by Lainy Lane
"Jackson?" Jarreth questioned.
"The human Echo fell for, keep up, Jarreth!" Calandra grew irritated with the interruptions in her story that she wouldn't need to be asking questions about if she hadn't been interrupted by the situation that he had caused in the first place. "Anyways, Echo threatened to give away Kailen's secret, something that would've caused Oberon to not trust him anymore."
"I'm certain she was bluffing." Drake shrugged the thought off, but his eyes began to search the room frantically.
"Not judging by the fear in Kailen's eyes." Calandra pushed further, convinced that Drake knew something more than he was letting on.
"I'm sorry," Jarreth broke in again, "If it's Echo's diary, how do you know so much about what Kailen looked like?"
"Kailen showed up in the field after I'd found the diary," Calandra sighed, "he taught me how to make the scenes play out for me."
"If he knew Echo had something on him, why would he do that?" Jarreth pressed.
Calandra shrugged, not interested in getting into the technicalities of that matter at the moment. "I don't know exactly, he just did." It was actually a question she had been asking herself and had yet to be able to find an answer to, but she would never admit that to Jarreth. Not right then at least. She wasn’t ready to give him even an ounce of satisfaction yet.
She turned back to Drake, but he was no longer standing there. She searched the open downstairs living area and failed to find him anywhere. She looked back to Jarreth with a panic in her eyes. He pointed upstairs as if he had already put the puzzle together. The diary. Calandra pieced together the information instantly, and she rushed upstairs.
"Too late," Drake laughed sinisterly.
Calandra looked at the bed and noticed the ash that remained of Echo's diary. The answers she had been searching for were now destroyed before she had even managed to discover much of anything from it.
"That's why you're working with him," Calandra voiced her new discovery, "he has something on you, doesn't he?"
"He has something on everyone, Calandra, you'd do well to remember that." Drake stared at her, refusing to give away anything else. His eyes were somewhere in between emerald and violet, a color she’d never seen in the Faerie’s eyes yet, and she wondered what emotion it represented.
"So you know what Echo threatened to tell Oberon?" She felt deep down inside that she already knew the answer to that question, but she needed to hear him say it before she could fully accept it as being the truth.
"I do," Drake shrugged, "and now you never will." His eyes turned back to lavender, and he grinned at her.
"Why?" She hadn’t meant to whine, but her body had betrayed her and added a whine to the question without her permission.
"I have to protect myself as well, Calandra, sorry dear." He shrugged, unapologetic.
Calandra finally accepted the truth that had been staring her straight in the face even though she’d done everything in her power to ignore it. The deception wasn't going to end, no matter how set she was to not be screwed over again. The entire situation was far more twisted than she would like to believe and everyone had betrayed everyone over the years. It was going to take more than she ever expected to sort through all the lies and trickery involved in the Fae world, and suddenly she was back to square one with her one piece of insight now destroyed and still not the slightest clue on who she could trust.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Trusting
"I'm not sure what our next step is, Jarreth." Calandra looked around the practically empty refreshment spot, feeling utterly hopeless. All hopes of a plan had dissipated from her mind after Drake had destroyed Echo’s diary. It was the one piece she had left of her family history, and now it was gone as well. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do now to figure out a way to get ahead of Kailen’s plan. The matter was growing more stressful every day, and she was ready for a solution. She chugged the rest of her strawberry drink and raised her glass in the air to signal for Glyda to bring her another.
"You'll figure it out." Jarreth actually sounded confident, though Calandra couldn’t understand how.
She was far from it at the moment. Somehow she seemed to end up cut off at each turn she made. Someone was always several steps ahead of her just when she began to think she had a lead.
"So what else was in the chest?" Jarreth’s voice was monotone.
Calandra pulled herself from her helpless thoughts and thought back to going through the chest. "Oh, this!" She pulled the necklace out of her shirt.
She had been keeping it tucked into her shirt and out of view ever since she had found it. Jarreth fiddled with the small maple leaf charm, he flipped it over and noticed the color change on the other side, and then dropped it back to her chest.
"Mean anything to you?" she asked when he didn’t say anything.
"No, but I figure if she left it, surely it means something. Was there anything else in the chest?" he asked.
"I don't think so." She shrugged as Glyda returned with her new drink.
She tried to think back to the last time she had looked in the chest. It was after Jarreth had left when she’d discovered his dream walking. She had been so emotionally out of it that she couldn’t seem to remember for sure if there had been anything else in the chest when she had closed it. The necklace had brought her some comfort in the darkness she'd felt after the argument with Jarreth that night.
"Calandra." Jarreth's voice reached out to her in her labyrinth of thoughts and pulled her back to reality again. "What is it?"
"Nothing." She forced a smile, not wanting to bring the past up.
They hadn't discussed all of the things that had happened during Jarreth's attempt to have his secret kept. A part of Calandra was fighting to bring it up, to have something said to make it stop hurting. Another part of her wanted to try and pretend that it had never happened at all. There was still a raw pain inside of her from the things Jarreth had said. Her heart told her mind to replay bits and pieces of that day over again every time she looked at him, and she wondered if it would ever stop. A part of her was still convinced there was something more to the story than she knew and she should be doing some serious digging to figure out what it was. She kept trying to push that desire back down with hopes it would eventually give up and quit pushing her, but she was beginning to wonder if it ever would.
