Chapter Fifteen

"Is it?" Aelvarim asked hesitantly, looking hungrily at the stack of yellow legal pads.

Piper felt her heart and stomach sink. Before she could think of anything to say, Aelvarim swiftly crossed the kitchen to sit in his chair at the table. He took the pages from her with the care due a rare religious artifact and began to read at an extraordinary rate. While he was turning pages nearly as fast as she had been when skimming, Piper had the impression that he was reading every word.

A glance out the window showed that the sun had just set. Piper got up, inching away from him, and turned on the kitchen light. The better to see what she was doing. "I'll just fix us something to eat."

She remembered the first morning she'd found him in the kitchen and the fear she'd felt. Wondering who he was and what he was doing there. Piper wished she could adequately compare her feelings, then and now. She still wondered who he was and what he was doing. She was still afraid of him. But, was she more afraid then, when she hadn't the slightest idea who or what he was, or now, when she'd learned just enough about him to know she didn't know him? And now that she feared she knew what he'd done.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would give her an excuse to get a knife out of one of the drawers. She could secretly slip a sharp knife into her pocket, to defend herself if need be. If only she had bothered to find the knives since she'd first met him.

Putting the peanut butter and bread down on the counter, Piper glanced over at Aelvarim. He appeared to be absorbed in his reading, head down, face close to the pages, staring intently. Piper opened the new jar of peanut butter, unable to really savor the strong just-opened peanut butter smell.

Now was the time to get the knife. Maybe she'd get lucky, and he wouldn't notice. Piper closed her eyes, concentrating on locating the sharp knives with the spell he'd taught her. Going straight to the correct drawer, she opened it to find a jumble of utensils; spoons, forks, egg beaters, serving tongs, instruments of unknown usefulness and provenance, spatulas, and knives, sharp and dull.

Risking a glance at Aelvarim, Piper palmed a sharp all-purpose knife, just larger than a steak knife. She slid it, point-end first into the front right-hand pocket of her pants. With her other hand she withdrew a dull knife to spread the peanut butter. Aelvarim never looked up from Grandma's manuscript. Hopefully, he didn't suspect a thing.

Trying for casual, and fearing she looked nervous, Piper spread peanut butter on two slices of bread. When she leaned down to get the jelly from the lower shelf in the refrigerator, she heard a faint rip and felt the knife point nick her leg. Standing she could feel the cool blade of the knife, quickly warming, sliding alongside her thigh below the bottom of the pocket. She had to get the knife out and find a better hiding place for it.

Slipping her hand, oh so casually, into her pocket, Piper accidentally pushed the hilt of the knife through the tear. Leaving her holding nothing but pocket lint. The knife came to rest just above her knee.

Abandoning any hope of using the knife to defend herself, Piper switched to hoping she didn't hurt herself on it before she could get it out of her pant leg, with Aelvarim none the wiser.

She finished the sandwiches and put one in front of Aelvarim. He picked it up automatically and took a bite, without noticing Piper's stiff walk, or even, as well as Piper could tell, what he was eating.

Piper leaned against the counter to eat. She couldn't sit for fear bending her leg would cause the knife to cut into her knee. Stripping out of her pants there in the kitchen wasn't an option; Aelvarim would be bound to notice that. The bathroom was too far away for her to walk to without the knife slipping or slicing.

Aelvarim picked up the last pad of paper.

Perhaps with a little surreptitious wriggling of the leg she could coax the blasted thing to slide down to her ankle without cutting anything en route. She could ease it out onto the floor and kick it somewhere Aelvarim wouldn't see it, but where it would be handy for her to grab, just in case.

The knife slipped and caught, slipped and caught, as she wriggled her leg. Aelvarim remained head down in the last pages of the manuscript, apparently oblivious to her delicate squirming problem. Piper could feel the perspiration gather on her as she struggled to finish getting the knife out before he finished the manuscript.

A small clattering clink was all the knife made as it slipped out of her pant leg, over her shoe, and onto the floor. It was enough. Aelvarim had just turned the last pad of paper over looking for the ending. He turned to face the noise, setting the last pad gently on the stack with the others.

He looked from the knife, lying inappropriately on the kitchen floor, to Piper, who knew her face showed her guilt and fear to the unfinished manuscript stacked neatly on the table beside his half-eaten sandwich. Aelvarim's gaze went around from the knife, to Piper, to the manuscript a second time.

