by E. M. Fitch
She shifted in her seat, the fabric stiff and scratchy on her bare legs. A sigh escaped before she could stop it, and she cleared her throat. Out of nowhere, from some dark recess of her mind, a leftover remnant of her humanity, the memory of lavender overwhelmed her.
“Be right back,” she murmured to Jude. He nodded absentmindedly. Gaia turned in her seat to watch Laney leave, a frown sparking at the activity in the back corner of the dark room. Laney saw them as she passed—two of the Red Caps, sucking absently on the fingers of an elderly man who seemed asleep in his chair. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Laney thought the man looked a little pale.
One of the Boys grinned at Laney as she walked by, his teeth stained red. She shuddered but didn’t stop walking. Suddenly the air around her seemed too iron-scented for comfort. An uncomfortable roll began in the pit of her stomach, and she raised a hand to her lips, not wanting to vomit.
Outside the theater, the entryway was empty. Laney sucked gratefully at the clean, popcorn-scented air. There were only two theaters in the entire place, one showing the blood-and-guts action film they were watching, and the other showing some cheesy romance. Laney could tell from the music that drifted faintly from behind the closed doors. It reminded her of the movies her mother used to love, and her chest clenched suddenly at the thought.
The door to the romance movie swung open, bringing with it an intense burst of lavender that seemed to force its way past the aroma of popcorn and into Laney’s sinuses. Beyond the doors, emanating from the speakers that rose in volume, snippets of conversation lilted into the foyer. One of the princely brothers argued his birthright and royal succession to another invisible character on the brightly lit screen. A woman stepped out of the darkness, and every muscle in Laney’s body froze at the sight.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, stepping past a silent Laney on her way to the bathroom. Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy bun, though wisps fell out, as they always did. She smelled of lavender and laundry detergent, but there was something else, something that lingered beneath that, though Laney wasn’t sure anyone but herself would notice. The woman smelled earthy, as though she hadn’t showered that morning, but it wasn’t unpleasant; it brought to Laney’s mind buried memories of cold nights spent rocked against a warm breast. She smelled of sweat and exhaustion, of soap and worn cotton, of lavender, and of home.
“Mom,” Laney whispered before she could help herself. The woman lost a step, her body seemed to spasm, and horror crept over Laney at what she had just done. But then her mother turned, eyed her curiously, and tried to erase the pain that twisted her face by smiling.
“Sorry?” she asked, and that twist of anxiety, that ache that Laney hadn’t been able to place, thudded with an intensity that left her speechless. After a moment of silent staring, Laney’s mother shook her head. “I must have misheard you,” she said. All expression melted from her face, and she turned and disappeared into the bathroom.
Laney followed. She pushed on the door, and it swung open silently. The bathroom beyond was silent, and she lingered at the door, half in and half hidden behind it. She heard the faucet twist with a whine, and then the rush of water. Fingers gathered water, let it overflow and slip between, and then came the sound of splashing. Laney stepped further in, needing to see her again.
But she stopped when she heard the sob. That short burst of noise froze Laney, her foot hovering ridiculously mid-step. It took her a moment to move forward again, to peek around the tiled wall and look to the line of sinks against the opposite wall.
Her mother stood there, hunched over a basin that was slowly filling with water from the faucet she never shut off. Her shoulders shook with the force of her cries, a sudden burst of emotion that she obviously hadn’t been anticipating. Laney was struck with grief for the woman, unable to comfort her, and so longing to wrap her ageless arms around the frame that seemed to have aged so much in such a short time.
After a time that seemed to stretch a small eternity, Laney’s mother straightened. She turned off the faucet briskly, scrubbed her hands over her face and pulled her damp fingers through limp hair. Taking one deep breath, she opened her eyes and looked in the mirror, gasping as she did so. She spun, looking back to the door.
But it was already swinging shut, and her daughter had fled once more.
Laney rushed straight out the front door and ran all the way to Liam’s home.
