Strands of Starlight (19 page)

She nearly dropped the sword. “But that's crazy,” she cried. “That's not human—” She caught herself, felt a little cold inside. Terrill only looked at her, appraising, examining, analyzing.

“Proceed,” he said.

It went on that way for several hours: Miriam moving as best she could with the wooden sword, Terrill's dispassionate voice advising, commenting, pointing out her faults. This did not seem fair to her, for she knew nothing of swordplay, and she finally whirled on him. “All right, dammit, what's the
right
way to do this?”

Terrill remained relaxed. Miriam doubted that he had moved at all since he had stretched out. He glanced at the sun. “We will get to that.”

“How am I supposed to learn anything this way?”

“I said that I would teach you. That is what I am doing. Do you want to give up?”

She glared at him. “Never.”

“I did not think so. I will think about you tonight, about what I have seen. Tomorrow, you will work harder.”

Miriam wondered if that were possible. She was tired, hungry, dripping with sweat. A headache was beginning to pound through her left temple. She shook her head and leaned on the sword.

Terrill rose and came to her, put a hand lightly on her shoulder. “Be at peace. You did well. Now, stand up straight.”

Fighting her fatigue, she did so, and Terrill stared into her eyes.

“Close your eyes, Miriam,” he said. “Find your stars.”

She was among them in a moment, relieved. The firmament within her was quiet and peaceful, but the Elf's next words startled her.

“Where is my hand?”

“What?”

“Where is my hand?”

“I can't see your hand.”

“I did not ask you to look for it. I asked you where it is. Now, again. Do not open your eyes. Where is my hand? My right hand.”

“I don't know.”

“You do, but you are trying to see it.” His voice gentled. “Relax first. Feel your body. Feel the ground beneath you, the sun on your head, the sword in your hand. Do not look: feel them.”

Trembling, she stared at the stars. They comforted her, slowed her heart, let her do as Terrill had asked.

The warm grip of the sword, damp with her sweat. The bright, westering sun in her fine hair. She moved her toes, felt the supple boots around them, and below, the grass.

“Center yourself,” said Terrill. “You know who you are. Say your name to yourself.”

Miriam.

“Now . . .” Terrill's voice was soft, soothing. “You are here, and I am here, and we both stand upon the same earth, we breathe the same air. I am holding out my right hand. All you have to do is put the blade of that wooden sword in my palm. Do it.”

She hesitated. Feeling . . . the stars . . . the sun . . .

“Miriam,” he said sharply, “do it. Do it now!”

The tone in his voice jolted her into action. The sky shimmered and vanished: she was back in the clearing, the tip of her wooden sword resting in the palm of Terrill's right hand.

She staggered, caught herself, lowered the sword. “How?”

Terrill nodded approvingly. “I said that I would teach you to fight like an Elf. That is what I am doing.”

“But this? What is this?”

“We will come to that.” He folded his arms and bowed. “Your powers are great.”

“I've only got one power, and I wouldn't call it great.”

“Ah, but that was before. Varden told me of some of your changes, and I myself am finding others. It is well.”

He held out his hand for the sword. She gave it to him and he leaned it back against the tree. Its companion had remained untouched throughout the afternoon.

“I will take you home now.”

He led her away from the clearing, back the way they had come. When they stepped out of the forest, Terrill bowed to her, touching his forehead as he did so, and told her to expect him at midmorning the next day. He left then, fading into the green leaves and brown trunks almost immediately, and only Miriam's strangely augmented vision allowed her to see him beyond the first few yards.

She shut her eyes. The stars were still there, shining brightly, and she realized that the light she had found in her mind after she had healed Varden was with her still, but that it had, as a result of her transformation, surged forward and enveloped her totally. Before, she had seen it only in an obscure fashion, but now, clearly: it was the stars, brilliant, flashing.

She opened her eyes, realized that a skylark was sitting on a branch a few feet from her, watching. “If you're looking for Terrill,” she said suddenly, “he went home.”

The bird blinked, cocked its head, and fluttered off. Miriam turned toward the town, padding softly down the road, rubbing her aching temple.

