by Nicola Shill
Eerin remained completely still throughout Cassandra’s story. The only evidence that she had even heard was a slow blink of her eyes before she replied, ‘Cassandra, I brought you in for a good reason. That reason remains.’
‘But Lorcan said you agreed it was an accident. I didn’t mean to see you. I didn’t want to do any harm.’
‘Nevertheless, we cannot simply take your word that you will never try to return, and the next time you may bring other humans with the sight along. That would be disastrous for us.’
‘There must be some way I can convince you that I can be trusted. I don’t even know any humans with the sight.’ It occurred to Cassandra that seeing fairies probably wasn’t the sort of thing people admitted, so she may well have just told a lie. ‘I didn’t even realise I had it.’ Her last chance of returning home was evaporating.
‘It’s not me you have to convince. I’ll give you permission to visit Zabeth, but I can tell you now that it will be a wasted journey. We don’t take chances with our safety, particularly where humans are concerned.’
‘You don’t have a very high opinion of humans, do you?’
‘You haven’t given us much reason to for a very long time now. The fae used to have a good relationship with humans, but it was well before I was born. We hope to be able to cultivate that relationship again one day when, or if, humans pass through their phase of greed. Let’s hope it is a phase. Humans are masters of control but, unfortunately, not so good at self-control.’
Cassandra had been experiencing a steadily increasing mix of both mortification and outrage at the way humans were viewed by these fae, but Eerin was not someone she would ever debate it with; it was a given that she would lose. She wanted to snatch Eerin’s permission to visit the sage while it was still on offer. But there was still one problem.
‘I’ll need someone to take me to the sage.’ She had a bad feeling she already knew what Eerin’s solution was going to be.
Eerin smiled her enigmatic smile. ‘Lorcan will take you.’
‘He won’t want to take me,’ nor do I want him to.
Eerin continued to smile and replied, ‘It’ll be good for him.’ With that cryptic comment, she stood up, indicating that the discussion was over. ‘I’ll arrange it,’ she continued, ushering Cassandra to the door. ‘Lorcan will collect you at dawn tomorrow morning. Be ready for him.’ Eerin directed Cassandra through the door and into the sunshine.
Cassandra excused herself from attending the revelry that night, claiming a need to go to sleep early so that she would be prepared for her big day tomorrow. She was pleased at how close to the truth she’d managed to get: the preparation she needed in order to be ready for her big day was to not see Lorcan tonight. She knew he would be furious. Tomorrow morning would be time enough to experience it.
She also realised that she would spend most of the night lying awake worrying about it.
— CHAPTER 32 —
Spite
Sunrise was beginning to colour the sky and the birds were noisily waking themselves and everyone else up, when Lorcan flew across the agora to Cassandra’s house.
With arms crossed belligerently and body hanging vertically, it looked like he was deliberately goading nature into trying to tell him he wasn’t aerodynamic.
He’d avoided the revelry last night. Seeing Cassandra would have cost him every shred of self-control to resist wringing her neck. At least now that he’d slept on it, his anger had diminished to a slow boil. He’d lain awake most of the night trying unsuccessfully to calm down. He didn’t like the person he became when he talked to Cassandra. He became – he hated to admit it, but he hated being soft on himself even more – a bully around her. Full credit to her, though: she stood her ground. Girls never stood up to him like that. Well, none had ever needed to before, but he knew none of the fae girls of his acquaintance would have: they shrank self-consciously when he was nice to them! But Cassandra turned the tables and attacked him right back. He liked that about her. No. No! That was all wrong. He liked nothing about her; she was human! Arguing with her was just … exhilarating. A treacherous rush.
He’d eventually decided that the best course of action today was to keep communications between himself and Cassandra to a bare minimum: only what was necessary to get her safely delivered to Zabeth and back. He feared that if he started venting his anger aloud, he wouldn’t be able to stop. Part of the problem was that he knew his anger was unfair. Cassandra really hadn’t done anything wrong by going to Eerin. It was certainly nothing he wouldn’t have done in the same situation. Why was he reacting so strongly? He had taught himself to keep his emotions tightly controlled. How had this human girl managed to get under his skin? The how was unimportant now anyway. It was going to stop. No more emotion where Cassandra was concerned. He would switch it off and run on autopilot. He was a master at it.
