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Bernard looked at his toenails and sighed. They were short, and they constantly needed trimming to stay short, which they had to if they were to fit in the ordinary sneakers Charlie had bought him. Bernard didn't feel like trimming his toenails just to go berrying in the park two miles away, so he found a pair of flip-flops in the back of the hall closet instead.
(It was November, and Bernard might get odd looks biking around in flip-flops in November, but November in Vermont was nothing like November at the North Pole.)
The first time Charlie had seen Bernard's elvish toes, having carefully pulled off Bernard's crackowes to discover that the curl he'd assumed was cobbled was in fact the graceful arc of Bernard's own carefully maintained nails--the first time Charlie saw them, he stared in shock, then came after Bernard with a hacksaw and an emery board.
No, that wasn't true: Bernard was exaggerating it in his head. Charlie hadn't set out to take off Bernard's nails, he'd only wanted to look, but Bernard, embarrassed, had attempted to sit on his own feet to block the inspection. Charlie, laughing, trying to tickle Bernard into submission, had caught hold of the great curved nail extending from Bernard's left big toe, and tugged, and--and it had snapped.
Human nails were more brittle than elfin ones.
Bernard had wept, unexpectedly; he'd thought that was out of his system by then. He locked himself in the bathroom and ruthlessly trimmed off the rest of them, because he understood perfectly well that there was no way he could grow that nail back, coax it back into shape. So that was it for the toenails, and it for the crackowes as well, because they were just floppy cloth points without the shape within.
And Charlie bought Bernard sneakers, which, as often as not, he didn't wear, and today it was flip-flops, the heels of which kept trying to catch on the underside of the bike pedals. Bernard skidded to a stop and scowled down at the bike. He'd thought he understood bicycles thoroughly; he'd made enough of them in his time. But polishing chrome and putting beads on the spokes hadn't prepared him for the sheer annoyance of trying to ride while wearing flip-flops.
Undoubtedly, children had better sense than to ride bikes in flip-flops, or they would have been requesting flip-flop-proof bicycles years ago.
Bernard looked up in the sky, wishing the grey clouds would open up on him and give him an excuse to turn around and go home. The leaves of the tree above him whistled in the wind, their branches black against that ominous sky. No rain fell on Bernard, but, with a hard snap, a piece of the tree did.
Bernard let go of the handlebar and caught it, heavy in its husk. A walnut.
Now, there was a thought.
All Souls' Day, the day Bernard woke up human, had fallen on a Sunday that year. He'd been with Charlie all weekend, trick-or-treating around Charlie's campus on Friday night ("I don't have a costume, Charlie--" "Are you kidding? You don't need a costume--"), watching cartoons with him from the floor of his living room on Saturday morning, and that ill-fated binge on the Hallowe'en chocolate that Saturday afternoon. Bernard blamed the chocolate whole-heartedly. He'd had reservations when Charlie offered him some, but he put them aside. After all, he had fed Charlie milk and cookies at the North Pole for years, and Charlie had never turned into an elf. The old warnings about eating the food of other realms had seemed--suspended, for the two of them. Or so Bernard had thought.
(Maybe it was the time of year; the quarter-day, and all that entailed, the time of passage between worlds. Janet had captured Tam Lin on All Hallow's, hadn't she?)
Bernard had meant to go home that night; had said, laughing, how the busy season was starting for them, how they needed him at the Pole. And maybe if he had gone home that night, slept alone in his own bed, it wouldn't have happened, he would have woken up still elfin on All Souls' Day, never knowing his peril.
But he didn't, because Charlie kissed him.
Charlie had been hauling out the snow globe to call Bernard down to play since long before he'd come out to his parents (and hadn't settling Santa down that weekend been fun), but that didn't mean Bernard didn't know they were dating. Charlie never called it that, though, had never made a move, and Bernard had given up trying to figure out if it was the elf thing, or maybe the fact that he'd known Charlie since Charlie was eight, or what.
Charlie kissed him that night, though, and things rapidly got out of hand. The sex was quick and mostly clothed because they both felt too urgent, so that by the time they curled up in bed, shivering against Charlie's faulty heater, Charlie had seen Bernard's cock but not his toes, never having gotten around to taking his leggings all the way off.
Bernard woke up that Sunday morning feeling strange. He thought it was guilt about abandoning his post, had hauled his hand up from under the covers to snap his fingers, thinking he could just go check on things--make sure nothing had blown up, stand in the hallway and make sure he didn't hear screams--before coming back and having breakfast with Charlie.
He snapped, and nothing happened. The well of magic was gone. He was utterly terrified.
