Anthony said, in that same slow voice like he was talking to a crazy person, “Okay, so what does she want?”
“Obviously I don’t know for sure yet,” Steven said, ignoring Anthony’s tone, “but if it were me, I’d be trying to come back.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Anthony said, waving his hands in front of him, finally spinning to look at Steven. The look on his face clearly said he thought Steven was losing it. “You mean back, like back to life?”
“Yes,” Steven said with quick breath, “I mean that exactly.”
“All right, look,” Anthony’s hands were still out in front of him like he was trying to ward Steven off, “the candle trick was cool, but you’re starting to freak me out.”
“Damn it,” I muttered, feeling all the hope go out of me. For one shining moment, I thought Anthony started to believe him and might help him reach out to me, but hearing those words, I knew a fight was coming instead.
“Candle trick?” Steven repeated, staring wide-eyed at his boyfriend.
“Yeah, very clever,” Anthony said quickly, “but this is enough. You’re starting to sound crazy, Steven.”
“Crazy?”
“Yes, crazy! I understand you’re grieving right now, but if you keep talking like this, people are going to have you locked up.”
“Anthony, please don’t do this.” I could hear the pain in Steven’s voice. He was trying to control his temper, but the color was rising in his cheeks.
“I’m not doing anything,” Anthony started to argue, but Steven stopped him.
“What do you want me to do to prove it to you if the candle wasn’t enough?”
“What?” Anthony asked lamely.
“What do I have to do to prove to you I’m not crazy? Just name it and I’ll do it.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me.” Anthony sounded a little confused.
“Clearly I do!” Steven’s voice got louder, angrier. “So what? Do you want me to light a hundred candles? A thousand? Should I light your fucking curtains on fire?”
“Steven, stop,” Anthony and I said in unison, though he only heard Anthony. I could see his hands becoming redder and redder as he got angrier, but Anthony hadn’t noticed it yet.
“No!” Steven yelled. “I opened up to you, I told you my biggest secret ever, and you called me a crazy person!”
“No, I said people were going to think you’re crazy, not that you are crazy. There’s a difference!” Anthony rose to Steven’s anger like tinder to a flame, and I just closed my eyes. The two went at each other, screaming louder and louder, their arguments making less and less sense as they went on. Anthony started to cry, which surprised me because Steven was the crier, but Steven was so angry, he just slipped into Spanish and I couldn’t follow anymore.
“Of course I love you!” Anthony yelled back after Steven had yelled something in Spanish.
“Then explain the TV and the light, Anthony! Explain you hearing someone you can’t see saying my name! Explain that,” Steven said, goading him. “Go on, explain what that was.”
“Maybe a breeze?”
“Fine, whatever.” Steven turned away from his boyfriend and walked over to the front door. Pulling it open with a woosh, Steven hesitated at the threshold. He looked out into the night where he had tried to banish me and then back into the apartment. His brow was pinched and his free hand was in a fist.
“Shayna,” Steven said, his head swinging back and forth, not sure where to look.
“Yes, Drake?” I answered, unable to help myself.
“I’m going to help you.” He stepped outside, slamming the door behind him.
***
I rocked back to my heels before falling to sit on the ground, knocking out what little breath I still had. Balor had been sitting up, so his head was a little higher than mine. He whined and I placed my hand on his back, absentmindedly petting him as I stared forward. I had never seen Anthony and Steven fight before; it was more than a little jarring. Guilt gnawed at the back of my head. If I had waited to try to contact Steven when he was alone, this might not have happened. If I had tried to reach out to Jodi, it definitely wouldn’t have. More than that, I wouldn’t be in this forsaken place. I had royally screwed things up.
“What I say?” the sprite woman asked as she threw a bundle of herbs into the water, making it steam and boil, clearing the image of Steven. “What’s it good for? Now you sit and you cries.”
“I’m not crying,” I snapped back, scrubbing my eyes with the backs of my hands.
