“Okay, I’m sorry, that’s not what I was going for. I guess I thought your behavior was a little rude, how about that?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you did just take off without telling us where you were going and you were gone for like a half hour. If I did that, you’d be furious with me.” He had me there and if I argued, I’d be lying and he’d know it. Damn it.
“I’ll give you that much. I’m sorry for ditching you, okay?”
“Okay, but can I still know what happened?” He softened his voice to a low rumbling sound. I sighed heavily, thinking about how to explain. Jensen’s reluctance to accept how much magic was a factor in my life always made talking to him about it difficult. He was fine with the concept of it, but the psychic abilities that came with it made him uncomfortable. I knew that which made us the most uncomfortable in others was what they reflected in you.
“Well, you remember when Jeremy was reading that poem?” I asked, starting out slowly.
“Yes,” Jensen nodded, waiting for me to continue.
“Okay, well, when he got upset with his brother, Jodi and I could hear something in the air.” I really didn’t know how Jensen was going to feel about faeries, belief in magic or not. Mythical creatures were always harder for people to accept as real.
“Oh yeah, I remember the air felt thicker, heavier,” Jensen said, surprising me. I turned wide eyes to him and saw that he was rubbing his arms like Jeremy had when we faced him on the sidewalk.
“Did you hear anything?” I asked.
“No, but I remember that odd feeling like something was about to happen, but then he ran off and it was like my ears popped and that feeling was gone.”
I was shaking my head slowly, not really aware of the motion. “Anyway, it was a flock of faeries, a big flock of faeries. At least, we thought they were faeries.” I waited for him to laugh or scoff at me, but he simply looked confused.
“Faeries, you mean like Tinkerbell?” And there was the light sarcasm so many people get when you talk about the Fae Folk.
“No, not like Tinkerbell.” My voice dripped with my own sarcasm and I rolled my eyes. “Faeries, gnomes, pixies, they’re all real and don’t sprinkle faerie dust and grant wishes. They can be helpful, don’t get me wrong, but mostly they can be mischievous and playful.”
“Okay, but why did you seem so upset?” Jensen asked as he eased to a stop in the school parking lot by my car, putting the car in park.
“Well, they’re helpful when they want to be, mischievous and playful when they’re bored, but when you piss them off…” I shivered and closed my eyes. “When you anger them, well, things can go real bad and that many together… I’ve never seen that many together outside of a faerie ring.”
“A faerie ring?” Jensen asked and the sarcasm had left his voice.
“Um, yeah, it’s a Celtic folk tale. Have you ever seen a ring of toadstools?”
“No. I mean, I know what you’re talking about, but I’ve never actually seen one, not a complete circle,” he said, shaking his head.
“Yeah, they’re not as common as they used to be. Too many people break them up before they can form the whole ring. But when they do, that’s a faerie ring. It’s like a doorway to the land of faerie,” I explained and, right on cue, Jensen laughed, just like everyone does when I gave this explanation. “Yes, yes, laugh it up.” I could hear the impatience in my voice and I was happy for it. I didn’t like being laughed at. I had proven over and over to Jensen that magic was real and I knew how to use it and here he was laughing about faeries when he himself felt them in the air.
“I’m sorry, it just sounds so corny, like a fairytale.” He was still chuckling and I wanted nothing more than to wipe that stupid grin off his face.
“You sat there and told me that you felt the air change when Jeremy got upset, but now you laugh when I tell you what it was. You know, I’m getting pretty sick and tired of constantly explaining myself to you.” I reached for the door handle and started to get out but just as I turned my body, Jensen laid his hand carefully on my other wrist.
“Wait, I’m sorry, you’re right.” He sighed heavily and, when I turned to look at him, his eyes were closed and his head had dropped. I pulled the door closed again and turned towards him. “It’s just after what I saw my brother do with magic last year, it’s really hard for me to act like all of this is normal and… okay,” he finished with a shrug. I felt a knot form in the bottom of my stomach and knew I had been equally insensitive about this whole thing.
