Autumn

by Edwards, Maddy

  I wished everything was simpler, but every time I thought it couldn’t get more complicated, it did.

  “I like your hair,” I said to Carley for what felt like the hundredth time. She had gone to have it dyed the day before, and though I had sat with her the whole time, she hadn’t been sure about the finished product.

  “Do you think Nick will like it?” she had asked.

  I told her honestly that Nick would find her attractive even if she got a bunch of piercings and a face tattoo that read “I Love Britney.” Carley had giggled and informed me that the tattoo parlor was our next stop. Luckily, she had been kidding; I didn’t think Mrs. Hightower would forgive me if I sat there while her daughter got a tattoo of Britney, or anything else for that matter.

  “He’s coming over soon,” she said. “To help set up.”

  As it turned out, our party was going to be small. A lot of our friends had only been in Castleton for the summer and were now on their way back to their respective homes. One friend, Nate, whose girlfriend had been killed by a Water Sprite earlier in the summer, and another, Jill, who worked with us at the cafe, were stopping by, but neither would be around to go to school with me. Jill was in college and Nate lived in Connecticut.

  “Who else is coming?” I asked.

  “Well, your mom isn’t getting here until tomorrow, so Nate, Jill, Nick, Samuel, Susan,” Carley said, counting off on her fingers. I yelped.

  “What are they doing coming?” I asked.

  “Well,” said Carley, with mock patience, “when I told you I was going to invite friends, I, you know, MEANT it.”

  “Great,” I muttered. “Just what I needed.”

  “I don’t see why you haven’t been hanging out with Samuel more anyway,” said Carley, tossing her newly black hair over her shoulder and rubbing her arms for warmth. “With Holt away on a trip it seems like you should be hanging out with him all the time.” That’s where Carley thought Holt was, a trip. I don’t know where she got that idea, except that maybe Susan had paid her a late-night visit so there wouldn’t be any questions about his disappearance.

  “I’m surprised they aren’t too busy,” I murmured.

  Carley rolled her eyes. “Are those two dating or something? Because if they are and I were Susan, I’d be mad.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I’ve seen how he looks at you.” Carley pushed out her lower lip and batted her eyes. “He gets these big puppy dog eyes whenever you’re around.”

  I laughed.

  “That’s sooo not true,” I said.

  “Of course it is,” said Carley. “He has ever since the first day he saw you. Remember when we were on the beach at the beginning of the summer? He was totally smitten.”

  “Whatever,” I said, getting out of the hammock. “I’m going to take a nap before everyone gets here.” I had been napping a lot. I think my body was adjusting to the whole Fairy transformation thing. Besides, all the stress was making me tired, and now Carley was leaving, so there would be even less going on than usual to distract me from worrying about Holt. Luckily, school started soon. I would ask Samuel tonight when I could see Holt; it had been a week, and I wasn’t sure I could take any more time away.

  I sighed as I curled up in bed and fell asleep, hoping that Holt had somewhere comfortable to sleep too.

  I woke up to my alarm clock buzzing. My first instinct was to throw it across the room, but I resisted. Instead, I pulled myself out of bed and dressed for the party. I couldn’t bring myself to care about what I was wearing, so I just threw on a blue long-sleeved T and jeans and headed downstairs to see what Carley would make me do to help get ready.

  “There you are,” said Carley as I walked into the kitchen.

  “Here I am,” I said.

  “You look terrible,” said Carley. “Didn’t you want to put any makeup on?”

  “Not really,” I told her. What for? Holt wasn’t coming and Susan and Samuel still weren’t very happy with me. Samuel was never going to be, it seemed.

  We spent the next hour cooking, rearranging furniture, and picking out music to play. Carley’s mother was going to be at the house, and she informed Carley with a stern glare that there wasn’t going to be anything too loud or too crazy.

  Carley had made the mistake of not telling her mother about dying her hair beforehand, because she was afraid that her mother wouldn’t approve. Unfortunately for Carley, her mother didn’t. Now Mrs. Hightower wouldn’t speak to Carley, and she had refused to leave so that we could have an unsupervised party.

