by Lani Lenore
“I thought we were together,” he said severely. “At least, that’s what I thought until last night.”
Backed into a corner, Wren brought out the only thing she could bite back at him with.
“I saw her kiss you,” she blurted.
Several different emotions flashed across his face in quick succession. Bewilderment, anger, shame, and finally he rocked back on his heels.
“That wasn’t a real kiss,” he said. Was that his defense? How could it be?
“Of course it was a kiss!” she said angrily, coming out of her stupor. “I saw it! That savage girl kissed you and you kissed her back!”
“You defined it”, he countered. “You said that a kiss is when you have affection for someone. There was no love in it, so it wasn’t real. It wasn’t like when I kiss you!”
It was strange logic, but Wren couldn’t help but feel a little touched by that. Still, she wasn’t sure that she believed him. She didn’t know how she could.
“How do you feel about me?” she asked, defeated. “Be honest.”
He sighed heatedly and looked away. “Do we have to talk about this right now?”
Was that her answer? No, she couldn’t accept that. She would try again.
“Do you think of me as a partner? An equal? Or am I just some girl that you happened to come across? Someone you could put beside you just so that someone would be there?”
He didn’t seem to understand her, but he was smart enough to be careful with that question, spending a moment to try and unweave her thoughts, but he still couldn’t grasp what she wanted from him.
“Wren,” he started, but it didn’t take him long to give up. “If you don’t already know, then there’s nothing for me to say.”
She smiled sadly, accepting this. She did know the answer to that. He didn’t know what to say because there wasn’t anything to be said. Of course she had known. She had always known it somehow.
“It’s not about what you say. It’s about what you really mean, and if you don’t even know what that is…” She paused, and didn’t give much thought to what she said next before it was coming out of her mouth.
“I want to go back,” she told him resolutely. She didn’t feel like crying this time, even though her eyes were still red from before.
“There’s nowhere to go back to,” he answered, thinking she spoke of the underground. “Everything is burned.”
“I mean, I want to go back to my old life.”
He looked at her like she’d just slapped him across the face. Maybe she had; maybe he deserved it.
“What?” he asked, his face contorted in anger. “Why?”
“Because I’m not ready for this.”
“Yeah, you said that before,” he fumed. He was getting frustrated now. Clearly he hadn’t forgotten. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means that if I stay here, one of us is going to have to grow up, and it’s not going to be you, which means it has to be me and I’m just not ready for that!”
That summed it up pretty well. Either she would have to grow up to accommodate for him, or she would have to be content to only be a girl to him, and in the meantime she would never see her brothers progress. Henry would grow wilder, more violent. She’d never wanted that for him. She would never get to see Max – her baby – grow up to be a respectable man like she’d always dreamed.
Rifter shook his head. He still wasn’t getting it, but he was definitely angry now.
“If this is all about the kiss then—” He paused, fighting with his tongue and his mind to get the words out. “Then I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it. I was feeling crazy! But I stopped. It didn’t go further than that. I swear.”
“It’s not just about the kiss, Rifter. It’s my brothers. I didn’t know it before I came here, but I want to see them grow up – I want to see them grow up better than this! My life wasn’t perfect before and maybe I’ll be forced to grow up faster than I think. Someone might come for me tomorrow…”
“Some man?” he asked angrily.
“Yes, maybe,” she relented. She’d once claimed that the future was uncertain, but thinking on it now, she realized she’d always known how it would go.
“No,” he protested strongly. “You belong here with me.”
“I’m not sure.” She felt herself tearing up and she couldn’t look at him anymore. He was staring at her, nodding, finally getting it.
“You swore yourself to me – you all did.”
“I didn’t know what I was saying,” she protested. “I had foolish hopes. I was being a child.”
Then, he brought up the one thing she’d hoped he wouldn’t say – the final dagger in her chest.
“I thought you loved me.”
Those words stung. Perhaps it might have been better if he’d taken his knife and cut her heart out – kept it as a trophy. She did love him, so much more than she could hide, but yet she couldn’t help seeing an eternity of heartache ahead of her.
“I do love you,” she confessed. “I always will, but I can’t keep doing this – back and forth between happiness and heartache, feeling like you love me and then thinking that all you care about is yourself!”
He looked stunned. “I have always put you first.”
She couldn’t imagine how he thought that. Did he really believe it?
“I can’t let you keep hurting me. This is supposed to be a place of dreams – of happiness. Well I’m not happy here. I may not be happy without you, but I have to go. You have to let me go.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Wren!” He was near to yelling now.
“It’s complicated,” she said quietly.
“It doesn’t have to be complicated! It’s simple! If you love someone, you stay with them! You support them in what they have to do and you stand by their side, no matter what!”
“I don’t really expect you to understand.” Her voice was colder than she’d intended, but that had done it. She had insulted his intelligence, and he couldn’t abide by that.
