HEART OF OAK, TOOTH OF THORN

The wind found her and flew around her feet in little bowing gusts, whispering and singing, “O silver-haired one, why do you wake? Why do you walk this world again? Fair lady, please, may I sing you to sleep? O lady, let me sing you to sleep.”

But the lady sighed, and shook her head. “No, I cannot sleep.”

“O lady, tell, why do you wake? What pulls you from your ageless dreams? What sorrow is there in your heart, what tears are in your eyes?”

From True Tales of the Oak Maiden, by E. Carson-Adair

* * *

There were voices in the warm night air, whispers in the grass. Ethan sat in the tall grass on the hill, listening, and waiting. In the forest behind him, trees, silvered by moonlight, their leaves shining white-edged, rustled softly . . . calling. . . .

Come. . . .

Not yet. . . .

Ethan gazed up at the sky, heart stirring to the familiar sounds of farm and forest. Crickets down in the meadow, owl in the empty barn, wind in the weeds along the fence posts, whispers in the trees . . . and the calling. It was something he felt in his bones, a calling without sound, a deep insistent yearning, pulling and prickling at his skin like a tangle of thorns.

Come. . . .

Not yet, he answered.

In the deep violet sky overhead, countless stars kindled, burning with an intimate, embracing warmth. Rising over the mountains behind him, the moon, full and bone-white, hung low, as if snared in the murmuring branches of the trees; a round, luminous prize clutched in long leafy fingers. Moonlight bathed the countryside, casting everything in bright highlight or muted shades of indigo and sharp black shadow. The pale, smoky shawls of mist for which the mountains were named seemed to glow where they lay, draped lightly over the dark forested shoulders of the upper hills.

This was Ethan’s favorite place to come when he needed time alone to think. From here he could look out over his father’s land, and sit with the comfort of the mountains and the forest and her presence at his back. The farmhouse down in the valley, visible only by its gold-lit windows, was also a reminder, claiming and anchoring him when the calling was strong. He belonged here. Here, where two worlds overlapped. Here, he knew the voices of the trees and the stories they told in the moonlight. Here he was home.

Come. . . .

Soon, he promised, soon. He was waiting tonight for a reason, but it was getting later than he’d expected. Sudden concern turned his thoughts back. . . .

* * *

The halls of the county high school were crowded and noisy, a turbulent stream of kids changing classes, pushing and bumping together, rushing to beat the bell, stalling by turns in little eddies to talk to friends. Ethan, walking to his Algebra II class, kept his head down, eyes fixed on the scuffed green linoleum. He kept his head down most of the time these days, his worn navy blue baseball cap shoved down tight over hair and ears, the brim pulled down to shadow his eyes. A snicker behind his back was the only warning he had – a split-second only to get a tighter grip on his books – before he was jostled rudely from behind, before rough hands seized his elbows and yanked. It wasn’t time enough. Books and papers slid from his desperate grasp, crashed and skittered across the floor into the paths of hurried students who turned frowning, then rushed on. Three seniors swept past, laughing; their murmured insults seemed to echo like shouts from the walls.

Stooping to collect his scattered books, Ethan became a sudden obstruction, an unexpected stone in the stream of students changing classes. Someone kicked his history book and it spun away down the hall. Two girls, engaged in whispered conversation, nearly tripped over him.

“Freakin’ fairy,” said one of them in an undertone, and they giggled loudly as they hurried on.

Ethan’s face burned as he chased after his history text.

“Hey,” said a quiet voice over Ethan’s shoulder.

Tucking the retrieved book back into the stack in his arms, Ethan stood, turning, wary, ready to bolt.

“Is this yours?” asked the brown-haired boy, handing Ethan a sheet of paper.

“Yes,” said Ethan, recognizing it in a glance in spite of the gray, dusty sneaker print stamped across the corner. His math homework. He looked up into angry brown eyes behind gold wire-framed glasses. Brian, he thought, putting a name to the face. Brian Carson, the new boy in my English Lit III class. “Thank you,” he said, surprised that he’d managed to make his voice sound normal, and heat crept back into his face again.

“You shouldn’t let them get to you – they’re just stupid jerks,” said Brian. The anger in his eyes changed into something else, something softer, then he was gone, threading his way through the thinning crowd in the hall.

The bell started ringing and Ethan stood still, transfixed for a second, then he ran. Mr. Caruthers was going to kill him if he was late again.

* * *

“Why did Momma leave us?” Ethan asked once when he was nine.

“She couldn’t stay here,” said his father. “You know she loved you very much. She just had to go.”

“Where?” he asked, testing the boundary of this truth in his life. “Where did she go?”