Flinging his arms in a wide sweep across the table, Aelvarim scattered peanut butter sandwich, plate, manuscript, and miscellaneous papers across the kitchen floor. The plate rolled to a ringing stop as he put his head down on the table, cradled in his arms, and began to weep.

Piper's feelings ran the confused and confusing gamut from guilt to pity to annoyance. Crying wasn't going to help anything. It certainly wouldn't clean the mess he'd made all over the kitchen floor. Which, Piper knew, in the end would be left for her to do something with.

However, she did know exactly how he felt. She almost wanted to join him, put her own head down, and cry. The hopelessness of the situation, with gaps showing up in the bookstore, and her own feelings of helpless inadequacy, she'd determinedly suppressed. He looked so pitiful.

Her foot kicked the knife as she started to walk to him.

"I would never hurt Grandmother Dickerson," Aelvarim managed to choke out around his sobs. "I wouldn't hurt anyone. What a monstrous cruelty to think that I would."

She stooped to pick up the knife.

His head lifted slightly from his encircling arms on the table, and she paused, but he didn't see her holding the knife. His eyes were filled with tears, and in any case, he was looking at the table.

"The manuscript was my last hope to find whoever murdered Grandmother Dickerson." He paused to gulp down a sob and push the tears around his face with his hands. "Now that hope is gone. I can find no clues in the story to reveal who the villain truly was. If there are clues, they are beyond my comprehension."

The knife clinked and rattled amongst the other utensils, when Piper dropped it in the drawer. Poor Aelvarim. She wondered if it was just him, or if all elves were this sensitive. Looking at him now, the thought that he might try to murder Grandma was ridiculous.

Aelvarim wiped the tears from his reddened face but remained staring at the tabletop. "It has to be here, in this world, probably in this house. I haven't found any clues anywhere else. And yet ...." He spread his hand out to the manuscript pages on the floor.

Piper walked over to stand next to him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She patted his shoulder. "It's all right."

Suddenly Aelvarim stood, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her close to him. He hesitated a moment, then his head descended and his mouth met hers.

His arms around her were warm and strong, his kiss sweet. Piper never felt happier or more content. She put her arms around his waist and held on for dear life.

It was a few moments before they came up gasping for air, before she could make herself think of anything beyond what she felt. As Aelvarim pulled her close a second time, a little nagging doubt crept into her thoughts.

He'd put spells on her before. Was this another?

Piper pushed away from him. Aelvarim loosened his grasp but kept his arms around her. He looked down at her puzzled.

"Have you cast a spell over me?"

"No." He watched her face a moment. "Do you doubt me?"

"You lied to me."

Aelvarim let go of her and stepped away, as if she'd burned him. "I've never lied to you."

"You asked me to read the labels on the bottles to you, telling me you didn't understand them, but you read the books without a problem."

"There's a difference between 'Once upon a time' and 'Lemon Scented Scotch Pine Ammonia,'" he said scornfully. "The words 'Lemon Scented Scotch Pine Ammonia' held no meaning for me. Which is why I asked you to explain them."

"They don't make any sense."

"My point exactly."

"Nothing was labeled 'Lemon Scented Scotch Pine Ammonia.' Those words in that order are ridiculous," Piper shouted.

"I don't remember what they were labeled," Aelvarim shouted back. "But none of them made any sense to me, so I had you explain it so I could take them to Larkingtower."

"And what did he say?"

"He said they were female paraphernalia." Aelvarim frowned fiercely, trying to hide a blush. "And that I should get rid of them, immediately."

After a moment's consideration of Larkingtower's multiple failings, Piper muttered, "He would."

Aelvarim stepped close to her, running his hand up the back of her arm. "I've never lied to you, and I wouldn't cast a spell like that on you. I would never hurt you."

"I have to think," Piper whispered. It was hard to think with him so near, so warm and cuddly.

"I love you." Aelvarim took both her hands in his, clasping them tightly. "I love you now and forever, with an unchanging, undying, unbounded love."

Piper looked up at him in surprise.

"There's nothing I wouldn't give if you would be mine. I have only my own, unworthy self to offer, but that I give you freely. My heart, my hand, my eternal devotion, all that is mine to command, I give to you. I realize you consider us a mismatch, parted by our different worlds ...."

How could he know?

"Regardless, you are my one and only true love, and I am yours. Nothing can keep us apart, if love joins our hearts and minds. As our worlds meet on this hallowed spot, we, too, can carve out a place for us to meet. There is no insurmountable impediment that we cannot overcome, no chasm of differences we cannot span ...."

