Awake: A Fairytale

by Jessica Grey

  “I have never taught anyone to use magic before,” Lilia admitted. “But something I do know is that you have to challenge it. You cannot try to tap into the magic in a stone or a flower, and just stop there. It will run all over you, like it did yesterday with the crown. I saw the power that we created yesterday with the blessing spell. I do not think any easy spells, the kind you teach young toddlers, are going to prove anything. I think you are past that already.”

  “We can’t be past it. We don’t even know for sure we can do any magic!” Alex protested.

  “Don’t you?”

  Alex and Becca looked at each other in silence.

  “I’m pretty sure Alex has magic,” Becca said finally. “We saw what that diamond did today when she held it. It flared up like it’d been set on fire inside. And she somehow knew its name in your Fae language.” Alex glared at her and Becca shot back, “Well, how do you explain that except that you have magical powers of some kind? And everything that is happening with Luke and the dreams, it doesn’t make any sense to me unless the answer is you’re magic.”

  “I don’t know, maybe I’m more like an empty vessel or something that spells and stuff find a place in. Or something.”

  “Oh my god, seriously? An empty vessel? You are so screwed up in the head!” Becca said in exasperation.

  “How does me not thinking I’ve got magical fairy powers make me screwed up in the head, exactly?” Alex asked heatedly.

  “Empty vessel?” Becca stabbed a finger at Alex’s chest. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with your self-image, sister, but I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who is less of an empty vessel! You’ve got so much of your own crap in your head that the most powerful magic wouldn’t be able to find an empty space to even get in!”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Alex felt her face flushing hotly. She couldn’t remember ever having a fight with Becca. Honestly, she couldn’t remember having a fight with anyone in years. The closest she’d been to actually fighting would be her last conversation with Luke outside the museum. She didn’t so much fight as retreat.

  “You know exactly what I mean! You’ve defined yourself, and you’ve defined everyone else around you. They all fit in your neat little boxes, and you keep them in those boxes so you don’t have to involve yourself in actual life, and you can live it all up here!” Becca stopped stabbing at Alex’s chest and stabbed at her forehead instead. Alex slapped her hand away.

  “That’s crap!” Alex felt the anger flood through her body, hot and red and rushing through her veins. It was a strangely liberating sensation. “I wish I could say I’ve defined myself! I don’t know who I am! I just know who everyone else says I am.” The thought that she was admitting far more about herself than she normally would occurred to her, but she was too fired up to care. “Everyone else has defined me—I’m the good student to my teachers, the good daughter to my mom, the reliable, but apparently doormat intern to Nicholas, and to Luke I’m just the girl—” she broke off, crossing her arms over her chest and pursing her lips together as she realized what she was about to say.

  “The girl who what?” Becca pressed.

  Alex glared at her. “Stop it,” she snapped. “I see what you’re doing here.”

  The girl who what?” Becca asked again. “It’s important, I think. You and Luke are somehow tangled up in this together.”

  “The girl he’d tolerate being friends with as a kid but wouldn’t want anything to do with in high school.” Alex didn’t look at Becca, but instead out the passenger side window at the rain drops streaking their way down the glass. “The last girl on earth he’d ever want to be with.” She blew a stray piece of her bangs off her glasses in frustration. “And really, who could blame him. Look at him…and look at me.”

  “Do you—did you—want to be with him?” Becca asked, although by her tone of voice it sounded like she already thought she knew the answer.

  Alex laughed harshly. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I never really thought about it. When I was little I always thought we’d grow up and get married or something just because we were always together. Although it was never in terms of being in love with him romantically, just that we were kind of a unit. And then by the time we got into junior high school he was different. And then there was high school, and he made his opinion of me pretty clear without me ever having the opportunity to think of him in that way.”

  “What about now?”

  “What about now? Just because he’s asleep, actually because he’s asleep, it proves nothing has changed. He obviously still has a thing for hot blonds.” Alex jerked her head at the back seat where Lilia was sitting.

