The kelpies raced neck and neck through the woods. They were as playful on land as they were in the water, taking turns, letting one horse run ahead, then running up a separate pass to jump in front of them in surprise. When Mina was once again in the lead, they ran too close to the riverbed, and a huge wave erupted out of the river to dump right on her head.
“EEEEEEK!” Mina shrieked as Nix ran past again. “That’s not fair!” she called after him. Red, for she had no other name to call him by, took off like a cat after a mouse and did something completely uncalled for. He jumped into the river and disappeared beneath her, forming into water again. Mina flailed in the water, thinking the horse was completely gone, but then she could feel him, like a giant current that had her in the palm of his hand, and they were speeding along the river at breakneck speeds, even passing Nix and the white horse.
It was the oddest and scariest thing she had ever done, to whiz down a river at such speeds. She thought she was going to smash onto a large rock, but the current of water that was the kelpie moved her out of the way. When they were ahead of Nix, the current picked up Mina and literally threw her out of the river toward the rocky embankment. Mina screamed and flung her arms out in front of herself to try to break her fall, but at the last minute, the wave flowed after her and then under her. Reappearing as the red kelpie, the horse made a watery snicker and kicked up its heels at the horse behind them.
She clutched his mane and cried out loudly, “Please don’t do that again. Or at least give a little warning next time.” She wasn’t sure, but she thought he bobbed his head in agreement.
The horses calmed down their crazy Kentucky Derby after Red was the obvious winner, and then they slowed to a peaceful pace.
“So tell me about yourself,” Nix said.
“What? Now?”
“Yes, I want to know what it’s like to be human, and why you would sacrifice everything to save your brother.”
Mina thought for a minute and then began to tell him about her life. How they always moved from state to state until the curse found them. She told him of how her friends would sometimes get wrapped up in the tales as well. When he became increasingly interested, she decided to tell him a little about each of her friends.
“Who’s Nan?” he asked when she described the Snow White quest.
“Well, Nan has been my best friend ever since I moved to Kennedy High School. She kind of took me under her wing and refused to let me become the obvious wallflower. She adored my brother Charlie, is a huge reality TV fan, and loves…loves her cell phone.”
Nix’s face took on another odd expression, and she realized that he didn’t know half of what she was talking about. He probably didn’t know what a high school was, or a TV, or a cell phone. It was so easy to just assume that since Jared and Ever knew, that all of the Fae on this world also knew.
“Brody is—” She sighed and felt herself get a little dreamy. “Brody is the most handsome, most popular guy I know, and he also happens to be really sweet. He plays on the water polo team at school, and I think you would like it. It’s a game with a ball and net played in a swimming pool.”
Nix’s eyes lit up at the mention of water polo. He made Mina spend the next half hour describing everything about this wonderful game played in the water. Mina was sure that she only knew enough about the sport to fill two minutes, but she found out that she knew more than she thought she did.
“I sure would love to play this water polo here on the Fae plane. Might be a little difficult finding a water creature with the right appendages and limbs to play.” Nix then became lost in thought as he obsessed over trying to re-create the game here. “I could make a net out of the forever weed.”
“What’s forever weed?”
“A weed that lies in the deepest parts of a river. If you wander through it, it wraps around you forever…until you die.”
“And you want to make a net out of it? What if someone crashes into it? And it wraps around them and won’t let them go?” she blurted, horrified at the thought.
He looked at her as if she was dumb. “Well, any real water creature knows that you just don’t crash into it.”
She let him ramble on until the conversation became quiet again.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t let you finish,” he piped up.
“Finish what?”
“Your story about your friends. Do you have any more? I would like to know more about your life. Raina was my only friend, and now that she’s gone, I-I think you are my only friend now.”