Higher Mythology Page 2

  Holl smiled at Maura. “Before our friends, I swear that I will be a good husband to you, support you, and provide for you. Not only a lover I’d be, but a friend and partner in all things. No other will ever supplant you in my heart. I promise to treat your dreams as dearly as my own, to enjoy and suffer life alongside you all the days of our lives.”

  “Since we were children, I knew we were meant to be together,” Maura replied. Her voice trembled as if she might burst into tears. “I’ve never wanted another for my lifemate, and I come to you with joy.”

  The audience sighed with pleasure as Holl bent his head and kissed Maura gently. Keith waited, but the embrace deepened, went on and on.

  The Elf Master cleared his throat. After a long moment, the couple broke their kiss and came up for air. Maura’s cheeks were rose-pink.

  “As you haf claimed one another, none of us shall stand between you or compel you apart. I offer my congratulations and good wishes.” Beaming, Holl and Maura moved to embrace him, then turned to enfold Curran. There was a general cheer, as the crowd converged on the couple, shouting well wishes. No longer constrained to silence, Diane honked loudly into Keith’s handkerchief.

  “You’d think I’d learn to buy waterproof mascara,” she said, smiling. Her eyes were rimmed with soggy black. She dabbed it away. “Oh, I’m so happy.”

  “Me, too,” said Keith.

  He couldn’t stop grinning. Happiness seemed to be contagious, because the foolishly indulgent smile he wore was on every set of lips in the room.

  “And now the feast begins,” curly-haired Rose called out cheerfully. Like a flock of pigeons abandoning one old lady’s crumbs for another, the crowd reversed and made toward the feast table. Keith managed to barge through the throng to Holl and Maura. He knelt to kiss the bride on the cheek and gave Holl a strong embrace and a hearty slap on the back.

  He tried to find something deep and profound to say, but all that came out was, “Congratulations and good luck.”

  Maura squeezed his hand. “It could not have happened without you,” she said.

  “It was nothing, Maura. I’m a sucker for a happy ending,” Keith said, feeling his cheeks burn. “Hey, what was all that about a challenge tradition? For a moment there I thought the whole thing would stop.”

  “It is one of our oldest traditions, ye ignorant infant,” a gruff voice said from behind him. Enoch stepped over Keith’s ankle to get to his sister. He embraced her and his new brother-in-law. “I’d never have kept Maura from claiming this grinning oaf if she truly wanted him,” he aimed a warning scowl toward Holl, “nor would I let him take a step nearer her if she looked at all unhappy about it.” The rough edge in his voice was undoubtedly connected to the bright gleam in his eyes. Keith’s mouth was open as he considered the delightful revelation: Enoch was sentimental. When the black-haired elf turned back to him with a suspicious glare, Keith’s mouth snapped shut like a trap. “I’ll explain it all to you in words of one syllable. Come with me, and listen.”

  While they stood in line for the buffet, Enoch explained the custom of the challenge. “It’s to ensure that each of the pair loves the other without doubt. In the face of the challenge, either is entitled to turn away if they feel they’re being coerced into the match or making a hasty decision. We like to take our time to decide things, as well you know. There might be hurt feelings this way, but no lifelong mistakes are likely to be made, and we live long lives.”

  “I like that a lot,” Keith said, nodding approval. “To win your ladylove, you have to be proof against temptations or threats.”

  “So pretty a custom,” said a voice at Keith’s elbow, making him start. The elderly woman beside him twinkled at him with mild blue eyes. Ludmilla Hempert must have been standing beside him the whole time, listening to Enoch talk. She patted Keith on the arm with a somewhat large and surprisingly strong hand. “I surprised you? I have been resting in one of these so fine rooms. Ah, my little ones! A feeble old lady like me, and they must have me by them when they bless the young.”

  Ludmilla was a retired cleaning woman who had been working for the University at the time the Little Folk had taken refuge there. She was the first benevolent Big Person the Little Folk had ever encountered, and they treated her like a guardian angel. As for her protests as to being a feeble, old lady, Keith wouldn’t have bet against her bench-pressing her weight in grandchildren.

