Authors Note: I wrote this story for NaNoWriMo in 2008, and cleaned it up in 2009. Since then, I had no place to share it. This story means a lot to me, because I worked out a lot of issues in the writing of it: divorcing my husband, coming out to my deeply religious family, forging a new relationship with God, and waiting for my first real kiss. I would love to share it with you, and so I have rewritten my two female protagonists as Elsa and Anna. They fit this story remarkably well. The good news for readers? This story is already complete, so you can read all the updates and know we'll get to the ending. You can expect topics of religion, of homosexuality, of family and sacrifice and even a bit of magic. I don't expect everyone to enjoy this story, especially by the time we make it to the ending, but I will share it as long as I get some interest in follows, faves and reviews.
For anyone reading my other story, "The Weight of Snow", I will also keep writing it, and we'll reach the ending there as well. Believe me, it's much fluffier than this, so if you just want sweet romance, read that one instead. :) Otherwise, welcome to Dark Horse.
Dark Horse
~1~
Now (2010)
Quiet and calm, Elsa waited for Anna to die.
The sun had set an hour ago. The first stars were setting up their shops in the sky, ready to peddle their magic to the denizens of the milky way. The scent of pine and brine was strong upon the secluded beach, and there was wet sand between Elsa's toes. A thin blanket protected her back from the gritty coolness of the boulder she rested against, and Anna was in her arms.
Early October. The evening was delicious. There was little sound beyond the breaking of the water, the occasional call of plover. Maine had infinite miles of deserted beach; Elsa didn't want anyone to see Anna die.
She had learned not to cry.
The two-way radio was near her hand. She would need help carrying the body.
"Will I see you in the morning?" Anna asked. Her voice was timid and soft, as if she was afraid of the answer.
Elsa had learned to lie. "Of course you will."
The scent of Anna's hair was overpowered by the salt sting of the sea. Elsa nuzzled deeper into Anna's rich red hair; her partner settled a little deeper into Elsa's warm embrace. Anna's breath turned heavy, and Elsa wondered what she was thinking, these last moments of her life.
Was she remembering the sound of the calliope, the shrill whistle of the carnival instrument cutting through the noise of the Salem fair?
Was there bastard seawater in her mouth?
Or was she remembering the taste of cocoa and cream on Elsa's lips, the first time they kissed?
"Talk to me, Elsa," Anna begged, her voice conquered by imminent despair. She cautiously squeezed Elsa's hands, which were snaked around her small waist.
"Do you remember the first time you made lunch for me?" Elsa whispered into Anna's nicked ear. "You couldn't stand to see me eat another peanut butter and jelly sandwich."
"It was lamb and labneh that day, wasn't it?" Anna said. Part of her words were nearly lost to the susurration of the waves, the keeling cry of shorebirds. A light breeze tugged at them, and Elsa shivered. It was almost time.
She still wouldn't cry.
"Yes," Elsa agreed. "As I recall, you couldn't even watch me eat it. You sent Haley to spy on me while you hid in the library staff room."
Anna turned slightly in Elsa's embrace; in the faltering moonlight Elsa could see her eyes gleaming. "I used to call you the book castle woman. You were like a maiden with shining hair in a tower made of books."
"I didn't think anyone even cared to storm the keep," Elsa said. "Except for you."
There was a sudden strident buzzing from Anna's watch. She deactivated the alarm without taking her eyes from Elsa. It was 9 pm.
Four minutes left.
Elsa could feel the beating of Anna's heart, the warmth of the womanly body anchored to the front of her. "Thank you for letting me die here," Anna whispered.
Elsa couldn't reply. She lifted her hands and used her damaged fingers to caress Anna's cheek, to draw Anna's lips to hers. They were soft and warm and familiar; Elsa had already mapped them, had imprinted the taste and feeling of them deep into her heart and soul. The kiss led to a familiar and damning hunger; she tilted her lips to gain a different Anna-vantage, running her tongue over her lips and dipping lightly inside.
Anna clutched at her, diving deep; each movement hollowed her, and Elsa knew that she owed Anna a debt that could never be repaid. Death was no barrier to their love.
Not even this death, here on an isolated beach in Maine, this death among the plovers and the whispering seawater.
Three.
Two.
One.
It happened slowly. First, Anna's breathing slowed, grew shallow. Finally desperate and quaking, burning with unshed tears, Elsa kissed her harder, willing her dearest one to stay alive just a little longer. Yet Anna's lips stilled, her limbs lost all volition, and her glorious eyes stayed closed.
