Betrothed (14 page)

He reached for me wordlessly, and as I slipped my hand inside of his, hot tingles pinged through my fingers and up into my arm. I cried out, unsure whether the sensation was more pleasure or pain. Everyone around us had stopped dancing and stood watching the spectacle before them, but Leif only had attention for me.

‘Marla, I have gone to great lengths to find you. Do you know how many humans possess the name of Smith in your region? I have come to meet with you and this is how I find you? Sharing yourself with this . . . human.’ He shot Jason—who’d since clambered to his feet—a condemning look before turning his fury back to me. ‘You belong to
me
!’ He clenched a fist to his heart, paused for a moment before demanding, ‘What have you to say?’

I was vaguely aware of the scene we’d created, of the attention Leif was commanding, of Jason, my friends and a horde of others watching, mesmerised. But how could any of this be real? It couldn’t.

‘Am I dreaming, Leif? Is that what this is?’

The anger seemed to leach from his eyes and his voice was softer when he said, ‘You do not dream. But what have you to say of how I find you?’

‘You’re real? I thought you were just a dream.’ I shook my head and pinched myself hard, sending a shot of pain through my arm and a grimace to my face.

‘Ah, don’t do that.’ He touched my arm and the pain was replaced with soothing heat.

Jason looked at Leif and said, ‘Hang on a minute, mate, I don’t know who you are, but
Amy,
is
my
girlfriend. What’s with this Marla crap anyway? It’s bad enough her fag friend calls her that.’

I wanted to slap him.

Leif turned his attention to Jason and watched him as though he were the most loathsome of bugs. He was more than a full head taller than Jason, and must have been a formidable sight to him.

‘Leave now,’ Leif commanded, in a way that made it clear he was accustomed to being obeyed. Jason looked nervous, but I had to give it to him, he stood his ground.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. He was shaking in his Prince Charming boots and tugging at my arm, trying to make me
release my hold on Leif’s hand. He looked like a pussycat standing up to a tiger. ‘Amy’s my girlfriend.’ It was almost a whimper.

Leif’s eyes became impossibly intense as they swept rapidly around the room. Then his attention returned to Jason for a short moment before coming back to me. I became hypnotised by him, but was vaguely aware of a change in the room. Everything seemed to be speeding up, becoming frantic. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jason grip his head and fall to the floor as the people who had been watching us stopped and started running around madly, bumping into each other and yelling incomprehensible things. Leif just stood where he was, holding my hands, his eyes locked with mine as Jason leaped up and ran screaming from the room.

This scene went on for a few more moments, during which time Leif leaned down and kissed my forehead. ‘I must go,’ he said and released my hands.

‘Don’t!’ I reached for him, hooked my fingers into his jeans. ‘Please stay.’

‘I will come to you tonight, Marla.’ He ran his fingers down the side of my face, removed my hand from where it was tangled into his belt loop and kissed my palm. Then he turned and walked away, weaving his way through the heaving mass of teenagers.

I stood stunned for a moment, watching the door through which he’d disappeared. Leif was real and he was coming to see me tonight. I grinned a stupid big grin and turned to Jack, standing nearby.

‘He’s real, Jack.’

‘Who’s real?’

‘Leif, of course! Who’d you think it was?’

Jack pressed his hand to my forehead. ‘Are you all right?’ I might have laughed but he was serious.

‘That guy I was just with was Leif,’ I told him, growing anxious as I waited for a response. ‘You know: tall, built, no shirt. I saw you looking straight at him.’

‘Maybe he was one of the firies,’ he said, looking doubtful. ‘But you said no shirt, right?’

‘Firies?’

‘The place was full of them.’

‘Huh?’

Jack pointed to the stage. ‘The castle was on fire. It was crazy, fire shooting out the windows . . . ’ He frowned. ‘How could you not notice?’

‘The castle looks fine to me.’

‘Yeah, it does.’ Jack ran his fingers through his hair and scratched his head. ‘Well, the fire brigade did get here fast.’

