~10~
Remember Laura
(damascus rose)
Ten minutes later Tara emerged from the back entrance to the poppy den, the seven packets of fresh made dreams in the pouch of her belt. She was clothed in the garb of the Hunter; tight black pants, a black V-neck shirt that hugged all the right curves, her boots with doe-skin soles. She had pulled her partly blond hair back into a clip, and one strand kept fluttering by her face.
She stood for a moment at the back entrance, the rank smell of the neighbourhood almost visible as fog. An enterprising rat was rummaging through a small pile of refuse that had collected near the storm drain. She found, with some surprise, that she occasionally missed working at the poppy den in Los Angeles. As the capital city of the United States, Los Angeles was far cleaner and better managed than a backwater burg like Sunnydale.
Then again, the distance, though scant, from Los Angeles was actually quite a blessing, all things considered. The further she could be from her Master, the better.
Tara consulted her watch; she had just over an hour left to make her deliveries. Wrapped in the magic of the Hunter clothing, Tara walked down the alleyway making no sound whatsoever, even when her booted heels crunched over rocks and assorted litter. Her mind had once again sunk into calm depths; she walked, having no clear destination in her mind, heeding the subtle call that no one but she could hear.
She paused near the locked shed at the edge of the property, asking that strange floating sensation in her mind whether she needed to drive anywhere. The answer came as a small yet emphatic yes; she touched the lock with her fingers and it sprang open without a key. Mediocre glow from the street lamp revealed her motorcycle, and she wheeled it out of the shed.
Mounting her bike, she touched the tiny vid screen on the dashboard. It responded to her fingerprint and came to silent life. Running on electric power, it made very little sound. Tara pushed off with that rebellious tendril of hair streaming out behind her; she never wore a helmet.
Moments later Tara was driving down the streets of Sunnydale, following the unbidden directions produced by the calmness in her mind. It was nearing curfew, so there were only a few people on the streets, trying to enjoy the mild summer night while staying conscious of the time. She could motor right past them without being noticed; wearing enchanted Hunter clothing, she was as good as invisible.
After a few minutes, Tara found herself smiling. She knew every hydrant, every tree, every alley of Sunnydale. She had watched it swell and grow from its rustic beginnings of gold-panners and bootleggers, going through the phases of the iron revolution, the Twelve Years War, the small yet emphatic nuclear crisis with the Mongols only twenty years ago. It had eventually settled into a town of largely middle class families, complete with a university campus and various museums.
The inordinate amount of cemeteries spoke to Sunnydale's somewhat rocky history.
Soon Tara was on Revello Drive, a slightly seedy street with mature trees and houses that had verandas and mosquito zappers. She drove directly to one house, then stopped and parked her bike. There were two large fir trees dotted on the front lawn, and the house was white with brick trimming. The veranda was wreathed in shadows and the house was dark.
She made mental note of the address - she would need a name to record, should her mission be successful.
She walked up the narrow sidewalk, noticing that the lawn was one or two days overdue for mowing. There were chubby ceramic gnomes peeking behind the trees and Tara wondered who had put them there. She narrowed her eyes at them; they almost seemed to be staring at her.
Yet she did not hesitate as she approached the door. She touched the lock with her finger and she could hear the deadbolt slide open, and another click as the lock disengaged. The door swung open soundlessly and Tara stepped inside.
The house was bordering on immaculate but there was a disturbing sensation in the air, as if the person who lived here was close to just giving up. No hope for a happy ever after. Once again, Tara's senses had been completely accurate. She would give this person a dream, and in the morning, the house would feel lighter for it.
As long as the occupant accepted the dream. Sometimes they didn't. Either way, her lifeforce would also be spent.
Tara had never been in this particular house before, but she still knew exactly where to go. The stairs leading up were directly in front of her, and she began to climb them. Her instincts warned her of a squeaking fifth step, so she bypassed it in a longer stride.
She paused on the landing. There were a number of doors here, all of them open and shyly revealing their contents. Two bedrooms obviously belonged to girls, and also obviously had not been occupied for a very long time. They were suspended in space-time like corpses awaiting reanimation with soul and spirit.
