by E. M. Fitch
Lucas finally took his eyes from the impression of his former queen. He spared Laney one fleeting gaze, just a quick lock of their eyes, but in it Laney saw something that she both instantaneously understood and immediately dismissed, the knowledge forgotten in her damaged mind. But for one shining moment, she had understood, and it had frightened her more intensely than she could ever remember being frightened before.
Lucas took a knee and bowed his ancient head. And after all the rest had fallen still and quiet in their pledges of fealty, Aidan looked to Laney.
He wasn’t commanding now, nor was he harsh or triumphant or forceful. He simply looked at her, and she looked up at him. Everything around them stilled, quieted, as though the whole world was waiting for Laney. In a way, it was.
He didn’t beg forgiveness or understanding. And she wouldn’t ask why, not again. She knew. He had made his choice, and she must make hers.
Laney fell to one knee and bowed her head. She felt the forest sigh around her.
It was midday in August, hot and sticky. Cassie had suggested the Gray Lady Cemetery. The shady spot would have been deliciously cool. Samantha balked at the idea. Her left forearm spasmed as she made a fist, jangling the chunky ring of keys she was holding. She shook her head.
“Let’s just stick to the road, huh?”
Cassie gave in without a struggle. The asphalt bled heat into the air around them, making them sweat. There was a shimmer in the air that felt unnatural—though, of course, it was. Nature just had a way of feeling unbelievable sometimes.
Samantha walked half a mile chewing on the inside of her cheek. It wasn’t as though Cassie didn’t know what she wanted to talk about—in fact, she was sure that she did—but she was in no rush to start the conversation. Once they did, Samantha would be cemented in world of the Fae, something she would forever become aware of and a part of.
Within minutes, Cassie’s thin shirt was stuck to her skin. She adjusted the material slightly, walking step by step with Samantha along the curb. A car drove by, lazy and slow, actually following the twenty-five mile-per-hour speed limit. Looking behind her, Cassie saw the Sheridan boys burst from their front door into their yard. Mrs. Sheridan followed, her hair in a messy bun, sipping coffee from a chipped pink mug.
“I woke up at four AM,” Samantha said quietly. Cassie glanced at her. Her head was down, gaze tracing the crumbling curb. She didn’t say anything else, and Cassie realized that she had woken at just that time as well. Funny.
“You know,” she murmured, “me, too. Weird, huh?” Samantha looked up sharply, studying Cassie’s expression. Cassie’s brow wrinkled. “What?”
“You didn’t feel it?”
“Feel what?”
“It.”
Cassie stared at her friend. Mrs. Sheridan called out, “Boys, get away from the road!” Wind whipped through the woods behind the Blake house. The swings from Laney’s old playset clattered together. Further down the road, a garage door opened with a whine. Samantha broke eye contact, her gaze skittering around the trembling forest.
“I don’t know what woke me,” Cassie said eventually. “Bad dreams, maybe.”
“Yeah.” Samantha sighed, looking uncomfortable. “I get those, too. But this wasn’t that.”
Where does one start when looking to change? Cassie had spent her entire therapy session looking for an answer that felt right, but she hadn’t stumbled upon it. She wasn’t sure what Lucy wanted to hear, either. She assumed maybe she wanted to hear, “my parents.” But that wouldn’t have been a truthful answer, so Cassie figured it’d be a terrible way to start that particular conversation. Lucy offered very little insight and just continued to encourage Cassie to think about it.
She was thinking about it, even now during her walk with Samantha. She was thinking. She wanted to offer her honesty to the people she loved—a staggering and scary amount of people. She might as well rent out the school auditorium and sell tickets.
Or she could start with one person. One person whom she did love. One person who already half-knew, someone who she could trust with her honest self, someone who had earned that right.
“Laney is alive,” Cassie murmured. The busy, noisy world faded the instant the words were out of her mouth. All sound diminished, until only the words that had tripped past her lips were left hanging in the silent, shimmering air. Both girls stopped walking. Cassie felt Samantha looking at her, but she didn’t have the nerve to look back. Beyond them both, the trees seemed to sigh. “She never died, not really. She changed, though.”
