by Kim Deister
Siofra was lost in her own power, secure in her superiority over a worthless human. She paid no attention to me as I tried to move, my eyes never leaving her face. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my arm move under the water. It made no more than a tiny ripple on the surface of the water.
Yes! But the exhilaration was short-lived when I finally realized why Siofra put my jacket on me. Waterlogged, it was heavy. The cold water made me sluggish and my muscles felt like cooked spaghetti after fighting her hold on me. The weight of it was almost too much. I wasn't sure I could lift my arms enough to save my own life. I had to get out of the water or it would kill me before Siofra ever got a chance.
I didn’t move my eyes from her as I forced my arms and legs to move under the water. If Siofra realized for one second that I was trying to escape, she'd take control of me once more and I would never get free again. It would be over for me and I couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing Finn again, of never seeing my friends or family again.
Siofra closed her eyes and spoke in a language I didn’t understand. At first I thought it was Irish and I strained to understand. But it was older than that, a language all but lost to mortals. It was a language I had seen only in the oldest books in my grandmother’s library. She was consumed, secure that she held me in thrall.
This is my moment. With a surge of adrenalin, I fought against the freezing cold that tried to pull me into unconsciousness. It felt like it took forever, but I managed to unzip my fleece and slip it off, letting it sink to the bottom of the river. But not before retrieving that tiny anchor from its pocket. I held it in my hand, took a deep breath, and sank silently under the water.
I sank hard and fast, following my jacket to the bottom of the river. The icy cold water had taken its toll on me. My arms and legs were dead weights that dragged me down and held me there. Going underwater might prove to be a mistake that would cost me my life. My lungs burned with the need to breathe. My eyes were open, watching for Siofra, but pinpricks of darkness began to dot my vision as I ran out of air.
The blackness started to overtake me and my lungs began to burn. But then, in a burst of clarity, I saw the faces of the people I loved most. Grandma Fiona, my parents, my sister, Kyra, Taylor. And Finn. That gave me the strength I needed and my feet found the sandy bottom of the river. I pushed myself towards the surface, aiming for the dock a few feet away. Luck was finally with me and I broke the surface of the river underneath it.
A cage full of heavy rocks kept the dock from drifting away and I forced my body to move toward it. I jammed my boots into it and clung to the bottom of the dock with frozen hands. It hurt to breathe. My lungs felt like unmovable granite in my chest. My brain was still lost in the fog that near death brings. I willed myself to get it together fast because I didn’t have time to waste. Screaming finally snapped me out of it and I realized it wasn’t Siofra. I peeked through the cracks in the dock, trying in vain to see who was there.
An old rowboat was still tied to the dock, so I took another deep breath and dove down. I swam under the boat and came up on the other side of it, keeping both the boat and the dock between us. I clung to the side and pulled myself along it until I could touch the bottom. I risked a peek over the top, but the tall trees hid Siofra and whoever was with her from my sight. A huge willow tree grew just beyond the beach, it's long branches shadowing the bow of the boat. They hid me as I crawled out of the water and dragged myself across the narrow strip of sand.
My body was on the verge of giving out when I finally reached the trunk of the tree, flopping against it as I tried to breathe. My legs were so cold and so weak that I didn't know if they would hold my weight. They felt like blocks of ice when I rubbed my hands against them. I wondered if I’d ever be warm again. Of course, that was a big assumption, the idea that I would even live to see tomorrow.
As I tried to get my circulation back in my legs, my hand ran across the pocket of my jeans and I felt the anchor I had shoved into it, forgotten in my frozen swim for survival. My jeans were plastered to my skin and getting it out was next to impossible. Finally, one of the prongs tore through the pocket and I ripped it out, tearing through the skin of my thigh. I was so cold that I barely felt any pain, just the warm heat of my blood flowing down my leg. My hands were too numb to work properly and I fumbled it, slicing my palm open. I felt nothing, but I knew I’d feel it later. If I survived.
