Copper Girl

by Jennifer Allis Provost

  In today’s world there were no counseling services for unwed mothers, and birth control in all but its most basic forms was a thing of the past. If you were foolish enough to bear a child out of wedlock, it was confiscated and sent to a more appropriate (read: married, in nothing less than a fully sanctioned government ceremony) couple for a proper upbringing. But fear of an unplanned pregnancy was only one of the tools the government used against its youth; far more effective was a college education.

  As it has always been, college is an expensive, yet necessary, evil, unless you enjoy flipping burgers for an indecently small paycheck. No one had had any money after the wars, what with the new tax increases and general expenses associated with launching a new republic, and as a result, within a few semesters the colleges were nearly vacant. Mind you, the government didn’t care a whit about our standards of living, but they did need a somewhat regular supply of educated people in order to keep the basic infrastructure up and running. So the government, in all its devious glory, came up with an ingenious plan: prove your virginity, and you could attend college for free.

  Sounds like a good deal, right? For a time, I wavered on the fence about taking the government up on their offer, since the Corbeau bank account could easily fund ten doctoral degrees, if not more. But when someone paid for his or her own education, it seemed that everyone else found out, and no matter what your circumstances were, you were labeled a whore. Slut. Easy.

  Not aspiring for any of those labels, Sadie and I had gone to our college entrance examinations together. Mind you, these were not written examinations. Oh, for the days when good grades and a halfway-decent essay were all that mattered. As you could imagine, it was a bit difficult to prove a boy’s virginity, but a girl’s was pretty straightforward. I had assumed we’d be in and out in a few minutes. Was I ever wrong.

  When we’d arrived, we were given standard-issue hospital gowns that split down the front, left in a rather ordinary room, and told to wait our turn. I thought we’d be guided into a private doctor’s office for the examination, but when the time came, I was led into an auditorium before at least a hundred spectators. Before I could really register what was happening, my arms had been strapped down to an exam table, and my legs buckled into stirrups and pushed so far apart my hips had nearly dislocated. The doctor had proceeded to completely open my gown, baring me from neck to knee, and I lay there, naked and humiliated, for the next twenty minutes while he prodded the most intimate parts of my body. He had been so thorough that, once the exam was over, I questioned whether I was still a virgin, but after the ordeal I had been presented with my papers, and thus enjoyed a free education.

  If I ever see the bastard again, I’ll shove my degree down his throat.

  After the exam, I had tried to give it away whenever I could, but that had been an impossible feat. No respectable boy would have me, and even drunks at college keggers had turned me down. Per regulations, you needed to file with your local Peacekeeper when you were deflowered, being sure to include the identity of said deflowerer, and no man was willing to take on such a daunting task. If he slipped up and got you pregnant, he could be forced into marriage; if the girl in question was an Elemental from a family the government had deemed not fit to breed, he could possibly face prison. No man had ever found me worth the risk. No man, that was, until Micah.

  My Micah, my wonderful Micah, the man who now gazed at me with tender eyes. “Sara,” he repeated as he withdrew.

  No, not after all this! I stroked the silver tendrils of his mark, arousing him much the same way he’d done to me a few moments earlier. His mark grew warm and he arched his back, then Micah tensed above me, resisting the desire that I knew pooled in his belly. Deviously, I leaned up and nipped his throat. Finally, he could take it no more, and thrust forward.

  I yelped, more in surprise than anything else. While I’d been on display at my examination, the doctor in charge had taken it upon himself to regale us with a short lecture on how unpleasant sex was for a woman, and the pain that I, in particular, could expect. The doctor had been kind enough to indicate the various parts of my anatomy that would be sore, and maybe even bruised, afterward. He’d been fondling my breast while he spoke, and his other hand was doing… other things. Later, when he had handed me my papers, he leaned close and whispered that he’d been trying to bring me to orgasm, and the fact that he hadn’t meant that I was one of the girls who would find sex especially nasty. The good doctor had painted a picture of a horrible, excruciatingly painful act, one I didn’t exactly want to try.

