by Gwen Rivers
Essentials packed, I add a small framed photo of me and Sarah from last summer. Chloe had taken it, though we hadn’t known it at the time. We were lying on beach towels, side by side at the lake. Sarah had on her cat-eye sunglasses and I wore a Carolina Panthers ball cap. Though I can’t recall what we’d been talking about, both of our faces are animated, full of life.
We’d be that way again if I have anything to say about it.
I pick up the pink fuzzy diary and hold it for several long moments. Leaving it behind feels like a mistake. The aunts will tear my room apart for any clue to where I’ve gone. They will certainly find this and most likely destroy it. Part of me desperately wants to pack it, to have it with me. But we need to travel light and I don’t want to risk losing it.
In the end, I dig a hole beneath my bedroom window and bury it several feet underground, then set a potted rosemary bush on top.
Task complete, I take one last look around the room. Without conscience thought I pull the copy of Norse myths from the shelf, the same one Aiden frowned at last night. Before I can question the impulse, I shove it in my backpack.
“All set?” Aiden appears as I’m cinching the strings. Again, there is no noise from his footfalls, as though he pads on wolf feet even while in human form.
I nod and pull the pack over my shoulders, so my hands will be free. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Several. Spring is the best time for fairy rings, what with all the restless fairies crossing through the Veil, hunting for food or entertainment.”
I grab two metal water bottles from the fridge, use the bicycle clips to secure them to either side of my pack and then follow Aiden out into the woods. The earth is soft and smells of loam and new plant life. Old leaves and sticks snap beneath my boots and I look back to see one set of footprints—mine. Aiden’s progress goes utterly unmarked. How can he avoid every dry twig without leaving a single trace?
The air is still but heavy with the threat of more rain. The scrubbier trees give way to birches and pines, and maybe it’s my imagination but it feels as if they are calling to me. As though they know I can meld with them. A shiver runs through me. I spent hours climbing trees when the aunts had first brought me to this place, swung from the branches and napped in their shade. I doubt I’ll ever see them as such innocent props again.
Aiden climbs one of the steeper slopes and stops. “Here.”
I glance down and spy a circle of beige capped mushrooms. “This?”
He nods and moves to stand on the opposite side of the ring so he’s looking me in the eyes. “Do your thing.”
I cast him a dark look. “I don’t know what my thing is, remember?”
He doesn’t appear fazed. “It’s like with the tree. You need to focus on what you want to have happen. Envision us small enough to fit in the middle of those mushrooms. Not so small that we float away in the breeze though. Without wings, we’d have no control where we would end up.”
Panic grips me. It’s not a feeling I enjoy though I am becoming more accustomed to it. “You’re telling me I could overshoot this? Shrink us down too far?”
“Don’t think about what could go wrong,” he cautions.
“Then you shouldn’t have suggested it,” I snap.
His voice is steady, soothing. “You need to picture the end result, those mushrooms as tall as trees, and us meeting in the middle of them. Only there can we find a fold in the Veil.”
I release a huge lungful of air. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can.” Aiden’s faith in me is absolute. “Think of it like borrowing powers from your subjects, the same as borrowing a pencil from another student. Not yours to keep, but it’s a tool you need to get the job done. And as soon as it is, you’ll give the tool back to the rightful owner.”
He’s so sure, and his belief in me, in my abilities, boosts my confidence. I nod once then close my eyes. The red-gold light from the sun strikes my face and I lift my chin, letting the world that is fade.
Imagine us three inches tall. Small enough to enter the fairy ring, to cross through the Veil. To save Sarah.
You can do this. I don’t know if Aiden says the words aloud or I hear them in my mind. I reach out across the ring, not physically, but mentally and sense him there, purple and red outlines in the shape of a man.
We need to be smaller, to be three inches tall.
Behind my lids, the light flickers, blue and purple sparks exploding like fireworks.
Three inches tall. Three inches tall. Three inches tall.
