That’s right, I was, I thought. I couldn’t say it. I was really being cowardly now. It shamed me. “No,” I lied yet again. Why are you lying? I condemned my tongue—trying to elude the fact that my brain was responsible. I had to change directions. “Yes,” I forced myself to say. “You’re right. I was. That’s why—”
I was halted in midsentence as Magda pulled away from me—I should say “jerked”—and looked at me intently—I should say “glared.”
“You lying bastard,” she called me.
Her abrupt change in demeanor, her use of profanity, shocked me.
“Magda, I apologize,” I started, “for—”
Once again, I broke off. This time blocked by her sudden rant. (I should say “infuriated rant.”)
“You had to go back to that little woodsy bitch, didn’t you?” she accused me. “Had to fuck the faerie way! Was it nice?! Did you come inside her?!”
That was too much; temper replaced shame. “Magda, that’s enough!” I cried. “She’s completely innocent.”
“Innocent, is she?!” Magda cried back. “Luring you into the woods to let you fuck her!”
“Stop it!” I yelled. “She didn’t do that!! She loves me!” I made the final incriminating statement then: “And I love her!”
Dead silence from Magda. Her face gone bloodless, she looked at me with a murderous expression. Her voice sounded thick as she said, “You’ll be sorry you said that.”
“Why?” I demanded, unaware of the depth of her rage. “I love you, too. It’s just—”
“Don’t tell me that, you lying prick,” said Magda, her language shocking me again. “I know you don’t. I’m only Magda to you. Your witch whore.”
Somehow, I sensed that she was right. That was how I felt about her.
“I was your mother,” Magda said. “And you loved fucking your mother.”
“No,” was all I got out, chokingly, before she ranted on.
“You wonder if Edward fucked me! Yes, of course he did! That’s why he enlisted! Isn’t that why you enlisted, you little shit?! Because you loved fucking your mother?! And felt guilty for doing it?!”
“No!” I raged. “You’re wrong!”
She ignored me. Kept on ranting; it appalled me, all the vileness in her brain. “Your mother was a whore!” she screamed. “She loved sucking your cock, didn’t she?! Didn’t she?! Sonny?!”
“I think you’re horrible,” I said. “I think you’re sick. I feel sorry for the baby.”
“Oh, do you?!” she demanded. “Don’t bother, there is no baby.”
I don’t remember, but I think my mouth fell open. “What?” I said, my voice barely audible.
She heard it, though. “There is no baby, Alex. I got rid of it.”
Dear God. It was all I could think, my brain suddenly gorged with the ghastly memory of Self Aborting an Unwanted Chimera. I tried to rid myself of the memory, but the bloody image clouded my awareness.
“You did that?” I asked; very weakly.
“Yes, I did, darling,” she said with a terrible smile. “I buried our daughter—what there was of her—in the garden. You want me to dig her up?”
“How could you do such a thing?” I muttered.
“You want me to describe it?” she asked. The terrible smile again.
“No,” I said.
“You thought I wanted your baby,” she persisted. “I didn’t. I wanted Edward’s baby. But he was dead, so I had yours instead. But I wanted a son who could be my lover. And the baby was a girl, and I didn’t want a girl. So I ripped her out and buried the pieces! Shall I go on?!”
I felt as though my head were caught in an ice-cold vise. I could barely breathe. Her rant had frozen me. All I could do was shake my head. At least I thought I shook my head. Maybe I didn’t.
Magda bared her teeth. “You still want me to be your mama, don’t you?” she said. She yanked open her dress, pulled up her now swollen breasts, and thrust them out to me. “All right, suck Mama’s tits,” she snarled. “Nurse on Mama’s tits again.”
I had to fight off my ungovernable loins. I did, though, so horrified was I by her insane behavior. “Get away from me,” I told her.
She would not relent. Pushing against me, she tried to push her breasts in my face. “Drink Mama’s milk!” she commanded. To my astonishment, a milklike liquid began squirting from her rigid nipples. It couldn’t be natural! It had to be something Magda was doing. I confess, I almost succumbed.
