Lunatic Fringe (14 page)

A great white ring surrounded the moon,
signifying more rain to come. The colors of Archer’s face dissolved
into the trees, the sky, the earth. They danced slowly and
elegantly, like oil paints wrapping around and around one another.
Her weight resting in Archer’s arms, Lexie let her head fall back.
The forest floor became her sky, and the inky night became the sea
below them, and she drifted away.

Chapter 8

Lexie awoke to a sunbeam prying at her
eyelids. The light was weak and wintery, and a swift breeze sent
branches shivering against a window. Her right hand was buried in a
thick clump of white fur. She was in an unfamiliar room, lying on a
pile of fleece beneath a pile of blankets. Dizziness assailed her
as she flipped over to stare at the bare-beamed ceiling high above
her. Beyond the dusty-paned windows, she heard a handsaw grating
through branches, a few strokes before a snap, over and
over.

She was in a small cabin. A banked fire
burned in a hand-hewn fireplace, layers of slate stacked from the
plank floors to the apex of the roof. Small clods of peat sizzled
among the ash, filling the room with the smell of the deep forest.
The heat from the fire was mild, but Lexie was sweating beneath the
layers of blankets. A simple kitchen stood opposite to the
fireplace: nothing more than an exposed copper tap over a deep
steel basin, an ancient, propane-fueled refrigerator, and a wide,
handmade farmhouse table that stretched the full length of the
eating area. A whittled ship ladder led to a sleeping loft, but
Lexie could see nothing of that from where she lay.

A cough sizzled in her chest, forcing
out her breath in short, sharp bursts. Nausea swelled up her
esophagus. She swallowed once, then again. Throwing off the
blankets, Lexie jumped to her feet and ran to the kitchen to retch
the watery contents of her stomach into the sink. She braced her
arms on either side of the rim, heaving.

From outside came the clang of the saw
dropping. Archer burst through the door and hurried to Lexie’s
side, stroking her back as her body purged. Lexie’s last heave was
empty and painful, nothing left to expel but bile. She let her
knees buckle beneath her, sinking to the dusty floor. Archer
followed her to the ground, holding her hand to Lexie’s chest.
Lexie chased and caught her breath, clutching Archer’s hand within
her own, pressed against the clammy sweat on her bare chest. She
took a deep breath and closed her eyes, taking comfort in Archer’s
soft hand against her skin.

A quiet moment passed between them,
then Archer said, “Come on, I’ll make you some tea.”

She lifted Lexie to her feet and eased
her back to the downy lambskin and covered her with the blankets.
Archer turned the knob of the propane tank beneath the stove.
Clicking the lighter to the burner, the gas caught with a whoosh.
She set a kettle on the flame, then returned to Lexie’s side,
brushing away the small tears that rolled down the side of her
face. “Shh. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“
I’m so embarrassed,” Lexie
whispered, squeezing the tears out of her still-closed
eyes.

“
Don’t be. Nothing is
wrong. Your body just needed to purge. It’s natural. It’s
healthy.”

“
No. That’s not . . .”
Lexie’s voice trailed off, unable to speak her shame. Another
silent moment passed. Archer ran her fingers through Lexie’s hair,
calming her.

“
It’s . . .” Lexie started
again, “I bled all over your lambskin”

“
What do you mean? Are you
hurt?”

“
No, I started my period
yesterday. I always puke on my second day. It’s horrible . . .” Her
voice battled tears, “I’m sure I leaked . . . “

Archer stroked the auburn curls that
framed Lexie’s face. “Lexie, there’s no blood here. I saw it as you
lay down.”

“
No, there is. I feel all .
. .” Lexie squeezed out more tears. “I’m wet.”

Archer grinned, shaking her head.
“Lexie, there’s not. Here, look.” Archer guided Lexie to her side,
pulling back the covers and exposing the entirety of the lambskin
to the light. It shone as creamy white as buttermilk.

“
See? You’re fine.” She ran
her hand through the fur, feeling the warmth that Lexie had infused
in it.

