Without a Word by Independence1776

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Without a Word

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The kitchen door rattled as someone pushed it open. Alena looked up from her tea and said, “Did you forget some--”

It wasn’t her daughter, briefly returning to pick up whatever she’d left here. “Maglor,” she breathed out and put her teacup down in the saucer, rattling both. Alena stood, holding onto the table for support. “Where have you been? You said you wouldn’t leave without telling me, but you walked out of here two years ago without a word.”

The dark-haired Elf-- he was even paler than normal, as if he hadn’t been outside for those two years-- walked into the cottage, shutting the door behind him. “I… “

“Never mind that,” Alena said with a wave of her hand. “Sit down; have some lunch. You look like you could use it.” She transferred the grip on the table to her walker and made her way to the refrigerator. “There’s leftover cottage pie from last night’s supper or deli-sliced roast beef for a sandwich or--”

“The cottage pie is fine,” Maglor said and sat down at the table while she put the glass dish containing the leftovers in the microwave.

She joined him and picked up her teacup again. Lukewarm now, but still drinkable. She’d rather have lukewarm tea and Maglor than piping hot tea and worry. He looked like he didn’t know what to say and she’d spent eighty-three years on this earth and knew when not to push someone. Maglor retrieved his lunch when the microwave beeped and he ate in in silence as she sipped her tea. Only after he’d washed and dried both his lunch detritus and her teacup and rejoined her at the table did he say, “It was meant to just be an early morning walk. I went farther than I’d planned.”

She reached out and patted his hand. “I forgive you. You’re back.”

Maglor glanced away with a shy smile. “I said I wouldn’t leave you until you died. I meant and still mean that.”

They’d met when she’d been young and carefree and far too self-absorbed to realize just who-- and what-- she’d latched onto. She’d hoped for a summer fling. That had never materialized (though she occasionally still had dreams where it had because Maglor was gorgeous), but a far deeper friendship had, unexpected on both sides. Even with all the changes in her life-- marriage to Francis, a daughter, widowhood-- and in the world, he’d been a steady presence in her life. If steady meant vanished for months or years but always stuck around for just as long when he reappeared, that is. After Francis had died two and a half years ago, Maglor moved in. And then he’d left six months later.

Alena nodded, setting aside the question of where he’d been. He clearly didn’t want to discuss it, but she knew it would come out. Crypticness with her had ended decades ago. She rose from the table. “Not much has changed around here, though I have a new television.”

An eyebrow rose. “My room?”

She laughed and gestured him ahead of her. “We kept it the same. Olívia didn’t think you’d return, but I knew you would.”

He was even wearing the same clothes he had been on the morning he’d walked out of the cottage. She stopped in the hallway, leaning on her walker. That… did not make much sense. Nor did how his clothes hung on him. He’d always been wiry, but now he was outright scrawny.

Where exactly had he been? The puzzle pieces she had were hinting at a much darker picture than she’d originally assumed.

Maglor pushed open the door and smiled. The room was simple, like the rest of the house, though it missed the snapshots of family that lined most of the walls. Instead, a watercolor of the sea hung above the head of the wrought-iron bed and the rest of the cream walls were bare by his choice. A small desk stood next to the head of the bed with a low chest of drawers and a wardrobe on the wall opposite. Cheerful yellow gingham check curtains covered the window. “Thank you,” he said, looking around as if he never thought he’d see it again.

That was another piece and she definitely disliked the picture. Before she could say anything, the kitchen door opened again. Several heavy bags were thumped onto the counter. “Mother?”

“In Maglor’s room, dear.” Olívia sighed, loud enough for even her to hear. Maglor hid a grin behind a hand. “He’s home.”

Shod footsteps  on the wooden floor hurried toward them. Olívia rounded the corner at speed and nearly crashed into Alena before recovering her balance. Olívia flung her arms around Maglor. He froze briefly and then melted into the embrace. “I’m sorry. I hadn’t meant to stay away so long.”