Charlie turned over and opened his eyes, smiling at him sleepily. "Hello," said Charlie. "Didn't think you'd still be here--thought you'd have run back to the Pole to check on Cabbage Patch Kid production or something," he said, because he knew Bernard far too well. (The Cabbage Patch doll craze predated Charlie, but he'd heard enough stories about elves frantically stuffing misshapen dolls that the phrase had entered his idiom.)
Then Charlie caught the look of terror on Bernard's face and amended, "What's wrong?"
"I'm human," Bernard blurted out.
"What?" said Charlie.
Bernard lifted his arm and said, "Smell me, I'm human."
Charlie looked torn between worry and laughter. "It's--maybe it's not permanent," he said. "Maybe you just need a shower? Have you had sex before?" he asked, earnestly.
"Yes," Bernard said flatly. "I tried to go to the North Pole. I can't, because I don't have magic."
"Oh," Charlie said, suddenly much more serious. "Oh." And then: "Maybe my dad can fix you? Or Mother Nature? Look, we'll go, we can, I don't know, have Curtis search the books for the Elf Clause and--"
"Oh, God, Curtis," Bernard moaned into his pillow. "He's going to destroy Christmas. I won't be there to stop him and he'll destroy it."
"He will not," said Charlie. "My dad knows better than to let him build a robot army now. And anyway, we're going to get you fixed, somehow--you'll be back in no time."
Charlie's snow globe still worked, which was monstrously unfair. Bernard had Charlie take them to his office, because he knew this was outside of Santa's purview and didn't think he could face him, and Santa never came to Bernard's office, happy to let Bernard manage the bureaucracy of a company town. Charlie held Bernard's hand tightly in transit and didn't let go when they arrived, as if he could tell Bernard was vibrating on the knife's edge of complete and total breakdown.
Bernard managed to unpeel Charlie to have a private audience with Mother Nature, who took one look at him and said, "You fell in love with that boy, didn't you."
Bernard nodded miserably.
Mother Nature sighed and sat down next to him, putting her arm around him. "Does he know?" she asked.
"I think so," Bernard said, uncertainly. "I mean, I slept with him."
"Sweetie, he's a man," Mother Nature said, and she was partly using the word like an elf would, to denote the difference between mortals and creatures of magic, but she was also partly using it as a woman would. "You're going to have to be more frank with him than that."
"Can you," said Bernard, even though he already knew it was impossible, had known from the start, "can you change me back?"
"I can do a lot of things, but I can't do that," said Mother Nature. "The heart wants what it wants." She kissed his forehead, a kind of blessing, and though he had very firmly not wanted to, Bernard started to cry. She held him, rocked him gently, the mother he had never had, and Bernard wished with all his being that his heart wanted something else, but it did no good.
After he'd dried his tears and thanked the goddess, Bernard went back to his office, where Charlie was waiting. "Well?" Charlie said expectantly, and Bernard only sat down at his desk. He knew what had to be done but not where to start. Charlie said, "Oh," and came up behind him to hug him. Bernard leaned back into Charlie's warmth and bit back more stupid tears.
"I'm going to stay for two weeks," said Bernard. "I have to train Curtis, make sure he understands--there should be a smooth transition. We can't really afford to change Arch-Elf this close to Christmas but I can't--I can't--"
"Two weeks, okay," said Charlie, easily. "What then?"
"Then," Bernard said, taking a deep breath, "I need you to come get me." Anyone here could take him to Charlie, but Bernard didn't want that. He wanted Charlie. "And then I'll go home with you. And." He hadn't exactly asked Charlie if he could move in, but he didn't know what else to do, didn't know what he could do if Charlie refused him. "And I won't be able to come back."
"Do you want me to stay?" Charlie said. "I can miss two weeks of classes--"
"No, you can't," said Bernard. "You told me yourself you have a midterm on Tuesday and--no. No. Just go home. Please? And come and get me in two weeks."
Charlie bit his lip, whispered, "Okay," and kissed him goodbye.
After several attempts, Bernard wrote out a letter of resignation, and handed it to Santa without fanfare. "What's this?" Santa asked.
"My two weeks' notice," said Bernard.
"You're quitting?" Santa yelped.
"I'm no longer fit to be your Arch-Elf," Bernard said steadily, "by dint of no longer being an elf. I underwent a transformation. It's unfortunately permanent. Please just read the letter, Santa. I have to go yell at Curtis now."
There was too much to tell Curtis in two weeks, especially when they spent the first hour with Curtis pleading, "But--human?" Bernard ignored him and plowed on, trying to tell him too many specifics, too many odd quirks in the old machinery Curtis didn't have enough appreciation for, too many notes on the just-so way Santa's suit had to be pressed, how crunchy his cookies should be, too many personnel details, ancient diva mastercrafter elves who had to be coaxed into speed of production with praise and cunning and cajolery and in one instance, bribes of moose jerky. Curtis tried to keep up, tried to take notes, and Bernard tried to pull all the scattered thoughts together into some kind of order, and it just wasn't working, Curtis was asking too many questions--
"Why are you screaming at me?" Curtis asked pitifully. "You never used to be this impatient!"
