Sure enough, after only a few yards, Amy started to feel like she was walking through cobwebs. She ran her hand over her face, but nothing was there. “Do you feel that?” she asked.
“No,” Mira replied, as she huffed a little on the path. The trail was steep, though fortunately free of roots and other obstacles. She was hampered a little by her firm grip on Amy’s hand. Mira didn’t know if her invitation extended to guests, and didn’t want to risk letting go of Amy. Their first trip into a preserve when Amy was a girl had not ended the way Mira had imagined it would, and she wanted to make sure this trip left a better impression on her.
“It’s like there’s a barrier of sorts,” Amy said. She could just make out faint glimmers of silver floating in the air in front of them. It looked like they were climbing through cobwebs, though the pattern was more of a haphazard zigzag than a natural web.
“I don’t sense it. But I’m sure the fae know we’re coming. Cordelia mentioned the fae always greeted her by the time she got to the top of this hill.”
The path widened into a small clearing at the top of the incline, with an entrance to a bluestone cave flanked by ferns on the left. Mira could hear the soft rushing of a river or stream in the distance. She’d heard that there was a dwarf settlement in this preserve as well, and wondered if the cave were the entrance to their home. The fae liked dwarves because they pulled the iron out of the soil for them, but Cordelia hadn’t mentioned meeting dwarves on her various visits here. However, true to Cordelia’s experience, they were greeted just as they stepped into the clearing.
“Hail, sirens and siren-daughter!” Mira couldn’t see the speaker, but the thin, reedy voice seemed to come from the right side of the clearing. Mira turned towards it.
“Hail, wood wife. My name is Mira, mother of Cordelia, who visited you often.”
A small round figure emerged from behind a tree to the right. She had a tan wrinkled face, prominent nose, and blue-streaked, curly green hair that seemed to merge with the ivy and moss growing on the surrounding trees. The light around her pulsed with a neon green glow, flecks of black and red sparking about her bare feet. “Yes, Cordelia promised you would come to give the leshiye a child.”
“This is Devin, and this is my daughter.” Mira chose not to give the fae Amy’s name. You could never be too careful.
The wood wife smiled, and the flecks of black and red surrounding her flickered for a moment. Amy saw her transform into a tall, thin, young woman, with light gray straight hair, black eyes, and a luminous white face. Amy blinked and the flecks of black and red intensified, then vanished, leaving the small round figure Amy had seen before.
“You see truly now, siren daughter,” smiled the wood wife. “But you could use a touch of the forest to speed you through.”
“Yes,” Mira replied. “My daughter could benefit from your touch.”
Amy opened her mouth to object, then closed it. She didn’t want the woman to touch her, even if she didn’t have bulging yellow eyes.
“She’s been fae-touched before. But I think she needs more healing now than I can offer. One of my cousins could help,” offered the wood wife.
“Did Cordelia help them?” Mira asked.
“Oh yes!” exclaimed the wood wife. “You must tell her that Elia is pregnant! Between the dwarves who have cleared this land of poison, and Cordelia’s gift to Elia and Grûen, we will have a moss baby before midwinter.” The wood wife was clearly happy.
“I’m so glad!” Mira was delighted. The moss folk were typically a gentle group akin to the dryads, but not bound to their trees. It was easy to mistake them for gnomes with their gray skin, but where the gnomes were stern and serious, the moss folk tended to be earnest, but playful. Cordelia’s notes indicated that she had visited Elia and Grûen at least a dozen times in the past three years to gift them with her stored fertility. Mira was glad her efforts had paid off.
“Let me fetch the leshiye and the moss folk.” The wood wife disappeared swiftly into the forest, but so quietly Amy didn’t hear anything other than the wind rustling the treetops and the sound of running water in the distance.
“This is a beautiful forest,” Mira remarked, turning around to get a better look down the hill. She had let go of Amy’s hand while they had been speaking with the faerie.
“Do you think the dwarves are in there?” Amy asked, gesturing to the cave.
