Give Me (16 page)

“It’s your human side that wants to atone.” Idris still smiled, but he couldn’t hide his anger. “In fae, regret doesn’t exist. You’re here. You’re free. Come play with me.”

“I have to go back.”

“The fae live for thousands of years. Even faelings live for a thousand, minimum. Do you understand what that means? No one can live with regret—or guilt—so long a time and not go insane.”

“I am human. We’re made for regret and guilt.”
Mother would never have said that.

“Not all human.” His wicked smile drew her to him. His gaze lingered on her lips, and she felt hers warm again. She could kiss him. Just one more time. “Not human enough.” He said. “Kiss me again, faeling.”

A thousand years with Idris would be wonderful. But he was wrong about regret. She would feel this guilt no matter where she lived. She was in fae now, and she felt it. It would be worse here, where her wyrding power—such as it was—didn’t work at all. A thousand years with no recourse.
That
would drive her mad. A thousand years knowing two souls were bound in her ring, unable to set them free. Lourdes locked inside Igdrasil, and no one to save her.

“I have to go.”

“Kiss me, Elyse. Could anyone ever kiss you like I do?”

He showed her a cord necklace with odd pretty bits woven into it: a green jewel, pieces of glass, smooth black rocks. “Wear this and I’ll tether you to me, safe forever.” So beautiful, so charming. “Marry me. We’ll make love every day. You’ll be my queen, and you’ll forget.”

She believed him. If she married Idris, she would be bound to fae forever. And she would forget Galen and Diantha and Lourdes. And her mother.

She looked at the necklace. It would be easy. Just put it on. But her mother wouldn’t stay with Aubrey though she had loved him. Mother had chosen the human world. The real world, with all its sorrows and regrets—and consolations. Idris promised pleasure, but only pleasure. What was it Mother had said? Desire and delight are not the same things. Elyse had to get away from Idris. Now.

“I forgive you,” she said.

Surprise registered on his face, then confusion. Then alarm. She wasn’t supposed to know the breaking charm.

“I forgive you,” she said again.

“No.” His seductive demeanor evaporated, replaced by fury. But she knew he couldn’t stop her. She was already leaving fae.

“I forgive you.”

Or rather, fae left her. She didn’t move, but the world around her blurred and refocused. The air wasn’t as sweet. She was at the threshold to Glimmer Cottage, and an unfamiliar crow scolded her from the yew tree in the garden.
Too late. Too late.
She understood its language. Being in fae had changed her.

She opened the door.

13
A Body

Meduyl had made a fire in the parlor
for a visitor Elyse didn’t recognize. He looked middle-aged and stood a little bent over, like he’d been worn down by years of hard work. He must be a local farmer who’d come to ask Lourdes for a wyrd.

“My sister isn’t here,” she said. Word of the disaster at Igdrasil must not have yet spread, but if it was Friday she’d been gone several days. As Mother had said, time didn’t work the same in fae. It had felt like mere hours. “I’d be glad to help you if I can.”

Something smelled wonderful coming from the kitchen. Meduyl was truly taking her new housekeeping position seriously. Now there’d be only one person to care for.

“Help me.” The farmer had a look of wonderment on his face, and Elyse realized she was still dressed only in gossamer fae scarves. “I knew I’d find you.” He was at Elyse’s side faster than he should be able to move. Her body responded to him with the same passion she’d felt for Idris.

“Galen.” It was the sound of her voice, but Diantha was speaking. They were trying to get out of the ring.

“Get away!” Elyse struggled to break free of the farmer’s hold.

“Mr. Thresher, what are you about?” The alarmed woman at the doorway wore an apron and held a kitchen towel, but she was not Meduyl. “Who has you there?”

“Tunic,” Elyse said. She was instantly covered with a dress. Quite nice, in fact, made of soft and colorful cloth.

“A fairy’s got me, Mrs. Thresher!” The man ran behind a chair near the fireplace. Where did that chair come from? He wasn’t afraid, Elyse was sure of that; he wanted to hide his aroused state from Mrs. Thresher. “Bring the salt!”

