by L. E. Bross
“We had no other choice. Evelina could not heal you,” Kalian said, indicating the woman sitting down. “You were too broken, to close to death.”
“What did you do to me?”
I still didn't really understand what happened. I pushed off the table and landed on my feet with wobbly knees. Kalian took a step back, and even Evelina watched me with a new wariness on her face.
They were the ones with all the mystical powers, why were they suddenly afraid of me?
As I stood on legs that barely supported me, the impact of everything that had happened hit my like a ton of bricks. I'd been attacked. I almost died. Or maybe I did die and this was all just after…
“Where am I?”
Desperation seeped into my voice. Now that I could breathe, air whooshed in and out of my lungs faster than normal. My skin prickled, felt too tight. Where the hell was the door in this place. Everywhere I looked there were only walls.
Blood pounded in my ears.
I had to get away from all of them.
I needed to think.
“You are in Evelina's home. It's the safest place for you right now,” Kalian said, watching me with a wary expression. He kept glancing at Evelina then back to me. Every turn of his head made the room shrink even more.
I remembered being broken beyond repair.
I felt the life leaving my body, yet somehow, here I stood completely fixed.
“Is this real? Any of this?” My hands shook as I reached for the table to steady myself. Panic clouded my vision, and spots danced in the corners of my eyes. The room swayed, and I leaned back hard against the table.
“Princess?” Kalian took a step toward me but I threw up my hands.
“Stay away from me. All of you. I have no idea what's going on, what twisted game you're playing, but I'm done. I need…” The walls began to close in and each breath became harder to pull into my lungs. “I need air.”
The word barely escaped my constricting throat.
“Let her out, Evelina,” Kalian growled.
“It's almost daybreak. You'll be of no use to her when the sun breaks the horizon.”
Stars danced in front of my eyes. This was so much worse than the pain before because I was aware now. I could feel my throat constrict the air to my lungs. The table dug into my hip.
“Open the door,” Kalian roared.
Evelina glared at him but she waved her hand and a door appeared to my left. I stumbled toward it, uncaring where it led as long as I could get out of the tight confines of this room. As soon as I pulled it open, fresh air filled my lungs as fast as I could gulp it in.
With every inhale, my head grew clearer. Sounds filtered in and I looked around. An old iron bridge loomed overhead, warped and crippled like the old lady inside. Old buildings in disrepair stood outlined against the lightening sky. The streets were deserted, barren of even blowing trash typical of this kind of place. Nothing was familiar.
Dark shadows loomed like broken sentries. Watching. Waiting.
I shivered at the sudden brush of ice against my skin. So many places for the monsters to hide. In this unfamiliar place, I felt exposed. Vulnerable. I needed my roof. I needed Torin.
“I want to go home.” I hated the way my voice shook.
“I can't take you now, it's almost sunrise.” Kalian stood in the doorway, his gaze lost somewhere to the dawn creeping closer. His great shoulders sagged under the enormous weight and then he swung his head around to stare at me. There was such pain in his human-like eyes. “At daybreak I will return to stone and you will be unprotected.”
But it wasn't the daylight which held shadows and monsters. They all came at me at night.
“Which way is home?” I ground out. I hated not knowing where I was.
“I can't let you…”
I took a few steps away from Kalian. “You don't have a choice. I want to go home.”
“And you will, just not yet. Not until we can figure out a way to keep you hidden. Please, just…”
“If you won't take me I'll figure it out myself.”
There had to be someone, somewhere who could tell me where the hell I was. My footsteps sounded heavy on the ground as I stomped further down the street. Someone sat just under the bridge, their back to me.
“Excuse me, where are we?”
I thought it was a child until it turned in the dim light and looked up at me. It was a man's face, but he was only about two feet tall. A long unkempt beard hung from his jowls and tattered clothing covered a portly build.
It glared at me, hissed through a mouth of crooked teeth, then gestured with its nubby hands, grunting something I didn't understand. All at once, an offensive stench filled the air. Almost like the man had rolled around in raw onions and garlic and sewerage for about a week, then sat out in the direct sunlight to let it all ferment. When it growled and took a step closer, I threw myself backwards, right into the solid chest of the gargoyle.
“Maddox,” Kalian said, his stone chest vibrating at my back.
“We don't want her here,” the small man spat. Hatred blazed in his eyes, and I cringed away from it, unsteady on my feet from fear and the stench still sitting thickly in the air. When the man hocked and spit at my feet, Kalian growled and moved in front of me.
“You know this is a place of refuge and all are welcome. You are here only on Evelina's generosity, boggart, and would do well to remember that.”
Guttural noises erupted from the man before he pulled a bottle covered in a paper bag from inside his jacket. I could smell the stench of cheap whiskey, even over the putrid odor that seemed to come from him, as he lifted and guzzled what was left.
“When she brings all of the dark down on our heads, I'll just be sitting here under this bridge, shouting I told you so.” He heaved the bag and glass shattered against a bridge piling, then with a few hand gestures I could interpret without help, he scurried off to disappear in the mass of debris.
