9: Revelations

Everyone started talking at once, demanding an explanation (most of the Wiseman Elves as well as Derek and Andy) or commenting on the dance form (the Valinórean Elves — Finda and Nielluin were dancing together, trying to imitate the dance steps, as were Calandil and Elennen, all four of them giggling). Vorondur stepped into the fray, speaking loudly and with much authority.

“Let’s have a little quiet please,” he called out and everyone subsided. “Alex, let’s get your mother some water. Are you alright, Mrs. Meriwether?” He knelt down before her, taking her wrist and checking her pulse.

“She’ll be fine, Ron,” Alex assured him. “Here, Mom, have some water. Feeling calmer?”

Anne nodded, taking a few sips. “Yes, dear, thank you.”

Glorfindel gave Alex a wry look. “Do you usually go around carrying a tango music CD in your pocket?”

“No, but I know my mom so I came prepared.”

“What do you mean?” Vorondur asked, still keeping a clinical eye on the Mortal Woman.

“She and my dad loved to dance the tango. Mom taught me some when I was a kid, though I learned more when Amroth was training me. Anyway, Mom told me that Dad used to make her dance it whenever she got riled up over something. It seemed to be the only thing that would calm her down.” He grinned, looking sheepish and suddenly younger than he was. “He would speak to her in Spanish, which he’d learned while living in Mexico for a time. She loved listening to him speak Spanish. It was the first foreign language I learned.”

“But seriously, Leroy Anderson?” Glorfindel couldn’t help asking, casting the Mortal an amused look.

Alex shrugged. “It was always a favorite of theirs.”

Vorondur stood up, giving Alex a considering look. “You suspected she would react as she did and came prepared.”

“Hey! Boy Scout, remember? Always be prepared,” Alex quipped.

“Sure beats Prozac,” Derek said with a grin. “I think I need to learn that dance.”

“Amroth can teach you,” Alex said distractedly as he sat beside his mother. “I’m sorry, Mom. I had a feeling you would react this way. You know you don’t do well when reality doesn’t meet your expectations.”

“I still don’t believe these people are Elves,” Anne said firmly. “It’s just too absurd.”

“How can we convince you?” Vorondur asked, bending down to check her pulse again.

“I have no idea,” Anne replied, “and frankly, I’m not sure I want you to convince me.” She sighed and closed her eyes, looking all of her nearly sixty years. “I think you should take me back to the inn, Artemus.”

“Yeah, sure, Mom, whatever,” Alex said. He gave Vorondur a shake of his head, looking defeated.

Vorondur smiled back sympathetically. “Give her time, son,” he said in Sindarin.

“What about her moving here?” Alex said in the same language, though not very fluently. “She needs to move here for safety.”

“What are you gabbling about?” Anne demanded, looking cross.

Alex looked down at her. “It’s called Sindarin, Mom. It’s the language of the Elves.”

“You mean you made it up as part of your elf personae,” she offered.

Alex shook his head. “No, Mom. It’s not made up. It’s a real language.”

“Sounds a bit like Welsh, doesn’t it, though?” Anne retorted.

“A little, but it’s far older than Welsh or any other language spoken by humans,” Glorfindel said, entering the conversation. “Anne, I know this is hard for you to understand, but we are telling you the truth.”

“But you have no way to really prove it, do you?” Anne countered. “Pointed ears could be plastic surgery and you can claim to be immortal but unless I spend the rest of my life in your presence and see for myself that you do not age, there’s no way to tell, is there?”

“Why don’t you?” Alex suggested, taking the opening his mother had inadvertently given him.

She gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you stick around long enough to see?”

“You mean, move here to Wiseman?” Anne gave her son a look of disbelief. “I would have to give up my job.”

“You’ve been telling me for years that you’re ready to take early retirement,” Alex countered.

“And move to Florida, not Alaska!”

“But at least you’ll be with me. We’re a team, remember?”

Anne shook her head, leaned over and gave him a kiss on his cheek, smiling faintly. “We haven’t been a team in a long time,” she said somewhat sadly.

“But we can be again,” Alex said pleadingly. “Please, Mom, think about it. And you don’t have to stop teaching, you know. I’m sure we can find you a job here. You might be able to teach at the college. You’ve done that before back home.”

“I don’t know,” Anne said with a sigh. “I just don’t know.”

“It’s not something you have to decide tonight, Anne,” Vorondur said, giving her a smile. “Go home. Think it over. And think carefully about this as well: in all these years, has your son ever lied to you about anything, except possibly about his job for obvious reasons?”

