The light had turned green, but Kailen didn’t move. The car behind us honked.
“Anne…” My mouth seemed to move of its own accord. I’d spoken to her, just this morning. How could she be dead? Though the sky was overcast, it was broad daylight. Someone had abducted her, killed her, dismembered her, and dropped her off in our parking lot, all in the span of a couple hours. It didn’t seem possible.
I slammed the radio power button so hard my joints hurt. Kailen hit the gas and we surged forward.
I didn’t hate Anne, and now I wished I could take back every unkind thought I’d ever had about her. “I need to go back.” My voice shook. “I need to go back to the office.” It might have been the grushound that dismembered her, which meant it was my fault. She was dead because of me.
“It wasn’t the grushound,” Kailen said, reading my thoughts. “Someone would have seen, and the hound focused on you, not her. It was something, or someone, else.” His jaw clenched, his gaze distant. “Now, Jane.”
“Jane?” I asked, still dazed. I plucked her out of my pocket. I still didn't like the feel of her little paws against my palm, but I didn't feel as disgusted as I once did.
“Put her in the back seat, and turn her back into a person,” Kailen said with a shrug, as though what he was asking me to do were the simplest thing in the world, like flipping a light switch.
“Oh, sure, I'll just do that then.” But my sarcasm was a shield this time, not a weapon. I lowered Jane onto the back seat next to Owen, and she sat up on her hind legs. I closed my eyes and pieced together my memory of Jane as a person—her brown hair, brown eyes, and even the faint shadow of hair on her upper lip. When I had it solidified in my mind, I tried to bring back the emotions I felt upon catching Owen and Jane together. It wasn't difficult, not with both of them sitting next to one another in the back seat. But as soon as I recalled those emotions, I couldn't rally them behind the image of Jane as a person. The space behind my eyes began to ache, and my office administrator had just been murdered. Had it been quick? Had she felt any pain?
As I tried again to reach my magic, Kailen pulled into the parking lot of a Jack-in-the-Box.
I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Strong smells. And it’s time for lunch. I’ll get you something. Keep trying.”
Owen went with him. As soon as they’d shut the doors and both had their backs turned, I pulled out my phone and checked the news. Jane squeaked indignantly from the back seat.
“This is important, okay?” I muttered as I scrolled through the news site.
Three murders in downtown Portland in two weeks, one of them someone I knew. I hadn’t paid much attention to the prior murders, but now they were all I could think about. The last two had been killed just before dusk, and again, had been seen only a few hours before their body parts had been discovered in an alley. Whoever the killer was, they were impossibly quick.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket as Kailen and Owen came back to the car. But even the smell of food couldn’t stir my stomach now. I waved away the burger and fries and leaned my head against the window.
At Kailen’s prompting, I tried turning Jane back into a person again. And again. We tried it outside the car, inside the car, with Owen yelling at me, and in silence. Half the time Kailen tried to coach me through the process, and half the time he just watched, a hand to his jaw, his lips pursed.
The sun began to set.
“Once more,” Kailen said. We sat inside the car again, soft rock playing on the radio. Apparently some Fae responded well to music. I didn’t think I was one of them. Nevertheless, I pressed my eyelids together, clenched my teeth, and tried harder. I only managed to make my head pound so hard it made me dizzy. “I can't!” I finally gasped out. When I opened my eyes the pain receded a little. Jane was still a mouse.
“Tree of Life,” Kailen exclaimed, “we don't have the time. I was hoping to send you through on your own, but you’re clearly not ready. Fine. I'll go with you to the Aranhods, but you need to figure out how to turn Jane back into a person as soon as we get back. You're not exactly making the case for Changelings not being dangerous right now.” He started up the car and headed back south, toward downtown. We crossed the Willamette and headed into the Pearl District. It was one of my favorite parts of town—lively and artsy. Used to be full of warehouses, now full of lofts and galleries.
When we slowed to a stop, Kailen turned to Owen and Jane. “Don’t leave the car. Wait here. We'll be an hour, tops.”
