Exiles: Geneveve

Geneveve lay in her cotton pajamas on top of her feather filled covers on her bed, trying too hard to fall asleep. Eyes wide in the shadowy room lit only by a few nearby street lights, she felt the warm summer air come in through the open window. She knew Smith was there, on the roof, inches away from the windowsill, waiting to be acknowledged.

Geneveve rolled over, readjusted her pillow, and settled back into comfort with a sigh before she looked at the window where Smith waited. Smith was a skinny young woman, almost boyish, except for the depth of her eyes and the predatory grin on her lips. She wore a black leather biker jacket, much too big for her slight frame, black denim pants, much too tight even for her skinny legs, and a loose black t-shirt with a two inch cut in the collar, exposing the divot between her clavicles.

“You are getting better,” said Smith in a sweet voice, like honey glazing the teeth on a steel bear trap.

“Better?” asked Geneveve, “Better in general or better with something specific?”

“Something specific,” said Smith, “but that makes you better in general, does it not?”

Smith pressed the backs of her wrists against the window frame and placed one foot on the sill. If she had been at a party, she could have used the same motion with her hands to invite a hug, and the sudden coyness in her eyes suggested that’s what she was doing now.

When Geneveve didn’t respond with anything more than a half smile and playful eyes, Smith glanced down inside the window, then pulled herself in, stepping down gently, as if Peter Pan were merely a student of hers.

Smith kept her hands out, but no longer inviting a hug, or pulling the rest of her through the window. Now, she was basking in the glory of a teenage girl’s bedroom, eyes panning the posters on the walls, the books on the shelf, the papers on the desk, and finally, the girl on the bed.

“Lovely place you have here,” said Smith.

Geneveve pushed herself up onto an elbow and said, “And it just got a little brighter.”

“Do you even know the power of flattery, young lady?” asked Smith, mocking the sternness someone must have used unsuccessfully to teach her manners.

“Do you even know how to answer simple questions?” asked Geneveve.

“Yes,” said Smith, “I do. And I don’t use questions, either. Maybe it is you that does not know which questions to ask.”

“Okay,” said Geneveve, “In what way am I getting better?”

“You sensed my presence within moments of my arrival,” said Smith.

“Oh? And how do you know I didn’t sense you as you came to the window?” asked Geneveve.

“Because,” said Smith, crossing her arms and tilting her head forward, “I am still better as sensing you and reading your feelings.”

“Even before you see me?” asked Geneveve, genuinely surprised.

“Even before I see you,” confirmed Smith, friendly, but quite serious.

The silence between them was soft as Smith let her words work their way into Geneveve’s mind. Smith watched, like a predator watches her young struggle with a puzzle. Slowly, Smith tilted her head back, sniffed the air, scanning the room again with her eyes.

“My brother says you are not real,” Geneveve said after a while.

“Your brother is a college queer,” said Smith, kindly, not hateful.

“Yeah, well, at least he has a love life,” said Geneveve in a half serious pout.

“I checked him out, you know,” said Smith.

“You met him?” asked Geneveve.

“Yup,” said Smith, “At a party. He was drunk, and probably remembers me as some scrawny dyke, but, hey, half the reason why I come to visit you this late is in case you decided to sleep in the nude.”

“Are you serious?” asked Geneveve, realizing that there probably was a grain of truth in what Smith said. “So, what is the other half of the reason you grace me with your presence?”

“Oh, I have my reasons,” said Smith, evading Geneveve’s playful glare.

“My mom suggested that you were one of the fairy folk,” said Geneveve, scrunching up her face at the silliness of the idea, “Like an elf or sprite or something.”

“A goblin or redcap, even!” Exclaimed Smith, her eyes twinkling devilishly in the dark.

“Hardly,” said Geneveve, scrunching her face with a sour frown.

“What?” scoffed Smith, “You don’t think I have the charm or wit to fall into those categories?”

“Charm? Wit?” gasped Geneveve, “I thought goblins and redcaps were low on the list of civilities.”

“Oh, ‘civilities’ she says,” sneered Smith. “I see. So you think Charm is something of polite society. Only members of high society can suffer from a wits edge?”

Geneveve shrugged. “I just got the impression that certain fairy types were more prone to aggression, rather than subtlety.”

“Oh, my sweet creature,” crooned Smith, “there are many goblins with a wit so subtle that you would hardly notice the depths of their insults until they had taken your intangibles. And redcaps are devilishly charming when they wish to have you over for dinner, whether they intend to dine with you or on you.”

“Oh,” muttered Geneveve. “What did you mean by stealing my intangibles?”

“Some things that cannot be grasped in flesh can still be stolen,” said Smith, her tone dropping into something serious and dire. Her eyes became dark and foreboding in such a shadowy flash, it was as if they had always been that way. Then Smith smiled, beaming glorious cheer into the room, banishing the gloom with star-studded twinkles in her eyes.

“Then, again,” said Geneveve, quietly, still cowed by the fleeting menace, “Maybe the fairies can’t be stuck into simple stereotypes.” Smith tilted her head and raised her eyebrows, intent on Geneveve’s words. “Maybe, each ‘type’ is more of a tendency. I mean, maybe every one of the fairies has something of a redcap to balance out the grace of a Sidhe or the playfulness of a pixie.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I would go that far,” said Smith. “You can trust a redcap to at least consider the idea of taking a bite, just as you can depend on a man to think of sex at least once when you happen to cross his path.”

“You sound like you are speaking from experience,” teased Geneveve.

“You,” said Smith, pausing for the drama, “sound like a non-believer.”

Geneveve shrugged. “Unless my mother is right about you, I don’t think I have ever run across a fairy.”

“Well, I am glad you haven’t dismissed the suspicions entirely,” said Smith. “Nor have you made any conclusions, apparently. The middle ground always brings the most opportunities.”

“My mother said fairies like the between places, like doorways or shadows,” said Geneveve.

“Of course,” said Smith, “Doubt and suspicion is what keeps you young, if you know how to handle it. Not knowing is the way of youth. When you have everything figured out, well, then, it is just time to roll over and die, isn’t it?”

“Suspicion and doubt,” said Geneveve, mulling the words over.

“Don’t let yourself slip into paranoia, though,” said Smith. “That is just another absolute. Sure there is plenty of suspicion of strangers, and even friends, and doubting everyone’s trust abounds in paranoia, but you can’t live like that. It is too absolute to accept that there is a conspiracy out to get you.”

“So you should be suspicious of your doubts, and doubt your suspicions?” asked Geneveve.

“Sounds like a great way to say that,” said Smith, walking over to the desk. Abruptly changing the subject, Smith asked, “Homework?”

She glanced back at Geneveve, who nodded with a slight frown. Smith looked down at the papers shrouded in some of the deeper shadows in the room.

“Freud was an idiot,” said Smith, apparently unhindered by the lack of light.

“No, he wasn’t, actually,” said Geneveve, defending the subject of her paper.

“He drew huge conclusions from a small collection of repressed, upper-class, Victorian women,” said Smith, almost exasperated.

“He put together a system of studying and understanding human behavior,” said Geneveve, as if practicing for an oral report, “Which led to the modern field of Psychology. To disregard his efforts is to disregard anyone who came up with a system of understanding. Take Newton, for instance. Modern physics owes so much to him, despite how much our understanding of the universe has evolved.”

“But Newtonian physics is still useable,” said Smith, “Freud, however, was so full of himself that he couldn’t really see beyond his own issues.”

“I’m not analyzing his issues, or his conclusions,” said Geneveve, tired of the debate, “but rather his methods.”

“Whatever,” said Smith, “I found him rather condescending and imperious.”