Jocelynn Drake - [Asylum Tales 02] (25 page)

Warm laughter jerked my head up to see a man and woman walking into the barn. Both were smiling, which was an improvement over Rocky. They wore overalls as well, but they didn’t look as worn or grumpy as my last companion. In fact, they both appeared to be in their early twenties with the fresh faces of health and youth.

“Nice job,” the woman said, her arm around the man’s back. “I knew you’d figure it out.”

The man slid away from the woman and stood before me. “Here, I’ll get that for you,” he offered, bending over to grab the full pail I had yet to empty.

“No,” I said sharply, wincing as I stood. My whole body protested the movement. “Thank you, but I can get it.” I started to bend over and grab the handle, but the woman placed a restraining hand on my shoulder.

“It’s okay. It won’t count against you,” she whispered. Her wide brown eyes were soft and sympathetic. I sighed and nodded, slowly straightening my body again. The man chuckled as he grabbed the pail and quickly tipped the contents into one of the containers at the end of the room.

When he rejoined us, he clapped me hard on the back, nearly knocking me forward. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Some cold water will help relieve some of the pain in your hands.”

Wordlessly, I followed him out to the front of the barn and over to an old water pump. He grabbed the handle and gave it a few hard pumps before water started pouring out. I dipped my hands into the ice-cold water and sighed in relief. The chill coursed through my body, seeming to wash away the aches. I rubbed the liquid up my arms and then splashed some on my face, instantly feeling refreshed.

“Is Rocky coming back for me?” I asked, shaking off the excess water.

“He’s busy mucking out some stalls, so he sent us,” the woman said. “It’s nearly noon. I thought you’d like to grab some lunch and then help us in the orchard. That is, unless you’d rather help Rocky muck out the stalls?”

I couldn’t stop from grimacing at the idea. I didn’t know what might be worse, shoveling out horseshit or spending more quality time with Rocky. It definitely sounded worse than lunch and work in an orchard. Unfortunately, I didn’t know which one would gain me more points with Gaia, though I had a feeling it was going to be horseshit and Rocky.

“Brook!” The man laughed, wrapping one arm around the woman’s shoulders. He looked at me, smiling. Something about his expression made me think that he knew exactly what had been crossing my mind. “You have to excuse her. She’s teasing you. Join us for lunch and then we’ll be picking apples.”

After milking the cows and the threat of mucking stalls, the idea of picking apples sounded frighteningly easy. Of course, so did lunch. I was wondering if I would have to cook it when the man laughed again. Yeah, he was definitely reading my thoughts.

“My name’s Ox,” he said, extending his hand toward me. I shook it, finding myself smiling as well. “And this rascal is Brook,” he finished, indicating the woman pressed close to him.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Powell,” Brook said with a little wave. “Let’s grab lunch. I’m starving.”

I walked with the pair back across the field in what I thought was the same direction I had come from with Rocky, but as we crested another hill I was faced with a quiet pond and a vast apple orchard instead of the red barn. We chatted about the nice weather, the peace and quiet of nature, and the random sightings of rabbits and butterflies as we walked toward the pond. I had been tempted to question them about Gaia, as both seemed far more willing to talk than Rocky, but even as the questions formed in my brain, they drifted away again on the breeze.

At the edge of the pond was a large picnic basket with a folded blanket draped over it. While Ox and I set about spreading the blanket, Brook started unloading containers of food. We knelt beside her and set out cheese, butter, bread, ham, chicken, potato salad, coleslaw, pickles, olives, fruit, and three different kinds of pie. More food came out of the basket than I thought possible, but I was reaching the point where I stopped questioning things in this strange place.

I gratefully accepted the enormously mounded plate of food from Brook and offered to help fill hers. Oddly enough, I didn’t even balk when Ox poured me a large glass of cold milk. We ate in companionable silence, soaking in the sounds of frogs and dragonflies around the pond. The food tasted as if it had all been made fresh that day and probably was. As we finished, we reclined on the blanket and talked about memories of growing up.

