by Devon Ashley
“Yeah?”
“Promise me I’ll get to dive again before I die.”
“You’re not going to die, Rosalie. Not here. That I can promise you.”
I shake my head in amusement. If only Jack could determine my fate.
“You do realize Finley has no intention of ever letting me go, right? Even if I was broken. He’d never risk me telling the other pixies that the world they’re kept in is all an illusion.”
Since my eyes are closed, I’m unsure of his reaction, and because silence is all that follows. After awhile, a melodic tune begins soothing the air around us. It’s the first time he’s ever played his harmonica down here, at least for me directly. It’s louder now that he’s close, our small accommodations amplifying his notes, and I love the way the sound vibrations tickle the hairs in my ears. I’m pretty sure I’m still smiling when his music finally sings me to sleep.
Today is a good day. Jack and I are both cheery, the awkwardness seemingly fading between us. We’ve been careful not to make physical contact, even accidentally. I’ve spent the past several days trying to walk the diameter of my rocky hole to strengthen what little muscle I have in my legs. I don’t really see a difference, but I can feel it. Now that I’m getting plenty of food and water courtesy of Jack, my body’s not attacking what’s left of my muscle for nourishment. With each day I’m able to add several more laps. The soles of my feet have healed and are thickening daily, so unless I step on a particularly sharp peak, it doesn’t hurt to walk over the rocks anymore.
Jack plays his harmonica a lot. I welcome the sound when it fills the silence, since neither of us feels obligated to converse constantly. He’s actually pretty good at it, and his song choices are endless. The music is pacifying, and something about it makes me feel completely at ease. Normally I wouldn’t mind, but it’s almost like the music bewitches me, luring me into a sound sleep.
Hmm…I wonder. Maybe he thinks as long I’m asleep, I won’t be able to develop deeper emotions for him. But unbeknownst to him, he plays the male lead in my dreams, as well as in my reality, so even sleeping won’t remove him from my thoughts.
I awake when Jack begins his descent, the sound of him clearing his throat snapping me out of my slumber. The strap of his satchel is taut and firmly stretches across his chest, the bag’s contents overflowing and bulging through the sturdy material. Today he’s wearing a black shirt and thin, loose pants with multiple pockets down the legs – I wonder why he didn’t stuff anything in those. His smile is warm and instigates mine. His hair is growing longer, the dark brown curls becoming heavy, stretching out into waves, making it easier to tuck behind his ears.
“Morning, Rosalie.” He touches down softly, sets the lantern on the floor and steadies the satchel as he lifts the strap off his body. I don’t know why, but it still surprises me that he seems happy to see me each day. It’s kind of nice seeing a friendly smile in this prison.
“Morning, Jack. What exactly are you packing in there anyway?”
“Well, first off…” He digs through the bag and pulls out a canteen for me. “Your breakfast. Strawberries and banana and cream.”
My eyes pop and my mouth waters before I can even reach for it. “Wow. Do I have your sister to thank for this again?”
“Nope. Me.” His eyes light up and he flashes me an excited smile. Digging through his bag, he removes two tin capsules. They’re similar to the one the honey was in, but smaller, just like the ones Poppy and I keep by our wash stands. “This you owe my sister for, because I swiped it from her room.”
He unscrews the capsules. There’s compacted powder in each container; one a yellowish hue, the other a dark plum. Makeup? Really?
“Jack, I know I look pretty bad, but I don’t think makeup will help at this point.”
After letting loose a soft chuckle, he responds, “Actually, Rosalie, you’re looking pretty good these days. Too good.” He cocks his eyebrows and I’m left wondering if that remark has a double meaning. Jittery butterflies pop to life in my abdomen. I sigh…he does look really cute today, constantly trying to tuck the stray lock of hair that refuses to stay behind his left ear.
