I let go so that she could prop her foot on her knee and look for herself. “Don’t you feel that? Doesn’t it hurt?”
“No.” She rubbed her sole with her thumb. “I don’t feel anything. How is that possible? What is this?”
“I don’t think you stepped on a rock.” My mind raced to find the right way to explain everything. “I think most likely the grass you walked on caused this.”
Her eyes widened. “Is it--did I get poisoned?”
“In a way.” Now that I was here, I realized how far-fetched this was going to sound. “Vivi, that grass is cursed. It cursed you.”
She stared at me. And burst out laughing.
“She’s serious,” said Cherry.
“Yeah, okay, good one.” Vivi exhaled and sank back into her chair, smirking. “You guys are kind of assholes, you know that? You really had me going there.”
I tried to think about how to get her to believe it. “It’s a curse of hunger. You’re starving, Vivi, and I think you know it. I think you know that you’re eating like crazy and that you can’t stop being hungry and I’ll bet it’s freaking you out.”
She looked down at the plate in her lap and then back up at us. A flash of doubt, there and gone in the clouds of suspicion. “Did one of you guys drug me? Some weird fucking designer drug that’s messing with my metabolism? What the hell? I thought you were my friend, Mari.”
Oh, shit. “I am. I swear I am. I swear we didn’t do anything to you. When we were in the yurt, and I told you about the man in my nightmares? You knew what I was talking about, didn’t you?”
Her eyes shimmered, but she put down her plate and got up. “This is incredible. I don’t even know what you’re all trying to do to me but you can just cut it out. I’m done.”
Dove was approaching. Well, that was just peachy. She took Vivi’s arm. “What’s wrong, honey? Do you feel sick again? Do you need to lie down some more?” She shot Cherry and Sara a look. “I told you it was too soon to wake her up.”
“Vivi, I want to help you.” I reached for her other arm, but she jerked away. “We all want to protect you.”
“Protect her from what?” Dove put an arm around Vivi’s shoulders.
“It’s nothing. Some kind of prank. A sick prank.” She glared at me.
Dove stared me down. “I wouldn’t have thought that of you, Mari. I think you should all go. Just leave her alone.”
I looked around at the others, hoping someone else had a better idea than I did, but they looked like I felt. My gaze fell on Cherry and it took a moment to register what I’d noticed. “Wait,” I said as Dove and Vivi started walking away. “Wait. We’ll go. But just one thing.” I reached over and pulled Cherry’s sunglasses, the ones Tamar had worked on, from where they hung on the neck of her shirt. I put them into the cup holder on Vivi’s chair. “If you think about what I said, if it means something to you like I think it does, then if you feel--weird, or have a sense like you’re being watched, put these on. Okay? I’ll leave you alone. We all will. But if you want to talk, we’re here. Okay?”
Other Faction folks were starting to look our way. Vivi and Dove kept walking away, and Vivi waved a dismissive hand at us.
We backed up to the path. “Well, that could have gone better,” said Joe as we drifted back toward Free Radicals.
“Of course the demon’s victim is from Camp Atheist Asshole,” said Cherry. “You should see those guys in the comment threads on the Morph chat group. They live to mock anyone who’s mentally deficient enough in their esteemed opinion to hold a belief that isn’t ‘Richard Dawkins is the Alpha and the Omega’.”
“Ironically,” muttered Tamar.
“They seemed nice. Dove and Chris and Vivi, anyway.” It broke my heart a little.
“They’re not all like that,” Joe said to Cherry.
“Yeah, well, if you’re a guy, they assume you’re all rationality and ‘civil discourse’,” Cherry shot back. “Fuck this. So she doesn’t want our help, fine. Let’s go party.”
I was shocked. “I thought you were the recovering White Knight? You just want to abandon her to her fate?”
“No, I do not, Mari. But you can’t force someone to take your help.”
“So, what then?” I stopped there in the middle of the road.
