I reached out and slid the tiny lock on the door handle before turning it, pushing the door open as quietly as I could. My dad could already be in the house and if he heard anything at the back door, he would surely know it was me.
Nodding to Declan, I allowed him to step out of the house and down the concrete steps before I followed, unsure where he would lead me but without a second thought, deciding to go along with him.
The small row of tall shrubs that separated my yard from the one owned by the people in the house behind us was thin and sparse, barely enough to conceal the two of us. I knew that Declan hadn’t much to choose from when he ran into the yard, but since I didn’t know where he planned to lead me, I couldn’t offer any advice.
I was out of breath halfway through the yard, anyway, so I wouldn’t have been able to tell him anything at all if I wanted to.
Once we were still, my heart continuing to race as we stood side by side in a small space between some surprisingly sharp shrub branches, Declan caught my eye with a serious stare.
“You’re sure? You have to trust me if you are, and you have to believe.”
Before I could stop myself, I smiled and murmured, mostly to myself.
“And pixie dust?”
Declan frowned, obviously confused.
“Pixie dust? What’s a pixie?”
I shook my head dismissively, reminding myself that this certainly wasn’t a Disney movie or Broadway play, and confusing Declan wasn’t going to help him make things any more clear for me, something he already had difficulty doing.
“Never mind. What now?”
My hands and my forehead were sweaty, and I hoped that wherever we went, I could wash myself off and sleep for a little while before I was expected to do anything to live up to my name - whatever that entailed.
“The key. Since we are close to a natural essence, it should work.”
He must have been talking about these annoying shrubs. I kept myself from looking down at my arms, where I was sure an irritated rash would result from all this up-close and personal contact with natural essence.
“Uh, okay,” was the best I could come up with as I lifted the key, still on its chain, into the air. Where was I supposed to put it? There was nothing remotely like a lock close to us.
Declan’s smile was moderately reassuring, although he didn’t really tell me anything practical.
“Move it through the air, slowly. You’ll know when you find the lock.”
That didn’t explain much, but I was getting used to his partial and often non-existent clues as to what was going on. What was I losing by leaving, I considered, realizing as I stared at the key that my hand, no, my entire arm was shaking?
My parents, Corrie. A life that was, looking at it purely through facts, held together solely by these three people, all of whom went out of their way to help me. How much easier would their lives be if they didn’t have to worry so much about me? Most of their efforts were in vain, however, and I knew that as I had grown older, my problems increased. My illnesses multiplied, my allergies to the world around me more prominent.
I have never thought of myself as allergic to the world, but if what Declan had said was true, that would explain everything. If this faerie place was where I truly belonged, and if my experience there would be as exhilarating as those few moments we had shared in the woods earlier had been, I had to give it a try.
The key trembled a little in my fingers, as I began to swipe it in the air, first up, and then down. Side to side. Was I moving too quickly? Too slowly? What if I didn’t know when or if I had hit the right spot? What if someone saw us, or worse, if my father came out of the house and started walking this way?
How could I explain what I, or what we, we doing in the shrubs, alone together?
Declan was silent beside me, but so close I could feel his warm breath on my cheek. Surely if I was doing it wrong, he would say something, with so much hinging on my actions at this moment, and yet, he kept quiet, leaving the burden of finding this mysterious lock to me.
The sky suddenly seemed to shudder above me, and I looked up just as the key thudded, moving no further. I pressed against whatever was holding it back, but when I did, my hand turned sideways, and so did the key. My gaze stayed skyward as Declan laughed, the sound both joyful and relieved, and a violet spark burst from behind the clouds above.
Chapter Twenty One
A shower of sparks reigned down on Declan and me, as if the sky had exploded and the stars were falling all around us. I tried to keep my eyes open, but the flashes forced them shut on instinct.
Declan’s hand was suddenly in mine, and he pulled me against him. I struggled for a moment, as a habit out of fear of the visions that would, without a doubt, overtake me.
But none did. My mind was clear, full of the sensation of his skin on mine, just as it had been in the woods near the school on our way home. The softness of his hand along with the warmth of the connection on so much more than a physical level filled me with a serenity that transpired the earlier experience, though, and when I opened my eyes, the deep sigh that escaped my lips couldn’t be helped.
The bright sun hovered maternally over us, the heat of its rays gentle rather than scorching. Trees of unmatchable height surrounded us, the trunks massive and bearing a variety of sizes of holes that I assumed were homes for animals.
The clarity and vitality I wished for again filled my lungs and chest, my mind free of pain and tension. Whatever had happened in the woods was minimal compared to the release of all that was holding my body and mind back in my own world.
Or was this my own world, as Declan had claimed? Was that the reason for this refreshing awareness and empowerment?
He tugged on my hand, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“I knew you could do it!”
Before I could answer, he dropped to one knee, just as he had before in the woods. This, unlike the rest of what was happening, was just plain weird and decidedly uncomfortable.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
I tried to take my hand from his, but he held tight, leaning forward on his knee and adding his other hand to cover mine. As awkward as it was, the adoration in his gaze was captivating.