I left bloody hand prints on the ground as I crawled to the curtain of willow branches and peered through. I finally saw who else was here. It wasn’t a single person, but three. Finn, Grandma Fiona, and Taylor. They stood side-by-side facing Siofra, unknowingly hiding me from her sight.
For a moment, I thought the cold had weakened me more than I had realized, that I was having hallucinations. Nothing I saw through the branches made sense to me. Grandma Fi stood in front of Siofra, wearing my old high school hockey helmet on her head with her long, white braid trailing down her back. The bright orange of the helmet was like a beacon in the falling dusk. Her battle gear consisted of a bright pink, fleece jacket over red sweatpants. On her feet were a pair of mismatched Converse high tops, one turquoise and one blue. The outfit confused my already befuddled mind, but it was what she held in her hands that really threw me. She was wielding a long, matte-black sword like an expert, channeling Errol Flynn like a boss. Where the hell did that come from?
Beside her stood Captain Finn, looking every inch the pirate he once was. He had a scimitar in his hand, its edge deadly sharp. The blade whistled as it whipped through the air. The only thing wrong with the picture was the pink camouflage bandanna that covered his dark hair. The only one of them that looked normal was Taylor.
Siofra held a pair of deadly-looking daggers and she slashed at Grandma Fi and Finn. They fought her as Taylor circled the three of them, throwing handfuls of salt at Siofra from a pink mop bucket, dropping chunks of iron and marigold heads as she moved around the fighting. None of them hit their mark as often as Siofra seemed to hit hers.
Letting the willow branches fall back into place, I sat back and dug the heels of my hands into my eyes. Nothing I saw outside those branches made any sense. But instead of clarity, I earned myself a gash when the prong of the anchor scraped across my forehead. It hurt, but the pain was enough to clear my mind. I pushed aside the branches again and discovered that I wasn’t hallucinating. It would have been hilarious if the situation wasn’t so deadly.
Siofra still had the upper hand, her daggers imbued with some kind of fairy magic. They were on fire and I saw smoke rising all over Finn’s leather jacket. Judging from the wisps of smoke around Grandma Fiona, she had been hit by the fiery daggers more than once, too. But the flaming weapons didn’t stop either of them from fighting her.
My grandmother shouted in the same ancient language, spells I didn’t understand. She spun around Siofra, jabbing at her with her black sword. Every time the sword hit her skin, black tendrils grew like ivy, like some kind of intricate tattoo. Taylor danced in dizzying circles around them as she threw more and more salt at Siofra. Every time some of it landed on her bare skin, I heard it sizzle. It had to be agonizing, but she didn’t scream. Instead, she laughed maniacally and shouted with psychotic glee. She was fueled by her thirst for vengeance.
“An old woman, Finneas? And an untrained human? That is who you brought to fight me? I’m insulted!”
“I don’t want to kill you, Siofra. But I will if I have to,” Finn answered, making contact with the skin of her arm with the flat of his blade.
She laughed. “Do you really think that you can? That any of you can defeat me? I bested you once, Finneas. I promise you… I can and will do it again.”
Siofra jabbed at my grandmother with the tip of her dagger, narrowly missing her throat and setting the shoulder of her jacket on fire. Grandma Fi danced backwards and tore it off. The jacket hissed as it hit the river, flames instantly extinguished. She barely even paused, lunging after Siofra in a spinning move that left my j
aw dropped to the sand. Where did she learn to do that?
Finn stole a quick, worried glance at my grandmother, but he had nothing to worry about. He didn’t bother to answer Siofra, just slashed at her arms with his blade. She laughed and easily brushed the scimitar aside.
“Where is she, Siofra? What have you done to Cassidy? She may have broken the curse, but she has no part of this. She had no idea what she was doing. You know that. This is between you and I. No one else.”
“I don’t give a damn about Cassidy,” she spat at him. “You were supposed to learn your lesson centuries ago and come back to me. But you didn’t.” The last came out in a whine. That moment of human weakness seemed to fuel her rage. She stabbed at him, her daggers flying in frenzied fury. Finn hissed when one of the daggers burned through his shirt and singed the skin of his stomach.
