by E. M. Fitch
At once, their heads raised and their hooves stilled. They no longer snorted, only breathed their musty breath like sighs and walked forward, their hooves click-clacking on the hard floor beneath them.
It’s not good for them, Laney thought, this floor. It’ll damage their hooves. They need the forest.
The largest stuck his warm nose in her outstretched palm and then tilted his head, nuzzling into her. The smaller moved closer, huffing warm breath on her neck before a long tongue reached out and licked her exposed skin. Laney couldn’t help but giggle.
“You see, girls,” Doris exclaimed knowingly, “a faery. Thank you, Faery Girl!”
Laney smiled and nodded in Doris’s direction, ignoring the incredulous expressions of shock (and was that wonder?) that painted the nurses’ faces. She gestured that the deer should follow, and then she walked into the sunshine, her new guards flanking her.
There were police already on scene, along with an old Animal Control vehicle idling in the drive. Laney’s appearance went completely unnoticed, because, of course, they couldn’t see her. Humans were so easily distracted. And that suited her just fine. Her friends could take off into the forest now, and she’d join them soon. She whispered her instruction in their ears, leaning first toward one, then the other. They nodded in that wise way of theirs, guardians of her forest, and then galloped off through the waiting line of police officers, all of whom made way for the beasts. The officers seemed confused and unsure, as though they were waiting on some order that had yet to come. They seemed more than happy to let those two nuisances run off.
But the order to move would come soon, Laney knew. And she had one more creature to contend with before they could move in with guns outstretched: a mountain lion.
“Go, gallant friends,” she whispered when the deer turned at the edge of the forest, eyeing her speculatively. “You’ll see me soon.”
Laney turned her back on the growing scene behind her and ran for the stairs that lay around the corner from the ER. She didn’t stop to see if the nurses and Doris had made their way out; it was safe for them now, and they knew it. And though it had pleased her that Doris recognized her for what she was, she had no desire to confirm it under the curious glances of the women all adorned in navy blue scrubs.
Laney half-expected people to be lingering in fright in the stairwell, but the landings were quiet. She raced up the rubber-coated steps, bathing in the artificial yellow light that flickered in the old fixtures adorning every turn. She was reminded of how old this little town hospital was, the setup a mishmash of buildings donated to the town over a century ago. But before that, it had been a mansion, and, briefly, a respite. It had grown as the town had, with pieces added on in haphazard fashion: a new building here, a breezeway to connect it; an addition to the front of the building to make it look less like a foyer and more like an entrance hall; a beefed-up ER to accommodate more ambulances. As recently as the eighties, a completely new building had been built, consisting of medical offices connected to the main floor by a skywalk.
Laney eased through the second-landing doorway, walking quietly onto the second floor. Above her head, a sign read Outpatient Procedures. A red line was painted on the hall floor, and it disappeared at the first turn. A sign reading Surgery with a red arrow pointing down the hall marked the corner. There were no nurses behind this nursing station, which would have been far less secure, as it was open on all sides, and the comfortable waiting room was clear and empty, sun shining on the rack of magazines and reflecting off the muted TV screen mounted in a corner.
For a bizarre, otherworldly second, Laney had the urge to whisper, Here, kitty, kitty, but a hand reached out of a doorway behind her, wrapped around her bicep, and yanked. Laney stumbled back and was pulled into a familiar chest and enveloped in a scent she knew with aching precision before the door slammed shut. The hand released her, and she was able to turn slowly in the sun-filled nurses’ office.
Cathy Harris stared in disbelief as Laney looked up at her. Her hair was mussed, her blue scrubs stained with a smear of blood by her left sleeve, and her badge was clipped crookedly to her torn front pocket. Knowing lit behind her eyes, and for the first time, Laney recognized just how much Cassie’s mom must have suspected. She knew Laney immediately, saw her and recognized her without hesitation. The knowledge of the Fae must have been sitting in the edges of her mind for some time now. Laney’s heart swelled with equal amounts of love and sorrow at the thought.
