by Jamie Day
I obeyed the words, for it was Cael’s voice that had spoken them, and prodded Maeia to take me to the heart of Aisling. She didn’t stop until we had reached the gate of my home. I leaned over my horse and fell onto the ground. The grass was soaked, but so was I. I sat there, watching the black forest road while the rain drained over me. At that moment, I realized that Colin had been right. It was too dangerous for me in Aisling. I just had escaped Darian a second time.
Homecoming
Mother gasped when I opened the back door. “Rhiannon? Neal, come quickly. Rhiannon is home.”
A yelled curse rattled the windows and made the candles flicker. Father stomped into the room and glared at me as if I had taken his ale goblet.
“Hello, Father,” I said, barely raising my voice above a whisper. I was dripping wet; a puddle formed on the floor below my feet.
“What happened?” he asked. “Why are you here?” Father stomped past me and stared into the stormy night through the door I hadn’t closed. “Where’s your horse?”
I stepped aside and glanced at Mother; she offered no support. “I put her in the barn to dry off. I’ll remove her saddle later.”
Father slammed the door, stomped across the room, and kicked a pair of boots near the wall. “You know better than that, Rhiannon,” he scolded, snorting as he stepped into them. “Has the night turned you lazy?”
I opened the door again. “No, Father, I’ll take care of it. Stay here. I’m sorry.” I stepped into the rain and leaned my face back inside. As I inhaled to retort a guilty suggestion, I caught a glimpse of my mother—she held her face in her hands—and I suddenly couldn’t speak. I shut the door behind me and wandered slowly back to the barn, covered in rain and shame.
The journey had been horrible, my entrance into Aisling dangerous, and my own parents seemed to despise my arrival home. When I thought my day couldn’t get worse, I noticed Maeia’s saddle for the first time since leaving DarMattey. It was missing my satchel. I had left my supplies at Sianna’s store.
I cried in the barn longer than I should have. A warm pile of dry straw kept me company until I had gathered enough courage to face my parents again. I didn’t want to return to the house. Compared to the place where Nia had wed, our barn was a clean palace. I had spent many nights sleeping here when I was younger, and had always enjoyed its sanctuary. Except for a few kittens tunneling in the hay, I was alone. I had already removed my saddle and had sent Maeia out to the meadow, fearing retribution from Father if he came.
When I returned to the house, I stood outside the dining room window, staring through it like a curious stranger. Father and Mother sat over the table talking. Father was smoking. I could almost taste the tobacco twisting in airy circles above his pipe. Despite the danger and mad rejection of my homecoming, it felt good to be home again. I took a deep breath, rubbed my necklace for courage and slowly creaked open the back door. My parents turned and stared at me.
“Rhiannon, you look awful,” said Mother. She didn’t leave her place at the table.
I smiled dryly, hoping to convey my offense. “Thank you, Mother,” I told her quietly. “It has been a difficult day.”
My parents watched as I stepped into the dining room and chose a seat on the bench across from them. I wiped my eyes, although they had already dried, and then shivered from the impulse of warmth that suddenly enveloped me. Tiny goose bumps erupted from my wrists and crept down my arms. After taking a deep breath, I spoke again and rubbed my hands.
“I couldn’t stay there any longer,” I told them. “In DarMattey.”
My father breathed deep and lifted his face to speak, but Mother grabbed his arm and stopped him.
“I don’t belong there. I don’t like it.”
“You were only gone three days,” said Father. He pulled himself free of my mother’s grasp. “How can anyone like something in just three days?” He shoved his chair back and stood. “You’re going back in the morning.”
I shook my head. “Please, don’t say that. I can’t go back. I belong in Aisling.” I begged with my eyes. “This is my home.”
“It’s too dangerous here,” said Mother. She reached across the table and gripped my nearest hand. “You know that.”
“What about Colin?” Father paced across the dining room. “Does he know you left DarMattey?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I told him. I left after Nia’s wedding.”
