by Dahlia Adler
* * *
The next time she saw the city across the bay was after winter break. That was how she would measure time from now on, she figured. There was before the winter break of her freshman year of college, and there was after—Perdita B.W.B. and Perdita A.W.B.
“Is everything okay?”
She could have told Zal she was just nervous about today. They were standing on the steps of his Victorian house, where she was about to meet his parents for the first time over lunch. But she knew that wasn’t what he meant.
As if the same thought had occurred to him, he added, “I don’t just mean about today. Since winter break, you’ve been … weird.”
“Weird?”
“Quiet,” he quickly corrected. “Distant.”
It may have been easier to refute that claim if she were able to look him in the eye as she told him she was fine. But if she made eye contact, he would hang on to that slender thread of connection, and he wouldn’t let go until she had told him something honest, something true. The truth—the reason for her distance—was that at any given moment, she was expending a large amount of mental energy trying not to think about the events of winter break.
She tried not to think about Aunt Polina’s face, pale and pinched, as she asked Perdita if they could talk after dinner.
She tried not to think about Aunt Polina’s words, which still threatened to bubble up to the surface of her mind no matter how much she tried to push them down. It was hardest at night, when she’d wake up unexpectedly—that was when all the thoughts attacked, when she was too sleepy and disoriented to put her shields up in time to stop them. Then, she would pluck at the thoughts like flower petals—she should have told me sooner; she should never have told me at all—around and around until she fell asleep again or until dawn gave her permission to stop trying.
Shields safely up, she finally turned to Zal and said, “Do you ever think about running away to live in the woods?”
But before Zal could answer or address the randomness of her question, the door opened, and his dad let them both in.
Zal had told her once that his last name meant “born from a fairy” in Persian, a fact he took great delight in. Stepping into the immaculate Parizadeh household, Perdita did indeed feel like a disheveled, hopeless mortal entering a fairyland where she didn’t belong. Zal’s mom was quick to offer her a tour of the ground floor, pointing out items of interest such as the wall full of Zal’s academic awards and the intricate Persian rugs from Isfahan, where her parents had been born. Zal’s dad trailed after them, never less than unfailingly polite, and yet Perdita knew with certainty that he didn’t want her there—or more accurately, that he had hoped she would be someone else. Let me tell you what I just found out about myself, she wanted to say, I actually am someone else.
She should have told me sooner.
Zal’s mom had to leave before lunch for a business meeting, and Perdita thought longingly of her kind smile when she sat down for lunch across from Zal’s stony-faced father. Mr. Parizadeh asked her a few questions, but the ones he really wanted to know—Who are your parents? What do they do?—were the ones Perdita didn’t want to answer.
She should never have told me.
Perdita excused herself to use the restroom at an opportune moment, and after she had shyly dried her hands on the monogrammed towels, she lingered by a bookcase in the hallway. Angry voices were coming from the dining room.
“We’ve always taught you how important your education is, and now you’re wasting it by learning about statues and fooling around with girls.”
“I’m not wasting anything, Dad. You have to give me a chance—and give her a chance, too. You barely know her.”
“Of course I don’t know her—she’s hardly told me anything about herself.”
“That’s not fair,” Zal shot back.
“You know I want what’s best for you.”
“But don’t I have any say in what’s best for myself?”
“You’re still so young. You think you know what’s best for now, but not in the long run. I don’t want you to make mistakes that you’ll regret later.”
“You can’t stop me from ever making mistakes, Dad.”
There was a tense silence, and then Mr. Parizadeh said, “That’s true. But I’m your father and I care about you, so I can’t support them. I’ll give you a choice—you can have one mistake. You can have your statues or your girlfriend. If you don’t pick one, you’ll have to pay your own tuition.”
Another silence followed, this one even heavier than the last, before Zal said, “Mom would never agree to that.”
“We’ll see.”
Knots were forming in Perdita’s stomach. They were fighting. They were fighting because of her. She had made Zal fight with his father, and his parents were probably going to fight with each other, too. What if his parents split up over this? What if his dad really did stop paying his tuition? What if Zal chose her but then had to lose that light in his eyes whenever he talked about the accusative case in Latin? What if he doesn’t choose me?
She closed her eyes, trying to ignore the tightness in her chest. When she opened them again, she was looking at a photo on the shelf in front of her. Or no, not a photo—a framed cover from a tech magazine. Zal’s parents—several years younger—were standing with another man whose face she couldn’t place, all of them joining hands and smiling at the camera. And then she read the caption, which mentioned the unknown man by name, and she flinched.
The rest of the lunch passed, set to the soundtrack of forks scraping on plates. On the metro back to campus, Zal was still quiet, his hands clenching and unclenching in his lap. Perdita had never seen him this upset, this unsettled, and she hated that it was her fault.
“So,” she said, “do you ever think about running away to live in the woods?”