Olívia pulled away. “Then why did you?”

Maglor looked out the window at the front garden covered in flowers. He’d helped them plant the garden when Alena and Francis had bought the cottage when they’d retired nearly twenty years ago. “Sometimes things happen.”

Olívia sighed again, but she’d grown up with him popping in and out of her life. His wandering urge was nothing to new to her and she wouldn’t question it, no doubt exactly what Maglor wanted. “Do you want to help me weed the garden while Mother puts away her groceries?” She stopped and then laughed. “I don’t think there’s enough for the week, now. We may have to go shopping again.”

Maglor smiled and said, “I would love to help you weed.”

 

 

That was their life for a handful of weeks: Olívia coming over a couple of days a week, Maglor taking over care of the house and yard (again)-- most of the neighbors probably thought he was live-in help who had returned from some sort of university studies or traveling-- and settling back into the rhythm of a life she’d missed, this time without having to rely on kindness or the abominable elder transport system to visit her friends, run her errands, meet her doctors’ appointments, and attend choir practice. It was almost peaceful, if she didn’t notice the way Maglor leaned into every touch or kept one eye on the windows of whatever room he was in or the tone in his voice when he asked about the house down the street that had sold a week after he’d returned. But she did notice. Just like she noticed he never went anywhere alone anymore. He only left her property in the company of Olívia or herself.

She’d narrowed it down to two things: a long-term hospitalization or an abduction. Both were bad and one was worse. For a long-term hospitalization, Maglor would likely have to have been in a coma; she’d seen him heal far quicker than any human ever did. Him being alone and unconscious would have grave risks for his safety. Pointed ears were either a genetic quirk or cosmetic surgery, but the evidence of thousands of years of a difficult, wandering life in exile was another. She suspected there were tells written in his bones. And that’s if no one noticed anything else odd. 

An abduction meant someone had. He’d gone out for a walk. What if he’d been taken on the street? A hospitalization needn’t be involved.

So when she woke in the middle of the night nearly two months after his reappearance, lay in bed staring at the ceiling for far too long, and rose to make a cup of chamomile in hopes the hot liquid would help her insomnia, it wasn’t a surprise to see him sitting curled up in the dark on the couch underneath the window in the living room, him peering out of it.

Chamomile was pointless now. Alena knew Maglor’s normal nocturnal behavior and this wasn’t it. She sat down on her lift chair recliner and said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Maglor jerked. He hadn’t heard her at all, despite the noise of her walker on the floor and the motor of the recliner. He rubbed a hand across his eyes, hiding their glow momentarily. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

“Let me tell you what I know.” When Maglor didn’t say yay or nay, she continued, “Your disappearance wasn’t voluntary. I don’t know whether you were injured and spent time in a hospital before being taken or whether you were abducted off the street. But you spent a while being tortured because you’re an Elf and you either managed to escape or they let you free.”

“They’re dead,” he said just loud enough for her to hear. “They deserved nothing less for treating sapient beings as animals. But I wasn’t able to erase the data they gathered from me or the other Elves they had. Some of it, yes. But not what’s in the cloud or offsite backups. And I don’t know if they were the only group of… monsters or if there are more scattered throughout the world.

“They know I lived here. If there are any still around, they undoubtedly are watching me now, waiting for a moment my vigilance ceases. I’m not convinced that new family down the street is safe or not. They were all family people, see. They talked in front of us.”

“How many Elves?” She couldn’t do anything about what happened, ignoring that he’d killed people-- she knew his history and the lengths he’d go to protect those he considered his-- but if he was ready to talk…

“Six of us; I was the only Noldo. The rest were of the Avarin clans.” She remembered enough about the extremely little he’d told her about modern Elven life to know it was outright lucky there were no Sindar. He finally met her eyes. “I won’t go into detail about what happened; you’d never sleep again.”

She could imagine, though. Humans had been endlessly inventive for centuries and with modern technology, there were even more ways to experiment on and torture people. “Are the Avari--?”

