Heiresses of Russ 2013

by Tenea D. Johnson

  Her father opened the back door, stamping the slush off his boots as he came inside. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “She’s in a mood. Like always, these days.”

  Alice bit back a retort and settled for a glare. Most days she would have taken the bait without hesitation, but didn’t want to risk being sent to her room. Not today.

  “See ya, Dad,” she said, smiling pointedly in her father’s direction. He said nothing, just gave her the same weary expression he always wore when she and her mother were arguing. Lately, it was present whenever all three of them shared the same room.

  Elm’s nest was still closed when Alice reached the tree. She thought about coming back later, but no. All of her senses told her that Elm would awaken today, soon.

  She sat on a fallen log to wait, trying to ignore the cold seeping through her jeans. At first she fidgeted and tapped, but it occurred to her that Elm would disapprove if she had been watching. Stillness, Alice. Most people don’t have the stillness to understand this place.

  Closing her eyes, Alice reached out a hand and began to hum, even and quiet like Elm had taught her. She kept her volume low, but projected the sound out into the woods until she could feel what she was looking for.

  A twig cracked as the fox slid into the clearing. Alice kept her eyes closed as he circled her, waited for him to drop his guard. She could hear the little sounds of his movements, picture exactly where he was. A puff of breeze brought the musky scent of his pelt, strong enough that she knew he must be nearly within reach. Finally, she felt hot breath and fur nudging against her open palm.

  She stopped humming and opened her eyes. The fox sat on his haunches, face turned up toward hers. She quietly stroked his back and scratched behind his ears. When he stood and ran off, Alice saw Elm watching her from the tree’s upper bough.

  They said nothing for a minute, just watching each other. Then Elm jumped to the ground. “Come. I want to see the river.”

  Alice swallowed the lump in her throat and forced herself to smile. “Okay.”

  It wasn’t the resolution she wanted, but at least it was a kind of truce. At least she hadn’t lost her.

  •

  “Just be patient. Figure out what’s wrong with them.”

  Alice rubbed a leaf from the blackberry bush between her fingers. She smelled the berries, dug her fingers into the ground. “There’s something in the soil, something they don’t have enough of.” She felt the roots straining, driven by need.

  “Yes,” Elm said. “Now, what is it?”

  Alice closed her eyes and tried to be still. “Iron,” she said at last.

  Elm nodded. “Good. We’ll fix it tomorrow.” She picked up a wide patch of fallen tree bark and began piling it with plucked berries. “Would you like to come to the nest?”

  “Sure.” Alice followed her back to the tree and watched her climb, balancing the berries on one hand like a waiter with a dinner plate. She followed Elm, settling against the wall of the nest. For a fleeting moment, Alice was reminded of that night over three years ago, that night they had never discussed. Then, as always, she shoved the memory aside.

  They ate in silence. “I’ll be done with high school soon,” Alice said when she was done. “Just one more year.”

  “What does that mean?” Elm asked, licking blackberry juice from her fingers.

  “I don’t know. College, I guess.”

  “You don’t sound like you want to.” Elm’s skin was translucent in the moonlight, dark veins spidering up her arms. She sat in the nest’s opening, face hidden by shadow.

  Alice let out a hollow laugh. “No. But, then, I don’t want any of the things I’m supposed to want. You know Davey Jensen asked me to the junior prom?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he did.” Alice leaned back against the wall of the nest and swigged from the bottle of cheap wine she had talked an older cousin into buying for her. “I told him I wasn’t going to the prom. Why the fuck would I? My friend Sarah said I was nuts, most girls at that school would kill to go with Davey Jensen. Oh, sorry, it’s supposed to be Dave Jensen now. Well, far as I’m concerned, they can have at him. God knows I’m not interested. In him or any other guy at that school.” Her blood thrummed with the warmth of the wine, letting her hint at things she never quite spoke aloud.

  “What are you interested in?” Elm’s voice was a quiet whisper from behind her curtain of hair.