His father’s eyes were sad when he answered, self-reproachful. “I don’t know, son.”

Ethan wanted to say something then, but his mother’s words stopped him.

Don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell. . . .

* * *

Brian was waiting for Ethan after school, sitting on the steps outside the front doors. Ethan, heading for the bus, slowed as Brian stood and faced him. There was a warm, shy hope in the brown eyes that brought Ethan to a halt.

Brian pulled car keys from the pocket of his jeans and held them up. “I have a truck,” he said. “It isn’t much, but it runs. Thought maybe you could use a ride.” He nodded toward the loud clamor of the county school bus. “Instead of that.”

Ethan stood a moment, unsure, not willing to trust too easily. Brian was new at school, though it was near the end of the school year, and Ethan was suddenly certain that Brian must not know about him. Still, the look in Brian’s eyes made it hard to say no and, after a second, Ethan nodded.

Brian’s truck was an old blue pickup, rusty in spots around the fenders, the vinyl upholstery ripped in places to show the yellowed padding underneath. Ethan climbed in, grinning as the door gave a disused whine when he pulled it shut.

“Like I said, it’s not much,” said Brian, settling into the driver’s seat. “But it’s mine.”

The cab smelled faintly of motor oil and dirty socks. “It’s great,” said Ethan.

Instead of starting the engine, Brian turned to Ethan, one elbow perched on the back of the seat. “Can I ask you something?” he said lightly. “Do you always wear that hat?”

“No,” said Ethan, instantly on guard again. This was it then, the moment of truth had come sooner than later this time. Better to get it over with – before he missed the bus. “I have to wear it . . . at school.”

“At school?” echoed Brian. “Why?”

In answer, Ethan simply took the hat off. Ethan’s pale hair, though an unusual shade of blond, was not what gave him away. Nor was it the shadowy hazel-green of his eyes. It was his ears. He had his mother’s ears. They were not any larger than normal, but where most people’s ears rounded over at the top, Ethan’s ears slanted conspicuously up into elegant points.

Brian drew a startled breath. “I . . . I heard what those girls said to you . . . in the hall, but I thought they called you that because you were . . .” He stared. “It’s just how you look, right? You’re not really what they said, are you?” he asked. “A . . . fairy?”

“Yes,” said Ethan, resigned to the inevitable. “Half, on my mother’s side. She left right after I was born,” he added, supplying the second explanation by habit, knowing what question always came next. He flipped the hat back on. “My dad says that next year when I turn eighteen, I can get them fixed if I want.” But the implications of Brian’s assumption hadn’t been lost on Ethan. “You didn’t just offer me a ride because the kids were teasing me, then, did you?” he asked. If Ethan had to reveal himself it was only fair that Brian do so too, so that there was truth between them.

“No,” said Brian slowly. He paused, choosing his words carefully. “I thought maybe what they said . . . meant we had more in common than our English class.”

Ethan nodded, accepting this admission equitably. Then he blushed slightly. “And what were you hoping for . . . if there was?”

Brian shrugged, then gave Ethan a sheepish lopsided grin. “Safety in numbers?”

Ethan was still skittish of trusting, but found the grin hard to resist. “And that’s all?” he asked, his tone teasing but skeptical, requesting honesty. The school bus rumbled by on its way to the parking lot exit. Ethan turned his head to watch it pass. “It’s a long walk home.”

“Okay,” said Brian after a moment’s pause, turning serious. “I admit I was hoping for more than that.” He sighed and faced the windshield, putting his hands on the steering wheel. “I noticed you the first day I started here. You looked . . . different – like someone I would want to know.” He looked back at Ethan. “But it’s hard to make friends when you have to pretend to be something you’re not, when you know what will happen as soon as they find out the truth about you. When I heard what those girls said today, I thought that even if you didn’t . . . like me back . . . you would at least understand that.” He paused again and tilted his head slightly, watching Ethan intently. “Was I wrong?”

What Brian had articulated was so close to what Ethan had been feeling only minutes ago, that he was momentarily at a loss for words. “You weren’t wrong,” he said finally.

“That’s good,” said Brian, still serious. Then the teasing tone resurfaced. “Still, there’s one thing I don’t like.”

“What?”

“That hat.”

Ethan pulled the hat off and shook his hair loose. “I hate it,” he said, and Brian smiled at him like he’d done something spectacular. Ethan couldn’t help smiling back.

“Much better,” said Brian with a laugh, starting the truck. “So where’s home?”

