*****
I shipped out about then and was gone for a year to a place too dark to remember, a land where even demons fear to tread. I came home with my spirit a rag and took refuge in Sam Rosen's bar. But Sam, he was dead, and his daughter was gone; gone was her soft little face. It was Big Jim I saw there every night, behind not in front, of the bar.
"Jim, what's put you back there instead of out here? You should be out front with the boys."
I drank deep, as if ale could fill me and undo the damage I felt. Big Jim scowled and glanced around, but there was only him and me in the place.
"A wife's put me here. Sam Rosen's daughter. You remember her—little Anna Louise."
"Sure, I do," I said. "A fine little gal, sweet as a woman can be."
Jim laughed then, all bitter, and poured me another. With his rag, he polished the bar. "Sweet she looks and sweet she was," he confided, "but marriage has made the girl sour. Anna Louise is a nag and a harpy, and I regret to know it too well." Jim sighed and ran his hand through his hair. It was still black but dull and limp. His blue eyes looked troubled, and the storm of his smile was over. "I got tired of traveling without ever knowing where I'd land. I'd seen too many places that were too nearly my grave. I wanted a harbor, a place to tie up. Anna Louise was sweet, and she loved me, and her daddy owned this bar. It seemed like a good port to me, a safe, snug place."
"And you, Jim, you never loved the girl?"
He paused. He was honest, if not very happy. I could almost pity him then.
"I liked her well enough. It seemed that would do. But now I feel like a man in a prison. Sam died a month after the wedding. His heart just up and quit. So, here I am every night while other men drink and go free. Then, if I take time to visit with friends, she complains and wails all day."
"What of Anna Louise? Why doesn't she come here to help you? It would make the work lighter and the nights more pleasing."
"The day we wed, she vowed never to set foot in the bar again. I think that broke her father's heart. She wants to stay at home like a lady; and when I'm not here working, she wants me there with her. I tell you, Nate Lee, I have no life of my own."
So, it seemed they'd overreached themselves in reaching for too much. Big Jim was safe and snug in his prison, and Anna Louise held her lover as if she were his jailer. I touched the ring on my finger with its stone like frozen cruelty. There was a frantic glitter caught inside it, a screaming silence that hurt to hear. I looked away and refused to listen.
Jim saw the jewel and shuddered.
"I dream about that color," he whispered. "I dream I'm in a place with light as red as that ruby, and I'm trapped between walls of crystal. It's a prison I can never escape. Then, I wake up sweating and cursing my little wife's name."
"A nasty dream," I said, drawn once more to the glow. The facets shimmered and flickered like empty halls in a blood-red palace.
I remembered the first Anna Louise—that wasn't her name, but the sounds were something alike. She was the lady of spring flowers, the garden of delights. I'd never seen a woman before her. I'd never loved one since. It was for her sake I kept my promise and watched over her daughters, her many, many daughters; the last of them, this Anna Louise. I'd made the mistake of loving a mortal and paid for it long and long since.
On the day of the market, I saw Anna Louise again. Her plain face was drawn, and she moved like a woman impatient with the crowd. She shopped with a basket over her arm and bargained hard for her goods. When lunch time came, she stopped to eat at a little place with tables close together. I took the table next to hers.
"Good day to you, Anna Louise," I said. "I hear your life is much changed."
"Nate Lee! You're back! I heard you were dead, out in the far beyond."
"Not me, child. I'll never die. I swear it."
She smiled at me then, and she looked like the old Anna Louise. She ordered tea for the two of us, and seemed pleased enough to see me.
"Tell me about your journey," she invited. "Tell me where you went and what you did and how you come to be here again."
So, I told her about places where men murdered men, about dark and bloody lands. I told her about priest-kings and slave pens and the harbors in between. Her eyes got round, and her face grew soft. She forgot to drink her tea.
"Now, I'm back to find Sam dead and Big Jim in his place."
