The Autumn Fairy

by Brittany Fichter

  As she approached the gate that opened to the west, she half expected Aedan to appear. But as she passed through it and headed cautiously into the woods, nothing changed. Not even a breeze stirred, which was strange, considering a dark storm cloud had just been created so close by. So she set forth with a cautious resolve.

  Why she was determined to do this, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps I just need some questions answered, she thought to herself and then to Atharo as she walked, her boots nearly silent on the forest floor. Since you are not in the habit of answering questions directly, perhaps you could at least show me where I might find some.

  As she walked, part of her wished to keep going until she found Peter and his knights. He would protect her, just as he always had.

  Or had he? As much as she wanted him now and probably always would, Aedan was right. Peter had been blinded by his affection for Lady Saraid and had put Katy’s life, and his kingdom’s by default, in jeopardy by taking so long to begin his quest.

  Well, Katy grumbled to herself as she climbed over a fallen log, either way, the next time she saw him she was going to tell him exactly what kind of woman he was marrying. Or maybe she shouldn’t. If he was choosing Saraid, then perhaps he deserved her after all. He could live with her incessant nagging and superior manners for the rest of his life. Then, perhaps, they would have six daughters and each would be more like her mother than the last. Then he could enjoy Saraid’s nagging sevenfold until the day he died.

  Katy stopped and looked around. Her breath was coming faster, though whether that was from her fast-paced walk or the anger building inside her, she couldn’t say. But her hands were burning, and she needed to take care. After all, she was heading to the part of the forest that was dead, which meant one careless touch to a twig could send the whole wood up in flames.

  But really, she shook her head as she continued on her way, who gave Aedan permission to think he knew her and her hopes and dreams so well? He had been in the forest with his brother. He had been on the other isles. He could listen to the wind all he wanted, but he would never know the depth of Peter’s heart. He would never know what she was truly losing.

  A tear rolled down her cheek, unbidden. And though she swiped at it angrily with her sleeve, more followed. Several minutes passed as Katy stumbled blindly through the wood, wiping in vain at her tear-fogged eyes. But when her vision finally cleared again, she froze. Then she slowly turned in horror.

  From the glimpse she’d caught from her tower, she knew the forest beyond the wall would be bad. But nothing like this. Brown. Everything was brown, from the rotting logs to the wilted flowers to the dried, cracked mud that must have once been a stream. Trees, reaching higher than any Katy had ever seen, were nothing more than skeletons of their past selves. Holes larger than Katy’s entire frame riddled their trunks and limbs, and when Katy dared to peek inside one, the interiors were even worse. Beetles the size of Katy’s thumb covered the trunk’s inner surface.

  Katy stumbled back, but before she could regain her balance, caught her foot on a clump of dried ivy and fell. A sharp pain shot up her leg as she hit the ground. She scrambled to untangle herself, but her hands were clumsy as they tried to wrestle away the brush.

  “Bitterness has a color.”

  Katy turned so fast she sent another wave of pain through her ankle, but she hardly felt it as she stared up at a cloaked figure.

  “You know who I am, don’t you?”

  She nodded. The voice was too familiar to mistake, but too cold to be her soft-spoken host’s just the same. “You’re Aedan’s brother.”

  The figure nodded. “For being raised by humans, you’re not as stupid as I assumed.”

  Katy pushed herself to her feet and brushed her hands off on her dress. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Your unbending loyalty to your prince has given me reason to wonder. Especially when my brother made it his life’s work to give you an escape.”

  “Which was kind of him. But I never asked for an escape.”

  “Then what exactly was it that you’ve been praying to Atharo for all these years?” His words sliced through the air, and the wind began to whip, making the skeletal trees around them groan like ghouls.

  But to her surprise, Katy felt no fear. Instead, her hands smoldered, and she flexed her fingers. Aedan might have merited her thanks and favor, or her consideration at the very least, but this hooded stranger had not.

