“I will not tell a single soul,” Edofine promised. He carefully tiptoed over to Lira and rubbed her shoulders. “May I?”
“You may. Thank you. I don’t know why I feel inclined to tell you these things after such a brief acquaintance. You seem so pure and trustworthy. You would make an excellent therapist. Mmm, that’s nice, thank you.”
Edofine felt this was an experience new to Lira, and he felt honored and pressed points on the back of her neck with his thumb. He didn’t even consider going below her shirt’s neckline. “What is a therapist?”
“Someone who gives counsel to those who are mentally or emotionally ill. If they go to medical school they become psychiatrists, who can not only talk and listen, but can prescribe medication.”
“Do their efforts bear fruit?”
“They do. Not always, but much of the time they do. It pays well, too.”
“I would not mind listening to others’ troubles. I know what they feel already, so I might as well know why.”
“Exactly.” A thought struck Lira, and she took Edofine’s hands off her shoulders and leaned back to look at him upside down. “How old are you in years?”
“Thirty-six.”
“You look human eighteen. Little is known of Eudemon aging, but I am thirty-two in years and appear to be in human twenties. Strange.”
“Age differences make no difference to me.”
Lira raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”
Edofine blushed again and cleared his throat several times. “I was wondering, ah, see, I thought maybe, um, if you want, and I would not mind waiting and we could follow the procedure of any culture you wish, maybewecouldgetmarried.”
Still upside down, those silver eyes moved back and forth as if looking for something. “Say that again. I couldn’t hear the last five words, for you ran them all together.”
“Will you marry me?”
“What?” Lira jerked up. “Are you serious?”
“Very,” Edofine whispered, hands behind his back and knees slightly bent, ready to flee at any moment.
“We’ve known each other for one day. One day only!”
“I can see into your heart, though. I hear everything. I know who you are. You need someone to yourself in your life, someone who understands you rather than fearing or regretting. Christine helps, but she has a bond with Kryvek that puts you in second rank. I rank you first.”
To his surprise, Lira burst out laughing and squeezed one of his hands in both of hers. “You need to understand, Edofine, that while you may know what I’m like, I do not know your nature. You need to give me time. I know the Elves don’t spend much time in courtship since everyone knows everyone else so well, but be sensitive to my position. I have never had any relationship with a male, besides casual friendship with Kryvek, and I need to learn how to love. Understand?”
“Yes, fine lady. I consulted with my cousin, and he said if you wanted to follow the human route, I should ask you to watch moving pictures with me. But I do not like those moving pictures, so would you like to see a play?” Spirits, he exulted, he had found the treasure. He had made her laugh.
“Do you know of any human plays?”
“No.”
“How about a picnic?” she suggested.
“What is a picnic?”
“Eating Elf-style, outdoors, on a cloth spread on the ground.”
“So do you love me?”
Lira shook her head. “I find you agreeable, but that’s all.”
“Pink rose rather than red?”
“How about a yellow friendship rose with a tiny amount of pink at the very tips of the petals?”
Edofine bowed deeply. “Forgive me for troubling you with childish fancies. I shall continue to mop now.”
Lira felt slightly intoxicated for the rest of the day, full to brim with pride for being proposed to, even though the kid was probably still rebounding from losing most of his loved ones. How sadly sweet and clumsy of him. It would never work, for once he met the other Lira, the bleeding white-skinned purple-eyed killing machine, he would run away. For now, though, it would make her life a little better. She hoped he wouldn’t end up too unhappy once he spent more time with her and realized what the other attempting suitors had realized. She was destined to be alone, and no Elf, however adorable, could change that.
Edofine saw it differently. He was sincere in his desire to marry her, but would wait as long as it took. He was even willing to stay in the human town for her sake. Just because love comes early doesn’t mean it’s weak.
Chapter Eight
Employees and Litigators and Officials
Had Edofine been more familiar with human popular culture, he might have had expectations for the OMHI based on the secret headquarters of the Men in Black, the X-Men mansion, The Initiative from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or perhaps the isolated, hidden research center from Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain. He probably would have imagined an underground complex featuring the most up-to-date technology, confidential passwords, gigantic television screens, and sleek, futuristic decoration.
It was fortunate he wasn’t at all familiar with such concepts, for if he had been, he would have become greatly disappointed. He, Lira, and Christine stood in front of a three-story brick building, as crumbling as a granola bar, with very small windows and a weather-beaten gray sign featuring the words “Official Mental Health Institute”. There wasn’t even an “FBI” at the end.
“Is the door locked?” Edofine asked, squirming in his Elven clothing that now smelled funny and itched like chiggers. He shifted the weight of the large insulated cooler he carried from one shoulder to another. Despite this, long, impassioned debates on everyone else’s part could not convince him to wear something that belonged to Kryvek. It was partially a cultural thing, partially a masculine thing.
“No. We do have one security guard inside, who has you either show your ears or your ID cards.” Christine took her card out of her purse and strung it around her double chin.
Lira did the same. She patted Edofine on the back, causing him to sink his neck towards his collarbone like a pleased turtle with a sappy grin. She had promised not to tell anyone about his proposal from the previous day, but now that she knew he was interested, she was as friendly as the antisocial half-Eudemon could manage. “Are you nervous?”
