by Alex Bledsoe
“Honor your word,” Mandalay said, and returned her attention to her game. “I’ll see you at your wedding.”
“I won’t,” Rockhouse said. “Might come to your next one,” he added with a cold chortle.
Bronwyn realized she’d been dismissed. As she walked back to her truck, she thought over what they’d said. She hated to admit it, but Rockhouse might be right. What if she had been expertly manipulated, and put the whole community at risk, over her refusal to wear her mother’s gown? What kind of shadow would that cast on her marriage?
Then again, she was marrying the man she loved, and nothing, no old man or tiny woman, was going to mess that up.
On the day of her wedding, Bronwyn Hyatt stood in the vestibule of the Triple Springs Methodist Church, awaiting the distinctive music. Deacon, in the suit he wore only for weddings and funerals, stood beside her. The dress did indeed fit her perfectly, leaving her shoulders bare and accenting her shape as if it had been tailored for her.
He noticed that she kept looking out through the glass front doors at the parking lot. “Worryin’ about your little friends?” he said with a sly smile. He’d been calling them that ever since she’d told him about meeting Oral.
“Worrying about havin’ a daddy who’s such a smart-ass,” Bronwyn said.
“Girl, you’re wound up tighter than the girdle of a preacher’s wife at an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast.”
“I’m about to be a preacher’s wife, Daddy.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “You kept your end of things,” he said seriously. “You wore the dress like you said you would. You ain’t got no control over anything else. Don’t let it ruin your day.”
She nodded and turned away from the door. “You’re right, Daddy.”
The march music began, and Deacon offered his arm. “Ready to sell him the cow?”
Brownyn almost laughed. The irony was that Craig, as a minister, had refused getting the milk for free when they dated, no matter how badly Bronwyn had wanted to give it. She suspected her father knew that.
They opened the inner vestibule doors and began the slow march down the aisle. She knew the borrowed dress looked spectacular on her, but the only opinion that mattered was that of the man waiting for her at the end of her walk.
He stood tall and handsome in his best suit, his fresh haircut immaculately combed into position. She’d never seen him like that: usually his hair was delightfully tousled. But she had seen the broad, uninhibited smile that spread across his face. She saw it every time he first caught sight of her.
Beside him stood his father. The resemblance was clear, and Brownyn thought that if Craig aged the way his father had, then she’d done pretty dang well for herself.
The church wasn’t full. Many Tufa wouldn’t cross the county line for this, and of the ones that would, most wouldn’t set foot in a Christian church. But her immediate family was there, and the few friends whose presence really counted: Bliss Overbay, Peggy and Marshall Goins, and, as promised, Mandalay Harris.
She felt a sharp pang of sadness at the memory of Kell, her older brother who’d died around the time she met Craig. She could only imagine how he would’ve teased her about marrying a Christian minister from out of town, when so many of the local boys still had their eye on “the Bronwynator.”
On Craig’s side were his mother, two brothers and sisters-in-law, and his one nephew. The little boy, five years old, was one of the most obnoxious children Bronwyn had ever met, and ignored the wedding as he played Minecraft on his father’s iPhone.
Bronwyn, though, noted all this only in passing. She had eyes just for Craig.
Deacon handed her off to her future husband, then withdrew. Craig winked at her, and she almost giggled out loud.
The minister, Craig’s friend and mentor George Landers, smiled and opened his Bible. “Dearly beloved—”
The vestibule doors slammed open. Every person’s head snapped around.
Orla stood there, clad in a gown the color of autumn leaves. Her hair was wound into two braids and festooned with ribbons. Behind her were a dozen of her fellows, the women all in dresses, the men all wearing bright red caps. She cried, “Have you started without us?”
“You made it just in time,” Bronwyn called, trying not to laugh at the absurdity.
“That is good, then. All right, you badgers, to your burrows! And act like you have been to the village before!”