“That’s the first time you’ve said anything like that.” My voice was quiet and embarrassed.
“I know. I’m sorry.” He opened his eyes to look at me. “I’m trying, I really am.” He looked so wounded it hurt my heart to see him like this. I reached a hand out and cupped his cheek, pulling him into me. His breath was hot against my face and his skin smelled of a heady, musky fragrance that I could never pinpoint all of the flavors of. I felt my mouth water and laid my lips against his, which were hot and rough against mine. I slid my hand up, slipping my fingers into the soft thickness of his hair, twining them and scratching my nails along his scalp. I felt him shiver against my mouth and he was suddenly kissing me roughly enough to pull a sound from my throat. He slid his arms around my waist, pulling me against his chest over the center console.
The emergency brake dug into my knee and I didn’t care. I felt like we would crawl inside each other’s mouths or tear each other apart. It was such a sudden change in behavior from just a moment ago it stole any breath I had left in me. I broke away from him with a gasp and laughed, stunned a little. I blinked my vision back to normal and he eased his arms from around my waist, letting me slide back into my seat. “Sorry,” he whispered, his voice a little breathy.
“No worries,” I giggled, to my mortification, but if you can’t giggle on a date, then when can you?
“I guess I just needed to admit what my problem was and it was like a weight was lifted and it felt so good and then you kissed me…” I reached out and put my fingertips on his lips to stop him, still feeling the heat of my kiss lingering there.
“Don’t explain, I understand. I’ll try to be more patient with you, okay? Just as long as you try to be more open-minded.” He smiled under my touch and kissed my fingertips before taking my hand in his.
“Sounds good.”
“I take it you’ll be at the bookstore tomorrow?” Jensen asked as I reached down to grab my purse before opening the door.
“Yeah, I didn’t really recognize what those things were and I need to find out.”
“I thought you said they were faeries?”
“Well, they probably were, but they didn’t feel like anything Jodi and I have ever dealt with before, so better safe than sorry.” Jensen nodded, accepting what I said without argument, which was a nice change. He walked me to the car door, kissing me one last time before I unlocked the door and slid inside. He waved at me through the window and I drove off.
Chapter 4
The house was full dark save for the hallway light my dad always left on for me. They didn’t wait up for me anymore to see if I’d made it in by curfew. I had spent the first two years of having a curfew so terrified of being even a few minutes late that I had actually earned their trust that I would be in by the time I was supposed to be and if not, I’d call. I just knew it was better to abide by the rules and have my privileges rather than test the limits and push the envelope just to get grounded over an extra half hour in the middle of the night.
I was still a little weak in the knees from Jensen’s voracious kiss but I pushed away from the door, making sure it was locked, and stepped into the pool of light at the entrance to the hallway. My room was at the end of the hall where the second switch for the hallway was. I had a light switch system for our house; I could get to my room and to either end of the house without ever being in the dark. I’d get to my room, open the door, and turn on the light before I turned off the ha
llway light at that end. I have never been afraid of the dark; just what I knew was hiding in it. I knew those things were still there in the light of day, but I also knew they were cowards and feared the light.
I had shields on my house, believe me, but my belief in monsters gave them life and access inside the house. Intellectually, I knew this. I knew all I had to do was stop giving them energy by not thinking about them and I could make them go away, but when you feel their breath in your hair, their eyes on the small of your back, and can hear the whisper of claws on the walls it’s hard not to think about them. It’s hard not to run down the hall for your room and want nothing more than to dive for the bed and pull the covers over your head and hide. I chose not to lose my childlike faith in the pretty mythical creatures; therefore I couldn’t lose faith in the ugly, scary, and mean things out there either.
