Elfland

by Freda Warrington

  Rosie flipped the pages to an earlier entry.

  Had a lucky escape tonight. M. walked in while I was bathing Heather. The bubbles were almost gone and she was green in the water, pale green, shimmery like a butterfly wing. Suddenly he appeared, and I thought he must see her—she was sitting in plain view. I panicked and threw a towel over her, only I was clumsy and it landed on her head. He stared at me and said, “What on earth are you doing?” and I said, “She has soap in her eyes,” and I couldn’t believe he didn’t see anything because her tummy was clearly visible—but he didn’t. He only shook his head and walked out. And then I was furious because she is so beautiful and he couldn’t see it and I couldn’t share it with him. And Heather kept asking why I was crying.

  Rosie bit the end of her thumb. Faith’s sadness pervaded every line. She felt guilty reading it but couldn’t stop. Had a lovely talk with Jessica today, said a typical entry. She is so nice. If it wasn’t for her, I would probably just go.

  What does it mean, that I’m not human? I thought I felt human, but maybe I don’t, because this is all I’ve ever known. Realizing you’re Aetherial shouldn’t mean being ashamed and trying to hide it from the one person who should understand. Never mind M—what does it mean to me? I see images of silver-blue lakes that go on forever. I swim and swim. There are marvellous underwater caves. When I climb out on the far shore, I see—oh, it’s so clear—

  The kitchen door opened. Rosie looked up from the diary and saw her mother standing there disconsolate. She was wearing a khaki walking jacket and her hair was tangled from wind and rain. “Mum?” she said, hardly needing to ask. “What’s up?”

  Jessica stirred, shouldering off the damp jacket. “I’ve been up to Stonegate.”

  “Oh, Mum.” Rosie hung the garment on a chair and hugged her. It was painful to see the shadows around her eyes. “We talked about this.”

  “I didn’t try to see Luc,” Jess said stiffly. “I went to Freya’s Crown. I meant to go and find Faith. To see she’s all right and bring her back. Only the Lychgate’s closed.” She held up an unfastened bracelet of white gold and albinite, which sparkled faintly purple in response to her. “I was looking for the flash of green that indicates an open portal. Nothing.”

  “Oh, my god. You shouldn’t have gone on your own!”

  “Well, it’s academic now. There’s a sort of silver freckling where it was, but it’s firmly shut again.”

  “Oh?” Rosie leaned against the table, arms folded. “Would it close without help?”

  “No. Either Lawrence has done it, or he’s forced Luc to. Faith’s trapped. I miss her so much.”

  “So do I,” said Rosie. Fear crept through her, a feeling she’d been trying to deny because she’d already had enough. Faith beyond reach—that was unthinkable, but what did Lawrence care? Jessica’s face held a bleak, angry look Rosie had never seen before. “My biggest fear was always that Lawrence would get his claws into Lucas, and now he has. I’m close to thinking that Phyll and Comyn are right. There’s nothing to do with Lawrence but bring him down.”

  Rosie stood before the Crone Oak and looked up into the naked branches. Winter was fading, snowdrops shining, daffodil shoots pushing up. It was the first time she’d brought herself to visit the site. The debris was long since cleared, but evidence of the crash was still apparent in tire marks on the road, newly sawn stumps shining white where fractured branches had been amputated. Glass fragments glinted on the tarmac.

  People had left bunches of flowers. Most were from colleagues at Fox Homes. That floral shrine, more than anything, gave her a visceral shock. She hadn’t expected the scene to affect her so badly, but a horrible, hot feeling crept over her and she could hardly breathe.

  She wondered about the dryad who had insistently warned about blood. There was no whisper of her. “Greenlady?” Rosie spoke quietly. “You must have foreseen this. You asked me to prevent it, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

  Nothing stirred. The tree looked abandoned.

  When spring came, Rosie began to create a garden. She’d started it some time ago in the neglected rose arbor where Oakholme bordered the Stonegate estate; the place where, years ago, she’d found Matthew hiding after he’d fought with Sam. Then she hadn’t quite known what form the garden should take, but now it was clear. A restless spirit possessed her. Despite slaving all day at Fox Homes, she spent the remaining hours of daylight constructing this special, secret bower.

