by Leia Stone
The elders bristled at her, but it caused something within me to lighten a tiny bit.
She opened her arms, and even though I’d never met this woman, never even seen a picture, I sprang from where I stood and ran into her arms, which she wrapped around me in a motherly embrace. Mara was not permitted to leave the blue door, and until now I was not permitted to open it. Our only link were stories my mother might have told the other. And by the way she held me fiercely, my mother had told her a lot.
“Come, child, have a rest. Tomorrow is a new day.” Her words soothed me, and I wondered if all of her elder power had been stripped. The elders had a way of making you so calm in their presence you forgot about your pain or worries. With one last glance at Trissa and the four elders, who did not look happy to be called geezers, I walked through the open doorway, stepping into what could only be Mara’s office and home. The second she shut the blue door behind us, I knew that Trissa and the elders would take my mother’s body to Faerie and start the celebration of life. She’d be buried by the river, dropped into the deep waters, and washed away by the current. Much like my innocent childhood. Gone were the days of Elle and I picking puckerberries until our lips were purple. Now I had to grow up. Fast.
I won’t let you down, Mom.
The next morning I awoke to a warm light on my face and the sound of falling rain. My eyes sprang open, and for a split second I was about to get up and search the house to see if my mother had left for work. Then it all came back to me.
Mom. A sob formed in my throat, but I didn’t have time to grieve.
Mara’s voice called out from beyond the bedroom: “You’re up! Come have breakfast with me. Jonah is about to walk his dog.” The door was open a crack and I could see her sitting at the kitchen table. I buried my face in the pillow, sucking in a long deep breath before sitting up. The pillow smelled like my mom. She slept here some nights, telling me it was a part of her job. I never questioned it. She was always home in the morning to see me off to school or grab me from Elle’s house if I’d slept over there.
Mara’s house was … quirky. She was bound to this place, between the two planes. The last fairy alive who could move the portal, or so she told me last night when I tried to ask her a hundred questions before I passed out in a pool of my own tears. The wood floors of my mom’s bedroom were hot pink, but when I walked out into the kitchen, the floor was a bright yellow. It was a one-floor home, but the rooms felt endless. Last night I’d passed a kitchen, living room, library, dining room, weapons room, and then my mom’s room, which was at the back.
“Was the New York apartment a real place?” I asked, confused, as I sat with her at the blue glass table with rhinestone edging. She was peering out a window, which I now saw was really an open door with a window frame inside.
She nodded. “I can’t leave this place, but I can move this place to other blue doors that were set up centuries ago. The New York apartment has a blue door inside, I transport my house to that blue door and oh shhh, here he comes.”
She grasped my hand, her wings suddenly erect. I leaned forward to see a man in his late thirties walking a dog. A grin pulled at my lips. He was shirtless, wearing board shorts, hair still wet probably from the ocean. We were on a side street, but I could smell the salty sea through the screen.
“Where are we?”
“Venice Beach. I start every morning here so I can see Jonah.” She fanned herself and I laughed, but then the laughter died in my throat as I remembered that I was now motherless. An orphan. I felt like I’d known Mara my whole life and had no reservations about asking her questions.
“So this was what you and my mom would do? Live here together between hunting crystals?”
She stiffened and turned to me. For a Fae who I knew was well over four hundred years old, she had smooth skin, still plump and free of wrinkles. Like me, she would live forever unless killed, and we could choose to stop our aging whenever we wanted. Mara had chosen to look about thirty-five forever. Same as my mom.
She reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear. “I have so much to tell you and so little time. How about each night and each morning I tell you one story about your mom?”
I nodded, tears lining my eyes. “I’d like that. I’d like to know what she hid from me.”
Mara’s face darkened. “She didn’t see it as hiding. Ever. It was always protecting you.”
The hairs on my arms stood up. “From the Sons of Darkness?”
I’d been forced to rapidly go through the grieving process, and now I was at the revenge part. That was a part, right? If not, it should be. “Is that who killed her?”