  “I prayed to Atharo that my power wouldn’t hurt others.”

  “Which is exactly what you’re going to do if you stay.”

  “Peter can—”

  “Peter can what? Save you from what you are?” The stranger shook his head and leaned back to look up at the forest surrounding them. “Do you think it ever occurred to him that you might not need to be changed? Or saved?” Then he turned back to her. “Do you know why my parents tried to take you from yours as a child?”

  Her throat was suddenly too tight to speak, so Katy just shook her head.

  “Because your parents were fool enough to hope in the good graces of the humanity of this isle. They fled to the very people who sought to end them.”

  “Those humans saved me—”

  “And look at you now! Afraid of yourself and disgusted with who you really are!”

  “I am not disgusted with myself!” she shouted. “Not anymore!”

  “But you are afraid!” he shouted back. “And as long as you’re afraid, you’ll be a danger to yourself and everyone around you!”

  Katy squeezed her hands shut against the pressure that was building inside her. She drew in a deep breath. She needed to calm down or she would set the wood ablaze. “Why are you doing this?”

  “What? Telling you the truth? Or moving the forest?”

  Whatever Katy was about to say died on the tip of her tongue. “You’re moving the forest?”

  “Unlike you, and possibly even my brother, I’m not naive enough to believe that after four hundred years, man is able to change his ways. But unlike man, the forest can cleanse itself. It can take that which is twisted and dark and breathe new life into it. And since you are intent on staying, it seems, and I know my brother will not leave this wretched isle without you, I might as well do the best with what I have.” He paused. “All one must do is continue bringing rain and wind to the part that grows. The rest can simply rot, and it shall do perfectly.” As if to prove his point, he held up a hand. A young sapling Katy had somehow missed seeing earlier began to quiver. As he turned the blade of his hand slowly, the sapling’s green needles grew brown and shriveled. After just a minute, even its trunk looked ready to crack in two.

  “So that is your plan then? Take over the isle with forest? Let it die? Then what?” Though she still couldn’t see his face, she could feel the intensity of his gaze beneath his hood. Rather than answering immediately, he bent down and picked a pinecone up off the ground. He turned it in his hands for a moment before answering.

  “This pinecone is small, but it refuses to be pried open by any tool known to man or fairy. It only opens after there’s been a fire. Anywhere this pinecone burns, there sprouts a new forest within years.”

  Katy stared stupidly at the pinecone for a long moment before realization hit her. “You’re going to burn the isle!”

  “I won’t be the one burning it.”

  Katy’s hands trembled now, though with fear or anger, she couldn’t tell. “And pray tell what instrument of terror will you be using to send thousands of people to their deaths?”

  “If you’re so set on staying here during your manifestation, you will do just fine.”

  Katy took a step back. “Oh no. Aedan has been helping me. I’m going to control my manifest—”

  “Neither you nor he will be able to do anything of the sort, no matter how much he wishes to. When my brother and I manifested on the Fourth Isle, it took no less than twelve experienced fairies to keep our power from hurting anyone. If my brother thinks he’s capabl
e of controlling you while you manifest, he’s delusional.”

  Katy continued to back away, shaking her head, but she felt as though she were being buried alive, as though the trees were already falling and covering her in their wake. “I won’t be party to your revenge.”

  “By staying on this isle, you already are.”

  In her mind, Katy saw the faces of the children in Downing. She imagined Lady Muirin and her new babe. Firin Reaghan.

  Peter.

  “But why?” she whispered.

  “After four hundred years of death and bloodshed to our kind, that shouldn’t be a difficult question to answer.”

  “You mon—”

  “Had you been willing to go with my brother, I might have been persuaded to come with you. But since you are determined to remain, and my brother will never leave without you, then it is my duty to ensure that my brother’s posterity never suffers the same fate that our parents did, or any of the other fairies that came before us.”

