The Steward

by Christopher Shields

  “But I don’t understand what this has to do with Chalen and the Unseelie.” I tried to push the images from my mind.

  “You see, Maggie, given the increasing numbers of people and our practice of taking physical form, it was a just matter of time before humans noticed our presence. At first we compelled, or glamoured, people who got too close to us. We made them forget, but that became unmanageable. What complicated things even more was that for many of us, observing and interacting with humans became one of the most enjoyable facets of taking a physical form.”

  I was astonished. “Why? If I could do what you do, I’m not entirely sure I’d bother.”

  “Art and music. In our natural form, we manipulate energy as a form of artistic expression, but it is wholly different than the art and music of people. For thousands of years we created and changed things in the physical world, that’s true. But in a few short years, humans began to manipulate the physical world to a degree that we noticed even from our natural form. It was impressive enough to us in Naeshura, but in physical form, it was astonishing.”

  “What do you mean by that, that you noticed from your realm?”

  Sara smiled at me and nodded her head as if she knew I’d ask that question. She said, “The changes humans make to their surroundings in the physical world show up in our world as unique and beautiful energy patterns, but that is all. You see, in our natural form we’re aware of energy patterns in the physical world, like those made by birds or people, but we cannot interact with them directly. To put it another way, if I take my natural form right now, I could tell where your energy is in the room, but I couldn’t see you, talk to you, smell you, or hear anything you say. The Fae must be in physical form to interact directly with the physical world.”

  * * *

  Sara and I talked for three hours before she left. I felt a connection to her, and to this place, that I hadn’t expected. The cave changed everything, I had to admit, just like Aunt May said it would.

  Before the moment the floor moved, Arkansas seemed like a prison sentence. Afterward, though, it became the most exciting place I had ever been—I was connected. I shook my head, thinking it might dislodge the feeling, but it didn’t. I was connected—connected to the soil and the stones. It was my birthright, I suppose. The overwhelming sense of emptiness I felt when we arrived here was replaced by curiosity. The Fae. Wow. But there was still a problem—my desire to move back home was as strong as ever. I knew how to fix that. Sell. The bigger problem was figuring out how to break it to Aunt May.

  I wandered to my window and half-heartedly looked at the cottage garden below. Sara floated through the gate and down the path toward her cottage. She looked back at me for a moment and smiled before disappearing into the trees.

  The digital alarm clock on the mahogany nightstand read four-thirty. Everyone would be back from Fayetteville before long. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realized that I looked like I’d been trapped in a cave … on my head. I knew I needed to take a bath before they got home and started asking questions about the grime on my face and in my hair.

  Justice yawned and stared at me without raising his head. He followed my every move. I knew he was just waiting for me to look directly at him, so I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I strolled to my dresser. He did his best to keep his head still so only the whites of his eyes moved. He didn’t trust Chalen, and for that reason I loved him.

  “Are you going to look after me while I take my bath, Justice?”

  He wagged his long tail just a bit, and lifted his head as if to say, “I think I better, clumsy human.”

  “Well, okay then, can you run the water?”

  His tail went crazy and he cocked his head slightly. I imagined him saying, “Sure, as soon as I grow thumbs.”

  As I moved toward the door he came off the bed in a graceful bound, snorting as he reached me and nuzzled my free hand. In the bathroom he settled on the heavy white rug in the middle of the floor.

  The sound of the water filling the copper tub was soothing, but it was nothing compared the feeling of immersing my body in the bubbles—every muscle immediately relaxed. The hot water stung my skin until it surrendered in blissful numbness. As the remnants of the cave washed away, I thought about what Sara had told me.

  It disturbed me that a disagreement over what should be done with humankind had caused all the problems between the Fae clans. The Seelie clan wanted to protect and work with people. The Unseelie wanted to destroy us—they saw humankind as a threat. The leader of the Unseelie Elders, Zarkus, had predicted that men would be a destructive force on the planet—that people were destined to spread and consume. Zarkus argued that humans were ultimately flawed because of our short life spans.

