CHAPTER FIVE
The next morning Syla offered me bread and jam and more of the awful tea. I accepted the bread and jam—which was made from some delicious red berry I’d never tasted before—but passed on the tea.
Afterwards I didn’t know quite what to do with myself, trying not to trip over the hem of the long tunic as I paced the space like a panther in a cage. The fourth or fifth time I stumbled, Syla finally looked up from her book.
“Give me your shoes,” she said.
“I don’t like going barefoot,” I said.
She snapped her fingers impatiently and the shoes began quivering on my feet, the ankle straps unbuckling of their own accord.
“Wait,” I said, “I’ll do it.”
The shoes went still.
I pulled them off and handed them over.
She fondled them like she had a fetish. “These are pretty,” she said, and as she handled them, they shrank a couple of sizes.
“You have big feet,” she observed and slipped the right shoe on her own foot. It fit perfectly. She admired her foot from every angle and then shook it off.
I noticed she had a perfect pedicure and wondered how she managed that.
“Magic,” she said, and as I watched, the polish on her toes shifted from a Christmassy red to a berry pink.
And suddenly, it was as if a mental block had been removed and I flashed on a childhood memory I’d buried deep. I was out shopping with a friend and her mom. My mother had given me money to buy something I wanted and when we went into a shoe store, I saw a pair of really cute pink sandals.
Purple was my favorite color then and I’d desperately wanted to find some purple sandals to go with my wardrobe of purple t-shirts and shorts. (My mother indulged my preferences and that year I don’t think I had a single piece of clothing that didn’t have purple on it somewhere.)
“Do you have them in purple?” I’d asked the clerk.
“No, hon, only the colors you see out.”
“Pink goes with purple,” my friend’s mother had pointed out and I didn’t want to contradict her because I didn’t want her to think I was a brat. So I’d just looked at the shoes, really hard and then I picked them up and took them to the cashier.
“You changed the color of the shoes,” my friend said to me. “You’re weird.”
“I like purple,” I said, as if that explained it, and happily handed over my money.
My friend and I never went shopping together again.
When I got older, I realized I could change the color of my odd eyes too—making the blue one hazel or the hazel one blue to match the other as my mood dictated. Few people ever really noticed but if they did, I simply said that I was wearing contacts. No one ever questioned that.
I could do other things too, quiet things. Once when my mother was going out to meet a friend for lunch, I’d mended a run in her stocking without her noticing because I knew she’d be embarrassed if her friend saw the run.
And when she was dying, I’d done other things, things I really shouldn’t have been able to do. And Hugh helped me.
At the end of her life, she’d been in such pain that the medication couldn’t touch it but Hugh and I could ease it with a touch. We took turns keeping vigil over her. Our father thought we were too distraught to leave her, but in fact, we were keeping her alive because we weren’t ready to let her go.
Then one night, as the moonlight streamed in a window bright enough, we were making shadow puppets to amuse her, she told us it was time for her to leave.
“I need your help,” she’d told us. “But get your father first.”
So we’d fetched our father and while he held the hand of the only woman he’d ever loved, Hugh and I held her other hand and together we opened the door.
“I love you,” she said to us all, but her eyes were on our father alone. And then the part of her that was mortal fell back against the pillows and the shining part of her floated away on the moonlight.
She turned around, just before she disappeared, and blew us a kiss and I felt the weight of it on my cheek.
I came back to the present when I realized Syla was talking to me.
“Here,” she said, holding out a pair of ballet flats she’d apparently fashioned out of my heels. “If you’re too dainty to run around in your bare feet.”
I took the shoes gratefully.
“Thank you, Syla,” I said, my voice a little husky from unshed tears.
“Now get out of here,” she said irritably. “I have work to do.”
I hesitated a moment. Get out of here and do what? I thought.
“I can have Marus show you around,” she said.
I kept forgetting she could apparently read my thoughts.
“No, I like wandering around on my own,” I said and made a hasty retreat for the door.
***
I soon realized Allard was following me. At first I thought he’d been sent to spy on me but I soon realized he was guarding me so I slowed down to allow him to catch up. He fell into step with me like a dog coming to heel and we walked for a while in silence. At one point we passed the great white stag with the silver antlers and the beast bowed to us.
We walked past a field of flowers that was all shades of blue and I stopped, enchanted, thinking that it would make a beautiful Instagram post. The thought made me laugh and the sound of my laugh seemed to please Allard.
