by Chloe Adler
He passes the mortar to the right, and Bodhi takes a pinch and sprinkles the mixture onto the charcoal. The aroma of burned flowers wafts up in a tight stream. Bodhi passes the mortar to Forrest, who does the same. When the bowl gets to me, Arch mimes me doing the same, and I pass it along after.
When the bowl has made a complete circuit, Arch says, “Hands again.”
I reach for Vasily and Candy at my sides, not making eye contact with the woman.
Arch blows onto the tree in the center of the table, and the rest of the men do the same.
Everyone but me closes their eyes, and their mouths begin to move in unison, though no sound emerges. After several minutes of this, they stop.
“Close your eyes,” Vasily whispers next to me and I do. A second later, a flash of bright white light bursts over my eyelids.
Look Up, You Dolt
Another bright flash of light momentarily blinds me and I let go of Candy’s hand to cover my eyes. The girl shrieks when I do, forcing me to open them. I may not like her but that doesn’t mean I want any harm to come to her.
The world I open my eyes to is not the one I left. And it’s . . . upside down? As I blink repeatedly, the world rights itself and I sit up. I’m in the meadow from my dream. The one with Paxil. I must have fallen and hit my head. It’s the only explanation. I’m passed out and dreaming again.
“Amaya?” a familiar female says, somewhere to the right of me, but there’s no one there. Great. This dream is starting off just like the last one.
“A-may-a.” Candy? And of course she sounds hostile. Just like the—
“Wow, you really are a synergist. And I just thought the men fancied you for no reason.”
“Excuse me?” So now the disembodied voice of the person I can’t stand is insulting me?
“Look up, you dolt.”
“Really? Shut up, you stupid voice. This is my dream.” But I do as the voice commands and look skyward. There, floating on the wind, is a tiny, winged version of Candy. I swat at her. A ghost apparition of a girl I don’t even like is in my dream?
She soars out of reach. “Stop that. Are you trying to kill me?”
“Well, yes.” I beam at her. “This is my dream and I’d really rather you not be in it, thank you very much.”
Fae Candy snorts. “This is not a dream, Amaya. The spell worked. We’re in Tara.”
I stand up and look around. The fact that I’m wearing the same clothing means nothing. The fact that I can feel the wind on my face means nothing. I pinch myself. “Ouch!” The fact that I can pinch myself and feel it means nothing.
Candy shakes her head and flutters around me. “Promise not to kill me now?”
“Fine.” I cross my arms over my chest and she lands on my shoulder. “But if this isn’t a dream, can you please tell me what happened?”
“Sure, but first we have to get out of Water Meadow.” She points behind me to the thick grove of trees Paxil disappeared into when I was here last. “Go there.”
I do not trust this fae, but I don’t have much of a choice right now. “Why is it called Water Meadow?” But as I ask that, my shoes squish. As I look down, my formerly pink Converses are a damp red, and there’s no denying that the lush greenery is filling with water. In a flash, I’m ankle-deep in it.
“Hurry or you’ll drown,” she cries, taking flight.
Maybe I should trust her after all. Candy flies toward the trees and I run after her as best I can. Within seconds the water is to my knees and the girl is a mere prick of light in the distance. How can I drown when there is no container? Surely the water will disperse into the grove ahead. How can this be happening at all? I see no ocean, lake or tsunami. And I can swim, so what am I so afraid of?
But fear prickles like little shards of ice through my veins. When the water is up to my thighs, I slip on a rock and tumble headfirst into the water. I clamp my mouth shut, spitting out what entered but not before I taste it. No salt. This is fresh water. I’d take a moment to breathe easier except that I’ve face-planted under it. Pushing myself up, I panic. A vine has snaked its way around my throat, holding me down. Thrashing my body and tearing at the vine with my hands does no good. Surely Candy will come back to save me. Won’t she?
