"There's a road with power lines behind us," Sholto said.
I glanced back and found he was correct. It was drier and more desolate, but it felt like Midwestern farmland, and indeed there were distant houses scattered around more cultivated fields. The land around this house was barren and the barn near it was literally falling down around the wrecks of farm equipment peeking out from the vines that seemed to be both destroying the wood and holding it together.
"I think we're somewhere in the United States, maybe the Midwest, but it's drier than Missouri or Illinois, different vegetation, too."
"I thought you only appeared in the desert where your soldiers were fighting."
"I did, until now," I said. The sun was bright overhead. If a car came down the road we'd be exposed to view. Up to this point only the soldiers and those fighting with them had been able to see me, as far as I knew, but someone getting pictures with their phone of us standing here like this would be on the Internet in minutes. I pushed the thought away and tried to "feel" who had called me, us, and why? Always before, people's lives had been in danger. What was dangerous here, and who was in danger?
"I thought only you traveled in dream at the Goddess's bidding?" Sholto said.
"That was true, until now." I stared at the house with its ramshackle barn. I thought that was our goal, but I wasn't sure. Appearing here and not in some faraway country had thrown me, and having Sholto with me like this puzzled me more.
"I am the first of your men that the Goddess has drawn with you?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
He smiled then, and said, "I am honored." The scent of herbs and roses grew stronger as if we walked in a garden surrounded by a bank of wild roses, instead of the barren yard that smelled of sunbaked grass and some bitter weed baking in the heat. It wasn't as hot as some of the deserts I'd been in, but it was still much hotter than Los Angeles.
I smiled at the fact that he was happy to be with me even here, not knowing why, or where. I squeezed his hand a little tighter, which made the vines squeeze a little tighter as if they were happy with us. It should have hurt, but it didn't; as before when we were handfasted by Goddess, it was more pressure than anything, though the blood dripped a little more. The dry ground soaked up the blood eagerly; moisture was moisture to the earth and plants.
"Why are we joined as a couple?"
"I don't know," I said, softly; we weren't whispering, but our voices were hushed the way you did in human churches sometimes, as if you knew God was near.
"Does your crown always manifest in dream and vision?"
"No, almost never."
"Is your soldier in the house?"
"I think so," I said, but I was ... distracted and puzzled that Sholto had come with me. I'd been asleep and touching a lot of the other men, but they'd never been transported with me. Why Sholto? Why now? Why in our "wedding" finery? I tried to let the questions go so I could hear Goddess's message. If you let your thoughts get too loud, then you can't hear God, or Goddess.
I took in a deep breath, closed my eyes, and stilled my thoughts, but the warmth and solidity of Sholto's hand in mine was a part of that stillness. The wind touched my face, and I raised my head, eyes still closed, and knew that the house was where we needed to go. I couldn't have explained it in words, but "knew" in the same way that the flower knows which way the sun is rising; it is just that simple, and that complicated. I started walking toward the house, leading Sholto by the hand. He didn't question, just came with me, and that was a kind of faith. I wasn't sure if it was faith in the Goddess, or faith in me, or both, but I walked forward believing, and he came beside me the same way. Our blood decorated the ground as we walked, and began to decorate our white clothes as the dry, hot wind whipped my dress around us. It spattered our blood across the white like a Jackson Pollock painting.
Most of the paint had peeled off the house, leaving it shades of weathered gray, the wood pitted and marked as if it had been beaten by small, sharp objects, but I knew that it was just the elements of wind, rain, heat, and time. Houses need love and care just like animals and people; without it, our dwellings begin to fade and die just like we do. No one had loved this house in a long time.
We stepped up on the warped, uneven boards of the porch and I reached out to the screen door. It had been torn long enough that the edges had begun to discolor, the screen going almost brittle with heat and neglect.
The inner wood door was peeling and had warped so badly that I couldn't push it open easily. Sholto put his hand on it and together we opened it. It should have made a horrible racket of breaking wood and scraping metal, but it didn't. The door opened as soundlessly as if it had been recently oiled and opened only moments before, though I knew it had to have been weeks since the door was used. With the silence of the door came a more profound quiet, as if the world were holding its breath. I saw the living room under a layer of gray dust, the floor littered with mail as if months' worth had just been thrown on the floor. There was a couch sagging under a pile of knitted afghans, and a pillow. A small gray cat was curled up on the pillow, blinking huge yellow eyes at us. I wondered if it could see us.
As if in answer to my thought it hopped down from the couch in one graceful arc, padding toward the only hallway that led to the left. It turned and looked back at us, and gave a plaintive meow, tail twitching.
"It wants something," I said.
"I'm more interested in what Goddess wants," Sholto said.
The cat gave him an unfriendly look, then looked at me, dismissing him, or that was how it seemed to me. The scent of roses and herbs grew stronger.
"It's like standing in a sun-warmed garden full of herbs and roses; the scent of everything is stronger. Why?"
"The cat knows where we need to go," I said, and led us toward the waiting cat.
I think he opened his mouth to protest, but in the end he simply followed where I led. He followed me better than almost any of the men, considering he was a king in his own right; it was impressive.