  The Unseelie warnings made sense, as much as I hated to admit it. The Unseelie believed that because people were only on the planet for a short period of time, we’d only be concerned with what we could do, what we could have, and what we could consume in the time we have here. In many ways, the Unseelie were correct.

  Sara told me that the clans battled on two occasions—five thousand years ago and again two thousand years ago. Although she didn’t provide much detail, even when I asked, she made it clear that many people and many Fae had died in both. During a large battle, when nearly everything living in both realms hung in the balance, she said the leaders of both clans reached an agreement. They made a pact to stop the war. As much as the Unseelie despised human beings, they feared their own destruction even more. Sara told me that the Seelie outnumbered the Unseelie, and the latter knew they could not prevail without risking everything.

  I understood that. The devotion the Seelie had shown to people actually comforted me, but I was disturbed by something else Sara said. She told me that over time some of the Seelie, including many who had been our greatest advocates, grew disillusioned with humankind. They questioned whether the Unseelie might have been correct after all. What bothered me the most was that, on some level, I agreed. Knowing how much the Fae loved and were connected to the world, I could only imagine how frustrated they became over the past two hundred years. As I turned that over in my head, I felt a little ashamed that I had lived my life like most people my age—ignoring anything ugly or inconvenient. That notwithstanding, I knew things like massive oil spills, the loss of forests and the extinction of animals couldn’t be winning people many points.

  When I pressed the issue with Sara, she told me not to worry about those things. She restated what Devin had said in the cave—that my role in all of this was to assist the Fae in protecting this place, and nothing more. But earlier she’d emphasized how important my role was to the Fae. So when I asked her whether there was something she wasn’t telling me, she paused for several seconds, silently staring a hole through me.

  “Maggie,” she finally said, “things between the clans are … quite strained. I won’t deny that. You are extremely important to us. Please, just focus on the task at hand—preparing for the Air trial.”

  Her words felt like a riddle, like she told me some secret without actually saying it. I couldn’t tell whether she didn’t want to say anything else or couldn’t say anything else. I learned that the Fae had watched me the entire time I’ve been in the Weald, and I felt certain they orchestrated the events that forced my family to move here—Aunt May had said as much. It didn’t make sense that they’d go to all that trouble, if I was correct, to have me simply play nanny to a forest. Yes, something else was going on—my curiosity was piqued. For the time being, though, I needed to think about something else. I forced the subject out of my mind.

  Out of the thousands of bubbles on the surface of the water, I watched a few randomly pop and disappear. It occurred to me that humans must be like all those bubbles to the Fae. We’re all over the place. There are so many of us that only a few on the surface ever get noticed, but before the Fae can learn much about any one of us, we disappear.

  Running my fingers through the iridesc
ent suds, my consciousness drifted back to another part of my conversation with Sara. I had asked whether she’d be my guide, like she had been for Aunt May. It surprised me when she said no. She was Aunt May’s guide, and would be here to help me through the trials, but soon I’d get my own. That’s when it occurred to me.

  “Sherman and Victoria—are they Fae too?”

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “And what about…”

  “Yes, Gavin is Fae as well.” She studied my face and, undoubtedly, the images racing through my mind.

  It made sense on so many levels. It explained why he was so incredibly perfect. What I saw wasn’t really him—it was simply the form he created for human consumption. I wasn’t angry, though. I had to admit, I’d be a goddess if I could pick my own form. The immortal Fae—it explained why he seemed so much more mature than other guys his age. Quite literally, he was. I remembered his answer last week at Candace’s house when I asked him how old he really was—since none of us believed anyone could look like him at sixteen. He looked at me with a devilish grin on his face. I could still hear his baritone voice in my head. He said, “I am one hundred forty-seven thousand three hundred seventeen years old.” I thought he was just being a smart-ass.