The wind lifts my hair away from my face and there is a noise, like the roaring of an oncoming train.
I open my eyes and the world I know is gone.
Chapter 9
Beyond the Veil
I blink and look around, trying to figure out what happened to the field. It appears I’ve transported myself into some sort of jungle. The bright sunlight is blocked out by oversized greenery. I turn in a slow circle, wondering how I screwed up. No sign of Aiden, the field, the fairy ring. The air is much denser here, so wet it’s almost tropical. Had I somehow borrowed the wrong power and transported myself to the Amazon?
Up ahead, what looks like a mile off, I spy something large and beige. A structure of some sort?
Then it hits me. I’d done it. My body shrank in size and what looked to me like a forest canopy was really the un-mowed field I’d been standing in, as seen from a bug’s perspective. What I thought was tropical humidity is really morning dew that has yet to evaporate. The brown shapes in the distance are those of the mushrooms.
Jubilation fills me and a grin spreads over my face. It had worked. Sort of. I was much smaller than the three inches I’d intended. And there is no sign of Aiden. Where could he be?
He’d been standing across the ring. And if those mushrooms were a mile off from me, then Aiden is two miles directly in front of me.
Making sure my backpack is secure, I stride off toward the mushroom. Considering his persistence to dog me, Aiden will probably meet me there. It amazes me how much space exists between blades of grass, like walking through a well-planned grove. The terrain is rough and uneven, the red clay almost like mud as it sticks to my boots. A huge mound rises before me, a half-buried stone poking up from the ground. The mushroom stalk is just on the other side of it. If I go around, it might take longer, or I could miss Aiden altogether.
Decided, I find a toe hold and start climbing. The stone is rough against my palms, but it’s craggy enough to allow me plenty of hand and toe holds.
I am halfway up when I hear a strange buzzing sound.
“Nic!” Aiden’s voice calls out. “Where are you?”
“On the rock outside of the ring.”
“Stay where you are!” he hollers.
The buzzing is growing louder, almost deafening. “What’s that noise?”
“There’s a nest of mud wasps inside the ring. Make us big again and we’ll find somewhere else.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I can’t see his face, can’t see anything but the planes and angles of the stone I’m still traversing but he must be joking. “I barely made it work this time.”
“They could kill you at this size!” There is a grunt and a thud. “Make us big again. We can wait until midnight.”
To hell with that. Finally, I reach the summit of my own personal peak and poke my head over the top. The sight before me is like something out of a dream. Aiden is in between two wasps, a sharpened stick in each hand. He twirls them like makeshift spears. I gape as a wasp divebombs him and he thrusts with one spear at the other while tucking into a roll to avoid the charge. A third wasp hovers in the background, as though waiting to strike the killing blow.
I scramble up and over the rock, half sliding, half free-falling down the other side on my butt. I hit the ground with a thump, my teeth clacking together hard. Aiden jabs one of his spears into a dive-bombing wasp. It freezes in midflight and falls to the ground, impaled
like bug kabob.
Scrambling to my feet, I scan for my own weapon and instead see a flutter of movement. Something sparkles, like sunlight on water. And then it fades, reality solid once more.
But then five feet away there is another ripple. It’s exactly as Aiden described it, like fabric fluttering in an invisible breeze. The air in the disturbance is different too, rich with exotic aromas, spices and the wildness I am coming to associate with Aiden.
Aiden spears the second wasp and glances over his shoulder. “Run!” he shouts.
“Look out!” I shriek at the same time. The third wasp dive bombs him. Aiden whirls around, extracting the spear from the nearby corpse. He wrenches it free and pivots to face the attack only to be stuck through his left shoulder by the stinger.
“No,” I shriek as he falls to his knees in the dirt.
The wasp thrashes, its stinger breaking loose and flies off.
“Aiden!” I run to catch him before he falls on his face and impales himself even deeper. He sags in my grip, deadweight.
