by Lucia Ashta
I registered tiny gasps, but they remained apart from the space I held myself in. I was somewhere separate, as if lulled by the ocean’s soothing rhythm, delivering me to a place within myself I didn’t share with anyone.
The witch was next, though in this space I felt her free from her attitude. I sensed green energy sparking and jumping to meet me. It was easy to reach out an invisible hand and latch onto it, pulling it toward me.
I was surprised when the cat’s energy leapt to join Naomi’s. I’d forgotten about the cat here, in this hazy, hypnotic space I occupied. But the cat’s power, green and identical to Naomi’s, was with me now. Somehow a part of me.
“It’s not possible,” Naomi, who’d said nothing was impossible, whispered somewhere far away.
I thought of the singing birds I loved to listen to on Earth, when they perched on rocks in the sea especially, squawking raucously. I pictured the scents of the forest where Quinn might be, and breathed in the scents of green life and rich dirt, as I imagined he might be right then too.
A blue energy throbbed and called for my attention. As if in a drugged stupor, I dragged myself toward it. Its bright light pulsed, dimming then brightening all over again.
It called to me as poignantly as a siren’s song.
So I followed it. I wasn’t sure whether my legs were moving or whether my wings were, or whether anything moved at all. I followed the pinging blue light the best way that I could—with all my heart.
This blue energy was pleasant, warm and breezy like the perfect sunshiny day. I glided with it, following the course it laid out for me. Every time I thought I was about to reach it, the blue blinking light moved away. I followed. It moved more, and I followed again.
I had no idea how long this went on, but I didn’t want it to end. I was happy here, wherever I was. My exhaustion was absent, my thirst and hunger gone. I was content, wrapped in the calm of Mother Earth, in the seas that had sung to me since I was an infant. Her lullaby would always bring me home.
I moved effortlessly, always toward that light that beckoned.
Until it finally stopped moving. I embraced the blue light, inviting it inside me, joining with it as one.
“Ah,” I sighed. This was home. This was peace and contentment. There was nowhere else I needed to go.
“Selene! Wake up!” a tinny voice called.
I ignored it.
“Selene,” called another voice, and I grumbled mentally, Leave me alone.
Then someone shook me. I pulled back, resisting the disruption to the calm within.
The shaking only became more insistent, as if I were back in that crumbling house with its vicious predators. A shake so powerful my head rattled. “Hmm. No,” I complained, this time out loud, though I couldn’t be certain. There was no one else here with me in my center, so it shouldn’t matter anyway. And I should be able to resist the disruptions. They were in my imagination alone, and I could override them. My fears had no place here, none at all.
“No! Don’t go back in. Don’t push me away.”
The voices grew fainter and I smiled my triumph. Yes, back to the calm so like the soothing, lulling ocean that gentled my heart.
“Sirangel girl, dammit, wake up before you tug us back to that blasted wasteland,” a harsh voice commanded.
“She’s taking us back!” a desperate voice called. It was no longer directed at me.
“We have to stop her if she won’t wake up,” said a voice, small in volume only.
“My magic is back. I’ll stop her.” The wicked voice seemed possibly pleased at the prospect.
Then my ears and nose were yanked, hard, jerking me from my space of well-being. I popped open my eyes before I could halt the self-preservation reaction.
A blur of red and blue tugged on my upper eyelashes and refused to let me shut my eyelids again. The blue fairy flew in front of my gaze, a blur I struggled to bring into focus.
“Selene, you did it. You brought us here. But you can’t go away again. Stay here. Keep us here, please.” Sapphire eyes welled with tears. “The earth is singing to me again. Please don’t make me lose that. I don’t think I could bear to lose her another time.”
The depth of emotion in her plea led me to concentrate on the blue fairy.
“That’s it,” she said. “That’s it, Selene! Keep going. Stay focused on me. You’re almost back.” She clapped her hands giddily and grinned so wide that the smile lit her entire face.
I recognized that joy as the blue energy I’d followed to this place. I latched onto it again, this time in the form of an ecstatic, dancing fairy.
