Fountain of Light

  Ach froze in place just outside the barn door. He’d spent the last hour or so in a casual search for Nell, but hadn’t found him yet. It was likely he worked somewhere in the back of his massive animal barn.

  If he went inside, Nell would see him, and he’d blush and forget how to think. The whole world would spin, grounded in Nell like he was Ach’s anchor in raging seas. He was Ach’s anchor, even in calm seas (which they usually weren’t because there were so many people in this place and Ach didn’t know most of them).

  But.

  If he didn’t go inside, if he hid out here, he would be alone. Alone was good. There wasn’t anyone around to ask him for things or want him to behave in a certain way or think things about the way he ironed creases into his pants.

  He just would never see Nell again. He was almost okay with that, if it meant avoiding everyone.

  A mental image of Nell smiling to him across the room, a shared secret laugh that everyone else was oblivious to, drew him into the barn. Nell was his home, even if it was sometimes scary.

  He stepped into the smell of fresh hay and well-loved wood. This was Nell’s sanctuary, his project and his work toward a future Upper Dell with more love, more biodiversity, more food (even if Nell never wanted to think about that last one).

  He had barely stepped into the barn when Nell’s voice, from behind him, said, “May I help you?”

  Ach turned around in time to see Nell’s curls, wild from a day of work with animals, and his eyes that softened whenever they looked at Ach.

  He would never get tired of looking at Nell. Some people liked a body, which Nell had a great one of, but for Ach, it was Nell’s soul, the undertones and inflections in his voice, the way he didn’t seem to notice that his fingers moved whenever he talked.

  Nell bowed deeply, a flirt. “Nellivander the First, at your service.” He stepped closer to Ach, and suddenly Ach could smell his perfect forest scent. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Ach blushed. How long had he stood outside the door debating? It could have been hours, for all he knew. 

  Nell kissed the hottest, blushiest part of each of his cheeks before pressing his lips to Ach’s. He tasted like pinecones and mint.

  “Why have you been waiting?”

  Nell dipped his head. “I need help in a stall.”

  He reached for Ach’s hand and drew him deeper into the barn. They passed the stalls of animals that moved into the barn at night but spent their days outside. They passed the stalls of the animals that preferred the security of the barn. They passed a warren of barn cats so tame that three kittens chased each other up Nell’s body as they walked.

  Ach had never been so deep into the barn before. “What do you keep way back here?”

  Nell’s mouth quirked up at the corners. “Something new.”

  That was cryptic. He wondered why Nell thought Ach could help with it. Usually Nell had to show Ach how to take care of each animal. Someday, Ach hoped, he would have pixie magic like Nell’s and be able to hear the animals’ thoughts. Then they would be equals, partners, closer than anything Ach had ever felt.

  “Did you have a good day?” Ach asked. If he and Nell had the pixie mental link, Ach would know how Nell’s day went because he would have been a part of it.

  Nell smiled, more formal than usual. “A busy day. It was good, thus far. How was yours?”

  “Better now,” Ach admitted. He loved the library, the access to the library, but seeing Nell, being near him… “Not that it was bad before, but I like smelling you even more than I like smelling old books.”

  Nell turned and caught Ach around the waist, pulling him in for a deeper kiss. He brushed his nose against Ach’s. “I love you.” He opened a door along the hall and led Ach into a dim room with a fountain in the center of it.

  “Is this where you initiate me by water?” Ach teased. He couldn’t believe he’d teased Nell, but he felt more at home every day, and when it was just him and Nell, just them, he felt strong. He felt alive.

  Nell laughed and showed Ach the far side of the fountain. It was obvious from this side that the fountain was the light source from the room.

  “I had thought perhaps it was time for a formal evening together,” Nell said. He gestured towards a long table that stretched the length of one wall. Plates of food — berries and cheeses and breads, mostly — covered the table.