The little folk quickly filed into the back two rows of pews on Bronwyn’s side and had to jump or climb to get to a seat. When they were settled, Bronwyn turned back to Reverend Landers. “Sorry. They’re friends of mine.”
He seemed completely unperturbed. “I’m glad they made it, then. Shall we continue?”
Bronwyn risked a glance at Craig’s family. None of them looked twice at the little folk; the boy had even returned to his game. It seemed the Yunwi Tsunsdi, like the Tufa, had the ability to cast a glamour over the unwitting, so that they saw nothing unusual. After the ceremony, everyone adjourned to the fellowship hall for the reception. It was a small room with only two long tables, but they were laden with food, and before long people were producing instruments and filling the space with music. Bronwyn and Craig did the usual newlywed goofy pictures, including stuffing cake in each other’s mouths, then had their first dance to an achingly beautiful rendition of Laura Powers’ “The Pipes of Inishmore,” played and sung by Bliss Overbay.
When Bronwyn finally sat down for a break, the little warrior woman came over and stood on the chair beside her, putting them at eye level. “This is an old woman’s party, is it not? No drinking. No couples stealing off to dark corners. No bloody fights over honor.”
“I know. It’s how my husband’s people are. They also have a lot of good qualities.”
“Oh, I am not criticizing. I just wanted to warn you that when you come for my wedding, things will be considerably wilder.”
“I don’t know that I can bring a whole gaggle of folks like you did.”
“That’s fine. You and your betrothed are enough.”
Bronwyn looked up sharply. “Wait . . . you expect Craig to come?”
“Of course. I brought my betrothed.”
She gestured at a small, strapping man whose beard was smeared with cake icing. He saw her and waved, slinging frosting all over the back of Craig’s mother’s dress.
Bronwyn said, “Um . . . you do realize my husband isn’t Tufa. At all.”
“Of course, that’s why he doesn’t see us as we are.”
“Yeah, thank you for that, But he also won’t . . .”
The woman put a tiny but iron-strong hand on Bronwyn’s shoulder. “We had an agreement, Bronwyn Hyatt. I expect you to honor it. Husband and wife will come to our wedding. As we have done, so shall you do. Are we clear?”
Bronwyn could think of no way out of this, and she was far too proud to bring in Mandalay to mediate. “Well . . . all right. As we agreed. No tricks, though. He can eat and drink without any danger. He may not be a Tufa by blood, but he is by marriage.”
Orla grinned. This close, in clear light, Bronwyn saw that her teeth were pointed and fit together like matching saw blades. “No tricks, agreed. The wedding is in a week, on the night of the full moon. I’ll send word how to find us.”
“Okay,” Brownyn said. She smiled at Craig, whose hair was again that tousled mass she found so irresistible. Despite the distraction of Orla’s presence, she couldn’t wait to finally, after two years of mostly chaste courtship, get him alone and naked.
It was after midnight in the parsonage beside the church before Craig and Bronwyn had a chance to talk. They lay together drenched in sweat and love and lust that needed only a brief respite to reignite. Bronwyn had never been so happy.
“So,” Craig asked as he sipped from the ice water he’d presciently placed on the bedside table, “want to tell me about the dwarves who came to the wedding?”
She rose enough to look at him in the dim light. �
��What did you see?”
“A dozen people about three feet tall who looked like garden gnomes.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“Neither did you. I figured if they weren’t supposed to be there, you would have.”
She almost wanted to cry at his simple acceptance. He knew about the history of the Tufa, and had seen just enough to convince him of its truth. But there was so much more he didn’t know. Yet each revelation showed just how thoroughly he was the man she’d fallen for.
“I love you,” she said with more sincerity than she’d thought it possible to feel. Then she explained who the Little People were, and what was now expected of her and her new husband.
“Hm,” he said calmly when she’d finished. “Sounds interesting.”
“It will be. It could also be dangerous. We’d be in their territory, playing by their rules.”
“They did okay when they came to ours.”
“Our rules are much less . . . arbitrary.”
“You’ll watch out for me, though, right?”
“You know it.”
