Elfland

by Freda Warrington

  “You all right?” said Jon, frowning at him through skeins of red-brown hair.

  “Whatever the hell you gave me—it’s too strong. I can’t do this.”

  “You’re just hyperventilating. You need a smoke to calm you down.”

  Lucas hung on as Jon’s agile fingers sealed cigarette papers together, sprinkled a line of tobacco and added parings of waxy black resin. It was Aetheric blackdrop, an opiate sap that Jon harvested in the Dusklands and cooked to a resin. Expertly he rolled and lit the spliff. Luc took it, bringing it to his mouth with shaking hands. He struggled to inhale, but once the smoke hit his lungs he felt the anxiety recede in a wash of sweet dizziness.

  “Are you going into college tomorrow?” Lucas asked after a while, clawing damp hair off his face.

  “I might.” Jon took a drag, holding it in his lungs as long as he could. Smoke wreathed from his mouth as he spoke again. “Why d’you ask?”

  “Because you don’t want to do anything lately. Go to college, rehearse the band . . . or even make the effort to visit Sam.”

  Jon huffed a last wisp of smoke. “You know, if you’re going to carry on like Sapphire, you can sod off,” he said flatly.

  “I’m not, but brooding like this is not going to get Sam home any faster. Anyone can see you’re in pieces but you won’t admit it. All you do is drown it with drugs. You can’t keep saying fuck it, let’s get stoned instead.”

  “I haven’t noticed you arguing much.” Jon’s eyes narrowed. The brown irises turned crimson. “Unless we can break through the Gates, it’s all pointless! Unless we discover what Lawrence is hiding, there’s no point in college or bands or anything. I thought you were with me!”

  His anger wounded Lucas. “I am,” he said softly, “but we’re not getting anywhere.”

  “Yes, we are.” Jon looked at him with that demanding, irresistible light in his face. “Every trip, you’re seeing more.”

  “More horrible things I can’t understand.”

  “That’s a matter of getting the dose right. You can’t give up, Luc; you’re too strong for that. And I need you.”

  Sighing, Lucas took the joint and sucked in its bitter perfume. “And if we get through, what then? What did we miss by not being initiated when we should?”

  “Wisdom,” said Jon. His pupils were large now, his expression relaxed, radiant in the candlelight between waves of auburn hair. “Experience.”

  “Auberon said there are dangerous beings that carry off tender innocent Vaethyr.” Luc’s own words struck him as funny. A wave of blissful heaviness went through him. A few more drags and he had to lie flat on a heap of floor cushions.

  Jon lay down beside him, smiling. “What we’ve missed is our lives. Our true selves. That’s what my father’s stolen from us, but we can get it back, if we keep trying.”

  “Next time,” said Lucas, unsure if he’d even spoken aloud. Jon leaned over him, his hair making a glowing red silken cave over them. His mouth brushed Luc’s, claiming the smoke as he breathed it out.

  Lucas knew he should do grown-up things like go to college, learn to drive, find a girlfriend . . . all the real-world things that his parents and Matthew wanted him to do . . . but while Jon was there, like some woodland god tempting him with the never-ending promise of Elysion . . . when the lazy ecstasy of drugs filled him . . . it all drifted away. There was only Jon.

  10

  September Will Be Magic

  “He’s fine, considering the circumstances,” said Rosie. “He’s bearing up really well.”

  Usually, Lawrence phoned her for a progress report. This time—when she’d been visiting Sam for about six months—he’d invited her to Stonegate and taken her into his study, where he sat behind his desk with a small black velvet tray of gems in front of him. While Rosie stayed carefully on safe, mundane ground such as prison routine, she could see from the shadows and drawn lines of his face that Lawrence was not bearing up well at all.

  “And you’re happy to go on seeing him?” he said.

  “If it’s what you both want, yes.”

  “I’m inexpressibly grateful,” said Lawrence. “Rosie, do you own any albinite?”

  “Er, no. It’s rather expensive and I don’t wear much jewelry . . .”

  “Choose one,” he said, pushing the tray towards her. The cut gems sparkled, spilling rainbows like dragonfly wings. “It’s a stone of unusual properties. On humans the color is stable, but it responds interestingly to Aetheric wearers. The mine’s exhausted, which means the value will only ever increase.”

