by Elle Casey
The giant tree gave one more groan of resistance, the earth bucked one more time – so hard it sent several elves to the ground – and then the Ancient One capitulated, finally, willingly, accepting the message I was sending.
I received a responding stream of images and sounds – warm sunshine on leaves, babies smiling and responding to smiles and gales of laugher from mothers, the whistling rush of birds suddenly on the wing, and the vision of lazy pollen motes floating through a glorious, flowered meadow. The joy of it lit my face and set it to burning. I looked out at my friends, the elves, and saw them staring at me, their faces at first registering shock and then tentative pleasure. Leaves began to rain down on our heads and a gigantic lower branch of the tree moved slowly towards me.
The elves and witch quickly gathered together, suddenly afraid again. I reached up to take Tim off my shoulder, holding my hand out towards Falco. “Tim, hang out here for a second, ‘kay?”
Tim said nothing, just hopping into the outstretched hand of Falco.
I gestured with my chin for them to leave me. “Go. I’ll be right back.”
The giant branch reached my feet and I knew exactly what to do. I climbed onto it, grabbing a small but sturdy limb to steady myself. As soon as I stopped moving, the branch began its upward climb, extending until it reached the next branch up. One by one, the tree’s arms elevated me higher and higher – to the top of the forest canopy, until I could see out above everything.
I felt the breeze now and saw two large hawks, circling above the nearby meadow, drifting on the currents that rose high above it pushing against their wings and keeping them aloft. I could smell the flowers and grasses and the wood of the trees, the soft loam of the forest floor and the fungi and mosses on the fallen and rotting tree parts. I pulled energy up from the ley line and shared it with this tree, and watched in delight as small, baby leaves on its nearby branches unfurled to welcome the fading sunlight.
We stayed that way, the tree and I, for a while. I watched a blazingly beautiful sunset begin in the distance as the Earth turned towards night. A piece of me wanted to stay there forever – it was so peaceful and I was so connected to the beauty. None of the ugliness of the real world could intrude up here.
But I knew that there was beauty and love waiting for me down below too. And I couldn’t abandon those who would never abandon me. I’d had my time out, but now it was time to get down and back to the business of living and learning and caring and fighting and maybe even dying. Hopefully, though, the dying part was a lot further out in my distant future.
I thanked the tree for sharing with me and asked it to bring me to my friends. It obliged and I soon found myself on the ground again. Everything was the same as I’d left it, and at the same time, it was totally different.
The witch was pretty much stunned, staring up into the tree with his mouth hanging open. The elves were all smiling and Falco was getting nudged by his friend, who he turned and punched in the chest. The friend just rubbed the spot, frowning but not retaliating. I was happy to see that the pecking order had maybe seen some adjustments today. The sense of unity and peace that I had gained by communing with the Ancient One began to fade a bit, but its essence remained in my heart. I was going to guard that beauty with everything I had.
Robin walked up and nodded at me, waiting for me to speak.
Time for me to get my head out of the clouds and come back to the real world. I took a big breath, letting it all out in one big sigh. I smiled at my elven friend. “So, what’s the deal with the arrow then? It was Falco’s right?”
“Yes. I will have to discuss this with the gray elves, but if my guess is right, this means that in some cases, maybe with all green elves or maybe with just some,” he spared a glance for Falco and then looked back at me, doubt in his eyes, “our aim has become something more than just line of sight. It has become connected to our inner eye.”
“Wow. Inner eye. Freaky.”
He smiled absently as his brain considered what he had just said. “Yes. You could say that.”
Falco walked up with Tim standing on his shoulder, hanging onto a lock of hair near Falco’s ear.
“Next time I’m going with you,” said Tim, firmly. “No fair leaving me with gnome-head here. I think we’ve got another one of those ‘I don’t believe in shampoo’ fae here. Ew-yuck.”
I smiled. “Deal.” I held out my hand for him to jump into, glad no one but me could hear him now.
I saw the look of shock on his face at the same time I heard the noise coming from the front of the tree.
“What’s going on out there? Is that you, pixie? I can hear you, you know. I was trying to sleep!”
Maggie’s voice.
“Oh, fuckbuckets. It’s her!” I said in a panic. “I didn’t know she was here. Damn, after all that and she’s just now waking up? She must sleep like the dead.”
“Who?” asked Robin, momentarily confused.
The witch in our group finally spoke up. “Maggie ... ” He appeared to be steeling himself for an encounter, his legs spread apart and his staff held up in front of him with both hands.
“Oh, shit. This is not good.” My mind raced. Whattodowhattodowhattodo??
“Do something, Jayne,” hissed Tim in my ear. “If she comes out here, she’s going to spell us all! She’s going to know you messed with her tree! ... And she hates it when fae mess with her tree ... worse than she hates lying!”
“Shut up! I’m trying to think!” I could see the front door opening, a loud creaking signaling the angry witch’s imminent arrival – and the panic Tim was creating in me made it impossible for me to concentrate.
And then the idea came to me. With no time for inner debate or worry of regret, I sent a message to the huge tree, whose legs were her house. Please let this work!
The door ceased its forward motion and abruptly reversed direction, slamming shut with a loud bang.
