Hawthorn

  “Uncle Henry was a changeling?”

  He nods, rock scraping against rock. “I am sure you will have the displeasure of his acquaintance at some point.”

  But that was just it. I didn’t want to meet anyone. “I want to go home. I want to get Danny and go home.”

  “I know, my child, and the only way to do that is to offer The Mother something that she cannot refuse.”

  “What?”

  His grey eyes are moist and filled with shadows. “The Mother needs a fey with a human soul. She will not give him up without a replacement.”

  I stare up at him and finally understand what he is trying to say.

  I finally accept that I will not be going home.

  67

  MARY

  I could kill him, the little git! He always was a twit, a stupid, amorous twit and look where it had got him? This is about Bea, I know it, but I don’t understand how. Bea was a long time ago, before I entered the human world, before I forgot.

  Sam stares at me with his gleaming, dark eyes and withdraws the knife from my throat.

  I cough and gag and the wound heals.

  “I hate you,” he says.

  “Feeling is entirely mutual.”

  “Why don’t you give her to me? I’ll take care of her, I’d love her. You know I would.”

  I snort in disgust. “My Gemma is not your Bea.”

  He shakes his head, his lips curling in a smirk that makes me feel cold. What isn’t he telling me?

  “What did you do?” I ask.

  “Something clever.”

  “Which is…”

  “None of your business.”

  “It’s my bloody daughter you’re after!”

  He sighs, examining the dagger’s sharp point. “I put something inside her a long time ago, for safe keeping. Now I need it back.”

  “Put something inside her? What the hell are you talking about? You were never alone with her…” Oh, but he could have been. When they took her the first time, when I stole her back and ran… Suddenly I know what he’s talking about, but I can’t believe it. It’s an old fey tale, never tested, never tried. “There is nothing…no one inside Gemma but Gemma.”

  Sam leans in, his breath hot on my cheek. “I saw her. She’s in there alright, and I want her out!”

  “By killing Gemma?”

  “It’s beginning to look that way. I tried drawing her out. Thought a sexual encounter might work. Then, at the beach, I tried drawing her out by feeding on your luscious offspring’s soul - delicious by the way, but that didn’t work either.” He held up the dagger. “This is the only way. I told her I won’t hurt her, but this,” he twirled the dagger, “will.”

  I’m sick of his posturing. “And then The Mother will have your guts. If you harm one hair on Gemma’s head, The Mother will end you. We have a bargain.”

  “A bargain you’re here trying to break,” Sam says.

  “You’re the one that started it, you took her, brought her here!”

  “And now you are whole. Bargain over.”

  He’s right, I’m whole, my night-self and day self-united by the bridge; my reflection. Who would have thought the answer was so simple. “Then I have every right to take my son.” I glare at him, hands curled into fists.

  “Round and round we go.” Sam twirls the dagger in his hand.

  I know he’s right. Everything depends on what The Mother will decide.

  “I hate you,” I say.

  “Touché, little sister.”

  I walk away, toward the centre of the dark forest, toward The Mother. I have to believe that Gemma is safe, that she made it out of this place. I have to pray that I can make this right. As I think these things I realise these are my human thoughts, thoughts that will do me no good on this side of the veil.

  68

  GEMMA

  Blue Eyes finds me at the edge of the forest. He asks me if I am ready and I nod.

  Heavy heart, leaden foot, I follow him through the forest. As the sun dips and the moon illuminates the sky, I step into a clearing filled with monsters. Amidst those crazy creatures is mum.

  “Gemma?” Mum moves toward me, but there is something binding her, silver twine around her wrists and ankles. She looks down at the bindings then back up at me, offering me a shaky smile.

  The monsters move in, dark, grey, red, blue, twisted and hungry, they brush against my shins, reach for me with their claws and nails. I should be afraid, I probably would be if not for the sight of Danny suspended high up in a cage. He sees me and he sits up, clutches the bars. He has something in his hand, clutched tight. The bracelet I made him, the bracelet with the horseshoe. My heart lifts with hope. Maybe the bracelet’s protecting him. The rock troll…grandfather said a day in Faerie was week in the human world, so maybe the same rules applied to this Darkling realm. Maybe as far as Danny was concerned, he’s only been here a few hours.

  “Gemma?”

  His voice trembles with panic, but his eyes are bright with expectation. Any residue of fear I have takes a backseat to my anger.

  “Danny! Hold on, buddy. I’m coming to get you!”

  His lip trembles. “No, don’t. They’ll hurt you Gem. They’ll hurt you bad.”

  “Best listen to him. He belongs to us now, to The Mother, and there’s nothing that you can do about it.” It’s Sam, looking like hot Sam from my world, but the dagger in his hand reminds me that he is not my friend.

  “How? How did you get to them, they had the horseshoe bracelets.”

  He smirks. “Yes and the power of those trinkets was strong while both halves of a whole wore them, but the girl removed hers. It weakened the shield and we were able to reconnect, be seen.” He looks up at Danny. “He’s ours now.”

  I know I won’t reach Danny. I know I can’t fight all of these monsters, and I know mum is useless to me.

  I know that only one thing can save him.

  “Mother!” I call out. “Grandmother!”

  A ripple of shock passes through the crowd. Mum lets out a strangled sob.

  “I need to speak to you, grandmother! Please grant me an audience.” I have no idea if this will work, but I have to try.

  A hush falls on the assembly and a man steps into the moonlight; tall, blonde and regal- looking.

  Mum’s face goes hard, her eyes blaze.

