Once (22 page)

She cast another sly glance at the therapist, who was busy at the sink; a red flush was creeping round the girl’s neck, spreading from her chest.

‘Here’s a good one,’ Nell said, walking over to stand beside Katy.

‘What do you do with this?’

Was there the slightest quiver in Katy’s voice?

‘Oh, I can use it for lots of things,’ Nell replied mildly. The ancient Greeks mixed it with goat’s milk. I like to use it in ice cream.’

‘Ice cream? Really?’ Slimy goo covered her fingers.

‘It’s easy. Gelatine, brown sugar or honey, vanilla essence. It’s delicious with chocolate ice cream. ‘Yes, but what do you use it for, just the taste?’

‘Let’s say it gives a sense of well being. It can be quite invigorating.’

Katy paused in her work. ‘It’s not some kind of drug, is it?’

Nell laughed. ‘No, it’s a natural chemical. Good for invalids. S’why I brought the orchids here for Thom.’ Her voice had taken on an intimate tone, as if she was sharing a secret. ‘We do want him to get well, don’t we?’

For some reason unknown to herself, Katy blushed. Yes, Thom. She really did want him to recover from his illness. There was something about him, something she found very … attractive.

Nell was handing her another orchid, holding it by the stem, her own skin slick with juices from the punctured tuber.

Try this one,’ Nell was saying, but oddly, her voice did not sound nearby. ‘It almost burst of its own accord.’

Katy took it from her, grasping the split tuber because it was offered first. She felt its pulp on her skin. A prickly sensation was running over the surface of her body and she realized she was taking shorter breaths than usual. Thom. It would be so good to see him again. Now she was surprised to feel a slight dampness between her legs, as if juices of her own were seeping. She pressed her lower belly against the side of the kitchen working surface, relishing the pressure, but conscious that she was not alone. The points of her breasts were tingling.

She had to clear her throat before she could speak. ‘D’you suppose he’ll be long?’

‘I already told you,’ Nell replied softly, staring into Katy’s dilated eyes. ‘I’m sure he’s only gone for a short walk in the woods. We can entertain ourselves while we wait, can’t we?’

Nell knew she had to play it carefully. Be patient, give it time to work, she told herself. Don’t frighten her off by making a move too soon. Had the girl any experience of other women? Not openly, Nell was sure of that. She seemed to be too fond of Thom to be attracted to someone of her

own sex. But who knew, these days? Who truly knew of the inclinations of others at a time when shame was hardly a factor any more? These days boys and girls could swing any way they fancied without risking persecution. It was a good time for women like Nell.

She noticed that Katy’s breaths were becoming shorter and harsher, the red flush from her chest very much in evidence above the T-shirt’s neckline. She reached out a hand to touch the therapist’s bare arm and sensed an immediate reaction.

Katy felt her flesh tingle at Nell’s soft touch, and the sensation spread up her arm, seemed to invade her entire body, bit by bit, stealth its ally. And yet she did not recoil from the other woman’s touch, for the feeling was pleasant and not unwelcome. What was happening to her? Good God, she was feeling aroused. She pressed against the low cupboard door, not daring to look at her companion at the sink. Every part of her felt tensed, strained, an exquisite feeling running with her blood, arteries widening at certain points in her body, increasing the awareness there - her groin, her breasts, the sides of her neck, the skin between her shoulder blades and inside her elbows, her thighs …

Katy dropped the spoon into the bowl of sticky juice and gripped the edge of the sink. What was happening to her?

The woman beside her spoke soothingly and yet her voice was still distant, almost as if Kary had created a shell around herself, but one that she wished - she yearned for it - to be broken, breached. Invaded. She needed to be touched and she almost sobbed with the uncontrollability of it all. She wasn’t like this. She had only ever wanted another female’s touch when she was very young, a schoolgirl’s crush that had come to nothing. Nothing, that is, but her own touch, dreaming that her own hand belonged to the other older girl she admired so much. And then there was the other time, the only other time, the one Katy had shoved from her mind over and over again, for it had shamed her,

made her feel less of herself, and its recurring memory was her penance.

Nell remained cautious, keeping her voice low, its tone soothing, persuasive.