Ethan studied Brian sidelong while they drove, finding nothing that made him uncomfortable, nothing to dislike; finding instead that Brian’s easy smile and earnest manner put him at ease – something he rarely felt with other kids. Brian was slight of build like Ethan, but an inch or two taller with fine, straight brown hair that seemed to continually fall over his glasses into his eyes. He was wearing a faded black Atlanta Falcons sweatshirt, and his jeans were worn at the knees. He looked normal, like every other kid at school.

“Why did you move here?” asked Ethan, suddenly curious.

Brian gave him a brief glance, then turned his eyes back to the road. “My dad wanted to get away from the city.”

“Can’t get much further than here,” replied Ethan with a short laugh.

Brian grinned. “Yeah, I noticed.”

Ethan grinned back, then turned to look out the rolled-down window as a gust of wind ruffled his hair. The weather was warm for late April and to Ethan, just the freedom, the rare experience of letting the wind rush through his hair felt amazing. Being driven home, talking, laughing, not wearing his hat – it all felt amazing.

“So what do you do on weekends around here?” asked Brian.

“I don’t know. Most of the kids hang out at the movie theater – they’ve got a video arcade – or at the McDonalds in town.”

“I meant what do you do?”

“Oh,” said Ethan. “Nothing much. Read, go fishing, maybe go with my dad on his calls. When the weather’s good, I hike up the mountain behind our place and camp out.” He waited while Brian shifted, grinding gears. “What about you?”

Brian shrugged. “Mess around on the computer, on-line games, that kind of stuff.” He grinned again and flicked a glance at Ethan. “My mom thinks I'm obsessed.”

“Turn up there,” said Ethan pointing. “By the mailbox there on the right.”

Brian nodded and slowed, pulling in just past the mailbox with I. ADAIR, D.V.M. painted on it in block letters. “My dad took me fishing once,” he said, heading the truck up a narrow gravel drive, which crossed the grassy area near the highway then wound away into the wooded hills. “I was maybe ten or eleven. I remember it because we didn’t catch anything. It was one of the great disappointments of my life,” he added, then laughed. “At the time anyway.” He turned to Ethan. “Hey, maybe we could go sometime?”

“Maybe,” said Ethan uncertainly. He turned to look back out the window. Trees arched over them from both sides creating a canopy of branches and new spring-green leaves that dappled the road with shifting, crisscrossing shadows. The truck crunched and rattled over the gravel, up a hill and around a sharp curve to the crest of a ridge that overlooked a wide meadow in a valley surrounded on all sides by the forested hills. To the northwest, the mountains rose blue and smoky against the sky. The drive ran down to a rambling two-story Victorian farmhouse nestled under shade trees, maple and oak.

“Wow. This is really nice,” said Brian in a hushed voice.

Ethan smiled unreservedly at that. “Thanks,” he said. “And thanks a lot for the ride.”

They pulled up in front of the house and Brian turned to Ethan, a hopeful look again in his eyes. “So, will you?” he asked quietly. “Go fishing with me? Saturday?”

Ethan hesitated. Brian’s soft tone of voice both tugged at him and made him cautious, so he asked a quiet question of his own. “Are you asking me out?”

“Not necessarily,” said Brian. “I had mostly straight friends in the city. It’s not a problem.” He paused. “But if you want me to be honest, then yes. I like you . . . and if I thought you would go, I would be asking you out.” He regarded Ethan thoughtfully. “Would you say no, if I was?”

“I don’t know,” Ethan said slowly. He got out of the truck and slammed the squeaky door, then spoke through the open window. “I’ll think about it.”

“Fair enough,” said Brian, his smile optimistic. “See you at school, then.”

The screen door on the porch opened and Ethan’s father stepped outside just as the truck drove away. Ian Adair was in his early forties; the sandy hair that once held a glint of red in the sunlight, a mark of his Scottish heritage, was now turning gray. He was a man who had once loved deeply, and who had made himself stronger by believing his life had been uplifted by the experience rather than scarred by its loss.

“Who was that in the truck, Ethan?”

“A new boy from school,” replied Ethan nonchalantly. “Brian. He gave me a ride home.”

Ethan slipped by his father into the house, hurrying up the stairs to his room. He knew he’d left his dad with questions, but wanted time before he had to answer them, time to think through what had happened and what he was feeling.

A ginger cat stood up on his bed and stretched when he came into the room. Ethan dropped his books on his desk and stroked her head absently. If it was possible to feel confused and unsettled and quietly thrilled all at the same time, then that was how he felt. He had found himself drawn to Brian, to the sometimes soft tenor of his voice, to his honesty, to the way he seemed to understand so perfectly what Ethan felt. But was he drawn because genuine offers of friendship had been rare in his life, or was there more to it? He’d never thought about liking another boy, but considering it now, concerning Brian, he was curious.

