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  Saffron leaned forward to speak, when suddenly, Li held a hand up to silence her. The fairy cocked her head to the side and turned to peer behind her. Her eyes became slits as irritation rolled across her face. She turned toward a small group of her kind that had been lolling under an adjacent pine.

  “Take her home.” The fairy’s nostrils were slightly flared. “Do not dally in this; her mother is awake.”

  The fairies flew to Saffron’s side and clasped warm hands around her arms. That was all it took for Saffron to collapse. It was as if she had just been injected with the most powerful sedative on earth. She had no muscle control and her mind dissipated into a haze.

  Li stepped forward and caressed Saffron’s cheeks with both hands. She smiled as tears filled her eyes and made the purple and black orbs shimmer. “How good it was to talk to you again. How long I have waited in the trees, watching you, wishing for the reunion we have had on this night. You must stay in your house. You must not leave the circle for any reason. You know this to be true.”

  Then she leaned forward and placed her lips on the petals that clung to Saffron’s head and whispered in her strange language. She trailed her white fingers through the ends of Saffron’s long, red hair one more time, then turned and walked into the black void of night.

  Saffron struggled against the nothingness that pulled her down. Flashes of fairies dancing around a big fire, fairies laughing, fairies in fear roamed her skull. Ny, naked before her, his face filled with disdain. Then, he too, was gone.

  “Sleep, Saffron. You will be home soon. ”

  She slept.

  Ny watched her depart. He looked at the ground, his long, black lashes covering the pain in his petulant eyes. Li came across him as she wandered aimlessly in the shadows. She frowned. “What do you play at?”

  Ny’s eyebrow popped up as the blood ran darker beneath his thin skin. “What do we always play at?”

  “Again? It is murder.” Li hissed like a threatened snake. “It will not go unpunished. You infect me with this!”

  He sniffed. “There are many words for such a deed.” He held his hands before him in a placating manner and smiled his most dazzling smile.

  She considered him for a moment, her eyes going dark with passion and a steely, possessive glint. She shook her head. “Murder.” She shivered and hugged her arms to her body. “I will not stand by and watch your attempts quietly.”

  Ny laughed, chucked her under the chin. “Yes, you will. She is venturing out of her little nest. It is not our will she minds in this life. Let us be done with it all and try our hand at her next incarnation. Who knows what will happen to her if we do nothing? Dear One, you will watch as I try my hand.”

  “What you are doing is not good. We will suffer here, longer.” The deep, dark pupils of Li’s eyes were cavernous and filled with a sadness that touched even him. He kissed her brow as she looked off at nothing.

  Ny shrank into a ball of light and darted away from her, into the black woods. He returned short minutes later. He held a live rabbit kid in his left hand and offered it to her; its small velvety nose nuzzled his palm. The pain melted off her beautiful face and a faint smile tickled her glass lips. “But the sensation is so fleeting….”

  Ny smiled wistfully. “Here. Enjoy him. Let him heal you, if only for a short time.”

  Li nodded as she reached for the small rabbit and cuddled him to her chest. Then she inclined her head and opened her beautiful jaws wide enough to clamp the head clean from his body.

  “How do you do it?” Li swallowed. “How do you get inside her head?”

  Ny smirked and jutted his hips forward almost imperceptibly, “She lets me.”

  Li’s veins pumped black under her glassy, white skin as she chewed.

  Ny listened to her teeth grind. So jealous. He rolled his tongue over his teeth. “Sister, you prance around the real issue. Your issue. You have placed my love in great danger. Yet, typical of you, you seek to reprimand me for uncommitted slights.”

  “Murder is not a slight, Ny. Mark me now; it would be worse for us.”

  “An uncommitted murder is nothing. And, if she walks off cliffs of her own accord…that is not murder either.”

  “You know it is.”

  He smiled. “And, what of your happy, night-lurking bedfellow? You have now enabled him to find our girl.” Ny tsked.