I opened my bedroom door and reached into the darkness beyond with as little of my hand as I could until I felt the slick cool touch of plastic and flipped the switch. The light flooded inside the room and my hand felt lighter. I passed the threshold into the bedroom, dropping my purse at the foot of the bed, and grabbed hold of the doorframe with my right hand and leaned out, straining against my own fingers until I could reach the hall light switch and pulled myself in like a drowning victim out of the rushing sea before the dark could cut into the pool of light from my bedroom. I stepped to the side and shut the door tight, leaning against it with a deep, shuttering breath.
“Get a grip, girl,” I whispered to myself, trying to stop my hands from shaking and more than a little aware of the cold sweat that had broken out on my skin. I caught my breath and shook my head, trying to clear it. “What the hell?” I looked around my room, as if the answer to my disquieted nerves was hidden somewhere among my bookshelves and nick knacks. Sure the dark put me on edge, but this was extreme even for me. I pushed away from the door, feeling the darkness behind the wood pressing against me like a hand trying to open the door. Maybe it was my imagination, but I wanted away from it. I turned and faced it, raising my right hand up and laying the first two fingertips against it and drew banishing and protection symbols over it, whispering a prayer to my guardian angel.
Relief washed over me like a splash of cold water in the morning. A tightness in my chest that I hadn’t realized was there loosened. “Damn pixies…” I muttered to myself, shaking my head again and immediately kicked off my shoes, stripped my socks, and walked to the middle of my room where an area rug covered the hardwood floor. Underneath the rug I had a pentagram of casting and protection drawn in acrylic crayon on the floor so that I could use it whenever the spirit moved me. I had originally tried chalk, but found that eventually the lines would smudge and break. With the acrylic crayon I didn’t have to re-draw the circle over and over again, reciting the prayers and casting the spells it took for fear my parents might walk in on me in the middle of it. I may have inherited my powers from my mother’s side of the family, but that didn’t change the fact that it made her uncomfortable.
My mother had some psychic abilities; her strongest skill was in reading tarot and medicine cards. She used to read all the time, until one day she was reading a layout for a friend and saw the death of that friend’s brother. Sadly, the horrible event came to pass and my mother’s friend never spoke to her again. My mother had wrapped her cards up and packed them away. She couldn’t throw them away, but she would never read them again just the same. So the decks sit, waiting for me to claim them when I want them. Card reading has never been my strong suit. Since that happened my mother has been increasingly uncomfortable with the supernatural so as the years went by I just stopped talking to her about it. But I have so many more powers than she ever did that I can’t just tuck them neatly away and ignore them. My father on the other hand was raised in a Christian home and my mother never spoke to him about her family’s abilities so I’ve just taken my cue from her.
I found the center without looking. It was just part of me now, like breathing. I fell into a half-lotus, hands opens, head back, eyes closed, and found my center, grounding into the earth. I fell into the meditative trance I needed, feeling the give and take of energy from my body to the earth keeping me anchored to the here and now and stepped away from my physical body.
I turned and looked at myself, shimmering in the golden and silver power running in and through my body from the earth beneath the floor and the circle I sat in. Last year, when I had first done this, I had discovered large, black and sliver angel wings hung from my back just like any great and terrible angel I had ever seen. One tip always seemed to be dripping blood into the ground, but where that blood came from I could never tell. I remembered that angels were once, and if allowed, still are the warriors of Heaven. But although I was in awe of the vision of the wings on my back, I still didn’t understand why they were there.
Carefully, as if I could break the edges of the circle, I walked around myself until I could see my back, but the wings obscured my view. Stepping around them was more awkward than it should have been, but I still wasn’t used to moving like this. I knelt between the wings and there I saw, in the small of my back, a cloying green smear. I shook my head, the room wavering before me, and sighed. A spell. How the hell did I not feel that? Damn pixies!
