by C. Gockel
Lily’s knees gave out and she fell to the ground, her mouth opening and closing without any sound.
“This is far enough for me to shift,” the man’s voice said, sounding straight to her head.
“What are you?” she managed when he turned a steady gaze on her.
“I cannot imagine you find me to be a worse alternative to your other guests.”
She tore her eyes from him and toward the house. She thought she imagined yellow eyes blinking in the darkened doorway. If this man—this other creature—in front of her meant her harm, it couldn’t possibly be worse than what awaited her in there.
He sensed her resolution and the great horse head nodded. “Come. Climb up and let us be away.”
Lily climbed to her feet, leaning on the tree for help, and then gingerly placed her hands on the horse’s back, his arched neck. Her head barely came above his withers.
“I can’t ride,” she confessed.
Its forelegs bent, its back lowered. Its head remained tilted, staring at her with calm and intelligent eyes. “You cannot fall,” the voice said.
She clambered on awkwardly, mindful of her wounds and stealing glances back. Once astride, she barely had time to brace herself before he surged to his feet, heaving a great snort and launching into a fast canter that quickly became a gallop. She didn’t dare scream.
They cut through shrubbery and jumped clear through fallen branches, twisting around gnarled threes and evading rocky outcrops, and Lily didn’t fall.
Chapter Eight
Lily woke. She didn’t have any recollection of falling asleep or passing out, but when she opened her eyes, the cottage was no longer in sight and she was no longer riding.
A dream? She stirred and a jolt of pain traveled her body.
“I would ask you not to do that,” the level voice of the stranger said somewhere behind her. “I took great pains to close your wounds and I dislike working in vain.”
Lily moved her arm ever so slightly, just enough to glimpse her hand. In the dim light, it looked covered in a mud-like paste and wrapped in rough cloth. A doctor would fret at the possible infection, and it did feel numb, but after the attack and the overwhelming events, numb was too much of a blessing to complain.
“Where am I?” she asked instead.
“Someplace safe.” He walked around and crouched in front of her, close enough for her bleary eyes to make out his features and study him. His coal black hair was wet and slicked back. Occasional droplets of water fell down his brow, running down the side of his face and neck. He had delicate eyebrows, a well-defined jaw and sharp cheekbones that gave his angular face a striking, atemporal beauty. His thin lips were smirking.
“Who are you?” Lily pressed on, fighting a sudden urge to crawl back and put some distance between them.
“A friend. The question is, dear girl”—his eyes caught the scant light and glinted, the luminescent green of lichen—“who you are. What is your name?”
“Lily,” she said. He canted his head, eyes narrowed in thought, and after a moment she added, “Lily Boyd.”
That startled a laugh out of him. He rocked forth on the balls of his feet, his crouch bringing him too close, breaking all illusions of personal space. She caught sight of his tongue, darting out to wet his lips.
“Such delicious naivete,” he said. “It truly is, is it not? Lily Boyd.” Her name rolled off his mouth, languid and sensuous, and she felt a chilling tingle down her spine. He watched her reaction and nodded, satisfied, before sitting back to give her a little more room.
“What’s yours?” she asked, trying to shake the odd sensation.
“Why are you wearing that piece of jewelry?” he asked in turn, pointing to her neck with a long, delicate finger.
On reflex, her hand went up to grab the silver charms and the movement sent another flash of pain through her arm. She gritted her teeth through the worst of it.
“It’s a gift. From my grandma,” she said when she could form words again. “Why?”
“Who is your grandmother?”
“You saved me from her house. Why were you there, anyway?”
“Such inquisitive mind.” He offered another smirk and reached out to touch the pendant around her neck. “So you are the faerie doctor’s blood, then. Giving you her protection is much like her, yes.”
“You’re not… I’m not following you.” Lily sighed, letting her head roll back and closing her eyes. Her head had begun to pound. “And you haven’t told me your name yet.”
“And I won’t.” He laughed. “But you may call me Troy if you must.”
“Troy. Okay. That’s easy to remember,” she mumbled. She didn’t feel strong enough to fight him for his real name, and there were more important answers she would rather have anyway. “The faerie doctor’s blood is protection?” she asked, trying to make sense of what he had said.
“No. Some might even call it a curse.”
“But I’m protected. You said so.”
“You are.”
“Could you just answer the question?” Irritation made her open her eyes again, ready to glare. He was too close and her anger left her body when he smiled.
“There was no question,” he said after a heartbeat, amused. “But I shall imagine which one you meant to formulate. Your protection does not come from blood, but from this.”
Lily realized he was still touching her grandmother’s pendant, his fingers caressing the charms. If her hand weren’t crudely bandaged and covered in paste, she imagined she’d feel his skin.
“Like… a magic charm?”
He nodded. “Yes. It is forged by magic and freely given as a gift. Quite powerful.”
“My grandma could do magic?” She didn’t think to question the existence of magic. Some things she could explain away, but she had been attacked by man-eating gremlins and saved by a man who could become a horse. At that point, if she denied magic, craziness was the only other option.