Mrs. Thresher ran back to the kitchen and Elyse ran out the front door, calling for Hector’s harness.

“Sun and moon!” She didn’t recognize the rig that appeared in her hand.

Too late! Too late!
The crow again scolded her. She muttered
cursed crow
, and the bird fell to the ground dead.

Oh, Mother!
Elyse burst into tears. Her power had finally come in—stronger than she ever dreamed of.
You can’t begin to know your power, Elyse.
This is what Mother had tried to protect her from. “Hector!” But with dawning terror, she knew he wouldn’t appear.

Mr. and Mrs. Thresher did appear. They ran toward her, throwing handfuls of salt and yelling at her to go away.

Elyse shouted, “A horse—to ride!” A serviceable bay, saddled and bridled, trotted to her from the barn. She mounted quickly as the farmer and his wife filled the air with screams.
Thief! Fairy! Woe! Woe! Help us!

Elyse thought
invisible
and urged the horse on, leaving the farmer and his wife absolutely convinced that a fairy had stolen their horse.

And maybe one had. She rode toward Tintagos Castle, but well before she got there she knew she’d been gone longer than a few days. Inside the castle keep, she dismounted and made herself visible again.

“Fairy!” She’d appeared beside the smithy, a new forge but in the same place. An apprentice close to Elyse’s age pulled a handful of salt from a bag on his workbench and threw it at her.

“Ow!” She grabbed his hand. “That just makes me mad, boy.”

His eyes grew wide. “I thought you were a fairy. You were—you were invisible.”

“What year is this? Tell me, boy!” He wasn’t really a boy, and both of them were suddenly aware of that fact. She had to get away from people before Galen came out again. “What year?”

“One thousand ninety-seven, my lady.”

She dropped his hand, and he backed off as she mounted the horse again. A hundred years!

“If you’re not a fairy,” the apprentice asked as she turned away, “what are you?”

Good question
. She called out over her shoulder, “I’m the wyrding woman of Glimmer Cottage.” And she rode home to make it so.

She’d been gone a hundred years. There was no one to explain things to. No one to accuse her of what she’d done, to hate her for it.

It didn’t help.

Guilt and regret lasted as long as Idris had predicted, and Elyse’s half human—“faeling”—body lasted nearly as long, but the fairy king had been wrong about one thing. She didn’t go insane. Over eight hundred more years passed. She set a boundary around Glimmer Cottage and lived apart from the world, avoiding the war between fae and wyrd that ravaged Dumnos. She didn’t know what it was about, and she didn’t want to know.

She had other problems, in constant awareness of Galen bound in the gold band and Diantha bound in the silver, entwined around each other and forever separated from each other.

Elyse couldn’t visit Igdrasil. It was too painful to think of Lourdes trapped inside—whether in stasis or with full consciousness, Elyse couldn’t know. Couldn’t stand to know.

She would have lasted longer if it hadn’t all been so draining. She had to wyrd the entire village and surrounds every time it occurred to someone that the wyrding woman of Glimmer Cottage had been there longer than humanly possible.

For five hundred years, the hardest part was to keep Galen and Diantha in check. Every so often the boundary around Glimmer Cottage failed and someone slipped through.

One day, a woodcutter came to the door looking for work. He had kind brown eyes, just like Galen’s. He caressed Elyse’s cheek, and she remembered how good it had felt to be kissed. Why not indulge herself, just this once? She lifted her lips to the woodcutter and said, “Galen.”

Diantha streamed out of her silver band into Elyse’s mind and said it again, “Galen!”

“Diantha, I found you!” The woodcutter’s arms were so strong, his need so desperate. Elyse regained control just before Diantha could spread her legs.