“
That’s impossible.” Lexie
sat up to look beneath her. No red, just white softness surrounding
her. She noticed then that she was wearing the panties from last
night, and nothing more.

“
Where are my
clothes?”

“
Drying in the oven. You
fell in mud last night and got filthy. I washed everything this
morning. It should be dry soon. Let me loan you something in the
meantime.”

Archer stood and climbed the ladder
into the sleeping loft. Her footfalls creaked on the planks
overhead. Before Archer could return, Lexie reached between her
legs and returned with fingers glistening with clear moisture, as
benign and sweet as sweat or spit. She pulled the string of her
tampon. Holding it up, Lexie saw it was clean, as though her body
had reabsorbed all the blood she had released the evening before.
She leapt to toss the tampon in the trash as the teapot whistled.
She hurried back to the lambskin, hiding herself beneath the
blankets. Archer descended the ladder and tossed a cloth bundle at
Lexie. Lexie snatched them up and changed under the covers as
Archer turned to the stove and poured the water into two mugs. A
scent of comfort filled the room.

“
Do you recall last night?”
Archer asked, odd eyes shining. Lexie didn’t think so at first but
blushed as the memory returned. She resurfaced, wearing a brown
t-shirt and a goofy smile. She wrapped cold fingers around the
ceramic mug, warming them. They both inhaled the rising steam and
sighed. Archer smiled, meeting Lexie’s gaze, and they
sipped.

“
Do you think it was the
mushrooms?” Lexie asked.

“
That stopped your period?
Or made you vomit?”

Lexie shrugged, “Either, I
guess.”

Archer shook her head. “No. It wasn’t
the mushrooms.” She set down her mug and leaned onto her elbow,
stroking Lexie’s forearm with her free hand. “Mushrooms--the right
ones anyway--they heal. And if they wanted you to purge, you would
have, right away.”

Lexie lay down, unsatisfied, letting
Archer’s hand draw feathery tingles up and down her body. “Your
friends really know how to party,” Lexie said with a weak
chuckle.

Archer smiled and rolled onto her back.
“Oh, that was nothing. You should see us at Beltane.”

A gust of autumnal wind blew against
the windows and the light grew dim with passing clouds.

“
I’m sorry,” Lexie said
finally, with a sigh.

“
There’s nothing to be
sorry for,” Archer said, with a dreaminess reserved for lazy Sunday
mornings such as this one.

“
I know. I guess . . . I’m
just . . .It’s confusing.”

“
What is?”

“
Since school started . . .
everything. I don’t know what’s going on in my body.”

Unlike the rebuke she would have
expected from Blythe for a possible derogatory statement about
women and their bodies, Archer made a sound of acknowledgement, and
said, simply, “Tell me more.”

“
I’d never kissed a girl
before.”

“
Until last
night?”

“
Well, no.” Lexie replied,
almost embarrassed at that admission more than the first. “The
night before.”

Archer chuckled and draped her arm
around Lexie’s waist, pulling their bodies closer
together.

“
I know,” Archer
said.

“
You know? How?”

“
I could smell her on
you.”

“
Oh.” Lexie chewed on her
lip, contemplating that. “It was really nice. I mean, you were
nicer, by far, but I don’t know. I’d never really thought about it
at all, boys or girls, kissing at all. It just--” Lexie could feel
her mouth spinning out of control, and she struggled to steer
herself back on course. She exhaled, making a sound like children
make in the bathtub, imitating motorboats. “The past couple of days
have been really intense, Archer.”

Archer let Lexie’s comment sink into
the quiet of the room, before speaking again.

“
It’s nothing you can’t
handle.”

“
How can you know
that?”

“
Because I see the strength
in you. And the curiosity.” Archer smiled. “It will be intense, and
then it won’t, and then it will again. And on and on. That’s life.
The key is maintaining your stride.”

Lexie looked at Archer, their heads
parallel to the earth and the sky.

