by Kimbra Swain
As we stood there, Dryads stepped out of the trees. Pixies drifted down out of the branches like fireflies just before dark. A pair of Nymphs skipped into the circle hand in hand. Sprites ran around the trees laughing like children. A group of Slyphs descended from the sky with a cool breeze that blew around all of us. The high priest nodded to each one as they approached.
“Excellent. I’m so glad you all are here,” he said as they each morphed into humans that I’d seen around town. They formed a circle around us. Rayburn’s daughter carried a burning taper stick. She lit the candle that Levi held, and they passed the taper around the circle. Rayburn produced two candles from his robe, handing one to Dylan and one to me. As the flame passed around the circle, the sky above us darkened to night and the stars swirled by as if we were in a time warp. I felt the magic moving around us, and the power of it was enormous. Almost as potent as my own stone circle in the woods.
Once all the candles burned, Rayburn spoke, “Before we begin, I’m pleased to introduce all of you to our special guest today.”
I started to stop him, but Dylan clutched his hand pulling my dress into a bunch at my back. He grunted in disapproval, so I didn’t speak.
“Members of the Grove, please welcome, Grace, Queen of the Exiles, to our gathering,” he smiled. He turned to face me and bowed. Each fairy in the circle knelt before me, and I trembled at the group of people who now considered me to be their leader.
Dylan leaned in, kissing my cheek. “You’ll have to stand on your own now.” Then, he too knelt by my side.
“Bless me,” I muttered. I heard Levi snickering. “Hush your mouth, Levi Rearden or you will be the first one I strike down.” With that, almost all of them laughed. Every part of me wanted to tell them to stand up and never bow to me again. However, my father’s wisdom came to my mind as I stood before my subjects.
He once told me as I sat in his lap as he held court, “Gloriana, being royal isn’t about the wealth you possess, the crown on your head, the fine clothes you wear, or the castle you live in. It’s about the loyalty in your heart for your people, the knowledge in your head to aid them in times of trouble, and the depth of your soul to weather any storm.” Until I stood before my subjects, I didn’t fully understand.
As I looked at each one, I swore to myself that I would protect them from those who would hunt them down, guide them to live happily in this world, and treat each one of them as a special part of a whole. Without their allegiance, I was just a trashy woman in the trailer park.
Accepting my role, I ignited my true being, standing before them in the regal silver dress and crystal crown. Frost spread across the ground from my feet and a light snow started to fall.
Amanda Capps little boy giggled and stuck his tongue out trying to catch snowflakes. I smiled at his innocence to the world that would try to kill him. Not during my reign.
“Please, rise. I’m humbled by your reverence,” I said, as each one of them stood. “Things are going to change around here, and I swear to each of you that I will fight for each one of you even if it costs me my life. I’m honored to be your Queen.”
Dylan and I joined the circle as Rayburn began the ritual. From behind the circle, four other white robed figures joined him carrying large torches. “By the land beneath us, by the sea surrounding us, by the sky above us, we come unto the gods.”
The one to the north spoke, “I am the north. I am the earth. The mother of us all.” I recognized the voice of my very pregnant neighbor, Josie.
To her left, the next person spoke, “I am the east. I am the air. Bringing life to us all.” The voice was female as well. Underneath the hood, I saw the probing eyes of the gossip fly, Mable Sanders.
The figure to the south took his turn, “I am the south. I am the fire. Bringing light to the world.” The man was Ella Jenkins’ father, Walter Jenkins, the mayor of Shady Grove.
Finally, the figure standing in front of me spoke, “I am the west. I am the water. Quenching our souls.”
I gasped as I realized it was Nestor Gwinn, my grandfather. He turned his head slightly to me and winked. Just last night he laid in a hospital bed, but today he stood in “church.”
I watched the ceremony and each of the ritual elements. For the most part, it seemed a celebration of life. This earth, what it provides for us, and how we use it. I never thought I’d enjoy a church service or that a church would accept me, but this one did.