She shone briefly the very last moment, a dying star, as if taken up by that God she didn't believe in. Elsa knew the truth; Anna was being swallowed by the unseen world, the world that lurked behind every mirror, inside every shadow, within the molecules of water. Some have said that is where God lives.
Elsa never saw Him there.
And then it was over. Anna was dead.
Her throat bricked up tight with loss, Elsa softly kissed those quiescent lips one last time, holding the body for a few minutes, wondering as she often did how Anna's ex-husband could have been so blind. Asking herself why she had wasted so much time at the beginning of their friendship, waiting too damn long to acknowledge the attraction she had felt towards Anna. So much time between the lamb and labneh and the cocoa and cream. And for what?
Elsa's father was long dead. He couldn't judge her choice.
Dead as Anna.
Elsa chose to stay there, resting against the gritty boulder, hearing nothing but the caress of wind on sand, wind through trees, wind under the wings of plover, dipping and wheeling in the night. She leaned against the lush redness of Anna's hair, and there she could smell more than pine and brine; it was shampoo and hand lotion, accompanied by a faint sultry scent of orchids.
There was no heartbeat, no steady rise and fall of breath. Anna was gone. It took some effort to keep the tears at bay, but Elsa still did not cry.
Eventually the body grew cold, but not stiff. That was when Elsa finally picked up the two-way radio. "Kristoff, it's time," she said.
"I'll be there soon," her brother promised.
Elsa put the radio back down on the sand before shimmying away from the boulder, stepping into her sandals. After laying Anna carefully on the ground she reached into the fraying knapsack, fishing out the Coleman lantern. Soon the hiss of the gas lamp accompanied the sighing of the despondent ocean. Elsa put her back to the forest, to the path that led back to the inn, to the recently dead thing on the sand and watched the reflection of the slim moon on the inconstant water.
The debt was so very deep.
A short time later Elsa could hear Kristoff approaching; she turned to see the flashlight bobbing in front of him. In the dimness his form was stocky and tall, slightly stooped and slightly paunched. At this time of night he could have been mistaken for their father if he had not been long mouldering in a tiny cemetery outside West Dresden, Maine.
The oil lamp illuminated him better as he neared; sandy hair and brilliant blue eyes. Elsa was younger than he, yet there were far more fine lines in her face, far more grey strands near imperceptible in her platinum hair.
And Anna, beloved and youthful Anna, beautiful even in death. Elsa couldn't bear to look at her.
So Kristoff stopped near Anna's body and set his flashlight on the blanketed rock, looking at Elsa. There were no words to say, not really. Elsa contented herself with nodding, hugging her middle. The night that had been so exquisitely cool was now downright chilly, and her skin pebbled in gooseflesh. She lifted her lantern with her right hand so Kristoff could pick Anna up.
He was strong, after such practice. One arm under her limp legs, the other under her middle back, a slight grunt of exertion and Anna hung from him with all the intention of an overcooked noodle. He must have seen something in Elsa's expression, some millstone that mired her soul, for he said, "Morning will come fast enough, Elsa."
Elsa didn't believe him. She didn't measure time in days, weeks, or even months. Only by these empty spaces of night-time, anxiously waiting for the dawn. It was nine hours that Elsa cared about. Nine hours and four minutes, to be precise, the longest stretch of time in her day.
Putting her sandals back on, she walked beside Kristoff as they retreated home to the inn, his flashlight stowed in her knapsack, her lantern showing the way. The path was wide, painstakingly clear of tree roots. Long ago Kristoff had built two small boardwalks to cover the thin rills of water that insisted on dividing their way.
A lock of hair was brushing against Anna's nose, and Elsa had to resist the urge to tuck it back behind her ears, as Anna would have done in life.
"Has Haley made it home yet?" Elsa asked, near desperate to break up and subdue this silence about them, the birds that mocked them, the wind that laughed, the conspiracy of the clouded moon.
"Not yet," Kristoff replied, stepping carefully, trying for Elsa's sake not to jiggle Anna about. Anna could care less. She was dead. "She wanted to get home in time to see Anna, but her last flight got cancelled and the next one doesn't leave until morning."
Elsa's throat couldn't allow any more words. Haley was too late. Anna was dead.
The domineering trees began to give way to wild grass, an erupted fence shielding the path from inquisitive eyes. It would not do for stray guests at their bed and breakfast to observe the ornament in Kristoff's arms. They were silent as they continued up the path, gutted and smoothed by such perennial activity.
