The Urban Fantasy Anthology (23 page)

It’s starting to get dark now, so I hurry over to the ridge and clamber up the rock. It’s steeper than I thought, but I find plenty of hand- and toe-holds and soon I’m jogging along the top of the ridge, my running shoes quiet on the granite.

I keep an eye on the meadow as I go. Edric’s still just standing there. Waiting for something, I guess. Probably for some bush girl who lives out here where sensible people don’t even visit, never mind live.

Finally, I reach the part of the ridge that’s closest to the meadow. There are pine boughs in the way, but I find places where I can peer through them and get a good line of view. Behind Edric is another of the massive oaks that seem to be scattered through this mostly evergreen wood. I’m close enough that I could call out to him and he’d hear me.

The dusk is steadily falling. I can still make Edric out. He’s wearing a pale tan fleece and the light from the moon picks it out. Around me, the forest falls deeper and deeper into shadows.

I’m not sure when I start to hear the music—fiddles and drums and bells playing a soft marching rhythm. I just know I’ve been hearing it for a few moments before I see lights approaching on the far side of the meadow. And then…

I have to shake my head.

It figures. Who else would Edric be meeting out here but some back-tothe-earth Renaissance Fayre types. These ones are riding horses and they’re all decked out in fancy gowns and robes. Edric’s played the Fayres for years—he took me there on one of our first dates and didn’t I fit in, all in black with my tats and my hair cut short and spiked. I’d laughed when Edric put on the hose, doublet and all to play the wandering minstrel, but had to admit he had the build that could pull it off.

They all took it so seriously. Apparently, a lot of them were part of something called the Society for Creative Anachronism and they had this whole role-playing thing set up where they dressed like medieval lords and ladies and had feasts and jousts and, of course, the Fayres.

I ended up liking a lot of them—once we got over our mutual culture shock. But today? Not so much. Between finding out Edric’s got a twin who’s apparently been sharing his conjugal rights, traipsing around in the autumn woods, which is not my idea of fun, and now this, I’m not feeling particularly charitable toward them.

I figure the looker on the front horse is the woman he’s here to see. She’s wearing the usual SCA low-cut bodice, a blue-green cape flowing over her mount’s withers. She has a crown—naturally—and her hair is a dark waterfall that goes all the way to the small of her back in a curtain of ringlets. The rest of them are acting like they are her court—like she’s the queen her crown says she is. I start to look for a safe way down to confront them when it occurs to me that none of the riders are carrying the lights. The lanterns are bobbing in the air, floating above the little entourage. And then I see…then I see…

Children, I tell myself. They’re just children.

Except some of them have wings and they’re no bigger than cats. They’re flying—
flying!
—above the riders, carrying their lanterns and…and…

My knees feel weak. I sit down on the stone under my feet before my legs give way.

I try to convince myself that I’m not seeing what my eyes are telling me I am. They’re doing it all with wires. Mirrors. It’s just a trick. That’s all.

Just.

A.

Trick.

The music falls silent when the lead rider stops her horse directly in front of Edric. She says something to him. I can hear her voice—high and musical—but I can’t make out what she’s saying. It’s in some language I’ve never heard before.

Then they both look in my direction.

Oh crap.

They don’t know I’m here. They
can’t
know I’m here.

But then a pair of those flying cat-sized people come zipping from the meadow and my pulse goes into overdrive. I want to bolt, but I can’t even get to my feet. The pair dart between the boughs of the spruce, holding their lanterns, until they’re circling above me. I’m blinded by the light and hold my arm up to cover my eyes. They make a last circle above me—so close the hummingbird motion of their wings has my hair lifting and fluttering and I can smell the sweet oil from their lanterns—then they’re gone again. I see stars until my eyes adjust to the darkness.

My heartbeat is still drumming in my chest when I hear the woman speak once more—this time in English.

“You know what happens now,” she says.

I see Edric nod. His shoulders are drooped.

He knows, and I can guess. They’re going to do something to me—I don’t know what. Wipe my mind of the memory of seeing them, maybe. Banish me into some weird Fairyland prison.

