I’m always alone, Penny didn’t say to her mother, because even now, she wasn’t cruel. There wasn’t even any point in arguing. It didn’t really matter very much one way or another, and if that was true, why not yield?
“All right. I’ll check it out.”
The Clear Horizons support group met once a week, in a classroom in the local university’s physics building. Both Marley and her mother emailed her directions, while Branwyn took her shopping the morning before.
In the midst of trying on cute batik patchwork skirts, Branwyn said abruptly, “Are you angry that I saved you?”
Penny furrowed her brow, staring at the mirror. Caterpillars crawled on both of herself and her friend, but only in the reflection. “No, of course not.”
Branwyn scowled the way she always did when she was annoyed, so Penny tried a wry smile in return. It didn’t seem to fly.
“Don’t give me that, Penny. I saw what you dreamt about when I fixed you. And now—” Branwyn stopped herself, biting her lip. “Marley is worried you’ll fade away.”
Penny searched for something reassuring to say. “I’m not sure I can now?” That apparently wasn’t quite it, judging from the expression on Branwyn’s face. “I’d never hurt people like that.”
“But you miss him. You miss him more than anything.” Branwyn’s voice was raw as she added, “You wanted so badly to be with him.”
Penny shrugged. “That’s why I’m going to this meeting later today, right?”
Branwyn didn’t push further. That was good. Penny had trouble when her friends pushed her these days. She couldn’t cope, and if they pushed too hard, she’d just go home, turn off her phone, and lay in her bed to wait for her equilibrium to return. That was upsetting for everybody.
They parted ways. Branwyn had a project she was working on again, and Penny had a late lunch by herself. She watched people: watched them laugh and argue, watched how they strolled or stalked down the street. She liked people, even when they had six-legged dogs frisking around their ankles or vines twining their arms or seemed to be made of stone. She drew a rainbow on her napkin with the pens she always carried in her purse. People could be so clever and amazing. So strong, so unwilling to be defeated.
Maybe that wasn’t always a good thing.
“And aren’t you beautiful, here in the flesh?” came a man’s voice. Penny looked away from the sidewalk to see that somebody had appeared in the other chair. She hadn’t heard him show up or sit down and she frowned.
He sprawled like he’d been relaxing there for a while. His hair was black with orange at the tips, and his words had a light Australian accent. He wore expensive grey shoes, charcoal slacks, and a burgundy jacket. And he wasn’t human. She could see that straight away. He didn’t have any of the fuzzy light around him that humans had. There was a glint above his head, but other than that, he looked as vivid and real as everybody had looked, before her angel had damaged her soul.
“Can I help you with something?” Penny inquired politely. If it had been a human man, she would have just assumed he was hitting on her. But it seemed like anybody supernatural had something else on their minds.
“Yes, absolutely,” he responded. His twinkling eyes were a bright, intense blue. “Fall madly in love with me? That would make this much easier.”
“I don’t think so.” Penny’s heart twinged. “I’m not really in a falling-in-love place right now, and you’re not my type anyhow.”
“Depends on how you look at it, doesn’t it?” He grinned. “Sure, I’m not all noble, righteous, and misguided, but I am immortal, and I can certainly take all your problems away.”
“Who are you?” asked Penny, curiosity overtaking a dull, distant surprise.
“Call me Blaze. I know who you are, Penny Karzan.”
“And are you one of the—” she couldn’t bring herself to say ‘faerie,’ because it sounded so strange on her tongue, “—one of the newcomers? From the other world?”
He twisted his hand in a way that conveyed the essence of a bow. “I am. I have the honor to serve the Duchy of Neverbank and its two most splendid Queens.”
“Two Queens. My goodness,” said Penny blankly.
He lowered his voice conspiratorially, “All of the Marches and Duchies have two Queens. It isn’t always as romantic as it sounds.”
“How sad,” Penny murmured. “What did you actually want, sitting down at my table as you have? You may not be aware, being from a foreign place, but that’s actually rather rude here.”
