“Inside me was a need, not only to follow the lights, but to take this road instead of that, make this turn instead of another. For days I let the need guide me, just as it guided me to become one with a tree or the slope of a hill when something bad came near.”
She looked toward Fallon with a smile as the dozing baby burped. “I learned not to fear what was in me, but to use it. Whenever I saw crows circling, I would hide. When I heard fighting, I would hide. Or run, fast as elves can, so I wouldn’t be caught. But men did catch me. Soldiers.”
“You were swept? I didn’t know.”
“They said they’d help me, take me somewhere safe.” Remembering, Orelana cuddled her baby, swayed a little to keep him lulled. “They gave me food and water. I was so tired, so afraid, so hungry. But elves hear very well, as you know, and can hear thoughts as well if they’re loud enough. So I heard them talk and think about the containment centers and about laboratories and tests. Isolation camps, all these frightening words and thoughts. I was with three others in the back of a truck with heavy material on the sides so we couldn’t see where we were, where we were going.”
“I didn’t know you’d been in a containment center.”
“I never got there. One of the soldiers thought very loud, very loud to speak to me. Minh.”
Fallon glanced over at the elf talking to some of the men and bouncing a sleepy toddler on his knee. She knew he was Orelana’s man, and his parents had come to America from Vietnam. She hadn’t known he’d been a soldier.
To lead, she thought, would take more than understanding words in any language. It would take knowing the stories of those who said the words.
“What did he say to you?”
“He thought: This isn’t help. It’s prison. Be ready.”
“What did he do?”
“First, I should tell you he was a good soldier, wanted to serve his country. But he’d hidden his true nature from the others he served with. He knew, because he’d seen the camps and centers, what would happen to him. What was happening to others. There were others who served who did the same, and they had found each other. Some of them.”
She paused to shift the baby, free a hand so she could pick up a cup and drink.
“Be ready, he thought to me, and not long after, the truck stopped. It stopped because one of the resistance, a witch, made it stop. They made an explosion, not on the truck, but close. And another.
“In the confusion, Minh came around, elf quick, he took the little boy—a shifter, no more than three—and told the woman who cared for him, who had become his mother to go, go. I took the hand of a girl, an immune, pulled her out. We ran into the trees where more were waiting to help us. And we escaped.
“Minh led strikes against one of the camps, one of the centers. With Thomas and others. They freed some, and some were lost on all sides. We came here to make our lives. You know the boy there, Gregory?”
Fallon looked toward a group of teenage boys pretending to be bored. “Sure. Wolf shifter.”
“He was the little boy with me in the truck. Darla, though she is not Uncanny, lives with the pack. She is his mother, after all. The little girl, the immune? She’s a soldier with the resistance. She sends word to me, to Minh, now and then.”
“It’s a good story. A strong story.”
“It’s important never to forget who and why we are.” She set aside her cup, let out a contented sigh. “I haven’t spoken in the language of my birth for so long a time in years. You’ve given me a gift.”
“It’s my first conversation in French, so a gift for me, too. I’m glad Minh was there for you. Glad he was a soldier and wanted to serve. And glad he understood how to serve, was brave enough to do what’s right.”
“I felt grateful to him that day. I admired his courage over the weeks and weeks that followed, his ability to help lead, to provide. But I fell in love with him on a spring night just here, just here where we sit now when I came upon him singing to a little girl who’d had a bad dream.”
Fallon knew the light in Orelana’s eyes when she looked at Minh. She’d seen it in her own mother’s toward her father.
“Here is a man who would fight, I thought, who would choose what’s right and risk himself for it. A man who would provide. And one who would soothe a child with a song.
“I thought too loud,” she said with a laugh. “I hadn’t learned how to quiet my thoughts, to protect them. So he heard me. So he heard me, and he looked at me, and because he was brave, let me hear his.” She sighed. “Litha is a time for love and lovers. One day you’ll look, and you’ll know.”
She gave Fallon a pat on the knee. “But now, I need to put the baby to bed.”
Fallon sat studying the fire. She wasn’t sure there would ever be a time for her for love or lovers. Wasn’t sure she had inside her what would put that light in her eyes.
She’d made a vow. Balance, she mused, yes. A dance around the balefire on the solstice, good food, and friendships. Her first conversation in French. But to balance that, she’d learned Minh was a soldier, part of the resistance. Someone who knew, if she needed to know, where camps and centers had been.
Might still be.
Even now she could see Mallick enjoying wine. But while he did, he huddled with Minh, who’d passed the little girl to her older brother, and Thomas, some of the elders.
She doubted they spoke of love and lovers.
Battles, raids, supplies, strategies, security.
She didn’t need elf ears to know what those charged with leadership spoke of.
She’d made a vow, accepted her duties. One day they would look to her for those plans, those answers. She needed to be ready. Propping her chin on her fist, she looked into the fire, the blue hearts of flame, the snap of red heat, and wondered if she’d see her future.
When she did, she pushed to her feet and walked away from the music, the voices, the dancing.
“Hey!” Mick caught up with her. He had a goofiness in his eyes that made her sure he’d managed to sneak at least a couple sips of the faerie wine. “Where’re you going?”
“Home. It’s late.”
“It’s Midsummer.” He raced up a tree trunk, flipped. When he nearly fell on the landing, she thought he’d sneaked more than a couple sips. “Some of us are going to the glade, going for a swim. Come on.” He snatched her hand.
“No, I can’t. I have to get started early tomorrow.”
“That’s tomorrow. Tonight’s tonight.” He gave her a tug, trying to draw her back to the party.
“Mick, I’m tired.” In the mind, in the heart. To the bone. “I’m going home.”
“You’ll feel better after a swim.” He turned to her in the leaf-filtered moonlight. “It’s Midsummer night. It’s magick. Everything’s magick tonight.”
She heard his thoughts. They gave her a jolt, a warning, but she didn’t evade in time. Maybe, just maybe, part of her wondered. Even wanted.
So on the warm Midsummer night, under the leaf-filtered moonlight, she let him kiss her. It had a sweetness, maybe the faerie wine, maybe the moment. How could she know? It was her first kiss. It felt … comforting, even as it lightly stirred something she didn’t recognize.
Sweet, she thought, analyzing even as she experienced. And soft. For another moment, she let it linger, wishing for the sweet and the soft.
But then she drew away. Not so much a goofiness in his eyes now, she noted. She saw wishes there, too.
“You’re so pretty,” he murmured, reaching for her again.
“I can’t.” Something else stirred in her, and this time she recognized it as regret. “I’m sorry.”
“I like being with you. I like you.”
“I like you, too. But I’m not … I’m sorry,” she said again, uselessly.
“Fine. Fine. Whatever.” Rejection flushed across his face. “I just figured you might want to have some actual fun. Be normal for a night. But I guess you just want to go off and wallow in your Oneness.”
“That’s not fair.” And it stung like a wasp. “That’s really not fair.”
“It’s what you’re doing. What you always do. Because you think you’re so important. You think you’re better than everybody else.”
On the next sting, deep and sharp, she lashed back. “I know I’m better than you. Right now, I know I’m a lot better than you.”