~20~

Now

Her husband had rarely been this restless, and Renee wasn't exactly sure why. Certainly it could be related to the somewhat hard seats in the doctor's office, the air of impassivity that had so bothered her when she had been a nurse. Certainly it could be related to the file folder on the doctor's desk, and the almost programmed smile on his face when he glanced over the contents of her recent blood work.

But could it be related to something else?

He was usually so still. But certainly not now, for he was tapping his toe on the floor, and looking at his watch as if he had not waited for this day with as much excitement and trepidation, as if they had not planned for this moment a million times in the sweet heat of night, as if this was just another ordinary day and he was an ordinary guy, far more concerned with time than with the results of the blood work in the file folder.

Knowing that time had no hold on him, not like it did for other people, was one of the things she fell in love with.

So she squeezed his hard, strong farmer's hand with her slim and brown one, and he gave her a fleeting smile before resuming his toe tapping.

Dr. Price was still oblivious.

"I see congratulations are in order," Dr. Price finally said, peering at them over his rimless spectacles, his face perfectly tanned and his nose perfectly pinched. He was nearly as beautiful as any model. "We'll need to set up some prenatal visits, especially seeing as this will be your first child, and you are over 35 years old. You can see the receptionist outside to set up those visits."

Kristoff had beamed at the news, as Renee knew he would, but he had swiftly gone back to tapping his toe against the floor and looking at his watch. Renee was almost amused by the way the doctor looked at her husband, as if to chastise him for being so inconsiderate at a time such as this. Dr. Price even gave her a sidelong glance, as if to ask if she was okay with her troll of a husband.

Renee knew her husband much better than this, and she could hardly wait to get him out of this stale and pristine office to discover what was upsetting him.

The obligatory visits were set up; Renee imagined she felt a fluttering inside her, and knew it for her nerves alone. The pregnancy was not nearly advanced enough to feel anything else. She felt a cautious golden excitement; the new baby meant that there were changes coming, but some of those changes might be difficult to explain. What would happen when they left the inn? Would Anna and Elsa be able to take care of it on their own? If Anna were whole, it would be a simple matter, but she was not. And Haley, poor Haley, globetrotting until she could chase down the curse that affected them all, globetrotting to spend her guilt.

Renee walked out into the cool and bright autumn day, hand in hand with her husband, feeling that fluttering and knowing they had waited as long as they did to start a family for all sorts of complicated reasons. If Renee were to be honest with herself; a talent near imposed on her by her tiny and powerful mother, Renee knew she was a little scared to be having a baby as old as she was. For all of Dr. Price's smarts, he couldn't seem to subtract worth a darn - she was the same age as Elsa, 37. Her first baby would be born when she was 38.

Her sisters had already produced plenty of progeny, so why was her mother so obsessed with Renee? She could already easily beat down anyone else in Fiji with the magnitude of her grandchildren photo album. So many babies.

And Renee's first.

That fluttering came back, and she squeezed Kristoff's hand. He glanced down and gave her another obligatory smile, shading his eyes with his other hand against the reflected light from the storefronts. Bless him, he was a good man, though a little rounder than he had been when they first met, across the still and mummy-wrapped form of his only sister. Her mother, when she had come to America for the wedding, had said of Kristoff, in her native Fijian, of course, speaking English full well but enjoying to speak the mother tongue around strangers, Vakaruku ni ivi, which basically meant that she considered Kristoff as strong as a house, and well-equipped to take care of her daughter. After the ceremony, she had rained good blessings on them.

They had needed every single one. Back then, they were still reeling from disaster and death. Not enough had changed in nine years, so thank the gods for Kristoff and his good humour, his resilience, his stillness.

He was fidgeting, even as they walked.

"What is it, Kristoff?" she asked.

"I'm sorry, Renee," he immediately apologized, looking at her. "I'm just... feeling strange."

"You're not sick, are you?" she asked.

"No, what I am is an ass. I'm very excited, Renee, this is news we've been waiting for. Our first baby, the family is going to go berserk! Don't mind me, just put all this in the 'silly man with his first baby' column."

That sunrise smile that she knew so well, the corridor to his heart, and the man was lying through his teeth. He was almost as bad at lying as Anna was.

Elsa, on the other hand, could lie like a champ. Where had she learned it?

