Sunlight-Colored Roses

When she was a girl she had gone there once, wading amidst waist-high weeds and picking through the brambles to get to the old cottage. She remembered it.

Prior to that, she had found a key in a drawer in an old dresser box in the spare room of her house and had speculated endlessly about what it might open. It was the size and shape of a key which might fit into a door.

Later when Kate had been riding with her father, she had seen the old cottage and asked him about it. He had told her it was abandoned. It was hard now to recall his voice because he had been dead for so many years.

Kate had decided that the key she had found must open the door to the old cottage on her father’s property.

Kate had gone to the cottage at dusk, when her parents were occupied. She had opened the door with the key she had found and had entered the small building.

She remembered the effect the place had had on her senses. As she had stepped over the threshold she felt a sudden start because she had not expected to see the place kept up or to see anything inside it but old junk. She looked around at a fine green velvet sofa, a polished mahogany table, and in the corner, a gold candelabra. The well-dressed room smelled of fine musk perfume.

The dim light streaming through the window revealed a bronze statue seated on a polished cherry pedestal. It was so unlike anything she had seen before, in the likeness of a gorilla. It posed intimidatingly, its expression threatening.

Bubbles floated in the air around her. As she watched, she realized they were issuing from the bronze gorilla’s mouth. She moved closer to the statue to study the phenomenon, but her gaze became caught by her reflection in a bubble.

Initially, she saw her own reflection, and then other images. The face of a tall man with dark hair. He held a woman in his arms and kissed her.

She looked at another bubble. In it a tall slim woman clutching her skirt stumbled over rocks in the darkness. Her fine blue dress was torn and her long red hair was loose and tangled. Kate watched as she slipped, then clung to the rocks. Her mouth opened as though to cry out, but Kate heard only the chirping of birds in the old cottage’s rafters.

The sound of it brought her back to the present, and she looked back at the room. She saw the sofa covered with a white dust-cloth and several years’ worth of dust. A candelabra was tarnished, and the melted candle wax had crumbled to bits.

Kate brought her arms close, rubbing at the sudden chills that came over her as she realized the bronze gorilla was no longer on the table.

Frightened, she backed out of the cottage and locked the door. Along her way home, she realized the key had fallen out of her pocket. She searched frantically for it in the high grass for a few moments, but she was presently more worried about slipping in the house unnoticed than finding the key.

The experience had printed itself on her mind.

Now a man stood before her, recalling her experience as he pointed toward the old cottage on the horizon. Kate stood next to him on the porch. It was dusk, as it had been that night years ago when she had entered the cottage.

Kate looked back at the man, unable to make out his features in the darkness.

“The old place has been locked up for years,” she said. “You will have to fix it up yourself. The key has been lost, so you must remove the door and install a new one.”

“I can do that,” he said in a voice too low for her to trace expression. “But there’s no door. It looks as though someone broke into the place some time ago.”

“Perhaps,” Kate said. “I don’t know. I haven’t tended it.”

Then Nicole stepped onto the porch, between Kate and the man curiously. The stranger met Nicole’s inquiring gaze boldly. Kate glanced at Nicole. “Excuse me for a moment,” she said to the man, and gestured Nicole inside the house.

“Kate,” Nicole said, her brow knitted with unease, “who is that?”

“He’s looking for work. He wants to stay in the old cottage. He will do tasks around the property.”

Nicole looked appalled. “No,” she said, “we can’t have a stranger on our property. There’s only me and you living here.”

“We need his help to do things we can’t, and he doesn’t want money. He only wants to live in the cottage. You won’t notice him.”

Nicole looked discontent. “We don’t know him. I won’t feel secure living here with him around.”

Kate knew that even though she owned the deed to the house she still ought to take her cousin’s feelings into account. What Nicole said was true, and she was right to feel as she did. It was Kate who was being unnatural. She had intended to tell the man to go away, until he said he wanted to stay at the cottage. Then, her curiosity about the cottage had returned.

For some reason, she wanted him to stay there. She was afraid to enter the cottage, but she wanted to see what his experience would be like.

“He will probably not stay long,” Kate said. “Probably just a few nights, and then he’ll be gone. You know the sort. But I don’t want to turn him away.”

Nicole was dumbfounded, and her eyes still expressed protest, but Kate pretended not to see.

“I’m going back to speak with him,” Kate said and went back to the porch.

The stranger was gone. Kate had not expected that, but he must have heard her conversation with Nicole. She felt a trace of pity for him.

It was January, when a hard freeze could be miserable or detrimental to someone who didn’t have shelter. She went to the far end of the porch, feeling strangely bereft. Then, she saw him. He was moving toward the cottage.

