Flowers and Writing

I might have put this here before; I'm sure I did. But I can't think of a better way to celebrate the transition from winter to spring. Warning: It's a little long.

 The Faun

Despite the doctors, the needle sticks, the maws of machines that swallowed her and whirred and clunked, Ilsa knew her prognosis before the doctors did. Years of smoking with the guys at labor events, taking a drag to calm her nerves when she dealt with a crying baby and no husband, second-hand smoke from carpools to anti-war events – it was a different time back then, a time where people didn't know the consequences of smoking, or did but didn't care because those were far down the road.

She climbed (with her son's help) into the red truck used by the collective she had founded, a feat for a frail old woman, even assisted. Before starting the truck for the trip home, Gideon probed, "Mom, what did the doctor tell you?"

"I am going to die within a month, unless I get radiation on the tumor in my brain. That would give me two more months perhaps."

"Oh, Mom," Gideon sighed, his voice hoarse, and Ilsa remembered her fifty-year-old as the baby who almost didn't survive, the awkward young boy who doodled fantastic gadgets in his notebooks, the grown man who designed world-renowned bridges and scared her to death by walking across their girders. "What are you going to do?"

"Go home and die, of course." She patted Gideon on the arm to calm him. "I always knew something would kill me."

Ilsa's next step, when the truck arrived back to Barn Swallows' Dance, was to figure out what to tell her residents. As the last remaining founder of the collective -- Ken Paulsen had moved away early on and died in a motorcycle accident five years later; Gene Bannister had moved to DeKalb because crowds bothered him. Ha, Ilsa grumbled. I'm doing that life review thing, and I still don't know what to tell my residents.

Ilsa walked inside her house, which was small and simple, befitting a weighty Quaker. Strings of folded paper cranes and Tibetan prayer flags garlanded the archway between kitchen and living room. A rocket heater made of cob, designed and built by Gideon, warmed the house. On cold nights, she slept on the earthenware heat mass slab as age chilled her bones.

She lay down on it, plumped the pillow, and slept through lunch.  

The creature had never strayed that close to the houses before. The meadows, the forests, yes; the place where humans dwelled, no. He was Gaia's child, he and the other manifested spirits who could not be tamed. In his case, Gaia thought the Garden should be able to walk about in the world. Thus, She had created him.

The small tan dwelling made of grass and mud drew him because it contained a human in pain. She was female to his male, human to his otherness, old to his youth, domesticated to his wildness – and she was dying.

If she couldn't go to the Garden, the Garden would come to her.

Ilsa woke up with the distinct feeling of being watched. She dismissed it, figuring it was Gideon fussing around. Gideon could benefit from having those gods back in his head, Ilsa grumbled to herself. The Trees had gifted those gods' voices to Gideon, but their cacophony had disturbed him. He's become a Jewish mother without them. Ilsa knew from Jewish mothers – although Quaker, Ilsa Morgenstern started her life as a Conservative Jew.

Ilsa straightened herself up and readied herself for the most difficult announcement she had ever made as general manager and then consultant for Barn Swallows' Dance. She ignored the cane in the corner, willing herself to walk slowly. Even so, she knew her legs would give out at least once and she would fall, so she hoped that her grandson Amarel, born of human and Archetype, remembered to meet her at the door and escort her to the Commons.

When she stepped outside to the ironically bright day, Amarel ran on the path toward her, his white-blond hair in its braid swinging. Ilsa guessed he saw in his mind the dark corridor she started to walk down, stopping to study the pictures from the past, each step leading closer to the bright light. It was the journey all took before they died, slow or fast – but Amarel had the gift of seeing that hallway and perhaps intercepting the person who walked it.

Ilsa turned to shut the front door, and she saw the most beautiful adornment there, a full wreath of flowers: Queen Anne's lace and black-eyed Susan and coneflower and wild daylily and pale blue chicory. Someone had woven them artfully into the expression of life that garnished Ilsa's door. Ilsa appreciated the irony of living things on a dying woman's door.

"Amarel, do you know who put this on my door, by any chance? I'd like to thank them."