  Thinking about the two of us, I realized why he had been so aloof at times, how he could so deftly sidestep my infatuation with him. Every time I’d attempted to flirt with him, he acted as though he didn’t understand what I was doing. He pulled away just far enough to dash my hopes, but not so far as to actually distance himself. I thought Gavin mastered brush-offs to the level of art, but for all I knew he could have invented them.

  I slid down a little further under the water so that only my head, from the lips up, remained above the surface. Just thinking about how absurd it was to be so completely enamored with Gavin, I laughed through the bubbles, rousing Justice enough that he raised his head.

  I really should be grossed out by the age thing. Twenty had seemed old to me this morning, but somehow one hundred forty-seven thousand and some change didn’t seem to bother me as much.

  The instant I learned Gavin was Fae, I realized that not only was he out of my league, but I’d most likely never mean anything to him. “He’s immortal and beautiful. I’m Maggie O’Shea, an unwilling refugee from sunny Florida.”

  I let the image of his perfect smile wash over my doubting brain, and I slid under the bubbles.

  SIX

  TRUCE

  When I awoke this morning, forcing one eye open, I noticed the sky had cleared to a brilliant blue. “It’s sunny,” I muttered to myself. Lifting my groggy head off the pillow, I looked out through the diamond panes of my window. The sun was just coming over the hill to the East, and for the first time, I noticed that some of the glass panes were transparent pastel colors. They formed large multicolored diamonds on the opposite wall. I watched them slowly crawl down the uneven plaster. Though I wanted to, I couldn’t sleep any longer because there was too much clamor in the cottage. The aromas of breakfast filled my sinuses, roused my stomach.

  “Oh god, I’m hungry,” I groaned through a yawning stretch.

  Bacon was a familiar smell. I loved that. I still wasn’t accustomed to all the other unfamiliar smells of the cottage. The house in Boca always smelled like floral air freshener. Maybe a little annoying, but it was a familiar smell I missed. Aunt May’s cottage had dozens of different scents–the rich, earthy smell of wood and stone, the sweet acidity of old books, and musk of fine leather were chief among the many.

  Foreign odors or not, my new bedroom was twice as large as my old one in Florida—yes, after yesterday, it no longer felt like a holding cell. Thick, hand-hewn wood beams curved upward from carved brackets on the walls to support the wood plank cathedral ceiling that peaked twenty-some feet over my head. The king-size sleigh bed seemed enormous compared to my old bed. With thick white linens, crisp white curtains, and a pink and purple harlequin rug, my new room was pretty fantastic.

  Still not ready for the day to begin, I nevertheless gave up and climbed out of bed, shuffling my way to the bathroom—my own bathroom with an amazing tub. According to Aunt May, my great, great, great Aunt Lola had the enormous copper bathtub installed more than ninety years ago. Embossed with scenes of woodland creatures all around the sides, over the years it had turned dark brown, the color of an old penny. It was like everything else in the cottage—patinaed and whimsical. The best part of the cottage, however, was that I didn’t have to share a bathroom with Mitch. Lifted seats, or worse, wet seats, were a thing of the past.

  While brushing my teeth and combing the tangles out of my hair in the mirror, I recalled fear and panic in my eyes before the trek to the cave. Now they seemed brighter and happier. The deep worry lines in my forehead, fortunately, were gone. Still, I wasn’t planning to stay in Arkansas. I didn’t know what I was planning to do, but everything else felt a little easier to get through. Including what I had to do at breakfast—apologize to Mom and Dad for being so difficult lately.

  At seven o’clock in the morning, I donned my slippers and muddled my way to the door across the wide-plank wood floor. With yesterday’s events still lingering in the back of my mind, I firmly pressed the thick lever of the antique bronze handle, and the heavy, round-top door gave way under my weight, slowly and silently swinging open. Into the Weald.

