4 – Leilani in the Meadow

Leilani sat cross-legged at the trailhead of the Path of the Catamount, staring over the “edge” of Rhen’s meadow, watching Eventine and Harlan in the kitchen of Trevor and Ella’s house. She hadn’t checked her metaphorical clock since she’d arrived in the meadow, fully aware that just looking at it could trigger it, possibly sending her somewhere or somewhen she didn’t want to go.

Eventine and Harlan had gone to visit Leilani. To visit her body, rather. She wasn’t in it. She could see her body in the other room, her face wasted, her hair limp, her hands curling into fists. Ella was there. Cerise too, letting the pups play on the bed, while they both brushed Leilani’s hair, curling it over the pillow, and talked to her like she was listening. Leilani’s throat clogged with emotion. They were so nice to her, and she wasn’t even there. She’d learned their names by listening to them talk to each other. She studied their faces and their voices, wanting to know them. From a distance was better than not at all.

Leilani could barely look away from Eventine. She’d lived and she couldn’t stop touching her mate, and he wouldn’t stop touching her. Her body was young, but her face was hard and wise, like she knew much more than her apparent age suggested. The constant look of deliberation in her eyes told Leilani that Eventine’s mind never stopped strategizing about their situation. The only time the hard expression fell away was when Harlan pressed her up against something and whispered in her ear. Then her expression went soft and her being filled with love and passion and single-mindedness. Then Leilani looked away for a bit.

Time passed strangely in the meadow, and so she did not know how long she’d been there, but she thought maybe a day or two. She wasn’t trying too hard to keep track, though. In the meadow, her head didn’t hurt, her thoughts were clear, and she could see. She was staying.

Leilani wanted nothing to do with the drama that was playing out in what they called, “the Ula.” So why couldn’t she stop looking?

She missed Eventine. The meadow was different without her. It was quieter, and the colors had changed. Before they’d been pink and black only, but now a bit of purple and emerald green had crept in. The place looked a little more like an ordinary forest now that at least some of the plants were green.

Leilani plucked an emerald green four-leaf clover from the grass beside the path and stripped it with her fingers, barely noticing when a tiny cotton-candy-pink rabbit came to her and nibbled the clover right out of her hand.

Below her, deep in the drama she swore she wanted no part of, Eventine and Harlan left the main house and walked through the back of the farm, heading for a cabin. They were holding hands. Eventine’s face was sad, and so was Harlan’s, but his was a sad-happy that made Leilani’s heart hurt. She smiled at the sight of the couple, her chest aching. They went inside the cabin. Eventine sat in a chair in the living room and Harlan moved behind her to rub her neck. Eventine turned to him, looked up at him, and Leilani pulled her eyes away.

She stared at the trees and thought about what she was really looking for. If she were honest with herself, she had to admit what she really wanted was a sign of Jaggar. Her “mate”.

But he couldn’t be her mate. That was downright impossible, since she was terrified of him.

Her view of the farmhouse and the cozy collection of cabins behind it faded as she pulled back from it, like a camera zooming out from a close-up to a bird’s-eye view. All she saw was flat farmland surrounded by forest, with a city encroaching on one side. In the middle of the city was the police station. She sent her awareness there, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jaggar.

She didn’t want or need him, and she did not know why she wanted to see him.

Before she could look inside the police station for him, her senses prickled. She was no longer alone. A wild animal was behind her, stalking her on the path. Leilani scrambled to her feet and turned, ready to run, with nowhere to go.

It was the catamount.

Leilani tried to smile, tried to force a laugh, tried to still her rapidly beating heart, but, in the end, she only turned back around and sank down onto the path again. The catamount arrived beside her with no warning, her feet gliding completely silently over the forest path. She sat down next to Leilani.

The catamount was a big cat, one that could be called a cougar or a mountain lion, or even a puma or panther, but the catamount thought of herself only as a catamount and would not stand for anyone calling her other than that. Her fur seemed multicolored, dark in places, light in places, with dark lines down her forehead that always made her look like she was scowling.

Leilani held herself still and “listened” to the meadow while she stared at the catamount. When she’d been there before, the meadow had shared Eventine’s thoughts and beliefs with Leilani, but, now that she was in the meadow without Eventine, her experience was different. The scant “knowings” that the meadow gave her were all absolute truth. There was no arguing with them.

The first time she’d tumbled into the meadow with Eventine, the knowledge that Leilani was a half-angel, that her mother had slept with an angel and she was the result, had fallen into her head, but anything around her mate was hazy. Leilani now knew that was because Eventine hadn’t known for sure who her mate was.

Now that she was back without Eventine, she knew that Jaggar, who was a shifter who could turn into a wolf at will, was her intended mate for life. She could not deny the knowledge suffused into her whole being. In the meadow, there were no voices in her head calling her crazy, only a sure and sweet knowing of who she was that was delicious to her and that she had no reason to doubt. Jaggar was her mate, but should he be?

She also knew that the meadow itself was a kind of in-between place, the imagined home of the goddess of the shifters who could no longer live in her body. Their deae, the shifters called her, their goddess. She’d created them, put a piece of herself in them, and then told them to fight the demon, a war the catamount thought they could not possibly win, but not one of them knew that.

Open thoughts and beliefs of Rhen and the catamount came to her easily, thoughts they did not mind if she knew. Last time she’d been there, Rhen had even spoken to her, standing before her looking like a normal woman, even if she was too bright to look at for long. Looking at Rhen was almost like looking at the sun, and her voice was like surround sound turned up to full blast.