“Most likely, though Cordelia didn’t mention them. Probably didn’t consider it an important detail to mention.” Cordelia was far too blasé about her encounters with non-humans. Thomas too, for that matter. Mira would have thought it was a youngest child problem, somehow too innocent and coddled to imagine the danger that exists, but for the fact that Thomas shared Cordelia’s naïveté. Somehow neither of them saw the danger in playing soccer with were-jaguars or venturing into a dwarf mine. Or a fae preserve, for that matter.
Perhaps the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. But then, with the fae, Mira knew she held a key bargaining chip. She would have come to help the leshy couple regardless of Amy’s surgery; Mira couldn’t ignore their need. But beyond healing, she hoped the moss folk would perhaps help Amy understand her new vision. Since Cordelia had already enabled one of the moss folk to conceive, Mira expected her family already had a lot of credit to burn with the fae of the Blue Hills Preserve.
They heard the leshiye before they saw them. A bright whistle pierced through the dull gurgle of the water, and birds flew off in a cloud as the trees shook. Emerging from the gloom of the deep forest beyond the clearing came four large feet, on which several moss folk perched, clinging to the pant legs of the enormous fae who parted the trees and crouched down to peer at Devin, Mira and Amy. The moss folk jumped off the leshiye’s feet, and the two giants shrank down to a mere seven or eight feet tall.
As they changed size, the air around them hummed, almost as if a bow had been plucked and an arrow loosened. The glow of their magick appeared like a translucent jellyfish, pulsing around them in almost a thick glow with pink froths trailing up into the trees.
The leshiye themselves had gray complexions, similar to the moss folk they towered over. But where the moss folk had curly green hair, the male leshy was blond, with hair like hay sticking out in stalks about his head and the female’s hair was a strawberry blond whose hair hung around her head as if it had been set with curlers, then brushed out into loose waves. Both had dark green eyes that glowed with an inner light. Without eyebrows or eyelashes framing their large eyes, the green orbs dominated their faces.
“Hello. My name is Mira, this is my colleague Devin, and this is my second daughter. We are very pleased to meet you.”
“The pleasure is ours, Mira and Devin and Second-Daughter,” the strawberry blond woman replied, in a surprisingly light voice for such a large woman. “I am Ludmilla and this is my man, Olvin.”
Olvin grunted, his voice so deep and ominous it felt like the beginnings of an avalanche in winter. Amy shuddered, despite herself. Olvin saw it and smiled an unpleasant smile. Mira didn’t like the way he looked at them, either. But she focused on Ludmilla.
“My daughter, Cordelia, has visited you many times. While she regrets not being able to help you today, she sends her greetings. She asked that I come to see you.” Mira’s voice was even and while she faced Ludmilla, she observed Olvin out of the corner of her eye.
Amy was glad to see that both Mira and Devin seemed to be at full alert. She concentrated on appearing calm, though she was sure the fae could sense her terror.
“Cordelia already promised us your aid,” Olvin stated bluntly, his voice deep and pitched to woo or perhaps intimidate. It was hard to tell the difference with leshiye.
“Cordelia gave freely to the moss folk, asking nothing in return. She gave you her strength and magick, asking nothing in return. You have no cause to treat with us as supplicants or enemies.”
Mira’s voice was sharp. Unlike the moss folk and wood wives, leshiye were not reputed to be a
kindly group of fae, and these two were not oath-bound to the seelie, who enjoyed human diversions and company. They lived in the deep woods and were fairly reclusive, typically only tolerating the moss folk and wood wives in their immediate surroundings. Given this couple’s claim on the preserve, Mira was a little surprised the dwarves had been allowed to settle here; though perhaps their tolerance of the dwarves signaled a greater need on their part.
“You are neither supplicant nor enemy, Mira de Atlantic. You are our promised savior. We miss our children who remained behind in the Taiga. Bless us, and we will bless you.” Ludmilla spoke again, tapping her mate on the shoulder, and he slipped back a step or two behind her.
“My daughter sees with a new mage sight, but the operation was recent and she suffers from blurred vision. She needs to understand this new sight and the odd magick that came with it.” Mira spoke firmly.
She wanted to make sure they understood what boon she sought. Leshiye might not be the most easy-going of the fae, but they were no slouches in the magick department. They could change size and shape at will, and their strength was so great they could shake the earth with their footsteps.
