10 YEARS BEFORE THE PRESENT
The cramped bedroom was one I knew well. A cross hung over her bed. A framed picture of her family forcing a smile sat upon the dresser. ALord of the Ringsposter featuring Legolas ordained one wall—okayed by a deeply religious mother given the Biblical undertones of Tolkien’s work—and a Keira Knightley poster in pirate garb from thePirates of the Caribbean, okayed because it was a woman, and her parents couldn’t conceive a world where their daughter might be queer.
In this cycle, Love’s name was Marlow, and tonight was one of familiar pain.
She was on her knees, eyes closed, hands clutched over the bed, face stained with salt from tears that would no longer come.
I thought I’d seen it all before I’d experienced the acute pain of this cycle.
Born with a drop of fae blood—a great grandmother who’d loved, mated, and created a strained, beautiful, terrible life with a Norde from beyond the veil—Love had been able to seeme from birth, which, if Izi had her way, would have been a nightmare of its own.
The trailer house outside of her Midwestern city was set so deeply within the woods that she was unable to experience anything beyond isolation, no matter how close, or far, I remained.
I hadn’t found our relationship complicated before this one.
Prior to this life, the options were clear-cut. In some, she neither saw me, nor asked for preternatural help, and I played the role of helpful spirit, much like every spiritual human knew they had. I protected her, aided, and respected her autonomy without question.
Some cycles I was absent entirely. In others, I found her but was not permitted access.
And finally, in the best of our lives, save for young Yuka and her guardian wolf, Love had consistently learned to see me with the conscious autonomy of someone in her twenties, thirties, or beyond. She’d been spiritual, intentional, and wanted to see beyond the veil.
Even in life where my human had been born and raised to see beyond the veil, it had been with openness, with curiosity, without the guilt, the crushing shame, that came with Marlow.
Our first milestone came before kindergarten, years before her family abandoned the city. She was four years old, nosed pressed against the window of their two-bedroom trailer house as she watched the big kids wash a car three trailers down, dancing to silly music, getting colorful shirts and shorts wet on a hot summer day.
Her mother had given her a red bucket of soapy water, a sponge too big for her hands, and put a red baseball cap atop her head. I watched my brave human approach the children, then felt the painful chill as they stilled, as they paused the music, as they made it clear she wasn’t invited. I watched her stand at theend of the driveway, suds flowing past her shoes, as she tried not to cry.
If she didn’t, I would.
Her first rejection destroyed me.
I became a fox before I could think. I jumped around, leaping, desperate to make her smile. I darted between houses until she saw me. I darted into the house, desperate to get her away from those who wished to crush her spirit.
I’d be this human’s pet, her imaginary friend, the spirit guide that showed up to keep her from breaking. I’d remain that way forever if it would help keep her whole.
I didn’t count on the day when her mother opened the door and saw me, too.
Of course, the fae blood ran on her maternal side, and Lisbeth Thorson, woman of god, daughter of Heaven, prayer warrior, four-times-in-church-per-week, knew what I was long before it was appropriate to admit it.
Lisbeth had seen a demon.
Marlow was dragged to the church screaming and sobbing while elders prayed over her, casting out Satan, praying hedges of protection over her.
I braced myself for Constantinople, ready for the domed barrier, for the angels, for the banishment where I’d have to wait decades to see her once more…
But instead, a tearful girl too small to reach the bread with her folded hands had prayed for me—her guardian angel. She’d described me. She’d invited me into her life. She said she knew I was good, that she wanted blessings for me, that she thanked god for me—even if we may not have been talking about the same god.
And though I waited with flinching trepidation, the dome never came.
The years passed.
She read her Bible.
She listened to her mother.
She attended church.
She prayed.
