by L-J Baker
Flora shook her head. “You were so adamant. So angry. I thought I was helping, but it was the last axe stroke in the trunk, wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t like that. Not that… that simple.”
Flora stopped and turned to face Rye. “Be honest with me. Did I really make you feel like I wanted to buy you?”
Rye frowned and tried to think of the right words so that she wouldn’t make it worse.
“That was never my intention,” Flora said. “I never thought of us like – Clearly, I never looked at us in the same way you did. I know you were uncomfortable with those presents. But I was trying to help. I wanted to make you happy. I hadn’t the faintest idea that I was making you feel bought.”
“Babe –”
“I had been labouring under the illusion that we were in love. Two people in love with each other. It never entered my head that we should be keeping a financial balance sheet.”
Rye scowled down at her shoes. “It wasn’t like that.”
“But you clearly kept some count about money? It’s so bizarre. I’ve had plenty of relationships splinter, but never because of my bank balance and investment portfolio.”
Flora walked away. Rye caught up to her.
“How many poor people have you dated before?” Rye asked.
Flora stopped and stabbed an angry glare at Rye. “I never thought of you as a poor person! You’re Rye. The woman I love. The woman I got buds for. The woman who made me laugh. And made me feel good about myself. And made me feel sexy and loved. For the first time in my life I wanted to live with someone. Share my life with her. The good times and bad. Have her children. Money was never an issue for me. I never once thought of you and thought, Oh, good, Rye makes me feel rich!”
Flora stalked off leaving Rye to swear under her breath.
Rye jogged and caught Flora near a deserted bench. She put her hand on Flora’s arm to tug her to a halt.
“Babe, please,” Rye said. “Can we sit and talk? Please.”
Flora stood blinking, not looking at Rye. She sniffed and nodded. When they sat, Rye glanced around. They were in a lightly populated part of the park, though the cheers from the ball game spectators carried across the flower beds and grass. She saw the occasional light of a photographer’s flash. The newspapers must be covering the game. Flora wiped her eyes.
“You are sexy,” Rye said. “And wonderful. And you should feel good about yourself.”
“You made sure I felt very good about myself, didn’t you?”
Rye winced. “Look, I’m so sorry that it happened the way it did. I didn’t plan it. It just came out. Everything had been building up inside me. And that naiad bitch. I shouldn’t have let it all boil over like that, but it did. I regret it. And feel like a shit for doing it.”
“But you’re not sorry it happened? You did want to end our relationship?”
Rye chewed her lip. She could feel Flora bristling with anger and hurt. “Babe, I don’t think I’m meant to be with anyone.”
“Anyone? Not just someone with a little more money than you?”
Rye winced. “I couldn’t meet you halfway. As equals.”
“Do you seriously imagine there would be a single married couple in the whole world if the criteria for partnership was absolute equality of the value of their material assets?”
Rye sighed and risked a glance at Flora. It ripped her heart to see Flora so unhappy. She wanted to wrap her arms around Flora and hold her.
“I know you haven’t had many relationships,” Flora said. “Did they all break up because of this? Because of your incredible hypersensitivity to money?”
“It’s not just money. I don’t have anything to offer you.”
Flora looked surprised. “You don’t really think that?”
“You have everything. I have nothing.”
“I don’t have everything. But this sounds suspiciously like money, still. Rye, all the time we were together, the times we made love, the times we laughed and played silly games – were you just mentally adding up the value of what I own?”
“No! Of course not.”
“The glue between two people is not solely, nor even importantly, money. Love, Rye. Weren’t you even a little in love with me?”
“Yes. But –”
“I love you. I respect you. I like you. You give me what no one before ever has.” Flora slid closer on the bench and took hold of one of Rye’s hands. “You interest me on so many different levels. You are someone who is so unlike me in a multitude of ways. And, yet, we meshed so well. You have so much strength. I don’t just mean physically.”
