by ReGi McClain
Harsha forgot to feel awkward with Zeeb. She let him lift her down and carry her while she stared wide-eyed at a pale stone cottage straight out of a Thomas Kincaid, with blue slate for the rooftop and a millwheel rotating in a stream that came from no visible source and disappeared abruptly at the edge of a garden stuffed full of roses, chamomile, lavender, and several flowers unfamiliar to her. In spite of the dimness under the canopy of trees, the whole scene glittered with sunlight.
A young woman emerged from the cottage. Wherever she placed her dainty feet, pink and blue flowers sprang up. Her shimmering golden hair cascaded to her ankles, where the ends floated, lifting and lowering to stay about three inches above anything they neared. Her iridescent silk dress flowed over her slight, girlish figure, its color shifting with every step she took, now white, now violet. Her cheeks and lips blushed the perfect pink of rosebuds, her blue eyes pierced and beckoned at once. A pair of shining, translucent butterfly wings the color of amethysts opened and closed in lazy waves.
Zeeb huffed and mumbled. “Pretentious.”
Seraph, now human, shrugged and whispered back, “I dunno. I’ve never met a fae before. Maybe this is their norm.”
“It’s like a greeting card.”
Seraph covered a laugh.
Harsha gave them both a stern look. “If you could look like you belonged on a greeting card, wouldn’t you?”
They shook their heads and spoke in unison. “No.”
She shrugged. “Me neither, but I can’t have you insulting someone who might have a cure for me.”
Seraph nodded. “Good point. Zeeb, how dare you insult the fae?”
“Me? You laughed, too.”
“But you started it.”
“All right, children,” Harsha whispered back to them. “Tell me how I’m supposed to introduce myself.”
“That won’t be necessary.” The woman’s voice, a fine alto, trilled with a buoyant quality, as if it floated midair. “If you can see my home as it truly is, I can guess who you are, and you already know who I am. You are welcome here, but I cannot allow you to enter my house in such drab garb.”
The faerie waved her hand. The pain in Harsha’s leg and shoulder disappeared so abruptly, it felt like a loss. She gasped and reached to pull up her pant leg, but found she no longer wore the ragged jeans. Instead, she wore a flowing pink silk dress with an empire waistline. Rose petals lined the scoop collar, giving off a light fragrance. She lifted the hem of the dress to find her leg healed without so much as a scar to give evidence of the bear’s attack. A roll of her shoulder revealed it to be good as new. Her wrist and ankle showed no signs of ever being sliced. Even the small burn and cut scars on her hands and wrists, the natural consequences of cooking, were gone.
Before she found words to speak, Zeeb set her down and dropped a graceful bow. Seraph followed suit with a gorgeous curtsy. The faerie inclined her head to each of them. When they stood up, their muddy traveling clothes transformed into immaculate medieval court garments, Seraph in a flowing gown of copper flecked with all the colors of the sunset, like a fire opal, Zeeb in a forest-green tunic embroidered with images of wolves, a belt of braided vines, and a pair of bister leggings.
“Much better, don’t you think?” The faerie walked back to her house, signaling the others to follow her.
Harsha, dumb with astonishment, tried to imitate Seraph’s curtsy. She managed a reasonable reproduction of the graceful dip, then remembered her gifts and Gauri’s warning. She looked around for her backpack and spotted it hanging from the dragon saddle, which sat where Seraph had misted out from under it. She started toward the pack.
“No need. I’ve accepted your gifts,” the faerie called.
Harsha shook her head. She felt a need to clear it, although she felt fine. She looked through my pack? A happy sasquatch couple, a dragon who can turn into a woman, a man who can turn into a wolf, and a winged woman who can rifle through my bags, change my clothes, and remove scars with no more effort than it takes me to breathe.
She had the distinct impression that among normal human beings, she’d be developing a tension headache. Her brain kept trying to reel from the impact of having magic thrown around with no regard for the steady rules of science, but stopped short whenever it approached a reasonable level of denial. She accepted the situation against her will.
“Are you coming?” Zeeb held open the gate for her and watched her with his brows lifted.
