It’s not my problem. At least, it’s not my problem tonight. Exhaustion hits me like a physical object, like I’ve been awake for days, and I look forward to flopping into my own bed and not moving until morning.
I’ve only climbed one stair when a gasp from behind startles me.
It’s Bram.
His face is one of shock. His full lips hang open, his brows knit together; even his hair looks strange. It’s shorter than it was when I saw him last, just two days ago. It’s not like him to change it.
“Ivy?” He chokes out my name.
“Oh, darling!” I put on my cheeriest voice, but inside I’m terrified. I must distract him so he doesn’t notice the others are gone. “You’ve returned so soon!”
He keeps standing there, frozen, his mouth agape like he’s seen a ghost.
The doors to the throne room open and an old man steps into the hall. He’s got a full head of snow-white hair and a closely cropped beard to match. His face is lined with age, but he’s retained the height and straight posture of a much younger man.
I’m taken aback, realizing he’s the first elderly human I’ve seenin the Otherworld. It’s disorienting. He must have quite a story to have survived here for so long.
“Bram?” the old man asks, and I’m even more confused, wondering why he’s so familiar with the king.
But then he steps into the light, right at Bram’s side, and recognition hits me like an anvil to the heart. It’s as if I can feel each one of my ribs snap in unison.
It’s the eyes.
Those clever hazel eyes are exactly the same.
“Ivy?” Emmett’s voice is hoarse with age, but I’d recognize it anywhere.
I’m sobbing now. Big heaving breaths I can’t catch. My lungs won’t expand fully. It’s like I’m drowning. I can hardly get the words out.
“How long have I been gone?” I cry. The spirit under the bridge cast me out as a punishment, but I never imagined this.
I can’t look at Emmett’s wizened hands, the blue veins stark against the thin skin. Instead, I look at Bram. Ageless, perfect Bram, forever eighteen.
I’ve missed it all. Emmett’s whole life, the life we could have shared together. I thought two years was agonizing, but this iseverything.
It’s over. It’s done. I’ve missed it.
Bram looks to Emmett, then back to me. I collapse, no longer able to support myself, and they both catch one arm before my knees hit the stone stairs.
“Seventy years,” Emmett says in a pained whisper. “You disappeared seventy years ago.”
Faith Fairchild
Rhion takes my hand as I hop down off the bridge. I’m shaking a little, but at least it was over quickly.
That awful voice rang out in my head, and for a moment I was terrified it wasn’t going to accept my button, but then I gave it a memory of kissing Marion under the tree before the others arrived and it was satisfied.
“That was horrible,” I say to Rhion. In the branches above us, the birds sing a cheery song.
Rhion looks to the bridge anxiously, awaiting Lydia, I suspect. “The spirit is mostly harmless. Its bark is bigger than its bite.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve been coming here for many, many years. We’re practically old friends by now.”
Marion appears and I breathe a sigh of relief and extend a hand to help her down. She gives me a quick peck on the lips and I smile. “Well, that was terrifying,” she says.
Lydia appears just a few moments after and Rhion rushes to her, but she refuses his hand, leaving him crestfallen. “I’m fine,” she says, voice a little thin.
