Tojet

By Nerissa McCanmore

Tojet is a fairy tale for adults.  A mysterious girl named Tojet appears in a convent-run school one day.  Two teachers, Sister Elizabeth and oddly-named Merkit Terjit, take her under their care.  But is she a lost, imaginative orphan or a time traveler with fairy powers?  How does she know who Merkit is and how he was named?  Tragedy drives her away, but she returns as a young, beautiful woman, far more mature than she should be.  She shows Merkit a world of obsession and dark fairies.  He can't help falling in love with her, but what about the monastic vows he's about to take?  Can he fight the temptations that surround him?  (closed-door romance)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nerissa McCanmore
• Release date: Dec 15, 2005
• ISBN: 9781393409229

Nerissa McCanmore

Nerissa McCanmore grew up in Northern Indiana, and has lived in Wisconsin for many years.

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COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2003 Nerissa McCanmore; Revised Edition Copyright 2020. This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

CHAPTER ONE

Merkit thought a certain chilly, early March day in 1996 was just another day. He kissed his wife, went to St. Peter’s Catholic School, taught fourth graders, pondered whether he belonged in a school teaching fourth graders, wondered how Sister Elizabeth did that and stayed so perky about it day after day, and then ended the school day with elbows on his desk and his fingers massaging his temples.

A knock on the plain, wooden doorjamb roused him. Are you available, Merkit? said Sister Elizabeth, one of the Benedictine nuns who helped teach at the school.

At thirty-five, she was ten years older than he was. At first glance, you’d think there was nothing special about her: dark blonde, short and straight hair; plain face; average figure; jeans or skirts and shirts in a scheme of black and white; no habit or veil. However, her ring, cross pendant in the style of her convent, and gentle expression added a serenity and beauty to her whole appearance.

What is it, Lizzy? he said.

She stood with her hands crossed. A little girl has recently joined our school. She’s one of my students. She won’t give us a last name, but tells us to call her Tojet. She said it Toe-ZHETT, with the final t almost silent.

Tojet? He grimaced. It rolls off the tongue. . . . What a strange name. Is it French?

I have no idea what it is. The corners of her mouth curled up. "It is an odd name, yes, but no more so than yours, Merkit Terjit. Do you know the origin of that?"

No. He sighed, remembering the story of his parents’ death: They turned sick all of a sudden with a mysterious illness, and died. My parents died before they could tell me. I was just a baby. But years later I found legal documents in their papers that said they’d changed their last name before I was born. It used to be ‘Stone.’ I don’t know why they’d want to change ‘Stone’ to ‘Terjit.’ My foster parents didn’t know anything about them, either, just that there didn’t seem to be anything special about them, not in looks or personality or deeds. He sighed again, his old hang-ups blowing past his lips before he could think to stop them. On TV and in books kids talk about their beautiful mothers who died, but it’s not so romantic for me. I saw the pictures; I look plain because they did.

Elizabeth huffed. "I saw the pictures, too, because your foster parents showed them to me. They were not plain; they were both attractive, and so are you. You’re not plain, ugly, or distorted, and I wish you wouldn’t say so all the time."

He wished he could feel that way about himself. Muddy brown hair, puppy-dog eyes of a plain brown, average height, wire-rimmed glasses–what was so special about that? He attracted nothing but children’s stares. His wife told him he was cute, but he didn’t believe her. Oh to be like Lizzy. As a celibate, she had learned to look past the outer appearance and see only the person beneath. He could be male, female, both, or neither and still not faze her.

Well, this child Tojet, Sister Elizabeth said, leaning back against the doorjamb with her arms crossed, she’s staying in the convent’s guest house right now. The other children seem to all be in love with her, and no one knows where she came from.

That’s weird.

Yes, very. She leaned forward a little and dropped her voice. We need to find someone who’ll take her in, since a child shouldn’t be living in a guest house all alone, and I thought you’d be a good choice. We’re not running an orphanage here, and we don’t want to hand her over to strangers. But to warn you, she has such strange stories. . . . She says she was born on top of a fairy hill in England in 566!

That makes her pretty old, then. Merkit smiled, his finger against his mouth. Older than you, my friend, so don't think you're so ancient.

"And don’t think being an adult gives you license to disrespect your elders, my friend." One corner of her mouth turned up.

Merkit chuckled. Silly me, I thought we were equals.

A child’s laughter filled the hallway, not so unusual in this ordinary school hallway with the standard, polished floor with a flecked pattern, and full-sized lockers. But the lovely girl who did the laughing and skipped up to them was no ordinary child. In her delicate dress of ice-crystal white, the lace of her pleated skirt swirling around her white stockings, and long, auburn hair curling over her shoulders and back and bouncing behind her, she looked more fairy than human. She stopped and looked up at them with wide, emerald cat-eyes over a long nose in a heart-shaped face. She gazed at Merkit with a grin that made him wonder if he was right to think her a fairy.