“I need not fear when you are here,” Edofine mumbled.
They opened the glass door and walked in; Lira in front, then Christine, and finally Edofine. An African-American woman with short, clipped hair and a walkie-talkie examined the women’s IDs, and then stood from her chair to look at Edofine. “Eyes, check, hair, clothes; could you bend over a little please?”
Edofine did so, and then squeaked when she nail-pinched the tip of his left ear. “Why must you do such things?”
“Sorry. I just needed to know those points were real. Go on in.”
They passed another set of doors and then they were completely surrounded by gray cubicles. It was a typical office setting, with Employee of the Month plaques along the walls, computer screens covered in post-it notes, family photos on desks, and a general air of quiet bustle. A few people in suits looked up to say, “Hi, Christine,” or “Hi, Lira.”
“Who’s he?” a middle-aged man in a yellow shirt asked.
“This is Edofine,” Christine replied, offering no explanation.
“Ah, another immigrant. Don’t be nervous, young fellow. We’re here to help.”
“Thank you kindly,” Edofine said, twitching a little and looking from side to side. He found it unsettling to be indoors with so many people.
Entering a hallway, they passed wooden doors with signs like, “ADMIN Mister Stanford” or “DRF Department of Real Fantasy”. An open door revealed a young-looking she-Elf in a short black skirt and blue blouse banging on a photocopier. “Spirits! The dead metal is broken,” she muttered.
Christine entered the room and pressed three buttons, and the Xerox m
achine lit up and hummed, producing three contracts. “I think that will do it,” she chirped.
The Elf projected embarrassment but appreciation, chuckling at her mistake with bright teeth, and then winked at Edofine. “I am sure you are having similar difficulties.”
“Was something wrong with her eye?” Edofine asked Lira.
Soon they came upon a stairwell—the OMHI couldn’t afford an elevator, being perpetually strapped for cash. Christine wobbled on the way down because of her two-inch heels, but Lira walked with ease as if she was barefoot. On the walls were bulletin boards with notices of Elf Fridays: “Bring your cloaks, gowns, jewelry, and sandals! If you are human or can no longer wear your ethnic dress, costumes are available at discount in Lira Steele’s office.” Lira sometimes sold her mother’s work to other OMHI employees.
The ground floor of the OMHI was devoted to administration, post office, and media relations, the second floor the law department, and the third floor the anthropology bureau. The two basements were for the benefit of the non-human population, the first a combination medical clinic and acclimation center where they provided birth certificates and other documents, and the second a usually empty courtroom and large utility closet holding the furnace and air conditioning.
Edofine had trouble standing the constant whine of cheap fluorescent lighting and the dull, endlessly beige carpet and gray walls. The cooler was bulky and he was getting tired. Did such settings not drive humans mad? They passed odd containers of water atop boxes with little knobs and paper cones. The paper was also gray, being one hundred percent recycled. Any waste of paper or other resources and the Elf employees flipped. Lira finally stopped at one room, Mrs. Oova’s, and knocked.
“Who is it?” a grandmotherly voice called out.
“Lira.”
“Christine.”
“Edofine.”
“Edofine?”
“Well, I thought not that you would know my name, however the others called out theirs and I panicked.”
Mrs. Oova hooted with laughter and opened the door. She looked pleasant and wise, getting old but aging gracefully, with long, silver hair tucked back in a ponytail. She was still slim and tastefully dressed in black, with heavy, long chains of colorful beads all around her neck. Her eyes were also black, framed with thick, angular glasses, and her ears pointed. She swept them all in and seated them in three wooden chairs, lightly dropping down into her own. The walls were lined with awards, degrees, and testimonials. Her thought-music was full of enthusiastic honesty.
“We don’t see tons of full-blooded Elves in here, Edofine the Courageous darling, but you’ll fit right in.”
“You are not all Elf,” Edofine murmured.
“Half. Also a quarter Thai human and a quarter Chinese human. It’s a slightly bizarre combination, but it makes life more interesting. The smidgen of Elf only shows in the ears and the lie detector. And the dazzling beauty, of course. Hah! I assume you’re here for papers?”
“He’s the one who brought the news of the Dance Clan’s destruction,” Christine said, firmly, with eye contact. Edofine noticed she seemed a great deal more confident now than she was at home.
Mrs. Oova reached over and rubbed one of Edofine’s hands. “Poor child. We’ll do our best for you.” The phone at her desk rang, and she picked it up. “Hello? Actually, she’s right here. I’ll send her up. Lira, you’re wanted for the meeting in room 459.”
Lira looked at her watch. “I see that I am. Will you be all right?”
Edofine nodded, and she left.
Then followed a series of questions, the answers to which Mrs. Oova jotted down on the Standard Naturalization Form, or SNF, as she called it, or pronouncing it ‘sniff.’ “When were you born?”
“The year of the great drought.”
“How old are you in human years?”
“Eighteen.”
“Have you suffered any injuries?”
“A few arrow-wounds, one spear wound, and one bear bite, all healed.”