Renee shivered briefly, as if someone were walking over her future grave. She immediately stopped walking, which forced him to stop walking as well. "What is it?" he asked.

It was the same feeling she had had as a child, in her tiny mattress in the corner of the room, and the evening was so hot that sleep was impossible, and she had flung her little feet over the edge of her bed to cool them until her sister had whispered of the little man who liked to live under her bed, who would suddenly tickle her feet as they hung over.

She had been instantly terrified, the consuming terror of a six year old girl, which meant that she didn't quite sleep for the rest of the night. How her mom had reamed that sister of hers over breakfast the next morning!

"What exactly do you feel?" she asked, and she meant it.

So he stopped, and paused, doing that internal evaluation he was way too good at. "Like we should go home," he replied softly after a moment. "Like getting groceries or hardware just isn't a good idea right now."

"You don't feel like this very often." It had happened once in a while over the years, but the strongest one he had ever told her of was a certain New Years Eve, and he had been out with Paddy, and Elsa had been dying in the marsh. Ever since then, Renee had blessed his intuition. This would certainly be a legitimate reason for him to behave as he had with the doctor.

"No," he concurred. "I don't feel this way very often at all."

"Then we shall honour it. Let's go home."

As if her words had galvanized him, he was as solicitous as ever at opening her door, but hardly had they put on their seatbelts when he tore out of the parking lot. Renee widened her eyes and kept her mouth shut. He slowed down as necessary for the tight curves that snaked down the peninsula to the inn, and finally Renee ended up closing her eyes, silently pleading for safety, trusting him in every moment.

"Elsa?" he was already calling as he shut off the car, took off his seatbelt and opened the car door, all at once, it seemed. Elsa's car was not here; she had plans to be in Bangor with Casey. It was only supposed to be Anna at home. Renee herself had a vague feeling that this was not about Elsa.

By the time Renee got out of the car, Kristoff had tried the front door and found it locked. He fumbled a moment with his key before the door opened.

It took less than a second to realize that something was wrong, mainly because Cub wasn't at the door. And unless Cub was in the deepest sort of sleep imaginable, Cub would be at the door, just as she had been ever since she was a puppy.

Fluffy white Borzoi Cub, who looked so like a polar bear that she was christened with the name on the spot, even before Renee was able to bring her home from the breeder. That had been, what, four years before she met Kristoff and his family? Cub seemed to transcend time for her, to represent a segment of her life that was the most dear of all. Slim-lined and tall, energetic until the arthritis overtook her, her baby Cub was not at the door.

It took only another moment to not only smell the stink of blood, but to feel its malevolence on her skin; a sensation she had grown used to at the hospital she had worked at, a sensation she never really wanted to feel again.

Kristoff's face had gone white as she followed him through the door; staunch farmer he was, he did not pass out or vomit or anything else. He had seen plenty of blood before, though usually from pigs or cows or horses. Even as they walked into the kitchen, Renee was yelling for him to get her kit, and his feet stepped in slowly hardening pools of Anna's blood, and as he ran to their room those gremlin armies of blood ran with him, spotting the floor again and again before dying out.

Renee grabbed towels even as she looked Anna over; kneeling at her side, she wondered which of the wounds needed the most attention. The strangeness of the knife in Anna's hand she saved until later reflection, after she had finished saving Anna's life.

Kristoff was back swiftly, and he took over the job of pressing down on the wounds. Renee held Anna's wrist, and the blood cry in Anna's arteries was faint, but present. There was no time to waste for Anna's modesty; with her special shears she cut away her clothing, Kristoff's lips bloodless and tight, but his eyes and his hands were present and strong, shifting the press of the cloths on her skin as Renee wrestled open the hardened blood seals of fabric against the wounds, causing them to flow even more freely.

"Here, and here, and here," she said, gesturing with her hands as she worked, and he followed, until it seemed he was half-laying over her upper torso, covering it with pads of cloth. Renee got up, felt a most disquieting squeeze of her own stomach, surely only baby-induced, a symptom of that bloody malevolence, and washed her hands in the sink.

There was a shattered plate on the floor here, and the sink was half-full of dishes. The water was cool and stale, and all the bubbles were gone. There was a thin skin of grease on the water.

What had happened here?

And where was her Cub?