“Safe. We escaped together. They wanted me to come with them, but… I have my promise to you.”

Tears pricked her eyes. “Maglor, your safety is more important than any promise.” She knew he wouldn’t believe it. There was a scar on his right hand to show how seriously he took his word, even though his promise did not hold the weight of that oath. Maybe to him it did. His word was really all he had left.

He unfolded himself from the couch, crossed the room, and kissed her forehead. “Not to me. It is the rare mortal I remain in contact with for so long, much less live with.” He pulled back and sighed. “Alena, if I die, cremate me. I don’t want them exhuming my body.”

She couldn’t say he wouldn’t die. It was definitely possible: traffic accident, bad luck, even murder. The matter-of-fact tone scared her more than the rather sensible request. “I will.”

He was close enough she could see his smile in the dim light of the streetlights, though the pain remained in his eyes. “Insomnia, is it? I can sing you to sleep.”

“I’m not a toddler,” she grumbled halfheartedly and accepted his help up.

 

* * * * *

 

Maglor waited until she was breathing evenly and deeply before leaving her bedroom to return to his vigil on the couch.

The streetlights outside the windows gave plenty of light for his eyes, though the moon wouldn’t be visible until far into the daytime, being a sliver of a new moon crescent. The couch was soft but firm against his back, a marked and necessary difference from the hard walls of his cell. They’d only had raised platforms as beds, nothing soft. Nothing to humanize them in the eyes of their captors.

Maglor dug his fingers into the couch cushions, driving away the sensation of smooth hardness. The weave of the couch fabric, the softness, the way the foam bent under his fingers: he was not there.

No matter that his nightmares were never-ending replays of the horrors: the shock collars and stun sticks, the drugs, the surgeries, the pain, the screams, the begging-- both others’ and his.

He shook his head, temporarily driving away the memories. Look outside-- what was there?

A cat wandering across the yard two houses to the right; the late evening shiftworker who lived across the street and three doors down to the left pulling into her drive and going inside; the light breeze tugging some of the taller plants. No one was watching him. No one cared. No one knew.

He breathed deeply, in and out in a regular cycle, calming down. That was all he could do now: there was no returning to sleep tonight. At least Alena had.

Maglor turned away from the window and resettled himself on the couch. How long could he remain here? Alena was determined to die in her home, but she could live another twenty years. And there was no guarantee she would be able to remain here. And then where would he go? Olívia couldn’t-- and wouldn’t-- take him in; her children didn’t know about Maglor’s history. Her husband only half believed it and that only because he’d seen Maglor unchanged too often over the decades. Maybe he could stay here, but the newer neighbors would likely think he’d defrauded Alena… though most of the neighbors had lived there for years and knew full well Maglor was not quite what he appeared to be. This far out in the countryside, people knew well enough to leave well enough alone. It was the outgrowth from the nearest town, slowly turning the village into a suburb, that made things difficult even as they made it easier for Alena to age in place.

Or maybe one of those who had known to leave well enough alone hadn’t. He didn’t know how he’d been found, only that he had. Maybe technology had played an accidental role. Maybe he’d been actively betrayed. That had happened plenty in his lifetime, from the minor betrayals of childhood to the ones that had led in the past to torment. All he knew was that neither Alena nor Olívia had done so and Olívia’s husband wouldn’t have hurt his wife or his mother-in-law by doing so; he cared too much for them to do such a thing.

He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms and he loosened them before he began to bleed. He could not control his thoughts this night, not since the memory of a needle jabbing between his vertebrae flashed into his mind when he’d stepped backward badly and jammed his back into a corner of his desk shortly after supper. He’d remained in his room for the rest of the evening rather than bother Alena. But she’d figured it out anyway.

Alena.

He had to put her first. That was his current role: to be her support. Everything else was secondary to that. Memories or not, he would be here until she died.

 

 

“Maglor,” Alena said sharply, coming onto the patio.

Maglor leaned the rake against the nearest tree and walked over to her. “What is it?”