Mother squeezed my hand tighter. “What are we supposed to do for you? If the bandit escapes, he’ll come for you again. You know that.” She shook her head. “You know that.”
I winced, mostly from what I was about to say, than from the pain from Mother’s grip. “I saw him today.”
Father’s face turned red. I could see traces of crimson between the bristles of his long yellow beard. “What happened?”
“Please, don’t yell at me,” I pleaded. “I wasn’t trying to cause trouble. I didn’t know he had escaped again.”
Mother removed her hand. “We didn’t know either. Where is he? Where did you see him?”
Before Mother had finished speaking, Father opened the door to his ale closet and disappeared inside. He returned and tried to conceal a short sword at his waist. He laced his boots a second time.
“Where are you going, Neal?” said Mother, aiming her anger with a glare.
“I’m going out into the storm,” he said. “I’ve had enough. I’ll find the man and solve our problems.”
I wanted to speak, but the argument’s pace had quickened to a rapid succession of words and yelling, and I didn’t feel strong enough to keep up. Father tossed a coat over his shoulders and stormed toward the door before anyone could respond.
“Then what will you do, Neal?” yelled Mother. “Kill him? If you do that, we’ll never get the scrolls back.”
“We wouldn’t need them back if not for—” Father stopped unlatching the front door. He must have realized the dagger of his own words.
I knew his meaning. It struck me as if he had tossed his sword across the room. The sharp edge of his truth left me in tears. “What are you saying, Father?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying,” he said, his head lowered. “I’m sorry.”
I looked up at him, but couldn’t focus. “They were after him tonight,” I said. “You were leaving without knowledge or need.” I shifted on the bench and tried to wipe my eyes. It didn’t stop my sorrow. “Cael and his men were chasing Darian at the moment he found me. I rode away quickly. I came straight home.”
The day had been too trying. I tried to take a deep breath, managed only a small whimper. I stepped away from the bench and stretched my legs, which hurt as if they had been tied together. I couldn’t argue; I didn’t have the energy. Without speaking, I stumbled past my father and up the stairs to my bedroom. The sound of my door slamming behind me was the last thing I heard before collapsing onto my bed.
~ O ~
Blinding sunshine in my eyes wasn’t a good way to start the next morning, but it was better than the nightmares that had dogged my sleep. I moaned and tried to block the light by burying my face under my pillow. That made it hard to breathe. I wrestled in my sheets before reluctantly allowing my eyes to adapt to the day.
It felt strange waking in my own bedroom again. It was as if everything I owned had been moved and returned to their same places. I examined my sandals, my clothes, my dresser, and even the walls to make certain I was truly there. Outside my door, I heard the hushed voices of Leila and Ethan and their attempts to convince our mother to allow them to enter my room. After their words faded and stomping on the stairs announced their failure, Mother peered inside. I stared back, unwilling to reveal any emotion.
“You’re awake,” she whispered. She slid inside and gently closed the door behind her. She stepped softly to my bedside and smiled. “How are you feeling?”
I shrugged.
“Are you injured?”
I shook my head. Her persistence was suffocating. She fe
lt like a stranger to me. We had always been close, the trials of our past had driven us apart, perhaps more than I’d realized. My mother’s cool reception from last night made me painfully aware how far we had drifted apart. I tried to look past her and out my window, but she moved to block my view. She stepped back, still watching me, and turned to leave.
“When you’re willing to talk, you will find me in the kitchen.”
Mother is always in the kitchen. I closed my eyes, annoyed at her overly friendly tone. Her words may have been kind and well meaning, but I knew that she meant. Her attitude toward me was clearly telling me, “talk to me or I’ll make your day painful.” As she left me alone, I wondered how far into the day I could remain in my bed without angering my father. I didn’t want to cause a conflict, but I also wanted to avoid one by wandering into a swarm of questions at the morning meal.
Despite the urges of my stomach, and the welcoming scent of Mother’s cooking, I decided not to eat and prepared to take a much-needed bath. Father ended that plan when I wandered down to retrieve a cauldron of hot water.