  “No,” she said, taken aback. Traveling expenses were one thing, but accepting jewels from the man who had been her mother’s lover—? “No no no. Thank you. I really can’t.”

  He nodded. “I understand. If you change your mind, let me know.”

  As Rosie saw herself out, she glanced around the cavernous hall and sensed Dumannios in the air, a burning chill full of ghost shadows. This was where Sam had . . . she tried not to visualize it.

  As for Sapphire, how was Rosie supposed to root around Stonegate for incriminating evidence, and what would she be looking for? Sam hadn’t mentioned it again, but the idea still played on her mind.

  Sighing, she entered the kitchen and walked straight into Sapphire. “Rosie, I’ve made us a coffee,” she said with a friendly, confiding smile. “Let’s drink it in the garden. I know you’re quite the gardening expert and I need your advice on my azaleas.”

  Her voice was velvet, her fingers smooth on Rosie’s arm as they walked down the broad lawn until they were out of sight of the house amid trees and shrubs. Sapphire was wearing a floaty pastel silk trouser suit and a single round Elfstone at her throat. They examined plants and sipped their coffee while Rosie wondered what this was really about.

  “Your azaleas are lovely,” said Rosie, playing along. “I could test the Ph of the soil if you like, but they look healthy to me.”

  Sapphire took both empty cups and set them on the grass. “I’d love to grow plants or flowers impressive enough to enter a class at Cloudcroft Show. I do enjoy that little show every May. I love the parade at the end—reminds me of the Rio Carnival. Different every year.”

  “Rio? Have you been there?” She seized the chance to pry, despite herself.

  Sapphire smiled enigmatically but didn’t answer. “What you are doing for us by visiting Sam is wonderful. Rosie, I owe you an apology.”

  “What for?”

  “Persuading Lawrence to come clean about Lucas. I only wanted to help, and the truth needed telling; but I apologize for the distress it must have caused.”

  “It might have been an idea to speak to my parents first,” Rosie said stiffly.

  “That’s what I expected Lawrence to do, but he’s unpredictable. I’m so very sorry.” Sapphire suddenly unclasped her Elfstone pendant and held it out to Rosie. “Here, I’d like you to have this. A peace offering. Albinite belongs more on you than on me.”

  “Er, no!” Rosie gasped. As she pushed Sapphire’s hand away, the stone turned briefly violet. “No, please, you don’t have to give me anything.”

  “Oh, did you see the color change? You’re Aetherial like Lawrence, and I’m so close to you, but I can’t see inside you.” Her expression was hungry, yearning.

  “Why would you want to see inside me?” said Rosie, her eyes widening.

  “I don’t mean literally, dear. My problem is that I want to help my husband, but to do so, I need to understand Aetherials. I’m an outsider.” Sapphire took her arm as they walked slowly along grass paths between rhododendron bowers. “You wouldn’t know it, but I’ve experienced poverty, Rosie. Yes, I know Rio; I grew up in Brazil. My mother was a servant on a big cattle ranch and she had nothing. The owner would invite his rich friends to stay and one of them got my mother pregnant. Oh, she did her best for me but her health was poor and she died when I was five.”

  “God, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I was very fortunate. The man who fat
hered me came back and lifted me out of the dust, quite literally. He took me to America, paid for my education. His own children were long grown up and gone, you see, and I was a little princess for him. Oh, he was no saint, I know, but I worshipped him. He was my king. Only something took him away.” Sapphire swept back the dark waterfall of her hair. “Aetherials took him. This was a tough businessman without a sentimental bone in his body, and yet he became obsessed by a hidden race who gave rise to stories of elves, angels and demigods. He was forever searching for them, coming back fiery-eyed with excitement, disappearing again. As I grew up he made me promise that if anything happened to him, I’d continue the search. I simply wanted to know what these creatures were that so fascinated him. In time I went to work for Wilder Jewels, and I met Lawrence. However . . .”