She passed several townsfolk that she knew well, but they merely stared at her curiously and without recognition. She greeted them by name, but they looked bewildered. She felt a pang, and her stomach cramped as she thought about revealing herself.

Shadows were lengthening as she made her way down the street toward Kay's house. She heard the sound of steady pounding from the smithy. Francis was at work.

The smith stood at the anvil, sooty and bronzed, his black beard glistening with sweat in the ruddy light of the forge. Miriam's passage attracted his attention. “Greetings, mistress.” He looked up, and his eyes widened. “Blessings on ye, Fair One. What brings ye t' Saint Brigid?”

She might as well begin with Francis. She shook her head ruefully, reached up, and pulled free the thong that had held back her hair. The red-gold waves tumbled over her shoulders. “I'm going to Kay's house,” she said in her clear voice. “I live there. I'm Miriam, Francis.”

He looked as though he had been struck with his own hammer. “Miriam! I'd heard . . . that is . . .Kay said . . .”

“It's me.”

Unthinkingly, he crossed himself. She turned her head away, reminded too much of the fear she had inspired in other places, for other reasons.

Her transformation had not come cheaply. Francis smiled nervously, and she could feel the confusion in his mind. She could not blame him. Were their positions reversed, she would probably react in much the same way.

She wept silently. Francis had been kind and gentle to her, had carried her across the street when it was muddy, had knelt before her to offer his thanks when she had healed Michael. Was it, then, all gone now?

Someone tugged at her sleeve. She looked down into Charity's lake-blue eyes.

“Hello, Miriam,” said the young woman, and she smiled and stretched her arms. Miriam blinked at her through her tears, knelt, and held her.

With the insight given to her by the stars, Miriam sensed a change in Charity. She was still innocent, still alive and vibrant with her youth, but she seemed deeper now, as if her innocence and vigor had grown, rooted themselves deep into the world, sent up branches that reached up to embrace the moon and stars.

But there was too much to be felt here and now. This, Miriam realized, was what was important: this time, this embrace, this heartfelt kiss in the middle of a dusty street in Saint Brigid. Charity was here, and Miriam was here, and the sun shone on both. Miriam needed the present, and in Charity's love she found it.

“Varden told me,” said Charity, her smile bright, “but he didn't describe you well enough. You're beautiful.”

Miriam blushed and dropped her eyes.

“You look . . .” Charity's hands tightened on her arms for a moment. “You look like an Elf.”

Miriam shook her head. “It's the clothing.”

“No, it's you.”

She touched her face. The skin was soft, unlined. She looked at her hand. Slender, with long, tapering fingers. Agile. Deft. Elven? “I suppose you could think so, Charity,” she said, faltering.

They stared at one another in silence, and Miriam felt a terrible strangeness in their meeting like this: clad in flesh with which they had not been born, wearing forms other than nature had given them.

“Will you come to my house and have supper with my family?” said Charity. “Roxanne will be there. And Kay. We'd like to welcome you back.”

Miriam nodded after a moment, wiped at her tears, and stood up. They were about to go off together when Francis came forward, cleaning his hands on a rag. Miriam searched his eyes and found worry and concern, and, yes, a little fear, but less than she had expected. He stood before her, dipped his head slightly by way of a bow.

“Mistress Miriam.”

There was a gulf between them, but Francis was trying, on his side, to bridge it. Still holding Charity's hand, Miriam bowed in return. The starlight was with her, filling her, and she was conscious again of the sun, the sky, the earth, aware of her connection with them and with this man before her. The cramp in her stomach eased a little.

“Mistress . . . blessings on ye. Forgive me. . . .”

“I understand, Francis. I suppose I'm a little frightening now.”

He shook his head as if grappling with uncustomary thoughts. “It's na that, mistress . . . or maybe 't is. I canna say I'm na afraid, but then I was afraid a' Varden when I first met him, and maybe I sha take a lesson from our maiden here and na fear what I dana' understand.”

“Thank you, Francis.”

“It's na more'n your due, Miriam.”

“You still have a home, Miriam,” said Charity.

