Shayera

Not a moment went by in the next two years in which I wasn’t haunted by that night. I’d called to Danika to me so many times, begging her to tell me where—and who—he was, but she never would. Though she’d comfort me with her arms and her gentle loving words, she would never give me what I really needed.

Mama and Papa wouldn’t talk to me about that night. It was as if something in them had broken too. I was alone with my misery, and every day only got worse. I wanted to find him again, beg him to forgive me, and tell him that I had changed and was different. Never in my sane and rational mind would I have considered doing that to anyone, but something had overtaken me that night.

I closed my eyes and remembered the fiery arrows that’d been shoved through my heart when he’d said those four words to me: “I don’t want you.”

Even though time had passed, the words left me aching and vulnerable. His careless comment had hurt me so violently that I’d forgotten myself, forgotten who I was and what I could do.

All I’d wanted was for him to want me as desperately as he’d made me want him. A part of me had begun to fall in love with him that night, and all I’d wanted was for him to say it back.

I was also deeply and horribly mortified that I’d used him in that way and by my actions. Mostly, though, I was mortified because of what I’d been capable of doing.

Never in my life could I have imagined myself being so evil as I’d been to him that night. If he hadn’t survived the touch of my skin, I would have doomed him to a fate he hadn’t deserved.

I blew out the candle on the cupcake that’d been set before me.

Only Mama, Papa, and Danika were there for my twenty-first birthday. Ever since that night at the ball, I’d lost all taste for revelry, hating myself with a shame that grew wider and deeper every day.

A tear slipped out the corner of my eye. I felt empty and hollow.

“Make a wish, papillon,” Papa whispered to me.

I shook my head and brushed at my wet cheek. “I don’t want to. Not anymore.”

He looked at Mama with a worried frown. Creases covered his forehead, and Mama closed her eyes, looking weary and old all of a sudden.

Danika spoke first. “Twenty-one officially today. And now, all past sins must come to light.” She shook her head and looked at my parents, and for the first time I spied something on her face I’d never seen in her before.

She was disappointed in them, in me. I didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. I was a disappointment, and that was a truth I could not escape. All I wanted was to fix what I’d done that night, but I couldn’t go back and undo it. In the privacy of my room, after hours in the very deepest part of night, I’d called to the Man in Black, hoping that somehow he would hear me, and that he would come to me. But he never had.

Mama shuddered, took a deep breath, and then looked at me. “There is one gift I can give you today, my sweet girl. One that I’ve withheld from you for far too long.”

I shook my head. “Mama, really I’m—”

“Non,” Papa grunted. “Non. Because if someone had done to your mother and I what we’ve done to you, I would murder them, Shayera. I am ashamed and embarrassed by what we’ve done.”

I gasped. What in the world are they talking about? What could they possibly have done? And murder? Papa is a pacifist. He never fights, and he believes very firmly in turning the other cheek. What is this insanity? Several seconds passed and still no one said anything. “Mama? Danika? What’s—”

“The Man in Black,” Papa said and closed his eyes, “his real name is Rumpelstiltskin.”

Mama hiccupped, covered her mouth with her hand, and looked down at her feet.

Something inside of me felt suddenly warm. Like a wee seedling shooting up from damp earth, I felt a stirring, movement, the hum of new life. I trembled and clutched at my shirt with nerveless fingers.

“And he loves you with all his bloody heart and soul,” Danika snapped, glaring at my parents, who were both staring down at their hands with shame burning in their eyes.

“You have to understand”—Mama looked up at me pleadingly—“we did what we thought right. We did the only thing we could do for you. You were a child, Shay. A child. And—”

Danika scoffed. “I told you he would honor the terms. I told you both, all along. You can’t keep destiny away, no matter how much you might wish it wasn’t so.”

“You should never have brought him that night. Not like that,” Mama hissed right back.

I couldn’t speak. I just gazed at the three of them, in shock.

Danika shoved a curl of hair out of her eye. “Maybe not, Betty. Maybe you’re right.”

“She had a chance that night,” Mama said softly, brokenly. She cried openly, no longer trying to hide it from me.