His leggings, a style Harsha considered ludicrous most of the time, showed off his muscular legs to great advantage. The tunic covered his other masculine attributes, but Harsha guessed them to be advantageous as well. As soon as the image struck her, she flung it aside, shocked at the impudence of her imagination. Pulling such nonsense so soon after their shared humiliation added insult to the injury.
Heat crept into her cheeks. She covered her embarrassment by smirking. “Nice outfit,” she whispered as she passed. There. That sounded sarcastic, right?
“Yeah, yeah. Come on. The sooner you get a cure, the sooner I get my jeans back.”
Harsha followed the faerie and Seraph through the cottage door into the middle of a circle of overlarge bushes, rather than a house. Thick trunks spread long, crooked arms up, curving along winding paths until they met to form a ceiling. Leaves the size of trays covered the branches. Flowers of every color, some as small as Harsha’s hand, others big enough for her to sit in, dotted the entire dome. Petite butterflies with wings of silver and gold fluttered from flower to flower tossing speckles of light through the air.
Harsha turned in circles, awestruck. A small kaleidoscope of the butterflies surrounded her. They landed on her collar and nuzzled the rose petals. With slow, gentle movements, she nudged a finger under one and lifted it to eyelevel to study the tiny creature.
“I am Phyllis.”
Harsha looked up at the faerie.
“Your friends I know by reputation. Seraph, the last offspring of Xipil, and Zeeb, the purebred werewolf. You, however, are new to me.” She circled Harsha. “Yet none who lack noble blood may see my home as it is, so you are someone of note.”
Phyllis waved her hand. A table laid with suckling pig, an entire side of beef, and several other dishes that gave off the aroma of cooked flesh, appeared.
“Eat,” Phyllis commanded, smiling at Seraph and Zeeb. She lifted a brow at Harsha. “And what would you like?”
Harsha looked over the food and refrained from wrinkling her nose at the plethora of red meat. The sight of so much of it at once stole her appetite. Not wishing to be rude, she said, “Whatever you’re having.”
Phyllis waved again. A small table popped out of the ground, adorned with a purple tea set and a tiered tray featuring cucumber sandwiches on the first tier, an assortment of cookies on the next, and petit fours on the top tier. Two large mushrooms grew up to form seats. Harsha took the one closest to her while Phyllis poured out the tea. The cascade of golden liquid gave off the rich fragrances of jasmine and chamomile, with a touch of honey. Harsha accepted her cup, closed her eyes, and took a sip. The hot liquid danced across her taste buds, melting what little tension remained to her under the influence of the faerie, and warming her from the inside out.
“Tell me…” Phyllis paused.
“Harsha.”
“What a beautiful name. Tell me, Harsha, what brings you to my home, and what are you?”
Harsha set down her tea and sat up straight. Under normal circumstances, she knew she’d be nervous, but no such feelings plagued her. “I was hoping you could help me.”
Phyllis’ smile broadened. “All who seek the fae are hoping for help. It’s what we do, after all.” Her eyes flicked to Harsha’s leg.
Heat warmed Harsha’s cheeks. She’d forgotten to thank the faerie. “Thank you so much for healing me. It was very kind of you. I thought I would have those scars forever.”
Phyllis inclined her head, her smile warm and gracious. “Beauty such as ours should never be spoiled, but they are not th
e reason you sought me out.”
“No.” Harsha scooted to the edge of her mushroom. Her heart pattered despite the calm enforced by the faerie’s presence. “My brother and I are dying.”
Phyllis gasped and brought her hand to her mouth. Her brows lifted and tears brimmed in her eyes. “What’s the matter? Tell me quickly. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
Harsha leaned forward. This is it. I’m going to leave here healthy and strong. I’m going to take that strength back to Kauai and share it with Jason. He’ll live a normal life and never again talk of being used to dying. “My brother and I are descendants of the Fae-Mermaid. Our blood ”
The unnatural calm vanished and a warning chill skittered down her spine.
Phyllis’ face hardened, her blue eyes plunging into blackness, her teeth bared and clenched. “So, your kind still exists.”
The temperature of the room dropped to match the faerie’s frigid tone. Harsha looked to Seraph and Zeeb for help or support, or at least explanation. A wall of thorns shot up from the ground, blocking them from sight. Canine growls and Seraph’s deep roar shook the place an instant before fire lit the bramble. A flick of Phyllis’ wrist snuffed the flames. Harsha looked down to find her dress replaced by a flimsy, white shift made like a sack with holes cut for her arms and head.
