Discovering Fae

That old fart was getting on my nerves. He woke me up, scaring the unholy mess out of me, by standing just outside my pitiful hut and bending so he could see in as he asked, once again, who I was. I wasn’t in much of a mood for guests of any kind, least of all the unwanted ones, so I may have been a little rude. He just smiled and told me to clear the fog that covered my spirit.

Of course, he didn’t say how to do that. Or anything of any actual use, frankly. I was tempted to roast his geriatric rear the next time he popped up, which would be just before it got dark enough to give me the creeps. I was also salivating as I looked at a tree with some sweet smelling fruit growing on it’s branches.

Clear the fog.

Easy peasy.

Totally.

Hours went by before I growled in frustration and stomped on the ground I was laying on. I was too tired to not lay down anymore. I didn’t know how much longer I could go without eating something more substantial than freaking termites.

I had given up on Mal finding me. I knew him well enough to know that if he could have, he would have already found me by now. I bet it was driving him insane. After what happened last time he couldn’t find me, he’d be on a warpath and I felt sorry for the idiot that got in his way.

I just hated that he was feeling that again. I had to do something, anything to get back to him. If that meant I had to go back into the bat infested cave, by the gods, I was making a trip into a bat infested cave.

I sat up made a face at that idea.

Geezer said I could only leave the way I came. That’s as much of a hint as I was going to get, so... What the heck?

I started the walk back towards the cave. It was slow going, since I had to stop and rest because I kept seeing spots and dark clouds in my vision. I probably should have done this sooner.

Mary

I touched the face of my daughter through the glass of the picture frame before picking it up and looking closer.

“She looks happy, doesn’t she?” I asked Quinn as he came to put his arms around my waist from behind.

“She does,” he said softly. “Those boys may be young, but they take good care of her.”

The five faces smiling with Fae drew my eyes and I smiled to myself.

“I’m glad she had them, at least,” I sighed as my thoughts turned sad again. “I should never have put her down, Quinn.”

“Hey,” he said firmly, turning me by my shoulders and lifting my face with a finger under my chin. “Don’t start that again. No one would have guessed that she would be taken. No one knew where we were when you had her. Not even I guessed that she was in danger, Mary. It’s not your fault.”

“She should have been with us, Quinn,” I hissed and sat the picture back down. “She should have grown up knowing who we were, not running and hiding like a rat in the woodpile. We were robbed of everything. Her first tooth, first words, first steps... Those were my memories to have, Quinn, and she was taken from me. From us.”

I felt his rough fingers wiping away the sad and angry tears. It always made me melt inside, knowing what he could do, how cold and brutal those hands could be, yet they were nothing but comforting to me. Soft, even in their roughness.

“I’m sorry, my love,” he whispered and kissed my forehead. “I can’t give you the time we lost with our daughter, but I’ll do everything I can to make sure no more is taken from us.”

“She’s already gone,” I pinched my eyes shut and leaned on his chest. “Just like before. I should never have left her alone.”

“And just like before, no one could have known what was going to happen,” he said. “This time, no one is to blame. Except Jacob, for pushing her.”

“I don’t blame him,” I rolled my eyes. “You know how he is. He’s great to talk to and he’s smarter than he lets on. He pushed her for a reason, but you also know as well as I do that he’ll never say what his reasons are.”

“Bloody elves,” he muttered, making me giggle.

“We’ll get her back. Right?” I asked and looked up at him.

“We’ll get her back,” he nodded with a smile.

“Mary! Quinn!” Mal shouted.

Fae

“Creepy bats,” I called softly from the mouth of the cave. “Please don’t freak me out more than you already do.”

I took careful steps into the cave and shuddered. Creepy bats and crawling things I’d rather not ever know about. When I get back home, first thing I was doing was taking a freaking shower. Or eating a burger.

“A burger, in the shower,” I said out loud. “Best. Idea. Ever.”

I picked my way deeper into the cave until I reached the place I had been in when I got to this forsaken jungle.

