The Stranger - A LGBT Contemporary Fairy Tale

Chapter 4

Some days later, or perhaps many, or just a few—no one could really say—The Stranger could be seen wandering down the road. He happened to stop where Evie was out tending her sheep as usual. He quietly approached the fence. As before, she did not hear or see him as he stood watching her.

She was lying on her belly and plucking at a daisy. "He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not..." Her face turned down into a pouty frown as she plucked the last petal.

"What are you doing?" The Stranger asked her.

She startled and looked up, blushing furiously at having been caught playing an old game. A past time usually only the younger girls foolishly indulged in, not someone of her age.

"Oh, just being silly to pass the time." She tossed the stem over her shoulder and stood up to approach The Stranger at the fence.

"Didn't seem silly to me. If I didn't know better, I'd think you were struggling about a decision? Am I right?"

Her cheeks were rosy again and she looked down shyly. "Yes, I suppose I am."

"Would it be prying if I asked what decision it is you are having difficulty with?"

But when she looked up and stared into The Stranger's eyes, searching for his motivation at the inquiry, she had a feeling all at once that he already knew what she was struggling with.

Before she could examine that feeling, a funny thing happened. She felt as if she were falling. Not in that terrifying way that one slips off cliffs and falls forever sometimes in dreams. More like being caught up in a gentle yet firm wind and passing through clouds as she bounded downward, one through the next, descending down and down.

When she landed perfectly on both feet, she gasped at the sight before her. She saw a woman in a small house. The woman looked so familiar, but she couldn't quite place how she knew this person.

The woman was perhaps twenty years older than herself. She was heavy set with both a physical weight and something else. The burdens of a hard life etched in the lines of her face. Despite the roundness of the woman's face, there was a sunken lifelessness in the woman's eyes.

Evie stared in awe as she saw one of her present day suiters stride into the house. It was unmistakably an older version of Bill. Evie tentatively took up a place by the stone hearth, to be out of the way, afraid that this 'older' Bill would see her intruding on something she was sure was meant to be private. The older woman seemed devoid of life as she barely gave Bill a glance and continued to mechanically chop vegetables in preparation for the evening meal.

"Evie, are you stupid?" Bill trudged across the floor to stand by her.

"No." Barely a whisper of a reply as the woman shrunk with fear.

"Seems to me like my pig in the pen out back has more sense than you! What'd I tell you just yesterday? What!"

Evie watched in horror as Bill hovered menacingly over this other woman, mere inches from the side of the woman's face. She gasped in shock and slammed her hands over her mouth to muffle the sound. She suddenly realized why this woman looked so familiar. She realized this woman was her in the not too distant future. Somewhere in young Evie's mind, she knew that it should be impossible for her to be seeing her future self, but that thought took a backseat to the curiosity of wanting to know what would happen next in the tiny kitchen.

Old Evie did not turn to look at him. "I... I..." Her older self stuttered.

Bill's hand was so quick, and young Evie gasped again. Bill's hand struck older Evie across the face. She watched her older self struggle to contain the tears.

Young Evie touched her own cheek. It was as if she could feel the sting of the blow. The intensity of the emotional and physical pain somehow throbbing in her cheek despite not having taken the blow.

"Dinner best be ready by the time I get done cleaning up woman. You hear me!" He spat the words in utter disgust at her.

Young Evie gaped in horror at the scene that had unfolded before her. As older Bill left the room, she watched her older self continue to chop vegetables. Her tears fell, seasoning their nightly dinner with bitter remorse and regret.

Young Evie felt an inexplicable swelling of tears coming to her own eyes. She blinked them back, but as she did, she felt the room around her begin to swirl and whirl. Everything around seemed to be caught up in a twister, and she was at the heart of it.

As the room settled, she saw herself again. It was the same setting but not? Was this a replay? She wasn't sure. She felt afraid to look on again. Anxiety welling up at having to replay the awful scene she had just witnessed.

Finally, she did dare take a glimpse at her older self. She cracked one eye open, inhaled a sharp breath of surprise, and both eyes popped open. This time her shock was rooted in something entirely different.

Something had changed. She saw herself again. Older, but a straightness in her posture. Still plump, but different somehow.

She watched herself preparing the same meal as before. This time she hummed a soft sweet tune. There was a hint of color in her cheeks to replace the sallowness of before. There was a lightness in her motions of even the simple task of cutting that same carrot. Her eyes seemed to be alight with something that younger Evie couldn't quite place.

The door was flung open, but this time in walked a very old version of her other present suitor: Mike. As soon as the door opened, she watched her older self immediately drop the knife and carrot, and she went to him, throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a tender kiss on the cheek. His tall, thin frame overshadowed her, but Evie's younger self could tell Mike enveloped the older Evie with warmth and safety, not like the ominous shadow Bill had cast hovering over her.

She felt the old couple's love radiating like a lighthouse beam. It penetrated the room with such force, it became a beacon piercing the innermost caverns of young Evie's heart.

"Hello, my princess." Mike grinned.

"Oh, Mike, stop that," she said playfully, but young Evie could see it in her own older eyes that she relished the affection.

"What's for dinner, love?" Mike asked as Evie wriggled from his grasp. Mike reluctantly released her.

"Making a stew with the rabbit you caught yesterday. I'm sorry it's not done yet. I had an incident with the cow. She got out and was all the way down at the schoolyard before I got her corralled back in. Old Ms. Fletcher was none too pleased with the ruckus it caused with the children. You should'a seen her face, Mike." Older Evie stole a glance at Mike to relish the reaction she knew it would invoke.

Mike chuckled. "Ahh, I suppose the boys left the latch half fixed again? You'll tell me the whole story over dinner?" He said with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"I'm counting on it!" She saw her older self return the grin.

"Well, I'll just be a bit my sweet. Going to clean up, then I'll help you get dinner finished up."

She watched her older self continue to hum contentedly.

Suddenly young Evie was swept away from the scene she had been watching. She felt herself move up and up. As if she were moving in reverse from the clouds she had just fallen through only moments earlier. Her feet touched down in the pasture, and she was staring dumbfounded at The Stranger's self-satisfied face.

She suddenly felt a calmness about the decision she had previously and painstakingly lingered over for months. It seemed so obvious to her now, as she thought about the character of each young man in question. Of course Mike wasn't nearly as handsome as rugged Bill, but her heart knew which suitor was the best choice. She realized some part of her probably always knew, and now she felt content.

The Stranger's deep ocean-like eyes were fixed on her intently. "Do you think you'll struggle with making that decision now?" He asked.

She merely gaped and shook her head. He nodded and turned on his heel to make his way back up the road again.