by Nicola Shill
For a moment, she thought he must have heard her because he immediately called out again as if in answer, but he was definitely moving away. His voice was barely audible the next time he shouted. She ran a little way more, but her lungs burned and defeat sapped the strength that desperation had lent her. Even if she had been able to see through the tears flooding her eyes, she no longer knew which way she should be running. When her mind registered the futility of the pursuit, her body collapsed beneath her. She lay on the ground panting and sobbing and sweating.
Cassandra thought she was alone until a gentle hand touched her shoulder. Wounds on her feet and body disappeared, her legs stopped aching and her lungs no longer burned. Her breathing and heart rate returned to normal and the sweat evaporated from her body. She felt strong. An inexplicable feeling of wellbeing forced itself on her. She looked up into blue eyes, still anxious, gazing down at her. How had this lady kept up with her … without exerting herself or even ruffling her hair or her clothes?
The lady apparently sensed the silent question, because she answered, ‘It helps to have wings.’
Cassandra nodded dumbly and pushed herself to her feet. The lady continued speaking, taking Cassandra’s hand and holding it gently in hers. She had cool, slender, graceful hands.
‘Hello, Cassandra. I’m Oonnora.’ She smiled kindly. ‘How are you feeling now?’
‘My father is looking for me. I need to get to him.’
‘I’m sorry. This must be very difficult for you.’ She sighed, and the anxiety in her eyes softened to compassion. ‘Cassandra, you can’t go back. You’ve been told that already. He won’t be able to see you anyway and that would be even more traumatic.’
Cassandra didn’t believe it. Her own father would always be able to see her.
Oonnora continued, ‘I’m taking you home.’
Hope flared in Cassandra’s heart for a beat, but was abruptly extinguished when Oonnora added, ‘You’ll be living with us now. I have a daughter who’s about your age.’ Oonnora paused, frowned, and then muttered, ‘Well, sort of.’ A moment later, she had reassembled her sympathetic face. ‘Her name is Tani. I’m sure the two of you will be great friends.’
Refusing to accept Oonnora’s version of her future, Cassandra stared defiantly into the bush after her father.
‘Cassandra, listen to me.’ Oonnora jerked on Cassandra’s hand to punctuate her words. ‘You have to let go of the human world now: it’s gone for you. But you have a home with us, and if you allow it, I’m sure you can even be happy. Come on, come home now.’
‘That’s not my home.’ Cassandra jerked her hand out of Oonnora’s grip, but the only other alternatives were to stay here or continue trying to follow her father. She looked around and saw that she was quite lost. She had little choice. She trailed after Oonnora slowly, trying to pick out the path of least foot torture, but she wasn’t very successful, so before long, both feet again had an impressive collection of injuries. Oonnora didn’t seem to be having any such problem, even though her dainty pink feet were as bare as Cassandra’s.
Each time Cassandra glanced up from her defensive inspection of the ground, she experienced the oddest feeling that Oonnora was on fire. Her dress was made up of countless gauzy layers in colours from deep burnt orange to pale yellow. Around her head, a circlet of glittering crystals, with one larger teardrop crystal weighing down the centre, reflected the colours of her dress to resemble sparks. Gold and silver flecks twinkled from her folded wings.
Cassandra began to sort through the sequence of events from sitting on her boatshed deck, despairingly sane, until this moment of fantastic insanity. When had the tipping point occurred? When had her mind finally given up? Was her body, in fact, still slumped on her boatshed deck while her mind had wandered off to play with the fairies? Perhaps her father’s calls were actually his desperate attempts to rouse her from a psychotic stupor.
It had been a long time since Cassandra had believed in fairies. Of course, she had entertained the usual childhood fantasies about them, even going so far as to convince herself that she had really seen them, but her father had been quick to set her straight: ‘Sometimes, when we want to see something badly enough, our eyes trick us into believing we have actually seen it. But it’s important to know the difference between what’s real and what’s fantasy and not waste time and effort chasing after the fantasies; that can only end in heartbreak.’ She remembered him catching her up in his strong arms and hugging her tightly. ‘And I love you too much to ever want to see you with a broken heart.’