  “You are a hot blond,” said Lilia.

  “Thank you,” Alex sighed. “I appreciate that you see me that way, but I can assure Luke doesn’t.”

  Becca snorted. “Oh sweetie, I am not entirely sure about that. In fact, I’m pretty sure of the opposite, but you’ll just refuse to believe it no matter what I say.”

  “Becca, is there a point to this, or is it just about messing with my head?”

  “Your head needs messing with,” Becca retorted, then sighed. “The point is that we are about to go up into the wilderness and try to throw some really huge, stupid magic back in an evil fae’s face. And I don’t think we can do it if you are holding yourself back. I don’t know if I have these abilities; I think I might because of the crown and the blessing spell, but I am willing to throw myself in one hundred percent—do or die. But you! I’ve been seeing you accessing this insane power and yet you’re still refusing to open yourself up to it. I don’t know if it threatens you or your image of yourself—I think you’re scared to admit you might be powerful; that would totally mess up how you see yourself. But we,” Becca gestured to Lilia and herself, “we need you to be willing to embrace that power. You need to be willing to embrace it, and not just because it might help Luke, or even because it might help us, but for you. To really know who you are.”

  Alex sat silently, still staring out the window, and wondered how much of what Becca was saying was true. The last thing she wanted to do was indulge in any self-reflection; it was her least favorite pastime. She always came away feeling inadequate and uneasy about herself. Could she step away from that long enough to admit that she might have some sort of power? The thought scared her. She already felt like she had no idea who she was. If it was true that there was this elemental power in her, or coming through her, she was afraid that it would somehow cause her to disappear altogether.

  She looked in the side mirror of the car and saw Lilia’s face looking back at her. She hadn’t known that from her position in the back seat Lilia could see her face, and the conflicting emotions displayed on it, in the mirror.

  “It does not have to be like that,” Lilia said softly. “You do not have to lose yourself.” At Alex’s startled look, she grinned and added, “No, I cannot read your mind, but you show your thoughts on your face very clearly. If it is in you, it can help define you, but only if you let it. You learn to mold the magic, not the other way around.”

  Alex’s hand itched to slip back into her jeans pocket and touch the diamond she knew was waiting for her there. Lilia was right. The power she felt coursing through her when she had touched the diamond, or when she had told the crown’s magic to let go of Becca, or when they had helped to bless the burial stone, it hadn’t felt like it was erasing her but that it was working with her. She had been very clear, and very sure. More sure than she had been during any other part of her life, except maybe when she was working quietly and by herself with the gems and rocks at the museum. A sureness she wished she had all the time.

  “How is this?” Lilia suggested. “We get up into the hills, and we let you do a few baby spells, and if they go well, we try to silence the storm.”

  Alex sighed and turned around to look at Lilia. “It’s okay, you’re right.” She turned her head toward Becca. “You’re right too. I’ll be in one hundred per
cent. Do or die.”

  Becca smiled at her, but then glanced at Lilia with a slightly worried expression. “I’ll still take some baby spells,” she offered. “I’m not nearly as sure of my own power as I am of Alex’s.”

  Alex gave in to the urge to punch Becca in the shoulder. “Seriously? After all that?”

  “You needed a pep talk!” Becca said defensively rubbing her shoulder.

  “Is that what you are calling it? Bull crap. You’re the one who started in on the blessing spell anyway, so I don’t think we need to discuss whether you’ve got the ability to do this.” Alex turned back to Lilia. “We are doing this,” she said firmly.

  Lilia looked at Becca who nodded. “We’re doing it.”

  ~ Chapter Seventeen ~

  BECCA PULLED THE car up as close to the dead-end fence at the end of Luke’s street as she could. As they passed Luke’s house, Alex studiously avoided looking at it, but Becca breathed a small sigh of relief. “Well, there aren’t cop cars in the front or anything, so they’ve bought your text at least.”

