~18~

Now

Tim stood in the kitchen, aware of everything at the same time, just as he had been taught so long ago. The smell of fresh bread still lingered in the air. Storytellers would say that fear gave off a smell just as distinctive, which was pure infantile fantasy. There were scents that could be attributed to fear, like a churning wave of body odour, but fear had no fragrance.

Sunlight gleamed on all sorts of surfaces here in the kitchen of Breakwater Bed & Breakfast. It created sharp windows on apples, taut sheets on counters and floors, and that icicle line down the edge of the knife that Anna held up to him. Her eyes were high and scared. He didn't have to wonder if she was prepared to use the implement in her hands. She wouldn't. She wasn't a fighter like that.

"I just want to find the fortune teller," he repeated, taking one more step around the kitchen island.

"And I told you to get out of my house." Her voice was quavering and indistinct. He put the sound of it in his mind for later reflection. It was the perfect appetizer for this entire experience.

Now for the main course.

He had memorized the layout of the kitchen the day he left, when he was finally able to stop staring at Elsa. Seeing her touch her breast that day had aroused him nearly as much as his night-time fantasies did. There was an avenue of escape along the other edge of the kitchen island, so he had to get close enough to use his weapon without frightening her away.

This really was a lovely way to retrieve knowledge, that pure weapon of the unseen world, if a bit less professional than he was used to. What he had planned for Haley would have to be different.

And then Elsa. His loins stirred at the thought of Elsa.

So much enjoyment to be had, if one was willing to pay the price. A few years ago, Tim realized his long term contract with his employer was changing him, for the better. The day he retrieved the shard from the mirror was one of the best days of his life.

Enough woolgathering. Get the information from Anna, find the hopeless Goth girl who would lead him to the mirror, the fortune teller and the rest of eternity. Wealth, power, women, were these selfish goals?

Elsa was as beautiful on the outside as on the inside; he had devoured each of her books again and again, feasting on the purity of her thoughts and dreams. How he wanted her for his own.

He had been maundering, but he was still ready. Quick reflexes were a tool of the assassin's trade, or else he would have long ago been a dead assassin. She lunged for him with that knife and he easily sidestepped her feeble advance, catching her wrist in an iron grip, crunching the bones together in a massive squeeze. Nerveless, the fingers dropped the knife to clatter uselessly on the floor. He kicked it away as she punched him in the gut.

A lover, not a fighter. He could have laughed at her attempts to hurt him, as spurious as a fly.

From the pocket of his hoodie, he brought out a shard. It was an oblong triangular hunk from the corner of a mirror, the mirror, actually, and the long edge of it was slivered and frayed. He lifted it to her face and she saw her reflection in it.

"Guede," Tim said, savouring the moment, tasting it between his teeth.

Anna went limp. If he hadn't been holding her wrist she would have flopped unceremoniously on the kitchen floor, to grate against the remains of the broken plate. Instead he dragged her unresponsive body to the center of the kitchen, none too gently. Her eyes were wide open and vacant, a most childlike and innocent teal.

The shard had been a very good investment, even as hard as it had been to procure. He had known the fortune teller was cunning and inventive, but he didn't know that she had a gun. He had barely escaped with his life, but at least he had his reward. He had spent considerable time contemplating the mode of death he would eventually use for the fortune teller, but that time was only a speck of sand in the beach of his fantasies about Elsa.

Tim knelt at her side, keeping the shard in front of her open and sightless eyes. He was a bit crowded against the kitchen island and the warmth of her body. He looked at her small breasts, at the little pendant that pooled at her neck. He wondered what the skin at the hollow of Elsa's throat tasted like.

"Cheval," he began, "tell me where Haley is."

"Alliance, Nebraska." The voice had no inflection, no tone. Her reflection was captured in the shard of the mirror.

Tim's heart went cold. His employer had double crossed him, as he had feared. "Who did Haley find?"

"Brin Hall."

"How did Brin die?"

"A hooded man murdered her with an obsidian knife."

Anna could speak only truth here, caught in the cage of the mirror. Anger seethed inside him. He should have been the one to rip Brin's life away, just as he assisted in the deaths of so many others. He should have received his ten thousand dollar commission (discounted because of the long association with his employer).

"Has she found the fortune teller?"

"No."

No worries. Tim tried another tack, banking on the knowledge Anna gained through the dead nights. "Will she find the fortune teller?"

"Yes."

"Where is the fortune teller?"

"I don't know."

Foiled, but not for long. She could not lie, not with her coeur s'ouvra in front of her eyes. Just a few more details, and then he could leave. As he had repeatedly discovered, he would have to move fast, engage the fortune teller while she was at Alliance before she could disappear again.