Away from the witch and her awful spawn, Allard didn’t seem so sad and although I would not say he was carefree, there was something lighthearted in his step.
I still couldn’t tell what sort of a creature he was. He was big, with the bulk of a bear but a snout that was more wolf-like. He was covered with rough patches of what looked like tree bark held together with some sort of rubbery membrane.
He was not beautiful but the more time I spent in his company, the better I felt, as if he somehow had the power to alter my mood just by his presence.
We walked for hours and he showed me wonders.
There were animals in the Verge that did not exist in the human world. I saw a green chipmunk with a purple stripe down its back. Allard “called” to it in a chitter that sounded like its own language and the little critter came to me and allowed me to pet its little head.
We saw a strange bird that looked like a red peacock trailing feathers of flame and light. It took flight when it saw me, dropping several of its burning tail feathers. Allard gathered them for me in a bouquet and handled them without the fire scorching him. When he handed them to me, the flames tickled and I laughed.
Everything was beautiful and strange and I found myself wondering how wonderful the fairyland itself must be if this was only the Verge. But every so often as we wandered, we would come up against an invisible barrier that prevented us from continuing on our path. And every time that happened, we would turn around to see that we were in hailing distance of the cottage.
As the day darkened toward sunset, I realized I would have to go back to the cottage for the night.
“Syla will be expecting me,” I said.
He nodded sadly.
I thought of the dream I’d had the night before and the question I’d been meaning to ask him all day but somehow hadn’t. “Can you come to me in my dreams?”
The hangdog expression on his face disappeared. He nodded yes and looked at me hopefully.
“Come to me, Allard,” I said. “Come to me by moonlight,” I added, repeating a scrap of a half-forgotten poem.
***
Syla didn’t seem particularly curious to know how I’d spent my day. She just pointed me to the table where some sort of stew was sitting in a gently steaming pot. Marus was in one of the chairs, spooning up the food and eyeing me curiously. “You were gone a long time,” he said accusingly.
“I was exploring,” I said. Syla snorted. I did not want either of them asking any more questions so I asked one of my own. “What was happening in the world when you came to fairyland?” I asked.
Syla was intrigued enough by the question to put her book aside. Marus just rolled his eyes.
“We came here in 1993,” she said. “It was a terrible year. You cannot even imagine how terrible.” She gathered her thoughts. “A bunch of religious wackos in Waco got killed when the FBI stormed their compound.”
“The Branch Davidians,” I said. “I’ve heard about that.”
“And then another group bombed the World Trade Center,” she said.
I shuddered. I didn’t want to be the one to tell her about 9/11 but she caught my reaction.
“What?” she asked. “Did they try again?”
“Yes,” I said but did not elaborate. She seemed disappointed.
“There was a riot in Los Angeles.” She paused to think back. “And a big earthquake in Japan. Bad brushfires in Australia. Bill Clinton was president and that was a disaster of another kind.”
Now it was my turn to snort. And I couldn’t resist. “Hillary ran for president in 2016,” I said.
“Huh,” she said, “Did she win?”
“The popular vote,” I said. “And it looks like the Russians meddled with the election.”
She wasn’t interested in politics. “Michael Jackson was accused of child molestation,” she said.
“He’s dead,” I said.
“Who else is dead?” she asked and I ran through the list of all the people I could think of while she practically salivated.
“David Bowie. Chuck Berry. Prince, Ronald Reagan, Tom Petty, Princess Diana, Heath Ledger.”
“Who?”
“Actor,” I said. “He got a posthumous Academy Award for playing the Joker.”
“Frank Gorshin played the Joker,” she said. “Alys and I used to watch reruns of Batman all the time.”
Her eyes sparkled as I kept feeding her names. It was weird, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep so I could be with Allard and learn more of what was really going on, but if talking about history kept my mind off things I didn’t want her to know, I was going to keep talking.
She knew about AOL and CompuServe and Prodigy but not about Google or Twitter or Instagram or Pinterest. She seemed intrigued by the notion of Facebook and I had a brief fantasy of what it might be like if she ran her own website or blog and the trending hashtag #WitchesBitches.
She didn’t know about Columbine or Aurora or Sandy Hook or Las Vegas. She seemed disappointed that there hadn’t been any women mass shooters so I told her about Aileen Wuornos and that cheered her up.
