Enchantment (2 page)

“Anything good in the sky?”

Holly stepped back from the telescope and with a gesture invited him to look. He bent to the eyepiece for a moment, then straightened.

“Nice. You know, Tech has a good astronomy program.”

“I thought you said astronomy doesn't pay.”

“Well, it could if you took a physics minor. Got into one of the big labs.”

“I'll think about it.”

Holly bent to the lens and adjusted the focus, sharpening the stars. Somewhere nearby a dog barked three times, then was silent.

“Anyhow, money isn't the most important thing. You should major in something you love.”

“Yeah.”

They'd had this conversation before. Would probably have it again. Holly wasn't in the mood tonight. She had other things on her mind.

A beautiful face. Deep blue eyes.

“Everything all right, hon?”

Straightening, she turned to her father. “Yeah. Why?”

He shrugged. “You seem pretty quiet this evening.”

Her eyes had adjusted enough to the dark to see the worry on his face. Mad must have told him about the spring. Holly bit down on annoyance.

“I'm fine.”

She shifted the scope, searching for something she wanted to look at, but remained unsatisfied. Her dad stayed watching for a minute, then went back inside. Holly felt a little bad about that—she could have been more friendly—but she wasn't ready to talk to her folks about the guy in the spring. If Mad didn't believe her, guaranteed her parents wouldn't.

Could she have imagined it?

Her heart screamed no. Her brain wasn't so sure. It might have been a hallucination or something. That had never happened to her before, but …

She frowned, disliking the seed of doubt that had sprouted in her thoughts. He had looked so real, but maybe he wasn't. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. Really, really realistic wishful thinking.

Holly put away the scope and went inside, going to the kitchen for a glass of milk. Mom's coconut cream pie sat on the counter looking luscious, but she wasn't hungry. A tight little knot had formed in her stomach.

She wasn't nuts. She hadn't hallucinated. The guy in the spring was real.

She chugged her milk, rinsed the glass, and headed for her room. Tried to read for a while but couldn't get into the book, and finally gave up and got ready for bed.

As she lay staring at the glow-in-the-dark Milky Way and stars on her ceiling, she played through everything that had happened at the spring in her mind. Birds. Sunlight on the mossy concrete, glowing in the water. The young man's smile as she promised to come back.

Well, she would. Tomorrow. Alone.

~

She walked through a forest filled with falling leaves. They were still green, but drifted down from every tree in a gentle cascade, like snow. Beside her a stream trickled uphill, growing wider the higher she climbed. It was almost a river by the time she reached the glen where she and Mad had eaten lunch.

It was bigger, more open, with a giant, golden pool in the center. The stream flowed into this, climbing over rocks to fade into the quiet surface of the pond.

The young man stood beside the pool, smiling. “Thank you for waking me,” he said.

Holly stared at him. Tall and slim, dressed in pale silk that clung to his limbs, hair spilling over his shoulders and down his back, he was like nothing she'd ever seen.

“Why were you sleeping? Were you under a spell?”

He laughed. “A spell? No. The dabblings of sorcerers do not affect me.” His smile faded as he looked around the glen. “I have been weakened, though. I do not know the cause.”

“So … who are you?”

“I am the guardian of this spring. My name is Ohlan.”

“Ohlan.” It sounded like a sigh as she said it. “I'm Holly.”

“Holly.” He smiled. “Your namesake grows in the woods near my home.“ He gestured toward a broad rock, like a bench, beside the water. Sunshine and the shadows of the falling leaves dappled the golden stone.

“Will you rest here a while?”

Holly sat on the rock, and Ohlan sat beside her. His movements were graceful, flowing. The sunlight rippled over his clothing. She wanted to touch him, to see if he was real, even though she knew she was dreaming.

He gazed at her, blue eyes drawing her in. “It has been a long time since anyone talked to me.”

“My sister couldn't see you.”

“Most humans cannot. They are unwilling to look into the heart of the spring.”

“That's all it takes?”