“Is she back?” sounded above my eye.
The witch swam into focus behind the blue fairy. I wasn’t drawn to her energy, but the scowl she wore was sufficient to remind me that I wasn’t in a peaceful place. In fact, she represented all the danger I had to ward against.
Quinn. I thought of the hybrid shapeshifter I barely knew but who called to me as fiercely as the ocean. He was the final piece of the puzzle. I had to find my way to him.
“I’m back. I’m here,” I said, before I fully was. “Drop my eyelids.”
The fairies released me and I moved to take in my surroundings for the first time. They were nothing like what I’d imagined.
19
“Where are we?” I asked. While the forest that surrounded us was pleasant and a welcome reprieve from, well, wherever we’d been, it wasn’t the woods behind Irving’s house. The trees here were wide and so tall that I had to tilt my head back to find their tops. It was magical, but I had the feeling we were still far from Quinn and the danger we’d left him in.
“We’re home,” Nessa squealed, whirling in the air. “We’re on Earth, and my magic is back at full strength. It’s a happy day.” She turned in flight again, but this time azure sparkles ran the length of her small body, resulting in a change of attire. Restored were her blue skirt and tiny top, complete with the ruffles that adorned their edges. She breathed in through her grin. “Doesn’t it feel glorious?”
Fianna matched her grin for a quick moment, but I suspected it was as much because she was pleased to see the teary-eyed fairy back to her usual self as to celebrate our return to Earth. Fianna flew over to me, her eyes alight but her expression serious. “How’d you do it?” she asked while flying in my line of sight.
Naomi appeared behind her. Did the witch ever smile? Even her cat seemed to be peering at me with a heavy amount of scrutiny.
I ignored the witch and cat and focused on the crimson fairy. “I wish I had a good answer for you, but the truth is that I don’t know.”
“Of course you know,” Naomi snapped. “No one can do that kind of magic without a clue. The fact that you think we’ll believe you is preposterous.” She flicked a hand in the air as if physically dismissing my claims.
“I don’t really care what you think,” I replied, and was shocked to discover I really meant it. “I don’t know what I did. I just”—I shrugged—“envisioned myself happy, I guess.”
Naomi scoffed violently. “That’s ludicrous. You imagined yourself ‘happy’? Give me a break. How stupid do you think we are?”
I didn’t particularly think her stupid, but I was tempted to say it just to spite her.
Fianna snapped, “Apparently you’re pretty stupid if you won’t back off and let her tell us.”
“Tell us what? You heard her. She felt happy.” Naomi’s face contorted at her mocking tone, and my jaw automatically tightened at her mimicry.
“Ignore her,” Fianna told me. “And that mean cat of hers too.”
The cat hissed behind the fairy and jumped at her, paws outstretched, claws extended. The fairy easily zoomed out of reach with a mocking tinkly laugh.
“Are you sure it’s wise to mess with her?” I asked.
“Don’t you worry about that pussycat. She’s all fluff.”
Yeah, I was pretty sure Fianna was dead wrong about that.
“Let’s get back to the import
ant stuff,” Fianna said. “Surely there’s a bit more to how you brought us here than feeling happy.”
“There must be, I suppose, but I’m not sure what I did. I followed a blue blinking light here, though.” I smiled at Nessa.
She beamed back at me. “That was smart of you, using my magic to help guide you. I knew you could do it.”
“Well, thanks for letting me.”
Hacking sounds drew my attention back to Naomi. She was pretending to be gagging. “Will you cut the love-fest already? In case you haven’t realized, tinkle brains, we’re in the middle of the Magical Creatures Academy, and that’s not good.”
“What do you mean?” Nessa said. “That’s great. This is where we wanted to be.”
“This is where you wanted to be, but not where Irving wanted you to bring her.”
“You’re not one to talk,” Fianna interjected. “You witches are all about skulking around doing magic when others aren’t aware of it. You’re sneaky.”
