by Emma Savant
She marched away, back to the counter, and refused to look at me again.
Chapter 12
I had never been so nervous in my life. It was Monday. I was going to have dinner with the Faerie Queen tonight. Between now and then, I also had to get Elle to talk to me.
I’d sent her texts, which she’d ignored. I’d sent her a Facebook message, which she hadn’t read. I’d waited outside one of her classes this morning, but she’d managed to slip past without making eye contact, and now I stood poised outside the door of World History.
It wasn’t just the job thing, though that was motivating enough. But Elle was mad at me. And, though I knew I wasn’t supposed to get emotionally involved with clients, I hated that she was mad at me.
Elle was interesting, and she was nice, and she geeked out over environmental conservation strategies as much as I did. I didn’t have many friends aside from Imogen and Lucas, and it had seemed like she might become one. Now, though, she wouldn’t talk to me because she thought I was a nosy invasive jerk.
The worst part was, she was right. I’d realized this job was going to take a lot of my time and involve boring work. I hadn’t realized it would also try to steal my soul.
I looked for Elle through the glass window in the classroom door. She wasn’t visible from here, though I could make out a pink-nailed hand I was pretty sure was Imogen’s near the middle of the third row.
“You okay?” a voice said. I looked up. Lucas was looking down at me with a concerned smile on his face. I flushed, remembering the last time I’d seen him. Don’t be weird, I ordered myself, and offered a smile back.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just got a lot on my mind. You know. Nothing new.”
“Tell me about it,” he said. “Pre-calc is trying to eat my brain.” He leaned up against the wall opposite me and tilted his head. “What are you worried about?”
“Work,” I said. It was a vague answer, but an honest one. “I’m just not sure I’ve got the right job.”
“What do you do?” he asked.
“I work at a life coaching agency downtown,” I said.
That was my stock answer. It was the closest thing to what we actually did, and most people were so skeptical of the idea of life coaching that they didn’t ask too many questions after that. “I don’t think it’s really my thing.”
“That’s surprising,” he said. “You seem like you’d be good at it.”
“Yeah?” I said. “Why?” I’d never heard anything like that before. I wished I could tell him the whole story. From what I remembered, he was a good listener.
“You just seem like a good person to take problems to,” he said. “Like you’d help people figure out their own solutions instead of force-feeding them. You know what I mean? I hear that’s a good thing in a life coach.”
I felt almost sick at how exactly wrong he was. I’d been doing nothing but the opposite, force-feeding Elle against my better judgment.
“How do you know so much about it?” I said. His attention was a limelight, hot and too bright.
Lucas laughed a little, the self-deprecating laugh of someone who’d told too much. “My mom’s been through a few,” he said.
I remembered his mom. She’d been a loud, opinionated person with lots of energy and motivation but also a tendency to crash and burn when she overexerted herself. I could see her going through all kinds of coaches and therapists.
The image of her burning out one after another must have made me smile, because he said, “You can laugh. You didn’t have to join in on the ‘values clarification’ and ‘finding your inner self’ exercises.”
A giggle burbled up from my throat, and I realized I hadn’t laughed in three days. It felt unbelievably nice.
He watched me with an eyebrow quirked, like he was trying not to be pleased with himself for making me laugh. “Sorry, I’m just picturing you chanting on a cushion,” I said. He smirked, and I added, suddenly and irrationally terrified we’d run out of conversation, “So, what have you been up to lately?”
“Not a lot,” he said. “Homework. Getting to know the city again.”
“Is your girlfriend from here?” I asked.
I wanted to shove my fist in my mouth to shut myself up. Why did I have to bring her up?
But he didn’t seem to realize the question was awkward. “Yeah, she lives in one of the historic neighborhoods downtown.”
In other words, she was rich. Probably beautiful too, I thought, because that would be just my luck. Then I reminded myself that I wasn’t interested in Lucas and that we were just friends.
Why did my brain immediately have to latch onto the idea of “boyfriend” every time I ran into him? It didn’t do that for anyone else. I wished it had picked someone single to panic over.
“So are you—” I said, but was interrupted by the bell ringing. My attention snapped toward the door. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “I’ll talk to you later, okay? I’ve got to catch someone.”
“Imogen, right?” he said. I wasn’t surprised he’d remembered her name. He’d been good with names back when we were younger.
I nodded, not wanting to explain, and went back to staring through the door window. Students were standing, gathering their backpacks. Lucas shifted from one foot to the other. “Well,” he said. “I’ll see you around, then?”
“Definitely,” I said, wishing I could have him stay and catch Elle at the same time. But I didn’t want him to witness this. Elle wouldn’t be happy to see me.
“Okay,” he said. His voice was hesitant, like he wanted to keep talking. I wanted to keep talking, too, but I only had one shot to fix this before I met with Amani. I couldn’t stomach the thought of feeling guilty over Elle and trying to keep up a conversation with the Faerie Queen at the same time. Something had to resolve or I was going to melt into a pile of oversensitive faerie goo. My faerie blood was a pain in the butt. The magic was nice and everything, but some days, it was so not worth the emotional overload.