* * *

“So tell me about Brian,” said Ian later, while he stirred the soup simmering on the stove.

Ethan was setting bowls and plates on the dinner table. “He asked me to go fishing Saturday.”

“Ah. Great. You can take him down to Miller’s Pond – show him all the good spots.” Ian’s voice was carefully casual. Ethan usually seemed content to be alone, caring for the animals Ian’s practice brought in or wandering absorbed in the meadows and forests, but Ian had watched his son’s solitary life with dismay, having no one to blame but himself.

“Maybe,” said Ethan, and walked to the cupboard to get the silverware. “I don’t know if I’m going yet.”

“Why not?”

Ethan took a breath and answered honestly. “He’s gay, Dad . . . and he’s sort of . . . asking me out. I’m not sure I should go.”

“I see.” Ian looked critically at his son, seeing anew the beauty in face and form that the boy had inherited from his mother. He’d always hoped that eventually someone would see that, see beyond the difference, and that Ethan would find love as he had, but this alternative hadn’t actually occurred to him.

Ethan finished setting the table, then asked, “Do you think I should go?”

“I think you have to decide that for yourself.”

“But what if I . . .” He trailed off, uncomfortable with the question, but needing to ask anyway, to know what his father would say. “What if I start to . . . like him?”

Ian laughed lightly. “You must have liked him a little already or you wouldn’t have let him bring you home.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Ethan,” said his dad seriously, but with a self-mocking half-smile, “I am the last person who can make a judgment about who someone should or shouldn’t like – or go out with.” He ladled the steaming soup into an earthenware tureen and brought it to the table. “If you really want my opinion, I think you should go.” They sat down and spent a few minutes dishing out soup and bread and cheese. “You know, probably better than anyone,” said Ian quietly, “that real friendship . . . and love . . . are hard to find in this world. You can’t dismiss possibilities just because they come in a different form than you expect. If you listen to your feelings and you’re honest, you’ll find what’s right for you.”

Ethan ate a few bites in thoughtful silence, then asked, “Dad, do you ever wish you hadn’t loved . . . my mother?”

“No. I’ve never been sorry – not for myself.” Ian laid a hand on his son’s arm. “But I worry that you’re alone too much.” He paused. “And I’m sorry that you didn’t have a mother who could be part of your life.”

Ethan opened his mouth as if he would say something else, then closed it again, keeping his secret.

* * *

The boys sat in the early morning sunshine and fished for trout and bluegill in the deep creek-fed pond at the bottom of the Adair property, baiting their hooks with worms they scrounged from under nearby rocks.

“Finished your lit essay yet?” asked Brian while they waited for a bite.

“No, I’ll write it tomorrow.”

“You’re good in that class. I noticed that – first thing.”

“I like it,” said Ethan. “I want to write something myself someday. Stories that I know.” He pointed to the other side of the pond where willow trees overhung the bank, trailing slender fingers of new green leaves in the water, to a place where the bank was eroded away and the exposed roots of one ancient willow trunk formed a cave below the surface. “See there,” he said. “See how the water swirls . . . like that just now . . . that’s One-eyed Joe. Mud cat. Maybe weighs a hundred pounds. No one’s ever caught him.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve seen him. At night he comes up to the shallows to feed.” He paused. “And I hear things. The trees tell tales when the full moon’s out. Old Joe’s got one eye because a blue heron nearly got him once when he was young. But he’s too smart for that now.”

Brian sat back and studied Ethan unobtrusively, a little startled by the implications of what Ethan had just told him. Ethan was so other, much more than Brian would ever be, and yet it was himself, Brian understood suddenly, who would always be far less acceptable to society. People might not know what to make of Ethan and exclude him because he was different, but he was not the threat that Brian represented.

“You’re lucky, you know,” said Brian. “At least your family knows what you are. You don’t have to come out to anyone like that.”

Memory of the old taunt abruptly filled Ethan’s hearing, voices chanting sing-song on the playground, childish and cruel.

Scary fairy, quite contrary, Where did your mama go?

“I hate being different,” breathed Ethan. Words he’d never dared say aloud.

“Don’t,” said Brian softly. “You’re just who you are – we both are. Some people hate what’s different, what they don’t understand. But they’re the ones who are wrong.” He took a deep breath. “It hurts, though. I know.”

“You’re not so different,” whispered Ethan. “Not like me.”

“Different enough.” Brian turned to face Ethan. “You have a reason for being different. Some people hate what I am because they think I shouldn’t be different.”

Their eyes met. Ethan’s eyes, full of reflections from the water, held a question. Brian returned his gaze steadily but said nothing more.