"I'm impatient because I'm going to die," Bernard said, which was the first time he'd said it, the first time he'd faced that little thought racing around in the back of his head.
He was mortal now. He shook.
"Oh, gosh," Curtis said, wide-eyed through his glasses. "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry."
And Bernard, damn it, started to cry again.
Santa tried to fix things on the last day. He rushed in, holding his coat out to Bernard, and said, "There's one way a human can become an elf, right? By becoming Santa. Here, here, put it on!"
A little spark of something flared up in Bernard. He squashed it flat and tried to keep breathing. "I couldn't," he said. "You love being Santa. You're a much better Santa than I'd ever be."
"No, come on," Santa said. "I can go back to being ordinary, I'll be fine. And you'd be a great Santa, really!"
Bernard knew that wasn't true. In the years before Charlie's dad had taken up the post, when the Santas didn't last for long and would rarely do more than show up to ride the sleigh, Bernard had been bogged down with too much stress to feel the joy of the season. Maybe he took it too seriously, took on too much personal responsibility--but no. He'd never be a jolly Santa. He was no good for that.
But he didn't particularly want to discuss his basic emotional incompatibility with the position, so Bernard found another excuse. "For one thing, I'm not going to be fulfilling the Missus Clause any time soon," he pointed out.
"Huh?" said Santa, then, "Oh. Right. Um." He drooped, his coat touching the floor when he let his arms fall. "It was just a thought," said Santa. "I wish I could do something for you."
"Thank you," said Bernard quietly, out of social obligation more than anything else, because it felt like Santa had only made it harder to leave. He wished everyone would leave him alone to be miserable in peace, and he didn't know how to ask for that.
Charlie came to take him home. Bernard brought only a few possessions--most of his things simply wouldn't fit a human life, so he left them behind. But what he did bring was apparently more than symbolic enough for Charlie. "This is so weird," Charlie said, watching Bernard put his toothbrush in the holder.
Bernard looked up. "You don't want me here," he said, feeling cold.
"No, no, it's not that," Charlie said. "It's just--not what I expected. I thought you'd be commuting."
Bernard spent most of the first day in bed, feeling sorry for himself. Charlie stayed with him, quiet and patient, taking notes from his History of Renaissance Art textbook and occasionally reaching out to run his fingers through Bernard's hair. Charlie left briefly to get some gyros from the shop down the street for dinner, and Bernard made himself get up to eat with Charlie. Charlie kissed him after supper, and they nearly had sex again, except there was the unfortunate toenail incident, and after that, Bernard's mood was ruined.
Today, Charlie had class, and Bernard, left to his own devices, had finally gotten dressed (in some of Charlie's clothes) and ventured out. He was fine for a few hours, but when the sun started to set around four in the afternoon, he shivered (not entirely from the cold; it still wasn't anything like the North Pole) and turned back.
By the time Charlie got back from classes, Bernard had tarts.
Charlie slung his bookbag in a chair and hurried into the kitchen eagerly. Bernard had just pulled the tarts out of the oven, the berries bubbling over. "That looks incredible," Charlie said. "Where did you get anything to bake with? I know I don't keep anything in the fridge."
"The dewberries are from the park," Bernard said. "I sweetened them with some honeycomb from the beehive behind the apartments--" Charlie made a face; he'd complained about getting stung trying to take a shortcut to the bus stop, which was why Bernard knew the hive was there. "You were almost out of flour," Bernard went on. Charlie kept flour to attempt pancakes on the weekends, but his stove burners operated at full heat or not at all, and both times Charlie had tried to make him pancakes, they had come out burnt on the outside and slightly gooey on the inside. "But I passed a house with walnut trees on the way up to the park--a lady named Mrs. Mueller owns them, she said I could have any of the walnuts the squirrels hadn't gotten, so the crust is mostly walnuts."
("It's an Indian summer or we wouldn't even have walnuts this late," Mrs. Mueller had said; no dewberries either, probably. The subtleties of the seasons escaped Bernard. Things grew. There was sunlight--in November--for a time, anyway. It wasn't like the North Pole.)
"Can I?" said Charlie, hand hovering over the muffin tray.
"You'll burn yourself," said Bernard. Charlie made puppy-dog eyes at him. "Get a spoon."
(It wasn't anything he'd done at the North Pole, but he'd had a life before Santa, once, and Bernard took a certain elvish pride in gathering his own ingredients. Even if he'd fallen out of the walnut tree and banged his shin, gotten stung on the elbow, of all places, trying to get honeycomb, and scratched his hands all over picking dewberries. Human injuries, human frailties.)
