by Carmen Caine
“Difficult?” Jareth repeated in mock outrage. Detouring to their table instead, he looked at Megan and slowly took off his sunglasses to ask in a heart-melting voice, “Do you know who I am?”
Megan didn’t look particularly impressed as she replied, “Yes.”
He waited. When she didn’t respond, he encouraged, “And?”
Megan just blinked. “And what?” she asked in almost the same prim tone that Samantha commonly used.
Jareth looked a little taken aback, but he recovered quickly. “Do you think I’m difficult?” he asked in a voice as smooth as butter.
“You seem harmless but a bit self-absorbed,” she replied without missing a beat. “No offense.”
Samantha gave Megan a look that I knew meant that she was immediately hired.
Jareth’s dark eyes widened in shock. He wasn’t used to girls challenging him. And as he looked deeper at Megan, I found myself doing the same. There was something unusual about her.
But then the Queens rose to their feet and beckoned for Rafael to follow them. “A word, in private, if you will?”
With a gracious incline of his head, Rafael promised me that he would soon return and followed them out of the shop, along with the Fae Protectors, and Raven and Zelphie as well.
I still had some time before I had to work, but I was about to get up all the same when Jareth strolled over to join me.
“Who is she?” he asked as he sat down, taking the seat opposite of me. He cast several irritated looks in Megan’s direction.
“I’m pretty sure she’s going to work here,” I said with a smile. “I bet she’ll take good care of you.”
He drew his dark brows into a scowl. “I’m not so sure,” he said, a little absently. “I find her quite irritating.”
“Are you sure it isn’t love at first sight?” I teased.
He glared at me outright, but then something above my head caught his attention and he checked himself, looking a little startled.
“What is it?” I asked uneasily.
Was my Blue Thread back? Or … did I have another one?
Jareth rolled his eyes and slapped his palm flat on the table. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sydney.”
He glanced out of the large plate glass window, and I followed his gaze to where Rafael stood on the sidewalk, still speaking to the Queens. I couldn’t help but notice how handsome he looked.
Jareth snorted. “The Queens are far from pleased,” he offered.
I’d figured that much out myself. “Why?” I pressed. “What’s this all about?”
I didn’t think he was going to answer me. He took his sweet time. But then, it was Jareth and he liked playing with people just for his own twisted amusement.
“The Queens have chosen their successor,” he offered in a lazy drawl. He nodded his chin in Rafael’s direction. “It appears their successor isn’t too pleased with their choice.”
My heart leapt into my throat. “Rafael? King?”
I gripped the edge of the table.
“Oh, it’s not his fate to be king, Sydney,” Jareth inserted, adopting a snide air of superiority.
I expelled a breath of relief, but it only lasted about two seconds.
“His daughter is fated to rule Avalon,” Jareth continued blithely, pulling out his coin to flip it through his fingers.
I gulped as a wave of depression rose to engulf me. Rafael’s daughter? The Queen of Avalon? Was he going to marry Raven after all?
“Oh, what are you weeping over?” Jareth snapped impatiently.
I rapidly blinked my tears away. I didn’t want to answer him. Not when I really didn’t have to. I knew very well he could still read my mind.
“Quit sniveling, Sydney,” Jareth growled then. “You always leap to conclusions.”
“You said—” I began in a gruff, accusing tone.
Jareth rolled his eyes. “I didn’t say his daughter was a Pureblood, did I?”
I held still.
“Oh, she’s going to be an interesting little beastie with her father being a famous Pureblood and her mother …,” he let his voice drift off before he leaned over the table to add in a whisper, “Let’s just say that her mother is human with a bit of a thick head at the moment.”
I just stared at him. And then blushed scarlet.
Of course, Rafael chose that moment to return and I blushed even more.
Jareth snorted. He was clearly laughing at my expense.
“What is it?” Rafael asked in a curious tone.
