Rose Street Fire
It only took most of the next day to find everything we needed. Browsing through makeup departments and women’s clothing stores was not how I wanted to spend my spring break, but I got it done. For Lily, I told myself near to a hundred times. It was certainly not the first time I’d done something against my better instincts for her, and I could guarantee it wouldn’t be my last, either.
To minimize the amount of foundation she’d have to wear, we bought her a dress with long sleeves and a long skirt— and a neckline that fell right at her collarbones. She also got leggings and nice, closed-toe shoes. She hated it.
“It’s too much,” she complained. “I feel like I’m suffocating.”
That was to be expected, considering she spent most of her life wearing next to nothing.
“I know, Lily,” I tried to sympathize. “But if you want to meet my family, then this is how it has to be done.”
She grunted in displeasure and snatched up the bottle of foundation like it had personally offended her. Her transformation was remarkable, once she had her makeup on and her hair pulled up. She appeared nothing like the free-spirited, unintentionally provocative fey woman and looked— aside from her hair— like a well put-together and very modest girl. My grandmother was going to love her.
“What do we do about her eyes?” Pierce suddenly asked.
I took a closer look at them. To anyone who decided to look at her for longer than two seconds, there would be no hiding their bright violet color. I cringed. “Hope that no one notices? Pray they decide she’s wearing contacts if they do?” It was the best we could hope for. It was too late to buy normal colored contact lenses for her. I doubted she would have worn them, anyway.
As it turned out, the hardest part of the whole scheme was convincing my parents that I had a girlfriend— one that I had never mentioned but who suddenly wanted to travel all the way from our university to meet them. The disbelieving looks they gave me when I told them bordered on pity. I tried not to take it personally. I would have been skeptical, too, in their positions. Still, it stung.
On the day before Easter, Pierce sneaked Lily out of the house so that I could drive off and pretend to pick her up from the airport. It was hard for me to keep from shaking my head through all the shenanigans, but Pierce absolutely loved it. I was afraid he was going to give everything away with his obvious delight in the scheme.
We were trying to keep the time Lily would have to act human down to as little as possible. My grandmother’s house— where we were going to celebrate Easter the next day— was a two-hour drive from ours, so I told my parents that I’d be taking Lily straight there from the airport and that we’d see them in the morning. It was inevitable that my parents and grandma would talk to each other and discover that I’d lied about my overnight whereabouts, but at that point in the charade, that was the least of my worries. They were more than welcome to draw their own conclusions about what I’d been doing. They couldn’t be anywhere near as bizarre as the truth.
We woke up early in our hotel room that Sunday morning and spent the hour or so it took to get Lily presentable. Lily kept chewing on her lip in uneasiness, making it so that we had to reapply her lipstick every few minutes. I finally gave up. Her natural purple lips were just going to have to do. Maybe people would think she’d matched them to her hair.
“I’m nervous, Grant-Man,” she admitted just before we left the room to head to the car.
“So am I.”
“What if they don’t like me?”
“They will,” I tried reassuring her. “And if they don’t, that just means I get to spend more time with you alone, and I don’t have to share you as much.”
She smiled, but it wasn’t very convincing.
“I have one more thing for you.” I walked over to the little mini-fridge we had in our room and pulled out a clear plastic box I’d been hiding from her since I’d picked her up the afternoon before. She took it from my hands and stared at it for a moment. All she could see was white tissue paper used to conceal the gift within. “Go ahead and open it.”
She delicately pulled open the box and lifted out the tissue-covered package. When she unwrapped the paper, it revealed a large lily, its six giant white petals streaked down the center with bright fuchsia. She gasped when she saw it. “It’s beautiful!” She lifted it to her face and inhaled its strong, extravagant scent.
“It’s a stargazer lily,” I explained. “Not quite a Moonlily, but what is the moon without the companionship of stars?” I took the corsage from her and pinned it to her dress. “There,” I approved as soon as it was secure. “The second-most lovely thing in this room.” I leaned down and, mindful of her makeup, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I love you, Moonlily,” I whispered.
She grabbed my chin and turned my head to face her. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to hear that?” she asked quietly. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes.
“I have an idea,” I answered.
