Glorina
After breakfast, I let Jasin escort me to my room. He came just inside the door and leaned against the wall.
"I'm really sorry about this," he said, as he waited at the door. "I hope it's only temporary."
"I understand," I told him, reaching into my drawer. That's was odd, there were two phones there. "You're isolating me."
"We'd prefer not to. But we want to keep you safe."
"Yes, I know. Tolly and I talked about it." I picked up my phone, and frowned at the other one. Where had it come from?
"If you want to contact anyone, just let us know. We'll be glad to help you. Or if anyone calls you, we'll let you know."
"Goldfish bowl," I said. That was an extra phone they had given me, for emergencies only. Why had I forgotten? "Don't worry, I'm used to it." I should give it to Jasin. I should tell Jasin I had it. I picked up my phone, and turned around to grab my computer. "And you are kind."
"We'll try not to make it too onerous," Jasin said.
"At least I'll have a bed, not just a pallet. And regular meals." I handed the two items to Jasin.
"Pretty good meals," Jasin said, with a grin. "Even if I do say so myself." He looked at my face. "What is it?"
I frowned again. "There was something I was going to say to you. It's gone now."
"Was it important?" Jasin asked.
"I don't know, maybe."
"If it's important, it'll come back."
"I hope so," I said. I looked around the room. What had it been?
"That everything?"
"Yes," I said, smiling at him reassuringly. "Don't worry. It'll be a relief to know they can't get to me this way." Other people didn't number their smiles. How did they manage it?
"Just let us know if you need anything, Glorina," he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. "We are here to help."
"Thank you," I said. Tolly valued this man. I would not touch him. "That means a lot to me."
Glorina
It was a couple of days later, and I was still trying to figure out who I was again, when Tolly took me on another picnic, up at his little parkland.
"I'm glad to be getting out, Tolly," I said, looking around anxiously. "But is it safe?"
Tolly chuckled lightly as he led me down the path by the pool, and put the basket on the table.
"If you're not safe here, you're not safe anywhere," he said. Which wasn't as reassuring as he probably thought it was. "But we're here because Jelana wanted you to meet Daved."
"They'll meet us here, then?" I said, looking around.
"No, we live here." Jelana's laughing voice came from the one direction I hadn't looked, the pond.
I saw Jelana rising out of the pond, on the edge, where it was shallow. Far too shallow for her to have been hidden there. I gaped at her, unable to speak for a moment.
Looking at my expression, she laughed again. "Surprised?"
I shook my head to clear it. "I knew you could turn parts of yourself to water. Or something that looks like it. But I wasn't expecting you to just rise out of the pond like that."
She sat down with us at the table. "You are mistaken," she said, still with humor. "It isn't that I can turn to water, it is that I can turn to being almost human."
"What do you mean?"
"Water is my natural form." She nodded to the pond. "I inhabit pools like this, not too large, and preferably with a small waterfall to keep things stirred up. Much larger, and I start getting lost, and have trouble pulling myself together again." She shuddered at some memory. "And salt-water burns. Even the spray from the ocean can be painful." She sounded wistful about that.
"But you're his sister?" I said, looking from one to the other.
"Oh, yes," Jelana said.
"Definitely," Tolly said firmly at the same time.
"You even look alike." I looked at the two of them again. Tolly had his faded orange hair, Jelana's was far darker. His eyes were blue, hers green, but with the same sort of clear brilliance. But in spite of all the obvious differences between them, they looked enough alike that I hadn't questioned it when they said they were brother and sister.
"I don't see it," Tolly said, looking down at his sister.
"No, brother-dear. Glorina's quite right. I have a strong resemblance to my whole family. I was designed that way, to make things easier."
"Designed?"
"Yes," Jelana said. "It's all right, Tolly. Daved and I decided to tell her all."
"Why?" Tolly said.
"So she'll trust us. And I know she has questions."
"I don't want to pry," I began.
"Nonsense. We pried all of your secrets out of you the other day. We should return in kind."
Not all of them, I thought rebelliously.
She took a deep breath, and looked at me. "As I said, I'm not human. I'm Elvon." She stopped and looked at me expectantly.
"That doesn't make sense," I said, looking at both of them. "Elvontin live at Mount Narly, and don't have family. Not human ones, anyway."
"True. Though Mount Narly's more of their headquarters than home. Some go out to live pretty near all over Tel. Though not around here. They tend to avoid the unicorns."
"As well they should," Tolly growled.
"But, no, they don't have families as such. When they add numbers, it is more by production than reproduction. And most of the ones we see don't actually have personalities as such. More like groups having a hive mind for the tasks they perform."
"And you? You certainly have a personality."
"I was created to like and grow like a human, in a human family, so that I would understand them, and then come back, and teach them. The leaders, those who actually are individuals. Then live with them, and take my place among them."
"But you didn't?"