‘You’re so pretty,’ she said, feeling her own wetness between her legs, the wonderful irritation inside her vagina, the stiffening of her clitoris, the swelling of her breasts. Her fingers ran lightly around the back of Katy’s neck. ‘So very pretty.’ The huskiness in her voice was emphasized.

Nell wanted to release Katy’s hair from its restricting rubber band, but she was aware of how delicate this moment was. Anything that required effort at this stage could easily alarm the girl, bring her out of the mood she’d unknowingly entered so that she would reject any further advances on Nell’s part.

Slowly, gently, stroke the neck, speaking quietly, softly, seductively…

It was of her own accord that Katy turned to face Nell. Behind the wire-framed glasses, her eyes were wide, confused, as if she knew what was happening but did not know how it was happening.

‘What are you doing?’ she heard herself say, and her own voice seemed distant to her now and there was no anger, no rejection, in its tone. She was burning and the fire was spreading from the flesh between her hips and thighs.

‘It’s all right,’ came the other’s voice. ‘Everything’s well, and nice. You are beautiful, you know.’

The next move was the most important of all, for it was invasive and would leave the therapist open, vulnerable -perhaps defensive. Slowly Nell reached up and gently, oh so gently, removed Katy’s spectacles, holding them by their corners and softly, easily lifting, sliding the arms away from her ears. If Katy was going to object, if she was going to react negatively, then it would be now, as soon as those light glasses were gone, when her vision had softened and psychologically she was at Nell’s mercy.

Katy did take in a sudden shorter and sharper breath, a kind of surprised gasp, but she did not utter another sound, nor did she grab Nell’s wrist.

Nell’s smile corrupted to a hideous grin.

FROM ANOTHER REALM

THOM FELT wonderfully at peace.

He had become used - more ‘attuned’ - to the sights around him, yet was still in wonder at it all as he and Jennet slowly, leisurely, made their way through the deepest part of the woods. He saw many more sights that made him gasp because of their beauty, and many more that caused him to laugh out loud in delight, although Jennet assured him there was still more that went unperceived by him.

‘On the deepest night do you always see every star?’ she had asked him.

‘I suppose it isn’t possible to catch every single one,’ he had replied.

‘But you have little machines which have their own special eyes to record such things.’

‘You mean cameras?’

‘Kamras. It has a nice, capable sound. Doesn’t it reveal to you much more than when you use only your eyes? Doesn’t such a machine reveal many, many other stars beyond your

own vision? But even so, this Kamras cannot capture them all. Yet the stars are still there, alive with their own energies, playing their part like everything else that exists on whatever plane or dimension.’

Yes, but it’s a matter of distance, isn’t it? Humans are only capable of seeing so far.’

‘Precisely,’ she had said.

There was a case early in this century where two little girls claimed to have photographed faeries. It was in a place called, er…’ Thom racked his brain ‘… Cotting, Cottingley, I think. Before she died, as an old lady, one of them confessed it’d all been a hoax, they’d photographed paper cutouts of their own drawings.’

‘And what do you think they based those drawings on.’

‘Pictures from storybooks?’

Jennet shook her head. ‘Memories,’ she said.

Jennet had skipped lightly on to a fallen tree trunk and turned to face him. In answer to a question he had put, she replied:

‘In the main, our function, or “purpose”, as you put it, is to nurture nature itself. We are in the spirit of the woodland, the meadow, even in the gardens of humans. You’ll find our essence in mountain ranges and in the wildest and deepest of oceans, in the hillside, or lake and pond. We are in the rain and in the rays of the sun. We are in the wind and fire. When people look at something that you have made with wood—’

She knew he was a carpenter?

—be it simple or complex, they are aware it’s come together by your effort and design. Yet when they take in a

tree or plant, then they fail to see that this also has been accomplished by the work of others. Sun, seed and soil are our tools and our spirit stimulates the life.

‘And when we work with humankind, itself, in the cultivation of crops and vegetation, in growing the perfect rose or finest corn, it’s then that our mutual accomplishment is at its most glorious. But whereas Man always works from the outside, the faery works from the inside.