The front door opened as Lorcan landed, and Cassandra walked out, shutting it quietly behind her. Lorcan supposed that the rest of the family were still sleeping off last night’s partying. Oonnora and Brack certainly knew how to have a good time. No repressing emotions for them.
Cassandra wouldn’t look him in the eye as she walked towards him. Good. Satisfaction surged through him. It made him feel that his anger was justified if she was expecting it. It had the effect of loosening his resolve and his tongue. He turned and started walking the other way, knowing she had no choice but to follow, deliberately walking too fast for her comfort.
While he walked, he let loose with angry verbal diarrhoea. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this. I wouldn’t be doing it for anyone but Eerin. Even then it took some convincing. Who do you think you are? You’ve been nothing but trouble ever since you arrived.’
‘Nothing but trouble!’ Cassandra began to object, but Lorcan kept talking.
‘I don’t have time for this. I’m extremely busy. It’s a fool’s errand anyway. There’s no way Zabeth’s going to send you back, I can tell you that right now. Even Eerin agrees with me, but she thinks you need to hear it for yourself, to settle it once and for all that …,’ he stopped walking and swung around, jabbing a finger at her as he spoke to ensure that his next words sank in: ‘You – Are – Here – To – Stay.’ He turned and continued his giant strides. ‘Then you’ll have to get on with getting used to it. Then we can all move on. I just don’t know why this is necessary.’ On and on it went. Lorcan had a lot he needed to vent, and none of it required a response. He felt maliciously pleased hearing her panting for breath as she tried to keep pace with him without breaking into a run. He knew she was determined not to give him that satisfaction and he was rather enjoying the challenge. He increased his pace slightly until she was forced to adopt a walk two steps, jog two steps sort of rhythm. It was disappointing when they reached their destination; he’d been having so much fun.
He stopped abruptly, and listened to Cassandra tripping over her own feet to avoid crashing into him.
Immensely satisfying.
‘Why have we stopped?’ she asked.
Something spiteful inside Lorcan prevented him from giving Cassandra the explanation she was due. He whistled softly and stood quietly, waiting. The tall grass in front of them began to shudder. He felt Cassandra’s horror bloom the instant the grass separated to reveal an enormous snake. Tuning in to her mortal terror, he imagined she saw a giant, gloating monster, its black forked tongue flickering as it anticipated the delectation of eating them. She probably recognised it as a deadly tiger snake: the black and yellow stripes were unmistakable.
Cassandra screamed. Her immediate reaction was to take the only shelter available: she cowered behind Lorcan, clutching desperately on to his wings. Then it apparently occurred to her that running away might have been a smarter idea.
‘Lorcan, run! Come on, run! LORCAN!’
The first pang of remorse assaulted Lorcan as he realised it had not yet dawned on her that he had deliberately summoned this snake.
The snake coiled its long
body and reared up to tower over their heads. Cassandra pulled herself in even tighter against Lorcan’s back, using the stalks of his wings for leverage. She was hurting him now. He growled a curse and sent protective energy through his aura to save his wings, then tried to yank her out from behind him.
‘Lorcan, kill it! Can’t you kill it? KILL IT!’
A second pang of remorse. She was trusting him to save her. Regardless, he yanked at her again. ‘Get off me,’ he snarled.
The snake opened its mouth and revealed fangs, long and sharp, resembling two swords ready to inject their deadly poison.
Cassandra started to beg, ‘Please, Lorcan. Please!’
Then she started to cry: little staccato whimpers at first, quickly merging together into a continuous wail.
Lorcan redoubled his efforts to reach behind himself and grab Cassandra.
She stopped crying just long enough to scream, ‘No!’ She dodged from side to side to avoid capture.
He started to turn around. Cassandra, determined not to let him expose her to the snake that way, bent her arms and crumpled her knees so that she was hanging all of her weight from his wings.
