Darkshine

by R. D. Vallier

  "Yes," I said with a cringe. "I'm sorry. I didn't know faeries and humans are not supposed to—"

  Raina laughed, as sharp and sudden as a soap bubble popping. "Don't even worry about that," she said, flapping her hand dismissively. "The Realm will never hold you accountable. I suspect, however, your relationship with him was lousy, so expect his appearance as well. Is there anyone else significant in your past? Siblings, perhaps? A father? So-called friends?"

  "No," I said. "Well, maybe my mother-in-law. I haven't really had anyone in my life except my mother and Sam. Until Orin, anyway."

  "Two people." Raina shook her head and gripped my shoulders in front of the doorway. Her eyes were glassy as if she might cry. "A changeling's life is terribly lonely. I am so sorry for everything you were forced through." She wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tight. "I don't care of the circumstances, it is inexcusable for the Realm to lose a changeling. But everything will be different now." She pulled back and kissed my cheek. "I promise the Realm will give you a life you deserve," Raina said, and pushed open the carved door. "Starting now."

  I expected a tattoo parlor to be behind the door, with pleather recliners and the tang of adrenaline in the air. Instead the room seemed to expand, as if opening its arms to welcome us, embrace us, as calm and gentle as a goodnight kiss. Two massage tables stood in the room's center like cushioned altars, a large copper cauldron filled with dried, grassy herbs between them. Beeswax candles lined the walls on low, narrow shelves, waiting patiently for anointment and flame. My voice softened naturally to a whisper as we padded inside, as if we had passed through the doorway of some holy temple.

  Painted wings filled the walls like foreign scripture. Their black lines ranged from swooping to jagged to coiling to narrow to thick to sharp to curved to harsh to winsome to everything in between. Some were plain, with wide empty spaces between their veins. Others were so intricate and ornate that the white paint beneath appeared gray. Hundreds of wings stretched from the candles to the ceiling, the occupation they represented written in cursive at their tips.

  Raina brushed her hand across a set of wings between two closed doors. "I hope you like this design, Orin," she said with a giggle.

  Orin puffed out his chest. "Best in the room," he said, then pulled me to the picture to point out the painting's details. "The base of this image is inner sentry wings, so my tattoo will look different overall. But see these details? They are the retriever's and will be incorporated into the empty spaces of my wings."

  The retriever's lines were thin and wavy, like ripples of water and wind. "It's beautiful," I said.

  "And here is the healer tattoo," Raina said, pointing above a looking glass in the corner. "Details will be added as you acquire specialties or if you progress into apothecary."

  My future tattoo was more feminine than I had expected. Its delicate, swooping lines and spirals reminded me of unravelling ferns, with tiny, heart-shaped leaves branching off the curls. The wingtips coiled, like trailing coattails. I couldn't have designed it better.

  Raina fluffed her ringlets in the looking glass. "A healer is a tedious life and isolates faeries from the Realm for months to years. Are you sure you want this? You cannot go back once the ink is in your skin."

  "Yes." I admired my future tattoo and grinned. "It is perfect."

  "Leave your belongings in the corner. The tattooists will attend to them," Raina said. "There are showers behind these two doors. Scrub yourselves clean and I'll have garments left for you to change into. Do you require anything else?"

  "This is more than I wanted already," I said, as Orin shook his head.

  Raina smiled with all the warmth of desert dunes. "Welcome home, Aluala. I sincerely hope you love your new life."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I wrapped my wet hair in a towel and stepped into the dress waiting for me outside the shower door. It was as formfitting as river water, the plum silk so light I still felt nude. Dainty jeweled straps traced my shoulders, glittering tiny rainbows beneath the bathroom lights. The back dipped to my sacrum in an artistic bunching of rippled fabric, exposing my hips from the rear, and resting a mere foot above the hem on my thighs. I owned pillowcases with more fabric, and yet I had never worn a dress so exquisite.

  I pivoted in front of a full length mirror in the small, marble bathroom, and grimaced. This cannot be what a faerie healer looks like. Every faerie I met had a subtle brilliance about them, a vision of nature in bodily form. All I saw in the glass was a scrawny midwest housewife with a pasty complexion and scabs on her ankle. I pulled the towel off my head, let my damp hair tumble. I rolled my shoulders back, lifted my chin, stuck out my hip, smiled, rotated to hide the purple bruise on my biceps. The midwest housewife refused to leave.