“I already said,” he responded happily. “I’d like you to fall madly in love with me. That would make it so much easier to steal you away to Fairyland.”
He had an easy, friendly grin, with a thin, expressive mouth. She would have gone on a date with him in a heartbeat, back in the old days, just for the fun of it.
Instead, she narrowed her eyes. “This is about my soul, isn’t it? It’s not me you want to steal. Branwyn told me your people wanted the device she made to cure me. There was something about a door….”
That expressive mouth pulled to one side. “You have many attractions, it’s true. Your soul is unique and would adorn the court of any Queen. But it’s not just your soul. I did mention you were beautiful, didn’t I?”
“Yes. Well, I’m not going to fall in love with you, so you might as well go away,” Penny informed him. She felt a shudder in her soul, as if a nearby door had clanged shut. Blaze’s eyes widened, and then he vanished, literally into thin air.
Penny sat back, startled. She hadn’t expected him to obey her so directly, and almost as soon as he was gone, she wished she hadn’t sent him off so abruptly. It had been rude, which she only liked to be after careful consideration. But after a while her thoughts wandered away, back to her angel, and she all but forgot the encounter.
The meeting with the Clear Horizons support group was in the evening. She’d refused all the offers to take her there and tried to discourage them from calling her later to check that she’d gone. She would go. She didn’t think it would be any use. But yielding was easiest, and she liked people. She could simply watch these people and see what beauties they had.
The building only had a few scattered lights on. She easily found the classroom and peeked in. There were chairs arranged in a circle and only a few people sitting in them: a handful of young women, an older man in expensive slacks, and a younger man in new jeans with a university tee shirt. All of them had the blurs and crawling symbology she associated with humans. Everybody looked at her when she opened the door, and then the younger man sprang to his feet.
“Come in, come in. You’re Penny, right? I’m Robert, the group’s convener. Take a seat. We’re just going through introductions.”
Penny took a seat and listened as the circle of introductions completed, then introduced herself briefly, without giving any of her background. After everybody had a chance to state their name and, if they wanted, why they’d come to the group, Robert started talking about the origins of the group. His skin shimmered with sand that fell away and reformed as he moved, which was very distracting. But she picked up that they’d only had a couple of meetings so far.
It made sense; the faeries hadn’t been around for very long. There were, Robert explained, many parties interested in those who had been emotionally victimized by the faeries. It represented an interesting field of study, due to the nature of the faeries. And the treatment was very promising.
By the time Robert said to Penny, “We do hope that you’ll fill out some surveys about your recovery and your thoughts on the group,” Penny thought he had been talking rather a lot for the facilitator in a support group. But nobody else seemed eager to talk. Maybe with a new group it look time for everybody to relax, and he was obligated to fill the time with chatter about university projects, government funding, and stories he’d read in the news about faerie sightings.
But eventually, in the second half of the hour, he quieted down. There was a long moment of silenc
e, and then somebody bowed to the pressure to talk.
“I’m Jenzie,” murmured a young, heavyset woman with thin, pale hair and a printed sweatshirt. Lavender spirals literally crawled up her arms, and Penny wondered if they were some new magic effect or another vision. “I keep thinking about what he offered me.” She held out her hand. It looked much older than her face, with knobby knuckles and heavy skin. “A way to get away from all the pain.”
“Think about what brought you here,” urged Robert. “Think about what made you refuse and decide to stay you. Think about your treatment.”
Jenzie shook her head slowly. “Maybe I was just scared. Maybe what he offers is right.”
“It’s not right,” said another woman, dark-skinned and dark-eyed, with a sleeping baby in a wrap on her chest. Something radiant moved under her skin, swirling over her legs and up her torso. “We’re just trophies to them. They get inside our heads and make us think what they want, they take advantage of us, and it’s not right.”
“He said he wanted to save me,” said Jenzie doubtfully.