It was near too much for a fallible teenager. How I managed it was a tribute to my love for Ruthana and secondarily, most secondarily, my sense of rightness.
Which is when the notion suddenly occurred. I’d say inspired me, but it was hardly an inspiration, more a foolhardy defense. “Is this a witch thing?” I asked harshly, trying to push her away. “Did it come from your manuscript?”
Magda went rigid, the flow from her breasts abruptly ceasing. She looked at me the way Medea must have looked at her children—hate and love combined. “You’ve been in my library,” she said. The way she said it raised a coating of ice on my bones. Now I was truly afraid. I had enraged a witch who hated me, most likely wanted me dead. “I’m sorry.” I tried, “I didn’t mean—”
I had no conclusion for my lamebrained excuse. There was none. I knew it. And God knew Magda did as well. I wondered (only half-alert now) what she meant to do as she pulled away from me and stood. She didn’t close her dress. She pulled it up across her head and tossed it aside. Now she was naked. I struggled to my feet and moved with laborious stiffness toward the front door.
“No, you don’t,” said Magda. “Mama doesn’t want you to go.” She could hardly speak (it was more a growl), but her intent was clear. She pushed up to her feet and staggered to the end of the bookcase. Reaching to its side, she pulled back a sword; it looked more like a machete. She walked toward me. “Your head is mine,” she mumbled thickly; her throat sounded clogged. I kept moving clumsily toward the door.
With a startling, terrifying cry, Magda began running. I glanced back quickly. She was brandishing the sword, clearly intent on decapitation. I noticed her lolling breasts as they bounced up and down. No arousal. I was too afraid. My god, was I afraid! “You can’t get away!” Magda shouted, her voice now frighteningly loud.
The powder!
I whirled and plunged, as best I could, a hand into my jacket pocket. To my horror, I almost dropped the vial, juggling it between both hands before I got a grip on it. Magda was almost on me. I struggled with the vial, trying to open it. Magda reached me, took a savage swipe with the sword. Whatever instinct saved me, I don’t know. I ducked beneath the slashing blade. Magda stumbled, off balance from her frenzied attempt to behead me. I opened the vial and threw the gray powder at her. It caught her full in the face.
She screamed in pain, and I saw that much of the powder had struck her eyes. She staggered to one side, dropping the sword and reaching up, misdirectedly, for her suddenly blinded eyes. “You bastard!” she cried, “You fucking bastard!”
I didn’t wait for more. I moved infirmly for the door and left her thrashing through the room, unable to see, eyes running with uncontrolled tears; her lurching body colliding with furniture, snarling as she flung over smaller pieces.
I opened the front door and left, running without stopping until I reached the path.
Ruthana was waiting for me.
I clung to her with desperate need. “Thank God,” I said. I repeated it so many times—unable to think, only overswept with gratitude—that I lost count. I was safe. That’s all I knew. I was safe.
Wrong again.
III
Chapter Twenty-three
The first thing my faerie friends did was make me small.
I know that sounds far-fetched. Actually, it sounds like an Arthur Black contrivance. But I assure you it took place. Anyway, if you buy my account up till now—witchcraft, Middle Kingdom faeries?—you shouldn’t have any trouble swallowing my losing a little stature.
God knows I had more than any trouble swallowing the drink they gave me to get smaller. I threw up half of it. And a little stature, did I say? Six feet two inches to three-one? Yow. That’s shrinking!
But I did it. I had to. I couldn’t stay with Ruthana otherwise. I know she’d assumed full human size, but that was only temporary; she couldn’t manage it permanently. She only did it for—well, you remember what. (I’m blushing inside.) Furthermore, I could not remain human size either. It was not acceptable, not permitted. I had to get small. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was a fact. Stay full size? Impossible. I’d be ousted from Middle Kingdom. And that was unacceptable to me. I loved Ruthana too much. Much too much.
