Worth Taking

"Well, I can't say exactly," he told her, running his hand along the trunk of the pear tree. "There's no indication of a fungus..."

"Ugh," she interrupted. "I hate that word." Just above the line of her large sunglasses, he could see her brow furrowing.

He chuckled politely. "So, it seems healthy, and it's growing well, just not producing fruit."

"We want the fruit," she said firmly. "That's one of the reasons we bought this property. Plenty of other places we looked had better views of the lake, but we wanted something on the road so we could have a fruit stand. We want the whole experience, just like a turn of the century farmhouse." She flicked a hand at the pear tree, jeweled bracelets clacking . "This is the only tree on the property that's mature, and we were told it could have fruit this season. No one mentioned pears don't ripen until the fall," she huffed, "so we've waited and waited, and now no fruit!"

He nodded as she spoke, then shrugged. "In all honesty, Mrs. Havers, I think your best option is just to wait. The last owners neglected the tree and Spring is not the best time to prune a fruit tree. It may take another season for it to recover."

"You should have told us that when you came out in April," she said.

"If my brother neglected to mention it, I apologize," Christopher said carefully. "At any rate, there are more things we can do before winter comes, like aerate the soil at the base here, and maybe plant a shrub barrier to protect it from the winds off the lake..."

"And you can guarantee that will make the difference next year?"

"There are no guarantees in farming, Ma'am. If we get an early frost the buds will all freeze, or a late spring might mean too short a growing season, or..."

"But what you're suggesting will improve the tree's capacity independent of the weather?"

"Yes, it will improve it, but if the problem is something else, like a lack of cross-pollination..."

"What's that?"

"Fruit trees need other fruit trees to pollinate each other. There used to be two other pear trees on this property, but I believe we took them out in the spring." He flipped through the order book to see her history. "Yeah, here it is. We took them out to make the path to the lake." He pointed to the end of the garden. "There used to be two pear trees right there. It might have made the difference as to why this isn't producing any more."

She glared at the path, then waved her hand at him. "Oh, fine, just finish your work." She disappeared into the house, the screen door banging behind her.

Christopher took out his order form and made a few notes on the conversation, then turned his attention to trimming the forsythia that lined the back porch. When he finished, he gathered the clippings and tossed them into the back of his truck. Going back for his tools, he passed the pear tree and paused to run his fingers along the slim lower branches. He stood back and looked at the tree as a whole. It had a good shape with firm and unblemished leaves. The inner branches rose at a nice upwards angle, four of them providing good infrastructure. The outer branches swung gently in the breeze, willowy and supple, ready for fruit.

Giving the tree a farewell pat, he collected his tools and walked back to his truck to write up the bill. As he wrote, his receiver crackled, and his father's voice barked out, "Chris!"

He pressed the talk button. "Yeah?"

"What the hell did you say to that lady off Main? She's been on the phone yellin' for fifteen minutes about some racket we've got to cut down trees she needs and then charge to replant 'em. What's going on over there?"

Chris leaned his head against the back of the seat. "She wants the pear tree to produce and there's no cross-pollinators..." he began.

"What the hell? So you told her it was our fault?"

"It was our fault if no one told her that taking out those trees might affect the other pear!"

"You are some stupid son of a bitch, Chris," his father panted. "What the hell do you think we're supposed to do, list every possible consequence to every action we take? How the hell should we know she wanted that damn tree for fruit? Get the hell back up there and fix this!"

"How am I..."

"I don't give a shit. Figure it out. She's pissed as hell and it's your fault so fix it."

Christopher threw the receiver on the passenger seat and fumed silently a few minutes. He'd had this sort of argument with his dad a hundred times since he started at the landscape company. He wanted them to take more responsibility for developing a relationship with the customers, educating them about tree and lawn care so they understood the dynamics of how their land worked. His dad was always telling him to stop over-explaining and just do whatever the customer wanted him to do. It didn't help that his brother seemed cut from the same cloth as their father, and never made a misstep like he'd just made with Mrs. Havers.

