Iylaine sees what she wants

The first half of the month of September was as brilliant as the Queen’s box of jewels. The valley was gilded from hill to river with the yellow gold of oats, the white gold of barley, and the red gold of wheat. Ruby apples grew on emerald trees, and the market tables were overspread with the varicolored gems of the season’s vegetables. The skies were turquoise through the day, diamond-​​studded sapphire at night, and in the amethyst and coral hour of sunset the dark earth was dotted with the glittering topaz of bonfires.

The first half of the month of September was over. That morning Iylaine had woken to the sound of raindrops slapping on the bare, packed dirt of the yard. In the afternoon, their sound had softened with the mud until it was a mere kiss of water against earth, and now, in the night, the puddles had grown until the yard was loud again with the din of water slapping on water.

The summer was over, too, having died that day. The sun was beginning to tire of light-​​giving, and from now until Iylaine’s birthday it would spend more time asleep than awake.

When she considered the sun, she could find the words and the reason to explain her own weariness. Now began the dark half of the year: the season of sleep. She too longed to sleep like the sun, to sleep more hours than she spent going about and giving light.

Nevertheless, she could not make herself sleep tonight. The sound of water was everywhere: tapping on the roof, dripping from the eaves into the puddles, splashing against the springy leaves of the birches, hissing through the soft needles of the pines. She could hear the brook out front coming to life as it was filled with new water.

She seemed to be surrounded by water. She was in a world of water, safe in a bubble filled with air and fire.

Or trapped in a bubble filled with air and fire.

Iylaine glanced over at Malcolm. He was curled up on his side, sleeping, and his soft snore was nothing more than a cat’s contented purr. He could sleep, but she knew he would be up before dawn, rain or shine, bright season or dark season, and he would go about giving light far longer than he would lie here purring in the dark beside her.

He seemed an utter stranger to her. He was not of her race. She did not know him. She could never understand him, nor he her. He seemed a blind and crippled creature, groping and shuffling after her, trying to follow her into places he could never go. And since he could not follow, he would grab hold of her and drag her back, keeping her with him.

Iylaine rose and went out into the hall, closing the bedroom door gently behind her. Duncan’s ears might have heard it close, but he too was sleeping, purring like a kitten.

She lit the candle at the front window so that the dark, watery world would know she was at home, but that bright shard of topaz only served to blot it out entirely. The dozens of diamond-​​shaped window panes reflected the flame over and over across their rippling surfaces. In the light-​​gilded glass she could see only the candle and the reflection of her own candlelit face. She had not gone far enough.

She opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. The rain was not rough with her. It did not pelt her skin, but it fell hard and fast upon her, intent on soaking her as quickly as possible, on making her as wet as the world.

The candle in the window still illuminated her face. Its light was watery now, wavering through raindrops, but it was still fire and it was still light. All the world around her was dark – darker than rubies, darker than sapphires. All the world around her was wet. To the darkness and water, even this candle was an affront.

Iylaine closed the door and stepped out into the yard. The hem of her nightgown dragged through the puddles, but she was already soaked to the skin. She was wet and cold and unhappy, but she could not go inside. She wanted to go where it was too dark to see and too wet to breathe, but she did not know such a place.

Then she realized that she must simply want to die, and she moaned softly in horror. As a child she had always feared death by drowning more than anything. What she wanted now was the thing that had always been the very image of death to her.

Something inside of her tried to turn her around and send her back into the house – something that was blind and crippled and stupid like a man. That something did not understand what she wanted, but neither did she. She was an elf, but she knew nothing of being an elf.

Something inside of her tried to warn her that her ignorance would drive her to drown herself this night or some other. Once she had tried to drown herself in the pool where Malcolm had tried to teach her to swim. Once she had tried to drown herself in one of the dark lakes on the moor, when Malcolm had taken her home after their marriage. But Malcolm had not understood why she had tried to drown, and neither had she.

She knew nothing of being an elf, and there was no one to tell her.

Vash punctually left black stones in the hollow tree, but never a pink. And yet he could go blithely off and spend the night drinking with her father and chatting with her father’s half-​​elf sons. Vash had all but forgotten her.