I reached out a hand and found the green mass sticky and warm, but I grabbed a hold of it and peeled it painfully away from my body. I could feel it tearing against my back, nearly breaking my concentration and forcing me back into my body, but I held firm, determined to win out. It came away from my physical body in a rush, almost knocking me on my back and out of the circle. I stumbled and regained my balance, gripping the green mass in my hand. I heard an angry whispering and the stomp of a foot that made me jump, looking around the room. There, just inside my bedroom door was a tiny man with a mane of hair like a bushel of broken twigs, narrow hips, and a squashed nose. He wasn’t more than six inches tall and he was pointing sharp, skinny fingers at me, gnashing terribly ugly teeth and cursing in a language I didn’t know.
“Hobyah!” I hissed the name of the evil little faerie at him, anger at my foolishness flooding through me. He stopped his temper tantrum and grinned up at me, flourishing his hand in the air and bowing low to the ground. That same creeping, clammy feeling began to grow at the small of my back. “Oh no, you don’t, you little trickster!” I whispered angrily at him. I closed my eyes, knowing he wouldn’t come near enough to touch me for fear I’d snatch him, and visualized Jensen’s smiling face, letting the beauty of his endless blue eyes and sharp cheekbones fill my vision. I sighed, appreciating the view and let my mind wander to earlier with Jensen’s arms wrapped around my waist and the heat of his kiss filling me. I smiled and heard one last tiny curse and then silence filled my room again. I opened my eyes and saw the Hobyah was gone. One good happy thought and he was no more. Tinker bell philosophy at its best. I shook my head and looked at the green mass still coating my hand, beginning to seep down my arm. “And now to get rid of you.”
I visualized a small but powerful vortex swirling around my hand, encasing the foreign substance, and opening a channel back to the source of all things. With the force of my will, I sent it back, casting it into the source to be absorbed rather than sending it out to the world to grow into something more sinister and harmful. I closed the channel and found my way carefully back into my body, settling into it like a comfortable chair.
I came back to myself in a rush of air, rocking back a few inches and settling forward. Instinctively, I reached behind me and felt the small of my back. It still tingled from the magic, but the remnants of the spell were gone. It was tender to the touch so I would probably have a bruise or a welt by the morning.
I knew I had angered Jeremy’s faeries by accidentally frightening him, but to lay a spell of fear and reluctance on me without really knowing my intentions seemed rash, even for faeries or pixies. Scare me away from Jeremy, sure, but cast against me, now that was out of character.
&n
bsp; The next morning I was sitting in my room, hunched over my desk with the few books I owned about faeries spread out around me, a cup of coffee steaming in one hand and my cell phone in the other.
“A Hobyah? You have got to be kidding,” Jodi said and I could hear surprise in her voice, giving me an image of her eyebrows arching high on her forehead.
“No, an honest to Nicnivin Hobyah,” I said, shaking my head before taking a sip of my coffee.
“Nicnivin… queen of the faeries, right?” Jodi asked.
“Of the bad ones, yeah.” I nodded even though she couldn’t see me and set my cup down, pulling an open book closer to me.
“I thought there weren’t any good or bad faeries, they just are.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like there is no good or bad magic, just the practitioner doing the work.” I flipped the page to the illustration of the Hobyah the artist had rendered, a spitting image of the angry little gray man in my room. “Look, if all you do all day long is help with housework or tend the flowers in the garden, then I’d say you’re a good faerie. If all you do all day long is try to scare the hell out of someone or steal things away just because they’re there to grab, I’d say you’re a bad faerie.”
“They don’t like to be categorized,” Jodi said, her voice falling a little.
“I know that, babe, believe me, I know it just as well as you do, but you’ve never been visited by a Hobyah and now I have. Trust me, he’s not a good faerie. And the fact that I was able to make him go away with a happy thought… well, you make your own conclusions.” I closed the book on the picture of the Hobyah so roughly I nearly sloshed my coffee out of the cup.
“Huh, you’ve got a point there,” Jodi conceded. “What I want to know is how he got in? I mean you’ve got the best shields on your house that I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeah, but good or bad, faeries aren’t really evil so they can get through the shields. He may have meant to scare me, but he didn’t mean to harm me. Faerie logic at its best,” I said with a sigh.
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