  Li couldn’t look at him. Her large, dark pupils shrunk to steely pinpoints, making her look like a jungle cat caught in sudden light.

  Ny sighed. “My love, if he claims her, who is at fault?” His lips twisted up. “Now that she has been here, she will have the sight. And whose fault would that be?” He twirled one of her white locks around his forefinger.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist and punched his hand away.

  Ny lowered his arm. “Now that she leaves her home again and has become a beacon, we must end this incarnation before he steals her from us. And who was it that brought her here?”

  “You wanted her here just as much as I!” Li cried.

  “In body!” Ny screamed back.

  “You are selfish! In body! Does it never get old?”

  Ny leaned right into Li’s face. “I want to look at her when I touch her. I want to touch her body. Her body, so I can see her reaction, her mouth, her eyes. No, her worshipping me like a god does not get old. You are jealous. Now go away from me, sister, use your senses quickly before they fade.”

  Anger washed her beautiful face and, for just a moment, with her white hair flowing and her white skin glowing, she was more frightening than the black unknown of Hell. She spun around and disappeared into the looming shadows.

  Chapter 4

  Saffron woke up in her bed. Now she knew; she truly was a whack job. She had no proof of where she had been. There were no flowers in her big, bushy hair and no dirt stains on her feet. Of course not - her body had never travelled last night. It was just her soul. A maniacal giggle blew out one side of her mouth. Wouldn’t her mother love to hear this story? Not. She knew mothers pretended to want to know things but they really didn’t want to know things.

  She heaved herself out of bed, then barefoot-slapped across the wooden floor to the door. She stuck her head out into the hallway and yelled, “Last night, fairies took my soul to their realm!”

  There was a beat of silence, then up from the bowels of the old farmhouse came Derek’s voice. “Oh, yeah, honey? Well, last night George Michael came to the door with flowers, a prenuptial agreement, and a teacup poodle that can fart out Viennese waltzes.”

  Saffron smiled and hugged herself. She sighed deep and shut the wooden door with a soft click. Was she crazy? She’d seen enough movies to know that people didn’t always know when they were crazy. She knew people, honest people, honestly believed some things that just weren’t true. Although the notion that she’d invented the tryst was ridiculous, in the end, she decided to sit on her secret for awhile and think it out. She wanted to shut herself away from the world and roll around in the memories. Already the sounds and images from last night were fading, just like a dream. And just like a good dream, she didn’t want to lose the feeling that the visit had given her. That feeling of epiphany and of longings quenched. The only place for that kind of heavy zoning was the woods.

  Flip-flops in hand, she crept out her bedroom door and tiptoed past Grandmother’s room. Grandmother’s door was open, emitting trails of Vicks vapor rub, saltines, and Jean Nate. Saffron held her breath as she slid by. She jumped down the stairs two at a time and hurried through the kitchen, grabbing a day-old raisin bagel and an almost-empty carton of orange juice. She didn’t know where Derek had yelled from, but she hadn’t run into him yet. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t the problem. She could stroll past him, but getting past her mother would be a different thing altogether. Audrey didn’t like it when Saffron “loitered” in the woods. But Audrey usually painted late and slept late. Saffron and Derek were the early birds who had enough respect for each other t
o ignore each other.

  She used her butt to back out of the screaming screen door and was just letting it back in its jamb when her mother’s voice rang out, clear and concerned, on the still morning air.

  “Saffron, what on earth are you doing? It can’t be more than five-thirty yet!”

  Saffron stood motionless, the door still in her hand. Did her freakin’ mother ever sleep? She stared at the chipping paint on the side of the house and wondered again why her mother didn’t get vinyl siding. They were forever scraping, priming, painting. In any given year, one side was done and another part was ready to be to be done over.

  Audrey frowned. “Do you have to….“

  “‘Loiter in the woods now? Yes, Mom, I have to loiter in the woods now. It’s called being a naturalist.” Saffron raised her eyebrows and hitched up the corners of her lips.