“I did learn my lesson, Siofra. A long time ago,” Finn responded breathlessly as he blocked blow after blow. “You wanted me to know what it was like to love someone who didn’t love you back and I did. You wanted me to be hurt by someone I loved and I was. You wanted me to understand how much I hurt others and I do. You told me that night that the only way the curse would end was if I found true love. I did that, Siofra. It just wasn’t you and I’m sorry if that hurts you. Hurt me, kill me, if you have to. But let them go.”
Another maniacal laugh escaped her lips as she lunged at my grandmother. Her dagger caught my grandmother’s arm, slicing through fabric and flesh alike. I watched in horror as blood streamed from her arm and she dropped her sword on the beach as she staggered backward with a scream. Without a pause, Taylor dropped her bucket and snatched up the black sword, howling as she attacked Siofra. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Taylor, my passive, sweet friend… wielding that sword as well as any movie swashbuckler. Siofra let fly another psychotic chortle before she finally answered Finn.
“I don’t have to let Cassidy go. She’s dead, drowned before the three of you came in a wasted effort to fight me. She’s gone, Finn, and I took her from you!” She dissolved into laughter imbued with insanity.
Her words hung in the air and, for a single moment, it was as if the world and everything in it froze. But then it unfroze and the world burst into motion once again. My grandmother shrieked with anguish and fell to her knees, still clutching her arm. Taylor said nothing, just growled as she picked up the sword she’d dropped and took after Siofra once again. My pirate howled with rage and despair and attacked Siofra with renewed force. Their weapons moved so fast that it was hard to see them.
Finn screamed at her, nonsensical words of hatred that I could feel, but not understand. He was fierce, just as terrifying and intimidating as the aes sidhe he fought. The Finn I knew, the man who was gentle and kind with me, was gone. For the first time since I had laid eyes on her, Siofra looked afraid. She had magic, but Finn had love. The one thing she wanted but couldn’t have. My supposed death hadn’t changed that.
“Fiona! Taylor! Run! This is my fight!” Finn roared at them, but they ignored him completely. Tears poured down their faces, but they stayed by his side. Siofra dropped one of her daggers onto the beach, snuffing out its flames. My grandmother threw herself toward it and grabbed it away before the fairy could take it back. The moment it was in her hand, it flamed again. She chanted words I couldn’t hear over the clanging of metal and the shouting.
The angry fairy stabbed Finn in the ribs and he stumbled backward, falling hard on the sand, his scimitar thrown out of his grip. She threw out a hand toward Taylor and my grandmother and they flew away from her, landing in a pile halfway up the hill. Siofra advanced on Finn where he lay half in and half out of the water. She stood over him, straddling his body and stretched a hand toward him. He began to choke, his face turning red with the effort to breathe. She took a step back, hand still outstretched and lifted him out of the water to hover over it. He clawed at his throat in desperation. Just as he started to turn blue, she flicked her hand toward the water and his body flowed with the motion, landing in the icy river.
He landed with a splash, sinking out of sight before bursting back through the surface, choking on the water flooding his lungs. She whirled away from him and jabbed her remaining dagger toward my grandmother when she rushed her. With reflexes I didn’t know she possessed, Grandma Fiona swung her blade as if it were nothing. She parried every blow that Siofra delivered. She was so preoccupied with my grandmother that she never saw Taylor until it was too late.
Taylor leapt towards her and hurled the entire bucket of salt into the crazed fairy’s face. She howled in pain and dropped her last dagger. The flames disappeared with a hiss when the blade hit the ground. Finn crawled out of the water as Siofra fell to her knees, clutching her face in her hands.
I struggled to push myself to my feet. Pain had set in and I could barely stand. I pushed the pain out of my mind and surged out from underneath the shadows of the tree. I barely noticed the shock on their faces as I stumbled out. A scream tore through my throat as I hurled the iron anchor in my hand at her back, the force of my throw knocking me down to my knees. The anchor hit her with a loud thunk, blood pouring from a deep groove across the back of her neck. The edges of the wound turned as inky black as the tendrils left by Grandma Fi’s sword. I pushed myself back onto my feet as Siofra howled with anger.
