Autumn Vignettes
Wendy Wees

Like Denis Tiani elsewhere in this volume, Wendy Wees is best known as an artist, her work gracing volumes from Tor Books, Ace Books, and Arbor House, as well as occasional and select small magazines such as Ghosts & Scholars and Fantasy Macabre.
Her occasional prose -- and we may hope there will be much more of it in the future -- has so far appeared exclusively in Fantasy & Terror. Of these autumn vignettes, the first appeared in the third issue, in 1984. The second is reprinted from #10, 1987. Wendy lives in Seattle and works for a Japanese antique importer.

I. Chocolate

There is a crack in her forehead. I pretend not to notice. For several weeks we take long walks ending in talks over cups of chocolate. I still make no mention of the crack, though it has split us further.
At the height of autumn, when we are at our favorite spot and I am chatting away about the blazing trees and the gray sky, fluid begins to drip slowly through the crack in her forehead. I instinctively brush aside my own hair. She does the same. The clear liquid transfers to hand and she wipes it on the crimson napkin. I am still too shy to ask of her condition. And, too, she smiles and I know she is not in pain.
We make plans to meet the next day at a textile shop, for she very much loves fibers -- and me. She says she wants to weave a wrap for me, with the cold weather coming on and I a poor student in need of warmth. I am to choose the colors of the threads.
We meet the next day at the shop. I choose earth colors, autumn colors, browns and rusts, and ochre.
We return to her apartment. She fixes cups of hot chocolate with an added touch of cinnamon.
We sit on the loveseat together. Though we do not face each other, I do notice the ever-widening crack. It now has a constant runnel of sticky liquid pulsing from it down both sides of her nose. I am finally about to question her condition when a faintness conies over me. She stands up and lets me stretch out on the loveseat. I feel much relieved as the sensation passes. In the next moment I fall asleep, and it is at this time a dream takes place.
I am myself in the dream, but I am without arms and legs. And I am in a hospital bed, many stories up in a tiny shiny white-walled room. She is a nurse. We have wonderful conversations together over cups of chocolate, which she feeds me in the afternoons. I always smile when she comes to visit.
One night she lifts me from the hospital bed and carries me so gently through the darkening evening to her apartment. She places me on her loveseat and goes to prepare chocolate. While she is gone I look around the warm, earthy room. The floor is covered with a carpet of dry autumn leaves. There are layers of webs of gossamer threads in the corners of the room. In the middle stands a loom.
She returns with one cup of chocolate, which we share. She helps me sip. Afterward she stands and places me gently on my side.
I look up at her face and notice the crack. As it splits and widens, the fluid pulses. She places her hands to the opening and carefully pulls an unending, sticky variegated thread. As the thread is drawn forth, she gently winds it about me, and with continuous motion she wraps me in a warm thick cocoon.
I awaken and I awaken.
My eyes are open, but all is dark. There is something atop me and tucked under my sides. I struggle a bit and move my arms and legs. I pull the soft cover off my head and shoulders. I shut my eyes, for the light hurts them. I sit up. After a few moments I open my eyes. Across my lap is the most beautiful golden cloak with scattered threads of rust and browns. I hold it up to admire the unrepeating designs. I notice the long narrow slits at the back of the shoulder blades.
At that moment she enters the room with a tray of drinks and biscuits. She places it on the table by the side of the loveseat. As she does so, she asks me how I like her handiwork. I tell her I love it and am impressed. She smiles and sits next to me. While she hands me my cup I notice there is a glistening white scar in the middle of her forehead.
Over our cups of chocolate, we talk of an afternoon walk.

II. Mousewoman

I cannot explain to you how it came to be that I let her enter my life. It is just so: some come into one's life through open doors. Some come with open arms. Some come with closed fists. I receive all; embrace few.
I embraced Mousewoman. I believe it was her shiny silver whiskers, her slate gray eyes, and her eyes so empty.
And, too, it was autumn. The rains had started. The leaves had fallen, brown and wet; the air heavy with decay.
Mousewoman, so frail, a vagabond; crooked nose and tiny pointed chin. How dare she enter my life. She came and left only to return again and again. And always she came with open arms and I embraced her.
I loved Mousewoman, loved her dearly, though I never quite knew her. We slept away the quieter autumn nights together. Sometimes we lit candles. Sometimes we burned incense. There was warmth and comfort between us during those long nights.
But when winter came, on the longest nights of the years, she would disappear, scurrying down some dark path searching for what God only knows. To say she found something or someone would be a lie, for always months later she would be at my door. And we would embrace.
But there came a time when more than two autumns passed and Mousewoman did not show up at my door. This was my reclusive time. I locked my front door never to receive a friend or stranger. 1 would go down the cellar stairs and through the cellar door to make my connections with the outside world.
The last time I saw Mousewoman was in passing. I was going to buy chanterelles in the marketplace. They had been our favorite autumn meal. She, too, was in the market. She was visiting with the sachet lady oohing and aahing over the packets of rose and lavender.
We had a pleasant chat. She told me she could not afford chanterelles this season. Her arms and legs looked so fragile. She said she was as poor as a churchmouse. In fact, she was spending most of her time in the various Catholic churches throughout the city. She found the statues morbidly friendly. And she spent much of her time and all her money in the hosiery departments of large stores. She said she was obsessed with the appearances of feet; how everyone in the city lacked artistic credibility, and this could be judged by the total lack of concern for color and texture, from the knees down.
Of course I noted and complimented her on her fine foot attire. It was true. From her knees down she was truly an artist. That particular day she wore a beautiful pair of gray crocheted stockings atop black tights. The gray was patterned with leaves twining up her calves. Over these she wore lavender anklets with tiny embroidered cowboys. Possibly a bit gaudy, she had loosely woven pastel ribbons through the upper part of the crocheted socks. And to these ribbons she had sewn bells.
She was lovely. I wanted to hug her, to tell her all would be well. But I knew this to not be so. And I never lie. Mousewoman died quietly in the Church of St. Mary. I think of her from time to time. And sometimes, when I'm not writing or visiting with my new friends (I recently opened my front door), I go to Catholic Church and offer up a pair of crocheted anklets to her. And the plaster Mary looks down at me in a morbidly friendly way. And, too, she looks like my Mousewoman with tiny pointed chin, and on her feet she wears the printed polka dot socks I offered up many visits ago.