Revelry

by Chani Feener

  She missed it, of course, those days when her family had been whole and they’d lived together in a house with more than one floor and a kitchen larger than the bathroom. Missed the way the smell of fresh coffee and burnt toast wafted up the wooden stairs and slipped beneath the crack of the bedroom door every morning. Missed the sound of Ainsley snoring on the bunk bed beneath her, and the never-ending clicks of the neighbor’s backyard sprinkler in the summer.

  She hung her hand outside the window, reflecting, as the wind whipped past. Arden missed a lot of things, but she didn’t pine for them. Those memories didn’t keep her up at night, never made her wish she could turn back time and start again. Time was linear and what was past was past.

  That’s how she’d viewed her situation after her mother’s death, when things had changed yet again, suddenly and without reason. Her boyfriend had abandoned her for college, her younger sister had been grief-stricken and afraid, and Arden had felt completely lost. Did she stay and go to school like she’d initially planned, or did she pack the both of them up and head to Aunt Charlotte’s to start fresh together?

  She’d been leaning toward the latter when Mavek had shown up and given her a third option––one that was crazy and dangerous and wild, but also one that could solve both her and her sister’s problems—one that could save their futures. It’d taken her all of a night to decide that the Tithe was worth it. A single night, pondering a life-altering event that she’d never heard of before, and one that involved the creatures who moved in the shadows and who’d tormented her and her mother all her life.

  Adapt. That was something Arden was good at. So why hadn’t she considered adapting to this?

  “What are you thinking about?” Eskel asked, cutting into her thoughts. He’d pulled onto a busy street in Grover, a town that bordered Thornbrooke, and was confidently driving through as if he’d done it many times before.

  “Where are you taking us?” she asked, instead of answering. She pressed the button to close her window and watched with interest as they came to a left turn, eyes widening when a giant blue and brown sign filled her direct line of sight. “The aquarium?”

  It’d been so long since she’d last gone, she’d almost forgotten its existence. Ainsley had loved going when they were kids, had begged their parents to take them at least once a month when she was six.

  The parking lot was packed despite the time of year, and Eskel had to drive around a couple times before finding a spot toward the back. The building was massive, painted a clean white with blue trim. Posters and banners showcasing various sea creatures decorated the front, and a picture of a large octopus pointing its tentacles downward marked the aquarium entrance.

  They rounded the front of the car and Eskel took her hand once more, the corner of his mouth turning up when she glanced down at their clasped fingers. Without a word he started for the building, weaving them through parked cars and small groups of visitors. He seemed to be excited, more so than she would have expected from a guy on the cusp of adulthood. His eyes scanned the banners and the people, taking in the vanity T-shirts and a departing toddler wearing a hat shaped like a bright orange crab.

  “I dare you to get one of those,” Arden said when she saw Eskel grin at it.

  “Oh, I will buy it, and I will wear it, and you will be the only one embarrassed by that fact.” He had his wallet in his hand before they’d even made it to the ticket window, had ordered two tickets before she could think to pay for her own.

  “This is a date, remember?” he reminded her when he turned and saw her expression, hand back in hers after returning his wallet to his jeans pocket. “Let’s go! What do you want to see first?”

  Just before the entrance, a man in a cerulean shirt with the aquarium logo at the center used a manta ray hole punch on their tickets, then waved them in. A trail of painted penguin footprints led them through a maze of blue ribbons and then they were standing in a large, open foyer, leading to four main pathways. The two on the left led to separate exhibit buildings, while the one straight ahead passed by the beluga whales. Another off to the right led to the outside exhibits.

  Arden pointed to the path on the right and they started off, weaving through the other onlookers as they passed a large open tank. A group of people was watching one of the massive white beluga whales twist and turn beneath the water, the show glass tall enough to stretch almost ten feet above their heads.

  “They can live between 35 to 50 years,” Eskel said, pointing to the whale as it swam close to the glass and practically pressed its nose against it, right where a little girl was watching. “They’re also related to the narwhale. The unicorn of the sea.”