Lucas walked away. I glanced up to watch him go, half wanting to chase after him and forget about the whole Elle thing, when the classroom door slammed open and students poured out. I recognized her blond hair and grabbed her arm out of the crowd, like some predator plucking a fish from its school. “I need to talk to you,” I said, once I had her outside the stream of people.
She yanked her arm away. “I don’t need to talk to you,” she said. “What is your problem?”
I walked down the hallway with her, matching her quick steps. “I want to apologize,” I said. “I just—I just want you to be happy, you know? Tyler likes you. I thought that would be a good thing.”
“Why would that be a good thing?” she said.
I had to dig a second to come up with an honest answer. “Because it’s nice to be liked,” I said. “And because, honestly, he has a lot of influence around here. I figured you’d be okay with that. I mean, just imagine what that could do for Pumpkin Spice.”
I hadn’t thought of it until that moment, but it was true: Tyler could be the difference that made her vision for the café come true. If she could mobilize him and all the kids who followed his every move, she could get some momentum going.
It was probably a red flag for the relationship if Tyler’s biggest attraction was purely mercenary, but then, we weren’t shooting for a real happily-ever-after here.
“I’ll manage it without a man’s help, thank you,” Elle said.
“Why?” I said. “You hate guys?”
She spun on me. “No,” she said. “They just don’t validate my existence. God, I thought you were more interesting than this.”
I’d thought I was too. I switched tactics.
“I didn’t realize it would upset you,” I said. “I guess you like Kyle, huh?”
Wrong move. She stopped dead and whirled on me.
“Why is that your business?” she demanded. “Who I like, who I’m interested in, is not your business. My life is no one’s business but mine. Wh
y is that so hard for people to understand? Do you like it when people are always asking you stupid questions and trying to tell you who you’re supposed to be?”
She actually seemed to be expecting an answer. She stared at me, eyes wide, waiting.
I hated people telling me who I was supposed to be. Other people making my choices for me was the only reason I was standing here talking to her.
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
“Okay, then,” she said. “Not that complicated.”
“I just want to help you,” I said.
Her voice rose to a shout. “Who said I needed help?” she said.
I flinched, looking around and trying to figure out how to make her quiet down. I couldn’t just reach for my wand. People were staring at us.
“Leave me alone. Quit showing up at my work. You can find crappy Colombian slave-labor coffee somewhere else. What is this about? Are you into me? Is that why you’re so curious? Because I told you, I’m not into girls.”
“I’m not either,” I said. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Then stop stalking me!”
That seemed dramatic. But it got results. Within seconds, a teacher from a classroom we’d passed was standing at our elbows.
“Excuse me,” she said, looking down at us with her eyes bouncing between us, taking us both in. “What was that?”
It was the worst word Elle could have used. There had been a giant fiasco last year when a girl's stalker had assaulted her at a nearby high school during a homecoming game, and the schools had been plastered with anti-rape campaign posters and anonymous hotline numbers for months. Teachers took accusations of stalking and assault very seriously around here, and I couldn’t think of anything to say in my defense.
The gross part of all this was that, job description and official client and faerie power notwithstanding, I kind of was stalking her.
I stepped back from Elle, my hands up and heart racing. I didn’t need this kind of drama today any more than she did. I had more than enough in store for this evening.
“This is nothing,” I said. “Elle doesn’t want to be friends. I get it.”
“Do you really?” the teacher asked, looking down at me with overly serious eyes. She wrapped an arm around Elle’s shoulders. I saw Elle stiffen, but she didn’t say anything. “This girl is saying ‘no.’ You need to respect her choices and leave her alone unless you have her consent.”
I restrained an eyeroll with force. “I do understand,” I said. “Unfortunately, Elle does not understand that I’m trying to apologize to her.”
I stared at Elle, trying to convey through my eyes that she needed to get the teacher to back off so we could talk. Elle didn’t get the message.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be apologized to,” the teacher said. She had a tone like I was a kindergartner who needed to learn not to bite other kids.
“Man, thanks,” I said, my voice edging the line between sincerity and sarcasm. “I hadn’t realized that.” I looked over at Elle. “We need to talk,” I said. “Because you have got one hell of a wrong impression.”
“I doubt that,” Elle said. “All I know is that you won’t leave me—”
“That’s what having friends is like, Elle,” I said. “Friends ask each other about guys. Friends try to actually talk about stuff like grownups when they’re upset instead of having screaming matches in the hallway. I’m so sorry if normal human contact is such a messed-up idea to you.”
An idea sprang to mind, and, before I’d thought it through, I added, “Friends who know things about each other’s moms tell each other.” I threw up my hands again. “But I guess we’re not friends, so never mind. Forget I said anything. Sorry I ‘stalked’ you.”
I turned and marched off, not stopping when the teacher said, “Now, I don’t think that’s—”
Elle cut her off. “Never mind,” she said, her voice curt. “There’s no problem here. Just a misunderstanding.”
“Are you sure?” the teacher asked.
“Positive,” Elle said. Her energy reached out to mine, full of curiosity, but I was gone.