Elsa held the lantern with her right hand; she had to use her sore hand to open the door. Kristoff turned sideways to get through the opening without cracking Anna's head. The kitchen was lit by a nightlight, though some light escaped through the clouded glass door that led to the common room. Tinned laughter was coming from the television set, echoed by their guests, the sound seeping through the cracks in the closed kitchen door. Elsa set down the lantern and rubbed her aching hand.
Kristoff walked quickly through the kitchen so their body-moving would not to be noticed. Elsa opened the door that led to their private portion of the inn, led the way along the narrow hall and opened the door to their bedroom. Kristoff laid down his burden on their bed, draping Anna's limp body on the near side. "Call if you need anything," Kristoff murmured before retreating, shutting the door behind him.
No one could give Elsa what she really needed.
Her damaged fingers had grown adept at pulling Anna's clothing from her body; once the corpse was naked, she tucked it between the sheets. They were Egyptian cotton, a luxury for skin that couldn't feel it, couldn't enjoy it, save in daylight. Elsa fluffed the pillow before placing it under Anna's head and then she adjusted Anna's twin ginger braids. Anna's skin was clammy, cold. Thank God her eyes stayed closed.
After changing into her own unimportant nightclothes, Elsa sat at her vanity. There was no mirror. All the large mirrors in the inn were confined to the guest quarters. Elsa kept only a tiny one on a stand for her futile nightly ministrations; she drew it from a drawer in the vanity and sat so she could see Anna's form in the periphery of her vision. She began stroking her long platinum blonde hair with a soft brush, then paused. She slowly swivelled the mirror until it was facing the dead body in their bed.
Anna cast no reflection, not even as a blanket covered lump. She hadn't had a reflection for nine long years. There was no earthly mirror that could ever reflect any of Anna's beauty. To this the material world Anna did not even exist.
She was more than dead.
Sighing, Elsa pivoted the mirror until it revealed only her own weary face. She finished brushing her hair and applied cold cream and a ream of body lotion. She was fighting a losing battle with time, aware as every year passed that Anna was staying young and she was not.
Yet she wouldn't peddle Anna's fountain of youth to anyone, not even her worst enemy.
The fortune teller would experience a different fate.
Elsa returned to the bedroom. She knelt at her bedside and murmured a quiet prayer before sliding between those exquisite sheets. Laying on her side, she touched the cool skin of Anna's cheek, ran her thumb along the crest of Anna's jaw and remembered kissing her on the beach, that cool and damp sand between her toes. She placed her sore hand on Anna's naked stomach, flat and lightly muscled.
She could never touch Anna for very long at night; the aching coolness of the corpse would penetrate her hand and make her joints ache. Too soon she retreated, shivering in the sheets. She wished that sleep could overtake her, and spare her the torture of being next to Anna's cold and inert body. Sleep proved elusive, and nine hours and four minutes seemed long.
Then (1999)
Anna was offered a ride home; the female officer looked at her narrowly at her soft decline. Before the woman could protest, Anna was pushing through the heavy doors of the police station into the wet and cold slap of a Maine winter day. Tugging her scarf around her neck and hunching into her jacket, Anna walked down the nearly deserted midafternoon sidewalks trying not to think about what had just happened.
She'd experienced a whole lot of ugly in her life, but she'd never had a gun pointed at her before. It hadn't seemed possible in a small town like Ashland, Maine.
Anna stared at the ground as she walked; the grass was frosted with snow and ached for spring. The houses lining these streets were wheezing and old; paint peeled from icy porches and shingles curled their edges as if to plead for assistance from an uncaring sky. So many windows had curtains concealing the rooms beyond them.
She could not banish the awful memories; it had happened only hours ago, and the images were too hideous to be placated or ignored.
The man holding the gun had been plain of face, even honest-looking. There had been a faint hint of Old Spice as he had come through the doors of the gas station. At the time she thought nothing of his quick glance to right and left. It was midday and she had been reading a dog-eared and beloved paperback, waiting for a customer.
Anna huddled deeper in her threadbare coat. The damp cold was seeping through her clothing, but Anna didn't care. A slim thread of rebellion and fear was growing within her. Instead of taking the sidewalk that would lead to the trailer park she cut through a ragged opening of fence that led to a scraggly copse of trees. It was a mixed patch of forest on the outskirts of town; naked deciduous trees shivered next to domineering pine and spruce. Thin and ill-frequented paths led through these trees.