"No idea, Grandma Ilsa," Amarel shook his head. "But it's very pretty, isn't it?" Amarel linked arms with her and walked with her toward the Commons.

# # #

From behind a nearby oak, Gaia's creature peeped shyly at the old woman's house as she exited. He saw a tiny woman, stooped from pain, who examined his handiwork hanging on the place where she entered and exited the house. He spied a wry smile, a hand stroking the flowers.

She had accepted his gift. Now to arrange a meeting.

# # #

At dinner, Ilsa sat with her grandchild Amarel, her child Gideon and Gideon's significant other, the Archetype Angel, who was anything but, Ilsa thought wryly. Her other grandson, Batarel, lived in Chicago with his partner Tymon, and Amarel's significant other Janice had taken a business trip to Chicago that morning.

All sensed something was wrong, but Gideon had promised Ilsa he would not tell. Others gathered around them: Alan, the current general director and his wife Wendy; Adam and Lilly, the Archetypes who tended the Garden, the analog of an ancient garden of renown; and the Majors, the last draft resisters from the Vietnam War. People spoke in low voices; Wendy asked solicitously how Ilsa fared. Why were the social workers always the most awkward?

After the meal of bean soup with kale, which Ilsa could eat only a little of, she beckoned Amarel to her and they proceeded up the risers to the podium. Amarel called the room to order, something that she could have done herself until very recently. She turned the microphone on and gazed out at all the residents, all of whom she knew, some for many years.

"You might have noticed that I've been having some trouble lately walking, standing up, and occasionally making sense. Some of you urged me to go to the doctor to see what was wrong. I went to the doctor, which led to seeing another doctor, who was an oncologist. I found out what is going on. I have lung cancer, and it's moved to my brain. I am dying." Ilsa heard murmurs, which she had expected to hear.

"Doctors don't like to give out that prognosis, so I asked them how long I had to live with or without treatment. I will die within the month without treatment; even with radiation, I'll only live three months."

"Are you going to get treatment?" Claire Beaumont asked.

"Palliative care. Only pain relief," Ilsa replied. "No radiation, no chemo. There's no sense being sicker for what little time I have left. I have arrangements for Hospice to come in once a day."

"What do you need from us?" Jeanne Beaumont inquired. Jeanne and her husband Josh had fostered the first of miracles at Barn Swallows' Dance: the Garden with its pair of Trees that defined the peoples of the collective. But they, like all there, knew that miracles came not from gods but from the humans, and humans couldn't manage this miracle.

Ilsa thought about her greatest desires of her last days: "I want to spend time with all of you and time alone for myself. I want you to accept my decline and not try to persuade me to try to extend my life. I want you not to try to hide from me when I can no longer walk and am speaking gibberish. And," Ilsa didn't understand why she harbored the last wish, "I want Amarel to walk me to the Garden every evening at dusk and leave me there for two hours, even if he has to carry me."

Outside, peering through the window, a creature with flowing hair like copper spun into silk witnessed the most courageous human in the world. He galloped away on strangely inhuman legs before the people wandered out.

# # #

Amarel took Ilsa's arm as she stepped from the podium. "People wait to talk to you. Are you up to that?"

"Not now. It's been a trying day. Can we sneak out the back and go straight to the Trees?"

"I thought you were tired?" Amarel queried.

"I just find the Garden so peaceful," Ilsa sighed.

# # #

The creature waited under the Trees. He recognized the Trees as Gaia's power, channeled to help the humans understand Chaos and Order. He was a creature of Chaos, unlike the humans, who were for the most part creatures of Order.

But he waited for the woman. It was very difficult for a creature like him, who did not wait, but danced and galloped and chased voles into the grasses. He slept and grazed on nuts and berries and honey and the occasional mushroom. Sometimes he stole milk – just a cup at a time – from the goats.

He lived a simple life, but he waited for the woman. Who was dying. Who had the courage of a bear.

# # #

Ilsa walked into the Garden herself, marveling at how the kiwi smelled in bloom, how the herbs carpeted the ground and the scorzonera and sorrel added green accents –

She stopped and stared. A magnificent creature sat there, legs straight out in front of him – and it was obviously a he, because he didn't wear any clothes. He had long, straight hair, and small curled horns emerged from it. His long legs looked strange, the knees thrown backward, the skin covered with short, stiff hair the color of the hair on his head. Ilsa couldn't see colors well in the faded light of the food forest, but she thought she knew what she saw.