At the end, Matthew Rayburn recited a poem,
“Walk with wisdom from this hallowed place.
Walk not in sorrow, our roots shall ere embrace.
May strength be your brother, and honor be your friend,
And luck be your lover until we meet again.”
The crowd split up, and the townsfolk approached me to speak. Dylan stood behind me, greeting everyone kindly. Of course, he knew everyone there from his days as the sheriff. I felt that his approval of me went a long way to have the town approve of me. Either way, I would prove myself to them. Levi introduced me to Kadence, and I could tell he was already in love. Silly fool of a man. He asked to borrow the truck to take her to the diner for lunch. Dylan offered to drive me home which I didn’t want, but I knew how badly Levi needed the time away.
Slowly we worked our way into the parking lot where my grandfather waited. I hugged him telling him how happy I was to see him out of the hospital. He still had some bandages on his arm, but told me that the doctors expected him to recover fully from his injuries.
Nestor and Mable got in his pickup truck, heading toward town. I promised to visit him tomorrow at her house, and we would discuss plans to rebuild the bar.
Before getting in Dylan’s bright red Camaro, Amanda Capps approached me. Troy Maynard stood further away entertaining her son.
“Grace, you said it wasn’t over. I want to stay in Shady Grove. The A.B.I. has fired me, and the Sanhedrin aren’t very happy with me. I need to provide safety for my son. Troy has agreed to let us stay with him, but I know I need your permission to stay,” she said.
“I don’t dictate who stays, Amanda. However, if you keep your nose clean, then we won’t have any problems. I suggest you find something useful to do with yourself, making an effort to atone for your actions,” I replied. It felt awkward for her to ask me such a thing. I sounded downright royal. Lord have mercy.
“Thank you, Grace,” she smiled, returning to her son and Troy Maynard who nodded to me. I realized that he carried a brown sheriff hat.
Turning to Dylan, I asked, “They let him back into the department?”
“He’s the interim sheriff,” Dylan said.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I’ll have to find something useful to do with myself to atone for my actions,” he replied with a light in his eye. If he weren’t standing on the other side of the car, I would have slapped his smart mouth. His beautiful grin stretched across his face. “Now, I’m gonna come around there and open your door for you. Don’t you hit me in the church parking lot, Grace.”
I growled at him, but he laughed crossing the distance, opening the door for me. I slipped down into the soft leather seats of the sports car realizing that I’d never actually been in his car. We always went places in my truck or the cruiser.
“Where to my Queen?” he asked shoving his keys into the ignition.
“Home, I guess,” I said.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he replied.
“Aw, hell, Dylan! I’m still mad at you,” I said.
“I know you are. You can continue to be mad at me where we are going,” he laughed.
Dylan turned his car off the blacktop down a familiar dirt road. After 8 miles, the road stopped.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“Dylan,” I started to complain, but he got out of the car rushing to open my door for me. I took the hand he offered. His playful demeanor had changed. We walked hand in hand to my stone circle in the woo
ds. When we reached the center stone, he sat down and motioned for me to sit with him.
Sitting down, I waited for him to speak. Looking at the grass swaying in the breeze, his blue eyes turned dark. I became uneasy and started to push myself off the rock.
“No, I’m sorry. Please, Grace, stay,” he broke out of his lamenting. “I know you have a lot of questions. Ask all of them. I never want there to be anything between us ever again. You don’t need my help to lead these exiles, but I offer it humbly. However, I know we need to clear the air if you are willing.”
I reached across and grabbed the zipper on his leather jacket. He knew my question. “While you were here at the rock with Levi, I took the jacket. I tried leaving you clues to know that I was watching over you.”
“How did you get inside my truck?” I asked.
“You gave me keys to your truck and the trailer. Remember last year when you locked yourself out of your truck at the Food Mart. I came and jimmied the lock for you. The next day, you had keys made, giving them to me. You trusted me,” he said.