  It wasn’t like that, at all, with Micah. It was perfect.

  Afterward, Micah held me close, gently stroking my hair, his cheek pressed against my neck. I mumbled that I wanted to lie inside that tree with him forever, and he laughed deep in his chest. It felt so…so comfortable, snuggled in his arms with his warm breath and the gentle rumbles of his voice. “Eventually, we’ll need to eat.”

  “Have your oaky friends toss us some acorns.” I felt his face stretch into a smile, then he propped himself up on an elbow and I saw it in the flesh. I liked his smile.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

  “I didn’t want you to say no.” Micah laughed again, and drew my face close to his.

  “There was very little chance of that happening,” he informed me. “What fools human males are, to have let you slip through their fingers.” I sighed and told him about the examinations, of the careful rosters kept of who had bedded, and impregnated, whom, of all the men who hadn’t thought me worth the bother. The thunderheads returned to Micah’s eyes as I spoke.

  “To treat a woman so poorly is the vilest of acts,” he murmured, smoothing my hair back from my brow. “My Sara, you have given me a gift without equal. I only regret the circumstances.”

  “Maybe I’ve always wanted to make love in a tree, next to a fire,” I quipped.

  “Then I will dispense with all my furniture, and have dirt floors installed where the beds once stood,” Micah declared. “I do not know if I can coax a tree to grow around my home, but I will try, for you.”

  He would, wouldn’t he? I nestled closer, kissing him in order to fully express my gratitude. He moved against me, intending to do a bit more than kiss me in return, but recent memories distracted me.

  “Max,” I said, in response to his quizzical face. “I saw Max.”

  “He is alive, then?” Micah asked, and I nodded. “That explains why there is no metal around that facility. His captors do not want your brother to draw upon his power and free himself.”

  “How can there be none?” I murmured. “What about the computers, the monitors? Don’t they have wires?”

  “A small amount,” he replied, once I explained what a computer was, “too small to make a difference for your brother.” I nodded, but another memory came forth, this one easily as awful as Max’s plastic prison.

  “Micah, there’s more.” I squeezed my eyes shut, replaying the scene one more time, hoping I was wrong. Instead of being wrong, I saw my best friend’s dark hair, the distinctive way she carried herself; hell, I thought she’d been wearing the sweater she had picked up when we had gone shopping last week. “Juliana—the one you said wasn’t my friend—she’s there, too.”

  “She is also a prisoner?”

  “No.”

  He could have said so many things—I told you so; listen to me next time; you’re a stupid, naïve girl—and he would have been right about all of them. Instead, Micah tucked my head against his neck and held me, sharing in my pain.

  “Did she see you?” he asked at length.

  “I don’t think so. I was my dreamself.” I straightened, remembering what Max had said. “But that doesn’t seem to matter there. Max said that they know when you dreamwalk. I thought he was just scared for me, but he was right. They knew I was there. Then one of the guards shot something at me, and I was awake.”

  “Shot you?” Micah got to his knees and pulled me to a sitting positio
n. “Where? Are you injured?”

  “My chest,” I replied. I looked down, but there wasn’t a bruise. “I don’t remember it hurting. I was just awake.”

  Micah scrubbed his face with his hands, and blew out an exasperated breath. “Please, do not ever attempt such a thing on your own again,” he said. “I know we fought, but you still could have called upon me.”

  “I could have?” I asked, startled.

  “Of course,” he murmured, tracing the silver chain about my neck. “Even if you had removed my token, I still would have come.”

  “I couldn’t. Remove it, I mean.” I looked down, busying myself with rubbing a nonexistent mark off his cloak. “I cried the whole night.” Micah’s arms were around me then, and if another hot tear or two escaped my lashes, he was kind enough not to mention them.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked, once I was calm again.

  “For right now, we are going to remain here and wait for the storm to cease,” he replied. “Then, we shall retreat to my home and consider how we will retrieve your brother.”

  “Is the veil thin nearby?”

