Sunbeams - Part Eight
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
I’ve started to make serious progress clearing out the natural pathways through the garden. Now there are hidden places of soft wild grass and furry emerald moss, places to stop in between the crowds of flowers and sprays of leaves. There are also small patches of loose, rich earth where I’ve taken out weeds and invasive plants. I haven’t planted anything in them. Nature will reclaim those places as she sees fit.
Since I’ve started working on the garden - leaving it mostly as it is, but making it more inhabitable and generally less thorny - I’ve noticed a slow gathering of wildlife. There was a cautious pause when we first moved into the house, and the garden was mostly quiet.
But lately there are more little birds clustering in the branches as I garden. Furry little creatures zipping their way up and down the trunks of trees. One morning after I forgot to close the back gate, I came outside to find a doe and a wobbly-legged fawn, nosing around in the newly-accessible wild grass.
And they’re not the only ones who have been attracted to the garden, since it became mine. More and more often, I find Aiden on his back in the flowers. He likes to stop there to catch his breath after he’s gone on a run.
I just stepped around the corner of the house and discovered that he’s here right now. Sprawled out on the tall, soft grass, his arms flung up over his head.
The last embers of the sunset, alternatingly crimson and rich gold, are scattered over his body. The slow, lazy twilight breeze is stirring the flowers around him, which are at the height of their spring blossoming. Hanging soft and heavy on their vines and stems, swaying with the movements of the breeze, leaves and petals swollen to bursting from all the spring rain. Filling the dusky air with their natural fragrance while the crickets fill it with their soft songs.
But it’s definitely the sight of Aiden that sends the sweetest sensation through me.
He’s lounging back, his body relaxed and languid. Wearing his jogging shorts and sneakers and a black athletic shirt, a tiny bit tight-fitting across his chest and massive shoulders. He must have just gotten back from his run, because his cheeks are smoldering with a soft scarlet glow, and there’s a faint, glimmering sheen of sweat all over his body. His chestnut hair is damp, curling at the tips, tumbling forward to his eyebrow.
His shirt is pulled up slightly towards his waist, like he used it to wipe his face off. The pushed-back fabric reveals a peek of that graceful indent at his hip, and a glimpse of the defined muscle of his lower stomach, with the trail of soft, curly body hair going down into his running shorts.
His eyes are closed, his head tipped to the side, towards the sun.
The sunset hits its last burst of vivid intensity, casting reddish gold-leaf patterns over Aiden’s bronze skin. Dancing across the fine lines at the corners of his eyes, glowing softly on his stubbled jaw, dappling his painfully handsome face. His heavy thighs are spread slightly apart, his forearms above his head in the flowers…
I stand there not really breathing too much, my fingertips pressed over my mouth. Not moving at all, but my heart thinks I’m running at a full sprint.
I thought I’d heard Aiden come into the back garden while I was working in the kitchen garden, but I hadn’t really prepared myself for the sight. Seems very possible I couldn’t have done that even if I’d tried, though, so maybe it’s fine.
With a long, slow exhale, Aiden opens his eyes. He heard me, I think. In that way only he can.
He sits up on his elbows, tosses his hair out of his face, and looks right at me, with eyes like the warm waters of a tropical coastal plain. They catch the glimmers of molten sunlight, and they brighten as soon as they land on me.
He stares at me, and seems to drink in the sight of me. That strikes me as ridiculous, when he’s laying there looking like that and I’m standing here in a muddy t-shirt with my heavy gardening gloves on my hands and my secateurs dangling loosely from my fingertips.
A small, inexplicable smile turns up one corner of his mouth.
“What?” I ask, suddenly self-conscious.
Aiden’s smile widens, and he shrugs shyly.
“Freckles,” he says.
I wait for a second or two, then let out a startled laugh when he doesn’t follow that up with anything.
“Oh, god. You’re gonna kill me, man.” I take a few steps towards him, then drop to my knees without taking my eyes off of him. “You’re the prettiest thing growing in my garden, Sugar Maple. You know that?”
