No Birds Sang
Once upon a time …
I was nothing special, just a normal girl with a normal life. No one that should have attracted attention. I had a house, a job, friends, a boy who told me he loved me. Until I took an evening walk in a summer green meadow, nestled in the hills. Far from all that was normal, under fading light that picked out the pinpoints of white and purple and yellow wildflowers, I met a strange, fey man.
A brook ran through the glade, clear and cold. I stopped under the shade of an old oak, flush with thick leaves, for a drink and to wash away the grit of the walk before I started back again. Silence crept over me. Where there should have been crickets chirping, bullfrogs singing, and birds calling out their good nights, there was only quiet. Not the silence of absence, but one of waiting and of watching. The flow of water over smooth river stones, lapping against the bank, hushed.
Rumors of mountain lions stalking the hills raced through my thoughts, the flurry lashed at my heart. Even if that’s all they were, stories told by old farmers to impress their buddies around a cafe table, there were always the smaller cats. And coyotes who came out to play in the twilight.
No wild cat perched in the branches of the oak to pounce, but a man, reclining in the crook of the tree, his arm resting on a bough as if it had grown there simply for his comfort. He wore jeans but no shirt under the green vest that hung open to display his sleek torso. Dark, wavy hair touched his shoulders and caressed a face no mortal artist could ever duplicate. But it was the spark of sensual mischief in his leaf green eyes that kept my heart beating. And the languid smile that graced his lips for the sole purpose of stealing my breath.
“Hello, lovely Amelia.”
His voice was the fall of stardust, soaking into my skin, its heat settling in my center, its light pulsing in time with my heart.
He eased to the ground and moved toward me with the fluidity of the cats I’d been afraid of only moments before. Or had it been days? Or years?
“Have you no voice?” he asked. “No words?”
What I lacked was sense. “Who are you?” I forced the words out of the haze induced by his beauty.
“What use is a name?”
His hand floated along my arm, over my shoulder to settle by my neck. He never touched me. I felt the shock of it all the same.
“You know mine.” My voice had no sound, only panting breath.
“Ah, but you are Amelia, whose name sings to the heavens. What could compare?” His hand lifted my chin, again without a touch, as if I was bound to follow where he willed. “Come, sweet lady, don’t you want to kiss me?”
His lips hovered, his sweet berry-wine breath mixed with mine, his eyes glowed green. I wanted to kiss him, I needed to.
“Kiss me, my beautiful Amelia.” My name was a song. “Kiss me, and I’m yours.”
I did. My knees faltered and I clutched at his vest to save myself. Then his arms were around me, strong and sure, holding me up. Holding me close before he lowered us both to the soft meadow grass.
It never entered my mind to question the instant, all consuming attraction, the absolute belief no harm would come to me from this beautiful, fey stranger. And if it had, I could never have fathomed why. I didn’t know I should have been afraid. I didn’t know I should have run.
I touched him, and I was lost.
**
I drifted through a gray morning with no life; leaving work early to return to my bed, arms wrapped around my stomach, trying to ward off the horrible emptiness. I craved gentle hands, glowing eyes that filled the world with green, and the stardust voice that whispered sweet, arousing words.
I curled tighter against the spike of need I couldn’t escape. Touching myself brought no release, only a greater longing for what was missing.
John, the boy who told me he loved me, found me there. I welcomed him into my arms and my bed with the desperation of a condemned woman. He didn’t understand when I cried into his chest then whipped him with harsh words when he brought me no comfort.
I wept again when he left.
**
A full moon washed the hills with its colorless light, transforming rippling grass to dancing shadows and stones to glow lights, illuminating a path I paid no attention to. I didn’t care where I walked; my bare feet stubbed on stones or cut on twigs as often as they cushioned on soft grass.
I hadn’t eaten in days, and barely slept. The gnawing hunger for my fey man consumed every part of me leaving behind a hollow shade. I had nothing left to bleed.
John demanded to know what had happened to me. My friends tried every tactic to get me to leave the bed, to eat, to shower, to talk. Until I stopped answering the phone and ignored the pounding on the locked door. The emptiness was too wide, too deep; their offerings were lost in the void.
Understanding dawned when the sun set. I was dying. My lover had poisoned me with the sweetest toxin and there would be no recovery for my diseased heart. If I was finished, I wanted to end where the sickness began. Without bothering to put on shoes or a jacket or even change out of the grubby nightgown, I left my house, and the town, behind.
The meadow was no longer green, but black and gray in the night, like it too was already dead. A winter parody of summer. Only the brook still lived, sparkling where it caught the moonlight. No birds sang.
“Hello, lovely Amelia.”
Not dead yet. My heart jumped at his stardust voice, ached at the green of his eyes, the only color in my desolation.
“You are stunning in the night. The moon is jealous.” His eyes glinted with the promise on his lips. He held out his hand. “Will you lie down with me?”
I embraced the invitation, and with it, the hope to feel alive again. A chance for my heart to continue to beat, for vitality to sing through my blood, for desire to spark along my skin. And for a moment hope bloomed to life. I took him inside me and I could breathe again. My strange, fey lover filled the void.
He frowned when he brushed my hair out of my eyes, chilling the warmth of his attention. “So fragile. I thought you’d last longer.”
When he left me, he took away the light. The emptiness already stalked me, while, unconcerned, he drank from the brook.
“You did this to me.”
My voice was no louder than the running water, but he heard me. He turned on the balls of his feet, his arms draped across his knees. There was a hardness in his eyes then, mocking me.
“Sweet Amelia, I simply offered. The choice was yours.”
“But I didn’t know -”
“When has ignorance ever offered protection?” Mockery faded to pity and cut deeper. “Oh, very well.”
He kissed both my eyes and the meadow was lit with color, more vibrant than I’d ever seen. Distant strains of lively music called me to join the dance. And if I looked just so, out of the corner of my eye, I could see whirling, brilliant wisps of dancers.
“Come with me, lovely Amelia. Let me take you under the hill. You won’t live long, but your last days will be bright.”
His hand extended, waiting for me to take his offer, strong and sure. I thought of the first time, of poisoned promises, and turned away.
“No.”
He kissed my forehead, one last spark, then disappeared, taking the colors and music with him. Leaving me to the shadows.
**
Once upon a time …
I had a boy who told me he loved me, friends, a job, a house. A normal girl with a normal life. I was nothing special.
And now, lying in the sweet meadow grass, following the stars spiraling away into darkness, I wasn’t even that. I was nothing at all.