  She designed a path that spiraled inwards and surfaced it with flakes of silvery slate. The curves were delineated by granite-edged beds that she filled with silver foliage and black flowers; tulips, pansies, iris, hyacinth; every variety she could find with near-black petals. Against the silver, they bloomed like waxy ebony brushed with the merest hint of purple.

  The middle of her garden was slightly sunken, so it drew you down as it spiraled in. At the very center she placed an egg of black and grey polished marble, two feet in height. It was so heavy that she needed Sam’s help to position it. For the past few weeks he’d been living with college friends in Ashvale, and she at Oakholme, but they saw each other every day. Often she would stay with him, but they were still treading very cautiously towards a future together. In front of her family, they downplayed their relationship and acted with tactful decorum. Somehow that made the private intensity between them stronger than ever, a spellbinding fire.

  “What’s this all about, anyway?” he asked.

  “It’s my ambition to design a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show,” she answered. “This is my tryout.”

  “A spiral,” said Sam. “I like it. Monochrome. Very contemporary.”

  “The secret, which you can’t see until you walk it, is that where the path reaches the egg, it curls back on itself and brings you out again. Like death and rebirth.”

  “A garden about the Otherworld,” Sam said, smiling. “I get it.”

  “Yes. A garden about the Spiral.”

  He gave her a candid look. “Other people write poems or paint pictures. My Foxy expresses herself in a medium that involves backbreaking hunks of rock.”

  “Thank goodness I’ve got you to massage my strained muscles.” She slipped close to him, her arms folding around his waist. There was nothing sweeter than the radiant pleasure of holding each other, with no prison guards to stop them.

  “Rosie, come away with me,” he said softly in her ear.

  “I’d love to, Sam, but I can’t, not yet.” She dug her fingers into his ribs. “How can you think of it?”

  “Easy. I’d cheerfully walk away and leave them all to it. If we wait for everyone to get their lives into perfect shape, we could wait for bleeding eternity!” He sighed, rested his cheek on her hair. “Really, we have to stick around to the bitter end, don’t we?”

  What is love, anyway? Faith asked in her diary. Seated on the marble egg in the center of the spiral, Rosie pondered the question. The evenings were lengthening, the sun glimmering low to bathe her in cool golden light. She was finally beginning to grope towards an answer. Love wasn’t one thing. It had many faces, many moods. It wasn’t being infatuated with Jon’s pretty face and flowing hair, that was for sure.

  Alone, she sat and read the journal again, hoping her friend would forgive her. She realized that she’d never known Faith at all.

  Matt thinks I’m a mouse. Even Rosie thinks it, albeit one to be loved and protected. They think I’m sad and fragile. That I only care about cooking, cleaning and mothering. If they knew what I really think about, they’d call me mad.

  Rosie heard footsteps crunching behind her; someone taking a naughty shortcut across the beds. “It’s beautiful,” said Auberon. “Very unusual. I tried not to peek while you were working.”

  “I’m glad you like it. You’re supposed to walk around, but I’ll let you off.”

  “Walking a spiral is like treading a magical path,” Auberon said dryly. “It invokes the Otherworld. I suppose you know that, or you wouldn’t have built it.
”

  “In that case, jumping over the flowerbeds is bound to annoy the Spiral Court,” she retorted. “There’s no causeway, it would have spoiled the lines.”

  “Quite.” He perched himself on a small hunk of granite nearby, forearms resting on his knees. “It’s very peaceful. Like a Zen garden.”

  Rosie opened the diary and said, “Dad, listen to this.”

  I see a city of gleaming black stone that shines with jewel-colors; crimson, royal purple and blue. I see labyrinthine passages and rooms where you can lose yourself for days, months.