In all the time of her life, Elyse had never made love. She should have slept with Idris when she had the chance. More than once, she’d been tempted to remove the ring and end it all. But if she died, Galen and Diantha—and Lourdes—would be trapped in their hells for eternity. Or she could bring another woodcutter to her door and let Galen and Diantha have their way. But then she’d have to add a woodcutter’s soul to her guilt list—and if all she had wanted was physical pleasure, she would have stayed in fae.

In the end, time won. In 1933, her resilient faeling body wore out. The teeth were long gone, the hair a few wispy colorless strands. Skin amassed with age spots. Odd lumps and bumps in all the wrong places. Hair in her nose. Sun and moon, the indignities.

But her magics had not weakened. She would do what had to be done. She got the idea from Galen and Diantha, actually. She’d find another body.

It was easy. She let down the boundary, and soon enough someone came to the door, a seventeen-year-old girl—seventeen!—who was starving. Mary. Perfect name for a martyr. Too skinny, but that could be remedied.

Like a wicked witch in a fairytale, Elyse invited Mary in and fed her tea and biscuits.

She’d been walking the countryside for weeks, begging a meal where it looked safe, sleeping under hedgerows.

“The country is in a bad way these days,” Elyse sympathized. “Much good it’s done Dumnos to join whatever Sarumos is calling itself now. The British Empire.” Mary frowned, and Elyse wondered if she’d said something amiss. She hadn’t been keeping up, that was true. “Have you no family, Mary, nowhere to go?”

“No family.” She blushed and looked a bit miserable. Perhaps she’d gotten into some trouble and been disowned by her family.

“How would you like…well, this may sound strange, Mary, but would you like to stay here at Glimmer Cottage for a time?”

“Oh, ma’am. I…I don’t know.”

What was there to wonder about? The little fool was starving. She’d have food and a safe roof over her head.

“I’m getting old, you see, and I could use a…” what were they calling it these days? “A companion.” Elyse put a wyrd on the biscuits to sweeten the deal, make Mary think it was the best food she’d ever eaten.

“I suppose I could stay for just a little while.”

“Of course, dear. Only as long as you like. And I’ll give you a small gift to seal the bargain.”

Elyse slipped the ring onto Mary’s hand, the skin fresh, elastic, and smooth.

“Silver and gold find you.

Silver and gold bind you.

Serve not desire, but enhance delight.

All will be well, all will be right.”

After so much time, Elyse knew something about possession. There was barely a struggle. Alert faeling beats unaware human every day of the week. The first thing Elyse did in her new body was inhale, deep and long. Heaven to have healthy lungs again!

Then she let loose a scream, shrill and piercing.

No wonder Mary had been…reluctant. The lumpen mass of wrinkles lying on the ground looked grotesque and smelled worse. With a flick of her wrist, Elyse wyrded the body out of sight, out to sea. Let what creatures who dared to make a meal of it.

She spent the first twenty-four hours in blissful sensual submersion. Everything tasted better. An apple—an apple! What wonderful teeth. The better to eat you with, my dear, crunch, crunch. Coffee. Beans and onions. All delicious.

The next day, she gave Mary a bit of rein. Let her see the world, taste some food, smell the jasmine on the roof. She was docile—grateful to have a full belly. But soon it went bad. Once the novelty of daily food and a secure bed wore off, Mary resented the occupation. Elyse’s noble cause didn’t impress her.

Your sister is dead
, she said.
She’s not inside some tree waiting for liberation. You killed her.

Mary had to go. Too bad, so sad. Elyse pushed the host personality into a dark cubby in the brain and sealed the space over. Mary was weak and uninteresting, and it was easy to forget her, but the human body wore out after forty-three years, the blink of an eye.

In 1976, the world was sophisticated and prosperous and far too wary of strangers. No one was going to come in for tea and let Elyse slip a ring onto her finger. One day she found a young woman in the garden smelling the roses and didn’t bother with small talk. She jumped inside and put the ring on herself, once again wyrding the discarded carcass out to sea.

She’d taken the body of a countess. Beverly, a drug-addled flower child, but a countess nonetheless. Someone would miss her.