  Katy tried to force out the words, to vow that she would stop him. But her voice wouldn’t come. All she could do was turn and run.

  Katy didn’t stop running until she found a bucket of water to sink her hands into, and even then, after she was finished, she raced to her room and slammed the door shut.

  As she threw herself onto her bed, a little voice inside warned that she needed to rid herself of the power that had built up inside her and that a bit of cold water wasn’t the answer, but she ignored it. She couldn’t go down and risk facing Aedan right now. She couldn’t let them see how much they had shaken her.

  That Tearlach would do as he’d promised, Katy had no doubt. But what could she do? If she left the isle, Peter’s promise would go unfulfilled, and the entire isle would suffer. If she stayed, and Tearlach was able to keep his threat, the isle would go up in flames.

  As she wept into her pillow, her hands grew white hot, and not only her hands but her arms and feet as well. And still she scrunched her eyes shut and refused to look at them. Along with the sorrow, anger coursed through her.

  If Tearlach thought he was going to use her, he could think again. She was not a puppet or a tool with which he could destroy the lives of the innocent, or even the guilty. Who had made him judge over humanity? Who had given him authority over her?

  The roaring in her ears increased along with her indignation, and she could no longer hear the sounds of the birds twittering outside her window or the wind whispering through the empty castle halls. But she didn’t care. She would show Tearlach that she could control her powers. And no one would control her.

  “Katrin!” Aedan called from somewhere in the distance, but Katy gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut even harder, wishing his voice would get lost in the sounds of rushing wind that filled her head.

  I can see why people thought you’d abandoned them when you stopped speaking, Katy thought to Atharo, not bothering to hide her frustration. And really, what has my trust brought me? Exile? Imprisonment? What use is pursuing what is good when it brings nothing but heartache? Her tears flowed freely now. And still you stay silent.

  “Katrin!” Aedan sounded desperate now.

  Katy steeled herself for yet another argument, but when she finally opened her eyes, she shrieked.

  Fire engulfed her room. From the tapestries to the rugs to the bedposts, flames licked the wood and stone alike. One of the wooden beams from the ceiling collapsed and blocked her path to the door, so Katy ran to the window. When she looked out, however, hoping to find a way to jump out or at least crawl out onto a ledge, she found an even more forbidding scene.

  The sky glowed orange as the forest surrounding the fort rippled with bright flame that reached toward the gray, smoky sky with yellow undulating arms. How far the fire had spread, Katy couldn’t tell, but the air was fast becoming difficult to breathe.

  “Katrin!”

  In her horrified stupor, Katy looked down at the courtyard to see Aedan waving his arms.

  “Katrin, I need you to stop!”

  “Stop what?”

  “Your power! The fire’s winds are making it difficult for me to bring in the rain!”

  Katy looked down at her hands, and for the first time, she realized that while she’d been lying in a bed engulfed by flame, nothing on her was burned. “I don’t know how!” she whispered. Then she swallowed, trying to raise her voice, but it hardly rose above a murmur. “I can’t!”

  “That’s all right! Just try not to let it grow any worse!” He turned back and looked up at the inferno in front of him. “Remember what we talked about!” he called over his shoulder as he raised his hands to the purple sky. “Imagine calling the shadows back to you. Gather them up and try to put them away!”

  Katy shook as she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. Guilt threatened to overwhelm her, though, as she remembered with sudden clarity the number of small towns that lined the forest’s edge farther north.

  Please, she pleaded with Atharo. I know I was just angry with you, but don’t punish them for my wrong! Even if he can’t bring it, if you truly are powerful over all like Sir Christopher said, please send the rain!

  Katy closed her eyes and did what Aedan said. Even when her eyes were closed, orange, yellow, and red flashed about in her vision. The sundial’s shadows were spinning uncontrollably. Trembling, she tried to call the imaginary time back. She imagined gathering them up in her hands and pushing them backward into the ground. But it seemed like every time she tried, they simply broke free again.