Kate gave a swift intake of breath, then stepped from the porch and followed him.

In the dusk she felt a curious sense of returning to herself. She waded through the waist-high grass toward the tree-shrouded, vine-covered cottage on the hillside.

The vagrant had already entered the cottage.

Kate followed him, pausing in the doorway.

He turned, and she felt curious as his dark eyes met hers. In the dimness his face was barely visible but his features appealed to her. She found herself moving toward him. She accepted his outstretched hand.

In the darkness, part of her protested her behavior. She felt as though she were in a dream as she looked around the room. It was it had been that time long ago. The draped furnishings glowed in the dim light.

And the bronze gorilla leered on its pedestal against one wall and spouted bubbles into the cool air.

A breeze swept Kate’s face as she looked at the vagrant. Strands of hair covered her cheek, which he reached to brush aside. His eyes narrowed and his dark head neared hers, his high, arched brows furrowed with some expression indiscernible to her.

A sudden pain jerked her to awareness, and Kate buckled to her knees. She grasped her ankle, and he was beside her. He smelled of earth, smoke and hay, perhaps testifying to the places where he had slept. As Kate stooped to the floor, she became aware of the powder-fine dust, the dead dry leaves. He wasn’t looking at her with the same expression she had glimpsed earlier. Now, there were no bubbles or bronze statue.

Kate moaned with pain as she moved her ankle. The man touched it gingerly. “Easy,” he said, and for the first time she heard the full sound of his voice. “You tripped over something in the doorway.”

Kate jerked her head back toward the door, then saw the loose board jutting upward. There were boards sticking up everywhere from the floor. There were also cracks in the walls and probably leaks in the roof.

She had been dreaming when she had thought he was by her side, nearly touching her face. Now she remembered that he had crossed the room to reach her as she had tripped over the cottage threshold.

“I am not sure Nicole is comfortable with this arrangement,” she said.

His eyes darkened slightly. Was he angry? When he spoke, he sounded resigned. “When I approached the house, I didn’t know there were only women.”

“What’s your name?” she asked. The question drifted in the air like a dust mote. He didn’t meet her eyes.

He rose to his feet, leaving her crouched on the floor.

“Do you want to live here?” she asked.

He still avoided her eyes. “I can use the work,” he said, “but I won’t beg. Tell me straight, while it’s still light.”

“You may stay for the evening,” Kate said. She stood and brushed off her skirt. “What can you do?”

“I’ll clean up your fence. I can repair the barn. Do you and your sister have a cow?”

“My cousin,” Kate said, then regretted that she had volunteered the information. Perhaps the less he knew about them the better. “No, we don’t keep animals. The house needs to be re-shingled. Know anything about that?”

“Yes,” he said, meeting her gaze evenly.

“Good. I’ll give you some money. Board in this cottage will scarcely suffice as payment. We will work it out later. For the time being, I’m going back to the house. It’s late.”

When she left, she could feel his eyes on her back.

Kate scarcely slept that night.

In the early morning hours, she was startled by the sound of scraping on the roof. Her eyes flew wide as she listened avidly to the unfamiliar sound. She got out of bed and dressed quickly.

Nicole was standing in the middle of the kitchen holding a cup of coffee. She wore the same discontented expression she had last night.

“What is he doing up there?” Nicole demanded.

“I gave him work to do,” Kate said. “He’s taking the shingles off the roof. It needs new ones. That’s all there is to it.”

Nicole looked doubtful. “This is really unlike you,” she said. “We don’t know anything about this man.”

Kate felt weary at the prospect of argument between them. “I will talk to him this afternoon and find out more about him.”

“Do you think he will tell you much more? He barely speaks at all.”

Nicole had a point, but she ought to try to get some basic facts down about him.

Kate went outside and crossed her arms, watching him on the roof. His sleeves were rolled up, and his hair was mussed from the strong wind that blew over the house. “Do you want breakfast?” Kate shouted to him.

He turned at the sound of her voice, and his eyes narrowed. He crept to the edge of the roof and knelt down to her.

Kate smiled more pleasantly and moved closer. “Hello,” she said. “Nicole is making biscuits. I can bring you some if you would like.”

Though they were separated by an expanse of several feet Kate still felt his proximity. His face was more visible in the dawn light, and Kate studied it momentarily, admiring what she saw. His hair swept in a black mass over his high, pale brow, framing green eyes which appeared to be looking her over.

“Thank you,” he said, and Kate felt a slight, inexplicable relief at his agreement.