I don’t know how long I can hold on without oxygen, and my clawing and thrashing does nothing. The vine tightens around my throat and another wraps around my legs while a third pegs one of my arms to the ground. My free arm flails. If I weren’t so terrified, I’d be cursing. This is so me. I’m going to drown in three feet of water in a land that doesn’t exist. Great. Just great.
I open my mouth to scream and involuntarily take in a breath. My body doesn’t care that it’s water and about to kill me dead. My mind is not in charge of such matters. But when I inhale, the expected burning and pain are absent. Instead, my lungs stop hurting and they fill with—air? No, can’t be, but regardless, I can breathe.
I gulp down another mouthful of water, unbelieving. In this crazy land that is not mine, I can breathe underwater. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to pretend I’m the mermaid I’ve always wanted to be.
Instead, I turn my attention once more toward the vines. In particular, the one tight about my throat. Clawing at it does nothing except tear my fingernails, so I reach around the lake floor until I find a rock. Turning it in my hand, a jagged edge slits my palm. Blood blooms in the water.
I keep turning the rock and use the jagged side to saw away the vine wrapped around my other arm. After several minutes I’m able to cut through it and can now use one hand to hold the vine at my throat and the other hand to saw, carefully. Slowly. I do not want to slice open my jugular. I’d quite rather do some exploring first, while pretending to be a real mermaid. Hey, if you can’t fight the dream, embrace it. Right?
The temperature of the water changes while I’m working on the neck vine, as if the sunlight from above is heating the water. But no, the water is receding, and just as I cut the vine free, the water drains away completely. I sit up, ready to have a go at my legs, but the vines unwrap themselves first and slink away.
Turning left and right, I see absolutely no sign that the water was even there at all. The meadow looks exactly the way it did before the water rose, as if it weren’t inundated just a few minutes ago. Without thinking, I gulp a lungful of air but can’t breathe it in. My lungs are still full of water. Opening and closing my mouth like a fish, I scratch at my throat and crawl along the meadow floor. It’s no use, I can’t breathe.
“You’re alive.” Candy’s tinny voice rings close to my head. “I can’t believe it.”
If I could swat her, I would.
“Why are you crawling like that?”
I roll over and clutch my throat, opening and closing my mouth to pantomime breathing, or not being able to.
“Oh no. Here.” She flies toward a boulder. “Throw yourself on this rock. Like the human maneuver you people do to each other when you’re choking. The hammock. Quick, do the hammock maneuver.” She points to a boulder and I do as she says. But only because it may be the only chance I have.
After several lunges, the water dislodges from my lungs—I basically puke it out—and then I collapse on the rock, my body folded over like a deflated balloon.
Candy buzzes next to my head. “Oh good, you’re not dead.”
“You would care?” I wheeze.
“Of course I would care. How am I going to get out of Tara and back to my master without you?” her shrill voice rings.
I bolt upright. “Your master, Vasily?”
“Of course my master, Vasily, who else?”
“I thought that was just a name you called him, like some dominant-submissive thing or some master-housekeeper thing.”
“What?” She lands next to me on the rock.
“Never mind. So what does that mean?”
“I don’t follow,” she takes flight again, “and we need to get into the forest before the water returns.”
“How often
does it fill up?” I stand but my legs are shaky.
“As often as it pleases.” She buzzes ahead of me, darting toward the dense trees.
I don’t bother asking her what that riddle means. What does it matter anyway? I’m stuck in some weird wonderland with my nemesis and a homicidal meadow with a mind of its own. What more could go wrong today?
Running after Candy seems like the best plan, since she already helped save my life. When she reaches the edge of the forest, she stops and hovers, waiting for me.
“Hurry,” her little voice squeaks.
I push myself harder, finding a tiny extra burst of speed, and then I fall again, tumbling over another rock. I throw my hands out to catch myself, but instead of hitting the meadow floor, I fall upward, toward the sky.
