by Carol Oates
warmth on my tongue and smell it in the air around us. I remembered this was us. It was what we were meant to do. Our love kept summer alive and burned hotter than the sun. We were two pieces of a puzzle that slipped together easily, and I knew instinctively that although we had both changed, we would be together again. I pressed my forehead to his, keeping my eyes tightly shut. The heat was quickly replaced by chilled air.
“I do love you. Part of me does,” I panted. Pins and needles chased upward from my toes. If I didn’t leave soon, neither of us would be going anywhere.
“That’s all I can ask for now,” he whispered against my lips and kissed me again.
This time the heat was stronger, and I once again felt the pressure all over my body — that feeling of being squeezed through a hole that was much too small. I knew Regan had pushed me through, and the rest was up to me. I had to visualize where I wanted to appear in the human realm. I pictured the lake in my mind. It wasn’t our lake — the water wasn’t so clear and the grass not so green — but I needed the water if I was to keep running until sunrise. I opened my eyes, and the world shifted sideways before my stomach emptied once more. My throat burned, and I hurt everywhere. I had been breathing salt for hours. My feet prickled like I had walked through nettles barefoot. I couldn’t walk like this, much less run, so instead I rolled into the water with a splash.
I sank down into the cool water, and immediately the pain eased significantly. I was able to kick my way to the surface where I floated and intermittently swallowed mouthfuls of water and deeply filled my lungs with air to cleanse the salt from my system. The sky had cleared of clouds and already began to lighten. It comforted me to know I didn’t have long to wait.
As I treaded the water, I thought of my father and how he would feel when I was gone. Would he miss me? Would he feel validated in some way to know he wasn’t crazy? No matter how I tried, I could only ever think of him as my father, and I would miss him terribly. I owed him my life for keeping me safe, and that wasn’t a debt I would forget easily. Perhaps I could visit; I hoped so. The man who raised me and loved me in his own way deserved at least that.
I lay my head back in the water and closed my eyes, ignoring the niggling feeling that this was foolish. I should have been hiding, not floating out in the wide open of the lake. I was always at home in the forest, and now I knew the reason. The breezes fluttering through the trees were whispered words, and wild flowers and grass called to me. The birds sang, welcoming the morning, not with melodies but with voices I could clearly understand. They recognized me as one of their own. I was a part of it all, not some wicked creature as I had been led to believe about all the Fae.
Abruptly the songs changed, the wind picked up, and a dark shadow fell across my closed eyelids.
Run, they warned. Run!
I flayed around and tried to get my bearing, spluttering water that I had accidently inhaled. I had floated out into the center of the small lake. I swam to the edge as fast as I could, and without hesitating, ran barefoot deep into the cover of the trees.
This way, they told me, sounding like dozens of frightened children all speaking in unison.
I followed blindly, unable to see the sky above me through the thick canopy of leaves. How long until sunrise? It could be moments or several long minutes. I could hear quick footfalls behind me drawing nearer, and so I kept running. I imagined Regan waiting for me to come to him. I couldn’t disappoint him after all this time. Besides that, I had no wish to die.
Very soon I saw light ahead and rushed toward the opening in the trees. I realized too late that the trees were leading me out into the open, away from Morgana. Unfortunately, the opening was a dead-end. I was standing at the edge of the old deserted quarry, and the only two ways out of there were a dizzying hundred-foot drop off the edge of the quarry or back into the trees where Morgana was searching for me.
I bent over, pressing my palms into my thighs to catch my breath, and tried to think of a way out of this. The ground here was stony beneath the splattering of grass where jagged pieces of slate had been discarded and now cut into my feet. I approached the edge, looking down and across to where the first hints of pink ribbon-like light appeared in the sky.
“Going somewhere?” a familiar voice asked from behind me.
My heart leaped into my throat, and a small stone came loose under my foot, tumbling off the edge. I staggered back and spun on my heels.
“You,” I exclaimed. “You were chasing me? You almost gave me a heart attack.”