“She’s one of them?” Samantha whispered. Cassie nodded. “One of those things? They drink blood, you know. I saw it. They sucked at my pulse points, a group of them. They sucked at my skin until it bled, until it oozed. Some drank from my skin, but the rest held their hats out, caught blood to sip at their leisure. That’s why those hats were that horrid pink color.”
“I—” Cassie stared in horror at her friend. “They were drinking blood? From their hats? I didn’t know. I’ve met them though, in the woods. They’re … terrible.”
“Terrible?” Samantha shuddered. “They’re monsters. Is Laney one of them, a … like a vampire?”
In a normal world, Cassie might have laughed. Instead, she shook her head. “They’re not vampires, they’re faeries.”
Samantha’s forehead scrunched, but she didn’t laugh, either. Her lips pressed in a straight line, white and thin, until she drew a rasping breath. “Faeries, okay, yeah.”
“Laney called them ‘the Fae,’” Cassie continued. “I didn’t know about them at all, at first, not when she ran off into the forest. But I saw it happen. I saw the forest suck her in, literally, and I was there when she started to change. They can control the trees, the animals. There’s this mist that messes with your senses; it was there on the night Jessica died. It kinda loosens you, like, takes away your inhibitions.”
Samantha nodded as though this made sense to her, and maybe it did. She was there that night in the forest when the mist had blanketed the ground, too. “And their faces?” Samantha asked softly.
“They shift and change,” Cassie supplied.
“So, Laney?”
“She’s been around; you may have seen her and just not known it.”
“No, I knew it,” Samantha said. “It wasn’t that long ago. She was here, alone. I forced myself not to acknowledge her.”
“There’s more, Samantha, a lot more,” Cassie whispered after a brief stillness. Samantha nodded.
“Just start talking; I’ll keep up.”
Samantha didn’t leave Cassie’s side until the sun kissed the horizon. She had told her everything she could possibly remember. It was a disorganized and rambling speech, but honest. It was the most honest Cassie could remember being in a long, long time. True to her word, Samantha had kept up. She nodded, hummed, and stopped Cassie on occasion. Cassie would pause, and they would walk in silence, up and down the street that buzzed with life around them. Eventually Samantha would nod and gesture for her to go on. Cassie would, and Samantha would nod along again.
It was a lot to process, and in retrospect, Cassie felt she could have done this in a kinder fashion. There must have been a way to be softer about it, but at the time, it was as though the floodgates had opened. Every truth she could remember came pouring out. She felt wonderful, exalted, clean. Her very soul felt lighter. It was a contagious, beautiful feeling.
She thought of Lucy and their last conversation. What would honesty cost? Where would I even start? She knew the answers now, at least for this first little dip. It cost very little in comparison to this lilting, wonderful feeling of being free. It cost bravery, at the moment—bravery to force those words from her mouth. It took courage to pull someone else into her personal nightmare, and there was a hint of guilt, as well. Samantha didn’t deserve this, but Samantha had also asked to be involved, and perhaps that’s what made it okay. Cassie wasn’t sure. What she did know—heading
into her well-lit home and the blast of air conditioning that swept her body like a feverish chill—was that she felt lighter, happier, even giddy at the thought of sharing the real truth of what had been chasing her with someone who cared about her.
The only hiccup in the entire arrangement was Ryan and Jon. Just before she left, just as she wrenched open her car door, Samantha had turned to Cassie.
“We can’t tell them, can we?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “When they see the Fae, they see … ”
“Nothing,” Cassie confirmed. “Aidan has walked right by Ryan, and he saw nothing.”
“Jon thinks I’m being paranoid.”
“You’re not.”
Samantha drew a deep breath through her nose and nodded for the last time. “We’ll figure something out, Cass. If they come back, if he comes back, we’ll figure something out together.”