  God, are you really going to make me say it? “This,” Alice said after a moment. “Honestly, there’s nothing I like more than this. Just…being part of this, being in the forest. Calling the animals. Listening. Out there nothing feels as, as real. It doesn’t feel as alive.” She laughed softly. “I think I was supposed to grow out of this, but I’m starting to think I won’t.”

  Elm turned and looked at her for a long time, expression unreadable. She climbed from her perch and crossed to where Alice sat, deep in the nest. In one smooth motion, she straddled Alice’s lap and took her face in her hands.

  Alice’s breath quickened. She let her hands rest against the cool, alien skin of Elm’s thighs. “Does this mean I’m not still a child?”

  “No,” Elm murmured. “You’re not a child anymore.” And she kissed her.

  •

  When Alice woke, the sky had lightened to lavender. Elm’s hair trailed along Alice’s side as she kissed her neck, the base of her throat, her breasts. I have to go soon, Alice knew she should say. I have to be back before Mom and Dad find out I was out all night. Instead, she arched her back and wrapped her arms around Elm’s waist.

  The night before had been a frenzy, each of them touching and moving too eagerly to find the right rhythm. This morning they took their time, exploring each other with care. Alice lost herself in Elm’s smell and taste and the coolness of her body, lost track of all time until Elm came, shuddering and gasping under her.

  They lay tangled in the nest, unable to do anything more than breathe. Alice saw sunlight creeping through the leaves and knew that there would be trouble later. There would be shrill questions and lies and punishment, but that could wait. All of it could wait until she’d had a little more time here.

  “Why’d you change your mind?” Alice whispered.

  Elm stroked her cheek. “You know yourself now.”

  Alice was quiet for a time. “Maybe you did the right thing, back then,” she said, running her fingertips along Elm’s side, “but I’m so happy the wait’s over.”

  •

  Alice went to the woods nearly every night now. Sometimes she and Elm would walk the forest, tending to the trees, calling the animals, as they always had. Sometimes Elm ripped her clothes off the moment she reached the clearing and had her on the open ground. Always, though, they ended the night wrapped around each other in Elm’s nest. Each morning, Alice woke before sunrise and was back to the house before her parents were out of bed.

  One lazy Sunday, they lay intertwined in a heap of auburn leaves beneath an ancient oak. Alice kissed Elm’s neck, trying not to think of the long winter that was fast approaching. “I got a job at the nursery. Plants, not babies,” she said after a comfortable lull in the conversation. “It’s just a few hours each day after school.”

  “Oh?” Elm murmured, running her hand slowly up Alice’s thigh.

  Alice tried to keep her voice casual. “And the guy who owns it, Donald, he said I could start working full time in May, after I graduate.”

  Elm’s gaze flicked toward her. “I thought you said after graduation was college.”

  “Yeah, well…. Maybe I’m taking a year off first. That’s what I’m telling my folks, anyway. Really I just don’t want to go. I’d miss this. And…I realized, it’s not just you. I mean it is you, I love you, but it’s also this place. I don’t think I can leave it.” She sighed. “It’s scary, knowing that.”

  Elm looked away. “I’ve been dreading the day you’d leave,” she said, almost too quiet for Alice to hear. “I’m glad you’re n
ot.”

  Alice watched her. It occurred to her that she had never seen Elm show need before. She said nothing, afraid of breaking something fragile. Instead she just stroked Elm’s hair and held her close.

  •

  Alice was pulling on her left boot when her father walked into the kitchen. “Where you off to?” he asked.

  “Just a walk. In the woods,” Alice replied, concealing her eagerness under a tone of boredom. Winter had ended only weeks before, and she and Elm hadn’t been able to get enough of each other.

  “What is it you’re always doing there? Always in those damn woods…” There was that look in his eye, that odd squint Alice had seen once or twice when he mentioned her frequent trips to the forest. Nervousness, maybe. A hint of suspicion.

  “Oh, nothing.” Alice grinned as she stood. “I just have a friend who’s a tree spirit.”

