I meant to go back out and buy food, but after I washed my face and changed my clothes, I lay down for a moment, and woke at midnight. Turned over, and woke again into the brightness of day.
Raising the window, I leaned out to get fresh air. Below me, huddled on my doorstep was something large and dark. For a moment I thought it a bag of garbage that had broken apart. Angry that I would have to clean it up, I started to pull back inside, but the thing moved, shook itself all over, lifted its head up, and glared at me through befogged eyes.
Quickly, I made the sign against the Dark, the two fingers crossed before me—male over female, life over death—and hurried downstairs to shoo it away. When I came close, the creature said a single word in a rough voice, the sound a shoe might make over stone.
“Sanctuary.” The voice was human, young. Then he bent over again, put his head down on his arms, and promptly began to snore.
What else could I do? He had asked for sanctuary, an old fey custom that the humans have taken over, honoring it more in the breach than in the doing.
I raced to the Man of Flowers’ shop where I quickly gathered apples, nuts, goat’s cheese, eggs, milk, tea for a tisane, and an assortment of herbs, all ones I had not bought before. I would think about what to do with them later. I gave all the money in the sachet into Juan Flores’ hands, glad that the strange bird-boy had pressed them back on me. “I was told you were sick. I feared for your safety.”
He nodded. “I had the flu.”
“Flu.” I rolled the word around in my mouth. “Is that like flying?”
“Only when the fever is at its height.” He smiled, almost shyly.
Even though I did not understand, I smiled back. Then I took a deep breath. “I like the bark-colored lady who was here the other day. Tell her I found my way to the mails with her good help.”
“The malls?” He shook his head. “We don’t have any around here.”
“The place of mails. Where one can send an eagle letter.” I saw understanding light his face.
He laughed, head back, full-throated and easy. “The bark-colored lady is named Nita. And I will give her your thanks, dona.” He handed me back money since the trade was not for all that was in my purse. Then he packed my purchases into two sacks and walked me to the door.
Hurriedly, I walked back to my home, juggling the packages.
The stairs were now in sight and I hoped I had purchased the ingredients to make something the scare-bird could keep down. Also I hoped to clean him up and make him safe. Sanctuary he had asked for and sanctuary he would get. I am still a good fey.
But when I got back to Number 13, the scare-bird was gone. The stairs were empty. He had left nothing behind but a stink.
* * *
IT WAS ANOTHER TWO DAYS before he returned, the same day that the Collectors came in their clanking vehicle and took away the black bags at last. People on the streets celebrated, waving and laughing and cheering them on. The sun was out, making the streets suddenly sparkle.
I would have waved and danced with the others, but I had no time to spare. The scare-bird sat on my steps, went away and came back like a shadow, depending upon the height of the sun. He did not speak to me again in all that time, and I wondered if I had simply misheard the word sanctuary. I tried several times to coax him upstairs, but he was like a wild thing that would not be caged. He was much taller than I but thin, his dark hair tangled practically beyond redemption, with a shadowy beard on his chin. He shivered in his frequent sleeps on the steps, moaning and making sounds but no real sentences.
So I left him tisanes and little packets of cheese and sliced apples, the goodness of each leaching into the other. He must have eaten what I set down beside him, for there was nothing left, not even crumbs for the birds or the persistent gray squirrel that haunted my stoop whenever the scare-bird took off. Indeed, the birds and creatures seemed frightened of him. Any blanket or toweling I put around him, he shrugged off. I never left either blanket or towel outside, but took them back inside, washing each thoroughly before using them myself.
Once I touched the scare-bird as he dreamed, picking up his hand to read the palm. The tremors that ran through him would have made a mountain collapse. His blood was filled with bile, the lifeline kinked like a broken promise. I should have let him go, but stupidly I had already made him mine.
And then a man with the sigil of an eagle on his breast came to the step as I was sitting there next to the boy. He thrust three envelopes into my hand. Two were not for me, but one had Mabel’s name. I tore it open and read it right there.
I wondered that Meteora had not turned that dreadful green-haired girl into a toadstool and then remembered that she could not. Woeful offspring of misery indeed. I put a hand up to my own neck as if tracing an UnSeelie tattoo. I could not believe that all this was coincidence. Chim the dark prince, May who cooked magical food that made two days and nights fly by. And perhaps even this scare-bird, though he seemed more lost than wicked. But what were the connections—besides evil being attracted to good, besides all of us being fairies thrust out of Faerie into a world of iron, stone, and dark?
Oh my sister, I thought, you have the weeping girl, I have the dreaming boy. What are we to make of this? Everything—or nothing?
When the scare-bird stood, looked about wildly, and left me this time, I went upstairs to write. Whether my letter went by eagle or dove, it could not go until I wrote it. Keeping Meteora’s newest missive by my hand, I began.
It took me all day and half the night and I used up five pieces of my precious paper, crossing out words, phrases, entire sentences, then writing them all over again. But at last I was done and put the letter in the envelope. I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. I would go to the place of mails and send it off in the morning.
My dear Meteora:
I sit here in the growing dark, which had once been such a friend. Not even a candle stub to pierce the gloom for new candles are expensive and so I husband them carefully. I am cold, cold Meteora, who was once so warm. Fire shot through my veins and I could dance till dawn. The partners we had then: the daft little fauns with their capering legs and high, trilling giggles. The village men, half drunk on our wine, half drunk on our beauty.
What I miss are not the glamours, nor the dances, nor the glowworms caught in the trees for lanterns. I miss not at all the politics of the court. What I miss most are the friendships, for you are but a piece of paper and ink to me now. Human friendships seem as gossamer as their lives.
And yet I think we are missing something, sister.
Let me explain. Everything we Fey do has meaning. This we know from our acorn cots. And yet, sundering us from companionship, the friendships of touch and taste and the intertwine of limbs has forced me to think as I have never thought before. I have asked myself these past gloaming days what meaning have we not understood, so deep in the gloom of these new lives?
Here, I have lighted the candle stub. See how it pushes back the dark. Where it touches the edges of the room, there is a soft glow, like those living lanterns in our trees, so much better than the human lamp overhead that gives much light but little warmth. What if we are meant to be glowworms in these last years? Shall we try to hang upon humanity’s top limbs and give them light? Is that the meaning? In other words—that green-haired child of yours—can she be tamed? Can she be helped? Can she be transmuted without our magic into her deepest, best human self? There is the question.
I have a similar child sleeping on my doorstep upon occasion who once—or so I think—made claim on me for sanctuary. He is thin as a scare-bird, his hair a toss of darkened straw. He shivers and moans in his sleep. I touched him once and his dreams spoke of monsters that would fright even a Red Cap. His blood runs with something the color of bile. His anger is as bitter as vetch. He has been vomited into the world by something even he does not dare name. There is a will-o’-the-wisp quality to him, yet the burnished steel of an unsheathed sword beneath. He is a puzzle. But I have promised that he has sanctuary here.
Oh, I know what you will answer. A moment ago I would have said the same myself. We should be finding a way to return to Faerie, not trying to heal humanity’s running sores. Well, our own threw us out, Meteora, and not just because of our misplaced laughter. All we have left are these children and our glowworm dreams. Even if we cannot help them, we shall at least be back in the game, whatever game it is.
Your old dear,
Serana