They cuddled in silence on the fur,
until the sunlight that had woken Lexie moved on to warm another
corner and the fire clung to life on one charred log. Archer’s body
against hers was warm and soft. She felt protected, as though this
cabin were her home, and Archer’s body was all she needed for
shelter.

She turned to face Archer, whose eyes
were closed, resting. “Your cabin is beautiful.”

Archer opened her eyes and in the first
moment, they were like a shark’s, the pupils spilling black to the
edges of her irises. Her right eye looked like a solar eclipse, the
left, like a lunar one. In the next moment, her pupils contracted
to tiny dots on their landscapes of color.

“
Thank you. It took me
quite a while to get it just right.” She leaned up onto one elbow,
gesturing to the fireplace, “I knocked that down three times before
I liked it enough.” She chuckled at herself. “I guess I’m kind of a
sloppy perfectionist.”

Lexie’s eyes widened with awe, “You
built this place?”

“
I did. I am quite butch,”
she joked.

“
I guess so.” Lexie sat up
on her elbows and scanned the room, the walls of logs stacked one
on top of the other, the floors tongued and grooved so snugly that
she barely felt the cracks between each board as she danced her
fingers across them. The roof reached its apex high above their
heads, a single log that spanned the length of the whole cabin. It
was made from a massive sequoia that, rather than rotting in the
woods, was exalted in its grave as the crux of the
homestead.

Lexie’s glance returned to Archer’s
face, with those mismatched eyes that glittered in the dying
flame’s light.

Archer looked back into Lexie, the
moment filling with quiet desire. She reached her hand to Lexie’s
face, running her fingers down her cheek, then cupping the side of
her neck.

Nervous, Lexie struggled to find words
to fill the space.

“
Have you lived here
long?”

Without removing her hand, Archer
answered, “Yes.”

“
Alone?”

Archer grimaced, the first such
expression Lexie had witnessed from her. “I built this place for
myself. I had a family once, elsewhere.”

“
What happened?” Lexie
tread carefully, concerned about divorces or car accidents or the
other mundane disasters than wrench modern families
apart.

“
It’s a long story,” Archer
pulled away from Lexie, who immediately regretted pursuing this
conversation. “A love triangle, I guess you could say, though it
was more like a love hexagon. And then some bad pressure from
external forces.” Her breath was heavy, and Lexie watched her rib
cage expand and contract like a great, snoring beast’s. “The
casualties were numerous.”

Lexie hoped Archer was speaking
metaphorically.

“
In the end, it was clear
it would be best if I left, so I did.”

“
Where did you
go?”

“
I traveled for quite a
long time. Wandered all over, but I couldn’t not come back
here.”

Lexie was surprised that this tiny part
of the world would beckon anyone to return. “Why?” she
asked.

“
This is my home,” Archer
said, a shocking sadness in her dissonant eyes.

It was Lexie’s turn to offer solace.
She slipped out from beneath the blankets and crawled to Archer’s
supine body. The bare skin of her legs drew goosebumps in the
exposed air. Leaning over Archer, she stroked her forehead, stroked
her cheeks, her ears, her neck, her shoulders. With her sweeping
fingertips, she felt as though she could learn all of Archer’s
secrets, dancing throughout the space like dust. They flitted in
and out of Lexie’s field of vision, some begging to be addressed,
but most just there, hanging in the air like Chinese lanterns,
sweetly stoic in their vigilance. Lexie’s hair fell like soft vines
against Archer’s cheeks, casting shadows on both their faces, the
waning firelight struggling to peek through her lazy
spirals.

Lexie licked her lips and tasted the
yarrow of the tea and the sweat of her skin. Memories of the night
before flitted through her mind as her senses keened and swaggered,
trying out new combinations, stretching against their prior bounds.
She pushed them beyond the old edges of her reality, picking apart
the deluge of input to find the subtle, significant parts. Like
Archer’s scent. Like the weight of Lexie’s body pressing against
the heels of her hands. Like the tugging of her hair at the roots,
or the moisture inside her mouth, as Archer awakened her
hunger.