Kalian exhaled. “Please come inside.” Tension radiated from his stone body as he looked over his shoulder. The sun danced just below the horizon line. Soon it would be daybreak. If he turned to stone, then maybe I had a chance to figure out a way home.
“Where exactly are we?” I asked.
“This is the Outskirts. A place where exiled fey creatures can live in relative safety.”
“Fey?” I choked out. “As in fairies? As in Tinkerbell fairies?”
I expected him to laugh at me or at least tell me it wasn't what he was talking about. Maybe fey was a new thing to describe….I drew a blank.
“Yes, fairies are among those that live here, but there are many others as well.”
Others? So far I'd seen the people inside Evelina's house and the thing under the bridge. There were more? I gritted my teeth. I'd stepped into a Grimm tale and none of this could be real. This sort of thing didn't exist.
Except I'd been dodging shadows my entire life.
Pretty sure most people don't do that.
God, was I really contemplating that I was awake, that this was happening? I looked around again. It was still eerily silent, not even a car horn or the rumble of the train could be heard. The city was not a quiet place.
“This Outskirts place, are we still in New York or have we gone some place else?”
“We are in New York, don't worry. Just on the other side of the Manhattan Bridge, actually.”
There was no way we were that close, not when it was empty. Under most bridges you'd find bums and homeless people in droves. I should know, Mom and I spent a week under one ourselves one summer. It wasn't like that now. It was just too surreal here, it all felt off.
“Where is everyone if we're that close to the city?”
“They are here, but not visible on this plane. Meri, I'll explain everything when the sun goes down, but please, come inside where it's safe. I don't have much time.”
The sky had been growing lighter behind him and I could see the first glimmers of the sun peeking between the tall buildings.
The skyline was both familiar and not at the same time, if I believed what the gargoyle said.
I shook my head. That I was taking a talking gargoyle seriously proved I might not be completely with it at all.
“I'm sorry, I can't…”
A tiny flying woman came out of nowhere.
I blinked, then blinked again. She zipped past me, stopped in mid-air, swung around and flittered in front of my face. No bigger than a mouse, she had perfect human features only in miniature. Her ears ended in points that were even with the top of her head. When she smiled at me, her teeth seemed too big for her little mouth and they were very pointy and sharp looking.
She darted around like a hummingbird on Espresso, so fast that I could barely keep up.
“Who's this?” the tiny voice squeaked.
“A girl who is having a massive hallucination, obviously,” I said.
“Well girl who is delusional, you are very pretty. I'm Aliana, wanna come play with me?”
The tiny faery looped and buzzed around in circles, giggling like a schoolgirl. She had on a green gauzy skirt and pink stockings and a wispy top that barely hide her tiny breasts. I gawked when she shifted, and they peeked through the material. She only giggled again and winked at me.
“Not now, Aliana,” Kalian said. “Go find another playmate.”
“Oh pooh, you're a big ole stone party pooper.” With a pout bigger than her face, she whizzed off down the street. I swear she gave him the finger over her shoulder and I bit back a smile. My kind of girl.
The thought sobered me instantly.
She wasn't any kind of girl because she wasn't real. This place wasn't real. Nothing here could be real. The panic I'd pushed down came racing back through my veins. I'd let all this become real for a moment, but not anymore. I was done playing. Done pretending.
“I want to go home, right now,” I ground out.
What right did this... creature have, thrusting me into a fantasy world? I didn't ask for this, didn't ask him to save me at all, in fact. He should have just let me die next to my arch.
“Meri, we must…” he began, but I cut him off with a glare.
“Just stop. I'm standing in the street talking to a fucking gargoyle. Some human bug girl just got in my face and I want to go home. Don't you understand, I need to see real people. Ones without pointy ears. Who are taller than a two year old. Who are real!”
My voice cracked, and I fought back the urge to cry. Damn it, this was not where I belonged. But as the thought crossed my mind, a tiny part of me recognized these things, they were somehow familiar.
That scared me even more than a fairy and a boggart.
“You need to relearn to cloak yourself and Evelina is the best teacher here. She can show you as I rest and then I promise to explain everything to you. Tell you who you really are and then, if you want, I will take you home.”
Who I really was? I laughed, the sound strangled in my tightening throat.
“I'm nobody.” I clenched my hands into fists. “Just leave me the hell alone!”
I backed up too quickly and tripped over a hunk of concrete from an old divider. I caught myself as Kalian reached out for me, but at that second, the sun burst free bathing everything in an eerie burnt-orange glow. I had never seen this color sunrise before, the way the rays seemed to separate into bands of color as they raced towards the earth.
I tore my gaze away from the sight, unwilling to admit even for a moment the beauty had wrapped around me and I wanted to stay. Kalian sat frozen, his huge hand stretched towards me. I stared at him for far too long, guilt filling me like burning liquid. He had helped me, but there was no way in hell I could stay here.
I didn't belong here.
My fingers ran over the rough stone, hard and cold. No life warmed the rock now. With a whispered apology, I turned my back on him and walked away. I glanced back only once and Kalian remained still, a regal statue with his head held high, his arm now reaching for no one. Even in stone, I could see the worry in his dull gray eyes.