‘NO!’ she screamed louder, stretching the word out.
He stopped moving with an agonised shout. ‘CASSANDRA!’ She was going to pull his wings off if he didn’t calm her down soon; there was only so much protection an aura could provide.
She pushed her face into his back and hung on to his wings with grim tenacity. He thought he heard, ‘Please! Don’t! I’m sorry! Please don’t do this!’ although he couldn’t be sure. The wail had deteriorated to uncontrollable sobbing and she could barely get coherent words out, but she was giving it her best shot, and he got the gist. ‘Please. I only want to go home.’
Lorcan was feeling much more than just a pang of remorse now. He hadn’t meant for her to become quite so upset; he’d merely expected her to get a fright. Humans were so stupidly fearful of nature, but the way he saw it, they had less to fear from nature than nature had to fear from them.
‘Cassandra,’ he said in a low, quiet voice, hoping to soothe her. ‘Let go of my wings. You’re hurting me.’
Cassandra stood up but kept her face pressed between his shoulders and continued to sob.
‘This is our ride,’ he explained.
Cassandra finally let go of Lorcan’s wings, but as she did, she pushed off his back with her knuckles to spin around and run. It took Lorcan by surprise and she had travelled a good distance before he leapt into the air and swooped down to catch her, pinning her arms to her sides and lifting her off the ground. She screamed again, kicking wildly as he turned and flew with her back to where the snake now lay with its head resting across its coils.
‘CASSANDRA!’ He tried to land gently despite her struggles. One of her kicks connected with his knee and made him sorry he had already dropped his protective shield. He lost balance and fell sideways on to the ground, still holding her tightly against his body. He sat them both up, pulling Cassandra on to his lap so that he could maintain his hold on her while she continued to writhe and wiggle, talking directly into her ear from behind. ‘Cassandra. This snake is going to take us to Zabeth. She’s not going to hurt you. Snakes are our friends.’
— CHAPTER 33 —
Adrenaline
Finally, Cassandra ceased struggling, although her crying continued unabated.
‘You scared her, that’s all,’ Lorcan said.
She twisted around to look at him as though she was trying to work out if he had really said what she thought he’d said. ‘I scared her?’
‘When you screamed.’ He loosened his hold on her. When she didn’t move, he stood up and walked over to the snake. He stroked it and spoke to it gently for a minute before returning to Cassandra. He squatted down to look into her face. She was pale and blotchy with puffy, red eyes from which a torrent of water was flowing. There was snot streaming out of her nose and over her lips. Her whole body was shaking while she cried. He sighed and sat beside her. How was he supposed to remain detached from this?
‘What did you think was happening, Cassandra?’ he asked gently.
‘I thought you were trying to kill me.’
What? ‘Me?’
‘The snake … I thought you called the snake to get rid of me.’ A wave of more violent sobbing followed.
Wow. Did she honestly think he was that much of an ogre? He knew he’d been a bit hard on her. Oh, all right, a lot hard on her.
Too hard on her.
Whoops.
He hoped Eerin never heard about this. She was already calling him a misanthropist; she said he had an over-exaggerated hatred and distrust of humans. He didn’t think his hatred and distrust of humans was over-exaggerated at all; he thought it was quite justified.
The challenge now was to get Cassandra up and on to the snake.
‘Cassandra, I’m very sorry you think I would do that.’ He leaned forward until he was looking up into her face and she had to look at him. He put on his best female-melting voice and paired it with the matching female-melting face.
‘Please. Forgive me?’
Cassandra’s sobbing eased slightly and she nodded her head.
Encouraged, Lorcan continued, ‘Can we start again?’
Cassandra shook her head.
‘No?’ Girls didn’t say no to him.
‘We’ve tried that once already,’ (hiccup, sniff,) ‘and you were still mean to me.’
She had him there.
‘Okay, I suppose I’ll have to settle for forgiveness then.’ Cute smile, self-depreciating laugh: usually a winning formula. Cassandra wasn’t getting it, though. She wasn’t putty in his hands the way the fae girls usually were. This was one of the rare occasions when he wanted his natural girl-magnet charisma to work for him and it wasn’t. It was strangely intriguing and inconveniently appealing. Of course, the fact that she thought he wanted to kill her may have had something to do with it.