  “Ah, my darling niece,” the man says. “Merry.”

  “It’s Mary, and I’m not your niece, not on this side”

  “On the contrary, you’re home now and you will revert to your fey name. But I will concede your other point, sister. And who is this?” He turns to me. “A big-boned, fine-faced, dark-haired beauty… Those eyes, so like your grandmother’s. Your royal blood is evident, niece.”

  So this was Uncle Henry, the other changeling. “I want to speak to grandmother.”

  “The Mother speaks to no one, but if you speak to me you she will hear and she will answer…through me.”

  Mum rolls her eyes. “You always had a self-inflated view of yourself.”

  “And you were always spoilt and cosseted. Where did that get you? In a bind, that’s what.” He glances at the twine holding her wrists together and smiles. “You fell in love, actually fell in love, with the battery.” He shakes his head. “You’re not supposed to fall in love with the battery, not until it’s empty, not until it’s one of us again.”

  Mum bows her head and anger burns behind my eyes. “I want to speak to grandmother. Tell her, tell her to let Danny go, to let mum go.”

  He smiles, slow and smug. “And why would she ever do that?”

  “Because then she can have me.”

  “No!” Both mum and Sam yell in unison.

  But Uncle Henry’s eyes have glazed over. He’s not with us anymore.

  “You can’t do this, Gemma!” mum says.

  I shake my head. “I have to.”

  “The Mother accepts,” Henry says.

  “No!” Mum cries. “Please! Take me instead!
”

  Henry snorts. “And what good are you?”

  The Darklings begin to untie mum.

  “Please, please, please, don’t do this.” Mum is free and flying toward me, enfolding me in a hug so tight I can barely breathe. Tears sting and then flow and I hold her tight, and I tell her how much I love her, how much I will always love her, and to take care of Danny ‘cos he has so much to say and someday he will say it all.

  Then the Darklings are tearing mum away from me.

  I glance up at the cage and it’s empty.

  “Danny? Where’s Danny?”

  Then he’s whirling toward me, smashing into me, his thin arms around my thighs.

  “Gemma, come with us, you have to come with us.”

  I pry him off and crouch so I can look him in the eye. “Danny, you know I love you, right?”

  He nods.

  “Remember I promised you that if any monster tried to hurt you I would bust its arse?”

  Danny nods.

  “Well, these monsters tried to hurt you, so I got to stay behind, ‘cos I got to bust their arses.”

  Danny looks about at the hunched creatures. He glances at mum, her cheeks glistening with tears. I implore her with my eyes and finally she nods.

  “That’s right, honey. Gemma has to stay, just for a while.” I can hear the lie sticking in her throat, but she pushes through it.

  Danny looks at me and I swallow my grief. The knowledge that I will never see him again, never tell him a story or tuck him into bed, the knowledge that I won’t hear all the amazing things he has to say, makes my heart ache so bloody badly I think it might just shatter to pieces. But I pull him in for one last hug and fill it with all the love I can, then I gently push him away, into mum’s waiting arms and step back.

  The monsters close around me. As mum and Danny are led away, I hear the words that seal my fate.

  “Oh, by the way, Merry, you won’t remember this, you won’t remember anything, you will live a mortal life and you will forget you ever had a daughter. Her memory will be wiped from the mortal realm because she was always ours, always meant to be ours, and now she finally is.”

  Mum’s scream of anguish is cut off by the mass of Darkling bodies that cover me.

  The moon goes out.

  EPILOGUE

  The flu bug we’ve been suffering from has finally lifted. I feel almost normal. Danny and Heather were hit hard, Danny especially. Jules was worried it might turn to pneumonia, but thank goodness he pulled through.

  I watch him running up the beach, all wrapped up; bundled up in fact. Heather is on his tail. They are playing Aeroplane. Jules is serving up her a beef stew tonight, cooking in the slow cooker back home. Can’t wait! Everything is perfect. Yet I feel… I feel as if there’s something missing.

  Jules feels it too. We talked about it last night and we agreed. The family feels incomplete, and Jules had the perfect suggestion.

  We’re going to get a dog.

  It’s dark here, always dark. I feel them suckling from me, drawing from me, and I no longer fight.

  This is my purpose.

  I no longer exist.

  I am nothing.

  “Stupid giving up girl. Girl with the eternal soul. The light of lights. A gem, a sparkling gem to be set in a crown. Stupid girl, do not give up, the trickster has a plan and the trickster never gives up.”

  The words settle in my breast and my empty grey heart flares with crimson. Lub, dub, lub dub, I hear the beat, the incessant beat that never gives up.

  About the Author

  Amos Cassidy is the pen name for Richard Amos and Debbie Cassidy. Amos is a 31 year old Diva and Cassidy a 38 year old mother of three; well, four if you include the husband. A common love of all things Joss Whedon, Urban Fantasy, and a tug of war over Jensen Ackles, brought them together, and one cold February afternoon, over nibbles and coffee, their partnership was born.

  You can find Cassidy hard at work in her fortress of solitude which has eaten up the majority of her garden, and Amos…well he’s still trying to get the invisibility gizmo he got off a friendly alien in exchange for a pair of earphones to work. Funnily enough, he hasn’t been seen around much lately…

  Frequent doses of sugary snacks, coupled with regular injections of caffeine, aid in their production of a unique brand of cross-genre tales. They are always writing, but are happy to take a break to chat to their wonderful readers, so drop them a line at amoscassidy.com, or just pop over to see what they’re working on and they’ll bust out the biscuit tin.

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