Wait a minute.

"There is nothing, absolutely nothing, I wouldn't do for you. Please accept my love and allow me to prove that we are meant to be." He lifted her hands to his lips to kiss them. "My love, allow me to make you happy."

Pulling her hands out of his grasp, Piper backed away from him, slipping on a stray piece of paper on the floor. "That was almost verbatim from Grandma's manuscript!"

"It's true!" Aelvarim stepped toward her.

"Does that mean you are the one that murdered Grandma? You had that speech down cold. Did you give her a similar speech?"

"No!" Aelvarim recoiled, horrified. "Grandmother Dickerson? Never! I loved her dearly, but not .... No!"

"So why did you use that speech?" Piper carefully stepped around one of the manuscript pads, pushing it toward the counter with her foot.

"I can't help it." Aelvarim still looked horrified.

"Oh, please! Don't tell me you can't help it." Piper leaned over to open the utensil drawer without taking her eyes off him. "You most certainly can help it." Her hand fumbled through the contents of the drawer, searching for a handle with the feel and texture she remembered from the knife.

Aelvarim shook his open hands in frustration. "I told you Fairy is influenced by stories. I can't help it."

"So you are the man in that story." Piper's fingers closed in on a familiar handle, and she grasped it, pulling it out and thrusting it toward Aelvarim.

They both looked at the egg whip she was pointing at him.

Pulling himself up straight and dignified, Aelvarim said calmly, "May I point out that you are behaving exactly like the woman in the story. Does that make you her?" Piper refused to answer. Aelvarim continued, "I'm no more the man in that story than you are the woman. That is merely coincidence. "

"Then why the speech?" Piper shook the egg whip at him. It might not be a knife, but she'd bet it would leave a few marks if she hit him hard enough.

He frowned, and drew a deep breath that threatened the seams of his skin tight tunic. "I have had some very strong feelings for you. That I ought not to have acted on. I apologize. It was not my intention to injure you, or in any way threaten you."

"Ha!" She had him this time. "You've used spells on me before." She shook the egg whip again. "The first morning we met you cast a spell on me."

"You wanted to throw me out! You weren't going to listen to me otherwise," Aelvarim said. "I had no choice."

"I'll throw you out now!" Piper screamed.

She lunged at him with the egg whip. Throwing his hands up defensively, Aelvarim ducked out of her way. She slashed at him again, and he retreated from her. All of her blows whistled through the air, missing their target, but she managed to back him up against the kitchen counter. He leaned back on the counter to avoid being hit in the face.

"Stop that!"

"All right." Piper leaned over him, grabbing him by the lacings on his tunic front. She intended to haul him by them to the door, but the warm smooth touch of his skin on her fingers distracted her. She closed the minuscule distance between them and kissed him.

Aelvarim tensed, then relaxed almost to the point of melting on the counter. He wrapped his arms around her. Piper kept hold of his tunic front, but when she went to put her other hand around his neck, she smacked the side of his head with the egg whip.

"Ouch."

"Sorry."

He took the egg whip from her and threw it across the room. Piper heard it hit the far wall with a strange sound, a sort of combination thump and crack. Her fingers worked their way into the silky strands of his hair. She ran one fingertip up the side of his ear, touched the point, and kissed him again.

Only a desperate need to breathe again made Piper surrender the kiss. He looked at her longingly; his hand caressed her hair. "I think I shall die if you say you won't be mine."

Piper jumped away from him. "Stop that! Quit quoting the manuscript. It's creepy."

"I apologize. I don't know what else to say."

"Don't quote, just say what you really think. When you quote it sounds like you're lying."

Aelvarim looked around the room, obviously at a loss. He looked everywhere but at Piper.

"You are the one from the manuscript." Piper's voice shook, nearly as much as her hands. Her heart pounded with misery and frustration. "You killed my great-grandmother." Piper opened the utensils drawer again.

"No. I swear it. I never harmed Grandmother Dickerson." Aelvarim dashed for the back door.

"Get out! You lying, murdering ...."

He flung the door open wide, and paused in the doorway looking back at Piper. "I love you. I want to marry you."

"Get out!" Piper grabbed a handful of utensils and threw them at him. "I hate you!"

The door slammed shut, as the utensils skittered across the floor without reaching the door. Tears clouded Piper's eyes, her throat constricted around her breathing, and she gasped, trying not to sob.