Free Greenmantle by Charles De Lint

when they were teenagers and going at it in the back of his father’s car, she was scared. This wasn’t natural. There was something happening to him, but she didn’t know what to do about it.
    “Do you want an aspirin?” she asked.
    “Yeah. Sure.”
    She went to the medicine cabinet, shook a couple out of the bottle. We just got this bottle last week, she thought. A hundred tablets. It was half empty now.
    “Maybe you should make an appointment with Dr. Bolton,” she said as she brought him the tablets and a glass of water.
    He swallowed the pills. “Maybe I should.”
    When he returned to the bed she stood in the doorway, waiting until he was under the covers, then returned to the toilet. Any minute she expected him to come bursting in again, but she finished her business in peace and returned to the bedroom to find Lance staring up at the ceiling.
    “What’s the matter, hon?”
    He shook his head. “Nothing, really. I just can’t sleep sometimes.”
    She pulled back the covers to get in beside him and saw that he was hard again. She wanted to look away, wanted to hold on to the memory of him standing in the doorway and being rough with her—not because she had liked it, but because it had scared her, and she wanted to remember it as a warning—but she couldn’t look away from his hard-on.
    What had happened to him? Her breasts tingled, already feeling his hands on them. She was damp between her legs. His ardor wasn’t natural, she thought. Nor was what she was feeling now. But she reached over and took hold of his penis all the same.
    Downstairs, the television continued to operate for its absent audience. St. Elsewhere had long since ended. The news was on now, followed by sports and the weather….
     
    * * *
     
    Outside, behind the Maxwell’s house, Dooker whined in his sleep. His legs moved as though he were chasing something in a dream. Perhaps his imagination was even more limited than his master’s, but the dream was very real all the same.
    The stag ran before him, the pack all around him. The night was filled with scents, sharp and biting. The music called them on like a huntsman’s horn. It felt so good to just be running.
     
    * * *
     
    After Lance fell asleep for the second time, Brenda lay quietly beside him, not wanting to move. She went over that moment in the bathroom, the crazy things Lance had said, and then the way that he didn’t even seem to be aware of it right after. Like it had never happened.
    She rubbed her arm softly. Well, the bruise was there. It had happened. But she didn’t know what to do about it. There was no one she could talk to about something like this. Lord, she could just imagine the way people’d stare at her if the word got out. No, she had to keep it to herself, hoard it like a secret and just pray—dear Jesus—that it wouldn’t happen again.
    It was a long time before she finally fell asleep herself.

8
     
     
    “’Lo, Lewis.”
    Leaning on his rake, Lewis looked up into the branches of the oak tree that stood between his cabin and the small vegetable plot he was working on. A familiar fox-thin face regarded him through the leaves, the morning sun dappled on her brown skin.
    “Hello, yourself,” he said, moving under the tree. “You’re up and about early today.”
    She dropped lightly from the branches to stand beside him. She looked smaller, thinner, in the daylight, but no less mysterious. The brim of her hat was pulled down low and he couldn’t see her eyes until she tilted her head up to look at him.
    “I like the night,” she said, “but I’m not bound to it. You know that.”
    As she spoke she edged toward his woodpile. A few quick moves later and she was perched upon it, legs dangling down. Lewis followed her, moving more slowly, and fetched up his chopping block to sit on.
    “I saw you dancing last night,” he said.
    “I saw you too, only you weren’t dancing.”
    “I’m too old now.”
    “Doesn’t stop Lily.”
    “She’s