by Jane Keeler
“Where are we?” Westley asked.
“Piece of land I inherited from Charlie. It backs up on the Nantahala National Forest—biggest national forest in the state.” Sarah stretched and turned to smile at Westley. “There’s tens of thousands of acres of old growth forest in there. They say the only time the sun shines on some of them gorges is high noon.”
“It’s a beautiful spot.”
“Yes, it is.”
They drove along in silence. Westley rolled down the windows so they could enjoy the pleasant piney scent of the woods. The branches of the trees beside them met across the top of the pathway—the effect was of driving through a green tunnel shot through with streams of light.
Thirty minutes later they reached a clearing in the trees. It had a stone-lined fire pit in the center and a rustic picnic table that had once been painted red. About a hundred yards away was a small wooden building with a half-moon cutout in the door.
Sarah had seen where he was looking. “Don’t worry, the hole’s deep. It won’t smell bad—just toss in a handful of lime after you’ve done your business.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Westley smiled. It felt curiously relaxing, out here in the middle of nowhere with no one else around. Just him and Sarah, all alone. He gave her a speculative look.
She grinned at him. “Let’s get set up. We need to gather firewood too.”
It didn’t take long to assemble the tent. Sarah had a double-sized air mattress, so they wouldn’t have to spend the night on the cold hard ground. It was late afternoon by the time they finished setting up the campsite and gathering firewood.
They got a fire going and Sarah pulled a cast iron pot out of the truck, along with a tripod to hold it over the fire. She set about chopping vegetables and tossing them in the pot, along with a package of ground venison from the cooler.
They sat around the fire in their camp chairs waiting for dinner to cook, watching the flames and enjoying the peace, as shadows darkened between the trees and day flowed into night.
Westley noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned to look at it there was nothing there. At first he thought it might be fireflies flashing on and off in the dusk, but these things were too big to be fireflies.
He dismissed it as his eyes playing tricks on him; an afterimage of the flames, or maybe some reflection of animal eyes out in the woods. Sarah reached out and took his hand; he entwined his fingers with hers and turned back to the fire, relaxing into his chair.
He saw something again. This time he didn’t turn to look, but sat still and concentrated on getting as good a view of the phenomenon as he could through his peripheral vision.
They looked like glowing balls of orange light, about the size of his fist. They danced and swirled across the clearing, flying like hummingbirds. They could move with great speed and agility, and hover in place with no apparent effort. Sometimes they would vanish and pop up again somewhere else. Although they all looked the same, so maybe it was an entirely new thing appearing.
He frowned. That couldn’t be right. He turned to look again, but as before, there was nothing to see. Westley rubbed his eyes and looked resolutely forward.
They crept into his peripheral vision as a persistence of firelight, but soon began to dance again. They moved as no afterimage ever moved, with agency and purpose, joy and seduction, forming patterns in the darkness.
Sarah squeezed his hand. “They like you. They don’t always come, especially for a new person.”
“I need to get my eyes checked.”
“Don’t worry—they don’t usually stay for long after sundown.”
They sat quietly, watching the dance. The more Westley didn’t look at them, the brighter and more apparent they grew.
Now he was hearing things, too. Off in the distance he could hear drumbeats. In all likelihood it was the sound of people, off in the distance, beating on drums. He got up to search for the source of the sound, but Sarah held him fast.
“That’s not a good idea. They don’t like to be disturbed. Besides, do you hear it now?”
Westley discovered the sound of the drums was like the lights: only perceptible when you weren’t trying. When he tried to focus on the sound he stopped hearing it; if he relaxed and enjoyed the fire and the warmth of Sarah’s hand he could discern it more clearly.
“What are they?”
Sarah shrugged. “The Fair Folk. The Little People. The Nunnehi. I don’t think we’re actually seeing or hearing them; we’re sensing the effect they have on the world. Our minds are so well-trained at seeing what we expect to see that we can only do this trick when our thinking brains are otherwise occupied. Some people can’t do it at all.”
Westley felt a little afraid but at the same time almost exalted. He didn’t sense any threat from the lights or the drums. They seemed mischievous but welcoming. Having his worldview turned upside down was unnerving, but it also opened up vistas of potential. If there were other worlds of life, maybe a place existed where Sophia now dwelled and was happy.
About an hour after sunset the sound of the drums and the appearance of the lights tapered off until they were undetectable.
Westley felt exhilarated, almost drunk. His heartbeat thrummed through his body like the far-off drums. His mind was alive to a world that now brimmed with possibilities. Everything he could see in the dim circle of firelight seemed to stand out, highlighted in flickering gold. He looked up and he had never seen so many stars.
“Dinner’s ready,” Sarah said. The venison chili was delicious, as her cooking always was.
They cleaned themselves up with baby wipes and turned in for the night. Face to face on the air mattress, they snuggled up under the quilt that was now necessary against the night’s chill. A camping lantern set on low gave them just enough light to see each other—the moon hadn’t risen yet and it would be pitch dark otherwise.