“No,” Troy said. “She could prepare some potions and her workings have helped many in this region, but she had no ability to perform true magic.”
“Who can, then?”
“Among you, none. But…” His fingers left the necklace and pressed against her lips. “To forestall your next question, among us, I can. And I did.”
“Did she ask you to make it for me? For my protection?”
“No. I made it for hers, at no one’s behest. I did say freely given, did I not?”
“You… yeah, you did.” Lily blinked, wearily. “You speak weird, you know?”
He smiled again, a flash of white teeth in her blurry vision. It was not a comforting gesture. “Do I now?”
“Yeah. Strange words. Like, behest. Who says behest these days?” She made a tiny movement with her hand to interrupt him. “And don’t say ‘I do.’ You aren’t supposed to answer that kind of question literally. That’s the other odd thing.”
“Perhaps you should learn to appreciate the usefulness of literal understanding, then. Learn to ask the questions you truly want answered.”
Tired and hurt as she was, Lily found herself rolling her eyes. “You’re sidestepping the original question.”
“You have yet to ask it.” He gave her a long look and sat where he crouched, loosely wrapping an arm around a raised knee. “But perhaps it is unfair of me to ask so much of you after the trials of the day. Rest for now, Lily Boyd. Rest and heal. There will be time to ask your questions when you awaken.”
Her name in his quiet voice caused another shiver to run down her back. There was something obscene in the way he used it, too intimate, like a lover’s caress. Her eyes fell closed with its echo still ringing in her ears.
The next time Lily came to, she noticed the absence of pain. She looked down her arm and saw the mud dried and cracked. It still isn’t a dream. She reached over with her other hand and began to peel off the bandages and the paste. Underneath, her skin was pink and raised, as a week-old scar would be, but whole.
With an effort, she sat up. Her head swam a little, but she felt remarkably… well. With quick fingers, she began undoing the knots securing the rest of the bandages. When she finished, she let out a little giggle—she was healed. Still a bit battered, yes, but healed.
“I trust your mirth to mean you feel better.”
She startled at the sound of the man’s voice. Troy’s. Scanning the room, she found him sitting where he’d been when she’d gone to sleep and wondered if he hadn’t moved at all while she rested and healed.
“Hi,” she said.
He arched an eyebrow and his lips quirked at the corner. “Hi,” he replied, mimicking her tone.
“Was I out too long?”
A shrug. “A while. As long as you needed to be, I suspect.”
His voice carried the same politeness it had before, but still Lily felt chastised. As if he had judged her by her first question and found her wanting. She shifted under his stare and, to avoid it, she focused on their surroundings.
It was daytime. There was no direct sunlight, but the dimness from the previous time had disappeared. They seemed to be resting in a niche of sorts, an alcove between ancient rocks that wasn’t quite a cave, but offered privacy and refuge as if it were. The floor was soft, rich soil, nearly black, but it was clean of plants in a circle around them. Beyond that, the foliage was thick enough to prevent her from locating any useful landmark.
Assuming there are any landmarks I’m familiar with around here.
“So, where are we?” she asked once more, with a sense of déjà vu.
“Must we go through the same pointless questions?” Troy sighed. “It remains somewhere safe.”
“Right.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s try this for ‘pointless.’ What exactly happened yesterday?”
“Very good,” he crooned. “A considerable improvement, although the time marker could be misleading.”
“Please. I just… I need to know. You understood what I meant, didn’t you? Can’t you just answer?”
“I could.” He narrowed his eyes and studied her, as if deciding whether she was worthy of the effort. His gaze drifted down her neck, to the pendant lying between her breasts, and then he nodded to himself. “Just this once.”
“Thank you.” She was surprised to realize she meant it. He acknowledged her words with a nod.
“The simplest truth is that you were attacked by a bogey pack when you returned home. You were in danger, and if the situation had run its course, you would have perished. This fact called forth the magic from your necklace, apprising me of the situation and binding my actions to alter the outcome if it were within my possibilities. As it was, I could make a difference. I acted, and your death has been avoided.”
Lily sat there, mulling his words over. She had about a thousand questions, but she bit her tongue and forced herself to think them through. Troy seemed to put a lot of weight on what was asked, its content, its wording. She had already blundered twice.
They say three’s the charm, she thought. Then, “Why were there bogeys in the house?”
A mischievous smile. A shift in position, to make himself more comfortable. “Because the faerie doctor employed brownies,” he replied.
Okay. It wasn’t a good question, but at least this time it didn’t bother him.
“What is the relationship between bogeys and brownies?” Lily tried.
“They are one and the same.” He grinned. “Two sides of a coin as I believe the saying goes.”
“Grandma would never let those creatures in the house. She’s not into pets that eat people.” She was horrified and something in her expression must have shown, because Troy leaned forward, frowning in curiosity.
“Do you not know what a brownie is, Lily Boyd?”