“Hey!” came the cranky, haggy voice from behind it. “Who’s touching my door?! Step away, before I make you sorry you were ever born!”
I turned to the Light Fae witch and elves who were now staring at me in horror and yelled, “RUN!!”
Chapter 34
The group of us ran through the Dark Forest back to our compound as fast as our legs could carry us. Tim held onto my hair for dear life, shouting in my ear the entire way.
“Mush, you thoroughbred donkey, mush! She’s coming! She’ll feed me to her rats if she catches me! She’ll burn your eyebrows off! She’ll put burrowing beetles in your ears! She’ll ... ”
I blocked out the rest of his litany of horrors. It was stealing precious skipped heartbeats from my suffering cardiovascular system, and I needed all of its strength right now to move my slow as molasses ass to the compound.
The wind kicked up behind us, throwing rotted leaves and small twigs into the air to sting our skin and blur our vision. The tears were streaming down my face, my eyes working like mad to get rid of all the dust and dirt. I could feel Maggie tapping into the ley lines running through the forest to work whatever magic it was that was affecting the weather. I experimented with jumping onto the line while I ran, finding that I was able to block her flow as I fled for my life.
Take that, you old bag! I’d gotten stronger than her in that respect. I knew now that I could control who had access to the lines. I could feel her frustration with me and then the success of my efforts when her fighting against my hold on the ley line ceased and the winds died down.
We reached the door of the compound in record time, everyone pushing to enter the hallway at once. Someone slammed the door shut behind us, and I let the hold on the ley line drop. As soon as we were in, we stopped running and just stood there for a moment. The corridor was full of sweaty, dirty, out of breath elves, a gasping girl, a wheezing witch, and a petrified pixie. I don’t know who started laughing first, probably Falco, but within seconds of that door shutting, we were all laughing and shouting – even Robin. Man, did it feel good
to be alive – and not just alive, but having fought to stay alive and having won.
Finn threw his arm across my shoulders and squeezed me tight to his side while he laughed. “You were amazin’, Jaynie girl. I’m so glad you showed up at that warehouse in Miami that day.”
I reached across and playfully punched him in the chest. “Me too, Finnster, me too.”
The laughter eventually died down and we all started moving again, back to the more populated areas of the compound.
“Finn ... Tim and I have to go to Dardennes’ office with our dinner. You wanna come? I’m going to ask him some questions about some of these Dark Fae and stuff.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for nothin’.”
“Okay. I’ll see you there then. I’m going to go get cleaned up first.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll walk with ya to the rooms.”
We parted ways a few minutes later at my door.
Tim and I spent the next half hour getting decent before going to dinner, chatting in the room after our showers.
“So, what exactly happened back there, anyway?” asked Tim. “I was so busy hanging on for dear life I think I missed some of the details.” He paused for a second and then continued, “You should ask Netter to get a saddle for me.”
I raised my eyebrow at him. “You must have pixied your own ass to think I would let you saddle me.”
“Just ‘til I get my wings back ... ”
“How ‘bout this: I’ll wear a saddle when you stop using shampoo.”
Tim looked at me, aghast. “And become a gnome-head? Never!”
“Yeah – so, you know what you can do with that saddle then. And to answer your question about what happened, I’m not exactly sure of all the details myself really. I was just working on instinct.”
He snorted. “That’s a scary thought.”
“Yeah, no kidding. I think what I did was open the tree’s eyes kinda. Well, not that it has eyes ... its mind? I’m not sure if it has a mind either.” I sighed at my inability to express what I was trying to say. “Anyway, I let it see what it was hiding from. There’s a lot of darkness there in that part of the forest. It’s like a blanket laying over everything. That tree hadn’t seen the light in a long time.”
“That’s why it’s called the Dark Forest, duh.”
“Yeah, I guess I knew that. But why is it like that? I mean, why choose the darkness when you can just as easily choose to be full of light ... ness?”
“I’m surprised you would ask that. Don’t you already know the answer?” Tim was looking at me all serious-like and I tried to avoid his eyes. Good thing he didn’t have his wings totally back yet, otherwise I know for a fact he’d be buzzing around my face, refusing to let me look away.
“Whatever. I just showed the tree the other side of the coin.”
“Maggie’s going to be mad,” he said carefully.
“Yeah, so what? She sold me out to the Dark Fae. I hope the tree kicks her saggy ass out.”
“It won’t.”
“Yeah, I figured. What’s her connection to that tree, anyway? How is it that she gets to live there, inside it like that ... that the tree lets her?”
“You’ll have to ask her that,” Tim answered mysteriously. I wasn’t sure if he meant he didn’t know or that he wasn’t telling.
“No way. I’m not going near that old cranky bitch. Not in this lifetime.”
“You forget – that’s a really long time now that you’re fae.”
“No, I didn’t forget. That’s how long I really meant.”
Tim sighed. “You don’t mean that. Maggie may have sold us out one time, but she’s helped us too.”
“So? She’s just a stupid witch. I’ll find another witch friend to help me.”