"Are you a satyr?" Ilsa asked tartly. "I have no virtue to steal."

The creature raised its eyebrows at her.

"Okay. A faun, then?"

The creature, apparently a faun, smiled tentatively, then grinned and blew a kiss toward her.

"Oh, you're funny, kid. Do you know how long it's been since someone blew a kiss at me?"

The faun stood up by bracing his arms on the ground, then pushing up, swinging those backward legs under him. He trotted over and kissed her on the cheek.

"I feel ten years younger now," Ilsa said wryly. "Can you help an old lady sit down?"

The creature helped her sit down and then sat down next to her.

"What is your name?" Ilsa inquired. The faun gave an elaborate shrug.

"Okay, can I call you Faun?" The creature nodded.

"Ok, Faun. Can you speak?" Ilsa asked.

Faun pointed to his mouth and shook his head. Then he cupped his hands and held them to his forehead and opened them, then repeated the motion at his chest.

Ilsa ventured hesitantly, "What you're saying is that, if I open my mind and my heart, I'll understand you?" Faun nodded.

"You'd make a good Quaker," Ilsa snorted, and settled into the silence, feeling Faun's warmth against her. She could hear his breath and hers, hers weaker and strained, in the grove. She thought she felt the chilly beginnings of fog whisking into the space they sat in. Fog in the bright daylight, the rarest thing. She felt weary, until suddenly she felt the faun's warmth settle on her like a favorite quilt.

Faun smiled. But tell me about yourself.

"Do you mind if I talk? I don't think I've got the hang of this mind speech thing yet," Ilsa muttered.

You do know how to talk in my mind, but it's okay if you speak. Tell me about yourself.

Ilsa snorted. "What's there to say? My name is Ilsa Morgenstern. I've always been one of those women who didn't care much for how I was expected to act. I came of age in 1968, in the midst of the Vietnam War protests. I worked with organized labor for many years. I had my son out of wedlock in the early 70's, before single parenthood became normalized. So there I was, a single mother in a man's world. I had to be tough, and at the same time I had to be true to myself, so I nurtured nonviolence, collectivism, the new world I wanted to see. The peaceable kingdom where the lamb lay down with the lion – "

You gave peace to the Balance. You do know that is not always the way of things, right? We eat according to our needs, and are eaten according to others' needs.

"I know. Luckily I'm too old and stringy for anything to want to eat me," Ilsa snorted.

Death will eat you as it eats us all. And you will be missed." The faun took Ilsa's hand in his as the tears that were threatening to spill all day flowed down her face. Soon, he pulled her to him and she rested her head on his shoulder. Ilsa didn't expect this gesture. But, like the kiss, it was what Ilsa wanted. What she needed, although she wouldn't have asked for it.

She fell asleep in the creature's arms as he stroked the braids mercilessly pinned around her head.

# # #

When Amarel returned to escort his grandmother home, Ilsa looked up at him, alone again, but feeling refreshed after her nap. "Amarel, how are you doing? I've had a lovely meditation here."

She did tell the truth, in a way.

# # #

The next morning, Elsa woke up for early breakfast out of years of habit. She slept less fitfully than she had for weeks, but she still struggled with getting dressed. When she heard the knock on her door, she opened it to Amarel, her beautiful, dimpled grandson.

She stepped out the door, and turned to look at the wreath, which hung there as fresh as it had been the day before.

# # #

"I think I'll be gone faster than the doctor said," Ilsa started.

"I can stop that," Amarel countered. "I can bring you back from the black corridor." Amarel spoke in earnest – Ilsa knew that he could, indeed, rescue her from death, as he had others. The Trees had given him that talent for inexplicable reasons.

Ilsa did not want to be rescued. "Amarel, I want you to promise me you will not rescue me."

"Why not?" Amarel asked in a hushed voice.