Sister Elizabeth’s words may have seemed stern, but the tone was gentle. Tojet, where is your uniform? Don’t stare like that. This is Mr. Terjit, my friend. He wants to meet you.

Tojet grinned so wide it filled her face. Merkit? I wondered when you’d come see me. She had a thick accent resembling German, with a trilled r.

Merkit started. How–How did you–

Have you met Mr. Terjit before, Tojet? Elizabeth said.

No, but my parents have met his parents with the help of the fairies. They’re in the fairy hill now, all four of them, and they’re waiting for us to join them one day.

You’re such a strange child, Sister Elizabeth said. The stories she tells, Merkit–

Tojet frowned. My stories are all true! She smiled at Merkit again. The fairies gave me a gift because I was born on the fairy hill and they thought I was pretty. The fairy hill, also called a barrow, is where they live, with a secret doorway because they don’t want just anybody walking in. They said I’d have to be named Tojet.

Are you sure she didn’t make up this name herself? Merkit whispered to Elizabeth. She may have some normal name like Thelma, but she hasn’t told you a thing about who she really is.

Don’t be silly, Merkit, Tojet said, hearing him despite his low whisper. That’s my real name. They named you, too, just like they did me. They picked you for me. They gave us both fairy names. This way, I’d be able to recognize you. My name means ‘favored one,’ and yours means ‘marked and favored one,’ male form.

Merkit chuckled. You’re such a sweet child, but I’m already married.

Tojet frowned. Then be my playmate and my friend. You’ll see I’m right, in time; you can just marry me then.

How old are you, Tojet?

She giggled. That depends. I’m– she stopped and wrote numbers in the air– "one thousand, four hundred and thirty. I may not know how to write your English very well, but I can add and subtract. You would say I’m only nine. It’s hard to keep track, but whenever I forget, I ask a fairy how old I’ve gotten to."

You see she’s very bright, Elizabeth said.

Gifted children can have elaborate fantasy worlds. I should know: I was like that, once, Merkit whispered to her. We need to know where you really come from, Tojet.

I’ve already told you. I’m from Silfaham, or Silva, in what you call England, 566. Tojet folded her arms and stuck out her bottom lip, a charming pout.

Merkit didn’t know what to say. This girl gave him more than his usual unease; he just couldn’t put his finger on the reason why. And yet that very unease intrigued him, as if his spirit sensed a significant change in his life.

I don’t want to stay in the convent anymore. Let me stay with Merkit! Tojet cried.

Tojet, don’t use his first name like that–respect your elders!

Merkit smiled. You love to insist on that, my friend.

Elizabeth pretended to glare at him.

Merk–Mr. Terjit, let me stay with you, please!

You could hear her stories firsthand, Elizabeth said. Run along, child. It’s a nice day outside for playing, and I know you can amuse yourself. And take a coat.

You should’ve had kids, Lizzy, Merkit said with a grin when Tojet had skipped away.

She beamed. I have plenty of kids here.

Merkit sighed. You find teaching more fulfilling than I do. I don’t know why I thought I should be a teacher, except that I like writing on chalkboards. I used to have good reasons, but I’ve forgotten them. Those kids scare me sometimes. I–I feel awkward. I feel like Ichabod Crane. . . .

Some say children can tell a good soul and are attracted to it. Toddlers just stared at Merkit, but would laugh and bound over to his wife, so what did that say about his soul? They flocked to her and cuddled with her without even knowing her well. He considered himself a kind and decent person, but sometimes young children seemed to be uncertain about him, though he would never, ever do anything to hurt them. Was it because he was so nervous around them, or were they just shy? He hoped it was just shyness. Perhaps it was. Maybe he worried about it too much. He still remembered childhood and some of what a child feels, but it was never enough to help him feel comfortable with them. He didn’t know what to do or say around them. Cooing over a baby or playing with a child didn’t come naturally to him.

Yet he’d thought he wanted to teach. He’d been excited about it in college. He decided to teach older children because he found it easier to deal with them, though it took a few weeks for him to feel comfortable with each year’s new class. Elizabeth once asked why he didn’t become a high school teacher instead, but modern teenagers and their problems scared him even more.

He hoped he wasn’t a bad teacher, that his students didn’t complain about him on the playground. He tried to be fair and patient with them. Now, he wondered if having a nine-year-old child in his house would teach him how to feel more at ease around his fourth-grade students. He and his wife had tried, but had no children yet, so there would be plenty of room for Tojet.

