I search for Jean-Paul still, my great hunter, my husband lost to the Nixy. I search for him in each valley and on each hillside. I look in caves, and I stare up at the sky and pray to the witch who used to help me to try, just one more time, to bring us together.
But she does not hear. Of if she does, she no longer cares.
My husband is lost. I tried everything I could. Combed my black hair with the comb of gold--the only thing I had left of my mother, now lost under the waves. I played the golden flute my brother Sebastian gave me before he went to war, just before he died. And I spun on my grandmother's golden spinning wheel. These three things, all I had left of my life before.
I gave up everything for him. I had place, position, and I gave it up for love.
And I did love him--I do love him. But...I was always his helper, never his partner. Everything I did was for him and everything he did was for him, too. I know he loved me, I'm not saying that he didn't. It's just that, well, I was raised to expect more.
Then again I was never raised to herd sheep. My last attempt to steal my husband back from the Nixy was a failure--no, more than that, a disaster. For the other times, when I merely failed, I was still near him; I still knew where he was. Now? Now I wander nearly as aimlessly as my sheep, sweet, dumb beasts that they are. I suppose some could say that of me. A dumb, sweet beast, set down in a land I barely understand, so different from the place Jean-Paul and I called home.
I whistle, call Beau to me. The dog appears from the fog that fills the valley ahead of us, a mostly black shadow, the darkness of his coat offset with tan and gray. I sold my wedding ring to buy my first sheep, and sold my first shearing to buy Beau. With him, I can take my small flock anywhere; he would fight to the death to protect me or them--he very nearly did, taking on a bear that threatened our food stores at the cabin, a bear we surprised when we came home with the sheep.
I had many offers to buy him after that, even more to breed to him. He stood next to me, scarred sides heaving from running with the sheep, and watched my neighbors as if they might try to steal a lamb from him. He has never welcomed anyone.
Until today. The new shepherd, with his shaggy-haired black dog--more a walking mop than anything else. Beau liked the dog, and he sniffed her owner with an ease I've never seen him display. He's like me, keeps to himself.
"He's a handsome boy," the new shepherd said to me, and as I looked at him--really looked--I saw that he was handsome, too, if as shaggy as his dog.
"He's not for sale."
"Didn't say I wanted to buy him. Got Belle here."
"Yes, I see."
"Better dog you'll never find."
I doubted that, but since we herders are funny about our dogs, I didn't argue with him. Belle walked over to me, and I could barely see her eyes through all the hair. She sniffed me, gave me a quick lick, and then ran off with Beau.
I was about to call him back when the shepherd said, "Let them have some fun. Belle and I don't socialize much." He glanced at my well. "I'd love some water."
My husband would have expected me to get it for him, but I just nodded at the bucket tied to the rope. "Help yourself."
He did, then sprawled in the early spring sunshine, on one of the benches at my outdoor table. "This place, it's so beautiful."
"You're not from here?"
He shook his head. "I came from the north." Then he frowned. "Well, that's where I just came from. I came from the east before that."
I decided not to tell him that I, too, had come from the east.
Long ago and far away. Even if I did still search for Jean-Paul every time I took the sheep out. As if he would be hidden in a copse of trees or a bramble bush.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Marie." A common name, boring. Half the women in the area were also Maries.
"I am Jean-Paul."
"You and fifteen others." It too was a common name.
He laughed.
I waved him off, the gesture lacking in manners, but I doubted he'd mind. "I must go, the fog is lifting."
"Maybe I'll see you out there."
"I hope not. It will mean you're on my land." Land I'd bought parcel by parcel with wool and lambs, with the garments I wove, and by breeding my best rams.
"My mistake, my lady." He bowed and smiled at me. "Still. I hope to see you again." He winked, called Belle to him with a whistle, and walked off.
Beau noses my hand, bringing me back to the present. To my search for my own Jean-Paul. I skirt the land that the mill sits on, afraid to find that another Nixy lives in this pond, even though I have never heard of any this far west.