  “This year’s going to be fun,” Carley had muttered to me.

  Nick arrived first, which was awkward, because Carley had gone back to pretending that he didn’t exist, even though she wanted him to like her hair.

  When Nate got there she pulled him off into a corner and acted like he was the only person in the world. Jill ended up texting me to say that she couldn’t make it, which left Samuel, Susan, Nick, and me to ourselves.

  Susan, being the total sweetheart that she was, tried to distract Nick from staring at Carley flirting with another guy, which left me to talk to Samuel.

  Samuel probably wasn’t happy about this development, but I was. I needed to ask when I was going to see Holt, and since I wasn’t going to ask Mrs. Cheshire, that left Samuel.

  “When can I see him?” I asked, pitching my voice low enough so that Nick wouldn’t hear me. From the sharp look Susan gave me, though, she had heard what I said.

  “Tomorrow,” said Samuel. By the end of the week he had given up trying to avoid looking at me, but he sure wasn’t looking at me now. “Did I come here just so you could harass me?”

  “No one is telling me anything, and that’s not fair,” I protested. “His offering me the Rose was to save my life. It’s not like Fairies are all-powerful. He had no other choice when his brother attacked me.” Maybe if I kept saying it someone would believe me.

  Samuel shook his head.

  “When are you going to get that it doesn’t matter?” he asked, his voice harsh. “You’re so caught up in what you want and what’s happened to you that you forget that what Holt did, who he chose to give the Rose to, affects everything Fairy. Not just you and not just him.”

  His words stung, even if they were true. I did know that, but it didn’t change my determination to see Holt.

  “When tomorrow?”

  Samuel threw up his hands in exasperation, drawing the attention of everyone else in the room.

  “Whenever, just come by, text me before you do.” Without another word he walked out. I wanted to ask how I could avoid his mother, but he probably wasn’t interested in helping me that much at this point.

  Susan glared at me.

  “Can’t you see he’s hurting?” she asked.

  I looked away.

  Susan, just as exasperated, waved her hand, and in the space of a breath a tiny bit of dust floated towards my other friends. I knew she was making them forget what had just happened. It was a small favor to me, so that I wouldn’t have to explain what Samuel and I were arguing about.

  “You,” she said, “should think about exactly why Samuel is upset, and be a little nicer.”

  Soon after she chided me, Susan left too. Nate and Carley continued to flirt, and Nick’s mood continued to sink like a rock tossed into water.

  “You’d think she would be tired of this by now,” he muttered.

  “Tired of what?” I asked.

  “Sucking,” he said. He pushed himself off the couch and stomped towards the door, slamming out of the house.

  Carley turned to look with wide eyes at the door he had just gone through. Nate, who had been oblivious to everything but Carley, said, “Oh, did everybody leave?”

  “Yeah,” I said, giving Carley a did-you-have-to-do-that-look. “Nate, nice to you see you. Jill texted to say she couldn’t come. Carley, I’m going to bed.”

  I wasn’t sure why I had decided to go to bed, since it turned out that I was
so wired to see Holt the next day that it took me hours to fall asleep. I tried to imagine our conversation, how he would look. I hoped he would be excited to see me. Finally, at around two in the morning, I fell asleep.

  I had intended to wait until the afternoon to go and see Holt, but when I woke up I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I spent about an hour going through my closet, because apparently even if I was visiting my husband-to-be in Fairy jail I had to look cute.

  I finally settled on a floral top, a grey cardigan, and jeans. Carley, who I knew would sleep until noon, was nowhere to be seen as I grabbed my jacket and headed for my walk to the Cheshires’.

  It was a cold morning, as they mostly were in the early fall, but I didn’t feel cold. I didn’t even have to draw warmth from the surrounding area, because just thinking about Holt did the trick. I tried not to think about how I would greet Samuel. A small part of me thought I should apologize, but I didn’t think I could bring myself to do it.