  She was expecting an eye roll, a laugh, a little thrill from having casually spilled the truth without him even knowing. Instead his features froze in naked shock and pain. “You…” The word seemed to squeeze its way through his lips. Then, for the first time, Alice’s father slapped her. The impact rocked her head to one side, made her stagger. She clutched her cheek and gasped.

  They stared at each other in silence, mute and pale with the knowledge they shared. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but at that moment they heard the sound of the truck’s tires on the gravel of the drive. Both of them glanced at the door, then at each other.

  “Mom’s gonna need help with the groceries,” Alice muttered, astonished at the calm in her own voice.

  “Alice…” He reached for her, but she pulled back.

  “Don’t. Just go help Mom,” she said, shouldering past him and moving for the back door. The tears began as she stumbled down the porch steps. Her feet carried her onto the forest path and toward Elm’s tree.

  She spotted Elm by the stream, standing with her back to the path. She turned and Alice saw that smile she so loved before it was replaced by worry. “Alice?” Elm whispered, moving toward her, “What happened?”

  Alice pushed her, clumsily, and Elm took a step back. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried.

  Elm’s eyes closed and she took a slow, deep breath. “About your father.”

  “What the hell did you do to him?”

  Elm flinched. “I didn’t do anything to him. I loved him and he loved me. When he was young, before you were born.”

  Alice felt something in her chest crumple. “You lied to me,” she whispered.

  “No, I didn’t.” A spark of anger flashed in Elm’s eyes. “I never said I didn’t know him. I never said you were the first. I’ve been alive for over a century, Alice. ‘Elm’ isn’t the first human name I’ve had, and you weren’t the first I made love to. And you knew that, even if you never asked.”

  Alice turned away, unable to stop the sobs now. Elm moved up behind her, and she felt those slender hands touch her shoulders. “Alice. You need to listen to me.”

  “What?” She didn’t turn around.

  “It was when he was a young man, just a little older than you are now. I chose to show myself to him, and we grew close. We loved each other, for a time.

  “But he wasn’t like you. He wanted me to leave the forest. He wanted me to be a human woman, and that was something I could never be. Not the way he wanted me to. And he wasn’t…he wasn’t right, he wasn’t a fit to become one of my kind. The forest wouldn’t have taken him. When he met your mother, he made a choice. He wanted children, and a family, and that’s what he chose.”

  “He…he did that?” Alice asked, turning to face Elm. Her eyes held pain Alice had never seen there.

  “Yes. He left the forest and he came back just once. He came back with you, when you were a baby. Just days old. He said your name was Alice, and he wanted me to meet you. He was so proud.”

  “That’s how you knew who I was,” Alice breathed. “The day we met.”

  “Yes.” Elm reached tentatively for Alice’s cheekbone, already beginning to bruise where her father’s ring had struck. “I didn’t tell you because I could see from the first day that you were someone new, someone different. You weren’t just his daughter.”

  Elm kissed her then; Alice stayed still for a moment before returning the kiss. Pulling back slightly, Elm asked, “Will you come with me?”

  “Yes,” Alice whispered.

  Much later, they lay together in Elm’s nest, catching their breath. Alice rested her head against Elm’s shoulder and closed her eyes, inhaling the otherworldly scent of her lover’s skin. She could feel Elm’s fingers slowly stroking through her hair. “You said the forest wouldn’t have taken him,” she said.

  “Yes,” Elm replied, kissing the top of her head.

  Alice took a deep breath. “What about me? Would it take me?”

  Elm was silent for a long time. “Yes. It would.”

  Alice’s pulse quickened. “I could be like you?” She felt Elm nod.

  She pushed herself up so she could see Elm’s face. “Is…is that something you would want?”

  Time stopped as she waited for an answer. Elm stared back, sadness in her eyes. “Of course,” she sighed. “But it’s not something I’d ever ask of you. You’d be giving up so much, Alice.”

  “I never thought I could,” Alice murmured. “I never thought I could be like you. But if I can—”

  Elm covered her lips with cool fingers. “Don’t choose now. Think. Be sure.”

