Adventure #11

Part Two

Marian could not remember afterward which she noticed first - the odd zinging noise, or the bee in her ear.

It was definitely the bee that caused her to shriek and sit bolt upright, though. She pawed at her ear....and thought, "How on earth did a bee get in the storeroom?" before it dawned on her she wasn't in the storeroom. Or the library. Or the Midwest. Too many trees for the Midwest. (And it wasn't dawn either. Her realization came upon her like the sun rising up from the horizon....I guess.)

Marian was not one to doubt herself. If she thought she was sitting on a bed of soft green moss....then she was, regardless where she'd been previously. It was somewhat disorienting to be in an airless library storeroom one minute, breathing in mold and mildew and bookworm pheromones, and then in the greenwood the next (there was no doubt, that's where she was), but Marian never said to herself, 'this can't be,' or, 'I don't believe it,' or, 'I think I must be nuts'.....she was here, here she was, no question about it.

She did wonder, just for an instant, why she didn't remember the trip out here....wherever 'here' was...and then resolutely put it out of her mind as being irrelevant to her situation. You remember, she's had practice putting things out of her mind, including falling off a ladder and channeling Mata Hari...yes, alright, this was a little different than that.

The moss was definitely soft. Everything was really green. The trees were tall with huge trunks. The birds were chirping, but contentedly, not irritatingly.

There was that noise again....not the bee, the other noise. Zing....thut. Zing....thut.

Marian looked around for a car. Trees, trees, trees....why on earth would anybody need this many trees for anything? She couldn't see a road, or a campsite, or even a brick barbeque....and no vehicles of any sort.

Zing....thut. Zing....thut.

Wouldn't that just take the cake if her ride out here had gone off and left her? She wished she knew who it had been, she'd give them a piece of the mind she had left when she got back.

A voice somewhere in the distance....."Marian!"

"What?" She couldn't see anyone. Honestly, someone needed to come in here with a chain saw. It was just impossible to see anything with all these trees in the way.

"Marian?"

"What!?!" The voice sounded closer, but she still couldn't see anyone.

"Is that you?"

"No, of course it's not me," she muttered. "Just because you called my name and I answered....why would it be me?" Some people.

"Marian!!"

Ok. "What!!??!!" It wasn't ladylike to screech, but really. This was getting ridiculous.

Then, exactly like in those old movies with poor special effects, a man appeared from behind one of the unnecessarily huge tree trunks.

"There you are," he said.

And she was. And that's about all she could have said for sure right at that moment.

The man was clad in suede of green and brown, from his soft looking boots to the sort of a half-hoodie thing covering his head. He looked comfy and cuddly....sturdy and strong....and then he smiled.

Now she knew where she was. She was in heaven. She'd fallen off the ladder again and hit her head or something, and she was dead. God had taken pity on her and let her into heaven - her kind of heaven - and now all she had to do was just....just be here.

Marian had never told anyone this....but she was a fool for suede. It was her secret vice - she was a suede lover. Cowboy hats, mmmmm. Fringed jackets, dear god. And those suede riding gloves with the big cuffs.....the thought of them was enough to make a woman dizzy.....

Heaven wouldn't be heaven without suede.

She smiled back.

"Marian, what are you doing here? I thought you were going to wait for us back at camp."

"Yeah, me too."

"How did you get here before us?"

"Beats me."

He was exactly the sort of man she'd been looking for all her life. Her dream, the perfect man, standing in front of her - broad shoulders, big muscles, completely covered in suede. She couldn't help but let her gaze linger as she looked him up and down. There was an interesting feature to his leather trousers that she'd never seen before...but thought should be included in every pair from now on. On some men, that feature might be considered braggadocio; she hoped to have the chance to find out whether his clothing spoke the truth.

Wouldn't you know....she'd have to die before she found Him - Mr. Exactly-Right. Oh well. Here she was, and here he was, too.

She smiled at him again.

He frowned. "Are you well? Maybe you should sit down. The good friar did say it might take you some time to return to your usual self."

Somehow....that sounded vaguely familiar. "What do you mean?"

"You don't remember? After you fell from the oak. You seemed not to know me, you called me another name and spoke of....spears."

Marian narrowed her eyes. "I didn't fall from anything. I have not fallen. I may not know who you are, but since I've never met you before, that's as it should be."

Maybe she wasn't in heaven. Of course she had no prior experience to draw on, but she was pretty sure people in heaven - even dreamy men all in suede - didn't try to convince you you were nuts.

"Dearest," he said. "I worry about you."