Westley reached out and caressed Sarah’s face, ran his thumb along her lower lip, and pulled her close for a kiss. A long, slow, gentle kiss. There was no hurry. They had all the time in the world. Their hands grazed and rubbed and explored: above, behind, between.
Sarah tossed off the covers—they were plenty warm now—and licked a line down Westley’s chest. He shivered as it dried in the cool air. He felt her breasts brushing against his chest and belly as she knelt above him and saw her nipples harden as she continued downwards. The soft brush of her breasts and the wetness of her mouth sent a tide of sensation down to his cock, which was so hard it hurt.
She brushed her fingers through his pubic hair, touching but not grabbing his cock, and slid her hands down to caress his inner thighs and gently cradle his balls.
He felt like everything between navel and knees was stone-hard and straining towards her. She took pity on his moans and lowered her mouth to his cock, at first nuzzling with her open mouth, tongue swirling around the head, and then licking with long, agonizingly slow strokes.
Finally her lips closed over him, sucking him in. He moaned again at the sensation of heat and the pressure of her lips. His hips bucked upward, fucking her mouth.
She took him in deeper and deeper, until he could feel himself pressing against the back of her throat.
“Stop,” he gasped.
“Mmm?”
“I don’t want to come too soon.”
“Mmm…”
Slowly, almost reluctantly, she pulled away. She crawled her way back up and rose above him, thighs spread on either side of his body. She reached down and grasped his cock, sheathing it home with a grunt low in her throat.
He reached up and grabbed her waist, his thumbs stroking against her swollen clit as she rode him. His vision narrowed until he felt like he was rushing down a tunnel. A hot, wet tunnel—come Sarah—a red tunnel whose walls were pulsing against him—please, my love, come now—a tunnel that was meeting his increasingly desperate thrusts—come you have to come now.
She was gasping, sweat gleaming on the cu
rves of her breasts with their erect nipples. Westley pulled her down hard against him and held on as she bucked against his hands, screaming as she climaxed. He groaned as he exploded inside her.
She lay down against his chest with his cock still inside her, and they stayed like that while their breathing slowed and their bodies cooled. Westley pulled the coverlet back up over them and sighed into Sarah’s hair. She murmured softly against his chest and climbed off to lie beside him.
They spooned together and listened to the night sounds around them. Westley thought it would be quiet, but the loud chorus of insects and cheeping frogs begged to differ. Sometimes the call of a nightbird would rise above everything for a moment and the small creatures would quiet down, but they soon started up again.
“Sarah?”
“Sugarmuffin?”
Sugarmuffin? He refused to be diverted. “What does it mean?”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I guess it means what you want it to mean. I know that sounds like a copout, but the world hasn’t changed. You’re just seeing parts of it you never knew about before.”
She turned to face him and propped herself up on one elbow, the coverlet slipping off her shoulder. The moon was up now and lit her face silver through the windows of the tent. “They’ve always been here. I showed them to you because I thought you needed a little mystery in your life.”
The moonlight highlighted the curve of a breast, visible now in her position. She saw where he was looking and smiled. “The stories say it’s dangerous to go near them. That’s true enough. Everything can be dangerous if you don’t treat it with respect.”
He ran his index finger down the silver curve of face and throat to her breast, cupping it gently. “Even this?”
“Oh dear heart, especially this.”
Their lovemaking was tender and fierce by turns. Towards the end, their bodies synched in perfect rhythm, Sarah’s legs wrapped tight around his waist, Westley knew they were at the center of their own dance. He could almost hear the drum beat again, only this time it came from their hearts.
Westley stretched, enjoying the feeling of sun on his bare back. He was walking around in the jean shorts Sarah had rigged for him and nothing else. She grinned at him from across the clearing, where she was brushing her teeth. He grinned back. She finished wiping her mouth and walked up to him.
“How do you feel about ham and biscuits with country gravy for breakfast?” she asked.
“I’d love it!” He kissed her good morning.
After breakfast they walked through the woods, holding hands like a couple of teenagers. It felt like a vaulted green cathedral, but it wasn’t silent. Birds sang in the high branches, and every once in a while something small scurried off into the bushes.
They came across a clear, cold, shallow stream, about six feet across, with a white sandy bottom. Moss and small bushes lined the banks. Sometimes a stick-body insect in iridescent green, with wings of velvet black, would buzz through a patch of sunlight to perch on a stem and glisten.
Westley tied his shoelaces together and slung his shoes around his neck. Sarah did the same. They splashed around in the stream until their feet got cold and made their way back to the campsite.
They sat for while, side by side on the picnic bench, still holding hands.
Chapter 10
Sarah climbed the short flight of stairs up to her front porch. Westley was back at the truck getting their bags. He had been silent most of the way home. That was no surprise—he needed time to digest his experience. She was glad he had taken it so well. Not everyone had the flexibility of mind to even see the Little People. Of those who did, many dismissed it as some kind of trick or mass hysteria.
The Fair Folk could be as hard to hold in the mind as they were to see. People were apt to forget the experience. They might remember the bare facts of what happened, but the emotional impact seemed to wash away with time.
