Gossamer Axe (39 page)

Bill Sarah was on his way to bed when the phone in his office rang. It was not late, but he hurried back downstairs so that Kelly would not be disturbed.

“Hey, Bill.” The woman’s voice was familiar and strange at the same time. “What’s shakin’?”

“Who is this?” Who would be calling his office number on a Sunday night?

“Melinda Moore. Gossamer Axe.”

Which explained the strangeness. Melinda sounded bright and alert, cheerful and upbeat. “Where the hell have you guys been?” Bill demanded. “I’ve been trying to call you for two days. No one’s been home.”

“Uh… we were…” She muffled the phone, and he heard indistinct voices. Melinda came back. “We took a vacation.”

“With all the equipment?”

“Uh… yeah… that…” More muffled voices. “Bill, can you do me a real big favor? Like, for the whole band?”

He was instantly suspicious. “I’m not guaranteeing anything. What is it?”

“Can you just… uh… not ask?”

His managerial instincts rebelled. Dammit, he was representing the Axe, and if the girls were going to go running off and taking outside gigs without telling him, they had better be prepared to ’fess up.

But intuition told him to put the instincts aside. There was obviously something going on, but after working with the girls for six months, he was learning to let them have their way. Christa had helped Melinda, and that was good. Now the whole band had vanished for a weekend, and that… well… that probably was not
bad
…

“All right, Melinda,” he said reluctantly. “I won’t ask.” More voices in the background. “Where are you, anyway? It sounds like a party.”

“Kinda. We’re at Christa’s house. We just got in.”

“Is Chris there?”

“Well…”

“Let me talk to her.”

“She’s… in bed.”

“But it’s only ten o’clock! Is she sick?”

“She’s fine. Real fine. She’s just in bed.”

Stranger and stranger. Bill pursed his lips and examined the ceiling. Melinda was silent. Good. Let her sweat. He suddenly remembered that she had been the one to call. “So what did you want?”

“We’ve got a vocalist.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Her name’s Judith. Judith… uh…” Someone—it sounded like Lisa—called out a name, and Melinda relayed it. “Judith Clan-aide.”

“Weird last name.”

“It’s Irish.” Melinda laughed, and it was a free, clear sound, even over the telephone. “She’s pretty neat. Fits right in… like family. And
damn
but she can sing.”

“So what do you want me to tell Harry and Jessica? How long does she need to get your songs worked u?”

“Chris said to give her a good four months. Until Samain.”

“Four months? Why so long?”

“Well, she’s kinda fresh off the boat, and she doesn’t know English yet.”

“Melinda…”

“Hey… trust me, huh?”

She was talking quickly, but without the nervous self-deception that had once characterized her.
C’mon
, she was saying.
play with me. Give it a shot
.

Bill did not like games, but Christa had a good head, and if she said that this Judith what’s-her-name was all right, then that was enough for Bill Sarah.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll go for it. But tell Chris to call me first thing tomorrow morning, will you?”

“You got it.”

He paused for a moment before he hung up. “By the way, Melinda…”

“Yeah?”

The Axe was back in business. All of it. “You sound real good. Keep it up.”

A moment of silence. He could feel her smile. “Thanks, Bill. I’m getting there.”

Christa opened her eyes while it was still dark. The room was warm in spite of the open window, and the air was scented with roses. The waxing moon slashed into the room, and the streetlight made leaf-patterns on the wall.

For a few minutes, she drifted up from the depths of sleep. Denver. Her house. The Fourth of July had just passed with the band and Bill Sarah laughing around a barbecue in the backyard. July…

Judith…

Gasping, she sat up, searching. But her bed was empty no longer, and her lover, peaceful in repose, lay curled up at her side: dark hair falling over dark lashes, spilling over the pillow and sheets. Judith stirred, murmured, reached out in her sleep, and pulled Christa back down.

Christa touched her with a trembling hand. They had been together now for three weeks, settling into blissful routines; but she still had difficulty believing and accepting that Judith was really, after two centuries, in her arms. She had fought for so long that fighting had become instinctive, a habit to be unlearned only with determination and work.

Judith was doing quite well, accepting everything from microwave ovens to Mexican food with a kind of amused puzzlement, her fears tempered and even eclipsed by her relief at being, once more, in mortal lands and in the company of her lover. She now donned 501s and Tshirts with the same ease as she had trews and tunics, and with the help of a little magic, her command of English was growing daily. She even enjoyed rock and roll: if Bill Sarah had had any reservations about the new vocalist, her screaming performance of ‘Firing Line’ on the Fourth had done away with them.

“That’s one fantastic lady you’ve got,” he had said to Christa at the barbecue.

“My thanks, Bill. I know.” And Judith’s dark eyes had sparkled at Christa over a hamburger and a glass of iced tea. The shadows of the apple and the yew had been dark, but Judith had been sitting in the bright Colorado sun, the highlights in her hair shining golden.

In the moon-washed bedroom, Judith stirred again, cried out softly. Christa shook her gently awake. “A dream, beloved?”