  Arden snorted. “Unicorns aren’t real.”

  “But the narwhale is.”

  “Touché.” They took a stone ramp up, where large, decorative sandstone boulders obscured the view of the whale exhibit. “Do you like belugas?”

  “I like all sea creatures,” he told her. “When I was little, I wanted to be a marine biologist. Look!” Up ahead were sea lions, and he pulled them over so they could lean on the metal railing and watch as they darted about in the crystal clear water. Toys bobbed in the water––small plastic barrels and a couple of brightly colored balls. An employee stood at the other end in front of an information booth, listing off facts to the rest of the crowd.

  “Do you know the differences between a sea lion and a seal?” he asked her, propping his elbows up so he could get a better look at one of the large, chocolate-brown creatures as it rushed directly beneath them. The exhibit was deep, with viewing windows below so people inside the attached building behind it could also observe.

  “Size?” Arden had honestly never thought about it before, but her interest was piqued.

  “Well, sure,” he chuckled, and then motioned toward another sea lion, perched on a partially submerged rock, basking in the sun. “Their flippers bend so they can walk with them on land, and they have ear flaps. A seal sort of just, belly crawls and hops about.”

  Hearing a light splash behind them, Arden turned, spotting a small, man-made stream that led further down the walkway into a pond. A bridge straddled the pond and supported a couple mini dispenser machines filled with fish food. The sound came again, followed by a familiar snicker she was sure no one else there could hear. She grabbed Eskel’s hand, grinning when he gave her a questioning look, and headed for the center of the bridge next to the dispensers. She dug a hand to the bottom of her purse, rifling for a couple of quarters, pulling them out to triumphantly hold them up to the light.

  “You want to feed the coy fish?” Eskel watched as she popped one of the quarters into a machine and twisted the metal knob. Dutifully, he held out his palm when she scooped up the small, tan pellets. Once she’d gotten her own handful of food, she turned to search over the railing of the bridge. It took her a few seconds, but she felt a rush of satisfaction when she finally found what she was looking for.

  “I knew I heard them,” she said, mostly to herself, before pulling Eskel closer and pointing to the far left of the pond. “Right there. Do you see them?”

  At first he frowned, about to shake his head, but then his eyes widened. “What are those?”

  “It’s pronounced fear dearg,” she began. “The fir darrigs are a type of fae rumored to have started off as humans. The legend is, they entered Faerie—or the Underground, as we know it—and turned into that. So now they travel around warning others not to go themselves. But they can be… mean sometimes.”

  “They look it.”

  Three were huddled together on the bank of the pond, paying the couple no mind. They were small, about the size of a cat, with long, shrew-like snouts and tanned skin covered in patches of wiry black and brown hair. Their clothes were tattered rags, barely hanging on to their plump little bodies, and when one turned to waddle up the bank to a cropping of bushes, Arden had a good look at his thin rat tail dragging behind him.

  “If you encounter one,” she warned
him, “be polite. They value manners above everything else, and will go out of their way to teach you a lesson if they think you’re rude.”

  “Good to know.” Eskel shook the pellets in his hand. “Are we feeding them?”

  She chuckled. “No. They eat small fish and snails, mostly. These man-made delicacies are for…” Arden bent over the railing, this time peering into the murky water below to spy a gathering of coy in various shades of orange, gold, black, and white. Some were bobbing up at the surface, anticipating the food.

  The pond was a decent size, with marshy banks and tons of surrounding foliage. A large bullfrog sat on a log, croaking, and a small group of turtles floated nearby. It was going to be way too cold out here soon, but for the time being the creatures seemed healthy. Although, Arden didn’t know nearly as much about regular wildlife as Eskel seemed to. Her expertise lay elsewhere.