When she finally grew tired of the conversation, Syla told me to take her son’s bed again. He’d skulked away about an hour earlier and had not returned. This time I did not object to the suggestion. In fact, I almost asked Syla for a sleep potion but was afraid that would rouse her curiosity.
Luckily, I didn’t need a potion to fall asleep.
Allard came to me in a little glade surrounding a pool of fresh cool water that was an incongruous swimming-pool blue.
Dreams.
He walked so softly that I didn’t know he was there until he spoke. “You must not let them know we are talking,” he said.
“How are we talking?” I asked.
“Dream walking is one of my abilities,” he said. “Syla took away my language when she cursed me to wear this shape, but she cannot take away my powers completely.”
“If she’s powerful enough to do that, to trap you here, why hasn’t she broken out of the Verge?”
“She lives for her revenge on Lyrus,” he said. “I do not think there is any power on earth that would move her from this place until she has seen that come to pass. Now that you are in her hands, she has the means to achieve her goal but she’s ambivalent. She has imagined her revenge for so long, she fears that the reality won’t be satisfying.”
“Like an addict who has to keep taking more and more drugs to get high.”
“Like your brother?” Allard asked and once again I was surprised by his insight.
“You know about my brother?”
“I have seen him in your memories,” he said. “I have seen him in your dreams.”
He took hold of my hands so that I would focus my attention on him. “I know you have been worried about him but I sense that he is not in any danger.”
“You said you can dream walk. What are your other talents?” I asked. “I’ve never actually known what kind of magic fairies have. And why don’t you have wings?
He laughed at that.
“Not all fairies have wings,” he said. “For one thing, those of us who are human-sized would have to have enormous wings in order to be lifted.”
Who knew fairies were so literal-minded, I thought.
“I can read your mind too,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
He examined my expression to see if I did. “I can teach you how to block your thoughts, if you like.”
My thoughts are yours, I thought and then added out loud, “But can you teach me to read yours?” To my surprise, he…blushed.
“My thoughts about you are not pure,” he said. “I do not wish to frighten you.”
He gestured at his monstrous form as if in further explanation.
But he had already told me that was not his real form and so his words did not frighten me at all. In fact, they intrigued me, but I could see he was uncomfortable, so I changed the subject.
“You seem to have an affinity with the animals here,” she said. “Can you enlist their aid?”
“You mean manipulate them to do my bidding?” He sounded horrified. “That’s not how it’s done.”
I wanted to say, “Then what good is magic if you can’t bend things to your will?” but I was afraid that would make me sound too much like Syla.
“But wouldn’t they want to help you get back to the land of light? Weren’t some of them trapped here when Syla trapped you?”
“The animals can come and go as they will,” he said. “They are not affected by magi.” He looked into the woods as if searching for something. “You have seen the stag with the silver antlers?”
I nodded.
“He is Lyrus’ pet.”
That surprised me but it made sense. I thought of all those stories about Herne the Hunter and the Green Man. “I don’t know how all this works,” I admitted. “All I know I learned from fairy stories.”
“Some of those stories have a lot of truth to them,” he said, “especially the ones collected by Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm.”
“Really?” I said. “Did you know them?”
“I did,” he said, and my mind reeled. That would make Allard more than two hundred years old.
“Yes,” he said. “I am that old and I’ve spent many years among the mortals.”
Not looking like that, I thought and then hastily added, “I mean that your appearance is memorable. You would not be someone easily forgotten.”
“No,” he agreed. “This is not my natural form.”
He looked off into the distance. “Syla condemned me to this body when she captured me.”
“Why did she turn you into a –”
“A nightmare?”
I would have said “monster,” but “nightmare” was close enough so I nodded.
“Because she knows my kind are vain about our beauty.”
He turned to me then and smiled, a hideous snarl that exposed his huge teeth in their black gums.
“What better torment than to give me a face so hideous that even my reflection cannot bear to look back at me?”
I had noticed he cast no reflection in the water but had not wanted to mention it.
“How did you fall into her hands in the first place?”
“Your father sent me to search for you,” he said. “And to travel to the mortal world, I had to pass through the Verge. She used her dark magic to send me into a dreamless sleep and while I was helpless, she captured me.”
“And you’ve been here ever since?” I said. “That’s horrible. You must hate me.”
“No,” he said. “Please don’t think that. I could never hate you.” He looked down shyly. “You are too kind. And too beautiful.”
