Kaleidoscope

by Mindy Hayes

Her eyes shifted between the two of them. “And what. . .you two have been here protecting her? How did you find her? Where does she even live? What are you two going to do when Favner finds out about her?”

  “Favner already knows about her. He thinks she’s dead,” Declan explained.

  Allura looked so confused, I almost felt sorry for her. She seemed so strong and fierce at first, as if nothing could break her. Her expression changed as if a light bulb had brightened in her head. Or I guess it was more like a firefly. “You can save us,” she finally said. “I knew I felt a change in the winds.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Yes!” She leaped forward. “If we bring you back to Faylinn and everyone sees you, they will know who you are like I did. Favner will be forced to step down!”

  “What do you mean you sensed a change in the winds?” Kai interrupted, stepping toward her.

  “The Sowers feel it. The True Sowers. Something brewing. Something significant. No one knew what it was. Change. War. It hasn’t been talked about outright, but there has been chatter.”

  “They know,” Declan said.

  “Favner?” Kai hissed.

  “Maybe. No. I don’t know. But the rest of the fae. They sense Calliope as the new heir. They just don’t know it yet,” Declan clarified.

  “Wait. What?” I interjected.

  “I don’t think it’s as simple as Calliope storming the castle and taking over, Allura,” Declan said.

  I was ignored once again. I was being talked about as if I wasn’t there.

  “Of course, it is. No one wants him to rule, but no one else is brave enough to go up against him. You are the only one that can save us!” Allura set her eyes upon me with so much certainty in her sparkling eyes. There wasn’t even a hint of doubt.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but struggled for the right words to say. My father and I had already had this conversation. I didn’t know anything about Faylinn and I loved my human life. I was still able to live among humans and be who I wanted to be, who I planned to be. What if I had a life waiting for me with Cam? Was I supposed to drop all of that and become someone’s queen? No. I didn’t need that sort of responsibility. I couldn’t handle that kind of responsibility. I would fail them.

  The three of them faced me now, a kaleidoscope of colors in their eyes so bright and earnest. They believed in me. They believed I could do this for them. How could I let them down? But how was I supposed to lead them?

  “Stop looking at me like that,” I demanded. Their confidence was too much.

  Immediately the three of them looked away from me. Then there was a gasp. “She has the power,” Allura said in awe as she looked cautiously back to me.

  “What power?” I searched their faces.

  The Keepers went quiet as they looked to one another once more, as if sharing their thoughts through eye contact. What were they? Telepathic?

  “Your Supremacy,” Declan finally explained. “You don’t quite know how to control it yet.”

  I sucked in a breath of air. All different occasions were coming back to me, rolling in my mind like a film reel. It made sense. Every time Declan and Kai would get that pained look in their eyes like they didn’t want to answer me. It was my. . .Supremacy.

  “You were born to rule Faylinn,” Declan said gently, visibly sensing my unease.

  “I can’t,” were the measly words that slipped out of my mouth. “I’m sorry.” I shook my head and escaped toward the forest’s borderline.

  “Calliope!” I couldn’t be sure whose voice it was. My thoughts were too clouded. There was no stopping now. I couldn’t bear to see their eyes looking at me with such confidence. I wasn’t the one they needed. Someone else in Faylinn could do the job.

  One of the other fae was bound to be a better leader than me.

  I bolted down the hallway to my room and shut the door behind me, locking it. Like a coward. It was exactly why I would be a terrible queen. I ran from conflict. I didn’t know how to resolve problems. I ran from them.

  There was a knock at my door. “Calliope?” He couldn’t have had worse timing. “Sweetheart?”

  “Not right now, Dad,” I grumbled. “Please,” I added as an afterthought.

  “Is everything okay?” he asked through the door.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it. Please just go away,” I said more adamantly.

  I heard his footsteps trail away. Thank you.

