Sprite

His mother’s garden was barred to him. Neistah stood, puzzled, on the edge of the green wood that led to Anais’ secluded pool. Had something happened while he was away? None of the others had mentioned it when he joined them in the deep lake at the heart of their enclave.

Neistah had surrounded himself with lovely sprites until the rainbow colors of their hair obscured even the water around them, before finally choosing one to chase and capture and while away a few hours with no thoughts of humans or mortal lands to distract him. The lovely sprite he chose this time had hair the color of sunset. When they finally parted it was sunset in truth, and the pale red light now slanted through leaves and disappeared beyond the barrier his mother had set. Why had she locked him out?

’Lara!’ he sent. ’Breyan!’ The twins often spent time at Anais’ pool, preferring the gentler company of the Lady, as Neistah did himself most of the time. The three had grown up under Anais’ indulgent tutelage. ’Breyan!’

’What is it, Neistah?’ Breyan glided up beside him, still glistening from his swim in the larger lake. He followed Neistah’s gaze. ‘Ah. Well, your lady mother did not wish her guest to be disturbed.’

’Mother has a guest?’ Even so, Neistah could not imagine anything—‘Oho, has she a suitor?’ he asked with a quick grin. His mother had been solitary of late.

’You mean besides Valin?’ Breyan asked. ’No, this one is a young girl, a strangely dressed young girl. I thought she might be from the mortal realms, but that isn’t possible, is it? I would have learned more, but the lady Anais bade me go, and not bother the child. Child, she called her. If so, she is just on the cusp of womanhood, and ripe for the plucking.’ Breyan grinned. ’I wouldn’t mind plucking her when she is ready—I told her so in not so many words.’

“Breyan.” The lady Anais approached before Neistah had a chance to react. She didn’t need to say anything else. The fact that she had spoken out loud was censure enough. With a sheepish grin, Breyan slunk off, after clapping Neistah briefly on the shoulder.

’Remember, I saw her first,’ he sent back laughingly.

’Is it true, Mother?’ Neistah asked. ’Do you have a mortal girl in your garden?’ It could only be one girl, although how she had crossed the barrier Neistah had no idea. He had searched out a crossroads. No blood had been shed. Only sprites should have been able to cross over, and that girl was human despite her similarities.

Anais smiled. ’She came searching for you. In that, she is one of us, I think. Else the very land would reject her.’ She raised her arms, allowing the last of the sun’s rays to illuminate her pool, turning the green water into gold.

Norah sat, fully dressed, on the edge of the pool, and stared unseeing across the dazzling surface. Her webbed hands clasped her knees and her feet were bare. When she saw Neistah, she sprang to her feet, looking at once guilty and defiant.

‘How did you follow me?’ Neistah asked, studying her carefully. The back of her shirt was soaked with water from her hair, and she was damp in other places, too, as if she had donned her mortal garb while still wet.

Norah shrugged. ’I don’t know,’ she sent back. Speaking sub-vocally became easier with practice. ’I’m not exactly sure where we are.’

’Mother?’ Neistah turned back to get Anais’ opinion on the matter, to see her arm in arm with Valin. Neistah’s lips tightened. ’Valin? Why are you here?’

’I called him,’ Anais replied. ’He has been in the mortal world the longest. I value his insight.’ She smiled up at the tall sprite who was her chosen lover and wore the single golden garment woven of her own bright hair. Neistah didn’t think Valin deserved it, considering his past.

Norah edged closer to Neistah, whispering, “Who’s that?”

“Valin,” Neistah answered, preferring not to get into involved family histories with this girl who might not be here long enough for it to matter. “Another sprite who frequents mortal lands on occasion.” He left much unsaid, of how Valin’s sojourn to the mortal realm was in the far distant past, how he had forsaken his true consort and child for a human family until they turned on him, how he had come crawling home to Anais and Neistah and had expected them to resume their old life as if nothing had ever happened. How his mother had done just that.

“You really are sprites,” Norah whispered. “Not mutants. And I’m--?”

Valin glided up to cup his hand under the young girl’s chin, tilting back her head so he could look at her more closely. ’Mortal, yes, but one of ours as well.’ His other hand fingered the nearly transparent fins that fanned out behind Norah’s ears. ’It’s possible she could have some of my blood in her background.’ He turned her head from side to side without a protest from Norah, who watched him with frightened eyes.