They had tarts for dinner and dessert, and Bernard licked berry stains off Charlie's lips. Charlie said, "Oh, feeling better, are we?" Bernard was, a little, so they made out on the couch, and then they went to bed and made love. There was a bad moment when Bernard felt his eyes starting to get wet and tried to pull away, and Charlie said, "No, don't--I mean, if you don't want to do it, we won't, but don't feel like you have to hide from me. Please." Bernard pressed his face to Charlie's neck and Charlie held him close and the sex got a little more desperate.
Afterwards, Charlie said, "Do you want to talk about it at all?"
"No," said Bernard. Charlie didn't press. Bernard found a few words, managed to string them together. "I just wish I could, I don't know, run away. And in a way I already have, but I wish I could, I don't know, be a hermit in the desert or something." Something about the image of a sun-drenched desert attracted Bernard; he didn't know what. But it wasn't quite right. "Not have to deal with anyone. Not you--you've been. Very understanding." He swallowed back tears and said, because it seemed necessary, "Thank you."
Charlie kissed the end of his nose and said, "You don't have to thank me. I know it's hard." He wriggled in the bed a bit, curling around Bernard. "Maybe we can ask Santa for a cottage in the country or something."
"I don't think I'd be comfortable asking Santa for anything," Bernard said, frowning.
"You don't have to," Charlie said lightly. "He's my dad, I can ask for what I want."
In the morning, they had the last of the tarts for breakfast, and Charlie called his mom to say he wasn't coming home for Thanksgiving the following week. Bernard looked up, startled. Charlie said, "Well, yeah, partly it's homework, but it's also partly Bernard. Did you talk to Dad? Yeah, he's staying with me. I don't think he's really up to people right now. I. Okay, okay, if you really want to, we won't say no to leftovers. But not a long visit, okay? And don't be mad if Bernard holes up in the bedroom the whole time you're here."
Bernard finished his tart. "I don't mean to take you away from your family," he said.
"You're not," said Charlie. "Anyway, they don't need me right now, and you do."
They ended up skipping out on the family version of Christmas, too; Charlie said, "He's got issues with Christmas, Mom, I think we're just going to stay in and watch Buffy DVDs," but they weren't even energetic enough for that. Bernard got steadily more depressed as December progressed and didn't get out of bed for a week leading up until Christmas.
And then on Christmas day, the sun rose early.
It was only about half an hour early, but Bernard noticed, because it crept in the window and shone directly in his eyes. And then he realized that the pillows felt different--like down pillows--and that the bedspread smelled faintly of lilac.
It was cold; Bernard put his feet down on the hardwood floors and jumped a little in surprise. The bed creaked, but Charlie didn't wake. (Bernard wondered when he'd outgrown that; Charlie used to be the kind of kid who was up at five in the morning on Christmas and no other day of the year.) The floor creaked, too, as Bernard wandered around, exploring the--dare he say it--cottage in the country.
There was a letter on the kitchen table and a bowl of apples, both of which Bernard helped himself to. The letter was from Santa to Charlie, but Bernard read it anyway.
Dear Charlie,
As it turns out, Dear Dad was the right person to send your letter to, as the one thing Santa is in short supply of is real estate. I hope you and Bernard like the cottage. Treat it with respect: it is unfortunately not yours. It belongs to a little old lady named Mrs. Fields who is unable to live in it herself at present, having fallen and broken her hip about a month ago. She is currently staying with her daughter's family. She wants a caretaker or two, mostly for the animals (there's a goat, two chickens, and a cat named Tabitha). Her son-in-law has driving up to check on them but is getting tired of that. Mrs. Fields agreed to take the two of you on for room and board, without an interview since it was a Christmas present, but she does want to meet you and will probably be coming up to visit early in the new year. Try to make a good impression.
If you do have any problems with the house you need to take care of, feel free to call. I have an elf or two somewhere around here who can handle a wrench and a hammer, and a lot of them miss Bernard.
Love,
SantaP.S. Tell Bernard the biscotti was excellent.
(Bernard had made the biscotti two weeks ago, before the darkness had seemed so crushing, but being biscotti, it had kept. It was Charlie's idea to leave coffee and biscotti out for Santa, though. He'd ridden along enough when he was little to know what a long night it was for Santa.)
Bernard felt lost for a moment, trying to place who would miss him, at the North Pole. Quentin from the labs? Larry from the kitchens? Judy? Surely not Curtis? He had only ever yelled at Curtis. Well, maybe Curtis was missing having someone else to be the boss.
He felt something brush past his ankle. He looked down, and discovered Tabitha twining herself around his leg. She was, of course, a tabby.
Outside, there was a little frost on the ground, already melting in the morning sun. Bernard could see, gated off, furrowed rows of a garden where herbs or vegetables might grow. There were trees, bare but golden, rimmed with shining snow.