She was rewarded with Zal’s surprised laugh, breaking through some of the tension. “You overheard us, I’m guessing?”
She nodded then thought for a second and said, “You should choose your major.”
“I’m not going to choose.”
She looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean? He’ll stop paying your tuition.”
Zal shook his head. “It was an empty threat. He’s just trying to use you to scare me out of my major. And … even if he does mean it, I’d be fine. Lots of people aren’t lucky enough to study what they love. I can still take classes that interest me even if I don’t major in classics. It’s not even that big of a deal.” But he sounded like he was trying to reassure himself as much as her. “My mom would never agree to it, anyway,” he added weakly.
“They’ll fight over it, then,” Perdita said. “It’s not worth it.”
“What’s not worth it?”
She gestured to the space between them. “This.”
He frowned. “You don’t think this is worth it?”
“No, I mean—it’s not worth that. Not worth being in trouble with your dad or causing family turmoil.”
“It’s fine. It was just an argument. We have them all the time.”
“That doesn’t matter. Just because it’s been okay before doesn’t mean it’ll always be okay.”
“If my dad doesn’t back down, I’ll figure something out.”
“That’s not a solution.”
“Then what is a solution?”
Breaking up, she wanted to say. But she kept thinking about that magazine cover, about dads arguing with moms, about the ways kids sometimes had to step up and be the adults their parents refused to be even though it wasn’t fair. She should never have told me. She should have told me sooner.
She told me now. I might as well use it.
“I can ask my dad to talk to him,” Perdita said.
He looked at her with such genuine confusion that it was almost comic. “I thought you didn’t…”
He trailed off, both of them hearing the rest of the sentence. I thought you didn’t have one. “It turns out I do,” Perdita said. “He’s
retired, but years ago, he and a couple of his college friends founded a software company together. It was hugely successful, but he asked them to buy him out so he could retire early.” She looked at him, seeing the rest of the story come together in his perplexed face.
“My parents’ business partner … the guy on the magazine cover…”
Only Perdita A.W.B. could finish his thought by saying, “That’s my dad.”
* * *
From so many miles up, the ocean looked deceptively flat and still. Perdita had wanted the window seat, but she was beginning to regret it, feeling boxed in and short of breath. Maybe when the seat belt sign was off, she could move over to the aisle. The flight wasn’t full, so there were only the two of them in their row of three seats, with Zal taking the middle seat as if it weren’t the most loathed position in the history of commercial flying. He didn’t think about things like that, though. He just saw a seat next to Perdita and took it.
“Thanks for coming with me,” Perdita said for probably the fortieth time.
“Of course,” Zal said. “I’d much rather spend spring break with you. I could use some space from my dad.”
“I wouldn’t know the feeling,” Perdita muttered.
The mortification on Zal’s face was immediate. “Oh, hey—I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I was just … I was trying to be funny. I didn’t mean to make things weird.” She laughed, then, because things were already extremely weird.
“I haven’t wanted to pry, but … you know you can always talk to me about it?”
“You won’t believe it. It sounds like a story I just made up.”
“That might actually help,” Zal said. “Tell it to me like a story—like a myth or a fairy tale. Reframe it all in your own words.”
“I don’t see how that helps. It doesn’t change anything.”
“You’ve heard of catharsis, right?”
She smiled. “I’ve heard of it, but what I really want to know is what it means in the original Greek.”
She turned to look at him, because nothing was more beautiful than the way Zal’s eyes shone at the mention of a word with Greek or Latin roots. If this doesn’t work, I can’t let him choose me.
“It means something like purification or cleansing. It’s why stories can make us feel better about our emotions. They give us the opportunity to clean out our mental chaos and feel the emotion from a safe distance. You don’t have to tell me anything, of course, but just for yourself, it might help to do some journaling, or—”
“I’ll think about it.” The words came out more sharply than she intended, so she added, “Thank you.”
He took her hand, brushed his lips against her knuckles.
She closed her eyes and tried to take a short nap to make the flight go faster, but her shields had been obliterated permanently, so Aunt Polina’s voice kept jolting her awake every time she started to nod off. Words and phrases from that winter conversation swam in her head.
Difficult birth—fell into a coma soon after.
Your brother, you never knew him.
Unmarried, so no right to custody.
I think you’re both ready now.
Finally, she gave up and her eyes snapped open. “Okay, let’s try it.”
“What?” Zal said, half-asleep himself.
“The cleansing. Catharsis. I’ll tell you a story.”
He resettled himself in the chair so he was turned to his right, facing her, giving his full attention. I think I love him, she suddenly realized, but that was not helpful right now. I can’t let him choose me.
She thought it out first, planning her story in her head, measuring it against what Aunt Polina had told her. It wasn’t an exact parallel, but it was close enough.
“Once upon a time, there was a princess who was lost.”
She stopped. “No, that’s not right. I’m going to start over.
“Once upon a time, there was a queen who was accused—no, that’s still wrong.