He tried to put himself in his brother's shoes. How would he have gotten around the problem? Lied, probably. Told her that the tree needed spraying or something she wouldn't want to do, like cover it with some ugly netting. He knew his brother had taken out those pear trees without giving a second thought to how it would affect the rest of the garden, and in his mind that wasn't giving good service to their customer.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, then jerked open the door and flung himself out. Taking the front steps by twos, he rang the bell and waited.

Mrs. Havers opened it and stood there expectantly. She'd taken off her sunglasses, revealing a heavy layer of blue and purple eyeshadow that matched her linen tank top. "Yes?"

"I came to apologize," he said. "Dunwells Landscaping cares very much about our customers and we want to make this right for you. We'd be happy to plant replacement pears free of charge." He hated to make that offer, knowing his dad would take both trees and labor out of his paycheck.

"That seems the least you can do," she snapped. "It won't help me get any fruit this year, though, will it? And how long before those other pears are old enough to do their job?"

"Well, we'd have to plant young trees of course, so they won't produce pears for a few years, but they will bud in the spring and that will be enough to cross-pollinate the mature Bartlett. Again, I am very sorry for this mix up and for our error."

She sighed, shaking her head. "All right. When will you plant them?"

"Best time is late fall, so I guess within a month or two. Before the snow starts."

"We'll be back in Chicago by then. Hang on." She disappeared and returned with a business card. "Call our in-town property manager. She'll schedule the work and oversee it for me."

"Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Havers." He took the card and handed her the bill for that day's work. She took it with a martyred expression, then shut the door firmly. Back in his car he glanced at the card and groaned. It would be Jeanette's dad's company. Of course it would. He was going to have to take her with him each time he came to care for those trees over the winter, so she could oversee the work for Mrs. Havers.

Jamming the car into reverse, he backed out onto the highway and headed home in a dark mood.

Enthralled

Dawn came, and she hadn't returned yet. With a sigh, he lumbered to his feet and stretched, rubbing at the indentations in his shoulders from leaning against the tree all night. Yawning, he navigated his way through the campground to the large orange 6-sleeper they'd borrowed for the trip down state. It wasn't as easy to find as he expected, and at one point he almost walked into the wrong one and had to back away, apologizing to the bleary eyed and unamused occupant.

At last he saw people he recognized and headed that way. They looked up as he approached, and Kevin grinned. "Christopher, man, where've you been?"

He plunked himself down by the smoldering remains of the fire and accepted a beer for breakfast. Lightheaded from lack of sleep, he merely shrugged at the question.

"Seriously," Jeanette pressed, a bit sharply. "You haven't even slept here." Unspoken, though not concealed, was her irritation at his absence.

"I haven't slept much, period," he sighed.

Kevin chuckled. "Yeah, dude, awesome."

"No," he said quickly, as Jeanette's eyes began to narrow, "I've just been up really late talking and stuff. I met this girl..."

"You should bring her around," Jeanette said at once. Kevin raised an eyebrow, but Christopher hardly needed the warning.

"She's sort of private," he explained. "Actually, it's weird how private she is. She won't even tell me her name." He wasn't exaggerating. She wouldn't tell him anything, wouldn't talk about her family or where she'd grown up or even where she'd been the week before. Whenever he tried to ask her a question, she simply changed the subject or, with a light smile, asked him why he needed to know.

Needed. There were very few things he actually needed, like air, food, drink, shelter. And her company. That was rapidly becoming a need. He needed the touch of her hand on his arm and the way his heart raced when she looked at him. When she left for the night it felt like part of him went suddenly missing. His whole body yearned for her return.

"Yeah, that's weird," Kevin agreed. "She's hot?" Christopher nodded. "That'll excuse a lot."

"She's probably just looking for a Festival hook up," Jeanette offered. "You should enjoy it."