  When I was about five minutes away, I sent him a text.

  He answered that I should come around the back, probably, I thought, to the door I had been let out of after I was released from prison. Apparently that was the way to go to avoid Mrs. Cheshire. It had been much easier when she was feeling guilty and went out of town, I thought.

  When I finally found the door in the wall, Samuel swung it open immediately. He looked pale and there were swipes of dark under his eyes. I ignored the butterflies that seeing him caused.

  “Hi,” I said, feeling a twinge of worry.

  He nodded at me as he held the door open.

  “This way,” he said, leading the way through the dark house.

  There wasn’t much light. All I could see were his shoulders, tight under his dark shirt. I felt tension pouring off him, but his voice was steady when he said, “When does Carley leave?”

  “In the morning,” I said. It was odd talking to someone’s back.

  “You’ll miss her,” he said without question.

  “Of course. I just wish she and Nick would straighten stuff out before she goes.”

  Samuel snorted. “She’s just bored and toying with him, not exactly the approach of a good friend.”

  “She is not toying with him,” I protested. “She’s just confused and doesn’t know what she wants.”

  “Whatever you say,” said Samuel. We had reached a metal door. It looked vaguely familiar, and with a chill I knew that it was the same door that Divoni had led me through a week before, only then I had been led to freedom and now I was being led back to Holt’s prison.

  “Is there a light?”

  “No,” he said, and turned and walked away. I wanted to yell at him, but he rounded the corner and disappeared before I could think of anything biting to say.

  “Autumn?”

  I rushed down the stairs so fast I almost fell.

  Tripping into the dark I stared around, begging my eyes to adjust faster to the lack of light.

  “Where are you?” I croaked.

  “Over here.” His voice sounded tired, and I had to strain to hear him clearly. Instead of waiting until I could see something, I stumbled around blindly.

  His soft laugh came in the dark and my heart lifted a little. How bad could it be if he could still laugh?

  “Are you okay?” I asked. I was horrified that he was in the dark.

  When my groping hands connected with bars, I felt a power surge under my fingers and moved away a little. I was starting to be able to handle it when people were drawn to me because I was a Fairy, or when plants stretched themselves to greet me, but other forms of magic still made me uncomfortable.

  “I’m fine,” he said. I knew he was standing close, but it was driving me crazy that I couldn’t see him or touch him. How was I supposed to know if he was alright?

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” I almost cried. I didn’t want to talk about me. “I’m not locked in a crazy lady’s basement. So, I’m fine.”

  “This is the Winter Court’s basement,” said Holt, ever ready to explain. “It will pass to Samuel soon.”

  I felt breathless. I hadn’t expected him to mention Samuel, at least not so soon in the conversation.

  “What about Samuel?”

  I felt Holt sigh more than heard him.

  “Be nice to him. He’s the only thing that’s kept me sane this past week.”

  My heart twisted. “He’s taking care of you?”

  I don’t think Holt liked my phrasing, because I heard a sound like he was scuffing his foot against the floor.

  “Something like that.”

  “But Holt, when are you getting out of here?” That was all that mattered to me. We could deal with Samuel or thank Samuel or whatever Holt wanted to do, we could do anything, just as soon as he was free.

  “Autumn,” he said, “I don’t know. They haven’t told me anything.”

  “You haven’t even seen them?” I heard my voice crack and tried to force myself to calm down. This wasn’t how I had expected my first meeting with Holt to go. I couldn’t even touch him!

  “I haven’t seen them,” he said. “Besides Samuel, you are the first person I’ve ‘seen.’” Funny how much irony can be conveyed, even in the dark.

  My hands clenched. Not even his mother had come to see him. After she had just given her older son, her heir, over to the Supreme Council, the least she could have done was visit. But no, of course not.

  I started to say something, but Holt cut me off. His voice was still soft, but he sounded more confident. “Look, we don’t have much time and I don’t know...I don’t know how safe it is to talk, so, let me just get this out.”

