The Land

by Thomas Maltman

  Girls my age I found mystifying, but I had an easy time talking to the married tellers I worked with. They enjoyed joshing me over my presumed virginity, or to see if they could make me blush by talking frankly about sex or reading aloud from some article in Cosmopolitan. Maura didn’t join in the teasing, but I felt her eyes on me, amused by the sport.

  When we closed together, she was always humming something under her breath, like she couldn’t contain the music inside her.

  “What’re you singing?” I asked her one time.

  “Nothing,” she said. She feathered her hair behind one elfish ear. I liked her even better for the parts that weren’t perfect: her ears too pointy, her eyebrows too thick for a woman. “Just a little lullaby I made up for Sarah.”

  “Go on,” I encouraged.

  She shook her head, but I kept pestering, so eventually she drew in a deep breath, her eyes fixing on that distant point again, peering beyond the lobby. She started low, her smoky voice gathering urgency:

  Heed the song of meadowlark,

  A mother’s voice warns in the dark,

  While the fox hunts for her nest,

  Her song lures it closer to her breast,

  Heed her well, her sacrifice,

  How mother sings of paradise,

  Her children asleep in downy bed,

  She calls the fox to her instead,

  Heed her well and hush until light,

  Mother’s song reaches into night.

  An old woman had wandered in and stood listening at the kiosk. She clapped for Maura, who blushed in response.

  “You wrote that?” I said.

  Maura shrugged. “There’s not an original word in it. Sarah’s really colicky some nights.” She lowered her voice so the customer wouldn’t hear. “Eli can’t stand it if the baby carries on. But if I sing, it does something for both of them.”

  I understood. Those songs, pitched in her smoky voice, did something for me as well. “You should write it down.”

  Maura shooed me away with a brush of her fingers. The old woman had finished filling out her deposit slip at the kiosk and waddled over to Maura’s slot. She studied us both, a woman with a cloud of silvery hair and periwinkle-blue eyes. “Strange how there is so much darkness even in old nursery rhymes,” she said. “The farmer’s wife with her carving knife? You ever wonder what happened to the farmer in that song? She already did a number on those poor, blind mice.”

  Maura laughed. I leaned into the conversation. “I read once that ‘Three Blind Mice’ is actually about Bloody Mary. I guess she had three bishops burned at the stake.”

  “Watch out for this one. He’s full of history lessons,” Maura said. “So what about them being blind?”

  “Their blindness likely refers to the fact that they were Protestant and Bloody Mary was Catholic.”

  “Why sing of such things to babies?” the old woman asked.

  “Mockingbirds and diamond rings,” Maura answered in a singsong voice. “Rocking cradles left in the trees.” Her voice softened and she sighed. “I think mothers sing to warn children of the world that waits for them. And they sing for themselves. For their own mental well-being.”

  Maura finished the transaction and handed the customer her receipt.

  “And they sing for handsome young men,” the old woman said, and tittering, wobbled away.

  It was my turn to blush. “Well, that was embarrassing.” I had been thinking of something else. If Maura was singing of herself. Drawing the fox away.

  “She does raise an important question. Why hasn’t some girl snatched you up?”

  I swallowed, my blush deepening. She found me attractive? Me, the skinny high jumper on the track team, the goof who played second board on the chess team in high school, so incredibly shy he had gone to his senior prom solo? “Girls want someone with confidence,” I said.

  “Then get some confidence,” she said, like I could just pluck it from the air. “You should be dating. Tell me about the prospects in your classes.”

  This, I figured, was a good way to avoid talking more about her music. I shrugged, looking around for another customer to interrupt us and rescue me from this interrogation, before I told her about Naomi, my lab partner.

  “Naomi. That’s a good name. Biblical. Not marriage material, because she’s a bitter woman in the Old Testament, but someone to date before life turns her sour. What kinds of things does she like?”

  “No idea,” I said. Naomi already seemed sour and taciturn as a young person. “The smell of formaldehyde makes conversation difficult.”

  “Well, find out then. Figure out what she likes. Start asking questions and show an interest in her. Then we can figure out a strategy. I’m going to help you woo her.”

  “Why?”

  “Aren’t you the guy studying Life?”

  The next time we closed together I brought in the schematics for my video game, The Land, which I kept in an old portfolio tote I had once used for art classes. I had named the game for the secret place she told me about, the refuge. I wanted to share it with her since she had shared her music with me. Just that one song caused me to make changes in the basic story line. She had sung her lullaby low and sweet, but I had heard the danger in that lurking predator. The fox wore a human face. The Land didn’t sound like any true refuge to me.

  By then I was already in love with her. Whenever I sat down to study for my classes she constantly occupied my thoughts. Daydreaming the kind of fantasies a twenty-year-old young man daydreams when he thinks a woman needs to be rescued. I fantasized about us being together. I would be a good dad for Sarah. Maura could come with me to Chicago or some other big city where Elijah couldn’t track us down. I just needed to tell her how I felt. I thought the game offered the perfect chance. I wrote it for her, after all.