"Because I am sick. I'm sick in a way where I hurt, and I'm losing my balance all the time, and I'm getting weaker, and I'm wasting away because food repulses me. There are days I have less pain – " Like today, Ilsa thought, and remembered the warmth of Faun against her. "Things will get worse. If you rescue me from death, I will still have the illness. I'll be dead, but living. And I will walk down that corridor again. And again, if you rescue me then. Would you do that to me?" Ilsa leaned harder on Amarel's arm, having exhausted herself from speaking.

Amarel didn't answer.

# # #

Ilsa had trouble drinking coffee at early breakfast, one of the most discouraging side effects of her cancer. "Try it with lots of cream," Dr. Dev Singh remarked as he passed by. "And sugar, of course. Does not smell so strong that way."

Ilsa poured coffee into her cup halfway, then liberally added the heavy cream the collective produced, then added a touch of sugar. She took a sip of the coffee and found it pleasant, even though it was more cream than coffee.

Arnold and Addie Majors sat down next to her, followed by a short, grizzled man she hadn't seen in years. "Gene!" Ilsa exclaimed in her wispy voice. "You didn't come down all the way from DeKalb to see me, did you?"

"Yes I did, girl. I heard you was dying. Is that true?" Addie Majors startled; Arnold, tall and gaunt, looked stoic as usual. Gene took Ilsa's hand.

Ilsa laughed. "I see you haven't changed, Gene. I'm dying, and I have a month at most. I don't think it will even be that long. So it's a good thing you came down. How's the café doing?"

"Girl, you always cracked me up. The café's doing fine; not as much fun as before you took Jeanne and Josh away from us, though. It always was good for a chuckle watching them pretend they weren't an item."

"They're doing well here," Ilsa said. "Very well." She generally did not discuss with Gene the more fantastical but perfectly real elements of life at Barn Swallows' Dance, which the founders had not planned for.

Josh and his wife Jeanne sat down among the group. "Gene, we weren't that pathetic, were we?"

Gene, unabashed, replied, "We had a betting pool going on in the kitchen for when you two would finally go to bed together."

"That would have been the night we met, Gene," Jeanne smirked. Ilsa quite forgot she was dying and laughed again.

"Is there anything you need?" Addie asked, like a sensible woman. Why was it the women knew how to ask that question and the men just stood around and wrung their hands?

"I'm fine for now, Addie. But if you see Amarel, could you ask him if he would walk me back home after breakfast?"

"No need," Gene said. "I'd like to walk the girl home if you all don't mind?"

Early breakfast broke up soon after that, and Gene put his hand on Ilsa's elbow and headed toward her house. When they walked on a deserted stretch of path, Gene asked, "Ilsa, do you want to make an exit earlier?"

"What do you mean?" Ilsa inquired, shaking her head.

"I have some pills. A couple different kinds. I have a friend who's a doctor, and I asked him what he would recommend for assisted suicide. This is what he supplied. Not a word on this, because it could send me up the river." Gene held out a plastic bag with many pills of different shapes and colors within.

"I appreciate the offer, Gene," Ilsa responded, "but I want nature to take its course. It occurs to me that I have something to learn in dying. If you want to do something for me, arrange a cremation for me with a scattering of ashes in the Garden. By the way, has anyone shown you the Garden?"

Gene shook his head sadly and sighed. "Don't say I didn't try, Girl," he replied sadly. "They're here if you want them," and he stuck them in the pocket of Ilsa's jacket.

From around the corner of her house, the creature observed the interaction between Ilsa and the man not much taller than her. Her friends surrounded Ilsa with love, he noticed, which was good because the journey of death could be lonely.

He would make sure her death wasn't lonely.

# # #

Ilsa lay on the slab of her cob stoveafter breakfast, soaking up its residual warmth. She trembled from the cold which never left her body and from too much exertion. The oncologist called it cachexia, the wasting of her muscles. She could not eat, and the cancer burned up so much energy.

She lay there when someone let the hospice nurse into the house. Luckily, the nurse was quiet and respectful instead of opinionated and loud like Claire Beaumont would have been. Ilsa might have made a miraculous recovery just to pummel a loud, pushy nurse with a bedpan. Or maybe not. She found it so hard to move.