During a lull in the conversation, I thought about asking them about the farm and Gaia, but the question slipped away again and I laughed at a comment Ox made. There was something comfortable about the couple that left me feeling like I had known them my entire life. Relaxing in the shade of a large tree with a full stomach, I was content. Even the grumpy Rocky and his fifty dairy cows didn’t seem so bad anymore. The work had been hard and backbreaking, but it was good, honest work that had filled me with a sense of accomplishment. I felt as if I fit into something larger that my mind couldn’t quite define yet.

It wasn’t much longer before Ox declared that it was time to get back to work. I helped them clean up and repack the picnic basket. Brook folded the blanket and placed it over the basket as if we had never touched it. I followed them into the orchard, where I found three wooden ladders and fifty large baskets.

To my surprise, Ox and Brook didn’t leave me alone in the orchard, but each grabbed a ladder and a wicker basket before heading off to a tree. I did the same and picked a tree near them. The next few hours were filled with easy conversation and laughter as we placed ripe apples in our baskets. The work was steady and tiring, but the buzz of the bees and the scent of blossoms on the breeze seemed to keep the worst of the fatigue away.

As I filled the last basket, I stood on the ladder and looked across the rolling landscape. I knew that I was there with the sole purpose of seeing Gaia. I completed each task set before me with the idea that it was getting me closer to meeting her. But as I worked and the day wore on toward sunset, the urgency I felt melted away. I clearly remembered why I needed to see her—to save the elves, to save Trixie—but the emotional turbulence that accompanied that idea had dimmed. There was only the peace and splendor of the world living and thriving before me.

I climbed down the ladder and carried my full basket over to the others. Yet Ox and Brook were nowhere to be found. Instead, Rocky was standing near the baskets, holding my boots. While his expression and manner weren’t as gruff as when we first met, he wasn’t as cheery as my other companions.

Without a word, I pulled off the overalls and changed back into my boots, leaving the others next to the baskets. I followed Rocky back through the field and over the rise. As we reached the top, a large white farmhouse came into view. When we were a few feet from the worn, wooden, front-porch steps, the screen door creaked open and a lovely woman in a soft white skirt stepped out. Rocky stopped at the bottom of the steps and clapped me on the back. I looked over at him to find that he was smiling at me. Somehow I had earned the man’s approval.

“Thank you, Rocky,” the woman said, sending the most amazing feeling through me. In that split second, I felt warmth, and peace, and the most overwhelming longing for home. When I gazed up at her, she extended her hand toward me. “Hello, Gage. I’m Skye. We have one last thing for you to do.”

Taking her hand, I let her lead me past a living room filled with comfortable furniture and walls covered with framed photographs of smiling people. She took me up the creaking steps and down the hall. Looking over her shoulder, she smiled and squeezed my hand before pushing open the white door to reveal a nursery.

I took in the pale blue walls, the white lace curtains that danced in the breeze skipping through the open window, and the little dresser covered in stuffed animals. She led me over to an old-fashioned crank swing that held a baby in a blue outfit. Pale blond hair curled from his head and he watched me with wide blue eyes as he tightly held a soft rattle.

Skye released my hand and bent down to pick up the baby. She cooed at him as she settled him in her arms, but he continued to watch me the entire time. She pressed a kiss to his head and then handed him to me. I was awkward with the infant, as I couldn’t remember the last time I had held one, but Skye remained close. She helped comfortably position the boy in my arms until I felt as if I had done it a hundred times before.

With one arm across my back and the other cupping the back of the baby’s head, Skye leaned close. “This is your last task,” she said in a near whisper. “You have to put him down for a nap.”

“That’s it?” I whispered, arching one eyebrow at her.

Skye smiled and nodded at me. She pressed one last kiss to the side of the baby’s head and then leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. “You’ll be great, I know it,” she murmured before releasing us both.

I turned as she reached the door, holding the little boy against my chest. “What’s his name?”

She leaned her head against the edge of the door, her green-gray eyes twinkling at me. “What do you think it should be?”

I looked down at the little boy and his bright blue eyes. He had one fist in his mouth as he sucked on it thoughtfully. “Squall,” I said before looking up at her.

Her smile grew a little wider. “Good choice.” And then she left us alone, gently closing the door behind her.