  “There!” She thrust out her index finger at the first sight of a rainbow shimmer. It glided out from beneath a wide lily pad, moving tentatively through the water toward them and slowing just at the perimeter of the coy grouping. A tiny, human-like head then breached the water, no bigger than a crab apple. Tendrils of long, silky brown hair floated around the creature’s small face. Its eyes—slightly larger than a human’s, round and shiny like the silver quarters Arden had stuck in the dispenser earlier—rested on her and Eskel, curious.

  “I can see you,” Arden said to the creature, careful not to raise her voice and draw attention their way. Someone watching would probably just think she was talking to the fish, but she liked to be cautious. “Would you like some?” She shook her fist, letting the pellets rattle.

  The creature disappeared quickly beneath the surface, the reflective glimmer of her fish tail shooting closer to them. She emerged in the center of the group of coy fish and lifted both arms out over her head, silently asking to be fed.

  “This is an undine,” Arden separated one of the small pellets and carefully aimed toward the waiting Unseelie, “they can live anywhere between forever and eternity, and are frequently mistaken for mini mermaids, because of their half-human, half-fish forms.”

  The undine snatched the pellet out of the air, shoving the whole thing into her mouth in one gulp. Then she smiled and held her arms up again.

  “There’s at least one undine in every body of water on the planet,” Arden continued as Eskel tried lobbing one of his pellets at the creature.

  His ended up too far to the right, the food gobbled by a glittery, orange coy fish in less than a blink. The undine covered her mouth and giggled, the sound akin to a high note being tapped repeatedly on the piano. Arden gave her three more before the Unseelie tipped her head and vanished beneath the surface again. This time she didn’t come back up, and after a moment of waiting, Arden tossed the remaining pellets down to the coy. Eskel emptied his hand as well, turning to walk the rest of the way over the bridge with her.

  “My dad used to take my sister and me here,” she said as they turned to a winding cement path that led them through a slightly wooded area. A large, bronze statue of a penguin indicated that they were headed for the penguin exhibit. “Ainsley loved it.”

  “Everett preferred the zoo,” Eskel told her. “We used to argue over which to go to on summer vacation. My parents worked a lot, so we could never fit in both. The year he died, he won. I still can’t look at lions without missing him. Those were his favorite.”

  Arden took his hand and linked their fingers, swinging their arms a bit until he pulled himself out of his momentary melancholy and smiled at her.

  They made their way through the penguin exhibit and then leisurely entered one of buildings and immediately encountered a darker room filled with various sized tanks containing all sorts of creatures. One exhibit showcased neon fish, and the two of them leaned in close to the glass.

  “Bet I can count more pink ones than you can green,” Arden challenged, already doing so as the dozens of tiny fish swam in front of them. A black light had been installed above, so that all of their little bodies glowed.

  “You’re on.” Eskel pursed his lips in concentration.

  They both gave up after two minutes and moved on to the next tank.

  “Did you see that?” Arden asked, dragging him across the carpeted floor to a large circular tank filled with three different breeds of sharks. She moved so quickly they almost mowed down another couple, but she was too distracted in her search to find the creature she’d just spotted to apologize.

  A figure floated out from behind a nurse shark that was slowly drifting over a bed of sand. It started off small in size, but grew as it swam closer to where they watched outside the tank. By the time it reached them, it was basically the size of an adult woman.

  Her hair was the color of seaweed, long and tangled around her arms as she pressed her palms against the glass. Her skin was the same shade as the sharks, with a glittery sheen, and though she had legs, her toes and fingers were webbed. Her glassy, black eyes seemed to only notice Eskel, and she pulled back a hand to twirl it in the water once before holding it back up, this time with a couple of dull gold coins resting across her fingers.

  “Clearly he’s already taken,” Arden said to the creature, lifting their held hands to shake them vigorously in the Unseelie’s line of sight. The creature frowned, and then glared at Arden. She bared her teeth much like a hissing cat, and pushed herself off the glass to rush across the tank. Her form disappeared in a cloud of sand, and there was nothing left to see but the sharks.

