Broken: A Paranormal Romance

by David H. Burton

  “Why didn’t you fight them?” he asked.

  “Because I was told I was crazy,” I said. “First, humans aren’t aware of your world. Or, most of them aren’t I assume. When people talk about faeries, everyone thinks they’re nuts. So I was led to believe I was seeing things that weren’t really there, and I needed help. What’s worse, though, is that my mother knew it was real, and she still led me to believe I was crazy. Then, when I returned from England, she finally found a doctor that could help. I’d been on the meds since.”

  I thought about that visit to England. I wanted to mention how much I’d hurt when he had disappeared, about how I’d left England scarred, but he veered off the path. He took a sudden turn at an old oak tree, down a less trodden route, putting his finger to his lips to indicate quiet. We then crept towards a stream lined with old willows.

  I could hear what sounded like wind chimes as we got closer, and voices — a lot of them. There was laughter and merriment.

  As we rounded one of the willows, I stopped in my tracks. Jonathan paused, looking down the stream to where tables and tents were set up. It was a market, alright — complete with candied fruits, clothing, small animals in cages, and pastries, along with the ever-present scent of berries and apples. The place was crowded. The more human looking ones could’ve been anything, Nymphs or Trolls like Jonathan and Chris. There were others I had no idea how to identify. Some were half the size of humans, some were the size of the little winged Faeries, and some were combinations thereof.

  Jonathan noticed my hesitation. “Stay here,” he said. “Sit down, and don’t look at anyone. The fey don’t like having their business prodded into, so pretend like you don’t see them and look down at the water.” He unpinned the broach.

  “What are you taking that for?” I asked. “I thought it’s supposed to protect me.”

  “It hides you, and it’s weakening already. I need to recharge it. I won’t be long.” He must have seen the worry in my face. “Brokk knows how to find me should anything go wrong. Don’t worry.” He kissed my forehead and I was a little taken aback. He smiled his dimpled grin and took off into the market.

  I stayed where I was, but found it hard to just stare at the water. If there was anything I could use to save Chris or myself, I needed to know. That said, I wasn’t so foolish as to completely ignore Jonathan’s advice. I just watched from the corner of my eye.

  Brokk sat beside me, patted my hand, and watched the market from where we sat.

  I pulled my knees to my chest, resting my head on my folded arms. It was a casual enough pose, I hoped, and allowed me full view of what was happening. I have to say, feigning oblivion to their presence was a little challenging.

  Everyone here was dressed from eras gone by, no one form of apparel standing out any more than another. Jonathan was one of the few dressed in more modern attire, yet no one seemed to pay any attention to it.

  A lot of the women were in those puffy dresses from my dream. Fortunately none of them were Morgana.

  Brokk pulled at my ankle. He motioned for me to stand up.

  I contemplated telling him that Jonathan had said to remain here. But then, Brokk had never really given me bad advice so far, so I decided to go with it. I picked him up and rose.

  He grabbed the scarf and held it up, indicating I should wear it around my neck. Then he pointed towards the market. I did as he suggested.

  I wasn’t sure if I should walk with my head high and appear as if I belonged there, or try to remain obscure and skulk. After Brokk picked up my chin I went with the former.

  I came to the first table, examining the necklaces and jewelry — it was some of the finest gold work I’d ever seen. The merchant was an old woman. She nodded to me with a smile, but said nothing. There was a mirror on the table, but I couldn’t see my reflection — only that of a strange old man. He winked at me.

  I continued on, a number of the folk nodding their heads to me, some almost bowing. I realized the scarf must be symbolic of something important, so I nodded back and smiled. I felt like such a fraud, but it was getting me through the crowd unmolested.

  One table was selling fresh fruit — apples and berries. The young woman offered me an apple. I wasn’t sure about taking it. It was red. The first thing that ran through my head was what happened to Snow White. Brokk indicated I should take the apple, so I did as I was told. I pocketed the fruit after nodding my thanks and moving on. I didn’t eat it, although it was tempting. I was getting hungry.

  Further along, the little Faeries were playing, flitting about the tables. I could swear a couple of them looked familiar, like from my dream, or perhaps I’d seen them growing up. They giggled, waved, and flew off.

  I noticed some whispering behind me. I listened, but the words were in a language I did not understand. I didn’t do an about-face to catch them, but I did pause long enough at a tent with no wares outside. Covered in a fine, purple cloth, it had nothing to indicate what I would find inside. I gave up on trying to overhear whatever gossip was happening at my expense and poked my head in the tent.

  The inside was dark, with a few candles struggling to light the space. It was much larger than it seemed from the outside with a table in the middle. Behind it sat an old woman. She motioned for me to sit in front of her and grinned. Somehow I was expecting her not to have teeth. She did, but not that many.

  I parked myself with Brokk sliding off my arm. He stood on the table beside me as the woman took my hands. Turning my palm upwards she ran her thin, bent finger along my skin. She leaned over to look at my hand, rubbing it with her thumb, as if trying to erase the lines.

  I wasn’t sure what made me stay. A part of me wanted her to tell me about my future. Was I going to live? Was my end coming soon?

  The woman looked into my eyes, and in hers I saw the emerald ones I’d come to know.