"Well, how sweet is this? Are the lovebirds back together again?" His voice startled her, and she didn’t want to turn to see who she already knew was standing next to their booth.
"Kailen," Jarreth muttered, full of resentment.
"You better be taking good care of my estranged daughter dearest." He smirked, and his eyes seemed more evil than usual next to it. Kailen forced himself into Calandra’s side of the booth they were sitting in.
"So," Calandra decided to face the elephant in the room straight on, "should I be referring to Trinity with a different title than I usually use for her?"
"What do you usually call her?" His interest was naturally piqued.
"You know what I'm asking, Kailen, just answer the question." She took a long gulp of her drink, trying to bring her nerves back down at least one, preferably two or three, notches.
Kailen shrugged. "You don't refer to me as your father anymore, so I don't see why you'd refer to Trinity as anything other than her name."
Calandra stared at him in disbelief, one day she would quit being surprised by anything. At least she tried telling herself as much. She seemed to be gullible enough that maybe that day would never come.
"No, Calandra," Kailen seemed pleased enough by the expression on her face, "Trinity is nothing more than my girlfriend, I suppose you could say. For now at least, who knows what the future holds." His smile glowered to ensure his point hit home with Calandra.
"Lovely." The word sputtered out before she could stop it.
"And what about you two?" Kailen unwelcomely pushed Calandra over in the booth, making himself even more comfortabl
e in the spot next to her. "When can I expect to walk my little girl down the aisle and give her away to a—" Kailen paused and smiled at Jarreth, "Oh, I'm sorry, does she not know?"
Calandra stared at Jarreth, waiting for him to say something as her heart sank in anticipation.
"Thank you, Father!" She emphasized the sarcasm in the last word. "I do believe you've done quite enough. You may leave now."
"I'll send you a wedding invite," he said as he stood up once again. "Please remember to send me one of yours as well." Kailen turned and strode out of the bar clearly indicating how proud he was of his accomplishments.
Calandra lifted her arm in the air and snapped her fingers. Glyda came over to the table with a look that insinuated she was unhappy with the way Calandra had been calling her over this trip. "Strawberry Mixer," she ordered without even looking at Glyda. Glyda returned to the bar without a word.
Heat rose between Calandra and Jarreth in her absence. Calandra refused to take her eyes off of him, and he had apparently committed himself to the stare off as well. The tension that boiled between them seemed to fill the air in the entire room. The baby blue eyes with the turquoise accents that used to fill her with so much hope and take away her fears seemed to be determined to do nothing but cause her pain lately. Calandra waited for him to give in and explain what Kailen was hinting at, but it seemed clear he wasn't going to give anything up on his own. Glyda returned with her drink and sat it on the table in front of her. Calandra immediately began sipping on it and lets the burn comfort her as it always did.
"My desires platter!" Jarreth snapped at Glyda before she was able to walk away, he still didn’t break the heated stare off with Calandra.
"He was referring to the fact that I am a Bacchanalian, Calandra. You already know that I feed on emotions. However, the emotions I need to be strongest are those of a particular— nature." Jarreth's fingers fidgeted on the edge of the table, showing how nervous the discussion was making him. "Most of my kind take that emotion in a less than acceptable way when they are around humans."
Calandra stared at him in disbelief. "What way is that?"
Jarreth sighed and looked around carefully before he opened his mouth. "You really want me to spell it out?"
Calandra nodded, but her heart was unsure of the confidence her voice conveyed. She gulped down the entire drink at once, hoping it would have her better prepared for whatever Jarreth might say.
"Basically, the strongest of desires are carnal and fear, there's one way to get a strong mix of both in one shot, and unfortunately that way is forced upon the unwilling." Jarreth tried to give a comforting smile before he continued. "I can promise you that I personally have not done this—” his voice broke and his eyes searched the room to look at anything other than Calandra. “In a very long time,” he finally finished. “I'm about to show you what I do instead."
Calandra's eyes widened in fear of what may happen next. Glyda returned to the table with a tray she was holding up on her shoulder in a most seductive way. She lowered it to the table and placed three shots and an empty glass in front of Jarreth before she turned and walked away.
Jarreth tried to offer a smile once more, but the look on Calandra's face assured him she was uninterested in it at the moment, so he moved on to his demonstration instead. He picked up the furthest to the left shot glass, which was filled with a thick indigo liquid and poured it into the regular sized glass.
"Fear," he explained as he returned the now empty shot glass back to the table. He picked up the middle shot, which was filled with cardinal red liquid and poured it into the glass along with the blue liquid. "Lust," he explained once again. He placed it next to the other shot glass and picked up the remaining lilac shot, a color reminiscent of Drake’s eye color. "Desire," he said and dumped it into the glass.
