34. Maura

THIRTY-FOUR

TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS AGO

Phillipe has only been gone a week, but it feels like forever. I have been trying to remember a time before we met, and before I loved him. But it is impossible. Five hundred years, I’ve lived, and he has been by my side for nearly all of them.

Had been.

He is no more.

It’s funny, I always thought he would live longer. My father reached six hundred and fifty. My mother a little more.

But the sickness sweeping through the village claimed him, and even the best healers couldn’t stop him fading away.

In the end, I was glad for an end to his suffering. I welcomed it for him. But I am sad for me, now, not for him.

I am sad that the reason I’m becoming an elder is because his position on the council became free. And I’m sad that he won’t see me at the ceremony, receiving my bracelet of leaves and my staff.

As I stand and stare out at the sunset above the lake, I think of all the years I may have left in front of me and I think about going through them alone.

We had no children. It was not meant to be for us. And although the young fae of the village call me auntie and clamber into my cabin when they wake early and their parents tell them to go play, because they know I will tell them stories and bake them fresh bread, they are not my kin.

Slowly the sun appears above the crown of the trees on the other side of the lake. She is pale today, and a little sickly.

She reminds me of myself.

I look at my reflection in the surface of the lake. I am old. My skin is thin, and my bones protrude beneath it like daggers. I have always been angular, but age has made me more so.

It is why I am taken seriously.

Other females, softer females, struggle. But I never have.

I am listened to.

But what is the point of it if Phillipe isn’t there to see it?

The look in his eyes when I stood up for myself, or for another, and when I showed power or dominance, was always the thing that drove the passion in our marriage.

He worshipped me, and made me feel like the very best version of myself.

Although some arranged marriages are sad and lonely for both parties, and they have fallen out of fashion in recent years, ours was never like that.

He was everything to me.

Without him, my body feels empty and fragile, like I am waiting to be cracked open and trodden upon. My bones ground into the earth.

I look to the spot where his funeral pyre was just a few days ago.

It was a beautiful ceremony. There were songs, and laughter, and memories. It was exactly how it should have been. And I was almost happy because it felt as if he was there with me. It was good to be celebrating his life.

But then the celebration was over, and everyone else resumed their daily chores and duties and studies and ventures.

And I was left alone.

Floating through the forest like a spectre. Unable to engage in small talk or to take an interest in the goings-on of the council because it all feels miraculously pointless now that I have no Phillipe to go home to at night.

I know it is too early to feel like this.

I have to wade through my grief and, one day, I will come out the other side.

I have counselled many bereaved parents and siblings and spouses over the years. I know the platitudes off by heart.

But I do not believe they apply to me.

I am too old. I have seen too much. And I have no desire to ‘come out the other side’ for what is there for me when I reach it? Another great love? Friendship? Adventure?

I have experienced it all already, tenfold, and I do not need any more of it.

So, I wade into the water.

Behind me, the earth shakes a warning, and my wings flutter. But I lift the stones I have weighted to two large piece of rope and wrap them around myself, pinning my wings to my sides.

I walk forward, towards the spot where Phillipe’s body was finally submerged into the lake.

I will join him, and we will be together, and the pain will stop.

“Auntie Maura, what are you doing?” a small voice floats towards me on the breeze, and before I can reply, Alana appears.

She is floating in the air beside me. Just eleven years old, but her wings are already larger than those of her peers. They are glowing purple. She stares at me and starts to cry.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh dear.”

She looks at the rope around my waist, and the stones that hang from it, and even though she is so very young, she understands in an instant what I am trying to do.

The look on her face brings me to my senses. As she sobs, treading air with her little purple wings, I struggle to free myself from the ropes. I let them fall into the water, then reach for her and bring her into my arms.

I wade back to the shoreline as she sobs against my chest.

“I am sorry, child. I did not mean to frighten you.”

I set her down on the sand and sit beside her. My dress is soaked and clinging to my thin legs. She is wet too from being pressed against me.

She sniffs loudly and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Her hair is unruly. Bright auburn and hanging loose around her shoulders.

Her sea-green eyes look even more green now they are tinged with tears.

“You miss him,” she says.

I nod slowly and fold my hands into my lap. “Yes, my dear. I miss him.”

“The sadness will go away, though,” she says. “That’s what they told me when my auntie died, and they were right.”

I try to smile and reach for her hand. “Yes, I think you’re right. It will.”

“I can help.” Alana turns her big eyes up at me and squeezes my hand. “I can make the sad go away for you, if you’d like me to.”

My heartbeat trips in my chest. “Make it go away?” I frown at her and lean in closer. “What do you mean, my love?”

“Sometimes, when my friends are cross with me, I make it stop.” She shrugs, and a sensation like ice-cold dread drips down my spine. She is so young, and she can already play with people’s emotions like that?

“How do you make it stop?” I ask her, my mouth suddenly dry.

Alana shrugs. “I’m not really sure,” she says. Her voice is so small, so sweet, so innocent. But the power of her words burns like acid on my skin. She has no idea what she is or how to control what she is, and we cannot help her.

There has never been an empathic Leafborne before; the other villagers don’t even know what she is yet. We have kept it hidden from them, but if she starts talking like this to others, they will know. And when they know, they will feel the same way I am feeling now; like they’re not sure whether they are looking at a demon or an angel.

“Alana, would you show me?” I inhale slowly.

I shouldn’t ask it of her. Every fibre of sense in my body is telling me not to, but at the same time, I am desperate for the pain to go away.

So, I tell myself I am asking so I can try to understand what it is she does and whether it really is as dangerous as it feels.

“Of course, Auntie Maura.” She smiles at me and takes my hands in hers.

Her wings start to flutter. Purple light surrounds her, dancing on her skin and floating from her fingertips towards me. As it reaches me, it turns from light to smoke. It surrounds me, pressing down on my skin with a warmth that feels endlessly comforting.

I close my eyes and lean into the sensation. I sigh, and as I open my mouth, the smoke fills it up. I feel it trickle down through my body. Warm water and sunlight. Cleansing me from the inside out.

I give myself up to the sensations. I hear Alana speaking, but I cannot focus on her words.

The warmth turns to heat. It grows and swells and then rushes from my body, tearing the breath from my lungs and making me fold forward onto my knees.

When I open my eyes, the smoke is surrounding Alana. It is darker now. A deep, thick shade of purple instead of bright happy violet.

Alana breathes it in. She coughs. Her little face grows red. And then she releases it.

The smoke swirls up into the air, and disappears. Disintegrates over the lake.

She collapses backwards, lying face up, arms at her sides.

I scramble over to her and shake her shoulders. She looks exhausted, and pale. Slowly, she turns her head towards me and smiles. “Did it work?” she asks quietly. “Did I help?”

I lie down beside her and cradle her beneath my wing. Her body is cold, and clammy. She is breathing unevenly.

Whatever she just did was dangerous for her.

“Alana, you mustn’t do that again,” I tell her.

“But it worked?” she asks.

“Yes, it worked.” I press my palm to my chest, searching for the sadness that was so profound only a few moments ago.

It has gone.

But when I sit up, and stare out at the lake, I do not feel glad of it; I feel like a traitor to my husband’s memory.

And when Alana slips her small hand into mine, I do not feel glad of her, either. I feel terrified. Because she enjoyed what she did.

And I have no idea whether it’s because she wanted to help me or because she enjoyed having power over me.

For the first time since she was born, watching her skip away into the forest and call for her brother and her friends, I am truly afraid of what we have living in our midst.

And of what she will become.