“Oh, Chairiste…” Judith sat up, stared at the clock radio and the window, felt the sheets of the bed. Christa saw the relief flood into her. Denver. 1987. She was safe. “I dreamed I was still in the Realm,” said Judith, the Gaeidelg words tumbling out into the night. “That Orfide was about to…” She shuddered. “If you had been any later, that illusion he sent to speak to you would have been no illusion.”

“But it did not happen so.”

“It did not.” Judith rubbed at her eyes, tried for a smile. “And, anyway, that it was but a dream helps much. I did not dream when I was in the Realm. I did not… I did not even sleep, now that I think of it.”

Christa pulled her down, folded her in a soft embrace. “Welcome home, Siudb.”

Judith kissed her. “You must call me Judith now, beloved. Else I will not get used to it.”

“Does the name displease you?”

“It is comely enough. And everyone here can pronounce it. English is strange, but the ladies are helping me greatly. Boo-boo is teaching me to swear.” Judith smiled in the moonlight. “She says that it is required of a rock singer.”

“Well… I suppose you might say that.” Christa’s thoughts went to Monica, who, for all her Latino origins, had possessed an incredible command of English invective.

Judith play silently for a while. “I myself often think of Glasluit. And about Kevin. I hope he is well. He is a noble man.”

“Truly. I…” Monica was gone, and so was Kevin. Christa had not finished grieving for either, and the tears still came. Monica, though, was safe and happy. Kevin…

“The Sidh are honorable in their own way,” said Judith as though in reply to her thought. “That much I know. They will treat Kevin with the respect he deserves.” She laughed softly. “I did not think that I would ever be able to say that of the Sidh. I was captive, and angry.”

“And rightly angry.”

Judith rolled over, her lips to Christa’s cheek. “I am angry no more.”

“Are you happy? Even though this place is so strange?”

The old language, craggy and liquid both, came freely to their tongues. It was an intimacy and a luxury they permitted themselves only at night. But Judith put her mouth to Christa’s ear and, in perfect English, whispered: “I love you, Chris. And I’m very, very happy.”

Christa wept still. But she wept for joy.

Kevin wears a robe of lace and embroidered knotwork. The old slide guitar is in his hand, and about him, the courtyard is clear, the debris long ago shoveled together and carted away. Beneath the partially repaired walls of the palace, the Sidh have gathered to hear him play.

They listen in the twilight to mortal music, to songs and melodies thick with the grease of life and death, pungent with sweat and deep passion. They listen to the blues scraped out of a guitar with a pick and an old Coricidin bottle.

Kevin’s voice is rough, but the Sidh are not displeased. At first, their interest was in his novelty—a strange mortal come to take the place of their bard, bringing with him even stranger music—but they now hear the blues as the blues, and tonight they gather around him willingly.

The sky is full of stars. They appeared sometime after Kevin arrived, but even the mortal cannot remember when they flashed out of the darkness in unfamiliar constellations. Like the Sidh, he simply accepts them, for they are fitting and lovely, and they seem to make this twilight world a part of a much larger universe… one that most surely contains Colorado, and Christa, and the others that he loves.

He plays on.

He has been busy since he arrived, using powers both magical and mundane to help the Sidh repair their home and deal with the signs of change that, heartbeat by heartbeat, encroach on the Realm. Flowers have blossomed… and have died. Trees have shown signs of growth. The palace itself looks subtly different, as though the walls that Kevin has raised partake more of solidity than did their predecessors.

The blues.

Lamcrann and Cumad, hand in hand, listen. The queen’s eyes are clear, and her head is cradled on the king’s shoulder. They have grown together, these two, and their love has been an inspiration to the others.

The wind freshens, rustling the leaves, stirring the pennants and the oriflammes; and there is a sense of cleanliness and life about it. A tang, as if of the sea, is in the air.

Kevin, still playing, looks up. The stars have grown fainter. The sky has lightened, and, at the distant horizon, it has paled to a soft blue that is streaked with crimson and pink, with gold and white-violet. As the wind stirs again, he breathes deeply and feels the changing of the world.

Lamcrann and Cumad have risen, and so—garments whispering, voices murmuring—have their people.

The horizon grows brighter. The Sidh look to their bard for reassurance. He nods, smiling. This is the reason he has come here. This is why he forsook the mortal lands. This is his healing, his giving, his love.

The blues carries bittersweet through the air. An arc of brilliance lifts above the edge of the world and sends the shadows fleeing before it. The sky is a deep azure, the wind cool, betokening morning, and the mortals of the Realm turn to witness and greet the glory of the First Dawn as the sun—resplendent, golden, shining—

—
rose
.

Gael Baudino grew up in Los Angeles and managed to escape with her life. She now lives in Denver… and likes it a lot.

She is a minister of Dianic Wicca; and in her alter ego of harper, she performs, teaches, and records in the Denver area. She occasionally drops from exhaustion, but otherwise can be found (grinning happily) dancing with the Maroon Bells Morris.

She lives with her lover, Mirya.

[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]

[December 2003—v1 html proofed and formatted by AnneH for Shakespeare's Typing Monkeys]