Tara continued onward, opening the door at the end of the hallway. In the faint light Tara could see paintings on the walls, low shelves with various sculptures and other pieces of art. She turned to the bed and saw a mature woman lying there, sleeping on her side with a frown on her face.
Her hair was a tawny golden, and with a rippling shock of ice in her system, Tara understood exactly who this person was.
Buffy's mother.
Oh, yes.
Tara rummaged in her pouch for one of the labelled packets, knowing instantly what dream she had created earlier would be best for this woman. She quickly opened her compact and placed a disc on her thumb. Placing her compact back in her belt pouch, she ripped the dream envelope open. She breathed on the contents one last time, and they began to glow. She quickly tipped her head back and swallowed the contents of the pouch, then bent down to kiss the woman on the forehead, simultaneously touching her throat lightly with the disc. Then she retreated, keeping her thumb very lightly pressed on the woman's neck to wait and see if the dream would be accepted.
A tense moment, the dream squirming on the woman's skin. Then it flashed golden, and was absorbed.
The blackness seeped marginally further down Tara's hair.
Tara smiled and pulled her thumb away. This was the only part of her existence that she even remotely enjoyed. These dreams would never have the intense focus she provided for her paying clients. These dreams were generic visions of loveliness, of hugs and puppies and sunshiny days, of family and warmth and bliss. If Tara had a choice, these would be the only dreams she would make.
Alas that her choices were rarely her own.
(he has me collared)Tara lingered for a moment in the room, sliding the disc into a tiny waxed paper sleeve until she could transfer it to a vial back at home. She looked down and watched the woman sleep, her eyelids beginning to flutter as Tara's dream infiltrated her consciousness. A tense moment as she shifted, only to snuggle deeper in her sheets.
Tara left the room, closing the door behind her. She consulted her watch; if she hurried, she might make one or two more deliveries before midnight came and they lost all their power.
She looked down the hall instead, and then ignored the voice in her mind that told her to leave.
She rejected one room outright; it obviously belonged to a teenager. A dead teenager, with a painted plaque over the mirror that revealed her name to be Dawn.
The other room was more mature, but still had a general essence of youth and impetuousness. There were some packed boxes in one corner, but the bed was made up, and jewellery was still on the bureau. On the mirror above the bureau was taped a number of pictures, and Tara's throat knotted to look at them.
A much younger and long-haired Willow was in this picture, along with Buffy and a young man. Tara's eyes roved over the apparent timeline of pictures taped along the edge of the mirror, watching as the three of them got older, pictures on the beach, pictures at the White House in Los Angeles. Pictures of Buffy's family, the woman in the bedroom, the gangly teenage Dawn, and Buffy herself, something in her eyes that resonated deep within Tara, a pool of courage mingled with sadness.
The teenage girl dropped off the pictures quite suddenly, and Tara understood more of the latent sadness in this house. Dawn must have died young.
The last picture wrenched at Tara's heart with galvanic force.
Buffy in a wedding dress, a tall and boyish-looking man holding her hand. Several militant looking men stood next to the groom. Willow and that same young man from their early years stood next to Buffy. Tara lifted her finger to touch Willow; puzzled by the aura emanating from the photograph.
This was not as happy a situation as it should have been.
Before she could stop herself, Tara took the picture down from the mirror and tucked it down her shirt so as not to wrinkle it. Let the consequences come, should the mother notice the picture was missing.
Turning on her heel, Tara left the room and exited the house the same way she had entered. With a touch of her fingers she re-engaged the lock on the door. She walked to the curb and looked up at the midnight sky. Well past curfew now, and the streets were empty. The stars were easier to see as the lights had dimmed to conserve energy.
There was probably time for one more delivery before midnight.
Tara mounted her bike and began to drive, turning aimlessly down the dimly lit streets until she stopped outside a tiny house on the outskirts of town. She blinked as she looked at it, as if surprised to find herself here.
