by CC Solomon
A month in and that confidence had disappeared. So, when I found Erik in my dreams, a spark of hope ignited in me again. I wanted to tell Phillip but decided against it. He’d been suspiciously pleasant the past month, although that didn’t mean he wasn’t plotting and scheming. I’d come to believe he would never physically hurt me, but he would knock me out of the way if I came between him and his self-interest. Right now, that interest was getting back home, so he could continue his reign of terror. However, if Mae’s visions were true, I’d be ending his reign.
The only reason I suspected he wasn’t setting up roots here was because he had no interest in running a town of non-paranormal humans. That would be a demotion to him. Although, in a way, he was still running things. The more good he did, the more admiration he gained from the villagers. Even Ed seemed to take to him and Mercy had actually gotten into a fight with a woman she saw flirting with Phillip. She continuously greeted me with dirty looks when she saw me stand too close to Phillip and I assumed the only reason she hadn’t stabbed me was because Phillip had asked her not to.
That Sunday after my dream communication with Erik, Ed invited us to go fishing. I was looking forward to leaving the small town, just to explore and see what else was out there. After our initial attack in Dublin city, I thought it best to lay low and not venture around. We didn’t want whoever that man was, to find us and wreak havoc on the village, but I was getting restless. I figured one lone venture outside of the community might be okay.
We stopped our cars in an open, grassy space that led to a rocky beach and choppy waters under another cloudy, gray sky. People got out and commenced putting together their fishing gear. A nearby group scouted for land animals, seeds, and such. I followed the other group to the water. I’d never been fishing but I figured my magic could aid in collecting fish.
I walked to the edge of the water in my bare feet, my cargo pants rolled up to my calves. Phillip pulled off his shoes, shirt, and pants, revealing swim trunks before walking into the water.
“You don’t want to get in the boat?” I asked him, pointing to a few people hopping in a fishing boat tied to a large boulder at shore.
He shook his head and kept walking, then swam until he stopped abruptly, moving to a floating doggie paddle. I sighed. For a moment there I was worried he was trying to drown himself, although I hoped he hadn’t planned to take me out.
He placed his hand out and slapped the air in front of him. He moved his hands farther out, as if miming, but I knew he wasn’t. He was touching a ward. Crap.
He turned to me with neutral eyes.
“Can you break it?” I shouted.
He shrugged and turned back to the ward.
Mercy walked up beside me. “What’s this about?” she asked, scratching her head.
“We’re warded in,” I explained.
“Well, that can’t be right. We’ve sailed these waters loads of times.”
“Maybe someone recently warded it.”
Mercy shook her head. She pointed out diagonally. “Tell that to the boat rowing past him now.”
My eyes followed her hand and saw a small boat carrying three people rowing a short distance from Phillip farther into the ocean. Phillip moved horizontally to follow the direct path of the boat. He met the invisible wall again, pushing with seemingly great effort against nothingness.
“Bloody hell,” Mercy cursed, running her hands through her short hair.
“It’s not a ward. It’s the magic over us. We can’t sail out of here,” I stated. My knees betrayed me and I sank to the ground, suddenly devoid of any energy.
“Lucky you found out by water instead of flight first. Can’t imagine you both are indestructible. I couldn’t have anything happen to my Phillip.”
I grimaced, a tightness in my heart growing and stealing my breath. Was I having a heart attack? I was too young for that, right? I poked at my chest in a futile attempt to try to massage the dull pain away.
“You okay?” Mercy asked.
“Just a bit of heartburn. I’ll be fine,” I replied, hoping that was true.
“Maybe you should lie down in the car.”
“Maybe I should.” I wiped a bead of sweat from my forehead and stood up on shaky legs. I didn’t have time for this, whatever this was.
A loud horn interrupted my pity party. “What is that?” I cried.
Mercy ran to the shore. “Get out of the water, Phil!” she shouted.
The boats turned and headed back towards us as I ran to Mercy. “What’s going on?” I asked.
“There’s danger somewhere. The horn sounds when paranormal danger is round. Someone saw something. We need to take cover. Phil!” She jumped up and down and waved her arms.
Phillip was midway back when he suddenly went under water as if something had snatched him. The back side of a translucent, pale-gray beast rose above the water. Its skin appeared thin and tiny lights presented a glow from within its body like a jellyfish or firefly. Even its internal organs and veins seemed to glow with light. Except it wasn’t a jellyfish. It was the size and shape of a whale. Only it wasn’t a whale either, because it had a long, thin tail that fanned out at the end. It also…flew. Breaking free from the water, the large beast, which I could see looked like a cross between a seal and a whale, expanded its gray wings and took off several feet in the air with Phillip riding on its back.
“What the fuck?” I wondered in awe.
Phillip clung tightly to the back of the beast, a terrified expression on his face. I didn’t know whether to be scared or laugh.
The large beast changed directions and flew low towards the shoreline. Mercy took a step back and took out her gun, aiming.
I frowned. “No, don’t hurt it!” I yelled.
“It’s going to kill my Phillip!” she whined.
“Is it?”