Dearest? That seemed pretty familiar coming from someone you've just met. It was ok....but she had found, in her train-car load of experience, that it took a bit longer than a few seconds to get to "Dearest". 5 minutes at least.

He must be mistaking her for someone else. Someone who had fallen out of an oak and was probably waiting back at camp. Someone who looked exactly like she did.

She raised an eyebrow. "Just who do you think I am?"

"You're Marian, of course. Lady Marian, the woman who has graced me with her affection." The man spoke calmly and carefully, the way you speak to loons. "Shall we sit down and puzzle this out?" He sank to the moss, and so, after a moment, did Marian.

She thought darkly that she didn't know how to get moss stains out of linen.....and then looked down to see a navy ankle-length dress instead of the beige slacks she'd put on this morning. 'This is now officially weird,' she thought. 'I would never wear navy. It makes me look short.'

(More thinking darkly. Of course she's not in the library anymore, so maybe it doesn't count.)

"Do you not remember who you are?" the sturdy, muscled, suede-covered man said.

"Of course I do. That's not the question here, buster. The question is, who are you?"

Oh dear. He looked so troubled by her question, she almost wanted to take it back. He took her hand and placed it on his knee; covered it with his.

"I'm Robin. I wish I knew why you forget me again and again."

Maybe it was the dress, maybe it was the smell of moss, maybe it was the feel of the suede under her palm....she decided to be gracious. She'd read plenty of historical romances, 5 or 6 at least, and she knew what a heroine sitting on mossy roots wearing an ankle-length dress would say, and she decided to say it. "Perhaps....it's so we can have the pleasure of meeting each other anew again and again."

And there was her reward - a huge smile, his fingers on her face turning it up.....and in all the romances she'd read (so maybe it was only 4, so sue me), what would happen now is, he'd give her a kiss of promise, pull her close to those muscles and all that suede and something interesting might happen next.....

"If we've only just met, I shall have to be on my best behavior, so you will not throw me over for someone else."

Hm. That didn't sound promising.

"Or..." she said, "you could try to convince me why I shouldn't."

Oh dear. Another downcast look. "I have nothing to offer you, my lady. Not even a house to live in. If you cannot remember why you give me the favor of your company....I have no way to convince you now."

"Then how did you convince me the first time?"

"I bided my time; you're not someone I could force into anything." That sounded right. "Nor would I want to. I would say....you came to love me of your own accord."

Ok. Now, Marian thought, now we're getting somewhere. She thought that in her usual brusque manner....but then there was something about Robin's earnestness and honesty that made her all misty-eyed. Something that made her feel.....mushy. Like this was somebody you could trust, who would stick with you forever.

Even when she was feeling lonely, she'd never really yearned for 'one man forever'. There were lots of fish in the sea, and she liked variety. But now he was making her think about that, making her think maybe a dependable, loyal, considerate, handsome, muscley man who would love you forever, was something worth having. Making her want it.

She swallowed hard. "If I gave you my love," she said slowly, "...before....", and paused; he nodded, "then how about you give me some back now?"

He grinned. "Are you playing a game with me?" He plucked a stray redbird's feather from the ground and stuck it in her hair; she was unreasonably pleased and couldn't even say why. She knew, in the back of her mind, that a bird's feather was likely to be full of those nasty little bird mites, and maybe have some other kinds of nasty things on it that it picked up from the dead leaves and....stuff...on the ground....but it didn't matter. It made her happy.

"Maybe."

She let her hand travel up his suede-covered thigh. He grinned again.

"What would the name of this game be?"

"Um....." Monster-From-Under-the-Bed wouldn't be appropriate right now. Or Blind Marian's Buff. Hm.... "How about.....Pretend-I-Know-Who-You-Are-And-We're-In-Love-Forever? What would the next move be then?"

"Is this the game you'd like to play?"

She nodded.

"Ask me nicely."

For the moment following that husky whisper, she couldn't speak at all. Her breath left her, her wits, her - you name it, it was gone. But just for a moment.

"Please....can we play the g---"

He didn't even let her finish asking. He kissed her just like a man who would love her forever would kiss, deep and serious, but not wicked, and not rough. (She usually liked wicked and/or rough, too, but right now this was better.)

It didn't matter that she couldn't breathe. It didn't matter if she was dead. She knew for certain she was in heaven now, and it was exactly where she wanted to be.

Moss makes a pretty fair place to lie down on. Some of the tree roots were knobby and they had to scoot over a bit; they both had a fair amount of clothing to deal with also, so it wasn't really like it would have been in a romance...but it made Robin laugh and that made Marian laugh, too.