Cassie offered a tight smile but couldn’t force herself to agree. This wasn’t Samantha’s fight. As tempting as the offer of help was, she wasn’t entirely sure it was right to accept it.
“Thanks for listening,” she said instead as her friend got behind the wheel of her mom’s car. Samantha looked up at Cassie through the crack between door and car frame.
“Thanks for telling me the truth.”
The party lasted through that morning and into the next night. Laney kept Aidan in her sights, firmly expecting him to run off to Cassie. Her gut churned with anxiety, and every time she lost sight of Aidan, every time he moved behind a copse of trees, or got lost in a crowd of excited Red Caps, or became blocked from sight by a new creature Laney had neither met nor had a name for, bile spiked Laney’s throat. Her head swam with possibilities, and her mind warred.
He’s going for Cassie, she’d think in fear, knowing how terrified her best friend would be once Laney told her that Corra’s protection had vanished. But then her mind would whisper, He’s going for your sister, and that lovely vision of her and Cassie—their hair wild and free, running barefoot through a forest that accepted and embraced them—would race through her brain, and a smile would bloom without her conscious permission.
Aidan didn’t come to her until that evening. “Sister,” he murmured tentatively. He sat next to her on the stone she was perched on. Laney’s lips pursed, her brow furrowing. The rock beneath her shifted and reformed, now cradling the two faery bodies in a way that was both intimate, and yet infinitely more comfortable.
“My liege?” Laney said, a definite question in the lilt of her words. “I’m unsure what I should call you now.”
“Oh, ‘King Aidan’ should suffice,” he answered airily. She felt his arm come around her shoulders and the affectionate squeeze that followed. “Or Brother, or Aidan, or whatever you’d like. You’re still my sister.”
Laney frowned.
“I know you’re upset,” Aidan started, holding tight to Laney’s shoulder as she went to throw his arm off. “I know you are. But you’re a tiny bit relieved, too. Admit it.”
“I won’t, and I’m not,” Laney huffed, trying to shift away from Aidan. The stone underneath her sighed and shifted, and she was pushed back toward her faery brother.
“You won’t have to leave him now,” Aidan whispered. “I won’t make you. I understand. You need to see him. Just like I need to see—”
“You’re going to terrify her!” Laney interrupted, the words bursting from her. “I know her; she won’t be able to take it. It’s not fair. This isn’t what she wants!”
“But once she’s here, once she feels the life in the trees as you do, once she’s beside you … ” Aidan whispered.
“Aidan, please don’t do this to her. Don’t steal her away.” The words tore from Laney’s throat, left a harsh taste in her mouth. Aidan knew, just as she did, how much she wanted Cassie beside her.
“I don’t plan on stealing her away,” he surprised her by saying. “She’ll come to me. In the end, she’ll choose this. I know it.”
“How?” Laney whispered, but Aidan ignored her.
“She will, you’ll see,” he continued in a low tone, his attention already drawn out of the forest and into the suburban bedroom of Laney’s best friend. “And you, you are not to go to her,” Aidan suddenly commanded. “You will not run to her this night or any other, do you understand me?”
Some force, some eternal, invisible force, pushed Laney’s head into a nod. He was her king, and though he didn’t want her to call him that, she couldn’t disobey his commands. She looked to the forest floor and understood. She couldn’t run to Cassie. She wouldn’t.
But she couldn’t help it if Cassie ran to her.
A smile crept over Laney’s face, one she hid from Aidan as she bent her head low.
“I understand,” she whispered.
She could wait here every day, as far as she was concerned. Laney could watch her son as the days flew by. Aidan would not suspect her of anything, because he already assumed this was where she wanted to spend her time. He wasn’t wrong. But she had an ulterior motive. She knew Cassie wouldn’t stay away for long, either.
It took her longer than she had thought, actually. Laney considered tampering with the ivy, making it flourish more than it already had, or perhaps pulling blooms forth that should have long since died. In the end, she didn’t have to. It took her three days, but eventually, Cassie came.