Charlie came up behind Bernard and hugged him around the waist, kissing the back of his neck. "You got up," he said, sounding pleased.
"He got us a cottage in the country," Bernard said, voice full of disbelief.
"Retirement package. Much nicer than a watch," Charlie told him. "Does it make you feel any better that it's not a gift outright?"
"Some," Bernard admitted: a part of him still longed to be of service.
"Let's see if the stove actually works," said Charlie. "I want to make some real pancakes."
The pancakes were, for once, entirely edible, despite the unwitting substitution of goat's milk for buttermilk. Bernard kept silent while he ate, but he worried anyway, and eventually Charlie asked him, "What's the matter?"
"We won't be able to stay here," Bernard said. "What about your classes?"
Charlie waved this aside. "I already spoke to advising and registration about taking a semester or two off. It's not a big deal."
"It isn't?" Bernard said, perplexed.
Charlie smiled at him.
"Oh," said Bernard. Tentatively, he smiled back.
Mrs. Fields's daughter drove her up to meet them a couple of days after New Year's, and Bernard made apple bread for the occasion. Mrs. Fields sat at the kitchen table, a walker at her side, eating slice after slice of it while Bernard fidgeted nervously.
"So you're the gay boys," said Mrs. Fields.
"Mother," said her daughter, sounding scandalized.
"I did understand that right, didn't I?" Mrs. Fields asked Charlie. "Your father said it was you and your boyfriend?"
"Yes, ma'am," Charlie said primly.
"How long have you been seeing each other?" Mrs. Fields said, happily gossipy.
"We met--thirteen years ago just last week," Charlie said. "We've only been, er, 'seeing each other' for a couple of months now."
"And what made you decide to come out to the country?" Mrs. Fields asked.
Charlie glanced at Bernard. "Kind of a rest and fresh air thing, you know? Bernard's not been feeling well, and--"
"Oh?" Mrs. Fields said. Any health problem was of great interest to her; she had spent the first half hour eagerly telling them where she'd had her fall and how long she had waited for the mailman to find her, and all of the other problems they had held her for at the hospital.
"I'm going to die," Bernard volunteered morosely.
"Is it that AIDS?" Mrs. Fields asked Bernard directly.
"Mother!" said her daughter. "That's not the gay disease anymore!"
"Hush, Annie," said Mrs. Fields, flapping her wrinkly hand at her daughter. "All I meant was he doesn't look sick, and that's the thing, you can't tell when people have that AIDS."
"It's more of an existential thing," Charlie said. "He had an accident recently and went head-on with his own mortality and he's still a little shaken up."
"What's it like to be old?" Bernard asked Mrs. Fields.
Mrs. Fields's crow's feet crinkled up. "Dearie, I'm not old," she said. "My mother lived to be ninety-eight, that's old. Don't you go thinking that just because they had to replace my hip, I'm old."
Mrs. Fields drilled them on the use of various tools. Bernard got the toolbox out of the basement and proved he knew which end of a hammer to hold. "Do you know anything about animal husbandry?" Mrs. Fields asked then, and Bernard surprised her with his competence there, too.
(It had been a while since Bernard had actually had charge of a goat, but generally, you just kept them from eating anything you wanted for yourself.)
"You've found an excellent partner to get lost in Bumfuck, Virginia with," Mrs. Fields told Charlie.
"Mother!"
"It's just an expression."
Mrs. Fields left them on their own, and after that they didn't see anyone but the mailman for weeks on end. Charlie called his mother every so often, but Bernard didn't have to speak to her, so he didn't worry about it much.
"No, Mom, it's not a honeymoon," Charlie said once. "I'm pretty sure it'd be more cheerful if it was. Well, yeah, he's still depressed. No--no--look, Neal means well but he's not equipped to deal with elf psychology. Yeah, it really is that different. Well, how long do you think it would take you to adjust if you suddenly turned into a man? I think it is that big a change for him. He's working it out on his own, Mom, he just needs time. And I promise to send you an invitation when we get married. Okay, okay, okay, okay! I promise to let you come plan the wedding. Yes. Really. Not anytime soon, Mom!"
Bernard waited until Charlie got off the phone, then waited a bit more, kneading bread dough and trying to sort out what he wanted to say. "One of the things I'm afraid of," he told Charlie without preamble, "is that you don't love me as much as I love you. Because I changed and you didn't and maybe that's why, because I love you more. And then you say things like that about when we get married and--I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. But if I am wrong, then why me? Why me and not you?"
Charlie listened to him quietly, didn't interrupt when he faltered, and when he was finished, Charlie said, "I don't know why it was you and not me. I don't know if I--I mean, I don't know how to quantify love, and I don't think it should be a competition. I know that I love you a lot, and that I have loved you for a long time, and that I'm pretty sure I'm not going to stop. I don't know if that's as much as you love me." He bit his lip, then offered, "I hope it's enough."
