Thistle Down

Five

PHELMA JO NELSON PEERED over the top of the résumé she held in front of her face. The applicant, who stood so straight and yet so casual in front of her desk, certainly delighted the eye more than the neatly typed words on the paper. Haywood Wheatland. What kind of name was that?

“I don’t need an assistant,” she said finally. As enticing as this man was, her organization was as complete as she wanted it to be. Adding another body, or a too inquisitive mind, would upset the balance she’d built. Her plans were too close to fruition.

“Yes, you do,” Haywood Wheatland said in a light baritone that seemed to sing the words. Then he smiled.

Phelma Jo found her gaze glued to his marvelous teeth and full sensual lips. She couldn’t look anywhere else if she wanted to. Daydreams of stripping off his clothes-the epitome of style without shouting expensive, a look she had perfected-and throwing him onto her desk seemed so simple and right.

“Why do I need an assistant?” she finally choked out, breaking the thrall of his physical beauty.

“Not just any assistant. You need me.” He paused, the animation in his face and posture froze for half a heartbeat, barely long enough to notice.

But Phelma Jo noticed. She’d trained herself to take note of, and advantage of, every change in body language.

“Not just any assistant. You need me,” he repeated with a widening of that ingratiating smile.

Phelma Jo forced herself to read the résumé again. An associate degree from a community college she’d never heard of. Standard word processing skills, including minor bookkeeping. Nothing exceptional. Just another wannabe business major looking for a job to fund the next degree.

“You can’t do anything for me that I can’t hire out of any high school class at half the wages you request.” She threw down the résumé, letting it slide across her pristine desktop as a signal the interview was over.

But, oh, he was delicious to look at. He’d add something decorative to her very functional staff of real estate agents, accountants, and paralegals, all hired for their skills and because none of them outshone Phelma Jo herself.

“You need me because I know how to put a crimp…” Again that annoying frozen pause. “You need me because I know how to put a crimp in Desdemona Carrick’s Masque Ball forever, and at the same time fund your campaign in the next mayoral election.”

Haywood Wheatland planted himself in the guest chair in front of the desk without invitation, as if he belonged there, had always belonged there.

“How… how did you know I plan to run for mayor?”

“Gossip.” He smiled, flashing those gleaming teeth that seemed to reflect every color in the office. “Gossip. Besides, it’s the next logical step for you.”

“Tell me more about this gossip.” Phelma Jo leaned forward eagerly. “And your plans for Dusty Carrick.”

“Am I hired?”

Phelma Jo fished an employment contract out of her desk drawer, made a few adjustments to it, and handed it to him for his signature.

“You’ve heard, I presume,” Haywood said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “that Ms. Carrick has taken under her wing, a beautiful and mysterious woman…”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Dusty is incapable of talking to a stranger, let alone aiding one. Unless she can do it online.”

“Ah, but she volunteers at the senior center… volunteers at the senior center talking about history and gathering stories from them about olden times. And she gives tours to the public. She may not like it, but she does it. She does it if she can talk history and nothing else. And now this Thistle Down woman is her newest best friend.”

“I can’t see why everyone in town thinks the world of Ms. Timid who talks to shadows and jumps into them at first sight of a stranger. She’s pathetic and so self-involved she doesn’t know the meaning of true friendship,” Phelma Jo snorted. She should know.

“This is pretty?” Thistle held up a brassiere by one end with two fingers, skeptically examining the sturdy elastic, sheer fabric, and filmy lace. “I could make a great game of launching Pixies to the far side of The Ten Acre Wood with this.”

Dusty suppressed a deep laugh. “It… um… is designed to support your… um…”

Thistle twisted the undergarment so that it hung correctly. “My boobs,” she said flatly.

“Yeah.”

Thistle looked from the bra to her chest and back again. “How do you balance with all that weight up front and no wings to lift you from the back?”

She looked totally bewildered. She kept rocking back on her heels and widening her stance as if afraid of falling forward. Good thing Dick had bought only flatheeled sandals for Thistle instead of the high-heeled torture devices he usually admired on women.