Or they could just kill me.

I sit straighter and stare at them, waiting for I don’t know what. My sentence to be pronounced, I suppose. But I won’t go without a fight.

I look around and reach for a branch that’s lying on the stone nearby. I make myself get up—
will
the shaking in my legs to stop. When I’m sure I have my balance, I break the branch against my knee. That gives me two small clubs with which to defend myself.

The snap is loud in the night. Edric and the fairy court turn in my direction. I can see the queen frowning from where I stand, but then she lifts her arm. I stiffen and try to psyche myself for the attack I’m sure she’s about to command. But when she brings her hand down, the whole fairy court simply vanishes and the woods are plunged into night.

It takes my eyes a long moment to adjust to the darkness again. When they do, I can’t see Edric anymore. I have the sudden thought that I’ve just dreamed the whole thing. Any moment I’ll wake up—back home, in my own bed—and everything will be back to normal. But then I hear a scuffling on the rock below. I step closer to the edge and see Edric working his way up a switchback to the top of the ridge.

There are only three turns—the ridge is no more than twenty-or-so feet high. I step back from the edge when he comes into view, my clubs held out in front of me. The light’s poor, even with the bright moonshine coming down through the trees, but I know he sees me. Sees what I’m holding.

“Mary,” he says.

I glare at him.

“So, what did she tell you to do?” I demand. “Are you supposed to try to kill me?”

He shakes his head. I can’t read his features.

“Nothing like that,” he says.

“Yeah, right.”

Neither of us say anything for a long moment.

“Why couldn’t you just leave well enough alone?” he finally asks.

“Why did you have to have secrets?”

“I was under a geas,” he says. “Do you know what that means?”

I nod. “Some kind of old promise or something.”

“I wasn’t allowed to tell you. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. It was like…like a fairy tale, you know? Like Bluebeard’s room.”

“Oh, that’s a great example,” I say, “considering he turned out to be some kind of serial killer freak. And if we’re going to use folklore as an ethical barometer, what about all those sailor boys who are gone seven years, but then come back and try to trick their loyal girlfriends with some sleazy pick-up shtick?”

“Okay, you’re right. What I mean is—”

“Who
are
you?”

“We’re of the sidhe.”

“She who? What’s that supposed to mean? Are you talking about that woman on the horse?”

He shakes his head. “Sidhe,” he repeats and spells it out for me. “They’re one of the elfin races.”

“Elfin.”

“As in pixies, fairies…”

“And you’re one of them?”

He nods.

“I guess this is a whole new twist on having your boyfriend come out of the closet to tell you he’s a fairy.” I think about it for a moment, then add, “Is this why you never wanted to have kids?”

He nods again.

“
Could
we even have had kids?”

“Yes, but our children would be half-breeds.”

“Jesus, would you listen to yourself.”

He winces. “I’m sorry. I’m not saying I agree. But that’s what my people would call him. The Court—for the most part—is against mixed-marriages, and
especially
the children that result.”

“Why would they even have to know?” I say. “And we wouldn’t have had to tell anyone—not even our little girl. No one would have to know except for us.”

“Because our child…she would be different. She would be able to do things that we would have to teach her to control.”

I’d noticed that we both had our own ideas about the gender of this child we’ll never have. Apparently Edric did, too. But his attempt to soothe me by coming over to my side just pisses me off. Everything about this pisses me off. I know I should be trying to see some way past this, some way we can work things out. We’ve been together for so long. We were happy for so long. But there’s this huge lie rearing up between us now. And that twin of his, taking his place who knows how many times when I thought it was him?

I can’t stop the fury, burning up all the love and good memories. Knowing what I now know, I’m not sure I even want to.

“And I suppose this fairy queen’s your little bit on the side?” I ask.

“God, no. She’s my sister.”

“Your sister. And I guess that was your brother you pulled out of the tree earlier?”

He shakes his head. “That was a kind of changeling—made to take my place in the world while I conducted my business here.”

“And did that business include him banging me when you were too busy to do it yourself?”

“No, no.”