  Mitch, in his Spiderman pajamas, laid sprawled, sound asleep across Dad’s lap. They sat in one of the huge, burgundy leather armchairs that faced the fireplace in the keeping room with Justice curled up on the stone floor at their feet. Dad read a newspaper and appeared more relaxed than I’d seen him in months. Next to him, a big brown mug of coffee steamed away in the morning air. The heat from the fire felt good on my face, but I still felt a little chilled when I glanced outside and saw leaves blow across the yard. Beyond the massive windows on the back of the keeping room, the lake reflected the blue color of the sky. I hesitated, but admitted to myself that it looked beautiful today.

  “Good Mornin’! Did ya sleep well last night? Not too cold up there, was it?” Aunt May asked when she noticed me wobble into the room.

  “Slept fine, thanks.”

  Aunt May seemed happier than I’d seen her since we arrived. We didn’t get a chance to talk privately last night. There was no need. A goofy look over her glasses, my quick nod, and she knew I’d passed the Earth trial. She’d worn her crooked smile ever since. I’ve got to apologize to her, too.

  The aroma of freshly baked homemade bread and hickory-smoked bacon filled the kitchen. I caught myself staring at the golden loaves on the white marble island, and clutched my grumbling stomach. The smells were driving me nuts. As I crossed the kitchen, I noticed how the sunlight changed the inside of the room—or maybe I only noticed it for the first time. The kitchen, with its soaring wood-beamed, chestnut-colored cathedral ceiling, was enormous. It was just part of one big space—the other part was the keeping room. On the east end, there were two tall, narrow diamond-paned windows, one above the other, deeply set in the wall above a large, copper apron sink. The windows faced the east, and the morning sun cast a beautiful array of pastel colors across the white marble countertops where Mom stood slicing the warm bread. She looked focused, like she was purposefully ignoring me. I know, I deserve that.

  After one mouthful of Aunt May’s tender, baked heaven, I temporarily forgot all about south Florida. Okay, it’s time to be the good daughter. Suck it up.

  I swallowed. “Good Morning, Mom … Dad.”

  “Mornin’ Sweetheart,” Dad said, peaking over his newspaper for a second. The faint crow’s feet around his green eyes told me there was a dimply smile behind the sports section.

  Mom, however, wasn’t as easy. Her left eyebrow arched more than her right as she replied, “Good Morning, Magdalena.”

  Ouch. I hated my full name, and I hated when Mom used it. She only did so when she was peeved. I’d heard it a lot lately.

  “Mom, Dad…”

 
“Yes…” they said in unison.

  “I’m very sorry about being so…”

  “Maudlin? Mawkish?” Mom finished my sentence, grinning.

  “…For being such a jerk. I know you did what you had to do—you moved here for Mitch and me—and I’ve been difficult.”

  Mom smiled broadly, set her coffee cup on the counter in a diamond of blue light, and embraced me. “Oh, piñata, I really hoped you’d come around.”

  Aunt May didn’t bother to turn from the big copper stove. “David, can I get ya ta help me with somethin’ in the library? Bring Mitchell if ya would.” Dad followed her, carrying Mitch, sensing, like Aunt May did that Mom and I needed a moment.

  “You really like it here don’t you?” I asked when they left.

  “Oh, yes. I’ve always loved Eureka. Your father brought me here when we were first engaged. Honestly, it was so charming I wanted to stay, but his work took us back to Miami.”

  “I thought you loved Florida?”

  “I do … it’s home. But this place also felt like home the moment we got here. You have no idea how much I hope and pray you and your brother like it here.” A lock of black hair slipped across her smooth skin, and tangled momentarily in her thick eyelashes.

  “I think he loves it already, and you know it’ll take him all of five minutes to become the most popular kid in school,” I said.

  Mom smiled. “Yes, he’s so much like your father—neither one of them ever met a stranger. But what about you, honey? I’m worried about you—you’ve been so quiet since we arrived.”

  “Oh, Mom, I know you’re worried, but I’m fine, really.” I said it with the most convincing voice I could conjure. I squeezed her hand and smiled as big as I could.

  “My love, I know when you’re fine and I know when you’re martyring yourself,” she said with a raised eyebrow.