“Do you have a source of income?”
“No.”
“Do you have any special skills?”
“Elementary Song-Magic abilities, excellent markselfship, and experienced fighting.”
“What was your role in your village?”
“Hunter and need-based warrior.”
“Do you have any living family?”
“Kryvek, now called Kevin Fletcher.”
“What is Kryvek’s species, age in human years, and occupation?”
“I know not. Perhaps twenty-five? He plays instruments and teaches others how to sing and play instruments.
“How much technology are you familiar with?”
“Lady Sara gave me a book called ‘The New Way Things Work’, and I have read all the way up to the eternal combustion engine. I have used the vacuum tube, oven, and shower.”
Christine nudged him. “It’s ‘internal’, not eternal. We haven’t invented an eternal one yet.”
Edofine answered a few more questions with some assistance from Christine, and then placed the cooler on Mrs. Oova’s desk. “My friend here needs the same process, and some answers—we know not what to do with him.”
“Your friend?”
Christine unzipped the insulated bag and pulled back the cover, revealing a one-foot-tall Krith, a paler pink hue than healthy, orange eyes glowing, sitting up to the waist in boiling water. “I was wondering when ya’lled let me out,” he grumbled.
“The water’s getting cold.”
“It still steams,” Edofine pointed out. “Also, you should show courtesy to this lady before us.”
“My goodness, it’s an Archaedemon. I’ve never actually seen one. I didn’t know they were this small.” Mrs. Oova adjusted her glasses and peered at Krith.
“We shrink and grow depending how hot we are, lady. Does anyone at all have a cigarette?” Krith shivered, sighed, and burst into flame. “Now I’m gonna shrink even more,” he whined.
“Be polite, Krith,” Christine admonished.
“There’s boiling water in the kitchenette,” Mrs. Oova suggested. “Let me ask you registration questions as well.”
Meanwhile, Lira knocked on the door labeled ‘Law Conference Room’ and silently slid over to her seat. The assembled men, women, and Elf mixes mentally registered her arrival but said nothing. Nobody ever doubted or criticized Lira after knowing her for a week. Some found her honorable, others found her terrifying.
“Let us get right to the point,” said Mister Hvard. Everyone restrained a gasp, for George Hvard hardly every went right to the point. “Yes, yes, I know this may shock you. But we face a great threat. To pay for the anti-terrorism national defense measures the President has ordered, government healthcare programs are suffering budget cuts. Since the FBI believes we are working with the criminally or otherwise insane, with falls under healthcare, our funding has been slashed by twenty-five percent.”
Several exclamations followed. Some of them were:
What?”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“Son of an unmarried porcupine!”
“Great forests!”
“The hell?”
And, perhaps most memorably, “Archrcggzrrarr!”
Amidst all this, Lira said, “Hmm.”
“But we are national defense,” someone pointed out. “Do you know what will happen if negotiations with the demon fall through and the Eudemons decide they’ve had enough of being pushed around?”
Mister Hvard nodded. “It distresses me too. A representative from the government will be here next week to determine what is non-essential in our program. We have the choice of massive cover-ups to make him or her believe we are indeed the Official Mental Health Institute and that our work is vital, actually telling them we are the Official Magics-Human Institute and begging for money, or refusing to let them visit and thus having our funding cut even further to the extent that would require employee downsizing and possibly n
o longer have money even for heating the building. If that should happen, we will continue to employ all Elf or part-Elf workers, because they will have more trouble finding work elsewhere than the humans will. Also, the only reason the Elves are willing to cooperate with us at all is our employment of some of their people.”
“That’s discrimination, though,” a woman said.
“The law says we cannot discriminate based on race, color, sex, orientation, or disability. It says nothing about species,” Lira replied.
“You’re just saying that because you’re half-Elf.”
Lira stared at the woman with her eyes of melted silver, conveying superiority, regality, and a certain amount of contempt. The woman eventually turned pink and looked away, shuddering slightly. Lira’s wrath affected people that way.
The meeting dragged on with all the lawyers and judges in a state of severe distress. Underground, Edofine went through similar distress in the clinic, where he was undergoing a thorough physical. He was familiar with sharp metal objects—they went in food or in the enemy. They were not meant to go through patients.
“It’s just a blood test, Edofine,” Doctor Fordham assured him.
“There is no magic in my blood. I am not a Eudemon. How does this profit you? Why must I continue wearing this paper robe? It is indecent.” Edofine wished Christine was there, but she had gone to work upstairs.
“There’s no need to be afraid.”
“I am not afraid. I have been stabbed through the stomach with a spear, and the medicine-singers healed me without all this humiliation.”
Doctor Fordham and the male nurse, who was a half-Elf half-Eudemon like Lira, told Edofine they needed all this information for insurance purposes and also to further the cause of non-human medicine. They took his pulse, checked his teeth, X-Rayed his skeleton, tested his flexibility, agility, and strength, and even his oxygen consumption, making him run on a treadmill with a mask on his face. Eventually he relaxed a little and stopped being on the defensive—once he sensed they were doing this for his sake.
Humans and Demons and Elves Page 7