I gripped my fork tightly. Although my mother never told me exactly what my purpose as a seeker would be for the elders, and for Faerie, she did have me train in weapons and battle with Trissa since I was five. I also went to Earth with some of the other Fae a few times a year to learn their customs in case we ever had to flee Faerie and live among them. I was fully prepared to grab one of those big-ass swords from her weapons room and cut the heads off of whomever hurt her.
Mara sighed, stirring her eggs with a fork, her golden cuffs scraping the edges of the table. “Yes. But I don’t know which one. Just that he had black wings. This is not the kind of life you bring a child into. You’ll see that.” She patted my hand and then stood. “Alright, let’s go pick up Elle and Trissa. You’ve got to hunt for the seventh crystal.”
“Just like that? No … crash course?” Panic gripped me as I thought of her spitting me out into New York City or wherever and just assuming I knew what the hell I was doing. But the desire to see my best friend and tell her all that had happened was stronger than my fear.
“You’ll have to learn on the fly. Sorry, kiddo. The Tree of Life will die without the remaining crystals.” It was so weird how much she talked like my mom, how comfortable I felt around her.
I wasn’t sure I was prepared to see Elle. I’d cried myself to sleep last night, but since then I’d patched up my emotions and wore my mother’s silver locket around my neck. Seeing Elle, telling her my mom was gone … it would reopen everything.
I shoved eggs in my mouth and then stood, prepared to take on my mother’s purpose and … and save Faerie. What could go wrong?
After a quick shower, I met Mara in her office.
“Whoa,” I gasped when I saw the large circular table with the hundreds of dials and clockwork-like gadgets. I hadn’t noticed it last night.
“Moving realms, or even jumping states on Earth, is no small feat. Buckle up.” She indicated the chair on the far wall that had a five-point harness.
My eyes widened a little as I walked over and strapped myself in, careful not to sit on my wings. “Heading to Faerie,” she announced, and started to tinker with the dials, spinning one a quarter turn and another a full turn. Her cuffs lit up with blue-green glowing magic as she spun them faster and faster. Suddenly I was pinned to the chair as a force knocked into me, and then just as quickly it stopped.
“Open the door, will you?” She nodded to her closed office door.
I felt a little dizzy, but unclipped my harness and walked over, placing my hand on the doorknob. I wrenched it back expecting to see the hallway inside of her house, but instead I was met with the somber faces of Trissa and Elle. Behind them was the raging river of Faerie. They were at the blue door in the cliffs. I didn’t even have time to marvel at Mara’s ability. Elle lurched forward and slammed into me, wrapping her arms around my neck as she hugged me tightly. Everything I’d pushed down in order to cope with my current circumstances welled up again as my best friend sobbed into my shoulder. “Lil, I’m so sorry.”
Elle. Elle was more like my sister than a best friend. Her mom was the nursery tender for all of the babies in Faerie. I literally grew up sharing a crib with her daughter. Elle was feisty yet loving, and took us all by surprise when she declared at age twelve that she didn’t want to be a nursery tender like her mother, she wanted to be a warrior like Tri
ssa. She’d been my best friend and sparring partner my whole life, and I was so damn glad she was here with me now.
When I pulled back, I watched the tears draw tracks onto her cheeks. Her short bob was a honey colored brown that set a nice background for her arresting green eyes and smattering of freckles. She loved my mom, called her aunty Vi, and I knew this news would hit her hard. My mother always brought back trinkets from Earth, one for me and one for Elle. I was grateful to share my grief with someone.
“The people are chanting her name,” Elle said, looking deeply into my eyes. “The wildflowers are being collected, mead is brewing. She will have a beautiful celebration of life.”
I nodded, chewing my lip to keep from completely falling apart.
Elle leaned closer to me, lowering her voice. “What the fuck is up with the Sons of Darkness and these crystals? This shit is crazy!”