Elizabeth broke into his thoughts by saying, "She won’t let us get a word of truth out of her, and she pouts like that until we leave her alone, but she seems to like you. Maybe you can get her to open up."

Tojet skipped up to them again. Can I stay with Merk–Mr. Terjit? Can I? Can I?

I thought I told you to go out and play, Elizabeth said, her voice stern but calm.

"I did. I’ve been gone for two hours already. I went and played with a Greek girl. She giggled. She lived hundreds of years before even I was born. We couldn’t even understand each other. She had these funny clothes on. Her hair was as dark as Merkit’s."

Merkit chuckled. Liar, yes, but a cute liar. At her age, she could still get away with it, but a person shouldn’t let her grow into a teenage liar, or it wouldn’t be cute anymore.

Elizabeth simpered. I really hope you can do her good, Merkit.

I made your clock go backwards, Sister Elizabeth. I think you’ll like it because it’s pretty that way. For today, you’ll have a backwards-moving clock. She laughed. What would you call that, Mr. Terjit? She moved her finger counterclockwise in the air. Is that clockwise on a backwards-moving clock, or is it still called counterclockwise?

What is this obsession with clocks? Well, off with you; go out on the playground this time.

Tojet laughed and skipped away. Merkit wanted to check the clock, even though he knew it was normal.

She also says King Arthur died only a few decades before she was born, so she knows the real story about him. She’s heard ours, and thinks it’s funny because very little of it is true. Her birth parents told her his story.

She sounds like she might be a writer when she grows up. I’d love to take her in just so I can hear more of her stories.

Yes, his thoughts said unease while his words said wonderful, but that was how his feelings kept going back and forth. Her stories were far more interesting than the ones his students usually had. Besides, he would rather admit enthusiasm to Sister Elizabeth than unease.

Elizabeth excused herself to go pack Tojet’s things. Merkit stopped in his classroom to gather up his coat, briefcase, and papers to grade. On his way outside to watch Tojet, he stopped at Elizabeth’s classroom and peered in. Her clock looked the same in every other way–large, black numbers on a plain, white clock face–but the numbers were all reversed. The three was where the nine should be, the two where the ten should be, the seven where the five should be, and so on. The hands moved counterclockwise.

Elizabeth found him there. What are you looking at? She looked in. She gasped and crossed herself. What has happened to my clock? It must be a trick. She switched clocks. I don’t know how she did it, with it near the ceiling, but it must be a trick.

Yes, it must be.

She shook her head and scurried out. That clock wouldn’t be replaced with a proper one until the day after next, when Tojet decided to undo her trick.

*  *  *  

Elizabeth brought Tojet to Merkit, and he took her to his home. The car was a blue, five-year-old sedan, bought used, simple and plain but functional. Tojet brought only one bag.

So this is what it’s like to ride in a car, she said. I feel like we’re flying. What’s this thing? She banged and fiddled with the glove compartment latch until it opened. She then explored the contents, to Merkit’s constant dismay at what she found and mutilated and spindled. At last, she lost interest and gazed out the windows.

This was a Great Lakes city about an hour’s drive from Lake Michigan, population 105,000. The school, church and convent lay outside of town near forests and a small monastery, also called a priory. Since Merkit drove through town to get home, Tojet saw tall office buildings, Victorian and modern houses, small and medium and large houses, nineteenth- and twentieth-century monuments, cats, dogs, trees, and even a swing set.     

A child is on that odd thing, she said.

Odd thing? I know the playground doesn’t have one, but you must’ve seen a swing set by now.

No, I haven’t, honest.

It’s–a kind of toy. Play equipment.

I want one. It looks like fun. This city is so big! Where I come from, we don’t even have towns.

She oohed and aahed at the sights. In the downtown area they passed a large, angular building with an outdoor dining area built over the falls of the river. On the lawn were several works of modern art, steel formations of circles, lines, squiggles, and squares put together in such a way that it was impossible to tell what they were supposed to represent. Tojet giggled at them. Merkit pointed out the building: it was the Rochester Art Gallery, also used as a meeting place for conferences. As for the office buildings, they were many stories tall and made Tojet crane her neck up to see them, but none were skyscrapers. It was a big city, but not a metropolis. Still, Tojet deemed the buildings tall enough to reach God.

They passed two schools, built in the usual square, brown brick style from back in the 1930s or ‘40s. One was an elementary school. The other, Thomas Jefferson, was a high school, and had a metal prop set against the ground and a part of the third-floor wall.

What is that? Tojet said.

That’s what happens when water leaks for too long in the science room faucets, Merkit said. It’s a prop to keep the wall from falling down and killing students and teachers, who still have to use the building. Some call it a kickstand, like on a motorcycle.

What’s a motorcycle?