  Lofty pillars. Balconies onto a crystal-clear night full of stars, great sparkling white galaxies like flowers. Statues of winged men looking down with timeless eyes. I want to stand on those balconies and taste the breeze and hear the stars sing and be washed in the light of the moon. There will be ringed planets, and below—the tops of feathery trees blowing gently. An undiscovered land full of streams, with birch trees in spring green, and oak and hazel—and their elemental guardians, slender birch-white ladies with soft hazel brown hair—and mossy banks folding into water.

  And through this citadel walk graceful men and women with lovely elongated faces and calm, knowing eyes—with a glint of mischief—and they are perfect and know it and they are imperfect and know it. They have seen too much. They might wear robes of medieval tapestry or jeans and a shirt but you would never mistake them for human. It’s so much more than beauty. Look at them once and you can’t look away. These are Aetherials in their oldest city, Tyrynaia.

  They have been building the citadel for thousands of years and it will never be finished. Upwards it spreads, and outwards, and down into the rock below. Their seat of power. Their home.

  They take the names of gods, on occasion.

  And sometimes they are heroic and help the world.

  And sometimes they are malicious and turn it upside down.

  Some might be vampires. It’s hard to tell.

  In the deepest depths of the citadel, a ceiling of rock hangs over an underground lake and here is Persephone’s chamber. She welcomes and cares for those who come, soul-sick with despair, seeking solace, rest and sleep. Here they need not speak, only sit on the black marble lip with their feet on the thick glass, and watch the lake and the luminous fish beneath, which is like a reflection of the sky far above. If you lie down in despair, Persephone will lie down with you.

  Rosie stopped. “Can you believe that Faith could write something like that?” she said.

  Auberon shook his head. “How does she know about it? That’s the question.”

  “Is she talking about somewhere real?”

  “There are said to be cities, Tyrynaia and Celadon . . . What would the ancient Aetherials, the Estalyr, be without a fabled city?” He looked down and tapped his foot, preoccupied.

  “Dad, are you okay?”

  “No, not really. I’m contemplating failure. I’ve always tried to be the father figure who sorts out everyone’s problems. Then you come to something you simply can’t put right, and it makes you admit you’re as hopeless as anyone.”

  “Honestly,” she said. “You’re the least hopeless person I know.”

  “Ah, it’s all an act. I suspected for years that Matthew had problems, but because he didn’t ask for help, I thought he was coping. Now, when I finally get to the root of it—I realize I can’t help him. No one actually can. I’m not omnipotent after all. Not that I ever thought I was, but you know, one tries to maintain the illusion.”

  She smiled. “You’ve always been King of Elfland to Luc and me.”

  “I thought I could tame Lawrence, but no. Couldn’t even keep Jess happy. Work took me over and I was too busy building my little empire to remember that she had the spirit of a wild Aetherial, and if I wasn’t there, she would run to the forests with someone like Lawrence, instead.”

  “She came back.”

  “Yes, she did. And never sang another note, as if to say, look, I’ve clipped my own wings. I never wanted that. I wouldn’t be without Lucas for anything. She had no need to punish herself.”

  “You don’t, either. We need our father, not Superman.”

  Auberon laughed softly. He leaned forward, bracing his hands on his thighs. “When Lawrence first locked the Gates, I was horrified and dismayed, as you’d expect of any pure-blood Aetherial. However, part of me was glad. I love the Earth, Rosie. My roots are deep in it. This guilty side of me thought that if Elysion were out of bounds, perhaps my wife and children wouldn’t feel its pull, or vanish into the wilds of the Spiral. That’s partly why I didn’t fight Lawrence too hard.”

  “Partly?” Rosie watched her father intently. His eyes were dark under lowered lashes; a hint of sweat dewed the black curls of his beard. She held her breath as if the faintest sound might derail his confession.

  “The initiation of a young Aetherial can be an ordeal. For as long as the Gates stayed shut, I thought I’d never have to worry about my children facing it.”

  “Dad, we know.”