"Do you have any pain?" the bulky redheaded nurse asked.

"Yes, I do. Muscles and bones today. No pain in my head, surprising because I have a tumor in there."

"Not surprising, because the tumor isn't putting pressure on the ventricles. Your brain itself has no pain receptors. Are you taking your morphine?" he queried.

"Not unless I really need it. I don't like the idea of being dopey in my last days here."

"You won't be dopey – at least not from the pain pills. Take them every six hours for pain. Don't skip them, or else you won't keep up with the pain. If the pain becomes too much, we could put you on a morphine drip, but you will be pretty much restricted to the chair and the bed. I wouldn't recommend you lay on the slab, because it could cause you more pain."

Ilsa looked the nurse in the eye. "Feel the slab."

The nurse lay his hand on it. "That's nice and warm."

"My bed will never be that warm."

"Could you put a cotton pad on it? That would make it more comfortable. I'll see what I can find."

The nurse then whisked away, having something concrete to do.

# # #

Dying was a strange process for a human, the faun considered, brushing a lock of fine, straight hair from his face. Most people, he understood from reading Ilsa's thoughts, died in big white rooms in big white buildings where humans segregated their dying. An odd thing, Faun thought, because Gaia's creatures should die close to the ground they would go to. He hoped Ilsa wouldn't die in a big white building.

# # #

Ilsa slipped into dreams where she talked to her parents, but she could only speak gibberish. Her parents, the tall, broad-shouldered Irving Morganstern and his petite wife Greta, asked her if she would be visiting soon.

Ilsa queried, "Fire gone me?"

Her mother said, "No, honey, you just wonder what death is like. Nobody knows until they go there."

"... the garden. I – "

"Where we die is so much left to fate," her father said. "Death doesn't stop for instructions, my child."

"My were died?"

"Yes. We have gone on our journey. It never ends, but it takes you onto familiar ground again." Greta Morgenstern hugged her daughter, who in this dream wore her glossy dark hair in a braid down her back.

Ilsa woke up to Amarel patting her face and shouting into it. What a sweet, well-meaning, annoying boy, Ilsa thought as she woke up.

"What is it, Amarel?" Ilsa snapped.

"I couldn't wake you up at first," Amarel fussed.

"One of these days, Amarel, you're not going to be able to wake me up. This happens to all of us."

Amarel scowled as if he wanted to argue that point, but it faded quickly. He gave his grandmother a hug. "Luke is waiting outside with some legal papers. Janice also wants to see you – she's back from her Chicago trip to the galleries. Can they come in?"

"Sure," Ilsa said, "but there's no guarantees that I'll get up."

"Do you want me to lift you to the chair?" Amarel asked solicitously.

"Why not?" Ilsa said. "This is a rather comfortable slab, though."

Amarel lifted her to the chair, and then let Janice and Luke into the living room. Janice's message was brief: "I just got back. One of my sculptures is in a juried show in the suburbs; the other two have been accepted at SMarx. I have two sculptures showing at the gallery in Champaign. I like basing my studio here." Janice contrasted with Ilsa's grandson in every way: strong to his apparent frailty; dark to his wintry complexion, older and wiser to his ever-bright optimism.

"Good for you," Ilsa rasped. "I knew Barn Swallows' Dance couldn't lose you."

"Especially as I'd waged such a campaign to win her," Amarel walked over and gave his partner a hug.

"By holding her hand and making googly eyes at her, as I recall." They both laughed; Ilsa had the right of it.

"Amarel told me," Janice knelt to Ilsa's level. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"You can keep producing those amazing sculptures you do," Ilsa patted Janice's hand.

The lovebirds soon departed and left her alone with Luke who, despite his rugged blond features, was an Archetype and six thousand years old. "I have your papers here," Luke said, crouching in front of her. "Durable Power of Attorney, with Gideon to make any decisions needed, Living Will with Do Not Resuscitate order, Will and Last Testament. Did I forget anything?"

"Do you have any way to keep my pesky Nephilim grandson from rescuing me from death? He seems determined to do it."

"I don't believe any legal contract will cover that, Ilsa. My great-grandson is well-meaning, but a little overzealous about this saving people thing at times. He's afraid of losing you."