‘Remember the flute uses the wind to play its notes, but it’s the player who assembles those notes. A musical score is irrelevant without the musical instrument, and a musical instrument is nothing without the player.’

She had helped him cross a narrow but busy stream, steadying him as they used two small stepping stones to cross, and his whole body had tingled with her mere touch. In more ways than just the obvious she was unlike any other girl or woman he had ever known, her femininity mixed with mischievousness - she had deliberately unbalanced him on the second stone - her sensuality compounded by her sensitivity, her humour lightening her compassion for everything that lived and breathed.

On the opposite bank and as a flock of faeries had fluttered by, their tinkling laughter and light sing-song voices charging the air itself, he had asked about faery wings.

They’re not wings at all,’ she had informed him, ‘and they certainly don’t use them to fly: they can do that perfectly well without them. Many faeries, especially the smaller kind, are almost all essence, spirit if you like, and what you see, or at least, what you perceive, is their spirit slipstream. The more vibrant and colourful they are, then the more vital and lively is that spirit.’

‘But some are well defined and even disturb the leaves or blades of grass as they pass,’ Thom protested.

‘Of course!’ She giggled at him. That’s how potent the vibration of their essence is.’

‘What about food or drink?’ Thom had enquired. ‘So far I haven’t noticed any of you eating or drinking. So what is your diet - berries, wild fruits?’

Again, a small giggle. ‘No, we don’t need to sustain ourselves that way unless we take on human form, although we might sip water occasionally. Oh, and some of the pixies are fond of your ale when they can obtain it. We bathe in the rays of the sun to draw its energy, and we frequently take magnetic baths, absorbing the power of the earth itself. But mostly our nourishment is in the air we breathe, the smells we smell and the sounds we hear. Our power is derived from everything around us.’

Her small face suddenly became grave.

‘But you humans are slowly spoiling that for us, poisoning the air and vegetation with your pollution and unnatural chemicals. Why do you think we keep more and more to ourselves, why we hide from you? It wasn’t always like this.’

‘I…’ Thom had no idea what to say, had no excuse to make. How did you excuse the whole human race? Pleading ignorance wasn’t an acceptable defence.

She touched his lips with two fingers to silence him. ‘It’s not your fault alone. But it’s why we keep to the hidden places, why the secret territories unblemished by your kind are so important to our existence. We cannot survive in a tainted environment.’

Then, with the same two fingers she briskly tapped his nose.

‘Besides,’ she said, skipping away from him, ‘you humans stink!’

248

He quickly caught up with her.

‘I still don’t get it. Where do you come from? Are you born, like us? And do you die, like us?’

‘It’s not quite like birth, Thom. We slowly emerge, we gradually become what we are. And rather than die, we return to a more subtle form of being, one that can only be revealed to humans when they, themselves, leave the Me they know.’

‘Do - can - others see you as I do?’

‘Only a very few. Humans will have to change their ways and realize that the planet does not belong to them alone before the acceptance begins.’

She touched his upper arm beneath the short sleeve of his T-shirt and again he gave a little shiver.

‘It’s our hope that some day human consciousness will be elevated enough for them to first understand and then, when all is well, discern our presence. But if it should happen, it will be far ahead in your future. You have to learn so much and forget so much. You will be helped, Thom, I can promise you that.’

They had reached another smaller, shaded glade, one where beams of sunlight filtered through the leafy canopy overhead and whose dense smell of tree bark and vegetation was so powerful it seemed to sink into Thom’s skin. He watched tiny lights, bright in the shadows, leave sparkly trails behind as they flitted in and out of the undergrowth. He and Jennet sat on the soft carpet of crushed leaves, Jennet with her knees raised, hands clasped together over them, chin on her thumbs, while Thom reclined before her, his weight resting on an elbow, his body stretched out.

Tell me—’ his words were hesitant’—is there … d’you know if… if there’s a God?’

‘Of course. We call many things god.’

‘No. I mean, is there one true God?’

‘Oh, the Creator Being. It’s a mystery, isn’t it?’ ‘You don’t know?’ Somehow he was disappointed; he had expected more.