Papa gripped her thin shoulder and squeezed gently. “But you know as well as I do, my beloved, that it would not have been right. They are a destined match, and we have done them a great wrong.”

He said this to Mama but looked at me.

Mama leaned into his frame, burying her face into his chest and weeping.

“We love you, papillon,” he said. “You must understand that, first and foremost and above all else. What we did we did out of love. We only ever wanted the best for you.”

I held up my hand, feeling broken and terrified but also wanting to cry because something in me was warm again. My soul felt like it was throbbing. It beat with warmth. “What in the world is going on here? Nothing is making any sense.”

Danika cringed. “Child, the telling of this tale isn’t a quick one. But you deserve to know. You deserve to know it all.”

The three of them spent hours telling me. And as they spoke of destiny and curses and a man I’d once loved in another time and another world, I began to cry. The tears didn’t stop once they started.

They told me of a monster, a dark man who’d been changed by love. By my love and that of the children who had been ours. They told me of my great love for him and the mountains he’d climbed, the nearly impossible hurdles he’d had to jump to find me again. He’d orchestrated Mama and Papa’s coming together in order to ensure that I was brought back into the world of Kingdom at the right time. He’d killed, over and over again. He’d very nearly killed Papa when he and Mama had stubbornly refused to believe that they’d been destined for one another.

Mama spoke of her own stone of Veritas and how it had brought Papa back into her life. I shook, remembering how at nineteen I’d thought the trinket a child’s story and nothing more.

I clung to my own stone of Veritas, still threaded through with deep veins of sapphire blue, and shook my head, unable to speak. My thoughts were jumbled and my mind swirled as I tried to comprehend the steps my parents had taken. At first I was upset, then I remembered how they’d always gone out of their way to show their love to me. I knew that, no matter what they’d done, they had done it out of love.

I tried to see things through their eyes. A man grown. A small child. A destiny out of their hands and out of their control. I remembered Rumpelstiltskin on the beach that day when I’d been cursed, and how he’d so casually and savagely ripped that stranger’s throat out. There was a cruelty in the Dark One, but it called to me. I knew my parents could never hope to comprehend, because on the surface he and I seemed so very different.

I shivered. He was a beast, true, but I’d always known that about him on a deep and visceral level. Even without knowing him, I’d recognized that he was no hero, and yet it’d been one of the traits of his that had drawn me in like a moth to a flame. I’d liked his fire and his darkness. I’d craved more of those things. Even in the short time I’d known him, that was the side of him that had thrilled me most.

“It wasn’t I who made the charm, girl.” Danika jerked her chin toward my ring.

I clenched my hand, dropping it to my lap. “Wha—what?”

“It was him. Took him years of trial and error and deal after deal to figure out the loophole. Don’t you see, lass? He fought like the devil for you. Day in and day out. Anything. Everything. All of it was for you, Shayera. He was the one who dreamed up that ball when you turned nineteen. He has been your guardian angel all your life.”

“What!” Papa sat forward. “Th-th-the charm was—”

“Him,” Danika snapped, her eyes burning like fiery darts. “A man you deemed unworthy for your daughter. One of the best men I’ve ever known. And your selfishness, your cruelty at keeping them apart... Look at the mess you’ve made.”

Mama gasped. “Where is he, Dani? Where is he?”

“I don’t bloody know,” the fae cried, wringing the wand between her hands. “He left the night of the ball. No trace of him remains at his castle. For all I know, he could be dead—”

“No!” I cried, jumping to my feet so swiftly that it caused the chair I’d been sitting on to topple over with a loud clatter to the kitchen floor. “He’s not dead. He’s not dead. Help me to find him, Danika. Please.”

Her lashes closed and she swallowed hard. “I can’t, child.”

I started to tremble as the enormity of what’d been done to him and to me hit me square in the face like a tsunami. I didn’t understand any of it, but I knew I had to find him. I had to know the rest of our story. I had to know what was true and what wasn’t. I had to know him.

