Between (6 page)

“Charlie?” Seth pries my fingers from his arm.

I spot two large animals behind him, grazing in a field behind a wooden-planked fence. “Are those unicorns?” My voice raises an octave. He hadn’t mentioned unicorns.

“Yes,” he says. “The apothecary keeps a few here.”

I long for my paints. There’s so much color, so much depth, and I can’t help but grin at the magnificence. If only I had my sketchbook, I could sit down right here in this spot and be perfectly content for the next several hours.

A joyful squeal fills the air and a large streak of sparkling violet swooshes by us, knocking Seth to the ground. I stumble backward, nearly falling.

Seth lies on his back in the grass, and a winged girl hovers over him, eye-to-eye. She’s petite—even though she’s looking him in the eye, her feet barely go past his knees.

“Seth! You’re back!” she sings.

“Hi, Lulu.” Seth slides his hands behind his head and stares up at her, lengthening each syllable with exaggerated annoyance.

She smirks at him. “Don’t pretend you’re not happy to see me,” she says, a Southern twang pulling on each of her vowels.

Seth smiles at her. “Lulu, meet Charlie,” he says, “my Apprentice.”

She lifts her eyebrows. “Apprentice, eh?” She purses her lips and shifts her mouth to the side. “I can’t decide if that’s a promotion or punishment for you.”

Punishment? What does that mean? I lower my brow and glance at Seth.

He snorts. “Shut up and say hi to Charlie.”

In a flash, she’s in front of me, the tips of her toes resting on the ground. I close my mouth and pull myself together. Lush eyelashes border Lulu’s bright green eyes. Her black hair is cropped, with streaks of deep purple running wildly throughout. Even stretched up on her toes, she’s an inch or so shorter than me.

Clearly enjoying the attention, she straightens her posture and rotates like a ballerina. Two pairs of broad wings emerge from her back, below her shoulder blades. They look like a dragonfly’s wings, opalescent in color with intricate membranes and crossveins. Holding my breath, I bow my head closer and stretch my fingers toward one of the wings. Just as my fingertips brush their velvety surface, the wings flutter and I lurch backward.

Lulu lifts herself into the air with a delighted giggle. “Gotcha!” she sings, and I laugh. She sinks to the ground and grins. “So. What are you?”

I blink at her. “Huh?” What am I? My mouth goes dry.

Behind Lulu, Seth jumps up from the ground. “Oh! Lulu!” he says, a little too loud, a little too eager. “Guess what I brought for you?”

She instantly spins around to Seth. As soon as her attention is off me, I exhale. “You got it?” she asks.

His face goes blank. “Maybe.”

“Seth!” Lulu pouts. “Give it to me!”

Lulu reaches toward his pockets, and Seth backs away. His mouth lifts again, this time in a full-fledged grin, and it throws me a bit. I don’t see his flirty side very often. I’m so used to his serious face or that half-smile thing he does. This one is—well, it’s stunning. He’s more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him. It takes longer than it should for me to tear my eyes from his face. I long for my sketchbook again. I don’t want that smile to go away.

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a tiny black circle. He holds it out to Lulu, then pulls it back quickly when she reaches for it. “Promise me you will never ever play this when I’m at your house.”

Her shoulders fall. “Seth.”

He raises his eyebrows and holds it up higher. “Promise.”

She flies up and snatches it from him. “No way!” Her lips bounce off his cheek and she giggles as she takes to the air, leaving a trail of twinkling violet in her wake.

Seth and I stare after her.

“Lulu,” I say.

“Lulu.” Seth nods, watching while she shrinks in the distance. “The sweetest, feistiest pixie you’ll ever meet.”

The fondness in his tone makes me turn to look at him. “I like her,” I say, watching him watch her.

“Everyone does.”

“Is she your girlfriend?”

Seth’s eyebrows bounce, and I’m already wishing I hadn’t asked. “No, but she’s my best friend.”

