They look so young. My mom. My dad. Though I know they would have appeared no different today, I still smile at the youthful images of my parents, the photos five years old now, and imagine them looking more mature, like the parents of kids at my school, like Mrs. White.
I touch my mom’s image, my throat tightening with a familiar ache. She was beautiful. Well, all Elven women I suppose are technically beautiful, but to me she was especially so. My platinum hair came from her. She wore hers in its natural curls while I usually opt to straighten mine to better fit in with my human classmates. Her bright blue eyes smile at me as if to say I approve of you. I love you just as you are.
My dad was tall, of course. He seemed like an oak tree to me back then. Now, I guess I’d be only a few inches shorter than him. His loose chocolate brown curls frame his smiling face in this photo taken out by our pool in California. Carter would probably have been impressed with that house, too, if he could’ve ever seen it.
I haven’t told him who my parents were—he might recognize their names from the oldies radio station and start asking questions. Questions are bad.
Anyway, I took Pappa’s last name—his human one—when he adopted me shortly after their deaths. He was the head of the Council at the time, third in line to the throne, after Nox’s father and mine. Obviously, he’s a politician not a musician, but he knew my mom and dad well, just as he was close to Nox’s parents, who died with them in the plane crash.
Sifting through the pile, I come up with a photo of Nox and me. We look about eleven in this one, maybe twelve. He towers over me, though we were the same age. His black hair shines in the bright sunlight as he grins and makes bunny ears over my head for the camera.
I was so mad at him after the photo was taken, and I turned around to discover his split fingers in the air behind me. I remember wanting that photo to be perfect, having just come to the realization of how much I liked him like that. I wanted a memento to keep with me, to look at in between our family get-togethers.
We lived on different sides of L.A., so we didn’t attend the same school, and sometimes it would be weeks in between visits. I remember toward the end... before the crash... thinking I’d just die of longing before the next time I saw him. It had probably been only a couple of weeks. But now—now I’ve gone for more than five years without seeing him. And I’m still alive. At least on the outside.
Tears well up inside my eyelids and prick at my nose. I drop the photo back into the box, fishing out another one of our two families together. It’s still hard to believe all of them are gone—wiped out in one terrible moment on a sunny Southern California day.
Studying my own tiny, smiling face in the photo makes me unspeakably sad—that little tow-headed girl, so carefree—has no idea her life is about to change forever. Because of all the people in that happy photo, she will be the only one to survive.
I scoop up the rest of the photos from my bedspread and reach for the tissue box on my bedside table. At the sound of a throat clearing, I startle and twist toward the doorway.
“I’ve come to say goodnight.” Pappa steps into the room and comes to my bedside. “I thought maybe you were up here reading, but now I see... are you all right? You’re crying.”
I swipe at my eyes and blow my nose, shaking my head in a stupid denial. “No. I’m fine. I was just—I don’t want to forget what they looked like, you know?”
“You miss them,” he says, sitting down beside me on the coverlet. “That’s natural. I’m sure no one feels it’s time to lose the ones they love, but it’s even harder for us, I think. It’s unnatural.”
Accidents and violence are the only things that can end Elven lives. Human illnesses like cancer and heart disease and even flu don’t affect us. We age, but only to a certain point. At full maturity, Elves stop aging and stay the same in appearance and health and fitness for eternity. Pappa himself is more than two-hundred fifty years old, though he looks no older than thirty.
“Can you tell me a story about them?”
“Your parents?” Pappa shifts, looking uncomfortable, like he hates discussing death even more than I do, but he manages a small smile. “Well, I can tell you about the night you were born. Of course, you know your father was our leader and your mother our queen, so your birth was quite a big deal. A ballroom full of our people gathered at your parents’ home once the word went out that the blessed event was imminent.”
He pauses, but seeing my smile and nodded encouragement, he goes on. “Even the human media got wind of it, since your parents were famous musicians, and there were cars lined up around the block outside the gates of the estate. Your mother was attended by our physicians up in her quarters, and the house was quite large.
“But shortly before midnight, even over the music and noise of the crowd, we all heard your voice as you came into the world. You were so loud, it was as if you were in the ballroom with us. One by one, people started laughing. Someone next to me turned and said, ‘That’s some set of lungs. Another singer, for sure.’” Now Pappa laughs.