’She can hear you,’ Neistah pointed out irritably, barely restraining himself from slapping down his father’s hands. Valin’s red-gold hair mingled with Norah’s darker red as he leaned over her. Neistah frowned.

Valin stepped back and bowed apologetically. “My pardon, child. Your presence here has made me forget my manners. Welcome to our home—your home as well—or you could not remain here.” He reached out a hand to touch Norah’s cheek. ‘It has been centuries since a young one has been born among us.’

Norah cast a bewildered glance at Valin. “I don’t understand,” she said. ’I don’t understand,’ she repeated in her mind. ’Neistah? What did he mean? I wasn’t born here. How can I be one of you?’

Neistah scowled at his father, and touched Norah’s hair too. “It’s simple,” he explained, reverting to vocal speech because he didn’t trust the thoughts that were tumbling through his head. “You have his blood. He said so himself.” Valin had done it again. After all his impassioned protests about staying away from the mortal realms—which ultimately was the main goad that drove Neistah to seek them out in the first place—Valin had visited mortal lands, had probably been doing so all along. The few times Neistah had run into Valin in the mortal realm, his father had been wearing human clothing. Valin often chided Neistah for not trying to blend in with humans better. Now Neistah understood why. “She’s your child, isn’t she?” he asked Valin point-blank. “Did you just abandon her there? Is she the only one? Do I have any other half-mortal brothers or sisters that I don’t know about?”

‘Neistah, that’s enough. Come with me.’ Anais’ brows were drawn in a vee. Her pixie face was dark as thunder. Neistah glanced quickly at Norah, who had paled at his vehement accusations. He felt a stab of guilt. Poor girl, she was innocent in all this.

Valin remained, while Neistah followed his mother away from the glade and Norah.

’You misjudge him,’ Anais remarked as she led him down darkening paths.

‘I don’t think I do,’ Neistah replied, loath to say too much lest his mother pick up on it.

’Norah is not your sister,’ his mother said adamantly.

’Then who is she?’ Neistah asked in frustration. ’How did she come to be?’

Anais sat down on a low stone wall. Neistah sat beside her. Slowly the green woods around them settled into dark. No forest creature stirred, and Neistah could detect no nearby presence. The others respected the Lady Anais and granted her the privacy she must have requested. Neistah swallowed nervously. This was not his mother who spoke to him now, but the Lady.

‘Norah is a precious child. No others have been born to us for far too long. She shares your blood. I charge you with her care. Cherish her. Teach her our ways. I hold you responsible for her welfare.’ Anais left no room for argument. She stood, sweeping her long hair around her like a golden cloak. The audience was over.

Cherish her, Neistah grumbled to himself, after he had made sure Anais was gone. But it was a command. Neistah made his way slowly back to the glade which contained his mother’s green pool—and Norah and Valin. What had his father been telling the girl? He stopped abruptly at the edge of the water, which was still and dark now that night had fallen. There was no sign of either Norah or his father.

’He’s gone.’ Leaves stirred as Lara rose to her feet, all but invisible in the shadows. She beckoned Neistah to come closer. ’The young one sleeps.’

In a bower of leaves, covered by thin silky gauze, Norah lay curled, still in her human clothes, with her rich red hair spread out in a tangle around her.

‘She’s beautiful,’ Lara sent, putting her arms around Neistah and laying her head on his shoulder. ’Who is she?’ A note of puzzlement tinged her signature thoughts. Few sprites would choose to wear mortal garb.

’A child,’ Neistah answered shortly. ’One that the Lady Anais has bid me to safeguard.’

‘A child?’ Lara tilted her head to gaze up at Neistah with liquid brown eyes. ’My brother Breyan didn’t think so.’

’Breyan is here?’ Neistah asked more sharply than was necessary. When Lara shook her head, Neistah relaxed. ‘Breyan needs to keep his distance. Norah is my responsibility.’

’Valin said as much,’ Lara sent, which annoyed Neistah all over again. His lady mother could order him to watch the girl, but not Valin. Valin did not have the right.

’And did he tell you she carries his blood?’ he sent bitterly. ’She is from the mortal lands, but somehow is one of us as well.’

