Faerie

by Jenna Grey

  “Lily,” he said, beaming the saddest of smiles at her. He lifted her hand and put it against his cheek, as if he needed reassurance that she was actually there. He pulled the bag from his shoulder and rummaged inside, pulling out a rather battered iPad. On the front was a fluorescent orange sticker with ‘Connor’ written in felt tip pen. He screwed up his face in concentration, and pressed the ‘on’ button. The screen lit up with the yellow notepad page, and with frowned concentration he hit the ‘+’ in the corner. The keyboard sprang up and with one finger jabs he typed in:

  I heard your music... had to see u

  Lily was slightly bewildered for a moment, because it seemed so incongruous that someone who was obviously having so much trouble communicating verbally could use an iPad to ‘speak’ more or less fluently. But then when she thought about it she’d heard of quite a few cases where people suffering from autism could do wonderful things – play the piano, draw masterpieces and show incredible talent in other areas. It seems she had underestimated Connor.

  “But your home is right on the other side of the village. You couldn’t have heard it,” Lily said.

  Then she realised – of course – it was fey music, and of course he could hear it.

  I had to come... i know shadow people hurt u... r u alright

  “Connor, you shouldn’t be here, you’ll get into terrible trouble.”

  She looked up from the screen and into his eyes, and for a moment saw herself reflected in their brightness, then it was as if her gaze when right through their sparkling green, and she found herself seeing images and thoughts that weren’t hers. For a moment there was a touching of souls, and it was the strangest sensation.

  I am sorry... i tried to come to you but i was too late

  “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine, really, those bastards don’t scare me,” she lied.

  He moved in, taking her in his arms and holding her close, pressing his lips to her forehead in something like a kiss, a reassurance that she was safe; his breath was hot against her face, sweet, though, as if he’d just been eating ice cream or cake.

  “Lily... safe now,” he said.

  Lily just clung onto him, burying her face in his chest; he smelt of a strange combination of fried food, soap and clean sweat, but his warmth was comforting and she wanted to stay there like that forever. She finally gave in to the truth and to tears, unable to hold it in any longer.

  “They’ve been coming to my room every night,” Lily said, tears streaming down her cheeks now, “hurting me. I don’t know what to do any more. The last time...”

  “I... know,” he stammered. “I know.”

  She looked into his eyes and watched the first tears spill over the edge.

  “I’m glad you came, anyway. I have so many questions, so much to ask. You know that you’re like me, don’t you? You’re fey.”

  He screwed up his face in concentration for long moments and then nodded. Lily thought that it wasn’t her words he’d understood, but her thoughts. His fingers jabbed in earnest at the keyboard.

  I am like u... from other place... not here... we r the same

  “Yes, we are,” she said. “Somehow you can see through my eyes, and me through yours. It almost feels that we’re part of the same thing. I just don’t understand why we haven’t felt each other before now.”

  And as she looked at him she felt such an overwhelming feeling of peace and contentment that it stopped her breath in her lungs. It almost felt as if she had gone home. She couldn’t explain it, not in words, but there seemed such a ‘rightness’ to their being together, a feeling that they had always known one another and would always know one another. They just sat for long moments, trapped by the other’s gaze, and Lily knew, just knew that they were meant to be together.

  I only come here now... before i was too far away

  Of course, Hawthorn Lodge had only just opened. Connor could have been on the other side of the country before he was sent here. But he was here now and that was all that mattered.

  “Someone came to see me yesterday, a woman. I think she might be one of us, fey. She left me this note.” Lily pulled it from her bag and handed it to him. He looked down at it, and smiled.

  “Yes, she... is fey,” he said, haltingly, with determined effort, but with a bright intelligence in his eyes that seemed to suddenly come from nowhere. It was as if someone had flipped a switch inside his head and he could suddenly see everything so much more clearly.

  “You can tell from this note?”

  He nodded, running his fingers over the surface.

  “Do you know who she is?”

  A shake of the head this time and he seemed to drift away again, that same vacant look coming back into his eyes.

  Lily huffed out a sigh.

  “It looks as if she’s trying to help us, anyway. I think that we are the white king and queen – the black king is the one that’s been trying to hurt me.” Another nod, slower this time, an effort. “Do you know how we can get home?” she asked.

  His face dropped into a frown and he reached for the iPad again.

  We are...lqto..lo..st...r.fro

  He began to get agitated, obviously not able to find the words, and began banging the iPad against the side of his head, rocking backwards and forwards and mewling his frustration – whatever fleeting moment of clarity he’d had had gone now, and she could see that every thought, every action was pure misery for him. Lily reached out and grabbed his wrist to stop him hurting himself.

  “It’s all right, Connor, it’s all right. We’ll work it out. But we’ve found each other, that’s all that matters.”

  The look he gave her told her that he understood. He swiped away his tears and typed again. He thrust it at her, the look on his face urgent, pressing it into her hands to impress on her the importance of what he had just typed.

  We can go away go away now... i can keep u safe.

  Lily stared down at the words on the screen and wished with all of her heart that they could leave, just go and never come back.