The room behind her held a grouping of patients, two other women in scrubs, and one hospital volunteer—painfully noticeable by the candy-striper pinafore that she wore. All were silent and begging with their eyes that Laney remain so as well.
“There’s a cougar out there,” the candy-striper whispered when it seemed Cathy was at a loss for words. “So be quiet and we can wait for—”
“Laney,” Cathy whispered, her voice cracking over the name. “Is it possible?”
“Hi, Mrs. Harris,” Laney said in a feeble voice, shrugging slightly but never taking her eyes from the older woman, who had been a second mom to Laney her entire human life. Cathy reached for her face, setting warm palms on each of Laney’s cheeks, before sobbing dryly and pulling the girl to her bosom.
“Does your mother know, Laney?” Cathy rasped against her ear. “She’s been worried sick. Where have you been? Are you okay?”
“Is this really the time, Cathy?” one of the nurses hissed. Her eyes darted wildly to the door, and then around the small room, a room Laney now realized was lined with windows that looked into the waiting room. Curtains were held closed in the fist of one nurse and one patient, who held the curtain as tightly as he held his hospital johnny closed behind his backside. Another patient whimpered as they heard a shuffle outside and gripped her arm to her chest. Long slash marks blossomed up and stained the white gauze she held to her forearm.
“It is the time,” Cathy whispered, stepping back and holding Laney at arm’s length, staring into her face. “This girl was stolen from me, and she is practically my daughter.”
“Well, then, shut her up!” a male patient growled. And from behind the drawn curtains, something large raked a nail over the glass. A deep rattle echoed from the animal’s throat, though purr or growl, it was hard to tell.
“I have to go, Mrs. Harris,” Laney whispered. And just like her daughter, Cathy shook her head and hissed a panicked, “No!” Laney leaned forward, pulling the woman into her arms.
“I have to,” she whispered fiercely. “Tell my mother I’m sorry. My father, too. Tell them it’s time for them to move on. I wouldn’t have them join me, not now or ever, no matter how much I might miss them, because I was wrong to run, wrong to leave. I’m so sorry I have, but there’s no going back.”
There wasn’t. Laney knew this. Some decisions couldn’t be unmade, and what she had done—in a time that seemed so long ago—that day in the forest, the day she surrendered her human life to the Fae, was one of those decisions. The moment she gave her life to the trees, it was theirs forever.
“Laney, I don’t understand,” Cathy whispered, her grip tightening. “You’re here, you’re alive, you have no idea how much—”
“I have every idea. Trust me. I do.” A pit of grief opened in Laney’s gut, and it swallowed every flitting instance of watchfulness over her own child, over Liam. Every pain of not being able to hold him, every separation wondering what he was doing, or how he was; those feelings stretched and filled the chasm that built steadily through her gut. And Laney knew her own parents felt those same things, only about her. She had done that to them, carelessly and unknowingly. She had been convinced that parents weren’t meant to keep their children, and maybe that was so, but not in the way she had done it. It was meant to be gradual, and truthful, a separation for both in which you parted in understanding that the parting was occurring. It shouldn’t have been a split so harsh that reality splintered; that was unfair.
“I don’t
belong here anymore, Cathy,” she whispered. “I did once, but I don’t now. And if you tell my mother that, I feel she may understand.” Laney smiled as she said it, remembering the woman who stood on her back porch, the tip of her cigarette lighting the night air and illuminating her features. She knew. She wasn’t sure what she knew, but Laney’s mother knew. It was why she sat there, watching the forest shift and move, watching for the face that belonged there.
Cathy’s hands dropped from Laney’s skin, and the younger girl smiled up at her. “Be careful,” Cathy whispered.
“Always,” Laney responded with a wink. She slipped out the door behind her, hurrying so as not to startle the others in the room or risk Cathy Harris’s iron grip on her forearm again. Once in the corridor, it was blessedly silent, and Laney took a deep breath, pushing back her grief. After that she said the words, “Here, kitty, kitty,” and the cougar trotted up to her easily, dutifully placing his powerful head underneath her outstretched fingers. She smiled.