“Meh,” she said again before she reached up and grabbed the cauldron handle and pulled it off the fire. Her scale-like skin protected her from the heat that would’ve melted the skin on my hands.
“Wait, wait,” I said frantically, reaching out for her. “I want to see more.” Balor yipped as if he could stop her for me.
“You saw enough,” she said.
“Oh, please,” I begged, getting to my feet and rushing to get in front of her, trying to stop her. Balor’s claws scrabbled against the ground as he stood to follow me. She just kept walking as though she could walk right through me, forcing me to walk backward for fear of the caldron, its bottom still orange with heat.
“Away,” she snapped. “I lets you see, you leave me alone now. It is enough!”
“Oh, please, that was days ago. I have so much more to see,” I begged.
“I told you, what good does it do?” She sidestepped around Balor and me. “You can’t do nothing with it. It’s just a torment, you saw. You saw enough.” She reached her cart, and with a strength I didn’t think she had, she hefted the caldron in the back of the cart before she hopped inside. There was a well-worn charred circle where the cauldron always sat. She settled down, pulling a dusty old blanket over her legs, and picked up a bowl of cooling soup and began to eat.
“It gives me peace of mind, that’s what it does,” I insisted, standing at the end of the cart. It was low enough to the ground I could see over the edge of the tailgate. Sipping her soup slowly and loudly, she refused to look at me. I chewed the inside of my cheek as I watched her while I tried to decide what to do. I knew I couldn’t reach out to anyone in the vision, but it was like not being allowed to look at the clock in class; I just had to know the time.
Impatience nearly got the better of me and I almost turned around to storm off, but I had nowhere to go, nothing to do, so I climbed up into the cart. She lifted her eyes to glare, but she didn’t tell me to leave. I glared back, daring her silently to tell me to get out of her cart. When she didn’t, I sat down, close enough to feel the heat radiating off the cauldron. I wondered how it hadn’t set the cart on fire, but I didn’t care about that right then.
Balor whined, sitting, his whip-like tail swishing back and forth on the ground. I looked over at him and shushed him with a finger to my mouth. He laid down, placed his head on top of his paws, and huffed. It was almost enough to make me smile. Turning back to the tiny woman, I stared at her, wondering what I could do to get her to talk to me.
“That soup smells good,” I lied, but my stomach was starting to hurt from hunger. Her mouth twitched in a grimace. After a few tense moments, she reached for another bowl. She ladled some soup from a smaller caldron at the head of the cart into it before passing it to me. I felt the urge to say “thank you” as I took the wooden bowl, but I managed to keep my mouth closed, giving her a nod of appreciation instead.
“Hmph,” she replied to my nod before going back to her own soup. With a few vegetable peelings floating in it, it was more of a broth than a soup, but it was warm and salty with just enough flavor to satisfy my grumbling stomach. We sat there with only our sipping and slurping breaking the silence. When I was down to the dregs and peelings, I leaned over the back of the cart and held the bowl out to Balor. He picked up his head, stuck his large snout into it, and snatched up the bits in the bottom happily.
“That was nice of you,” I said, handing her the empty bowl. When she still ref
used to say anything, I cleared my throat and tried another tactic. “My name is Shayna,” I said, lifting my eyebrows, waiting for her to reply.
“We knows.” She stared at me as if I was an idiot.
“Oh,” I said stupidly, “I didn’t realize. Okay, well, can you tell me your name?”
“We could.” She bobbed her head before putting her mouth to the edge of the bowl and upending it, slurping the last bit.
“Let’s try this again,” I said slowly, trying to control my temper. “What is your name?” I would give up all magic forever if it meant I didn’t have to play these stupid faerie word games ever again.
“Mab,” she said so quickly that at first I thought she had just made another sound of dismissal.