Rye shook her head. “We come from different worlds. We live in different worlds. Your parents would have hated me. Your friends would think you’d lost your mind. No one would think I should be with you. You’re this beautiful, successful artist and I’m a nobody who works two and three jobs to keep food on the table and pay the rent.”
“You think I’m a success,” Flora said, “but look at you. You’ve raised Holly. She’s a great young woman. Nothing I have ever done can remotely compare with that achievement. And you did it all on your own. Rye, I admire you. I can’t think how I haven’t made that clear enough to you.”
Rye stroked Flora’s hand as she frowned across the flower beds.
“I’m not a success,” Rye said. “I’m barely coping.”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you that I might be able to help?” Flora said. “That I might want to? If your jobs don’t give you enough self-esteem – or pay – why don’t you do something else? You were working toward that business certificate, weren’t you? Before you quit night school. And catering. Branch, you’re terrific in the kitchen. I cannot understand why you don’t do that as a profession. Do you know that Letty Elmwood told me that she loved your dinner? Trust me, Letty is not an easy person to please. Why don’t you set yourself up in a catering business?”
Rye frowned down at Flora’s hand between hers. On impulse, she lifted it to lightly kiss Flora’s fingers.
“I wish I’d met you ten years from now,” Rye said.
“Why? What would be different?”
Rye clung to Flora’s hand as she leaned back and stared up at the dirty grey clouds. The hard wooden bench back pressed uncomfortably against her wing buds. Part of her wanted it to hurt more. The game spectators loosed a loud cheer. Rye felt very tired, alone, and defeated.
“Rye? Is it Holly?”
Rye sighed. “Yeah. Partly.”
“Trouble at school?”
“No. She’s been smoking dreamweed.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Rye said. “Kicked me in the guts. We talked. I messed it up. She hasn’t spoken to me in days. She doesn’t even want to be in the same room as me.”
“Look, I’m sure Holly would just have been experimenting. We all do. Especially at that age. It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, it is. I’ve been neglecting her. I was too busy working to be around when she needed me. Too busy doing other stuff to notice what was going on with her. I can’t let that happen again.”
“Oh,” Flora said.
“She has to come first. When I picked her up and took her out of there, she became my responsibility. I can’t put the kid aside because I’d rather be doing something else. She didn’t ask me to take her. It was my idea. I did it willingly. I have to see it through.”
Flora interleaved her fingers with Rye’s. “That’s one of the reasons I admire you. But you don’t have to do it all alone.”
Rye slipped her hand free and stood. She took half a dozen paces from the bench before she realised what she was doing. She stopped. She hadn’t come here to run away from Flora again. Flora sat looking hurt. Rye walked back.
“I’m sorry,” Rye said. “I didn’t mean to do that. I… I’m finding this difficult to talk about.”
“It’s not very easy for me, either.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Flora stood and slipped a
hand through Rye’s arm. They strolled together along deserted paths. Shrubs and saplings occasionally screened them from everyone, though the roar of the sports fans followed their meandering progress.
“Being one of a couple doesn’t mean you have to forget the rest of your life,” Flora said. “I can help you. I don’t mean money. I mean you and me talking about things. Holly and I get along. I’ll never have the relationship with her that you do, and I would never try to, but she and I have a lot in common. Things you and she don’t. I don’t know much about raising teenagers, but I could learn.”
“I wish… I wish there were two of me. Between them, I might have time to do everything I wanted.”
“Would you think differently about us having a relationship if I were a man? If you were straight?”
Rye scowled down at the muddy path.
“I think you still owe me that answer,” Flora said. “About why you feel you have to hide our relationship from Holly. Does it have something to do with being a lesbian? And how that was regarded when you were growing up?”
Rye stopped and looked around. The closest person was an old green gremlin lady with her beetle on a leash half the park away.
“Don’t you think I deserve a little more honesty?” Flora said.
“I… I can’t risk Holly knowing I’m gay. If we got sent back, they’d get it out of her. I don’t want her to live the rest of her life taking the blame for that.”