“No he don’t,” said the second woman scornfully. “He wanted a new plaything.”
Jenzie sighed and lowered her gaze. The older man (hair of metallic gold over his own greying cut) started talking about his own history, but Penny found herself looking at the women instead of listening, wondering if they felt what she felt. Wondering if it was possible that they understood. But they’d rejected offers. They were trying to escape from their supernatural lovers. The only reason she wasn’t with her beloved angel was because he had all but died.
No, she didn’t belong here.
The meeting concluded with a poor attempt at a rousing speech from Robert and an invitation to schedule their treatments online. As everybody was moving off, the facilitator caught Penny’s attention.
“If you have a few moments, I’d love for you to fill out this survey. No identifiable information, but it would be a great help for us in customizing the program for the unique situations you’re all dealing with.”
Penny wasn’t inclined to return, but it seemed like the least she could do. So he led her to a desk in the back of the classroom and gave her the form. It was a simple thing where she rated her feelings and opinions on various topics on a scale of one to five, and once again, reading the slant of the questions, she felt out of place.
While she went through the form, Robert put on a pair of amber-tinted glasses and inspected her, making notes of his own. When he met her curious gaze he said, “There’s so much to learn. These are a recent—well, recently dug up—innovation.” He tapped the frame of the glasses. Other than the color, they looked pretty ordinary to Penny. “They let us visually assess the faerie influence on a person.”
“And what do you see on me?” asked Penny, more to find out if he was pretending than because she was really curious.
“Oh, you’re totally different from everybody else. That’s one reason I’m so glad you decided to join us. You’ve got something strange going on. Strange, yet familiar…. But it seems stable. Very promising.” As he reached up to take the lenses off, a bit of light flashed against the glass and she realized his eyes were different behind the lens. Windows, she realized, windows to something within. Before she could see what, the lenses were being folded away.
“I hope you’ll continue to attend?”
“I’ll think about it,” Penny said vaguely. As his face fell, she added, “I think you’re doing good work here. My problems aren’t quite the same, though.”
He got a faraway look on his face. “Hard to tell that from one visit. I’ll hope we see you next week.”
Penny went home and sent texts to both Marley and her mother, assuring them that she’d attended the meeting and it was very nice. Then she curled up on her bed, pulling her covers high, and let herself drift into a daydream.
In her dream, Ettoriel hadn’t died, been erased, or whatever dire thing had happened when he’d faced down Marley. He’d lost all his power and been banished to Earth, an ordinary human. He was somewhere in LA still, lost and in need of her love. And when she found him and provided that love, he once again held her close and she felt like she was exactly where she belonged.
She woke up to a noise in her room. Her light was still on so it was easy to see what had caused it: Blaze sat in a chair across her bed, little metal polyhedrons spinning in his palm. He wore artfully ragged jeans and a plain white tee shirt, and his hair was half orange and half black.
“What—?” she began, then stopped, trying to shake the cobwebs out of her brain.
“You don’t undress to sleep?” he inquired, his eyes on his spinning toys.
“Maybe I was expecting you,” she said tartly. She smoothed her wrinkled skirt and swung her legs off the bed.
He looked up and quirked a smile. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, I certainly will be in the future, Mr. Rude. What are you doing here? I thought I told you to go away.”
“It wore off,” he said casually. “And I do have a job to do.”
“Well, this is not how you do it, whatever it is. You do not sit at people’s tables and you do not invade their homes. That means you don’t come in at all unless you’re invited, since you seem hazy on the idea.” He opened his mouth to respond and she didn’t let him. “You don’t grab them. You also don’t kiss them or buy them expensive gifts. That’s also unless invited or you have a close reciprocal relationship. Have some manners, please.” By the time she was done with the little lecture, she felt much better.
He looked at her for a long moment. Softly, he said, “You should tell me to go away again. It’s bad that you haven’t yet.”
