Faelorehn - Book One of the Otherworld Trilogy

by Jenna Elizabeth Johnson

  * * *

  Three days later I got home from school to find Fergus sitting at my door, panting and grinning like always.

  I cried in surprise and delight. The note! Cade must have left me another message. For a minute, I was giddy. Then my spirits dropped. What if he didn’t want to meet with me? What if he had received my note, but was only writing back to tell me to leave off?

  I bit my lip. I dreaded going down to the oak tree now, but not because I feared the faelah that could be waiting for me. I was afraid Cade might have rejected me.

  Stop it Meghan. Rejected or not, you need to know.

  Steeling myself, I grabbed my shoes and shoved them onto my feet. I threw open my door and jogged after Fergus as he loped down the horse path towards the oak tree. I nearly tripped on a tree root in my haste to get to the note. Must have been my nerves.

  I slipped the note from its hiding place and with trembling fingers I unrolled it, scanning my eyes across the sparse words.

  Meghan,

  I will meet you tomorrow afternoon in the clearing.

  C.M.

  I slumped my shoulders in disappointment. Okay, well at least it wasn’t a rejection. But I had hoped there would be more to it than that.

  The note’s brevity had my mind occupied all the way to my room, so I didn’t notice the looming raven until I was just outside my door. It startled me at first, like it always did, but this time it seemed only to be watching me. I wanted dearly to throw a rock at it, but I had no idea what powers this particular faelah might possess and the last thing I wanted to do was anger it. Quickly, I stepped inside my room and locked my door behind me, closing the blinds as an extra measure.

  The next day, I got a ride home with Thomas right after school. I had tried to present a more cheerful face during the day and Tully seemed to be a little more relaxed. That was a good sign, I thought. I had contemplated just walking home that afternoon, taking the back way and waiting for Cade, but as silly as it was, I wanted to go home and make myself more presentable first.

  I stepped into my bathroom and pulled out the makeup I kept stowed in the top drawer. The last time I’d used any serious amount of it had been for the dance on Halloween. I carefully applied some mascara, lip gloss and eyeliner. I tried to ignore the changeability of my eyes, if only for the simple reason that their inability to make up their mind on a single color was dizzying. It was a good thing that on a normal day they didn’t change this frequently. People were more comfortable accepting that it was the lighting that made them seem to switch from hazel, to grey, to blue.

  Once satisfied with my makeup, I fiddled with my hair a little. It had a bit of curl to it today, and I opted to keep it down. I didn’t leave my hair down that often because it got in the way. This afternoon I thought it might make me look more fetching. Ha. Me, fetching . . .

  Finally, I changed into my good jeans and a nice blouse, not my usual t-shirt. Perhaps if Cade were thinking of disappearing for good I might be able to change his mind. I glanced at the mirror hanging on the back of my door. Well Meghan, it is an improvement, but I don’t think you’re going to impress Cade. I heaved a sigh. It was worth a try at least.

  Fergus was sitting outside my door when I stepped out of the bathroom, patient as a marble statue. I smiled, despite myself. The dog, um, spirit guide, had grown on me, even if he never really showed any emotion.

  Our trek into the swamp was a slow one, what with me trying to smooth my nerves and Fergus retreating into his silence. About halfway down, he pulled ahead and started sniffing around in the bushes. To flush out faelah waiting to ambush us? I didn’t let it worry me too much. After witnessing his attack on the goat-man, I felt quite safe when Fergus was around, even when he was out of eyesight.

  Eventually, the path curved and the small land bridge crossing the swamp came into view. Just a hundred yards or so more. My heart started to flutter and my legs suddenly felt weak. How could Cade have such an influence over me? The willows acted like a screen as I moved closer to the clearing, but just before I stepped out into view I spotted something that made me stop dead in my tracks.

  Cade was already there, standing with his back to me and facing a woman. An incredibly beautiful woman. I felt my mouth go dry. She wasn’t as tall as me, but her presence oozed extreme confidence. Her hair was jet black and fell in perfect ringlets halfway down her back, and her skin was an almost unearthly pale. On most people it would be considered a flaw, but on her it only seemed to enhance her beauty. Her figure, well, I wasn’t exactly flat-chested, but she had the clear advantage over me. She had on a pair of designer jeans that clung to her figure and a shimmery top that accentuated all of her assets without being too revealing. In a nutshell, she looked like she had just stepped off of the pages of a fashion magazine.

  I told myself not to overreact. Clearly she was Faelorehn, for she had that irresistible aura about her that also hung around Cade. I just hoped she was a cousin or a friend. At some point in time the roaring in my ears faded and I got over my numb shock. Breathing slowly through my nose, I inched forward, being careful to stay hidden behind the trees, and strained to hear what they were talking about. It was Cade’s voice I picked up first.

  “You’re leaving. Right now.”

  Cade grabbed the woman’s arm roughly and tried to move her towards the path leading to the dolmarehn. Anger, and maybe even a bit of fear, seemed to roll off of him in waves.

  “I will not have you here when Meghan arrives.”

  The beautiful woman only laughed; a cruel, confident laugh that made the hair on my arms rise.

  “Oh? And why’s that Cade? Don’t want your little Faelorah to know about the most important woman in your life?”

  Cade froze, pausing in his attempt to get the woman to leave. I tensed. Oh Meghan, you have been so utterly stupid! I gritted my teeth and willed the tears forming in my eyes to evaporate. But it was no use. I just hoped Cade and his, girlfriend (for who else could she be after a statement like that?), couldn’t hear my heart breaking.

