Nevermor (24 page)

When he began to
tell her the story, she wondered if it was simply to steer the subject away
from the last thing he’d said.

“I was wounded,
alone and bleeding.  I remember seeing the darkness closing in around me – and
then I saw a bright light.  I thought I was dead, but it was Whisper instead. 
She gave up a portion of her life to save mine.  She’s been with me ever
since.  I’m a part of her, and she’s a part of me too, I guess.”

Wren felt that
explained why Whisper did not like her, and she guessed it was reasonable.  The
glowing orb – who seemed very much like a woman now – felt that another girl
was moving in on the boy she’d laid claim on long ago.  Wren wondered if that
made her feel guilty for wanting to be closer to him.

“Is your bond
with her the reason you can fly?” she asked.  She thought he’d said something
like that before.

“That’s right. 
Otherwise I’d need a blessing, which is only temporary.  Such as it is, I don’t
need one.”

A blessing… 
That was what she gave the boys last night.  It made them light as air, but
they didn’t quite fly.

“Oh!  There is
another important thing, while we’re at it,” Rifter said.  “Do not, under any
circumstances, try to memorize a fairy blessing yourself.  Their language was
not meant to be spoken by humans, and if you do, you’ll die.”

Wren had never
in her life imagined that fairies might be as dangerous as he made them out to
be, but if she was to judge from what she had seen of Whisper so far, then she
would believe it.  She knew that the pixie had tried to kill her when she had
first met Nix in the woods.  The ordeal at the factory was still debatable, but
she had seen the way that the little beast had looked at her.  There was hatred
there.

Presently,
Whisper came back to land on Rifter’s shoulder, and it did not go unnoticed
that she had lighted on the side nearest to Wren, as if to get between them.

“Most wisps love
areas with lots of trees, though there are some that dwell near water as well,”
Rifter said, stopping.  “They usually live in colonies, but sometimes go off on
their own.  They are always looking for mischief, so don’t trust them if you
are alone if you don’t have to.”

Yes, I’ve
already learned that lesson
, Wren thought, eyeing Whisper, but the lovely
creature was making such a fuss near Rifter’s ear that she didn’t even notice. 
He sighed.

“Whisper insists
that not all fairies have evil intentions, and I suppose that’s true.  She’s
different from them because of me; she feels human emotions, unlike the
others.  Perhaps they are not all evil, but I find it works best to warn
against them.  You shouldn’t go on the assumption that just because Whisper can
be trusted, others of her kind can be trusted as well.”

“I won’t make
that mistake,” Wren assured him, but immediately felt she shouldn’t have said
it.  He gave her a strange look, but it faded quickly.  He didn’t question her,
instead lifting his face and pointing up into the trees.

“Look there.”

Wren considered
the spot where he had directed her, seeing several bulbous sacks in the
treetops.  They seemed to be made of dirt and twigs and glistening fibers like
spider webs.  They encompassed whole portions of the tree trunks, and there
were a great number of them, of varying sizes.

“The wisps live
in those, so if you notice them in the trees, it’s probably best to stay away. 
They sleep in the daytime, but at night the orbs are lit like moons and you can
see them well.  Easier to steer clear.”

“I’ll bet it’s
very pretty,” Wren said, imagining the forest alight with these natural
lanterns in the treetops.  Stuck on this, it was as though she had forgotten
what he’d just told her about the wisps being dangerous.  “Would it be possible
to see it?  If, of course, it would be safe to do so without them killing us.”

Despite how
dangerous Rifter had tried to make them out to be, she couldn’t help thinking
how lovely it would be to see the fairies floating around all at once.  Would
they swarm like wasps, or flutter like butterflies?

Rifter gave her
a sideways look.  “No one has ever asked me that,” he said, but she thought he
looked intrigued.  “You’re either very daring or very foolish.  I haven’t
decided yet.”

Wren didn’t feel
like arguing over it, but instead tried to push her luck.  “So we can?”

“I’ll think
about it,” he told her.  It was no secret that he liked to keep her hanging –
thinking he wouldn’t bend to her whims – but she could see that he was
interested in her request.  “It’s not quite dark yet, is it?  There are other
things I have to show you first.”

He hadn’t said
yes, but Wren smiled at him anyway, willing to pretend that she didn’t know
that they would.  Rifter didn’t manage to escape it quickly enough to keep from
smiling back at her.  They were caught there for a moment, looking in each
other’s eyes—

—and then
Whisper swooped down between them again, hissing in that horrid way that hurt
Wren’s ears.  Rifter looked at the wisp angrily, but she’d done what she’d set
out to do.  She’d stolen his attention away.

“Alright,
alright,” he said heatedly.  “Don’t complain so much!  Keep it up and I’ll send
you back home.”

Whisper drifted
away, muttering quietly to herself.

“She’s sulking,”
he said to Wren apologetically.  “I don’t know what’s wrong with her lately. 
She’s usually pretty agreeable.”

You really don’t
know?
 
Wren could see it clearly, but of course she was the one on the other end of
the pixie’s hatred.  But Rifter didn’t see?  In that moment, she realized that
he really knew nothing at all about women.

2

 They spent a
while wandering around in the woods as the day continued to fade.  Rifter
showed her several of the entrances to the tunnels, as well as a few traps that
had been laid throughout the forest to catch intruders.  He’d told her she
shouldn’t trigger them and she intended to take his advice.

He showed her an
assortment of plants that could be found in the woods, some that were good to
eat and others that she should never touch – including one with great briars
that was nourished by blood.