Well, if this was a fantasy, it was a pretty vivid one.
— CHAPTER 4 —
Home, Sweet Home
Cassandra and Oonnora re-emerged into the glade in the warm glow of sunset.
Cassandra had found her sarong tangled in some bushes and had freed it to wrap back around her hips, although she was now experiencing an inexplicable urge to cover herself in it from neck to knees as a security blanket. As they walked, conversations in front of them hushed and then took up again behind them as they passed. Cassandra parting the sea of sound waves. The thought made her want to giggle, but she feared that if she did, she would become hysterical and never be able to stop. She couldn’t make out if the words were friendly or hostile (did fairies even do hostile?) but the lilting voices and the cadence of the language sounded both eerie and beautiful at the same time.
‘Why can I understand you?’ Cassandra asked Oonnora. ‘And you can understand me.’
‘Eerin gave you the ability to understand our language when she shrank you. And all of us can understand, at the very least, the language of the humans living close by.’
Oonnora continued across the glade to her house. Cassandra didn’t see it at first because it was built, tall and narrow, against one side of a tree trunk from what appeared to be mud and dried grass. Plants grew around and over it; they even seemed to be growing out of the walls.
Oonnora ushered Cassandra through the front door into an atrium that extended upwards through all the stories of the house. She called out for Tani, and a noise from above made Cassandra look up as a door high in the atrium opened. A girl stepped out into thin air. Oonnora laid a hand on Cassandra’s shoulder and, as they watched the girl descend on beautiful autumn-leaf wings, Cassandra’s feet healed.
Oonnora began the introductions before the girl’s delicate toes touched the ground. ‘Cassandra, this is Tani.’ She turned to Tani. ‘Tani, Cassandra is a human with fae sight. I’ve offered to foster her with us.’
Tani’s polite smile seemed to fix in place and lose its warmth. Horror dawned in her eyes as they flicked downward to take in Cassandra’s shoulders, devoid of wings.
‘I hope you two will become good friends.’ This was directed at Tani and sounded more like telling than hoping.
Tani didn’t appear to be the kind of person Cassandra would ever be friends with. She looked too perfect: unblemished olive skin and not a single mahogany hair out of place as it fell to her waist. She must have taken after her father because she didn’t look like Oonnora. Although, on second thought, there was a definite resemblance in body shape: Tani had inherited her mother’s willowy figure. A snug-fitting, chocolate-brown dress hugged her body down to her hips and rippled prettily around her thighs.
Cassandra attempted a polite smile, but it probably looked as stiff and forced as Tani’s.
Oonnora broke the silence. ‘Let’s get dinner started.’
‘Dinner? At home?’ Tani seemed confused.
‘We won’t be going to the revelry tonight,’ Oonnora said.
‘Why not?’
Oonnora’s eyes flicked to Cassandra and quickly away. ‘I want us all at home tonight.’
Tani pierced Cassandra with a resentful glance, then spun away and flounced into the open area under the overhang of the floor above.
Oonnora followed. Cassandra saw that both of their dresses were halter neck, exposing the smooth skin of their backs where it rose up
to merge into the beautiful colours and textures of their wings. Oonnora waved at the table she passed.
‘Come and sit down, Cassandra.’
Cassandra sat. She could feel Tani’s hostility buffeting her. So, she hadn’t made a friend. Who cared? This was short-term anyway: she was going home - whether that would be a mental or a physical journey - the second she worked out how.
She smoothed her hand over the polished table top. It appeared to be nothing more than a single slice of tree trunk (or, at this size, more likely just a branch) with bark still attached to the outer edges. Tani leaned over to dump a huge basket into the centre. A long necklace of glassy gemstones in all the glorious hues of brown, weighted down by one much larger stone at the bottom, escaped from her cleavage. Oonnora came up beside her, balancing plates and glasses, and sat at the head of the table. Tani sat opposite Cassandra, watching her with a waspish glint in her eye.
Oonnora slid a delicate plate in front of Cassandra and tilted the basket towards her. ‘I don’t know if there’s anything in here you recognise.’
Cassandra peered into the basket and saw an assortment of plant forms. She did recognise a few things, although they were much bigger than the last time she’d seen them. The mushroom she selected took up most of the space on her plate. She supplemented it with some sort of enormous berry.