  Then she creeped me out when she spoke with Chris’s voice.

  “Katherine, what are you doing here? This is dangerous.”

  My heart leapt. “Chris, oh my god! Are you all right? Where are you?”

  “I’m okay,” he replied. “She has me in the Winter Court. Don’t make the trade Katherine. She’ll kill you once she has what she wants from you.”

  “We’ll get you back,” I said. “Just hang in there.”

  “Katherine,” he said. The old woman smiled. “If I don’t make it through this, I want you to know—oh my god! Katherine, it’s a trap! Get out of there! She’s there with you!”

  I blinked.What?

  I was too slow to move. The old woman changed in front of me, her hair turning golden and curly.

  She seized my arm. “Now I’ve got you!”

  Chapter 21

  I pulled my arm, trying to get out of Morgana’s iron grasp. My heart was pounding in my chest. I looked to Brokk for help. He was gone.

  I decided there was no way she was taking me without a fight. I couldn’t punch for shit with my left, but that didn’t stop me from trying. She ducked my first shot, but I hit her with the second. It didn’t faze her. She was trying to reach my other arm, but I used her grasp to pull myself up on the table. I was about to kick her when Jonathan stormed into the tent, with Brokk on his shoulder. I put my foot against her chest and shoved.

  As she toppled backwards, her nails dug into my skin, ripping my wrist. The pain surged up my arm. I moaned and leapt off the table. Jonathan grabbed me, his blade out. He pushed me back through the tent flap, and we scurried through the market.

  “How did she know I’d go in there?” I asked. I nearly bumped into an old man in breeches. Jonathan escorted me around the man in a whirl, like it was a dance, and we were off again.

  When we reached the willow under which I’d sat, he paused and looked back.

  “You shouldn’t have gone into the market,” he said. He wasn’t angry, but his voice had a hint of irritation. He pinned the broach back onto my shirt.

  I looked at the gouges in my wrist. They were red and an
gry.

  Jonathan grabbed my arm, having a look for himself. The bleeding wasn’t heavy, just a mild trickle. It stung though. I wrapped it in the scarf.

  “Let’s go,” he said, but veered from the path we had taken when we came in. Instead he tread across the open field in a crisscross pattern.

  It took me a moment to realize he was searching for something. We kept this up for a good ten minutes before he yanked at a couple of white-flowered plants. He chewed the stems and spit them into his hand.

  “Give me your wrist,” he said.

  I lifted my hand and he removed the scarf. He took the chewed up plant bits and smeared them onto the gouges. I braced myself for a sting, but it actually soothed the pain that was there. Then he wrapped the scarf back around it. Brokk leapt from his shoulder to mine.

  “I needed to treat that first,” he said. “It needs to heal fast. She can use the scent of your blood to track you.”

  He looked about, pausing to watch a couple of ravens alight in a nearby pine.

  “She’s watching me. She can’t see you now that I’m near you, but she knows we’re together.” He looked back. The market was nowhere to be seen. “We need to find shelter. Maybe a human place to hide. I know it’s still morning, but I think we’re going to need to lay low for the day and night. It will give us a chance to plan.”

  I nodded, and so began the trek once more.

  I still wanted some answers though.

  “You didn’t tell me how she knew I’d go into that tent?” I asked.

  “She knew we would try the market. This was the closest one. I should’ve been smarter, I should’ve known she’d have spies.” He brought us back to the main trail, and we made our way towards a town on the horizon. “When you entered the tent, the medium could see you. She’s human — or used to be, anyway, and must work for Morgana. Once you made contact with Chris, Morgana knew it was you. She took control of the medium and seized you through her body. The medium was meant to hold you until Morgana arrived.”

  That seemed to make enough sense. I felt a little foolish for not having listened to Jonathan’s advice about staying put. I glanced at Brokk from the corner of my eye with something of a scolding look. He shrugged and had that sheepish look of apology. His cheeks even reddened a little. I tickled him to let him know things were just fine.

  The pain in my wrist had subsided substantially. It was nearly gone.

  “What’s with this scarf?” I asked. “People were looking at me like I was royalty.”

  He glanced at it. “Either they recognize it as hers, or they recognized the embroidery as the Summer Court. Either way, they would do well to treat you carefully. Morgana commands fear and respect in the fey world, more so the fear. They either think you’re one of the Court, or high in Morgana’s favor — high enough to wear her scarf openly.”

  A man walking a mule passed us by on the other side of the road. He looked familiar. We both nodded and greeted him.

  “So, now what?” I asked after he’d passed.

  We closed in on the village ahead of us. “We find a place to stay,” he said. “I still have enough money to get us some food and a night here.”

  That sounded fine to me even though it was a little early in the day. I wished we could’ve driven the distance that was left, but if she saw Jonathan in a car it was a sure guarantee I would be in it. We’d be easy pickings. One large, well-aimed bus would do the job nicely.

  “What do you think she’ll do to Chris now?” I asked. The question had to be asked, whether Jonathan wanted to hear it or not. I still hadn’t sorted out my feelings for him, but that didn’t stop me from caring about Chris.