"Why? Given that he comes from a family of near-immortal Archetypes and long-lived Nephilim, why does he fixate on me, Luke?"

"To Amarel, humans are the most beautiful species because of their imperfections. Thus his partnering with Janice, who will never be mistaken for a beauty queen."

"True, but she is striking," Ilsa admitted. "And they're even more striking together."

Luke nodded. "How are you feeling today?"

"It's getting closer. I dream of my parents; it seems harder to wake up. Sometimes I sit there in the middle of reminiscence and I can't remember what I was thinking. And I'm very weak." Ilsa paused for a moment, her lips pursed. "Luke, do you have a will?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. It's kept in a safety deposit box and my daughter Celestine has the key. Just because I'm extremely long-lived doesn't mean I can't die. And as a lawyer, I'm prepared for anything except being handed a human baby."

Ilsa laughed. "I'm done holding court for today. Could you put me back on the heater slab?"

# # #

Faun stood at the window and saw Ilsa fitfully sleeping on her bed of earth. He noted the hollows of her cheeks, the parched skin on bird bones. Her journey was reaching its end, and he knew he had to rescue her from the white building that loomed in her future, the one she had fought to escape. She needed to take the journey with someone who had memorized every step and had learned to guide those steps with love and reverence.

Although he feared the humans' world, he had to rescue this one, this woman who wanted to face her death as she had faced her life: on her own terms.

Ilsa lay on the slab and dozed. She hadn't taken the morphine yet. The rocket heater had grown cold, as there were no branches in the hopper. She felt so chilled. Is this what death felt like, this feeling of being so cold she could no longer shiver?

She heard the breaking of a window, but could not rouse herself to investigate. She felt warm arms scoop her up from the slab as if she weighed nothing. Silk brushed against her eyes, and her grey braids worked loose from their moorings. A step, a step, a jump, and a leap, and she could smell the grass on the breeze, and hear leaves rustle. She sensed sun on her face.

# # #

Josh stopped by Ilsa's house to feed the fire in the rocket heater. He unlocked the door with the spare key Adam had given him. When he stepped inside, he saw that the fire had gone out, and that Ilsa was not in the living room. He checked the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom – he did not see Ilsa. Then he looked back in the living room and saw the two-paned window, which had been broken completely out, frame and all.

Josh closed his eyes and thought about the Garden, shaping a query. In his mind formed a picture of an old woman lying in a bed of moss, with an impossible goat-horned creature leaning over her, his long hair falling across her face. The creature kissed her on the cheek as she reached to touch his hair. The trees hid them from sight, as if protecting the pair from discovery.

Josh smiled. He knew better than to disturb them.

# # #

Ilsa woke up from her disturbed sleep to find herself in a hollow in the Garden, almost a cave, where she had first encountered Faun. She felt warm for the first time that day. "Am I dying?" she asked.

Yes, but you have time. First, some wild honey. And he scooped something out of a rough, sun-baked bowl and held it to her lips. Ilsa took a bite of the honeycomb and tasted rich wine and berries and cider and chocolate and violets and sun and moonlight.

"What was that?" Ilsa laughed, still laying in the moss.

That is the essence of joy. You understand joy very fiercely, don't you?

"I guess so," Ilsa mused. "I fought for equality and life and joy, and the joy kept me going."

See? Faun bent down and lapped the remnants of honey from her face.

"That's lovely, Faun, but I'm too old and sick for what you have in mind."

I know, but you had honey on your face. Faun raised his eyebrows, making Ilsa laugh until she choked. He held her upright until the choking stopped.

"What is dying like?" Ilsa asked as Faun lay her back down in the moss.

The act of dying is very individual. Some people die in their sleep. Others fight against it every step of the way. You have chosen to experience it as only a child of Gaia would, by treating it as a natural part of life. You are on your journey now. What is it like?

"I think about the past a lot. My grandson sees death as a long, black-walled gallery where pictures from one's past hang. He rescues people from that gallery so that they don't die. Mostly people who have been killed by violence that are taken out of life too soon." Ilsa felt a weariness that threatened to rob her of speech.