Apparently, this was dinner.
— CHAPTER 5 —
Idiot Questions
The door burst open and in strode the strangest man Cassandra had ever seen.
Even in the human world, this man would have been considered unusual, but here he seemed completely at odds with his world of beauty and perfection. Bits of leaves and grass were stuck in straggly, dark grey hair that was tied at the back into a ponytail. His olive skin looked weather-beaten, like that of an old farmer, and he wore unpretentious clothing to the point of being shabby. His wings, which appeared to be a series of narrow grey feathers, drooped lazily down to brush the floor as he walked.
If his careless appearance didn’t set him apart, he was also fat. Glancing down at her dinner, it occurred to Cassandra that if all these fairies ate were berries and mushrooms, it would be virtually impossible to eat to obesity. Cassandra looked into his face and experienced the force of his charisma. He had a friendly smile and a knowing, mischievous glint in his eye. It made Cassandra wonder if he cultivated the unusual appearance deliberately to amuse himself with the reactions he received.
He strode over to the table without even bothering to close the door behind him and dropped into the seat beside Tani. Then he half stood again, leaned forward and reached his hand across the table to Cassandra. ‘You must be the human.’
She responded automatically and shook hands with him. He maintained his hold on her hand so that she was forced to remain stretched across the table while he studied her as if he had never seen a human before. Could that be true?
‘I’ve never been able to understand why humans shake hands,’ he said.
Cassandra tried to draw her hand back, but his grip was so firm that liberation would have required her to tug with an audacity that was currently beyond her. Instead, she muttered, ‘You started it.’
Brack roared with laughter, released her hand and began to load food on to his plate.
‘Hey, I’ve got a joke for you. There was a human and a monkey …,’ he began.
‘Brack! Leave her alone.’ Oonnora turned to Cassandra, ‘Sorry, Cassandra, this is my disgusting husband, Brack.’ Despite her words, Oonnora seemed quite entertained by Brack.
At that moment, a young man sauntered through the door, closing it gently behind him. He was as different from Brack as it was possible to be: easily the most beautiful man Cassandra had ever seen, pretty even, yet still oozing masculinity. He was a male version of Oonnora. He had the same peaches and cream complexion and strawberry-blonde hair, but his hair was short and curly. Muscular shoulders were bursting out of his sleeveless top and skin-tight pants gave up on attempting to cover his bulging calves just below his knees. Although his wings were folded, Cassandra could see, as he walked into the kitchen, that they were very similar to his mother’s magnificent, fiery wings.
Oonnora continued with the introductions: ‘And this is my son, Chayton. Chayton, Cassandra.’ She turned to Brack. ‘You’re home earlier than I expected. Did you get the house finished?’
Chayton grabbed a basket from the benchtop, then turned and stared directly into Cassandra’s eyes. A smile spread slowly across his face. He sauntered towards her, holding her hostage with the force of his gaze until he slid into the chair beside her.
‘Yeah, they’ll be able to stay there tonight,’ Brack said.
Chayton tilted the basket towards Cassandra. Nestled inside it were bread rolls, so fresh that the basket was exhaling a warm, yeasty aroma. Cassandra’s stomach grumbled in anticipation, but she couldn’t make her hand move and she found herself shaking her head instead.
Chayton stoked his warm smile up to sizzling. He plucked a roll from the basket and leaned in close, his naked upper arm brushing hers as he dropped it on her plate. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he breathed into her ear. The side of her face tingled. She forgot how to take in oxygen.
Oonnora broke Cassandra out of her stupor. ‘We had a wedding in Gillwillan yesterday. Brack, Chayton and Brack’s apprentice, Prel, built their house today.’
Prel: what a lovely name. Cassandra imagined Brack, Chayton and Prel – as gorgeous as Chayton but perhaps with dark hair and smouldering eyes – toiling in the midday sun, shirtless and sweating (Chayton and Prel, at least) building a house … ‘Today? When did they start?’
‘This morning,’ answered Brack around a mouthful of food.
‘He’s slowing down in his old age,’ said Tani.