  “Asrai don’t like sunlight,” she glanced at the top of the tank at the artificial lighting. “Makes sense she’s in here. I bet she steals scraps from the sharks.”

  “What was with the gold?” Eskel asked.

  “If they see a human male they like, they’ll try and lure him into the water with them. Sometimes it’s to drown them, other times it’s to keep them as play things. For a little while, anyway. Like most fae, they get bored easily, and the man is eventually found drowned onshore somewhere.”

  “Would have been kind of hard for me to get in there,” he pointed out, and then stepped away from the tank. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  They exited the building and crossed to the food court section of the aquarium. The room was designed to look like a large fish tank, the floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking the belugas, an even better view than one would get standing in front of the actual exhibit. The menu was glutted with options, but the two of them both chose the classic diner section. Since it was around three o’clock, most of the crowd had already dissipated.

  Arden chose a table in the corner, where they’d get a good view of the whales. She’d gotten chicken tenders, fries, and water, but reached over to snag one of Eskel’s onion rings the second he placed his red tray down. He clucked his tongue at her, then stole a fry in retaliation, popping it into his mouth dramatically.

  “I skipped breakfast this morning,” he said, taking a hefty bite of the bacon cheeseburger he’d gotten. “Wow, this is good.”

  “I used to love the corndogs here.” She’d debated getting one purely for nostalgia but was craving crunchy, deep-fried chicken instead.

  “Can you pass the salt?”

  She struggled to open one of the small BBQ packets she’d grabbed from the condiments counter, frustrated when the foil tore to the side. Without thinking, she waved a finger at the glass shaker, sending the object sliding toward him. It bumped against his tray, coming to a stop, but he didn’t immediately reach for it. It wasn’t until she’d finally bested the sauce packet that she noticed he was staring at her, and it took another moment for her to figure out why.

  She blinked at the saltshaker, then down at her hand.

  “You just moved that,” Eskel said, “with your mind.”

  “Yeah.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Whoops?”

  “No,” he quickly straightened in his chair, “no, it’s cool. That was pretty cool. And,” he swivel
ed around to glance at the few people at surrounding tables, “I don’t think anyone else noticed, so no biggie. It’s just… Did you… mean to do that?”

  Arden shook her head, then paused and corrected, “Kind of? I sort of just did it, but I thought about it at the same time. Absently. Does that make sense?”

  “So it didn’t take a lot of effort?” he sounded curious now, definitely not judgmental, which helped her feel comfortable enough to reply.

  “It didn’t take any effort at all,” she admitted.

  “Wow.”

  “I’m sorry. We were having a totally normal day and I had to go and ruin it.”

  He gave her a look like she was crazy, though it was obvious he was playing it up. “Did you forget about the super-cool, Unseelie creature lessons you’ve been giving out? You know, the ones about the things in these exhibits no one other than us could see?”

  “You’re right,” she sighed, slumping some. “Today hasn’t been normal at all.”

  “Were you not having a good time?” he frowned, and this time it was her turn to instantly deny it.

  “No! Of course I was—am! Today’s been great so far. I’m having a lot of fun.”

  “Good,” he ate one of his onion rings and smiled at her again, “because honestly, I think it’s been the best trip to an aquarium I’ve ever had. I like that we were able to combine both worlds here. Think about all the times I’ve come to places like this and missed out because I couldn’t see the Unseelie.”

  Even though she’d always been able to see them, she had to agree. “I’ve never had someone I could talk about them with. It’s kind of cool, getting to point them out to you.”

  “What about your sister?”

  “Despite how close we were, Ainsley and I never really talked about the fae. We both could see them, but that wasn’t something either of us often brought into conversation. Maybe she was too afraid. After our mom died, we sort of grew further apart. A lot of that has to do with me making her move in with our aunt.” She snorted, thinking about it. “Funny, how she’s safer now that she’s far away from me.”