Modern Tales of Fantasy
Page 2
forget the fact that he did not want her to go with him. He would be happy to see her and they would spend the day shopping and laughing throughout the village.
She had gone only a couple of miles when she heard the voices. At first she cannot make out what they were saying, but there was no denying one of the voices belonged to Alastair. Yael slinked closer until she was could see the couple. To her surprise, Alistair was nowhere to be found. Instead she saw a rather small, wrinkled man who sounded a great deal like her love. Ducking low, she hid behind a large copse of shrubs listening.
“That’s robbery!” The diminutive man sputtered.
“Take it or leave it,” a crackly voice said.
“You know I cannot leave it,” he huffed. “Yael can never be the wiser.”
At the mention of her name Yael’s ears perked. How did this man know her? She heard the dull chink of coins toppling onto one another. Looking through the shrubs, she could see the woman. Only slightly taller than the man with the Alastair voice, she appeared to be from a Gypsy fairytale.
A bright colored scarf of red, orange and purple was tied about her head. Long tendrils of salt-and-pepper curls snaked around her shoulders and back. From her voice Yael would have thought the woman advanced in years, yet she looked no more than thirty. Even from her odd position, Yael could see the woman’s most distinctive feature were her eyes. The color of copper, the light reflected from the woman’s eyes in the most dazzling display. So mesmerized by them, Yael did not notice she had been discovered.
“Looks like you will not be needing this any longer,” the Gypsy said, placing a small bottle of brownish liquid within the folds of her skirt.
Yael gasped as the man spun toward her.
“Yael.” He seemed as surprised by her and she was of him.
Her heart thudded in her ears. Like a frightened animal, she bolted and ran as fast as she could. She could hear the man’s boots thud on the ground as he chased her.
“Yael. Stop, the man called, following his best he could. “I said stop!”
And she did. She had no choice since her feet refused to move.
The man stopped in front of her. “Yael. Let me explain.”
“How do you know who I am?” she asked.
Sage green eyes looked up at her from beneath bushy, white eyebrows. She would know those eyes anywhere. They were the ones that greeted her every morning over the past few years. “Alastair?” She whispered, fearing the answer.
The man nodded. Pulling his cap from his head, he twisted it in his hands. “I can explain.”
“Explain? Explain what? That you’re a...a...”
“A gnome,” Alastair answered.
With an audible whoosh all the breath left Yael. Alastair caught her and helped her to the ground.
“This can’t be happening,” she repeated the phrase over and over.
“Give it a moment to sink in,” he said. “I’m still me. I’m still Alastair.”
“Why?” It was the only thing she could think to say. Sitting there on the ground she listened to Alastair explain how he had fallen in love with her the first night he saw her. How he heard her speaking to her friend and describing her perfect man. That night he vowed to be that man for her, even if it meant not being true to who he was at not being true to her.
“But now you know the truth,” he said. “Now we can start over.
Yael. felt numb inside The truth was, she did not know how to feel. Should she be angry? Sad? She should be should she not? From somewhere deep inside Yael found the courage to say one little word. “No.”
“No?”
She could not understand his shock at her rejection of him.
“It is because I am a gnome,” he said. His tone accusing.
“No,” she answered. “It is because you lied.”
“But now I don’t have to.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, dusting off the back of her pants. “The fact is you lied.”
The sound of Jethro’s cry brought Yael attention back to the present and the job at hand. She smiled up at the falcon amazed and humbled by his trust in her. “Time for home,” she said and with little hesitation, Jethro took flight.
Yael still had no idea where her resolve had come from that day. There is no telling how she would’ve handled the situation with Alastair years ago. She was not the same woman then. Now there was only a sense that she would be okay.
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The Orbs of Talisen