Flora frowned. “Blame? For what? What would happen if you were known to be gay? Not that it’s likely you’ll ever go back to Fairyland, is it? Not after all these years. What did they do to you that you still live in fear?”
Rye remembered Holly’s deathly pallor after she’d blurted out that stuff about Fairyland. Holly still needed those family details. Details which Rye could not supply without revealing their illegal residence status.
“Rye?” Flora touched Rye’s cheek.
Rye drew in a shuddering breath. Why did it feel like her life was disintegrating?
“They tied her up,” Rye said. “And whipped her. The blood ran down the back of her legs. They opened cuts in her wings. She didn’t make a sound. She just went all limp when she fainted. And still they whipped her.”
“Who?”
“Chastity. They caught us in the robing room having sex.” Rye heard a cheering roar and flinched.
“Oh, Holy Elm,” Flora said. “That’s barbaric. Did they do that to –”
Rye grabbed Flora’s wrist and tugged her behind a sapling.
“It was going to be my turn the next day,” Rye whispered. “They left me on my knees to pray all night. And think about what I’d seen. And imagine how that was going to feel when they did it to me. I escaped. But I didn’t get far. They caught me and took me back to the temple. It was the second time I tried to flee, so they broke my wings and made sure they didn’t set right. So I could never use them again.”
Flora swore under her breath. She had gone as pale as Holly. “Rye –”
“I couldn’t afford the fine. My commune took back the land I’d been given when I got my wings, but they didn’t give me enough money for it to pay the temple. My mother wouldn’t give me anything. She didn’t want me back. I was evil and she wished she’d never had me. With my wings broken, no one on another farm or in the city would have given me work because they’d know I was trouble. Not that the temple would let me leave the valley. So, I had nothing and no way to earn anything, but I still owed them. That meant I had to become a temple bond servant. The temple owned me.”
“Owned?”
“The only thing I had to pay them with was myself. That made me temple property. I did whatever I was told. They gave me food and somewhere to sleep.”
“That’s… that’s slavery,” Flora said. “Holy Elm. It’s too horrific to believe. Oh, Rye –”
“I bided my time. I learned from what I did wrong the last time, and I escaped properly. They never expected me to go back for Holly. We got across the river and through the hills. She was a good kid. Better than you’d expect. I could have made better time on my own, but she kept me going. I had to get her away from that. And she hardly ever got homesick or cried, even when we went hungry and cold. Still, being cold and hungry wasn’t nothing new. We made it.”
Flora clasped Rye’s hands. “I had no idea.”
“I earn whatever Holly and I need. I always have. I provide for us. We’ve gone short sometimes, but I’ve never owed anyone anything. I’ve never fallen into that trap. No one is going to tell me what to do or own me. Never again. Nor Holly. Not while there’s breath in me.”
Flora shook her head. She looked between shock and tears. “Oh, Holy Elm. I never imagined – I wish I’d known. I think I begin to understand.”
“I can’t risk being sent back,” Rye said. “I can’t let them take Holly. That’s why I have to wait for her to get her wings. She’s an adult then. They can’t claim her back, even if they found her.”
Flora frowned. “But, surely, they can’t force naturalised citizens out of this country? Especially not to an inhumane regime?”
“Good morning!”
Rye and Flora started. A pixie jogger raised his hand as he passed.
Rye jerked her hands free and strode away. Fey. She hadn’t meant to say all that. It had just blurted out. Like it had on Fifth Night with Holly. Rye raked trembling fingers across her scalp. How many passing people had heard?
The cheer of the ball game spectators sounded ominously loud.
Rye felt Flora’s hand on her back.
“I’m sorry,” Rye said. “I… I didn’t mean to say all that. This wasn’t at all what I planned. I’m so fucking useless at this talking stuff.”
“I don’t think you are,” Flora said. “I could wish you’d confided in me earlier. But I can understand why it’s not something you find easy to say.”
