Fairy Circle (33 page)

“
You must listen to me, Saffron. You must hear me. It is never too late to change. In this life…in the next. You have all the time in the world to stop the grief, and rage, and desperation. You can choose to live the life you wish to live.” Li paused. She watched Saffron’s back, and waited for a response. “Saffron, in all of your lives you never tried to be with another love besides Ny. You have no idea what wonderful adventures await you. I know of many that have tried to be with you. You know none of them. You chose to keep them out. Your happiness depends on you. Your soul depends on you. Even if you choose incorrectly or unwisely, it does not matter, choose again. But choose, Saffron. Act, Saffron. Do not sit back and drown in the storm.”

Saffron remained rigid as death.

“
Saffron, do not fool yourself. Jethin does not hold the key to your release. In a way, he is no different than Ny. In a way, Jethin is much worse than Ny.”

Saffron kicked her way out of her sheets and rolled away from Li to get out of the bed. “Don’t you compare Jethin to Ny. Don’t say Jethin’s worse than Ny because the truth is Ny could never have the goodness, he couldn’t have one one-hundredth of the goodness that lies in that quote, unquote, monster’s heart!” Saffron’s chest heaved.

Li spoke softly and firmly, as if Saffron had never spoken - as if Saffron was not looming above her with fairy execution flaming in her eyes. “Jethin is like Ny in that he knows exactly what to say to you to trick you into doing exactly what he wants.”

“
Oh, so now I’m stupid? Are you trying to say that I’ll believe anything anyone tells me? Think again, because I think you’re lying now and you’ve been lying all along!”

“
And,” Li calmly continued, “Jethin is unlike Ny in that almost all goodness and happiness had been wrung from him from having spent too many years on this planet as the same person. That is why he wants you, Saffron. Your youth, your freshness, your beauty, your strength, and that bit of fairy magic you so despise - these things render you almost goddess-like in his eyes. But in time - granted it may take hundreds of years - you will yearn for your youth, for change. Jethin will have no use for you then. He will find you, too, were unable to deliver him. He will not keep up the pretense of kindness.

“
It is about being born, Saffron. That is the magic we all seek. You and I can be reborn for eternity. Or, at least until the human race destroys itself, then we’ll all be stuck as fairies with no planet, but that is a different matter. Think. Think of why they call his kind the “undead.” His soul has not been released from his body – yet it no longer exists as it did when he was human. He walks around at night, in blackness. His heart has been blackened by the cynicism that has grown within him century after century. He experiences everything with the same tired eyes, the same perceptions. He can never see things a different way. He is filled with the doubts and prejudices of ‘Jethin’, the human he used to be, before he became the undead. And since he can never be born again, can never change - he can never be truly happy again. He cannot escape.”

Saffron stared at Li for a moment, then turned around and gave the fairy her back once more.

Li looked down at her fingers. “Saffron, there is something you need to know about Jethin.”

Saffron rolled her eyes. “Oh, what are you gonna tell me now?” Saffron dropped back on her chair, on her panda. “You’re driving me insane; do you realize that? You’re literally making me crazy! Look at the knots in my hair!” She was whispering in a high-pitched hiss.

Li continued to look at her fingers. She had a ring of symbols around both middle fingers, like a tattoo. They were ancient fairy symbols and minutely etched. They spelled out her fairy name. Names were always the same in the fairy world, not that she was banished there
that
often. She would leave Saffron now. The girl was too walled up in anger. She would try again tomorrow.

Saffron saw Li make that, ‘sitting forward and looking at the exit’ motion to leave. “What?” She leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, “Had enough?”

Li took in a large breath, forced it back out. She should not leave this matter to another day. “Jethin is not who you think he is. He is not what you think he is.”

“
Yeah, okay. What are you saying? He’s not a vampire? Sure.”

“
I did not say that, Saffron. Please, let me talk.”

Saffron threw her hands up, muttered incoherently.

