by C. L. Stone
One of them? Was this some kind of weird initiation thing they had going on? Was it some horrendous joke, or a test, or some crazy thing she had to do to be part of their group?
“One of you? What are you talking about?”
“We are Fae, and you are a Seer,” Matt said quietly.
“You’re….” She stopped and stared at him. She studied his eyes, trying to find the light of humour in them, because they were obviously playing a trick on her. And a rotten one at that.
“Your fits aren’t epilepsy, they’re visions. You’ve been having visions,” Josh said. She looked down to where he was sitting back on his heels next to Jake. They were shoulder to shoulder again, hair hung into their eyes; eyes which were squinted in concern.
“Did he put something into your coffee?” she whispered, looking at Nate. “Do you feel strange? Slightly light headed?” It was the only explanation she could come up with, that they were currently high on something. But that didn’t explain what Jonas had done to her, where the images and sounds had come from, nor the blinding headache which Matt appeared to have taken away with a touch of his hand, leaving him with a bloody nose. Unless her own coffee was also spiked and this was some dreadful trip. Horror filled her as she looked over to where her mug sat on the coffee table.
“We’re not high, Lily May,” Nate said. “We’re not drugged, and neither are you. We’re Fae. Fairies if you must call us that, although I really don’t—”
“Fairies?” She cut him off. That was the last thing she expected him to say. “Fairies as in Tinkerbell, and wings, and pixie dust?” she asked in derision. Did they really think she was an idiot?
“No, not like Tinkerbell. Tinkerbell was a pixie, not a fairy, and she wasn’t real either! Just listen to us!” Nate bit out, irritation in his voice, and it sparked her own anger.
“Okay, show me your wings then!” It was clear they were messing with her and betrayal shot through her, closely teamed with anger.
“We don’t have wings,” Jake said, his hand on her knee still.
“Of course you don’t! Because that’s not possible, is it?” She shoved their hands from her knees and got up, pulling herself free from Matt and Nate.
“You’re thinking of story books,” Matt said quickly. “You need to forget everything you’ve read or heard over the years, Lily.”
“I need to forget…” She shook her head and looked down at them. “You think I’m stupid, don’t you? You’re having a laugh at my expense. Oh, look, it’s the new girl who has fits, let’s mess with her mind. Make her think we like her, and then play a joke on her.” She shoved past Josh and Jake to get to the door. “I’ve met people like you before, idiots that think it’s funny I have fits. Idiots that reckon it’s cool to try and make me fit just so they can get a kick out of watching me twitch about like a… like a….” Words failed her as anger crashed around her, leaving her devastated and hurting. She hurt so badly it felt like her heart was being ripped from her chest. Tears spilled from her eyes. “You made me care about you! You made me like you more than I should!” She saw them get to their feet, desperation on their faces, but she wasn’t going to be caught like that again.
“Lily, we’re telling you the truth! We know it’s hard to understand. Nate! Show her!” Matt nudged Nate’s shoulder urgently.
“Lily May, look!” Nate held up his hands, palms upwards, and she saw two blue flames dancing on them. For a second it threw her, made her gasp as she stumbled back slightly. But then she remembered the street entertainers she’d seen in London. They could do things that defied gravity. Sleight of hand made all sorts of things look possible. She shook her head angrily, her eyes locking with Nate’s.
“You should perform on the streets of London,” she said, wiping away the tears that were still dripping down her face. “You’d be ten a penny though.”
“I’m not performing, come and touch it, Lily May,” he commanded her. His head was tilted slightly to the left, his eyes were even bluer, a shine to them that almost had her stepping forward.
“No, I won’t let you hurt me anymore,” she cried out. She turned and ran from the room, her heart beating painfully in her chest. It felt like her whole world was collapsing around her. She couldn’t bear the pain of their betrayal. They’d been playing with her this whole time. Playing with her feelings and her emotions. They’d seen her vulnerability and used it against her. They’d made her want so much more from them, and it made her hate herself. She’d been so needy, so blind, so caught up by how they looked after her, how they made her feel when they touched her, that she’d missed their motives. She had been played for a fool.