“Shit,” he groaned. He began to pace then, cursing, not knowing what to do with himself or with her. Wren just stood there, staring at the ground with her arms wrapped around herself.
She wondered if she cared about how he might have reacted. Was she beyond being hurt by him? All she knew was that it was ending here in this moment. Whatever she’d thought that she had with him had never existed. She had matured enough to realize that.
“Fine,” he said finally, giving up. “If you want to leave, then leave. But if you go, you’ve broken the Vow. You’ve abolished all ties to me and this place. You’re unclean. You can’t ever come back.”
“Don’t say that,” she said meekly, suddenly afraid of the idea.
“I’m not just saying it. It’s my last promise to you.”
His words hurt her so terribly that she didn’t know how she kept herself from sobbing, but she looked at him with uncharacteristic indifference. He saw it and bit back harder.
“So, when you go and then you decide that you’ve changed your mind, it’s going to be too late. I’ll have already forgotten about you.”
“That’s cruel,” she told him. She knew that he could see the sadness in her eyes now, but he didn’t care.
“Well, so are you.”
They stared at each other, hard, but there were no words left in their mouths. Rifter turned and left her in the tent, and Wren found that she could shed no more tears for him today.
Chapter Thirty-Three
1
The night fell on them once again, and the silence had not been broken within the group. The only thing that came up between them was talk of the coming battle. They prepared their weapons, knowing that tomorrow was the day they were going to set out to find the evil one, and they had best be prepared in case they found him. The boys were quiet in their work, and they did not ask Wren many questions when she finally decided to return to them from the tent.
Just as they were, Wren was also
preparing herself to leave. She didn’t do this physically for it was not as if she had any belongings to pack, but she did so staring at the fire with her knees drawn up against her chest, making plans in her mind.
She had not told the rest of them what she was thinking, or about the fight that she’d had with Rifter, but she suspected that they could tell something wasn’t right between the two of them.
Though she had resolved herself to go, she didn’t think she would be able to get Rifter to take her back in the middle of this war, and she wasn’t sure how she might get back on her own. She couldn’t decide if she should travel to the beach by herself or sit here and wait until he was done with the fighting, but she was still determined that she should go.
Rifter had vowed never to change, and spending more time here was not going to make him learn real feelings for her. She was sure of that now.
She was also unsure whether or not she could convince Henry to go back with her, but she was going to try again. Max was coming for certain, and she was going to make sure he got to that family who wanted to adopt him. As for herself, she couldn’t say what would become of her, but she couldn’t keep living this delusional life.
After a while of being alone by the fire, she heard light footsteps approaching her and then Sly had appeared, stepping over the log to sit beside her. He didn’t acknowledge her, but took up a branch and stoked the fire a bit. She watched him a moment, but when he didn’t offer her any eye contact, she turned her face away from him. Only then did he speak.
“I’m going to tell you something,” he said clandestinely. He shifted his eyes around to see if the others were watching, but he didn’t give her any regard. The only way she knew he was talking to her was because there was no one else around. He didn’t continue until she had looked back toward the fire.
“I didn’t tell the others, but I’m going to tell you. Before, when I said that Calico wasn’t making sense and I couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell us, I lied. I did know what she was saying, but I didn’t want to say it in front of Rifter. I was convinced further by what the elder said. I’m sure of it now.”
“Why are you telling me?” she asked. He had never been so forthcoming with information. Why now? Why this?
“I think you are the one who will best know what to do with it,” he said. “Do you not want to hear it? I won’t force it on you.”
Even though she was close to giving up, her curiosity was still unquenchable.
“What did she say?” Wren relented.
“It was about a vision their shaman had seen, about Rifter. It was about a darkness seeping in and other things, but the thing I wanted to tell you is something that caught my attention. I thought you might be interested. She said ‘his lost past was swallowed by a little moon’.”
He waited for her to catch on to what he was telling her, but Wren stared at him blankly. Was that supposed to mean something to her? She shrugged helplessly.
“Sly, I’ve had a very long –” –day. She stopped. Her eyes widened as it came to her suddenly, and she knew exactly what he was talking about.
This changes things.
“Thank you for telling me this,” she said, standing up directly. She didn’t wait for him to reply. There was something she had to do.
She left the camp and walked down the slope toward the tree line, her feet urging her as if Sly had spoken some magical incantation, but it wasn’t that at all. Maybe she wasn’t going to change her mind about leaving, but there was something that she had to do before she left, and it was as much for Rifter as it was for her peace of mind. If she was right in her guess, she wouldn’t have to go far to find it.
Wren tried to make sure that no one else had seen her slip away out into the forest of pines. Once she had gone past the edge of the trees and felt that she was out of earshot, she began her search.
“Whisper? Are you out here?”
Wren was still sure that the fairy had not gone very far from Rifter, even though he had sent her away. Where else would she go? More important than that, how could she stand to leave him? She loved him, and if she had not been burned in the fiery blaze, Wren was sure the wisp had followed them here.