“Oh for sprites’ sakes. Is there anything you can do on your own? I’m surprised you’ve managed to stay alive in the human realm this long.”
“Not helpful.” I grit my teeth and she lands on my head, flapping her wings so hard and so fast the high-pitched buzz makes me dizzy.
But it works, and my body descends back toward the meadow floor. Which, as my luck would have it, is filling up with water again.
“This place is hell,” I spit.
“This place is paradise. Or at least it was when we had our king. Not so much anymore,” she pouts.
“Yup, it’s hell right now, lady.”
“When your feet touch the ground, make a beeline for the trees. You’re close enough to make it before the water covers your head again. If you don’t slip and fall, that is.”
“Thanks.” I brace for impact, but Candy deposits me with a splash into the water.
“Run!” she yells and flies toward the tree line again. I follow as fast as my legs will carry me, the water rushing in again. By the time I reach the edge of the forest, it’s up to my neck but once I step through, the water is just—gone.
Candy offers me a crooked smile.
“Why did I fall the wrong way out there?” I point toward the meadow, the water rising in front of the tree line like we’re on the other side of an aquarium wall. Except it’s not a wall, I was just in there, and I have the sodden footwear to prove it.
“Unless you’re a flying creature, gravity is inconsistent here. The rules for biggies rely on something called spring force. When you’re floating or traveling in the air here, your body mass may actually be attached to something else. In the meadow, your mass was attached to the ether above.”
“I have no idea what any of that means.”
She shrugs, the movement making her bright silver tresses glint. They look like pure metal. “All you need to know for now is that it’s not consistent because you can’t fly.”
“Is your hair made of actual silver?”
“Maybe.” She reaches down and twirls a strand around her finger. “You want to kill me, scalp me and sell it, don’t you?”
“What? No!”
“Good!” She flies down, landing on a vine.
I’m tempted to ask her how much I’d get for it, but she probably wouldn’t know I was joking. Best to try and make nice since we’re stuck here together and could both use an ally. “Thank you for saving my life, Candy.”
“Whatever.” She tosses her hair again and flies deeper into the forest. It’s so dark I can barely see where she’s gone.
“Candy!” I cry out. “I can’t see you.”
“Candy . . . I can’t see you,” echoes a shrill voice. Titters, then peels of laughter float about the forest, bouncing off the trees.
Something pants behind me and a rush of hot, putrid air bathes the back of my neck. This place is a nightmare. I take off running even though I can hardly see a foot in front of me. After a few minutes, I stop and look around.
“Candy?” I whisper.
No response.
“Candy! Where are you?”
Silence. Where did she go? I would even welcome her smartass remarks right about now.
Faint lights glow at my feet, illuminating the darkness to reveal that I’m standing in a tree. Somehow I managed to run up a tree trunk. Tiny, wingless fairies bustle about below me. I squint at their features, trying to find Candy among them, but she’s not there. Some are busily wheeling carts full of flowers or berries, while others carry satchels of leaves on their backs. They roam over my feet or between my legs as if they don’t even notice I’m here. I stand completely still, worried that if I move I’ll step on one and smash it.
“Excuse me,” I say, looking down at the crowd. “I’m looking for my friend.”
A tiny female looks up and screams, “Demon!” She points a minuscule finger at me. “Black as night!”
“Hell spawn!” shrieks another.
I hold up my hands. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Twisted liar, breached our world. Run!” yells a man.
Within seconds mayhem erupts around me and the fairies scurry every which way. But from far below a trumpet sounds, and a procession of men, all dressed in black, weave up the trunk toward me like a trail of ants.
“Are you here to take me to Candy?” I bend down to ask, but one of them stabs me in the foot with something so sharp it pierces through my damp Converse. “Ouch!” I lash out, kicking some of the creatures off the trunk. This only causes more of the men dressed in black to stab me again. I have to make a quick decision. If I run down, I’ll certainly kill them all, and gravity seems to bend to a different law here, so I run up. And since my legs are much larger and longer than theirs, in a matter of minutes, I’m nestled in the treetop, looking down the trunk. No one has followed.