I could feel myself blushing. “You’re kind to say so,” I said.
“You have been badly hurt by someone,” he said. “Someone who said he loved you but did not.”
I looked up at him, surprised. “Yes,” I whispered.
“That is not your shame, Hildegard,” he said. “The fault belongs to him for not appreciating your value, for not returning your love.”
He broke off and then added, “You deserve to be loved.”
I felt tears come to my eyes. This was nothing I had not said to myself numerous times, but to have someone else say it, so kindly—so lovingly—almost did me in.
“I’ve distressed you,” he said. “Forgive me, that was not my intention.”
“I’m fine, Allard,” I said and changed the subject. “You say Lyrus sent you to find me and Hugh? Why did he leave you in Syla’s hands all these years? Why didn’t he rescue you?”
He looked at me with his big, soft eyes. “Time unwinds differently in the fae lands than it does here in the Verge. What I experienced as a captivity of many years has been but a moment in Lyrus’ time. He has likely not even noticed that I have not yet returned.”
All those stolen years, I thought. “What an ugly bitch.”
He raised his head at that. “Syla is in her middle years now but still quite beautiful. You truly see her as ugly?”
“Hideous,” I said.
“Interesting,” he said, sounding excited. “You must have the soul sight. Your mother did as well.”
There was so much I didn’t know about my mother.
“Soul sight?”
“The ability to see people as they really are, no matter what kind of glamor they project.”
“Then why does Marus still look handsome to me?” I asked. “And why did I not see your nobility at first?”
“You are still new to the Verge. Your powers are not yet fully—”
“Alive?” I asked.
“I would say ‘awakened,’ but yes.”
Another childhood memory suddenly surfaced. Hugh and I were at a birthday party. I don’t think we were even in school yet because after we started school, we didn’t go to parties together.
There was a magician to entertain us and I’d been very impressed when he pulled a fluffy orange tabby out of his top hat instead of a rabbit.
Later, he walked around the party making balloon animals for everyone. I asked him to make me a unicorn and he obliged. When I got home, I’d made the balloon unicorn prance around the room all by itself. Mother had walked in just as the balloon made a particularly high jump, but she thought I’d just thrown it up in the air to amuse myself.
Or maybe she just didn’t want to see what was right in front of her.
“We have to go,” Allard said suddenly, urgently.
“Why?”
“Marus is here.”
“In my dream?” I asked but before the words were out of my mouth, Allard had disappeared. I swam up out of my sleep to find him leaning over me, watching me with hungry eyes.
“Get away from me,” I said and threw out my hand defensively.
Marus recoiled, as if I’d slapped him. “What did you just do to me?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, but I’d felt a surge of power leave my hand and leap toward him.
“Mother,” he called out and a moment later I heard Syla’s harsh voice.
“What?”
He turned to her and began speaking rapidly in a language that sounded like rippling water over smooth stone.
And I realized I understood what they were saying as Syla berated her son for frightening me and he replied that I had used some sort of power to block him away. She was interested in that. “Witch power or fae?” she asked.
“I can’t tell,” he replied sulkily.
She looked over at me and I made my mind go as blank as possible, hoping they would buy my pose of confusion.
Apparently they did because Syla said, “Go back to sleep, Hildegarde. Marus won’t bother you again.”
I nodded and turned on my side. I fell asleep again and this time I dreamt a memory.
Hugh and I were three. He was still not able to say R and said “wabbit” instead of rabbit when we watched cartoons. Our parents talked to us constantly, wanting us to have a wide vocabulary and the tools for communication. And they had noticed Hugh and I had a secret language. Our father was worried about this and so, though she never admitted it, was our mother.
I knew she was worried because I’d heard her talking to her best friend on the phone.
“They’re so strange,” my mother had said. “I worry about what will happen when they start school. Kids can be so cruel.”
My father had come into their bedroom in time to hear this last comment. “The kids will be fine,” he said. “But we should have them tested.”
Mother vetoed that idea. “I don’t want them to feel like freaks.”
Too late, I thought.
And then I’m back in the Dream Verge and floating in a pool beneath a fingernail moon. I can see Allard’s bulky shadow sitting cross-legged nearby.
“You mustn’t let Syla or Marus know that you can understand them,” he said.
“I won’t,” I said.
“You won’t mean to,” he said, sounding worried. “Tomorrow let us explore your talents.”
Yes, I thought, let’s.