“If you’re home for good, then go feed the horses,” he ordered, wiping cider off his beard.
I didn’t dare look to Mother for support. Instead, I nodded and returned to my room to change into a work dress. Though I was home, this place didn’t feel the same as it once had. No one understood my emotions and no one seemed to care that I was suffering.
The day was lonely, and the work was harder than I had remembered. A few times I caught myself staring across the field, toward Taylor’s Ridge, daring myself to wander away and seek the solitude of a new life there. My doldrums and daydreams stretched the morning and when noon arrived, I was still filling the troughs. I thought it couldn’t get worse; I knew the day had something better to offer, especially after the previous night. I was wrong.
As I heaved another load over the fence, the distinct sound of Leila giggling carried from the other side of the stable. I scooped a handful of hay into a trough and peered around the walls to investigate. My sister sat in the long grass, facing her friend Michael Dunn with a smile as large as the sun. She saw me before I could duck away.
“Hello, Rhiannon.” Her voice was perfectly polite. “Welcome home.” Michael whispered something in her ear, and she giggled again.
Then Michael spoke. “Would you like some help, Rhiannon?”
“No, thank you,” I called back, trying not to sound angry. “Have you finished your chores, Leila?”
Her face appeared from around the corner of the stable. “Father relieved me for the day. I’m preparing for the Sun Season Celebration.” Her cheerful voice seemed to mock me.
The pain of my exile from the Fae throbbed with such renewed intensity I could find no words for either bland pleasantry or sarcastic retort. The celebration dances had been part of me for so long that without them, I felt empty. Hollow. I turned to face away from my sister and closed my eyes, remembering the days and nights I had danced at Stone Meadow. It had been peaceful and soothing. Nothing in the world compared to the joy I felt when dancing with the Fae. I couldn’t do that any longer. My lips started trembling, slowly at first, before they quivered into a sob. I covered my mouth and ran toward the house, nearly striking my head on the top rail of the meadow fence as I ducked under.
“Rhiannon?” Leila called my name from behind me at the exact moment my mother exclaimed it from the kitchen.
I knew their question, and didn’t answer them in words. “Everything!” my mind screamed. “Everything is wrong. I hate my life. I hate what’s happening. I miss Sean!” I stormed to my room and plunged into the tangled sheets on my bed.
Mother let me cry for most of the afternoon. When she found me, I was rubbing my face, trying to make the burning around my eyes disappear. She raised my chin and untangled my necklace with her fingers. Her eyes were kind.
“We should call this a Faerie Tear,” she said, lifting the blue diamond charm. She rubbed it gently. “When you wear this, it seems that emotion always floods your eyes.”
“I’m having a hard time,” I said, forcing my words between whimpers. I wiped my eyes, though they were already dry. “I need to leave.”
“To DarMattey?” Mother asked.
I shook my head. “No, not to that place.” I looked back at Mother and pulled my necklace from her fingers. I caressed the diamond. “I need to be alone,” I said. “Somewhere where no one knows me, or wants to know me. Where no one knows what I’ve done.”
Mother reached around my shoulders and pulled me close. “I’m sorry about what your father said,” she said. “He was angry last evening.”
“He was right.”
Mother pushed away and questioned me with her eyes.
I repeated myself. “Father is the only one who is being honest,” I told her. “If I hadn’t taken the scrolls, everything would be all right.”
Mother shook her head. “We’ve already stepped along the path you’re treading,” she said. “You tried something brave and heroic.” She paused.
“And I failed.” I finished her meaning.
“No, Rhiannon.” Mother pulled me close and squeezed again. “Maybe, you just haven’t finished, yet.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing to finish—there’s nothing left for me, anywhere.” I was weak from the day, and from talking. I wanted to find the scrolls, to discover the secrets of the mysterious man who had taken them. Cael had even agreed to help me in that quest. But I had never had the chance, and now it felt like I never would. I couldn’t leave the house anymore without some sort of protection. How would I ever resolve my own intentions? I fell to my back and wished that my mother would leave me alone.