  She could tell that he was struggling to type even these few simple words; she could feel him trying to piece them together from a great tangle of noises and images in his head. His ability to concentrate and reason seemed to come and go from moment to moment, like a wave cresting and falling.

  “No, it’s not the right time. We have nowhere to go. I’ll be all right,” Lily said. Then she remembered how Connor had reacted when Crichter touched him. “Connor, that woman, Crichter... you’re afraid of her. Has she been hurting you?”

  She could tell from the instant change in his expression that her suspicions were right. She sense that Connor was trying to shield his thoughts from her, not wanting her to see the worst, but he couldn’t keep her out. She felt as if she were intruding, knew that perhaps she shouldn’t pry, if he was trying so hard to keep her out, but she had to know. They couldn’t afford to have any secrets between them. And as she dug deeper, she saw the worst of it.

  “My God, she’s... been torturing you!”

  “Not, just me...” he couldn’t find the words and typed:

  She hurts all of us... she locks us under stairs if we upset her... one of the other carers helps her

  Lily keened her rage, teeth gritted, fists balled.

  “The fucking bitch! She needs to be reported, she can’t be allowed to get away with it.”

  No one would believe us... she does it when minnie and tom are not there

  Lily could sense far more from his thoughts now. If any of them upset her Crichter was making them go without food, locking them in the dark for hours on end, and hitting them with wet towels so that it didn’t leave a mark. She and the other male carer were tormenting all of the kids, and they were all terrified of her. She’d been doing it for years and getting away with it, in whatever home they had been in before they came to Hawthorn Lodge, making their lives an utter misery. The next images were even worse and she shut them out, unable to bear seein
g them.

  Connor closed his arms around himself, rocking backwards and forwards, an expression of abject misery on his face. Lily pulled him to her, holding him close until he stopped rocking, burying his face in her neck and wrapping his arms around her. He finally lost the battle and he began to weep uncontrollably, hiccuping sobs exploding from him; whether it was joy or misery, perhaps even relief that he had finally found another like himself, she had no idea – perhaps a mixture of emotions that he had no hope of understanding. She felt exactly the same way. He just clung onto her as if she were the last thing in the world and she could only hug him back.

  “Want to go... home, go home with... Lily,” he stammered. His face was pressed against her shoulder, her dress damp with his tears.

  “Oh Connor, that’s all I want as well. But right now Hawthorn Lodge is your home, and you have to go back there, they’re probably freaking out that you’ve gone missing. You have to go home.”

  “Lily is home,” he said, clinging onto her even more tightly.

  He took some moments to recover, hiccuping little sobs.

  Lily suddenly blinked, staring across the empty field and suddenly feeling dizzy; strange shapes began to form, trees, plants, and flowers that couldn’t possibly be there. Worse, wherever that other place was, it was dark, and although there was no moon or stars in the sky above, still the world was bright with silver light, as if there was some invisible moon in the sky, shedding its light over everything. For a moment she felt dizzy and then it turned to outright nausea, as she realised that she and Connor were sitting in the middle of a half-there tree. She pulled back, staring around in wonder and horror, then realised with a jolt that she was seeing, if not through Connor’s eyes, then at least being shown what he was seeing. Two realities had superimposed themselves one over the other, both as real as the other, night over day, yet both intangible. It was like sitting in the middle of a huge hologram of two different scenes, shapes and forms creating an amorphous mass that seemed to be ever changing, each reality growing more solid and then receding with every passing second. It explained Connor’s sudden moments of almost clarity, a brief respite, that passed all too soon, giving way to madness again. It was almost too much to bear – and this was in an empty field, she couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if she had been in a town or city, with people and traffic bustling all around her. Her head was spinning and she felt nauseous. She could hear sounds overlaying this reality, sounds that couldn’t possibly be there, singing and laughter, the sounds of the fey, and darker sounds, screeches and shrill cries. It was a great cacophony of sight and sound that would drive anyone mad. Was this really Connor’s reality?

  “Connor, is this how you see the world all of the time?” she asked, focusing on his face, because he was the only real and solid thing she could see.

  There was a nod.

  “How can you live with this? Oh, Connor, we have to find a way to stop this. You’re living in hell.”

  And then she saw them – Shadow People, coming out of the darkness of Otherworld, creeping out of the shadows, as if they had suddenly become aware that there was some weakness in the barrier between their reality and the world of men. Lily had always known that this tree was special, that perhaps there was an opening here between worlds, she had just never known how to find it before – but they had found it, these monstrous creatures who fed on darkness and fear. They moved across the darkened landscape towards them, and Lily called out, ‘Connor’, a warning that came only just in time as dozens of them surged towards them. She stumbled backwards and fell back against the tree, cowering against it, trying to shield herself from them, dragging Connor towards her, but Connor stood and moved in front of her, a protective shield, in a battle stance. He roared a ‘No’ at them, a great bellow, and Lily watched in a mixture of wonder and horror as the dark forms exploded into dust, a thousand particles hovering in the air and then finally disappearing, along with the other world. Lily was left staring at the empty field again.