I would know.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I repeat the word like a mantra as I lie him down on his back. The stinger rises obscenely from his arm like a lance. I want to pull it out, but fear that removing it will only cause him to bleed out faster. What if it pierced his heart? He can’t die, he can’t. He’s my guide. Without him, I might wind up stuck at my minuscule size forever. “Don’t die.”
“Won’t,” the word rasps from deep within his chest. He’s still alive but from the sounds of things, won’t be for long.
The medical kit in my bag is all but useless when faced with such a grievous injury.
More buzzing in the distance. The rest of the nest, coming to finish us off.
“What do I do, what do I do?” I glance around, as though the answer might present itself.
The shimmer appears again, about twenty feet away. It fades. Then returns at no more than fifteen feet.
The wasps crest the cap of the mushroom, what looks like twenty of them. There’s no way I can fight them off on my own.
But if we can cross through the Veil....
The shimmer is heading in our direction, that rich scent of loam and heat and spice growing stronger. Ten feet away I see the ripple. “Come on.” Somehow, I manage to get Aiden to his feet, stinger and all. He’s heavy, staggering but I’m used to hefting bodies twice my size. “Our ride’s here.”
Five feet away the airwaves like heat lines coming off a grill. I hold tight to him and squeeze my eyes shut as the wasps dive down for us, the lead one aiming right for my head.
The ripple engulfs us.
There is darkness for a moment, like the darkest night with no moon or stars, no man-made light. I still have a hold of Aiden, still, hear his shallow panting breaths, but I can’t see him at all. Pinpricks of multicolored light appear. Deep purple, bright blue, flawless white, sunshine yellow, petal pink and ruby red wink into existence. Beneath my feet, there is something solid, not solid like the ground but solid like the hull of a boat. Whatever it rests on, I can’t see. Except I see no sides or railings. The air is still and calm, without breeze or scent. Different than the smells I detected before we crossed. It’s as though the world has been put on pause.
The stars, not our vessel, begin to move. Shooting out and down into long lines across the sky, fading before new ones appeared.
“Where are we?” Though I don’t intend to whisper, my voice comes out softly.
“The Star Ferry.” Aiden’s voice sounds a little stronger. “It’s okay, we’re safe for the moment. We’re crossing an In-Between. You can let go.”
Belatedly I realize I’m still holding on to him and command myself to release him. Without my assistance, he sags to the deck. I kneel, my hands fluttering like butterflies. “What do I do?”
Aiden’s hands wrap around the end of the stinger. “Help me pull this damn thing out.”
“Are you sure that’s safe? That you won’t bleed to death?”
“I told you,” he pants through clenched teeth. “I can’t die like that.”
“If you’re sure.” At least one of us is. I reach for the stinger and yank it back. Aiden grunts as the end impaling him slides out of his shoulder. He crumples onto the deck, panting and shaking. Blood spills from the wound, along with sickly yellow pus.
I drop the stinger to the deck and then shrug off my backpack. My portable medical kit may be flimsy, but it’s better than nothing.
But when I move to rip open a sterile bandage Aiden gasps. “Save it. Food.”
“You want to eat?”
In the glistening starlight, I can see sweat forming on his brow. “Faster metabolism means faster healing. But I need fuel.”
Taking him at his word, I replace the medical supplies and unwrap three protein bars. He takes all three at once and downs them one at a time. Then closes his eyes.
“Incredible,” I breathe. The pus evaporates, the blood slows, and the wound starts to knit itself back together. “How come this didn’t happen the other night?”
“The Wild Hunt poison their blades to stunt the immortal healing process.” Aiden’s eyes are closed, his face tight with exhaustion. “This is much simpler to heal.”
After removing the water bottles from the sides of my backpack, I lift his head and slide the pack beneath for support. He blinks up at me, the rainbow of colors reflected in his eyes.
I uncap one of the water bottles and hold it to his lips. “You need to drink.”