I shake my head at the thought. No, no – it doesn’t matter that he’s cute, I tell myself. We’re completely different species. Well, maybe not that different... Besides our skin hues being off by a few shades, him being peach and me redder, the only other main difference is the three inches he’s got on me. Those things aside, we’re completely alike. Compatible. No, no! We’re not compatible. The fae laws prohibit interspecies dating, Rosalie! Jeesh! Get it through your thick head already!
He sits beside me and my heart races, ignoring my internal pleas to cease and desist. “Your face is filling out again and you’re getting some meat back on your bones.”
I look down at my ribs because I have no bucket of water to check my reflection in. Sure enough, I can tell the gap between my ribs has lessened a bit. Happiness blooms within and my lips curl upwards. “Yay,” I sing softly, patting my abdomen.
Jack smears his thumb over the purplish powder and raises his hand to my face. Surprisingly, I don’t flinch, completely trusting whatever he plans to do. Or maybe I just secretly want to feel his touch again. His hand caresses my cheek and a burst of tickles erupt inside me, but I hold my breath and keep my exterior reactions locked tight. He holds our gaze momentarily, then focuses on his thumb as it dabs the powder beneath my eyes.
I pull back, and he quickly releases his grasp. “I don’t think that goes there.”
“It does when you’re trying to make a certain pixie look sicker than she really is. Your eye cavities aren’t that hollow any more. I’m trying to darken them so they’ll be less noticeable when Finley shows up.”
“Oh.” I lean forward and Jack resumes coloring my face. His touch doesn’t get the same reaction this time – I’m too focused on what he said. When Finley shows up. I’m unsure of the days, but Jack’s right. Finley will probably make another appearance soon. What if he can tell I’m gaining weight and that Jack’s being nice to me? It’ll be horrible if something happens to Jack because of me. And what if Finley breaks my wings again? Or worse, dismisses Jack permanently? What if I never see him again after today?
I shudder. My eyes close and my head dips a little.
Jack’s finger lifts my chin. “Hey,” he says softly. I open my eyes, but sorrow has taken control of my emotions. “Try not to think about it.”
Evading my worries over losing Jack, I express my concerns for the second most horrifying thought bouncing around inside my head. “But my wings are already so mangled. If he breaks them again, they’ll never heal.”
“You don’t know that. And we don’t even know if Finley will come back here any time soon. Maybe we can come up with something that’ll get him to put you back in the pit.”
I recoil and my forehead furrows, my eyebrows pinching with anger. “You want to put me back in the pit?”
“Rosalie! No!” he bursts. Taking a second to calm himself, he says, “Trust me when I say that not a day goes by when I’m not trying to think of a way to get you out of here.”
“You are?”
He blows a long breath through his nose and glares, like I should have known that from the start. His face slowly softens and he caresses my face once more to resume dabbing the powder beneath my eyes. “Of course I am. Do you really think I’m just pixie-sitting you until Finley comes along and tells me to beat it? No. Every night I go home and look through my father’s law books to see if I can’t find something that’ll get you released. You’re here unlawfully and it’s not right. So, no. I don’t want you to go back to the pit. But I also don’t want you stuck in this hole to be Finley’s punching bag either.”
Jack wipes his thumb on a hand towel, dabs his other thumb in the plum powder, then begins working beneath my other eye.
“Does your father know what you’re doing?”
A puff of air rushing past his lips, he answers, “
No. He wouldn’t understand.”
“Doesn’t he want you to follow in his footsteps though? Wouldn’t studying his books every night please him?”
“If the circumstances were any different, probably.”
“And I’m the awkward circumstance,” I state meekly.
He doesn’t answer until he’s satisfied with the amount of darkness under my eye. He sighs as he wipes his thumb clean. “Forgive me. But I never told you something.”
“What?” I ask fearfully. My mind races with endless possibilities. Was he really spying for Finley? Have I been scheduled to die? Is he faerie elite and never told me? Whatever it is, I don’t like the way he can’t look me in the eye.
“I told my father about you and the other pixies, and how you’re all here without formal charges.”
“Oh,” I say with complete surprise.