Ethan shook his head and looked away, out over the placid pond. “I’m all alone here,” he said. “Dad loves these mountains – I can’t ask him to give up the land that’s been in his family for two hundred years and move just so I . . .” He trailed off, catching himself in an untruth, in his own secret . . . in her secret. But in truth, he felt alone, there was no one else like him his own age – and even going back to the old country he might never find. . . . No, he had to face it – there was probably no one like him anywhere.

“You’re not alone now,” said Brian quietly.

Ethan glanced back at Brian’s serious face, then turned to study the water again, smiling shyly. A second later he felt Brian’s fingers settle tentatively over his own, a query in the touch that Ethan answered by keeping still, letting his hand lay where it was in the grass at his side, under the heat of Brian’s hand. It felt odd, he thought, to hold hands with a boy, though not at all in a bad way. There was something in Brian’s touch that made his face go warm and his heart beat faster.

Brian’s red and white float jerked suddenly and both boys jumped to catch hold of the pole. Brian whooped when the bluegill leaped at the end of his line, flashing silver-bright in the sunlight and sparkles of spray, and Ethan laughed.

* * *

In the winter, when the trees were bare and dormant, she slept. But between March and November, when his window was left open and the light of the full moon rested bright upon the sill, she came to sit on his bed in the deep of the night and sing softly to him. Some of Ethan’s earliest memories were of her – of her touch, her voice and her songs, pretty words he didn’t quite understand.

Ash maiden, willow witch,

Lady of the ‘thorn,

Oak wife, fell dame,

Green woman, come…

When the moon is on the rise

And twilight’s shadows born

When bonny lads come join the dance

The greenmaid’s spell is spun.

When the moon is belly-full

Shining until morn

There will be a comely feast

Before the night is done.

She was night light and forest, filling his room with the sense of whispering leaves and thirsting roots, of the secret pulse of the heartwood under the night sky and the smell of tender growing things. The green gown she wore shimmered delicately in the darkness, like the imperceptibly shifting patterns of moonlight and leaf shade on the forest floor, and her long fine hair, pale as starlight, fell through Ethan’s curious, delighted fingers in silky waves. Sometimes her eyes were the color of a leaf in twilight, but other times they were dark as the heart of a hollow tree; sometimes her smile showed her small sharp teeth. But Ethan was never afraid.

“My little one, my own,” she crooned as she rocked him. She spoke with a musical, lilting accent and he felt safe in her arms. Sheltered and loved. “Don’t tell Daddy,” she made him promise. “This is our secret.” He promised, and his father never saw, never knew. But she always left him as he slept, and in the morning he was alone.

Once when he was four, he woke and cried when she would leave him. “Hush, my love,” she whispered, soothing him. “I’m never far away. And when you are older, you will come to visit me.”

“Why can’t you stay,” he begged. “Like other mommies? Why can’t you live here with me and Daddy?”

She smoothed his moon-pale hair, a shadow of sadness in her eyes. “I cannot live inside these walls,” she whispered. “When you are older, you will understand. When you are older, perhaps, someday you will come to live with me.”

“Where?” he whispered back, excited, his own eyes wide with the mystery that she was.

“Shhh . . . not far, not far. I’ll take you there, someday.” She rose and faded to the window. “Keep our secret, my precious one,” she said, and she was gone.

Ethan kept the secret well. And as he grew older she told him stories, whispered in the dark of his room with moonlight streaming in the window, of the old folk and the misty, shining land she remembered, of how she had come here alone from the country of her own kind in a sapling tree brought over the sea for luck by his grandfather’s great-great-grandfather, a bit of the spirit of the old country to bless the new land. She told too how she had finally despaired and desired not to be alone any longer, how she had come to love his father because he loved the land they shared, and how she had wanted a child.

* * *

Come. . . .

“Not yet,” Ethan whispered, roused from his memories. Sitting on the hill, in the tall grass, he listened to the night sounds and waited for Brian.

During the week that had passed since their fishing trip, Brian had driven Ethan home each day after school. They’d talked seriously on those drives, they’d joked and laughed – and for Ethan, the world had altered. Now, the moonlight and the hushed rustling whispers of the trees spun a lovely spell around the happiness Ethan felt awakening in his life, heightening his anticipation for what he planned tonight. A shiver of expectancy stirred in Ethan as he finally heard the sound he had been waiting for. He smiled. Footsteps were coming up the hill.

“Sorry I’m late,” said Brian, dropping down to sit beside Ethan. “I couldn’t get away any sooner.”