  “In your case it’s called ‘avoiding’.”

  Her mother’s words were a slap. Saffron reacted physically, snapped her head back and opened her mouth in protest, but remained silent. Her cheeks and neck flushed scarlet.

  Derek’s bushy, auburn hair came into view from down behind Saffron’s mother; his curls sparkled shower-fresh. He was kneeling, picking through the herb garden with one hand, clutching a mug in his other paw.

  “I mean really, Saffron, what’s the rush? You need to get some sleep!” Audrey stood erect, weeds choked in her grip. “And stand up straight, you look like a used-up hippie. Did you comb your hair?”

  Saffron straightened. Her teeth clenched beneath her pale cheeks. Who was Audrey calling a hippie? She reached down for the wide basket that her mother used to collect weeds. “You know what? We don’t need to have this argument. I’ll give myself a goal. Lemme fill this basket with blackberries.” Saffron’s last word came out at a higher pitch, almost shrill, as if she was trying to gather the attention of a deaf cocker spaniel.

  Audrey began to drill her pointer finger into her temple.

  Saffron backed away. When Audrey didn’t say more, Saffron took off running for the trees, the hem of her nightdress gathering and getting caught up between her legs as they churned. She escaped the trim yard successfully and ran through the wild tangle of brush that fringed the forest. She picked up her knees to avoid tripping in the mess of white daisies and purple vetch, as grasshoppers leaped from the frill of Queen Anne’s lace. She ran beneath the pines, the ground carpeted in brown needles, smooth and stretching out for miles along the rocky, and wooded shoreline. She passed the boulder shaped like a pumpkin, skirted the giant half-pine whose top was skimmed off by lightning in a long-ago storm, then slowed to a walk. She was almost there - a small clearing by the cliff where light shone down and cast a pool of forest floor in dusty gold. On the far side of the clearing was a prickly, green mess of wild blackberry bushes not completely ravished by little squirrel hands, skunk lips, or greedy beaks. Beyond the blackberry bushes a line of mushrooms disappeared into the thicket.

  Saffron sighed.

  Opening her backpack and reaching deep, she pulled out a bottle of bug spray. She anointed herself and the surrounding area with the poison. It was a strong brew, able to ward off most bloodsuckers, including the evil deer fly.

  Next, she pulled out an old green tablecloth. Its weave had been worked in various directions so that the end result was a series of vines that shone faintly as it was moved around in the diffused sunlight. She shook it and lifted it high, guiding it as it fluttered to the forest floor. She lay down and stared at the sky, feeling like the Lady of Shallot.

  The sun was already at least a foot over the ocean. It floated bright and glaring in a bath of humidity. A trickle of sweat ran down her temple. The coming weeks would become unbearably New England hot, and in two months, this early in the morning, she would freeze if she didn’t bring a sweatshirt.

  Better not to wait too long to pick the berries. Some of the fruit, too far gone, crushed and bled in her fingertips. Her hair hung heavy in the wet air, straight down her back like a copper stream. Once in awhile it became tangled in the berry vines; at which point Saffron swore while she tore herself free. She munched on her bagel and chugged on her juice. When the basket was filled half way, she decided it was enough. She was drenched with sweat and it was just too damned sticky.

  She genuflected to the sun and flopped down on the tablecloth, arms thrown up over her head. A hot breeze came and blew a corner of the tablecloth over her face. She leaned over to stretch it back into place, then left her outstretched arm across the fabric so it wouldn’t happen again.

  She tried to dredge the memories from last night, but they wouldn’t come without effort. Instead, she worried about the mundane things she always worried about. Although high school had been horrible daily to endure, at least it was somewhere she had to go, something she had to do. Even though she could hardly bear to get on that bus every morning, at least it provided better comfort than this going nowhere life that scared her with its big, open maw of choice.

  Her cousin, Mindy the Beautiful and Proud, told her the other kids at school had called Saffron, “The Wax Doll,” because she was always staring off into space and her skin had such a “faux” look to it, “like shiny and plastic.” They said she walked around like she was dead already.