Do you think your grandson is going to try to rescue you?

"Yes, I think he is. He takes my impending death very hard. I told him I didn't want to be rescued, and he wouldn't promise me he'd not do it."

Do you still not want to be rescued?

"I do not. It's my time. If he rescued me, I would grow sicker, impossibly sick, and not die. What kind of life is that?"

I can stop him.

"Please don't hurt him. He's my grandson. He's also Nephilim, with Archetype and human parents, so he's very strong." Ilsa noticed that her voice had become a hoarse whisper.

I am Gaia's creature. I don't need to kill him.

"That would be a good thing," Ilsa whispered. Then a spasm of pain hit her, one that the presence of the faun could not overcome, and she fell limp on the moss.

Faun put his ear close to her face. She still breathed.

# # #

When Amarel and Gideon escorted the hospice nurse to Ilsa's house, Josh tagged along to see if he could provide some misdirection. He didn't want to interrupt Ilsa's experience or the faun's duty.

Or the faun's love for the gutsy old woman.

Josh steeled himself for the inevitable outrage. The group could not see the window from the front of the house, but when they opened the door –

"Mom?" Gideon called out, and then dropped to his knees, holding his head. The hospice nurse strode to him: "Can you tell me where it hurts?"

Gideon lifted his hands from his head and muttered, "It's okay now. I think it was just a dizzy spell." Then he uttered a phrase that only Josh would understand, having learned ancient Greek for his academic discipline: Tó aeroploíon emón enkheleíōn plērés estin.

Josh choked back laughter, as the phrase made no sense and likely came from one of the many gods that used to – make that 'once again' – dwell in Gideon's mind. Gideon gave one of his rare smiles, incongruous against the disappearance of his mother.

The nurse looked disconcerted as he glanced at the slab, where Ilsa was not. Then Amarel looked at the destroyed window torn from its frame. He ran over and looked at the wreckage of the window at his feet.

"My grandmother is gone," Amarel sagged. "Alive but missing. Where could she be?"

"There's no telling," Josh replied cryptically. He spoke truth, because he knew where she was, but couldn't tell. He would not let her privacy be broken.

# # #

Ilsa raved. In her raving, she spoke memories to Faun, and he read them as he held her. A large city full of large white buildings and smaller dwellings of brick-brown and greystone. Ornate metal boxes rolled up and down ribbons of stone and coughed smoke into the air. Faun paled at the pictures, but knew he needed to bear it for Ilsa's sake.

Faun realized that Ilsa's eyes lit up as she viewed the constructed chaos, the chaos that mimicked order to humans. He saw the difference, a huge difference, between he and Ilsa, but difference meant nothing on this journey they took together.

Ilsa spoke to bickering men, and the men relaxed, lowering their fists and their voices. It was a power he suspected few humans possessed, as all the other humans he saw around her shouted at each other. At times, he couldn't see through a haze of smoke in small rooms, and he recognized the smoke that would kill her.

Another memory – she argued with a man in one of those brick buildings. The man had hair the color of a deer hide and a strong nose. The man argued with her and grabbed her arm, leaving bruises – and she elbowed him in the face and walked out, grabbing her baby son on the way.

Ilsa woke at that moment and locked her eyes on his. "Thirsty," she whispered.

Faun took another baked-earth bowl filled with water from a hidden spring, the sweetest water he could find. He held her up, so she could take a few sips of the water, then lay her back down and lay down beside her, giving her as much warmth as he could.

# # #

Amarel's eyes blazed. "You are not going to search for my grandmother?" he challenged.

His twin brother Batarel, who had arrived to mourn his grandmother, shook his head. "Grandma has chosen to die in her own way. The hoofprints led to the Garden, but she cannot be found there. The Garden hides her for its own reasons."

"Hoofprints?" Amarel demanded. "The faun that's been seen around here? Did the faun take her?"

"It's entirely possible," Josh mused. "Around here, who knows who her companion would be?"

"Companion?" Amarel snapped.

"She's dying. She doesn't want to die alone, but she has no patience with anyone telling how to die or not die," Luke interjected.

