“It’s nothing like that.” Ariadne tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, blushing.
“Oh, come on. I’ve had a few friends like that in the past. In fact, I know a few ‘couples’ like that in college. Everyone knows what they feel for each other, it’s basically written all over their faces. But still, they’re in complete denial. ‘Oh, we’re just friends!’ Yeah, sure, whatever.” She chuckled. “But it won’t stay like that for long. One day they wouldn’t be able to fight the feelings anymore.”
Something fell on the floor, and both Hanna and Ariadne looked up, startled.
“Sorry,” Mimi mumbled, picking up her book.
She placed it on the coffee table, then stood up and walked out of the room.
“Mimi?” Hanna followed her with her gaze as she disappeared into the hallway. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” Mimi called out, her voice weak. “I’ll be right back.”
Ariadne looked away. She knew precisely what it was all about, and her heart squeezed uncomfortably in her chest in response to that. She barely held herself back from taking off after Mimi.
But what could she do? What could she say to soothe her? If anything, seeing her would only make it worse. She was probably the last person Mimi wanted to see.
“What’s going on?” Hanna muttered to herself.
Suddenly Ariadne started to regret she’d even come here.
Having not much to do while Ray was at work and Mimi wasn’t in the mood to hang out, Hanna finished the dress pretty quickly. Her parents went away for a couple of days, along with her brother, and she invited Ariadne for the fitting.
It was already past sunset, and Hanna laid out some snacks for them. She made herself a coffee and brewed a pot of herbal tea for the dryad.
“Do fairies drink alcohol?” she wondered out loud while fixing Ariadne’s new dress from the back.
“We do make some.” Ariadne nodded after thinking for a bit. “In fact, our berry wines are said to be one of the best—and the rarest, considering we’re not making big amounts of them, and we rarely trade with those who live outside of the Forest. But we can’t have much of it. And we certainly can’t have any strong alcohol.”
“Hmm, that’s interesting,” Hanna murmured. “Now, what do you think?”
Ariadne spun and checked herself in the mirror. Hanging on the wall opposite the panoramic windows, it made the room—and the garden beyond—look twice as large as it was.
The skirts barely rustled, and she loved it. She never wore rustling fabrics and tinkling jewelry, unlike some other dryads in the court. And the dress looked beautiful. Soft and airy, just as she liked it. Even her mother would approve of it, Ariadne thought. Hanna decorated the bodice with pearls and sewn a few butterflies onto the sleeves.
“Hold on,” she said, then quickly ran upstairs and returned with something in her hands.
She came up to Ariadne and placed a headband on top of her head—made of pearls and decorated with a couple of butterflies, it perfectly matched the dress.
“Now you look perfect.” Hanna smiled. “I wish I’d made some matching shoes, too, but I wasn’t sure what you would prefer to wear. Shoes are such a personal thing.”
“It’s perfect just as it is,” Ariadne said, twirling before the mirror. “Hanna, you’re amazing! Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome.” Hanna shrugged with a laugh.
“And now for a touch of magic …” Ariadne closed her eyes and reached for the dwindling supply of it inside of her.
She felt a little dizzy, but it was all worth it as she heard Hanna gasp in surprise. When she opened her eyes, the other girl stared at her as if a magical fairy princess had appeared right before her.
Which she was, Ariadne reminded herself.
But for a moment, Hanna looked like a child, mesmerized by something truly magical, and that warmed Ariadne’s heart.
She whirled around to look at herself in the mirror.
Instead of being plain baby-blue, her dress now looked iridescent, just like her multicolored wings. It seemed like it was glowing slightly from within. Pearls glimmered, and the butterflies didn’t look artificial anymore. They looked like they were real and alive—not pinned in place but as if they’d sat down on Ariadne’s shoulders and hair out of their own free will. It made her remember the Forest. The butterflies always followed her wherever she went, and they often sat on her for hours at a time.
“This is incredible …” Hanna whispered.
The front door suddenly clicked, and they both started. Out of habit, Ariadne transformed and frantically looked around for a place to hide. Hanna peeked out into the hallway.
“It’s you!” She blew out a breath. “Babe, you’ve scared us. I thought it was my parents coming back.”
“What’s wrong?” Ariadne heard a familiar voice.
“Ariadne, you can come back,” Hanna shouted. “It’s just Ray.”
Ariadne peeked out of the fireplace—which wasn’t grimy, as it was a fake one—then flew out and changed back.
“Whoa!” Ray exclaimed. “You should warn before you do that.”
“I’ve told you she’s here,” Hanna said. “How do you like the dress?”
“It looks great.” Ray came closer and kissed his girlfriend. “I think Nate would like it even better.”
Hanna giggled.
“Is he home already?” Ariadne asked, her wings fluttering.
“He probably is, or he will be soon,” Ray said.
Ariadne flicked her eyes between them.
“I should probably go …” she murmured.
Hanna nodded, smiling. “Go,” she said. “Enjoy the evening.”
Ariadne wasn’t sure what she meant by that. But she nodded back, thanked her again for the dress, then said goodbye to them and flew out the door, shifting midway.