Trissa cleared her throat and we turned to face her, Elle rosy-cheeked. “I’ve filled Elle in on everything. She’s met briefly with the elders, and saw the tree and the crystals. She’s fully prepared to help you with your task.”
Elle reached out and squeezed my hand. “We’ve got this. We won’t let Faerie down.”
That was Elle. Always so positive.
Mara checked her trinkets on the table. “Sun is setting in Seattle. We should get a move on.”
I frowned. “But it was just morning in Venice Beach.”
Mara waved her hand at me. “Time in the in-between passes differently. It’s unpredictable.”
Trissa nodded, closing the blue door, and I caught just a glimpse of someone walking past with remembrance wreaths. Each person in the village would hang one on their door out of respect. When you had such a small population, any death hit the community hard, but my mom … she was special and now I knew why. She alone kept Faerie standing.
“Strap in,” Mara called out. I looked over to where there had been only one chair with a harness and now there were three.
“Wait…” I looked at Mara in shock and she winked.
How powerful was she? Clearly not powerful enough to rip off those cuffs … I wondered what got her imprisoned in the first place. The elders didn’t dish out punishments that easily. We were a forgiving people, so her crimes must have been bad. Really bad.
I strapped in, Elle next to me and then Trissa on her right. They were both wearing full leather battle gear, two swords each. I knew my mother had a guard and I’d asked her why once. “Because mommy’s job can get dangerous,” she had said. I’d just left it at that, never asking many questions because it seemed to make her uncomfortable. She just wanted to hear about my day, or go for walks on the river’s edge, not talk about work.
“Here we go!” Mara called out. That lurch pulled at my gut for a split second and then was gone.
Mara spun a dial on her desk. “Alright, Triss, I’m thinking two hours is enough? If you’re not back by then, I’ll send Bashur.” Mara checked her watch and stepped out from behind the desk.
I unclipped, feeling overwhelmed and sick to my stomach. This was all happening way too fast. But the thought of those leaves on the Tree of Life, dead and dry … the empty disks at the base of the trunk … it spurred me forward.
“Bashur?” I queried.
Mara grinned, “Didn’t want to overwhelm you last night and this morning, so I had him stay in my room.” She walked over to the second blue door, not the one we’d just opened, and pulled it back.
“BASH!” she called out into the house.
Elle and I shared a look. The sound of pounding feet padded across the floor, and one of the paintings rattled on the wall.
Mara motioned that we should step out into the hall and so we did, just in time to see a gigantic … dog … round the corner.
Two strips of drool hung from his mouth as the huge brown beast bounded towards us. He jumped up on Mara, licking her face and she burst into fits of laughter. “Bash, this is Lily, Violet’s daughter,” she told the dog as if he understood. He leapt down from her and came right over to me, sniffing my hands and then my feet. When he finally looked up at me, there was intelligence in his eyes.
“Protect her,” Mara told him. He barked once.
What the…?
“Elle, her guard,” Mara then informed him. He smelled all over Elle’s hands and legs and finally craned his neck to look up at her.
“Protect her too.”
Bashur barked.
“Is he … magical?” We didn’t have dogs in Faerie; we had gnomes, sprites, pixies and a whole host of other creatures, but not dogs. They were of Earth.
Mara shrugged. “I may have given him a little upgrade.” She winked again.
Whoa.
Bashur walked over and nuzzled Trissa’s abdomen, whimpering. Trissa knelt down. “It’s not your fault. You did good. Good boy.”
He whimpered again, tail and ears tucked under, and it hit me that he was missing my mother.
“Was he there when…?”
Oh my God.
Trissa nodded. “He saved my life. Got us out and back to Mara. Carried your mother on his back.”
I looked at his fur now and saw that it was tinged pink in parts.
Fuck.
I wasn’t prepared for these emotions. They went away and then they came back, and I was constantly shoving them down, wave upon wave of grief that I kept trying to repress.
I knelt down and stroked his head. “Thank you, Bashur. Because of you I was able to speak to my mom before she … left.” I pulled at the locket at my neck.
