Weald Fae 03 - The Aetherfae

by Christopher Shields

  Gavin caressed the side of my face with the back of his broad hand, silently telling me, “We are close to our first destination. We’re in Vermont.”

  “Vermont?” I whispered. “Why Vermont?”

  “I don’t know anything, except that Tse-xo-be is determined to put as much distance between you and South Florida as possible. Until we know it’s safe, I believe he wants to keep a distance from the Weald. Tse-xo-be is making the decisions.”

  There was manufactured calmness in his voice. “What’s wrong? What are you keeping from me?” I asked.

  Gavin pressed his temple gently against the top of my head. “Maggie, it is remarkable we made it out of South Florida—remarkable in that we faced so few rogue Fae. The plan to kill your family seems, well, reckless. It was too poorly conceived in my opinion.”

  I thought about it—about the intricate plan to abduct my brother last year, about the diversion at the lake last year, and how the Second had sent Rogues to occupy the Seelie while they started an earthquake in Alaska. “Gavin,” I whispered, “there is something that none of you know yet.”

  He pulled his head off of mine and stared at my face. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Billy, Faye, and the Ohanzee were staring as well. In my mind, I played back my memories of the Second’s attack on the Council, the blasts of Aether, the dead guards from both clans. They were silent, each apparently contemplating what I’d shown them.

  * * *

  The bus slowed. I left my family sitting in the darkened room, my mom staring at me with swollen red eyes, and made my way to the front. The driver, a human, sat beyond the Clóca shield, with Tse-xo-be behind him. The low light of dusk seemed soft and rich against the maple trees of the unfamiliar forest. The headlights cast a weak beam on the blacktop road that ringed a grassy field. How picturesque. The wooded hills reached up and over rounded peaks, and beyond them a mountain range stretched out much taller than the Ozarks.

  The driver turned off the pavement and took us down a narrow gravel road, past an isolated and weathered red barn with a cupola in the center of its gable roof. The trees were quite tall, and the branches formed a tunnel over the narrow lane. “Where are we?” I whispered to Tse-xo-be.

  His baritone voice rumbled in my mind. “The Fae call it Shéibhte Glasa. Your people call it Vermont. Your family will be safe here for the time being.”

  I was hoping for a little more, but I could tell by the tone of his voice that was all the information I was going to get.

  The bus stopped. Wakinyan wrapped himself in Clóca, and disappeared through a gap in the door. “Proceed,” he said a minute later.

  Tse-xo-be gently compelled the driver. We moved a little further and then stopped near a slate blue two-story farmhouse. My gut tightened with a spasm. It was time to disembark. In a few minutes Billy and Tadewi would stop compelling my family. Then it would be time to confess.

  Sweat beaded up on my forehead and I felt clammy all over. A sick feeling swirled in my stomach. How do I tell them? How do I tell them Dad’s death is my fault? Oh god, how do I tell them any of it?

  I did tell them the moment Billy stopped compelling them. When I finished, they stared at me with unveiled eyes. I felt small and dirty. Wounded expressions, horror, fear, and then diverted looks met me as they absorbed it all. The elegant features of Mom’s face turned harsh and cold. She never spoke. The initial shock of learning about the Fae, of learning about me, turned to fury. Her brown eyes flashed and the muscles in her jaw tensed as she stood as erect as I’d ever seen her. She walked slowly to the stairs.

  “Mom, I’m…” I started.

  “Magalena Sophia O’Shea! Not now,” she snapped, lifting her hand out flat, fingers shaking.

  Using my given first name was bad enough, but whipping out the middle name…that had only happened twice in my lifetime. Grandma Sophie shook her head at me in a silent warning to let Mom go. I did. Outside on the porch, where my family wasn’t watching, I threw up in a shrub.

  * * *

  The deep orange Vermont sunset gave way to cool darkness. Chilled just slightly, I walked past the cream-colored trim surrounding the porch and tried to clear my head. Dad’s green eyes and dimpled smile flashed through my mind, stirring my pain. A vision of Mom’s eyes followed. Her beautiful brown irises swam in pools of puffy red, shadowed under her furrowed brow. She was furious with me—she had every right to be. The ache in my stomach turned to physical pain. Tears began to fill my eyes. I didn’t want to cry again, but preventing it seemed impossible.