I ran toward her, snatching Finn’s scimitar from the sand as I moved. With a howl of agony, Siofra leapt to her feet and turned toward me. Her eyes met mine as she lunged for one of her blades, but they were both gone, one in Grandma Fi’s hand and the other too far away. It didn't matter because it was already too late for her. Never again would she hurt someone I loved. I drove the scimitar into her stomach, burying it to the hilt with the sickening sound of torn flesh.
It was finally over, our enemy vanquished forever in a cloud of silky, black ash.
As I fell backward, I saw Grandma Fiona and Taylor rush towards me, love all over their faces. They were shouting, but I heard nothing. The last thing I knew was the feel of Finn’s arms around me as I fell into darkness.
For days, I drifted in and out of reality. Sometimes I opened my eyes in the hospital, surrounded by the people I loved. But most of the time, I was somewhere else, a place I didn't recognize. It was nothing like the world I knew. It was too quiet, the air tasting too sweet. I was surrounded by strangers. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I struggled to see their faces. At first, they moved like shadows, their edges blurred and indistinct. But there was no darkness, only light. Their hands were cool when they touched me, buzzing with energy. They spoke in singsongy, soft voices. And then I finally realized where I was. The realm of the aes sidhe.
When I figured out where I was, fear washed over me. I was terrified of what would happen to me. I didn’t know why I was in their realm. My dealings with the fairies had been less than stellar and I killed Siofra. I killed one of their own. Murder wouldn’t endear me to the rest of the aes sidhe.
But I had nothing to fear. The fairies treated me with love and kindness, soothing my pains and healing my wounds. I was surrounded by a peacefulness that, after Siofra, I would never have imagined from others of her kind.
When I grew stronger, the clan’s queen came to me. Catriona was otherworldly beautiful, but unlike Siofra, she exuded kindness. She assured me that the clan felt no anger for what I had done to her and that here was no blame. There was only shame that it had been necessary. Catriona told me things about Siofra that even Finn never knew, things that explained her fixation on him. They were things that explained her jealousy of me.
She had been doomed to be alone… always.
Siofra left her clan in exile eons ago, long before Finn crossed her path. She had committed a crime, a crime that was unforgivable among her kind. They wouldn't talk about it, only telling me it was a betrayal of the highest sort. But Catriona and the elders admitted that her banishment to the human realm was a ruling they deeply regretted. The aes sidhe were supposed to protect humanity,
preserving both their own realm and ours. Siofra's crime, and everything she’d done during her exile, went against everything her clan believed. Setting her loose among the very people among whom she’d committed her crime was a mistake. She’d wreaked havoc among the humans, time and time again. But the rule of the Council was absolute. Once a sentence was levied, there was no changing it. And once exiled, there was no magic to bring her back.
Finn hadn’t been the first Siofra had cursed, nor was he the last. Humans had been her playthings and when they resisted her in any way, they paid for it. Sometimes with their lives. Her taste for revenge had cost many dearly. But something about Finn had caused her to become obsessed.
Both realms were real to me and sometimes I didn’t know where I belonged. I missed my family and my friends, but the realm of the fairies was alluring. It was beautiful and peaceful. There was no pain, no sickness, no worries. There were days when I almost forgot my life before the moment I had woken up here.
Three weeks after I laid Finn’s scimitar into Siofra, I woke up in the realm I had always known. Those three weeks felt like thirty years to me. It was hard for me to adjust, even though it was the realm I'd spent my life knowing. At first, I had a hard time separating reality from fantasy. It took me a long time to realize the truth… it was all real. But as time passed, it became harder and harder to remember the fairy realm and that left me with a lingering sadness.
The doctors told me it was a miracle that I lived. The icy water had done a lot of damage to my body and so had Siofra. Maybe it was a miracle, but it wasn’t a medical one. I knew I was alive because of the aes sidhe. They took care of me, healed me. Not all of them were like Siofra. Not all of them lived guided by hate.