  “It wouldn’t have been the same without you. Can I make you a copy of the videotape?” Keith asked politely.

  Ludmilla beamed. “Oh, yes, I would enjoy it. But how would I explain to my family when they visit?” she asked with a sly quirk of her mouth.

  Keith grinned back. “I’ll put opening credits on it. You can tell them it’s a Hollywood short subject called A Mid-Autumn’s Afternoon Dream.”

  Beer would make him too drowsy to enjoy the dancing. He wandered into the kitchen to find a glass of water instead. There were clean cups on the table, but when he reached for the tap, Shelogh called out to him.

  “The purified water’s in the jug. Have all you want of that. We’ve a cistern-full down below. Don’t bother with the tap. The water stinks.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Keith asked.

  “Oh, nicht much,” Shelogh said, mixing mid-western English with the Germanic accent the middle-aged Folk had picked up from Ludmilla Hempert. “Just some nasties, smells like it seeped out of a barn instead of from between limestone sheets.”

  “Bizarre,” Keith said, pouring out water from the jug and tasting it: pure, clear, invigorating as wine. “Should I start looking for a water-purifier for you?”

  “Oh, no,” she cried, “when we can do it ourselves? Ach, Keith Doyle. We haf energy to spare now that it’s our own home. Have you not noticed?”

  “Oh, yes,” Keith said with a grin. “I have. It’s terrific.”

  Holl came through with a stack of dirty plates and put them up on the drain board.

  “Hey, it’s a rotten thing to mention on your wedding day, but what’s wrong with the water supply? It smells like runoff from a feedlot, but there’s no feedlot within miles. One cow and seven sheep couldn’t do that much damage, not to the underground water table.”

  “Oh, that,” Holl said. “Olanda has listened to the water’s heart. She said it isn’t natural. Someone is pouring an evil-smelling mess into it somewhere between the source and our cistern.”

  Keith’s brows drew down over his thin nose. “That sounds like deliberate contamination of the groundwater. That shouldn’t be going on down here. You ought to try to arouse some local action to look into it. You should write letters to the editor, or something.”

  “Of that wee paper that comes out once a week?” Holl asked, astonished.

  “Come on, Holl, you live in a small community yourself. Everyone reads The Central Illinois Farmer because it’s more personalized to them than, say, the Chicago Tribune or the New York Times. You could write really stirring letters if you put your mind to it. You’re the most environmentally aware people I know. You can hear streams and trees complain. You waste nothing. I know your homes in the library were built with scrap, and you use everything to death.”

  Holl stroked his chin. “Then the ones to blame might be more apt to pay attention to a well-written plaint, eh?”

  “Right,” Keith said.

  “Would they listen to the cries of a mythical person, then?” Holl spluttered.

  “No one who can mail a letter is mythical. If it goes that far, I’ll come down here when they check out the groundwater on the farm,” Keith said. “But hey! I didn’t mean to get you off on a tangent. This is your wedding day. Have a blast!” The band in the corner began to play. “Dance with your wife,” Keith finished with a grin.

  “Just the thing I was about to suggest to him,” Maura said, coming up to claim her bridegroom. She tucked her hand into his arm and drew him out onto the floor. Keith watched them swirl away to the merry beat of the dance band.

&
nbsp; With all their friends and relatives clapping the beat, the bride and groom circled the room. The music had as much magic in it as the crowns of flowers they wore. Keith found himself tapping his toes with the rhythm, and longing to get out and do the modified polka which was his standard for weddings and other festive occasions.

  Pat Morgan, Keith’s former dorm-mate with whom he was currently sharing a cheap student apartment just off the Midwestern campus, came over to poke him in the ribs with the handle of his dessert fork. “Look at this,” Pat said, gesturing around him with a sweep of his arm. “It’s like a Shakespearean pageant, with all the elements of traditional drama—love, suspense, happy ending.” He sighed. “It would never make it in the theater today.” Pat had a melancholy bent that went with his Ricardian looks.

  Breathless, the bridal couple broke apart though the music was still playing. Each ran to the sidelines and joined hands with the parent-in-law of the opposite sex. Then those couples parted to bring others onto the floor one by one. Maura’s tiny hands seized Keith’s, and pulled him out to dance. His partner looked like the bride on the top of a traditional wedding cake, and was almost small enough to fit. He felt like an uncle escorting a five-year-old niece.