‘Jack, can you take me and Ash home? Jason’s disappeared. I think my insanity has scared him off.’ Not that I cared. All I wanted to do was go to bed and curl into a little ball of self-pity. ‘I’m pretty sure we broke up tonight.’

‘What a shame,’ he said with a fake sad face. But I just wasn’t in the mood.

‘Please, Jack,’ I sighed.

‘Sure, come on, I’ve had enough anyway.’

‘Do you remember the tall dark-haired guy I was talking to?’ I asked Hilary and Kyle when we went to say goodbye. They had no memory of Leif either. But the thing was, I could remember them both staring straight at him.

The ride home was depressing. Ashleigh talked nonstop about some huge fight that had broken out inside the hall, while Jack’s conversation kept returning to the fire in the castle. Neither of
them could believe it was possible that I’d missed both incidents. Though Jack hadn’t noticed the fight and Ashleigh hadn’t noticed the fire, they put that down to the two dramas occurring simultaneously. I wasn’t surprised I hadn’t noticed either fight or fire, as my attention had been all for my delusion.

For a brief moment tonight I had been elated, sure of Leif’s existence. Now all I had was the realisation that I was experiencing further deterioration in my mental health. I was loath to face the truth, but I had to. It’s not like anyone could have missed Leif had he actually been there. He’d outshone everyone around him. There was only one possible explanation—he hadn’t been there at all. I made a decision: in the morning I would speak to my mother about seeing a psychiatrist.

When we arrived at my place, Jack got out of the car and gave me a long hug. He held me close and stroked my back. But the magic was gone—he was my best friend again. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so miserable.

‘How was it?’ Dad asked as we came inside.

‘It was fun until most of the guys in my year got into this massive fight,’ Ashleigh told him.

Dad shook his head. ‘Nobody hurt, I hope.’

My sister tipped her head to the side as she considered. ‘I don’t really know.’

My father frowned and turned to me. ‘Did you see this fight, Amy?’

I shook my head and flopped onto the lounge.

‘You didn’t have a good time, love?’

I shrugged. ‘Not really.’

‘That young man didn’t cheer you up?’

‘Jason?’

‘Not Jason. There was a young fellow came looking for you, seemed fairly keen to find you. I assumed he was a school friend. I
hope
he was a school friend!’ Dad frowned.

‘What was his name?’

He pinched his chin between his finger and thumb as he considered. I thought I might jump right out of my skin. ‘I must be losing my memory,’ he said finally. ‘But he was distinctive, that’s for sure, and very well mannered. He had a strange accent too, and no shirt on, of all things.’

‘Leif,’ I whispered, clasping my hands over my heart, my happiness restored in a miracle of a moment.

‘That’s it, Leif. He found you then?’

‘Yes! Yes he did!’ Euphoria filled me from the top of my head all the way to my toes—a great zinging joy that made its way through every fibre of my being, making me want to shriek. Somehow I kept it in but I knew my happiness showed in a grin that took over my whole face.

‘What is up with you tonight?’ Ashleigh said. ‘Your moods are all over the place.’

I couldn’t answer, was too crazed with happiness. I needed to be alone. I needed to scream. Leif was real! I wasn’t delusional. He was real and he was coming tonight. I couldn’t imagine him knocking on my door at this hour, so it must be to my dreams. I raced to my bedroom, changed into my nightie, jumped into bed and hollered into my pillow, then I shivered and trembled as I waited for sleep to come and take me to him.

An hour later I was still wide awake, my mind racing with questions. Was Leif a faery? It was a stretch but so was the fact that he existed at all. And if he was a faery, was I one too? I reached into the darkness and ran a fingertip around the outline of one ear. I’d realised a long time ago that my ears looked like they belonged on the tooth fairy. I smiled as the image of Simone
and Brittany collecting teeth popped into my head. Another question occurred to me as Ashleigh climbed into bed on the other side of the room: Why couldn’t anyone remember seeing him? Was it because of the other things going on, the fire and the fight? I tossed and turned, impatient for sleep to take me to him.