"Where is she staying?"

"The Bluebird Motel."

"What is her cell phone number?"

"207-555-1678."

"What is Haley's greatest weakness right now?"

"She's in love."

Oh, yes. Perfect. People would do anything for love, or when the object of their affection was brought into play. "Who is she in love with?" he asked.

"Rick Hall."

Tim laughed out loud at the beautiful irony of it, but the laugh was fake and evil in the organic warmth of the kitchen. There had been other laughter here, root beer and popcorn induced laughter.

"Did she tell you this?" he asked.

"No."

Tim smiled again, so anxious now to gain the entirety of the mirror, to gain fiefdom over all the souls trapped within it, including this small-breasted woman. Knowledge was the weapon of the unseen world. Anna was only dancing for him now, a marionette on his strings. In time, he would make her dance and sing.

It was really time to go, but not before creating a diversion, putting Anna out of play for a while. He didn't know if she would remember this conversation when she would wake, and she would wake the moment the coeur s'ouvra was out of sight. Unless he did something about that.

The autumn wind chuckled outside, striking the chimes and bruising them.

Tim wished he could stay and see the expression on Elsa's face when she returned home. She would be terrified at the thought of leaving Anna alone ever again.

Tim's hands were skilled and hard. They had known the bite of a shovel before they discovered the perfection of weapons. Long years of being a hired killer had honed him, years of working for his current employer had finished the refinement. He was a machine but soon he would be a god.

His employer had hired someone else to kill Brin. Maybe she had discovered what he had done in liberating that portion of the mirror, wanted to stop associating with him. Maybe she forgot that they would dance together in hell; he may have been the one holding the knife, but it was her word that commanded it, her money that sanctified it.

He took the nearby kitchen knife in his skilled and hard hand and placed it in Anna's palm. It rested there; she could not take it without permission.

"Take the knife."

Her fist curled around it. The knife edge begged to be put to use. The scent of fresh bread would soon be masked by another. The bubbles from the detergent in the sink had dissolved, the water impatiently cooling. The floor underneath them was clean enough to eat on, but not for long.

"You have cockroaches under your skin. You better get them out."

Tim watched her carefully and allowed himself three minutes of this glory, holding the shard to her eyes. Anna didn't scream as she probed her flesh with the knife, seeking here and there for the elusive insects, but her grip did get slippery after a while with the heated blood, her breath harried and thick.

It wouldn't do to kill her. That wasn't part of the plan. Eyeing her with a clinical and detached eye, the eye of a professional, he finally pulled the mirror away. Anna instantly passed out, her blood creeping and conquering the clean tile.

He left the blade where it was and decided to leave a last surprise for the family.

He took another knife from the block. His feet were adept and silent down the hallway. The dog was still sleeping on her dog bed near the hearth when he came upon the private common room. He looked at the surroundings with an appreciative eye; the room was friendly and enticing, with bookshelves and curios and a small pile of wood stacked in a box near the fireplace.

On a reading table next to an easy chair was a much used edition of The Ledger. After Tim killed Cub, he took the book and the bloodied knife away with him. As he passed through the kitchen on the way out, he paused to confirm that Anna was still alive.

Barely. Perfect. Damn, he was good. Why had his employer double-crossed him?

He used a spare set of keys that hung in the kitchen to lock the door of the inn behind him, already looking forward to the beautiful time ahead, after he had stolen the rest of the fortune teller's mirror.

A cool glass of Guinness, topped with foam, and Elsa's book in his hands. He wouldn't need to smell her on the pages, because he would smell her in life, and taste her, and possess her. A last taste of heaven, to remember while he burned in hell.

Then

The Wednesday was being difficult and childish. Anna grew frustrated at work, knowing what Elsa was attempting to do while she was home at the farm. Anna wished she could be there for her girlfriend, to provide some very tangible and physical support for these revelations, but Elsa had declined. All day long she wondered how it was going with her, and her hands were clumsy at putting away books, and her interactions with the patrons and the matrons were short and sharp.

Haley was the only one who knew how potentially significant this day was, so she managed to keep her temper while Anna stretched hers.

Anna was still restless when she got home after work, so she pulled on her coveralls and went into the garage to putter with the car. Even then she was ineffective, so she eventually went inside her house, washing up and tossing a light salad for her supper.

There was a knock on her door, and Anna leaped from the table to open it, already knowing it would be Elsa on the other side, for Haley was the type to just stick her head in and holler and no one else really came by to visit.

It was Elsa, and a frightening rendition of the Elsa who appeared the day of their reunion, an Elsa all tight and hurt. She stood on Anna's porch as the sun began to slip from the sky, and there were two heavy bags at her feet. Without a word, Anna took the bags and ushered Elsa into her house.

