“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.