Sprite

Miriam trudged behind Jim, weary from her day of swimming with the Sprite. Jim carried her bag and his own, and when he noticed Miriam lagging behind him, he slowed down so that she could catch up. His brow creased as he tried to recall the day’s activities. His brain seemed oddly fuzzy, as if he were coming down with a cold. Other than that, he felt fine.

“Let me help you,” he said, offering Miriam his arm.

She shrugged off his offer and trudged on past him. “I’m fine,” she snapped. She had put her clothes on over her still damp swimming outfit, and they were wet in places where they touched.

Jim matched his pace to hers. “Did you go into the water with him?” he asked, knowing that she had. At some point, he had looked up from his notes and seen her lying on her blanket in that—scant—outfit, with her hair still damp from the pond. Her Sprite sat beside her, obviously wet. Funny, he hadn’t noticed when they went in, only when they were already out of the water.

“Yes, I went swimming,” Miriam said. “My Sprite is teaching me how to swim like he does.”

Jim’s eyebrows rose. “How did you get him to do that? Did you ask him?” If Jim couldn’t verify the Sprite’s ability to communicate one way, he would try another. “He can speak, can’t he?”

Miriam glanced at him. “If I tell you, will you promise not to tell my grandfather?”

Jim nearly grinned in excitement, suppressing it as he gravely replied, “Your grandfather wishes nothing more than to have you be able to communicate with the Sprite. Why wouldn’t you want to tell him?”

“Because he’ll take Neistah away from me!” Miriam said, clapping her hand over her mouth as she realized she had spoken the Sprite’s name aloud.

That is his name! Jim thought triumphantly. “Neistah?” he asked her. In some of Hanan’s ramblings about his mythical creatures, he had mentioned the power of knowing such a creature’s true name. “He told you that?” Of course, Jim did not believe the Sprite was a mythical creature of any sort. Having a name reinforced his supposition that the creature was capable of speech, however.

Miriam stopped and plucked at his arm, the same arm he had offered to her a little while ago. “You won’t say anything, will you?” Her eyes pleaded with him. “Promise?”

Jim let Miriam’s hand rest on his arm and resumed walking with her. He had come to enjoy these walks to and from the pond. It gave him time to relax, and think—and he still got paid for it. Miriam didn’t act the flighty young girl as much when it was just the two of them, either. That act was more for the benefit of her grandfather, a role they had both come to expect. When she was away from him, Miriam was a little more subdued, a little more mature, although she was still very young, barely sixteen.

“I won’t say anything yet,” Jim said. “But I don’t want you taking any unnecessary chances with that creature. He could hurt you or even drown you in the water.”

“That won’t happen,” Miriam said, relaxing at Jim’s assurances. “Neistah wouldn’t hurt me. We’re friends. He really did try to teach me how to swim like he does. It’s hard, though.” Miriam’s thoughts turned to the kiss-that-wasn’t-really-a-kiss, and she blushed. “He says I have to practice.”

“I’ll be watching the two of you,” Jim said firmly. He would pay closer attention than he had obviously done today. When he got back to his room, he would have to go over his notes and his sketches. Had he really been so busy writing things down that he had missed the entire swimming episode?

“I know,” Miriam murmured. She had not removed her hand from his arm. “I’m glad it’s you instead of one of those other guards. I don’t like them.”

Jim looked down at her in surprise. They turned the corner and came within sight of the house. Miriam let go of his arm and took back her basket, while he held open the front door for her. She stopped in the hallway to take another flower out of the vase and put it back in her hair to replace the one Neistah had crumpled.

“You like those?” Jim asked, smiling. “I thought you might.”

“You got them?” Miriam’s green eyes widened, as she remembered Neistah’s urgent questions about the flowers. “Where did they come from?”

“I traded some of the other guys for them,” he admitted, reddening slightly. “The guys know I’m looking for that particular type of flower, so whenever they’re on patrol, they keep an eye out for me. They’re hard to find, but they bloom for a long time. I gave the flowers to Cook to put in a vase so I could draw them.”