Laney led the mountain lion to the nearest skywalk, meaning to take him out of the crowded hospital through the attached medical offices. Hopefully there would be no assortment of police and bright lights at that exit. She could bring him to the forest’s edge and set him free.
Her plan worked easily; she flitted through the hospital like a queen with her guard, losing balance only when the cougar nuzzled her leg affectionately with no warning.
“Easy, kitty,” she whispered, scratching the beast behind the ears. His purr really did sound like a growl, deep and resonating in the stark halls of the medical offices. He sniffed hopefully at the air ahead, sensing the freedom that lay beyond the glass doors at the end of the hall. “Almost there.”
Laney had been right; the back of the medical building was cleared of people. She could sense the restless shuffle of terrified humans on the other side of the building, the occasional squeak of a police radio, and the comforting swath of red, blue, red as the lights swirled soundlessly and cast their beams into the forest, the street, the parking lots that surrounded the old hospital on every side. Her new friend whined uncomfortably, nuzzling into her legs. She petted him absently, fixated on the grouping of humans behind her. But that was only for a moment, and then she was off, followed by the mountain lion, she light-footed and almost dancing toward the forest, he click-clacking along as sharp nails scrambled over unforgiving pavement. And then the dimness of the forest embraced them, filtering all harsh lights—police patrol top flashers, medical office fluorescents, even sunlight—into diffuse shadows and cool pockets of darkness.
“Oh, Sister,” a soft voice called out. Laney stiffened, and the cougar growled, a noise so harsh and unforgiving, she wondered how she could have ever thought his purr might be confused with this ripcord chainsaw noise. Jude stepped from the shadows, flanked by Gaia. “Why do you have to go and ruin all our fun?”
Anna disappeared around the other side of the crashed semi before Cassie could move again. Laney was gone, Gibbons was jogging toward the dazed crowd below, and Cassie just stood, shocked into disbelief.
How had it come to this? It was utterly unreal, watching the town she loved, the people she grew up with, in this awful fugue, so far gone that no one even cared that a baby was likely crushed to death by a semi.
But no, not all of them were lost. Gibbons was there; he believed her. Anna was checking on the baby. Mrs. Evans was finally quiet. Cassie looked down at the Town Green to find the woman lying on the ground, silent. She wondered if the crowd had become too aggressive, knocking her unconscious in the process. Some of the people seemed alarmed, listening to Gibbons’s aggressive speech, moving when he told them to. Several men—Cassie thought one might have been the baseball coach—held the fenced doors to the tennis courts open and ushered some of the more confused inside. At least there, they were safe from the cars that could still speed through town.
Cassie saw where she was needed and moved. Her thoughts could wait. Her body felt numb, even though she knew she was injured from scraping against that fence. Laney had bandaged that, and it was enough. She looked around and saw that the mist was fading; whatever creature had breathed it into existence had either left or given up. What he wanted had been achieved: mass chaos. Cassie ripped her dirty mask from her face, letting it hang in tatters around her neck. She drew a deep breath, her first clean breath since this madness began, and ran to the road.
The sugary scent of maple syrup drifted in the breeze as Cassie’s feet found the blacktop. It was a disturbingly heavenly aroma mixed with the acrid scent of burning tires and, somewhere deeper, the coppery smell of blood. Anna came running back around from the other side of the wreck, her expression giving nothing away.
“Empty,” she said, “thank God, the carriage was empty.”
Cassie let all the air in her lungs out in a huff, nodding. Both girls looked to the truck cabin. Not a noise could be heard, except for the ticking of the cooling engine.
“I’ll check,” Cassie murmured, moving toward the twisted metal. Anna didn’t protest. She followed behind, boosting Cassie up so she could grab a foothold on the back of the flipped cabin.
The man inside hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt. His body lay crumpled against the passenger-side window in a puddle of glass fragments and blood. He wasn’t moving, not even to draw breath; Cassie looked long enough to confirm that, and then she climbed back down, rubbing grease and glass from her hands. She shook her head at Anna.