Another sleepless hour passed. It was after one o’clock and I almost wept with frustration. I had never been so eager to fall asleep in my life. I heard my father heading off to bed, his footsteps passing my room, and a moment later, his bedroom door closing behind him.

Fifteen minutes later there came a tapping on my window. I turned and peered outside. What I saw threatened to make my heart stop but soon had it beating double time. Leif was there, bobbing up and down in time with the languid movement of his wings. The question of whether or not he was a faery was answered. In the blackness of the night his body shone, the aura emanating from it like the soft silver-gold glow that surrounds the moon on a summer night. I jumped out of bed and threw the window up and in a movement as quiet and smooth as a whisper, Leif was through the window and gathering me into his arms.

‘Marla,’ he breathed, as he held me close. ‘I thought they would never sleep.’

Suddenly everything was all right. All the feelings of craziness, the confusion, the troubles with Jason—it all just evaporated. Of course I hadn’t been able to force myself to feel something for Jason: I was tied to Leif. It didn’t matter that I’d believed him to be a dream, I was bound to him regardless.

‘Come,’ Leif said, and in an instant I was in his arms and out the window and the cold night air was rushing past my face. I clung to him and although we flew at speed high above suburbia, I’d never felt so safe in my life. He took me to the beach, descended and landed near the water’s edge, his wings
vanishing in the same moment. Then he set me on my feet, wrapped his arms around my body and brought me into his embrace, my back warm against his chest. We watched the sea, crushed close, the moment too perfect to spoil with words. I looked up to him after a little while. He seemed entranced by the crashing waves—the ceaseless ebb and flow. The breeze blew briny spray from the ocean. It filled my nose and chilled my skin and whipped hair around my face. ‘I can’t believe you’re real,’ I whispered.

He looked down at me and smiled. ‘Even now that I am here?’ A wave rushed up the sand then, stronger than the others, spreading cool foam over our feet. As the water retreated into the ocean, it garnished my foot with a clump of something blackened by the night. I squealed, imagining jelly fish and bluebottles. Leif laughed and lifted me into his arms, plucked the seaweed from my toes and threw it back where it had come from before setting me down and pulling me to him again.

‘This place is wonderful, Marla. There are no beaches in Faera, so this must be your consolation.’

‘My consolation?’ I lifted my face to look into his again. His eyes reflected the moonlight dancing on the waves.

‘For all that you must endure here on Earth,’ he said.

‘Maybe—I love it here. I come all the time with my friends to swim and soak up the sun.’

‘Not soaking up enough sun, I think. You’re shivering, my love.’ He cuddled me closer, tucking all of me into him.

‘Well, it’s cold tonight.’

‘Yes, but if you take enough sun in the day it will keep you warm through the coldest night.’

‘What?’

He just smiled and took my hand, then led me from the water’s edge, choosing a spot on the sand sheltered from the
breeze. He sat and brought me into his lap before covering me with his arms.

‘I’m in heaven,’ I said, as I felt his body become hot, the heat from it flowing into mine. ‘How are you doing that? You’re just like a heater!’

‘A heater,’ he said with a smile. ‘I suppose that is an apt description. I’m releasing the sunlight stored within my body to share with you.’

‘You store sunlight inside of you?’

‘As do you.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, Marla, you are fae.’

I was a faery. I could hardly breathe.

‘I have so much to teach you,’ he said, his voice tender. He pressed a kiss to my hair then said, ‘The sun is the source of our power, Marla. Of course this is true in the human world too, but for the fae it is more personal. Our bodies absorb the sun directly, not just elements of it, but all of it—light and heat. It recharges us, gives us strength and energy. The sun keeps us well, Marla. Without it we fade.’

‘You know, I’ve wondered about that, and something else too—I never burn, no matter how long I stay in the sun. I can stay in the sun all day and still want more.’ I was toasty warm now, wrapped in Leif’s big body.