It was, Penny realized. She ought to have screamed, called the police, demanded the Stranger leave her room at once. Instead she’d lectured him and smoothed her skirt, as if her appearance mattered. “Get out. Go away,” she said automatically.
The door in her soul slammed closed, and Blaze vanished.
Penny sat on her bed for a while, thinking about Blaze’s appearances and disappearances. Then she called Branwyn.
It rang a few times before Branwyn picked up. She sounded irritated. It was, Penny realized, 2:38 AM, and she began with, “Oh my God, I didn’t even look at the clock before calling—”
“I was working,” said Branwyn. “Don’t worry about it. What’s going on?”
Penny explained about Blaze’s visits and the way he vanished when she told him to go away. “The weirdest part is the way I can feel him leaving. Like a door is slamming.”
“Huh,” said Branwyn. “That’s… interesting. I guess your soul is still a key in some way. That would explain why they’re harassing you.”
“What can I do about it?”
“Keep telling him to go away?” Branwyn suggested. “If he doesn’t get the hint, we can always progress to more drastic steps. I’m working on something right now— no, actually, I’m not. Not a weapon. But we can come up with something.”
“If he wants my soul as a key, why doesn’t he just kill me and liberate it?” asked Penny, surprised by the bitterness in her own voice.
“Maybe he can’t? Maybe it wouldn’t do any good. Or maybe,” Branwyn finished, as if conceding an unwelcome possibility, “Maybe he’s just playing with you because that’s more fun. If you want, you could go to our apartment. Marley should be there and she could keep you safe until we sort this out.”
“No,” said Penny. “I’ll take care of myself. Thank you, Branwyn. Get some sleep, all right?”
She hung up and sat back on her bed again, staring at the place where Blaze had sat. After a while, she found herself half-asleep, pretending it was Ettoriel who had sat there instead. When she realized that, she roused herself just enough to put herself to bed properly, and fell into dreams of fire and broken mirrors.
Blaze didn’t bother her again for a week, which was more disappointing than she’d willingly admit to anybody. But once, while strolling down Colo
rado Blvd, she saw a faerie following some boys down the street. She quickened her pace some, until she was walking behind the faerie, and then she whispered, “Go away.”
And the faerie woman vanished, just like that, with nothing more than a tremor of Penny’s soul.
It was a strange feeling. She understood the cause and effect of the power, but it seemed like some sort of cosmic joke that she would have it. She could send faeries away. Some people might have been very excited by that. Was she exorcising them? She ought to ask Marley. Marley would probably know.
She indulged herself with a moment of searching for ‘exorcising faeries’ on her phone and found lots of discussions about whether faeries were demons, or angels, or aliens, and what else might be real, with a side order of Catholic liturgy.
Then her interest waned, and the whole thing went back to being a curiosity, nothing more.
So strange.
Her mother called her to offer her a job as a production assistant. “It isn’t good for you to be spending so much time brooding, my Penny. I know you have your artistic goals, and you know I support those, but I think for the time being you would be so much better in a structured environment.”
Under your easy supervision, Penny thought. But her mother had every reason to be worried. Instead she said, “I’m not sure I’m ready for a day job yet, Mama. I haven’t been working on anything creative lately either.”
“What have you been doing, then?” She could hear the frown in Viviana’s voice.
Walking, mostly. I visit coffee shops I’ve never visited before, in parts of the city I never go to, in case he’s there. “Taking it easy,” she said. “Doing some research on a future project, maybe.”
She was lying. She couldn’t help it. Her artistic goals were a lie, too: they had always been more about her self-image than anything else. She wanted to be a writer, be a designer, but her abilities to write and design were so limited. It took effort and vision, and she’d never managed more than the vaguest beginnings. Penny hadn’t even realized it, until she’d woken up and looked at the props that filled her home. They were no different than the blouses and skirts in her closet: accessories for an identity she’d built for herself that never touched on who she actually was.
Etiquette of Exiles (Senyaza Series Book 4) Page 9