Aiden freezes for a moment, blinking very fast. Hit hard with a sudden, intense burst of shyness, apparently.
“That - that felt like an undercover mega-compliment,” he murmurs nervously, half-laughing, the blush in his cheeks growing deeper. “You took me the fuck out with that one, Linden.”
I laugh, too, pulling off my gardening gloves and crawling closer to him on the grass. I stop when I get there, gazing up at the malachite tree.
The air is glowing softly, luminous with the last traces of the fading sunbeams, and the veining in the malachite leaves is picking it up beautifully. Moving and dancing like liquid gilt as the leaves rustle around.
The breeze is strong enough to flutter the curtains in the open windows behind the malachite tree, but its leaves are all turned towards Aiden, as always. And there are so many more leaves, now. It’s really beginning to grow into a tree. The once fragile, slender stem is now sturdy and thick and rooted, forming copper-colored bark. The tree has its own little leafy canopy, casts its own little pool of deep shade.
I look from the malachite tree to the Heliomancer relaxing beside it. A spark of something radiantly bright lifts my heart.
My magic garden.
Aiden sits up against the backdrop of vast indigo sky, then reaches out to smooth some topsoil off of my cheek with his thumb. I take a deep breath of his skin as he gets close to me, tasting the vetiver and light sweat and a hint of aged paper leftover from his day at the archives.
The fading sunset gives his bronze skin a darker, reddish glow as he tosses his damp chestnut hair out of his eyes again and smiles at me.
“We’ve got the rest of the night to ourselves.” His deep, slow-spoken voice is teasing and warm, rising at its lax pace into the glowing evening air. “What do you feel like doing?”
All kinds of things are suggesting themselves, so I pick one, put my hand on his thigh, and tell him. A split second of silence follows.
“What-?” Aiden sits back sharply, half-laughing, half-shocked, then breaks into an enormous grin. “Holy shit, you - you little demon!”
We both break down laughing, and Aiden lets out a helpless groan, ruffling my hair.
“The mouth on you, Keane. Jesus.” He’s blushing even deeper than he was before, still grinning with his whole face. “Hot-blooded Irishman.”
“I won’t apologize for that.”
“Yeah, no, don’t,” Aiden laughs, a little out of breath, adjusting his jogging shorts.
“Anyways, that’s my suggestion.” I lean in closer and drag the tip of my nose over his. “Unless you had something else you wanted to do?”
“No,” he says eagerly, then hesitates. “But, um - there is something I wanted to ask you about, before we get distracted.”
I draw back and tilt my head to the side curiously, searching his eyes with mine. “Okay?”
Aiden hesitates again, taking the time to choose his words. I watch him affectionately, wondering at how much I love these long silences that go hand-in-hand with talking to my favorite person. That’s something I never would have predicted for myself, but then again, nothing about Aiden is anything I predicted.
“Okay,” he begins slowly. “Remember when we were talking about how sometimes, when someone says not to make a big deal about something, they really mean the opposite? Like - how Mel said not to make a big deal when she came downstairs at the wedding, and somehow it turned out that Raj and Noah using a literal megaphone to announce her arrival was the right thing to do?”
I bite back a laugh at that particular memory. “Yeah?”
“Right, so - the other day, when you said you don’t want your birthday to be a big deal, was that, like…?”
“Oh.” I blink at Aiden, then let out an affectionate laugh. “Have you been trying to figure it out on your own?”
“Trying, yeah.” He lets out a pained, helpless sound, looking at me with pleading eyes. “Please just tell me, and in a not-roundabout way. You know how bad I am at this shit.”
“That was me telling you in a not-roundabout way,” I laugh, nuzzling my nose into his. “Seriously, I know it sounds backwards that a party with a bunch of people was the right thing for your birthday, and a night with just you and me is all I want for mine, but - that’s it.”
