by K.N. Lee
For a second, through the mirror, I thought I’d seen Faye-Minita and Juan, crouched behind the bed.
My eyes adjusted and I realized where we were. Piles and piles of boxes were on the floor. The attic smelled damp and musky. Suddenly, we heard a sound come from behind some boxes and were instantly at alert. Could it be that someone else was checking out the place? It didn’t seem very likely, but it was worth considering. We’d both heard it after all.
“Anybody there?” Juan asked suddenly, startling me. What happened to stealth? I wondered as I listened for any sounds. I could hear breathing coming from behind the boxes and I told Juan. He nodded and got up, gesturing for me to go around the other side. We made our way towards the boxes warily and peered over them.
We breathed a sigh of relief.
A frightened cat stared at us from behind the boxes and Juan bent and picked him up. I wondered how the cat had gotten there. It had probably wandered into the house and ended up getting lost. I wondered if it had eaten anything, it didn’t look particularly underfed. It probably had not been up there for too long, I reckoned.
“Okay, I’m going to take him outside and set him loose, okay?” Juan said and before I could say anything, he poofed out of the room. I blinked twice as my brain still battled slightly with the concept. He was here one second and the next he was just gone. Was it even possible to rationalize such a thing?
I sighed and began pouring through the large mass of books and paintings that had been piled on top of each other. A wave of nostalgia hit me as I inspected them one by one and I recalled that day, the day of the rave. I’d been searching for the rest room and had somehow ended up in the grand library. I recalled Danielle telling me that Moira was making moves on Juan and Drayton. That had been what caused the fight before.
I shook my head, intending to focus on the task at hand and my eyes latched on to another painting. It was huge and I was drawn to it for some reason. There was a pile of boxes and paint cans in front of it and I quickly moved them aside and moved in closer to get a better look at the painting. It was beautiful.
The face of an old man stared at me through eyes that were greener than I’d ever seen. It seemed the color was of importance as the painter had emphasized on them. I whistled slightly, in awe. I looked at the painting, inspecting it from top to bottom. The brush strokes were very even and I marveled at the piece.
There was a name at the bottom and it caught my eye. I looked closer at the text and saw that it read, “Saban Montgomery”.
Montgomery. That was Danielle’s name. The realization struck me soon after that thought and I looked at the man with renewed admiration. Saban Montgomery, he had to be Danielle’s grandfather, the true owner of the mansion. Along with my awe came quiet speculation. Everyone in Rosendale had heard at least a version out of the many stories of what happened to Saban Montgomery.
As the stories went, Saban Montgomery had simply up and vanished one night and up until date, there had been no word as to what happened to him. Nobody had been found, no ransom requests, nothing; He’d simply vanished, never to be heard from again. I couldn’t help but wonder what had really happened to him. Of course, there were speculations as to that as well, but that didn’t concern me much. Danielle, being the last living relative of the old man, had inherited his mansion as well as his wealth.
I backed away from the painting. It was starting to seem a bit macabre and I went back to inspecting the various books. One, in particular, caught my eye. It was leather-bound, and it had the initials S.M engraved on it.
“Saban Montgomery,” I thought to myself, turning the book over in my hand. It was a diary and as it read inside, I had been right. It had belonged to Saban Montgomery. I smiled, I had a feeling that whatever was written in the book of such an interesting man was bound to be captivating.
Immediately I opened the book, I knew I had not been wrong.
I appeared inside the attic and met Faye-Minita staring into the pages of a book with rapt attention. She turned the last few pages and didn’t even notice when I appeared. Then she flipped back to some previous pages as if to cross check some new fact and she nodded to herself. I watched her read, taking note that the book was bound with leather and had some initials on it. What exactly was she reading? And who was “S.M”, I wondered and walked towards her.
“I know what happened to us,” she said suddenly without looking up and I froze in my tracks. Did she know? How? What exactly was that book? Was it the one supplying the information she now claimed to have? How reliable was it even?
“It’s the diary of Saban Montgomery and it has the answers we’ve been looking for,” she said again. She still hadn’t looked up, but rather kept flipping through pages and re-reading to make sure.
Saban Montgomery? I knew who he was. Actually, everyone knew who he was. He was a very popular man and his death had shaken everybody.
“What’s it got to do with anything?” I asked and for the first time since I arrived, she looked up at me. Her expression was unreadable, but I felt like I said something dumb and I mumbled an apology. She didn’t seem to hear, as she turned her attention back to the book.
“In this book, Saban talks about encountering a creature in the forest, Juan. The way he describes it. I don’t know, but I get the feeling it’s the same one I saw. The one who attacked me. According to him, meeting this creature, enabled him to harness the powers of a Fae”
“Fae?” I asked, suddenly lost,
“Fairy…” she said, “They are thought to be a myth but according to this, they are very real mystical creatures. Each one is said to have their own purpose, their own abilities”.
As she said this, she looked up at me meaningfully and I blinked in surprise. She couldn’t be serious, could she? She sure seemed to be buying into it completely.