Throughout all her grieving over Corey and the loss of her son, she hadn’t really thought of what she had done to her own parents. She spent every day at her son’s window, watching him and yearning to pick him up, hold him in her arms, feed him with her body; and yet she had ripped herself away from her own parents with barely a thought.
Corey had said from the very beginning, “Parents aren’t meant to keep a child.” He had said it to her when she had fallen in love with him, enticing her into joining him in the woods. She believed him readily. After all, in a way it was true. Running away with Corey or not, she still would have had to leave her parents’ home eventually. It didn’t feel all that different, really, not to her. Going away to college, running to the forest, it was all the same—she was living her life, as an adult, away from home.
When Corey said those words to her again, speaking of his own child, the one that grew in her belly, she had believed him yet again. Though belief came grudgingly. She could feel the movement of her son inside. She loved him from the second she knew of his existence. Corey loved him, too; she knew that. And still, he believed they needed to give Liam up. She had understood. Fae didn’t keep their babies. They lived in homes, with humans, well-fed and supported in growth. When they grew older, they were stolen back. It wasn’t so very different from boarding school, or how kings and queens of old used wet nurses and nannies. Laney believed this as soon as Corey explained it, and she had clung to the idea of Liam someday joining them in eternity. After all, both Corey and Aidan were conceived in the faery realm and then raised by humans, their father remaining the great king that he was. They were stolen back, of course—Corey first, as he was the eldest. It seemed a ritual and a custom that Laney was to embrace if she were to be considered one of the Fae.
The woods welcomed her as Laney flung herself into their midst. She didn’t need to hitch a ride back to the forest. Her soul knew the way to her son, and she let it sing its way through the trees, let it follow the natural pull of Liam’s heartbeat.
He was outside today, rolling around on a freshly-laundered blanket that his adoptive mother had laid out in the middle of their backyard. She had music playing, an energetic tune that she smiled and sang along with. Liam’s eyes brightened in delight as he watched her silly faces and swaying movements. Laney raced until she fell, breathless, against a tree that bordered the lush backyard. Before her, brambles and pricker bushes reached from the forest into the grass, their branches already drying in anticipation of autumn. Beyond those branches, her happy baby gurgled and cooed under the playful attention of his adoptive mother.
Laney both hated the woman and adored her. Jealousy sparked in every fiber of her being, and an energy surged and raced through every nearby tree, making the leaves flutter and tremble. Around her, the brush swelled and abated, drying branches cracked, the ground shivered under her feet, roots slithering beneath. The forest waited for her, had been waiting for a long time now, but it was in this moment that she truly felt it deep within her soul. It wasn’t a happy realization, not a homecoming; it was an acceptance. Liam was hers now—the mother who already loved him as though he were her own. He was hers, and stealing him away would be cruel and terrible, for the both of them.
Because as sure as Laney could feel her own despair and anguish racing from her veins to the forest and sinking into the ground she stood on, she could also feel his joy. It was a spark of feeling, lilting and pure, and it saturated every blade of grass, every particle of air. It shattered the stillness in his little purrs of baby contentment, and it
reflected itself in the soft and joyful laugh of his adoptive mother.
He was hers; and she was his; and Laney belonged to the trees.
And the trees, at last, belonged to Laney.
Softly, like a gentle tapping in her heart, she felt the shift. For the space of a single heartbeat, everything in the forest stilled and then swelled. Birdsong filled the air, and the soft scurrying of tiny claws rushed past in the undergrowth. Laney’s ears twitched of their own accord, and she turned, looking through the trees.
It was time.
Cassie held her phone to her ear, listening to the ringing on the other end. She stared intently at the forest in front of her, putting the keys she had been holding in her shorts pocket. Her car was where she left it, back in her driveway. In front of her was the Gray Lady Cemetery, and beyond that, the dense and wild wood.
Why she had started walking in that direction, Cassie couldn’t be sure. It was something about the weaving of the trees, the soft music they made. Something called to her, though she couldn’t say what.