There was no panic button under the counter and the surveillance cameras were only for show. By the din of Hank Williams coming from the adjoining garage she knew that Dave, her boss, was likely banging under the chassis of a Chevy, humming tonelessly and oblivious. When the man had pointed the gun at her, her stomach had produced a sudden churn of acid.
She was not brave. She had cried a little as she pulled money from the register; her hands were stupid and nearly incoherent. Her tears seemed to assault him; his face got harder and his gun hand shook as she stuffed the miniscule portion of money in a plastic shopping bag.
Now deep in the trees, Anna found the body of a dead dog a thin distance away from the scuffed and weed-choked path. She stopped to stare at the animal in morbid fascination. It must have died sometime before winter struck; the maggots that had delightfully plundered its flesh were now completely frozen. The skin had pulled away from its jaw in the rigors of death, forming a gleaming sarcastic rictus of a smile.
It seemed as if the dog had discovered some form of uncomforting truth in that moment of death, that there was no heaven, no future except this military occupation by insects, nothing to look forward to in this life or beyond. Why else would the dog smile so mockingly?
It had once been a German Shepherd before becoming this hotel for vacationing maggots, perhaps beloved of a child, now simply dead. Had no one cared enough for this animal to go looking for it, to organize search parties or barrage the local police station with enquiries? Had God allowed another trigger happy plain-faced man to point a gun, whether to exact justice against chicken-stealing or merely to prove his own power?
Anna looked at the body of the dead dog, and discovered that heaven really was dead as well.
Had the ground been warm or inviting, she would have fetched a shovel to bury it, a gesture more for her comfort than anything else. The dog could care less. The dog was dead.
The ground was frozen. It was January of 1999, gnawingly cold in Ashland, Maine, and just hours ago Anna had narrowly cheated death.
The man had been desperate, and clumsy with his gun. When it mistakenly fired, the bullet nicked the lobe of Anna's ear. A single droplet of blood had formed and fallen, crimson like a winter cranberry. Looking into his eyes in the deafening silence that followed, Anna knew the man was perilously close to making a decision about the likelihood of her staying alive long enough to see another sunset.
He had gone this far. He would go farther; he would kill her, buy her silence with her blood, and nothing Anna could say or do would stop him. If she had been capable of rational thought, she would have burned at the injustice of it.
Maybe he had a story that would explain his actions. Perhaps he was losing money in the madness that was preceding the new millennium, the fear-virus of Y2K that was overwhelming the world. Perhaps his wife was sick and they had nothing to eat. He didn't look like a junkie; the bills from the gas station register wouldn't be used for cocaine or alcohol or morphine.
Raw, fatal desperation.
Anna stared at the dead dog, shivering. She had wanted to find the God of her childhood here, in the dirt, the frozen trees, the piercing snow and the sullen winter sky. He certainly wasn't to be found at neither work nor home, and Anna had stopped attending church years ago.
If that man had been successful in his final desperation, would anyone have cared? If it were her face twisted in that final mocking grin, her blood that flood of cranberries?
She found her answer in the forsaken corpse of the dog, and it really should not have surprised her. After all, if man was made in the image of God, and man was unapologetically cruel, it only stood to reason that God was just a big bully.
And life was only this predictable and unlovely track, every day ahead similar to every day behind. The future was set, and the future sucked.
Then and there, at that moment in the company of the dead dog and the frozen maggots, Anna made a decision, without even knowing she made it.
Maybe it wasn't too late after all. Maybe she had a second chance, an opportunity to make things right.
Even after she arrived home her shivering seemed endless. Locking the bathroom door, Anna stepped into the shower, turning the knobs until the water was nearly blistering hot. Her injured ear began to throb as it thawed. She stayed there, her long red hair streaming down her wet back like rivulets of blood, remaining quiet and still until the hot water ran out.
The tremors were bone deep. Mere minutes after emerging from the shower, Anna was shivering again. She pulled on flannel pyjamas and socks and went to bed, pulling her own curtains to veil the mocking afternoon sun, wrapping herself in a blanket. She opened her favourite book only to realize that she couldn't read it. It had gone rotten.
She had been reading it when he came to the gas station, ready to rob and kill for his need. Staring into the barrel of his gun, Anna realized she was terrified of death, especially as there was no heaven to look forward to. She only had this one chance at life, and she was blowing it.