"I'm feeling a lot more than just a hook up with her. She's...I don't know, it's hard to describe. She's just not the hook-up type."

Kevin rattled his empty beer can to collect the last drops. "A hook up would do you good," he said casually. "Help you forget the train wreck that was Sara."

Jeanette nodded, giving him a sort of pitying look that he found completely unnecessary. He was over Sara. Way over her. That relationship had gone down in flames and he'd learned a good lesson from it. He had no intention of ever pursuing anyone so unstable again.

And he couldn't entirely say yet that his festival goddess wasn't unstable. Certainly, she was hiding something. Either that, or she was messing with him. He should consider that seriously, that he was being played and she was having a fine laugh with her friends and betting on how far she could string him along.

Jeanette misinterpreted his frown and tried to change the subject. "Carl and Mindy are meeting us by the main stage when Fearsome Deeds starts up, if you want to join us."

"No. Thanks, though. I'm just going to catch a few hours sleep." He threw his empty onto the pile for refunds and ambled into the tent, nearly tripping over Josh, who was still sleeping. He settled himself on his sleeping bag and threw a hand over his eyes to block the sun. Maybe she was playing him. That didn't match her personality, though. He didn't sense any guile in her. On the contrary, she seemed almost too naive, as though she'd been sheltered by overbearing parents who never even let her watch TV.

And that was a distinct possibility, now that he thought about it. She might have escaped one of those fanatical cults where they still did arranged marriages or something. Maybe she wouldn't give her name because she didn't want any record of her whereabouts. But that didn't make sense...she could have just changed her name or given him a fake one...unless she was truly so honest that she couldn't even tell a necessary lie. That matched her personality. In the constant hours they'd spent together, he'd never heard her once poke fun at anything or complain about the heat or the crowds or the music. He couldn't see her laughing with her friends at his expense.

So it remained a mystery, and one that he found increasingly problematic. Despite his reluctance to admit it to his friends, he did not think a hook up would do him any good. That wasn't what he wanted with her at all. And what were his chances of seeing her again if she wouldn't even tell him her name?

Today, he decided. He would figure something out. The thought of this being the last time he saw her was simply unacceptable.

He was not prepared for it to end.

Presence

He saw things sometimes out of the corner of his eye, fleeting motion which disappeared when he looked right at it, leaving him with the vague sense that if he'd only turned around faster he might have seen something wonderful. But the second day of the Wilder Music Festival, between the main stage and the food pavilion, he whirled around to check one of those ghost motions and someone was there.

Not just anyone -- a vision. Dressed simply in a flowered, sleeveless sundress, she wore her long hair mostly down, the front half held back in two loose braids. Rebellious wisps framed her face, standing out wildly in all directions from the wind and humidity. He tried to keep himself from staring, but his eyes kept returning to her. She had an uncomplicated air about her, a sense that she'd simply sprung from the earth exactly as she appeared. She wore none of the heavy makeup so popular at the time, nor any jewelry, she didn't carry a purse or have pockets on her dress. As his gaze moved lower he saw that her feet were bare against the trampled grass of the festival field. The enigma of it enthralled him.

She smiled at him, so he smiled back.

The music was far too loud to have a conversation. Besides, he felt that yelling at this beautiful creature would be like shaking a branch where a butterfly had just alighted. So he gestured to the main stage and held out his hand. To his delight, she took it.

They spent the afternoon together enjoying the music, wandering past tables of folk art and jewelry and assorted offerings, pausing at one tent or another to listen to conversations and impromptu orchestras, and watching as groups of people played hackeysack or danced.

Late in the night, when the moon stood full and bright overhead, they sat against a tree on the far edge of the campgrounds listening to the crickets playing a harmony all around them. The music had stopped for the night, and most of the campground was silent. They sat dozing and talking, his arm around her and her head on his shoulder.

"So this is embarrassing," he said, "but I don't know your name."

"Do you need to?" she asked.

