Sprite

The way was long, and it should not have been. It seemed that Neistah passed the barrier and then wandered through interminable twilight before the pearly gray sky of true morning greeted him. He should have seen it between one step and another. Something was amiss.

But the pool was there, just around the corner, lit by a sun that was never quite in evidence. A green glow surrounded that forest pool, made up of moss and hanging vines and gossamer mist. And in among the light and shadow were his people, already in his mind.

--Neistah—

The name resounded inside his head and he answered it joyfully. –Breyan—and –Lara—

Twin smiles and twin sinuous bodies swirled the waters by Neistah’s feet. Bright almond eyes crested the surface and one of the twins spoke. “You were long this time, Neistah. Come join us and forget that other place.”

On the opposite side of the green water stood a slender woman, and if Neistah was a water sprite, then she was a water goddess. She shimmered faintly green in the diffused light. The webbing on her hands and feet threw off beams of sunlight and shattered it into a million tiny stars that, in turn, bounced off the water and created a nimbus of light around her. But her crowning glory was her hair. Green and gold, it swept back from her forehead straight as rain and, like rain, fell and fell, over her shoulders and down her back to touch the forest floor. She smiled, and Neistah’s heart expanded.

Neistah regarded the woman with golden green hair. “Forget?” he replied absently to the twins. “It’s forgotten.” With a grin he dove into the water and arrowed across the woodland pool to where she stood. He shot straight up into the air with a shower of water droplets and grabbed her around the waist, swinging her about in his great joy.

“Showy, aren’t you?”

He set her down and slowly turned in place, hands wide, for her inspection, still smiling softly. “Am I welcome?” he asked.

In reply, she opened her arms and he came into them. For a brief moment the light around them intensified, then the brilliance slowly subsided.

“Mother,” Neistah sighed, leaning into her embrace. He slowly sank to the earth and touched it reverently with his hands. “Thank you. I could never forget the way home, but I was unsure of the welcome.”

“There will always be a welcome for you among us, no matter how long you linger in the mortal lands. What you are does not change. What we are cannot change.”

Breyan and Lara clambered out of the pool on either side of them, touching Neistah softly as if they had to assure themselves of his presence. –Come swim with us—Lara offered with a shy smile. She wore her own long hair like a cloak around her and little else, while her brother wore a variant of Neistah’s outfit, only nut brown instead of gold.

--Later—Neistah’s mother thought gently. –There will be time for swimming later.—She grasped Neistah’s arm and pulled him along the bright path, leaving the twins to reluctantly dive back into their pool where they were immediately swallowed up by the green waters. “Come, there are places I wish to share with you,” she said out loud.

There was hardly any difference between that place and this, except in the clarity which affected the air, the trees, and even the sounds of the surrounding forest. Every turn of the path was a memory reborn. Neistah reveled in the beauty. Creatures as like and unlike him as the varied species of the earth drifted just beyond his sight, but not beyond his senses. As he concentrated, he glimpsed a sleek hide, a shimmering wisp of bright cloth. He felt the touches of other minds like featherlight fingertips. He sighed deeply, content at last when he hadn’t even been aware that he was missing a part of himself.

“Ah, the prodigal son returns.” A mocking voice spoke from above Neistah’s head. He glanced up to see the one creature he could have done without, leaning casually in the crook of a weeping willow which had all but hidden him from sight. Deep hues lit his violet eyes, pulsating with flickering tones of color, spreading to an almost blue-black purple in the center and rippling back in softer tones to the outer edges. He blinked once, with a curious half-wink, his red-gold eyelashes making his violet eyes seem to glow ominously. He held that pose for more than a minute.

Then he grinned, a wry, knowing smile. One corner of his mouth quirked, revealing sharp canine teeth and outlining a faint bluish scar that ran jaggedly diagonal across one side of his face. He jumped down from his perch to land softly in front of Neistah. His powerful body with its wild red-gold mane towered over the two figures in front of him. “You should have stayed away.”

Neistah’s eyes narrowed. “Was it you who barred the way?”

His mother gasped, glancing dismayed from one man to the other. Neistah shook his head, and continued along the path, ignoring the creature in front of him.

“Not I.” The tall man moved aside and walked alongside Neistah and his mother. “That was all your doing. What did you think would happen once you became involved in the mortal world?”

Neistah didn’t reply. Ahead, the path opened up to a huge lake full of coves and small islands which acted as havens for his people. They lounged there, too polite to eavesdrop mind-to-mind, but all too curious as three of their cousins, one long absent, came to swim in the calming waters. The lake was less green than the little pond his mother tended to frequent. Its color was more turquoise, but the same glowing radiance rose from its depths, bathing its inhabitants in unearthly light.