Ludmilla’s forehead furrowed. “We do not understand the magick wielded by mages. But you have a touch of the fae about you also.”
Ludmilla extended her index finger close to Amy’s face, but didn’t touch her. Amy couldn’t help but recoil, and Ludmilla’s eyes widened at her reaction. But the leshy’s desire for a child must have been greater than her desire to torment Amy, because she merely cupped her hand a few inches away from Amy’s face before withdrawing it abruptly. Ludmilla turned back to Olvin, speaking in a Slavic-sounding language.
“Psst.” A hand pulled on Mira’s robe and she looked down. One of the moss men stood next to Mira, and she bent down to hear his whisper.
“The leshiye won’t be able to help with mage sight. It’s too strange to them. They are mages like you sirens are mages. They perform magick, but see it not. They will argue and want to lie and mislead you because they so badly want a child.” The man shook his head. “The fae can’t much help with your child’s magick. Her fae element is much too buried beneath the mage. But we can speed her healing. Not them, us.”
Amy didn’t want Ludmilla to come anywhere near her again; not even her newfound desperation to avoid another magical accident could get her to stand still if the leshy tried to touch her. The leshiye argued, growing taller until their torsos disappeared into the trees.
The moss man smiled at Mira, and she smiled back reflexively. “Cordelia has made me a father for the first time!” he confided. His joy was infectious and Mira’s smile widened. Even with the sirens’ help, it was rare for the fae to conceive. His happiness made Mira happy. Amy smiled too. The small, gray man with his wrinkled face seemed impossibly young, and the air about him glowed with an iridescent sheen like sunlight on dragonfly wings. She tried to tell herself that the fae were just like humans: some nasty and others nice.
“How do such different groups of fae share this preserve? I imagine it must be difficult,” Amy asked, as the booming voices of the leshiye echoed like thunder above them.
“It is not too hard,” answered one of the moss women, whose face was almost charcoal gray and her hair such a pale shade of green it was almost white. “They are less tolerant of other leshiye than of us. But they are jealous that my niece is pregnant. Jealousy makes them uglier than they usually are.”
“You’re just an uncommonly easy-going faerie, Belutha,” Devin said with a smile.
“Ah, Devin, so you do remember me!” The moss woman replied.
“I’m glad you have established your home here. Are you happy?” Devin asked, but before Belutha could answer, he turned to Mira and added, “I ferried Belutha and some of the other forest folk across the sea when they decided to seek out a territory free of Taiga politics.”
“This is a much friendlier place. Especially now that we have made our bargains with the dwarves,” Belutha said with a smile. But Amy noted that she didn’t answer Devin’s question.
“Would you want to return to the Taiga?” Devin asked seriously. Amy suspected that he would drop everything and take her back if she but asked.
“No, no. Here is much better. Happiness is but a fleeting sensation. We are content with this land and our joy strengthens the trees, which strengthens us, so all is well with the world.” The pale-haired moss woman smiled a full smile and it seemed as if the air around her shimmered with a silver light.
Perhaps it was because Devin knew Belutha, but Amy thought this faerie at least seemed less intimidating than she had before. “Can you help me understand what I am seeing?” Amy asked.
Belutha shook her head. “Sadly, no. I don’t think so. I don’t think any faerie could. We feel the currents, but we don’t see as finely as you humans. You mine sunlight and sprinkle silica-salt to work your magick, but we pull the heat of the Earth through the trees and grasses. I think we are too different, although you do have a touch of the fae about you.”
The moss woman cocked her head to one side, considering Amy for a heartbeat, then straightened. “But even that is too different, I think: more sea nymph than forest folk, and I never understood the sea.”
Amy was honestly more relieved than disappointed that a fae tutor was out of the question.
“Still, I think I can help the leshiye, and I promised Cordelia that I would try,” Mira looked at Devin, who nodded in agreement. Mira cupped her hands and shouted up to the couple. “Ludmilla! Olvin!” She had to repeat herself several times while two of the moss folk jumped on the leshiye’s feet to get their attention. The leshiye shrank down.