“Exactly.” She stopped too and faced me, fists on her hips. “What are we supposed to do right now? Dionne’s not here for a few hours. You guys warded the grass. We need Joe’s fae buddies--”
“They’re not my buddies--”
“--to give us a clue what to do about the grass. And now Vivi wants us to get bent. So from where I’m standing, there is literally nothing else we can do for now. And you know what?” Even in the lamplight, I could see red spots in her cheeks. “This is my goddamn vacation, one of which I have not had in months. I told Tamar I’d come and help with this because it was important, but I was not planning on it taking up my entire Morph. Excuse the fuck out of me if I’d like to take this brief interlude to, you know, have some vacation.”
We all stood there, tension binding us. “I think she’s right,” Tamar said at last.
“So do I,” said Sara. She touched my elbow. “You did what you could, Mari. You knew it would be a hard sell. What else are we going to do right now, just sit around being worried? Besides, you’ve done a lot today. You deserve to have some fun.”
I wanted to argue. Finally I sighed. “Fine. I guess you’re right.”
Joe came up beside me as we reached Free Radicals and murmured close to my ear. “There is one other thing we should do. Let’s go to the circle. We need to see if we can catch any of the land fae and tell them what we’ve figured out.”
“Is that really a good idea? What if we’re being watched or followed? We’ll lead them right to the unlocked door.” I didn’t cotton to the idea of wandering through the eerie gloom of the woods, but I didn’t want to admit that I was chicken.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I thought about that. I’ve got it covered.”
Of course he did.
“Listen,” I said. “Joe and I are going to--we’ll be right back.”
Cherry, in a better mood now that she was getting her way, shot me a knowing grin. “Have fun, kids.”
“Settle down.” Joe rolled his eyes, but I thought he also looked embarrassed. “While Mari and I are gone, I need you guys to keep thinking about us. Picture us in your mind’s eye. Even talk about us like we’re standing right here.” He looked at me. “Give them something of yours to hold on to. Something that’s really, strongly yours.”
I had an inkling where he was going with this. I hesitated for a moment and almost undid my watch strap, but I knew better. I reached into my shirt and pulled out the key I wore around my neck, lifting the cord over my head. I felt weird without it. I held it out to Sara, meeting her eyes. “Take really good care of it,” I said, and she nodded. I had the feeling she got it.
Joe dug in his pocket and pulled out an old, faded, too-small friendship bracelet woven out of embroidery floss and held it out to Cherry. I saw her soften as she looked at it. She smiled at him as she tucked it in her shirt against her heart, and he smiled back. I glanced away.
We walked away in silence, and when we reached an empty patch of field, Joe took my elbow and guided me off the road. “After this,” he whispered, “we’re going to need to be as quiet as we can until we get there.” He looked around us, and pulled me back further into the shadows. “Okay. I don’t think anyone’s paying attention to us right now. Do you know how to project a glamour?”
“You mean like make people think they’re seeing something else?”
“Exactly. In this case, nothing but the scenery.”
“A little bit,” I said. “I figured out how to not be noticed when I don’t want to be, but I was only worried about actual humans seeing me.”
<
br /> “In that case, stick close to me, and try to keep your mind on feeding me energy to use. And on not bumping into anyone.” He took my hand and I drew a sharp little breath at the unexpected contact. But he was already focusing, his gaze drawn inward, making a gesture with his free hand. I brought my attention to my heartbeat, laying the first two fingers of my free hand on my neck to feel the pulse. I felt that flow of vitality moving through me, steady and sure, and followed it to my other hand. Joe was holding mine tightly enough that I could feel our pulses throbbing there in our joined fingers, and I envisioned a stream of my energy diverted from the river of my veins, a tributary that flowed into his pulse. He nodded and murmured under his breath, making the gesture again.
I felt something stirring in the air around us. My vision dimmed, and I saw the space around us rippling. We had a pocket of shadow surrounding us. Joe started walking and I followed, our hands still clasped, the shadows moving at our pace.