“I’ll never get used to that,” she heard Ray say in her wake, and Hanna laughed, closing the door.
Eighteen
She heard the piano first.
As Ariadne neared Nate’s garden, the sound of it reached her, luring her in, just like the first time she came there. She followed it to an open window and flew inside the house.
As soon as he spotted her, Nate stopped playing and looked up from the keyboard, smiling. Ariadne transformed. Her feet touched the carpet.
“How do I look?” she said the first thing that came to her mind, twirling before him.
Nate’s eyes gleamed with fascination as he took her in.
“Amazing,” he finally replied. “You always look amazing, Ariadne.”
A slight blush crept onto Ariadne’s cheeks.
“It’s all thanks to Hanna,” she commented. “She’s a genius. There isn’t a thing in the world that she can’t do.”
“She really is talented,” Nate admitted. “Are those real?” He pointed to the butterflies, a bit of surprise written on his face.
“Of course not,” Ariadne laughed. “I’ve added … a little magic to it.”
“I had a feeling that you did. But also”—he chuckled—“I could expect anything from Hanna.”
Ariadne’s gaze slipped to his hands still touching the keyboard.
“You played …” she pointed out almost in a whisper.
Nate looked down, then nodded and closed the fallboard. He was definitely not going to continue that night.
“You play so rarely these days …” Ariadne murmured.
“I know.” Nate rubbed his forehead. “It’s just … I don’t know how to explain it. This piano … It both beckons to me and repels me. I don’t even know why I started playing it in the first place.”
Ariadne’s eyes glittered as she observed him. She knew precisely why he played all this time. In fact, she’d only heard him play out of his own free will three times—the first time she heard him, the time when she asked him to play, and now, this evening. The other times …
She’d made him play.
Not exactly
manipulated him, but using her abilities, she’d gifted him with sudden bursts of inspiration that resulted in him wanting to play.
But why wouldn’t he want to play out of his own free will? How could he not realize that—
She made a step forward. Then another one.
“Is that because of what happened in the past?” she asked. “Because you’ve been hurt?”
Nate shook his head, a sad smile lingering on his lips. “I don’t know why I got it into my head that there should be a reason for me to play.” His fingers traced the instrument lightly. “It seems like some kind of a curse sometimes.”
Ariadne watched him for a moment.
She didn’t know what got into her own head. Wasn’t sure she was not going to regret that afterward. But it seemed like her legs carried her forward on their own, and before she could stop herself, she heard herself speak.
“Follow me.”
∞∞∞
Nate followed after Ariadne’s glowing bubble as she guided him through the sleepy town streets and in the direction of the forest. Once there, they wove through the trees and stopped before a massive oak. Then Ariadne transformed again.
He had no idea where she was taking him, but his heart still galloped with excitement.
It was one of those trees that looked like there was a door carved in the center of its trunk. Since he was a child, Nate found himself attracted to those kind of trees, always imagining that it was a real door, leading to the fairy realms. He didn’t remember if he’d come up with that idea himself or if someone had mentioned it to him. Maybe he had read it somewhere.
Now he watched in fascination as Ariadne pressed her hand to that imaginary door, and as a burst of light emerged from her palm, the door seemed to move. The next moment, she pushed it open, revealing a winding staircase, leading into the darkness.
“There will be no light until we get to the very bottom,” she said to Nate. “I’ll shift and light up the way for you. Be careful—the stairs are very narrow. They ultimately weren’t made for humans to use. But as we get deeper, the passageway will become wider. Just trust me. I’ll look out for you.”
“Ariadne?” Nate said, and she blinked at him.
“What?”
“Are you …” He shot a glance at the entrance and the hollow trunk. “Are you sure about this?”
She nodded confidently. “I want you to see it.”
He considered it for a moment, then finally, he nodded.
“I’ll try to be as careful as I can.”
She nodded back, then shifted again and flew inside the trunk. Nate bent his head and followed after.
The tree trunk was big enough to fit him inside but barely large enough to move around it. As soon as he stepped in, the door closed and sealed on its own, leaving him in total darkness—except for Ariadne’s magical light. She plummeted down, illuminating the flight of extremely narrow stairs in front of him. Cautiously, Nate started to descend.
Just as Ariadne had promised, the lower they went, the wider the staircase became. The walls seemed to be made of plain earth, pieces of rock and gnarled roots protruding from them in places. As they got deeper down, Nate spotted something glowing on the wall. Before he could come close enough to examine the thing, Ariadne shifted back again.
“We’re almost there,” she said.
Those were crystals, Nate realized as they descended even deeper. Glowing crystals of all shapes and kinds. Just like the ones he saw scattered around that magical lake in the woods. The ones that you could find on illustrations of the fairytale books.
There were hundreds of thousands of them ingrained into the walls of the stairwell and the underground tunnel it opened up into. He stared openmouthed at them illuminating the fork in the road. A thick curtain of roots almost blocked one of the passageways.
“This way,” Ariadne said, turning left.
In the far distance, Nate heard a roar.
“What was that?” He nearly stumbled over a root as he started after Ariadne.