“Come on Faye, things are crazy now, but let’s remain realistic, C’mon. Me? A fairy?” I said, cringing at how unconvincing my own argument was. But it couldn’t be though, could it?
She rolled her eyes at me as she raised the book,
“Why not Juan? Why not? I mean, it would explain a lot. My truth ability and the other one; your teleportation, poofing isn’t something normal humans do and…” she stopped midsentence, her eyes clouded over a bit and it looked as though she had more to say, but couldn’t quite piece together how to say it just yet.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well…” she said, as she looked at the book, then back at me. “The thing is, this book describes the very thing that Tabitha claimed she saw. It describes it just as she did. And if that’s the case, and this thing is out there, then we are in real danger”.
My eyes widened in surprise. Now she had my full attention.
“What? What are you talking about?” I asked and she opened the diary and pointed at an image. I went closer to get a better look and found myself staring at a picture of the very thing Tabitha described. According to the description jotted by the old man, the creature was called an Oakatex. It said that they killed fairies and drank their blood as it enabled them to survive for years. It also said that killing a fairy and drinking its blood gave them the abilities the dead fairy previously possessed.
I looked at the creature and felt my heart beating rapidly. A creature that specifically targeted fairies? And it was here? I looked at Faye-Minita, feeling concern well up within me.
“Is this what attacked you in the forest?” I asked and she shook her head, dropping the book in a box and I looked at the creature once more.
“No, I don’t think so. I think, based on this, that a fairy may have bitten me. It would explain my changes and powers, and then when I bit you…you know, when we had…”
I looked up at her sharply and her meaning registered instantly.
“Sex. Yes. That has to be it. I remember that day, it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. It was euphoric and it was after that encounter that things began to change for me. Before the accident�
��.
Faye nodded and accidentally struck the boxes and the book fell down. As I bent to pick it up, I caught sight of a piece of paper that had fallen out of it. I looked at Faye-Minita and she looked equally surprised that she had missed it.
I opened it and read it out loud. It said, “HOW TO DETECT A FAE”. I turned it towards Faye-Minita and we read it together.
According to the paper, there was a special tree, which grew a special berry in the forest. If any fairy were to ingest the berry, their eyes were said to glow purple and they would then emit the smell of berries.
There was a note added to the instructions, however. The berries only helped one find out the identities of other fairies. It could not, however, work in differentiating a human and an Oakatex.
I read the piece of paper over again and I felt eternally grateful to Saban Montgomery for the information he had written down. It was surely going to come in handy.
I looked up from the piece of paper, glancing at Faye-Minita. She stared at me for a couple of seconds, and then she nodded. I got my answer.
We both knew what to do next.
10
We got up early the next day to carry out our plan. We walked towards the kitchen downstairs, making sure to keep very silent, as it was still very early. We’d decided to leave the house just before sunrise so as to have enough time to scour the forest and locate the berries.
We got to the kitchen and Juan took off his bag and began packing some treats that we would need in the forest. We didn’t expect to locate the tree to be very easy. We had to locate them on time because we intended to try them for ourselves first, just to see how well they worked before going on to try them on the other members of the house. We wanted to know if we were the only fairies in the mansion. Juan didn’t think we were.
We got out of the mansion, and made our way into the forest, keeping with what looked like a fairly often used path. Not that it was very well defined, but it was something. We must have walked for hours when Juan suddenly stopped me. I opened my mouth to protest when I saw the thing that made him stop. My mouth fell open and my chest seemed to tighten around my heart. As I looked at the bear, I marveled at just how well I could see the deer. It was beyond grotesque and I looked away. It wasn’t just my eyes that seemed to have been sharpened, but all my senses as well. As I stood trying to avoid gazing at the dead deer, I noted a slight buzzing sound coming from inside my ear. I shook my head, trying to stop the sound, and then I caught sight of Juan scratching his ear.
“You hear it too?” I asked and he nodded, and I told him that I did as well.
Juan looked worried and scratched his ear more intensely. The buzzing seemed to be getting louder and Juan turned to me once more,
“What is it? What did that? Faye? Faye!” The sound of his voice suddenly grew fainter against the incessant buzzing in my ear and I began to feel lightheaded. Before long, blackness began to encroach and I felt completely weightless. It seemed like I was floating. And then, there was nothing.
I opened my eyes abruptly and looked around me. I did not recognize where I was as I tried to look around. I was leaning on an old tree and as I looked up, I noted that the leaves had slowly started to buzz. I got up and immediately, I caught sight of Juan. He was looming over a girl who didn’t seem to be moving much. He seemed distressed. What happened? How had I now gotten to the tree feet away from where I was?
Juan didn’t even look up as I approached and I wondered why. Then, I peered over his shoulder and got my answer. I opened my mouth in shock as I stared at the woman who lay prone on the floor in front of Juan.
It was me.
I gasped and staggered back in shock, inadvertently raising my hands to my face. I noted with some alarm that the tattoo on my arm was forming patterns on my hands. I stared at the pattern, fascinated by everything that was happening. What was happening? First, I could see myself on the floor and Juan didn’t look very happy and now, my tattoo seemed to be doing a light show on my hands.