  I flew onto my bed and buried my face in the comfort of my pillow. My tears soaked the cotton as they fled from my eyes. I didn’t want to have a pity party for myself, but this was overwhelming. There was too much pressure. Pressure not to let anyone down. Pressure to do the right thing for me. Pressure to make the right decision for everyone else.

  Maybe for someone else this would have been an easy decision. They could go blindly into Faylinn thinking that being a faery queen was awesome and now that they could do whatever they wanted. All the rules were at their fingertips. But how realistic was that, really?

  Every little girl dreams about becoming a princess. But when becoming royalty means more than crowns and frilly dresses it’s a lot to consider. When it means leaving behind everything that matters to you and starting over, then what? Did the fae really think it was wise to put their lives in the hands of a seventeen year old who is completely unprepared?

  And, yet, even if it was my choice—everyone always has a choice—was it really my decision to make? I couldn’t be so selfish as to only think of myself now. This decision would affect thousands of faeries. Shouldn’t the Faeries of Faylinn get to vote on if they wanted me to rule?

  There was another knock at my door. “Go away, Dad,” I persisted.

  “Honey.” It wasn’t my dad. It was my mom. “Will you please let me come in?”

  My heart softened. She would understand. She wouldn’t want me to go either. My mom could make the decision easy for me. She could force me to stay.

  I opened the door to let her pass inside. “Thank you,” she said, following as I went back to my bed. “I think Dad has brought me up to speed on everything going on.” She paused. “But do you want to tell me what’s got you so upset?”

  My eyes focused on the window facing the trees. “They think I’m the one who can save them from Favner. They want me to be their queen.”

  “And I take it you aren’t too keen on that?” She plopped onto the edge of my bed.

  “I think it’s absurd. I don’t know how to run a faery kingdom. I barely know how to run my own life! I couldn’t get Cameron to fall in love with me. Lia refuses to speak to me. I don’t even have colleges picked out yet. And faeries want me to run their kingdom. I’m so overwhelmed! My life has crumbled to pieces!”

  She spoke gently. “Do you think maybe your life is falling apart because you’re choosing the wrong path?”

  I gaped at her. She didn’t continue. She simply stared at me waiting for an answer. Was she siding with them?

  “You think I’m not meant to stay here with you and Dad?” I choked.

  She exhaled. “Calliope,” she said softly.

  “You do! Of all people I thought you would understand. I thought you would make this decision easy for me!”

  “Calliope,” she said with that parental firmness, cutting me off. She grasped my hands underneath hers. “No one wants you to stay here more than I do. No one. This was my worst fear after I found out I was pregnant with you. What if they found us and took you from me?” She swallowed. “That thought ran through my head over and over again for years. Though Dad was completely changed, what if you carried a gene?”

  She lifted a trembling hand to the bridge of her nose and squeezed. I stayed silent holding onto every word of my untold story.

  “Year after year I waited for a change, some sort of sign that you were a faery and year after year of no change I felt a little lighter. I know it’s one of the reasons Dad didn’t want to tell me. He knew the fear that they would come for you would eat me al
ive.”

  Mom brought her gaze up to mine. “Only another mother can understand the love a mother has for her child. I’ve had an unbreakable connection with you from the first time I saw your tiny heartbeat, from the first time I felt you inside of me.” She clenched her teeth and swallowed back tears. “But, you don’t belong here anymore,” she barely whispered.

  I didn’t want to believe her. I didn’t want a new life. But everything inside of me was confirming what she said to be true. I was a faery trying to play human in a world that I no longer belonged in. I gritted my teeth realizing I had been denying it for so long, refusing to believe what was right, that I suppressed what I knew would happen all along. But this new element added a whole new playing field.

  “Of all people, I wish it weren’t true. You are my daughter. My only child.” Her hand rested on my cheek, tenderly securing me to her touch. “Do you know how much I want to save you from anything that could hurt you and never let anything happen to you? I selfishly let your father leave the kingdom for me. I know how to be selfish and take what I want. But, honey. . .you don’t belong to me anymore. Faylinn is a powerful place and it wants you badly.” She lifted her hand from my face and gestured to the grove of trees. “They need you.”