Vash had forgotten her, and Kiv was no more. Gwynn had told her this. Vash had not cared enough even to tell her Kiv was dead – though Iylaine thought sweet, gentle Kiv would have wanted her to know. Vash had preferred to tell it to a girl he had met only once before.

Perhaps he would fall in love with Gwynn, since Gwynn seemed so smitten with him. Before she died, Iylaine thought she ought to try to warn Gwynn against loving a creature not of her race.

But at that moment, Iylaine would have warned anyone she met against loving anyone at all. Love was a pale shadow compared to the boundless dark that was calling her. Love was like a drop of water before an ocean entire. Love was nothing but a way to teach men the language of longing, so that they would know to heed the call of death when it came.

Iylaine had never felt any love or any longing like the force that was leading her away. It seemed to be drawing the soul out of her body, but her soul stuck and clung. She did not know how to die.

The dripping and the splashing and the thrumming of the rain was enough to prevent her from hearing Malcolm until he had stepped out into the yard and cried aloud her name. It was not enough to prevent him from hearing her sob once he had.

She knew she had frightened him, for he began babbling at her in Gaelic as he did when he was speaking more to soothe himself than to say anything to her. From time to time she heard a “Baby” or a “Stupid girl”, and there were a number of words that she knew for Gaelic endearments, but she did not try to understand. She let it wash over her like the rain.

“Where were you going, Baby?” he asked when he had calmed himself into English again. “What were you doing?”

“I don’t know,” she blubbered. “I think I want to die!”

“Baby!”

She had frightened him beyond speech in any language. He squeezed her body against his, but she did not think he could hold her soul.

“Do you ever feel that way?” she whimpered. If Malcolm felt that way, then perhaps it was not an affair of elves but an affair of every creature, and then a man such as Malcolm could help her. “When you only want to sleep – sleep more hours than you are awake, like the sun in the winter?”

“Baby!” He leaned his forehead against her wet hair. “That’s all it is, Baby! You don’t want to die, stupid girl! You’re simply tired. Tired, Baby.”

“Do you think?”

“Of course you are,” he soothed. “All day long chasing after that little turtle. And I’ve been so busy lately, with the harvest, and you’re so often alone. Why didn’t you simply tell me, stupid girl? You know I’m too stupid to guess. Why didn’t you tell me you needed a rest?”

Malcolm rocked his head against hers and tried to caress the hands she was shaking before her open mouth. She did not think she was simply tired. She did not think she needed a rest. Her soul was trying to flee. Malcolm could not understand.

“Baby,” he whispered. “Come inside now. Come with me.”

“No!” she moaned. She meant with the word to loosen his grip on her soul, to shake herself free of him.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to him. His face was dark and streaming with rain, like all the world, but his eyes shone like a cat’s with their own cold fire.

He did not even need to speak. She saw at once that she was wrong about everything.

She threw herself against him. “Malcolm!”

She closed her eyes and tried to find his mouth with hers, but their faces were slippery, and even his stubbly chin was sleek with rain. She dug the nails of one hand into his back to keep it from sliding across his wet skin, and with the other she hung onto his hair, squeezing great fistfuls of it, kneading the water into it.

Her gentle Malcolm was no less ferocious with her. He tipped her off balance until her bare feet scrabbled in the mud and she had no choice but to hang onto him. He tugged on her wet hair with his free hand, tipping her head back so he could nip at her neck.

She tried to struggle with him, to see what he would do. He only growled at her and held her tighter.

Iylaine sobbed in relief. All she wanted was to be inside, by her fire, where there would be light enough for her to see his beloved eyes that shone like cat’s eyes and glittered like topaz.

She turned her head until her lips were against the wet hair that hung before his round little ear. “Take me inside, Malcolm.”

“Aye, Baby,” he murmured.

All she wanted was to be warm and dry with him.

“Take me in, and take this gown off me, and dry me off.”

“Aye, Baby.”

She wanted to lie down with him, to stay with him, and to sleep with him for more hours than she would spend alone while he went off giving light to others.

“And take me to bed,” she whispered.

“Aye, Baby.”

She had never felt a love or a longing like this. She did not want to die. She only wanted him.