She had driven here many times before, always at night, always in Hunter clothing. She would stop and sit on her bike and look at the house. She would imagine that the occupant would be awake and looking out of the window at that exact same moment, so their eyes would collide as their worlds once did. The dial of time would be turned back, decades would fall from this house, this neighbourhood, peeling away the dirt and grime of ages.
So strong was this fantasy that Tara actually parked her bike and turned off the engine. She even dismounted, and as she walked up the well-kept sidewalk she kept imagining those years falling away, leaving all of this scraped clean, almost raw with newness.
There was no glow behind the curtains, no sign of alertness or life. It was not obscenely late, but the occupant would be sleeping. The desire to look upon the sleeping form came to Tara as a noose about her neck, tightened to the point of discomfort, tugging her feet to the front door. She obeyed the sensation without rationalizing it or fighting it as was her custom. This day had dissolved all her ordinary walls, etching through her barriers like strong acid.
The paint on the door was slightly cracked with the assault of sunlight. The knob was cool to the touch and seemed to rejoice in the familiarity of her fingers. The lock sprung open almost gleefully.
By the time she opened the door a few inches, Tara had regained some of her senses. She should walk away, lock the door behind her and get back on her bike and leave this poor person alone. She should not vomit up the past and gorge herself upon the wretched leavings, for it would only scald her tongue and burn her heart. Not to mention what it might do to the occupant of this house.
But then she smelled Damascus Rose, and between one luxurious sniff and another she was standing inside the foyer, closing the door behind her. There were more scents underneath this most beloved one, scents of laudanum and ambergris, a faint tang of urine and bleach and the smell of old skin. It was Damascus Rose that encircled her, that sang to her a memory of dryer-hot cotton, sun-struck red hair, and a summertime of delight that unfurled in majesty like the petals of a rose.
Tara breathed deep to allow the beloved scent to extend its luxurious fingers into the very depths of her lungs, to travel from there along the byways of her blood vessels, to the home of her heart and beyond to her very soul. There it would remain, engaging body, mind and soul, even alighting upon the edges of Tara’s silence.
Now that she had come this far, she would go farther. The noose was even tighter about her neck, studded now with thorns of Damascus Rose.
Not a single sound emerged from her enchanted footstep. Tara walked slowly and purposefully along a hall that led to the back of the small house. She put her hand upon the closed door of a bedchamber and opened it.
Light suddenly flared from a lamp, and Tara crouched slightly in defence, lifting her arms to repel certain attack. In the next beat of her everlasting heart, she relaxed, noticing the woman sitting in a rocking chair next to the lamp.
“I had the house consecrated, Tara,” the woman said.
Tara nodded, her throat suddenly thick. Mortal food and mortal pleasures were ash in her mouth, unquiet sustenance for her ancient soul. But now her eyes feasted on this night-time apparition as if she were desolate, nigh unto death with starvation and about to perish for lack of nourishment.
Seated upon this cushioned chair was an old woman, her long white hair in a thick braid that was tucked over one shawl-covered shoulder. Despite the warmth of the August night, the woman was layered in night-clothing that covered her from ankle to wrist. Her skin had a million lines; they were all her stories, comedies and tragedies alike. There were numerous smile lines around her eyes and mouth, but she was not smiling now.
“A blessing on the house and its occupant, to alert me of danger,” the woman continued. “You are dangerous, aren’t you, Tara?”
Oh, to hear her name on this woman’s tongue! To feel it soar through the air and land upon her shoulders.
To hear the truth that followed, for truth had a funny way of vibrating at times.
(I am dangerous)“You look…
(beautiful)well, Laura,” Tara said quietly.
“I’m doing all right for being ninety two years old,” Laura replied, shifting her old bones upon the cushion. “You look the same as ever.”
Tara gulped over the sentiment and the Damascus Rose in her throat. She felt assaulted by the light of the lamp and the golden aura of the woman in the rocking chair. Laura seemed to have attained that serene countenance that was sometimes the blessing of the very old; a belief that there was nothing life could do any longer to disrupt the ocean of stillness and peace inside. 92 years had done their work, had scoured and tempered and cleansed body and soul until there was nothing left to do but shine.
Her silence remained, so close now, closer than any lover.