  I sighed. Maybe adding wings will help.

  Or if you saw your true self, not clouded with the judgements of cynics.

  I bit my lip. Am I seeing the reflection of insecurities? The judgements of those who had never loved me? Maybe once I confronted the visions of those who held me back, they would take their damage with them. I stepped from the bathroom, the purium now seeming less frightening.

  The overhead lights in the tattoo room were off and all the candles burned, illuminating hundreds of painted wings in a bronze and holy hue. Meditational music played from overhead speakers, a mixture of pattering rain and trilling flutes. Orin stood between the tables, chin up and chest bare, his hands clasped behind his back like a soldier. He had changed into pants the color of gunmetal, the front buckled with two bronze oak leaves.

  He smiled when I joined his side, then ran his fingers through my hair. His cupped palms filled with water, and we giggled when he clapped them together in a puff of steam.

  I smoothed my tresses. "Soon I will be able to dry my own hair," I said.

  "And much more." Orin grabbed an unlabeled wine bottle that had been left on his table and pulled the cork out with a pop. "Here."

  "A toast?"

  He chuckled. "No. It is an oil which makes the skin absorb more ink. You rub it onto your back." He poured some into my cupped hand, then into his. It had a warm, medicinal scent. Not quite eucalyptus, not quite clove. Orin reached over his shoulder and showered the floor with golden droplets.

  "Here. Let me. You are making a mess." My hands slid down the curve of his neck, his shoulder blades, spreading oil across his border sentry wings. His back was lean muscle, as taut as a bowstring. "My God. You are as tense as a brick."

  "Well, yeah," he said. "I'm terrified."

  This surprised me. I poured more oil into my hands, worked it down his spine, his hips, kneading the flesh with my fingers. "Why are you afraid?" I asked. "You succeeded. We both did. We are getting everything we wanted."

  "Yes. And I am grateful." Orin winced as my thumb worked a knot beneath his scapula. "But you were a great first assignment. What if my next assignments are different? What if I do a horrible job?"

  "You won't," I said, my fingers tracing the tips of his wings. "You were meant to be a retriever."

  "I guess we'll see." Orin turned to me, his eyes almost violet in the candlelight. He took the bottle and poured oil into his palm. "Your turn."

  I pulled my hair in front of my shoulders and tensed beneath his grip.

  Orin snorted, amused. "You think I'm tense? Your shoulder has ribs."

  "I'm scared, too," I said. He pressed my shoulders down when they hunched, warmed them with his hands. "I have a new world waiting for me, a new community, a new career. I've never even had any formal schooling. Sam said the money would be a waste."

  I winced as Orin's grip tightened. "Your husband is a fool."

  My knees weakened as Orin's knuckles rocked along the top of my shoulders. My chin dipped to my chest. "You know," I gasped, bracing myself on the table's edge, "they're tattooing my back, not my neck and shoulders."

  "I know," he said, then massaged my neck and shoulders until the flesh moved beneath his palms like softened butter.<
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  He dribbled more oil onto my back, traced it with a finger as it dripped down my spine. A candle flame popped on its wick in the corner, sending long shadows shivering up the wall. The heels of Orin's palms pressed into my lower back, then slid up to my neck and back to my pelvis, his fingertips slipping beneath the plum silk. From the speakers, rain pattered and flutes sang. I leaned heavier on the table. Orin stepped closer, drizzled more oil. My tensions melted away as his hands slid down my neck, my shoulders, each dip of my spine, tracing the healer's tattoo yet to be. The edge of his pants tickled my bare calves. His slick hands slipped across my hips and caressed them until they gleamed.

  Orin corked the bottle and set it on the floor. "That should do it," he said.

  "Thanks," I said, breathlessly, turning to him on legs of jelly.

  Orin dropped his eyes from mine and cleared his throat. "You know, um, I was thinking. We both have Earth jobs now, which means we can still see each other." He tucked a thumb behind his oak-leaf buckle and sunk into his shoulders. "That is, if you want to be friends."