‘Yes, silly. I know God exists. But none of us have ever met the one we call the Creator Being, the Great Magician, and I’m very sure that none of you humans have either.’ Well then, how can you be so certain He exists?’ Thom, I am from the essence of everything. I am in the spirit of nature, itself, and I exist in the dimension between Me as you know it and the one you’re bound for. That means that at the moment I’m closer to the Creator Being than you and closer than some of your kind will ever be. So I know there is a one true God because…’ she slowed the words for emphasis ‘… it… is … so.’

‘Do you know what happened to me last night?’

Incredibly, Thom had been able to dispatch the horrors of the previous night to a quiet corner of his mind, the wonders of the morning stroll into the depths of the forest almost overwhelming the worrying memory.

“Yes, Thom. The hellhagge sent the Night Thief to steal your seminal fluid.’

‘My…? The elf…’

‘Rigwit.’

‘… said it was my fertility.’

‘It came for your seed, that most intimate part of you. It was as if it was taking part of your soul.’

‘But why? Rigwit couldn’t tell me.’

‘Because we don’t know. All we can understand is that you’re a danger to her.’

‘I hardly know Nell Quick and I certainly wouldn’t harm her.’

‘Nevertheless, she wants your seed to help her sorcery. Such acquisition would be extremely powerful.’

‘I don’t get it. No way am I a threat to her.’

*You might be in the future and she’s aware of this.’

Confused, bewildered - it was fast becoming a regular state for Thom.

‘I wanted the elf to explain more to me, but, I don’t know, I guess I was just exhausted. I fell asleep.’

‘He knew you needed rest more than anything else right then. It gave your mind time to assimilate.’

‘He made me sleep?’

‘He helped the process. As you, yourself, said: you were exhausted. You might easily have become traumatized.’

‘Believe me, I was already.’

Which is why your mind and body needed to rest.’

There was silence between them for awhile, Thom brooding, Jennet watching him with both interest and concern.

Eventually: ‘Why didn’t you appear with the other faeries? I needed all the help I could get.’

‘I cannot use the Book for entry. I can only enter by physical means and that wasn’t possible last night. I would never have reached you in time.’

He digested this for a moment.

‘I want you to tell me more about Bethan, Jennet. And my father. I want to - I need to - know more.’

She rose to her bare feet, a graceful movement, almost as if gravity meant very little to her. The diaphanous dress she wore was caught by a slight breeze so that it ruffled around her slender legs; that same breeze disturbed her bright golden hair, a curled lock tickling her cheek, delicate, fingers brushing it away.

‘A little while longer, Thom. You’ve already had to learn so much.’

Soon they had reached the lake and the sight of it took Thom by surprise, for they had journeyed through unfamiliar

parts to reach a destination he knew - or thought he knew -so well. He first glimpsed it through the dense trees, burning white behind their silhouettes, and when he and Jennet finally broke free of the forest to stand on its irregular grassy shoreline, he saw a million tiny glitters like daylight stars around its edges. He could not remember the phenomenon from his childhood days.

He knelt to examine the shiny speckles closest to him and reached for one particular object that shone diamond-like. It was a jagged and many-faceted stone, sharp to the touch and coloured silvery-white, with the palest of blues and pinks tincturing its angles.

‘Coral,’ Jennet answered to the question he was about to ask. ‘Four hundred million of your years ago this place was a great barrier reef. If you dig just below the soil you’ll also find seashells, and the bones of ancient sea creatures.’

He shook his head again in wonder. *Why didn’t I see this before? I used to come here all the time when I was a boy.’

‘It’s only today that you’re beginning to see clearly again.’

Thom dropped the piece of skeletal rock and gazed across the lake’s calm mirror surface. It was abruptly disturbed by a swooping heron, which dipped its beak into the water while still in flight to snatch an unwary fish. The big bird rose majestically, its body seeming too heavy for its wings, and the ripples its theft had caused spread outwards in ever-expanding waves towards the shoreline.

But if Thom expected those gentle tidal waves to fade, he was wrong, for not only did the growing circles become heavier, but they were joined by others all over that part of the lake as though something below had also been disturbed.

They first appeared singly, and then in groups of three or four, and they sang as they rose, beautiful siren songs that both enchanted and terrified Thom.