  His brows peaked. “We are not in the Mundane World,” Micah said, carefully.

  “You mean humans are holding Max in the Otherworld?” I gasped. “They… they should not be here. Peacekeepers setting up a base in the Otherworld totally goes against everything the government stands for, everything they fought for!” Why was my dad gone and my brother a science experiment if the Peacekeepers just wanted to dabble in magic behind our backs? Couldn’t they have done whatever they were doing without ripping my family apart?

  “I know not what to make of your race,” Micah said bitterly. “In the space of two decades, humans have managed to undo most of the good they’d wrought over these past centuries. And to shun magic, as if a part of one’s spirit can be amputated like a frostbitten toe. Fools. I wonder if this government of yours shouldn’t be overthrown.”

  “They should be,” I agreed, “but who would do

  it?”

  Micah shot me a mischievous glance. “Perhaps we shall do it. But first, let’s free your brother.”

  chapter 13

  Shortly after dawn the storm abated, and once the sun was shining Micah and I reluctantly put on our lumpy, somewhat dry clothing and left our wooden sanctuary. Once we were outside the oak, I marveled that its trunk seemed no larger than what Micah and I could wrap our arms around and still have our fingers touch, yet its interior had been large enough for both of us to stretch out next to a small fire. Micah had called the oaks his allies, and I was now in firm agreement.

  “Thank you, old friend,” Micah murmured, patting the rough bark. “As ever, I am indebted to you.”

  Micah took my hand, and we set off through the dense forest. There wasn’t a path, or even a game trail to follow, and the ground bore a thick blanket of wet, slippery leaves.

  “How will we get to your home?” I caught my foot on a rock, but Micah steadied me with a hand on my back. My mark flared at his touch; I wondered if he could feel its heat through my sweater. “I can’t even tell where we are or what direction we’re headed.”

  “You must learn to read the signs around you,” Micah replied. “The Whispering Dell is to the west and south.”

  “We’re going to walk there?”

  “Unless my Sara knows how to fly.” I tried to swat his shoulder, but he caught my hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

  So, we walked. And what a walk it was, beginning with the two of us bashing our own trail through the underbrush like intrepid explorers searching for treasure. It wasn’t too long before the trees thinned a bit, and we could comfortably walk side by side. Micah kept a leisurely pace, likely for my benefit, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to address a few lingering questions.

  “How do you appear and disappear?” I asked. “Like that time you were in my room, and Juliana was banging on the door.” Bile rose in my throat at the mention of her name, but I tamped it down. I’d use that emotion later.

  “Metal,” he replied, cryptically. After a bit of cajoling, and letting him steal a kiss or three, he elaborated. “If there is sufficient metal nearby, I may travel along it. Think of it like sledding down a hill, only on metal instead of snow. It’s quite easy in your world, what with your many mechanical devices.”

  “Does this traveling only work with refined metal?” I asked.

  “Refined, as in pure?”

  “Can you also travel on natural metal, like an ore?” I clarified.

  “Most definitely. I frequently travel along the veins of silver that run beneath the Whispering Dell.”

  “Huh.” I wondered if I could do that, too. Goodbye, car insurance and overpriced fuel. “But you said there was no metal where you found me.”

  “There isn’t. I sent my dreamself after yours, and when I felt you wake, I followed you with my earthly form.”

  “Micah, they could have killed you!”

  “You were in far more danger than I.” He hugged me to him, and as much as I hated the thought of Micah in danger, I was so glad he’d followed me. It was all I could do to keep the image of Max, imprisoned in his plastic and electrode coffin, out of my mind, but if Micah hadn’t arrived when he had, I’d likely be sharing that coffin with my brother.

  In far less time than I’d feared, we crested the ridge above Micah’s sparkling silver home. Even though I’d seen it a few times already, the sight of his highly polished chateau-like manor took my breath away. But now I thought it could be much improved with a copper roof.