“Oh, really? Okay.” Aiden sounds immensely relieved. “‘Cause it hit me this morning you might have meant - and I was like oh shit, I’ve been working on all the wrong stuff-”
“No, really.” I pull back so that he can see the earnest look in my eyes. “My mom used to throw me these big birthday parties with my whole family when I was a kid, which was super sweet of her, but eventually it started to feel like a full-fledged ceilidh, and then like work. So now I prefer to just chill on my birthday, and I just want to chill with you.”
Aiden lets out a long, heavy breath, then smiles at me. “Cool. Okay.”
“What do you mean, though, I’ve been working on all the wrong st-?”
“Nothing, shut up.”
He leans forward and kisses me before I can answer, sending a rush of restless sparks through my chest, knocking my thoughts out of my head. Without thinking, I drag my palms up the hard line of his stubbled jaw, then grasp his chestnut hair in both hands, my heart lifting to soar happily somewhere hundreds of feet above my head.
“That - that’s not gonna work,” I stammer breathlessly, when Aiden slowly breaks the kiss off. “You’re not gonna make me forget about the - the - the - whatever we were talking about. My birthday!”
Aiden smiles at me, and I realize that his body is haloed in a soft glow. The last flecks of sunlight are disappearing around us, leaving the sky a dusky purple. The golden light is coming from Aiden, now. Dappling the grass around us and the flowering vines on the wall of the house behind us. Shining in his eyes, too.
We must sound good.
He reaches around me, slowly trails his fingertips up my shoulder blade.
“Just us for your birthday, then,” he murmurs, his deep voice vibrating through me. “We’ll keep it casual. I’m just gonna do a few little things.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re going to cook something absurdly complicated, aren’t you?”
He throws his hands up in frustration. “Not if the stuff I ordered from the specialty food store doesn’t get here in time!”
“Oh, my god.” I let out another laugh, shaking my head. “I knew it! And why are you so stressed? My birthday isn’t for another week!”
“Yeah, well - I’d rather just have it, and then I know it’s here.”
“Okay,” I snicker affectionately, curling in closer to him. “Worrier.”
“Somebody’s gotta worry,” he informs me, wrapping a heavy, muscled arm around my shoulders.
“Maybe not about this, though?”
“Mmm.” Aiden lowers his head to press a lingering kiss onto the curve of my neck. “Whatever. As long as the gift works out, it’s fine.”
“Ooooh, the gift.” I smile to myself, twining my fingers into his messy hair. “Did you hire Spencer and Floyd to conduct extensive research on what I’d want?”
“Shit, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I’m not using all the tools in my arsenal, am I?”
“I don’t think you need them, in this case,” I laugh softly, holding my breath as Aiden nibbles on my neck. “Something tells me you’ve got this, and that it’s gonna be perfect.”
“Uh oh. Did I just accidentally set the bar too high for myself? Are you expecting something incredible now?”
“Yeah, duh! Can I guess what it is?”
Aiden drags his nose slowly up the arch of my neck, stopping to place a kiss halfway up. “Sure.”
“Is it - new gardening gloves?” I ask hopefully. “Since mine are getting kind of thin?”
I feel Aiden smile again. “No. Sorry.”
“Okay, then is it-?”
I cut myself off, staring up at the malachite tree. A bird just landed on it. A downy little ball of feathers, poking around the young branches of the tree, exploring. After a moment it takes off, leaving me looking at the tree thoughtfully.
Aiden lifts his head and looks at me, arching a questioning eyebrow at my sudden silence.
“Sorry, I - a bird was poking around the malachite tree. Looking for fruit.”
Aiden glances at it. “Doesn’t have any, does it?”
“No,” I answer slowly. “Not yet. It might, though, and - what happens if a bird eats fruit grown by a magic tree? Or if the tree produces nuts, and squirrels eat them? Or if a bee pollinates its flowers, or…?”
A thoughtful little crease appears between Aiden’s eyebrows. He glances up at the malachite tree again, suddenly uncertain.
“Think it’s - probably okay? My Guardian Tree is a magic tree, too. It hasn’t poisoned anything.”
“Yeah, no, I feel like Guardian magic wouldn’t do harm,” I explain slowly, thinking out loud. “But we were just talking about how Guardian magic has all kinds of unintended effects. I’m sure it does no harm, but does it have no effect?”