"Weird," his mind thought. But his heart urged him to try something new. "Well," he stammered, "I guess not. Do you want to come meet my friends?"

She shook her head and stood up.

"Where are you camped?" he asked, following her a little way.

She smiled and backed away from him. "I'll find you tomorrow," she promised and, with a careless wave, walked away.

Heart's Gift

He reached the lake just before sunset. The bronze-colored sun hovered above the horizon, casting a brilliant path of white light on the water. On that path, far out from shore, he saw a figure walking due west.

A wild joy infused his limbs; he was not yet too late. Heart pounding, he fixed his eyes on her figure and stepped out onto the surface of the water. It yielded only slightly to his weight, enough to soak through his shoes. But he didn't sink.

Elated, he began to run, wonder spurring him on so he moved much faster than he ever had on land. How long he ran didn't seem to matter; he wasn't even winded when he caught up to her. She turned, mouth open, to stare at his arrival with astonishment and fear.

Triumphantly, he grasped her hand and cried, "I caught you!"

"You shouldn't have followed me!" she said. "Go back. Now!"

The fury in her tone stalled his celebration, and he frowned. "But I caught you before you reached the Otherlands." He gave his head a small shake, knowing that she, of all people, shouldn't need to be told the rules. Somehow he found himself unable to refrain from explaining anyway. "You must grant me a wish, and I wish for you to stay." Quickly he added, "We love each other. You are meant to stay."

"I don't want to stay," she said.

Her rejection took him utterly by surprise. "I don't believe you. How can you say that?"

She turned her face away from him. "Just go back."

"Not without you." He swallowed anxiously, trying to remember what had made him think she wanted him to come after her. This wasn't the reaction he expected. "I caught you and you're going to stay."

She looked him steadily in the eye. "You don't even know what you're asking of me, what the consequences of my remaining here would be. My people are dying. I have to return to them."

"But...I don't understand. Can't you come back?"

"Once I leave, I can't return. We can only visit once. The crossing isn't possible again."

Anger overpowered all his other emotions. "What was it all for, then?" he demanded. "Why did you put so much effort into enthralling me if you were just going to walk away without even saying goodbye? It's some sort of game for you people, isn't it? You enjoy toying with us, laughing at our pathetic hopes, playing with our hearts and feelings for sport!"

Something flashed across her face, something that stilled his rapidly beating heart. She spoke in a firm voice. "No part of this was a game."

"Then why do you look so guilty?"

She averted her eyes.

Disgusted, he worked to collect his thoughts. "My great grandmother used to tell me fairy stories," he said. "I remember bits and pieces, enough that it all made sense: your refusal to tell me your name or where you came from, the way your eyes shine in the moonlight, the ephemeral quality of your very presence." He glowered. "I should have remembered all the warnings."

"I didn't want you to follow me," she said quietly. "I didn't even know you could. Mortals aren't supposed to be able to walk on the sunlight." Her face softened as she gazed at him. "You are nothing like they told me you would be."

The sun had become a defined red ball, its distance from the horizon shrinking with each passing moment. They stood together, equidistant from land and star. The path blazed around them, a brilliant orange swath rippling across the surface of the water.

"Release me," she pleaded.

"Take your hand away," he countered.

Her fingers rested lightly against his, comfortably fitting the contours of his palm. She waited silently, watching his face as he wrestled with his frailty. He wanted to hate her and couldn't, despite her lies, despite the way she'd cheapened his devotion. He understood the stakes, or thought he did, at least. If he held her, she must stay, but he would be holding her against her will. If he let her go, he would never see her again, and from the expression on her face, he felt sure that this would hurt her just as much as remaining with him.

In the distance the sun dipped lower and lower, approaching the water. The grew infinitely smaller, a drawing together of earth and sky until, suddenly, they merged.

He released her hand.

She did not flee into the sun as he thought she would. Instead, she drew a long, deep breath. "We might make it," she said grimly. "Run."

