“At least tell me how to find you,” he called after me, and I could hear the grief in his voice, feel it in my heart at the same moment as I turned and ran through the great hall down the grand silver stairs to where the carriages waited, my hair unraveling, my shoe falling from my foot. I ran forward, almost able to see the outline of my carriage waiting out front.
Why had they come?
And then a more horrifying thought: Did they know I had left her?
What would they do to me?
“Go!” I cried to the coachman as I threw myself inside. “Go!!”
And he cracked the whip, and the horses, just glimmers now, raced into the night, back to her. Behind me I could hear the beating of wings.
The night air was colder now than it had been before, and I shivered in the thin dress. The ride seemed to stretch out, take twice as long as it had before.
Finally we approached the clearing. Everything was suddenly quiet. As if the whole world had gone to sleep.
The moon lit the field. I leaned forward, and there she was. Like magic. Lying where I'd left her, still in the gown, the shoes in pieces beside her. Her moon hair falling to the grass around her.
The carriage pulled to a stop, the horses reared up in front of us. I kicked off the remaining glass slipper and stepped into the grass, which was wet against my bare feet as I tiptoed over to her. I did not want to wake her. She looked so peaceful there, so beautiful with the moon pouring down over her.
“I've come back,” I whispered. “Just like I promised.”
Chapter Sixteen
IWOKE TO THE SOUND OF POUNDING, SOMEONE banging on my door. The sound seeped in, insistent, interrupting I just pressed my head into my pillow, tried to claw my way back into my dream.
The wings, the water.
“Lil!”I heard.
I sat up, disoriented. A thirst dug deep into my throat and chest. I tried to remember the night before, but it was all a blur. The air blew in cool through the open window, the unmistakable scents of autumn and exhaust mixing together. Water, I thought.
“Lil, wake up! It's me, V!”
I tried to blink away my dizziness as I swung my legs and lifted myself from the mattress, my old bones creaking with each shift and start. I bent my wings in and wrapped a cardigan around me, holding it closed.
“Just a minute!” I called out.
I remembered the ball, his arm around my waist.
I stumbled from my bed to the living room, grabbing onto the doorframe to balance myself. I opened the door, and she stood in front of me, her now-platinum hair sweeping down to her shoulders. I searched her face for news.
“Hey,” she said.
“Good morning,” I said. “Come in.”
“Oh, wow,” she said, whistling under her breath, walking past me and into the room. “What happened in here?”
I looked around, saw the place with her eyes. The drifts of mail, the mound of newspapers by the door. The bags of garbage, overflowing in the kitchen. Books everywhere, opened and on their sides.
I felt a tinge of embarrassment but pushed it away. None of that mattered now.
“Here,” I said, “let me clear a spot for you on the couch.” I rushed over, moved a pile of books to the floor. Cottingley Fairies was spread open next to the stack, and I shut it quickly. “Do you want some tea?”
“No, no,” she said. She moved to the couch, looking slowly over the place, taking it in. A look of slight horror on her face that she was trying to conceal. She looked at me. “Thank you again, Lil, for being so amazing yesterday. I really … It meant a lot to me.” She was holding something. A package she was shifting back and forth, from hand to hand.
“You're welcome,” I said.
She sat down on the couch and I sat across from her, on the chair. She seemed distracted, strange. She placed the package down on a pile of papers and then pulled it back quickly, onto her lap. She seemed unsure of how to do anything.
“So how was it?” I asked, unable to wait any longer. “What happened?”
“Oh,” she said, looking up at me. “It was gorgeous. Beautiful food and music, and that place! You were right. I loved it. I felt like I was in a Garbo movie or something. And George is such a nice guy, Lil. A really cool guy. I like him a lot.”
“A cool guy?”
She smiled, seeming to relax a bit. She looked down shyly and then back up at me. “I think he's amazing.” She was glowing, I realized, and it was all I could do to keep myself from jumping up and shouting with joy.
“You do? Oh, that's wonderful. I knew it. I knew it.”
“He was such a gentleman. Awkward and sweet. We talked about all kinds of things, too. Literature and film and art, where we've been, our families and where we come from. His background is so cool. Did you know that his grandfather invented the seamless stocking?”
“No,” I said, smiling. “I didn't.” She looked so much like her, like Cinderella. Her moonlit hair, her luminous skin.
“He just made me feel so … alive. Like I have things to say. He was interested in my work, Lil. He's even coming by the salon tomorrow to see some of my hair pieces and wigs. I talked to him about some of my sewing stuff and he was actually interested. Guys are never interested. Oh, and he loved the dress!”
“He did?” I clapped my hands, delighted.
“Oh yeah. He kept telling me how impressed he was, how beautiful it was. I told him it was your idea.”
I waved my hand. “Don't be silly.”
“And he really loves you, Lil. It was so sweet. He told me he thinks you're the best person he knows.”
“He did?”
“Yes. He said he wishes he could tell you how much you mean to him. How you're always looking over him, looking out for him. He would die if he knew I was telling you this.”
“That's … I don't know what to say.” Just then I thought I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye. A sparkle. It was almost time.
“I thought you'd want to know that he feels that way.”
