by Lainy Lane
Calandra looks around, and before she can form the obvious question she wants to ask, he continues.
“Yes, here would be one of those places. The Field of Innocence is one of the few places we are allowed to freely roam. Your destiny started in this very place, long before you were ever actually thought of, Calandra.”
Every new thing he says makes Calandra think she should second-guess him, or at least have some sort of reaction. Truthfully, she just feels numb.
“Your mother loved this place as well, for the same reasons that you found and love your sanctuary. She came back here enough that she eventually saw a faerie coming in through that ring over there.” Jarreth points behind him.
Calandra looks around him to see what he’s referring to. She’s unsure of how she didn’t notice it before. Just fifteen feet from where they sit is a ring of mushrooms that range from red to blue, and just inside of it is another ring of blue, purple, and pink wild flowers. The inside of the circle is lush green grass. On the outside of the ring of mushrooms are perfectly round and evenly spaced patches of dead grass. Surely it’s the way the sun is shining, but Calandra swears there’s a glow coming from the inside of it.
“Coming through as in …” Calandra can’t process the thoughts in her head, she can’t make the words come together and make sense, and she can’t quit staring at the ring.
“Yes, Cal, as in entering your world from ours. Your mother hid when she saw it, waited until he came back, watched him use the ring to cross back over, and followed after him,” he explains.
Calandra’s mouth drops open. “She entered into Faerie? Is that possible?”
Jarreth smiles. “That’s just it, dear, it isn’t possible for a mortal to enter in without being accompanied by a Fae. But your mother, as it turns out, had a heritage that had been hidden from her, much as yours has. She stayed in our world for quite some time and learned about herself and her family.”
Calandra’s heartbeat races again, but only momentarily as her brain processes what he’s saying. Her eyes widen once she pieces it together.
“So, my mom is a faerie?” she asks.
“Not full Fae, but she has faerie in her, yes.” Jarreth smiles. “Your great grandmother had hoped that by living here in the mortal world, her family would be able to have a normal life. However, it wasn’t possible for your mom to do so being that her soul was connected to our world. It’s where she decided she wanted to be, without even realizing it. Much as your soul is.”
It finally dawns on Calandra that Jarreth isn’t only explaining that her mother had been partially faerie, but that she is as well. According to him, subconsciously she’s been seeking this place all along. She’s been trying to find Faerie without even realizing it. “And my dad knows?” she asks quietly.
Jarreth’s eyes look sad and sympathetic. “Yes,” he says simply. “Your dad knows a lot that he isn’t telling you, dear.”
The better sense inside of her is telling her that she shouldn’t believe him. She knows this all sounds straight out of some kind of fairy tale, literally. If the encounter had taken place a few days ago, she would’ve immediately written the ordeal off as some crazy hallucination. As it stands now, after the odd experience of her mother drowning her and her father obviously hiding something about his past with her mother, she finds herself intrigued by the idea of what the stranger is telling her.
“And how do you fit into this story exactly?” Calandra speaks the question before she realizes how rude it sounds.
Jarreth doesn’t seem affected by it in the least. “I am simply ensuring that you find your destiny, Calandra. You are tied to Faerie whether you want to be or not, that’s where your destiny lies.”
“Why should I believe any of this?” She is careful to word the question in a way to not imply that she doesn’t have much doubt in his story.
“The beauty of the Field of Innocence, my dear, is that it is Fae enough to make all of the facades that your world tries to push on you disappear. When you’re here, you’re back to the innocence of a child. Ridden of all the untruths your people have made up over the years, and free to see things for what they really are. You believe because of where you are, because this place makes you feel that it is real. You believe because you are linked to it … in here.” Jarreth places his hand over her heart.
Suddenly, comfort washes over her as he stares intently at her. It seems like an eternity passes as they sit and stare at each other. All at once, he pulls away from her, and she finds there is a painful absence from him doing so. Jarreth stands up and holds his hand out as if to help her up as well. She takes it and backs away from him once they are up off the ground.
“How are you doing, Cal?” he asks, even though he still won’t look at her.
“Does the truth always have to hurt?” she asks.
“Usually, yes.”
Calandra nods her head and looks down at the ground. “Figures. I guess I should’ve kept dealing with the lies and just left well enough alone.”
He places one hand on her cheek, and shakes his head at her. “No, dear, not all lies are beautiful. And who’s to say the truth can’t hurt at first, but still turn into something amazing in the end? You never know what you could turn out to be if you just hold on.” Jarreth smiles, winks, and slowly removes his hand from her face. He walks away, which leaves her with a desire for so much more than what he gave. Jarreth steps into the ring, and with a flash of light disappears in front of her very eyes. Suddenly, Calandra collapses onto the ground.