I grabbed his hand and gave it a good, hard shake. “Promise me that you’ll never read my fate,” I said. “Not any more. I don’t want you looking at my future.”
“We can’t have an unfair advantage here now, can we?” Jareth murmured in a not-so-innocent tone.
I just glared at him before turning back to Rafael and searching his gray eyes.
“I promise,” he said, lifting his lip in a charismatic smile.
I stared at him, feeling more nervous by the second. He was a fairy, from a different dimension, and to top it all off, a member of royalty as well. Did I really know what I was doing?
Reaching over, he tweaked my nose. "Where has your mind gone, little pixie?"
“We’re … so different,” I began, panicking a little at where my words might lead.
“And you just noticed?” Jareth interrupted with a sarcastic smirk.
It felt good to turn on Jareth and snap, “This really isn’t your conversation.”
I almost apologized. I hadn’t intended to be that harsh, but Jareth reached across the table and patted my hand. For a brief moment, his dark eyes were so sympathetic that I almost cried before his shield of obnoxiousness descended once more, and he rose to his feet to ask in a mock, wounded tone, “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“Yes,” both Rafael and I said at the same time, but this time, I smiled a little.
With a belligerent yawn, he stalked away, returning to pester Samantha and Megan. And as I saw him slouch against the wall behind Megan’s chair to make sarcastic comments, I had the distinct feeling that it was where he truly wanted to be, anyway.
But then Rafael was gently guiding my chin, forcing my gaze to meet his. Leaning down, he kissed me lightly on the nose before looping an arm around my shoulders.
“Let’s just be clear and get this over with once and for all, Sydney. I’m not going anywhere,” he said in a low, soft voice. “I’ve learned to live, to long for the future, to love, and to dream because of you. I’m never letting you go.”
I smiled, allowing myself to be swept away. For the moment, anyway. “And I’ve learned to cherish the now,” I replied.
“We were meant for each other,” he said. “And I don’t care what the Queens think I should do, I’m staying here, Sydney. Here, with you.”
He tilted my chin back with a long finger and, bending down, lightly brushed his lips against mine. He surprised me by sliding his arms beneath my knees and, lifting me up, lightly set me down on my feet.
“Your shift is starting,” he said, his chest reverberating in laughter. “I don’t want Samantha upset with me. We can speak more later on this matter, if you wish.”
I could listen to his soft, lyrical voice forever. I just stood there in his arms. He always made me feel comfortable. And even when I was freaking out or upset, it only took him a few minutes to calm me down again, to make me feel safe.
“I love you,” I said with all of my heart.
“And I you, little pixie,” his whispered, claiming my lips in a gentle, lingering kiss.
Slowly, we parted, and then giving my hand another squeeze, he turned on his heel to rescue Samantha and Megan from Jareth as I joined Ellison in the back of the shop to wash dishes.
Samantha arrived a few minutes later with her arms filled with notebooks.
“I think that Megan has potential,” she announced, sitting down at her desk. “She’s got a way—”
When she didn’t finish the sente
nce, Ellison and I glanced over to see her leaning back in her chair with her head tilted at an odd angle. Pointing to a ribbon of smoke curling out from under the storage room door, she asked flatly. “What’s that? Are you kids burning something in there?”
We all lunged for the door at once, but before we’d even opened it, I realized that it wasn’t smoke.
It was mist.
And as Samantha yanked the door open, I was somewhat prepared for what I saw, or at least I knew I was going to see something outlandish.
The storage room was filled with butterflies, hundreds of them. Big, golden butterflies fluttering over a large, black kettle.
I grinned, knowing immediately what it was.
The Queens had sent Samantha her pot of gold.
I’ll never forget the look on Samantha’s face. She was absolutely flabbergasted. She just stood there with her arms folded, staring for quite some time before she regained her self-possession enough to say, “Well then.”
