Bones of Faerie03 - Faerie After (24 page)

Karin and Allie and Nys, leading the faerie folk through the forest, winding their way around the crumbling and the dark, stopping at the top of a hill to look back as all the silver brightness drained from the Arch, leaving behind dull tarnished metal, even as another light, a brighter light, found its way into the very fabric of the world—

Allie, an older Allie, her hair more clear than red, walking a winter path from town to town, another girl from her town—Kimi, a plant speaker with green vines wrapped around her arms and neck—by her side—

Karin standing by the Wall that had protected that town for so long, only something had changed, making it seem no more than a tangle of overgrown weeds, no magic left in it. “The Wall has served its purpose,” Karin said. “It is time for us all to learn to live without it—”

The oldest Afters from my town, Hope and Seth and Charlotte, standing before my town’s Council. “They’re not going,” Hope said. “Not Ethan, not Tara, not Tara’s daughter, not my son. You will live with our magic, or you will live without us all—”

Myself, heading into a winter forest to find Matthew—

Matthew, heading into an autumn forest to find me—

Home
, I thought.
I want to go home
. Caleb had chosen right, after all. I wanted to live in this bright, broken world as long as I could.

The visions faded. Matthew’s hand slipped into mine, and I wrapped my fingers around his.

“It is done.” Elin’s eyes remained bright.

Beside her, Tolven struggled to his feet. “This is the human world?”

“It is,” Matthew said.

“It seems a good place,” Tolven told him solemnly.

Shapes came clear. Blue sky. Red leaves. A sloped hillside, on which we stood. A tree—an autumn tree, a living quia tree—upon it, just a few paces away from us, leaves burning with autumn fire. That tree knew me, and I knew it, as surely as I knew, deep down, that its roots stretched only into brown earth and the green beyond it, and held nothing more of gray death.

But I did not know the toddler who looked up from beneath the tree, saw me, and burst into startled laughter.

Chapter 21

T
he child ducked her head, suddenly shy, and turned to look at a second, older child who hid behind the tree. That child I knew, though he was taller than I remembered: Kyle.

Elin pulled her feather cloak about her. “Everything’s changed,” she said.

“The trees are not green.” Tolven looked all around. “But they are well, and whole.”

Elin grabbed both his hands. “And so are you,” she whispered.

“And so am I,” Tolven agreed, and leaned his head on her shoulder.

The world seemed so bright, like new-forged steel, silver threads still shining at the edges of my sight. A leaf fell from the quia tree and blew toward us. I released
Matthew’s hand to catch it, and it did not dissolve to dust. It was an ordinary autumn leaf, no more, no less.

That was when I heard someone else, breathing shallow breaths, watching us. I turned.
Mom
. I could not seem to speak.

“Tara,” Matthew said.

Mom didn’t move. She stared at us, while behind her the sky blazed with dusk. The child moved to hide behind her. There’d been no child this age in my town when I’d left.

My stomach did a little flip as suspicion crept into my thoughts. It was Matthew who spoke the suspicion aloud. “How long have we been gone?”

Mom’s breathing sped up, and her face paled. “A year. I thought you were—we all thought you were—” I feared she might faint, she looked that stunned.

The baby crept out from behind her, a baby with ordinary brown fuzz on her head and a hint of silver speckling her eyes. I knelt to look at her. “What is your name?” The words burned my throat. I’d called so much.

The child looked down, still shy.

“It’s Mirinda.” Mom’s voice shook. “Rinda for short. We wanted you to name her, but you didn’t come back, and Karin—she said it was an old name among the faerie folk, and that it had been out of use long enough to bring it back.”

“Mirinda’s a good name.” My voice was hoarse, used up. I wanted to go to Mom, but I couldn’t get my legs to close the distance between us.

“A year,” Matthew said, his voice strained. “A whole year. Gram—”

“She’s fine,” Tara said. “We need to tell her you’re here—” But she just kept staring, as if afraid we would disappear if she looked away.

Kyle came out from behind the tree, a butterfly trembling on his fingers and a yellow cat winding around his legs. Mirinda reached for the butterfly, then drew back, as if uncertain.

Kyle saw Elin and stuck out his tongue, saw me and turned swiftly away.

“Kyle?” Was he as angry at me now as a year ago?

Kyle marched up to Matthew, as if he were the one safe person here. “You brought her back,” he said.

“We brought each other back.” Matthew’s gaze took in Elin and Tolven as well as me. “All of us.”

Kyle’s face scrunched up. He whispered something I couldn’t make out. Matthew leaned down, and Kyle repeated it.

“That’s not your fault,” Matthew said gently.

“Tell her,” Kyle said.

Matthew turned to me. “Kyle says he’s sorry he got angry and he’s sorry he made you run away.”

“Kyle.” Speaking hurt, but this was too important. “Matthew’s right. None of this is your fault.”

Kyle stuck out his lower lip, and I knew he didn’t believe me. He sniffled. “I’m not angry anymore,” he said.

“I know.” Throat aching, I looked at Mom. “Neither am I.” Mom would stay or she would leave, and I could no more decide for her than for anyone else. I could only find a way to live with what she decided.

“Lizzy—” But Mom couldn’t seem to find words to go with that.

Mirinda reached for Kyle’s butterfly again. It burst into flame, and the toddler burst into tears. She didn’t know yet that some things couldn’t last.

Her tears stopped abruptly, as baby tears did. Mirinda looked up, toward the quia tree, tottered forward, and fell. Mom swept her from the ground. Mirinda hung limp in her hold, and my breath caught, but Mom didn’t look frightened. “Mirinda!” she called.