I feel a weird twinge of jealousy. I’ve never really thought much about Seth having friends besides Sam and me. Not that it matters. Obviously he can be friends with whomever he wants.

I mean, of course.

Why am I even contemplating who his friends are?

“Was that a record you gave her? It was so little.”

“Yeah, it’s for a phonograph some of the elves invented. That record was Patsy Cline,” he says. “Lulu will only listen to vinyl, and she’s a country music fanatic. The classics. Patsy, Willie, Hank, George. You know.”

I nod like I have some idea what he’s talking about. I know those names, thanks to Sam’s obsession with music, but I don’t know any of their songs off the top of my head.

“When she asked me what I was—” I ask, and he coughs, nodding.

“Right. We shouldn’t talk about that out here.” Seth’s eyes wander, drawing my attention to other creatures nearby who might overhear us. Three fairies and a couple of centaurs linger off the side of the path. “Let’s get to your room. Your things will already be there. We’ll track down Sam, and Adele and I will explain.”

“Awesome,” I say, reminding myself to be patient. For as long as I’ve known him, Seth’s had an answer for every question asked since the beginning of time. Standing around in his rightness is his happy place. Today, the one day I would appreciate his need to enlighten the world with all his knowledge, he finds a filter.

Seth points to a gigantic tree not far ahead. It’s larger than any of the other trees, as tall and wide as one of the nicer hotels in the neighboring cities back home. There are multiple stairways leading from the base to various areas of the tree, some of them extending far above my view and disappearing into the leaves. Lights twinkle throughout its canopy like a scattering of fireflies. I see a few creatures lingering near the steps leading to the large double doors at its base. “That’s Artedion, where the Apprentices live.”

“Awesome,” I say again, completely unexcited.

“Remind me to find you a thesaurus. Between ‘awesome’ and ‘whatever,’ your vocabulary leaves a bit to be desired.”

“Your face leaves a bit to be desired.”
Self high-five
. I haven’t had a good “your face” remark in days, and that one was pure instinct.

Seth wrinkles his nose. “What does that even mean?”

“What does your face even mean?”
Boom
. I grin at him, grateful for a little normalcy. I’m glad he’s here. I don’t know how I would’ve handled this with a stranger.

One of his eyebrows dips below the other. “Two ‘your faces’ in a row? Really?”

“Oh, I can do this all day,” I tell him, lifting my hands palms-up by my sides, daring him to try me. Sam and I once conversed only in “your face” jokes for an entire evening. It drove Mom absolutely insane.

He leans closer and says, “Your face can do this all day.”

Wait, what?

Seth made a joke?

I burst out laughing, more from surprise than the joke itself because, come on, that was terrible.

The happy smile he used with Lulu is back, and I don’t want it to go away. We lock eyes long enough for it to feel a little awkward. I fight the urge to smooth my hair. He glances over his shoulder toward Artedion. “Come on,” he says, and I fall into step beside him.

In contrast to the pure, still beauty of the Between, here in Ellauria the magic feels almost tangible, like I could scoop it in my hands and drink it right out of the air. The colors are so clear and vivid they almost don’t look real, like I’ve stepped into a painting, and the palette stretches far beyond the browns, blues, and greens of the Between. There’s a glow here I’ve never seen anywhere, as if the sunlight beams down from all directions and pulses through everything it strikes.

A lion with the head of an eagle trods past us, its wings folded across its back. I can’t help but turn my head to watch it walk away, momentarily forgetting to act unfazed. A long tail swishes back and forth with every step it takes.

How can I keep from gawking when things like this continue to pop up and blow my mind?

As we walk, the enormous trees to my right are replaced by a forest of willows. Wide, sprawling branches are adorned with curtains of long purple blooms. Beyond them, I spot taller, narrower trees stretching high into the sky.

“That’s the library,” Seth says, jolting my attention forward again. He points to a building on the left. Brilliant bursts of light break through the canopy overhead, shimmering down on the white brick building.

