Remembrance

When Callie returned, arm in arm with the old man, Allen took offense at the way the farmer told him to leave them, but he obeyed the man. For all of his rough clothes, there was an air about Will Watkins that made people obey him. With a great show that said he had meant to leave anyway, Allen mounted his horse and left the hill.

“Now,” Will said when he and Callie were comfortably seated under a shade tree, “I want to know everything. All of it.”

Will was not surprised when Callie flung her arms around him and began to cry. Never had he seen such unhappiness on Callie’s face. And only one thing in the world could make Callie unhappy: the absence of Talis.

“Where is he?” Will asked, not needing to say who “he” was.

“With women!” Callie spat, wiping her eyes. “Talis spends all day with beautiful women, women with bodies that…that…” She looked down at her own flat chest. “He does nothing but talk to them and sing to them and say sweet words to them. They are all over him. He cares for them, takes them riding, touches them, kisses them. He makes love to them all day and all night. He never stops. He—”

At this point Will smiled at her. “All day and night? Talis? And when does he sleep his twelve hours a day?”

Callie did not smile. “He is not the Talis we have always known. He is…He is an animal. He is no longer human. You would hate him if you knew him now.”

“Yes, I am sure I would. Tell me who this young man was who was lounging about under the tree and watching you. And what are you doing with these?” He waved his hand at the Poison Garden, his dislike of death plants evident.

“He is no one. Allen Frobisher.” Callie waved her hand in dismissal. “Talis lies to the women, tells them he cannot sing when he can. He wants them to hover over him and show him everything. You know how he can do anything that can be done, but when they are near, he pretends he can do nothing. He makes me sick. He would—”

“Who is Allen Frobisher?” Will persisted.

“I do not know. He comes here. I think he was sent by that Lady Alida. I do not like that woman. I think she has plans for Talis, and now Talis would not understand if the devil himself were planning to use him. Of course if the devil used a woman, Talis would agree to the plan. He’d sell his soul to get a woman near him. He’d—”

“Callie!” Will said. “Please try to direct your mind to something besides Talis’s many women and tell me—”

“Many! He has thousands of women! The world cannot contain his women. He wanted to be a knight but now all he does is follow women about. Dogs have more morals than he. He is—”

“Has he seen you with this Allen Frobisher?”

“Talis is the lowest snake, the dirtiest—” When she at last heard Will’s question, she smiled. “Yes, he saw us.” She gave a nasty little laugh. “Allen liked my hair; he liked my story.”

At that Will ran his hand over his eyes and shook his head. “Callie,” he said softly, “did you know that this Frobisher lad is very good-looking?”

Callie looked at Will as though he’d lost his mind. “He has white hair,” she said, as though Will were blind. “And his eyes are blue. And his skin is the color of unbaked bread. And he has legs as thin as a chicken’s.” By now she was leaning into Will’s face, speaking slowly and deliberately as though Will couldn’t understand the simplest of concepts. “Allen Frobisher is short.”

“You mean that he does not look like Talis, is not as tall as Talis, so therefore he could not possibly be handsome?”

“I did not say that,” Callie said with pride. “I’m sure there are many handsome men on earth.”

Will’s eyes were twinkling. “In these months you must have seen many men. Which of them are handsome?”

“There were a great many of them handsome,” she said stiffly. “Many, many of them.”

“I am waiting for one name. Just one man you thought was even half as princely as your beloved Talis.”

“He is not princely and he is not mine,” she said, looking away from Will. Then, suddenly, she turned back to him and threw herself onto his wide chest and started to cry. “There is no one on earth as handsome as Talis. No one. He is more beautiful than the sun and the moon together but he has forgotten me. He does not need me or want me. He thinks only of other women.”

“Does he sleep at night?”

“No,” she said, sniffing. “My crying keeps him awake and I am glad. I want to keep him awake. I hope I never let him sleep. I hope I make him miserable.”

Will stroked Callie’s back and didn’t say a word. She and Talis had grown up in such isolation that they did not know that what they said and thought were quite strange. Callie did not have any idea that other people did not know “in their minds,” as she always said, where another person was or what he was doing.

When the children had been little, a few times Talis had not come home at dark. Meg had been frantic, but she and Will soon learned that only if Callie was upset was there reason to be worried. The first time Talis had been “lost” Will had asked Callie to help look for him. “He will be home,” she’d said calmly. “I know in my mind that he is all right.”

After that, it had been common to ask either of the children what they knew “in their mind” about the other. Now, if Callie said Talis was kept awake at night by her tears then Will knew that it was true.

But what Callie didn’t seem to understand was that if the connection between them was so strong that she could keep him awake all night with her tears, then Talis was not in danger of falling in love with any other woman.

“Come, Callie, stop crying,” Will said