Laney smiled in greeting as her friend appeared, her auburn hair a burning torch in the green forest. She wore shorts and a tank top, perfectly reasonable considering the heat. Laney considered her own homespun tunic; it clung tighter to her body than even Cassie’s tank top, but the fabric felt rough and earthy. She fingered the edge, watching Cassie’s approach. Her friend let a soft curse slip as she tripped over an errant root.
She looked up at Laney’s soft breath of laughter, and as their eyes met, a path through the foliage snaked its way between the two girls.
“Took you long enough to come back,” Laney said.
“I can’t come here every day. I told you that. And you could have done that twenty minutes ago,” Cassie hissed, gesturing to the cleared path before you.
“It wouldn’t have been as funny,” Laney said. She shrugged, grinning despite the churning anxiety in her gut.
Cassie rolled her eyes, walking on even ground until she reached her friend’s side. The forest shifted as she moved, relaxing back into place as soon as the girl had passed through.
“I don’t think I could ever get used to that,” Cassie murmured. Laney’s muscles tensed, and she frowned. “So how is he this morning?”
Laney looked to the open window across the wide lawn. A breeze fluttered the white curtain in the second-story window. She could hear the soft breath of sleep, though she doubted Cassie’s ears would be able to pick it up.
“He’s resting well,” she murmured.
“He’s growing so fast,” Cassie offered, squinting in the direction of the little house. “Can you believe how much he’s changed? Even his cry, it’s not newborn-ish any longer. It’s more of a baby cry.”
“Yes,” Laney said softly. “I’ve noticed.”
Cassie looked pained. “I’m sorry, Laney, I can’t even imagine—”
“Corra is dead.”
Cassie’s face drained of blood as soon as the words were out in the humid air between them. Laney glanced her way and then waved her hand in a tight circle above her head. The trees thrashed as though a light wind was circling directly overhead; to the casual onlooker, it might have seemed like the wind had just kicked it up in that section of forest. To the two girls standing in the middle, it was like being in a particularly gentle tornado, a calm in the middle of a weaving forest. It felt still, and quiet, and, most importantly, hushed enough by the rustling leaves all around them that no one lurking nearby would overhear.
“Three days ago,” Laney continued, watching Cassie closely. “Aidan killed her.”
The word why lingered on Cassie’s lips, Lan
ey saw it there and waited until her friend was coherent enough to swallow it back. They both knew why.
“It took you this long to—”
“He forbade me from seeking you out,” Laney interrupted.
“He forbade you?” Cassie asked scathingly. Laney could sense the agitation roiling off her friend and knew it was mingled with terror. She wished her friend could see just how much her emotions affected the forest around them. The trees bent with it, leaves kicking up from the ground. It was subtle, and Cassie seemed not to know, but Laney felt it acutely. “And, what? You just obey him now?”
“It’s different with us,” Laney answered calmly. “Some commands I can’t ignore. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Here?” Cassie asked, softening. She swallowed hard, the muscles of her neck straining with tension.
“Of course here,” Laney scoffed. She looked to her son’s window and smiled softly. “I knew you’d come.”
“Laney, what is this going to mean?” Cassie whispered.
Laney’s gaze left her son’s window. She drew breath slowly, as though savoring the flavor of the air. She pulled herself up, her spine seeming to lengthen as she took a deep breath. “It means a lot of things, Cass,” Laney answered slowly. Above them, the trees whipped together. “But above all else, it means we have to kill Aidan.”
“How?” The word slipped passed Cassie’s lips before she could stop herself. Above her, the trees that weaved in the mini-cyclone created by her faery friend seemed to still for a moment, as though even they were shocked by her immediate acceptance of murder.
Because that’s what this would be; it would be murder. She felt the muscles bunch and twitch in her cheeks from clenched jaws. Tension zinged along every muscle grouping, and Cassie had to suck a deep breath through tight lips and force her body to calm down; already she could feel the beginnings of a cramp in her thigh. She brought one clenched fist to her leg, unfurled her fingers, and rubbed the tense muscle slowly.