Lucy picked up after a few more rings, her tone pleasant yet all business. Cassie explained that she wouldn’t make her appointment that day.
“Cassie, are you sure?” Lucy asked, concerned. “I was really hoping I’d see you today, before the weekend, and—”
“I’m okay, Lucy,” Cassie interrupted. There was something odd in her tone. She could hear it, and she was sure her therapist could as well.
“Cassie, where are you? Don’t reschedule. Come in now. I’ll wait,” she said.
“I can’t today, Lucy. I’m sorry,” Cassie murmured. “I’ll call you soon.” She hung up the phone, not at all sure she would be calling Lucy soon. She sighed, sparing one last thought for her therapist, hoping she didn’t end the conversation with a lie, before her attention was diverted to the creature that stood just beyond the tree line.
There, at the edge of the wood, stood a doe.
Sunlight dappled her soft hide; the fur was a mix of soft brown and pale freckling. Her brown eyes regarded Cassie with an intensity that mimicked Aidan’s. Cassie knew the moment she saw her: this doe had been sent. It was no surprise that the creature didn’t run as Cassie approached. Her nose lifted into the air, sniffed in anticipation, and seemed to approve. Cassie raised her hand, and the warm nose found her palm. She stroked her muzzle.
“Come to fetch me?” she asked. The doe sniffed and turned. “Lead the way.”
The walk through the forest was unlike any Cassie had experienced. Nothing grabbed at her feet, nothing seemed to be particularly in her way. The doe walked just beside her, nimbly stepping through the fallen branches. If Cassie wanted to, she could have let her fingers stretch out and rest on the warm hide.
She had dressed in a style she had seen Laney wear, once she had embraced the faery lifestyle. She wore sneakers and was thankful for it, though her way was pleasantly unencumbered. Her long legs were bare, and her skin, heightened by fear to react to the simplest touch, shivered at every welcoming caress of fern. Nothing scratched or poked, everything gave way, though some living beings of the forest seemed unable to shy away completely; they brushed her lightly as she passed, as though in welcome. Her shorts and tank top were familiar to her, but it was the long tunic she wore over her tank top that was not, and it was in this style that she tried to mimic her best-friend-turned-faery.
The material was loose; it hung in folds around her body, though it seemed to accentuate her curves rather than hide them. That was fine with Cassie. It hid other things better, and for that she was grateful to the loose and flowy design of the garment she had to steal from the back of her mother’s closet.
Along her right forearm, held there by two strategically-placed hair ties, her iron dagger lay hidden and waiting.
It had been with Cassie ever since she bought it—a day that seemed ages ago now, when she had tried to run from the creatures. She ran to the nearest city she could find, getting off the highway only when the buildings outnumbered the trees. It was a silly and impetuous thing to do, really. As though she wouldn’t have had to come home eventually, as though she wouldn’t have to take this walk into the forest. This day was coming—it had been coming—ever since Laney laid eyes on Corey on the midway of a dinky carnival.
At the thought of actually using the dagger she had placed along her forearm, however, Cassie balked.
Last time, she had grabbed her poker, in fury and fear, and ran into the forest. But she was put to sleep before she could use it. And even if she hadn’t been, would she have been able to strike any of them with a fatal blow? What had fueled her then was anger, but that motivation had shifted.
It wasn’t the ability Cassie was worried about—she had swung a softball bat with killing force for years now. But swinging a bat at a ball and a knife at a living creature were two completely different things; although the amount of force might be the same, the intention certainly wouldn’t be. She had spent most of last night lying in her bed, trying to imagine it.
From beneath her warm comforter, Cassie had squeezed her eyes closed, felt the rough handle in her grip. In her mind’s eye, she watched herself pull her arm back, watched the dagger as it thrust forward, propelled by her muscle and her need, her absolute need for Aidan to be dead. It wasn’t about fear or anger; it was necessity, she reasoned. If he lived, she couldn’t. And not just her; no one in town was safe. No one would ever be safe, including Liam, the child Cassie had promised her best friend she would protect. All would be lost, unless she could puncture his heart with that dagger.