That’s
a library? I scrunch up my nose. It’s not much—two stories that basically look like one room stacked on top of another, large windows framed with black shutters, dark green vines climbing the walls. I prefer a library like the one back home—three stories high and lined with books from floor to ceiling. “But it’s so small.”

The idea that this tiny building is Ellauria’s idea of a library actually makes me sad. All this magic and wonder, and this dinky building is the best they can do?

“It’s big enough to house a thesaurus, which should be your number-one priority,” he says with a smirk, and I stick my tongue out at him. He smiles and nods at the library again. “Principal Command meets on the second floor there. That’s the Fellowship’s governing body. Every single race in the mystical realm has a representative in PC, and they make all the decisions.”

I guess every world needs a government. “Like Congress?”

“Sort of,” he says, leading me on past the library.

Seems like they could’ve found a more impressive place for something as important as Congress. As we get closer to Artedion, I see doors and balconies everywhere, all over the outside of the trunk. The wooden staircases form a crisscross pattern from one balcony to the next. I catch glimpses of creatures climbing stairs and standing on landings throughout the tree.

The front of my flip-flop catches on an uneven spot in the dirt, and I direct my gaze to the ground as I do a little step-hop to keep my balance. A tiny animal pokes its head out from behind the leg of one of the flowering arches. It looks like a tiny cat, aside from enormous ears that stick straight out from its head like giant satellite dishes. A thin tail drags across the ground as it walks. “What is that?”

Seth squats and lays his palm at ground level. The creature hesitates before cautiously placing one paw on his outstretched hand. Seth remains still, speaking in a soft, soothing voice. “This is a fejib. Those enormous ears pick up every single sound in existence. That made it very hard for them to live in the mortal realm, so we pulled them all out. Anything they hear can be played back, like a living recorder.”

I crouch next to Seth. The fejib blinks its wide black eyes, then stretches its neck to run its cool nose against mine. The movement tickles, and my giggle causes it to jump from Seth’s hand and scamper off into the grass. I stand up. “Why haven’t I ever heard of fejibs?”

Seth gives me a funny look. “That’s the whole point. The Fellowship protects creatures like the fejib. Humans aren’t supposed to know about them.”

“Right, but I’ve heard of unicorns, fairies, and lots of other things I see around here.”

“For every one of these creatures you’ve heard of, there are probably ten you haven’t. We’ve worked very hard to keep their existences secret. Sometimes, like with the fairies, humans have enough encounters with a certain creature and a legend is born.”

He’s moving toward Artedion again, and I follow. We pass more and more creatures, and I do my best to keep my gaze steady and my posture as relaxed as possible. I deserve an award for all the gawking I’m stifling right now, acting as if men with goat hooves and women with heads full of wriggling snakes are completely normal parts of my life. Several of them wave and greet Seth as we walk by, and he responds with a quiet, “Hello,” or a head nod but never much of a smile.

I have no idea where to look. I try to remember the things I know from legends. The snake-haired ladies, the gorgons, they’ll turn me to stone if I make eye contact, and I seem to recall that satyrs are basically drunk musicians who love women. I don’t know if any of that is accurate, but I keep my eyes on Seth when they pass by just to be safe.

When the coast is clear, I look around again, watching a group of leprechauns topple over each other as they run across the path in front of us. Seconds later, a couple young centaurs chase after them.

While they’re all mind-blowing to see in person, not many of these creatures are new to me. After all, entire industries have been built around things like fairies and the Loch Ness monster. “So, if humans have heard of the creature, it’s because you guys failed?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Seth says, slowing a bit so I walk next to him rather than behind him. “You may have heard of fairies before today, but did you actually believe they existed? Besides, the majority of those legends began a long time ago, before the Fellowship was formed. There are much fewer sightings today than there were fifty years ago.”

“What about Bigfoot? There’s a Bigfoot sighting every few months.”