Snapping on her latex gloves now, that tiny puff of glove dust that always followed, and she knelt again in the lifeblood of her sister-in-law, watching with a practiced eye how her blood eventually stopped seeping and the more serious wounds were ready for stitching.

Water, then, to clean the lines of sliced skin, and the curved needle and surgeon's thread, the emergency kit they always kept on hand because it would take the most severe emergency of all to get Anna to a hospital, Anna who would die on hospital machines at 9 pm in the night and end up in the morgue. Renee's fingers were steady, for she employed all her brain function for this task alone, pushing everything aside, the question of the knife hilt in her hands, the odd position on her body on the floor, as if it had been dragged, the shattered plate.

And Cub, or the absence of Cub.

A number of small, shallow cuts, strange in their depth and inclination. Three rather larger and deeper ones, that required sutures with that curved needle and thread. Each cut was clean and sharp, yet there was the slightest veer, that spoke of the slightest hesitation, and as she worked, Renee began to believe that, as impossible as it seemed, Anna had inflicted the wounds upon herself.

Anna was right-handed, and the knife hilt was near her right hand, and all the wounds were canted to the right. The three rather deep ones were odd; one was in the bicep of her arm, another was in the spare flesh of her waist, and the last was just above her right breast - not even close to her heart.

Strange spatter accompanied these wounds, a finely dispersed spray arcing outwards, as if the knife had been flicked upon exit.

And still Anna stayed unconscious, and silent, as if it were night and not day.

"She needs blood, but we don't have any to give her," Renee said when she finally finished sewing. "I hope she wakes up soon so she can tell us what happened." She tried to get up from the floor and found that her knees weren't quite working, so Kristoff helped her up, and at the top of the motion she felt a small burst of darkness, a small thundercloud of faint hovering near the edge of her vision, so she paused, hanging her head, wishing oh wishing the stink of blood hadn't seeped into her skin and penetrated her bones.

Kristoff guided her to a kitchen stool, where she sat, feeling thick and stupid and filled with worry. For the moment, Anna was left on the floor. She would live.

Renee squeezed Kristoff's hands, and his eyes, those warm brown eyes, looked back at her.

"Kristoff, phone Elsa, and then go find my Cub."

Then

Haley had too much sense for proverbs, but she would eventually come to regard the summer of 2000 as the calm before the storm.

It was the most magical summer she had ever known, but the magic was not hers; it was only the backsplash of two beloved souls, a mystical wake, if you will, behind the proverbial love boat. It was in that wake that she stayed, and wondered if she would ever find what they had found in each other.

Haley liked to watch them, especially when they thought that no one was looking. What small, sweet gestures they used with each other, what dimples flashed on their cheeks, what peace and love and joy radiated from them in every single direction. It was not possible to be unaffected by it; the matrons would find themselves remembering their own younger and sweeter days with their husbands, and when Anna and Elsa were sitting so close to each other, and touching, a hand on the leg or on the wrist, a caress of hair over an ear, any one of a million soft and precious gestures, those matrons would sigh in their own fond memories.

Haley had no such memories to fall back on. Her only experience with love had been an experience of lust, and Dr. Steve had broken her as soon as he could. He had been willing to look past her barriers of stud and stone, of leather and tattoo, albeit for reasons that were less than virtuous. There had been no one since him, so sometimes when Haley watched Anna and Elsa, she burned.

They had found in each other what she so wanted for herself.

She reminded herself that she was only twenty, though twenty-one was getting closer, and that there was still plenty of time for her. After all, Anna and Elsa were both older than she.

Haley wondered if she got rid of her electric hair colouring, her piercings, her tattoos, her black lipstick, would anyone look twice? Anyone at all, besides the carrot-haired kid who followed her around like a lost puppy, desperately looking for anything to talk about with her, including putting coins in the copy machine?

Tuesdays and Thursdays had long become her favourite days. Though Elsa and Anna lived together now, those were the days that Elsa came to the library, and sat in her carrel, with her pencil and her notebook and her streaming platinum hair. They always had lunch together on those days, most often on the dewy emerald grass outside the library, watching the play of light and tourists on the Kennebec River, as Bath swelled with water, heat, and tourist dollars.

