The Nature of Things, Part 10

"Don't worry about it. Places like that . . . People aren't supposed to see that. People aren't supposed to DO that." I looked across the fire at David, surprised by the emotion in his voice. Tears ran down his cheeks, glistening in the firelight. "We've dug our own graves," he whispered. His statement startled me. I waited for him to elaborate, frightened of what he might say. When a log in the fire cracked suddenly, I jumped like a startled cat.

David grinned, and I smiled sheepishly, trying to calm my nerves. Just when I was about to give up on waiting for an explanation, David spoke. "You remember when we first started talking about magic?"

"Yeah."

"I told you that truth and respect were the keys to making magic work right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I think I made things a little more complex than they needed to be." He stared into the fire, not talking. I wanted to reach over and shake him out of his reverie, pull the answers out of him, but I held myself back. He was finally giving me answers. I couldn't mess this up. Raising his gaze, he started to speak again. "The big problem with trying to explain magic to people is that there really aren't words for it. Communication requires that we have something in common, but really, you've never experienced most of what people raised around magic take for granted."

He looked at me, waited for me to say something. When I didn't, he continued. "It's like, the elements. When we talked about the elements, I told you that it wasn't like carbon and aluminum, and, you know."

"Yeah. You also said it wasn't like Earth, Wind, and Fire." I grinned.

"Exactly. I told you what the elements weren't, but I really didn't give you a good explanation of what they were. I couldn't, because I couldn't figure out a way to explain it. I still don't know a really good way to explain it, but I have to. You have to know what was going on in that . . . that hellhole." Once again, he fell silent, staring into the fire. This time, I waited more patiently.

"You know how in the old stories, they talk about dryads, and naiads, and stuff like that?"

I nodded.

"The old stories talk about everything having a, a spirit or something, and those spirits are always similar to humans. As cheesy as this sounds, that's probably the best way to think about the elements." I think he saw what I was thinking, because he continued quickly, trying to head off any misconceptions. "But it's not like this tree," he pointed to a fir that towered over us, "has one spirit. It's more like," he held up a splinter of wood, "this splinter has a single spirit." He covered his face. "Aaugh. This still isn't working. Anyway, the important thing to understand is that these spirits, these elements, are actually really quite similar to humans."

He stood up. "They get lonely. They get scared. They enjoy it when others say good things about them. They get angry. Some of them are generous. Others are petty and vengeful. Really, they are as different and varied as people are. At the root of it, though, there is one thing that all of the elements have in common. They value life."

With that, he sat down. "We need to get some sleep. I need to think about how I'm going to explain all of this. I promise, and I'm serious, that we will continue this in the morning, OK?"

I was tempted to say no, to insist that he continue, but I was exhausted. I took a deep breath. "OK."

That night, my dreams were filled with spirits, some dark and evil, some shining in blinding brightness. At first, I thought that they were all unaware of me, for they never spoke to me. But then I noticed that whenever one of the benighted spirits drew near to me, it was deflected by a large group of the light. That was when I fell into deep, peaceful sleep.