  And now Saffron was an adult. She hadn’t even kissed a boy. She winced. A Boy. It dawned on her that she had missed her chance. That another part of her childhood, of her life, had disappeared. When high school life was happening, she just wanted to get it over with. But right now, the ache of what could have been was sharp. The lower limbs of the pines were bones bare of needles. They clacked and cracked when the wind picked up.

  She wouldn’t be kissing any boys; they were men now, weren’t they. She hadn’t held hands with a boy, or talked to one since third grade. Nothing. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. With each opportunity she had just seized up and moved her automaton-stick legs down the hall.

  It was an undeniable force, this thing that made her act the way she did. Even on a good day, she felt the pressure of something guiding her. Her mother thought she was slightly retarded, no doubt. And Derek, the most wonderful of all of Audrey’s not-lovers, helped her to the best of his ability. Although he wasn’t quite clear on what he was helping with most of the time. They talked a lot, but she sensed he was suspicious of her.

  She fell asleep.

  Her mind woke, sharpened, while her body lay in hibernation. She sat up, looked down, and saw a fair face lost in dreaming. For the brief moment before she realized what was happening, before she realized she was looking at herself, she thought the girl below her was so beautiful with her soft hair that rolled like copper waves.

  When Saffron realized she was looking at herself, she saw a zit by her lip and the way her skin was becoming oily in the ever-rising heat. She turned from her sleeping self and looked into the woods.

  He was standing there, lounging as if he had been there for some time.

  Her slumbering, physical self made a noise, a light moan as it lay flushed under the sun.

  She looked at him again and he smiled. She couldn’t help herself and smiled back. She felt different now, being alone here with him. She ached for him as she had ached a thousand times before, for the dream lover that couldn’t possibly be real. She looked away from him, shy, and back at her supine body where she watched her hand rise to caress her neck.

  In that moment, she knew; she would do whatever he wanted.

  He grinned at her as if he understood her thoughts, then he cast aside the taper of wheat he had been rolling between his tongue and teeth. He walked away.

  Saffron frowned. Why would he walk away from her when her very existence depended on his attention? She yelled out to him, but there was no sound. She wanted to run after him - he was out of sight already - but she couldn’t move her feet.

  There was a sensation of pulling, of the need to respond. She realized her body wanted its spirit back.

  She woke up inside h
er body to a smashing headache and an eighty-pound weight on her chest. She didn’t move at first, couldn’t move as exhaustion nailed her to the ground. With wincing effort, she shifted her legs.

  She understood two things at the same time; there was no ground beneath her right leg and she wasn’t on the blanket anymore, but lying directly on small twigs and stones which cut into her skin. Her eyes peeled wide as she gasped and took in her surroundings. She was on the edge of the cliff, her right leg bent at the knee and dangling over the precipice. Directly below her, ocean waves smashed on gray boulders. A wispy last bit of thought, of urge, trailed through her mind.

  Fall.

  Her blood curdled as she scrambled back from the edge, crawling on hands and knees. She was afraid to stand up at first, staying as close to solid ground as she could, her belly heaving against the pine needles while she fought to control her breathing. She looked up - the tablecloth was several yards away under the copse of pines where she had originally put it. How had she let that happen? There was no way she had rolled all the way to the edge of the earth!

  Then it occurred to her, slow and jumbled in her shocked brain; she had fallen asleep outside! How did she let that happen? And, because she let it happen, she had literally almost rolled off the cliff. The enormity of it all punched her swift and hard in the stomach. She retched up her bagel and orange juice, and then moved away from the mess, still dry heaving and trying desperately to breathe.

  She wasn’t alone.

  She turned, and through hot tears, she saw a woman. A girl really, dressed strangely. Her dress must have been beautiful once, but now the sky blue of it was soiled, the empire waist was crooked, and the capped sleeves drooped. The girl looked at Saffron and disappeared.