"Do you need anything to eat?" she finally asked, delaying the conversation that was needed most.

"I'm not hungry," Elsa replied.

Anna set the bags down and turned to face her girlfriend. "It didn't go so well, did it, Elsa?"

"Not so much," Elsa admitted, the words thick and poisonous. She was hugging her arms to her chest.

"You'll stay with me for a while?" Anna asked.

"If it's all right."

"Sweetie, of course it's all right," Anna said, picking up the bags again to take them to Elsa's room. Not sure whether Elsa needed comforting or space, Anna hovered near the doorway as Elsa started to unpack her things, putting them into the grown-up drawers. When Elsa finished, she hesitated in the space, and looked at Anna.

"Whatever you need, honey," Anna said, ready to leap to whatever Elsa would utter, but also slowly learning that Elsa had problems saying with words what she needed most.

"Can I watch you work for a while?" Elsa asked.

"Sure," Anna said. She extended her hand, and bless the stars Elsa took it, and they slipped into the hot wet blanket of the Maine summer evening, the air so thick with water they were almost swimming through it, and from some wild eyot burst the love-song of the bullfrogs and cicadas. Anna turned on the fan as she entered the garage, and she was very aware of Elsa's attention upon her as she settled her eyes on the million pieces of metal and wire under the hood of the Chevelle.

It could have been a repeat of her very first day at the library, when she first noticed the white-haired girl sitting at the carrel, and her fingers could have grown incompetent under that fierce attention, but Anna had grown up since then. Aware of her girlfriend, Anna still allowed herself to sink into the 170 horsepower four-barrel 350 cubic-inch V8 engine of the Chevelle, content to continue puttering in the shimmering heat of the garage, her fingers getting acquainted with the cylinder block and the distributor.

Some time later, as she was tugging at various screws she realized what a terrifying thing it would be to lose fingers. She looked up and saw Elsa's shiny face, her hands on her lap, her left partially covered by her right as it always was now, as if she were ashamed of it.

"What is it?" Elsa asked.

Anna straightened, her shoulders tight and complaining, and she wiped her fingers on a rag as she went over to the girl on the stool. "You're really amazing, you know?" Anna said, carefully taking Elsa's hand. "I was just thinking of how much I use my hands, and here you've lost two of your fingers and I've never heard you complain. What does it mean to you, Elsa, the loss of your fingers? I know typing at a keyboard must not be very easy now."

"I used to play the piano," Elsa said quietly, "and before my mom decided to go short, I used to French braid her hair. You don't really think of how many fingers you need for French braiding."

"Does it hurt?" Anna asked, looking at those still reddened stumps, stroking the inside of Elsa's palm.

"All the time," Elsa breathed. "Though that certainly feels good."

"I'm glad," Anna said, smiling and holding Elsa's hands. "Anything I can do to increase the stuff in the 'feel good' column of life for you, I'm glad to do."

Elsa had a strange expression on her face that quickly fled. "Should we go inside?" Elsa suddenly asked.

"Whatever you want," Anna replied, trying to stay nonchalant, though a fluttering butterfly of hope and arousal was beating inside her chest.

Once inside, Anna felt hot and sticky and gross, so she excused herself from Elsa to take a cold shower. Not cold enough to stop the thickness that pooled at the core of her, nor to ensnare that butterfly of anticipation inside her. Scrubbed clean, she pulled on shorts and a silky spaghetti strap top and went out into the living room.

"Mind if I...?" Elsa asked, gesturing to the washroom.

"You don't have to ask. Go ahead."

To keep her mind away from dwelling on the idea of Elsa in her shower, Anna went to the kitchen, rubbing lotion on her callused fingers. She opened her freezer and wished she could crawl inside it for a moment. Maybe she should consider the Arctic for summer vacation. Then she spied a carton of home-made slush mix she had made and subsequently forgotten about. By the time Elsa came from the shower, there were two tall thin glasses of blushing virgin drinks, all strawberry and banana and Sprite slush.

"For you," Anna said, turning around and nearly dropping the drinks.

Elsa had dressed similarly, in shorter shorts than Anna was wearing, and a top that could only be described as lingerie, a deep and luscious red that accented her fresh lips and the damp white-blonde hair. Elsa's dimples emerged, and she took the drink, saying, "You spoil me a lot, you know."

"No more than you deserve," Anna replied. "Good grief, Elsa, how do you expect me to stay a good girl when you dress like that?"

"Maybe I don't want a good girl," Elsa smiled softly. "Maybe all I want is exactly what you are." Because the drink was in her right hand, she used her left to take Anna's hand, caressing the now-callused fingertips, bringing those fingertips up and up.