  It felt as if the earth were opening up beneath me, to swallow me and put an end to my misery. Of course, Cade and his companion didn’t notice. The woman sneered and yanked her arm free. Cade did nothing to stop her and through my blurred vision it looked almost as if he had been defeated. Like a dog cowering before its angry master.

  “I will remind you, Cade dearest, that I am the one who gives orders and when they are not followed . . .”

  I didn’t stay to hear the rest; I was too distraught. I had to get out of there before I started sobbing and drew attention to myself. I knew this had been a possibility from the get-go. I knew Cade might already be spoken for. But it still hurt; it still dug at my heart.

  I practically ran all the way back to my room, sobbing the entire way, my carefully applied makeup now streaming down my face. I threw open my sliding glass door, slammed it shut behind me and locked it. I didn’t even bother changing or washing my face before I fell onto the top of my bed to cry into one of my pillows.

  Logan called down the stairs to say that dinner was ready, and fortunately I had enough energy to call back up that I wasn’t feeling very well and that I was going to bed early. No one came to investigate. Thank goodness. Rolling over on my back, I stared at the ceiling and let my misery flood over me. Eventually I fell asleep, but only because I was so exhausted. I didn’t even notice when Fergus returned to my back door to lie down and fall asleep.

  -Eighteen-

  Heart-broken

  I was sick over what I had discovered, so sick that I stayed home the next day. I had acted like one of those stupid jealous girls you see on TV or in a movie, the ones who allow their lives to revolve around their perfect guy. I winced. At least I had left before I made a scene. What had happened to me? I had always been the sensible one. Why had I fallen so hard for Cade? The realization of that fact, and the fact that I had fi
nally admitted that what I suffered from was far worse than some crush, rocked me and turned me over like that time I tried kayaking at the beach. I sat up in bed, my mind nearly blank with shock, as one resounding thought reverberated around in my skull. I was in love with Cade MacRoich.

  I grabbed a pillow and shoved my face into it, groaning. Oh, this was not good. He had a girlfriend, one who was way prettier than I was. Worse, a girlfriend he never mentioned to me. Because you are so far from being a possible match for him, Meghan, that he didn’t even bother dishing out that information. It didn’t matter that I was Faelorehn like him; that I had finally found someone who didn’t think I was some freak of nature. Hot tears burned my eyes and spilled out to stain my pillowcase.

  Oh Meghan, don’t you see now? All that stuff he told you about being half Fomorian and half Tuatha De? Either he had been lying about all that and had only been trying to get rid of me, or it was still true and he no longer wanted to have anything to do with me because of it. I had always wondered if my body could produce only a limited amount of tears. I was starting to fear I might be putting that theory to the test.

  When my depression passed and my mind cleared, I took a deep breath and tried to shove the image of Cade from my thoughts. It was too early to contemplate all the possible meanings of what I’d witnessed yesterday. Best to distract myself with sleep.

  The next morning I got up and got ready for school. I still felt terrible, but I needed to start functioning again. Tully noticed something was wrong right away but luckily I had the excuse of getting over my illness to explain away my groggy, gloomy mood. Sometimes she was too perceptive.

  The day passed slowly and I hardly took note of my classes. Coach Tillmann even let me sit out during P.E., claiming I still looked rather sickly. His idea of curing the flu was to go into the weight room and do as many bench presses as humanly possible. The fact that he was extending his sympathy my way wasn’t a good sign. Time to ditch my drama queen act and get over it pronto. Only problem was, that was easier said than done.

  I accepted a ride home from Robyn that afternoon and thanked my lucky stars she was in one of her self-centered moods. She spent the entire three minutes it took her to get to my driveway complaining about the streak of green in her hair.

  “It’s teal, not lime. Honestly, how can the color description be that far off?”

  I merely shrugged as I yanked my backpack from the backseat. I shut the passenger side door, more forcefully than I had meant, and the partially rolled-down window rattled in its frame.

  “Uh,” Robyn said, eyeing me for what seemed like the first time that day. “You okay? You seem more depressed than sick.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m fine. Just had a headache all day and my stomach hasn’t quite settled yet.”

  Not exactly a lie.

  “Well, you’d better get inside and within puking range of a toilet then, just in case. Hope you feel better tomorrow!”

  Robyn threw her car into drive and practically peeled out down our quiet road. I sighed and glanced around our driveway. It was empty. If I was lucky, no one would be home yet.

  I bypassed our front door and went straight to the backyard, unlocking my sliding glass door with the proper key and slipping inside, closing and locking it behind me. I dropped my backpack in a corner and belly flopped onto my bed. I wanted at least an hour of peace before my brothers and my parents got the chance to bother me.

  I must have dozed off, because all of a sudden I was staring at my alarm clock and it was two hours later than it had been a few minutes ago. I dragged myself off of my bed, feeling grumpy and rumpled and wondering why I felt so forlorn. Then it came back to me: staying home the day before, walking around in a daze all day long at school, realizing I had fallen for the strange guy who claimed to be from the Otherworld . . . I groaned and scrubbed my face with my hands.

  “Meg! Mom says dinner’s ready!” one of my brothers called from upstairs.

  I sighed, did a quick check in my bathroom mirror, and plastered a smile on my face. The last thing I wanted was for my family to know I was pining after some guy. Giving myself one more power talk, I climbed the stairs to join them for dinner.