“Careful,” she reminded, taking his hand, then threw a glance in the other direction. “No idea. Dark elves keep lots of beasts here, in the underground. I don’t recognize many of them. I probably should”—she sighed—“but, to be honest, I was more attracted to humans than anything else, so I devoted my time to studying your way of life instead of theirs.”
Nate gaped at her as if it were the first time he saw her.
“Dark elves?” he repeated, bewildered. “What are they? Do they live in the forest, just like dryads?”
Ariadne raised her eyebrows, then closed her eyes and released a breath. Clearly, she blurted out something she wasn’t intending to say, again, but it was too late to take it back.
“No, they don’t live with us,” she explained. “But the Enchanted Forest is just one secluded part of our vast world, and dark elves occupy all of the underground. Their subterranean network of tunnels is massive, covering the entire continent. Some say it even runs under the sea. But we hardly ever come in contact with them, despite living so close to each other.”
“So they only live underground? How do they look like?”
Ariadne shrugged. “Gray skin, pointed ears. Mostly dark-haired. I haven’t met many in my life. The outside world proclaims them evil. But I never believed that. They’ve always been so polite and respectful to us. Unlike elves who live above the ground. But we keep neutral when it comes to politics, so I don’t know much about those conflicts between the races. All I know is that dark elves are stronger by nature, and some of the beasts they keep are truly terrifying. But that’s a story for another day.”
“I’m sorry,” Nate chuckled. “I’m being Ryan. But it’s all so fantastical to me.” He looked around. “I’ve never even thought I’d ever see a place like this. It seems like a dream.”
“Oh.” A smile touched Ariadne’s lips. “It’s only the beginning.”
“So the tree was that secret passageway you were talking about, huh? How is that? I thought there would be some portal—”
“There was one.”
Nate raised an eyebrow.
“When you stepped through the door in the trunk. That was a portal. The staircase is a part of our world—not yours.”
It seemed like they were going up again. The tunnel narrowed, and Nate felt a warm breeze on his face.
The underground wasn’t cold or damp. It was a bit chilly and smelled of earth, but it wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as he would imagine.
But this was something different. As they came closer to the opening of a cave leading outside, he felt something invisible pull at his very core.
“Can you feel it?” Ariadne whispered.
Her eyes glimmered, and her wings fluttered. The next moment, she took his hand and pushed off the ground, hovering in the air just a few inches above the floor of the tunnel.
It was not the wind, Nate realized all of a sudden. It was magic. It enveloped them fully as they neared the opening, beckoning them to come out.
As they stepped outside, Ariadne released Nate’s hand and soared higher, somersaulting in the air.
“This feels so good!” She closed her eyes and laughed, then landed on the grass.
Nate couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He could barely breathe.
This was not like the mirage of the lake they came across in the woods. This was a thousand times more fascinating.
And it was real.
Ancient tree trunks stretched up to touch the starry sky. Flowers—flowers that seemed to be carved out of jewels, just like those Ariadne had planted in his garden, but so many kinds of them—bloomed here and there. Crystals were scattered everywhere—they even encrusted some insects and the bright backs of lizards scurrying up the trees. Birds chirped somewhere in the foliage. Magical twinkle lights floated on the breeze, illuminating the clearing.
It was night, but was almost as bright as in the daytime.
But the most incredible thing was magic. Not o
nly did it make the air warm and as comfortable for a human as possible, with every breath he took, it filled him up inside, banishing any negative emotion and leaving joy and peace in its place.
Nate heard someone giggling off to the side and watched a small group of fairies chasing each other across the path. They paid no attention to him as they passed.
Ariadne followed them with her gaze, then walked over and offered her hand to Nate.
“Welcome to the Enchanted Forest,” she said. “Let me show you around.”
Nineteen
It was like walking into a dream. Even his body felt different—as if not fully there. But that was a pleasant sensation.
“I feel like I would blink and it would all disappear,” Nate said in wonder, studying a curtain of silvery moss cascading down from a tree branch. Every drop of dew gleamed like a diamond.
A bunch of lilies tinkled softly as Ariadne passed them.
“It really is like a dream,” she said. “But this one would stay for a while.”
She looked different here, in the Enchanted Forest. As much as Nate was enthralled with his surroundings, he couldn’t fail to notice the gleam in her eyes, the new lightness to her every move. It was as if the Forest gave her power. Charged her like a battery. She’d never been so lively back in his world.
“Are you sure I’m allowed to be here?” he asked, spotting another group of fairies, all with different colored wings, playing among the ring of luminescent mushrooms in the clearing. Everything around him shimmered and glowed—almost too much for his senses.
“Of course, you’re not,” Ariadne laughed. “Leading humans into the Forest is strictly forbidden. But only if we get caught.”
Nate raised an eyebrow. “Would we?”
She shook her head. “Dryads rarely come to this side of the Forest. Especially during the night.”
“And what about them?” Nate nodded to the tiny fairies giggling in the clearing.
He was sure those were not dryads, although he could hardly tell the difference. Their wings were shaped differently from Ariadne’s and they weren’t glowing. But he wouldn’t risk calling them dryads, knowing Ariadne would probably be offended by that.
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