“Yes, to the trailer too! Did you take my Crown?” I asked.
“Yes, and I made a nice pot of coffee the morning you and Levi sat on the porch drinking it,” he smiled, but it quickly faded.
“What’s wrong?”
“It seemed like you and he were getting pretty close,” he said bowing his head.
“I suppose we are getting to know each other pretty well. And he’s fucking gorgeous, but I’m not sleeping with Levi,” I said. Normally, I would have told him it was none of his business, but he was here as an open book. I wanted to respect that by being honest with him.
He didn’t smile, but his disposition lightened. “Keep going,” he encouraged.
A rush of questions flowed through my head, and I tried sorting them into importance, but there was something I wanted to know more than anything.
“Did she know what you were?” I asked.
“Yes,” he muttered. “She’s an ellyll.”
“Elvish, so she’s high born,” I replied.
“Yes.”
“No wonder you wanted to marry her,” I said.
“I didn’t want to marry her,” he replied. “We lived together. I tried to think of her as the love of my life, but honestly, we just enjoyed each other’s company. It was never love.”
“Well, you asked her to marry, didn’t you?” I said, starting to get upset.
“Actually, no. I lied about that, too.”
“What?”
“I went home that afternoon. She was lounging beside the pool at my house, and she didn’t even speak to me when I walked out to sit beside her. After waiting a few moments for her to acknowledge me, I finally spoke to her. I told her to get her things and leave,” he paused. “She went into a tirade accusing me of cheating on her. She’d been cheating on me for years. I didn’t admit to it with you because I didn’t want you to know how pathetic I was to stay with her. She moved out. The night her mother died, she told me that she missed me. Without being harsh, I told her that my feelings for her had not changed and that she was no longer a part of my life. You told me I had two options. Ask her to marry me or break up with her.” He clasped my hand after he stopped speaking. I think he thought I was going to run, but I pondered his words and his lies.
“Why lie to me?” I asked. “I’ve never lied to you, Dylan.” My anger melted into sadness. For all the years I’d known Dylan, I never felt the need to hide anything from him. I always considered him to be highest standard of human being. The statue of virtue I’d built of him was crumbling with every word.
He fiddled with his shoelace and didn’t answer. His face and body emitted a sense of defeat. I sat listening to the katydids singing in the heat of the day. It wasn’t hot as autumn had finally settled in until winter arrived, which would hasten its arrival, if Dylan and I couldn’t find some middle ground.
“I didn’t think we’d get to these kinds of questions. I thought you’d want to know what I am. I wasn’t prepared for this,” he muttered.
“You are the phoenix. The only existing one on earth. As I understand it, only one can live on earth at a time. Should you ever cease to be, your child would take your place. Right?” I said.
“Partially. My father was the last phoenix. My mother was the last thunderbird. I am both,” he said.
“Thunderbird! Like the First People’s legend?” I said bewildered.
“Yes, the same. Because I am the last of both, I guard myself, and the secrets of my heritage,” he said. “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you, Grace. For the longest time, I had to hide what I was from everyone until one day I was talking to a Sanhedrin priest in Virginia. He told me about Shady Grove and the exiles here. After arriving, Caiaphas recruited me to be sheriff. The thunderbirds of the past were required to police the morality of the people. It was a natural fit.”
“So, the Sanhedrin made you lie. Like they made me live to their code,” I assumed.
“No. They never asked me to lie. I did, because it was what I had always done. It took me five years to realize that there were people here that I could trust. Jeremiah told me about you. I thought you knew that I wasn’t human because of your royal blood. I’d met royal fairies before and they all knew I was different. At first, I thought you just didn’t talk about it. After calling you in on several cases, I realized you were oblivious, not only to me, but to everyone else as well.”