“Mab?” I repeated, but she didn’t answer me, so I just had to accept I had it right. “All right, Mab, I’m not asking for much, but I still have a chance to get out of here, okay? I might be able to go home. I just want to see if my friends are trying to help me make that happen.”
“They are friends,” she said.
“Yes, they are my friends,” I repeated.
“Then they help,” she said simply.
“Yes,” I agreed, “I’m sure they want to help, but I don’t know if they know how to help.”
“They help if they can; they don’t if they can’t,” she said. She pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, tucked it under her pointy chin, and closed her eyes.
“What does it matter to you?” I demanded. “Does it take something out of you to give this to me? If it’s a matter of payment, then just say so and maybe can work something out, but I don’t understand why you’re refusing.”
“It takes something from you,” she said, opening her eyes to look at me.
“No, it gives me hope.”
“Hope has no place here,” she said. “This is the land of no hope.”
“That’s how the Hunt takes you,” I said. “I don’t want to be part of the Hunt, so I’m not giving up hope.” We stared at each other for a few moments, the sounds of the camp falling away, leaving us in quiet.
“Please,” I whispered, “if there’s a price, then name it. Otherwise, please just help me.”
“The price is yours, not mine,” she said. After a moment, she huffed again and flung the blanket off of her. She reached inside one of the many boxes in the back of the cart and rummaged through its contents. I watched, wondering if she was giving into me. Finally she pulled out a silver handled looking glass and held it out to me.
The glass was black and gave no reflection, set into two clear stones at the base of the handle between it and the looking glass. There was no back to the glass, allowing me to look at it from either side, almost like a large magnifying glass. I turned it over in my hand, examining it, but I couldn’t understand.
“This will do the same thing the water did? It’ll show me home?” I asked.
“It will show you what you thinks you want to see,” she said, and for a moment, I saw a flicker of sadness in her eyes, something close to pity. She really didn’t think this was something I should do.
“But it’s the same as the water? I just have to think about what I want to see and it’ll show me?” She gave me a curt nod. I turned the looking glass over in my hands again.
“What’s the price?” I asked, realizing I might be asking for more than I bargained for.
“The grief it brings.” She settled back into the corner, pulling the blanket over her.
“You say grief, I say hope,” I said, looking at the looking glass.
“Hope has no place here,” she repeated. “It will only bring you grief.” With that, she turned away, tucking her body into the corner and closing her eyes, effectively ending the argument.
Carefully, I climbed out of the wagon, landing in a puff of dust next to Balor. He lifted his head to look at me, his white eyebrows arching in silent question. I held out the looking glass for him to see. He put his pink nose to it and sniffed. He huffed and looked back at me.
“Yeah,” I said, “that’s what I was thinking.” I shrugged at him, clutching the looking glass. I had been so excited, so determined to see more, and now that I had a tool to do that, I hesitated. Mab’s words of warning rang in my ears; I had been so careless in life and look where it had gotten me.
“So, you wanna stay with me?” I asked Balor. In answer, he got to his feet and positioned himself next to me, looking over his shoulder at me.
“Thanks,” I whispered, leaning over to wrap one arm around his neck and hugging him tightly. Finally saying that taboo word was actually nice. “I don’t have a nice warm tent with a cushy place to sleep like Gwyn,” I said, waiting for him to change his mind and bound off. Thankfully, he didn’t.
“All right,” I said with a half-smile, “c’mon.”
We walked in silence through the sleeping camp. I had taken to sleeping near the horses, figuring anyone trying to sneak up on me would alert the animals and give me enough warning to wake up and get away if I needed to. When we reached them, they were tethered to a few carts since there were no trees in the narrow valley. Balor and I sat on the ground by one of the larger carts. I put my back to one of the wheels, feeling better with something solid behind me. Balor curled up next to me, pressing against my thigh. Having some warmth while I slept would be nice.
