Wanderer

by Ashley Evans

Some things need to be seen to be believed.

Take you, for instance. The naked man wandering through my garden. Were it months ago, before I discovered the gateway to another realm behind my grapevines, I’d be throwing bulbs and clumps of sod, screeching at you to get out, to leave me be.

But I know you, and you are only passing through, on your way home.

You pause and incline your head when you spot me. “Cordelia. What a splendid morning! Don’t you think so?”

“Good morning, Rex. It’s pretty nice out today.” The sun bathed the foliage — and you — in dappled light. “Will you be back tonight? I thought I’d make tacos.”

“Hmm. It may be tricky. Will you save me some?” Time flows languidly where you are from. Often you promise to return in a few hours, only to appear days later, confused why I’ve eaten all the blueberry cobbler.

“Always.” I bend back over the center bed, yanking at the pesky weeds. The uncanny sound of you passing through the gateway into the otherworld, where you belong, halts my progress. A tear slips down my cheek.

“Stop that,” I say to myself aloud, as if that’ll make it any easier. “Stop now.” I go into the house, touch the pile of clothing you left behind, still warm. I touch the amber to ground myself, to remind myself of things I shouldn’t forget. Then I get back to work, because the hydrangeas sure aren’t going to prune themselves.

#

The first time I saw you, you were holding up a potted begonia, chatting with it, asking if it might know how to find the nearest sandwich shop.

The weird thing was, you seemed to pause and listen for a response, so maybe it could answer your questions, if begonias knew anything about delicatessens.

Oh — and there was not a stitch of clothing on you. That, too, was pretty damn weird, considering the street-facing gate to my garden is always locked. I hadn’t heard anything on the local news that morning about some pervert wandering around buck naked, scaring schoolchildren and turning up in people’s backyards. Or having casual conversations with perennials like they owned the place.

“Excuse me?” I try to make myself appear more intimidating, all five-foot-three inches of me, and put some growl in my voice. “Um, what the hell are you doing in my garden?”

You turn to regard me with bright eyes the color of cornflowers, and cock your head. “Hello. This place is lovely.”

My grip on the trowel I’m holding tightens. “Uh, thank you?”

“You’re welcome.” At least you’re a polite psychopath, I suppose. You gaze at the plant again, stroke the green foliage. “My friend here would like to go into the ground as soon as possible. She’s getting root bound.”

I choose to ignore the begonia’s supposed demand in favor of a more pressing matter. “Buddy, do you know where you are? Is there someone I need to call?”

“Call? Oh, no. I’m only passing through.” Your gaze travels to the sun sinking towards the horizon, painting the distant mountains hazy gold and aubergine. “Time’s up.”

There’s a melancholy in your slightly-accented English that catches me off guard. But before I can ask, again, if you need help, you set the potted plant at the edge of my workbench and disappear around the corner.

By the time I scramble around the bench and behind the bushes — windbreaks planted to protect the grapevines my late husband planted — you’ve vanished.

For about thirty seconds, I debate whether to call the police, then I remember the scorpion suspended in amber above the fireplace. I’m as stuck fast as that arachnid in ancient tree sap, have been for years now. Why should I begrudge you your travels? You hadn’t hurt me or stolen anything.

A crash behind startles me — but it’s only the begonia, fallen from the bench, free from her pot at last.

#

Rex isn’t your actual name, of course. The real thing is unpronounceable — a garble of syllables I can’t wrap my head around. I had tried, when you helpfully repeated it twenty times in the guttural thrum-twang of your mother tongue, until you’d taken pity on me. Hopeless, you’d said, but gently, as if worried the criticism could cut me.

So you’re not a murderer, rapist or thief, but you sure are a klutz. You break at least one of my belongings every time you cross over to spend time in this realm. I know you aren’t doing it on purpose. You’re easily distracted by a bird, or a butterfly, or how the heads of the peonies hang so heavy they bend their stems to almost touch the ground, that you don’t pay attention to your surroundings. I surrender a serving bowl, three more clay pots, a pitcher and a tall glass, full of sweet tea, to you and the paving stones. You apologize, help clean up the mess, and break something else the next time you wander through.

#

The day you tell me your name is the same day I convince you to put on some damn clothes.

“You cannot keep going out onto the street like that.” You’ve just knocked my favorite serving dish, filled with fat sunset-colored Rainier cherries from my own tree, onto the stone, shattering it and sending cherries rolling every which way.

Cradling a piece of the bowl against your belly, your brow wrinkles as you look down at your own lithe body. “Is this not acceptable?”

My face must be redder than the fruit. “Um, no. Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because people don’t wander around with their—” I cough, gesturing wildly at the place where your legs and hips and torso coalesce into something…obscene. “— just hanging out.”

“Oh. That’s ridiculous. Our bodies are beautiful.”

Yours sure is, and it’s becoming very difficult for me to avoid looking at it. “Yeah, but it’s not how things are done here. Someone might harass you, or try to detain you. If you want to blend in,” I say, “you’re gonna need some proper attire.”