Tim got up on his bed and started jumping up and down on the mattress. “Whatever you say, boss.” He looked like a miniature spastic three year old, bouncing diagonally, forward, back, sideways – straining his body to get as much height as he could, trying to do splits in midair.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
“Practicing.”
“Practicing for what? The circus? Do they even have a pixie circus?” The image of Tim in a tiny clown suit was almost too much. I wondered if I could get Netter to find us a tiny clown costume, complete with itty bitty round red nose and floppy shoes ...
“No, smarty ass pants, I’m not practicing for the circus, and no there aren’t any pixie circuses. Pixies aren’t into gratuitous idiocy.”
“You coulda fooled me,” I mumbled under my breath.
“What?” he said breathlessly as he continued to jump like a maniac.
“I said, are you ready for dinner?”
“Yeah ... just ... let me finish ... this one move ... ” I watched as he took one last ferocious bounce off his mattress, launching himself in the air, trying to do some sort of flip or something – but I could see halfway through the maneuver he wasn’t going to make it. And I was too far across the room to help him.
I watched as his body arched in slow motion, over the bed, and over the dresser, putting him into a direct trajectory to land on the cold, stone floor. I knew in that second that he was about to go splat and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
My heart cried out some sort of crazy desperate prayer into the ether, I don’t even know what, it happened so fast. The Green surged through me and shot out of my outstretched hands, frozen in place there as I involuntarily reached out to try and save Tim from across the room. My chest felt as if it was nearly bursting with the stream of energy that was coursing through me.
It hit Tim like a laser beam, capturing him in midair and suspending him above the stone. He was broiling around in a radiant green bubble for a few seconds until he seemed to balance himself out, his hands up in front of him as if he were feeling the edges.
The look on his face was classic Tim. For a split second there was panic ... and then absolute joy. I could see his mouth moving but could barely hear his words. He sounded as if he were underwater. He kept making bouncing movements inside the bubble as if he wanted it to go somewhere. It stretched and moved to accommodate his changing positions.
My hands were still out in front of me, more due to instinct than anything else. I had no friggin’ idea what I was doing or what I was supposed to do next. I just kept watching Tim and his crazy antics inside the bubble. He started gesturing towards his bedroom set on the dresser.
I finally found my voice again. “You want me to move you to the dresser?”
He nodded his head furiously and bounced up and down some more, all while yelling his fool pixie head off.
“I can’t hear you, dumbass, just wait a second.” I was afraid I was going to drop him. I had no idea where this power had come from and how I was managing it. Was I controlling it or was it controlling me? I didn’t recall asking The Green to come in, which is normally what I had to do for something even remotely like this to happen. I looked at the green light coming from my hands and the path of it leading to Tim. It wasn’t hurting me or wearing me out to keep it flowing, but I had no idea how I got it started or how to turn it off. I focused inwards, connecting to the source of that stream of light, trying to figure out how I might control or at least influence it.
I sensed something different there in The Green this time. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, though. It wasn’t darkness, but it wasn’t the clear, pure light of The Green either. It reminded me of something old ... something ... profound and mysterious ... like the Ancient One.
Had something from that tree rubbed off on me? Or had it somehow entered The Green when I had connected them together? Damn, I wish I hadn’t trapped Maggie in her house and totally pissed her off so I could go ask her. Sigh. Another bridge burned. I was going to have to stop doing that at some point in this life of mine, especially now, since it was going to be so damn long. Hopefully. I guess there was always that chance that my complete lack of knowing what the hell I was doing c
ould come back and bite me in the ass, making me one of the shortest lived fae ever. I was just hoping that it wasn’t going to be today.
“Hang on, Tim. I’m trying to figure this thing out.” I focused on that deeper essence that was with me now. I thought of how before I had to kind of strong-arm the Ancient One into doing what I wanted and accepting what I saw as the inevitable truth. This new flow that I was feeling needed a stronger hand than I was used to using in my links.
Sure enough, once I decided to bend the light to my will, it began to respond. I moved my hands slowly to the left, guiding the pixie bubble over to the dresser. Soon, Tim was suspended above his bed. He was jumping up and down in excitement, stretching the bubble lengthwise, completely clueless about the fact that I was worried I could possibly fry his little butt into oblivion with my every move.
Okay, so now what? I could feel that The Green wanted to stay there with me. It was like an eager puppy, straining at the leash. I pushed back the thoughts of how much work and trouble an eager puppy can be. I had to tame this bastard here and now, or I was going to be a walking nightmare for the Light Fae; as if I wasn’t enough of that already, putting people into comas and sending arrows around the forest like unmanned military drones.
I wrenched back on the green light in my mind, straining with the effort. I could see the bubble getting thinner, but still Tim remained trapped inside.
There was a knock at the door, but I didn’t want to risk breaking my concentration, so I ignored it. I could hear the door creak open and then Becky’s voice.
“Whoaaaahh, that’s awwwwesome. How’d you do that?”
“I have no idea. I can’t shut it off,” I said, nervously.
“Oh. Well that’s a problem, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, no shit. Any ideas?” I looked over at her briefly as she walked up to stand at my side, alternating nervous glances between Tim and me.
“Maybe you could just, I don’t know, put your arms down or something.”