It was a long walk to the far end of the field where we’d entered the tree line before, and there were a lot of people around. It was hard to see to begin with, but worse because the shadow cloaking us impaired our vision too. We dodged and wove, avoiding contact with anyone, but having a couple of very close calls. My heart rate was way up by the time we got to the outer edges of the tent areas and there was no longer anyone around that we might slam into.
We had no light source, and I hesitated when we reached the edge of the trees. It looked dark and forbidding, the dim outlines of trees and branches and brush taking on twisted shapes in my imagination. Joe tugged on my hand and we kept going, plunging into that darkness.
How he could figure out where we were going, I had no idea. If it were me leading us, we’d be hopelessly lost in no time. But I followed along and tried to just keep picturing that little stream of energy I was sending him, because it helped keep my mind from conjuring up all kinds of horrible ideas about what could be lurking around us. A shudder passed through my entire body and I pushed aside my fear. Energy, energy, energy. Just keep helping Joe do his thing, stop thinking about the rest.
We emerged into the clearing, where the moon was not yet high enough to pour down its light, but there was a soft little glow coming from the circle. I thought Joe would stop near the edge of the clearing, but he kept walking, and led us right across the boundary of the circle. We pushed through pressure focused into a thin wall, pressure that flattened my face against my skull as we crossed through it.
Once inside, Joe let go of my hand and the shadow dissipated. The glow was much brighter in here. I looked outward and saw the clearing as if through glass. I felt odd. I looked down at myself and thought that I looked different, but I couldn’t describe how.
I looked at Joe. He was different, too. His skin was luminous, his face narrower and his cheekbones more prominent, his eyes flashing like a deer’s when they caught the light, and there was a fluidity to his movement that was different from his usual slouchy ambling. But more striking was that I felt like I could see bits of his personality as if they were physical traits, like reading body language on steroids. I saw irreverence, curiosity, resourcefulness, humor--and a kindness so gentle I was moved almost to tears.
He was staring back at me like he was seeing me with new eyes, and I realized that he probably was. I wondered what he saw. Whatever it was, he closed the distance between us and hugged me, and we stood like that for a long time. It felt so good, that simple solid contact.
“Can we talk here?” I whispered as he stepped back. Dammit.
“Yes.” He shook himself. “We’re pretty well masked by the circle.”
“So what the hell is this?” I said. “What did you do? And why are we in here? Before, you told me to make sure I didn’t cross into the circle, and now we just go barging in?”
“It’s necessary. It’s the only way we can talk to any of the fae who come to the door, as it were, without sending up a flare in the woods announcing our presence. It’s not going to hurt us. It’s just a temptation. The closer you get to Faerie, the harder it is to resist its call. And if you don’t know that it’s a temptation, you probably won’t have defenses against it and it’s real easy to get sucked right in without thinking it through.”
I thought about that for a moment. “So, why do you look...different? In here I mean. I guess I do too.”
“You do.” His voice made my stomach flutter. He glanced away. “In our material, mortal world, matter is dense. Most things change very slowly, and their forms are pretty well set. That includes our bodies. Once you move away from it, especially in Faerie, the ‘physical’ world is a lot more fluid. It’s closer to the essence of a thing, and changes more easily. For us, it means that what’s inside shows a lot more on the outside. If you were to go into Faerie and stay there for a while, over time you’d look like a visual expression of the deepest parts of your soul. You might not even look human anymore.”
I studied him. “But you still look human.”
He wasn’t expecting that. Something in his face closed like a flower at night. “That’s...a story for another day.”
So my guess was right. I took his hand. “I hope you’ll tell it to me someday.”
I was glad that he didn’t pull back. Instead, he looked at the white heather in the center of the circle. “Now we wait, and when something comes through, we can pass on our message for them to take back.”
So we waited.