She sat down at the patio table and pulled something out of her shirt pocket. She put it on the glass tabletop and Maglor sat down hard on one of the other chairs, nearly toppling it.

He could hardly breathe. A dangling power wire, a tiny body, a camera lens… “Where was this?” Alena had hired an electrician to replace some of the outdated electrical work in her house and he’d just left.

Alena’s hands shook. “Your room. And the living room. And the kitchen. But not my room. The electrician said he didn’t see more… but he didn’t know what else to look for without tearing up all the walls. He found that one first.”

“Assume the bathroom has one, too,” Maglor said softly. He poked the bug with a finger. “These are fairly new, no more than a few months old. There’s not enough wear on them for them to be from before.”

“The bathroom? That’s obscene.”

Maglor snorted. “Do you really think whoever did this cares? They’re observing me; you’re collateral damage.” He rubbed his eyes. “Did the electrician say if he would do anything?”

“Only that he’d leave it to me to call the cops.” She sighed. “I should; I know I should. But it would just bring more questions and far more attention on you than you want-- or need.”

That was true. Questions about why people would bug him would lead to answers he did not want to give to people he tried to avoid. There was only one option left, an option that he’d decided wasn’t an option. Suddenly, it had become the only one. “I’ll leave in the morning. I can’t remain here and put you at risk.”

Alena glanced down at the bug, over at her walker, and then back at him. She didn’t say anything, even though a part of Maglor had hoped she would insist he stay. But she was old and a potential hostage. Once Maglor left, whoever was after him would leave her alone. There was no reason to keep that close of an eye on her. Surveillance of some sort would undoubtedly be likely, just in case he returned again. But it wouldn’t be an invasion of her home. He hoped.

“Your promise is not worth my safety,” she eventually said. “I wish you could stay. Maglor… I’m sorry.”

He picked up one of her hands and kissed her knuckles. “As am I, Alena.”

The summer and early autumn had been good for him: regaining strength, a little peace of mind, and the companionship of a dear friend. But no more-- he had to flee once again. This time, he didn’t know if it was even possible to escape.

 

* * * * *

 

Alena smiled at the sound of her younger granddaughter’s laughing shriek when Maglor picked her up and tossed her into the air, catching her and swinging her around. Olívia came up next to Alena’s seat at the patio table. “What was so important that you insisted we come over tonight and not on Friday as usual?”

Alena placed a hand on her daughter’s right arm. “Maglor is leaving in the morning. It’s no longer safe for him to live here.”

“I thought that was his paranoia talking.”

“We both wished it was. The electrician found bugs.”

Olívia stared at her and then at the backyard where her elder daughter had just jumped into the pile of leaves Maglor had raked earlier that afternoon and her younger had been tossed into the air again. “Dear God in heaven,” she whispered. “Are you safe?”

“We think so. They’re probably not interested in an eighty-three-year-old mortal woman.”

“Good.” Olívia called everyone to the table and told her elder daughter to wash her hands. She dashed inside while everyone else settled themselves. The meal was, for half of the table, completely normal. The other half could and did act as though it was. But after everything had been cleaned and put away, when Olívia’s husband had taken the girls home, the atmosphere changed.

Olívia leaned forward, her voice low. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Away,” Maglor said. “More I won’t tell you.”

“Out of the country, certainly,” Alena said firmly. “Don’t try to hide here again, not for decades. Let them all die.”

“Information about the Elves is available now, to the right parties and for the right price. There will always be interested parties. There have been since Elves became myth instead of reality.” His eyes stared elsewhere for a moment, but he shook his head. “If I’m able, I’ll contact you. Do not be surprised if I never do.”

“I won’t,” Alena said. She huffed a laugh. “Here we all thought I would be the one to leave first.”

“Oh, Alena,” Maglor said fondly. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll miss you.”

“I know,” she said. It wasn’t just for their interrupted time now, but literally for ever. She knew in her bones she would never see her friend again.