Chapter Nine

 

 

 

The Starved

 

Merryn blinked and the next thing he knew, he lay on the floor in Gruffydd’s kitchen. Momentarily seduced by the scent of fresh oranges, he came to his senses and leaped to his feet.

“What did you do?” he cried at the pixie before him. Gruffydd only came to Merryn’s waist, so he bent to stare into his face.

“I thought you’d been punished long enough,” the little pixie said as he popped a slice of orange into his mouth.

Merryn was hugged from behind; he turned to find Vennyn.

“You’ve been gone so long!” she said, her face muffled as she pressed it against his naked back. He felt himself slipping into what passed for love in his world and he pulled her arms from around him and stood to the side.

“You have to send me back,” Merryn said to Gruffydd.

He shrugged. “Whatever for?”

“I found love!”

Both pixies gasped.

“That can’t be a good thing,” Vennyn said to Gruffydd.

“No, it can’t,” he agreed. “Humans and pixies can’t have love. Not if the pixie doesn’t want to be exiled.”

“I’ll take being exiled over leaving her.”

“No,” Gruffydd said.

The next thing Merryn knew, he was in his own home. Alone.

 

 

 

~~ * * * ~~

 

 

 

A month of pestering passed before Gruffydd even began to wear down enough to ask Merryn where he’d been. Of course, he only knew it was in North America and it started with an “S.” But Gruffydd did nothing.

Five torturous years later, Gruffydd began sending Merryn out to see if he could recognize anything. They began in alphabetical order. Merryn could only handle one place every week, so more years of misery passed. He refused to join in any of the activities his brothers and sisters, friends and former lovers played at. When he was home, he stayed alone, daydreaming of his divine Ivy.

Fifty years of this found Merryn unchanged. Vennyn tried to convince him that he should give up.

“Seeing you torture yourself this way, Merryn … You’ve ceased to live.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know in my heart that she’s still out there, whether she’s waiting for me or not.”

“But she’ll be in her 90s. For a human, that is very old.”

“I will still love her,” Merryn said. “She will still be my resplendent Ivy.”

When Vennyn saw there was no convincing him, she relented. “When you get to the end of places that begin with “S,” what will you do?”

“Start again with “F.” Maybe I misheard.”

There were so few places left to go.

 

 

 

~~ * * * ~~

 

 

 

Merryn’s first thought when the light room he’d left turned to pitch-black was that the ground beneath him was dirt. It smelled like home, but there was also the faint odor of sulfur and marijuana. He knew at once that he’d arrived.

Rushing out of the cave, he found the light of a new morning. He headed toward the scent of horses, wondering if Ivy still lived or if he’d be greeted by hers and Dirk’s children, or strangers who had bought her house. He didn’t know which would be worse.

But nothing seemed different. Merryn was on his way to the barn when a woman stepped out the front door of the house.

“Ivy?” he asked, not believing his eyes.

“You came back!” she said, running to him with her arms outstretched.

She bowled into him, almost knocking him to the ground and he smelled her sweet Ivy scent. “You … you haven’t changed. How can you not have changed?”

“Of course I’ve changed. I got dressed.”

Merryn held her at arms’ length and studied her.

His breathtaking Ivy went on. “You’ve only been gone an hour.”

“I’ve been gone more than fifty years. Fifty long, torturous years of missing you, of hungering for you; fifty years of emptiness and longing.”

“Oh my God,” she said, tears gathering in her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

He brushed her tears away with his thumbs.

“Don’t cry for me, love. Be happy with me that I’m back. Please. Because I’ll be exiled now. Tell me, quickly. Do you want me? Because I’ll disappear very soon, but this time I’ll be back. Right away. If you’ll have me.”

“Yes, Merryn. Yes. I want to spend the rest of my days with you.”

“I love you, my tender Ivy.”

“I lo—”

 

 

 

~~ * * * ~~

 

 

 

“I found her!” he said to Gruffydd, not ten seconds later.

“Finally!” the little pixie grunted. “Do you have time for a farewell drink before you go back?”

Merryn hesitated. He knew Ivy wouldn’t miss him for more than a few seconds, even if he stayed a week. And he knew he should do that … Transporting back and forth left him tired.

“I’ll stay the night,” he said.

And so Merryn partied one more time with his friends. They drank, they laughed, they danced, but there was no lovemaking, not even pixie-style. He’d waited for that for more than fifty years. He could wait one more night.

All night long his fellow pixies raised their glasses to him, happy for him that he’d found his mate, but sad because they would never see him again. Vennyn, most of all.