  Ach stared at his tunic, dust-covered from his time in the library. He didn’t even have on an argyle sock or anything nice. “But I’m not dressed for it,” he protested.

  He looked up at Nell, anxious, and saw the smoldering hunger there. He realized with a start that it didn’t matter what he wore right now, because he wouldn’t be wearing it for long.

  “Thankfully,” Nell teased, “the room is dim.” He shut the door and crossed over toward the table with food. Some of the platters had round lids on them. “I’d like to know what you think of a new species I’ve discovered.”

  He lifted the lid off one of the platters, to display some kind of orange-ish otter-fox with a flaming tail. It had puffy tufts on its tail, but the rest of its fur was more oily, matted against its skin.

  The tail flamed, like Ach flamed whenever Nell touched him.

  He tucked his fingers behind the critter’s ears and massaged. It stirred and stretched languidly against his hand, purring. “Where did you find it?”

  “On my last trip east,” Nell said. He took over massaging the otter-fox’s belly. “It was orphaned.”

  “Is it lonely?” As someone who had spent most of his life before Nell lonely in a crowd of people, Ach always worried when an animal might feel alone.

  Nell lifted the other lids. “They come in litters.”

  Ach watched as the otter creatures scurried around the table, eating the berries, breads, and cheeses.

  Suddenly Nell’s fingers were on Ach’s chin, angling his face toward Nell’s, and this kiss was deeper, softer; less demanding and more sweet, filled with a quiet longing.

  “I thought it was time to start our own family,” Nell said.

  The old familiar ache settled in Ach’s gut. He longed, more than anything, to be able to have children with Nell. “With these guys?” he asked. He didn’t bother with false cheer because he knew Nell could read his mind. He had no secrets.

  “Yes. They’ll need to be raised.” Nell gestured toward the fountain. “This water is from where they live. I believe it has special properties. Perhaps you could study it?”

  Ach was not a scientist but he understood the concepts behind it. He could try. “I can.”

  “Now?” Nell said.

  How? Ach would have to look up procedures, figure out what normal compounds were dissolved in water, and then from there try to figure out what was special about this water. Plus he’d have to buy equipment to test the water, and learn how to use that equipment… 

  “I—” he stammered. 

  Nell nudged him and pointed to the top of the fountain. Now that Ach focused on it, he saw there was a shiny coin, visible if it caught the light just so. “Touch it,” Nell urged.

Maybe they wouldn’t have to buy chemistry sets and test the water. “Maybe we can use it as seed water to grow more like it.”

  Nell had a funny half-smile on his face, half amusement and half love. “Possibly.” He reached for Ach’s hand and pressed it against the coin. Immediately, they were somewhere else: The coin had transported them to a dense forest with pools of impossibly pristine turquoise water. Moss covered the ground and any fallen stumps or rocks. 

  Ach spun, taking in everything. “This is where you found them?”

  “Yes. My birth village.”

  Home. Nell had brought him to the home of his body, the home of his childhood. Ach studied his face, the naked hope in his expression.

  “It’s amazing,” Ach told him. “So alive.”

  “It is. And it is where I’d like our marriage to be born.” He held his hands up for Ach to clasp them if he wanted. “If you’ll have me, and my mind.”

  Ach’s heart raced. Nell wanted him, forever. The mental link, the deepest of deep connections. He reached for Nell’s hands and interlaced his fingers with Nell’s. 

  “You’ll have to repeat the words after me,” Nell said, and he led Ach through the hand motions and the foreign words that marked the pixie wedding ceremony.

  When Nell pressed his forehead against his, Ach heard a new voice in his head, a new and endless place full of caverns and light as vibrant as the sunlight falling through the trees in this grove.

  Hello, my love, Nell greeted him.

   Hello my love, Ach teased back. Nell was more than Ach had ever guessed, and Ach had guessed quite a lot.

  This was home, anywhere they went, forever. Ach and Nell; Nell and Ach. Twined.

  Ach’s soul quivered in anticipation.