She didn’t ask us how the butterflies got there. She didn’t even look in the black kettle. In fact, she just whirled on her heel, gathered her coat, keys, and pastry books and walked out the back door.
And she never spoke of it again. Not then, or the day after, or in the weeks that followed.
* * *
The time flew by, and I was happy.
I can’t say that I was an expert at really understanding and loving myself, but I was improving. I was on a journey, learning to accept myself, and I was content to make more progress each day.
And every day I trudged up the hill to Issaquah Catholic, I saw Pascal’s quote: Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought. There was so much truth in that statement. I wondered if Pascal himself had understood just how powerful those words were. Thoughts were the beginning of everything. And I knew now how powerful a single thought could be. I’d witnessed it with my own eyes.
My grades improved. Rafael helped me study—well, we studied most of the time, anyway— and by the time spring arrived, I’d improved my GPA enough to get into Issaquah Community College.
Maya was still in Denver. I had no interest in joining her. My life was in Washington now, and I could only hope that someday Maya would be as fortunate to find true love as I had been.
TiggerToo was fast-growing into the awkward gangly puppy stage. He never left Al’s side. The two of them were inseparable. And every night after dinner, Grace and I had fun feeding hotdogs to TiggerToo behind Betty’s back. He was still young. We knew he wouldn’t get fat, not yet anyway.
I’d been officially dating Rafael for several months now, and he’d given me his intricately woven Celtic ring as a symbol of his love. I wore it on a chain around my neck. He’d really enrolled in the University of Washington this time to study medicine and had arranged his schedule so that he’d be home in time enough to give me a ride to work right after school.
I still didn’t have my driver’s license, but I was close.
After quite a bit of prodding, Jareth had finally convinced Al to sing with him at Madison Square Gardens. They’d been practicing in secret for weeks.
I glanced at my watch. They’d be singing soon, and I didn’t want to miss it. Rafael had promised to shift me over to the concert real quick before work, long enough to hear their song.
Arriving home from school, I quickly fed Betty’s chickens clucking and scratching in the backyard, shouldered my backpack, and then ran out front to slip into Rafael’s waiting Bentley.
“It’s Al’s big night tonight,” I said, excitedly.
Rafael just smiled and, reaching over, cupped my chin in his hand and leaned in to give me a long, slow kiss.
I could stare at his eyeliner-ringed gray eyes and midnight lashes forever. He was the essence of masculine beauty—angular lines and sculpted planes of muscular hardness—but above all, I loved the bare emotion in his gaze. He didn’t mind showing his feelings for me.
“I know, little pixie,” he murmured, moving to kiss me again.
“You shouldn’t really kiss when you drive,” Jareth suddenly complained from the back seat.
I jerked back to see him sitting there in full rocker regalia, surrounded by a cloud of mist.
“I’m not,” Rafael replied calmly. “We haven’t left the driveway yet.”
“What are you doing here?” I gasped.
“I needed a break,” Jareth replied with a bored yawn.
“But what about Al’s big song?” I asked, outraged. He’d been preparing his voice for weeks, singing opera in the shower, the kitchen and as he tinkered in the garage with TiggerToo howling along at his side.
“Oh, I wouldn’t miss that, and it’s not for another twenty minutes,” Jareth replied. He waved his hand at my phone and of its own accord, it started displaying his concert on my small screen. “I just needed a break from those girls. They give me a headache. I figured we could all shift back together.”
I looked at the sea of faces on the screen and then grinned back at him. I guess I couldn’t blame him. The girls were really shrieking.
“You never know,” I said, “One of those girls might be your true love.”
He really rolled his eyes at that one. “Not likely.”
As Rafael backed out of the driveway, I watched the Madison Square Garden concert as the perfect double of Jareth strutted around the stage. Twisting on one foot, he let his hair fall over to cover his face. It drove the audience crazy. Their screaming doubled.
“Who is that?” I asked, pointing to the mini-Jareth on my phone.