The beast gently lowered to the beach, collapsing its wings back into itself. It let out a cackling sound, like that of a dolphin. Its beady eyes looked friendly and unassuming. Phillip slid off the beast and took off towards us.
I walked towards him and he grabbed my hand as we faced each other. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here,” he cried. “I almost died.”
I shook my hand free. “I don’t think you did. He’d have eaten you if that were true. Instead, he brought you back.”
“It’s a he now?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
I walked forward, carefully, to the beast. “Don’t you think that it’s a he?”
“Amina, what are you doing?”
“We have powers over the living. We shouldn’t be scared of him.” I stopped several feet away from the beast. He looked at me, still resting on the shore. I could see now that he had whiskers and a snout more like a seal. “What are you?”
He made his cackle noise again as if to answer, but of course, I had no idea what he was saying.
I walked to the shore and lowered down, thrusting my hand into the water. A minute later fish appeared around me, responding to my magic call. I picked one up and walked over to the large beast with my catch.
The beast sniffed the fish and then opened his mouth slightly. I placed the fish inside, praying he wouldn’t snap down before I could pull my fingers out. He didn’t close his mouth until I took a few steps away and then he proceeded to eat the fish.
Once done with his mini bite, he cackled again as if in appreciation. “Oh, you’re a friendly beast, aren’t you? You didn’t want to eat that crazy man back there, did you?” I carefully reached out to touch the beast on the snout. He let me without movement. His skin was smooth and thin and the sparkling color in his body danced and shone like carnival lights. I began to stroke the animal on the face and he gave a gentle, rumbling sound.
“So, we don’t kill it?” Mercy shouted from a distance.
“No, we don’t. He’s our friend. I’m sure if you are kind and give him some fish whenever you visit, he’ll look out for you when you go fishing. Not all supernatural wildlife is bad,
” I replied.
“You’ve never seen this thing before?” Phillip asked.
Ed, who had gone hunting on land, appeared next to Mercy. “No. This is the first time. Guessing it swam here from another part of the ocean. Probably looking for food,” he surmised.
“Well, you have a new friend. Andy. Be good to Andy and he’ll be good to you,” I stated.
“Andy?”
I gave a curt nod and smiled at the water beast, finding him oddly relaxing to touch and look at. “You’re going to be my new friend. I’ll come and visit, okay?”
“Really?” Phillip said with a quizzical tone. “Andy tried to drown me and now he’s your best friend, huh?”
I gave him a wide grin but didn’t answer.
Phillip raised an indignant eyebrow and turned away.
Our trip to the ocean proved to be a fruitful one. Other than finding out the final stage of how trapped we were and me making a new animal friend, we also caught a ton of fish, mussels, and clams. Phillip seemed especially excited about the impending seafood fry and not the least bit disturbed about our banishment. More and more, I began to wonder if he had a bigger plan he wasn’t sharing.
While Phillip seemed content, my dream visit from Erik helped me to move past devastation and into rage. At Lisa. She didn’t even give me the option to agree to banishment or even say my goodbyes. She disappeared and then came in just when I had a chance of winning. She ruined everything. And now I knew that she was refusing to right her wrong, even with someone she loved like a brother and the woman who saved her life. I remember seeing in Erik’s eyes, the pain and anger he had at our separation. How were they handling Lisa all this time? Was she locked up? Did she leave again?
Phillip patted my hand, seated beside me in the back of the jeep as we headed back to the village. “Don’t let that anger control you,” he stated.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “What are you talking about?” I spat, moving my hand away.
“I can feel your energy, remember? You’re burning so hot with rage, I’m sweating,” he cracked, a slight smile on his lips.
Something about his new, calm demeanor worked to soothe me and I let out a deep sigh as I stared out of the window.
“If it’s meant to be, we’ll be back. Mae said we had work to do,” Phillip stated.
“I didn’t think that work was going to be done in Ireland,” I muttered.
“For a while, would that be so bad?”
I didn’t answer him, just gave him a glare. “A month ago, you hated being here, now it’s a vacation.”
“I didn’t say all that.” He shook his head and looked away. “It’s just calmer here. Well, outside of almost getting eaten by some ocean beast. I just feel more like my old self.”
When we got back to the village, there was an announcement for an impromptu dinner party that sent the village buzzing with preparation. I tried to avoid being a downer and helped prepare food.
The overall celebration was actually a fun one. The Irish, as I recalled from my last visit, knew how to party. The gathering took place inside the local café and spread outside. It was the last few days of the summer months before the November cold would blast in unapologetically. We wanted to make the best of the days left. I could only imagine what an Irish winter felt like since they were already cooler in their summer months, when compared to the U.S.
In front of the café there was a large bonfire on the street. Most of the people gathered around the fire as they listened to music. We blared some songs from old music players that Phillip and I revived. In between a few songs, a band made up of some of the residents played with musical instruments they had collected over time.
The spread of food consisted of our day’s gathering, French fries, or chips as they called them, assorted vegetables, and desserts. Of course, there was booze, beer, and whiskey that they’d learned to craft.
I leaned against a tree, slowly sipping on a glass of whiskey with a plastered smile on my face.