Together they raced the sunset, splashing and gasping, hands clasped tightly as they ran. More difficult than trying to walk in sand, their feet kept sinking and slipping. The angle of sunlight flattened, erasing the path on the far side of the waves, so they had to leap with each step. Falling, stumbling, they made desperate progress toward shore.

Behind them the sun slid gently into the water, disappearing bit by bit until only a glowing sliver remained. They were still very far from shore when it finally disappeared. The path of light hovered a moment more, then broke apart and faded, plunging them into the deep, cold water.

They surfaced and began to swim with steady strokes, aiming for the bobbing line of trees and houses only a hundred feet away. Yet despite their efforts, the shore moved no closer. "The current..." he panted.

"Keep swimming!"

They stopped speaking, saving their strength. The insidious current worked against them, bearing them north and away from shore.

As the shadows lengthened and twilight fell, he realized the current had won. In another minute or so, they would be swept past the point and into a treacherous channel between the North and South Bear Islands, both uninhabited. Beyond them lay open water, wide and deep. During the day, they might have had a chance, as boats and fishing skiffs sailed up and down the shore, and the coast guard flew by at least once every afternoon. But now, with night falling steadily, they couldn't even aim for one of the islands in the dark.

He swam closer to her, treading water with one hand as he brushed hair from her face. "I think this is it," he panted softly, and she nodded.

"I'm exhausted. I just can't swim anymore."

"You should have gone," he said, angry at himself for waiting so long to release her. "I wish I'd never followed you."

They clung to each other, floating in the current and shivering. "I can tell you my name now," she whispered.

Something about fairy names tickled the back of his consciousness, but he couldn't quite remember what. "Only if you want to. It binds you to me, right?"

"We are already bound," she assured him. "Iriani S'Eiree."

"Iriani," he repeated, rolling the beautiful sound across his tongue. Whether it had magic in it, he couldn't tell, but the trust she showed by revealing it to him tied his heart even more securely to hers.

All was darkness now, his senses filled by the slap of the waves, the sound of her ragged breathing, and the penetrating cold. His feet had gone numb long ago, and he kept slipping down into the water and having to tread faster to keep his head clear. "I'm getting tired."

"Don't speak, my love. Hold on as long as you can."

He fell silent, but in his heart he knew it was hopeless. They couldn't tread water till morning. People had been known to survive in water up to 18 hours, but not water this cold, and not without anything to hold onto. The darkness seemed to seep into his mind, muffling his thoughts. Her breathing grew slower, more ragged, and realized they were both hanging on by a thread.

In the distance he heard a boat motor, and wished idly that it would come their way. He knew it couldn't; no sober driver would take a boat toward the channel at this hour, but as he listened the motor grew incrementally louder. Impossible, and yet...A triangle of wavering lights appeared to their right, approaching slowly. It couldn't come all the way to their position. Surely it would turn and hug the shoreline any moment, taking their last hope away. It didn't. It came on steadily as though making course right for them. And within a few minutes, he was hollering with the last of his strength, laughing and screaming his thanks to the universe as the boat idled to a stop and the driver threw out a float on a line.

An hour later, the boater's name and address on a note in his borrowed pants pocket, Chris stood waving goodbye, his feed solidly on shore. His other arm held up the rough blanket wrapped around the shoulders of a shivering Iriani. "What are the odds?" he marveled. They crossed the beach, heading back to the walkway that led to his home.

She simply smiled, then reached up a hand and drew his face down to meet hers. "I am very glad to have my life to live with you."

But as he held his back door open, he saw her cast a long, anxious look into the darkness toward the water.

"Are you worried about your people?" he asked.

"Someone else will find what they need," she answered slowly. "I'm more worried about us. What I've done...it's not forbidden, but they will be very angry with me."

He followed her gaze. "What can they do?"

"I don't know. But I think we should make the most of the days we have, and live each one as though we will not get another."

"That's good advice for anyone," he agreed, then led her over the threshold and inside.