by M. J. O'Shea
“So you’re basically hoping I forget, register for college, and go on my merry mediocre way?”
Her cheeks flushed. “A little.”
“Not going to happen, Mom. We’ll have this conversation, with Dad involved, the day after I graduate from high school. I’m marking my calendar.”
“Okay, darling. Will you at least register for a few schools while we wait? Fall term. Maybe somewhere nice in the country. You don’t have to decide right away.”
I sighed as I stood up from the table and stretched. “Fine. I’ll look at some brochures. It’s not happening, though. I know what I want.”
Chapter 4: The Forest
SCHOOL WAS weird on Monday. It was back to the same old same old, but I felt like I’d been through a mental war. Walking through the halls was different too. Locker doors slammed on both sides of me, the air rang with greetings and chatter, all the normal stuff. But it was disorienting. I didn’t feel like myself anymore. I looked for Xan, hoping to see someone I could look at and know that he got it, that I wasn’t the only one. I’d known about my family’s world for years, but seeing it, experiencing it, being there was something completely different. The whole universe had gotten wet and wrung out and never quite returned to its original shape.
Xan wasn’t in first period, which was odd. He’d never missed a day of school that I knew of. For sure he’d never do it without telling me first. I wished he would join the new millennium with the rest of us and get a cell phone so I could see what the heck was wrong with him. I was worried and selfishly annoyed.
He wasn’t in second or third period either. And I should know. We’d had all of our classes together since freshman year—and been in the same classrooms through elementary and middle schools as well. Sometimes I didn’t like that it was always Xan and me together, usually when I was in one of my restless moods. But whenever I needed him, Xan was always there, and that was more comforting than I could explain. He was as much my family as my parents or brothers were. Maybe even more.
I wanted to know where the hell he was, and I was starting to get worried.
At the end of the day, I walked home by myself. It was weird and I didn’t like it. Kids waved at me as I left campus, some giving me questioning looks because I was without my typical other half. I shrugged and waved back, hoping he would show up at my house that night, to hang out if nothing else. I hated not having him around.
I remembered just a few days before, when he was an annoying part of my regular boring life that I wanted to get rid of. By the end of the school day, when it seemed like I might be getting my wish, I’d have given pretty much anything just to know he was okay.
He didn’t stop by that night. Part of me had known he wouldn’t, but it still felt wrong. I tried to do my homework, but it was a half-assed effort. Homework and other mundane things were impossible to concentrate on when I didn’t know where Xan was. My best friend was more important to me than even I would have guessed. I lay in bed, quietly staring at the ceiling, but there wasn’t any sleep coming. Not at midnight, or one… or four. Where was he?
HE WASN’T at school the next day, or the two days after that either. I panicked. I barely paid attention in class, waiting and watching, hoping he’d come bounding through the door, gangly and dorky sweet as always. I made all sorts of promises in my head, promises that I wouldn’t ask him what he was, promises that everything could go back to normal. I think I might have even promised that if Xan was okay, I’d go to college and not keep pestering my family to train me as a hunter.
At the end of the day on Thursday, I booked home and slammed into the house, ready to call the cops, the FBI, the paranormal investigators from TV—anyone who could tell me where the hell my best friend was.
“Mom, I’m worried. Xan never misses school, and he hasn’t shown up there in four days. I haven’t seen or heard from him since Saturday. Something’s off. I can feel it.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, hon. Don’t you think his mothers would’ve told us if there really was something wrong with him?”
She knew as well as I that his mothers were some version of technophobes, against computers and phones and even electricity from what I’d heard. At the moment I really didn’t care what their lifestyle preferences were; I just wanted some way of getting ahold of Xan, and I had nothing. The next time I saw him, we were going to have a long talk about him telling me where his house was so I could find him if I needed to and didn’t have to worry ever again.
“You don’t have any way of getting ahold of his moms?” I asked, desperately hoping there was some other secret they were keeping from me. Some magical bat signal that would help me find Xan and put my mind to rest.
My mom hesitated. “I do. I’m not really supposed to use it unless it’s an emergency, though.”
“This is the longest Xan and I have ever gone without talking. Ever. I don’t have a good feeling about things. That’s enough of an emergency for me. Isn’t it for you?”
“I’m sure he’s fine, honey. He probably just has a cold or something.”
Bullshit. There’s one thing about my mother that everyone knows. She’s an awful liar. And she has the most obvious tell in the universe. Her cheeks flare red and she uses her ring finger to flick at her thumbnail while she looks everywhere but at the person she’s telling a whopper to. Every single time.
“Mom, you really can’t lie for shit.”
“Charlie!” Oh yeah, I forgot we lived in Pleasantville where nobody ever swears. Except her.
I rolled my eyes. “C’mon. You know Xan doesn’t ever get sick. It hasn’t happened even once since we were little boys. Can’t you please just go find his mother and ask her to send him here? I need to talk to him. I’m worried about what happened last weekend.”
“Is there something that you and Colin aren’t telling me?”