  Two arms wrapped around my stomach, startling me. I hadn’t heard anyone walk up.

  “Mags, please talk to me,” Mitch said, sniffling his runny nose.

  His voice pulled me out of the stupor. It gave me something to focus on, and I desperately need that. I hugged him tight for a minute or more. He wanted to know everything. We walked to the woods beyond the small pasture just behind the red barn. I tried to say something, but I had nothing. Instead, I just followed him. Mitch climbed into the branches of an enormous sugar maple that rivaled the size of the oaks at the Weald. I followed him—it seemed the thing to do at the moment.

  In Mitch’s young face I saw my father’s eyes, his square jaw, and his handsome brow. The resemblance was bittersweet. Leaning back against the trunk, his legs straddling a large branch, Mitch again asked me to tell him everything. I settled against an adjacent branch and spilled my guts. By now he knew about the Fae, and he knew I was different. The cold night settled around us as I answered every question and offered up things he hadn’t thought to ask. I told him the truth about the Unseelie, the changeling, the Second Aetherfae, and what it meant to be a Maebown—all of it.

  I’m not sure how much time passed, a few hours at least, when he asked if I was afraid.

  “Yes,” I said in a whisper. It was the truth.

  “You’re leaving us, aren’t you?”

  “I have to.”

  He looked away as tears spilled over his lids. “Can I learn to do what you can do?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I want to help you…help you beat them…hurt them for hurting Dad.” His chest heaved and he clenched his hands into fists. His lower lip quivered.

  “I know you do, but I need you to look after Mom when I leave.” I expected him to huff and roll his eyes, but he didn’t. “She needs you more than anything else in the world. I don’t think I can do what I need to unless I know you’re safe with her.”

  “Mags, are they ever going to stop hunting us?”

  “Mitch,” I waited until he finally looked back at me. “I will see to it they do. I promise. Until then, you’re going to have to hide.”

  “Like witness protection?”

  “Yes, something like that,” I said.

  He smiled for a few seconds, and pressed his eyebrows together in thought. “Are our friends safe?”

  “I’m sure…” The words melted in my throat as I fully considered his question. They weren’t, and I knew it.

  “They’re probably worried that we’re dead from the hurricane,” he continued. His words sent a chill through my body.

  “Mags, what’s wrong?” he asked, studying the terror on my face.

  I took a deep breath and lied to him, “Nothing, I was just thinking about someone…”

  Grieving for my father, worrying about my grandparents, Mom, Mitch, I’d not thought of what would happen to Candace, Doug, and Ronnie when the Second discovered I was alive. Oh my god… she can’t get to my family, but she can get to them.

  “Mitch, do you mind if we go inside?”

  He studied my face as I started scrambling for the ground. “No, that’s okay, I’m getting cold,” he said.

  “You know, Mom doesn’t really blame you,” he said as we walked to the porch. “She’s just sad, and mad you lied.”

  “I know. I know.” I hoped he was right that she was only mad about the lie. She could easily blame me.

  The living room
was dark, except for one small lamp glowing in the corner. Grandpa wrestled with the logs in the fireplace, cursing in Spanish, trying to get them to light. He looked up, and underneath his bushy white mustache, he smiled.

  “Can ya help me with this? Kindling won’t burn,” he said.

  Mitch nudged me. I reached out with my mind and set the logs on fire.

  Grandpa jumped back, “Aye, yai, I meant bring me some paper or something.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Mitch whispered, “That’s so cool.” He hugged me and then headed upstairs. I doubt he’d sleep a wink. Except for what exhaustion forced on us, nobody in my family had been able to sleep since Dad died.

  I pushed the bedroom door closed and climbed on the lumpy bed. The Ohanzee kept their distance just like I asked, concealing themselves under a Clóca barrier. My eyes closed, my body relaxed, and I felt the floating sensation for a split second before I concentrated on Candace. In a dizzying flash, I found her curled up in the darkened back seat of Doug’s jeep. Doug concentrated on the road—an interstate somewhere. Ronnie slept with his head against the window. I sensed no Fae nearby—a huge relief.