Rye captured Flora’s hand and held it firmly between hers. “I can’t do everything. Right now, I don’t feel like I’m coping with anything.”
“You could let me help. You needn’t be alone.”
“I love you.” Rye kissed Flora’s fingers. “I wish I’d met you ten or five years from now.”
“My budmate.” Flora sighed and looked unhappy. “You know, don’t you, that I want to be with you? That no matter how hurt and angry I’ve been with you, I still came here hoping that we could make it work.”
Rye’s world trembled as if it were about to split apart – or she was. When she really wanted to say yes, she said, “I can’t. Not now.”
“I’m not so foolish as to ask you to choose between me and Holly. You could have us both, you know.”
“I can’t.”
Flora looked away for a long time.
“I wish… ” Rye said, “I wish it could’ve been different.”
Flora slowly nodded. “I think I’m beginning to understand. I might not agree, but I think I’m beginning to see.”
Quiet acceptance was harder to bear than Flora shouting at her. Rye made a futile gesture. Flora brushed away a tear. Rye couldn’t help herself, she reached out to put her arms around Flora. Flora moved into the embrace. Almighty King and Queen of the Fey, she felt good to hold. Flora gently disengaged.
“I’m not that strong,” Flora whispered. “I’ll never be able to retain any dignity if you do that again. This is hard enough.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” Flora reached up to gently lay her hand against Rye’s cheek. “So am I. I can’t promise to wait forever, but if you change your mind, if ever you need me –”
Rye kissed her. Softly, chastely. “I shall always love you.”
Flora turned away quickly and strode off along the path. Rye’s eyes stung and her throat tightened.
Flora broke into a run. She cut across the field toward the eatery parking lot. Rye put a fist to her chest as if that might keep her heart from tearing in two.
“I had no choice,” Rye said. “I had no fucki
ng choice.”
Chapter Sixteen
Rye turned the alarm off, rolled out of bed, and reached for her clothes. Another day to get through. What day was it? Second Day? Third Day? A whole week since… No, it was First Day.
Rye sighed and pulled her pants on.
“I need you to fill this in.” Holly dropped a green form on the kitchen table.
Rye forced herself to show some interest. Holly grabbed a round of toast but remained standing. Rye felt a spurt of resentment and anger. She wasn’t even good enough to sit beside and share breakfast with? She had given up Flora for this? But it wasn’t Holly’s fault.
Rye sighed and pulled the form closer. Section B. Family details. Citizen identification number. Fey.
“Now that I’ve got Flora’s letter,” Holly said, “I want to send them in.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Holly disappeared into the bathroom.
Mother’s name. Penance. Father’s name. Unknown. Date of Birth. Not known precisely. One day in spring sixteen years ago. Place of Birth. Birdwood Valley Commune Farm Number Two, Fairyland.
No, Rye would use the details she had made up for Holly when she had first registered her for school. The one thing she could not lie her way around, though, was the citizen identification number. What, in the name of the Almighty King and Queen of the Fey, was she going to do?
When the lunch break whistle blew, Rye trotted down from the top levels of the under construction apartment tree. She hopped on her broom and flew out the site gates. She stopped at the RainbowSpring branch of the municipal library that she passed every day on her way to work.
Immigration Service. ShadeForest City Branch. 352 Upper Plantain Way. General enquiries (303) 990-032.
Rye scribbled the details down and went to find a street map.
Rye parked her broom. The totara tree containing number 352 was set back in a plaza. The large roots were busy with shops and cafés. Rye stood staring at the tree. Immigration were the people who hunted down illegal immigrants and shipped them back to where they came from. Rye’s wings tightened uncomfortably against her back and her heart beat faster. She bit her lip and clenched her fists. She must not panic. She could not run away. She had to walk in there and find out if there was any way Holly could become a citizen before she was an adult with her wings. Rye had to do this for Holly.