“Then I’m sure it’ll be fine.” And then his hand strayed to somewhere she’d ached to have him touch ever since she’d known him, and everything else melted away.
Three days after the wedding, Bronwyn drove back to her family’s farm and took the dress out into the woods to the spot where she’d received it. Carefully she draped it over a low-hanging branch, making sure no briars or twigs snagged it. She looked around for any sign of Orla or the other Yunwi Tsunsdi, but saw nothing: no tiny footprints, no disturbed greenery, no evidence of their existence at all.
“Here it is,” she said softly to the woods. “Thank you again, and I look forward to returning your sword when I attend your wedding on the full moon. Just let me know where.”
As she walked back to her farm, she couldn’t help stopping to hold up her hand and gaze at the gold band she now wore. She’d always imagined these bands would feel like slave shackles, the weight a constant reminder of the freedom you gave up when you decided you’d only be with one person, ostensibly forever. But now she realized something her mother had told her more than once—that when it’s the right person, your world doesn’t shrink, it expands beyond your imagination. You fly higher, sing more purely, dance more joyfully.
She giggled with happiness.
Back at the Hyatt farm, her parents and younger brother sat at the table eating some homemade ice cream. She joined them. Her brother Aiden, ten years old, asked, “Are you pregnant yet?”
“Aiden!” Chloe snapped. “Apologize to your sister.”
“Sorry, I just know that when people get married, the wife tends to get pregnant right away.”
Bronwyn mock-glared at him. “I don’t know, and it’s none of your business, smart-ass.”
“Since I’ll be his uncle, he’ll have to do what I say, right? Just like I have to do what Uncle Chilly says.”
“When you get enough sense to keep your own head out of your butt, we’ll see about letting you boss other people around,” Deacon said. He turned to Bronwyn. “Did you do what you needed to do out there?”
“I did. I’ll go back later and check on it.”
“Maybe you should wait until tomorrow,” Chloe suggested.
“I’m on my honeymoon. I don’t want to have to keep driving all the way out here.”
“I thought when you went on a honeymoon, you went on a trip somewhere,” Aiden said.
“Not on a preacher’s salary,” Deacon said.
“That’s got nothing to do with it,” Bronwyn said. “We decided not to blow a bunch of money on it right now. We can take a trip anytime and call it a honeymoon.”
She turned and looked out through the screen door at the yard, and the barn beyond it. Orla had known all about her. Had she been spying on them for a long time, peeking in windows left innocently open and lurking just outside doors? Was she out there now, crouched in a bush or hidden in a tree, listening to their intimate conversation?
The cut on her thumb tingled. It could, she knew, just be the itch that came with healing. But it might also be a signal that her new blood sister was nearby.
“I’m going back to check on the dress,” Bronwyn said abruptly.
“Can I come with you?”Aiden asked excitedly.
“Sure. If Mom and Dad don’t mind.”
“If you see one of them Yunwi Tsunsdi,” Deacon said, “Don’t eat or drink anything they might give you.”
“How can it hurt me? I’m a Tufa, they’re Yunwi Tsunsdi, we’re basically alike.”
Deacon gave the boy his hardest father-to-son look. “Don’t eat or drink anything. Am I clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Aiden said meekly.
As they walked through the woods, Aiden asked, “Why do people get married?”
“Because they love somebody so much they want to spend the rest of their life with them,” Bronwyn answered.
“And that’s how you feel about Craig?”
“Yes.”
“But what about Terry-Joe?”
Terry-Joe was her late ex-boyfriend’s teenage brother, who’d had a huge crush on Bronwyn since he was old enough to notice girls. “Terry-Joe is a little young for me. And besides, I don’t love him. I love Craig.”
“But Terry-Joe’s a Tufa. Aren’t we supposed to only marry other Tufas?”
That question cut right to the heart of the whole Tufa dilemma. As purebloods, a shrinking population to be sure, the Hyatts had a special responsibility to their people. But they also had a responsibility to themselves. “What we’re supposed to do is not always the right thing to do. The right thing for me to do was marry Craig.”