“That, and being willing to see.”

Holly trailed her fingers in the pool. The water was crystal clear. A tiny, dark fish darted up to her hand, then away again. Rocks lay scattered on the sandy bottom, a myriad of gold, green, and shades from grey to black.

She glanced at Ohlan, who still watched her, softly smiling. Feeling shy, she gazed into the water again.

“How long have you lived here?”

“I came into being with the spring, many hundreds of years ago. After the mountain settled into sleep.”

Holly looked up sharply. These mountains were formed by a volcano that fell dormant millennia ago. That would mean Ohlan was thousands of years old.

“You've been here all this time.”

“Yes. I have walked all over these mountains. Watched people come and go.”

“You must have friends—other, um, spirits? Because there are other springs up here, right?”

Ohlan nodded, looking troubled. “I have not ventured far from here recently. My strength wanes the farther I go from my home.”

“Has it always been that way?”

“Not so much as now. I do not know why, but I am always tired now. I sleep for many days on end.”

Holly's heart went out to him. “I wish I could help you.”

“You have.”

He smiled again, and she felt herself tuning to jelly. Ohlan was just what she had always dreamed of: a boy—man? spirit?—who was beautiful, gentle, and kind. Who seemed to like her.

A bluebird flew onto her knee and chirped at her. Thanks for the reminder, Holly thought. I was about to forget that none of this is real.

She swallowed, looking at Ohlan. “May I come and see you? For real, I mean?”

“Of course.”

“
Will
I see you?”

“If you want to.”

“I do.”

She wanted to see him, touch him. Be his.

Was that crazy? He wasn't human. He'd been alive forever. Maybe he thought humans were amusing little creatures that drifted by once in a while, like butterflies.

“Ohlan … have you ever been in love?”

His eyelids drooped as he smiled. “Many times.”

“With humans?”

“And others.”

She stared at him, caught by his beauty, unable to look away. His eyes filled her awareness, twin pools of deep water, widening to swallow her. She was drifting now, no longer sitting. Cool blue depths surrounded her. She reached out, hoping to catch hold of something—anything—but there was nothing to grasp.

Holly woke to the drone of the vacuum cleaner, Mom's traditional weekend wakeup call. For a moment she lay staring at her ceiling. The stars were invisible in the daytime, unless you looked closely.

Then she remembered.

She flung back the covers and sat up. Ohlan. He was real. She had to go back to the spring to confirm that, but her heart was already sure.

She jumped into some clothes and hurried out to the kitchen. Leftover pie for breakfast, washed down with lukewarm coffee. Then chores, as fast as she could do them.

Mad sat on the living room sofa, flipping through a magazine. Holly would have been annoyed at this reminder that her sister was now exempt from chores, but she was in too much of a hurry to worry about it. She watered all of Mom's plants and washed the picture window, then dusted the piano, coffee table, and bookshelves.

“Hey, whirlwind,” said Mad. “What's the hurry?”

“Just want to get done.”

“Got a hot date?”

That was mean. Mad knew that Holly hadn't connected with any boys she was interested in. Holly paused to look at her sister.

“I was thinking about going to the library.”

“Oh.”

Mad went back to her magazine. She'd never been as obsessed with reading as Holly, which was why Holly had mentioned the library. She didn't want Mad following her today.

She finished her chores and slapped a turkey sandwich together in the kitchen. Her mother came in as she was putting away the mayonnaise.

“Where to today?” Mom said, a little too cheerful.

“Library. Need me to pick anything up at the store on the way back?”

“I don't think so, but thank you honey.”

Holly grabbed a ginger ale and slid her sandwich into a plastic bag. Mom took out a second bag and put four oatmeal raisin cookies into it from the cookie jar. Holly hugged her as she accepted it, and Mom held her tight for a second.

Angsting again. Mom had gotten kind of needy over the summer, knowing that the coming year would be Holly's last in high school. Empty nest looming ahead.

Holly returned the squeeze, then kissed her mom's cheek. “You're the best.”