Ethan studied the side of Brian’s face. In the moonlight, the bruise looked like a dark smudge across Brian’s cheekbone, not the red and purple disfiguration it had appeared to be that morning. “You didn’t get that walking into a door,” said Ethan with gentle conviction, “like you told Mrs. Whitney today in class.”

“No,” said Brian. His voice was ragged suddenly, suppressed anger surfacing. “It was my father.”

Though he’d had his suspicions, Ethan was stunned; this act of violence incomprehensible. “Why?” he asked, as a more awful thought occurred to him. “Because of me?”

“No. Because I’m not the son he wanted,” Brian said bitterly, turning his face away to hide the useless tears that stung his eyes. After a second, he pulled off his glasses and dropped his head down onto his arms, fighting an upwelling of hurt too raw for anyone to see, choking back a sob he would not let Ethan hear.

Not knowing what to say or what else to do, Ethan laid a hand on Brian’s back, rubbing awkwardly between his shoulder blades, hoping to calm the tension he felt trembling through Brian’s body. He felt helpless and out of his depth. The rejection he’d experienced in his own life seemed trivial compared to this, for no matter what happened on the playgrounds or in the hallways at school, home had always been safe. He slid his arm around Brian’s shoulders and pulled him closer, so that they were leaning together, then just held on.

Brian lifted his head a moment later, wiping his eyes on his shirtsleeves. “Sorry,” he said. “My father thinks that if I’m gay that means he did something wrong – something he can maybe fix with his fists. This morning, when I told him I was going out tonight, he kept at me to know if I was seeing a girl, until finally I told him I wasn’t. And he just lost it. He kept yelling that he’d moved here to get me away from that kind of influence. And I yelled back that it had nothing to do with where we lived, that it was who I was, and he hit me.” He wiped his face on his sleeve again. “He tried to make a scene again when I left tonight, but Mom was there this time and stopped him. She was really mad when she saw what he’d done.”

“I’m sorry. . .” started Ethan, then faltered, feeling the words to be completely inadequate. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“Nothing to say,” said Brian, taking a deep breath. “I’ll be fine. My mother doesn’t exactly approve of me either, but she’ll stop him from hitting me again.” He turned to face Ethan and their eyes met for a moment. “I’ve never talked to anyone about this before,” he said quietly. “So thanks – it helped.” He leaned in and kissed Ethan on the mouth.

Ethan was too startled to kiss back, and anyway there wasn’t time, since it was over in a second. But his surprise must have shown in his eyes, because Brian, pulling away, looked back apologetically.

“Guess I should have asked first,” he said.

“It’s . . . all right,” Ethan found himself saying.

“Is it?” asked Brian softly. He paused, then slipped one arm around Ethan’s neck and kissed him again.

This time Ethan kissed back, hesitantly, experimentally. When they drew apart, Brian was gazing at him intently and Ethan looked away, self-conscious and acutely aware that his complete lack of experience had left him unprepared for the lightheaded heat-rush he was feeling. He wondered briefly if it would it be the same or better with a girl, but immediately dismissed that thought as dishonorable, and irrelevant. He’d realized a couple of years ago that no girl around here wanted to date a guy whose children would be nonhuman, part freak –

“That bad, huh?” teased Brian, breaking into his thoughts.

The unexpected humor of the comment drew an embarrassed smile from Ethan. “No. Just . . . new,” he said, hoping the darkness hid the flush that burned to the tips of his ears.

Brian grinned and let him go, putting his glasses back on.

They sat in silence for a short while, letting the night sounds wash over and around them. Ethan heard the murmur of the trees, felt the calling stirring inside him again, persistent, bone-deep, pulling at him, compelling him to answer.

Come. . . .

“It’s nice up here,” said Brian. “I can see why you like it.”

“There’s another reason I come here,” said Ethan slowly. “Can you keep a secret?” His face was deadly serious. “Not even my father knows.”

Ethan led Brian into the forest, into a world where he was sure-footed and elemental, the moonlight slanting through the trees bright as daylight to his senses. After a few steps, as the forest closed around them, Brian caught hold of Ethan’s hand, not wanting to get separated from him in the dark. But the swaying branches overhead let down flickering pools of moonlight like stepping stones that Ethan followed unerringly. Soon, Ethan slowed and they stepped together into a moonlit clearing. Brian gasped softly in awe. In the center of the clearing stood an ancient oak, matriarch of all the forest, massive as a fortress, lifting gnarled silver-limned branches skyward, high above the surrounding trees. The whispering leaves around them stilled, hushed suddenly like a held breath and an expectant silence encircled them.

Come. . . .

Ethan took a step forward, Brian close behind, and reality shivered. The oak seemed to shimmer, a trick of moonlight and shifting leaf shadow, and a pale figure emerged as if coalescing out of the tree itself to stand in the shade beneath the towering, uplifted branches. Her dress was green, her long hair starlight-white.