When she put Anna's fingertips against the full smoothness of her lips, Anna felt an explosion inside her, crackling and racing along her nerves until she expected the sparks to fly from her eyes. One by one, Elsa kissed each of Anna's fingers, and the depth of Anna's desire and need could no longer be measured in human terms. If she couldn't touch Elsa now, right now, she would die. She was sure of it.

But then Anna was able to look at Elsa's eyes, and they weren't the sunshiny blue of summer days. They scudded with storm clouds, and before her gaze a tear trickled down Elsa's cheek.

This time Anna took the drinks to place them on the counter, and she pulled Elsa to her, embracing her all hard and hot and fierce. Elsa held on to her the way a shipwreck survivor holds on to driftwood, because it was only ocean around them, there was no harbour of family or home, no safety anywhere but here, in these arms.

For a moment or two it seemed as if Elsa was about to force herself to calm down, but then she seemed to dissolve completely, sobbing now, great sobs to tear gouges out of Anna's heart. Her tears were so hot on Anna's cheeks; Anna held her even closer, murmuring nonsense words of love and companionship in Elsa's ears.

Elsa took a great, watery breath, a gasp that swallowed air. That was all the warning Anna had.

"Why, Anna?" she cried out. "Why is it so wrong for me to love you? Why can't the world just give me a break, just one fucking break!"

Anna was impaled by that one word, the swear word she had never heard come from Elsa's mouth before. In her surprise, Elsa scrambled out of their embrace and pushed her away. "I never asked much of the world, you know," Elsa panted, grasping the kitchen chair for balance. "I played by the rules, even when I didn't understand them. When my black sheep brother, Patrick, seemed about to tear my family apart, I stayed the good girl, because I wanted to, because it made sense, and I felt that I should.

"But life sucked so damn much! It seemed so unfair, that I should only feel hurt and pain so deep I'd want to rip my soul out! My father, Anna, always a peace-loving man, a soft man, maybe too soft, maybe that was his problem, he went out hunting one day in the fall when I was fifteen, as he liked to do, the whole commune with nature thing, and we would all love a little extra meat on the table.

"A fluke, Anna. God damn that young man! Why wasn't he wearing orange?"

Anna had heard enough bits and pieces that she thought she could have put the rest of the story together. Her eyes flashed in understanding, and she started to walk to Elsa.

She was dead wrong.

Elsa looked at her, her eyes wild. "It's not what you think, Anna, though I wish it was. By God, it was the other way around. My father shot that young man by accident, Anna, because he wasn't wearing orange. And my father killed him."

Anna began to weep.

"And a year later, even though everyone knew it wasn't his fault, even the police and the courts excused him, all my dad could see was that young man's wife and their baby girl. So one day he took the rifle into the woods by the farmhouse and shot himself."

A sob burst from Anna's mouth. She couldn't help it. She clapped her hand over her mouth as she backed into the counter behind her, her elbow jostling the drinks that were melting there, dissolving under the heat of these torturous words.

"No insurance, Anna, not on suicides, so the farm began to die and my entire family with it. And the only way I could cope, because I always had to be the strong one, I had to be the good girl, was by writing. So I wrote and wrote and only poison came out of me, poison that I swum in and breathed in until it was the only reality that existed. Six years and two horrifying and evil books came out of me before I could turn the tide, before I could start finding the beauty again."

Elsa looked straight at her, and there was finally iron strength in her voice, some resolve deeper than the deepest frost could touch. "The third, Anna? The third book I wrote saved my life, and I called it The Ledger, because it told the story I could not, the great balance I had to believe in, the great joy I had to dream of, because without it I would surely have followed my father right into the grave."

For Anna these spoken words had no more substance, because she was too shattered to recognize them at all. Everything made infinite sense. Of course it was Elsa, her most beloved Elsa, who had written the words to raise Anna from her own personal hell.

Her knees gave out, and Anna slid to the floor.

And Elsa came to her, Elsa of the shining eyes and the indomitable spirit came to her. Just like the day of the lamb and labneh, the day of the Claddagh ring. Crouching near her, Elsa grasped her hands and said, "Anna, imagine the confusion I felt when you came into my life. I had only hope, only paper-heart wishes of the great love that would redeem me and balance the scales. To discover it was you, you with your bravery, you with your food, you with those books you found for me, every glance and gesture adding up figures in that other column, until I could no longer deny what my heart most wanted."

How did Elsa find this power? Apparently Anna was made of nothing but hollow bones, for Elsa was lifting Anna up, up on her trembling knees, then up to stand their ground in this place hallowed by angels. Even with her damaged hands she lifted Anna up, and then she let go of her hands to hold Anna's face.

"You, Anna. You're all I want."