When Balor’s eyes drifted closed, I put the looking glass in my lap and stared at it. I knew what I wanted to see: I wanted to know what Steven did next, after he left Anthony. I glanced up at the constant moon, my eyes narrowing in a glare, and with that frustration inside of me, I steeled myself and held up the looking glass.
Chapter 9
“Steven!” Anthony called as he grabbed the door knob and flung the door open to rush out after Steven.
“I have to go, Anthony,” Steven said over his shoulder as he fished his keys out of his pocket. “I’ll call you later.”
“But where are you going?” He reached out and grabbed Steven’s shoulder, pulling him to a stop and turning him around.
“I’m not really sure, probably home. I gotta figure this out.”
“Figure what out?”
“How to help Shay,” Steven said exasperatedly, all patience totally gone.
“But—” Again Anthony started to argue, but Steven held up a hand to stop him.
“It’s fine, okay?” Steven reached up to take Anthony’s hand off of his shoulder. Instead of dropping it, he held on, giving Anthony’s fingers a squeeze. “I get it, you don’t believe me, but I still gotta do this.” Steven lifted Anthony’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the backs of his fingers before he let Anthony’s hand fall.
Anthony looked as though he’d like to say something, like he should say something, but he couldn’t figure out what. He watched Steven walk away, pain etched on his face, but his mouth clamped shut.
Steven’s long legged stride had him at his car behind the apartment building in moments. Steven stopped suddenly and turned on the spot. He looked around, squinting and trying to see into the shadows all around.
“Shayna,” he whispered, “are you still with me?”
I clutched the looking glass and shook my head as I bit down on my lip.
“Shay?” he asked again. “Oh, crap.” Steven sighed. “Are you stuck in his apartment? Shay, you gotta give me a sign here, do something.” I wanted to give him a sign, and I started to open my mouth to say something before I remembered I was watching the past. A breeze wafted through the parking lot, making the fallen leaves skitter across the asphalt.
“Shay, was that you?” Steven asked, his honey amber eyes wide. He stood there waiting, minutes ticking by, hoping I would answer him.
“Okay,” he said with a nod. “I mean it; we’re gonna figure this out.” His voice broke and I saw his brown eyes were nearly black behind unshed tears. I suddenly felt horrible for losing my temper with him back in the apartment. When the first tear spilled over and rolled down his cheek, I touched
the glass, wanting to brush it away for him.
“Sorry,” I said pointlessly.
“There’s time enough for that later,” Steven said, scrubbing his face with the back of his hand. “I’m gonna go home, okay? If you can come with me, great. If not, meet me there. We’ll figure out a way for you to talk to me.”
“Okay, Drake,” I said softly and watched as he got into his car and drove away.
Watching Steven navigate his way out of the parking lot, I closed my eyes and thought of Steven’s house. I thought of too many family members to count, of the smell of wondrous food cooking for hours. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Steven’s empty living room in the looking glass. The house was dark, and I assumed everyone was asleep, making the house unnaturally quiet. Every time I had ever been in that house, it was always full of life and energy with so many conversations going on you almost couldn’t follow just one. People were always laughing and singing, children running and chasing each other. To see it at night, quiet as a tomb, unnerved me.
The front door opened, and Steven came in. He was squinting again, his face swinging back and forth like he was looking for something.
“Figured out I wasn’t in the car, huh?” I asked. Talking without being heard was weird, but I just couldn’t seem to help myself. I had to talk even though he couldn’t hear me. I shook my head when I saw him trying to look through a bush planted in front of his house.
I laughed quietly, feeling a stitch of pain form in my chest as I watched. Watching him look for my ghost wasn’t really funny, but I took heart in the fact he hadn’t given up on me.
“I guess you can’t ride in cars,” he said, assuming I was still with him. “C’mon,” he said, closing the front door as quietly as possible.
He rushed to his room, not wanting to wake his parents or his younger brothers. When he was safely in his room, he pulled his cell phone out and sent a text message. Less than a minute later, his phone began buzzing.
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