Chapter Six
Purpose
Calandra had said that she wanted to be alone, and Tristan knew exactly where that meant she was going. At first, Tristan was planning on letting Calandra have her time alone. That theory ended when she hung up the phone without saying good-bye. With that simple action, she had given away just how upset she really was. Tristan had immediately left the house and headed to hers. He had no idea what to expect, and was unsure of what kind of state he would find her in. He didn’t need to go into the house, because he knew where she would be. She needed to go to the woods to think. He quickly thanked God that she’d shown him the place she went to think just the day before, so he knew exactly where to find her.
When he broke through to her sanctuary, he was left completely breathless. What seemed to be a million dragonflies were flying around the field. They were all blues and purples in color, gracefully flying in no particular pattern around her. She was lying in the middle of the field on her back to watch them. Calandra seemed especially mesmerized by them, almost as if she was in a daze. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t looking away from the dragonflies. Tristan slowly walked over to her, careful not to make much noise as he went. She looked so peaceful and relaxed, he didn’t want to disturb her.
“Have you ever really noticed dragonflies and what amazing creatures they are?” Calandra didn’t acknowledge Tristan’s presence until she spoke.
“Why do you say that, Cal?” Tristan asks as he takes a seat next to her and gently runs a hand through her hair, which is sprawled out on the grass beneath her.
“Think about it, have you ever seen any other animal or creature with the flight pattern they have? It’s so uncalculated. They pause every few inches with a sudden jolt, only to continue along where they were already headed to begin with,” she explains as she continues to stare at the dragonflies.
“Seems like that would make them kind of stupid, not amazing, wouldn’t it?” he responds.
At that she looks over at him. “Why would you say that?” she snaps.
“Well, why would you want to waste the gift of flight like that? I mean, think how quickly they could get to where they were going if they just flew straight there instead of acting all ADD as they go.” He sounds more defensive than he means to.
“That’s just what makes them amazing, though. Don’t you see, Tristan?” She turns her gaze back to the dragonflies around them before she continues, “They don’t rush thro
ugh everything like humans do. They see the beauty in the world, and they savor it. They stop to take in every moment, every inch of the world around them. They study their surroundings, appreciate the things that we always take for granted from day to day. Maybe that’s why they were given wings to fly and we weren’t, because we wouldn’t truly appreciate the gift. We’d just use it to make everything go faster like we try to do with everything else.”
Tristan watches her as she speaks passionately about something he doesn’t think should matter very much. Every few seconds a dragonfly perches on her somewhere, whether it’s on her arm, her shoulder, or her knee, one even lands square on her nose. None of them ever land on him, even though he’s being stiller than she is. She keeps reaching her hands into the air in an attempt to touch one; they glide over her finger when she does and each time her smile brightens. Tristan simply watches her in amazement and continues smiling down at her.
“That’s why I love you,” he says as he rakes his fingers through her hair.
“Because I love dragonflies?”
“No,” he laughs, “because of your passion for things, even when they are things that no one else would ever notice.”
“So you love my weirdness?” She smiles goofily up at him.
“Yes, Cal, I do.” He chuckles as he leans into her and kisses her gently.
“It would make sense you know,” she says and goes back to watching the dragonflies as if nothing had happened.
“My love for you, or did you just go down a whole different path on me?” Tristan asks.
“Oh no, sorry,” Calandra giggles, “the dragonflies being the faeries of this world.” She sits up as she says it and several dragonflies land on various places on her.
“What exactly are you talking about?” Tristan watches her carefully. She seems to glow as she watches the dragonflies interact with her.
It suddenly hits Calandra that she hasn’t told him anything about the experience, or meeting, with Jarreth that she had before he arrived. She was still pretty confused on what had happened herself. She could remember meeting Jarreth, he showed her a new area of the woods she had never seen before, he told her things about her father and dragonflies, and then he disappeared. Literally, he had disappeared into a ray of light. Calandra couldn’t remember anything after that really. She had blacked out after Jarreth evaporated into thin air. She awoke to dragonflies everywhere and she was back in her favorite little place. A part of her was wondering if it was some sort of dream, but she didn’t remember falling asleep beforehand. Her head was starting to feel like a pressure cooker.
“Cal?” Tristan pulls her out of her thoughts.
“Yes?” she answers him without fully paying attention.
“Are you okay?” He leans over to get a better look at her and gives her a once over, looking for any sign of distress.
“I’m fine, I just—I had a daydream thing before you got here … I think.”
“You think?” Tristan was lost and worried at this point.
“Yeah, I mean, it didn’t seem like a daydream, it seemed real, more real than usual. But, I don’t know …” None of it made enough sense to be able to form into a logical statement. Tristan looked at her questioningly. Calandra quickly explains the entire ordeal in completely vague and no more coherent sentences. Her head starts running together and her thoughts are having head on collisions with each other as she speaks.