‘Tani, did you leave some of your brain in your room?’ A piece of unidentified leafy green that hadn’t quite completed the journey into Brack’s mouth fell out when he spoke. Cassandra laughed. Tani scowled at her, then glanced down at Brack’s plate and up into his face with an expression of revulsion.
Chayton had begun searching through the baskets of food, deciding what to eat, but he had stopped now and was frowning at Cassandra as though she had said something odd and he wasn’t sure if she’d meant it. ‘It only takes a day to build a house,’ he said.
The very idea excited Cassandra. She pictured them tapping wands against tree trunks and watching fully formed houses appear out of nowhere. ‘Do you use magic?’
Tani laughed. Chayton made a half-hearted attempt to suppress a laugh. Oonnora shot both of them a dark look. Cassandra’s excitement was replaced by an urge to hide under the table.
Brack offered an answer of sorts. ‘You know, we don’t really do magic, Cassandra. It’s a human misconception. But some of the local youngsters have had success with rubbing my tummy and making a wish.’
This time Chayton did laugh and Cassandra relaxed a little. Perhaps that was why she forgot to quit asking idiot questions. ‘But you’re fairies, aren’t you? You …’
Chayton burst into hysterical laughter and almost fell off his chair. Tani stood up so fast, preparing to stump out of the room in outrage, that her chair actually did fall over.
‘Sit down, Tani!’ ordered Oonnora.
‘I have to go and paint flower petals,’ Tani said, but she righted her chair and did as she was told. Tears were streaming down Chayton’s face from laughing so hard.
Oonnora made a valiant but futile effort to ease Cassandra’s discomfort. ‘You’re technically correct, Cassandra. ‘Fairy’ is one of the names humans use for us, but …’
Tani interrupted, ‘Along with sprite, pixie, sylph, brownie, nymph, mimi, umm …’
Brack helped her out. ‘Good neighbours, children of the twilight, people of the hills, little people, tylwyth teg, fair folk, forest folk, …’
‘Okay,’ said Oonnora in a low, frosty voice.
‘Oh, yes, forest folk,’ Tani continued. ‘Then th
ere’s dryad, ghillie dhu, …’
‘That will do,’ snapped Oonnora.
‘And my personal favourite: pilliwiggin,’ finished Tani. She looked triumphantly across at Chayton who was now sitting back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest and a broad grin on his face.
Oonnora served each member of her family with a disgusted glare. Far from remorseful, they looked entertained and self-satisfied. ‘We prefer to be called fae, Cassandra.’ She glared at her family again as if hoping they would suddenly become contrite. They didn’t. ‘As for magic, some things may look magical to you because humans don’t understand the laws of the universe as we do.’
‘Humans are still trying to resist them or find ways to cheat them,’ Brack said. ‘You won’t be able to tune fully into nature or even other humans until you stop seeing yourselves as separate from and superior to everything else.’
Oonnora glared at Brack, but by the time she turned back to Cassandra, her serene façade was back in place. ‘Once humans accept that they’re part of the universal consciousness, they’ll be able to draw on it the way we do.’
Brack opened his mouth to speak, but Oonnora silenced him with a glower. It was evidently an art that marriage to him had made her a master of. He popped in a piece of mushroom instead.
Oonnora said, ‘We harness energy from sources humans haven’t even considered yet. Much of it comes from within ourselves.’
Chayton whispered into Cassandra’s ear, ‘Like this.’ He laid his hand on her knee and squeezed gently. At first, she felt a tickle and almost laughed, but the tickle intensified into a buzz that rushed over the entire surface of her skin, into her toes and fingertips, up her spine and across her scalp. ‘Does that feel good?’
Cassandra tried not to show any response since no one else had noticed, despite the fact that every hair on her body now stood on end and her toes were curling of their own volition.
Chayton refolded his arms over his chest, grunted a short, smug laugh and stared straight ahead with a cocky curl to his lips.
— CHAPTER 6 —
Helicopters
Cassandra dreamt of helicopters.
She could hear the high pitched wail of a powerful engine and beneath it, the dull, low thudding of propellers. Surfacing slowly from sleep, she pictured the police helicopter flying over her house as it sometimes did.