  Alex refused to think about what they would need to do if they weren’t able to wake Luke up before he was supposed to be back from his college scouting trip. She was, in fact, trying not to think about him at all. Becca had been right. This…whatever this was that they were about to do needed to be about her. And Becca and Lilia. Not about her trying desperately to find some way to help him. Although, walking up into the hills where she and Luke used to play as kids might not have been the best choice of location if Alex was sincere about keeping him out of her mind.

  As the climbed the fence, memories assailed her, and the scar on her knee ached briefly. She remembered how concerned Luke had been when she’d busted it open. He’d gone all Boy Scout on her and wanted to field dress her knee. She’d been ten, and even at that age had been embarrassed with that much fuss being made over her, and would have probably preferred if he just hadn’t noticed her klutzy fall.

  The fence was slick from the rain, and huge rivulets of water were rushing out from under it and onto the street. Their backpacks, and Lilia’s potted lily plants, didn’t really make the climb any easier, but they eventually made it over, damp from rain and sweat, and up to their ankles in the mud. It looked at first glance like the street ended in a sheer hillside stacked with boulders and the occasional scrubby bush peeking out from between the rocks. Alex led them down a little path that snaked off to the side between the fence and the face of the hill and around to where it sloped up less steeply. They trudged over a series smaller hills. The ground was so wet that their sneakers kept sinking down into the earth. The whole top layer of soil was completely soaked, and pushing through the mud became a chore. It was sucking their feet in so far that the effort to pull them out again began to burn in their thighs and shorten their breath.

  “This is turning into a major workout,” Becca panted, wiping the rain and sweat from her face.

  “Not much farther,” Alex wheezed. “There’s a field up here. It flattens out.”

  A few minutes later the hilly terrain did indeed level out, and the field that Alex remembered playing in as a child stretched out in front of them. She reflected grimly that she must have been more athletic than she remembered when she was younger.

  “Here it is. We’ve got to be at least—what do you think—a mile or so from any houses? Think that’s far enough?” asked Alex.

  “That was only a mile? Good lord,” Becca puffed. “Are we really that out of shape?”

  Lilia didn’t appear to be anywhere near as out of breath as the other two girls, but she was looking down at her new jeans sadly. “I think they are ruined.”

  Alex glanced down at Lilia’s jeans, caked with mud about half way to her knees. Her pants were similarly splattered. “They’ll be fine; we’ve come a long way in laundry abilities since your time. So, what are we going to do?”

  Lilia surveyed the field and then the sky over their heads. Out away from the confines of the city the storm clouds seemed darker and more menacing. “I am not entirely sure. I am hoping it comes to us as we go.”

  Alex resisted the urge to say something biting and sarcastic as Lilia walked about ten feet farther into the field and set down the two potted lily plants. “I suppose we managed to figure it out with the blessing spell,” she said instead. Becca reached out and patted her approvingly on the back.

  “Yes, like that. I am going to start a spell, and then you can join in whenever you feel like you can.” Lilia walked back toward them, her eyes more troubled than they had been previously. “Or if you see that the spell is taking too much out of me, you can try to pull me out.”

  “Do you want the diamond?” Alex asked, although the thought of letting it out of her control made her feel a bit nervous.

  “No, I think you should have it. I feel more comfortable with the flowers; we will see if they still answer me.” Lilia turned to Becca. “You should use the gold; the metal is what called to you about the crown. And on the bed, it was the metal you were most sensitive to.”

  “Okay,” Becca nodded as Alex unzipped her backpack. The nuggets still felt cool and Alex could only feel a faint hum of magic, but she felt them warm, their energy sparking to life as she handed them to Becca. She looked up quickly into Becca’s eyes and she saw in them the same recognition she had felt when she picked up the diamond earlier. Alex suddenly felt a lot braver and more confident about the magic they were about to work.

  “Well then,” Lilia said, smiling slightly at them. “I just wanted to tell you first, thank you for everything that you have done for me.”