I expected Naomi to reply in her usual caustic fashion, but she actually looked pleased with herself.
“You’re only bummed,” Fianna continued, “because we’re not where you wanted to take her.”
Naomi didn’t deny it, and my stomach churned with nerves. I hadn’t trusted the witch, but neither had I realized she might have been plotting against me while I fumbled along, oblivious.
“Where did you want to take her?” the crimson fairy asked, trailing suspicious eyes up and down the witch’s body, down to the cat that now rubbed itself against her calves. “To your coven?” Fianna whipped her scarlet hair around in emphasis.
Naomi examined her shiny fingernails as if the fairies hadn’t spoken. She took in the state of her dress, sighed heavily, and closed her eyes. In the next instant, green light surged from her body in a thick cloud. When it settled, her dress, heels, nails, and lips were deadly black.
She cackled, looking at me in the same way Petunia looked at the fairies.
I understood exactly what that look meant and I gulped. Fianna flew in front of me as if to defend me. “Don’t you dare do anything to her. You hear me?”
“Or what? What will you tiny little insignificant fairies do to me if I decide to take the sirangel with me? Irving isn’t here to protect you now, and you know what I’m capable of.”
I hoped the fairies would put her threats to shame, but instead they shared a nervous look that set my nerves to tingling. I sat up straighter, arranging my wings behind me so their tips would bend along the ground next to me. I was sitting on real grass; the dampness of the earth beneath me chilled my legs. I should’ve been thrilled at the sensation after the fake grass of that other dimension. Instead, the chill settled deep inside me. What midday sunlight managed to filter through the towering trees didn’t warm me. Goosebumps erupted all over my bare legs and arms. Naomi was looking at me much as the vampire Antonio Dimorelli had: like I was lunch.
Fianna said to Nessa, “You’d better go get Sir Lancelot.”
Naomi threw her head back and laughed stridently. How could Irving have had any kind of dealings with someone like this? Maybe she’d concealed her true nature; she seemed capable of all kinds of deceit.
“The talking owl?” Naomi taunted. “The one who’s barely larger than any of you? Fine, go fetch your precious owl. I’ll be long gone with the sirangel before you return.”
Fianna’s little shoulders squared and she gave Nessa a look that clearly said, Go, and fly like the wind.
Nessa was off like a shooting star, while Fianna zipped in front of me, forming a very petite wall between me and the witch.
“You’re not taking her anywhere,” Fianna said, and magic crackled to life, bright crimson arcing between her facing palms.
“I’ll do whatever I want with her,” Naomi said, taking several predatory steps toward us. I got my act together and clambered to my feet. “Her power will be wasted here,” the witch said.
“So the better option is for you to take it?” Fianna said.
“Of course.”
“You’re nutso, lady.”
“No more than you, fairy.”
“What would you do with her if you took her?” Fianna asked, and she actually looked … curious.
“I don’t need a coven. I’d take her power for myself obviously. It’s wasted on her. She doesn’t even know how she returned us to Earth, or how she removed us from it in the first place. More ridiculous a thing I’ve never heard.”
“That’s only because you apparently don’t register the gibberish that exits that poisonous mouth of yours,” Fianna said.
“Her power is compatible with mine. She was kind enough to reveal that. It will suit me quite well.” The witch turned in the direction Nessa had flown off. “Well, it’s time for us to be going. That owl of yours isn’t a threat, but rumors say he won’t shut up. No one has time for that.”
Fianna scoffed at her hypocrisy.
“Come now, sirangel,” the witch said, as if I’d actually just walk right over to her and go along with her plan.
Fianna growled like an animal. “Over my dead body.”
Naomi flicked her blond hair. “With pleasure.”
The cat leapt into her waiting arms, and Naomi’s green glow surged to encompass them both.
The fairy didn’t wait for the witch to attack first. Fianna flung her magic straight at her, red sparks aimed for her head.