~*~

THE NEXT MORNING, I stood upon the threshold of my family home, staring at the faces of the people I loved most in this world and the house that’d been my shelter from the storm for so long. I tried to ignore the aching in my breast for all that I was walking away from. I had good memories here. Great ones, even. Birthdays. Family nights. Long talks into the wee hours about boys, and love, and dreaming of my own happily-ever-after. Yes, there’d been secrets kept from me. But I could see the love and attention and devotion my parents and family had shown me all my life.

Briley’s cries caught my attention, and he hugged my waist before burying his face in my chest and begged that I remember him. “Don’t forget me, Shay. Don’t you ever forget me.”

My heart squeezed and I doubted myself all over again. Am I making the right choice? Is this the right decision? Going seemed vital, but leaving hurt so badly. I kissed the top of his dear head and inhaled his unique scent of shampoo and peanut butter, two scents that would forever remind me of him and of home. “I’ll never, ever forget you, Briley. How could I? You’re my best friend.”

He sniffed and looked up at me through tear-stained, bloodshot eyes. “Forever?” he asked in that dear, sweet voice of his that would remain forever young.

I gently brushed the blond mop of hair out of his eyes one last time. “For always,” I whispered, giving him a soft smile.

I would never have left him for anything less than the Dark One. But what had been done to Rumpelstiltskin and me meant that we had to see things through to the end. I didn’t have much faith that he’d forgive me for what I’d done to him two years before. All I knew was that our story couldn’t end that way.

I had to try.

I knuckled Briley’s tears up and kissed his soft cheek one last time. In this land of magic, Briley would forever remain young, in both body and mind. Like one of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys, my dear, sweet Briley would age no more. Leaning forward with my hands on his shoulders, I whispered, “I promise I will come back for you. Okay?”

He nodded. “Okay, Shay Shay.”

I smiled, though my heart hurt so badly. Leaving the people who I knew loved me dearly for some man who wanted nothing to do with me in this life was a cruel kind of torture for me.

I went back and forth between knowing I was making the right decision to questioning my motives and desires all over again. I was obsessed with making things right, but I couldn’t understand whether it was simply the magic making me feel that way, or if these all-consuming emotions were a remnant of things I’d once felt so deeply that they were everything.

With one final pat, I gently extricated myself from Briley’s arms and looked at my Papa. He was so tall and handsome, and his dark-blue eyes shimmered with unshed tears. He remained stoic in the face of my decision.

“You will always be the measuring stick, Papa. Always. I love you.”

He sighed and nodded before quickly pulling me into his chest and giving me a tight squeeze. “Je t’aime, ma petite papillon.” I love you, my little butterfly.

I sniffed and nodded. “Et moi, tu.” And I, you.

“I hope that someday you can forgive us both,” he whispered, holding onto my fingers and giving them a soft and tender squeeze.

“I already have.” I cupped his bristled cheek and he kissed my palm.

“Shayera,” Mama said softly a second later.

Mama had stopped crying, but I’d heard her weeping all night. I studied her face, which was as youthful as my own. In a world where no one aged beyond their prime, the only true way to measure years was in the eyes, in the look that could only be achieved through decades worth of pain, trials, and heartache.

Mama closed her eyes and I hugged her. She was so warm, and she smelled of the rose garden she tended every evening. “I’m sorry, Mama, but I have to go.”

A tiny moan escaped her before she nodded and said, “I know, my love. I know.” Then, framing my face in her cold hands, she looked at me, and I saw the pain glittering in the depths of her brown eyes. “Please understand, everything I did, I did for you.”

I didn’t entirely forgive her for the willful withholding of information, but I knew that someday I would. Whether Rumpelstiltskin agreed to accept me or not, someday I would be able to completely let the pain go. I had to believe it. “Can I just ask one thing?”

She paused for several heartbeats before finally nodding.

“Why didn’t you want us to be together? Why did you fight so hard to keep us apart? Wasn’t he good to me then? Didn’t he love me as Papa loves you?”