Neistah dove deep, losing himself in the familiar waters. He opened his mind, sensing the curiosity and apprehension in the other minds around him, and projected calm. He was finally home and nothing bad had happened. The world outside wasn’t worth their effort. He wouldn’t be going back.

He felt the warm approval of his mother, before a lithe body cut him off, slicing violently through the water in front of him. –Too late—the voice in his head whispered harshly. –The damage is done—

--Damage is done—damage is done—damage is done-- Words echoed over and over inside Neistah’s head. Frustrated, he shot to the surface. “Just what is your problem?” he demanded of the bright-haired man who rose seconds behind him.

“Can’t you feel it?” The man whispered still, outside instead of in Neistah’s mind, and his face with its puckered scar had an evil grin. “The doors between our worlds are closing, and it’s your fault.” With a flip of his wrist, he dove beneath the water again, shutting his mind off from Neistah’s angry response.

“Come. Don’t listen.” His mother swam in circles around him, the light from her body brighter than the lake itself and rivaling the light from the sun. “You know he is still hurt because you left.”

But Neistah wondered. All this time in the mortal world, he had thought his people wouldn’t answer him because they were angry. Then, when he had finally found the way and picked up faint echoes of his people’s voices, it had taken him much longer than it should have to come home. “Do we still plant red flowers to mark the turns?” he asked, dreading the answer. “Humans have been picking them. I had to search a long time to find the ones that were left.”

He had startled his mother yet again. Her porcelain face paled and she responded. “That’s impossible. Mortals should not be able to see those flowers, let alone pluck them from the earth.” Her eyes, jade flecks in the sunlight, were troubled. “Those flowers are as resilient as—as we are. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“It doesn’t matter.” He smiled at her, beckoning her to follow, as he again entered the blue-green depths and let himself be surrounded by his own kind. –it’s not as if I’m ever going back there again—he concluded, mind to mind. He was home—home! He dismissed the nagging echo in his thoughts—it’s your fault.

x x x x x x

“I wonder if he ever thinks of me.” Miriam stared out across the frozen pond, her swollen belly just beginning to show. The baby would be born in the spring, when the water finally thawed. She wondered if the child would take after the father, and if so, what they would do.

Jim, sensing her thoughts, put his arm around her and drew her close. “Forget the Sprite,” he advised. There had been no word from the outside about his capture. Either the mutant had escaped on his own, or he had been killed. Jim wisely kept that last thought to himself.

Old man Hanan at least suspected that the child wasn’t Jim’s. He had raised his eyebrows when his chief security guard had asked to marry his granddaughter immediately, but he had asked no questions. He even invited the public in, those that still were on speaking terms with him after his self-imposed seclusion. He had always been reclusive, and his actions of the past summer were not so unusual that the few friends that still remained in his social circle would reject such an invitation. In fact, given that word of the Sprite’s existence—or at least the existence of a mutant with water-breathing capabilities—had gotten out, John Hanan fully expected people to be knocking at his door for a look at the creature. But no one had. It was as if rumors of the Sprite had dried up with the end of summer. Hanan was relieved, and in return, had arranged a lavish wedding for his only granddaughter—on premises of course—and before she started showing.

He had offered Jim a suite in the house, rather than having a separate house built for the happy couple. Jim knew that it was so the old man could keep an eye on them. Miriam was pleasant, but withdrawn, and they announced her pregnancy as soon after the wedding as was decently possible.

Jim knew she didn’t love him, but he hoped she would come to have feelings for him over time. He didn’t like how the old man looked at him, speculatively, as if he knew the secret but wondered if Jim himself knew it. Jim resolved not to tell the old man anything unless it became absolutely necessary. In the meantime, he took care of Miriam in their new apartments, never forcing himself upon her. She came to him on her own, crawling into his bed late at night. Her mouth found his and she kissed him hungrily, until he didn’t care anymore who it was she saw in her mind. He loved her as she deserved to be loved, and watched the baby grow big inside her.

On this cold morning, they had saddled up the old horse and ridden through a thin layer of snow to Black Pond. Miriam had avoided the place for months after Neistah left, but now she wanted to see the place where her life had begun and ended so abruptly. “It’s cold,” she said at last, turning into Jim’s embrace. “Take me home.”

Without a word, he helped her onto the horse and sat behind her, enveloping her in his cloak to keep her warm. He pretended he didn’t see the tears that lay, frozen, upon her cheeks.

When they got back to the house, Jim took out his sketchbook and charcoals and drew her in front of the fire, picturing her naked with her rounded belly, though the truth was she lay huddled, fully dressed, on the bed they only rarely shared.