Lara regarded the sleeping girl. ‘Poor child,’ she sent in an echo of Neistah’s earlier sentiments. ’To have been all alone for so long.’

Neistah tried to imagine being locked away from his people, with no touch of another’s thoughts, no bright dalliance in crystal waters. The mortal realm was like that—silent, and seeded with darkness that owed little to the absence of light. It had its own charm, mostly in its very unpredictability, and its beauty as well, raw and unordered, which were the attributes that so attracted his kind. But eventually the novelty would pall, and Neistah invariably would seek out the intersections, otherworldly gates that led back to home. He had tasted mortal captivity and knew that it would have sickened him had he remained. How had Valin managed to live among mortals for an entire human lifetime? Valin had tried to tell them he had been held prisoner, but now Neistah knew it wasn’t so. Valin had chosen the mortal world over his own, abandoning his lady and his son in favor of his human family, until they inevitably turned against him.

Was Norah descended from Valin’s human branch? A throwback, perhaps, to carry so much of his blood? Or—Neistah had a sudden insight—had another sprite dallied with a human woman of Valin’s line, and her mixed blood allowed her to conceive? Neistah had thought it all but impossible for their kinds to procreate. He himself had dallied with human women, never thinking that anything could come of it. Even among his own kind, childbearing was a rarity.

‘Lara,’ he sent, ’will you help me to teach her our ways? If, as Mother says, she is one of ours, she belongs here.’

Lara laughed softly. ’Gladly,’ she responded. ’As you say, she is one of ours.’

Norah never stirred as two warm bodies tucked themselves next to her. She never felt Lara’s gentle brush against her cheek, nor Neistah’s tug as he repositioned the gauze wrapping so that it draped over the three of them.

Lara prudently retired to the green pond when Norah woke up. Neistah crouched by her side as Norah rubbed her eyes and yawned. ’Hungry?’ he sent, giving her a wry grin.

Norah jumped, and looked wildly around her. ’I’m really here. It wasn’t a dream.’ Her eyes were drawn to the pond. ’Where is the Lady?’

‘She left you to me,’ Neistah replied, rising fluidly to his feet. He held out a hand. ’Come. While we are here, we can swim.’

Norah hesitated on the brink of the pool, longing clear on her face. She stepped forward, to Neistah’s derisive laughter.

’Human,’ he sent. ’In this place you need no clothing.’

She shot him a look.

‘I can remove mine if it would make you feel better,’ he said smugly, grinning at Norah ’s horrified expression.

‘Neistah!’

Norah whirled around as she realized another person was with them. A woman rose from the pond, clad in only her honey brown hair. Her almond eyes sparkled with an inner light of their own, and Norah’s breath caught. Then she smiled, and offered her hand. ’He’s teasing you,’ she sent. ’Pay no attention. He still wears his mother’s woven garment.’

Neistah humphed and slid into the water, leaving the two girls on shore.

The brown-haired girl indicated Norah’s long-sleeved shirt and boyish pants. ’Those will be too heavy,’ she pointed out.

Norah looked doubtful. ’But he’s a boy,’ she protested, much to Lara’s puzzlement. What did one thing have to do with the other?

When Norah saw that the other girl did not understand her concerns, she sighed and removed the outer layers of her clothing until she stood in just her underwear. ’This will be lighter,’ she sent with finality, ignoring the trickle of laughter she knew to be Neistah’s which washed up over and around her surface thoughts.

Lara smiled. ‘It will do,’ she agreed. ’I am called Lara, Breyan’s sister. You’ve met Breyan. He tells me he’s quite taken with you.’ She took Norah’s hand and led her to the water. ’Welcome,’ she sent, as they both slipped underwater.

A little overwhelmed, Norah arrowed away, to find that she had an escort on each flank, as both Lara and Neistah swam alongside her.

’Welcome,’ Neistah sent, a little belatedly. He was dressed, if oddly, in what appeared to be gold mesh.

Norah remembered that Breyan had worn a similar pair of swimming trunks, but his were brown where Neistah’s were green-touched gold. What was it Breyan had said? Something about her weaving him a red garment? Suddenly Lara’s comment made more sense. She swam closer to Neistah. ’Did the Lady make your clothes out of her hair?’

Lara’s tinkling laughter filled the ambient, as Neistah broke away for the surface.