“I know you must be here,” she went on, even though she’d gotten no answer. She took a few steps into the woods.
“Listen to me, please. I know you don’t like me, but you don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’m leaving. I won’t be between the two of you any longer. But Whisper, he needs his memories.”
Wren had interpreted Sly’s hint just like he’d meant for her to. Whisper was the little moon – the glowing orb that had taken Rifter’s memories and bound them in a secret place within herself. She was the reason that he couldn’t remember some of those things that the others did, even though the land itself seemed bent on absorbing their oldest pains, perhaps because Rifter was the origin. But the fairy had done this for the one she loved. She had taken the memories he’d been willing to cast away.
If the wisp had really been clever, she might have pulled the memory of Wren right out of his head when she’d had the chance. She still might.
“I know you’ve been trying to protect him. You don’t like to see his pain. I understand that, but it isn’t fair to him. He needs those things back – he needs to deal with them. If you let him do that, he’ll be fine after a while. You’ll see.”
Whisper didn’t show herself, but Wren kept looking nonetheless, going farther out.
“I’m not just asking for selfish reasons. I don’t want him to forget me – though yes, it might be easier on him if he did. He needs to remember where he came from and what happened before. He needs to realize what keeps happening here! Please, Whisper. I know you don’t owe me any favors, but he needs the truth back. It’ll be good for him. He—”
There was a rustle in the leaves. Had her pleading worked, or had she drawn in something else with her voice? Whatever it was, she would have to face it. She stood very still, hoping that she would be left alone if it was not the pixie – and then a flash of light shot out toward her. She hadn’t turned quickly enough to see it before she felt a burning pressure at the side of her face.
Wren fell to the ground, a tiny white handprint blistered against her temple.
2
Wren was caught in the darkness, not asleep but unable to wake up. She was in a strange place where the ground rose and fell in gentle hills, but there were no trees. The sky was gray, and the shadows of the clouds were prominent on the grass as they rolled by slowly. There was no sound but the whipping of the wind as it lashed at her, and yet it didn’t touch her skin.
Where am I?
She moved forward because that was all she could do, walking slowly over the hills. She seemed to be alone here, but that didn’t make her feel any better about being lost. How had she gotten here? What was the last thing that had happened? She couldn’t remember.
She moved along a winding path between the downs, and in the distance she saw shadowy figures drifting about. She wondered if she should hide, but she didn’t think that they noticed her. Was she a dreamer again? Had she reverted to a different state? She certainly didn’t seem to be here right now.
She watched the shadows until finally she laid eyes on the door.
The large black door was set in space, without a house or building to link to. It was closed, but it wanted to be opened. She could feel that as easily as if it had asked her to.
Don’t do it, a voice in the back of her mind told her. Don’t open that door.
But what else can I do? It might be the only way out.
Wren knew she had to do it. This was why she was here. She wrapped her fingers around the knob, and though it was heavy, she managed to pull it open.
She opened that door, and as soon as she had, a flood of images spilled out into her own mind like the nightmare sludge had washed up on the beach.
She saw things she had never intended to see in her life. There were images of grue
some death before her eyes – of stabbing, impalement, shootings, complete dismemberment by monster jaws. All were boys, ranging in age from twelve to sixteen. Not only did she see it, but she felt the connection with each of them. She knew their names and their faces, and each time she saw one of them die, she felt that her heart had been staked.
These things were not happening before her eyes, but she saw them as if they were scenes from her past, yet they were not her own memories. She knew where the door had led her. These were Rifter’s memories that he had put away, the ones Whisper had taken from him.
Just as the others had told her, she saw every instance in which he had killed his enemy; everything from throwing the man off a cliff to decapitating him, to seeing him eaten by beasts. They had been right. It had happened so many times, and yet he always came back. Rifter never remembered it because all of the memories were here.
Wren did not only see death, but other things: loneliness, hatred, confusion. She felt them in a way that she never had in her own life, but she pressed through it, searching for something in particular.
At the end, she saw the worst of it. She saw the truth about Rifter and this world. It all made sense. She understood everything.
She couldn’t describe how painful it was.
3
For a long time after that, Wren lay against the ground. Tears ran from her eyes, even though she thought she had no more to give. Her head was pounding and her emotions were cut and tortured. She had wanted to know Rifter? To understand him? She knew more than she had ever wanted.
So much pain…
She had changed her mind. Rifter did not need those things back. Speaking for herself, she never wanted to see them again. The fairy must have taken them away from her after she had seen them, for Wren could no longer draw them back up, but they had left a scorched trail through her mind.
Wren tried to pull herself up from the ground but she felt disoriented. Even when she had stood, she kept leaning as if one side of her head was heavier than the other. Which way was the camp? Where had she come from? The forest was getting dark around her and everything looked the same. Had she come this far out? The others probably wouldn’t look for her again since she had avoided them before.