  “You look beautiful. Could you possibly be that happy?” he asked, feeling indulgent.

  “More so, Keith Doyle,” Maura said, her skin fresh and pink, her eyes fire-lit emeralds. “I feel I owe you much.”

  “Holl did it,” Keith said hastily, turning away in embarrassment but making it look as if he was making sure they weren’t going to bash into the next set of dancers. “Holl did it all. He saved my neck too, you know.”

  “He learns quickly, but he had a good example set him,” Maura said, not letting him off the hook. “Well, when will we see you as happy as we are? When will you ask the pretty Diane to wed with you?”

  “Uh, not yet,” Keith said, feeling his cheeks flush. “At least let me get out of school first and find a decent job! Love in a student-grade apartment isn’t all that romantic.”

  “When you’re in love, any bower is a palace,” the elf-lass reminded him. She fixed him with a searching gaze. “You didn’t gainsay me. So you’d actually do it, would you? She’s the one of your heart?”

  “Uh,” Keith said, feeling the floor drop out from under him. He looked around wildly, wondering if anyone was in a position to overhear them. Thankfully, the music was pretty loud. “Come on, Maura, have mercy! I want to do things in the right time. Don’t tell her.”

  “I don’t have to,” the girl said coyly. With a gay smile, she spun away from him and chose another partner. Inspired by Maura’s last teasing words, Keith turned to find Diane and draw her into the dance, but to his amazement, the Elf Master had already asked her.

  “Claim-jumper,” Keith muttered. He bowed to Ludmilla Hempert and assisted her gallantly to the floor.

  In the second set, he managed to secure a dance with Diane. She was breathless and flushed.

  “Isn’t this wonderful?” she asked. “I’m so happy for them, Keith.”

  “Keith Doyle!” Dennet, Holl’s father, waved to them from the side of the room. “There’s been a package for you, by the bye. Did Rose give it to you?”

  “Uh, no,” Keith said, puzzled.

  “Oh, I’ll find it. There’s been enough of a stir these last days, so there has.” He bustled away and returned with a flat box covered with brown paper and tied with waxed string. “From Ireland, it is. Have you friends called Skylark, then?”

  “Mailed from a pub of that name,” Keith said, unwrapping the brown paper. He grinned, and showed the contents to Diane and Dennett. The flabby rectangle wrapped up in fine embroidered cloth had a fancy lettered card tucked under the ribbon. “It’s not for me. It’s for Holl. A wedding present. From the Niall.”

  Dennett’s eyes twinkled. He looked like a teenager letting them in on a prank, in spite of his white hair. It was disconcerting, considering how old Keith suspected him to be. “There’s the name of a man whose face I’ve not seen these, oh, well, how long has it been? Your photographs were like a work of wonder, lad. I thought never to see those likenesses again in life. What’s in the package, then? Ah, gifting time won’t be far off. I’ll have to hold my curiosity ’til then.”

  “How long has it been?” Keith asked pointedly. He had never managed to learn how long ago the Little Folk had made their way to the New World, nor how old they grew to be. Curiosity made his invisible whiskers twitch.

  “Oh, a long time,” Dennett said. He smiled conspiratorially at Keith. Maybe he thinks I already know, Keith thought, dismayed. “Gifting time’s coming soon, after Holl and Maura have broken their fast together as husband and wife. My son’s eaten nary a thing all day, though he’s been up since sunrise, he’s that nervous.”

  “I can’t blame him,” Keith said, and recoiled as Diane socked him on the arm. “Ouch!”

  “Well, go and enjoy the feast,” Dennet said hospitably. He turned to follow his own advice.

  Keith went back to his camera and filmed some of the guests eating, then turned his lens and hastily focused on a full plate moving toward him.

  “There,” Diane said, putting her hand over the lens. He lowered the camera and she handed him the plate. “Stay out of trouble.”