I slump down on the branch, straddling it, and bring one foot up to assess the puncture wounds. Small drops of blood on my ankles have bloomed and dried. Whatever instruments they used weren’t large enough to cause actual damage. My feet are so sore they ache, but at least nothing appears to be broken. And wonder of wonders, aside from my sneakers, most of me is dry too. I add “evaporation” to the list of “whacky physics.”
“Humans are forbidden,” purrs a familiar silken voice near my ear. Trembling, I lose my balance, landing on my stomach to hug the branch with all four limbs.
“Who’s there?” I twist my head around but see nothing.
“Why should I show myself to you?” it hisses, and something wet touches my arm.
I shriek and shimmy back along the branch, into the leaves.
It laughs. “You’re afraid of me? That’s ripe.”
“Well you can see me and yet, I see nothing. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“This is my home. Fair doesn’t play here. You are the trespasser.”
“I’m looking for my friend Candy. Have you seen her?” I try.
“Caaaaaandy,” it says, elongating the word. “There’s no fae with that name.”
Great, just my luck. She’s using a fake human name. She probably picked that one out herself because she thought it was sexy or something.
“She’s about yay high,” I hold my fingers apart to illustrate, “wings like gossamer. Hair so silver it’s almost blinding.”
“Harlesque? It cannot be. But there is only one fae matching that description, and she was banished with her master eons ago.”
“That’s got to be her.”
“She’s back? Is the king with her?”
“The king?” Vasily? There’s no denying it now, though even with the evidence—and the royal bearing I noticed from the very beginning—it’s still hard to believe my Vasily is somebody’s king. So this must be his home, and the rules—if he’d told me who he is, he’d never be allowed back, is that what he was implying? But why was he banished?
“Sleep now, human. I will look into your dreams.”
“The hell I will. You expect me to sleep perched precariously in a tree with an invisible voice and its wet nose?”
A soft wind blows over me, and it smells like roses. But not the cloying roses of a grandmother’s perfume. No, this is the scent of ligh
t, delicate roses, and I can’t stop breathing it in, trying to fill my nostrils and my lungs. So sleepy. I’ll just stretch out and close my eyes for a few minutes.
Little fireflies are flitting above me when I open my eyes. For several moments I can’t remember where I am, but everything is cozy. How am I sleeping in a hammock outside? Then I remember and bolt straight up. I’m nestled at the top of a tree in a hammock of leaves.
The fireflies move closer—not fireflies, but fairies so small they make the other sparrow-sized fairies I’ve met look like giants.
“She’s awake,” one says, it’s voice shrill, yet faint.
“Quick, go tell Sabin,” says another.
And the entire bunch darts away like bees swarming to their hive.
I gulp down massive amounts of air, like a tuba player getting ready to blow. So many questions rattle around. Why didn’t those fairies attack me like the others? Who is Sabin? How the hell am I going to get down from this tree?
“The guardian is awake,” says my silky, incorporeal voyeur.
“Can you please show yourself?” I try not to show my fury. I do not appreciate having my mind messed with. And just what did he see in my “dreams”? But as annoying as it was to be put to sleep, this is still the first creature since waking in this crazy land who hasn’t tried to kill me outright.
“I occupy only air.”
“How can that be?”
“I’m a sylph. We are elementals of the air, no less real than you and your people.”
“And your wet nose earlier?”
“Not my nose.” He actually giggles. “My form, as an icy breeze.”
I stretch my arms above my head and the leaf hammock tilts. I yelp, grabbing the sides to steady it and myself.
“You won’t fall, guardian. This tree won’t let you.”
“Why are you here? Talking to me, I mean?”
“Why?” His voice catches, the word carried away on the wind. “You’re the key. The answer we seek. The only one who can save us.”