Aiden nodded, not entirely understanding but wanting the uncomfortable intensity to stop.
They reached the spot where Bronwyn had left the dress, and it was gone. No footprints marred the dirt path, and none of the greenery seemed disturbed. She went closer, and saw a tiny piece of parchment tied with a ribbon dangling from the tip of a branch. She took it down.
Bronwyn parked her truck at the end of the path, the headlights illuminating only the thick trunks of old trees. The undergrowth was so close, there was barely enough room on either side for her and Craig to open their doors. “Romantic, at least, what with the full moon,” Craig observed. He wore slacks and a dress shirt, and she was clad in the dress she often wore to the community barn dance.
“Yeah. Well, according to my information, this is the path.”
“What path?”
She pointed to the ground, where a faint, worn track could be seen in the moonlight. It was barely six inches wide, and became a path through the undergrowth about four feet high where the brush grew thick. “That’s our highway.”
“Eastbound . . .” He crouched and peered into the darkness. “And really down.”
They made their way through the woods, Bronwyn in the lead. Overhead the canopy grew thicker, until soon there was no moonlight to guide them. A dark, round hill rose from the forest floor, so old that mature trees grew from it. Then, ahead, they saw what they first thought was a large firefly, but turned out to be a small lamp. Moths fluttered around it.
It hung from a low branch and marked the opening of a tunnel about four feet high. Music and high-pitched laughter came from deep inside.
“I assume we go in?” Craig asked.
“I reckon.” Bronwyn felt a warning kind of buzz in her head, one she’d learned to trust when she’d been in Iraq. But the cut on her thumb tingled again, reminding her that she had no choice. “Just stay close to me and don’t eat or drink anything without checking with me first.”
Bronwyn crouched low and moved into the tunnel. Craig, being taller, had to get down on all fours. The passage bent to the right a short distance in, plunging them into total darkness. The noise grew louder, though, and after another turn, light blazed from the tunnel’s end ahead.
Bronwyn emerged into a great open cavern much larger than the hi
ll outside had appeared, held up by golden columns that gleamed like fire, reflecting the illumination of thousands of tiny lamps. The roof was a dome of ivory. And filling it were the music, voices, and warmth of over a thousand Little People, all dancing, drinking, and celebrating.
Craig crawled from the tunnel, stood up, and brushed the dirt from his slacks. He looked around as if he saw a place like this every day.
“You have made it!” the little warrior woman cried. She emerged from the crowd in the white-and-red dress, now shrunken to its original size. “We were hoping you’d be here in time for the hand fasting. Come along, the priest is itching to get at the ale, and we cannot hold him back for long!”
Bronwyn pulled Orla’s sword from where she’d tucked it into her dress’s belt and handed it back to her. The little woman cackled, sliced the air with it, and put it into her scabbard.
She took Bronwyn’s hand and led the two relative giants through the crowd. It struck Bronwyn as odd that so few of the others paid them any mind; was there a reverse glamour at work, making these Little People see only what they wanted or expected?
They reached the altar, which was a platform carved into the stone wall. It was waist-high to Bronwyn, and Orla quickly dashed up the steps. At the top, the man she’d introduced as her betrothed waited in a dashing caped outfit, and an old man with a long white beard tossed over his right shoulder stood behind a podium carved from a single piece of wood. “Are we ready, then?” the priest asked.
“We are,” Orla said. Suddenly her eyes lit up. “I’ve got me an idea! This woman is my sister by blood oath; can you not bind her and her beloved first, as a way of blessing me and mine?”
The priest thought it over. “That is possible, if she and he agree. Do you?”
Bronwyn, surprised by the offer, looked back at Craig. “What do you think?”
He shrugged, then nodded.
“You do know we’re already married, right?” she said.
“Married by the laws of your world, not by the laws of ours,” the old priest said. “Very different realms. Step forward, both of you, and hold out your left hands.”