“Pot roast for supper tonight.”

“Yum! I'll be there.”

She put her lunch into her pack along with a couple of library books, and headed to the garage for her bike. She would drop the books off on the way back, but the library was not her first stop.

She walked up the steep driveway, then mounted the bike and pushed off. At the end of her street she glanced back to check if anyone at home was watching. Trees blocked the windows, so to see her the family would have had to come out in the yard. It was empty.

She turned right, toward the Enchantment Spring trailhead. It wasn't far, but it was uphill. Pumping hard, she felt a buzz of excitement. Yesterday had changed her life; today would confirm it.

She locked her bike in the rack at the trailhead and strode up the trail. Her heart was pounding, and not just from the exercise. She wanted to run, but she paced herself. Other people were on the trail. She didn't want them to notice her acting unusual; in a small town like Las Palomas, that could get back to her folks.

The forest welcomed her, deliciously cool after the warm sun. Today the hike seemed longer than yesterday, only because Holly was anxious for it to be over. Enchantment Spring was a little over a mile up the trail, which continued on up into the mountains for another four miles.

Despite the faster pace, she noticed more today than she had yesterday. Purple asters and scarlet penstemon blooming to either side of the trail. Birds flitting around in the branches of the pines, or peeping from the depths of a scrub oak. Some small critter's burrow at the foot of a tree. She was
looking
at the woods, more interested in them now because this was Ohlan's home.

Voices ahead made her slow down. She should be getting near the spring. Shrieks of childish laughter brought her brows together in a frown.

Of course there were other people up here. Beautiful weekend, next to last before school started, and the wild raspberries were ripe.
Of
course
folks wanted to get up into the mountains.

Holly bit down on resentment as she entered the glen. A mom and three mop-headed kids were there, and they had trashed the place. Food wrappers and half-eaten cookies all over the ground.

Holly's gaze went to the spring. It looked the same as when she'd first seen it: a concrete coffin of water, quiet and golden. No birds; the kids were way too noisy.

She managed to smile at the mom, then continued up the trail. She didn't want to share Ohlan with these people. She could see they were the sort he meant when he spoke of people who didn't really look, didn't want to see.

A little way up the trail she found a rock to sit on, out of sight of the glen, but she could still hear the kids. She wasn't hungry yet, so to pass the time she took out one of her library books and read the prologue, which she had skipped before reading the book. It didn't add anything to the story, and it had a spoiler for a big dramatic event that had occurred later in the book. She was glad she hadn't read it before.

She took out the other book—a fat fantasy novel from a series she loved. Gazing at the cover, she realized how crazy the story was, full of fights, magic spells, dragons, talking cats. Nothing like the real magic she'd stumbled onto: a gorgeous guy, millennia old, who lived in a spring.

She couldn't picture Ohlan casting a spell, but what did she know? He came and talked to her in her dreams. Maybe he had other powers she hadn't seen.

The mom's voice cut into her thoughts; the sharp tone of command. Holly put the books away and waited, listening. A few minutes later the voices diminished as the family headed back down the trail.

Holly's stomach fluttered as she stood. Please, please let this be real.

She walked back to the glen and paused to look around. To the mom's credit, most of the trash had been picked up. Holly spotted one cupcake paper under a bush, bent to pick it up, and rolled it into a wad which she stuffed into her pocket.

Turning, she looked at the spring. It was silent, motionless. Sunlight glinted on the water. Short of breath, Holly walked toward it.

Empty. Her heart gave a huge squeeze. She stood at the foot of the coffin and touched her fingertips to the water.

“Ohlan?”

And he was there, smiling as he opened his eyes, then sat up. Holly gasped and stepped back in spite of herself.

“Ohmigod!”

Ohlan's smile widened. “I hoped you would come today.”

Holly stared, as awestruck as she had been the first time. Ohlan's hair and clothes were dry, even though he was sitting in the spring. His eyes, still incredible, held her. She swallowed.