A little tremor of fear slipped through me as I stood alone in the middle of the room with the little boy. I wasn’t sure if I had ever held a baby and I knew I had never tried to put one down for a nap. While I was grateful that the little guy wasn’t screaming his head off the moment Skye disappeared, I still didn’t know what to do to get him to sleep.

Turning around, I spotted a large white rocking chair in one corner near the crib. My mom had kept one in my sister’s room when she had been a baby. She said that it had been handed down over a few generations and that she used to rock us to sleep when we were fussy.

Sitting on the thick cushion, I settled the little guy against my shoulder while I rubbed my hand over his tiny back in a slow, circular motion. He shifted and drew in a deep breath, pressing his little chest against mine before he wrapped one arm around my neck and put his head on my shoulder. Slowly rocking the chair, I hummed a nameless tune that had no beginning and no end. I didn’t know the song. I kept humming as his breathing evened out.

It had only taken him a few minutes to doze off, but still I rocked him, humming what I was sure was a lullaby. I turned my head toward him and the soft scent of soap and baby powder hit my nose. But there was more there, something I didn’t have a word for. It wasn’t so much a smell, but something from that tiny body that drove down into my chest, as if it were mending things broken there. All the weight that had rested on my shoulders slipped off to be replaced by this little head. The aches in my back, hands, and knees dissolved with the sound of his breathing. The pound of his heart against my chest soothed so many echoes of pains from my past.

Reluctantly, I stood and turned toward his white-and-blue crib. Closing my eyes, I pressed a kiss to his temple before I laid him on his stomach on the mattress. I continued to rub my hand on his back while he shifted once and yawned before settling into a deep sleep. My fingers drifted up to thread through his soft blond curls, reminding me of how I looked in my own baby pictures taken a lifetime ago.

A gentle hand moved across my back in the same motion that I had been using on Squall, helping to ease an ache that had grown and letting the peace seep back in, so it no longer hurt to breathe. I looked over to find a little old woman standing beside me, her snowy-white hair pulled up into a loose bun on the top of her head. She looked up at me with fathomless green-gray eyes and smiled.

“I knew you could do it, my boy,” she said in a low voice that seemed to hold me in an embrace that nearly brought tears to my eyes. “You’ve done wonderfully, but then you understand this so much better than those who tried to teach you.”

“Understand what?” I asked in a wavering voice.

She reached down and took my hand in her old one. She held it out so that my open palm hovered over Squall’s sleeping form. “Life. Nature. The ebb and flow of all things.”

As she spoke, I could feel a subtle throb of energy emanating from the baby’s body. She pulled her hand away and I could feel more. There was the energy from the earth seeping up through the house and in through the open windows. There was my own energy and the energy from all the animals nearby. While the woman next to me produced no energy of her own, she brought all the energy around me into instant balance, so that it was one harmonious song. The same song I had been mindlessly humming to Squall.

I pulled my hand back to grip the railing of the crib. I felt as if I should be afraid or anxious, but the emotions drained away before they could fully form. I was at peace, standing in this room next to the old woman because she brought everything into balance. She stepped a couple feet away, dropping her hand from my back, but the feeling of peace didn’t wane as I had expected.

“You know, you can stay here if you want,” she offered. “Your life would be exactly what you experienced today. You would be wrapped in the earth and life. It would be hard and simple, but also satisfying and peaceful.”

I looked down at Squall as he slept soundly before me, trusting and happy. I closed my eyes, but my head was filled with the sounds of remembered laughter and twinkling green-gray eyes. Everything fit so wonderfully. I fit so perfectly here, as if I had finally found the puzzle to which I belonged. It was so tempting. So perfect . . .

My eyes snapped open and I looked at the old woman. “You’re not one of them, are you?” I demanded, referring to the people I had met around the farm. “You’re Mother Nature. You’re Gaia. And none of this is real.” I couldn’t keep the sadness from my voice as I looked down at the baby. I wanted all of it to be real. For a second the world I lived in and had left behind that morning came screaming back with all its harsh edges and dirty light, and I needed this to be real so that I could draw my next breath.