  My resolve of calming down wobbled.

  “Okay....”

  “I want you to make sure you are safe,” he said. “Whatever happens to me. You must be safe. If I know you are out of harm’s way, nothing else matters.”

  “Holt,” I pleaded, “I’ll be safe with you. This isn’t going to last much longer. It can’t. You didn’t do anything wrong and soon they are going to see that and let you go. Your mom will come around. Susan already is....”

  Holt gave a bitter laugh. “My mother is not going to come around. As for Susan, she might support me, but her hands are tied. She cannot go against my mother and none of them can go against Mrs. Cheshire. She was waiting for her chance. She’s been waiting ever since the beginning of the summer and now she has it.”

  I felt like I was a rock that had been thrown into the lake and was now sinking inexorably down. I had nothing to swim with and no way to push myself back to the surface.

  “Please tell me there’s something else I can do,” I whispered.

  “I don’t know what you can do,” said Holt tiredly, “other than be nice to Samuel, and if the time should ever call for it....”

  Silent tears spilled out of my eyes. He couldn’t see me, so I let their wet streaks fall where they would.

  I knew I couldn’t speak, so I just stood there in silence. I had been picturing Holt waiting in comfort and not in some dark prison. I could feel that he wasn’t uncomfortable, but how could he possibly be happy? He hadn’t reassured me at all. Instead, after seeing him I felt that all my fears had grown.

  “I’ll be back in a week,” I said, trying for the one bright spot. Samuel had told me I could see Holt once a week, and I was relieved to give Holt something to look forward to.

  “See you soon,” he whispered from the darkness.

  I thought of heading back into the light, knowing that no matter what, nothing could warm me.

  Chapter Seven

  I spent only an hour with Holt. It felt like minutes, and I resented the sound of Samuel’s voice when he called down from the top of the stairs that it was time for me to go.

  “I’m going to get you light,” I said once I had managed to get my emotions under control. “Because this,” I waved my hand around to take in the darkness, “is ridiculous, even for Mrs. Cheshire.”

/>   I knew Holt was smiling when he said, “You go get ‘em.”

  I trudged back up the dark steps. Now that my eyes had adjusted and I could make out basic shapes, I didn’t have any trouble leaving the prison.

  “Samuel,” I started in right when I saw him. I ignored his tired expression and the dark circles. I especially ignored the pull I still felt towards him. Once Holt was released I was sure the pull would go away.

  With a slight widening of his eyes Samuel said, “Look, I’m working on getting him some light. Besides that he’s pretty comfortable. He’s fed. It’s warm. He has a bed.”

  “How am I supposed to know that he has a bed if I haven’t seen it?” I snapped.

  Samuel sighed and shook his head.

  “Trust me, he’s being treated a lot better than most prisoners who break serious laws.”

  “And I suppose I have you to thank for that?” I shot back.

  Samuel’s jaw tightened and his blue eyes burned.

  “You do, in fact,” he said coldly.

  I chided myself. Holt had told me to be nice to Samuel and here I was doing the exact opposite. If Samuel was the only one in the Cheshire household taking care of Holt, and really given that the other Fairies in the house were Lydia, Leslie, and Mrs. Cheshire herself that wasn’t hard to believe, I did have to be nicer to Samuel.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m just upset.”

  Samuel’s arms twitched, almost like he wanted to hug me but had thought better of it.

  “I know,” was all he said. “You should get back to see Carley. Tomorrow, after she leaves, meet Susan and me at UP UP and Away.”

  I nodded. We had reached the back door, and without another word I slipped through it back onto the street.

  I felt pulled in two directions. I wanted to be where Holt was, but I couldn’t, and not only that, he had warned me to keep myself safe. I didn’t even know what that meant. Safe from what? The only danger I had ever been in was from a crazed Water Sprite. Mrs. Cheshire had tried to attack the Summer Court, but that was in the past. There was no way she would risk her position of power to do it again.

  Would she?