by K. C. Lannon
She yelped, losing her balance as she took several small, sharp blows to the back of her head, like thrown stones. The moment her foot crossed the circle, she froze, her eyes screwed shut, waiting for the worst.
But nothing happened. She opened her eyes again; James was still walking, as dead to the world as a sleepwalker, toward the center. She looked behind her. There was no one in sight. Holding her breath, she tiptoed over to James, grabbing his shoulder.
“James, come on, we need to get out of this circle,” she whispered. He didn’t notice, and her attempts to stop him by pushing had no effect, even though he was shorter and skinnier than her.
She grabbed handfuls of his jacket and pulled, digging her heels into the ground, shouting, “Come on! Stop being so stubborn, blast it!” But it was as effective as pulling on an old oak tree to make it get up and follow.
The flapping of wings and birds singing, previously in the distance and muted, suddenly became loud. She looked up, seeing several small, yellow birds fluttering from the trees, flying toward them, tweeting merrily. It almost sounded like they were giggling.
“You’re not helping!” she snapped at them, giving another yank on James’s jacket.
“Why would we?”
One of the birds flew close, and Deirdre, with a sharp gasp, realized it was not a bird—it had bright yellow feathers on the crest and wings and the slight build of a bird, but it was a small person. A small person with the same dark eyes as a goldcrest bird, along with skin the same hue as the bird’s dull, light brown feathers. The others, who all looked the same, flew closer as well, flapping their wings to hover like no bird could, watching her with interest.
Deirdre gulped, pointing at them. “You’re… you’re faeries! And you— What did you do to James?”
The faeries twittered and laughed. “Why does it matter what happens to one small human boy? We’re just having fun. Besides, his fate is sealed by dark magic. So it doesn’t matter what we do!”
Planting her feet firmly on the ground, Deirdre demanded, “Release him! Now!”
The faeries just laughed, some shaking their heads, beginning to fly circles around her and James, who was still trudging blindly toward the circle’s center. He was nearly there.
Panic was bubbling hot inside her; she had heard of people who vanished for ages at the center of faery circles. Some of them disappeared for decades and came back, completely the same age, left behind by the world.
And I let James come out here. And… She bared her teeth, her entire body shaking and aflame with anger. Ignoring the warning in the back of her mind, she pointed and shouted at the faeries, “He didn’t even do anything wrong! He didn’t know any better! Let him GO!”
The sky grew darker, like a heavy, thick cloud covered the sun, even though it was very clear. At the same time, the mushrooms in the circle began to turn black, rotting as though they were at the end of their lives. Deirdre gasped, stepping back. The bird faeries had gone silent. Her hands suddenly felt like they were on fire, and the sickening smell of the decaying mushrooms reached her, overwhelming.
“No… make it stop!” she pleaded with the faeries, though she could barely hear her own voice over the thundering of her heartbeat. “Please, make it stop! STOP!”
The mushrooms completely shriveled, and the faeries, letting out cries of alarm, flitted away, disappearing into the leafy trees. She watched, and when they didn’t reappear, her legs gave out and she collapsed, hugging herself, her entire body suddenly feeling cold. The sky immediately cleared, the woods and clearing once again bathed in soft, morning light.
James stopped walking and staggered, almost losing his balance, catching himself by putting his hands on his knees. Immediately Deirdre leaped to his side, asking if he was okay. He shook his head several times, like there was water in his ears, before even noticing she was there.
“What just happened?” he asked, his voice thick as if with sleep. “What just…” His eyes widened as he noticed the blackened mushrooms, some of them completely decayed, being blown away by the wind. “What happened to the faery circle?”
“I…” Deirdre looked down at the mushrooms, raising her hand to her heart.
He began to walk around fretfully, as if searching for a mushroom that survived. “I don’t understand.” He shook his head and looked at her. “How did this happen? What did this?”
“Maybe… maybe it was the faeries?” she guessed weakly.
James was running his hands through his hair, staring at the ring, then at her. “You saw the faeries? What…” His eyes lit up, completely devoid of all confusion. “What did they look like? Where did they go?”
“Well, they looked like birds, I think? They flew off.” She gestured at the trees. “But what about you? Do you feel all right? You were really out of it.”
“Well…” He looked at the trees, as if hoping to see the faeries perched in the leaves. “I thought I saw something, maybe faeries, at the center of the circle. I didn’t…” He looked back at the blackened mushrooms. “I don’t even remember stepping inside. But why did the faeries ruin their own ring? That doesn’t match up with anything I’ve read.”
“Well, it…” She bit on her lip. There was no denying it; aside from the darkness, it was exactly like what happened with the tires.
And the sky only started going dark once I began to yell… She covered her mouth with her hand, her breath quickening. It really was me. It really was! But how? Why?!
James’s words about her parents maybe being faery cultists popped to her mind; she bit her lip and kneaded her forehead, trying in vain to make sense of everything. “I couldn’t have used magic. I’m not a cultist or anything weird! I couldn’t have…”
“You used magic?” James asked, his voice pitched with curiosity.
“I don’t know!” she screamed at him. “I don’t know why this happened! I don’t know why I keep breaking things or ruining things. I don’t know!” She buried her face in her hands.