So I endured three weeks of—what shall I call it?—diminution. Not pleasant. Not pleasant at all. Remember what I told you about a witch’s becoming invisible? The flesh slowly contracting, the skeletal bones gradually losing density, the organs dissolving? I experienced something akin to that. I could actually feel my body getting smaller. The more I drank of that dreadful stuff, the faster it happened; most of it in the third week. I spent one night in sheer agony. Ruthana tried to comfort me. In vain; she’d understated—I guess she knew it would hurt but didn’t want to frighten me.
There was nothing she could do. The process was under way, and there was no way to reverse it while it was taking place. How simple the process was for them. Boom! Size changed. Just like that. Not for me. If I hadn’t loved Ruthana so much, I would have asked them (pleaded with them) to put me out of my misery—skeleton slowly shrinking (pretty good triplet there), flesh slowly drawing in, even my eyes (my eyes, for Chrissake!) getting smaller. All in a solitary room who knew where? On a simple cot. Suffering.
Finally (another week of it, and I would have—well, not made it, put it that way), it was finished, I was faerie size. It still sounds stupid (another triplet!). But—regardless—it did happen. Ruthana and I were the same size; from now on my name was Alexi. We “loved” to celebrate the occasion. I thought that while we were “doing it” that the process could have—in my diseased imagination—gone on uninterruptedly until I was a firefly—a size they claimed they could assume. Six-two to an insect! Disturbing image. It delayed my climax.
Not too long, though.
* * *
Our wedding was a small affair. No hordes of applauding guests. No orchestra playing Mendelssohn. No dance. No sitdown dinner—chicken or fish.
Just Ruthana and me.
Together in a paradisical (if that’s not a word, it should be) glade in the woods. Next to a sweetly (that is the appropriate word) bubbling stream, surrounded by birch trees (sacred to the faerie folk) and flowers of such brilliant hues that I hesitate to describe them. (A. Black has his limitations.) Let’s just say that the colors were heavenly and let it go at that.
Our ceremony was equally small. I don’t mean small; there was no element to it that was “small” in any way. I mean it didn’t take hours; it was over in several minutes.
Ruthana was wearing a pale blue gossamer gown, virtually transparent. I have never, in this life—and, perhaps, in my next—seen such beauty. Golden-haired, angelic face, exquisite body—you see now why I used the words “paradisical” (real or not) and “heavenly.” There are no other words possible.
Of course, there were some guidelines to our marriage. I was not to ask Ruthana about her life before she met me. I was not to strike her. Ever. I must not look at her at certain times. (I think we know what that means; even faerie females must abide by the moon.)
Since none of these rules were difficult for me to follow, our wedding was permitted. In our case, without a full Middle Kingdom brouhaha, but permitted nonetheless.
It could not have been better. Ruthana and me in this wonderful setting. Drinking a delicious potion, Ruthana whispering an ancient love spell.
You for me
And I for thee
and for none else
Your face to mine
and your head turned away
from all others
You like that? I do. A lot.
We “loved” that night. Over and over. Mr. and Mrs. Alexander (Alexi) “Shrimp” (except in relative terms, of course).
I was at home. Sweet home. Beautiful home—Gatford woods. Safe home.
* * *
Well, not exactly. There was still Gilly to contend with. The first time he saw me, newly sized, he said (nastily as always), “You think you’re one of us now, don’t you? You’re not. You’re still a Human Being. (That’s the way he expressed it, as though the words were capitalized. And dirty.)
This is what happened the first time he attacked me. Grade A attack first crack out of the bag; that was Gilly. Good ol’ Gilly.
Ruthana and I were walking together, hand in hand. She never left my side. When I slept at night, she had some sort of protective force watching over me. Either that or she did something to Gilly that made him sleep, that used to infuriate him. As though he needed additional fury to bolster his already overflowing supply. Ruthana even waited for me—patiently, discreetly (to a fault) when I emptied my bladder and/or bowels. God, she was patient! I didn’t like the idea that she had to keep a constant lookout for her crazy brother-in-law, but there it was. The price I had to pay for living with Ruthana. And was glad (limitedly) to pay.