Anna Louise frowned and stared into her cup.
"I married him in haste."
"And now, you've had time to regret."
"No, you misunderstand, Nate Lee. I still love Jim, I always will; but he's away so much. He works at the bar, and then goes out with his friends while I sit by myself at home."
"Then go there. Be with him. It's your father's bar."
"And go the way my mother went, on drugs and drink and all those night-time pleasures? Not me, Nate Lee. I want to live to be old. If only he could love me! If only he was happy to be with me and would come home after he's done his night's work. But I don't see Jim from one day to the next."
"Is this all you want, just to have Jim love you, your heart's desire for time and eternity?"
"Yes, it is."
I sighed. "Then, so be it."
Anna Louise laughed and patted my arm with her hand. "Don't talk like a fool, Nate Lee. If I can't make Jim love me, there's nothing you can do."
"Let me tell you a story," I said softly, "that happened a very long time ago. This happened when men hunted great beasts with wood and stone. It happened when the world was new, and women wandered far in search of food and shelter."
I paused and remembered again that time so fresh and clean. I could create her again, that first Anna Louise, flesh-for-flesh, if I chose. But she'd be my creation, not herself. The woman I loved was gone to the place where I could not follow.
"One day, one of the women found a godling, newly come to power. Or maybe he was a demon—that's what some might call him, though he was neither good nor evil. Now, the woman was beautiful and strong and brave, but exceedingly unwise."
"Unwise?"
"She'd entered into a place better left untouched, and won the godling's heart. She was his first and only love. He offered her whatever she desired, if only she would be with him."
Oh, sweet Laheese, lady of bountiful pleasure. Your daughters are no match for you, beloved for all my life. my long, unending life.
"And when she died, she asked for nothing for herself. She asked only that her daughter and her daughter's daughters receive their heart's desire for so long as her line continued."
"That sounds wise to me," Anna Louise said, nodding.
"Ah, but mortals weren't meant to have such power. (Not that the godling knew.) They gain it to their undoing. Her daughters have destroyed themselves, one by one, each dying for the desire of her heart."
"A sad tale," she said, and her little hand covered my ruby as her fingers curled around mine. She shuddered, as if cold, but she never noticed the red glow shining through her skin.
"A true tale," I told her, full of my old, old, grief.
"Oh, come now."
So, I saw it was time. The curse had come full circle. I shut the two of us away from the little cafe, from the world of Anna Louise. I set aside masks and deceptions and revealed myself to her. I showed her what I was and what I am, and I waited for her fear. But she was a brave girl, this Anna Louise, almost as brave as my one love. She turned pale and swayed in her chair. Her eyes went wide, then closed. I willed her to open them, to look at me fully and know me. I waited until just before madness, when I was sure she'd seen all she could hold. Then, I dropped the veil of time back over us.
"Oh!" she said. "You . . . . Oh, Nate Lee, I just had the most terrible dream."
"It was no dream, girl. Now, tell me true, is it Jim's love you want? I'll ask you only once. Is that your heart's desire?"
She swallowed hard and nodded her head.
"Yes. Nate Lee, I tell you true. Jim's love is my heart's de
sire."
So, it came to be that Big Jim O'Dade loved his wife, little Anna Louise, Sam Rosen's daughter, far-daughter of sweet Laheese. He was the talk of the town, how he smiled all night at his work and hurried home at dawn to his lady. Only I saw that his smile was like the echo of his wife's voice bouncing back from the wall of an empty cave. Soon, Anna Louise was big with a girl child; the cycle was beginning again.
As for me, I spent a lot of time in the bar, drinking alone and watching the light shine on my ruby. When I stared hard at the heart of the stone, into blood-red halls of crystal, I saw something dark flicker and writhe there, like a once-free soul imprisoned. The thing in the ruby ran like a man trapped in a blood-red maze, and he cursed sweet Anna Louise with hate unending.
The End
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