Green irises fix on me while he does as I’ve suggested and then murmurs, “Thank you.”
I quirk one eyebrow at him. “For the food, the water, or for saving your life?”
His lips twitch. “None of the above, actually. I was thanking you for not ordering me to drink, for letting me have a choice.”
“I’m trying to be careful about that,” I admit.
“Why?” There is no mocking in his tone, he is genuinely curious.
“Because. I would never want anyone to have that kind of control over me. How did it happen anyway?”
His eyes slide shut. “I pledged my fealty to you, Nicneven, as Queen of the Unseelie. The obedience is a side effect of an immortal vow that intense.”
“Did you know that would happen when you made your pledge?”
He nods, eyes still hidden.
I shake my head, unable to understand. “Then why go through with it in the first place?”
Aiden doesn’t respond, though he is breathing. I watch the steady rise and fall of his chest. He’s asleep. Or maybe he’s feigning unconsciousness, so he doesn’t have to answer my question.
I sit beside him and stare up at the lines of color streaking past. The Star Ferry. So, this is what lies beyond the Veil. People have used that term to describe what happens after death. Several mythologies and religions describe a tunnel or a crossing of some sort. In others, a ferryman transports the soul across rivers to its final resting place. Were any of them talking about this place?
Only we weren’t dead and as far as I can tell there is no ferryman. There is nothing guiding the movement of the skies, our passage through this In Between.
I lose track of how long it stretches on. Aiden sleeps beside me and from time to time I check on the progress of his shoulder. It looks as though it had never been damaged. Behind closed eyelids, his eyes dart back and forth and I wonder what sort of things fill his dreams.
Who is he? And why had he been willing to take on an immortal life of forced obedience to pledge his loyalty to one of the two Unseelie queens? Out of gratitude that she—that I—saved his life?
But that makes no sense. If my dreams were real, and the more I see the more I believe they are memories from my past life, he hadn’t begged me to free him, he’d begged me to kill him. So why the life debt?
I take a sip from my own water bottle, careful to conserve it. After an endless time, I stretch out on the deck beside Aiden and prop my hands beneath my head. Music fills my e
ars, not a song I know, but a chorus that seems to fit with the changing of the colors above and my lids grow heavy, the adrenaline from our encounter with the wasps leaving my system.
I dream of Sarah.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re different than I thought you’d be.”
We lay in a field beneath a hundred-year-old oak, its leaves turning golden in the late summer sun. I turn from my contemplation of the tree to meet her gaze. “Oh yeah? How did you think I’d be?”
Sarah shrugs, looking slightly uncomfortable for the first time in memory. “You know, sort of basic.”
“Basic?” I blink, unsure of how to react. Is it an insult?
She makes a frustrated noise. “Cookie cutter. All Northface gear and Ugg boots and pumpkin spice lattes which you take pictures of and post on Instagram with the hashtag #PSL.”
Do people really do that? What the fuck is the point? To cover my ignorance I deadpan, “I have never once ordered a pumpkin spice latte.”
She laughs, as I’ve intended. “Well, I know that now. It’s just this vibe you put off. Like you’re exactly like everyone else.”
Just what I’ve been aiming for. Although she’s seeing behind the façade, so I need to keep an eye on her.
“Instead you’re just who you are, no apologies, zero fucks given.” She gets up and heads to the edge of the stream, dipping her sparkly blue toenails in the water. “You’re probably the least judgmental person I’ve ever met.”
The irony makes my lips twitch. I’m not just the judge, I’m the jury and the executioner.
I close my eyes and smile at the memory of my last kill. It had been a woman, a horrible woman with Munchausen syndrome by proxy. She lived in Raleigh and the aunts and I had been following the story for months.
She’d poisoned her own son repeatedly because she craved the attention having a sick child brought her. Eventually, his system had shut down and he had died. Her lawyer had gotten her off on a technicality, something about the collection of evidence. And she had another child at home, a little girl.