“Well, they grow slowly.” Dusty glanced down at her meager display. Thistle was much better endowed, but not out of proportion to her height and slender frame. “We get used to it gradually, I guess,” Dusty replied. “Look, most of the dresses Dick bought for you have halter tops or spaghetti straps. You can’t wear a normal bra with them. The straps will show and that looks ugly.”

“Yeah. I have noticed a lot of teenage girls with that look. I wondered what the extra straps were for.”

They giggled together as Thistle mimicked the girls who constantly fussed with their straps, trying to hide them, when the action only attracted more attention to their dishabille.

“But the fabric?” Thistle shook her head. “It feels hot. I don’t think I’m going to wear this contraption.” She flung the bra into the corner of the room.

“Try this dress.” Dusty pulled a creamy sundress printed with big splotchy purple flowers out of a plastic bag from a large discount store. “It’s cotton, so the fabric will breathe, unlike the polyester in the bra. The colors are right for you, and the top is relatively modest. You won’t flash a lot of cleavage.”

Thistle obediently lifted the hem of her borrowed black T-shirt, exposing her entire body without a flash of embarrassment or modesty.

Dusty lowered her eyes as she fished in the other five bags for panties. Her face grew hot, and sweat trickled down her back. Body modesty was something Thistle would have to learn living in this household, with Dick’s bedroom just across the hall.

What would they do if Thistle was still here when Mom and Dad came home from England next month?

Her fingers flipped aside several dresses, packages of hose, another bra. Two more pairs of sandals, one beige, one dark purpley blue. No panties. None! How could Dick forget such an essential item?

This enterprise was getting to be too much. Way too much.

“Let me get you something from my room.” She dashed out of the spare bedroom of the big old house that had been in her family for at least four generations. The room she’d slept in for as long as she could remember was positioned on the other side of the bathroom, across from the master bedroom, and close to the back stairs that led to the kitchen. For the first time in a very long time she noticed, actually noticed, the matching pink curtains and bedspread covered in twirling ballerinas. The bed ruffle and bolster pillow ruffles were white eyelet. Chipped white paint graced her headboard, dressing table, and bookshelves. She hadn’t changed a thing since she and Mom had so carefully selected the furnishings for her fifth birthday.

Had her life stagnated as badly as her décor?

From her own underwear drawer she found an unopened package of three pairs of white cotton panties. As she pulled them from beneath neatly piled, still serviceable garments she began to laugh.

At herself. At Dick for forgetting to buy panties. He probably never noticed if women wore them or not, even the women he so casually bedded.

Something to taunt him about. In private. Still laughing, she returned to Thistle’s room and presented her with the underwear as if bestowing the crown jewels.

With more laughter, and no embarrassment, she explained their usage. And while she was at it, she found a box of tampons and demonstrated the toilet and sink.

Their laughter felt natural; embarrassment fled. Suitably clad, Thistle began rummaging through the plastic bags. She jerked her hand away before she’d touched a single garment.

“What?” Dusty asked. She grabbed Thistle’s hand and watched a burning flush spread from her fingers to the back and across the palm. “Let’s get some cold water on this.”

“The bags, and the second dress, they’re fake.” Thistle sighed with relief as cold water from the bathroom tap flowed over her hand and arm.

“Synthetics. Of course! I bet you’ll have trouble with preservatives and processed food, too. Good thing you came to me. Most every other home in town would poison you in about three minutes.”

“Why do people poison themselves?” Thistle asked, cocking her head.

Dusty shrugged. “Convenience, shelf-life, laziness. I’m not sure. But since I was sick, Mom and Dad have done their best to keep me from getting sick again. We eat only natural foods and use only natural fabrics. It’s hard eating out and harder buying inexpensive clothes or towels, or even upholstery that aren’t synthetic. Mom took out all the wall-to-wall carpeting because it holds dust and mold and is largely artificial fibers.”

“I bet that’s why so many people are so fat. They can’t walk!” Thistle mimicked a man who had come to the museum that afternoon and had to sit every five steps, wheezing and out of breath.

Dusty’d had to restrain Thistle’s natural tendency to roll the little rubber ball from her game of jacks underneath him, just to watch him hop about in fright.

“He needed the exercise,” Thistle reminded her.

“What else do Pixies do besides play tricks?” Dusty asked upon returning to Thistle’s room.