The forest was
larger than she’d initially thought, apparently stretching out from the beach
for quite a distance before it came out on either side to some other type of
terrain.  Rifter didn’t take her that far.  There were plenty of things in the
woods to be described.  They had only passed through a few acres before he had
decided to turn them around and take her back to the fairy nests.

Wren could
already see them through the trees in the distance before they ever arrived. 
The orbs were lit, just as he’d said.  More than that, she could see them off
in nearly every direction through the trees, some closer than others.  She
didn’t know if they were coming upon the same ones that he had shown her
before, but she trusted that he knew where they were.  She was utterly lost by
now.

They were still
a distance away when Rifter stopped.

“Whisper.”  The
pixie had not gone very far from them the entire time and had truly been
well-behaved for the last while – doing exactly as he had asked – and she came
forward now to hover in front of him attentively.

“Go back,” he
told her.  “You know you can’t be seen by them.”

As agreeable as
she had been so far, Whisper began to argue heatedly, but Rifter wasn’t having
it.

“Go!” he scolded
her, and the wisp shot away in an angry rush until her light was gone – which
only took as much time as it did for Rifter to lower his pointed finger.

“She seemed
angry,” Wren said, finding that she felt sorry for the fairy, despite
everything.  She supposed it was the compassion only one woman could feel for
another when she recognized unrequited love.

“It’s for her
own good.  The others will kill her if they sense her.  She’s unclean to them.”     

Wren remembered
what he had said about their bond, and how Whisper had chosen to save his
life.  All that was still an incredible mystery to her, but she didn’t ask
about it now.  Her attention was drawn by the prospect of what she was about to
see.

Rifter led her
over near a large tree and urged her to sit on the ground with him.  From
there, they had a decent view of the orbs above that were glowing faintly in
the dark branches.

“They’ll grow
brighter as the wisps wake up,” he explained.

Wren nodded
silently, never taking her eyes away.  She felt like a child anxiously awaiting
a magic show or a display of fireworks.  Her full attention was absorbed in the
globes above, not wanting to miss a moment – until she realized that he was
staring at her.

Her face grew
hot when she met his eyes.  “What is it?”

“I suppose
you’ll want to ask me more questions,” he said suspiciously.

“If you don’t
want me to ask questions, then don’t arouse my curiosity,” she said
as-a-matter-of-fact, but she guessed there was no hope of him doing that.

He smirked, but
didn’t say anything.  It was a contest now, was it?  It was a battle of wits to
see if she would be first to ask a question or if he would give in and talk
about himself without her having to bait him.  They looked at each other
silently, and then Wren caught sight of something hanging inside his coat.

“Tell me about
your flute,” she said.  To be fair to the rules of their game, it wasn’t a
question, so she hadn’t lost.

Rifter took the
reed flute into his hand and looked down at it.

“It’s just
something I made to pass the time,” he confessed, but as he looked down at it,
he let out a short laugh.  “I saw a picture in a book of a man playing one like
this.  There was a story about how the music called a bunch of mice, and then
later he used it to call children.  One day I thought: why not try it to call
others here?  I was kind of surprised when it worked.”

“I certainly
heard you playing,” she admitted.

Why did you call
me?
 She
wanted to ask, but she was afraid of going too far.

Don’t ask him
anything that he might not remember.
  That thought was still on her mind.

“I guess I should
have been careful,” he said as if mirroring her thoughts.  “Not everyone I’ve
called has been good for this place.”

Rifter leaned
back on the ground and put his hands behind his head in a relaxed pose.  His
coat of leaves was pulled open a bit and the toned flesh of his torso was
spread out in front of her.  He didn’t seem to care, completely comfortable
with how he appeared.  She tried not to look at his body – but the only thing
that kept her from it was the first flash of light that darted by above them.

Wren looked up,
seeing that the fairy wisps had begun to stir.  A few zipped out, looking
around to be sure it was safe and clear, and then more of them began to emerge,
filling the forest with light.  They were like giant fireflies that never went
out, or paper lanterns that dipped and soared in all directions.

“They’re
beautiful,” she gasped.

But dangerous
, she reminded
herself,
like fire.

Rifter sat up
beside her, watching her instead of the wisps.  He seemed to be drinking in her
awe – though he might have been entranced by the way the light lit up her face.

“Do you want to
go closer?” he asked.  “Get a better look?”

“You said it was
dangerous!” she reminded him.

He laughed
lightly.  “Yes, well what I meant was that it’s dangerous when you aren’t
with
me
.  They recognize me as part of the world.  They won’t hurt me.”

Did that make
sense?  Perhaps he was part of the world, but he was also bound to Whisper.  If
she was unclean to them, then wouldn’t he be also?  Wren wasn’t sure she
understood it.

Rifter stood up
and reached for her hand, and she forgot about all that.  She couldn’t hide her
excitement.  She trusted that what he said was true, but perhaps that was
giving him more credit than he had earned.

“Stay close,” he
instructed, and she didn’t mind that.  She gripped his arm and kept near him as
they stepped out into the open.

The fairies
drifted all around, undisturbed by their presence.  A few of them stopped to
peer at them, but then went on as if the two humans were as common as trees in
their midst.  The fairies danced through the air, twisting trails of light all
around.  It was the most beautiful, magical thing she had ever seen.

“It must be
amazing to fly like that,” she said, enchanted.

“It is,” he told
her.  She felt a little foolish, having forgotten that he could fly too.  Of
course he knew what that was like.  “It’s complete freedom.  There are no
straight lines or rules to follow.  You just
go
, and nothing can hold
you back.”

She had yet to
hear him sound so passionate.  He had already taken her into the air once, and
she remembered going over the ocean, searching, but that was only in a dream,
and she didn’t think she could say that she had actually done it.