I rubbed my arms in the cool, damp air and shuddered again, imagining the things that were in here. Yuck. Not helping, Fae. Knock it off.

I closed my eyes, like I did when Jacob was pushing me to talk about what happened to me. I felt nothing at all. Just cold, damp air and the imaginary sensation of little legs crawling over my skin.

“Blegh,” I shook myself. “Of all the places I could have popped up around not one world, but two, why did I end up in a freaking cave? Why am I cursed with such horrible luck?! Focus, Fae.”

I closed my eyes, not that it did much good, since it was nearly pitch black anyhow, and tried to focus on going home. I held on to the way my mother smelled of warm cookies, yet never seemed to bake, how my father was coldly comfortable and held me the tightest when he sneaked a hug without Mary seeing, how Ben’s eyes now held the pain of loss and still sparked with mischievous intent, and how Blaine struggled to not let his sadness show around me. Mostly, I reached for Mal and how completely safe I felt around him.

“It won’t work,” came the rasping voice, making me jump clear out of my skin.

“Be quiet!” I whispered. “Don’t spook the bats.”

There was a chuckle and some shuffling around before a tiny fire lit up the cave around us. Geezer smiled at me, holding the flame in the palm of his hand.

“Figures,” I shook my head. “You know, you could be helping me instead of irritating me.”

“I am helping,” he chuckled and pointed up.

“Nope. Not happening. It’s better if I don’t know what’s up there,” I shook my head as I shuddered again.

“It’s natural to fear that which we cannot see,” he nodded. “But often times, what we imagine to be is only made greater by our fears.”

“And some fears are justified,” I crossed my arms against the cold.

“All fear is,” he nodded. “At least to the one that feels it’s grasp. But, then again, you have felt more than the touch of fear.”

I scoffed. That was the understatement of the century.

“Fear makes the unknown seem like a vast pit, too deep and too dark to see, much like this cave,” he said closing his hand, extinguishing the flame. “Robbed of one of our senses, fear grows larger. It will bring up the worst of our memories, the ones with pain and suffering, feeding on the things we only wish to forget. The result, is nightmares.”

“If you tell me the way to get rid of my nightmares is to sit in this cave, I will find a way to live with them, thanks,” I said flatly as I flinched from a sound deeper in the cave.

“The way to escape the nightmares is to starve them,” he said, relighting the fire in his hand. “Lift the darkness from within so you can see your fear for what it is.”

He pointed up again and I did, before I could stop myself. The ceiling was bare, save for three small bats. They looked at us, curiously, as they huddled together, leathery wings stretching as they jostled each other to get the better view of their visitors. They were stark white with little pink spots on their little noses and on their wings.

“They sounded like an entire colony,” I said, looking back to Geezer.

“It protects them, as those are the only ones left,” he nodded.

I looked back up and saw one open it’s mouth and the sound of twenty bats came forth as it pulled itself up along the rocky ceiling.

“What are they?” I asked. And Geezer smiled and gestured for me to follow him back out of the cave.

“They are many names, none of which will make sense to you,” he said as we came out of the cave mouth. “They are not truly a part of your earth, nor are they a part of the Sidhe. Just like this place, they are both bats and not bats.”

“Where am I? Some sort of limbo?” I asked.

“You are here and there,” he answered. “In-between.”

“And getting back?” I asked.

“The bats are the gateway,” he smiled. “They brought you and they will take you, but you must fulfill the purpose they brought you here for.”

“Please tell me you speak bat,” I asked.

“I do not,” he chuckled. “They will tell you. First, you must lift the fog on your spirit.”

“Easier said than done, old man,” I said, stopping and putting my hand on a tree so I didn’t trip and fall as my vision grew dark.

“Ease your fear and the fog will lift,” he said and handed me a fruit I hadn’t seen around here. “You have little time left before your body fails and another bat joins the cave.”

“I didn’t just hear that right, did I?” I asked. “Tell me that you don’t mean that if I die here, I become a bat.”

He just smirked and left without a sound.

“Son of a mother of Pearl Jam!”