The witch grunted. Petunia climbed to her shoulder. The moment both her hands were free, she flicked them in front of her. Green energy pooled in her palms and she threw arcs of menacing magic straight at the little fairy, who squealed and zoomed out of the way, already launching more red magic at the witch. She flew, bobbing and dodging as she looked over her shoulder. But Naomi was unrelenting. She pursued Fianna with her green magic, and I understood that if her magic caught the fairy unprotected, it would be the end of her. I didn’t know whether it’d result in her death, but whatever happened it’d be as bad as death. It was clear from the stricken expression on Fianna’s normally ferocious face.
Fianna threw bolts of red at Naomi, hitting her face, chest, and legs while flying around the tight clearing in the forest, bobbing to avoid counterattacks. And though Fianna’s magic was powerful enough to break through Naomi’s green magic that wrapped her like a shield, it wasn’t slowing her sufficiently. Naomi winced and grunted as each stream of crimson melted the top layer of her flesh, but she persisted.
Naomi nailed Fianna with a shot of green and the fairy yelped, stumbling in mid-flight. With a cry, she pumped her wings furiously, but she was losing altitude, though her wings beat double-time.
Naomi gave chase, racing across the glade, though her heels slowed her. Fianna pulsed her wings with tiring speed and just barely managed to launch herself above the witch’s head, dodging the cat’s claws, while shooting red beams into her crown. The smell of burnt hair wafted through the small clearing, but Naomi didn’t slow. She bit her lip in furious concentration. I realized this next blast would be the end of the fairy with enough attitude to fill someone a hundred times her size.
I didn’t think, I moved. I didn’t reach for whatever magic I might find. I didn’t even think to connect to the witch’s power to interfere, a move that might have actually worked given how I’d used her magic before. I reached a hand out to Naomi with no idea what I intended to do. Fianna shot me a look of alarm and I suspected that coming in contact with her green shield might be devastating. The fairy was careful to avoid touching it even as she drilled red sparkling light into the witch’s cranium.
Fianna shook her head desperately at me, but Naomi snarled wickedly and thrust her hands up above her head to launch the killing blow to the scarlet fairy.
“No,” I said and reached through the green of her magic to touch her arm.
The instant I pressed the fingers of one hand against her blistered forearm, she vanished, and the mean cat vanished with her.
20
Fianna per
sisted in flying as best she could though her wings had holes in them, still streaming crimson magic downward. Then bewilderment lit her face, her magic fizzled and sputtered, and she made her way over to me.
Chest heaving, she landed on my shoulder with a crash, tumbled, and plummeted toward the ground before catching herself at the last moment, more or less sticking her landing. “Oh, my wings!” she cried, but her voice was soft as it traveled the length of my body to reach me.
Despite her grave injury, Fianna didn’t waste time wallowing. She caught her breath and called up to me. “Selene, what did you do?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know. I didn’t mean to, I just…” I trailed off.
“No, you misunderstand me. Whatever you did, I’m so grateful you did it that you have no idea. I’ve just never seen anything like it before.”
I stared at her, unable to decide what to think. I mean, I really had no clue how I’d made the witch and her cat disappear. Poof! They were both gone without a trace.
“You saved my life, and I’ll owe you forever for that. I would have been mortified if that witch had been the end of me. It would’ve killed me to give someone like her the satisfaction.”
I doubted Fianna was this sincere or this forthcoming often. I nodded though I wasn’t sure if the fairy could see my head movements from down by my feet. “I don’t, I mean, how…?”
“That’s an incredibly good question. It also makes it all the more important that Naomi didn’t get her greedy manicured hands on your powers. Imagine the nasty stuff she would have done with even a drop of your magic.” The little fairy’s voice shook at the thought.
Fianna began walking up my leg, her miniature body horizontal to my ankle and then my shin. How she remained upright, I had no idea, but her teeny bare feet tickled. “You shouldn’t feel bad for what you did, Selene. You had to, truly you did.”
“Oh, I know that. She was about to kill you. I just wish I understood what happened. If I can do that … whatever it is … without realizing it, am I a danger to everyone around me?”