She slammed the front door behind her and ran down the road, not caring where she went, blinded by pain and tears. She finally came to a stop when she was unable to run anymore, pain ripped through her sides as she bent, hands on her knees, her breathing heavy.
She had made a fool of herself. It was her fault she’d left herself wide open. She should never have let them get so close to her. Why would they do something like that, though? She’d had jokes played on her before, been bullied as the new girl, but never had it made her hurt as much as they had.
As practical jokes went, it was the most far-fetched. Fae, fairies, magic, what sort of idiot did they think she was?
“Lily? Lily!” She heard her name being called, and for a heart stopping second she thought it was them. But when she looked up it was the man from the optician's. He was on the other side of the busy road, getting out of his car. Concern was clear to see on his face.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” He shut his door, and then checking both ways he dodged the passing cars to run across to her. He wore a black suit with a white shirt and a red tie, making him look professional.
“Lily, I saw you running down the street as if the hounds of hell were on your heels. Are you in trouble? Is someone chasing you?” He didn’t touch her, but he did look her up and down, as if assessing her for damage.
“No, I’m fine… I’m…” She realised she didn’t know where she was, or how to get back to the village. Jonas lived in the town and with a sinking feeling she realised she’d left her backpack at his house, along with her phone and money. She was completely lost with nowhere to turn, except back to them.
“You’re not fine, Lily.” He stepped forward and brought a handkerchief from his pocket for her. “Let me take you home. I’m on my way back to Trenance anyway.”
Lily took it from him with a quiet thanks. She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to go back there and get her bag. She couldn’t face them so soon. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to face them again.
“Have you been swimming?” he asked, pushing his hands into his trouser pockets. His head was slightly tilted and it reminded her of Nate. Nate with his parlour tricks.
“Yes, I, um, earlier in the quarry.” She touched her still wet hair with a shaky hand. It seemed like years ago. They’d looked after her then. How could they look after her so well and then do something so cruel? Fresh tears started to roll down her face, and he grunted. She buried her face in his handkerchief.
“Lily, you have no coat on and no bag with you. Are you in trouble? Is someone trying to hurt you?”
“No. I…” Lily looked up to see him pulling out his phone.
“Do you need me to call the police, Lily?”
“No!” His words shocked her into trying to pull herself together. She was worrying him and that wasn’t fair. “No, I’m fine. Honestly, I just had an argument with someone, and now I’m lost.”
“Let me take you home,” he said gently. He held his hands towards her, palms up as if telling her he wouldn’t hurt her. She took a deep breath and looked back the way she’d come, but there was no sign of them, and it just made the pain even worse. She looked back at him and nodded once. His face broke into a gentle smile, and he turned sideways, indicating his car with his hand outstretched.
“I’m Drew, by the way.”
He took her elbow in a gentle touch, and then checked both ways before drawing her across the road quickly. He took her around to the passenger side and held the door open for her.
She sank into the comfortable seat, clicking her seat belt into place. He shut the door, and it sank in what she had done. She had just done what sensible people never did. Get into a stranger’s car.
He ran around the back of the car and slid into his seat. Her hand went to the clip, but he shut his door and pulled out into the road quickly.
“I know you’re Lily,” he said calmly. He hadn’t put his own belt on, but she said nothing, just stared straight ahead, her heartbeat going a million beats a minute.
“I heard your mum call you Lily last night,” he said conversationally as he manoeuvred the car into the outside lane for the roundabout coming up. She searched for road signs and saw that they were headed for Trenance; a measure of relief filled her. “I didn’t want to call out to you in case I scared you,” he said softly.
His words sank in, and she looked at him, his handkerchief still bunched in her fingers. “Was that you last night smoking?” she asked, feeling more secure.