Brian gripped Ethan’s hand tighter. “Who is that?” he whispered.

“My mother,” answered Ethan. Then he stepped forward again. “I’ve brought someone with me tonight,” he said, his quiet words clear in the silence.

She smiled. “You’ve done well, my son. The night is perfect.” Her voice was soft, melodious. She beckoned to them. “Come and celebrate. The full moon calls us to the dance.” She stepped from shadow into moonlight, offering her hand.

Ethan saw her truly, his eyes, as always, immune to the glamour she wove. To him she was mother, beautiful and loving, and he had never been afraid of her, though the moonlight revealed eyes as black as midnight shadows and teeth as sharp as thorns. He had always known this aspect of her. But now he also saw the thin dead limbs that littered the ground at her bare feet; old and stained with moss and crumbling, they were white as bone where the light of the full moon touched them.

“Come, my child,” she said, reaching out. “Bring him to me. Long years have passed since there’s been a proper feast.”

Feast. . . . The word ran through Ethan like a cold shiver down his spine. There was a disquieting familiarity to the word that made him pause, alerted, and his mind, searching for the memory, found it in the words his mother had sung many years ago in the sheltered safety of his room. Ethan knew the song by heart, and the meaning he’d never understood as a child suddenly became appallingly clear.

Ash maiden, willow witch,

Lady of the ‘thorn,

Oak wife, fell dame,

Green woman, come…

When the moon’s a hollow grin

A silver sliver torn

The feast is laid ‘neath the greenmaid’s tree

A banquet spread for one.

When the moon in shadow hides

A’hungering ’til morn

Bones lie under root and foot

When the feast is done.

“She’s beautiful,” whispered Brian. He moved a step past Ethan toward her, captivated, caught up in the compelling spell of her presence.

“No,” breathed Ethan, his heart racing, catching Brian by the back of his shirt. “No,” he warned. “Stay back!” Brian stopped, but stood entranced, resisting Ethan’s effort to pull him away.

Come. . . .

The silent voice of the forest echoed and reverberated around and through them, heard not by the ear, but by the marrow of the bone, by the thrill-rush of blood in the body, by the longing of the heart to be enthralled. The voice was powerful here. Here was its center, its living spirit. Brian, hypnotized, took another step forward.

Ethan seized Brian’s arm and dragged him back, forcing him to turn so that they faced each other. “You have to go!” he nearly shouted. “Go back to the house! Now!”

The fierce urgency in Ethan’s voice broke through to Brian somewhat and he seemed to come back to himself. He stared at Ethan for a second, disoriented, not understanding, then looked back toward the oak.

Radiant in the moonlight, the greenmaid stood in the clearing, exquisitely beautiful, ethereal, terrible. Slowly she moved toward them, graceful and enticing. Beckoning with death in tooth and eye.

Ethan saw shock and fear wash across Brian’s face and knew the spell was broken. “Go!” he repeated desperately. “Go back to the house!”

Brian took a stumbling step backward, but held tightly to Ethan’s hand, his eyes riveted on the advancing fairy. “What about you? Ethan, you can’t stay!”

“I’ll be fine,” said Ethan, putting himself between Brian and his mother. “Just go! Hurry!”

“Not without you!” Brian insisted, his voice shaking. He glanced hastily behind him at the dark, forbidding forest. “I’ll never find the way out alone!”

Ethan hesitated, thrust unexpectedly into a crisis of choice. His mother held out her arms to him, calling, claiming him by love, by the blood singing in his veins. Brian clung to his hand, a warm, imperative, promising presence against his back. For a heartbeat Ethan paused, torn by conflicting emotions, then abruptly he turned and ran, hand-in-hand with Brian, back through the forest. But branches that had bent easily, welcoming them in, now barred their path, unyielding, set determinedly against them.

Rough limbs scratched at them, sharp twigs snagged their clothing, catching and holding on for long, agonizing seconds; entangling roots snatched at their feet. The lighted paths that had marked their way before were now shadowed and dark, the moonlight shifting in confusing patterns around them. Ethan, in the lead, didn’t falter, his senses still sure. He knew this part of the forest intimately, but he also realized, with a sinking horror, what he’d almost done. Brian would have been hopelessly lost if he’d tried to leave alone.

They finally reached the edge of the forest and the grassy hill overlooking Ethan’s house. Panting and scratched up, Brian had a rip in the sleeve of his shirt.

Ethan put his hand on Brian’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Brian shook him off, furious. “How could you bring me in there?” he demanded.