The gray cat walked ahead of us, tail held high, tip twitching slightly. She stopped in front of the first closed door in the short hallway. There was another screen door at the end of the hallway. I wondered if that was the door people came in through, or if no one ever came into the house, or ever left it. No, the cat was too much a pet, too well cared for; it hadn't been alone for months.
The cat put a delicate paw up against the door and looked at me with those intense yellow eyes. It gave another plaintive meow.
A man's voice called out. "Stop it, Cleo, stop wailing outside the door. I left a message for Josh, he'll take care of you."
The cat meowed again and scratched at the door.
"Stop it!" he called out.
I thought I knew the voice. "Brennan," I said, softly.
"Who's there!" His voice sounded strident, almost panicked.
"Brennan, it's Meredith."
"Meredith, you can't be here. I am crazy."
The cat pawed at the door again. I used my free hand to touch the doorknob and open it. The cat slid inside as soon as there was an opening big enough for her slender body. We had to open the door wider for Sholto and me to step through.
The cat was already rubbing back and forth on his boots when he finally saw us. The dark of his desert tan had lightened, but his large brown eyes and short dark hair were the same. The hair was a little longer, but I knew that face now. One hand was around his necklace, and the other was holding a gun. It looked like a Glock, but I wasn't an expert on guns. I recognized ones I'd shot, or the people around me used frequently.
He blinked up at us, confused, as if he weren't sure what he was seeing. "Meredith, you don't look ... is there someone with you? Are you holding someone's hand?"
"Why can't he see me?" Sholto asked, softly.
I didn't know, but out loud I said, "Yes, I have Sholto with me."
"Why can't I see him clearly?"
"What do you see?" I asked.
&nb
sp; "It's like heat in the desert, the air wavering until you start thinking you see things that aren't there in the pattern of it."
I tugged on our bound hands and drew Sholto a step farther into the room. From the look on Brennan's face, Sholto must have simply appeared--one moment a wavering in the air, the next fully formed, solid, and real.
"What the hell!" Brennan exclaimed. He startled enough that the cat backed away from him, hissing, as if his foot had hit her accidentally.
"I'm sorry, Cleo, you okay?" He offered her the hand that had been tight around the charm around his neck, though perhaps charm wasn't the right word. It was a long, dark nail, with a leather cord bound around the top of it so that it hung point down just at that small depression at the base of the neck. It still looked discolored as if my blood might still have been on it. It had been part of the shrapnel used in a bomb. Every nail that had bled me had fallen out as I healed people that night, and each soldier who had been healed and gained a nail had kept it as a sort of talisman. I think it had started as superstition for having survived, but it had become more. It had become their cross, their holy item that gave them a direct link to Deity. But somehow, I was that deity. Their prayers that involved that bit of metal went to me, if the need was dire enough, but this was no desert battlefield.
I looked at the gun still in his hand as he tried to persuade the cat to come closer to him. I remembered that he'd said someone else would look after the cat, and I suddenly knew that there were battles being fought in this room.
"You called me, Brennan," I said.
He stopped trying to coax the cat and shook his head. "I didn't call you with blood, metal, and magic this time, Meredith. I got no wounds." He held his hand up as if to show it healed and whole.
"Not every wound leaves blood behind," Sholto said.
Brennan glanced at him. "I remember you from when I visited Meredith in Los Angeles, but I don't remember you with a crown, either of you." He started to motion with his gun, stopped himself in midmotion, and used his free hand. "What's with all this?"
"What were you thinking just a few minutes ago?" I asked.
He shook his head. "It doesn't matter."
"Brennan, you wrapped your hand around the symbol at your neck and you prayed. You prayed for something important enough to call me to your side and bring King Sholto with me. What was it?"
He shook his head again. "No."
"Brennan, you prayed to the Goddess and I'm here; tell me."
He glanced at us both again. "Why are your hands bound together?"
"It's how faerie and the Goddess handfasted us," I said.
"What does that mean, handfasted?"
"It means we are married, but with no official legalities."
"The Goddess herself has wed us," Sholto said. "It is the way all marriages were once between our kings and queens."
I smiled at him and went up on tiptoe to offer him a kiss.
"Oh God," Brennan said, and the sound was almost a sob.
I turned back to him. "What, what is it? What do you need so badly that you were about to shoot yourself?"
He looked at the gun in his hand as if he'd almost forgotten it. "It sounds too pathetic."
"You brought us all the way from L. A.--the least you could do is tell us why," I said.
He nodded as if that made sense to him. "Okay, okay, that's fair." He wrapped both hands around the gun, not like he was going to use it, but more like he was holding on to it as a sort of comfort object. He talked without looking at us.
"Jen is dating someone and it's serious. He's got money, a nice house, great career, hell, even his ex-wife says good things about him. They had a little girl and they seem to share the custody without getting all ugly the way most people do. Jen deserves someone that good. Someone who can give her all the things I can't. Someone who isn't crazy. Someone who doesn't wake up in a cold sweat reaching for his gun."
