Ben led Charlie to a large, open ring where Jerry and Linda kept their elephant and camel. The elephant, a gentle giant named Jasmine, stretched her trunk toward Charlie, hoping for treats.
“She likes you,” Linda said. “Animals always know good people.”
“Where do you keep her?” Charlie asked.
Jerry grinned. “We winter in Arizona with these two, spend summers here in Colorado. When we're up here, we stay withLinda's dad outside Castle Rock. He's a microbiologist with twenty acres. Says elephant manure makes the best fertilizer.”
“And he's not wrong,” Linda added. “His garden is legendary.”
They visited more friends—the perfumers, the glass blowers, Foxglove who made flower crowns and insisted on making one on the house for Charlie despite her protests.
Finally, as the afternoon sun slanted golden through the trees, Ben screwed up his courage and found Patrick, the harpist.
“Got time for one more song?” Ben asked.
Patrick's eyes lit up. “For you? Always. What are we playing?”
“Black Is the Color.” Then he leaned in and whispered in Patrick’s ear while Charlie looked on, bemused.
A crowd gathered as Patrick re-tuned his harp. Ben stood in the center of the clearing, found Charlie's face in the crowd, and began to sing:
Hazel are the eyes of my true love, Charlie,
Soft as summer rain on the mountain pines.
Her laugh can break the dark like morning, darling,
And peace comes over me when her hand's in mine.
Charlie's hand went to her mouth.
Her hair, it holds the sunlight when she's laughing,
Gold and chestnut tangled by the breeze.
And every time she looks at me, I'm steady?—
My wandering heart remembers how to breathe.
Ben's voice didn't stutter. Not once. The words came clear and strong, carrying across the clearing.
I'll take her where the cold wind never finds her,
We’ll stand where the storm breaks on the ridge.
And if the night grows heavy on her shoulders,
I'll lift it off and swear she's never left alone again.
Hazel are the eyes of my brave love, Charlie,
Bright as firelight ’gainst the falling snow.
If she would walk beside me through the shadows,
There's not a path on earth I’d fear to go.
Patrick's harp rang out the final notes. The crowd burst into applause.