"Jean-Paul," I whisper, even though it has been so long since I've seen him that I can barely recall his face.
##
The fire burns brightly. It is the end of summer, when the weather again turns cold at night, and I sigh happily as Jean-Paul and Belle come down the path.
He has been coming down the path since the day I met him. He says it is so Belle can be with one of her own kind, and Beau certainly doesn't mind spending time with her, but I believe Jean-Paul comes because he wants to be with his own kind, too.
He holds up some fish. "Caught these in the river today."
I smile, nod at the fire. "Well, cook them up."
He laughs. "I bring the food, you bring the wine, isn't that the deal?"
I pull out the jug and pour him a mug of the red I prefer, and he goes into the house. I can hear him rattling around in the kitchen, pulling pans out, judging which will be best for our meal.
He brings the fish back out to clean, knows better than to do that inside my house. In the distance, I can hear the dogs running, making low puppy-like growls as they play.
Jean-Paul gives me a searching look. "They love each other."
"Yes." It is truth, and I look away before he can try to give me another--or make me say it first.
All summer I have searched and found nothing. My husband is gone. And this man, this burly, bearded, sweet-tempered man with his black mop of a dog is not gone, is very much here.
I am in love; I have betrayed my husband. Even though we've done nothing, in my heart I have already traded one Jean-Paul for another.
No wonder I could never win him back. The Nixy and the witch must have laughed and laughed.
"You are quiet tonight," he says as he tends the fish.
"I am tired."
"Yes. It was hot today. Summer's last gasp."
Yes. The last gasp of so many things.
The fish is wonderful. I bring out bread I made for us--I am not completely useless in a kitchen--and we dip it in the pan, sopping up the sauce.
"I love you, Marie," he says to me; my mouth is full so I cannot say anything, and I think he has planned it that way. "I cannot imagine life without you."
I chew, find it hard to swallow. "I have a husband. He is out there...somewhere. And I search."
"Where? In the fields? On the hillside? Do you find him?"
"I was put here for a reason." And it is a lovely sentiment, but I am not sure I believe it.
"Then where is he? This husband of yours?" He leans forward. "And if you found him, could he make you feel as I do?"
He sets the pan down and leans back, studying me, and just as I am ready to answer him, he pulls out something.
A flute. Golden.
"No," I murmur as he begins to play, a shepherd's tune, a melody that calls Beau and Belle back, that brings tears to my eyes. "No, he could not make me feel as you do."
He keeps playing and the firelight hits the flute, making it glow.
"His name was Jean-Paul." I look down.
He stops playing; I hear the flute drop to the grass. "I had a wife. Her name was--is...Marie."
"We are cursed with common names."
"We are not cursed at all. Beloved."
The way he has said that, it is almost as if my old Jean-Paul has come back. I lift my head, meet his gaze.
Those eyes. How could I not see? That nose, the curve of his lips, even under the beard and mustache.
"You." He is crying; Belle noses him and looks at me as if she cannot decide if I am a threat or not.
"You." I have been crying, but I cry harder now, and Beau licks my face and whimpers.
"How?" he asks.
He was taken by the Nixy, lived underwater. I tried three times to free him with a witch's magic. We were turned into frogs by the same witch to protect us from the Nixy's wrath. Is it so hard to believe we could end up here, in the same valley, under the same rolling hills, herding sheep, with dogs that love each other, and not know that we had found what we'd been seeking for so long?
I pour him more wine, then hand him my flute. "Play. Please?"
"One song." He winks at me, pulls me in for a kiss. "Then I will make you forget all about this husband of yours."
I laugh. In a way I never laughed with my old Jean-Paul. And he looks at me in a way he never looked at me when I was his old Marie.
And then he plays. The song rings out into the night, into the fog that even in summer comes down into the valley. The dogs whine happily and settle down, curled around each other.
I wait eagerly for the song to end.
Gerri Leen is a regular already at EC. She wrote "The Dilemma of the Spindle," for Issue One, and "Like Flies on the Wall," for Issue Two.
0 comments:
Post a Comment