“Thank you,” I said, tearing up. “Yes. So … you'll be seeing him again?”
“Yeah, tomorrow. He's coming to the store and then I think he's taking me to dinner. He couldn't believe I'd never been to Peter Luger, so we might go there if he can get us in. I don't really care where we go. I'm just excited to see him again.”
“So you think he might … do you think you might fall in love with him?”
She laughed. “I feel like such a dork, Lil. But. I mean you never know. But … yeah.” She smiled. Another perfect moment. Soon, I thought.
Tears fell down my face. I could not stop them.
Her face shifted. “Lil,” she said. “I really need to talk to you about something else.” She ran her fingers along the coffee table, flicked off a thick layer of dust. “I ran into Leo downstairs.”
“Leo?” For a moment I wasn't sure who she was talking about.
“Your landlord? Leo?”
“Oh. What about him?”
“I just ran into him downstairs, so we said hi. He told me he's been trying to talk to you forever. He said you never called him. You didn't tell me this place is getting sold. Why didn't you tell me? You do have a place to go, right?”
“Oh, Veronica,” I said, wiping my cheeks. “It's okay. It doesn't matter now.”
“What do you mean it doesn't matter? You have to leave. He's been trying to tell you, he said. I'm worried about you, Lil. It's like you're not paying attention. You seem so … I don't know. I mean, this place …” She gestured to the room, to the piles of papers and books and unopened mail.
“Veronica. It's okay now. I've set things right.” My heart went to her. She cared so much, but she had no idea what was actually happening. Of course she was worried. If I was ever going to tell her, it had to be now. This moment. Put her mind at ease. Explain to her why she didn't have to worry, and why I was going away. I took a breath, and then I spoke. “I want you to know something. I have so little time now
. I want you to know what I am, why I was sent to you.”
Veronica stared at me with her huge eyes, bright blue in the morning light. She seemed different without her makeup, her face bare and young looking. “What?” she asked. “Tell me.”
“I've never … I've never told anyone this, any of this.” I pushed out the words as if they were rocks pressing against my tongue, my cheeks. “Something happened, a long time ago. An accident.”
I had to hurry. My wings felt like they were cutting into me, slicing through my skin and bone, straight to my heart. It was all coming to an end, and everything was in me at once: loss, joy, regret, relief, guilt, everything I could have done, should have done. What I had had once, and lost. All the years of being alone. The knowledge that in this world things died and didn't come back.
Veronica pushed herself off the couch, came and sat at my side, still clutching the package. “I know what this is about,” she said carefully.
“You do?” I was hopeful suddenly, that she had known all along.
“It's your sister, isn't it? I remind you of her. I understand.”
I stared at her, uncomprehending.
She set the package down next to her and put her hand on my arm, then reached up and kissed my cheek. A shudder went through me. My wings tensed.
“Leo gave me all this stuff to give to you,” she whispered, nodding to the package. I looked at it for the first time, confused. A regular yellow mailing envelope. “He said he found it going through his grandfather's things. I hope it's okay that I looked at it.”
“What are you talking about?”
She reached in to hug me, her arm snaking around my shoulder. I flinched and pulled away. Veronica held on to me.
“Lil, let me be your friend. You can talk to me about what happened, you know. I knew that something had happened to you and now I want you to know that you can talk to me about it, about anything.”
I could feel her hand pressing against my wings. Surely she had felt them by now—the soft piles of feathers, the thin bones. I waited, ignoring the pain that shot through me, slicing right into me. It was all almost over.
“You have to talk about things,” she said. “You know? Everyone has to talk about things.”
I was starting to feel claustrophobic. Her hand pressing against bone. Her breath against my skin. I flinched away from her. Why wouldn't she just listen to me? We had so little time!
“Listen, Veronica,” I said quickly, the words tumbling out. “I have to tell you this. What I am. Why none of this matters anymore. I am … I paused. To my horror, I sounded reedy, weak. My voice seemed like it came from another body. I wondered, for a split second, if I was breaking something. If by speaking it I would change things somehow. But she had to know this! We were out of time and she had to know who I was and who I'd been, why everything she was saying was a mistake. Why it would all be okay now. I started again. “I am,” I said, “the fairy godmother. I was a fairy, in the other world.” The words seemed to fall from my mouth all wrong, breaking on the wood floor like bits of china. “I came here to set things right, because of what I did.” It poured out of me, just like that.
She just stared at me with those wide blue eyes. A look of shock on her face I tried to ignore. In the sunlight, with her blond hair hanging down, her makeup-less face, she and Cinderella could have been twins.
I had to make her understand. “I was supposed to get Cinderella to the ball. I was her fairy godmother, the one who sent her to the ball. That's what I was supposed to do, but I failed.”
“No, Lil,” she said interrupting me. Talking slowly, gently. “I know what happened. Your sister. That's what this is about.”
“No! Listen to me!” She was supposed to be my friend. Why was she looking at me like that? I wanted to scream with frustration. “She never made it to the ball. See? I was supposed to get her there, that's all I was supposed to do, and I failed. I was banished. I fell to earth. They banished me, don't you see? From my own world!”