“Are you seriously leaving us here?” Owen said, his voice a tad high. “Alone?”
“They’re not after you,” Kailen said. “They’re after Nicole. I’ll ward the car. Just stay put.”
Owen’s face scrunched up, like he’d smelled something bad. “I don’t trust you,” he told Kailen.
And then I caught the thick scent of honeysuckle, and Owen was relaxing into the back seat, his lips curving in a slight smile. Is that what I’d looked like when Kailen had used his Talent on me? Because Owen looked like an idiot.
I got out of the car and shut the door. Kailen stood on the other side, the two fingers of his left hand on the top of the vehicle. Something like a static shock ran up my arm, along with another surge of honeysuckle. I jumped back. “What was that?”
“I warded the car,” he explained. “It won't stop a grushound or anything else that powerful, but I'll know if something tries to break through it. Warding is one of my Talents.”
The streetlights had started to flicker on, shining orange circles onto the sidewalks. It was busy for a weeknight, a few couples walking arm in arm, one group of young women dressed up for a night on the town. Restaurants and a couple of bars lined the sides of the street. A little further down was the restaurant Owen and I had gone to for our second anniversary.
“This way,” Kailen said. He took my hand, pulling me to the side to avoid a couple walking in the opposite direction. For a moment, all I was aware of was the feel of his hand in mine. Warm, callused, the fingers long but not slender. A strong hand. He led me past an Italian restaurant and then into an alley. We passed a trash bin, the two walls on either side of us spotted with graffiti. The light from the streetlamps faded into the darkness. I could still see, though, and picked my way through the bits of garbage that littered the asphalt.
“Here?” I asked, my voice tremulous. I'd accepted that I wasn't human, that my biological parents were Fae. I'd even accepted that there was such thing as magic, as well as monsters. But crossing over into the land of the Fae? For some reason, it frightened me.
Kailen let go of my hand, took a piece of chalk from his pocket, approached the brick wall, and drew an archway, the white line cutting across graffiti, bright in my vision. “This will bring us closest to the Aranhods. We shouldn't run into any hobgoblins, grushounds, Guardians, or anything else.” He smiled at me and held out his hand. “Let's go.”
I didn't take it, standing in the middle of the alleyway, a shiver starting at my knees and working its way up to my shoulders. “I'm afraid,” I blurted out.
Kailen stepped close, letting his hand fall back at his side. “You know, when I first crossed over from the Fae lands and into the mortal world, I was terrified.”
I gave him a sidelong glance. “Really? Weren't you two hundred or something?”
“I was,” Kailen said. “They like to tell stories in the Fae realms, things to frighten children with an overly adventurous streak. I thought machines were like monsters, with minds of their own, eager to destroy me. I wasn't supposed to go at all, but I had a youthful curiosity to satisfy.”
“And when you crossed over?” His low, calm voice soothed my nerves.
“It was stranger than I’d imagined, but I learned, bit by bit, that the stories had only kernels of truth to them, and I saw the woman I would later marry, for the first time.”
I broke my gaze from his and stared at the doorway he'd drawn onto the wall. “I've never had stories. Nothing but fair
ytales. Is that what it's like?” I’d spent more than a few nights over at Lainey’s, reading stories to Tristan—about dragons and maidens and knights—as he fell asleep, his face flushed with the exhaustion only the young seem capable of achieving. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine fairytales taking on any life at all.
“Only a little.”
“And what about the Aranhods?”
“Faolan and Maera are eager to meet you,” Kailen said. “Don't worry. I know you'll make them proud.” He smiled, one eyebrow quirked. “Try not to worry, at least.”
I gave a shaky laugh. “You know you’re talking to the woman who freaks out when her staple remover is missing, right?”
He held his hand out to me. “And the same woman who faces down a grushound and wins. You shouldn’t sell yourself short.”