“I love you, Grant.” She ran her hands around the back of my head and pulled me to her, her lips crushing themselves against mine.
As tempting as it was to forget everything we had planned and just stay in that cheap little hotel room for the rest of the day, I somehow managed to make reason prevail. “Later, Lily,” I promised. “When I can see you and not this false Lily we’ve created.”
“I’ll take that as an oath, Grant-Man,” she replied.
I straightened her corsage and grabbed her foundation to touch up the spots that had washed away with her tears— as well as what had rubbed off during our impromptu make-out session— and then let her check me over, as well. A little bit of makeup remover later, and we were out the door and on our way to my grandmother’s.
My father’s mother was just about the sweetest lady you could ever hope to meet. She was as intellectually oriented as the rest of the Harrisons were, but she had grown old enough to shed some of the cold logic that could make us so unapproachable and had settled instead into a more live-and-let-live style of existence. So— although she was a bit taken aback by Lily’s hair and her eyes— she welcomed her into her home with a warm embrace and an enchanting smile.
“I’m so glad to meet you,” she said into Lily’s ear as they hugged.
“The feeling is generously returned,” Lily replied, which only made my grandmother chuckle.
My parents were much more reserved when they showed up with Pierce an hour later. They weren’t unfriendly, but they approached Lily with caution and did not show the same enthusiasm my grandma had. Their reaction got Lily chewing on her bottom lip again, and it was that— more than anything— that let me know that their aloofness had hurt her. And it finally gave me a clear understanding of what I had done when I had rebuffed her first admission of her feelings for me. It was something I vowed right then never to do again.
We all piled into our cars and drove the short distance to my grandmother’s church, where we would attend the Easter service and activities together before coming back for dinner. I had always loved the little house of worship on Rose Street. It was a stereotypical white country church— complete with a steeple and a bell in the tower— surrounded by a vast green lawn that was as well cared for as the building was. Beyond the grass was a greenbelt of old maples and oaks. It was inviting and serene and beautiful— especially bedecked in hundreds of Easter lilies and glowing in the light of the warm spring sun.
Lily enjoyed the service, if the look on her face was any indication. It was the music that did it, I think. She didn’t know the words to any of the hymns, but she hummed along with the organ, her eyes closed and her body swaying slightly in time to the rhythm. She did draw a few curious looks from the congregants, but for the most part, everyone was friendly and joyful as they celebrated one of the holiest days in the Christian year.
After the service, everyone headed outside to partake in the huge buffet that had been prepared and to revel in the beauty of the outdoors. Lily said she wasn’t hungry, but I was. “Why don’t you look around while I grab something to eat really quick?” I suggested. “I’ll come and find you as soon as I’m finished.”
She gave me a quick squeeze and a kiss. “That sounds lovely,” she replied. “I’ve been wanting to explore out here since we first arrived.”
I watched her walk away from me. For someone who’d been taught from birth to distrust humans, she was doing much better in the crowd than I would have expected. She didn’t initiate any conversations on her own, but if someone walked up to her and said something, she’d smile and talk for a while. She did a lot of people-watching, though. The young children seemed to capture her attention the most— an interest left over from her days as a Guardian, I assumed. Eventually, I realized I’d been staring for too long and that I was still hungry. I hopped into the line for the food and lost sight of Lily as she walked around behind the church.
Pierce joined me at one of the tables a bit later with his own plate of food. “So far, so good, hmm?” he asked.
“It seems so.”
“Man, this is great,” he raved. “I can’t remember being this excited about something in a long time. There’s something intoxicating about knowing something no else around you does, you know?”
“There’s some truth to that.” I was just about finished with my lunch, so I started looking around for Lily.
“Do you think she’ll come home with you over the summer?”
“Maybe,” I answered. “I honestly hadn’t thought ahead to that yet. I hope so.” I stood, walked over to the trashcan and threw in my paper plate and napkin, and then came back over to Pierce. “Hey, have you seen Lily?”
“Sure. She’s around back where the kids are getting ready to start the egg hunt.”
“Oh, shit.”
“What is it?”