You sigh very dramatically for someone who is standing nude in my yard, as if this is all very inconvenient for you. “Very well. Do you have —”

“Yes. Uh, wait here. And try not to break anything else.”

I haven’t opened the closet in the spare bedroom since shoving the boxes in three years ago, but wanting to help you makes me brave. Nothing smells like him anymore — only musty, too long unworn. I shake a few pieces out, hoping you don’t notice.

When I reemerge, you take the jeans, tee shirt and sneakers I hand over with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t think your garments are going to fit me.”

“They’re not mine. They’re… Just try them.” I busy myself with the shards of ceramic, sweeping them into a pile. I’ve always wanted to try mosaic, and if I broke these up a little more, they’d be perfect. Yes, I think, one more craft you can spend a ton of money on and abandon after a little while. Gardening is the only constant in my life since he left, the only thing that holds my attention.

I glance up again only after you clear your throat. “How’s this?”

“Good.” There is a hard lump in my throat. You look nothing like him, but the memories linger all the same — the way the jeans hung off his hips, the way he’d kick off his sneakers in the hall, the feel of his tee shirt under my fingertips when I slid it up to kiss his stomach. “Where are you off to today?”

“The museum. Would you like to come with me?”

“Uh, that’s kind of you, but I shouldn’t.” There was a heap of laundry to fold, dishes to do, a million ready-made excuses.

“All right. Thank you, Cordelia, for the cherries. They were excellent. And sorry about the bowl.”

“No big deal. Have fun. Will I see you later?”

“I’m not sure.” You lift a hand in farewell.

I leave the light on, just in case.

#

One midsummer evening, I finally witness you entering the garden.

I’ve long suspected you’re hopping the fence somewhere behind the grapevines, the ones I can’t seem to either kill or make flourish no matter what I do. I’ve been out here all times of the day, digging around, hoping to catch you. But your comings and goings are infuriatingly unpredictable, and I’ve fallen asleep under the waxing moon and the midday sun and the dawn sky more times than I can count, waiting.

I pick a withered leaf off the vine, frowning, when the air begins to shimmer a few paces away. Then it reverberates, knocking me back onto my rump, and there is your bare foot and well-muscled calf, your sun-kissed hair and strong nose and everything in between, slipping into my world.

I still thought of you as human until that moment. A harmless, if exceedingly clumsy, soul with a penchant for nudity who was only slightly detached from reality. I never suspected you were something other. Watching you step out of a portal like some divine creature plucked from a fantasy novel changed that real quick. Some things you have to see to believe.

If you are surprised to find me on my ass among the grapevines, you don’t show it. “Hello, Cordelia.” When I can’t manage a reply, stuttering, you glance back at the space behind you, the air having gone still again, nothing amiss. “Oh, yes. That.”

“How?”

“Magic?” You shrug. “It’s not my speciality.”

I’m wondering, with increasing alarm, if you’re not the only one detached from reality in this garden. Extraterrestrial is the first thing that springs to mind. But you said magic…

“You’re one of the fair folk?”

“Some call us that, yes. Fae, Seelie.”

This was America, not the place for fabled Old World beings. “What are you even doing here?”

You sigh, sink down onto the grass next to me. “Would you like the long or short version?”

“Whichever.” I’ve gotten much better at keeping my eyes on your face. Not that it’s difficult — it’s as well-sculpted as your body.

“There was a man, a long time ago. A bard. He understood.” You slip into verse. “I do wander everywhere, swifter than the moon’s sphere —”

Your eyes widen in delight when I speak the next line. “And I serve the Faerie Queen, to —”

“Do whatever the hell she wants, basically.” Over the weeks, your speech has grown more informal, peppered with 21st century vernacular. “For the time being, I’m here on reconnaissance.”

“So you’re a spy.”

“That seems like a harsh word. I was sent to satisfy our curiosity. We’ve always been curious.”

“Oh.” A wave of disappointment hits me, although I cannot say at the moment why. It’s only later that I realize I was hoping you’d been coming so often to see me.

You’ve turned your attention to the brittle grapevines, wasting away on their trellis. “They aren’t happy here. The soil and light, it’s all wrong.”

Grant was never happy here either, I think. “There goes my dream of homemade wine. Is there anything I can do?”

You shake your head. “Things cannot thrive where they don’t belong.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” I laugh to mask the hurt in my voice. “What’s today’s destination?”

“A place called the library. I’ve been told they’ve collected all the bard’s works in book form. You could come.”

I refuse, like always. “Maybe some other time. If — if the library is closed, stop by the house before you leave. I’ve got fresh tomatoes and beets for a salad.”

“Wonderful. I’ll see you later.”

I eat dinner, finish my chores, watch tv for a while. You don’t make it back before I’ve gone to bed. There are more interesting people out there than me to study.

When I wake in the morning, though, there’s a bottle of Pinot Noir, accompanied by a notecard, on the porch railing, and a broken bottle of wine on the path.