I found I couldn’t meet his gaze, my eyes settling instead on his lips. I looked away, hopeful that he hadn’t noticed. Heat traveled up the back of my neck. I took his proffered hand, and he shifted until our fingers intertwined. I knew he’d only done it so we wouldn’t lose track of one another, yet a tingle raced up my arm, settling somewhere in my chest. Was he using his Talent on me again? I tried to brush off the tingle as another symptom of anxiety, took a deep breath, and turned to face the wall. “I'm ready. Let's go.”
“Close your eyes when we reach the archway,” Kailen said. “It makes it easier. Breathe in before we cross. Walk in step with me. We'll do it together. It may not feel like it, but I'll be there, at your side. Whatever you do, don't stop walking. Don't forget.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to say any more. Any other words might spur my fear and leave me motionless, unable to step forward or back. So I took the four steps with Kailen toward the wall, closed my eyes, and breathed in, my last glimpse of the bright white outline of the doorway.
I took another step, blind, and the world dropped away from me.
My stomach flip-flopped into the region of my throat; my mouth opened in a silent scream. I heard nothing, felt nothing, not even the rush of wind past me. Kailen? He'd said he would be there, but there was no hand in mine, no presence next to me. I opened my eyes and saw only darkness. I couldn't even see my arms or legs. Don't stop walking? What had he meant by that? There was nowhere to walk. What was this place?
Something tugged at my arm, the only sensation I recognized. Keep walking. I tried to lift my leg, and something below me moved. My foot? I hoped so.
In the next moment, I plunged into light, color, and sound. Grass sprung up beneath my feet. A warm breeze caressed my skin, tickling at tears on my cheeks, tears I hadn't realized I'd shed. Though the sun had begun to set back in the mortal world, here it hung high in the sky, the sunlight shining through forest branches and falling, dappled, upon the ground. In between my fingers, warm and solid, lay Kailen's hand.
“Are you okay?”
I took a couple of gasping breaths, then wiped the tears from my cheeks. “Fine,” I said, suddenly embarrassed. “I'm fine.”
“Hey.” He squeezed my hand. “It gets easier. I promise.” He cleared his throat. “The first time I crossed over, I landed in the mortal world in a fetal position and cried for about five minutes.”
I tried to stop my unsteady breathing from forming into laughs, and failed.
He gave me a wry look. “So that's how to cheer you up? Personal humiliation?”
“No, I'm sorry,” I said. “Just nervous laughter, I promise.” I sobered. “What was that place? The place in between.”
Kailen shrugged. “I'm not sure. Emptiness. The Void. Scares the bejeezus out of me though, and just about every other one of the Sidhe. The lesser Fae don’t seem bothered. You get used to it after a while.”
“What happens if you stop walking?” He let go of my hand. A twinge of disappointment struck, and I tried to squelch it by rubbing my palm against my pants, ridding myself of his remembered warmth.
“Some Fae have a theory. If you stop walking you cease to exist—from the moment you were born up until you tried to cross over. Of course, if you did, no one would remember you ever existed at all. So it's a difficult theory to prove.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “And we get to do this again to get back out?”
He walked a few steps and beckoned to me. “I'll be there with you. Come on. The Aranhods live just ahead. We should go before the Guardians get wind of the crossing.”
That got me to move. I checked behind me and saw only more forest. So had we just sprung out of the air? I followed Kailen, feeling completely out of place in my work clothes, Kailen's jacket still wrapped around my shoulders. Moss cushioned my feet, covered in a layer of dried leaves that crunched with every step I took. The trees we wove through had a white, papery bark that peeled away to reveal only more white beneath. Somewhere in the distance a bird sang a song as intricate as a symphony. “So this it the land of the Fae?” I asked.
Kailen didn't turn back to answer me, or stop. “Yes, a small part of it, at least. This is the Aranhods’ realm. It's not all forests—there are vast plains, oceans, and caves so large you could fit cities inside. Here. This is where Maera and Faolan live.”
He brushed aside a branch and waited for me to approach. Beyond the branch lay the massive trunk of a tree, wide as the base of a skyscraper. Carvings covered the white wood, dipping into the trunk at times to form windows. Balconies and stairs wound through the branches. Though it seemed the inside of the tree was hollow, bright green leaves still formed a shady canopy above. A living house.