I shot toward the back of the church without answering. Shit, shit, shit! How could I have forgotten about the egg hunt? I tried not to hit anybody in my headlong rush, but I definitely pushed a few out of my way. Faintly, I could hear Pierce coming up behind me.
I slid around the corner of the building and caught sight of Lily right away. She was standing frozen in the middle of the field, her posture stiff and unyielding. I sprinted up to her and could see her eyes darting crazily back and forth— taking in every egg, every child running freely and clumsily amongst them. Her whole body flinched when one of the toddlers tripped and every egg in her basket tumbled out across the ground. Lily’s breathing was coming in harsh, rapid gasps, and her purple glow— even through all of the makeup— grew dangerously bright.
“Lily,” I tried getting her attention. I was desperate to distract her. Because at the rate things were going, something terrible and irrevocable was about to happen. “Lily! Look at me. Please. At me. Ignore everything else.”
She finally turned her panicky gaze to me. “Grant-Man?” She sounded so lost and confused, but underneath it all was a streak of that Guardian fury I’d seen when we first met. I made me very, very worried.
“Close your eyes, Lily,” I begged. “We’ll say you’re not feeling well, and I’ll get you out of here. Just close your eyes.”
She was about to do as I asked when Pierce darted up behind me and caught her attention. And then something behind him drew her eyes even more quickly. Her breathing accelerated even faster, and her eyes opened so wide I could easily see the glints of pure rage flashing through them. In dread, I turned to see what could possibly have kindled her ire even more vehemently than the Easter eggs.
It was a giant chocolate egg laid out on the dessert table. It was elaborately carved and beautifully colored— accented here and there with edible gold and candy gems. It was so perfectly overdone with its decorations that not only did it not look like it was made of chocolate, it looked frighteningly like it could be a dragon’s egg.
I watched in terror as one of the lovely ladies who was helping to serve the desserts picked up a candy hammer and turned toward the egg. I tried to cover Lily’s eyes, but she fought me, and by then, it was too late. Both of us got a clear, unobstructed view as that hammer came down and smashed the shell of the egg into a dozen pieces.
Lily screamed. But it wasn’t a scream of pure horror. It was more of a war cry— an urgent, wrathful call to battle. The sound of it was like nothing I’d ever heard. It was like the wail of a bereaved mother, the roar of a Tyrannosaurus rex, and the chill-inducing squeal of fingernails on a chalkboard all at once. That’s as close as I can get to describing it. And it was so, so loud. Pierce and I squeezed our hands over our ears as the entire congregation turned to look at Lily as one.
“Lily!”
She popped back into her true size, shook herself free of the clothes holding her down, and shot straight toward the trees surrounding the grassy field. I lost sight of her as dozens and dozens of fairies seemed to spring out of the ground itself. They came from everywhere. The grass, the flowers, the trees, even down from the sky. And they came on the attack. People shrieked and ran for cover as the angry sprites swarmed over them, biting and stabbing with their tiny spears.
And then a giant shadow blotted out the sun. Pierce and I looked up— and I’m not ashamed to admit that I felt the most gut-wrenching, knee-weakening fear of my life. Pierce grabbed my arm in a bone-crushing grip. He tried to say something, but either it was drowned out by the chaos or he was too terrified to get the words out.
“Pierce,” I shouted at him. “Run!” I gave him a shove to get him moving and then chased after him, pushing him whenever I needed in order to keep him going.
The dragon landed right in the middle of the space where the children had so recently been delighted over finding their Easter eggs. The beast was the largest living thing I had ever seen, and its scales were as black as death. The wind from its wings knocked several people flat to the ground around its feet. It reared up on its hind legs, drew in a massive inhalation, and then erupted in a geyser of liquid, white-hot fire. It flooded over the church in seconds, and the old building ignited like tinder.
I couldn’t stand to look any longer. I turned my face away as I continued to ram Pierce forward, although he did not need my encouragement any longer. We ran until we couldn’t take another step. Until the burning church was no longer in sight. Until the screams faded to nothing.
And then I sat down and cried. Cried from the letdown after terror, in the relief that Pierce and I were still alive, in the fear that many others might not have been so lucky. And I cried over Lily.
Lord Almighty, woman, what have you done?