“It wasn't your fault, Lil,” she said. She picked up the package then, and opened it, let the contents fall out onto the coffee table. Old photos, yellowed newspaper articles, bits of paper.
“It was my fault. I was supposed to protect her. That's why I came here, why I can't fly anymore. Why I had to set things right.” It all seemed to tumble out of me. The words, my tears, nothing sounding right. I had no control, over anything. I was dizzy. The light in the room seeming to sparkle, moving in and out. They were coming. I was almost there. “Listen to me!”
“You couldn't have saved her, Lil. You were just a girl yourself. You were at a beautiful dance, you were young. You could not have known what would happen to her that night.”
“No!” I said. My wings were like snakes on my back, struggling to free themselves. “Are you hearing me? I was a fairy. And protecting her, looking over her, that was my purpose, what I was supposed to do. And I didn't do it because I was in love with the prince myself, because I was selfish and left her alone. That's why they banished me. I was a fairy, like the fairies in your book. I was Cinderella's fairy godmother, long ago.”
I could hear wings, the beating of wings.
She took my hand. More gentle than I'd ever seen her. “You are an amazing person, Lil. I know you loved her. But what that man did … you could not have known.” She picked up a few of the newspaper clippings from the table. “I think you'll want to go through this stuff. There are some beautiful photos, Lil. Some of you and her, of that night. I just … I want to help you.”
She didn't understand at all. She was supposed to be my friend, my one friend, and I could not make her understand me.
“It must have been terrible to lose her,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I can't imagine. What that man did to her, and then my god what she did to herself …”
“But I …”
She kept talking, her voice soft, relentless. “I know you are the one who found her by the water, bleeding. I read about all of it, Lil. It was in the papers, the next day, all of them, and Leo's grandfather kept the clippings. See? It must have been … unbelievable. I am so sorry for what happened to you.”
I glanced down at the table, the pictures of two young women, the newspaper article lying face up, the words “Society Girl Takes Own Life After Violent Attack” blinking up at me. My head was spinning, the room hot and closing in. “No, Veronica!” I said. “You're wrong! I'm telling you what I am. You felt my wings. You see these feathers. I am going to have to leave soon, and I want you to understand. You did everything you needed to. You and George, the ball. It's perfect. You helped me. There is nothing to worry about anymore. It's fixed, all of it. That was all so long ago and now it's been fixed!”
“I don't …”
“I will show you, then,” I said, as I stood up. Turned and lifted my shirt. I could hear the flapping of my wings, and a euphoria moved through me. She would understand perfectly now. My wings unfurled, feather by feather. I felt like I didn't have any boundaries, no skin, nothing. “Do you see?” I asked.
I could feel my wings tapping the walls, hear the crash of a picture frame falling to the ground.
To my shock, she just looked terrified. She was reaching down to the table, searching through the materials. “Wait, Lil,” she said, pulling a photograph out of the pile. “Look.” She strode forward, holding the picture up to my face. “Lil!” she said. “Look.”
The whole room filled with feathers. They drifted down, like snow. Why couldn't she see them? They were falling right on her, gathering on her shoulders, in her hair.
She thrust the photograph in my face. It was black and white. Two girls at a dance. Dancing together, smiling at the camera. People standing around them in suits and gowns, holding drinks. One in a dark dress and one in a long, pale silk gown. Both beautiful, radiant. The shoes, the slippers, as clear as glass. Behind them was the water. A clock rising up.
“Lil, none of it was your fault. I know everything. You
couldn't have saved her. It wasn't your fault. You were a girl. There was no way you could have known what would happen.”
Something crept up on me then. A feeling, a memory.
“Lil, it is okay to miss her. I know that everything you said to me was true, but you have to miss people. You have to remember them!”
I took the photograph from her and stared down into it. My face and hers. One framed by hair like moonlight, the other like autumn leaves. We had both been so beautiful. Young. The whole world spread before us.
I turned it over.
“1952, October 17.”
My head hurt. I pressed my palms to my head. My wings cut into my back, like someone was stabbing me.
“Let me help you,” Veronica said.
“Winter Garden Palace.”
I was supposed to have protected her, but I had left her there. By herself. I shouldn't have left her alone. She was so beautiful, young. Much younger than me. But I had left her outside, someplace we weren't supposed to be. We didn't have invitations. Only one of us could go in, on the arm of that man. She was supposed to wait for me. And she did. She stayed there. I had left her alone just to be with someone I would never see again, someone who had first been hers. Should have been hers. And look what they had done to her.
The room was filled with feathers. My wings flapped back and forth.
What occurs in the world of faerie will become manifest in the world of men.
“CINDERELLA,” I said, jumping down from the carriage and making my way over to her. I could still feel the press of his fingers on my skin. “It's time to go.”
I stood over her. She was asleep. So calm, peaceful. She never really got to rest, did she? I felt a wave of love for her as I bent down and put my face next to hers. My cheek touched her cheek. She did not move.
“Get up,” I said, more loudly now. Her face was cold under mine. “Get up, my child. We need to go.”
I stood. The moon shifted. It was only then that I saw that the grass was covered in blood. The moon was just bright enough to illuminate it. And her wrists. The glass.
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