His mossy green eyes look up to mine, but they don’t shine the way they normally do. “He already knew, Rosalie.”
“What? Why would he know that? How could anyone know that and be okay with it?”
“Because a lot of the upper officials think our species is better than the rest of the fae. In their eyes, they don’t really see anything wrong with pixies making our dust. Even involuntarily.”
“WHAT?” I scream, my arms flailing up and down. “How could they think that? They wouldn’t think that if we made a couple of faeries our slaves for the heck of it!”
“No, you’re right. They wouldn’t. Which makes me worry that even if I can find something in the law books that proves what they’re doing is wrong, it may not be enough to get them to stop. But I’ll keep looking. I promise. We’ll find a way to get you out of here one way or another.”
I nod weakly, and return to my somber thoughts. Jack picks up the tin container with the yellowish powder and begins smearing it above my eyebrows. “What’s that for?”
“I figure it’s worth trying. I’m hoping this color on your reddish skin tone will make you appear sickly. And if you can keep up that look you’re giving right now, you’re golden.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I hadn’t told you yet because I knew it would do this to you. Maybe it was selfish of me not to tell you, but I’ve become accustomed to your smiles and I don’t like seeing you this way.”
I force a tiny smile but release it pretty quickly. He smears the powder down the outside edges of my eyes, along my cheekbones and a little across my chin.
“Am I ugly yet?” I ask.
Huffing, he replies, “Hardly. Not even makeup’s going to achieve that.”
I try to smile over his praise, but my emotions have temporarily deadened inside.
Something doesn’t feel right. Though I’m stuck living in a dark hole with zero exposure to nature or the outside world, I feel as though I’ve developed an internal clock in terms of my time with Jack. When I’m awake, I can usually pinpoint his arrival time pretty closely, and even when I’m asleep, I still tend to wake in time to catch his arrival. My internal clock woke me up several hours ago, but Jack has yet to bathe these walls with a much needed glow. I have no reason to believe my mind is mistaken, but nonetheless, it feels odd that he’s not here. Has my greatest fear come true, and Jack’s been permanently kicked off pixie-sitting me? Maybe Finley figured out he was never going to break me, and told him to beat it – leaving the breaking and beating to him from now on.
I shiver in the darkness, the thought of Finley weighing heavy on my mind, amplifying my fears with each passing minute that Jack doesn’t show. Though another round of sixty-eight breaks to my traumatized wings completely terrifies me, it doesn’t compare to the horror of losing Jack. Even if the only relationship we can ever have is right here in this hole, with me as his captive, I’d rather have this than nothing at all. I know it’s silly to have a crush on a faerie, I do. But at this point, his friendship means everything to me. Even if that’s all it could ever be. I can’t lose that. Not now.
Tears descend out of nowhere, flooding my face with multiple slippery streams. I let them flow freely wherever they lead, my head resting sideways on bent knees. My heart aches – like really aches. It’s a heaviness I’ve never felt before, suffocating almost. My mind drowns me with dreadful thoughts of a love lost that I never had the chance to experience. How cruel a heart can be when it doesn’t get what it wants. Why add physical suffering when the emotional pain is already so severe? Where’s the logic in that?
My tears run dry, and horrible thoughts continuously break my heart long before a glow creeps down from above. My heart jumps to my throat with a deep gasp, not sure whether to leap with joy over Jack’s arrival, or in absolute fear of Finley’s approach. The wavy brown hair is unmistakable, and a smile strains to fight off the previous hours of dread. I thought I’d be ecstatic to see Jack, but the unnecessary trauma I put myself through today has completely drained the life right out of me.
I feel it. I want to scream unto the heavens, oh, thank you, Mother Nature, but I just don’t have it in me.
He touches down slowly, his body jerking a bit. Maybe it’s the light reflecting badly off his skin, but he looks like I feel. “Hey,” I say, the single syllable absolutely lifeless.
“Hey.” He roughly stumbles to the ground, his body seemingly heavy.