“So what
kind
of business?”

“Court business. I’m a prince of the Court. No matter how much I’m not interested in it, I have responsibilities I can’t shirk. So we made an agreement—my parents and I. I could live in the world of men so long as I came back once a lunar cycle to fulfill my obligations to the Court.” He pauses for a moment, then adds, “And so long as no one discovered the truth.”

“Do you know how stupid that sounds?”

“Why? Because it doesn’t fit in with your concept of living life as a free spirit, the establishment be damned?”

I don’t have an answer for that.

“I have to go now,” he says.

“Of course you do.”

“I didn’t want it to work out this way.”

“Of course you didn’t—but here we are, all the same.”

“I…” He stops. When he goes on, I know this isn’t what he started to say. “The changeling…he gets to have my life now. I’m not going to tell you what to do or not to do, but I don’t recommend you see him. He’s not human and he can be dangerous.”

“Except, apparently, you’re not human either.”

“No, but—”

“Oh, don’t worry. I don’t want anything more to do with either you or your doppelganger.”

“Changeling.”

“Whatever.”

He sighs. “
Why
did you have to follow me?” he asks.

I have to laugh. “I thought you were having an affair.”

“If you’d trusted me—”

“What? We could have happily lived a lie for a while longer?”

“It wasn’t like that for me.”

I shake my head. “You knew everything about me, but it turns out I didn’t know the first thing about you. Was everything you told me a lie?”

“No, I just didn’t give you all the specific details.”

“Like what?”

He shrugs. “We don’t have a cottage—we have a lakeside palace. I didn’t go to a one-room country school, but we did have a small class with a private tutor.”

“Kind of a big difference.”

“I truly do love you.”

“Yeah, well, I saw
The Little Mermaid
. You could have given up all the magic and stuff to be with me.”

“I would have—but that isn’t an option for royalty.”

“Right. Prince Edric.”

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he says.

I shake my head. “No, I have the right to make this as hard on you as I want.”

He nods. “I suppose you do.”

I don’t want it to be like this. Moments ago I was so angry—I’m
still
angry—but we had so much love between us. We gave each other seven years of our lives. You don’t just walk away from something like that without trying to fix it.

I take a breath to steady myself.

“There’s got to be a way around this,” I say.

“There isn’t. If there was
any
way I could fix it, I would.”

“So you’re just going to walk away from me—from what we have. Had.”

“If I don’t, they’ll hurt you. I won’t let that happen.”

“We’ll go to the police…” I start to say, then realize how stupid that has to sound.

“And tell them what?” he asks. “They could hide us away, but the Court would find us. There’s no place we could go that they wouldn’t find us.”

“And they would really hurt us—like kill us or something?”

He studies me for a long moment, then nods.

“I should go,” he says.

I feel empty. And the only thing I can find to fill that emptiness is anger.

“Yeah,” I tell him, my voice sharp. “They’ll all be waiting on you.”

“Mary, I—”

I put up my hand to stop him. It’s still holding my makeshift club, so I throw it and its partner away.

“Don’t,” I tell him. “Don’t say anything else.”

He nods. He gives me another long look, then he steps to one side, and just like the fairy Court, he vanishes.

I’ve managed to hold back my tears, but now that he’s gone, I go down on my knees on the top of that granite ridge and let them come.

It takes me a while to get back to where I left Karen’s car. I get turned around a few times, but I finally find the big field and from there on it’s pretty easy. I half-expected to find a ticket on the car, or that it had been towed away by the highway patrol, but it’s right where it’s supposed to be.

I have another crying jag, once I’m behind the wheel. It’s a long time before I can wipe my face on my sleeve and start up the engine.

I feel wrung out. Empty. Sadder than anyone has a right to feel.

And then the anger comes back.

I know Edric was right. I shouldn’t have anything to do with his changeling twin. But when I turn the car around, I don’t head south, back into the city. Instead, I cut east, aiming the car for The Custom House in the little town of Sweetwater. That’s the bar where Edric was supposed to be playing tonight. Where his changeling twin is playing.