For Sarah they were as natural as the air and the soil and the water. She’d been closer to them in her young days, before life had become so busy. First there had been family to care for, and then the neighbors had started coming to her for help. Now she felt responsible for the whole town. For all that, she missed having a life that was just her own.
She hoped this factory would breathe new life into the town. They sure needed it. The better economy would give her a bit of break, too.
Someone had left a brown paper envelope on the porch. “Hmm, has my name on it. I wonder what it is,” she said.
She opened it to find a sheaf of papers. On top of the stack was a printed letter.
Miz Abbot,
I’ve been searching through the background of Braxton Industries and I found something very troubling. About fifteen years ago the EPA fined them for hazardous waste pollution associated with one of their factories. People died. This Westley Braxton talks a good game, but I don’t want to see a repeat of that incident here. I’m sure you feel the same.
Sincerely,
Robyn Carter
The letter was accompanied by printouts from various websites. Sarah looked through them with a growing sense of dismay.
“Mercury. Lead. Cadmium… Permeated the soil and groundwater? Westley, what is this?”
He sighed. “Can we talk about it inside?”
She led the way. Contaminated groundwater was a terrible thing. Not only was it undrinkable, it polluted the whole of the land. Plants took the poison in through their root systems and from there it spread to animal life and to people. The young and the old were the most vulnerable, as they always were.
They walked into the living room and sat down opposite each other. Her throat felt tight and her eyes hurt. I’m not going to cry, she told herself. She looked at Westley and waited for him to speak.
“One of our managers was lax about proper storage of the hazardous waste produced by the plant. He let it build up without disposing of it correctly. This was right after my wife died…”
He leaned forward and looked at her soberly. “I’m not offering that as an excuse, just… a reason. I know it won’t bring anyone back to life. If I couldn’t carry out proper supervision I should have delegated the job to someone who could.” He rubbed his face.
Sarah’s heart contracted with pity, but she didn’t reach out to him. Couldn’t. She’d known too many communities destroyed by such incidents. How well did she really know Westley? Did she believe his explanation? She looked at him in stony silence and motioned for him to continue.
“The factory was storing toxic waste in fifty-five-gallon drums to the rear of the building. The area was fenced off, but it was easy enough to climb over the wall. We found that out when two teenage boys got in one night after everyone had left.”
His mouth tightened and turned down at one corner. “We discovered it the next morning. Several of the drums had been knocked over and their contents spilled onto the ground. We learned who did it when two seventeen-year-old boys from a nearby neighborhood were brought to the hospital with severe chemical burns. It was too late to save them. They died.”
“What did you do to fix it?” Sarah asked. She could finally speak past the lump in her throat, although her lips were numb.
Westley sighed. “We paid damage settlements to their families and cleaned everything up. Luckily the contamination hadn’t spread throughout the aquifer and we were able to get it all. I fired the manager and set up a special team to monitor waste systems in all the factories.” He reached out a hand to touch her; stopped midway and returned it to his lap.
“Braxton Industries’ record since then has been exemplary,” he continued. “We received the New York Governor's Pollution Prevention Award three years running. I… all I can ask is that you believe me when I tell you it will never happen again if I can help it.”
Sarah considered. Some people would have said those boys deserved everything they got. It was all their fault for spilling out those barrels in the first place. Westley could have said he wa
sn’t to blame anyhow—it was that manager, and he’d fired him, so what was the problem? She liked the way Westley had told the story without making excuses or trying to place the blame somewhere else.
Westley seemed to have run down. He gave her a single aching look. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No I don’t want you to leave. Just let me think on it a bit. I’m going to make some tea.” Sarah got up and went into the kitchen.
The first thing she did was call Robyn, who confirmed the facts of Westley’s story but doubted his commitment to making sure it would never happen again.
Sarah believed in him—Westley just laid out the facts and took responsibility. He knew ‘The buck stops here’ doesn’t mean ‘The money goes into my bank account’. She decided she could trust him with the future of her town.
Robyn, who didn’t know Westley the way Sarah did, was skeptical.
Braxton Industries needed to prove that their factory wouldn’t end up poisoning the town and everyone in it. How could they do that? Robyn didn’t have any ideas and Sarah didn’t either.
Sarah carried the tea tray into the living room, sat down beside Westley, and nodded at the tea. She picked up her own drink and sipped at it, deep in thought. Finally she raised her eyes to his face. The look he gave her was so much like a hopeful puppy she had to smile.
“I reckon it won’t happen again,” she said.
“No, it won’t. It hasn’t and it won’t.”
“We’ll have to convince the town of that. Some people won’t even care, they’ll be so happy to have jobs they won’t think about what happens in the long run. Robyn will care, though—and she’s got a big mouth and a hard head.” Sarah smiled fondly.
“She can tour the plant once a month if she wishes. I’m afraid it will need to be an escorted tour, since we have to enforce security at all times.”
“She’ll probably take you up on that.” Sarah smiled at him and reached out to touch his face.