Silly boy. How could that not be enough? Bernard dabbed at his eye with the back of his wrist and got flour all over his face. "Can we buy flour?" he asked, quavery-voiced. "We're almost out and even if Mrs. Fields grew wheat, I remember how much I hated milling flour."
"Sure," said Charlie, letting it go. "I can bike into town or something." He opened up his laptop at the kitchen table, and then, a few minutes later: "Huh, who knew. You can buy flour on amazon. Help me think up another twenty bucks worth of stuff we can buy so we don't have to pay shipping."
"I'm almost done here," said Bernard. His voice was nearly back to steady.
But by the time he had finished kneading, Charlie said, "Uh, okay, a hundred fifty bucks worth of art supplies. I think I'm done."
Bernard smiled and went to kiss him on the temple. "I love you," he said. He didn't try to quantify it any more than that.
Bernard cooked constantly as the months moved into spring. He picked mushrooms in the woods and made them into ravioli, and when spinach grew in the garden he put that in ravioli too. He made rosemary bread that they ate with olive oil instead of butter, and bread with whole cloves of garlic baked into the loaves, and egg bread, lots of it, because they were never, ever short of eggs--the result of having two laying hens. They had eggs for breakfast quite often: scrambled eggs, poached eggs, eggs over easy. When mustard seed and red pepper showed up in the garden, Bernard made deviled eggs for lunch. When he felt like making desserts out of eggs again, he made flan.
There was a stream that ran alongside the property, where Charlie sometimes went fishing. When he brought his catches back, Bernard would bread them with batter made from egg and flour, and fry them in a skillet. He chopped up green chiles and green onions with some lemon juice to put on them, and Charlie was startled to find he liked that better than tartar sauce.
The first time Charlie brought a fish back, he brought it still swimming, in a bucket, and said, "Do you know what to do with this? We always used to throw them back when I was growing up, so I don't know how to, to butcher a fish."
"I know how to gut a fish," Bernard said. "Where did you learn to fish?" he added curiously. "Your dad didn't seem like the type."
"Neal used to take me," Charlie said. "Not so much for the actual fish as for, I dunno, bonding or something. And some kind of relaxation technique, zenning out with your feet in the water. The funny thing is that if you are patient long enough, you do get fish."
Bernard had the strangest feeling that Charlie was fishing for him: waiting and not-waiting, anticipating a change without any great sense of expectation. The time spent sunning himself, line in the water, was somehow as important as that distant future moment when Bernard might rise up and take the hook, therefore not to be rushed. Patience personified.
Bernard drifted in the current, pondering.
"You know," Charlie said one day, "and don't take this the wrong way, because everything you've made is delicious, but I thought your repertoire would be more eggnog and gingerbread men and fruitcake and plum pudding and pumpkin pie."
"No," said Bernard. "I'm done with that part of my life."
Charlie spent most of his days sketching and painting. While he was down at the stream with his feet in the water, he sketched the ripples and eddies and rocks, and the willow on the other bank. When Bernard brought in a gladiolus from the flowering perennials under the window, Charlie drew it in its vase every day as each bud on it opened up. He did pieces of Bernard with blotches of flour on his face and dusting his hair, rolling pin in his hands. He painted Tabitha, curled up on the bed in the golden late afternoon light.
In April, Charlie sent out a portfolio like a message in a bottle, as if not really expecting it to reach any distant shore, or that he would receive any reply. For a long time, he didn't, and he made no mention of it, so that by the brilliant, lengthening days of June when Bernard felt the most peaceful, he had forgotten it entirely.
Charlie opened the thick, white envelope with a kind of reverence. Bernard noticed, but didn't pay much attention, because the sun was shining in and the yeasty smell of rising bread filled the kitchen.
"They liked my portfolio," Charlie said. There was excitement in his voice, but also a touch of trepidation.
"The art school in New York?" Bernard said, querying his own feelings. He found they were mostly pride in Charlie. He knew this meant change, but he wasn't afraid of it.
"Like, really liked it," Charlie said, nervousness more evident. "Like, they admitted me, liked it."
"That's great," Bernard said.
"I can defer admission," Charlie said quickly. "It doesn't have to be this year."
"No," said Bernard. He would not have wanted to leave this place now; at the height of summer, he was still charging up on the heat of sunlight. But he knew that by fall it would have served its purpose, and that as the growing things dwindled, it wouldn't matter if he were here, or elsewhere. "No, you should take it, Charlie, you worked hard for it."
"There's a lot of people in New York," Charlie cautioned him.
"There's a lot of life in New York," Bernard corrected him. "The same as here, in its own way. That's the thing, I think."