“What did you trade for them?” Miriam asked, curious.

Jim reddened even more. “Some of my sketches,” he admitted. “Not the Sprite,” he clarified, “just landscapes, things like that. Flowers.”

“I didn’t know you drew for fun,” Miriam replied.

“Yeah, well. . . it kills time,” Jim mumbled, embarrassed.

“I’d like to see your sketches some time,” Miriam murmured. She gave him a quick smile before darting upstairs to her room, leaving Jim to bring her empty picnic basket to the kitchen. Now he had another reason to go through all his sketches before tomorrow. Some of them weren’t for Miriam’s eyes.

Neistah skirted around a fall of boulders. He had walked nearly all the way to the metal fence, stopping only when he realized he was within sight of it, and if he could see the fence, then the guards who patrolled it would be able to see him, too. He still did not want them to know he could travel so far away from a water source. Besides, he did not like the feeling of being in close proximity with that fence. It made him jittery.

He had found one red flower, at a juncture between two dilapidated piles of stone that once marked stone fences. An intersecting point. In his bones, he felt the hum of power. Now, if only he could find a second marker. . . .

Neistah froze as he sensed someone approaching. It was one of Hanan’s hunters, a heavily-dressed man who must have been sweating profusely in the summer heat. He carried his gun slung across his back. In his hands he held a sheet of paper, a picture of some sort. Neistah snatched the thought easily from the man’s brain. Not Hanan’s man, then. An outsider, an associate of Dave, the thickset hunter who had captured him. The picture that he studied was of Neistah’s pond!

Neistah did not pause to consider how the man had gained entrance to Hanan’s heavily guarded property. He knew how. Dave, or Bill. Word of the Sprite’s existence must have been leaked, deliberately if the picture in the man’s hand was any indication, to the outside world. He was running out of time.

The man was easy enough to avoid. Neistah slipped around him, making not a sound in the dry underbrush, and continued on the other way. He couldn’t kill this one, either. But he could make sure that Hanan’s people found out their security had been breached. They could kill him, or imprison him. John Hanan did not want the secret of the Sprite to spread any more than Neistah did.

Unfortunately, Neistah could not continue to hunt for flowers. He gave up the search, and sprinted through the forest to the Hanan residence, making much better time than Miriam and her guard had made. He found Miriam in her bed, wearing only a light gown and lying on top of the covers in an attempt to stay cool. He spared her only a passing glance, however, as he riffled through her thoughts for the whereabouts of her guard. In the past few weeks, he had manipulated Jim’s mind so frequently, that it was easy to do now.

He found Jim in his room in a barracks-like barn behind the main building and adjacent to the stables. The man had several sketch-books spread out on his bunk in front of him. Neistah saw drawings of himself in various poses, of the red flower for which he’d been searching—that caused his eyes to widen--, of the pond out front, and of his pond in the middle of the woods—that one made him angry, as it was almost identical to the sketch the hunter had been holding—and finally, several drawings of Miriam.

Fiercely, he took possession of Jim’s thoughts, letting him see the hunter, and the sketch, and put two and two together. Jim paled, as he realized that the sketches he had sold for flowers had become maps to the Sprite’s whereabouts. He immediately came to the same conclusion that Neistah had—Bill and Dave were somehow involved.

Jim sprang to his feet, the implanted images spurring him to action. His sketches fell unnoticed to the floor. Despite the fact that dusk had fallen, Jim grabbed his gun from its holder by the door and ran out into the dark, calling for his men as he ran. “We have trouble,” he told them. “Move out.”

Neistah had given Jim a fairly accurate description of where the intruder could be found, and he watched from the shadows as Jim and several other men filed down the dirt road at a trot. There was nothing more Neistah could do for the moment. He eyed the pond across the road longingly, but he ignored it. He had other things on his mind.