“Oh, Pixies are the best matchmakers of all. And I know just the man for you!”

“Really.” Dusty’s bright mood faded. “Who?” If Thistle played her matchmaking games as poorly as her mother, Dusty needed to stop it right here and now.

“Joe Newberry, of course. He really needs a wife, and you really need to be a mother to his daughters.”

Dusty nearly doubled over in laughter. “Joe’s my best friend. Not my lover. Besides, I don’t think he ever played in The Ten Acre Wood. We have no shared memories.”

“We’ll see about that. Think about the new memories you will build together around the Patriarch Oak.”

Thistle lay down upon the bed, amazed at how the mattress and coverlet cradled her body. Much nicer, if lonelier, than curling up with seven other Pixies in a tangle of moss. Life was so different among the humans; so strange. And yet she had observed them for decades. She should know how they lived, how they thought, the appliances they took for granted.

The red numerals on the black box on the small table beside the bed must mean something.

“Five, two dots, four, five,” she mused. “That sounds like a time. Humans are obsessed with time. But I’m not sure what it means.”

The color scheme depressed her. It hadn’t worked ten years ago. One might graciously call it eggplant and evergreen with heavy dark wood accents. Thistle had never seen those kinds of trees, and to her the colors looked more like bloody mud and algae green atop alien and dangerous forests.

She closed her eyes and absorbed the scent of the room. Much nicer than looking at it. Roses, lavender, and cherry in the pomander on the dressing table. A bit too heavy and sweet, like the paint scheme. Maybe take out the cherry and add cedar?

Her hands caressed the soft coverlet and her dress. Sort of like the silky texture of the cobwebs, embellished with feathers and flower petals, which she usually wore. And much more substantial. But then, humans were also obsessed with keeping their bodies covered, or at least portions of them.

How was she supposed to get used to all this?

How was she supposed to sleep alone? Pixies slept in a tangle of legs and arms and wings, finding security in the gentle breeze of a dozen breaths all working in rhythm, a dozen hearts beating in time. Nothing sexual about it. Sex was sex and sleep was sleep. Unlike humans, Pixies didn’t mix the two.

The loneliness of living in a human body among humans who closed themselves off from each other was perhaps the cruelest punishment of all.

Moisture crept out of Thistle’s eyes and down her cheek. She missed the light breeze supporting her wings, drifting around her with the information about the weather, about her surroundings, and who trespassed within The Ten Acre Wood.

Memory grabbed hold of her, taking her soaring, playing tag with oak leaves, tweaking the tail of a squirrel, dancing just out of reach of the frog’s tongue. She hungered and took a sip of pollen. Dewdrops clinging to the bottom of a fern or in the cup of lupine leaves quenched her thirst.

A shimmer of movement above her, bright green and tan, the color of alder leaves and branches. She giggled. A deeper, enticing laugh was the only reply. More a challenge than any words.

Thistle rose to the occasion and chased the source of the laughter around a tree trunk, skimmed the top of fern fronds, dashed beneath a rhododendron, and skipped across the gentle wind-driven currents of the pond. He laughed and escaped. She chortled and dove beneath him, then looped around and came at him from the side. With one last burst of speed and a new round of bright laughter, she caught the tip of Alder’s left wing with her left hand. As he slowed in their game of tag, she flipped him around to face her.

Hovering within the shadows of the Patriarch Oak, with only a whisper of air between them, they came to rest in the joint where a stout branch met the trunk.

He cupped her face in both hands and kissed her deeply. “The ancient Faery living in the heart of the Patriarch Oak has died,” he whispered.

“What does that mean?” Thistle couldn’t remember a time when her tribe had anyone other than the nameless old one as their king. He’d stayed when the rest of the Faeries went underhill, taking their abundant magic with them.

“We need a king, someone to make rules and protect us from predators. No one else knows how to do the job, so I volunteered. The old one has been teaching me. I am going to be king,” he whispered. “Tomorrow I will be king. And I will need a queen. Today, right now, you and I will fly to the top of this tree, the center of the universe, and take our mating flight.”

Thistle returned his kiss and spoke aloud. “In full daylight where all can see and know that we belong together. Forever.”