“You are worthy of my pledge and more, although you don’t yet know why. I’ve wondered how much to tell you . . .”
His voice trailed off, and his smile faltered the tiniest bit, just enough for me to notice. I nodded encouragingly.
“If you could see yourself now . . . but we have no mirrors here in Faerie, although you will find one of your own in time.”
Speaking cryptically again, even here, I thought, and almost rolled my eyes as he spoke. But he was so serious, I couldn’t demean his efforts by doing that.
“You aren’t really helping, you know. I don’t know any more about any of this now that we’re in Faerie, as you say, except that I feel a lot better.”
“A lot better?” His smile echoed his teasing question. He knew the changes this world wrought upon me, and for me to explain it as merely a lot better was something of a joke to us both.
“But honestly, I don’t know what you mean about finding a mirror, or being worthy of a pledge, or seriously, Declan, why are you on your knee right now?”
He shook his head slowly, his smile almost smug. Did he enjoy keeping information from me, even if it wasn’t in a malicious way?
“I didn’t want to say too much in your world, in case it would frighten you away from returning us to Faerie.”
Everything he had told me was confusing enough, so maybe his plan had been a good one. Yet, the vision of our future together had been frighteningly ominous, and his desperation to bring me to Faerie disturbing.
“You have great expectations of me, and I don’t know what they are, or why you have them.”
He nodded as his smile faded, and I continued impatiently.
“Please get up. This is so awkward, and I just want you to stand up and tell me more.”
>
As he leaned his weight on his bent knee, he kept his hand in mine, and the other lifted to stretch out sideways. When he finally stood in front of me, I found myself looking up into his clear blue eyes, wondering again at the unique shade. Was it a faerie phenomenon? Was that what Declan truly was, a faerie?
“Let’s take a walk. We’ll need to get moving soon anyway, as certain entities will sense our presence, and knowing that we’ve returned, might send obstacles our way.”
Great, I frowned, thinking to myself that at least I was stronger here, physically, and might be able to fight off whatever obstacles he was referring to. I kept silent, waiting for him to continue.
“Your counterpart is here, but unaware that she is human. She is fading, just as you were in the human realm.”
Fading was a gentle way to describe my decline in health over the past few years, and implied . . . that I was dying? Or had been, as long as I stayed in the life I had known? Declan had left out this incredibly relevant detail, which may have tipped my interest in coming to Faerie in his favor.
“I didn’t want you to return us here just to save your own life,” he said, as if he knew that I was realizing all that his choice of the word faded entailed. “Your life means everything to us here in Faerie. I, of course, have a personal interest in your health and safety, as well as your happiness, but so many living creatures here have awaited your return that I had to know that your return wasn’t a purely selfish action.”
But it had been. I was lured by the lush experience we had shared on the walk home during the interlude in the woods, and by his promise that those feelings would be assured in Faerie. Had I been motivated by anything else? The touch of his hand, the intensity in his eyes, the mysteries his words had created?
‘You’re wrong. I’m here for me, nothing more. All this stuff you keep saying makes no sense to me, and I just wanted to feel better after having that sample of what I could truly be like in the woods.”
He looked away quickly, but he kept my hand in his without lessening his grip. His other hand dropped to his side, and I worried that I had disappointed him. Of course I had, but I couldn’t help being honest about my motivation. When he shook his head, I held back from apologizing, waiting for him to tell me what he thought of my admission.
“No, that isn’t all. You understand more than you know. You may have been a baby when you were taken from here, left in a world incompatible with your physical and emotional selves, but your heart had always known.”
When he took a few steps away from me, I followed, allowing our joined hands to keep us connected as I listened. The baby in the photograph that he claimed wasn’t me . . . this had to be the counterpart he said was here in Faerie, now. She didn’t know that she was human, just as I hadn’t known that I wasn’t.
My thought processes were hinged on the premise that I accepted all that Declan had told me, and I wondered if I should be worried at how easily I took it all in and put the pieces together. What had been confusing before our spectacular transition into Faerie fell together easily now, like a troublesome checkers game with a surprisingly simple solution only just understood.
“But why would someone take a baby from one world to another, and switch them out? If both of us were going to die eventually if we didn’t switch back, it had to be someone who wanted to harm us, right?”
It was a stupid question, I realized as I spoke, letting my brain work through the details out loud. I was just an ordinary baby girl, or rather, my human version was, but what about the infant I had turned out to be? Why would anyone threaten her, or, rather me?
I wondered how long it would take before I stopped referring to myself as both the human child, who was not me but whose life I had been living until today, and the faerie girl, whose life had been switched with the one who had been part of this realm for years?
What would that girl say once we met? Would Declan explain all of this to her as well?
“Changelings are rare, and for good reason. It is not easy to successfully switch a human and fairy child, and often goes wrong, resulting in the death of one or both of the babies involved.”