“An even exchange may not need to take place now,” Mira said when she had their attention. “The moss folk will heal my daughter; I will gift you the virility of three humans. You will both owe me a future favor when Ludmilla conceives.”
“This is fair,” Ludmilla said, and turned to the light-haired moss woman. “Belutha, this will cancel our debt, do you heal her now.”
Her imperious tone filled Amy with even more dislike. She had almost felt sympathy for the leshiye, who seemed brittle, with an air of desperation underpinning their loud posturing. But she only had a vague sense that she ought to pity them, as opposed to actually feeling any true compassion.
Belutha approached Amy and gestured for her to kneel down. She only stood four feet high, if that. Amy took a breath, then steeled herself and knelt. “This won’t hurt,” Belutha said gently, and placed her hands on either side of Amy’s head, her breath grazing Amy’s face. Amy felt like she had dipped her feet in an ice bath, after standing on them for hours. It was an instant relief that rolled up her body in waves. She didn’t quite know what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this shocking coolness. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead and trickled down her jaw.
Amy closed her eyes as the intensity of the relief poured through her. Until the pain was whisked away, she hadn’t realized that she’d had a faint headache since the operation. Or that the throbbing in the back of her neck was perhaps related to the surgery; all of her aches seemed to dissolve simultaneously.
Eventually, Belutha pulled her hands from Amy’s face and patted her gently on the shoulder. Amy stood up. “I think you will feel better now,” the moss woman said. “The trees say you have more healing to do, but they have helped speed it up. Perhaps another few hours, and you should be as good as new.”
Amy smiled her gratitude, but carefully didn’t say more than, “I feel much better already.” While her vision did seem crisper, that might have been simply due to the dim light of the forest; she hoped that her double-vision wouldn’t come back when they emerged into the brighter light of the clearing.
Mira nodded at Amy, then walked over to leshiye. “Who will be first?” she asked.
“Olvin,” said Ludmilla. Amy wondered if Olvin tasted Ludmilla’s food first to make sure it wasn’t poisoned before she ate it.
; Mira grasped both of Olvin’s hands and pulled him down to kneel in front of her so they were facing each other eye-to-eye. As she leaned in and kissed him, full on the mouth, the light that had swirled inside and around Mira ballooned up like a cloud of pink gas to envelop them both. The colors were so much richer and stronger than they had been before.
Amy wasn’t sure whether that was due to the healing Belutha had just performed, or the different nature of the magick Mira was working. Amy again felt like a voyeur, but couldn’t pull her eyes away from the scene. Red sparks like fireworks crackled through the pink fog; and watching the kiss, Amy felt a heated pulse in her belly. The sound of waves broke the moment, and Mira pulled back. Olvin’s iridescent glow was now broken by red sparks. He stood up, and Ludmilla pulled him into a fierce embrace, broken only when Mira called out, “Ludmilla, if you would please come closer.”
Mira repeated her kiss with Ludmilla, but this time as the fog extended, it dissipated around Ludmilla and vanished. The red sparks had a golden tinge and swirled around the two women in an ever-faster maelstrom to ultimately plunge through Ludmilla’s abdomen and soften into a red sunrise poking through the horizon. The sound of lapping water filled the clearing until it faded into the ever-present burble of the stream in the distance. As Ludmilla pulled back, her face had softened.
“Even do I not conceive this time, siren, you will have your future boon. Such a passion deserves it!” Ludmilla’s voice was husky and she turned to Olvin, who took her hand as they stretched tall up through the forest’s canopy. The couple strode soundlessly away through the trees.
Mira and Devin politely declined the forest folk’s invitation to dine. Although by now she was broadly familiar with their customs, Mira’s past visits to the fae were so frequently accompanied by cultural misunderstandings that she didn’t want to keep Amy here longer than necessary.
Amy was grateful they weren’t staying longer. She felt extraordinarily invigorated by Belutha’s touch, and was impatient to see if the improvement in her vision would last even in full sunlight. The strands of silver on the pathway back still shone, but even the sensation of heavy stickiness didn’t cause Amy to pause as she rapidly strode down the path.
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