  The tears speckled my face. She reached over and wiped them away with that never failing loving glint in her eyes as a tear fell down her cheek.

  “You have nothing to be scared of. Faylinn would be lucky to have you as their queen. They know what they are missing. Do you?”

  I sat wordlessly, taking it all in. She kissed my forehead before leaving me with my never-ending thoughts. I think the reason I had been so scared when they had presented me with the position was because I knew I eventually would accept. Why fear or deny something you know would never be possible or happen to you?

  Do you?

  Those words echoed in my mind all night. That night when I finally fell asleep, I dreamt about an unfamiliar place, far in the depths of the forest. It’s enchanting village hidden behind a sturdy wrought iron gate. The gate glowed as if beckoning me forward, begging me to enter, pounding a beat of life.

  A giant black creature appeared, guarding the entrance, preventing me from passing. Fire blew from his mouth between sharp teeth, intimidating anyone who tried to enter. When I came upon the dragon, I pulled a dagger from a sash at my waist, ready to defend myself. He looked down at me and I could almost see the humor dance across his big ferocious blood-red eyes. “You think you can defeat me? Do you?” he roared, laughing throatily. “Do you?”

  As he scoffed, underestimating my nerve, I stabbed him in the gut. He bellowed and crumpled to the ground, his massive figure disappearing in front of my eyes.

  Do you? I thought in my head, triumphant.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The next morning when I went to the clearing Declan paced back and forth, flouncing over fallen trunks and rocks, without missing a step. I stood silently, watching the pondering look on his face. He was concentrating extremely hard on something. I took another step forward, standing in a stream of sunlight. The rays beamed off my yellow wings that I had finally set free, reflecting a shimmer from the dew on a tree trunk. One of the rays caught Declan in the eye causing him to lose his footing and trip forward. He lifted his aqua eyes to me.

  “Calliope,” he breathed, surprised. He hadn’t heard me coming, which was saying something. I was becoming more stealth-like. I was officially all-faery.

  His eyes grew wide as they took in my wings and I saw that he couldn’t say another word, but he gravitated toward me.

  My wings fluttered effortlessly behind me, reveling in their true environment. “If I come to Faylinn, how will I know what to do?”

  “It will come to you,” he said. My father’s words echoed in my mind. “If nothing else, I think you have a pretty wise man you can turn to.”

  I smiled humbly. “Faylinn loved my father, right?”

  He nodded, assertive. “Faylinn was at its liveliest during his family’s reign.”

  “What if they don’t accept me like you think they will?”

  “There is no way they could deny you,” Kai’s voice descended from his favorite branch. I looked up to him and he smiled. A genuine smile. Butterflies twirled in my stomach. I tore my eyes away.

  “Then I want to go. I want you to take me to Faylinn,” I said with finality.

  Declan pulled me into his arms before I could react and spun me around. His grip on me made it difficult to breathe, but he was laughing. I couldn’t interrupt his delight. I invited his delight with open arms. The moment I made the decision to go, I had that intuitive feeling in the pit of my stomach that it was the right choice.

  “This isn’t going to be as easy as Allura was making it seem you know.” Kai was down on the ground with us now.

  Declan stopped and set me down, the smile vanishing from his face. “No, it’s not,” he agreed. “We must get in undetected first.”

  “That’s nearly impossible. There are five to six Keepers at every post.”

  “Well, how did Allura escape undetected?” Declan questioned.

  “She never told me,” Kai said. “I assume since you’ve been gone she’s gotten friendly with another Keeper.”

  Declan shifted uncomfortably. Since Declan had been gone? “So, you and Allura were. . .” I let the sentence allude to whatever it was they were.

  “No,” Declan denied immediately. “I mean. . .we were never anything official. We are friends. Have been since we were kids.”