Whoever had done this to me and the other girl had risked losing our lives against their goal in committing the act in the first place. But why?
Chapter Twenty Two
“My bag!”
It randomly occurred to me, just as Declan led me around several trees in this seemingly pathless forest, that my messenger bag was still on my living room floor. My dad would certainly see it and wonder where I was.
“Don’t worry, no one will know that you’ve gone.”
That wasn’t the first time he had mentioned that, and while I had let it go then I wasn’t about to let him get away with dismissing my concerns without a true explanation.
“But why? Are you able to stop time or something?”
At this point, I was going to have to go all in with this venture, and if I believed what Declan had been telling me all day, I figured I might as well accept this, too. To my surprise, however, he shook his head, his dark hair moving smoothly against his shoulders. I longed to reach out and touch it, but stopped myself, although it looked so soft.
We had only just met, but we were holding hands and he was pledging some strange devotional stuff to me that I didn’t quite understand, so I probably could have indulged my desire.
“No, nothing like that. It’s just that time runs differently in Faerie, sometimes slower, and sometimes more quickly, than in the human realm.”
I had to stop myself from focusing too much on our conversation and have more of a care with my footing. Without a path, the forest floor was covered with a variety of twigs, branches, and plants, some with vines that were catching on my feet.
My legs felt strong and energetic as Declan picked up the pace, and we weaved through the tall trees with no more words between us, just the rich scent of the variety of plants growing around us. The bright colors, yellows and greens of different hues, flashed by and I couldn’t help but laugh with the joy of being able to enjoy this natural beauty with no negative response from my body.
It was as if being in Faerie had shifted me from one physical shell into another, but that wasn’t true. Somehow I knew that I was still in the same body, but it had a different reaction to this world than in the one I had lived in my whole life.
Almost my whole life, if Declan’s tale of a baby switch was true and I had been born here nearly eighteen years ago. Did the girl who was the real human Hope know instinctively if not literally that she didn’t belong here, or did her human form have difficulty in this realm where she had been brought so long ago? What would it be like to meet her, and exchange stories of the worlds we had lived in that were not our own?
When I started to laugh, no longer worried about missing anything or causing anyone trouble in the human realm but considering a possible friendship with my human counterpart, Declan glanced back at me, his smile full of the pure happiness I was feeling, too. But why were we running, I wondered, and was it to somewhere, or from something?
Did it matter?
“Oh, it’s so pretty! What a pretty thing you’ve brought us, Prince Declan!”
He stopped suddenly, and I couldn’t help but run right into him, pushing him forward a few inches as he held both of his arms out to his sides. Was he trying to protect me?
I peeked around to see who had spoken, and why he would feel the need to keep them from getting closer to me.
A little girl, a child, really, stood half as tall as Declan, her strawberry blonde hair lush around her small head as it fell to her ankles. Her pale eyes were bright with interest, but her smile was terrifyingly fierce, showing tiny fangs like needles poking out from both sides of her upper lip.
And she had called him Prince Declan!
“You’ll let us pass without any trouble, lux.”
His voice was firm and insistent, but the child’s eyes only grew wider as she noticed me peeking from a
round Declan’s shoulders.
“Are we not all friends in this realm? Or are you royal lot too good to lower yourself to speak to us common forest folk?”
Common? There was nothing common about those tiny fangs, which I suspected would hurt quite a bit if they found their way into my own skin. I shuddered at the thought, wondering why my mind turned in that direction.
My vision of Declan’s and my future had ended with his forlorn declaration that someone, a woman, would kill us. Why hadn’t I thought that there might be malevolent beings here? Moreover, why hadn’t Declan warned me?
As if he could predict my questions, he turned his head slightly and didn’t bother to hide what he was saying to me from the girl, who didn’t seem concerned that he was openly being rude to her.
“Speaking to her will only end in riddles and confusion. Nothing good comes from a lux, so don’t let her draw you in. We need to keep moving, anyway.”
I shook my head, wanting to trust him but also overwhelmed by questions. Taking a couple of steps to the side so I was still behind his arm but more visible to the girl, or the lux as he had called her, I watched her tiny pink tongue slide between her teeth just enough for me to see it.
“You shouldn’t be in such a hurry, not with the pretty thing you have in your keeping. I’ve never seen it before, so pray tell where you found it, and what you intend to do with it. I see I’m not the only one who is curious about your plans.”
She was definitely not a child, but I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by her exquisite doll-like beauty, which was so incongruous with her words and tone. It was true that I was curious about where Declan was taking me and why he thought I was important to the faerie realm, but how had she known this?
“Does it speak?”
Those pale eyes of hers shifted their gaze from me back to Declan as she asked, but he only took a deep breath. I knew he was about to warn me again, so I saved him the trouble and took a chance, since today had been about doing so from the first moment I saw him.
The Shadow of a Dream Page 10