"She can't die," Amarel collapsed and wept. Batarel and his lover Ty threw their arms around Amarel and comforted him. Luke stepped back and let the human and Nephilim comfort his favorite great-grandchild.

# # #

Ilsa slept, the sleep edging on coma. Faun knew her end would come soon. When her breath began to rattle, he squatted next to her and unbraided her hair, letting it loose in wavy silver strands. Nobody should die with bound hair, the faun thought, touching hair coarse and dry from the process of dying.

Then he lifted her up and began to walk into that corridor, the black corridor that ended in the bright light and the journey beyond that.

Ilsa would have to take those final steps alone.

"Do I get any last words?" Ilsa rasped, lifting her head slightly.

Of course, Faun said.

"Find a way to tell everyone I loved them. And for you, know that I loved you too. You were the love I never had."

You've always had my love, Ilsa. You will always have my love.

Faun heard a soft tenor voice behind him. "Let go my grandmother!" Footsteps ran closer, and Faun saw a young man of unusual beauty and wild eyes.

I can't, Faun said softly without words. It is her journey, and I am her psychopomp.

"Psychopomp?"

I am the one to lead her on the journey into death.

"You can't! She's not ready to go!"

Faun sighed and showed Amarel a vision: Ilsa growing more and more shrunken and feeble, crying in pain, then skeleton-like, shedding parts of her body as severe malnutrition set in, whispering 'help me, help me die' but nobody would help, nobody would go near her because they feared death. This is what happens when we do not die in our time.

Amarel dropped to his knees, sobbing. "I would not do that to my grandmother."

You may rescue those stolen from life by violence, but let those who die of sickness or old age go to their destiny.

"What happens when we die?" Amarel lifted a tear-streaked face.

Each person's journey is unique. And it is not for anyone else to know. A breeze brushed Amarel's hair, and Faun turned to walk with Ilsa to the end of the corridor.

# # #

Later, Josh and Luke and Batarel followed Amarel to the grove, which opened like a door to them. Ilsa lay motionless, her hair spread around her and her hands clapsed across her chest. Nearby were two rough clay bowls: one with honeycomb and one with clear water. Josh smiled: "I think Gaia herself supplied the honey and water."

"Or maybe Gaia's creature," Amarel replied with teary eyes. "I saw him, and he was a most magnificient being."

Then they saw the wristlet she wore: Silver-grey against copper hair, braided into a bracelet and placed on her wrist. Nobody understood the significance of it, but agreed that she should wear it at her cremation.

# # #

The whole collective came to her memorial service, followed by the scattering of her ashes. They remembered Ilsa Morgenstern as she had been: an acerbic, idealistic woman who could swear like a sailor, but kept the swearing away from most but her closest friends. A woman who quietly achieved results when others yelled at each other. A woman who handled her sadness privately, but could share others' happiness. A woman who was totally stymied by driving, and had relied on public transportation, cabs, and the goodness of her friends for getting places. A woman who radiated love and calm. An exceptional woman.

A creature with long red hair and the legs of a goat listened at the window of the Commons and smiled. My work is done here, Faun thought.

# # #

A couple months later, the faun galloped across a field of amber grass, smelling the change in seasons. He did not see the hunter nor hear the gunshot until something pierced his chest. Blood flowed -- although the hunter had not aimed true, the faun knew he would perish before the hunter found him. The hunter would be in for a big surprise that Gaia did not intend.

The faun opened his eyes against the pain, and saw a woman: young, petite, with dark eyes and long dark hair worn in a braid. "Faun," she smiled. "Death is quite the trip, but I got delayed because Gaia told me I had to wait for you. It seems that I'm your psychopomp."

Ilsa? the faun breathed. I didn't expect you. She was as beautiful as he had remembered.

Let's race Amarel, okay? I suspect he'll try to interrupt us, Ilsa snorted.

Faun felt his heart expand, ready to explode for this woman before him. You've mastered speaking in my mind,.

Of course. I am Gaia's creature, too. For the moment. Then – oh, never mind. It's a surprise. But we meet it together.

Ilsa scooped Faun up effortlessly, and they ran down the corridor toward the bright door to the unknown.