My chest ached because I knew I was still going to leave. I had to get away. I needed my old life back. The one where a damned gargoyle didn't follow me around calling me Princess. Where faeries and boggarts and elves were something out of children's book, not prancing around in some screwed up place for rejects where I could see them and they could see me.
I just wanted to go back to my roof where a bottle and Torin were my world and nothing else mattered.
Chapter 6
The hairs on my neck prickled to life not long after I took that first step.
I looked over my shoulder, but nothing moved, which creeped me out even more. The silence scared me more than anything. I walked for blocks, but every time I looked up, the buildings looked exactly the same. I saw the bridge and Kalian. I was moving but going nowhere.
The urge to scream bubbled in my throat.
I stomped in the opposite direction this time, keeping my eyes wide open, but as soon as I rounded the corner of a building, I was back where I started. I needed to find someone who could help me.
What was the fairy's name? “Aliana.” My voice bounced around the brick buildings.
I listened and nothing. I tried again and again until it was clear that either she didn't hear me or was ignoring me altogether. If this place was for exiled imaginary creatures, then where were they? With no other choice I started back toward where Kalian sat. Maybe that rude boggart would tell me the way out. He seemed eager to get rid of me.
Halfway there, a noise behind me had my feet freezing to the ground. I took a step, they took a step. Ice slid down my spine. I had nothing to defend myself with. My savior sat frozen a dozen feet away. There was no one to rescue me this time.
When there was no other sound, I exhaled and turned around. A scruffy looking dog stood there, head cocked, watching me. The laugh of relief escaped before I could hold it in. Just a dog. I leaned down and scratched the mutt between the ears. It looked up at me and I swear its lips curled back and then it smiled.
“This isn't a good place to be alone, you know.” It said and its tongue lolled out. “You act like you've never seen a talking dog before, Meri. What, cat got your tongue?”
The dog laughed.
I felt brick at my back as I pressed myself hard against the building. I couldn't go any further, couldn't get away. I threw back my head and screamed. Make it stop, someone please make it stop. It's not real. Just don't look. Oh God, it was still there.
Someone grabbed my arm and dragged me back into a narrow opening in the bricks I had not seen. My fight instincts took over, and I struggled against the unnaturally strong grip. My screams filled the tiny alleyway where I'd been all but wedged. The more I tried to get away, the tighter the walls felt around me.
“Girl, stop that caterwauling. You're gonna attract attention and that's the last thing you want right now.”
The voice sounded vaguely familiar and it wasn't until I turned my head that I saw her: Evelina.
“Let me go.” I panted as fear crawled along my skin. Stars danced in the edge of my vision. I hated confined spaces. “Please let me out of here,” I pleaded as things started to turn black.
The pressure was instantly gone, and I gulped air into my lungs. The space between the buildings was three times as big now. I stumbled toward the street, but the dog appeared and bared its teeth, keeping me from going any further.
“Let me out,” I growled, letting the dog see my snarl. It didn't seem at all impressed.
“It's her job to protect you.” Evelina said.
“I've been protecting myself all my life. I don't need some damned mutt to do it for me now.”
“You do now. Everything has changed, and unless you close your mouth and open your ears, girl, you will die.”
I spun around and glared at her. “I almost died remember. You did something, and now I'm fine. Do you know how crazy that is? I know my spine was broken, I know I was choking to death on blood, yet I'm s
tanding here talking to you like nothing happened.”
My voice grew louder and louder until I was screaming at her.
“That's not normal!”
“Of course it's not,” she said. “And neither are you.”
“Yes, I am,” I ground out between my clenched teeth.
“Then why do the shadows haunt you every moment of the day and night? Do you think that is normal child? It's not.”
How the hell did she know about the darkness?
“Yes, I know all about the shadows,” she said as if I'd asked it out loud. “I know what disturbs your dreams, what drives you to forget, but it's time for you to step up and come home. Your people need you.”
My people?
“I don't look out for anyone but myself, so whatever information you think you have, it's wrong.”
She sighed. “The Royals have always been so damned stubborn. Come and at least hear me out. What harm can there be in simply knowing?”
“Knowledge is power, is that it?”
Evelina laughed. “Girl, knowledge is everything. It's your ignorance that puts us all in danger now.”
I ground my teeth so hard I thought they were going to break. Why did I care what some wizzled old lady thought of me? She stopped in front of a solid brick wall and whispered under her breath. A doorway appeared and for a moment, I forgot my anger.
It wasn't the appearance of a door that had me hesitate. When Evelina had whispered words I couldn't hear, something had brushed over my skin. A touch so light that I might have imagined it if not for the shot of pure honeyed bliss that came after. For one second, everything in my life felt connected and right.
I felt invincible.
I felt pure like light.
It was gone an instant later, and a chill washed over my skin, taking away all the good. Air thick with herbs hit my nose, and I saw Evelina's room just inside the door. She motioned me forward and seeing as how the alley had closed back up behind me, going inside was my only option now.
“Sit,” Evelina said, waving her hand in the direction of a chair.
It was the same room where I had been healed, though the table I'd been strapped to was gone.