  How long she spent in the struggle, she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that fighting the urge to not only let the sunlight loose, but to push it faster was growing more and more difficult.

  “Katrin?”

  Katy jumped at the sound of his voice. But this time, instead of coming from below, he was standing behind her. Katy swallowed and tried to stand. Her legs collapsed halfway up, however, and he caught her just before she hit the ground. Instead of letting go, he held her close and ran his hand over her hair, the way Firin Reaghan had done once when she’d grown sick as a small child.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered over and over again. “You’re safe.”

  Only then did she realize that the air smelled strongly of smoke and rain. The forest no longer glowed, and steam rose from every patch of ground and tree in sight. “I’m not worried about me,” she managed to choke out. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “No. I was able to bring the rain before it reached any settlements.”

  Katy nodded, but a sob escaped, followed by another.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked gently, his mouth close enough to her ear to make her shiver. She was too tired to pay it heed, though.

  “I thought I was getting stronger!”

  “You’re only a week from your manifestation.” He sighed. “I was hoping you could hold it in better, but you’re just too strong. It’s my fault, really. I thought I could teach you to defy your nature, but I should have known.”

  “Why?”

  He gave her a wry grin and shoved some dark hair out of his eyes. “I nearly flooded a village two days before mine. And you’re stronger than I ever was.”

  But Katy couldn’t bring herself to laugh. “I’ll have to go, won’t I?”

  He didn’t answer, just pursed his lips and looked away.

  “I mean,” she pushed away from him enough to look to the west. “Next time it could be Peter and his men. Or some village that’s too close. Or...” her conversation with Tearlach returned and made her want to weep anew, “Tearlach could have his way.”

  Aedan gently set her on the balcony. Once she was leaning safely back against the railing, he sat stiffly beside her. But his hand stayed on top of hers. Katy considered moving it, but then thought better. After all, Peter wouldn’t be touching her that way anytime soon. Or ever. It was better that she get used to that now rather than linger in the piercing sadness that threatened to stab her heart.

  “I tried to talk
him out of it,” he finally said softly. “But he says if your mind is made up, so is his. That’s why I was so interested this morning when I found out about your prince’s promise. I told Tearlach that Atharo would deal with your prince accordingly if he broke his word. Tearlach might as well stay with us and let Atharo handle it. But he wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “So...” she sniffed, “if I go with you to the other isles, they can stop me from hurting anyone? Even if they’ve never seen anyone else like me?”

  “The amount of power within you will determine how many fairies must be present to contain it at the time of your manifestation. But unlike here, there is no shortage of our kind on the other isles. They will assess you first and decide how many to assign to you.”

  “And there is no way you could do it here?” She gathered the courage to stare into the vibrant green of his eyes. “You and Tearlach?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  She took another shaky breath. “Because if we cannot return once we’ve gone, I need to say goodbye.”

  Aedan stood and folded his hands behind his back. Katy avoided looking at the blackened hole that had been her room and kept her eyes on him instead. His long black hair was messy, falling out of the leather thong he’d used to tie it at the back of his head that morning. Ash and soot stained his skin black, and there was a slight droop to his wide shoulders, and she remembered how many times he had come to her rescue in the recent weeks.

  Really, would it be so bad to spend the rest of her life with such a man? He wasn’t Peter. He never would be, which meant there would always be a hole in her heart meant for Peter, a cavity that would never be completely filled. But if she couldn’t have Peter, would it be terrible to search for happiness elsewhere, particularly with someone who had wanted her as long as she’d been alive?

  As the moments passed, the droop in his shoulders straightened, and when he turned to face her once more, there was a steely resoluteness in the set of his jaw. “I know you want to stay. But if you have to come with us, I swear to find you happiness. If we have to search every isle, we’ll do that! And if it means breaking the councils’ orders, we’ll find a way to come back here when it’s done. You’ll get to say your goodbye somehow.”