John Hanan slept, oblivious, in his room downstairs. If the staff heard any of the commotion outside, they disregarded it with the discretion of well-paid staff anywhere. It was none of their business. Neistah made his way up the stairs to Miriam’s room.

He crawled into bed next to her and ran his hand lazily up her thigh, underneath her thin nightgown. Miriam shivered, unconsciously moving towards his touch. He gently put his mouth on hers and kissed, waiting for her to wake up and realize he was there.

She did, scrambling backwards and breaking the kiss. “Neistah! What are you doing here?” Wildly, she looked around the darkened room, as if checking to make sure no one else had seen him. Neistah chuckled.

“I came to see you,” he said, grinning at her alarm. He widened his eyes innocently. “I thought you wanted me.”

She blushed, as he knew she would. “I—I--,” she stammered.

Neistah came closer and put his arms around her shoulders. “I want you,” he whispered. He moved to kiss her again, not surprised when she let him and even tentatively kissed him back. He pushed her back against the pillows and lay alongside her, almost the same way he had done underwater. Her skin was hot to the touch. So was his. He ran his hands up and down her body, at first, over her clothes and then, when she didn’t protest, underneath. Miriam shuddered and leaned into his touch. “Do you want me?” he asked, his mouth against her neck, his tongue flicking behind her ear.

For answer, she pressed herself closer to him, clinging to his shoulders as he moved over her, pushing her nightclothes out of his way. She tensed as he removed his own strange garment, averting her eyes and making him laugh softly at her modesty. “Shall I go?” he whispered, lifting his weight off her so that he poised above her balanced on just his arms.

Miriam shook her head, her red hair flying. Neistah waited. “No,” she murmured. “I don’t want you to go.”

Neistah took her, swiftly, making her gasp. He settled her by stroking her long, unruly hair back into place. When she was ready, he slowed, letting her feel his every movement until finally she cried out, then he took her face between his webbed hands and kissed her one last time. “That’s for memory,” he said, letting her go. Miriam had a stunned look on her face.

He grinned at her, and slipped back downstairs and across the street to the pond. The gate, now that he no longer resided there, stood unlatched. Neistah propped it open, using a rock to permanently break the latch. He had no intention of being trapped in here again. That done, he sank gratefully into the water, satiated in more ways than one. She was a delightful little distraction.

Some time between midnight and dawn, Jim and his men came back, dragging the hunter between them. He had been caught red-handed inside the boundaries of John Hanan’s property, and, when questioned, had no answer as to why he was there. Jim confiscated the drawing, his drawing, of Neistah’s pond and stuffed it in his shirt. No sense letting the Boss know he had been involved, however unwittingly, in this fiasco.

They locked the hunter in the stable with the horses. No matter how much Jim threatened him, the man would not give up the name of the person who had granted him access to the property. Jim had a strong feeling it was either Bill or Dave, or both. In the morning, Jim would have to tell John Hanan what happened, and let him make the decision on what to do about the two former hunters. They could not be trusted, not any more. Jim seriously did not see how they could let this hunter go, either, although he did not want to be party to outright murder. That was why he was the employee and John Hanan was the boss. Let him make that decision.

Conscience cleared, Jim went back to bed.

Just before dawn, Neistah visited the stables in back of the house. The hunter’s arms were chained above his head, and Neistah glared with distaste at the heavy iron-bearing links. They were no deterrent, however. The man’s eyes widened in something akin to terror as Neistah stood before him, gleaming in the faint morning light with the water that still clung to his hair and his webbing. Through the gag that bound his mouth, the man tried to say something. Neistah heard him quite clearly, anyway, and laughed silently. “Not a mutant, no,” he agreed.

When Jim came out to check on his prisoner in the morning, he found the hunter slumped in his chains, dead without a mark on him. His mouth hardened into a grim line as he left the dead hunter where he lay and went to find the old man. In some ways, this made it easier. Now, the old man would never know it was Jim’s drawing that the hunter had been following. But if there was one, there could be others. There was still the matter of Dave and Bill.