“I’m sorry! Brian, I swear. I didn’t know!”

“You didn’t know?” Brian was incredulous. “How could you not know?” He stared at Ethan, shaken and bewildered. “What if I –” He stopped, then set off down the hill. “I’m going home,” he said with a finality that sent a stark chill through Ethan’s pounding heart.

Ethan followed a few steps behind. “Please wait,” he pleaded, desperately anxious. “At least calm down first. You can’t drive like this!”

Brian glanced over his shoulder but didn’t slow down. Without a word, he got in his truck and started the engine.

Ethan stood in the yard and watched the truck vanish down the drive, red taillights flickering through the trees until it was gone and he was left alone in the dark.

Tense and unhappy, Ethan lay in bed awake, beset with memories and worry. He was worried about Brian – that he’d gotten home safely, about his father hitting him, if he would tell what had happened tonight. Finally, he got up and walked to the open window. It had been years since she’d come to visit him, but when the moon was full he always left it open anyway, keeping faith with the signal established between them, just in case. For a long moment he hesitated, then he put his hands on the sash and pushed it down. With a soft plaintive protesting scrape of metal on wood it came down, and the window closed with a decisive thump. Ethan stared at it, an achy lump in his throat, wondering what he was choosing. Wondering for the first time in his life where in two worlds he belonged, but feeling more deeply than anything else that night, that he was alone. Would always be alone, always compelled to hide what he was; safety something he could never take for granted again.

Brian, he was certain, he would not see again, except at school.

Brian. Who had kissed him. Who had made the difference and loneliness melt away for a brief, gentle moment. It was a moment he would never forget, a moment it now seemed unlikely he would ever have the chance to repeat. Childish voices rose in his imagination, mocking him, and sleep was long in coming.

Gay boy, fey boy, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g . . .

Ethan’s father woke him in the morning when the blue truck drove into the yard. “Get up, sleepyhead. Your friend is here,” he said. “And bring him in this time. I’d like to meet him.”

Ethan pulled on jeans and went to stand at the screen door, shirtless and barefoot, hair still mussed from sleeping. When Brian didn’t get out of the truck, Ethan walked across the cool, damp lawn to talk through the rolled-down window on the passenger side. “I thought . . . you wouldn’t come back.”

“I hadn’t planned to . . . last night.”

They stared at each other, each with an acute sense of impending loss lying hollow and empty in their hearts.

Ethan looked down at his feet. “Why are you here, then?”

“I needed to talk to you.” Brian leaned over and flipped the door handle. He gave the door a shove to open it, and said softly, “C’mon. Get in.”

Ethan sat in the truck, leaving the door open, his arms crossed tightly over his chest to ward off the cold morning air, and the hurt.

“I’ve never seen anything as . . . beautiful . . . or as terrifying . . . as I saw last night,” said Brian, staring up at the mountains. “It’s dangerous here. You have to tell your father.”

“No. I can’t,” said Ethan firmly. “I promised I wouldn’t. You promised too,” he reminded Brian. “She never leaves her tree anymore. I don’t think she can.” He paused, then added resolutely, making the decision right then, “I’ll make sure no one else ever goes up there.”

“You shouldn’t go there either, Ethan.”

Ethan sighed, the empty pain he felt inside doubling as he remembered the window he had closed last night. Would he go back there now? “She’s my mother,” he said.

“It’s not safe.”

Ethan’s gaze dropped and lingered on the bruise on Brian’s cheek, then he looked back into Brian’s eyes. “As safe as anywhere else, I guess.”

After a long moment, Brian nodded a reluctant acceptance.

They sat in silence for several minutes, searching for the words they needed to say to each other, to begin again.

Brian finally spoke, his voice constrained. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said Ethan miserably. “Neither could I.”

“I kept wondering if you were okay.”

“I kept wondering if you wrecked your truck driving home. And,” Ethan added quietly, “if you would ever talk to me again.”

“Well, the truck’s fine,” said Brian, the barest hint of his usual teasing tone sounding in the words. He turned to look steadily at Ethan. “And I’m here.”

Ethan’s hand slipped across the torn vinyl seat to where Brian’s hand lay. He hesitated a second, then curled his index finger around Brian’s pinkie, and tugged gently. “Then come in and meet my dad,” he said.

* * *

“O lady, tell, why do you wake? What pulls you from your ageless dreams? What sorrow is there in your heart, what tears are in your eyes?”

She laid her head against the cool body of a massive oak. She knew its steadfast strength, its warm enduring heart, its aged memories. Oneness with the forest once had been enough. “I am alone,” she cried.

From True Tales of the Oak Maiden, by E. Carson-Adair

The End

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