“Oh,” Gizelle said thoughtfully. “Oh! I know where we can go!”
Chapter 16
Conall hated how uncomfortable she looked, and when her face brightened at the idea of somewhere else to go, he took his napkin from his lap and was prepared to follow her anywhere. He wasn’t expecting her to leap to her feet and lean over the table to gaze into his eyes.
He definitely wasn’t prepared for the fall.
But the landing wasn’t problematic; he was simply standing, disoriented, in a bright field of waist-high grass.
This is unexpected, his elk said, and Conall turned to find his animal companion at his side.
I’m not sure what is happening, he confessed, and he turned again to find Gizelle standing next to him, her gazelle bouncing a little in place beyond her.
This is my safe place, she said proudly. I can always run here.
He could hear her, in some bizarre way, but it wasn’t really hearing.
Just like he could touch her, when she offered him her hand, but it wasn’t really touching.
Her hair was loose, smooth and glossy, and she was standing straight.
Where are we? Conall asked. His words came echoing back.
He had forgotten all about echoes, he realized with a pang.
I made this, Gizelle said proudly. Only I can open the door.
Conall looked around in bewilderment. It stretched impossibly in every direction and the sky was black and smooth despite the illumination, without sun or sky or stars. Where does it go?
It doesn’t go anywhere, Gizelle said. It goes everywhere. I’ll show you.
Then she was pulling him into a laughing run.
It was like nothing Conall had ever done. There was no effort to it, even when his elk was running flat out beside him, snorting happily. The gazelle frolicked joyfully before them, and the horizon never changed.
And finally, Gizelle stopped running and tackled him, rolling him down into the whispery grass.
She was laughing, her whole face and all her limbs more relaxed than Conall had yet seen. He caught her in his arms and wanted badly to kiss her, but it was different than his impulse to kiss her in the other world. There were no demands of his body here, only the curiosity to see what she would do, and the cerebral desire to make her smile and laugh forever.
But he wasn’t sure how this would translate back to where they were sitting in the restaurant, and what qualified as consent in imaginary worlds, so he held himself back and she gave a sigh of something he couldn’t pin down.
They sat up and his elk trotted over and put his nose in Gizelle’s hair, snuffling.
She looked fearlessly up at his great bulk and rubbed his velvety face. You are very beautiful, she told him.
Thank you, his elk said back, enormously pleased. Conall was never going to hear the end of his satisfaction with himself now.
The gazelle tossed her long, spiral horns and danced.
You’re lovely, Conall told her honestly, lest she feel left out. And she was a lovely gazelle, with long, graceful legs and large, expressive ears framing curving, spiraled horns.
The gazelle dipped her head in acknowledgment.
She doesn’t speak, Gizelle said, and the gazelle came over and touched noses with her affectionately.
At all? Conall asked. Or just to other people?
She has always been silent, Gizelle explained.