  Sapphire sounded wistful. Rosie thought she glimpsed genuine vulnerability beneath the glossy exterior. “I suppose—long after his first wife had gone, I must add—I fell rather in love with the glamour of Lawrence. Even married to an Aetherial, I still only see you from the outside.”

  “And what do you see?” Rosie asked warily.

  “I’m not sure.” Sapphire compressed her lips. “You are mysterious, complex and infuriating. But then, so are humans. You have so many masks; an ordinary one, a glamorous one, an animal one . . . one mask under another, but who knows what’s really underneath? Is it masks all the way down? Rosie, I have longed as passionately as any Aetherial for the Great Gates to open and the transforming magic to spill out.”

  “Really?” Rosie laughed nervously. “Hasn’t Lawrence told you all about it?”

  “He’s told me, but how do I know it’s the truth? I thought you might offer some insight that would enable me to help him.”

  The Elfstone shone in Sapphire’s manicured fingers. Rosie wondered what secrets she thought the gem could buy. “I’m Vaethyr, a surface dweller,” she said. “I’ve never been through the Gates. I have no arcane mysteries or magical powers. I’m virtually human.”

  “No magic? Come on. You all have that glamour, even you, Rosie, though you don’t seem to realize it. Everything Aetherials touch turns to gold and you can step into realities humans can’t see. No powers?” Her eyes held Rosie’s, warm, demanding, threatening not to release her until she spilled some revelation. Then she broke the tension with a sigh, letting her hand fall. “Please forgive me, dear. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like this. You can’t blame me for the fascination that I absorbed from my father. If I seem overcurious, you must understand that it stems entirely from love.”

  “Bullshit,” said Sam when Rosie related the encounter on her next visit. His face was luminous; ghostly white against a dark, cobwebby background. Dumannios manifested strongly today, warping the space to resemble a derelict, soot-caked Victorian factory full of pillars and arches and ghosts. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shift back into reality.

  “I’m just repeating what Sapphire said,” she retorted. “What’s the point of asking me for information if you’re not going to believe it?”

  “Sweetheart, I meant she was bullshitting, not you.”

  “I know,” Rosie said thinly. “And I meant that you shouldn’t make assumptions. You can’t know she wasn’t telling the truth.”

  “So, Agent Fox, what other news from behind enemy lines?”

  “This isn’t fair, Sam!” Rosie said curtly. “All I tell your father is the safe stuff. No controversy. Expecting me to spy on your behalf—it’s completely out of order!”

  “Joke,” he said softly. “I know, and I apologize. I just want to know how my father is.”

  “I’m sorry.” Rosie shuddered, folding her arms around herself. “This place is really freaking me out today. Lawrence is all right but he looks stressed to hell, in that very dignified, understated way of his. The way he and Sapphire both tried to thrust albinite jewels on me—it was seriously creepy.”

  Sam tilted his head. “Did you accept? I know how you love sparkly things.”

  “Of course I didn’t! Lawrence was trying to reward me, but I don’t want gratitude. As for Sapphire, trying to bribe me for Aetherial revelations . . .”

  Sam exhaled, sitting back. “The sob story about Brazilian poverty—that’s a new one on me.”

  “Really? She always gets my back up, somehow. Always gives me the power look.”

  “The what?”

  “You know, that condescending gaze that says, ‘I’m the boss of you, and don’t you forget it.’ But underneath that, she seemed genuinely lost. Out of her depth but trying to hide it.”

  “You’re saying she’s just another Aetherial groupie,” said Sam with an acid grin. “A very accomplished one, but a groupie all the same—like Faith and your ginger boyfriend?”

  “If you have to put it like that.” Rosie groaned. “How did I get tangled in this infernal triangle? Lawrence has me reporting on you; you’ve got me watching both him and Sapphire, and she’s trying to make me spill secrets about Lawrence! I’m nothing to your family but a go-between.”

  “You could tell us all to fuck off.”

  “I could.”

  They glared at each other, and she saw nothing but hostility in the green-blue scintillation of his eyes—as if he’d torn off a mask and revealed the demon underneath. Then he broke the stare. Without warning, the visiting room gently, disturbingly, shivered into plain reality.

  “But you won’t, will you?” said Sam. It was half plea, half statement. “I think you’re enjoying it too much, Agent Fox.”