Chapter 13
I clutched the steering wheel with both hands. I’d pulled into the parking lot of Multnomah Falls five minutes ago, but I still couldn’t convince myself to let go of the wheel and get out of the car. I hadn’t told anyone where I was going, just that I was meeting someone for work. Dad had been so pleased I was taking my job seriously that he’d given me the keys, no questions asked. I wished he’d stopped me.
The sun hovered low in the sky. It was far enough into spring that sunset had started lingering into the evening. Now, it cast golden light onto the trees at the top of the cliff face above me. Not much of its warmth reached down here. Multnomah Falls was the tallest waterfall in the state of Oregon, and the cliff it fell from cast a dark, cold shadow over the parking lot. I blew a long puff of air out, wishing I could send all my tension with it, then threw open the car door.
The wind hit me immediately, a sharp cold breeze that snaked in from the highway and whipped its way down the back of my peacoat collar. The hem of my moss-green dress flew up around my knees. I pulled the coat more tightly around myself and slammed the car door before walking across the parking lot, under the railroad bridge, and up toward the falls.
The usual crowd of tourists was thin this time of year. March was too cold and rainy for anyone but the most dedicated romantics to want to stay long. I walked up the long, wide staircase that led to the first viewing platform, then looked up. White water dropped down hundreds of gallons at a time, cascading to crash in the pool below. Mist drifted cold across my face.
The path to the bridge zig-zagged up the side of the hill, overgrown by ferns and trees. The evening sunlight snuck between the trees up here, casting long golden stripes through the dark green. The dappled shadows contrasted against the light and I had to strain my eyes to see the path ahead of me.
My teeth began to chatter; it was impossible to tell whether it was from the cold or my nerves. I reached out to the trees around me for comfort.
Being surrounded by trees was one of the best things about living in Portland. As a faerie, the trees meant more to me than they did to other people. While the Humdrum couple passing me going the other direction might enjoy their shade or color or the way they swayed in the wind, I could feel them stretching above me into the sky and below me into the earth, and could almost make out their thoughts as they spoke to one another. Having them near reminded me that the world had been around for a long time and not much had really changed.
People had survived meetings with the Faerie Queen before. I would, too.
The path led to a sharp turn onto the old stone bridge. If I went left, I could cross it and continue the path up into the forest. If I went forward, I’d run into a guardrail; right was nothing but a damp rock cliff face covered in lichen and moss.
I turned to the dead end and pulled my wand out of my hair, which I’d managed to tame a bit by using copious amounts of argan oil, and glanced behind me. The path was abandoned. I traced my name against the rock face with the tip of my wand.
Olivia Feye.
For a moment it seemed as though nothing would happen. Then, moss started growing along the lines I’d traced, creeping along like vines until my name appeared in soft green letters.
Proceed, a soft voice inside my head said, and I put my hand flat against the rock and pushed, following instructions from the note that had appeared under my pillow this morning. The solid stone gave way beneath my palm, and a door-sized section of cliff face crumbled beneath my hand. I closed my eyes as the chunks of rock and lichen fell and bounced around me like a waterfall made of earth.
I stepped forward.
The thundering roar of Multnomah Falls abruptly faded to a soft rushing. I looked over my shoulder and saw that the crumbling wall was gone. In its place stood a pretty arched silver door carved with birch trees. Turning to face front again, I was
met with an image I’d only known through my mom’s stories of parties she’d attended with my dad.
The misty white wallpaper was covered in slashes like rain that only appeared when I shifted and let them catch the light. The polished gray marble floor beneath my feet was dappled through with glinting veins of silver. In front of me, down two wide steps, an enormous waterfall fell from a silver slit in the ceiling, cascading in a straight curtain to a pool tiled in pale silver and ice blue.
A curtain made of hanging crystals covered the wall behind the waterfall. The crystals glowed, illuminating the whole room in soft, sparkling light. Four more silver doors led out of the room, two on each side.
This was the Waterfall Palace, home of the Faerie Queen.
I looked around for some sign of life. Shouldn’t there be a butler or something? But the room was silent and empty. Nothing moved except the waterfall pouring from the ceiling. It glimmered in the light of the crystals. I took a step toward it, then jumped back again as something soft and white brushed past my face.
A tiny white moth fluttered around my face, its wings as soft as a whisper. I couldn’t imagine where it had come from, but it danced circles in the air around me, and then the same voice as before said, Follow me.
The tiny creature flew toward the door immediately to my left. It landed on the silver-latched handle for a moment before skittering back up into the air.
I reached out for the cool handle. I could only hope I had interpreted its jerky little movements correctly. It fluttered through the door and I followed. The sound from both waterfalls faded to nothing more than a whisper at the corner of my thoughts.
The hall we entered had been papered in soothing antique blue. Arched wooden doors lined the wall to the right. The left was covered in crystal-clear photographs of Oregon, showing everything from close-ups of strawberry plants to a group shot of faeries waving in front of a Portland bar to magnificent green landscapes of what I recognized as Tillamook Valley and the ocean at South Beach State Park.