And even knowing all of this, even reciting it to herself over and over, gritting her teeth and forcing her mind to believe every last word—even then, when her imaginary self plunged forward with the dagger, Cassie’s muscles twitched. The grip on the hilt tightened. She pulled back, just a hair, a minuscule amount really; but there was a pause. She couldn’t deny it. In her bed, in the dark, imagining the scenario, she flinched.
“Two for flinching,” she had muttered to herself after opening her eyes to the twilight of her dim bedroom. She had pushed her comforter off and sat up on the side of her bed. Her gaze rested on her old softball bat, propped in the corner of her room, and before she could look for the source of the light that danced over its sleek body, a dull dread settled. She knew what happened in the batter’s box if you didn’t commit to your swing. A strikeout.
A light was on in Laney’s old house; that was the glow that now danced across her room. It lit the corner her bat was propped in and caught in the tangles of her dresser top, casting bizarre shadows on her already darkened walls. Cassie stood and moved to the window.
The light was from Laney’s old bedroom. The rest of the street was darkened, and this was the only illumination. Someone wandered through there like a ghost. Cassie could just see their outline past the gauzy curtains, though whether it was Laney’s mom or dad, she couldn’t be sure. Both had lost so much weight in the months since their daughter’s fake body was found and buried, they were hard to tell apart at a distance. But Cassie could see the careful movements; they flitted between objects in the bedroom, touching lightly, ghosting over her dresser before collapsing on the bed. Cassie watched their outline through the curtains. They hunched over. She was sure they were crying.
Cassie’s fists tightened beside her. It had to be done. Aidan had to be killed.
As she slipped back into bed, determined to visualize it once more, that determination ran like steel through her blood.
Now, walking through the forest to meet Aidan, everything slipped away. She tried to remember, tried to pull that bravery into her heart. But every time she visualized the moment, she froze.
Everything was silent around her, which made this walk through the lush and green forest all the more strange. It was as though the beasts and insects themselves understood that she was coming, though whether they knew it was to kill their king, or their silence was simply a matter of revere
nce, Cassie didn’t know. She hoped for the latter.
Her companion never strayed from her side, but she never felt led by the gentle doe. Instead, it felt as though Cassie were leading the way. It was as though she already knew the way, had always known it, and so it was easy to walk into the heart of the forest.
It felt like home. In a way, it was.
Ahead there was a clearing. Cassie was several miles into the forest by then. The clearing was well lit. Somehow, in the darkness of the woods, Cassie forgot that it was still daylight beyond the trees. A slight depression marred a carpet of lovely moss that spread from the center. White flowers dotted the perimeter, their pale petals holding just a hint of lavender.
Curling beyond the trees, in a perfect semi-circle around the clearing, was a layer of mist. And standing sentient in the billows of magic, a herd of deer awaited the return of the doe. Their breath disturbed the thickened air that settled around them. They rose from obscurity like shadows that became real, shifting subtly to show they were not statues, but instead warm and living creatures, sent to witness what was about to occur.
Tendrils of mist snaked past their legs, touched the moss that lined the clearing, and retreated. Cassie could almost taste the cloying scent in the air, and the muscles in her neck stiffened in anticipation, though how she’d avoid the mist, she wasn’t yet sure.
All around the clearing, vines clung to tree trunks and belched flowers of every color. The air was fragrant with their nectar. As soon as she entered the clearing, the silence that had surrounded Cassie on her journey into the forest shattered. The doe ran to her herd. Nearby squirrels chased each other across tree branches. Chipmunks scurried underfoot. The mist completed a circle around her, not coming closer, but closing her in all the same. And the trees, the trees wove their breaths throughout the stillness, whispered right past Cassie’s body and into her trembling heart.