“But if the faeries didn’t do this, then who did?” he pressed. When she looked up, a small smile was forming at the corner of his mouth.
“I don’t think it’s anything to be happy about!” she snapped, stalking past him, heading back toward the woods to get her backpack.
“Wait! Maybe it’s not a bad thing!” He caught up to her, shouldering his pack, though she didn’t look at him and kept walking. “Maybe it happened for a reason!”
“What are you even talking about?” She spotted her backpack and tried to lift it; the pack felt too heavy in her weakened grasp, and she dropped it. Her hands were trembling.
“Deirdre!” She felt James’s fingers grip her arm, and she whirled around to face him. “I think—I think there might be a reason why we met, why we’re out here together. Like, fate, or something. You remember what I told you about my mum?” James held out a weathered piece of paper toward her, his other still holding her elbow gently. He was trembling just as much as she was as he held the page out to her. “This letter is from her. And it says—it says that I’m marked by magic. Dark magic.”
Deirdre’s eyes widened as they focused on the letter. Dark magic? This can’t be right. This can’t be happening! I can’t deal with this. I just can’t!
“You must be marked by magic too,” James said, his voice wavering. “Maybe we can figure it out together. Maybe that’s why we found each other—”
Heat began to radiate from her hands again, making her shudder in fear.
Not again! Not now!
She wrenched her arm out of James’s grasp, shoving the letter and his hand away from her. “Just stay away from me!” she snapped, holding her hands to her chest, clasping them so tightly it hurt.
For the first time, she saw James look truly startled by her, and it had nothing to do with her magic.
“Deirdre…” James trailed off, lowering his arm to his side slowly.
A twinge of guilt went through her, and her head was spinning, but when she reached again for her
pack, this time she pulled it up and on her back successfully. “I’m going to Trinity.”
“But—”
“I’m going!”
She broke into a run down the path. She gave the rotted mushrooms a wide berth and, once she got to the top of the hill, recognized an old, mossy signpost at the bottom. She raced in the direction of the orphanage. Even when her legs began to burn and she began to cry, she kept on running, down small roads, across fields filled with sheep that watched her meditatively as she passed. The wind whistled in her ears, sometimes sounding like the twittering of the faeries. She looked around and over her shoulder many times, eyes wide with fear that they were following her. There was nothing, and she kept running.
* * *
Iain sat Philip’s radio by his body so the medical team could find him. Even if they had gotten there sooner, Iain was uncertain they could have done anything to save him. When the chain had struck Philip, he was as good as dead.
He pushed me out of the way. Why did he push me out of the way?
Iain walked onward, heading back toward the open fields and using his compass to tell which direction to go. He kept walking on what felt like autopilot, like his mind sometimes left his body. He walked without remembering where he’d been, and before he knew it, he had been walking for hours. His legs were stiff, his stomach achingly empty. He felt nothing besides physical sensations.
When the sun rose higher in the sky, Iain searched his bag for his canteen, only to find that he’d left it at camp last night in the chaos. All he wanted was water. All his mind could do was focus on a single, pressing need at a time.
When Iain went to double-check his bag for the canteen, his hand brushed against his belt and the handle of the sidearm in his holster. An angry heat shot through his body, manifesting in his face. He ripped the gun out blindly and held it in front of his eyes, staring wildly in disbelief.
“Why can you never bloody think?” he shouted so loudly that his throat was raw. “You worthless idiot!”
He could have shot at the monster last night. Maybe if he’d remembered, if he’d shot at it, it might have backed down, it might’ve fled, it might’ve been distracted long enough for them to get away. Maybe Philip wouldn’t have had to pull Iain down to get him out of the way.
Iain knew it wouldn’t have done much, but it might have done something. The creature had been scarred, looking almost as if it had been badly burned before. It looked like it could take a lot of firepower and remain unscathed and breathing.
But still—
Furious, Iain holstered his weapon again. He took off, seeing nothing but red for a while. He pushed himself harder than before, keeping a grueling pace as the land became rockier and sloped.
That must’ve been what Philip was trying to tell me. I should’ve used my weapon.
Philip had been delirious from pain and the injury. He might not have known it was too late.
No, that’s not it. He was pointing to me. At me.
I’m the weapon.
Chills dotted his flesh. He wondered what role he might’ve unwittingly played alongside Boyd, if what Philip thought was really true. He wondered what plans his father might have for him.
The wind whistled in his ears. Only the foliage around him did not ebb and flow like ocean waves as they had before and no breeze brushed his skin. The sound had come from close by. It was the same whistling from last night, from the chain slicing through the air. Iain took off, faster than before.
He didn’t stop running, even though the sound vanished, until he spotted the cottage. It was old-fashioned, made from cobblestone. It sat on a small hill beside a plot of farmland and a wheat field. Outside, Iain could see a chicken coop and a pen for some livestock and a small barn in the back. It seemed to be the only residency in the immediate area.
A path made of flat river rocks led up to the front door. It was a small house, smaller than the military housing, even. When he rapped his knuckles on the red wooden door, he heard shuffling from inside the house, but no one came to the door.