“Not again,” Kyle sighed.

I followed their gazes and saw a scrap of shadow running circles around the tree. Rinda could control her own shadow, I realized. Just like summoners long ago.

“She always comes back,” Mom said. “But it can take a while.”

Rinda stopped to put her shadow hands to the bark. She giggled, and then her shadow reached into the tree.
“Mirinda!” I cried, afraid she’d lose herself to that tree, but she stopped, hands in just past the wrists, to look up at us curiously. “Name?” she asked.

Trees had no names, save for the First Tree, which was also Rhianne—but Rhianne was gone, surely she was. I unfocused my gaze and looked at this tree’s shadow, looked and looked until my eyes threatened to cramp and at last I saw the fainter shadow within it.

Not Rhianne’s shadow. This shadow looked down at Rinda as if he’d never get enough of looking at her. I swallowed hard as I moved to my sister’s side. “Caleb.” It wasn’t only trying to speak that made my throat burn.

He nodded soberly. My legs threatened to give way, and Matthew laid a steadying hand on my shoulder.
Our paths lie in different directions from here
, Caleb had said. He couldn’t come back, but he’d come as far as he could.

“Allie told me about Kaylen,” Mom said softly. She didn’t understand. She knew the name I spoke, not the shadow I saw. I took the coin from around my neck and hung it from a low branch, my eyes on that shadow.

“Should I try to call you out of the tree?” I asked him, but as I spoke, I knew, as Rhianne had not, that sometimes things really were over. Caleb knew it, too; he shook his head, no.

Mom gave a little gasp, and I knew she’d worked it out. She walked toward the tree, slowly, steadily.

“Do you want me to send you on?” I asked Caleb. Again he shook his head, then moved his lips, as if trying to say something. Whatever it was, it was beyond my human hearing.

“Not now,” I said. A nod. “Not ever?” Caleb shook his head. “You’ll stay for a time?” I asked, and he nodded.

“This is not possible,” Elin said, while Tolven simply stared at the tree. Caleb knelt down to squeeze Rinda’s shadow hands. Rinda leaned forward to wrap her shadow arms around him, everything but her legs disappearing into the tree.

“Kaylen.” Mom couldn’t see him, but she set Rinda’s body down, and she pressed her hands to the smooth trunk. Caleb stood, Rinda’s shadow arms still around his legs, and pressed his hands to Mom’s, though neither could push past the bark between them. I brushed my hand across my eyes and found them damp.

“You did what needed doing, Kaylen. I know that.” No tears in Mom’s voice. She’d had a year to accept this, as I had not. “I’ll honor and mourn that all my life. We had one good summer together.” Something in her voice caught. “It will have to be enough.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, not knowing if I spoke to Mom or to Caleb. “I never meant for this to happen.” My own voice broke, and Matthew’s arms wrapped tightly around me. “Never.”

Caleb held his hands out toward me, but I could no more push through the tree to reach him than Mom could. “Thank you,” I whispered instead. “For sending me back.”

Caleb nodded, acknowledging that. Rinda’s shadow released him. She slipped out of the tree, giggling, and reached up for me. I pulled away from Matthew to lift her shadow into my arms. The shadow was cold, but it was a cold I’d learned to handle long ago.

I have a sister now
. The thought seemed strange as the year I had lost. I knelt beside Rinda’s body. Caleb watched us, his smile no less real for the sorrow it held. Rinda’s shadow slipped from my arms to settle back beneath her skin. Her whole body shook with more giggles as she toddled to her feet.

I laughed, too, only it turned into a sob, and then somehow we were all holding each other, my mother and my sister and me, one giant crying hug that seemed to go on forever. Mom pulled Kyle and Matthew in, and Kyle’s cat pulled itself in, climbing up the back of my pants leg with needle-sharp claws. Only Elin and Tolven remained apart, silent.

When we pulled away from one another at last, Elin asked stiffly, “Tell me, Tara. Have you had any word of our people?”

Mom nodded. “They’re doing all right. Winter was hard on them, but it was hard on us all, and they made
it through. If they sometimes make for uncomfortable neighbors, well, that would hardly be the greatest challenge we’ve faced since the War.” She laughed uneasily. “Though some in this town would argue that.”

“Neighbors?” Elin said.

“Clayburn,” Mom told her. “They had to go somewhere, and with winter coming, there wasn’t much time to choose. And there were houses there that could be rebuilt, and some rations already in storage.” Mom gave Elin a hard look, a measuring look.

“Yes,” Elin said sharply. “I am well aware of these things.” Clayburn was the town she’d destroyed.

“What about Allie?” I said. “And Karin?”

“Both fine. They’ve gone home to Washville, though Allie spends a lot of time in Clayburn now. Karin, too.” Mom smiled then. “The world might have been ending, but Allie made it here in time to see to Rinda’s birth, though she has both her town and what remains of Faerie to look after now.”

Dusk was fading, taking the color with it. Elin turned to Tolven. “We should go. It’s a long walk to Clayburn.” She sounded wearier than I’d ever heard her.

Tolven looked to me. “By the bonds between us, Liza, might we find a resting place here tonight?”

“We do not need their help,” Elin said.

“Even so, you could hardly be blamed for wanting
rest before facing the Court and all its politics.” Mom laughed again, and something in her relaxed. “You’re both welcome to stay the night, Elin.”

“You would risk that?” Elin said. “After all I have done?”

“Would our town allow it?” I asked, not sure, for a moment, whether I wanted them to or not.

“I’ll not ask permission to invite guests into my own house.” The steel in Mom’s voice surprised me.

“In that case,” Elin said softly, “it would be an honor to accept.”