There were other beings in the meadow, but Leilani did not know how many or what they were. She knew to stay on this path or the open meadow itself. She would not be safe elsewhere.

Leilani fully expected the catamount to have something to say to her, and she listened for it, but heard nothing. She plucked another four-leaf clover and began to strip it of its leaves, waiting.

The cotton-candy-pink bunny, that had disappeared when Leilani had jumped up, came back, little bunny nose twitching constantly. Leilani smiled and held out her clover.

Quick as a flash, the catamount pounced on the rabbit, catching it in her mouth.

“Oh!” Leilani cried. “Please don’t hurt it!”

The catamount stared at Leilani over the wriggling rabbit caught in its jaws. No blood streamed from the rabbit’s back. Leilani dared to hope that the catamount was not biting into it, only holding it. She clasped her hands together and got up on her knees, looking up into the catamount’s eyes. “Please, it came to me. It shouldn’t die because of it.”

A voice came to her, around her, through her. It was a wild voice, full of power and challenge.

This is what predators do, Lele. I am a predator.

Leilani shivered at the nickname from the catamount. She’d felt affection toward the catamount the last time she’d been there, “knowing” from the meadow’s whispers that the catamount watched over her with the intention of keeping her safe. She had not known the affection had been returned, and now that it seemed like it was, she did not know how she felt about it. Did it mean she might possibly be allowed to stay?

“I’m sorry,” she said, holding her hands out near the rabbit, pleading with her eyes. “It was my fault, can’t you let the rabbit go?”

The voice came again, awing her.

Are you willing to trade for the rabbit?

“Yes, anything.”

The catamount smiled.

Prey would be smart to never trade with a predator.

Leilani nodded eagerly, thrusting her hands under the rabbit. Little squeaking noises came from its tiny mouth, noises she never knew a rabbit could make. That was her, too, all prey, no predator. All she could do was beg.

“Please, you’re right, I’m sorry. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

The catamount stared her down, catching her gaze, holding it, her expression conveying deep disappointment. Finally, she spoke, her voice cutting through the desperation in Leilani’s mind.

You are not prey, and you must not act like it, she said.

The catamount dropped the rabbit. It fell to the ground and ran off. Leilani stared at the catamount, still caught in the force of that gaze.

Would you have fought me for the rabbit? the catamount asked.

Leilani shook her head to the right once, to the left once, then landed in the middle. No. She would not fight.

The catamount snarled at her once. Leilani yelped and scrambled backwards, too close to the edge. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled back quickly, but not as close to the catamount as she had first been.

The catamount grazed a fang with her sinuous tongue as she spoke with her mind. Then you go against your nature and will never be whole.

Leilani shook her head again, tears welling. She didn’t understand. She was not a fighter, never had been. She was a…a-. Leilani couldn’t think what she was. She wasn’t a fighter, she wasn’t a lover, either. She wasn’t an anything.

The catamount glared now, scaring Leilani again. She wanted to back away, but held her ground, barely. Please, she begged inside her mind. Please just let me not disappoint her. Leilani didn’t understand what was going on, but she tried. She tried hard, opening her heart and her mind to the wild animal in front of her, to the life that was unfolding whether she wanted it to or not. She was prey, she was, but she didn’t want to be. If anyone could help her be one, not the other, it was this regal, powerful forest cat in front of her.

The catamount shook her head once, sharply, then her voice rang throughout the meadow. The real nature of both your halves, human and angel, is predator, protector, dangerous thinker who acts, not reacts. It is time for you to behave like it.

Whoa. Leilani felt seriously overloaded with that statement and could not think about it. Especially since this felt like a going away speech to her.

“Does this mean I get to stay?” Leilani asked in a small voice, knowing it didn’t.

Does what mean you get to stay?

“You, teaching me that I’m a predator.”

The catamount seemed surprised at that and chuffed softly, almost like a laugh. Satisfaction poured off of her. She seemed to smile a feline smile that was mostly just showing sharp teeth, but only for a second.

No, I tell you that because you must go.

Leilani held her breath. Twisted her hands. Pushed herself to speak. “I want to stay,” she said simply.

Living things wither and die here. You cannot stay.

“You aren’t withering.”

The catamount seemed pleased with the conversation, like she didn’t get enough of talking with another being. She lay down in the flowers, rather like a housecat grown 25 times too big, curling her tail around her haunches, and surveying the place where the meadow ended like she owned it.

I am a guardian, she said. I resist the withering because if a siege is laid upon this meadow, all has been lost and the very world is ending.

Leilani took a deep breath. “Can you stop the end of the world?”

The catamount bobbed her head slightly, and curled one lip, showing mean fangs. I am trying, exactly as you are. You fight. We all fight every day.

The catamount’s head lifted and turned slightly, her ears twisting behind her.

Don’t leave the path, she said, and she was up and moving toward the center of the meadow without a sound, pink leaves not even daring to crunch under her feet.

Leilani watched her go, until her slinky, slow-moving form disappeared at the end of the path where it curved into the meadow. She held her breath, not knowing what had caught the catamount’s attention, hoping it was nothing dangerous.

Thinking like prey again, her mind told her. Did you see the catamount? She was hoping it was something dangerous.

Leilani nodded to herself. She was still prey. Nothing was that easy. Just telling her that she was a predator wasn’t enough to make her feel it.