“I…” Aiden shrugs his shoulders, thinking hard. “I don’t know. There’s never been a malachite tree before. It’s not a Guardian Tree, which means the same rules don’t apply, so... yeah, I really don’t know.”
I bite my lip, looking at the tree again. “Okay…”
“C’mon, Keane, we don’t have to worry about this. The tree has no fruit or flowers yet, and the branches are barely strong enough to support a nest. Shouldn’t hold much interest for the critters, at least not for the moment.”
“No, yeah,” I agree slowly, watching a butterfly land on one of the shoots growing from the malachite branches. “Sure it’ll be nothing, anyways.”
There’s a short silence, Aiden and I both staring at the malachite tree in the falling dusk. It stands there innocently, its leaves making their soft, twinkling music as they brush together. The butterfly lingers in the branches, the flapping of its wings slowing down peacefully.
I’m reaching back into my memory for the meanings behind the gemstones. The ones that Aiden and I originally used to try to channel his magic, arranging them according to their meanings. One of those crystals was the piece of malachite that Aiden grew the first shoot out of.
“Malachite means… protection, right?” I ask Aiden, gazing up at the swirled veins on the velvety leaves. “That was the energy it was supposed to hold, and give off? Protective energy?”
“That’s right,” he rumbles, his rich voice slower than usual. “But it doesn’t matter what it means, ‘cause nothing’s going to happen, right?”
We stare at the tree for another moment or so, then turn swiftly back to each other.
“Um.” My eyes are wide with mounting alarm. “Did - did we do something very stupid and reckless planting this tree out here, Aiden?”
“We… maybe?” He winces at me apologetically. “Shit. Probably should have thought of that and given you a heads up.”
“You think?” I sputter, pressing my fingers over my mouth. “God, I should have thought of it myself, I’m the science teacher! Shit, man, we - we introduced a new fucking species into the ecosystem without knowing anything about it! Oh, my fucking-”
“Alright.” Aiden gathers me back to him, holds me firmly against his chest. “Take a breath, Jamie.”
The soothing heat of his body and the steadiness of his deep voice puts an instant stop to the wave of anxiety rushing through me. I take a breath, as instructed.
“Relax,” Aiden murmurs. “If some kind of disaster was going to come from you planting the tree, I would have heard it, yeah? I don’t hear anything negative linked to our malachite tree. Nothing. The notes around it sound nice, actually.”
My heart slows in relief at the thought, even if I can’t totally understand what he means by that. This time I manage a real, full breath. “Okay…”
“Don’t waste time worrying about it, man. It’s going to be fine. Trust me, I’d know.” Aiden gets to his feet, drawing me up with him, then gathers me up against his body, smiling playfully. “And we’ve got other stuff to do tonight.”
I let out an indignant laugh, running my knuckles up the strong, stubbled line of his jaw. “You’re still focused on that, huh?”
“Maybe.” Aiden drops his head and puts his nose to mine, his hands sliding down my back. “All the occultism talk over the last few days has me thinking of certain pagan pleasures you and I could get into.”
I laugh again, tracing my fingertips up the hard curves of his shoulders, then locking them behind his neck. “You need a shower, after your run.”
“Perfect.” Aiden kisses my nose eagerly, weaves his fingers through mine, and sets off for the door. “Let’s go do that right now.”
I follow after him, my heart singing happily again.
My eyes linger on the butterfly as we walk past. It seems to be resting, sheltered in the branches of the malachite tree. Hanging upside down by a twig, beautiful blue wings relaxed, fluttering softly now and then.
I allow myself one more second of staring at it nervously, then let it go.
I trust my Companion Plant with all my heart, and he said that the notes affected by the malachite tree sound nice. He couldn’t explain it better than that, but - if I know anything about Guardian magic, that’s a good sign.
The worried frown is gone from my face as I follow Aiden inside. And I shut the door softly after myself, so that I don’t disturb the butterfly resting in the safety of the singing leaves.
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