“Any time wasted and we could lose Faerie forever,” Mara declared. Her pointy Fae ears were longer than mine, identifying her elder status. Well …elder before she was banishedstatus. There was a story there, though no matter how much I begged, my mother never told me. Mara was a Fall Court Fae and she looked at Willow, who stood to my right, and they shared a pleasant nod. It said a lot that Mara could be cordial with the very Fae who took her job. Couldn’t say I would be the same.
“How can I … just start seeking and not honor my mom with a celebration of life ceremony?” I whimpered.
Mara’s face crumpled. “Because it’s what she would want. She dedicated her entire life to saving Faerie. Wemustpress on. She would be so proud. Come on.” She indicated I come to join her. “I’m sure you’ve had enough of these old geezers.”
The elders bristled at her, but it caused something within me to lighten a tiny bit.
She opened her arms, and even though I’d never met this woman, never even seen a picture, I sprang from where I stood and ran into her arms, which she wrapped around me in a motherly embrace. Mara was not permitted to leave the blue door, and until now I was not permitted to open it. Our only link were stories my mother might have told the other. And by the way she held me fiercely, my mother had told her a lot.
“Come, child, have a rest. Tomorrow is a new day.” Her words soothed me, and I wondered if all of her elder power had been stripped. The elders had a way of making you so calm in their presence you forgot about your pain or worries. With one last glance at Trissa and the four elders, who did not look happy to be called geezers, I walked through the open doorway, stepping into what could only be Mara’s office and home. The second she shut the blue door behind us, I knew that Trissa and the elders would take my mother’s body to Faerie and start the celebration of life. She’d be buried by the river, dropped into the deep waters, and washed away by the current. Much like my innocent childhood. Gone were the days of Elle and I picking puckerberries until our lips were purple. Now I had to grow up. Fast.
I won’t let you down, Mom.
The next morning I awoke to a warm light on my face and the sound of falling rain. My eyes sprang open, and for a split second I was about to get up and search the house to see if my mother had left for work. Then it all came back to me.
Mom. A sob formed in my throat, but I didn’t have time to grieve.
Mara’s voice called out from beyond the bedroom: “You’re up! Come have breakfast with me. Jonah is about to walk his dog.” The door was open a crack and I could see her sitting at the kitchen table. I buried my face in the pillow, sucking in a long deep breath before sitting up. The pillow smelled like my mom. She slept here some nights, telling me it was a part of her job. I never questioned it. She was always home in the morning to see me off to school or grab me from Elle’s house if I’d slept over there.
Mara’s house was … quirky. She was bound to this place, between the two planes. The last fairy alive who could move the portal, or so she told me last night when I tried to ask her a hundred questions before I passed out in a pool of my own tears. The wood floors of my mom’s bedroom were hot pink, but when I walked out into the kitchen, the floor was a bright yellow. It was a one-floor home, but the rooms felt endless. Last night I’d passed a kitchen, living room, library, dining room, weapons room, and then my mom’s room, which was at the back.
“Was the New York apartment a real place?” I asked, confused, as I sat with her at the blue glass table with rhinestone edging. She was peering out a window, which I now saw was really an open door with a window frame inside.
She nodded. “I can’t leave this place, but I can move this place to other blue doors that were set up centuries ago. The New York apartment has a blue door inside, I transport my house to that blue door and oh shhh, here he comes.”
She grasped my hand, her wings suddenly erect. I leaned forward to see a man in his late thirties walking a dog. A grin pulled at my lips. He was shirtless, wearing board shorts, hair still wet probably from the ocean. We were on a side street, but I could smell the salty sea through the screen.
“Where are we?”
“Venice Beach. I start every morning here so I can see Jonah.” She fanned herself and I laughed, but then the laughter died in my throat as I remembered that I was now motherless. An orphan. I felt like I’d known Mara my whole life and had no reservations about asking her questions.
“So this was what you and my mom would do? Live here together between hunting crystals?”
She stiffened and turned to me. For a Fae who I knew was well over four hundred years old, she had smooth skin, still plump and free of wrinkles. Like me, she would live forever unless killed, and we could choose to stop our aging whenever we wanted. Mara had chosen to look about thirty-five forever. Same as my mom.
She reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear. “I have so much to tell you and so little time. How about each night and each morning I tell you one story about your mom?”
I nodded, tears lining my eyes. “I’d like that. I’d like to know what she hid from me.”
Mara’s face darkened. “She didn’t see it as hiding. Ever. It was always protecting you.”
The hairs on my arms stood up. “From the Sons of Darkness?”
I’d been forced to rapidly go through the grieving process, and now I was at the revenge part. That was a part, right? If not, it should be. “Is that who killed her?”
I gripped my fork tightly. Although my mother never told me exactly what my purpose as a seeker would be for the elders, and for Faerie, she did have me train in weapons and battle with Trissa since I was five. I also went to Earth with some of the other Fae a few times a year to learn their customs in case we ever had to flee Faerie and live among them. I was fully prepared to grab one of those big-ass swords from her weapons room and cut the heads off of whomever hurt her.
Mara sighed, stirring her eggs with a fork, her golden cuffs scraping the edges of the table. “Yes. But I don’t know which one. Just that he had black wings. This is not the kind of life you bring a child into. You’ll see that.” She patted my hand and then stood. “Alright, let’s go pick up Elle and Trissa. You’ve got to hunt for the seventh crystal.”
“Just like that? No … crash course?” Panic gripped me as I thought of her spitting me out into New York City or wherever and just assuming I knew what the hell I was doing. But the desire to see my best friend and tell her all that had happened was stronger than my fear.
“You’ll have to learn on the fly. Sorry, kiddo. The Tree of Life will die without the remaining crystals.” It was so weird how much she talked like my mom, how comfortable I felt around her.
I wasn’t sure I was prepared to see Elle. I’d cried myself to sleep last night, but since then I’d patched up my emotions and wore my mother’s silver locket around my neck. Seeing Elle, telling her my mom was gone … it would reopen everything.
I shoved eggs in my mouth and then stood, prepared to take on my mother’s purpose and … and save Faerie. What could go wrong?
* * *