"The thing?" Charlie asked.
Bernard sat down at the table, looked at him across strewn paperwork. "I used to be a part of life; of, of, of the whole world. I mean, not just me--all elves. There used to be places for us. Gardens and bowls of milk and cobbler's shops and mountain halls. We counseled kings and maidservants. We used to be part of the world. And then--the belief in magic--sort of got constricted, confined to this one thing, and one by one we all left the old world and went up to the only place we could be in the new world. The North Pole is magical but it's isolated. It's, it's, Alfheim in exile. It doesn't have seasons like other places; it doesn't even have days like other places. And no humans to play with--we turned up our noses, but we missed you. We were never meant to be apart.
"I think that I became human," said Bernard, "because I love you not just for you but for what you represent. Life and breath and change and the turning of the seasons and the turning of the world. The North Pole was not somewhere I belonged, it was somewhere I made do. I belong with you. Wherever you go. You see?"
Charlie was grinning at him, but too sensible to let it lie completely. "You won't be able to go outside and find everything you need to bake a feast at your doorstep," he pointed out.
"They have markets in New York, don't they?" Bernard said. "I've been wanting to get some things that don't grow here."
"Oh?" Charlie asked. "Like what?"
"Well," Bernard said cheekily, "I've been dying to see what I can do with a pomegranate."
~The End
---
Appendix: Recipes
Berry Tarts
Crust:
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup butter
a sackful of walnuts, shelled and chopped very fine (if you chop them long enough you get a mix of powder and very small pieces) [about 11/2 cups when chopped]
a medium-ish chunk of honeycomb [equivalent 3 tbsp honey]
Mix ingredients. Spoon into cupcake papers in muffin pan, using spoon and fingers to shape into crusts. Bake at 350°F for approximately five minutes while preparing the filling.
Filling:
a hatful of dewberries [approximately 4 cups; dewberries are almost identical to blackberries, but other berries are also appropriate]
a smallish chunk of honeycomb [equivalent 2 tbsp honey]
Mix honey and berries. Get crusts back out of the oven. Spoon berries into crusts. Put back in oven. Bake at 350°F until berries start to bubble over (usually around 15-17 minutes).
Delicious either hot or cold.
Buttermilk Pancakes
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
2 eggs, separated
2 cups buttermilk
4 tbsp melted butter
Fruit, as desired.
Mix dry ingredients in large bowl. In a medium bowl, mix egg whites and buttermilk. In a small bowl, mix egg yolks and melted butter. Pour butter-yolk mixture into buttermilk mixture, whisk to combine. Pour all liquid into dry mixture. Mix just enough to bring the ingredients together, do not worry about every lump.
How to tell if your griddle or frying pan is hot enough: put a few drops of water on it. They should dance across the surface.
Spoon pancake batter onto griddle. If you want fruit in, you should put berries or chunks into the pancake on the griddle now.
How to tell when it time to flip the pancake: bubbles will form around the edge of pancake. When they begin to set--when the edge of the pancake looks more like white cake than like batter--it's time to flip.
Makes about 12 pancakes.
Almond Biscotti
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup chopped or sliced almonds
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp almond extract
2 tbsp milk
Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Combine. Should form a sticky dough.
Put parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Spread dough into a rough rectangle about five inches by ten.
Bake at 300°F for 45 minutes.
Allow to cool for ten minutes. Then slice into half to one inch pieces. Turn the pieces on their sides and bake for 15 more minutes. Flip the pieces over and bake for 15 more minutes.
Apple Bread
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup yogurt
2/3 cup sugar
4 eggs
4 apples, peeled and chopped
4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
enough lemon juice to drench the apples while chopping
Chop up the apples.
Mix the oil, yogurt, sugar and eggs. Add the apples. Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Cook in two 4x8 loaf pans for an hour or 3 "mini-loaf" pans for 40 minutes at 350°F.
Can be frozen (if one's housemates do not eat all of it first).
Ravioli
Fillings:
You can use almost anything for a ravioli filling. If you are going a vegetable route, you usually want to mix the vegetable with marscapone or ricotta cheese (cream cheese will work if you don't have access to those).
Examples:
1 cup ricotta
2 cups finely chopped mushrooms
or
1/2 cup ricotta
1 cup feta
1 1/2 cups finely chopped spinach
or
1/2 cup ricotta
1/2 cup parmesan
1 butternut squash, roasted
(How to roast a butternut squash: Cut it in half length-wise. Scoop out the seeds. Put a tablespoon of molasses in each bowl of the squash. Place cut side down on a cookie sheet and bake at 350°F for one hour.)
Pasta dough:
3 1/2 cups flour
Form the flour into a volcanic crater on your kneading surface.