Jareth shrugged nonchalantly. “Brock wanted to try it out tonight.”
As the Brock-version of Jareth began to sing, the crowd joined in.
I stared at my phone for a few minutes before teasing, “He sounds just like you. You better watch out or he just might take your place.”
We all knew that was impossible. There was only one guy in the world who could pull off Jareth’s charming brand of obnoxiousness.
“Nobody can sound like me,” he snorted, rolling his eyes. “He’s lip-syncing. And he’s not even executing my moves like I taught him,” he added with a huff.
Rafael just grinned.
“You better hope you don’t get caught,” I said with a laugh.
“Don’t be ridiculous, everyone lip-syncs,” he retorted, strangely out-of-sorts.
Frowning, I asked him, “Are you ok?”
“Of course I’m ok,” he snapped, sounding anything but.
In the past few months, Jareth’s popularity had skyrocketed. His Madison Square Garden concert had sold out in seven minutes. He’d been busy, writing new songs and recording a new album, but I exchanged a glance with Rafael.
“Is he ok?” I silently mouthed my question.
Rafael just arched a brow and glanced at his younger brother in the rearview mirror, but Jareth didn’t really say anything after that.
I continued to watch the concert, and as the screaming hordes of girls turned into a high-pitched frenzy that made me worry they’d crack the windshield, we finally pulled up behind Samantha’s coffee shop.
I moved to get out just as the back door opened and Megan appeared with a bag of trash. I’d gotten to know her quite well in the past few weeks. She was bright, funny, and sharp. And exactly the kind to notice Jareth sitting in the back of the car at the exact same time he sang at his concert in Madison Square Gardens.
“Don’t let her see you,” I warned, hissing over my shoulder.
He glanced out the window and scooted down at once, growling, “That one’s a mini-Samantha.”
That made me pause. Rafael, too. We exchanged a startled look.
His grumpiness kind of made sense.
Playfully, I turned on Jareth. “A mini-Samantha?” I repeated. “Aren’t you always telling Samantha that you love her?”
He glared at me, and the next instant, shifted away.
“That hit a little too close to the heart,” Rafael murmured in amused tones.
He parked the car and we waited until the coast was clear before shifting after Jareth to the concert.
The song had finished as we arrived back stage and met Brock just as he was walking off. But we didn’t even have time to say anything because the lights went out all at once.
I could hear the audience screaming and then the ground vibrated in a deep rumble as voices echoed throughout the arena. Smoke began pouring out from all directions and then fireworks exploded as Jareth walked onto the stage, holding his arms open wide.
The crowd went wild.
He was terribly fascinating to watch, captivating the entire audience with a single word as he began to sing. It was a new song, and a catchy one. Hopping off the stage, he strutted behind his security crew, balancing himself on the barrier just inches away from the many hands stretching out to touch him. Several times, he reached over and tickled the fingers of a few of the lucky girls.
They promptly fainted.
Finally, the song was over and an old-fashioned grand piano descended from the ceiling as Jareth welcomed Al.
The crowd kept screaming.
Al beamed. He looked fine in his black tuxedo as he took his place next to the piano, and as Jareth jumped on top of it, they began to sing the words:
Love is an uncontainable and marvelous mystery,
It has its own price—if it’s caged it morphs into misery.
Their voices were incredible together, my throat swelled. I leaned my head against Rafael’s shoulder and listened.
Love is the strongest force as long as it is free,
When you find it in your heart, there is no limit to what we can be
The melody was haunting. There was no doubt it was going to be a hit. When I heard the chorus, I thought my heart would burst.
There are many shades of love
Love is the only thing that I know
There are many shades of love
The more you give the more it grows
There were more verses, but I was too touched to hear it anymore. I could only recall the past events and how much I’d learned of love and its many shades.
Al looked so happy, singing with Jareth who strutted back and forth on top of the piano. He really was talented, lizard DNA or no, and his song touched my heart.