There it was again. Her name, needlessly employed, invading her mind with his pervasive tones.
“A—” She swallowed and searched for words. “A monster that nearly ate me?”
He burst out laughing. “The faerie doctor’s blood, indeed. Tell me, Lily Boyd, are you truly that uneducated?”
“Yes,” she said, her mouth dry, her hands shaking.
He shifted again, ever closer, drawing his face to hers inch by inch. His lips were still parted in an amused grin that showed teeth and Lily found she could not break away from his stare.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice so quiet that she felt his breath rather than heard the words, “do you not know what I am, Lily Boyd?”
The answer gathered on the tip of her tongue, struggling to come out. Lily fought it, biting the inside of her cheek until she tasted the sweet coppery tang of blood.
“Stop saying my name like that.” The words felt alien on her tongue and the air to form them choked her throat.
“You cannot make me stop using your name. You gave it to me of your own free will. So tell me, Lily Boyd,” he said, adding a sing-song tone to her name, “what am I?”
“Something that’s scaring me,” she blurted, as unable to hold her reply any longer as she was of holding her breath forever. The relief, once the truth hung in the air between them, was immediate.
“Well done,” he said, reaching out. His fingers glided down her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “Was it so hard?”
“I didn’t want to say it,” Lily said, her voice breaking. “You made me.” She searched his face, but he said nothing. “How?” she asked after the silence dragged on too long.
“I only asked.” He stood up, his long body uncoiling without breaking eye contact with her. “Your reward for a truthful answer shall be another answer, an obvious one to a question you have tried to ask. The faerie doctor would have employed a brownie to keep her house. They are tidy by nature and enjoy working hard, maintaining order in the home they’ve chosen in exchange for but a little milk, sometimes sweetened with honey. Surely you see the attraction?”
“They tried to eat me.” She focused on the new conversation to recover from the unnerving moment.
“The bogeys did. A brownie is quite harmless.”
“Didn’t you just say that they are one and the same?”
“A bogey is a brownie who shows an inclination to violence. Essentially, the same.”
“You’re confusing me again.” Lily rubbed her temples. “So, you hire a brownie and then it can turn around and eat you?”
Troy chuckled. “Not quite. Each of them sticks to their own tendencies for their lifetime more oft than not. It does point out a worthy question, does it not?”
“Why did they change?”
“Yes. And if the good doctor was forewarned, why did she not make preparations?”
“What makes you think she saw it coming?”
“She passed my protection onto you.” He tilted his head like an animal that had just caught a sound. “Unless there was some other reason?”
The way he looked at her told Lily she had the answer, whether she knew it or not. To have something he wanted for a change was exhilarating.
“There might have been,” she said. “First, though, I want to know what happened with my grandmother.”
“I could just ask you again,” he replied, amused.
The stark reminder of what he could do drained the certainty out of her, but she forced herself to remain outwardly calm.
“You won’t,” she told him, trying to sound certain.
“You should not be attempting to play this game,” he said by way of answer.
“Or else?” She set her jaw against the sudden spike of fear. “Are you threatening me now?”
“Threaten?” He barked out a laugh, the sound rich like crystal bells tolling in the distance. “What need is there? No, Lily, I just remark on what a poor player you are.”
“You’re still here, asking and answering.”
He accepted her rebuke with a nod. “So I am. I admit I want to know what caused the attack. The doctor was well liked in these lands.”
“So? My answer?”
“Devoured, just as you would be were it not for me. And there lies your weakness—a question with an answer you had the means to deduce, results in a waste of your only chip.”
Lily covered her mouth with her hands and felt tears choking her. “How can you be so cold? Just saying it like that?” She swallowed. “No other option?”
“She might have been kidnapped. She might have been killed and left behind.” He made a dismissive gesture. “Each possibility abysmally less plausible than the one before. Now, I answered your question. I believe it is your turn.”
“Right before giving me the necklace, I ran into Grandma,” she told him, talking through a lump in her throat. “She had asked me to take a bottle of something against pixie pox to a neighbor’s and I found her on the way home. But, and this is the unexpected thing, Grandma told me she hadn’t seen me. That’s stupid, of course, because she talked to me. Why would she lie?”
Troy crouched again from his idling stance and tapped his chin. “She would not. She did not, in fact. You saw a gercu.”
“A what? Never mind. Don’t you think I would recognize my own grandmother?”
“A creature without form. It borrows the appearance of the soon to be deceased and entertains itself by encountering their folk and stirring trouble. Nothing tells them apart from the original, if not the fact that the original cannot recall the conversations past.”
“So she really is gone.” Lily’s voice sounded too dull to her own ears. He was telling her, and she had seen how vicious the bogeys had been, and part of her knew her grandma would have come to help her if she had been able to, but still it didn’t sink in.
Troy stared at her, his eyes flickering about her features as if expecting her to shatter at any moment. Then, his fingers touched her hand, a fleeting contact that left her chilled and shivering.