She looked back at Phyllis. “What’s happening? Why are you doing this?”
The smooth skin of Phyllis’ forehead folded into deep crags, limp bags of purple flesh hung themselves under her eyes, and her sneer forced the skin of her cheeks to pile up in furrows. “You and your kind are an abomination. To mingle the sacred blood of the fae with the blood of mere humans was a crime against nature itself. Your ancestor should have suffered for her crimes.”
The expression of disdain deepened beyond the reach of mortals. Hatred seemed to squirm out of every pore, like worms pushing out of dirt. Harsha, voice frozen, heart racing, breath held, cowered. Aggressive snarls, scorching heat alternating with deathly cold, flashes of light, and the smell of smoke all hovered at the surface of her awareness, but none of them penetrated to meaning. She was going to die.
“She escaped us in death.” Phyllis’ scorn lifted to let a touch of delight show. “But you can suffer in her place.”
The threat broke the paralysis. Death, Harsha accepted, but she’d had enough of suffering. She jumped to her feet. Her leg collapsed under her, searing with pain, her arm dropped from its socket, and she felt her ankle and wrist rip open, this time without the benefit of a sharp scalpel. A vine wrapped around her waist, pinning her to the ground. Phyllis advanced, hands outstretched. She spoke awful words in a twisted, terrible language. Harsha didn’t have to understand them to guess their meaning. She squeezed her eyes shut and lifted her arms to shield her face.
The vine loosened and the pain ebbed. A cool touch fell on her left wrist. She opened her eyes to stare at Phyllis. Her muscles ached with trembling and her breath came in gasps while her heart pounded to get out of her rib cage. The faerie traced her fingers alongside the old wound, which gushed blood like a fresh laceration. At her touch, the bleeding slowed, then stopped, and the flesh began to mend.
Tears spilled down Phyllis’ cheeks. Her face, young and beautiful, wore an expression of stricken innocence, the picture of a girl who knew nothing of the cruelty of the world or why any creature would hurt itself or another. “Did you do this?”
Harsha shuddered. Her mind staggered under a wash of magical calm, unable to reconcile the feeling of serenity to the situation. Tears strangled her words. “A team of geneticists. They they ”
“They persecuted you for what you are.”
Harsha nodded.
“You poor darling!” Phyllis threw her arms around Harsha and wept. Her sobs shook them both and her tears soaked the shoulder of Harsha’s…
Silver ball gown. Harsha sensed shock trying to break through the faerie calm, but the magic pressed her natural responses aside, numbing her. She felt no fear, no anger, no resentment, no bewilderment.
“Dear Harsha! Dear, sweet daughter of sedition. How can anyone harm such a charming little monster?”
Phyllis released Harsha and began to pace. The ground covered by her slow, almost lazy, circling pushed up blossom after blossom until she walked in a veritable flowerbed. Contrary to the leisurely pace set by her feet, her wings blurred with the fury of their beating.
She cupped her face in both hands and tapped her fingers along her cheekbones. “Child of depravity, but not her doing. Can’t fix the blood. Too human. Too defiled.”
She glanced at Harsha and returned her gaze to the flower-covered ground. “But as lovely as any fae. So much like…”
Phyllis stopped pacing to stare at Harsha. A battle of emotions played out on her features, her eyes darkening, lightening, skin aging and returning to normal, in the space of a few of Harsha’s heartbeats. Finally, her features settled. Her eyebrows pinched together in a pained expression and she let her hands fall to her side. She took a deep breath and released it in a heavy sigh.
“Carwyn,” she whispered.
Flutters of recognition broke through Harsha’s numbness. “What?”
“The pariah.”
Phyllis clasped Harsha’s hand and lifted off the ground, where the faerie started to run, dragging Harsha with her, on an invisible surface that clicked under Harsha’s embroidered, high-heeled slippers. Dizzy from the sudden shift and the sight of nothing but a drop under her feet, Harsha gripped Phyllis’s hand tighter. Phyllis responded with a bone crushing squeeze and an affectionate smile, and raced on, leaving behind her a trail of floating flowers. They twisted and turned through invisible halls until they burst through a massive rosemary bush into darkness.