  •

  Alice froze mid-step. Down the path to Elm’s tree, she heard voices. Shouting. She broke into a run, slowing only when she came in sight of the clearing.

  Elm stood in the center. Alice’s father paced along the edge, right arm cutting through the air as he shouted. His face was flecked with salt-and-pepper stubble, his hair greasy and uncombed. Alice recognized the bloodshot squint he got when he’d been at the whiskey. He’d been drinking more and more since the day he had slapped her, since their conversations had been replaced by thick, toxic silence.

  “You had no right, no right—”

  Elm’s reply was level and calm. “You don’t own her, Douglas.”

  “I’m her father, goddammit. How could you, you…slept with her? How could you?” His voice broke on the last word.

  “That’s enough, Dad.” Alice moved to stand next to Elm.

  “Go back to the house, Alice. I don’t want you coming out here anymore.” But there was defeat in his voice, and none of them pretended he could enforce the edict.

  “Dad, why are you angry, huh?” Alice demanded.

  “Don’t play dumb, Alice.”

  She stepped forward until they stood eye to eye. “No, really I want to know. Is it because she’s a woman? Because she’s also not human, so the fact that she’s a woman should be the least of your problems.” He winced and looked away.

  “Or is it because she used to be yours? Is that really what this is about?” Alice spat the words out, some corner of her mind recoiling from the scorn in her own voice; it was like a boil had been lanced, poison pouring out of her.

  Rage flared in her father’s eyes. “Shut up,” he growled.

  “Alice…” Elm cautioned.

  Alice ignored her. “Well, I’m sorry, Dad, I really am, but you gave her up. You made that choice.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth.”

  “And maybe marrying Mom and having me was a big fucking mistake, but it’s not my fault, or hers.”

  “I said be quiet!” His arm pulled back, fist closed this time, and Alice braced herself to be hit again. Then Elm was there, holding back his arm with one slender hand.

  “No.” Her voice stayed tranquil, but her eyes shone with danger. None of them moved for a few seconds; even the birds had gone silent. Then Alice’s father let out a shuddering sigh and fell to his knees, sobbing.

  Elm knelt and wrapped her arms around him, murmuring something too soft for Alice to hear. Alice started toward them, but Elm sh
ook her head once. “It’s okay, Alice. Give us some time.”

  •

  Alice’s mother was at the table when she came inside. She gazed out the kitchen window, absently tapping her fingers in a dull rhythm against the wood. A half empty glass, vodka tonic, Alice thought, sweated beads of moisture onto one of the frayed place mats. “He’s out there again, isn’t he?” she asked without looking at Alice.

  Alice froze. “What?”

  “He’s out there. With her.”

  Almost against her will, Alice sank into a chair across from where her mother sat. “Yeah.”

  Her mother nodded and sipped her drink. “He doesn’t know I know.”

  Alice stared down at her folded hands, red and callused as any workman’s, crescents of black potting soil under ragged nails. “How did you find out?”

  Her mother lifted her left shoulder in a careless shrug. “Followed him, simple as that. It was back before we were married. He was always taking these walks in the woods, and I started to wonder what he could be doing out here. So one day I visited and pretended to leave, and then I followed him to see where he went.

  “I only saw her for a few seconds, just a little peek, before she spooked and disappeared. I don’t think she realized I got a look at her. I did, though. Not much, but it was enough. That’s the clearest memory of my whole life, seeing that thing out in the woods.”

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  She let out a tired sigh and shook her head. “I don’t know, Alice. Didn’t know how, I guess. After a while it felt like too much time had gone by to talk about it. Then he asked me to marry him, and I thought, well, maybe that doesn’t matter anymore. Or maybe it didn’t really happen. It’s the kind of thing crazy people see, right? So I tried to forget it, but your grandparents left us this damned house and your father made us stay. Never went into the woods again, not once past the yard, but he had to stay right on the edge of it. Like he was just torturing himself. I never could decide if it was because he couldn’t stand to go too far away or if it was to prove to himself that he could do it.”