The other days of the week, the Elsa-less days, were as common as they had always been, and Haley ached with curiosity regarding her work. Anna wouldn't say much, though she was a lousy liar and Haley often figured everything out that she needed to. Haley had known that Elsa's coming out to her mom had gone badly, and both she and Anna had been glad to learn that Elsa was finally welcomed at home again, on the farm, the farm that was in the process of being renovated and sold to the highest bidder.

It was one such non-Elsa night, in the dog days of August, all hazy and lazy, that she and Anna were sitting in lawn chairs in Anna's backyard, sipping slush and warding off mosquitoes. "You know, I'm envious of you," Haley abruptly said.

Anna, sitting in her lawn chair, lowered her sunglasses to peer at her over the rims and lifted an eyebrow.

Wordy woman.

"What you have, you and Elsa, is something I've always wanted for myself, but I've never seemed to get."

"The crap to good ratio is a little odd at times," Anna replied. "Yet so much can change, so fast. As much as you might hate to hear it, you're still young, Haley. You're only about to turn twenty-one. There's plenty of time for you."

"There may be plenty of time, but it's the opportunity I worry about."

"Then why do you stay here?" Anna asked. "You're young, you're smart, you could do anything you wanted. Why do you stay in Bath?"

"You're not just trying to get rid of me, are you?" Haley asked, because it was a question a little too close to home, striking a nerve she had been feeling herself lately. It was one thing to give her best friend all sorts of good advice, but it was another to take it for yourself. Ever since that chat with Anna on the boulder outside the library, Haley had been wondering if it was time to move on.

Anna deserved as much truth as Haley could handle, so Haley said, "It used to be Gerda who I stayed for, because she meant so much to me, helped me when I was just getting on my feet. But now, it might be you and Elsa I stay for, because I have friends here, and I'm comfortable here."

"People don't stare at you here," Anna added.

Haley pulled out a strand of her half copper, half pink hair to look at it. "There could be that."

"Wasn't there anything you ever wanted to do with your life?"

"What's with all the deep thoughts, Anna?" Haley asked, turning the tide of questioning.

Anna had only to pause for a moment before answering, "I just want for you what I've found for myself, because there has never been anyone more deserving of happiness than you." Haley made to laugh away the comment, but Anna stared at her. "I mean it, Haley. You are one of the most amazing women I've ever known, and certainly one of the bravest. The day you found me, out by the boulder, and told me those things I needed to hear; that was bravery as much as anything else. Haley, I would do anything for you, because you were the one who found me first."

Warmth and love burned inside her, and the sensation was so magical, so necessary, that Haley put all thoughts of leaving out of her mind. Maybe in the spring.

Besides, life was sweet. She had Elsa and Anna, and was a frequent visitor in their home. Nothing made her more content than to curl up like a cat on their couch, her painted eyelids closed as she listened to the sounds of their house. Elsa was writing again, and she would ask the oddest questions from her desk in the corner of the living room.

"What's the name of that inkblot test again? Rorschach?"

"They made bricks out of mud and straw back in Rome, right?"

"Do you suppose a cuirass was always gilded with gold?"

"Haley, what's the difference between a ghost and a haint?"

"How do you stuff a turkey?"

It happened to be early October, and time for Canadian Thanksgiving the morning that Elsa asked that question, so the three of them decided to celebrate it properly. Off to the store, buying a turkey and all the fixings, supplies for dessert and wine for everyone, and Kristoff and Renee invited because it was obvious that three girls could not eat an entire turkey dinner on their own.

Back to the kitchen, and Anna answered the question with her hands, and Haley glowed when watching them. They were so easy in their love, such familiar grace and open hearts. Sometimes Haley wondered if they forgot that she was there with them, as Anna tucked Elsa in front of her, and they mixed the turkey stuffing together, their hands plunged in the bowl.

Elsa would tilt her head back, show the abraded line of her throat, and Anna would kiss her there in the kitchen, and Haley saw it all, because Haley seemed forever doomed to watch.

Kristoff and Renee arrived, and everyone ate far too much food, and the evening culminated in a visit to the hospital to see Casey, bringing with them some contraband caramel pecan tarts. Casey was going through yet another strange relapse, a little more horrifying this time than the last, a little more real, because the doctors said that there was no hope this time short of a miracle.

Four or five months, they said.

Until it was over. And by over, they meant a little coffin covered by fallen leaves. Casey was fated to die.