  "Of course I want to. You are my only friend." I smirked. "Although, I'll probably just bring you more trouble."

  Orin clasped my hands and rubbed his thumb across my knuckles. "Good. I like your trouble," he said. Then the carved door opened and he pulled away.

  Three faeries entered the room, each carrying a stool and pushing a thin metal cart toting tattoo guns, ink bottles, towels, bottled water, closed wooden boxes. I assumed the faeries were female, but wasn't certain. Each wore a shapeless white robe, like a nun's. Scarlet veils concealed their heads and faces, their eyes shrouded behind black gauze. One lit the herbs inside the giant, copper cauldron. White smoke started to coil through the room. The tattooists stood like blood-faced phantoms in the firelight and pointed to the massage tables without a word.

  Orin and I crawled onto our stomachs. I lowered my cheek to the face-rest, my heart jackhammering against the tabletop.

  "Hey."

  I turned my head to Orin. He smiled at me, his hand outstretched. I clasped it, our arms bridging the two tables. "Everything will be over before you know it," he said. "Just tell the visions what is needed to move on."

  "How will I know what to say?"

  "You'll know," he said, then squeezed my hand and released.

  The tattooists seated themselves on their stools. One sat near Orin. Two sat near me—one on each side, one for each wing. The music shifted from rain and flutes to harps. I breathed in the white smoke. It smelled faint but clean, vaguely like cucumbers. The painted wings before me seemed to flutter on the wall in the candlelight.

  This is it. No going back now. I closed my eyes as two metal guns buzzed behind my ears. Let my new life begin.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The needles jabbed my scapulas, but the vibration bit deep into my spine. I hissed and winced and ground my teeth to absorb the pain. I'll never enter a trance. My back feels assaulted by a swarm of frigging yellow jackets.

  White smoke drifted to the ceiling, snaked along the floor. I inhaled its faint cucumber scent, and the warm medicinal oil which wasn't quite eucalyptus, wasn't quite clove. I gritted my teeth to keep from whining. Orin looked asleep on his table, the needle jabbing ink into his flesh. How is he doing that? Is he faking? Is this a test?

  The smoking herbs burned my sinuses. My brain fuzzed. I watched Orin across from me, his head facing away. His hair glinted like mica in the candlelight, the countless sands of some foreign shore. I blinked. Time jumped. The tattooist on my left had been inking me, then they fussed with a cloth. My head jerked up; the tattooist on my right pushed it back to the table. The harps were now xylophones. Guns buzzed. Needles jabbed my skin. Orin seemed to flatten before me, as if transforming from a sculpture into a photograph. I breathed deeper, coughed gently. The photograph became a watercolor, then the watercolor bled to the edges of my vision. I blinked. Time jumped. Guns buzzed. Nothing bit my back. The xylophones were now Native American drums, deep and thumping. They seemed to grumble: "Doom. Doom. Doom-Doom-Doom." The cucumber smoke had faded. I tried to remember who had extinguished the herbs, when black ink spilled over the watercolor and swallowed the world.

  Doom. Doom. Doom-Doom-Doom.

  My body floated up from the table and drifted into the vast nothingness. Embers sizzled somewhere outside my vision. I felt no jabbing needle, no pain. The tattooists must have left. Weird. You'd think I would remember them leaving. Footsteps clomped somewhere in the darkness. "Hello?" I called. "Hello?"

  A figure stepped from the gloom.

  Sam.

  He rushed at me, screaming: "Look at the trouble you caused! What is wrong with you? Are you stupid?"

  I recoiled with a gasp and shrunk down, as if I were a wad of wet wool, withering in the heat of his rage. I wanted to hide inside myself, go numb. No. I must tell him what he needs to hear so I can move on to my new life.

  "I-I'm sorry, Sam. I didn't mean to upset you," I said, as I had a million times during our marriage to calm his storms.