The tears were coming again. Francis was trying, and others, she thought, might try also. “My thanks to you both,” she choked. Leaning forward, she kissed Francis lightly on the cheek. “Blessings on you, Master Smith.”

He grinned. “Lord, Miriam, 'tis as though one a tha Fair Ones ha' come to stay wi' us!”

She smiled thinly. The comparison bothered her.

It was not the same. It could never be the same. Miriam's life in Saint Brigid continued, she still kept house for Kay, still shopped in the market, still waves at acquaintances in the street; but there was a difference now. She could not call it fear, and she could not call it discomfort or uneasiness, for the difference was not any one of those in particular, though it contained a little of all three.

Maybe, she thought, lying awake late into the warm summer nights, her pillow bunched up against the headboard so as to eke a few more inches out of an almost too-short mattress—maybe it was awe. A bedraggled, ugly little woman had been transformed into a tall, slender beauty. Something out of a romance or a fable. But the events of romances and fables were supposed to stay off in some other land or far distant time. They had no business breaking into the real world of brooms, horse dung, nails, and scabies.

So she could not blame the townsfolk in the slightest if there was more silence in the market than usual when she appeared with her basket, could not find fault with a bit of stammering on the part of Francis or Hester or Harry or Paul, could not b e bitter when Kay—yes, even Kay—stared at her abstractedly and—she thought—a little sadly.

To be sure, Andrew and Elizabeth did not seem put out in the slightest by her appearance, nor did Charity and Roxanne. But on the whole, she had lost the easy acceptance she had found in Saint Brigid, and once again she took to wandering alone, treading the road out tot he edge of the forest, sitting on a fallen log, and staring into the trees.

Terrill came for her every other day, and his methodology became no less opaque or frustrating. Weeks went by during which she never even saw a sword, wooden or otherwise, save the one that hung, sheathed, from Terrill's belt.

The Elf was forcing her, instead, to concentrate on an intricate series of what seemed to be dance movements. He would demonstrate and ask her to imitate him, apparently willing to go over a particular turn of the hands for hours until she did it properly. He did not explain, he simply demanded that she learn.

The dance was full of turns and twists, of steps and retreats. Even when performed at top speed, it took several minutes to finish, and Terrill drove her to perfect her form.

“Don't I have this hand sweep right?”

“Very good. Now, about your feet . . .”

It went on, the days spun by, and in her opinion she made little progress. The hot sun of August burned down on the barley harvest by the time Terrill watched her fumble through the dance in its entirety, unaided. When she finished and bowed to him, he nodded and pronounced her form “reasonable.”

Her patience finally broke. “I thought you were going to teach me how to fight.”

“I am. Have you studied before?”

“Well . . . no . . .”

“Then accept this as it is.” He smiled thinly, held up his hands in a starting position. “Let us go over the second section.”

And so her lesson continued. And as always, at the end of the day, when she was hot and sweaty, when her knees seemed ready to crumble beneath her, Terrill told her to stand up straight, relax, and close her eyes.

Her stars had become clearer with time. She saw depth in her interior sky, and she had found that if she concentrated, she could search out one particular point of light and hold it in her mind. Within her now was a limitless expanse of breadth, height, and depth. And all she had to do was close her eyes.

“Where is my hand?” said Terrill.

“What exactly am I seeing, Terrill?”

A moment of silence. Soft currents of energy swept among the stars. She sighed, her knees stopped shaking and her shoulders dropped as the muscles untensed all at once. “How am I to understand your question?” said the Elf.

“Are these real stars?”

“They are.”

“But where am I when I'm here?”

Another silence. “Where is my hand?”

“Why, here, of course,” she said, touching it with her own. “But—”

“I will explain later. Now is not the time.”

At her next lesson, Terrill handed her a wooden sword once again, and to her surprise, he himself took up another. Within minutes, she found that her reflexes had been sharpened by Terrill's incomprehensible exercises, her instincts trained without her realizing it. Soon the Elf was standing before her, lashing out at her uncertain defenses, and though more often than not she wound up tumbled into the grass, she forced herself to her feet again. She endured, and she learned.