She rubbed my forehead and kept talking. “I want you to feel like you have a purpose,” she said. “I know a young girl downstairs who needs an example. She’s preparing for her first celebration dance, and she’s nervous.”
I hid my reaction; Mother didn’t know Leila as I did. She didn’t know Leila had been teasing me at the stable. I rolled over and faced the wall. I wasn’t going to tell her.
“You accepted Leila as your replacement. Has it been that long? I once knew a girl just as excited and nervous as your sister. That girl grew to be a young woman who neglected her way of living.”
I turned back to face her accusation. “I believe in the Fae,” I said, defying her with a glare.
Mother smiled, seemingly pleased with her overdose of guilt, and stepped out of my room.
I watched her leave, contemplated giving in to the temptation of a scream, then settled for pounding my face into my pillow. I couldn’t concentrate, nor ignore how I felt. The anger was boiling into my senses. No one knew what it was like—to be me—to have suffered as I had. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to blame me for my fate.
I stayed in bed, ignoring the calls for supper from my parents and waited for another night of haunting dreams. Those dreams would come later than I wanted. Father yelled at me to leave my room before the last crimson hues of the sunset dropped their grip on Taylor’s Ridge.
“Rhiannon, if you don’t leave your room, I’ll send the Elders up to you.”
His words were enough to prompt a frantic scramble to make myself presentable. No man had ever entered my room; Father had forbidden it when Sean had started courting me. Still, his tone told me he intended to break his own rule. I quickly obliged and met him downstairs.
“Look at that,” said my father proudly to the two men in our dining room. “I told you she’d come running.” His grin revealed the gaps in his teeth and his satisfaction at my annoyance.
“Hello, Rhiannon,” said Donavon Gale. He held a goblet full of ale.
“Good evening, sir,” I answered, bowing with respect. I turned to Orson Phillips, Father’s cousin, and offered him the same gesture.
Father patted both men on their shoulders, grinned at me, and then disappeared out the back door.
“Where’s Mother?” I asked, calling out to him.
“And Leila?”
Father answered over his shoulder, “Stone Meadow,” as the door shut behind him.
I turned to the men, suddenly afraid. The village Elders rarely presented themselves like this. There was a problem.
“How may I help?” I asked them. I was eager to end the discomfort that had plummeted into my stomach. I grabbed Father’s bottle from the table and held it to the men, offering them silent refreshment.
“We’re not here on behalf of the village,” said Orson. “We’ve come at the request of your father. He sent a messenger today.”
I dropped the bottle. The ale poured over the table and dripped onto the floor. Father never sent messengers. He had always told us they were too expensive and a waste of our own legs.
“I’m sorry,” I told the Elders, excusing myself while rushing to the kitchen to collect a cloth. “I need to clean that.”
Orson took the cloth from my hand and smiled. “Sit down,” he said, reaching over to wipe some of the liquid. “I can manage this.”
“We’ve come to talk about security,” said Donavon. Then his face went stern. “And your refusal to accept the protection that Colin Druce offered to you.”
I suddenly felt like a small child, told by an adult that I shouldn’t touch fire. I nodded my understanding and sat quietly in the dining room while both men explained to me the challenge of keeping Darian.
The trouble, they explained, was not that the bandit kept escaping his prison. Truthfully, he wasn’t kept in one. Aisling had never needed such places. The Elders kept Darian in Owen’s old smokehouse, a filthy black hole that offered no light, and barely room to stretch.
“You can’t keep a man in a place like that,” said Donavon. “And the men who guard him aren’t warriors, they’re merchants.”
Orson tossed the soiled cloth onto the kitchen counter and rejoined us in the dining room. “We need to find the scrolls.”
“That is our priority.” Both men spoke the same words at once.
“Yes, I know.”
Orson coughed, as if his next sentence was difficult to exhale. “Unless you know where the scrolls are.”