“I’ll take one end of the road, you take the other,” the older girl said in a shaky voice. “Let’s try not to let this happen to another car.”
Cassie agreed and jogged to the top of the hill, skidding in spilled syrup and offering a quick prayer for the soul lost in the truck cab.
The first car to come around the bend was a beat-up red Jeep. The driver slowed, taking only one look at the disheveled girl with a blackened hospital mask hanging from her neck, dirt tracks marring her bare legs and tattered clothing, bloodied bandage tight on one arm, and grease-smeared fingertips waving frantically in the air. The Jeep skidded to a halt, executed a quick and sloppy K-turn, and left only a trail of tire skid marks in its wake.
The whine of sirens got louder as the fire trucks and ambulances from the neighboring town drew nearer. Cassie braced herself for the onslaught, hoping the vehicles would stop in time. The road was steep, and the bend where the truck flipped had a sharp turn just beyond the quiet cemetery. People shuffled around, some wandering into the syrup slick, but most successfully herded down the other street toward the tennis courts. Some had even awoken from their mist-induced delirium; Cassie could hear them softly sobbing. A woman tried to rouse Mrs. Evans and then recruited help to carry her when she couldn’t.
Anna’s head turned toward her mother, but she never left the road. She stopped several more cars; Cassie couldn’t see what kind, but was thankful she did. The fire at the library was becoming more and more out of control. The air billowed back smoke now, and even as far from beyond the small stretch of woods as Cassie was, she could feel a rise in the heat. The firemen would have a difficult time setting this right, but that was fine; they could call for more help if they needed it. And then Cassie and Anna and Gibbons could face off with the Fae, somehow, and stop the rest of the chaos from spreading.
Ryan, where in the hell are you? Cassie thought, waving her arms frantically as another car raced around a bend, saw the wreck, and skidded to a halt in front of her. The car backed off easily, honking at another oncoming truck. Cassie looked overhead and saw a rush of crows, all carrying flaming twigs. They scattered like the wind, small dots of flame disappearing into the corners of the town, and trepidation grew in Cassie’s heart. If the pixies and the hobgoblins and the rest of the Fae wanted to, they could overwhelm this place before any help could arrive. The National Guard would roll in to a burnt husk of a town, a blackened smudge set in the back woods of New England.
Another Roanoke. Another town that was w
iped off the map, all the townspeople dead of smoke inhalation—or, worse, missing entirely, taken into the woods to satisfy the whims of a wicked king.
Aidan was the answer. The realization made directing traffic suddenly seem so much less important; she should be focused on looking for Aidan. Another flock of crows rose with a screech, each carrying a piece of fire. They scattered again into the blue sky.
Cassie stepped toward the empty graveyard and scanned the scene below her. Just like at the outdoor movie, she felt that if she stood still long enough, he would find her. Anna had a line of cars held off. Beyond her, smoke lingered over the pizza place, and screams could be heard from the little coffee shop across the street. Gibbons had most of the crowd by the tennis courts, with a few seemingly able-bodied people assisting him. The smoke from the library clogged the air, and Cassie was tempted to pull her mask back into place, but she resisted. She wanted to smell him coming.
He would come here, Cassie knew. Not because she was here, but because it was the center of it all. There may be animals roaming through the hospital. There may be hobgoblins waiting in the shadows, breaking windows and starting fires. Pixies may be riding crows and spreading destruction, but the king would come here, to the center, to watch his chaos reign.
She heard her name called and started, her muscles pulling into rigidity as she looked through the mess laid before her. Ryan emerged from around the overturned truck, Samantha in his wake. He ran at her and engulfed her in an embrace. She could feel the trembling in his limbs.
“I’m so happy you’re okay,” he rasped. “Should we leave? Run? He’s coming, isn’t he?” Ryan asked, murmuring the words first into the crook of her neck and then pulling back, kissing her hard and waiting for her to answer.