  I had to work up the courage to tell Maura about The Land in my game. The story featured a queen married to a wicked king. The queen knew magic in a world where witches burned, so she had to hide it from her husband and his advisors. One night she overheard him plotting a war against a neighboring kingdom—innocent allies—to gain power and land, but he caught her listening in. When he found out about her magic, he realized he could use her as a weapon. So she fled into the woods, a place where monsters dwell, with the court fool as her lone companion. They were separated by a tangle of trees. If the kingdom were going to survive she was going to have to find allies in this perilous forest and the fool was going to find her before the king and his men. He would have to learn to fight. This was my opening montage, a cutscene of a man and woman hunted, the king’s hounds closing in, the dark woods spreading into the unknown.

  I had to describe all of this for her because the program was stored in files on RPG Maker, the game engine I was using to program it, along with my own artwork imported through Adobe Photoshop and MS Paint for the backdrop and cutscenes. None of the computers at work, dated systems with green-tinted monitors, could run files saved on floppy discs. I’d drawn maps and illustrated characters and scenes in several spiral-bound sketchbooks. I was a passable artist, a Sunday watercolorist who didn’t have the talent to major in art even if my dad had approved. Since I was using a game engine instead of programming the game from scratch, the art and the music files I was importing to create a fully immersive experience were what would make it original. I even hoped to record a few of Maura’s folk songs and upload them to the game.

  Maura touched the drawing of the queen. “There’s something familiar about her,” she said, the corner of her mouth turning up.

  I said nothing. Of course the drawing looked faintly like her. What I lacked in subtlety I hoped to make up for with daring.

  Her eyes were shining, specks of mica flickering and mercurial in the pupils. She touched her breastbone. “I think it’s lovely,” she said. “And I hope the queen gets away.”
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br />   In that moment I wanted so badly to hold her, maybe let my hand rest above her waist, near the small of her back. With the drawings spread out, our elbows nearly brushed together, we stood so close. I was keenly aware of her smell, an undercurrent of sandalwood or lavender, the scent of the forbidden. I so ached to touch her that I let my hand graze the sleeve of her cream blouse, felt the thrill of static electricity in my fingertips, the heat of her skin beneath. “She will,” I said. “This queen is a very resourceful person. And she has help. Someone who cares for her very much.”

  Maura pulled away, stepping back from the counter. She glanced toward the lobby to make sure no one else was around, then back at me. My heart grew wings and lifted in my chest. My head felt airy and light. The secret was out. I had just done something brave.

  “Lucien,” she said. “I would feel terrible if I’ve given you the wrong idea about anything. I hope I haven’t. I’m married.”

  One single sentence took the wings in my chest and snapped them. I inhaled sharply as though slapped. “I know that,” I said, and I couldn’t help hanging my head, like a kid being chastised. I couldn’t look her in the face. Shame flooded me. All my idiotic fantasies.

  “I’m flattered that you think such things about me. Really. And I think highly of you. But I’m married, and I have a daughter.” She spoke in a quiet voice. Her words were kind. She held my heart and its broken wings in her hands and handed it back to me gently.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. There were actual tears in my eyes when I looked at her.

  “Don’t be sorry,” she said. Even in this moment, she was radiant somehow, the color high up in her cheeks, her eyes glittering. She liked me. “I value our friendship so much. I wouldn’t want anything to change between us.” She held out her hand. “Okay?”

  I took her hand, felt how warm it was in my own. The charge of energy between us. Skin to skin, it felt right. Such secret mercy. “Okay,” I agreed.

  I woke to the smell of bacon frying. Wintry light leaked through the curtains, so I knew it was morning. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept the whole night through. The inside of my mouth tasted of ashes. I had been dreaming of Maura and I wanted to linger in that place of dreams, but there was a stranger in the house. The t-shirt I had gone to sleep in smelled a little stale, so I climbed from bed and fumbled around for the freshest one I could find on the floor, tugged it on, and wandered down the hallway while I considered what to do. I should at least ask for identification, get some kind of proof.

  In my groggy state, entering the bathroom was like walking into a sauna, the mirrors still partly steamed. Some of her stuff already occupied a spot near the sink, a purple toothbrush and a Ziploc bag with Tom’s of Maine toothpaste and floss and other incidentals. I’m here to stay awhile, her things said.

  Should I call the Krolls or not? Some random girl claiming to be their daughter didn’t factor into any of the instructions they had left me with. But she had known Kaiser’s name, seemed familiar with the place. Still, the right thing to do was to call them. I was the caretaker. I resolved to dial them up first chance I got.

  The girl was already busy in the kitchen, a plush purple robe wrapping her, her feet bare, her damp hair pulled back in a ponytail. She’d let Kaiser out of his kennel on the lower level, and he sat obediently next to her, tail thumping the floor. She turned when I padded into the kitchen and smiled shyly. “I hope you don’t mind your eggs cooked right in the bacon grease,” she said, turning back to the stove to crack another one into the pan. The bacon waited beside the gas stove in a paper towel she must have been using to sop up grease. From the thump of Kaiser’s tail on the linoleum, I could tell he’d already been properly bribed. Whether she was a stranger here or not, the German shepherd belonged to her now. While the eggs sizzled, her hips swayed faintly under the robe. It looked too big and frumpy on her, too old-ladyish, so I figured she must have raided Mrs. Kroll’s wardrobe while I slept. “And there’s coffee, if you want it. You feeling better?”