"I already have a place." She smiled up at Tolly, then out at the woods. "Mind, if they had come when I was alone in the world, after all my family died, then I might have gone. But I knew Tolly was still around. And they seemed too high-handed in just assuming that I would want to join them. So I said no. And they couldn't believe it."
"Still don't," Tolly grumbled.
"I don't see them much, I seldom leave the woods, and they seldom enter it. But when I do, they keep trying to get me to change my mind."
"Means we can't ask them for help," Tolly said. "They'd give it, but the price would be too high." He put his hand on Jelana's shoulder protectively.
"But I thought that Elvontin were considered good."
"They are. Usually. They are on the side of Light. But they don't necessarily consider all the consequences of their actions."
"Who does?" Tolly said. "But still, probably did them good to be turned down. And by one of their own. Not by one of us stupid humans."
"Now, they don't really think that badly of you."
"No, they can be quite fond of us. Rather like a pet. Or beast of burden."
"Now you're just being silly," Jelana said, laughing. "You are one of their tasks, you know."
"Exactly," Tolly said, with a grimace.
"But like I said, I might have gone, but I still had Tolly." She smiled up at him. "Even if it was years between seeing him. He traveled so much."
"You did a fair bit of traveling yourself," Tolly said.
"Yes, what I could. I've never been outside of Tel. And even with airplanes, I don't think I'll ever be able to." She sounded wistful again. "But I wanted to see at least some of the places Tolly would talk about. And maybe find him more often."
"Surprised me the first time I heard rumors about a Lady in the Lake, tracked it, and found Jelana," Tolly said, grinning at her. "I thought she was still safely ensconced at home."
"And now my traveling days are over, at least as far as I can see," Jelana said. "I might make small trips from time to time, but I come back here. Between Tolly and Daved both being more or less rooted here."
"Some more literally than others." Tolly's voice was a low, amused rumble.
"Daved? Is that the mysterious husband you've mentioned?"
"Yes."
"Will I meet him?"
"You're sitting in him," Jelana said, grinning.
"What?"
"He is the woods we are sitting in."
"What do you mean?"
"These woods, this particular one, are alive. More than alive, conscious."
"How? I mean, they are?"
"As far as we have been able to discover, Daved is unique," Tolly said.
"He was here all along, when I came to live near Tolly. But I didn't know it until the unicorns came back, and told him how to talk to me." She shook her head sadly. "He watched me for centuries, unable to reach me. I knew there was something different about this section of woods, but I never knew what."
"How did he reach you?"
"I'll show you." She raised her voice. "Daved, that's your cue."
"That's just for our benefit," Tolly said. "She and Daved don't actually need words."
I put that thought aside, as a man ambled out of the woods. I would have sworn there was no one there a moment ago.
As he walked out, I couldn't help staring at him. He looked, well, not quite normal. His face was unnaturally still, almost wooden, and the way he walked had something off about it. I couldn't put my finger on it, but it was wrong. He smiled at me, a smile that seemed to be practiced, not natural. Not that I had any advantage in that aspect.
"Hello, Ms. Hoi," he said. His words were slow, but clear. But somehow sounded more like the wind through the trees than the warmth of a human voice.
"Please, call me Glorina," I said automatically, still trying to process what I was looking at. "And you are Daved?"
"Glorina." Again with the slow, not quite right smile. "Not exactly."
"This is Daved's puppet. The current one. Much better than the first few he had," Jelana said. "He's gotten better at handling the time difference."
"Time difference?"
Daved's slow voice spoke again. "Forests move, dear lady. But very slowly. You move . . . So fast I can hardly see you." His eyes looked toward the tree tops. "And birds move faster still. It is easier to watch the flock than the individuals."
"We weren't talking about birds, love," Jelana said.
"No." He looked momentarily confused, then smiled at her. This smile was almost real.
"He can use this form to come to town, and interact with people," Tolly said. "Though I'm not exactly sure how. He just appears, doesn't seem to do any traveling between."
"He can come to where I am," Jelana said. "We are attached together. Otherwise he can't locate things."
"See," Tolly groused, "she said that like it made perfect sense."
"Daved?" I said. He slowly turned his head in my direction. I was suddenly unsure if he was observing me through his eyes or the surrounding trees. "Did you make that rose I found the last time I was here?"
He smiled, more of a beam this time, and all the trees rustled. "Did you like it? Ladies like roses."
"Yes, I liked it very much," I said. "I have it in my room."
"Told you it wasn't me." Tolly chuckled.
"I like you, so I gave you a gift." He smiled down at me, and Jelana laughed, with no trace of jealousy in her face.
I glanced at her, wondering.
"His puppets," she began. "Well, the clothing is a part of them. He is solid wood underneath the painted surface. No organs, or even skin, at all."
I looked at him again. I would have thought that it was skin.
"So , even if you had wanted to seduce him . . ." There was more of an edge to Jelana's tone than I had heard before," . . . You wouldn't be able to."
"I wasn't planning to," I said, quickly. There was too much of an oddness to him to even consider.
"Good," she said, her smile warm again. "Do you want some lunch?"
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