Joe seemed pensive, so I left him alone. I was anxious, restless. I shifted in place, flexed and pointed my foot, picked my fingernails (which I realized were short, chipped, dirty, and just unattractive), and examined our small surroundings. There was a silvery cast to the needles and grass on the ground, and the air was very still. The heather at the center of the circle flourished and had an enticing, elusive perfume that was delicate but pervaded the whole space. Its flowers were so white that in the soft sourceless light they sparkled like fresh snow on a moonlit field.
I wondered what Faerie was like. Did it look like this circle? Joe had called it “fluid”. I remembered how, when we’d first created the circle, everything within it had had that flickering appearance of a time-lapsed film, and I tried to imagine a world like that. A world of things shifting, changing, growing, blinking in and out of existence. A place where the essence of a beautiful thing became its physical form. It was something I could imagine, but that I struggled to envision.
If I knelt close to the white heather, and parted its stems, could I look through it and see for myself? Just a glimpse, a little peek. Nothing more. It would be like pressing my nose to the window of a store, wouldn’t it? No harm in that.
Joe had turned and was staring through the shimmering glassy veil that separated us from the woods we’d come through, studying the deepening night for any sign of demon intruders, maybe. Behind him, I stepped closer to the center of the circle and sank down onto my knees. I got as close as I dared to the heather. Its scent was just a little stronger, so unusual and earthy-sweet. I wanted to gather the tiny flowers and sleep with them inside my pillow, so that my cheek would gently crush them and fill my nose and my dreams with that wonderful perfume.
I reached out one hand and touched the plant. It felt...vivid. My fingertips tingled. It was like all my life I’d only ever touched silk flowers until now. It liked my touch. I don’t know how I knew it, but I felt it respond. It invited me to push its slender stems aside and look past it. My breath was shallow and quivered at the edges in time with my fluttering heart, my shyly jittering stomach.
I lifted one small stem. Only one. A tiny curtain raised on a tiny window.
I didn’t have time to make sense of what I saw there. It was marvelous and unreal, it was color and light, it was visible music and chiming perfume, numbers and angles and filaments of galaxies. It was the very smallest glimpse of something unlike anything I’d ever known, and yet it reminded me a little of o
pening my eyes on the island for the first time and seeing its glory--and of the first sight of my Beloved’s face.
And I wanted it. I wanted whatever I’d seen with a longing so ferocious I was blinded by it, taken so far out of myself by it that I became slowly, dumbly aware of being sprawled on my backside in the grass, with Joe still hanging on to the arm he’d yanked me back with and shaking me hard.
“Stop it,” I protested, my teeth clattering in my head from the force of it.
“What did I tell you?” he demanded. “I told you it was a temptation to get this close, so that you’d be on your guard. Not so that you’d try to go diving in headfirst like an idiot.”
“I didn’t! I was just looking. Just to see.”
“And that’s how it starts,” he said. “It’s not even a downward spiral from there, it’s a straight shot. Another three seconds, and you’d have been down the rabbit hole.”
He was right. My heart plummeted. In the blink of an eye, I’d lost so much control that I wouldn’t have even known what I was doing until it was too late. “Is it such a bad place?” I stared at the heather, pierced by another pang of yearning.
“It’s astonishingly beautiful. Sublime. As beautiful as caverns, as ruins, as memory, as home. It’s so far beyond anything you’ve ever experienced that it could completely break you.” Anguish bloomed in his face, fragile and compelling.
“And yet you’re not broken.” He let go of my arm, almost pushing it away, and didn’t answer. I pressed harder. “This, right now, this is why Cherry didn’t want you to approach them to begin with.”
He turned away from me. “She shouldn’t worry.”
“When did it happen?” I asked, the question that had cut in line in front of all the others.
He was silent for so long I thought he was done talking about it. When he spoke, his voice closed the door. “It was a lifetime ago.”
I’d have kept banging on that door, but there was a rustling from the heather in the center of the circle, and we both jumped. A face poked through the fronds, followed by shoulders and torso.
MetamorphosUS: Book 1 of the Mythfit Witch Mysteries Page 22