2 eggs
1/2 to 1 full cup white wine or cool water
Add the eggs and half a cup of liquid to the crater. Carefully mix in. Add more liquid as necessary to absorb all the flour. Knead until satiny and elastic. Separate into four balls. Rub a little olive oil on the outside of the balls to keep them from drying. Cover, leave for an hour.
Now, this is very important. Do not think, "Oh, I will bake a pie or some cookies or something in this hour that the ravioli doesn't need me." No. Relax. Read a book. Have the rest of that bottle of white wine.
Because you will be rolling ravioli for the next four hours.
Rolling ravioli: Do not try to roll out an entire one of the quarter balls of dough at one time, even that is too much. Break off about a third of one of the balls to roll out. You should be able to roll it out to approximately the size of a dinner plate. Use a cookie cutter or glass with about a two-inch diameter to cut pieces out of the dough.
To assemble ravioli: have on hand a bowl full of filling with a spoon, a bowl full of water, and a plate to set the finished ravioli on. Pick up one of the circles of dough. Dip your finger in the water and then use one drop of water to trace around the edge of the dough. Take another circle of dough. Pinch or crimp it to the first half way around, so that you have a pocket. Spoon considerably less filling than you think should fit in a ravioli of a two-inch diameter into the pocket. Pinch the ravioli the rest of the way shut. Wipe off all the filling that squeezed out that last edge.
Repeat ad nauseam.
Ideally, allow ravioli to dry fully before storing, or they will stick to each other and tear open.
To cook the ravioli: boil in water for approximately 12 to 15 minutes.
Simple White Sauce:
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
Melt the butter on medium heat. Stir in the flour. Stir for about five minutes. Add the milk. Stir constantly until it thickens (raise heat to speed thickening if necessary).
If desired, add chives for more flavor.
Rosemary Focaccia
2 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp dry yeast
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tbsp fresh oregano, chopped
1 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 pinch ground black pepper
3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup water
Mix dry ingredients and fresh herbs. Stir in water and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic. Lightly oil the dough, cover and allow to rise in a warm place for twenty minutes.
Punch dough down; place on greased baking sheet. Pat into a half-inch thick rectangle. Brush top with olive oil.
Bake at 450°F for 15 minutes.
Challah
4 cups flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/3 tsp dry yeast
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 whole eggs
2 eggs, separated into whites and yolks
3/4 cup to 1 full cup cool water
Mix dry ingredients in one bowl. In another bowl, whish together oil, whole eggs and egg yolks, and 3/4 cup water. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry mix and stir into a ball. Add more water as necessary to absorb the rest of the flour.
Knead for about ten minutes, adding more flour if necessary to keep the dough from being sticky. Dough should be soft and supple.
Lightly oil the dough, cover and allow to rise for one hour.
Knead the dough for two minutes, then allow to rise for another hour.
Divide into six pieces. Form pieces into balls and let them rest for ten minutes.
Roll out the pieces into strands of equal length. Braid into two loaves. Brush the tops of the loaves with egg white.
Allow the braided loaves to rise for an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes.
Brush with egg white again before putting in the oven. Bake at 350°F for about twenty minutes. Crust should be a rich golden brown when done.
Allow to cool on rack for an hour before eating.
Challah + honey = highly recommended.
Deviled Eggs
6 hard-boiled eggs
1/4 cup mustard
1/2 tsp vinegar
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
paprika
Cut eggs in half lengthwise. Pop out the egg yolks. Mash up the yolks with the mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper. Spoon mixture back into hollows of egg whites. Dust with paprika.
Flan
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp water
sliced almonds
In a small saucepan, dissolve the sugar in the water. Caramelize over high heat. As soon as the sugar is amber-colored and bubbly, remove it from heat and pour into a ring mold (4 to 5 cups capacity). Tilt the mold to coat all sides with sugar. Press almond slices into the sugar. Let cool ten minutes while preparing the custard.
3 large eggs
3 egg yolks
1 can (14oz) sweetened, condensed milk
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 cup whole milk
Whisk eggs. Mix in other ingredients. Pour into mold.
Set the mold in a larger shallow pan filled with hot water. Bake at 325°F for about an hour.
Allow to cool for at least two hours before unmolding.
Pomegranate Pound Cake
3/4 cup sugar
6 tbsp butter
2 whole eggs
1 egg white
Beat sugar and butter together in a medium bowl. Add eggs one at a time. Mix well.
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 tsp fresh lime zest
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 cups flour
Seeds from one pomegranate
Mix buttermilk, lime zest, vanilla and baking soda in a large bowl. Add flour and egg sugar mixture alternately. Fold in pomegranate seeds.
Batter will be thick enough that you should spoon it into an 8x4 inch loaf pan rather than attempting to pour.
Bake at 350°F for about an hour and fifteen minutes.