Áine tilted her head to one side and pushed her long auburn hair behind her ear. Áine was the smallest of the three of us, the most delicate. Even now her pale porcelain wrist looked as if it might shatter if held too tightly. Her cheeks were flushed with a rosy glow from exertion. She slowly moved closer, and I had to swallow a wave of nausea.
“What are you doing out here?”
She smiled, and I stepped back. More loose rocks slipped off the edge, where I felt my heel supported by nothing but thin air. My breath quickened, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the pink turn amber.
“Silly princess, I’m chasing you,” she taunted.
“No,” I shook my head. “No. It was Sally.” I knew it was pointless to debate. It was my mistake, not hers, but it didn’t make sense. “You’re too late. It’s sunrise. You’ve lost.”
Her delicate nose crinkled up as she looked over my shoulder to the sun and then back at me with wide blue eyes. “Not yet. It looks to me like I’m just in time.”
“I won’t jump.” More stones slipped away, clattering to the ground below, and I leaned forward in an effort to balance.
“Do you think I care anymore how you die?” she sneered. “My family chose you over me.”
She was right in front of me; all it would take was one shove, and I would fall. Before sunrise I wouldn’t survive the fall.
“This was about revenge, sixteen years of taunting my brother before my revenge, letting him think he’d won. You were never going home, little princess.”
Her hands rose, and I choked on the air I tried to suck in. I shut my eyes and wished for seconds to move faster. All I saw behind my eyelids were swirling colors of blue and amber — fire over raging waters. I visualized Regan waiting for me by a lake where I would never show.
“Get down.”
I didn’t have time to think. I acted on instinct to Sally’s voice, my self-preservation instincts kicking in. I dived sideways, landing on the grass, but I was too close to the edge, and I rolled off the side of the drop. My fingers clawed in the earth, desperately clinging on for my life as droplets of liquid sprayed me from above. It burned into my flesh, making it itchy and tight everywhere it touched. Still I held on; my feet scaling uselessly against the rock face, seeking a foothold I couldn’t find.
It all happened so fast, and the sound of my own yelling and heart thumping in my head blocked everything else out. In a sudden burst of motion, Áine toppled over my head and hit the ground far below with a sickening crunch. I scrunched my eyes tightly and held on. My fingers were slowly slipping. Dew on the crushed grass made it too slippery to grasp. I was about to end up on the quarry floor too. It was no use — I couldn’t hold on.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Sally’s hand grasped my wrist and wrenched me upward. I opened my eyes to see her hanging over the edge, holding out her other hand to me. I stretched upward and grabbed her arm gratefully. She pulled, allowing me to scramble to the top where we fell in a heap wrapped around each other.
“Thank you,” I breathed out harshly and swiped tangled hair from my brow. The itching on my skin had eased, but my arms were sprinkled with tiny dots of red.
“Salt water,” Sally explained. “I used it to distract Morgana.”
“Morgana,” I echoed, startled, remembering the sound of her hitting the ground. Squinting, I peered over the edge, not wanting to see her but needing to reassure myself it was finally over.
She was gone. There was nothing on t
he ground but rock — no sign that she had been there at all.
“It’s sunrise,” Sally said.
I looked up to see the arch of gold appearing in the distance. “The first day of summer.” I sat back on the sparse grass and closed my eyes, feeling the first flush of summer heat on my face. “Is she alive?”
“I guess she hit the ground just after sunrise, but I doubt you’ll be seeing her any time soon.”
I sighed and bit my lip awkwardly. Sally smiled and shrugged, her shoulders pre-empting me.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you all those times. You could never resist a dare, and it was a way of leading you away from whatever danger Morgana had up her sleeve. Believe me, any trouble I got you into was for your own good.”
“What about earlier tonight?” I asked skeptically.
“She was there watching you and waiting. She would have seen Regan. I had to get you out of there fast.”
“It worked.” I snorted a laugh. “Why would you do all this? Why would you give up all these years to stay with me?”
Sally smiled. She was beautiful, perfection personified. I don’t know why I never saw before that she couldn’t be human.
“Don’t you know?”
I shook my head.
“I would have told you myself, but you weren’t meant to know. I was the one who cast the spell to send you here on your hundredth birthday. I had to stay with you to see it through.