“You okay? ‘Cause you kind of remind me of me a few weeks ago,” I scoff.
His smile is so weak it only goes half way. His face droops and he arches his neck so the crown of his head rests against the wall. “Kind of feel that way too. Sorry I’m late. I feel like absolute crap today. I just couldn’t get going until now.”
He looks like he went a few rounds with a spriggan, his head so pale and swollen it actually looks a little misshapen. As much as I yearn for him to stay, what I want and what he needs are two completely different things. It pains me to see him this way. “Maybe you should go back to bed. Lying on the rocks and breathing in this stuffy air will only make you feel worse.”
“I’m going to stay up top because I don’t want to get you sick.”
“Or, even better,” I urge, “going back to bed. I can take care of myself, Jack. Go get some rest.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t make me kick your butt!” I threaten, giving in to the annoyance rising inside me. “Go home!”
He chuckles weakly, and it looks like it hurts. He groans and pathetically pushes himself back on his feet. Unzipping his satchel, he tosses a mixed bag of pine nuts and fresh mini strawberries onto my lap. “I’ll get you some water in a bit, once I’m able to rest a little.”
Angry, I yell, “Mother Nature, you stubborn–”
Interrupting, he snaps with all his might, “I won’t leave you alone, Rosalie! Not when Finley could show up any minute! I won’t leave you here to face him alone! Now I’m going up top so this doesn’t happen to you. Being sick is the last thing you need right now.”
I’m speechless as he rises, completely numb to the bone. He wavers as he ascends, probably dizzy from yelling.
No, Jack. The last thing I need is to spend more time without you.
“Are you completely incapable of staying down in that hole?” a voice bellows above, waking me from a light sleep. Finley!
I gasp, fear ripping the edge of every nerve in my body. I quickly drench my hair with water, doing my best not to saturate the rest of my body, then aimlessly dump the rest of the bucket on the floor. I blow out the lantern Jack left behind, immersing myself in complete darkness.
“It’s too hot to stay down there all day long.” I suppose the adrenaline is helping Jack snap back, because we both know he’s been topside for three days now. Though feeling a little better, he’s bound and determined to stay away so long as he’s still feeling sick. “Now if you’d like me to take her some place where I can actually breathe a little, then fine, I’ll work on her more hours in the day.”
“You insolent little pest. I never should have allowed your father to use this prison
to shape you up. You’re a hopeless cause.”
“My father?” Jack growls. “I thought it was your idea to punish me here.”
“Like I’d really bother myself with the punishment of a spoiled brat and his stupid pranks. I don’t care if you screw up your life. All I care about is whether you’ve broken sixty-eight yet, or if I’ll have to do the job myself.”
“She’s close,” Jack spits. “She can’t endure much more.” He’s keeping his cool better than I am, because we both know it’s a complete lie. I have to do something. Unless the makeup on my skin is absolutely flawless after several days of me mindlessly smudging it, there’s no way Finley will be fooled into thinking I’ve had it rough down here. Jack will get into trouble. Finley will force Jack to leave. Then I’ll be completely on my own. He might even send another faerie to guard me – one that won’t be as kind and generous.
I can’t lose Jack. Not now.
Not ever.
I bobble the hot lantern between my hands, which tremble with fear for what I’m about to do.
Don’t think about it, Rosalie! Just do it and everything will be okay.
For Jack…
Before I can give my action a second thought, or scare myself out of doing it, I slam the metal top of the lantern into the side of my head. There’s a brief shot of pain and a burning sensation on my skin, then nothing.
The thin, elongated leaves dance erratically as the wind blows through to the west, making them twist madly back and forth on the long, pliable branches. The breeze tickles the fine hairs on my skin and makes me shiver, though the air is warm and sensuous. Hands press against my back, pushing me forward, and I grip the vines more tightly as I swing forward. Back and forth, back and forth… I kick my legs to increase the speed of my makeshift swing – two vines of the weeping willow tied to a thin stick.