“
Saffron, Jethin is the reason why I have not incarnated in several hundred years, why I did not follow you after you jumped back into the human world.” She rubbed her arms as if suddenly chilled. “Jethin murdered me in my last incarnation. Murdered me and threw me down a well in Ireland. It was soon after that that he became a vampire. I went to him one night hoping to show him that I was not eternally dead. I wanted to tell him that I forgave his monstrous deed.” Her voice caught before she continued - how miserable it was to relive this again, how traumatic even in memory. “I was not ready for the depth of his hate and anger. I did not realize how I had fanned his rage with my claims of everlasting fairy life. He was not happy to learn what he had given up when he became a vampire.” Li went to sit on the floor by Saffron’s chair. “He tried to kill me again! When he discovered he could not kill me, he vowed to kill me in my next incarnation. He vowed to kill everyone I loved as well, to punish me for driving him to his fate.

“
I tried to protect you, Saffron. Throughout your life, I tried charms to seal you from his knowledge. For many years, I succeeded. I went to you in your dreams as a black shadow to ward you from public places when he was nearby. I placed a fairy ring around your property, a line you felt too uncomfortable to cross. It worked, for a while. I protected you well.”

“
What?” Saffron spat like a cat, her back arched. “You were sending me those feelings? That awful darkness that sat on me like ten tons of crap? I could hardly get out of bed in the morning because I was so afraid. That was
you
?” Saffron lurched out of the chair and went to stand by her window. She bit down into her lip; she didn’t want Li to see her cry. “That was you?” she whined.

Saffron remembered morning upon morning of waking up in tears, so many mornings she felt herself nearly slip over the edge into lunacy. Li’s sick idea of protection had really worked. Saffron was perpetually afraid of leaving the house. There had been so many sick days that kept her from school, from life. Saffron’s voice was barely a squeak. “You were controlling me with fear? You, who loves me so much? You?” Then Saffron jabbed an accusatory finger and roared, “People treated me like I was crazy! I treated me like I was crazy.”

“
I was just trying to help,” Li lamented.

Saffron scrunched up her face. “I don’t believe you.”

Li panicked. “But you must, Saffron! You must open your eyes and realize what is happening to you! Do not run headlong into the same misery as Jethin!”

“
Maybe you should stop pushing me there.” Saffron walked out and left Li in the dark room.

Chapter 21

S
affron stood in the shower and let the water roll across her skin. She dripped some fruity bath gel on a sponge and, without much effort, dabbed at her body. She got dressed. Underwear, bra, low-riding jeans, tight white T-shirt, black v-neck hoodie, socks, hybrid hiking sneakers. Hair clipped up.

No. Wait.

She sat before her mirror and wrenched the clip from her hair. It rained red all over her shoulders. She didn’t want to be like them. Like those fairy women. How they loved long hair. She thought of how Ny had stroked her hair and stared at her hair and pulled her close to him by tugging on her hair. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and reached for the scissors in her drawer. She stared at her face in the mirror for a moment, then reached back and crunch, crunch, crunched the scissors through the hank of hair. The lopped-off chunk fell to the floor. Saffron turned around, picked it up, and deposited it in the trash. A short stump of hair stuck out of the elastic that remained close to her scalp. She took the elastic out, parted her hair down the middle, marveled at the light weight, and styled her hair into two pigtails just behind her ears. She waited upstairs in her room until it was almost time for work. Then she ran down with her Black Chicken ball cap firmly on her head, her short hair hidden within the thick hood of the sweatshirt. Audrey, with a paint smear on her cheek, was taking a break from her canvas to wash the breakfast and lunch dishes that she, Derek, and Grandmother had left behind.

From the hall, Saffron called out a quick “G’bye,” then ran through the door and onto the farmer’s porch. She threw herself on her bike like a cowboy on his horse, pedaled furiously down the driveway. She sneered at the withering mushrooms that grew across the gravel. She pedaled back to the base of the driveway, then jumped off her bike and smashed every single mushroom. With their power revealed, their power was gone. She felt fantastic as she crushed each one to crumbled, powdery pulp. Today, she had no fear of leaving her mother’s house.