  “You are okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I promise.”

  Connor stopped for a moment, tipping his head as if he was listening, his face troubled.

  “They know you’re missing. I can sense it. You have to go Connor, please. Go. I’ll come and see you tomorrow. Everything's going to be all right. I just know it is. We have to believe that.”

  “Yes.” he said. “I will... keep... you safe.”

  In that moment she knew that she really was safe with him. He was more powerful than her, even in his present state, had magic that she couldn’t hope to match. How could she let him go, knowing that he was the one person that could keep the Shadow People away from her? She stood on tiptoe to place a kiss on his chin, and he bent forwards to put a kiss on her mouth. She stopped him with her fingertips on his lips.

  “You could be my brother, Connor.”

  It took him long moments to think through the full implications and then he nodded his understanding, and wrote:

  Not brother... I am other bit of u

  She didn’t really understand what he meant, but nodded her acceptance. Did Connor see her as more than filial thoughts towards her? She thought perhaps he did. When she thought of Connor she didn’t think sex – she thought brother or friend. She couldn’t picture herself ever having sex with him. That just wasn’t how she saw him; she even felt uncomfortable thinking about it. It would be wrong, like trying to seduce a child; that was what he was to her really, a frightened child that she wanted to protect. How could she even imagine having a sexual relationship with him? It was just icky. She would cross that fairy bridge when the time came, for now she had enough to worry about.

  He turned to walk away, a look so sad on his face that it broke Lily’s heart. Taking one last look back over his shoulder, he started to run down the hill.

  Chapter Seven.

  Lily walked back home, trailing her scattered thoughts behind her like Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs; every time one dropped from her head, another thought took its place, and none of them made the slightest bit of sense. Her first and foremost thoughts were of utter contempt and hatred for the woman Crichter; she had already decided to lay her worst curse on her, something so awful that it would ruin her life, just as she had ruined Connor’s. She would make her suffer the worst miseries she could rain down on her, blight her with every foul thing known to Feykind. It would free Connor from her once and or all, even if it didn’t free him from his other sufferings.

  What had happened in the field had shaken Lily to the core. That vision of worlds within worlds, of one reality shadowing the other had been as close to hell as Lily ever wanted to get. How could anyone live in that terrible half reality, trapped like that, between worlds? It was more than anyone could bear. Somehow she would find a way to either bring Connor fully into this reality or find a way to send them both back to Elphame. But how the hell was she supposed to do that?

  She suddenly had a startling clarity of vision – that was what it all boiled down to really, wasn’t it? Clarity of vision. If a fairy ointment could help mortals see Otherworld, then why couldn’t it help Connor to see this one? She already had most of the ingredients she would need to prepare an ointment and she should be able to collect the other things she needed from her herb garden. She had long since taken over the large garden behind the house, because Claire would rather have her fingernails ripped out than do any form of work, let alone gardening. She thought that carrots grew on trees. Lily had planted every herb she might need for any potion, and flowers and plants that had medicinal or other properties for lotions and charms – and everything grew and flourished, nurtured by her magic. Better still tonight was a full moon and that was the very best time to pick them and make potions. She had to try at least, didn’t she? Usually, if a human made an ointment, it would take weeks to mature, but with fey magic she could bring it to maturity in a day or two and take it in to Connor the day after tomorrow. It all worked out pe
rfectly. She’d already decided that she wasn’t going to sleep. She could manage a night without sleep, although it would make her a bit tired tomorrow. Better that than risk a visitation from the djinn. She had no doubt that they would try to come back – they had had far too much fun last night.

  When Lily got back home Kieran was lying stretched out on the sofa, his socks trailing off the end of his feet, a family sized bag of crisps clutched to his chest, watching Futurama. Sarah and Liam were nowhere to be seen.

  “Where is everyone?” Lily asked.

  “Claire’s gone to Bingo and I don’t know where the kids are,” he said in a monotone, his eyes still glued to the TV. “You’ve got to get dinner and put them to bed.” He shovelled another handful of crisps into his mouth, still ignoring her.

  “Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean what I said about your dick,” she mumbled. “Sorry.”

  He kept his attention focused on the screen, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth to free trapped shards of crisp.

  “Forget it,” he said. “I didn’t mean what I said about your pussy. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  Lily had to smile.

  “No, not really. You didn’t break anything. Pax ay?”

  He looked up then and offered her a crisp as a peace offering. She took it to seal the agreement.

  “Yeah, pax. I shouldn’t have punched you. You don’t punch girls.”

  Lily raised an eyebrow, a little startled by this unexpected attack of morality.

  “You were supposed to be watching the kids,” Lily said, trying not to sound too condemnatory.

  “Nah, it’s dope. They’ve been quiet,” he replied.

  Lily rolled her eyes, and groaned.

  Last time they had been left alone with Kieran, Sarah had got into Claire’s make up and done a face paint job on herself and Liam, and it had taken her a good hour to clean the mess up. She rushed upstairs to find Sarah and Liam in their bedroom, quietly playing with their Lego. She smiled and scooped Liam up, giving him a hug.