-spectrum lights, and there were large work tables, computers, lab equipment, and numerous other both familiar and strange machines and inventions all over the place. Many people, both humans and Tandins, were in this chamber working on various projects.

Mouse noticed a lovely young human woman with fair skin, full red lips, waist-length black hair, and pretty green eyes working on a project by herself at one of the large tables. She took no notice of the group, but Mouse was fascinated by what she was working on. He walked over to investigate. She was staring at a small-scale replica of a waterfall she had created inside a glass-sided aquarium. There was a small brightly lit lamp with a swivel neck inside the aquarium, and it was pointed toward the waterfall. She appeared to be puzzled by some kind of a problem with her creation. Mouse studied the aquarium, and neither one of them spoke to each other. Then, Mouse stepped closer, reached in and adjusted the lamp, and a beautiful rainbow with the full range of pretty colors sprang up.

She looked up into his eyes, smiled, and said, “Yes!” Everyone working in the chamber gasped when she spoke, and they all left their work to go to the young woman. Father’s group, with Tanimus and Elisia, had been watching as Mouse helped her. Now, Elisia spoke to Vincent in a shocked tone. “Will you look at that!”

Vincent replied, “Yes, it looks like Mouse has made a friend!”

The entire group listened with curiosity as Elisia explained. “It is far more miraculous than that! Perrine is an autistic savant that we found wandering in the tunnels lost when she was only about seven years old. Because of her condition, she was completely unaware that she was in any danger. We have never had any autistic children in our world, so her condition was beyond our experience. Our humans made extensive inquiries above, but Perrine was never reported missing, so we had no way to find her family. She has never spoken to nor made eye contact with any of us for the past twelve years we have had her, and she has never shown any kind of emotion. We studied every technique for working with autistic children we could find in the world above without any success with her. We could feel empathically that she was happy, even though she never displayed any emotion, so we just let her develop her talents as she wished.

“She is a genius with anything mechanical, and she is

very happy to just create and invent. Up to now, she has just foraged for the parts she needs, never saying a word to or looking at anyone. She never takes anything, though, unless it is given to her. We have all become accustomed to having her come around and stand in front of and look at something she wants until we hand it to her, and then she takes it and goes away, silently and without expression, back to her project. We all have appliances and wonderful inventions in our homes which she has created for us. We find them on the floor at the entrances to our homes. Perrine has an uncanny ability to perceive what would be useful to or enjoyed by each of us.”

Father chuckled as he commented. “Mouse could learn a thing or two from Perrine about taking things!” Elisia smiled and added, “Mouse has done what we thought would be impossible for Perrine. He has made a connection with her. Look at them!”

Mouse came over to the group very excited. “She likes me, Vincent! So pretty, like Snow White, isn’t she?”

Vincent chuckled at Mouse’s enamored look. “You do seem to have made quite an impression on Perrine,

Mouse. Look behind you!”

Perrine was standing directly behind Mouse, and he turned around and looked at her. She was standing there staring at his hand. Elisia told him, “Mouse, Perrine wants your hand, and she won’t take it unless you give it to her.”

Mouse’s face lit up with delight, and he extended both hands to her. “OK Good! OK Fine! Take my hand. Have both!”

Perrine actually laughed, looked directly into Mouse’s eyes, and said, “Just need one! Come!” She pulled him by the hand, smiling ear-to-ear, back to her project. She took one end of it, and Mouse took the other end, and they left the chamber together. By this time, the whole community had come over to see this miraculous event, and they all stared in disbelief as the couple left the chamber with Perrine’s rainbow-maker.

Catherine giggled as she leaned heavily on Vincent’s arm. He could see that she was fatigued, and he picked her up in his arms. She said, “I wonder where they are going with that.”

Elisia offered a guess. “One of our teachers has been explaining how rainbows are formed to her class of small children. I imagine that Perrine created that as a visual aid for the class. I’m sure that teacher will find it in her classroom tomorrow.”

Tanimus chuckled and said to Father, “I do believe one of us has lost an engineer, and I’m quite sure it will be Perrine deciding which world gets the two of them!”

Father’s people decided to leave the next day, on March 14
^th
when Diana suggested that if they left then, and it took them four days to return to Father’s world, they would have a couple of days to rest before celebrating a very belated Winter-Fest on March 20th, the last day of winter. The Tandins relayed the message telepathically to the Tandins in Father’s world, so William could begin preparing for the celebration. Rebecca had already made the candles for this year’s Winter-Fest many months earlier, because she had hoped that they would eventually be able to celebrate the holiday. So, Angela started sending the children above with the pretty white-tipped yellow-orange tapered candles to give to their Helpers in anticipation of the holiday when Father returned with the rest of their community members.