Clinching my jaw, I jerked my hand away from him and stalked toward the outskirts of the circle. I looked back, and he hung his head. “Every time you called me about a fairy, all the lunches, all the talks in the cruiser, all of it, you were patronizing me! You already knew all the things I told you. You made a fool out of me, Dylan Riggs!” I screamed at him across the greenfield. Turning on my heels, I took a direct path to the closest oak tree. If I could touch it, I could shift through back home.
His voice was only a whisper, but I heard him clearly, “No, I just couldn’t think of any other reason to get you to spend time with me. I was just the sheriff. You are a queen.”
“I never acted like that with you. If anything, I kept myself guarded, because you were a taken man. I made the mistake of sleeping with Remy, but I had no idea he had a wife. I might be a whore, but I don’t want another woman’s man,” I protested with my back turned to him. For some reason within the circle, our voices carried to each other without having to shout.
He moved to the edge of the stone and stood up. Walking slowly to me, I listened to him fiddling with the zipper pull on his jacket. “You never treated me differently. You are not a whore, Grace. For five years, I waited to see that behavior from you, because that’s what Jeremiah said you were. But I never saw it until you walked into the Hot Tin the night we played pool.”
“There was a sheriff in town that would cut me down if I acted out of line. Besides, my heart was broken over Remy when I first moved here after finding out he lied to me. After we talked that afternoon, you went home to your cheating girlfriend to propose, so I decided to find something new,” I replied.
He continued his walk toward me, but his pace was slow, “Now Blake is back and available.”
“I don’t want Remington Blake,” I said.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Someone who won’t lie to me. I guess there is no such thing, except for Rufus. He’s more loyal than any man I’ve ever met,” I replied as he stepped in front of me.
“Levi,” he said.
“No, even sweet Levi lied to me. He knew that he was different. His uncle is the Sanhedrin that sent him to Jeremiah. He kept things from me as well,” I said. My spirit was broken. From the high of the morning of accepting a new role in this community to realizing what a fool I’d been since I moved here, everything inside of me reiterated the desire to just pick up and move on.
“I knew this would be painful, but I had no idea how much,” he muttered.
He was right. My insides churned an
d my head started to ache. “Did you think it wouldn’t bother me? The lies?”
“Until recently, no, I didn’t think you cared. You made it clear on multiple occasions that you didn’t have a heart. However, that’s not an excuse, because I knew better,” he said hanging his head again.
“What do we do now?” I asked. Part of me wanted to instantly forgive him. The other part of me didn’t understand fully his choices.
“I don’t know, but if we can’t at least come to some kind of understanding, I can’t stay in Shady Grove,” he mumbled.
“Because of me?” I asked.
“Yes, you are the only reason I’m still here,” he said. “If I can’t at least get a chance to make it right, I need to move on.”
“If you stay, what are you going to do? You aren’t the sheriff anymore,” I said.
“I’ve already started the paperwork for the private investigation firm, and I go to Montgomery in a few months to take the certification tests,” he said.
His usually bright blue eyes were pale and grave. When he walked, he always held his shoulders straight, but now they were slumped in regret. I knew he was sorry. He was the man I always thought him to be. He just got in his own way. It was very human of him.
“I think after a period of relentless torture and a certain amount of wallowing, it might be possible to at the very least allow you to cut my grass again,” I said swallowing in hope that he’d catch the humor.
“What kind of torture?” he asked. His voice still solemn.
“I will have to consult with my father on the proper way to torture my subjects,” I replied. “I promise, it won’t be good.”
“You forgive me?” he asked.
“No, not yet,” I said. He bowed his head again and fiddled with the zipper pull. “Would you quit that! It’s annoying.” I said swatting his hand away from the pull. I slid my hands inside his coat and pressed my cheek against his chest. For a moment, he didn’t move. His body was always so warm to me which, of course, makes perfect sense in hindsight. I hugged him tightly smelling the worn leather of the jacket and peppermint. After a moment, he returned the embrace.