She blinked, and finally I saw a shimmer roll through her gaze, but still no tears fell. “Every day, Shayera, I remember something else from the other life. But I don’t remember everything. There is no justification for what we did, other than we loved you. And his reputation precedes him. He has done things, terrible things. Now, whether that justifies the end results isn’t up for debate. All I know is, as your mother, I only ever wanted the best for you.”

“And he’s not it?”

She wet her lips. “I was scared of him then too, Shay. Scared that he would hurt you. Scared that someday he may not want you anymore. That he would change, leaving you alone to mourn what you no longer had. And then... I received a book. She sighed.

I frowned. “A book?”

“Yes. From him. He kept you in his castle for three months. Three months where I heard nothing from you. I knew nothing about you. You were going through a test, and I feared I’d lost you then. He’d taken you away from us because of sins your father had committed in the other time. He stole you from us. The memories of that truth haunt me even here, in this new world, alongside the pain I felt at your leaving, the fear that he’d never return you back to us. You have to understand why I did this, because that was all I remembered. That hurt. But then, last night... I remembered something else.”

I frowned. “What? What did you remember?”

The picture I got of Rumpelstiltskin from my mother wasn’t the greatest. I could see why she’d feared our reunion, and why she’d fought so hard to stave it off. But she didn’t know what I knew. No matter what, no matter how, I had to go back to him. I simply couldn’t remain here any longer.

“A book. I remembered a book, Shay. And in it was a detailed accounting of your entire day, as seen through his eyes. And I saw how day by day how you tamed the great Dark One. I remember that when I finished reading it I knew he loved you.”

“And now? You don’t think it could be the same?”

She shook her head. “I just don’t know. He’s vanished to Gods only know where.” She shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t want history to repeat itself anymore. Maybe he doesn’t want—”

I grabbed her hands and squeezed, silencing her next words because I couldn’t bear to hear her say he didn’t want me. I didn’t know why it mattered so much, but it did. “I have to know, Mama. It’s the only way for me to move on.”

“I know,” she whispered. “Just please, don’t f-f-forget—”

“I never, ever will.” Pulling her into me, I kissed both her cheeks, and she kissed mine back.

“If...if something happens, Shayera. You know you always have a home here with us. Right?”

With my heart hurting in my chest, I nodded and whispered, “I know.”

I released Mama, gave Uncle Kelly a quick hug, and then turned away before I could lose my nerve. I had to leave before could I let the doubts creep in. It would be too easy for me to convince myself that I was being stupid, and that I had no business going and should stay.

“Danika,” I whispered to the breeze. I felt the air squeeze with the fairy’s magic. Then there was a loud pop, and there she was, in all of her fae splendor. Iridescent dragonfly wings spread out behind her, glimmering with morning dew. Spools of pearlescent spider-silk webbing threaded throughout her dark locks. Her wide eyes looked lovingly down at me. “You ready?” she asked in her bell-like tone.

I nodded and ignored the tiny hitch in breath I heard behind me. I walked down the steps. “Yes. Where is he?”

Danika pointed to the locket I never took off. Threads of blue still glimmered like spun sapphire ash in the sunlight. “That blue is his love for you. It still burns, Shayera. Whether he wishes to accept it or not, soul magic—the twin flame—can never be so easily extinguished, though you—and he—can walk away from it. Be aware that he may not want you there anymore, but if you close your eyes, and whisper the words ‘to you,’ your soul will guide you right to where he is. The rest, my dear, will be entirely up to you.”

I swallowed and clutched at my always-warm pendant. What a fool I’d once been to believe soulmates didn’t exist. I’d been little more than a child, and I’d deserved his anger and rancor for what I’d done the night of the ball. I was just hoping that he would see I’d grown since then, that I was different, and that maybe he could show me who we’d once been and who we could be again.

“If he does reject you, or you him,” she said softly, causing my gaze to cut to hers, “just call my name and I will open a portal to you. Good luck, my little heart.”

I squeezed her cold hands one final time, closed my eyes, and saw him in my mind, just as he’d been that night: haughty, terrible, and magnificent.

“To you,” I whispered, and immediately I felt the world move.