Your handwriting, like the rest of your being, is exquisite. Since you can’t make your own. Had to go back for a second bottle. Sorry about the mess. - Rex

#

When you show up two weeks later, I hand you a flannel shirt along with the traditional trifecta of jeans, tee and sneakers. “Come change inside. It’s chilly out.” The temperature doesn’t seem to bother you in either extreme, but you’ll match all the pedestrians out and about. “Lunch is almost ready.” I always make enough food for two now. I always hope you’ll turn up.

I’m setting the charcuterie board on the coffee table when you emerge from the half bath. Now that I’ve gotten over my initial shock at your almost perpetual state of undress, it seems unnatural to see you draped in fabric. “You never told me where these came from.”

I’ve come to think of the clothes as yours, so for a moment I’m thrown. “Uh, they were my husband’s. He died a few years ago.”

Your brow furrows. “You’re too young to be a widow.”

“I wish he’d thought of that before he—” I stop myself short, realizing the secret I’m about to spill. Most of the people in my life, even his sisters, thought Grant’s death was an accident.

You understand. “He took his own life?”

I nod. “He always struggled with depression. When we moved here, he was doing better for a while.” So it had seemed. “He brought the grapevines from his grandparents’ vineyard. It was the only time he ever took an interest in the garden. But we could never get them to flower. And then his new job didn’t work out, and…” Things had spiraled, so quickly. My job at the coffee shop, always an afterthought for fun money, became our sole income. “We’d talked about going back to his hometown, but before we could make that decision, he — he was gone. I kept thinking, could I have done something differently, said something… And then, I was—”

“You were angry.”

“Yes. And sad, and tired, and confused, for a long time.” Until one morning I found a madman talking to a plant in my garden. I realize you’re staring at the polished amber on the mantel. “Grant gave that to me on our fifth anniversary. Said it was the traditional gift for the thirty-fourth, but that’d he couldn’t wait another twenty-nine years. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the traditional gift was amber jewelry, not an actual fossil. It’s neat, though, right?”

Your reply surprises me. “It’s cruel.”

“Huh?”

“It’s cruel to capture something living and preserve it like that. There was a whole display at the museum. It made me ill.” When I shake my head, you frown. “What am I missing?”

“That happened millions of years ago. The scorpion got stuck in some tree sap and was buried for eons until someone dug it up. No one trapped it. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

Your next words shock me even more. “And your husband’s actions weren’t your fault. Yet here you remain, encased in your house and your garden, as if you are stuck in time.” You take my hand. “Come out with me for a few hours.”

It is the first time you’ve touched me, and all at once I am caught fast between two desires. To ask you to touch me more, and to throw you out for presuming — correctly — that I desired that touch. “Rex…”

“I don’t know how much more time I have here,” you rush out, a whisper against my knuckles as you bring my hand to your mouth. “Please, don’t trap yourself here with the unhappy memories.”

#

They aren’t dates. You don’t even understand the concept.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway. You’re a friend. That’s how I introduce you to my acquaintances. You’re visiting from way, way out of town, and that I’m just showing you around. I don’t deceive myself. You shrug off the flirtatious banter of the other people in my circle for your own reasons, not because you only have eyes for me.

It’d be cruel, I think, for you to break my heart like all my possessions you’ve broken, and yet I wish that’s what you’d do, once and for all. I wish you’d stay, but more than that, I wish you’d go through the portal and never come back, if only to dispel this false happiness, this contentment, to return me to the painful prison in which I belong.

#

You disappear for an entire month, and I’m preparing to nurse that broken heart when I hear the sound of the portal one November day. The entire garden lies dormant, coated in frost. I cannot help but run across the white-tipped grass and wrap you in a blanket. But you won’t let me steer you into the house.

“This is my last visit. The season for wandering is over.”

I cannot help it — I burst into tears, even as you take me in your arms.

“Cordelia,” you soothe. “This isn’t goodbye.”

“It’s not?”

Thumbing a tear from my cheek, you smile. “She wants to meet you. The Queen. I’ve been telling her — everyone — a lot about you.”

“I suppose it’d be rude to refuse an invitation.” You’d gotten me into the habit of accepting, after all. “This — this isn’t a one-way trip, right? I can come back?”

“If you wish.” You smile gently. “I understand that it’s difficult to leave this place.”

It is and it isn’t. But I’m ready for something different, something new, at least for a little while.

“Take off your clothes.” When I hesitate, you explain. “We cannot carry anything with us. Only ourselves.”

You drop the blanket, then help me undress, tossing my leggings and shirt and undergarments onto the withered grapevines. I shiver at the chill air, at your fingertips on my skin.

“Rex?”

You carefully take my head in your hands, kiss me once on the brow and once on the lips. “Don’t be afraid. It’s wonderful, you’ll see.”

I am leaving behind the sticky grip of him on my mind, the guilt and confusion, the amber prison in which I’ve been caught. Three years without Grant had felt like eternity. But now…

Now there is only the cold at my back, the shimmer and heat of a different world on my face, and your hand gently gripping mine and slowly, surely, pulling me through to the other side.