  Our approach took us to the back of the house, and I walked through Micah’s gardens for the first time. They were an orderly affair, reminding me of the knot gardens that had once graced stately English manor homes. Short, trim hedges of boxwood and rosemary made a labyrinth of tight corners and spiraling circles, and lush carpets of flowering herbs filled the tiny green rooms. Arm in arm, Micah indulged me by leading me through the twisting paths; we must have been a sight, the two of us navigating amidst hedges that scarcely reached our knees. The diminutive maze ultimately terminated at the stone statue of a woman, set high atop a marble base and surrounded by white roses. The base was inscribed with what I assumed to be her name: Selene.

  “It’s beautiful,” I murmured. “Is she an ancestor of yours?”

  “My mother,” Micah replied. He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t ask. I had brought more than enough family drama to the party, so if he wanted to leave his out that was fine with me. There would be enough time to ask him about it later.

  We kept on through the maze, and a few strides past his mother’s statue we emerged before his home, to be met promptly by a bevy of silverkin, Micah’s energetic, insanely devoted servants. As they ushered us inside, Micah quickly apprised their leader of what had happened since last night, including the aid offered by the mighty oaks. After a bit of discussion, they decided to send a tribute of blessed rainclouds to the copse, so the noble trees need never go thirsty.

  “My consort will also require clothing,” Micah continued. As he had made clear many times, jeans and sneakers were not befitting a lady of my stature. We would just see about that. “What else do you need, my Sara?”

  “Maybe a shower,” I said, dragging a hand through my hair. After running through the rain and lying on dirt all night, it had seen better days. “And breakfast?” I added, hopefully.

  “Food is being prepared,” he said, to my relief. “As for bathing, I do not possess an indoor waterfall such as you humans crave. I hope you will find my primitive accommodations acceptable.”

  Micah offered a shallow bow along with an outstretched hand, and I giggled as I accepted. He pulled me into his arms and kissed me, banishing the proper butler image he’d so carefully crafted, and led me along several halls full of twists and turns. Each passage was as spectacular as the last, what with the shining silver walls and jewel-colored tapestries, but after a time, all the lovely sights blurred toget
her. I wondered if I’d ever be able to find my way around Micah’s home without a map and sunglasses.

  Eventually, we entered a corridor that was different than the rest, being that its centerpiece was a painting comprised, not of jewel tones, but actual jewels. It depicted a woman with pale golden hair and blue eyes; I assumed the colors had been rendered with citrine and sapphire. She was lovely, but with sad, sad eyes. I wondered if I was looking at a jeweled representation of Micah’s mother.

  The corridor ended with a massive wooden door (I wondered if it was a relative of the oak that had sheltered us), which opened onto yet another courtyard. In contrast to the orderly knot garden, this space was filled to bursting with flowering and fruiting trees in every variety and color imaginable, and many I could never have conceived of. Delicately carved marble benches and statues wound among the trees, but they were not what made the courtyard grand. The undeniable centerpiece was a wide pool, so still that, for a moment, I thought it might be quicksilver or glass.

  “This is where you bathe?” I breathed.

  “It is,” Micah replied, already pulling his tunic up and over his shoulders. I spied movement on the far side of the pool, and caught Micah’s arm.

  “Micah, there’s a woman in there,” I whispered loudly.

  “Of course,” he replied, now unlacing his breeches. “This is her pool. If she favors you, she may let you borrow a comb,” he added with a wink.

  I was momentarily stunned. Micah really expected me to bathe with…her? Whoever—whatever—she was? I tilted my head to the side, trying to get a better look at this creature inhabiting Micah’s bathwater. She was obviously some sort of water being, and as she was naked, I knew without a doubt she was a she. Still, she didn’t look like any mermaid or undine or naiad I’d ever heard of. Her long hair was the palest blue, and it flowed like a gentle stream over her pale pink shoulders and breasts. Those blue tresses also did a very poor job of covering her as she lounged on the pool’s bank, with only her feet dangling beneath the water’s surface, not that she seemed to notice. In fact, she was thoroughly preoccupied with combing out her hair, and had a selection of combs and mirrors laid out beside her.