There was so much noise and darkness inside Tara, so much that was malignant and awry. She felt dirty standing here; felt that she had tracked her bleakness behind her like mud-stains on the floor. Laura did not deserve this; Tara should not have come.
“Any special reason for the visit?” Laura asked. “If you had given me notice, I would have made you butterscotch squares. You professed to like them, once.” That familiar maddening smile was on her face; both of them knew full well that Tara would never give notice, would never come by in daylight like a real person. They would never sit over lemonade on the porch and talk of little things.
“I was j-just driving by. Felt like stopping, so I did.” Tara grimaced slightly at her stammer, and the smile vanished from Laura’s aged face.
“Making your deliveries?”
Tara nodded, her eyes filling with tears. She swiftly turned away from Laura’s knowing gaze, but there was little respite to be found elsewhere in view. Instead of seeing the face of her once-lover, she saw the pictures on the walls that depicted Laura’s life. There was a man in many of them, and pictures of their small brood. Just like the pictures on Buffy’s mirror, these photographs told Laura’s life story, of family and marriage and children and everything a woman wants from her life.
Tara could see the small crack of time that represented their few years together as a complete lack of pictures. The Apothecary’s face would never be seen on this wall, despite what they had shared so many years ago.
Tara heard a creak and turned her head in time to see Laura rise from her chair, her wrinkled and liver-spotted hands gripping the rests as she hoisted herself up. The room was small; it did not take long for the thin and frail woman to cross the space between them, space that was cluttered with memory and longing.
The hand lifted, and Tara felt Laura touch the tears that were eking their pale and miserable way down Tara’s cheeks. “I have missed you, too,” the woman said, her aged voice breaking on the words. “Why do you think I returned to this hellish town after Kent died? After the dire fortunes of my daughters?”
Tara turned into the warm and dry palm, closing her eyes. The ache in her heart was so fierce she felt she would perish of it. She heard a soft cluck from Laura’s throat before feeling Laura’s hand travel from her tear-stained cheek to her altered hair. Laura caressed her ear and tucked the half-blonde, half-black hair behind it before folding Tara into an embrace. The hands that trembled on her body were the same hands that had worshipped her body, once upon a time.
All the many years passed away yet tenderness remained; tenderness and the heartbreak that had accompanied their separation, the agony of that long-ago decision. Tara gratefully hugged Laura’s body, feeling the frailness of her limbs, the thinness of her muscle and sinew, the granite streak of resolve that could not perish, no, not with this mean slice of time. What was a hundred years to the indomitable spirit that was Laura? What was a thousand?
Tara touched Laura’s aged neck, ran her hand up and beyond into what used to be brilliant auburn hair. For long moments they breathed together as they once did, and when the longing grew too great, Tara leaned back to look into Laura’s green eyes, and then she leaned forward to kiss her softly on her lips.
The breath behind those lips hitched and faltered; the kiss was broken swiftly as Laura turned her face away, breaking the embrace. “I can’t, Tara, I can’t,” she said, croaking out the words.
Her chest burning with remorse, Tara leaned back on her heels, about to run away when Laura caught her lower arm with an outstretched hand. “No, please,” Laura begged. “I’m sorry, Tara. This old heart can only take so much. Seeing you, it’s beautiful and painful all at the same time.”
“I’m sorry I came. I shouldn’t have bothered you.” Tara turned to leave again, but again felt the tug on her arm.
“Would you stop?” Laura said, a familiar ember of impatience in her voice. “Now, you must have had a particular reason for coming tonight. What happened today?”
Laura let go of her only long enough to grab her hand and pull her to the bed. They both sat down on the edge of it. Tara felt huge and awkward next to Laura’s small and ancient beauty. “I kissed a client today,” Tara said quietly.
There was a twinkle of merriment in Laura’s eye. “My, my,” she murmured. “Have we come to confess?” The merriment swiftly died, replaced with resignation. “That’s what you do, Tara. You kiss people. Every day.”
“Not like this. Never like this. Not even you, when we first met.” Tara blindly squeezed Laura’s hand, immensely comforted to feel the lined warmth of her fingers.