I gritted my teeth together. I could be secretive too. “I just need to talk to Xan. Please.”
She nodded reluctantly, and I went to the living room to wait. I had a feeling that whatever it was she did to get ahold of Xan’s mother wasn’t something I was supposed to see. I was too worried to be curious. I didn’t have room in my mind to be annoyed at yet another secret.
ABOUT AN hour later, Xan showed up on our doorstep. He looked tired but fine. Not sick, surely not dead. I wanted to kill him.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“I was feeling a bit under the weather,” he said. Also not a good liar.
“You weren’t sick. You never get sick.”
Xan looked at me for a long time. I gestured for him to come inside, which he did hesitantly. “You’re right. I wasn’t sick.”
“You were avoiding me, weren’t you?” It hurt. Xan had never avoided me in the five hundred million years we’d been friends.
“No. Okay, maybe a little. My mom knows that you found out, well sort of found out, at least. She got mad at me. She doesn’t want me to tell you all of it. Now, no matter what I do, someone’s going to be pissed at me. You’ve never seen my mom mad. It’s scary.”
Of course she didn’t want me to know, well, whatever it was about Xan that I really wanted to know. Not surprising.
“You could have at least told me you were okay. I’ve been so worried about you.”
“Sorry. It seemed like you were pretty annoyed with me last weekend anyway. I was giving you some time off.”
“And avoiding me.”
He sighed. “And avoiding you.”
“Why doesn’t she think you should tell me?”
“She said you’re not ready, that you need to mature a little bit more before we tell you what my role is in your life.”
“Role in my life? You’re my best friend. Is there more?”
“Yes. There’s more.”
“My bedroom. Now.” I pointed up the stairs, and he trudged up like he was facing his death. Might be the case if I didn’t get an answer or two.
I followed him up the
stairs and then closed my bedroom door behind us. “What is she talking about, I need to mature? Can’t you at least tell me what you are? Why Leila spoke in that language to you and you understood?”
Xan closed his eyes for a few moments. “Yes, she says I can tell you that much.”
My mouth dropped open. “Were you just talking to your mom? You have got to be kidding me. There’s no way you can do that.”
“Yeah, we can communicate mentally with members of our family.”
“Why? Who’s we?”
“Dryads.”
I sat there in silence. “Xan, you’ve got to give me more information than that. What’s a dryad?”
He sat placidly on my bed. His hands twitched, though. He was nervous. I still knew him well enough to be able to see that.
“For lack of better word, a nymph, maybe? We live in the woods, we’re connected to the trees….” It was obvious he’d never had to explain himself before that moment.
“So you’re like an elf?”
Xan laughed. “There isn’t any such thing as elves.”
“Then try again. I don’t understand.”
Xan sighed. “Okay, dryads are forest creatures. Not human, but very close. We are each connected to a tree that is planted the day we’re born. My mothers are both dryads. So is my father, but I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
“Okay, so wood fairies?”
“Close enough for this conversation. We hunt very well, but we have a hard time in areas with little tree cover or with cement ground.” Come to think of it, Xan walked on the grass more often than not. “We’ll get sick if we’re away from the trees for too long. There has to be life growing around us.”
“So you live….”
“In the woods. It’s why I haven’t brought you home before. There would have been a whole lot of explaining to do that I wasn’t prepared to get into.”
“Xan, it’s hard to believe—I mean, I do believe you, but Jesus. We’ve known each other our whole lives. How could I have missed something so huge?”
“Because you were meant to miss it. I’ve been evasive. Our families have been evasive.”
“My whole family knows what you are?”
“No. Your mother and your father do. Not Colin. Couldn’t you tell how surprised he was?”
I nodded. “A dryad. Really. A fairy.”
Xan groaned. “I know I said close enough, but please don’t call me a fairy. You won’t see any shimmery wings floating from my back any time soon.”
“Are there other dryads around? Like at school?”
“No. We don’t usually leave the woods.”
“Why did you?”
Xan looked uncomfortable. “That’s getting close to the stuff Mom doesn’t want you to know just yet.”
I’m sure I pouted. A little. Xan knocked me on the ribs with his elbow. “We still cool?”
“Sure. Forest fairy.”
He knocked me harder. “You know the fairies, the actual ones, are kind of nasty. I could take one of them, though. No problem.” Xan grinned at me.
“There really are fairies like with sparkly wings and…?” I fluttered my hands.
“They’re really not what you have in mind. I promise. Evil little bitches. They like to take chunks out of random travelers.”
I coughed out a laugh. “You’re full of it.”
“I’m not. I’ll show you one someday. But you better bring your running shoes. I can probably shoot it down if I had to, but it would cause more trouble than it was worth if I did. We tend to stay out of their way if they stay out of ours.”
“So, the forest. You live there with fairies… and hikers? How are they not tramping all over your houses all the time?”
Xan stood. “You know what? I think it’s time that you come to where I live. I’ll show you.”
“Really?” I grinned. “Like now?”
“We’ve got a few hours before dark. You think your mother would be cool if you just slept over and went to school with me?”