He sighed. Really, Tojet, this was getting tiresome. It’s a motorized bike. Motorized means it goes on its own power. A bike is this thing . . . um . . . like that. He pointed to a bike a little girl rode down the sidewalk. Please, no more questions.

As they pulled into the driveway of Merkit’s rented house, Tojet cried, Ooh, it’s a mansion.

Mansion? Merkit cried, looking at the average-sized house in a lower-middle-class neighborhood. None of the houses there were anything like a mansion. It’s only a one-and-a-half-story Cape Cod cottage.

He grabbed her bag and let her in the house. She dashed in. Ooooh! she cried, stopping to look around the family room. And there’s more than this?

Her childish voice brightened up the whole house as she sang and chattered away. The house was decorated with white and blue walls and a few pictures of landscapes, sea scenes, mermaids, and unicorns. Nearly every piece of furniture was at least ten years old, and some had pieces missing but still stood. At least the house was neat and tidy, the result of Merkit and his wife sharing the chores. The television was small and nine years old, but it worked, taking its space in the makeshift entertainment center. As Merkit helped Tojet move into the spare room, reminding her he still needed to clear her stay with his wife, she said, Do you have a pool? Some of the kids at school have houses with pools.

No, but the neighbors do, Merkit said.

Tojet’s eyes widened. With mermaids in it?

Merkit chuckled and picked up her doll. I wish it did, but no, it doesn’t.

You do, eh? Tojet grinned a pixie grin. Why, so you can see their bare bosoms?

Merkit dropped the doll. No! Tojet, how can you say such a thing? At your age–

She pouted. I’m over a thousand, Merkit.

He raised an eyebrow. That’s Mr. Terjit to you.

"I thought you weren’t going to make me do what Sister Elizabeth said. Why is it you can call me by my first name, but I have to call you Mister? It might be better if I said ‘sire’ and you said ‘miss’ or ‘mistress.’ Then we’d both have titles, and not just you. I’m a friend of the fairies, so I’m not just an ordinary child."

No, certainly not.

Tojet bent down and picked up her doll. Be careful with Elspeth. She’s my friend, and doesn’t like to be dropped.

Merkit felt a chill. She didn’t mean this doll was a fairy in doll form, did she? He looked more closely at it, a terra-cotta figure. It seemed like a serious-faced, ancient version of a Barbie doll, with joints at the shoulders and knees, two bumps for the breasts, dents to show the lines of the pelvis and upper legs (the upper legs were attached but the lower ones swung apart on a peg), a face carved into a shadow of Roman statues’ faces, and the top of the head made to look like coils of hair. It even had its own outfit: a simple, woolen dress and a Roman tunica with a long palla draped around the shoulders. Up-angled notches formed the eyes.

Tojet said, Elspeth is a gift from a girl I know in Rome around the time of Julius Caesar. She looked up. I should visit her again. Speaking Latin with her is fun. Her dad made the doll for me, and he gave it a face like mine. She lives during the time of Queen Cleopatra, if you’ve heard of her. My friend’s dad is always grumbling about the ‘Egyptian seductress.’ I don’t know what that means. The whole family loves my eyes, and they’re always asking me what it’s like to live among the tall barbarians. They love the civilization of Rome, but sometimes I think they want to live like what they call barbarians.

She set the doll on the pillow on the bed. I’ve seen mermaids. Some live in the River Severn. I sometimes go to 575 to play with them. They give me pearls, like these. She took a long, pearl necklace from her bag. Green seaweed entwined with the pearls. They take me on long voyages to what you call the Atlantic Ocean, where they like to play. They feed me fish and oysters and clams–yummy–and show me how to make seaweed necklaces. I’d show you one, but they don’t last long, so I don’t have any here.

Though he didn’t want to encourage her to spin tales like these and pass them off as true, he didn’t want to discourage her fascinating imagination. What do these mermaids look like? he said.

They have long tails, very pretty ones. The tails are sometimes gold, sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes orange or red–and sometimes speckled, or mixed into a pretty pattern, just like fish. There are fins on the back of the tails. She grinned again. They have bare bosoms, like you’d like. When a mermaid’s underwater, these membranes cover her eyes and nose so she doesn’t get water in them. Gills on her neck help her breathe.

She played with the necklace. You should see the other pearl and seaweed necklaces. They’re long and beautiful. The mermaids make them with different kinds of seaweed, green, red, pink-red, purple, brown. Sometimes they even make little beads of sand. It’s like the sand sculptures one girl brought to class one day from Sea World in Florida. You see, they were still sandy but pasted together somehow so they wouldn’t break apart. The mermaids sometimes go through all the oceans of the world, except for the coldest ones.

She hopped onto the bed and crossed