He winced and nodded. “Yes, I’m renting the place and there’s a no smoking policy inside. It’s a terrible habit, one I should kick really. I hope you don’t smoke, Lily.”
She shook her head, her nerves receding the closer they got to the village. She was feeling wrung out, exhausted, she just wanted to go home. To lick her wounds in peace, to kick herself for believing in a friendship that never was.
“Good for you. Don’t start,” he said.
“Are you looking to move here then?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level. She didn’t want him asking questions about what had happened. He didn’t need to know how much of an idiot she’d been.
“No. I’m a history professor on a sabbatical. I’m researching the Cornish history of smuggling for a book. Trenance is the next village on my trip around the coastline. There are caves that smugglers used extensively along the shoreline.”
“Matt was telling—” She ground to a halt when it just dragged her mind back to Matt and the others.
“Matt?” he asked quietly. “Is that who you were arguing with? Your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” she replied softly, turning her head to stare out of the windows. The houses were getting further and further apart as they headed out of town.
“Then he’s a fool to not have snapped you up.” He spoke lightly, but it sent a ripple of tension down her spine.
“I don’t know him very well,” she murmured. “We only moved in recently.” Something she should be reminding herself of more frequently.
“Ah, so you’re not a native.” He chuckled, his eyes on the rear-view mirror. She turned to look behind her, but the winding country lanes made it difficult to see if anyone was behind them. But she had no reason to think they’d follow her. “Where are you from?” he asked, bringing her attention back to him.
“I was born in Glastonbury, but I’ve moved around a lot.”
“Ah, Glastonbury: home to the Isle of Avalon, Chalice Hill and the Chalice Well, Druids and New Age mysticism. Very famous,” he murmured happily, as if it was a place he knew well and loved.
“You forgot the festival.” As far as Lily knew that was what Glastonbury was most famous for.
“You’re talking to a historian,” he said with a snort. “I’m a ninety-year-old trapped in the body of a thirty something. I’m old before my time and history gets me more excited than a sweaty, heaving, pot fuelled weekend ever could. And, yes, I do realise how sad that sounds.” He chuckled. “Have you ever been to one of the festivals?”
“I have epilepsy.” She rubbed her eyes. She was completely drained, her emotions all over the place still and it made her tongue loose. “I don’t have photosensitive epilepsy, but Mum thinks it best I don’t go anywhere that might cause a seizure.”
“Really?” He looked at her sideways quickly, before concentrating on the road again. “That’s a shame,” he murmured. “Is that why you were arguing with your friend? Does he not understand?”
Lily kept quiet and just shrugged. The heating was on a low setting, and it was beginning to make her feel sleepy. She could smell sandalwood and something else; it reminded her of health food stores. She closed her eyes, feeling more peaceful.
“What’s troubling you, Lily?” His voice was low and soothing to her stressed mind.
“Just some people aren’t what they seem, I guess,” she murmured and stifled a yawn, her eyes watching the passing hedges without really seeing them.
“Yeah, that’s the truth.” He slowed right down as they came up behind a tractor. It was taking up most of the road, and there were no places to pass just yet.
“Have you ever seen anything that you didn’t think was possible? Been expected to accept something that seemed impossible?” The words spilled from her, and she winced, regretting it the moment she’d spoken.
“Well, yeah, sure, I guess,” he said slowly. They stopped as the tractor came to a halt, the driver jumped out to open a gate leading into a field. He hailed Drew, thanking him for his patience, and Drew lifted his hand in acknowledgement. “I travelled a lot as a child.” He kept his eyes on her as he waited. “I saw a lot of things that had no seeming plausibility to it, but they were real. I’ve seen monks walk on sand without leaving any footprints, I’ve seen people charm poisonous snakes. I’ve watched people pass through flames and remain unhurt. Watched people climb ropes suspended on nothing, defying gravity. I even tried that myself but the rope was just a rope when I touched it.”
“And they were really doing it?” she asked skeptically. She sat up straighter and turned slightly in her seat to face him.