As I examined my hands, I suddenly became aware of extra weights on my back and I glanced around slightly and nearly passed out in shock. Out of my back, from what I could see, grew a pair of wings. They were translucent and absolutely beautiful. I looked at Juan, but he still hadn’t moved.
Could it be that this was my fairy form? I wondered to myself as I looked at the wings once more, wondering how exactly I was supposed to use them. My attention was focused on a noise that came from some bushes a few feet away from me. I began to move and then hesitated, looking at Juan. If the girl who he loomed over was me, then it meant I could not be hurt right? It made sense to me and I began to carefully walk towards the noise trying to stay quiet, despite knowing I, most likely, wasn’t making any sound at all. As I got to the bushes, I peered over them and sighed.
It was the same cat that Juan and I had found in the Attic. What exactly was it doing here? Had he let it go free in the forest? If he had, then I had to have a talk with Juan concerning it. The cat went back to making that noise and I crouched down beside it, wondering just what it was so preoccupied with that could be making so much noise.
Upon closer inspection, I saw that the cat was scratching at a metal door hidden by some dirt on the ground. I wondered where it led. I looked at the cat, smiling and I caught sight of a hitherto unseen collar and checked the name written on it.
Ambrosia.
I repeated the name to myself and then, I tried to open the door. As I reached for the ring handle with which it could be pulled it up, my hand passed through the door. I stared at my hand in disbelief, unable to imagine what just happened. Then it made sense. Since I was in this spectral form, it stood to reason that I could not make physical contact. One thing was certain then.
I had to get back inside my body.
I had no idea how to go about doing that, but I walked hastily back towards Juan where he still stood trying to revive me. My mind worked overtime, trying to come up with options and counter options that I could try. Then I noticed something.
Amongst a couple of trees, where it was darkest, a couple of eyes stared at Juan from the shadows. They were the yellowest eyes I had ever seen and as I moved closer, my heartbeat tripled. No, it couldn’t be. I looked at the claws that flexed slightly in the shadows and they seemed to be made of wood. The world seemed to spin around me for a second.
An Oakatex stood a few feet from Juan and the latter did not even know.
It seemed like the creature was trying to assess the surroundings and make sure the coast was clear before making its move. I had to act fast.
Acting purely on instinct, I ran towards Juan, screaming at him with my mind. For some reason, I just believed it was something I could do; communicate telepathically with Juan. I screamed his name again, but he was still preoccupied with saving me. The ‘me’ he could see at least. No, I couldn’t let Juan be ambushed by the Oakatex, I would never be able to live with the guilt. Plus, something told me I was in as much danger as well. Summoning all the energy I had into that one scream, I screamed his name one more time and Juan’s head shot up at once, and he looked around quizzically.
I nearly danced for joy.
I could have sworn I heard Faye-Minita’s voice. But, how? I looked around once more, but I couldn’t find the source of the noise so I looked at her once more on the floor and I wondered what I would tell the rest. So far I’d tried all the revival techniques I knew, but nothing seemed to be getting through to her.
Juan!
I looked up again, sure of what I’d heard this time. But, how? She was right here in front of me, where could her voice be coming from?
It’s me, Juan. It’s Faye-Minita.
“F…Faye? Are you…” I paused, unable to bring myself to say the word.
No. I’m fine. But you’re in danger. Pick up my body and poof back to the mansion, now. There is an Oakatex a few feet from you. You need to go now.
It was like a veil had been lifted and I was suddenly awar
e of a malevolent presence not too far from me. Reacting quickly, I picked Faye-Minita’s body and began to walk deeper into the forest. I waited to see if the creature would follow, but then I gradually felt the creature’s gaze diminish.
With Faye-Minita held securely in my arms, I teleported out of the forest.
I smiled as Juan vanished; glad I’d been able to reach out to him. I looked towards the place where the creature had been, but I did not find it. I guess it must have fled.
I glanced around the forest, wondering what I could do to pass the time in my current fairy form, at least before I could find a way to get back into my body. A tingling sensation arose within me and I looked down at myself. I realized with slight alarm that I seemed to be fading slightly and gradually.
Then my stomach lurched and my eyes closed.
When I opened my eyes, I was staring into Juan’s smiling, relief filled face. He still held me in his arms.
“Oh my god Juan, I was out of my body in fairy form. I had wings and I saw…saw…”, I could not finish the statement as the true importance of finding the berries hit me. There were no two ways about it, they had to be found. There was an Oakatex on the grounds and we were currently in what could be a mansion full of fairies. It was a complete recipe for disaster and we seemed to be the only ones aware of it. As this crossed my mind, I remembered the cat, Ambrosia and the metal bunker it had been scratching at.
I opened my mouth to speak, but Juan suddenly wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a tight embrace.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he whispered in my ear.
I was glad he was okay as well. His concern was highly welcome and I was very happy that we were in this together.
“Juan? I saw the cat,” I said and he stared at me in confusion,
“The cat. The one we saw in the attic. I saw it in the forest. And it was scratching away at a door on the ground, I believe it leads to a metallic bunker. I tried to check, but I could not touch the handle in my fairy form.”