I scarcely remember what my task is. I am to bestow gifts: give them their greatest desires and then . . . kill them to collect the tithe? I’d been out of myself when I arrived; in a fugue from the passage between worlds. I wonder what plan the court has for me to carry out. What will it look like in the end?
I curl my fingers in frustration. They’d played songs for me right before I’d left, the cricket drums and pipes making the most fetching sounds, and with the music came a compulsion: “Do your work! Do your work! Find the one upon which to bestow songs! Find the one to become! Do your work! Change their world! Give them these gifts and snatch those sweet young lives for our payment!”
As the chosen one, I was led down the path flanked by trees I’d known since time immemorial. Then over the bridge that spanned the glittering waters, I loved to play in. And on, through the pleached alley and into the mountain beyond where there lay the cave of lightning. I was surrounded by all kinds: big and small, the bony and thorny and diaphanous. They gave me my last shot of sweet nectar, and then they’d done that most awful thing, stripping my name. I cried out for it, a part of my essence gone forever. “The only way you can travel so far,” they’d hissed. And the last thing one of them had muttered, “You, little one, will change.” And I’d felt fear as they shoved me into that silvery, stinging vortex. And right before the ball of lightning sealed, when there was scarcely space for it, a woodwalker slipped into the vessel with me, hitching a ride. I don’t know why it would do such a foolish and dangerous thing. But it’s a foolish and dangerous creature. And then the vortex had brought us to this place.
They’d not said anything of what I was to find here. I didn’t know how confused I would be when I arrived. How much it stank here. How different the air and how ugly the creatures. While they share a basic blueprint with me, they are clumsy next to my winged, utilitarian frame. And base though they are, I am abashed at the thought of killing them. They seem welcoming enough and have not tried to harm me. But it is my task to collect the tithe. Not the woodwalker’s. If I were a creature given to shedding tears, I might, but instead, I feel the surge of music and channel it off to the boy.
Ben rolled over, so his face was in the corner of the couch. A song was inside him, running through his sleeping brain and into his veins. He was buoyant, surfing on the melody. It dipped and curved—pleasure pulsed through him. The music looped over in the most exquisite combination of notes, and he followed the shimmering path of sound. He was beginning to awaken but resisted opening his eyes. He wanted to stay in this auditory wet dream forever.
Ben had passed out around midnight—earlier than usual. He’d barely eaten and was frightened and sick and vomiting before drinking a bunch. He cleaved to sleep, dimly knowing full consciousness would be painful, and he would spend the day a squinting, miserable sponge of alcohol. The quiet of the house and the less familiar bed of the couch led to his awareness that this was an earlier hour than he was used to waking. He groaned as the vestiges of sleep funneled away. The song was softer now, but it still pulsed. He felt a relieved thrill to have caught it, like a slippery, jeweled fish. He opened his eyes. Despite the hangover, he was itching to get his hands on his keyboard and guitar and bring it to life.
He bolted up and looked around the living room. The music flushed out of his head, and his heart took up the familiar hammering of the day before. Fuck! The faerie-girl thing. What time was it? Where was Andre? How come she hadn’t woken him? He found his phone in his pocket: 8:45. Andre must have just left. She was just opening the store, she’d told him. She would be back as soon as she could.
Parched, Ben went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water from the tap. He gulped it down and started the coffeemaker. Hammer eyed him sleepily from his spot in the sun on the blue rug. Ben wanted to go out and open the shed to make sure she was still actually there, but he also wanted a shower before he did anything else. He’d not taken one after getting sweaty moving all the stuff from the shed. He quickly showered and dressed, went back downstairs, and poured a large cup of coffee. There was a text from Andre: “You up, okay? Let me know when you see her.” Drumming his side and gritting his teeth, he headed out back through the junk-cluttered yard to the shed.
Before yesterday, the wonder and depth of possibility Ben had known as a child was long gone. He fondly recalled a time when he could play outside and make his reality: be a ninja or a pirate and then come home for lunch. But the supernatural was supposed to stay in films, books, and video games. It wasn’t supposed to punch through to the present—to reality—and he was struggling to face it again.
Steeling himself, he knocked on the shed, waited a few seconds, and then slowly opened the door. The night before, they had gone in to look at Shae and talked quietly over her, watching her shallow breathing. They’d spoken her name while Andre shook her shoulder. They had considered that maybe she was doing something when she appeared to be sleeping. Perhaps she was in a restorative hibernation or mining a deep database she had to be unconscious to have access to. They discussed this possibility, and also that she might be like some exotic animal, and that when taken away from her native flora and fauna, would not survive.
Ben stood hesitating, afraid that he’d open the door to the musty odor of decaying insect, or the putrid tang of just turning flesh. It would be awful, not just because she’d been a sentient creature, but the holy fucking grail. She was the most important thing ever to happen, and they’d not asked her any questions. And I would never get to hear that voice again. He grimaced and opened the door.
The air was humid. Shae lay on her side exactly as she had the night before. He lingered in the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the weak light leaking through the window. Then he squatted down and studied her profile. She looked no different. Her chest still rose and fell shallowly. “C’mon, wake up,” he whispered.
Her eyes opened. She stared at nothing, at the space in front of her.
“Um, so hi.” Ben smiled tightly. It was difficult to look and harder to look away. The impossibility of her made his eyes bounce around a bit.
She sat up. “I’m still here.”
She could talk! In English! How the hell did that work? And that voice . . . it was like she pulled out some lustrous ribbon and waved it through the air. And God, she sounded so sad about it.
“Wow. That makes things easier.” He realized he was continually nodding his head and forced himself to stop. There was so much to ask—too much. He didn’t know where to start. “Where did you come from, and what the hell are you?” felt a little uncouth. “Are you hungry?”
He slowly held out a hand. “You want to come inside?”
Shae put her fingertips to her temples, closed her eyes, and whispered something. Then she looked up at him. “I’m trapped here.”
“Uh, what do you mean, trapped?”
She didn’t answer but began rocking back and forth—apparently the universal sign of having a fit. She dropped her head between her knees and made a sad little squeak. Then she slumped back down into the blankets.
Ben waited a moment, unsure of what to do. “I—I’m sorry?” Then he touched her, very gently, on the shoulder. “Do you want to come inside?” he asked again.