“Do you hear the bees buzzing? Do you see the garden we planted flourishing? You can smell the earth, the growing things. Do you feel the air around you, warm from the sun? Listen, feel, look. Deeper.”
With his hand still on her shoulder, he waved the other in the air. And they stood on the rise where her mother had stood so many years before, looking down at the farm.
Her mother, taking in the wash. Sheets that rippled in the breeze. Ethan throwing a red ball for all the dogs to chase at once. His laugh bright on the air. Travis trying to walk on his hands while Colin taunted him. The exchange of jeers so normal, so real.
And her father striding up behind her mother to grab her, spin her, kiss her. The love, as true as anything she knew, struck her heart.
The bees buzzed, the garden flourished with the scent of earth and growing things. The sun warmed the air.
“The time will pass,” Mallick told her. “You won’t come back as you left, but you will come back.”
Her father’s shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows. Ethan’s big, happy laugh as the dogs leaped for the red ball. Sheets billowing at her mother’s back. Travis’s face pink with effort as he walked on his hands while Colin danced in circles around him.
God, God, a part of her, the deepest chamber of her heart, wanted to run, just run toward them. But the rest, what she knew in the blood, stopped her.
“How will I come back?”
“Stronger.”
“Can I come like this again? Just to see them for a minute?”
“When you learn how.”
“Then I’ll learn how.”
Now her brothers wrestled, and so did the dogs. Her mother carried the wash inside, and her father picked up the red ball, threw it so boys and dogs gave chase.
And Fallon stood back in the clearing, hearing the bees, smelling the garden, feeling the sun.
“Thank you.”
“Victories should be rewarded.” He stepped back from her.
“Okay. Pick up your sword, because I want another.”
On the longest day, when the sun stood at its peak, Fallon cast the circle. With her sword, within the circle, she drew a pentagram, and at each of its points placed a candle. Brought them to flame.
She’d placed sunflowers and bounty from the garden, herbs fresh cut, water drawn cool and clear from the stream.
She called to the god of fire, gave thanks for his light. She thanked the goddess for the fertility she granted the earth.
Mallick watched her perform the ritual and thought of Samhain, when he’d seen her power rise.
He saw it now as she lifted her sword, as her hair, shorn short, fluttered in the air she stirred.
“His sword will flame. He is blood of my blood. My sword takes fire from the gods. I am bone of their bone. My light, his light, their light, our light will strike the dark. My life, his life, their lives, our lives join for this purpose. The sun will rise and set, rise and set. The earth will bloom and rest, bloom and rest. Magicks awakened will not sleep again. The time for sleep is past, and here I make my pledge.
“On this day, at this hour, beneath the sun, among the flowers, I am your servant, I am your child. I will face what comes to me be it tame or be it wild. You who forged my destiny light the flame inside of me, and against the dark I vow to blaze though it takes ten thousand days. I give what you ask of me. As you will, so mote it be.”
She lowered the sword, stood quiet. She didn’t pale as she had before. Already, Mallick thought, showing the soldier she would become.
“I can’t go back now.” She spoke quietly, and not at all like a child. “I’ve come too far, I have too much in me to go back now.”
“So you made your pledge.”
“I’d planned to do the ritual my mother does for Midsummer. It’s really pretty. Spiritual, I guess, but it’s just pretty. But then … I made a choice. J’ai fait un choix.”
His brows lifted. “French.”
“Parlo italiano anche. I didn’t before I started the ritual. I don’t think. It’s not banging this time, but it’s a lot.”
“Yes, it is. You need to close the circle. And you’ll have the rest of the day free.”
She wanted that, but … “It’s a lot, but there’s more than a lot left to learn. I need more practice. I need more.”
“Then we’ll work. Tonight you’ll go to the balefire. Celebration gives balance to work and study.”
“I want to go. You should come, too. You should,” she pressed, sensing his excuses. “Celebration provides balance.”
“Very wise.”
She smiled. “I heard it somewhere.”
That night after the sun set on the longest day, she danced around the balefire with elves and faeries and a pack of shifters. And the weight of work and learning and tomorrows fell away. For a night, one night, she could be just a girl at a party.
She wore the flower crown Twila had made her; she’d spell casted to preserve it. She brought honey and apple butter and bread sweetened with currants as gifts for her hosts. Because during her months with Mallick she’d gained a full inch of height, she sought out the sly young elf Jojo, who had a reputation for her skill in finding anything, and requested new pants. In trade, she offered a bracelet she’d made of braided leather.
As the smoke curled, the fire crackled, and drums beat, she sat with an elf nursing her baby. She’d been an exchange student before the Doom. Testing herself, Fallon held the conversation with Orelana in French.
“The family I stayed with was very kind. I had gone home for Christmas, and came back to America on the second of January. No one knew, not then, what had already happened. No one knew, so I left my family and came back to America. I went back to school, and you began to see, began to hear. But still, no one seemed to know. The father of the American family took ill first. While he was in the hospital, the mother became ill, and then Maggie—this is the girl of my age, the daughter. So fast, all so fast and horrible. At the hospital, so many ill, so many dying. I called my family, and my papa was already ill. I tried to get home, but I couldn’t get a ticket. I went to the airport to try to get one there, and it was madness.”
Smoothly, she shifted the baby to her other breast. “People sick, people desperate, people angry. Shoving, striking, shouting. Police. Soldiers with guns. I ran from there. It took hours to get back to the house, empty now, where I stayed. So many cars, coming and going, so many people in them sick. I tried to call my family again, but I could not get through. I never spoke with my mother again, or my papa, or my brother.”
Fallon stared into the fire, watched the crackle of red and gold into the hot blue heart. “It was a terrible time, but it had to be more terrible for people like you, people who couldn’t get to their family.”
“I know my papa is gone. He was already ill. But I have hope my mother, my brother survived. Afraid, so afraid, I stayed in the empty house. Afraid, too, because I felt the change in me.”
“Your elfin blood.”
“Yes, it frightened me. What was I? Why was I? The family lived in what is the suburbs. Do you know this?”
“Yes. On the way here, Mallick showed me. Communities outside the towns.”
Orelana nodded. “This was such. Quiet, wealthy, a lovely big house, but inside it, I was alone and afraid. Outside it, I would hear gunfire and screams, horrible laughter. And I would also see beautiful lights.”
“Faeries.”
“Yes.” She lifted the baby to her shoulder, rubbed his back. “What was in me knew the lights were good. I took what I thought I would need. I was only nineteen, you see. A child of privilege. A young girl on her first trip to America, away from home. A good student with dreams of becoming a designer of fashion. A designer of fashion,” Orelana repeated with a laugh. “I took what I could carry in the backpack, and I followed the lights.”
“How did you get here?”