  The dancers of the Beast Parade whirled past the village green, costumed as firebirds enacting a chaotic courtship display. Phyll and Comyn always organized it, choosing only Aetherials to take part and ignoring village grumbles about elitism. Once, the procession would have led to Freya’s Crown and Elysion. Now there was nowhere for them to go but around Cloudcroft and back to their starting point, the slate-and-granite pub called the Green Man.

  Jessica tipped her head back, basking in the last rays of the setting sun. She was sitting on the green in front of the pub with Faith—who was days from giving birth—beside her, their shoulders lightly touching. Auberon, Matthew and Alastair were inside the pub, buying drinks; Rosie and Lucas, Phyll and Comyn somewhere among the costumed dancers.

  Around May Day each year, Cloudcroft swarmed with visitors who came for the annual show. Comyn gave several fields over to marquees and show rings, with classes for cattle and sheep and horses, displays of jousting and birds of prey. Steam engines and tractors chugged around in shiny majesty. Giant vegetables wilted under hot canvas. There was Maypole and Morris dancing, a brass band, hot dog stalls, a real ale tent; every tradition expected of an English country fair.

  Jessica liked the evening best, when the main events ended and the visitors flowed up to the Green Man to watch the Beast Parade. For centuries, Vaethyr had dressed up in masks and finery to dance in procession around the village. To the human crowds it was an old fertility rite, one of a handful still preserved around England. They didn’t know the deeper meaning, the reference to the journey into the Spiral, back to the heart, to their essential being . . .

  But now it was only for show. Disheartened, fewer Vaethyr took part each year. Without the true climax to the parade—the journey into Elysion, after the human crowds had departed—it felt hollow.

  Jessica used to sing the songs and lead the musicians for the Beast Parade. After her affair with Lawrence, she’d stopped. No one had told her to stop, least of all Auberon. She’d simply lost the heart to sing and leap about in public, after the way she’d hurt him.

  “Jessica, do they really change shape?” Faith’s question was so soft, it took her a moment to realize what she was asking. “The Aetherials in the dance? Underneath their costumes?”

  Jess laughed. “That’s the mystery. Because they’re costumed, you can’t tell.” Seeing the concern in Faith’s eyes, she relented and gave a fairer answer. “Well, I didn’t. Mostly not. However,
if you entered the Dusklands, you might see a change of sorts.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some Aetherials may transform dramatically, others hardly at all. Some say that those ‘changes’ are different aspects of us that are always present, but only visible in certain circumstances.”

  “Like in the Dusklands?”

  “Yes. Or a heightened emotional state, maybe. And some of us, like Phyll and me, hardly change at all; but that’s all right. We are what we are. Hasn’t Matthew told you any of this?”

  Faith sighed, looking down at the curve of her stomach. “I’m not supposed to talk about it, to him or you. He gets annoyed if I try.”

  “I know he stopped you coming to our private circles,” said Jess. “It’s too bad of him. You shouldn’t let him push you around. Don’t be afraid to have your own opinions.”

  “Rosie tells me that, too, only I worry . . . that he’ll find me out as an impostor.”

  Her manner wasn’t that of a nervous, rescued orphan any longer. Faith had changed; she was calmer, more self-contained. When she made these remarks, they no longer came from anxious insecurity but from somewhere darker and more reflective.

  “Why?” Jess said impatiently. “Because you’re not Aetherial? But he made no secret of not wanting an Aetherial wife. I could smack him for that because it’s a ridiculous distinction. Or I could blame myself for him preferring someone who would not run off into the Otherworld or sleep with Lawrence Wilder.” She saw Faith’s cheeks redden. “Whatever, he chose you. So stop worrying, love, please. And now I’m bossing you around, too. Sorry.” She gave Faith a quick hug. “I know your parents gave you a hard time, but it’s over. You’re with us now.”

  Faith frowned. They’d talked about this in the past, but it kept clawing at her, as if there was something she couldn’t manage to express. “When they fought, it was like they were possessed. Like something from Du—Dumannios?—took them over. My mother used to clean at Stonegate. Could some bad spirit have got into her? Is that possible? What if it affects the baby?”