The liquids in the glass stirred together and morphed into a bright pink liquid with deeply pigmented, thick swirls. This was the same liquid that she had watched Jarreth take shots of on many occasions. It was the same liquid that she had taken shots of before she had been aware that it was actually emotions.
"It's a blurred line, Cal," Jarreth said as he picked up the glass and held it out toward her, "I may not have always done a great job at it, but at least now, I do my best to stay on the right side of it. Cheers!" he offered and chugged the drink down quickly.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Letter
"I'm pretty sure it's going to be empty." Calandra pleaded her, already expressed, view to Jarreth for the umpteenth time as she sat on the bed staring at the chest.
She hadn't been able to get up the courage to open the chest again since the most recent travesty Drake had caused by ruining the diary. The possibilities of what she might have found out by reading the diary still haunted her at night, especially the nightmare of what on earth Drake was so desperately trying to keep hidden from everyone. Jarreth was pacing on the other side of the room trying his best to keep himself from opening the trunk while Calandra stalled the act herself.
"Could you please just do it already?" Jarreth failed at his attempt to keep the irritation out of his voice.
Calandra sighed and scooted herself closer to the chest. She leaned over the foot of the bed and pulled the hinges that kept the chest shut and pulled the lid up. She held her head behind the lid, still not daring to look inside of it.
"Well?" she asked Jarreth.
Jarreth laughed at her childish act and walked over to the chest. He leaned down next to it and slid his hand around the bottom of it. A piece of paper caught his finger and sliced into the side of it. He inhaled a deep breath in a mixture of surprise and pain.
"What!" Calandra asked anxiously, still refusing to look.
"Paper cut." Jarreth groaned like a five-year-old and stuck his finger in his mouth.
The gesture seemed more than inappropriate for a Faerie who was...actually Calandra had no idea how old he was come to think of it, but certainly, he was old enough to handle a paper cut in a mature manner.
"Paper, as in there's something in there?" Calandra practically slung herself around the bed and to the side of the chest and felt around frantically. A folded-up piece of paper caught her hand, and her heart leaped into her throat as the possibilities of what it could contain ran through her mind.
"I'm fine, thanks for asking," Jarreth scoffed as he watched her pull the paper out of the trunk.
"Don't be a baby!" Calandra chuckled as he continued his fit for attention. She lifted his hand up and barely touched it to her lips for a quick, tender kiss on his ‘boo-boo.' "Better? Or do you need a tye-dye Band-Aid as well?"
"I'll live; besides I only accept neon blue Band-Aids, thank you very much!" He stuck his tongue out to push the childish behavior up one more notch.
Calandra rolled her eyes at him. "While you go look for one, I have more important matters to attend to!"
Calandra looked at the paper in her hand. It was a single crisp piece of paper folded in half once. Calandra would have bet money that there was nothing in the chest other than the diary and the necklace, the surprise of finding something else had her mind running in circles. She sat down and leaned against the trunk as she stared at the paper, wondering what it contained and suddenly questioning whether or not she really wanted to know. Jarreth sat down next to her and put his arm around her.
"Did you want to be alone? I'm sure I can kill quite a bit of time searching for that Band-Aid if needed." He chuckled, trying to lighten the mood slightly.
Calandra gave a small smile. "It's fine."
She took a deep breath and unfolded the paper. Elegant handwriting filled the page.
Calandra,
I hope that one day you can understand why I made the choices I did.
It’s not fair to you, I know that, and for you to have such a huge destiny ahead of you isn’t what I wished for you to have.
You are a special person and I know that you will be able to handle what lies ahead.
I freely hand myself over to Akiye for my end of our bargain in hopes that you will keep your dad from himself and prevent his plan of ruling this world. It is up to you now.
Please be careful, Calandra, and believe in yourself first and foremost.
I feel like a rat in a cage, I’ve been running and I’ve been trying, but I don’t think I’ve gotten anywhere. This is the bed that I’ve made, and I’m stuck in it, but I hope that you can manage to fix the things I didn’t.
If you keep close, I’ll always be able to reach you.
I may only be a whisper in a daydream on a field, but if you listen close enough, you will be able to hear me.
You are what they need. What they have been waiting on. But don’t let that wear you down and tire you out.
Things around here will try to hide the truth. They will try to ensure it dies on your lips, fades away, and the world forgets about it. Don’t let it.
Always follow your heart, no matter what. Your head is filled with the fears of the world, but your heart is directly connected to your soul, and therefore it is incapable of leading you astray.
I love you.
Your mother, Hollyn
P.S. Find Drake and make him explain to you what your father is. Things aren’t always what they seem on the surface. Please never forget that.
Calandra read the letter over and over again trying to feel her mother as she did so. She attempted to picture her mother sitting down and writing out the contents of her heart and soul on a piece of paper. Hollyn had left a piece of herself on this page in this trunk knowing, or maybe rather hoping, that Calandra would find it one day. Hollyn had known what kind of horror she would have already been through to reach this point. It wasn’t fair to her, at least her mother could admit that much. Nothing in Calandra's life had seemed to be very fair to her for quite a while now. On the other hand, Calandra had accepted that she didn't really have much to compare it to for a sound basis of what fair looked like in the first place.