  “I could use some coffee,” I said in a froggy voice. “And I’m feeling fine.” I sat at the table without getting myself any since she’d used the percolator on the stove and I didn’t want to mess with her preparations.

  A minute later, she switched off the burner, ladled eggs on plates, adding bacon from the paper towel and a slice of sourdough from the toaster. She carried both plates over, expertly balancing them, and set them on the table. Then she held out her hand. “My name’s Arwen. I thought we could start over on the introductions part.”

  Arwen shook hands just like her old man, if it was true: she didn’t let go right away. She peered down at me, a blue vein ticking in her pale throat. “You gonna call my parents?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Seems like I should. I need to do right by this place. My old boss got me this job. He’s counting on me.”

  “Just give me a little while. A few days. I’ll pay you back for this food. You won’t even know I’m here.”

  The last thing I needed in my life was more trouble. I didn’t know much about the world, but this girl here, she looked like trouble. And I knew how a few days could turn into a few more. Yet I heard myself mumble, “Okay.”

  “Okay,” she said. Arwen let go of my hand. She went back over to the stove where the percolator bubbled over, spilling a dark caramel liquid onto the blue flames beneath. She shut off the burner, poured a mug for each of us, and then sat with me at the breakfast table. Sunlight rinsed through a skylight above us. Arwen watched while I picked up a fork and split the egg, yolk bleeding yellow, and then shoveled it into my mouth, surprised by my hunger. We ate in a companionable silence and I could tell she was as famished as I was. The hollows scooped under her brown eyes told a story of hard traveling. It seemed my winter aubade here in this house was turning less and less restful each passing day, but in that moment I happily traded in my peace for good coffee and eggs cooked in bacon grease.

  Once we’d emptied our plates, we sipped our coffee, Arwen doling out bits of bacon to Kaiser under the table, and she talked about a place called Fairhaven in Bellingham, where she’d come from, explaining it had once been a hippy enclave before it became yuppified. She told me she’d been a kayak-activist out West in Seattle, part of a Greenpeace protest broken up by the Coast Guard, and she arrived in Bellingham afterward, hoping to find a safe spot.

  The Greenpeace protest had landed her in jail for a short time, but she told me why it was worth it: “This one time an orca came right up to my kayak. Must have been three times the size of my boat. I should have been scared out of my mind. It turned over in the water so this one huge eye stared up at me from below. I could sense the intelligence. It was curious, you know? Out there on the saltwater I was the alien. The trespasser. Yet it welcomed me like a friend.”

  I could tell she had told this story many times because her voice had a reverent quality. She was describing a holy experience, so I just listened and tried not to notice how her expressive hand gestures caused her robe to part. Apparently, she wasn’t wearing anything beneath it. Arwen must have seen where my eyes had wandered because she tugged it closed at the throat.

  “That’s what I thought we were fighting for,” she finished, and she looked at me as if to measure the impact of her story. For a moment, I wanted to tell her about the ravens, the battle in the snow and the wolves that came after, but for some reason I couldn’t. Her story was sacred, mine was about brutality. Both were true about Mother Nature, but to speak the story aloud would mean giving away some of its dark magic, stealing away the impossibility of it all. It wasn’t a story meant for her. “I haven’t ever seen anything like that,” I said.

  She nodded, sipped at her coffee. “If you’re from Chicago how’d you end up way the hell up here?”

  This was a story I could tell. “When I was thirteen I camped with my church’s youth group up in the Boundary Waters. We
had a miserable time. It rained every day. The mosquitoes were relentless. But our last night there, the clouds broke. Just after sunset we saw the aurora borealis. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, the whole sky above us spread with green fingers of fire. Our guide told us that the Inuit feared the northern lights could reach down like a burning hand and pluck them into the stars. The other kids didn’t seem to care, but the story thrilled me. This idea that you could be lifted into another world.”

  Arwen smiled softly. “You found a place worth protecting. Something worth fighting for.”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t sure how much of a fighter I had become. When I got home from that trip my dad had already moved out, so I had come home to a different world. Returning here meant coming back to a place where a hand might lift me into elsewhere, set me on the path, show me the way? Long before I met Maura, long before I heard about Y2K, I was already beginning to plot the story of my vanishing.

  Arwen asked me something about Chicago and we both agreed that we didn’t care for cities. My mom’s place, a ranch-style house in Mount Greenwood, wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but it sat across the street from the cemetery, so at least the neighbors were quiet.

  In the Fairhaven section of Bellingham, Arwen told me, they were still trying to dream themselves back to 1968 and a world that didn’t exist anymore. She didn’t look like a flower child who had left a utopia, her eyes too flinty. She looked haunted or hunted. I had the feeling she was running from something. Her story about the killer whale? I couldn’t put my finger on it yet, but there was something she wasn’t saying. “Why leave such a nice place?”