“It's beautiful,” I whispered.
Kailen smiled down at me, his hand coming to rest, lightly, in the small of my back. My breathing quickened as I tried to tell myself I was reacting to the sight of the tree. “It's one of the most beautiful places in this world, I think. Go on. The Aranhods have protections set up around their home, but they'll recognize you.”
I stepped forward and into the clearing around the massive tree. My house. It was the place I would have grown up in, had the Aranhods not adopted me out. I shivered as another cold flash crept over my limbs. Kailen's footsteps sounded behind me. He walked in time with me, only one step away. The white, carved door at the base of the trunk stood one and a half times my height, symbols I did not recognize written into its surface.
I reached for the silver handle of the door. As soon as I touched it, the door swung open, revealing white wooden floors.
“It knows you,” Kailen said. “Go on.”
At his prompting, I stepped inside.
CHAPTER TEN
The inside of the tree looked like a cross between a page out of Better Homes and Gardens and a National Geographic photo-shoot of a forest. A staircase had been carved into the inside wall, spiraling into the heart of the tree. A green rug of living moss lay in the center of the room. On the far side, a trickle of water ran down the wall and pooled in a depression on the floor, its path mirrored by a flowering vine. Above, a chandelier hung down, the chain holding it going so far up, I had to crane my neck to follow it to its origin—the underside of another landing. In places, the tree had put out new green shoots, springing up from the floors and walls. No one had cut them.
A click sounded behind me. I turned to see Kailen closing the door behind us. “Upstairs,” he said. “They must be upstairs.”
I headed for the spiral staircase, my heart pounding with each step I climbed. When I crested the landing, I saw my mother for the first time.
She stood by a window, a green dress pooling about her feet. Black hair, like mine, fell past her shoulders, thick and unruly. She stood in profile, one light brown hand on the windowsill, her long, straight nose lit from behind by the afternoon sun. There wasn’t a wrinkle on her face; she looked not a day older than me.
“Maera,” Kailen said. “I brought her.”
She turned toward us then and smiled.
I wasn’t sure what I'd expected. To run into her arms, to feel an instant kinship? Instead, the woman before me only felt like a st
ranger—someone who shared my blood, but not my life.
“Nicole.” She spoke it with warmth, with longing. “I feared this day would never come. It took so long for you to manifest, Faolan and I began to think it would never happen at all.”
I struggled against the flood of questions that rushed into my mind. I plucked one from the deluge. “Why make me a Changeling?”
A flash of some negative emotion crossed her perfect features. “We took a chance.” She held out a hand. “Please, come sit with me. I will explain. I promise.”
I stepped forward and placed my hand in hers. As soon as I touched her, the chill I'd been feeling disappeared. She led me to a circle of white, wooden chairs, set around a low table formed of living shoots, twined together and then pruned into a flat surface.
She sat next to me and released my hand. Kailen sat across from us. His gaze swept over the room.
“You're still going through the change,” Maera said to me. “I can feel it.”
I shifted in the chair, the wood creaking beneath my weight. “Yes, well, nothing like going through puberty twice to remind a person how awful it was the first time.”
She didn't laugh, or even smile. Of course. Maera had not been a Changeling. Did the Fae not experience puberty the way humans did? As soon as the question crossed my mind, I knew that they didn’t. They probably didn’t have high school here or awkward school dances. She'd never had to live through my experience. No one alive had. It made me suddenly depressed. “Tell me why, please. You've upended everything I’ve known of my life. I need to know why.”
She leaned forward, elbows at her knees. “After the Fae withdrew from the mortal world, they made it more difficult to cross over by sealing the doorways. You need moonstone to draw the doorways now, and there is little enough of that. Before, the doorways were more intangible, changing, like living things. Mortals used to wander into the Fae lands haphazardly, and vice versa. And then they were sealed. Around forty years ago, the doorways began to form again, of their own accord. No one was sure why.”
Loose Changeling: A Changeling Wars Novel Page 9