I looked on at Phillip dancing in front of the bonfire with a curvy, red-headed woman. He had a joyful smile on his face and looked genuinely happy. I just didn’t get it. He’d been enraged a month ago and now he was having big fun. This was starting to seem like a punishment just on me.
“I’m going to roast that woman alive,” Mercy grumbled, appearing next to me.
I chuckled. “I’d like to see that,” I replied. I looked over to her angry face. “You really like him?”
She shrugged. “He’s cute, don’t you think? And he has that cocky confidence about him that I quite like.”
“Then why’d you cut him when you first met him?”
“I was just trying to mark my territory. It’s what we did at my old camp.”
“What?”
“Before I came here and met Ed, I stayed with a camp back in Belfast for about six years. It was hard, but we were safe. Some people were real dicks there, though. They’d make certain people subservient.”
“Where’d the cutting come from?”
“The top people would find men and women they liked and mark them with their initials or some symbol as theirs. No one else could date or have sex with them.”
I opened my mouth in surprise. “Are you kidding me? They branded people?”
Mercy nodded before taking a swig of her beer.
I sighed. “Were you marked?”
She nodded again. “Twice. The guy who cut me second, killed the first guy.”
“Oh, my God. What kind of barbaric place was this? And you were there for six years? How’d you meet Ed?”
“He had a run-in with the guy who ran the place. They were always fighting each other over things. One day, the fight got bad and Ed’s guys came at our guys. Our guys lost. Then we were free to do what we wanted. I followed Ed. He didn’t even want to mark me. He said I could stay with his people as long as I contributed. I like it here best.”
“How old were you when the world changed nine years ago?”
Mercy scrunched her face in thought. “Well, I’m twenty-five now.”
“So, you were sixteen when you were with that camp?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I was almost twenty-two when Ed came.”
I shook my head in disgust. If they were branding people, I could only imagine what other horrible things they were doing to people. It explained a lot about Mercy’s violent behavior. Who knows how she was in the Pre-world. She’d only been a teenager.
“I’m sorry that you went through all that, Mercy.”
She waved her hand at me. “It’s all right. I survived the Sickness and not getting eaten by a werewolf or something, so all things considered I lucked out. Anyway, I was putting my initials in Phil’s skin so the other women would know he’s mine. Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to do, but now look at all the women coming up to him. I’ll have to fight them.”
“Oh, please don’t.”
“Then how can I get him to like me?”
“I’m not sure he’s worth it. He’s an arrogant asshole.”
She smiled at me. “I like arrogant assholes.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Well, then, be persistent. Never let him out of your sight.”
“You think he’d like that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure he has a heart to like anyone other than himself, really. He’s a waste of time, if you ask me.”
Mercy shook her head. “I’m just going to make my move. Thanks for the talk, Mina. You aren’t so bad. Maybe you aren’t my competition.”
I gave her an incredulous look as she headed away. I was definitely not her competition.
“Look at that face. What got you all bothered? Maybe if you drink more, you’d be a little happier. Nothing that a bit of Irish whiskey can’t fix,” Ed suggested, leaning next to me on the tree.
I glanced over at him. “I don’t think alcohol is going to fix my problem. I’m stuck here.”
“For now. Maybe the spell will wear off. And we’re
not such a bad people,” he replied. He gave me a wink. “I see you’re bonding with Mercy. She’s taking a shine to you, looks like.”
“She told me about where she was before she came here.”
Ed frowned and nodded. “She’s a fighter. Was an athlete in school before all this. I think rugby. And that disrespectful shithole she was in did show their folks how to fight. She’s a tough one on the outside but all mush inside. She watched her parents and siblings die of the Sickness. That and whatever they did to her at that camp, which she doesn’t talk too much about, gave her a bit of PTSD. Least that’s what the head doc says here.”
“I can see that. I couldn’t imagine losing everyone. I thought I had.”
“You still have family?”
I raised my eyebrows. “I have my brother back home. And a man who loves me.”
“Lucky him. He must be going mad with you gone.”
Before I could respond, the sound of a loud explosion surrounded us and a blaring alarm scattered the villagers.
“We got visitors,” Ed shouted.
Phillip ran over to us. Mercy followed behind him with an excited look. I wondered if this was another supernatural creature, like earlier today. Perhaps it would be friendly, too, but I wouldn’t hold my breath to find two good creatures in one day.
“They’re saying Fae are outside the wall. They’re trying to break the ward.” Mercy announced, practically jumping up and down with delight.
“Good luck with that,” Phillip grumbled.
“The ward will hold up,” I stated.
Ed began to walk and we followed. “Even so, everyone has their places.”
“Do the Fae attack often?” I asked.
Mercy shook her head. “We haven’t had a Fae attack in years,” she replied.
I glanced over to Phillip. “It’s because of us, maybe,” I stated. “We should leave.”
“You’ll stay. Just help us fight,” Ed barked ahead of us.
“You got it,” I replied.
Fae. We were going to fight Fae. Would they know Lisa? Could we get one to help us break her magic? This just might be our ticket out of here. For the first time ever in my life, I was looking forward to a fight.