With a bullet staring her in the face, it was too late to change anything.
She had never really been kissed.
Anna threw the book across the room; it hit the wallpaper and slid to the floor. She wept until she fell asleep.
It was nearly dark when she woke. She hadn't left any lights on, yet there was light and sound emanating from the room down the hall. Feeling thick and strangely exhausted, a dull tinge of pain from her ear, Anna wrestled her hair into submission by plaiting it into two braids, and then padded down the stained and thin carpet until she stood in the doorway to the tiny second bedroom turned office.
Hans was sitting in his computer chair, his hair unkempt. He hadn't yet bothered with a shower; he still smelled of sweat and cigarette smoke from work. He played an addictive dance of keyboard and mouse as he navigated a fantasy online world of dragons and dwarves and condescending elves.
"Have you eaten?" she asked quietly, having formed a dozen likely sentences to begin this conversation and throwing most of them away.
He didn't turn to acknowledge her; a horde of imps were converging on him. His elf activated a spell book as he replied, "Yeah, there's some leftovers in the kitchen."
Along with a pile of dirty dishes, no doubt. Nothing changed here.
"You didn't wake me up," Anna said, trying very hard to keep a blade of iron from her voice.
"I figured you needed the sleep."
The graphics on the screen weren't all that impressive, but blood spilling from sword-riven bodies was always recognizable.
Red like cranberries, like the drop from her ear.
"How was your day?" she asked. If he were feeling human, he might respond in kind. Then she might be able to tell her husband about the guy with the gun, the dead dog, and the truth that roared within her as she looked at frozen maggots.
Apparently he was a dwarf right now, with a jabbering elven wizard for a traveling companion. Hans decapitated a ghoul before answering, "Fine, babe. Listen, I really want to pass this level."
The female officer, Sergeant Carter, had tried to call Hans at work when Anna had finished a cup of dank coffee and her statement at the station. Anna knew contacting her husband would be a futile pursuit. Hans's work crew had been at a construction site outside town, and the foreman was notorious for not "hearing" his radio. Hated pity had swirled in the officer's eyes when Anna had declined the ride home. Anna wanted to get out of sight as soon as possible; the woman seemed able to see right through her. She didn't want to cry, not there. Crying had never done her any good.
Her stomach sent a fresh spurt of acid at Hans' rejection of her, twisting in pain as Anna turned away from him and his damn computer. She walked to the kitchen and turned on the light; outside the windows the sun had almost set, save for a last bloody splash over the Appalachians. A small collection of dirtied utensils was strewn across the counter and there was a pot of congealing macaroni and cheese on the stove. A package of hot dogs was open on the counter.
Anna cleaned up, her movements mechanical, her thoughts turbulent as a storm-tossed sea.
The officer had pitied her.
The dog had grinned at her.
God had mocked her.
All she wanted was to be kissed. Really, deeply kissed.
Was it really too late?
Anna put down the cloth and walked back to the office. That refrain of rebellion and fear gained strength within her. She hovered in the doorway, looking at Hans's broad shoulders, the calloused fingers that caressed the keyboard as if a lover. Whatever chemistry they had as a couple in the beginning of their marriage was long gone, if it had even been there at all.
Was Hans her choice, or her father's?
"Hans?" she asked.
"Hmm?" he asked, switching a battleaxe for a short sword and shield. A blue dragon was taunting him. It appeared as if the elf had already fallen victim to some synthetic enemy.
Life sucks, then you die.
"I want a divorce," she said, carefully trying to be loud enough, but not too loud.
At first it seemed as if her words could not cut through the din of the online game; Hans played for a moment or two before acknowledging what she had said.
It was a game that couldn't be paused. In his confusion and stupor, the dwarf was eviscerated by the dragon.
"What did you say?" he asked, turning in his chair to look at her. He had always been too handsome for her, with his gleaming auburn hair and emerald eyes. Once she had counted herself the luckiest of girls to have his attention on her. She ignored all the warning signs of his controlling nature, just as she convinced herself that every woman got slapped a time or two by their partner.
He was handsome, but he had no beauty.
Beauty was what she needed most, to erase the pain of her nicked ear and wash away the sight of the dead dog.
"You heard me," she replied, trying to make her voice hard. Under his angry and recriminating gaze she knew that her resolve was only thin frost that wouldn't survive the dawn.
The millennium was coming. Some called it the end of the world. Anna wasn't ready for the end, but neither was she brave.
She stayed.