“So, what would that make you exactly … if this were real?”
“Hypothetically you mean?” Calandra interjects with a tinge of offense in her voice.
Tristan nods in agreement.
“I don’t know what it makes me, Tristan,” she sighs, “but I do intend to find out if this is all real and, if so, what it means exactly.”
What she has never told Tristan, in a completely open and totally truthful manner, are the questions that have always filled her about the world and religion. She has tried to grow closer to Tristan by being involved in the church. Before Tristan, church was something she had begun pulling away from because of her father and the wounded relationship she had with him. She wanted to change that, for Tristan, but no matter how hard she tried to change for him, it just didn’t feel right deep down in her gut.
Her family obviously had some kind of hidden secrets that her father would never be ready to discuss. She would, of course, like to believe that there was something else out there, something more than what she saw from day to day in the world. She would love to discover that life had more meaning, more beauty, and more purpose to it than the nonchalant-ness she found in her home living with Chase. Everything Jarreth had told her fit right in with all of her lifelong fantasies. So it made sense for it to be real, right?
Pulling her knees into her chest, Calandra wraps her arms around them and puts her chin into her knees. She stares in the direction the light had taken her to meet Jarreth before. Sighing heavily, she contemplates what she wants to do. Anxiety makes her feel like her chest is a big black hole and she can’t seem to make herself move. The scene of the dragonflies and Tristan’s arrival had been distraction enough for her to put off the inevitable of checking out the situation again, but she can’t keep fighting the urge to look no matter how much her anxiety is discouraging her.
Tristan takes a strand of her hair and wraps it around his finger a few times before he lets it fall down her back. It holds a tightly curled shape momentarily before it straightens back out to a loose wave.
“Cali,” he says barely above a whisper. “Whenever you’re ready to go home, we can. It’s up to you, love.”
Calandra turns and gives him a quick smile. “I have to go in there.” She nudges her head toward the opening that she had explored and found the stranger through earlier. “I just have to get up the nerve to first,” she says as she stares back into the distance.
“Okay, well I’m waiting right here with you,” he states before he lies back onto the ground and leaves her alone with her thoughts.
“Thanks,” she says, but her voice sounds distant as she sees a flash of violet in her face and her anxiety turns to fear. She shakes her head to clear her vision again and sighs heavily as her thoughts return to her and the fear fades away.
****
Jarreth stares out the window of the bar, lost in another world, her world. Should she have been able to affect him so much? He’s done his fair share of traveling between the realms, never before with an actual purpose. It was usually always for selfish reasons, but it had never taken this much out of him before. He gulps down the dark purple liquid in the shot glass and raises it in the air as a signal to ask the bartender for another without actually turning to look at her.
The small framed woman glides over to him. Her hair is straight and blonde, hanging down to the middle of her thighs. She has a headband on to make sure that her hair doesn’t cover the point at the tip of her ears. Only a few of the women still choose to show off their ears around here, Glyda just so happens to be one of them. She sways her hips as she comes toward him. The action gives the appearance that she is walking even though her feet are not actually touching the ground. Her wings are small enough that just looking at her from the front you can’t tell she’s flying. She’s vain, as all pixies are, and always doing all she can to turn heads. It has much more effect on mortals than it does on other Fae of course, but that fact can’t change her nature. Given that humans don’t come to Faerie any longer, everyone has to do the best with what they have around here.
She brushes her hand along his as she takes the shot glass from him. “So, what’ll it be this time, Jare?” She bats her eyelashes flirtatiously at him as she speaks.
“Come off it already, Glyda, and pour me a guilt,” he says harshly.
She scoffs, but still brushes a finger lightly across his shoulders as she leaves to go make his drink. He rolls his eyes and goes back to his own thoughts. The emptiness inside of him that has been plaguing him since he left Calandra’s world doesn’t seem
to be getting any smaller despite the fact he’s already had shots of luck, fear, and gluttony. It doesn’t make any sense for him to be this empty after such a short experience. His thoughts are cloudy, nothing about the ordeal makes any sense. He was supposed to go there, entice her to come here through the ring, and leave. It was a clear-cut walk, he expected he would need one shot once he got back to refill. Going to the mortal world, even if it is only for a quick moment, takes a lot out of a faerie. Then again, usually those trips are meant for feeding off of the human and he didn’t do that with Calandra. That must be the difference, he tells himself.
Glyda returns with his next shot. Coming up beside him, she makes sure to lean over and make a show of herself as she sets his glass down in front of him. Jarreth doesn’t budge, and she walks away with another sigh of discouragement. Jarreth is the only one in the bar at this time of day. Everyone else is busy about other business. When the bell above the door rings, he turns to see who it is and scoffs when Drake walks through.