Phyllis stopped. Harsha squinted, trying to see in the inky blackness. The dusty smell of aged books filled the area. No movement but their breath stirred the air of the room. Harsha wanted to open a window. If there was a window. Phyllis’ hand left hers and a faint glow filled the space between them. Harsha blinked, letting her pupils constrict and her vision focus. In a floating glass case before her lay an ivory spiral.
“See!” Phyllis squealed. “A piece of unicorn horn. It’s just enough. Quick, quick! Pick it up.”
Harsha gazed at the pearlesque spiral, heart thudding with mingled anticipation and apprehension that broke the enchanted calm. It seemed too easy: pick up a bone and be well. She lifted the lid of the case and reached for the horn with quivering fingers.
Then Phyllis’ words sank in. “‘Just enough?’ You mean, this will only cure one person?”
Phyllis’ lip trembled. “It’s all I have. Unicorns don’t give up their horns lightly, you know.”
Harsha bit her lip, aware she’d burst happy-Phyllis’s bubble and worried angry-Phyllis might reappear. “Oh, I’m grateful. I am absolutely, completely, eternally grateful, but there are two of us. I can’t ˝
“You can’t be selfish.”
Phyllis’s face took on a look of infinite wisdom, her blue eyes growing deeper and more captivating. As Harsha gazed into them, the darkness dissolved.
“Beautiful monster,” Phyllis took Harsha’s face in her hands, “this is the blessing of your human blood. We fae, we are selfish folk. We can be generous when the fancy takes us, but not at our own cost.” She pointed down.
Harsha caught her breath and clung to Phyllis’ arm with both of hers. They stood on a cloud overlooking Alaska, so high, Harsha saw the ocean shining far to the west.
“The humans have an even greater capacity for selfishness, but they also have the ability to be truly self-sacrificing. It is their one and only advantage over us.”
The darkness gathered around them, the unicorn horn the sole source of light. “So what’s it to be, Harsha? Will you live? Or will another?”
Harsha stared at the horn. Jason accepted death. In a way, he looked forward to it. He wanted no more from life than to play the latest game. Not her. She’d poured herself into findi
ng this cure. So much time. So much money. So much pain.
But she could not watch Jason die knowing she could have saved him.
“Another.”
Phyllis’ face erupted in a brilliant smile, accompanied by its own glow. She shot into the suddenly visible sky, twirling and spraying flower petals in every direction. Plunging, she grabbed Harsha’s hand. They raced back through the invisible halls and out the door, where she deposited Harsha in front of her dazed-looking friends, embraced her, and disappeared in a cloud of purple sparkles.
Zeeb watched the Phyllis-cloud shimmer in the sunlight, his brows knit. “I guess that’s that.”
Seraph nodded.
Harsha averted her face to hide the tears coursing down her cheeks. She held a wooden box she didn’t remember picking up. Without opening it, she knew what it contained.
“Did you get a cure?” Zeeb asked.
“Yes.” She walked away from them into the woods. Her ball gown faded back into plain jeans and a t-shirt. She found a fallen tree and sat down without bothering to check it first. The perpetual wetness of the forest soaked through the seat of her pants to chill her backside. Dashing away the hot, angry tears rolling down her cheeks, she sneered at the box. The flowers carved into its lid seemed to stare back at her, impassive. For such a small, pretty thing, it seemed a heavy burden.
“Harsha! Where are you?”
She wanted to ignore Seraph and Zeeb, wanted to crawl in a hole, go to sleep, and live in a dream world of her own design. She wanted to be done.
A cold breeze blew against her back, teasing sense back into her. Jason needed her. With the cure in hand, sticking around the woods invited temptation. She needed to get home.
“I’m over here.”
Seraph and Zeeb walked into view. Their curious expressions told her they wanted to ask what happened in Phyllis’ house, but feared to, in case of bad news. She steeled herself and forced a smile. Their faces lit up.
Zeeb juggled the backpacks and the dragon saddle. He pointed an elbow at the fallen log. “I bet you have soggy pants.”
“Yup.” She faked a chuckle.