He licked my face and I stood, wiping the drool off.
Gross.
“Alright, I hate to be the asshole,” Mara called out, “but we have a small window of time. They will be moving the crystal after last night, so we need to move fast.”
Right. No time to grieve, no time to train or learn anything, just go, go, go.
“Weapons.” Mara walked to the weapons room she’d briefly showed me before. “Pick something small, Lily. Trissa and Elle should be watching your back. Your only task is to find and get that crystal out.”
I glanced at the wall numbly, cursing my mother for her stupid plan of wanting me to have an innocent childhood. I’d give up some of my clueless childhood for a bit of preparation about what the hell was going on right now.
“You’re good with blades in close combat. This is nice,” Trissa called over my shoulder. I spun and she handed me a black obsidian dagger. It was perfect. I slipped it into my thigh holster.
Mara reached up to hand me something, and the second I saw it my stomach dropped out.
The bag. The felt-lined, charcoal messenger bag my mother never took off. It looked freshly washed. “It’s special. Holds the crystal, and if a human ever looks inside, they will see old books.”
I nodded, tempted to ask if we could schedule in a quick crying session but knowing there was no time. Slipping the bag over my shoulder, I straightened myself.
“This way. Clock’s ticking.” Mara scampered through her house barefoot. We passed four blue doors along the way until we found ourselves in the laundry room.
“Open it,” she told me.
Taking a deep breath, I did. Crisp, dewy air hit me as I peered out into an open wooded area. We were on some kind of private land and rain was lightly falling from the sky. Trissa pulled on Elle’s arm and they stepped outside while Mara turned me to face her. “You’re the last seeker we have. I know you never got to see Faerie before it fell, but it was beautiful. It was a thousand times bigger than it is now … with proper seasons and rows and rows of flowers and three-hundred-foot-tall trees … animals that I can’t even describe. The land was so … alive.” Her eyes lined with tears and I was touched at her beautiful memories of Faerie, but wondered why she was telling me.
Leaning in, she grabbed my shoulders and whispered in my ear: “The elders don’t want to put too much pressure on you, but I think you can handle it. I want you to know that once you return all th
e crystals to the Tree of Life, Faerie will restore itself and you can travel across her lands discovering her endless wonders.”
Shock ripped through me and she pulled back to face me with kindness in her eyes.
“It was your mother’s greatest dream. To see Faerie restored.”
I’d seen maps of old Faerie in history class. It was huge, as big as Earth, and now we encompassed a space that was a mere ten miles wide. You could fly across town in a blink. What would it be like to restore Faerie to its former glory? Was that even possible? Her lesson shook me, and holy shit did I feel the pressure.
I simply nodded, unsure what to say.
“One more thing, love,” Mara called out as I stepped outside. “You can’t spend more than two nights on Earth or you weaken. You need to either recharge with a crystal or in Faerie.”
I gave her a blank and confused look.
“Don’t get kidnapped. You could die,” she clarified, and my eyes widened.
“Oh. Gotcha.”
Wow, they really weren’t holding back with the bad news, were they? Shit got real so quickly I felt like I was in a movie.
She and Bashur gave me one last look before shutting the blue door.
I spun, seeing Trissa and Elle giving me a nervous look as they shifted on the balls of their feet. Oh right, they were waiting on me. I was the last seeker of Faerie and only I could find this crystal and save my world.
We were so fucked.
“This is so insane. I can’t believe your mom never told you that she was saving the world!” Elle hissed.
We were alone for the first time. It turned out that we had properties all over the world with blue doors. This one was a little one-bedroom cottage in Seattle, with a dilapidated shed on the side that Trissa was rummaging through.
“Yeah, a little heads-up would have been nice,” I said to my bestie.
She bopped on her heels, twitchy fingers resting over her two swords and a stack of throwing knives. “I’m so excited to get some action. I’ve never really fought someone. Only in practice.”