He looked at us then, and there was anguish in his face. "I could hurt her, by accident. I have flashbacks, nightmares. What if I lash out during one of them? I couldn't stand it if I hurt her. I'd rather die than risk that."
It was Sholto who moved forward and drew me with him. "So you've decided to kill yourself instead of telling this woman that you love her?"
Brennan looked startled, eyes too wide, and then he said, "No, she knows I love her. I told her, but I told her I was no good for her. I'm not good for anyone right now, not like this."
"Did you find a counselor like we talked about when you visited us?" I asked.
"There's a waiting list at the VA and I can't afford it any other way. The farm is dying. My dad must be rolling in his grave seeing how Josh neglected this place."
"Who's Josh?" I asked.
"My brother, kid brother, he was supposed to hire people to work the land after Dad died, but he didn't do anything. He finished his degree and got a good job, beautiful wife, baby. It's like he's turned against everything Dad taught us, or doesn't want to be reminded where we came from. This land has been in our family for nearly four generations, and now we're going to lose it to the bank, because my baby brother couldn't be bothered to take care of it. He lied to me in his letters, on the phone, looking at his face over Skype, and he fucking lied to me, said it was handled. He was handling it."
He laughed, but it was one of those laughs that was so bitter it needed a different word. "How can I drag Jen down with me? I'm about to lose everything. I can't do that to her."
"Does she have a job?" I asked.
"Her family owns a hardware store and a restaurant. She manages the store and helps out weekends in the restaurant."
"How's business?" I asked.
"Good, they're doing good."
"So, how would you drag her down with you? You're not endangering her job or her family's businesses, are you?" I asked.
"No, I mean her family are good people. Her dad offered me a job, but I know she made him do it."
"Is it a job you can do?" Sholto asked.
Brennan looked at him, and then nodded. "Yeah, I mean I worked in their hardware store all through high school. I know the business."
"Then maybe they need the help," I said.
He seemed to think about that. He looked at the gun in his hand, and then at us, and finally at me. "I was about to shoot myself, you're right, because I can't save the family farm. I left a message on my brother's phone telling him to take care of Cleo, the cat, and that I didn't want to see the farm go to the bank."
"You wanted to make sure he felt guilty and knew it was his fault," I said.
"I guess I did. Goddess, that is pathetic." He laid the gun on the side table. He looked up at us. "I guess I'm not going to kill myself today."
I didn't like the "today," but one battle at a time. We'd worry about winning the war later.
"You going to help me save the family farm?" he asked.
I said, "I don't think so. You weren't thinking about money when you were praying just now."
"The hell I wasn't, I was thinking how to get enough money to save the farm."
"Not when you prayed to me," I said.
He frowned and touched the nail again, wrapped his hand around it in a familiar gesture. "I was thinking about Jen, and how much I loved her."
"You called me with love, metal, and magic," I said, smiling.
"Love, not blood, but love."
The scent of roses and herbs was sweet and intense again. "Yes, Brennan, you called me, us, with love."
"I smell roses and ... a garden."
"Take the job that Jen's father offered you," I said.
"I can't do that to them. Jen is getting serious with a really great guy."
"Better than you?" I asked.
"Not better than me, but better for her."
"Is he stronger than you?" Sholto asked.
"No."
"A better warrior?"
Brennan laughed again, but this time he was amused. "No."
"Is he more attrac
tive than you are?" I asked.
Brennan had to think about that one, but finally said, "We're different, but he's not bad looking. He's handsome in a soft sort of way, if that makes sense?"
"It does," I said.
"So you're stronger, a better warrior, and both of you are equally handsome; how is he the better man?" Sholto asked.
"He's got more money, a better career, and he's not crazy."
"Does she need his money?" I asked.
"No, Jen isn't like that, and I told you her family is doing good. She's practically running the hardware store on her own. That's why her dad wanted me to come work with her; they can't find good help."
"Is she impressed with his career?" I asked.
He smiled. "No, not really. She says he's too ambitious for her. He'll want to move away and not stay, and she can't leave her parents. She loves the store and the town, always has."
"So, the only reason not to take the job, declare your love, and marry the woman is because you are crazy and the other man is not?" Sholto asked.
Brennan seemed to think about it again. "I guess so, but seriously I'm not safe."
"Have you hurt anyone?" I asked.
"No, not yet."
It was Sholto who said, "One of your soldier friends hurt someone."
"How did you know?"
"So you have PTSD," I said. "So do I, so do a lot of us, but we don't all hurt people. We get therapy, we talk to our friends, our family, other soldiers, other survivors, and we heal. We find love." I smiled up at Sholto.
There was a knock on the door, no, a pounding on the door, as if it had shut behind us as tightly as when we tried to open it. We heard someone running around the house, and then the screen door we'd seen at the end of the hallway banged open, and whoever it was came running down the hallway. I thought at first it would be the brother, but then a woman's voice yelled, "Brennan, damn it, you better not be dead, or I am so going to kill you!"
Brennan stood up. "It's Jen."
Sholto and I stood there as a woman with short brunette hair came rushing into the room. She saw him, the gun on the table, and ran at him slapping his chest, finally slapping his face hard enough to rock him.