“Once upon a time, there was a king—a father—who thought he was right…”
* * *
The king and queen lived happily together with their son in a beautiful castle on the boundary of the human world and Fairyland. But because the boundary was so close, a lot of sprites and fairies often came through to the human world to wreak havoc. One day, a mischievous sprite jumped up to sit on the king’s shoulders and started whispering lies in his ear. The sprite was invisible, so the king couldn’t tell the difference between the sprite’s whispers and his own thoughts. When the sprite kept telling him his queen had been untrue to him, the king began to think it himself, and then he began to believe it.
The king and queen started to fight, and the king threatened to banish the queen from his kingdom, even though she was carrying their second child. The first child—the prince—was distressed about his parents’ feud but too young to do anything about it.
* * *
“Rhiannon,” Zal murmured.
“Like the song?”
“Kind of. She was a mythical Welsh queen who was framed and falsely accused of murdering her children.”
“Does it have a happy ending?”
“I think so—but I’m not as familiar with Celtic myth. Anyway, keep going.”
* * *
The queen’s one powerful ally was her younger sister, a witch. The witch tried to appeal to the king, but he wouldn’t listen to her, even though she warned him he would regret his decision. The queen had her child—a daughter this time—but the king was convinced she was a changeling, fairy-born, neither his nor human. He ordered the child to be left out in the woods, for the fairies to claim if they wished, and he banished his wife.
The queen asked her sister to watch over her daughter in her absence, and the witch promised her that she would make things right. She put a spell on the queen, turning her into a tree, and hid her away in the woods, where she visited her every month to make sure that she was safe from harm.
* * *
“Daphne,” Zal said at once.
“I think I know that one. The laurel tree.”
He nodded. “She escaped from Apollo by turning into a laurel tree.”
“I wish I could turn into a laurel tree,” Perdita said, leaning her head on Zal’s shoulder.
He kissed the top of her head. “Please don’t. I would miss you too much.”
She sighed dramatically. “Fine. I promise I won’t turn into a laurel tree.”
“Thank you. What happened to the prince? The son?”
Aunt Polina’s voice answered in her mind: Heart condition, exacerbated by stress.
Perdita took her head off of Zal’s shoulder and leaned back toward the window. “He died of a broken heart,” she said stiffly.
After a cautious silence, Zal said, “And the girl?”
She looked at the college hoodie he was wearing, at the mascot emblazoned across it. “Eaten by a bear.”
He gave her a look halfway between amusement and suspicion. “Hmm, I don’t think that part’s true. I think she survived.”
Perdita took a breath.
* * *
When the king found out that his son had perished from despair, his grief was so strong that the sprite couldn’t stomach it any longer and flew away. The king began to realize that he had been wrong, and that he had destroyed everyone he had ever loved. He sent the witch to bring back the princess, but it was too late. The witch, having promised her sister she would protect the child, had taken the princess to a fairy ring, giving her to an enchanted bear that promised to keep her safe in Fairyland. When the witch returned to the king, she told him that she would only reunite the king with his daughter when he had proven that he was pure of heart. The king, ashamed of his actions, agreed.
The witch wasn’t sure if she had made the right choice, but she was young, and alone, and missed her sister, and didn’t know what the right choice was. Maybe … maybe there was no right choice. Maybe the only thing left fo
r the witch to do was try to lessen the damage already done.
* * *
Perdita paused, and she didn’t realize how long she had paused until Zal said, “Hey … you doing okay?”
She nodded, cleared her throat, and continued.
* * *
The king sold half of his kingdom so he could shut himself away in his castle with only his grief. Meanwhile, the girl grew up in Fairyland, not knowing anything about her origins, and she fell in love with the Fairy Prince … even though his father, the Fairy King, wasn’t happy that his son had fallen in love with a human girl.
* * *
“I bet he wasn’t,” Zal muttered. “Tell the Fairy King it’s none of his business.”
* * *
The girl kept trying to remind the Fairy Prince that he shouldn’t jeopardize his relationship with his family just for her.
* * *
“Tell the girl that the Fairy Prince cares about her too much to let her go without a fight.”
Perdita felt an involuntary thrill at those words, though she didn’t know if she was flattered or scared for him, for what he was willing to give up. She pushed the thought aside.
* * *
The Fairy Prince fought with his father because of his love for the girl, and the Fairy King threatened to banish his son if he ever saw her again. But the Fairy Prince was loyal and loving and true, so he and the girl decided to leave Fairyland behind and return to the human realm, to beg the human king’s intercession.
* * *
Zal nodded. “I like that Fairy Prince. She should keep him around.”
Perdita tried to smile. “Maybe she will.”
“How does it end?”
Perdita shrugged. “They all get eaten by bears.”
He laughed. “They go see the king, though, right? What happens when they see him? Does he recognize the girl as his daughter? Does she know what happened to her mother?”