  I didn’t know where they were heading until I noticed one of my journals on the seat next to Candace. The others were probably packed somewhere in the Jeep. Doug drove past a road sign that said Interstate 40. Just ahead was an exit for Jackson, Tennessee, and Hollywood Boulevard.

  With a lurch of my tether, I flashed back into my body. As quietly as I could, I grabbed a coat and headed for the front door. Wakinyan met me there, encircling me in Clóca. He escorted me to the center of the field. I wanted to talk to the Ohanzee, and apparently they wanted to talk to me, as well. My senses spread out, finding nothing but an empty field shrouded in darkness. Passing through Tse-xo-be’s Clóca barrier, however, I found them waiting. They were all in human form except for Amadahy. She was curled up in the grass in the form of a red fox, and ignored me. Seated on stone stools that formed a wide circle were Gavin, Billy, Tadewi, and next to her, Tse-xo-be. To his left, Wakinyan took a seat. Nodin, Pavati, Enapay, and Sinopa, continuing the circle, each turned their heads to acknowledge me. Taking the last stool between Faye and Drevek, I channeled the night air, pulling energy from it, so that I could hear the entire conversation.

  “Maggie,” Tse-xo-be said in a deep but quiet whisper, “I am sorry about your father. I know this must be a very painful time for you.”

  I nodded, trying not to think about it. I knew they had their own motives for the meeting, but I needed their help first. Doug, Candace, and Ronnie were driving to Florida to find me, at least I thought. They were headed toward danger regardless of their motive. “I need your help.”

  “What do you need?” Tse-xo-be asked, apparently willing to wait to discuss anything else.

  “My friends are driving to Florida, I think, and if the—”

  “Of course,” Tse-xo-be said, interrupting me. “Do you want to bring them here?”

  “Bring them here?” Amadahy protested, unaware I could hear her. “Are we to guard more humans? Protect them all? We have exposed ourselves already.”

  “I’m very afraid for them. They’re travelling without protection. Yes, I’d like to bring them here,” I said without acknowledging Amadahy.

  “Where are they?” Gavin asked.

  “On I-40, near some place called Jackson, Tennessee—I’m not sure where that is.”

  “I do,” Gavin said, “it’s between Memphis and Nashville.”

  “I see no point,” Amadahy said aloud. “We have already risked our clan to save you. If you are the Maebown, you should have been able to protect yourself.”

  “I am going to be a Maebown, and I can protect myself, but I need time to learn how to produce Aether. “

  “And how do you plan to do that? Return to the Weald? Ozara tried to erase your memories for a reason—perhaps she doesn’t trust you, ” Amadahy said.

  “I’m not going back to the Weald, at least not yet anyway. I…listen, I don’t know how I’m going to learn Aether…I haven’t been able to try. Ozara has had me watched constantly since I tried last summer. That’s beside the point.”

  The red fox turned its head and focused on me for the first time. “That is hardly beside the point, human. Fae much smarter than you have been trying to discover the secret of Aether for millennia. You are either incredibly arrogant, monumentally naïve, or hopelessly stupid to believe you can learn Aether without Ozara’s assistance. It is folly to encourage the child. It is suicide to aid her.”

  “I need to leave my family in…I need them safe so I can focus. I will figure Aether out—I’m destined to. Safety for my friends and family, that’s all I’m asking. This is my best option, and under the circumstances, I think it’s your best option, too.” I turned to Tse-xo-be. “Can you protect my family? Please?” I pleaded.

  “This is not a decision I will make alone,” Tse-xo-be said. “The decision is all of ours to make, but once it is made, each will be bound.”

  Tadewi spoke first. “Amadahy raises many valid points and legitimate concerns: we are in danger. Protecting Maggie’s family places not just the elders at risk, but all three hundred of our clan. It is pointless to deny the danger. We must ask ourselves whether protecting her family is prudent given that Maggie will be attempting to learn Aether on her own—a task that seems to me, unlikely…”

  My heart sank.