I give him a smile, like I know I’m supposed to, but I can’t share his amusement. The story leaves me even more melancholy than before. I’m not a singer like my parents, much to Pappa’s disappointment.
Was I a disappointment to them as well? I have vague memories of my mother praising my drawings and paintings and of my father hanging my artwork in his office, but I suppose all parents do that sort of thing.
Still, I never doubted their love for me. I belonged to them. I was part of a real family. And I had a true friend in Nox. The stupid engine failure took away everything and everyone I ever cared about. It seems impossible an event with such a devastating impact could be caused by something so stupid and random.
“I want to know about the accident,” I say, almost before I realize I intend to ask about it. There’s always been a shroud of mystery surrounding the crash. Probably everyone decided it would be less painful for me not to know the details.
If my parents had been the only ones to die that day, I have no doubt Nox’s parents, Gavin and Sylvie, would have taken me in. They would have raised me as their own child, as a sibling to Nox.
But as I’d lost all of them, and Pappa was the highest ranking Council member and next in line to the throne, he was the one to raise me. And the one to give me the news.
He shared only the bare minimum at the time—terrible accident. All dead. Loved you very much, you’ll always have their memories. Now you’re leaving this place and moving to Atlanta with me.
“What do you want to know?” His tone is wary.
But he shouldn’t be. I’m not that fragile pre-teen anymore. I’m nearly eighteen now. And if I’m old enough to marry, surely I’m old enough to know the details of the event that took my family from me. He doesn’t have to be so close-mouthed about it anymore.
“Just... how it happened. How you learned of it. If they... if they survived for any amount of time afterward or—”
“It was instantaneous,” he interrupts. “They didn’t suffer. We think there was probably some sort of explosion in the air, shortly after takeoff. Perhaps a bird got into one of the engines and caused a fire.”
“I thought it was engine failure.”
“Yes, well, it might have been—it wasn’t determined conclusively—as far as I know. I was grieving, too, you see. I had little patience for the details at the time, and since then, I’ve been so focused on you and my job.” He pats my hand, and his fingers feel cold. “It’s best to just leave it in the past.”
“Why wasn’t I with them?” Something I’ve always wondered about, sometimes even wished for. Wouldn’t it have been better to die and go to Alfheim with my family than stay here and live without them? Certainly it would have been easier. “You said Nox was with them. Why not me?”
“I’m not sure. Who can say? Actually, I thought you were with them until later on, when the parents of the girl you were spending the weekend with contacted my office, wondering what was to be done with you.”
“Oh.” That’s a new detail. I always imagined Pappa immediately seeking me out when it happened, rushing to comfort the tragic orphaned girl. But the way he said it just now sounded more like I was a loose thread he’d found sticking out of an expensive scarf after getting it home from the store and cutting off the tags.
“Of course then I rushed over and picked you up,” he adds hastily. “And you know the rest.”
He begins to stand, but still hungry for details, I press further. “It must have been hard for you to become an instant parent to a hormonal tween girl, not to mention one going through post-traumatic stress.”
He relaxes again. “I’ve always said it was my honor to bring you into my home. You know I never married and can’t have children of my own, so...”
“Why not?” Another thing I’ve never dared to ask but always wondered about. I know not all Elven couples can have children. Those who do are usually able to have only one—on rare occasions, two. But if he never married and never... well, how would he know he couldn’t...
Rising from the bed and once again wearing the detached expression that’s his usual demeanor, he answers, “That’s a personal matter. All you need to know is that you are my daughter. And my daughter needs to get some sleep. She’s got an early flight—and an exciting week ahead.”
“Yes Pappa,” I say, reading his conversation’s over tone and sliding off the bed myself toward the bathroom adjoining my room. “See you in the morning.”
I turn on the water, and as it warms, I allow myself a tiny bit of anticipation for the week ahead. In less than twenty-four hours I’ll be back in the city of my birth, the place I lived with my family and childhood friends. Maybe I’ll run into some people who knew them, people who can tell me more stories about them.
My spirit lifts like the steam beginning to fill the room. I might even be able to find out more about their accident and gain a greater sense of closure about it all.
As I step into the shower, another exciting possibility hits me. One of the art schools Mrs. White recommended is in Los Angeles. I tip my head back into the hot stream and smile.
I’ll take this trip and do what Pappa wants me to do. But while there, I might just do a little of what I want as well.