  Keith dug in. His anticipation was exceeded by the reality. The food was terrific. Meat dishes were few, leaving a more significant presence by savories that got their proteins from nuts and beans. The vegetables were as ornate as the room’s decor: carrots were cut into corkscrews, celery shredded into small replicas of wheat sheaves, relishes and salads appeared as colorful as mosaics and stained glass windows—and everything was delicious.

  “Did you see the dessert?” Diane asked, pointing to the edge of his plate with her fork.

  Two half-blown rosebuds lay together near the salad. They were nearly perfect, except for the fact that they were larger and transparent. “Those are amazing. What are they made of?” Keith asked.

  “Jell-O,” Diane said with an impish grin. She ticked the plate rim with her fingernail, and the gelatin rosebuds quivered. “When I asked how they did that, Calla said, ‘Enhancing, lass, enhancing!’” Diane mocked the Little Folk’s tone.

  “That’s all the answer you’ll ever get out of them,” Keith said with a grin.

  After much of the feast was eaten, the newlyweds were enthroned on the finest of the flower-strewn chairs. At their feet the children placed the colorfully wrapped packages entrusted to them by the adults. The presents from other Little Folk were few. The Big Folk proffered their large, and in Keith’s case, heavy, boxes with a trifle of embarrassment.

  “Oh, don’t concern yourself,” Holl assured them. “It’s most generous of you to include us in your custom. Heart’s generosity is always welcome. In our ways, which are a bit rusty, as you might guess from forty years’ disuse, presents given to the newlywed couple are mostly personal in nature, since everything else is shared for the good of all. But Maura and I are grateful for whatever inspiration you’ve been visited by. Be sure none are unwelcome. We’ll open yours first, after a presentation of my own.”

  He turned to Maura and lightly held out his hand for hers. When she extended her palm, an inquiring expression on her face, he placed in it a tiny carved wooden box.

  “We work mostly in wood, but I wanted something a little thinner and stronger,” Holl said. Maura pressed the miniature button and lifted the box’s lid. Inside was a ring made of braided silver and gold. In its center, glowing with the blue of a cloudless sky, was an oval sapphire. Keith and the others let out an appreciative gasp as Maura showed it around.

  “But where did you find the stone?” she asked.

  Tiron cleared his throat. “A heart’s gift from me, cousin,” Tiron said hoarsely. “I swear by the trees and the earth that there are no love spells on it to make you turn to me, nor any other influence that would lessen your joy.” Surprised, Maura smiled warmly at him.

>   The sentimental, generous gesture showed a side of Tiron that surprised Keith. The strange elf seemed at times to be the greatest of egotists. He blushed when Maura rose from her throne to kiss him heartily on the cheek.

  “We welcome you among us,” Maura said, squeezing his hand. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Well, it’s nothing,” Tiron said, blushing.

  “But you’re trying to denigrate the gift,” Holl protested. “He told me that the stone came from the hand of a king in days long gone. This king, a visitor from over the water, gave it to our people in Ireland and promised to keep faith with them, but he was killed soon after by traitors.”

  “Which king?” Keith asked eagerly. “How far over the water? England? Scotland? Denmark?”

  Tiron shrugged. “I’m sure I didn’t listen to the old stories,” he said. “You can write to the Niall, for all the useless rambling you’ll get out of him.”

  “Well, it’s a mighty gift,” Maura said. “Thank you. And thank you for the crafting of it into such a treasure,” she said to her husband, bestowing a tender kiss on him. Holl reddened, beaming. “And now let us see what our other kindhearted friends have given.”

  “Uh,” Keith said, flushing red while Maura circled around the box he offered with anticipation. “Since you have a working windmill for electricity, I thought this might come in handy. It’s used, but I had it tuned up before I brought it down. I coated the wheel with urethane so you wouldn’t get metal burns.” He had prepared his speech ahead of time but they seemed to him silly and stilted now. “Um … don’t lose the traditional skills you have just because technology makes it easier to perform your tasks.”

  “Vell put,” said the Master, nodding, “and very true. I didn’t think you had it in you, Meester Doyle.”

  “Uh, thanks. Just tear it, Maura,” Keith suggested, watching the bride run her hands along the side looking for gaps in the cellophane taped seams. “The suspense is getting painful.”