  “…However, I believe in balance—balance in all things—that is our way. We have a duty to seek balance, to encourage it when we can, to protect if we must. As unlikely as Maggie’s task may appear, she has come to us for a reason. Like the Maebown who came before her, I recognize the necessity of it. For my part in this decision, I believe it is prudent to help Maggie.”

  “For my part, I agree.” Wakinyan said.

  “Yes, for my part,” Sinopa agreed.

  Each elder, with Amadahy’s exception, agreed.

  “Then it is settled,” Tse-xo-be said. “I will remain and protect the family, Wakinyan, can you retrieve Maggie’s friends?”

  “What can I do?” I asked.

  “You are going, of course. You will direct Wakinyan. Gavin, Pavati, Nodin, remain close to her,” Tse-xo-be said.

  “We leave now,” Wakinyan said, a smile spreading across his broad face.

  “How are we going?” I asked, standing.

  He laughed and fixed his intense stare on me. “By Thunderbird, of course.”

  I knew by the look on his face he didn’t mean my pink one—wherever it was now. The size of a Cessna, he took the shape of the terrifying bird I’d seen battle Cassandra. “Climb on,” he commanded.

  “Really? Can’t you make a helicopter out of a Honda or something?”

  Wakinyan flexed his meat-hook talons, sinking them into the soft soil. “I’m faster. Climb on.”

  When I hesitated, Gavin lifted me onto Wakinyan’s back and fashioned a harness and saddle of sorts that wrapped around the giant black eagle’s neck. Sliding behind me, his arms around my waist, Gavin grabbed the harness and said, “Hold on.”

  “You might think about using your Air barrier—it gets windy up there,” Wakinyan quipped before launching us into the night sky.

  With my Air barrier in place, we soared above the house and into the starlit sky. Riding on the back of a giant bird left me unnerved, but having Gavin’s muscular arms cradling my body, well, it was surreal. For the first time in two days, I began to laugh. I laughed at the absurdity of taking a midnight flight with Adonis atop the mythological Thunderbird. If I survive this, who is going to believe me?

  “What time is it?” I asked Gavin.

  “The watch I gave you?”

  “On the dresser.”

  “That’s a great place for a watch. It’s 1:00 a.m.”

  I gently pushed my back into his chest, ignoring his attempt to humor me.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll find them before anyone else does,” he said.

  “I�
��m not worried about that. I’m worried about Mom. I’ve never seen her so…you know.”

  “I sensed confusion, fear, and concern, but…”

  Gavin didn’t say emptiness, pain, or loneliness. He was sparing me. I knew she felt those emotions, too. And anger.

  “She is a strong woman. She’ll recover.”

  “I know that…” I said.

  “And she will forgive you—I know that’s what you’re worried about. She’s lost so much in the last two days—more than you can imagine.”

  His words infuriated me and my first instinct was to thrust my elbow into his ribs. I’d just lost my father, for crying out loud. Almost immediately, however, my little voice chimed in. From his perspective, you idiot, there is nothing worse than losing a partner.

  So rather than throw an elbow, I leaned my head against his cheek. I wondered whether he was thinking about losing me.

  “Gavin, there is so much I need to tell you…so much you don’t know.”

  “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll listen. I will never leave your side again.”

  I thought about his words and I knew that wasn’t the case. He meant them, I know, but I would have to leave him soon. In my gut I knew I had to leave all of them. Intuition told me as much. I didn’t know why I knew it, but I’d learned to trust my gut. It had never been wrong. We could have that discussion later.

  Wakinyan dropped out of the clouds, while Pavati and Nodin kept pace just feet away in their natural forms. I spread my mind out to search for Fae. There were none. Below the clouds, the twinkling outline of cities and towns appeared across the darkened landscape. Pairs of red and white lights slowly streamed in different directions along a road. I closed my eyes and concentrated on Candace again. She was still asleep in the back of Doug’s Jeep, but Ronnie was driving now. He and Doug chatted about college. Searching the signs along the road, my mind raced past them. Several miles ahead, I saw a sign that said Interstate 24, and a distance to Chattanooga. I sensed something else, slipping in and out of passing cars.