She found out what she wanted to know about that particular feature of his trousers, and discovered happily that he was not bragging at all....and when he drew her close, and stopped laughing, and soberly pledged his love forever.....she thought she would burst with it, she thought nothing could ever be better than this moment, the moment just before he made that same vow with his body....except perhaps the next one....

"Marian!" Something smacked her in the face - she thought groggily it might have been a dead fish.....why would there be a dead fish here in the greenwood?

"Is she going to be ok? Oh my god, I should never have left her in there by herself. I never thought the door would jam or anything, it never has. Marian, wake up and speak to me!"

"Robin?" she muttered weakly. And then when her eyes opened and she saw the ceiling of the library, she screamed. "AAAAghhhhh! Robin!"

"No, Marian, it's me, Henny. Oh dear, this is just like last year. Except last year she called for Herman, or somebody."

"Let me go!" Marian said, and tried to escape the hands of the EMTs. She punched one of them in the, erm, ahem, breadbasket, so to speak (not on purpose, Marian would NEVER do anything that sneaky), and scrambled toward the door of the newspaper closet. "I wasn't done! Robin!"

She felt a sting in her arm; not a bee, but a hypodermic. And then there was the oxygen mask over her face. And then she couldn't stay awake long enough to imagine just how lovely it would have been.....

---

Marian sat behind the checkout counter reading the week's mail.

Henny looked over at her nervously. "There's no ventilation in there, it's an air-tight closet; you could have died."

"Yes, you said that."

"They said you weren't breathing."

"No, I suppose I wasn't."

"I wish you were happier about being alive."

Marian looked at her for a minute or so; Henny fidgeted. Then Marian smiled.

"It's ok. It's not that I'm unhappy; I think being in the hospital makes a person tired. Those nurses with their flashlights. How's a person supposed to sleep?"

Henny nodded, relieved. Marian went on, "How about.....you and I get a pizza with all the good stuff on it, and watch a movie at my place tonight?"

"Oh...that sounds good. You know what I like?"

"No, but I know what I like. I'll just get that. And leave Mike at home." She didn't think she could put up with other people mooning at each other right now.

"Ok. I'll see you there in a little while." Henny hesitated for a minute, then she got up and gave Marian a little hug, on her way to pick up her jacket. "I'm glad you're alive, anyway."

Marian flipped the circuit breaker to the computer area to shut off the electricity, but couldn't take as much pleasure from the shrieks of dismay as she might have done previously. She walked back to the reading area and clapped her hands to get everybody's attention. They all looked up; she jerked her thumb toward the door.

Nobody argued; they just put their newspapers down and headed for the door. Nobody had given Marian a hard time all week. The patrons all knew she'd been dead, and some of them weren't really sure if she was actually alive now...or if she was one of the undead, or something. The more charitable thought maybe she'd gotten a second chance and would have to pass some test before she got called back to the Lord again, and they thought if they helped her, then maybe she'd be gone sooner. In any case, no one wanted to upset her, and so it had been a pretty dull week in the library.

After everyone was gone, Marian turned off all the lights and stood for a few minutes in the semi-darkness.

It was all a matter of how you looked at things, she thought. Yes, she could have strangled Henny at first for waking her up right when she did....ok...for rescuing her from death right when she did, but she was over that now. Mostly. And it could make her sad, if she let it, that she'd only had such a small amount of time with a man who was ready to love her forever.

And, ok, he thought she was somebody else. And ok, maybe she just dreamed him up, maybe he wasn't real at all anyway....

BUT -

....on the other hand....she still felt his love, it was there inside, in her heart, and she could bring it out and wrap it around herself like a green mohair blanket when she needed it. She knew now what it felt like to have someone love her forever. It didn't matter if he wasn't a real person. He was real to her, as real as her memories, as real as her dreams....maybe more....

It might take her a bit to get back to her regular self, but she'd get there. She'd eat pizza and let Henny pick out the movie (and roll her eyes when Henny picked out a musical). Maybe tomorrow the library would seem like a brighter place to be....

She'd been avoiding the newspaper closet all week. Didn't want to look, didn't want to feel the squeeze in her chest when she opened the door and there would be nothing there but newspapers.

Marian Mott, she told herself, you are made of sterner stuff than that. Once. She'd go look once, and then she could put it from her mind completely.

She flipped on the light first, let her hand rest on the doorknob for a few seconds, and then yanked it open. No one had tidied up, there was the hair ribbon and the old brown tie on the floor.....and the empty clip and the shoelace.....and a feather from a bright red bird....

She picked it up. Looked at it for a second. A faint smile played on her lips....she stuck it in her hair....and turned to go get that pizza.

FINIS

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