“Yep!” I gathered my stuff. Okay or not, there was no way I was going to miss the opportunity to finally see Xan’s house, er, tree. I had no effing idea what to expect.
I TAGGED behind Xan, a reversal of our usual roles. In our little twosome, I’d always been the one in charge. Xan had seemed happy to follow. Things had shifted sometime over the weekend, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that shift. I liked the stronger Xan, the one who didn’t accept my every want and need, but it was disconcerting. My mom had made a few faces but eventually let me go with him into the woods. Anyway, like I said, I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I still had some of my stubbornness left.
The road ended at a trailhead. It wasn’t anything new. I’d been there with my dad when he wanted to take me out to look at leaves or go fishing (something I’d never quite understood the pleasure of).
“This is it?” I must’ve had a strange look on my face.
“Not quite.”
Xan led me farther into the woods, where the late-afternoon light dappled the ground and the air smelled fresher and damper the farther we went. I heard the sound of rushing water and recognized a waterfall and the small pool where my father and I had spent so many hours fishing when I was a little boy.
“Behind here.”
“We’re going behind the water?”
Xan nodded. “You’ll see. I promise.”
I followed him along a ledge of slippery rocks and behind the mild roar of the small falls. On the other side of the falls, there was a sort of cave, and Xan turned into it.
“Are you taking me back here to chop me into little pieces or something?”
I sure hoped this cave wasn’t where my best friend had grown up.
“No, dork. Just follow me. It gets better.”
I followed him through the cave, until the small opening shrank to the point where we had to crouch. I couldn’t see how we’d be going any farther until Xan made a sharp turn to the right, one that I would’ve never seen. The dark passage opened up slowly until we were back out in a section of the woods I had never seen before. I had a feeling nobody would see it unless they were expressly invited.
In a word, it was beautiful.
The trees were trees, the same as they’d been on the other side of the falls, but they were brighter somehow, more multi-colored. I couldn’t stop staring. The leaves were green tipped but gold and red and orange, and all the flaming colors of fall were intensified by the warmth of a pleasant summery sun. I’d had a sweater on before we went through the falls, and I’d still been shivering in the late-afternoon autumn chill, but on Xan’s side of the world I stripped it off and was perfectly comfortable in a T-shirt.
“Why is it so warm?” I looked around, reveling in the colors and the sun and the fresh smell of the ground.
“Our ecosystem is different than yours. The plants mirror your seasons, but the weather doesn’t.”
“So it’s never winter here?”
Xan shook his head. “No. This is about how it always is. Not too cold, not too hot. The trees change, and it gets cooler at night, but that’s about it.”
“How do you do it?”
He shrugged and chuckled. “I don’t do anything. That’s just how it is in the Forest. This isn’t your world. I don’t know how to explain it. Things work differently here. The children just take it for granted. They’ve never seen snow or big storms. Many of them have never been to the human realm.”
There were children all around us. Curly-haired little girls and boys with hair that matched the autumn leaves, red and gold and walnut brown. Their skin glowed. I noticed Xan looked different in the woods as well. He was always pretty, warm and healthy looking, but in the forest he seemed to take on a cast, like there was a light coming from under his skin.
“X’andrien!” One of the little girls cried—a tiny thing with brilliant red hair and elfin features.
“Hello, Xara.” He picked her up and tickled her. The child
’s laugher pealed through the trees, bell-like and magical.
“X’an, who is this?” She pointed at me. I knew I must look strange in the world of golden skin and angelic curls. I noticed she said his name differently, too, like Xan was two syllables instead of one.
“I’m Charlie,” I told her.
The little dryad girl wrinkled up her nose. “What sort of name is Charlie? I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it much either, Xara, but my mother named me that. Your name is much prettier.”
She looked at Xan. “His mother named him? What tribe does that?”
Xan made a tsking noise in his throat and kissed the girl on her cheek. “Go find your brother, love, and tell him that we’ll work on his archery tomorrow. I have a guest tonight.”
Xara looked at me with her big gold eyes and nodded. The tip of her thumb crept into her mouth; Xan batted it away gently. “You know your mother doesn’t want you doing that anymore. Do you want the sap on your thumb again?”
She made a face and shook her head. Then she wiggled out of Xan’s arms and hopped to the ground with more grace and ease than any human child. Xara sprinted off into a stand of trees. I marveled at her speed and agility.
“We have this sour sap that we had to put on her thumb. It was the only way to get her to stop sucking. She needs to start learning her bow and arrow soon. Can’t do that with a thumb in her mouth.” Xan was talking partly to himself.
“Bow and arrow? That child can’t be more than four!”
“She’s eight, actually. The females tend to run small. But we do start young. There is much to learn.”
“And you’re good?”
Xan blushed and dipped his chin. “I’m one of the teachers for the tribe. I stayed back when the other boys my age went to live with the men across the Forest.”
“The men—” I didn’t know where to start with that, so I didn’t ask.
“It’s a long story. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“So you stayed behind so you could teach the young children.”
