Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 5

before me, says, "I'm coming for you."
    ****
    "I do not know what you did, lad," a buxom brunette known as Tilly confides hours later when the inn lights dim, "but me mam will be most pleased." She counts out coins, burying the night's earnings in her ample bosom.
    Yawning, I seek my own bed. Morning comes early and I am more tired than ever before.
    A few short hours in my loft and my ritual begins again, an endless cycle of days without end, alive yet not living, while my benefactors grow rich on whatever strange power I wield.
    ****
    "Loren," my vision murmurs, taking me into his arms. The lilt of his voice, similar to my own, causes my heart to sing. My name. He speaks my name.
    "I will find you," he says. "Keep singing."
    I awake cold and shivering, whispering, "Alastair."
    ****
    "Do you know a man named Alastair?" I inquire come morning.
    "No!" Freda hisses, "and do not speak that name." Her eyes dart right and left, though only she, myself, and a setting hen bear witness. She shuffles away with a pail full of milk.
    "Why not?" I grasp her arm, and she stops.
    "He is a foreigner," the suddenly pale woman growls, her wizened faced twisted into a visage of fear and loathing.
    "How do you know that if you do not know him?" She's behaving strangely. A bitter scent like rusted iron assails my nostrils, and something deep inside me declares it guilt.
    "Foreigners are evil; vile creatures who provoke the gods." The old woman jerks her arm away and shuffles off, leaving the bitter stench of revulsion mixed with fear hanging in the humid air like a rotten peach, withering on the tree.
    Confused, I set off to discover both the truth about Alastair and my newfound ability to scent emotions. Only a few in the master's employ know of my existence. I sneak into the inn's kitchen. The cook is a kindly lady who feeds me tidbits of whatever she's cooking and speaks longingly of a family that lives over the mountains.
    "Cook," I address her by her title.
    "Lad," she replies, with a welcoming smile. Once more I wonder what my name might be.
    Cook places a steaming bowl of porridge on the small kitchen table, and motions for me to sit and eat.
    My questions die on my tongue as I sample fare normally reserved for the inn's guests. Once finished, I ask, "Do you know of a man named Alastair?"
    Her face ashens, taking on the pasty pallor of the plucked chicken she's preparing for the oven. "Where did you hear that name?" she hisses, glancing over her shoulder at the closed door, in an eerie imitation of Freda.
    "It…it came to me in a dream." Once more I picture an alabaster complexion so different from the swarthy faces of the townsfolk, yet so similar to my own. "Do you know him?"
    She approaches slowly, gleaming blade in hand, and for a moment I flinch, suddenly afraid of her. The cook collapses to her knees. Behind a fall of dark hair I glimpse tears. "When your lordship comes, please tell him I was good to you, I fed you and offered friendship. Please don't let him think I hurt you." Head bowed, she rocks to and fro, quietly sobbing. Once again fear scents the air, augmented by remorse, and tinged by guilt. If this woman has been good to me, why does she suddenly fear me?
    "Who is he?" I inquire again, heart racing.
    "He is the king of your kind." My kind? Cook wipes at her eyes with the edge of her apron, "A just and honest man, when dealing with fair folk, ruthless when done wrong. I tried to warn the master, I did, but he wouldn't listen."
    Something shimmers in the very air, and chills race up and down my spine. As clear as this woman's blathering speech, I hear, "I'm coming for you," in tones so reassuring that the woman's strange behavior fades in importance.
    The words were spoken in the language of my dream lover's songs, but I understand, and answer, "I'll be waiting."
    ****
    That evening, once again I intone the refrains I've learned in my sleep. No sooner had I begun the melody Alastair sang after our lovemaking, than the attic door swings open. The innkeeper stands, hands on hips, eyes bulging. "Do not sing that song!" he shouts, fleshy face an alarming shade of purple. More quietly he hisses, "Do you want to bring his wrath down upon us all?" He raises his fist, and I cringe, but he stops short of a blow. Puffing like a carthorse after a sprint down the lane, he calms, the fist becoming a gentle palm to caress my cheek. "There's a good lad," he says. "You have no quarrel with me." He spins on his heel and leaves the