Audrey held a sudsy pan and watched Saffron from the kitchen window as she disappeared down the drive. A black hoodie…in June? It was almost eighty degrees. And the ball cap? Saffron bitched about having to wear that ball cap. Maybe there were Suits evaluating the Black Chicken today. Maybe Saffron was going to rob a bank. Did she really have
all
of that hair in her sweatshirt? Audrey walked out into the hallway and considered the stairs to the second level. She started up. On the bottom step, she looked up with apprehension at the vacant landing above. Her mother was at a craft session for the elderly, Derek was at the shop. The grandfather clock ticked and half a mile away, their neighbor’s lawn mower thrummed. She hoped he received the Shorn Lawrn Award at the county fair this fall.

She mounted each stair, and tread softly on the wide pine flooring that led to Saffron’s room. Inside, she touched nothing, but roamed around the bed and the chair. When she got near her daughter’s dressing table, she looked down. Something in the trash caught her eye. Audrey gasped and did a double take. Was that Saffron’s hair? All of it? She reached down and pulled the almost two-foot-length out of the trash. Tears welled in her eyes as she stared at the rejected coil of hair. She looked out Saffron’s window at the lush apple tree, running her hand over the hank of hair. Her eyebrow arched. If Saffron didn’t want it, there were others who did, others who needed it. She held on tight to the hair and made her way to Saffron’s phone.

At the store, Saffron refilled the cup dispensers while Coco babbled on about her cowboy. They ignored the three boys stealing condoms for a water balloon war, and ignored old Mrs. Thatcher at the other end of the store, who bitched about burnt coffee. Outside, at the intersection, a motorcyclist gunned his bike so all the bored pedestrians would look and fail to be as impressed as he was with himself. Saffron’s eyes slid sideways - it wasn’t Markis. It felt like it was a million years ago, when she used to get excited at hearing an idling motorcycle at that light. She barely remembered her happiness that day when he pulled off his helmet and stood before her, his dark, wavy hair curling under the stuffy helmet. It was no use brooding about it now - things had gotten so awkward between them that she tried not to think about Markis at all.

Whump.
A condom balloon blasted against the outside of the window and made her jump. She hadn’t realized they left the store. Mrs. Thatcher was gone too. Coco left off at, “and then he said what if we did it on the roof of Wal-Mart,” to go out and scream at the boys, who each chucked her the bird and ran off hawk-screaming with laughter.
Saffron wondered if she should eat them when she was a vampire. She bet they tasted better than a lamb-eye vodka shot.

They had just finished tossing congealed salads when Coco sighed. “Dude, what in the hell is wrong with you? And don’t you even tell me ‘nothing’ cuz I just told you a new nether-region technique that you could take notes on, copyright, and sell…and your little cheeks didn’t even get pink. So,
what the hell is wrong with you
?”

Saffron put down her spoon with the congealed stuff on it. She turned and considered Coco head on. A mother and toddler ting-a-linged in. Saffron crooked her finger at Coco. “C’mere.”

Coco pulled her chin into her neck. “Since when do you tell me to ‘c’mere’.” Her head jerked from side to side. From Goth to Harley to Urban Youth, and sometimes all in one day, Coco left no trend unmolested.

“
I’ll tell you something even you’ve never done.” Saffron nodded solemnly, and leaning toward Coco’s ear, she began to whisper.

As she spoke, Coco’s eyes alternated between wide and study-hard squint. “…and then you take your leg….”

Coco’s hand went to her mouth, first time she ever she tried to hold something in.

“…
and then you work it, don’t slow…”

Coco’s eyes started to water.

“…
and then pull it until you can’t stand it anymore…” Before Saffron could finish speaking, Coco pulled back from her and shut Saffron up with a look.

“
Saffron, that’s totally…oh my God…you’re full of crap; nobody’s that flexible.” Coco swallowed hard before she shrieked “How would you know that?” She looked at Saffron like she’d never seen her before.

Saffron didn’t blink. “I’ve done it before.”