“He’s never lied to me even about that,” Anne replied. “Oh, I don’t mean he told me state secrets or anything, but he’s always been honest about what he does and where he’s gone even if he can’t give me actual details.”

“And that should tell you something right there,” Vorondur said. “Now, it is getting late and you have an early start tomorrow if you want to beat the storm, so I think you should take your mother back to the inn. Andy, how are you doing?”

“Oh, good, I was wondering if anyone had noticed my fainting away from shock or not,” Andy said dryly, giving them all a grin.

For a second or two, everyone just stared at him and then Vorondur looked at Derek. “Now I know where you get your questionable sense of humor.” Derek just shrugged, looking not at all apologetic, giving them a smug look.

“You really believe them?” Anne asked Andy.

The Man shrugged. “A lot of things I’ve seen and heard these last couple of weeks are beginning to make sense in light of what’s been said tonight. I tried to talk to you about it a couple of times, remember? I could tell, though, that you were turning a blind eye on it all, that you really didn’t want to face the truth that these people were a bit… weird.” He glanced at Glorfindel and the other Elves, looking apologetic. “Sorry.”

“We’ve been called worse things, Andy,” Glorfindel said with a smile. “It’s all right.”

Anne shook her head. “I just thought, well, we’re in Alaska, and people have to be a bit strange to want to live here, like in the TV show Northern Exposure, remember? Everyone in that town was wacky.”

Just then, the lights began to flicker. Everyone automatically looked up at the ceiling. The lights dimmed, then brightened and then went out completely, plunging everyone into darkness, except for the glow of the fire.

“We’ll wait to see if the lights come back on soon before we go to generator power,” Glorfindel said.

“Where’s the lighter?” Roy said. “I can light the candles on the mantle.”

“Oh dear Lord,” Anne whispered in shock, staring about at the Elves.

“Mom? What’s wrong?” Alex asked worriedly.

“You… you’re all glowing. You’re radioactive!”

“What? Oh, yeah,” Alex said, having completely forgotten about that aspect of Elvenkind.

Anne gave him a searching look and then stared about her. The glowing was not so obvious about any who were standing near the fire, and one could put it down to the reflection of the flames, but the ones standing further away were definitely glowing and they were too far from the fire to allow for it. Before she could say something, the library door opened.

“Hey! Why are all the lights out?”

“Darren, you’re back,” Glorfindel said, turning to greet the loremaster. “What do you mean? We lost power.”

“That’s odd. All the other houses on this street are lit,” Daeron said, coming further into the room. “So what have I missed?”

Even as he spoke, the lights suddenly came on and everyone stood about blinking.

“Okay, that was weird,” Derek said.

“No. That was a Maia,” Glorfindel answered through gritted teeth. “Do they never learn?”

“Are there Mayans living in Wiseman?” Anne asked Alex, looking confused.

Alex blinked, trying to figure out the non sequitur and then started laughing. “No, Mom. No Mayans. Loren meant ‘Maia’. The Maiar are… um… sort of like angels.”

“Angels?” Anne retorted in disbelief. “First Elves and now angels? Are you sure the water supply here hasn’t been tampered with?”

“But you believe in angels!” Alex protested. “You even taught me that stupid prayer about my guardian angel when I was a kid.” He looked up at Amroth, his expression one of self-disgust. “Would you believe I actually used to pray that prayer before going on a mission?”

“Did it help?” Amroth retorted with a knowing smile.

“Sort of, I guess. I don’t know. Not important now.” He turned back to his mother. “So you believe in angels whom you’ve never seen and not Elves who are standing right here in front of you.”

“Angels are in the Bible, so of course I believe in them,” Anne rejoined with a bit of exasperation. “And how do you know I’ve never seen one?”

“This is getting a bit off topic,” Vorondur interjected. “Darren, Andy seems to accept the fact that we are who and what we say we are, but Anne is having a bit of trouble.”

“But I saw you glow,” Anne said somewhat excitedly. “You’re radioactive.”

“Hardly,” Daeron said with a grin as he came to stand before her. “Mrs. Meriwether, I can understand your confusion, we all do. The concept of Elves is not something that people today can wrap their minds around immediately, unless, of course, they’re from California.” He flashed Andy a bright smile.

“Most people think we’re from another planet anyway,” Andy offered with a shrug.

“But why was everyone glowing?” Anne insisted.

“Well, I wasn’t,” Derek pointed out, “and neither was Alex or you or my dad. We’re Mortals. Only Elves glow.”

Silence settled on them for a moment or two, the Elves perfectly still. Andy fidgeted slightly in his chair and he looked as if he wanted to say something but Derek put a warning hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Alex watched his mother carefully, gauging her mood. Anne stared about her and then shook her head.