  He gave a resigned laugh. “I was wrong to overprotect you, but I’ve seen how raw it can be. Lawrence . . . Although he was born in Sibeyla, his grandmother brought him to Earth quite young and that means, when you go back, the Aelyr will treat you like a Vaethyr initiate and brand you anyway. It’s a small revenge on those who have the cheek to leave. His father Albin was particularly difficult about his leaving, I understand. Lawrence didn’t actually have to come with me when my initiation fell due; but he did, because we were friends.”

  “Something bad happened?”

  “That’s the thing; it’s so unpredictable. When it was my turn, yes, it hurt, and yes, it was terrifying, but I survived, obviously. What Lawrence saw, however, drove him mad.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t think he could explain, even to himself. He confronted whatever it is that has always haunted him. I came out of my own trance, there in the meadows of Elysion, and saw him. We were alone—the initiates are left to their own devices, as you know—and he was some way ahead of me, running blindly and tearing at his skin as he ran. I ran after him. He paused on the edge of a gully and I shouted, but he didn’t hear. Then he threw himself over.

  “When I reached him, he’d gone over a twenty-foot drop and landed on rocks in the edge of a river. There was blood. He was unconscious in the water. So I scrambled down and pulled him out, gave him the kiss of life, stopped the flow of blood from his side until he came back to himself.”

  “You saved his life.”

  Auberon sighed. “This one, anyway. And he was distraught. He raved about a shadow beast and said he couldn’t live with it; why hadn’t I let him die? What was I supposed to say to that? I reassured him it was only a vision—but initiatory visions can be a distorted picture of reality, which he knew full well. Anyway, he picked himself up and we went back and never spoke of it again.”

  “Ah,” Rosie breathed. “So he’s never forgiven you for saving his life, is that it?”

  “Exactly.” Auberon gave a sour smile. “I could never confront him or hate him—not when Comyn urged me, not even about Jessica—all because of that. I’d saved him. That made his life forever of special value to me, so that whatever he did, I could never hurt him back. As if, by that action, I’d signed up to safeguard him forever.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us before?”

  “Oh, it was always very personal, private. Apart from Jess, I told no one. Lawrence and I never spoke of it, but it was always there between us. Comyn accuses me of being too much of Earth, and he’s right.”

  “I don’t blame you for that.” She frowned. “I love you for it.”

  “I’ve colluded in trying to keep you from your heritage, because I couldn’t rise above being a protective father and treat you as independent adults.”

  “For all you did to prevent it, we got hunted down and branded anyway. It happened to Lucas even before he opened the Lychgate. We survived.”

  Auberon lifted h
is hands. “And the plots and schemes of possessive old codgers are ultimately, utterly futile.”

  “Codger? You?” Rosie gasped. “I’ll keep that to tease you with. But if Lawrence had died . . . if Luc had . . . you know what I’m trying to ask.”

  “It’s said we can go on indefinitely, in one form or another. No return from the Abyss, they say—but we can’t even be sure of that, since it’s also the Source. The Mirror Pool, on the other hand, is about accepting transformation. Elysion may heal the physical body, but if that fails, we may revert to an elemental state for a few years or centuries. It’s hard when someone close does that, because it’s like touching a ghost; you have to accept that they aren’t the same person, but in a state of transition.”

  “Like the Greenlady in the Crone Oak.”

  Auberon said quietly, “I didn’t know you knew about her.”

  “She always used to leap out and utter dire warnings about the crash, which I didn’t understand until it was too late. But she would be kind, too. She was strange and wonderful. And now she’s gone.”

  Auberon let out a heavy sigh, his expression so dark she wondered what she’d said. “Rosie, the Greenlady—when she was in her human shape—she was my grandmother. I’m quite sure she would have known you were her great-granddaughter. And, in whatever distant way elementals are still capable of caring, that she cared about you.”

  After a time, when Rosie had let the knowledge sink in, she said, “And what now? Lawrence can’t keep Lucas at Stonegate forever. It feels as if the world’s holding its breath.”

  She felt her father’s hand on her shoulder. “I also didn’t fight Lawrence about the Gates because I always sensed that he is right. He has been protecting us from destruction.”