  “Oh.” There was a twinge that settled in the base of my heart. Was I jealous? It wasn’t as if either of them hadn’t had a life before me. I didn’t have the right to be jealous. I loved Cam anyway.

  Kai stepped in between Declan and me, moving the direction of the topic back to the issue at hand. “So, you understand what this means? Accepting to come with us?” he asked me.

  “I suppose I have to do whatever it takes. Whatever gets thrown my way, I’ll have to roll with the punches.”

  Kai laughed. “Roll with the punches. A line you want to hear from your future queen.”

  “Kai,” Declan warned.

  “It’s fine,” I amended. “I realize I’m not exactly queen material. I get that I’m not what you had in mind, but you’ll have to take me or leave me. You all seem to believe I’m your only hope.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, your highness.” I rolled my eyes and bit my tongue as a crooked smile tugged at Kai’s mouth. “You’ll be able to take over the kingdom and rule the way it should be run. I have faith in that. I simply worry for your well-being.” The way he said that he worried about my well-being was sincere, as if my well-being actually mattered to him. But what did I care of how Kai felt about my well-being? “I like your wings by the way.”

  I felt my cheeks flush and looked away.

  “Kai and I will have to set up a strategy, some sort of plan to get by the boundary undetected, so it may be a few days before we leave,” Declan said.

  “A few days,” I repeated to clarify. Surely, I hadn’t heard that correctly. “I still have like six months until my graduation. You want me to leave before my senior year is even over?”

  They both looked at me as if I was slow.

  “Did becoming Faylinn’s queen mean something different to you than it did for me because. . .” Kai let his sentence hang in the air.

  Declan spoke, “Calliope, what Kai is trying to say is that he doesn’t understand if you have chosen Faylinn, why would finishing out the year would be necessary?”

  I shrugged tensely. “I don’t know. I just didn’t imagine leaving so soon.” I began to pace uncontrollably. “I still haven’t even told Lia what I am. How am I supposed to leave now? What is everyone going to say about me? Will they all think I disappeared? Oh, the rumors. . .” My head began to spin. It felt like I might faint if I didn’t sit down.

  I noticed there was silence and it carried on after I stopped babbling. They hadn�
�t answered me yet and I knew that was a bad sign. When I peered up, they were looking to one another, something unspoken being said through their eyes. I really didn’t like their silent connection. I didn’t even ask. I simply glared, letting the fury burn through my eyes and they knew it was time to speak up.

  “Fae magic works in ways that tend to cause humans to eventually lose their memories of faeries,” Declan said. “It’s for our protection.”

  “I would be erased from their memories?” I asked, incredulously.

  “It’s a chance,” Kai said. “Out of sight, out of mind sort of thing.”

  “You still have human blood running through you, so it might not have any affect. They haven’t had any issues with remembering you thus far,” Declan said.

  “But it’s still possible,” I pressed.

  They both nodded solemnly. At least they had the decency to appear apologetic.

  “It’s possible,” Declan said quietly, measuring my reaction to see if this would be my breaking point. I thought that I had reached it, but they just kept throwing curve balls.

  I didn’t have much of a choice anymore. I was kidding myself into thinking I could have a normal life as a faery in this world. The physical changes were becoming too unnatural, and it was exhausting trying to constantly hide them.

  “When do we leave?” I questioned, without inflection. I might as well get straight to the point. It was the only thing left I needed to know.

  “I suppose we can leave when you feel comfortable, but I would urge you to make the decision soon. I’m not sure how much longer we will be safe here,” Declan cautioned.

  I stopped and looked at him. “I thought you said Favner didn’t know I was still alive.”

  Declan rested his hand on my shoulder wanting to comfort me. His rough fingers brushed my bare shoulders. “I would like to believe that, yes, but I would still like to be sure, and the longer this drags out the more suspicious he could get. Allura isn’t the only one who can sense a change.”

  “It’s Thanksgiving. I would at least like to have a few days with my family for the holiday before we go.” I said assertively.