  Jonathan didn’t seem to mind. He shrugged. “I’m surprised he’s still alive frankly. I never expected her to make the trade fairly. She’s probably using him for her own devices.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that, but I didn’t cherish the notion of Chris being used in any way by her.

  “He said she has him somewhere in the Winter Court. Where is that?”

  We approached a white-washed inn with a slate roof. Jonathan stopped outside, waiting for the couple that exited through the creaking wooden door to move beyond earshot.

  “In the Faery Realm. Once we get you to your family home, I’ll go after him.”

  I wasn’t sure he’d be going alone, but I left it at that.

  We slipped into the inn. It was quaint, with a stone hearth at the far end of a tightly packed space. I wondered if we would find a room at all, but then as I heard the accents of the patrons that were lined along the bar, I realized that this was the local watering hole with a smattering of guests.

  We had a choice of a couple of rooms including, when the old woman took a look at the two of us, the honeymoon suite.

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said. “A room with two beds please.”

  I watched Jonathan for a reaction. He just smiled.

  The woman handed me the key and we made our way up to find a room with two single beds. It was a cramped space, with barely any room to get past the beds to the washroom at the side. There was a small window looking out to the street below to which Jonathan made a beeline. He seemed pleased with the view, nodding his head in satisfaction. I supposed he wanted to know what might be coming for us in the night.

  I left him there.

  My priority was a shower — piping hot. I was desperate to get out of the foot-killers and my clothes felt like I was going to have to peel them off my body. I checked my backpack. I had clean undergarments, but nothing else. I was going to have to buy something if possible. I desperately needed a better pair of shoes.

  “I need a shower,” I said.

  The dimples in Jonathan’s cheeks were huge as he grinned. “So do I.”

  I waited for something more, unsure if I would actually want him to say the words or not.

  Instead he winked at me and said, “Ladies first.”

  I smiled and made for the shower.

  I took my time in there. I felt like I’d needed one for an eternity. The events of the last few days, as well as trying to sleep with a tree trunk for a mattress, had turned my body into a bag of knotted muscle. Everything ached. To top it all off, I felt I hadn’t had a moment to think — to try and make sense of everything. It was like the fight-or-flight response had kicked in and all I could do was keep moving. I needed to pause, to take the time to gather my thoughts.

  After a shower to scrub out what felt like days’ worth of grit and sweat, I filled the tub. There were no rose petals or salts to add to the water. I had never been into that sort of thing until my roommate had left hers in the bathroom once. I’d tried them, just to see if I’d had been missing something. Oh, had I ever. After that, I had started searching for others and found ones to my own liking. Sadly, today was going to be a plain bath water day.

  Still, it soothed my aching muscles. I examined the gash in my wrist. It was healing nicely for such a short period of time. I wasn’t sure if Jonathan had done something to the paste he had rubbed on it, but it looked better than it probably would have with conventional means.

  I tipped my head back, watching the steam rise. I let my mind drift — thinking about Morgana.

  I had taken something from her. That had to mean something. If given the chance, I would do it again. But what would be useful to take was another question. Whether I could take something with me into the dream was still another. Maybe I could take Jonathan’s blade. If I could hurt her, just scratch her or something, perhaps it might frighten her enough that she’d leave me alone. Maybe I needed to find a way to scare her like she was doing to me.

  My thoughts then drifted to Aunt Marigold. How much of this had she known? I still had so many questions — ones I would likely never have answered now. I felt a little ashamed of thinking that — it was selfish. The woman was dead, after trying for so many years to help others, to avenge her brother’s death. Dead in a place she’d thought she was safe. She’d lived l
ike a hermit only to be taken anyway. Was that going to be my fate in this house we were making for?

  I thought of Chris, captured because of me. That bothered me the most, I think. I had no idea what Morgana might do to him. I knew it wasn’t my fault she’d taken him, but the guilt was still there, like a weight around my neck trying to drown me in a pool of remorse. To top it all off, I missed his company.

  I was lucky I had Jonathan, I supposed. There was no way I could have done this alone.

  It was intriguing to be with him again. After so many years of pining for his company, it did feel good to be near him once more. It was a different type of comfort, and one I needed right now.

  The water in the tub turned tepid so I decided it was time to let Jonathan take his turn. I felt a little guilt for having taken so long, but I really needed the time to myself — a moment to take stock and think. I didn’t have any more answers than before, but I felt like I was catching up with my own life.

  I cloaked myself in a luxurious terrycloth robe and opened the door to find Jonathan sitting on the bed.

  “Feel better?” he asked. In his hands he was fingering a new set of emerald earrings. They had a different setting, a Celtic pattern instead of a flower, but the stone was the same color.

  “All but my aching feet,” I said. “I need to find some different shoes.” I sat across from him, still in my robe, and took the earrings.

  “Don’t put them on yet. I want to think of some way to help you. She may not be able to see you in the dream, but there’s no guarantee.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t do anything foolish.”

  He kissed me on the forehead and left to shower. I lay down on the bed, examining the earrings.

  What would I see this time? Another ancestor dying?

  I thought back to who I’d been through already. My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. I figured I had at least two more generations to go back if I followed the pattern that Mother had written out.