Cassandra’s crying was gradually winding down of its own accord. There was only so long you could sustain that intensity of blubbering. She had experienced a terrible fright and a big dose of adrenaline was surging around her system looking for a way out. It appeared to be mostly coming out of her eyes and nose. That and the shaking. Thank goodness the shaking was decelerating. Later, she would experience overwhelming tiredness. Lorcan was ill-equipped to offer help. It was an unfamiliar feeling for him. He was used to being in control. Most other fae would just hit her with a bit of healing or sedate her, but he would never do that to a human, particularly without knowledge or consent. He didn’t even feel that he could take Cassandra in his arms to comfort her as he might usually do with a distressed female. With Cassandra it would be … too personal. He didn’t want to examine that revelation any closer.
So he sat and stared moodily into the bush, waiting for the storm to pass.
— CHAPTER 34 —
A Smooth Ride
Cassandra was surprised at how long it took for her to calm down.
Even after she had chosen to believe Lorcan that the snake was not going to hurt her and knew logically that she should stop crying, she seemed to be unable to make herself do it. It was as though a course had been set and she had no alternative but to ride it out to its natural conclusion. Still now, having finally stopped crying, she felt shaky.
Lorcan showed her how to tilt leaves that had collected dew overnight and use the water to drink and wash her face.
Now came the hard part.
She understood what she was supposed to do, but she didn’t know if she could. She was pretty sure it would be physically impossible for her to go near the snake voluntarily, much less touch it. Lorcan took her hand and began to lead her towards it. The closer they got, the more she pulled back, until eventually she was fully resisting and Lorcan was fully dragging her. She dug her heels in, locked her knees and yanked her arm back. Lorcan stopped, turned and looked at her with an exasperated expression on his face, which he w
as valiantly trying to make look like patience.
‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Sorry Lorcan, I want to, but I can’t do it.’
Lorcan let out a deep sigh. ‘Cassandra, you have to if you want to see Zabeth. It would take days to walk and I can’t fly that far with you. This is the best way: the safest way.’ He paused, and Cassandra knew he was watching her for some sign of agreement, but she couldn’t give him one. In a last ditch effort, he offered, ‘Would you like me to carry you?’
His offer turned out to be pure genius – more effective at motivating her to resume moving towards the snake under her own steam than any amount of pleading or threatening could ever have been.
When they reached the snake, Lorcan said apologetically, ‘I’m going to have to lift you on.’
Cassandra nodded, closed her eyes and swallowed. She thought she might be sick.
Apparently, so did Lorcan. ‘Don’t vomit on me.’ He lifted her up so she could get a leg over, then jumped on behind her. As soon as he was settled, the snake began to move. Cassandra dropped her hands unsteadily down on to its back, but there was nothing to hold on to. Now that she was actually touching it, she admired how slinky it felt: not hard and unwelcoming as she had expected; not soft and squashy either. It was like sitting on solid muscle covered in silk. The scales flowed over each other so slickly that the whole effect was of sinuous grace, and the depth of colour and beauty revealed when the sunlight caught them replaced Cassandra’s fear with admiration.
Cassandra had no idea how the snake knew where they wanted to go, or even that they wanted it to transport them somewhere. Lorcan didn’t appear to be ‘driving’ it, but he must have communicated with it in some way that she was unaware of because it was slithering along quite confidently as though it had a destination in mind.
They were heading towards Anthony’s Nose – a weird name for a cliff, Cassandra had always thought until she looked it up; then she realised that, as with many place names in Australia, it had been named after someone’s motherland way over the other side of the world. The poor mountain was suffering from an identity crisis: firstly, the whole thing had been named Arthur’s Seat, after Arthur’s Seat in Scotland, then the escarpment where it plunged into Port Phillip Bay had been named Anthony’s Nose after a similar landform in New York. Cassandra thought everyone would have done better to have simply accepted the aboriginal name: Wonga.