21
" Seed Leaves Homage to R. F. Here something stubborn comes,Dislodging the earth crumbsAnd making crusty rubble.it comes up bending double,And looks like a green staple.It could be seedling maple,Or artichoke, or bean.That remains to be seen.Forced to make choice of ends,The stalk in time unbends,Shakes off the seed-case, heavesAloft, and spreads two leavesWhich still display no sureAnd special signature.Toothless and fat, they keepThe oval form of sleep.This plant would like to growAnd yet be embryo;In crease, and yet escapeThe doom of taking shape;Be vaguely vast, and climbTo the tip end of timeWith all of space to fill,Like boundless IgdrasilThat has the stars for fruit.But something at the rootMore urgent that the urgeBids two true leaves emerge;And now the plant, resignedTo being self-definedBefore it can commerceWith the great universe,Takes aim at all the skyAnd starts to ramify. "
23
" Chris smiled at me, showing two ridiculously cute dimples and a few feet away a waitress dropped an empty cup she had cleared from a table. Blushing, she muttered an apology and hurried inside.
I scowled at him, refusing to be swayed by his charm.
“I see,” he murmured, nodding slightly as if he had just solved a puzzle.
“See what?” Ignoring my question, he pulled out a cell phone, hit a number and held the phone out to me. I hesitated for a few seconds then took the phone and put it to my ear.
“What’s up, Chris?” said a familiar deep voice on the other end.
“Good question,” I responded tersely.
“I told Chris you’d recognize him if he got too close.” Was that amusement in his tone?
“Great. You won the bet. Buy him a beer or whatever.” I glanced at Chris, saw that he looked amused now, too and I grew even more agitated. “I thought we had an understanding when you left here last week.”
“And what understanding would that be?” I gritted my teeth. “The one where you go your way and I go mine and we all live happily ever after.”
“I don’t recall that particular arrangement,” he replied in his infuriatingly easy manner. “I believe I told you I’d be seeing you again.”
I opened my mouth but words would not come out. People say ‘I’ll be seeing you’ all the time when they say good bye. It doesn’t mean anything. It certainly doesn’t mean they will send their friends to stalk you.
“Sara?”
“What do you want from me, Nikolas? I told you I just want to be left alone.”
There was a brief silence then a quiet sigh on the other end. “We got word of increased activity in Portland and we have reason to believe the vampire might be searching for you.”
It felt like an icy breath touched the back of my neck. Eli’s face flashed through my mind and my knees wobbled.
Roland stepped close to me. “What’s wrong, Sara? What is he saying to you?”
I smiled weakly at Roland and put up a hand to let him know I’d fill him in when I got off the phone. “I don’t know anyone in Portland so there is no way he can trace me here, right?”
“There is more than one way to track someone.” Nikolas’s voice hardened. “Don’t worry, we will keep you safe. Chris will stay close by until we handle this situation.”
Great, I was the ‘situation’ again. “I don’t need a babysitter. I’m not a child.”
“No you’re not,” he replied gruffly and warmth unfurled in my stomach. “But you are not a warrior either. It is our duty to protect you even if you don’t want it.”
I felt like stomping my feet like a two year old. Didn’t I get any choice in this? My eyes fell on Chris as I spoke. “How close is he planning to stay? He’s kind of conspicuous and I can’t have my uncle or anyone else asking questions.”
Chris peered in confusion down at his form-fitting blue jeans and black sweater as Nikolas said, “Conspicuous?”
I looked heavenward. “If you guys wanted to blend in you shouldn’t have sent Dimples here. The way some of the women are staring at him, I might end up having to protect him instead.”
There was a cough on the other end and Nikolas sounded like he was grinning when he said, “Ah, I’m sure Chris can take care of himself. He will be in town in case we suspect any trouble is coming that way. "
― Karen Lynch
27
" None were left now to unname, and yet how close I felt to them when I saw one of them swim or fly or trot or crawl across my way or over my skin, or stalk me in the night, or go along beside me for a while in the day. They seemed far closer than when their names had stood between myself and them like a clear barrier: so close that my fear of them and their fear of me became one same fear. And the attraction that many of us felt, the desire to feel or rub or caress one another’s scales or skin or feathers or fur, taste one another’s blood or flesh, keep one another warm, that attraction was now all one with the fear, and the hunter could not be told from the hunted, nor the eater from the food. "
― Ursula K. Le Guin , The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories, Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands (The Unreal and the Real, #2)