“Tell me,” Laura said quietly, squeezing back.
Her tongue felt drained, yet the tale emerged, of Willow’s arrival in her den, how the redhead had captivated her with her desire to dream of her best friend, Tara’s resolve to make a perfect dream for her to entice her to return, she had to return, Tara was running out of time…
Her tongue sputtered there and died, and Laura looked at her with knowledge as old as her very bones. She looked a queen here, regal in her white hair, her elegant posture, and this regal and infinitely beautiful old woman lifted her hand to touch Tara’s neck, the unseen collar that was there, that had been there long before a youthful and vivacious Laura had come to Tara’s den, pregnant and aching for a dream.
(fifty nine years)“Will she return?” Laura asked.
“I hope not,” Tara sighed. “I hurt her as much as I could stand. I even unknowingly gave her part of my nightmare when I kissed her on the lips. She will not return.”
“Part of you wants her to,” Laura said knowingly. When Tara blinked her eyes in shock, Laura continued in a voice of melted chocolate, “Dear heart, it’s all right. Look at me. Look at us. We haven’t been together for nearly sixty years. You have such a generous spirit, such fire, doused and collared for so long. It’s only natural to want to feel again, if only for a moment. Heaven knows I can’t give you what you need. Unfortunately, I don’t think there is anyone who can. Not with this around your neck.”
Another soft touch on Tara’s perfectly smooth neck.
“I can’t be strong much longer,” Tara whispered. “I’m breaking, I feel it more and more every day.”
“You can and you will because you must,” Laura objected. “I know you, Tara. You are deeper than any Master, you are greater than any collar. You are eternal, and you can’t know how much that means to me,” she continued, her voice growing pained under the weight of the words. “You can’t realize how much comfort it brings to know that even though I will die soon, part of me will live on forever in your memory.”
“Can that possibly be enough for you?” Tara asked. “To become only a memory?”
“Most people don’t get even that,” Laura replied. “Most people are swallowed by the silence of their death, and have no one left to speak on their behalf. I have you.”
“You’ll have me forever.”
“I suppose I may have to share you with this Willow-girl, though. Redhead, huh? You seem to be partial to redheads.”
“I like white, too. Especially on you.”
“Flattery, even? It has been a long time since anyone bothered to use flattery on me. I think I’ll be able to think about this night for a long time. It might even last me until the next time you suddenly decide to drop in.” Laura lifted her hand to lightly tap Tara’s cheek. “Well, warrior, you may be able to handle late hours like this, but my body simply cannot.”
“Let me tuck you in,” Tara offered. There was a flush of warmth and colour to Laura’s cheeks, an almost shy smile. The sheets were already rumpled from Laura’s precipitous departure when she realized who had just broken into her house. Tara smoothed them out and helped Laura tuck her legs underneath, before pulling the thin coverlet up to Laura’s chest.
Then she held Laura’s beloved face and kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll love you forever, Laura,” Tara whispered.
“Same here,” came the breathless response. Her eyelids fluttered shut and stayed shut, and it didn’t take long for her breathing to become slow and deep. When Tara was convinced that Laura was asleep, she reluctantly left the bedside to extinguish the glow of the lamp.
Still she remained for another minute, looking down upon this woman, wondering if the path that Laura had trod would be the same path for Willow. A brief dalliance with the Apothecary, albeit a torrent of love-filled days and nights, and then decades apart. Willow’s body would also grow old and frail, and one day in another sixty years Tara would be here again, this exact same spot, kissing her beloved on her wrinkled forehead.
Just before leaving the darkened house Tara drew out the photograph that she had stolen from Buffy’s mother’s house. The colours were faded here in the dark, but Tara could still see the outline of the figures in the picture, the glow from Buffy’s wedding dress illuminating the others. She touched Willow’s face with the tip of a finger and felt her heart wrench with loneliness.
No. Not again. This was too painful. The decision she had made earlier in the day would have to stick. No Willow. Not now, or ever. The lesson of Laura was hard learned.
~
To be continued on Wednesday with Chapter 11: The Hanged Man
(the Willow that Was)