Fate just a greedy spider, bloated on an eternity of gluttony, devouring anything caught in her web.

Only a few days later, Elsa sold her manuscript to her publisher; a fact that she told Anna and Haley alone. Haley was glad the secret was open among them, even if Elsa kept her pen name of A.E. Cannon. Quite some time ago she had discovered Elsa's identity, but had kept her secret tighter than the grave. Elsa obviously had her reasons for wanting to keep her gifts a secret; after reading the frank honesty and the heated romance in the books, Haley was pretty sure she understood why.

The baring of a soul was a precious thing, fraught with danger. If Elsa revealed herself to all, would she have any protection left?

Sometimes while watching them together, Anna and Elsa, Haley wondered why she felt the need to dye her hair such vibrant colours, to wear black lipstick and continue her piercings. But then she remembered growing up, in her austere Victorian home, known only as Patricia's sister.

At least here she was Haley.

Such a beautiful October, the flowers and trees disrobing for winter, the coast of Maine a swath of colourful beauty, echoing with the cries of migrating birds. Silver rain fell, haunting and delicious. The closer it came to her birthday and Halloween, the more excited she got. She began wearing her pumpkin or skeleton earrings, and her apartment was the earliest to be cobwebbed in fake gauze and dangling spiders. Seven carved pumpkins were proudly on display just outside the library doors; strangely haunted pumpkins with cracked and leering eyes.

About a week before the holiday, Haley downloaded the list of events taking place in Salem, a nearly convenient three hour drive away (well, two hours, if she was the one driving). And at lunch in the staff room the following day, a Tuesday, a Elsa day, she managed to eat some of Anna's lunch while convincing them that they needed to go to the festivities on her birthday. "Remember, Anna, we went last year?" she said.

"I remember you got a tarot reading that made you happy," Anna replied. "And you said that the Shadow Walk was about the neatest thing around. You actually said 'neat'. Made me wonder if you'd be brainswapped with a hippie. Now leave my cauliflower alone!"

Haley stuck her tongue out at her. "So whaddya think? Let's all go this year, okay? It's not that far a drive, and it will be so much fun!"

"Do we have to go on Halloween itself?" Elsa asked. "Won't it be busy?" She was responding rather admirably to Anna's slight kick under the table, Anna who could possibly be the worst liar Haley had ever seen, who was planning a surprise birthday bash for Haley that Haley had known of for weeks. Never for the life of her would she let Anna know she had figured it out. Surprises were good.

"It's pretty much always busy, but there is good stuff leading all the way up. You're right, it might be a good idea to not get caught up with the other crazies who go to Salem for Halloween itself," Haley admitted, playing along, wondering if she could get Elsa to ask Anna to make her favourite chocolate chip and cream cheese cupcakes for her "surprise" birthday bash.

"Why don't we go on the 28th?" Anna asked. "It's a Saturday, so we can stay up as late as we want without worrying about work, and then you can stay overnight and I'll treat you both to a true Sunday brunch."

"Sounds like a plan," Haley replied, spearing the last of Anna's cauliflower.

But as the week progressed, the plans ended up being a bust; Haley developed a rather severe flu, and spent most of her conscious hours puking into the toilet or a bucket by her bed. Anna made her homemade chicken soup as Elsa fluffed her pillows and stroked her forehead with a cool cloth. "Why did I have to get the flu today?" Haley moaned in between retching.

"We won't go," Elsa was saying as Anna came into the room with her tray of food. "We'll stay here and help you get better."

"Nothing doin!" Haley protested, "You both have to go. You need to take pictures and eat cotton candy and have a fantastic time and then I can live vicariously through you both. Besides, I've heard that the Shadow Walk this year is really spectacular."

A little gulp, a little retch.

Haley wiped her mouth and continued gamely, "They got guys who swallow swords as well as really good fortune tellers. This one woman, Madame Katja, she's only there tonight. I've heard of her; she's amazing. So you guys have to go. I order you."

"You're sure you'll be okay?" Anna asked.

"Just leave me my bucket and my soap operas and I'll be fine," Haley protested. "Now would you guys get going? You've got a three hour drive ahead of you."

Elsa kissed her forehead and Anna squeezed her hand before they left. It was the last time she saw them whole.

...

A/N: Just ten more chapters to go - five weeks worth of updates!