“Please,” Iain said, knocking again, “I need water and a place to rest. I’ll only be an hour. I just need a rest.”
Still no answer.
“You’re required by law to aid and provide shelter to any soldier that asks,” Iain stated firmly, his voice rising in volume.
A woman cracked the door open and peered out at him. Her eyes widened in alarm at Iain’s bloodied appearance. The woman looked at him and then turned her face away, looking at someone out of Iain’s line of sight behind the door. She bit her lip.
“I-I’m sorry to bother you.” Iain’s expression softened when he heard a baby crying faintly inside of the cottage. “I’ll stay in the barn if you prefer. I just need a safe place to rest.”
To his surprise, the woman nodded and opened the door wide, motioning for him to come inside. He ducked through the door, and the woman closed it behind him.
The house was even more humble than it had looked from the outside. There was no stove but a pot over the fireplace. Dried herbs were hanging from the ceiling.
“You don’t have to stay in the barn,” the woman said softly. She led him to a chair at a wooden table. Iain sat down gratefully. “I’ll fetch you some water.”
When she came back with a cask of water, Iain drank it so fast that it dribbled down his chin. It was cold and sweet, like fresh spring water. Iain nodded in thanks. He heard the baby squalling again, but he didn’t see it anywhere.
“What happened to you?” the woman asked. She stood away from him, her arms folded almost protectively around her middle.
Iain was about to answer when something else caught his attention. It was a familiar scent, demanding in its insistence that he focus all his energy on it. Pan. It was at the same moment when a man walked in from another room, carrying a babe in his arms.
Shooting to his feet, Iain knocked over the goblet of water. It spilled over the side of the table and snaked along the floor, hissing as it came into contact with the hot stones in front of the fireplace. He thought at first was a trick of the light; Iain came to realize that the man’s eyes were orange in color by nature. He was a faery.
“What… what was in the water?” Iain asked dazedly, looking from the faery to the woman.
A thousand different thoughts rattled through his mind—that this woman might be a captive that needed help, that the water could have been tainted with faery fruit, that the faery could be on the side of the Unseelie Court.
If it were faery fruit she’d given him in the water, it would be a highly concentrated dose. He remembered what it had felt like—the sudden confusion, the dizziness, the fading in and out of consciousness. The world had melted away, faded to black, taking all the pain with it. While a single bite of the fruit alone usually brought on mild hallucinations and euphoria, there was nothing pleasant about a high dose beyond oblivion. Elaine had introduced him to both sensations.
He did not feel any different after swallowing the water, however. He felt foolish for panicking. Each of his doubts were silenced by what the faery stepped forward and said to him.
“I’m begging you, soldier, not to hurt my family. We have done nothing wrong.”
“Hurt you?” Iain whispered. He lowered his arms, relaxing his posture as his doubts flickered out.
Then he noticed the fear in their eyes, directed at him. He was used to a certain kind of fear from people—a fear that told him they did not trust him, did not want him around. This was different. “I’m not going to hurt you…”
“He’s only a child, Siobhan.” The woman hissed, gesturing to Iain. “A soldier, yes, but—look at him. He’s just a boy.”
“I’m not—” Iain’s first instinct was to contradict the statement, but he stopped himself, remembering his manners. I’m not a child… he finished in his head stubbornly; his face flushed as he realized how childish he sounded saying it.
He hadn’t felt like a child since Mum left.
&
nbsp; The male faery nailed him with a suspicious look. “Doesn’t seem to matter these days. Humans aren’t above training up children to war for them.”
As Iain walked slowly around the table, the couple watched him as closely as hawks. Even when Iain held up his hands, they looked at him as if he was the one who possessed powerful, unknown magic instead of the other way around. They were staring at the iron horseshoe insignia on his jacket.
Mum had told him before of when her family had first arrived in Neo-London, how the military had raided their business, their homes, looking for stolen goods, demanding papers. They’d been treated as subhuman. He remembered Mum, despite being married to a general, had a deep distrust of the city authorities since that day. Iain felt like he finally understood why.
The Iron Guard’s been treating the Fae with the same fairness. Just like Marko said.
Iain had thought things had changed. He was wrong.
“We don’t want to cause you harm. We just wish to be left alone,” the faery pleaded. “That’s why we left!”
“You fled from the city, didn’t you?” Iain asked.
The faery nodded. “They wanted me to stay in Ferriers Town with the rest of my kind, but I couldn’t raise a family there. There is a reason why they build iron fences in the other parts of the city. They don’t want me there even if it’s to provide for my own family.”
Iain backed off farther as a sign he meant them no ill will.
“I just need some food, and I’ll be on my way. No one will know you’re here. I promise you, you’ll be safe,” Iain assured them firmly.
He looked at the infant in the faery’s arms, how securely it was held against his chest, and found himself smiling faintly at the sight.
I hope they make it. I hope they stay safe here.
He walked into the kitchen and began searching for something to take with him, a small ration that would get him through the rest of the day until he found James. The smell of Pan struck him again, and his mouth began to fill with saliva. It was all he could think about, all he could see. The fresh fruits that littered the counter paled in comparison to the faery fruit.