  Alex recognized the potential finality in her words and felt her new-found confidence drain away as quickly as it had come. In spite of what she had said about the storm waning, Alex knew Lilia was fully aware, probably more so than they were, of the strength of the magic they were up against.

  “And I want you to understand that I know you have magic in you. I do not know how you came by it, but I recognize it in you. I am glad that we are going to join our powers again.” Lilia turned to face away from them, not waiting for them to answer, and raised her lithe arms slightly higher than shoulder level and extended them out in front of her with her palms facing out flat toward the lily plants.

  Her body began to sway slightly, and Alex didn’t have to see her eyes to know they had taken on that peculiar unfocused look as she began uttering words in Fae. She was speaking—muttering really—under her breath so they couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying but it sounded like it was the same word over and over again.

  Alex reached into her pocket and slid her hand over the diamond. The answering fire as her fingers closed around its rough edges warmed her cold, wet hands. The white, bright clarity flooded her mind, and somehow Lilia’s speech translated itself inside her head, and she knew that Lilia was calling to—beseeching—her flowers to come to her.

  Lilia’s body continued to move in time with her words. Alex was beginning to be afraid that for some reason Lilia’s flowers wouldn’t respond to her call when there was a slight rumble under their feet. Alex and Becca sent each other a quick, concerned glance, before becoming distracted by the potted lilies. The green plastic pots shimmered for a second before shattering completely. The exposed roots of the plants flashed white through the dark potting soil briefly before stretching out, rushing across the dirt toward Lilia. A few feet in front of her the roots buried themselves in the ground, without stopping their mad dash. The two girls could see furrows under the dirt where the lily’s roots were hurtling though the earth toward them. The ground under them bubbled up as the roots rushed by under their feet, but by then their attention had been caught by something else—the dark green leaves of the lily plants boiling out over the shards of the pots, following in a large roiling wave the path the roots had taken.

  As the wave of green rushed toward them, Alex tried frantically to convince herself that Lilia had control of the plants, but they gave every indication of
being wild and completely untamed as they bore down on them. She closed her eyes tightly as they rushed by. She felt the leaves brush up against her jeans, their mad dash creating a breeze that lifted her hair up with a whoosh.

  When Alex opened her eyes a moment later, the whole field had been covered with dark green lily plants. Buds were appearing and then rapidly unfurling with large, white flowers. The scent of the lilies began to fill the air as the rain fell on their open petals.

  Becca’s face reflected complete shock at the raw power of the plants. Alex had some experience, at least in her dreams, with flowers responding in a similar way, although the delicate alyssum of her dreams hadn’t exuded the kind of frantic, furious power of the lilies. Maybe, she thought, after so many years of dormancy, they were excited to recognize their mistress once again.

  Lilia let out a small, welcoming laugh as a large group of flowers bloomed right up against her legs. The magic surged around her, pale green and streaked with white. If Alex had thought the princess was gorgeous before, it was nothing compared to how she appeared now, surrounded by her flowers, power radiating out of her. The jeans and sweater did nothing to disguise her raw, elemental beauty. There was no mistaking Lilia for a mere mortal.

  Lilia turned her attention away from the flowers clamoring around her legs and toward the sky. She lifted her chin toward the dark clouds, contemplated them for a moment, and then lifted her arms toward them as well.

  “You do not belong in this place,” she shouted at the sky. “Nor at this time. The earth rejects this storm. I reject this storm.”

  As if in answer, the flat gray clouds directly above the field began to gather themselves and turn darker. The rain fell harder, changing from a light sprinkle into a more determined downpour.

  Water began streaming down Lilia’s blond hair. Alex could tell that the top of her hoodie was completely soaked. She swiped at her glasses with the sleeve of the arm that wasn’t gripping the diamond. She and Becca looked up at the clouds in concern. The storm did not appear inclined to leave, tail between its legs, just because Lilia told it to.