“Yes, well, why wouldn’t they?” he asked her, his eyes holding hers. “Sometimes things seem impossible because we don’t understand it, but it doesn’t stop it from being true, or real.” The tractor honked in thanks, and he looked back at the road, pulling forward again. “Take black holes in space; they’re not understood completely, but they’re still there.”
“What about magic? Do you believe in magic?” she asked him. She expected him to laugh at her, to shake his head and say no. She didn’t expect him to shrug.
“I’m a historian. You’d be surprised how many things that seem to be myth and legend, are rooted in fact,” he said quietly. He slowed down again as they neared the outskirts of the village. “Some of the things I saw smacked of magic. I wouldn’t discount magic just because it doesn’t seem possible. Lots of things seem impossible until someone does them. The Wright brothers built and flew the first heavier than air aeroplane, but I doubted they would have believed the stealth bomber to be possible. And if you’d have told a Viking that one-day man would walk on the moon, he would have laughed in your face. But both of those things are now possible because we have a better understanding. Maybe magic is out there, but we just don’t understand it.”
She knew what he was saying; could even see the logic in it. But magic? Fairies? She closed her eyes, another headache brewing behind them. Were they telling her the truth? No, surely it was impossible, this was the real world, not a story book.
“Maybe we’re looking at things wrong,” he said quietly as he pulled the car to a stop outside the cottages. “If you said to Orville or Wilbur Wright that we’d put a supersonic jet into the air, they’d be thinking in terms of their own invention shape, their own limitations in engine design. Maybe we look at magic and think of spells, cauldrons, wands. Women dressed in black robes with green faces and cats balancing on the end of broomsticks. Maybe that’s nonsense, or maybe, like aeroplanes, magic evolves with time.”
“You think witches used to fly on broomsticks?” she asked him skeptically, and he laughed.
“That goes back a long way, and involves henbane and applications on areas of the body that it’s not appropriate for me to discuss with you outside of a classroom. But witche
s, with their abilities to do harm or good, have been around for hundreds of years. Maybe we just have a media warped way of looking at them.”
She blew her breath out on a huff and rubbed her hands over her eyes again. Jonas touched her, and she saw things in her head. She’d seen Nate with blue flames on his palms. Her headache left her as abruptly as it came after Matt touched her. She’d seen his nose bleeding, apparently from taking the pain from her. She’d seen the waterwheel when she’d fitted on Monday. Then they’d taken her to their favourite place, with a waterwheel exactly as she’d seen. It brought on a vivid, chilling hallucination. But what if it wasn’t a hallucination? What if they were telling her the truth, and she was seeing things? What if it hadn’t been a cruel joke? If they really were what they said they were? That Nate really was holding flames, that they were fairies?
Just the thought of it made her catch her breath. It was too much, too fantastical.
“Lily, I learnt a long time ago to have an open mind. I may not be able to understand why something is, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t. It’s pretty arrogant to insist something isn’t real just because we have no understanding of it, or it doesn’t fit our preconceived way of thinking.”
His words struck a chord deep inside her. Was she being arrogant? Or was she being realistic? She was so sure that they were playing a trick on her, but what if she was wrong? They’d only looked after her today. The twins gave her one of their wetsuits. They’d stopped those boys from throwing her around in the quarry. Matt helped her back to shore. They’d looked after her at college. There was no indication that they were playing a prank on her. If they’d been laughing at her, would they have gone to all that trouble? Plus, Jonas was a teacher; someone who could usually be trusted. Would he have willingly played a part in a trick that cruel? And on someone he didn’t even know? It was highly unlikely.
She remembered Nate’s suspicion. He’d been cautious of her at first, and maybe with good reason if what they’d said was right. If they really were Fae, they would have to be careful of anyone they met. Maybe that was why they hadn’t made closer friends with anyone else. It started to make sense in her head, and with it the realisation that maybe, just maybe, she’d been wrong.