“This is too much. I need time.”

“We understand,” Daeron said sympathetically. “Take what time you need. We hope eventually you will come to acceptance. I know Alex worries about you and rightly so.”

“What do you mean?” Anne demanded.

“I made enemies at the Agency, Mom,” Alex answered. “I told you about that. I am afraid that they might try to get to me through you. I’ve been promised that you’ll be protected, but I would feel a lot happier if you were here instead of on the other side of the continent. If anything were to happen to you because of me I would never forgive myself.”

“What sort of protection?” Anne asked.

“Angels, Mom. I’ve been promised that you would be protected by angels.”

Before his mother could respond to that, there was a hail. “Anyone home?” Everyone looked around to see the library door opening and then Námo was there in his Nate disguise, complete with duster and wide-brimmed hat which he carried in his hands. Underneath the duster he wore a black turtleneck and a black-and-white flannel shirt and black jeans. He strode in, giving them all a bright smile. “Ah, there you are. You’re having a party and you didn’t invite me. I’m crushed.”

His entrance brought those Elves who had been sitting to their feet and even Alex and Derek stood up out of respect. All the Elves gave the Vala bows or curtsies. Only Anne and Andy remained seated, both of them looking puzzled.

“Nate,” Glorfindel said carefully. “What a surprise. Can we do anything for you?”

Námo gave him a sardonic look. “I’ll have some sherry, if you would.”

Glorfindel just nodded, never taking his eyes off the Vala. “Dan, if you would.”

Elladan hesitated for a second before going to the sideboard and pouring some sherry into a glass, and then handing it to Námo, who smiled warmly at him. He took a sip. “Hmm… quite good.”

“Is this a social visit, my lord, or official?” Finrod asked, casting the Vala a wry look.

“What? Oh, purely social, I assure you. I was in the neighborhood and decided to drop by and see how all of you are getting on.”

“I know you!”

Everyone turned to Anne, who was now standing, a look of shock on her face.

“Yes, dear, I suspect you do,” Námo said with a nod.

“What do you mean?” Alex asked, looking at his mother in confusion. “How do you know Nate?”

“Is that your name?” Anne asked, ignoring Alex’s question. “You never told me.”

“It is my name at the moment,” Námo said. “I have had many names down the ages.”

“How do you know Nate, Mom?” Alex demanded, casting a suspicious look at Námo.

“Oh, it was before you were born, when your father died,” Anne said. “I was almost eight months pregnant with you. I had no family nearby and few friends at the time as your father and I had only recently moved into our new home. I felt so alone and frightened, unsure what to do next. I was even contemplating giving you up for adoption.”

Alex felt a chill and he stared at his mother in near horror. She gave him a pleading look. “I was twenty years old, a widow and struggling to make ends meet. I left college to marry your father and I had few prospects. I could barely make the mortgage on the house and was thinking of trying to sell it. Giving you up seemed the right thing to do. I figured you would have a better chance at life without me.” She paused and gave him a tender, sad smile, brushing his cheek with her hand. Alex took it and kissed it gently. Anne looked at Námo and smiled.

“And then you showed up one day out of the blue.”

“Where?” Alex asked.

“At the cemetery,” Anne replied.

“Figures,” Glorfindel muttered. Námo flashed him a knowing grin.

“I was visiting your father,” Anne continued explaining, “telling him about my plans to give you up, trying to justify it in my own mind, I suppose. Then suddenly I wasn’t alone. Nate was there. I thought at first he was one of the groundskeepers.”

“Do you remember what I told you?” Námo asked.

“How could I forget?” Anne said. “You told me not to give up on hope, to keep the baby. You told me to believe that all would be well.”

“And it was, wasn’t it?” Námo said.

“It was difficult,” Anne retorted. “At first, but eventually, yes, it did turn out well and I have never regretted taking your advice.” She gave Alex a loving smile and Alex smiled back.

“And now I will give you more advice, Anne Meriwether,” Námo said and the timber of his voice changed, deepening and becoming more solemn, more formal. Anne gave him an expectant look. “Trust your son if not yourself.”

There was a long pause. Anne gave Námo a puzzled look. “That’s it?”

“What more need be said?” Námo rejoined with a gentle smile. “And now I must go. Peace be with you all.”

Both Anne and Andy gasped in shock as the Vala turned and walked toward the door, fading away into the fabric of the universe before their eyes. No one moved or spoke for the longest time, staring at the space where the Vala had vanished. Then, Anne turned to her son, her expression almost smug.

“You see? I told you I’d met an angel.”