As I said, we were walking in the woods, holding hands. Summer still abided, the tree foliage breathtaking with different shades of green, the ground strewn with fallen leaves of the same colors. They crackled underneath our feet as we walked. Ruthana was barefooted; I was wearing a pair of shoes taken from Gilly’s voluminous collection. (That didn’t please him much either, let me tell you.)
As we walked, I was asking Ruthana a question that had plagued me since our first meeting in, as I recall, June. If she had control over Gilly, why did she make me flee from Gilly in the first place?
Her answer was immediate—and sweet. She knew, she said, that she had fallen in love with me but was so confused by the emotion (a first for her—I never asked her further about that) that she wasn’t able to think clearly and could only, on impulse, get me away from Gilly and out of the woods. Before we parted, all she could think of saying was that she loved me. I accepted her answer completely.
So much so that I asked for a second one. The raucous party I heard that night in my cottage. Was it real or imagination? Oh, it was probably real, she answered simply. Middle Kingdom parties often do get noisy, and the celebrants make little effort to suppress their gaiety. “Did they keep you awake?” she asked me sympathetically. I kissed her and said it wasn’t that bad, I just wondered what it was.
I told her then that since form-enlarging was only a temporary ability for faeries, I couldn’t help but be amused by the image of how the “trench boys” must have reacted to the sight of Harold shrinking to faerie dimensions when he died. Ruthana smiled at that, but explained that Harold could not—on his own, away from his true home—have managed to retain human size. He had to be assisted.
“How did he do it, then?” I asked.
“The way you did,” she said.
“That much pain?” I asked, astounded.
“The other way around, of course,” she answered.
“Did—?” I hesitated to ask. But did. “Being in the army meant that much to him?” I asked.
“England meant that much to him,” she answered.
“Did Gilly—?” I started, couldn’t finish.
“Gilly hates human beings; as you know,” she said, “England is human beings.”
“Yes, I understand,” I said, remembering that I joined the army not out of love for the United States but of hatred for you know who. I should stop calling him that. He was Captain Bradford Smith White, USN. Still is, I suppose. No, he couldn’t (God forbid) be alive. The United States Navy—and the world—must be rid of him by now. If not he’d be—let’s see—at least 109 by now, a wrinkled old prune of a man, still mean as hell, bitching in a nava
l retirement home somewhere on the East Coast. Ghastly image. Can I never be rid of his deletenous self?
Having been, involuntarily, plunged back into family, I—without thinking—inquired about Ruthana’s family. Her real, her blood family.
Her answer was hesitant, even guarded. In the Middle Kingdom, there are no families in the customary sense, she told me. The entire body of them is their family. Their unity comes from a relationship not of blood but of community, of environment. Ruthana did have a blood father, but he was killed in an accident, and Garal’s (in a sense) family “adopted” her and raised her. So, in truth, to call Garal her stepfather and Gilly her stepbrother (or brother-in-law) isn’t accurate. More than that I can’t say. I never did understand it. It was too involved for me. All I chose to believe was that Ruthana lived in a woods enclosure with Garal, with Eana (her stepmother?), and Gilly. And another brother I never met, he’d left the group. And Harold, of course, mustn’t forget about Harold. (Haral.)
I started all this by telling you it was about Gilly’s first attack on me. Mea culpa, folks. Senility again. Or some such animal. On the other hand, how could I have written this entire account if my brain were immersed in senile waters? I couldn’t have. So there.
As we walked, it seemed to feel that I was being watched. It was not the first time I had known the discomforting sensation. Whenever I mentioned it to Ruthana, she told me—calmly, as always—that it might be Gilly, but more than likely was my imagination since, except for once, an owl flitting from tree to tree, obviously following us, she’d never felt that Gilly was tracking me.
“Oh, there’s that damned owl again,” I said as I noticed it sitting in a tree to my left. “It’s not Gilly?”
“Perhaps it is,” Ruthana answered. “He’s no danger, though.”
“I’m getting very tired wondering if he’s following me,” I said. Complainingly, of course. Of course, of course. I use that phrase a lot now. I’m getting tired of it. Not as tired as I was of Gilly’s animosity; but A. Black tired, writer tired. Hate an overused phrase albeit appropriate.
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