  Instead, he screamed louder: "Well you did upset me! And embarrass me. And—"

  I glanced around, my heart racing. What do I do? I couldn't appease him through cooking or chores. I had no bedroom to hide in until his storm had passed, or a secret mineshaft to run to and pretend everything was fine. Only darkness existed, and Sam's anger which filled the void. My breathing quickened. I had spent years tiptoeing so as not to wake his anger, had scurried when it stirred, had hid and cowered when it rampaged. In the vision, Sam's fury almost had a face, all murderous eyes and scales and snapping jaws. But hadn't that monster always been there? Hadn't our whole marriage served its swells and falls? I had sacrificed oil painting for a tidy house. I had sacrificed school for avoiding debt. I had sacrificed personal preferences—from meals to television shows to weekend activities—all to keep the invisible monster asleep. I had. I had. I had.

  "I work my ass off to give you a nice home," Sam screamed. Spittle struck my cheek and I smelled stale Camels on his breath. "And you repay me with abandonment? Doesn't our marriage mean anything to you?"

  Thick worms wriggled inside me; my pulse thumped dully, deep inside my gut. I pressed my lips tight. We were married, but I realized our marriage wasn't free. A slave master named Rage owned the whole illusion—the love, the companionship, the home in the woods—and it all bowed to its whip. I bowed to its whip. Rage was Sam's problem, but his problem was my problem because I was the good little wife who never caused waves, yet was somehow guilty of being unable to control an ocean.

  My eyes widened as realization dawned on me. This purging wasn't about what Sam needed to hear, but what I needed to admit and say. Sam refused to take responsibility for his emotions. Instead, he used them as an excuse to belittle me, correct me, indulge in behaviors despite who it hurt. My eyes narrowed. Sam believed all of his actions were justifiable since they made him feel good, God dammit! And didn't he fucking deserve it? For only one crisis existed. His crisis. Which everything and everyone miraculously caused, but him.

  I lifted my chin, stared him square in the face. "Your choices are not my fault."

  Sam sneered. "You're pissing me off, woman."

  "No, I'm not!" I shouted. "I don't control your anger. And you no longer control me. I don't need you, Sam. Go away!"

  His face turned purple. But the insults he screamed in my face became jumbled sounds, like some fitful rainforest bird.

  "Go away!" I slammed my hands on his chest, but the moment we touched he faded from my vision, like steam on glass.

  I stood alone in the darkness. A cold wind ruffled my hair, and my lips twitched into a smile. "I did it."

  "All my problems are your fault!"

  My mother staggered out of the shadows, her hair and blouse in disarray, a glass of scotch sloshing in her thick hand. She hadn't aged a day in a decade, and I went rigid as if I was still a teenager surviving beneath her roof.

  "You ran my husband
off, made me miserable and alone!" she shrieked. I spun away from her, but she materialized in my face like an apparition. My impulse was to flee like I did in the past, to escape her through painting and books and daydreams, to try to sleep her off like a drunk which never went away. But each way I spun she was in my face, screaming.

  "You are not of my womb. You're not even of this world. You are an evil imp sent to destroy my life! I should have drowned you in the bathtub. You owe me. You owe me!"

  "Stop it!" My shout echoed in the gloom. My mother faded, then snapped back into focus, her lips pouted, blue eyes glaring. "You are not a victim!" I snapped. "And I am not your abuser. I'm sorry for your pain and losses, but we did the best with what we had."

  "We did nothing! I put up with you! You think being a changeling is the only reason why I hate you? I hate you because you are horrible, Miriam. You alone ruined my life. You! You! You!"

  I bit back tears, but no longer felt the sunken-chest pain of failure. I realized this woman was incapable of love, and nothing I did could change that. I never failed her as a daughter; she had failed me as a mother. The mother I had yearned for all my life was a delusion.

  "I do not inhibit you," I said. "You do. You are free, like me. Go find your happiness."

  I expected her to go ballistic, smack me and insist I created all of her woes, as if I was some unstoppable force of misery. Instead, she fell to her knees, wailing, and melted into her tears.

  "Ha!" My joyful bark echoed in the empty darkness. "This is easier than I thought. Bring on my monster-in-law!"

  Harps strummed. I winced as something pricked my back. I must be coming out of it. I beamed. Thank God. My tattoo is almost finished. I will finally go home.

  A hand fell on my shoulder from the darkness, the skin as warm as sunlit shores. I tensed, knowing it was Orin.