Fairy Thief (6 page)

What if Jethin was around? He had left her to die and she wasn’t dead. Would he come back to finish what he’d started? She heard another cry. The woman was taking
forever
to jump tonight. Saffron forced herself to move. She straightened her shoulders and held her head up.
This is the new you,
she reminded herself,
you are going to become the new you by ‘sustained effort.’ Y
ou’re going to go help that woman. Now.

She rounded a low hill and a mound of scrub-brush. Several yards ahead, the woman cried out as she walked along the cliff, very close to the edge. Saffron pushed forward, looked down at her feet and counted her steps as she walked. The wind-shriek hurt her eardrums, and the saturated sea air was soaking her hair into clumps that hung over her eyes. Between the sound of the wind and the high tide that was bashing the sea against the boulders below, Saffron had to hold her ears. She would have to yell to be heard above the din.

The moon shone bright through the body and clothes of the small, ghostly woman. It cast a phosphorescent tinge on the dark rocks all around her.

Saffron cupped her mouth with her hands. She swallowed the lump in her throat and took one last, deep breath. “Stop!” Saffron cried out so loud, her voice cracked. She rolled her eyes. She had meant the word to come out strong, commanding. It was nothing more than a hysterical bark that fell limply at her feet. She tried again, louder, and forced her voice deeper. “You...don’t...have...to...do...this!”

The woman didn’t acknowledge Saffron. She continued along, at a slower rate, dragging her feet — as if her ghostly weight were too much to bear. Suddenly, she stopped and faced the sea.

Saffron’s entire body was jitter-dancing. This was it, the moment when the woman would finally jump. She looked over one shoulder, then the other. Of course, there was no help coming her way. Why had the woman stopped walking? Was the jump going to happen now, or what?
Oh, Christ, lady, right now? I am
not
ready for this….

The woman’s chest heaved as she sobbed, the tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked out across the sea, reached out with one hand — her eyes wide and frantic, her lips pressed. Whatever illusory thing she was reaching for remained unseen — she let her arm drop. Then without warning, she slapped a hand to her temple, raked at her hair, and started howling.

Saffron stumbled back a few steps, her eyes and nostrils flaring in primordial response.
Get out of here — run, RUN!
But she didn’t
run. She even took one step forward — it was all she could muster. Never had she been exposed to someone else’s raw pain like this woman’s. She felt like she was intruding – like she shouldn’t be seeing this. She looked back at the path that had led her there, and longed to run back.
You have always been a runner.

It was the way the woman was quietly weeping that made Saffron turn and face her once more.
You can do this.
She needed to get the woman’s attention, and quick. From several months’ experience, Saffron knew time was running out — the ghost woman would soon jump. Saffron shook her whole body. She cracked her knuckles. She lowered her head and looked up at the ghost from beneath her brows, then walked straight at her. Her gait wasn’t as confident as she would’ve liked – she was erratic and jerking, as if she were a marionette – but she was charging forward, for Pete’s sake. Fear, she figured between rapid breaths, dashed all hopes of grace. She stood right beside the ghost, looked at her chalky face – and gasped.

Through the ghost’s head, Saffron saw the rounding flash of a far-off lighthouse. She craned her neck and got into the face of the ghost girl, moving as close as she possibly could without teetering over the edge. Both girls — one dead, one alive — were now on the precipice, inches away from indifferent boulders, jagged rock and ravaging sea.

Saffron was almost nose-to-ear with the ghost when she yelled, “Hey!” The wind blustered through Saffron’s hair and pitched her towards the cliff’s edge. She stretched one foot out quickly to widen her stance and keep her balance.

The ghost didn’t respond.

Saffron screamed right at her again, with such force she tasted copper in the back of her throat.

Nothing.

Saffron slumped. What could she do? It’s wasn’t like the ghost was ignoring her. Saffron could tell — the ghost was far away. Even though the spirit girl with the raggedy dress and hanging arm was right there – her consciousness was a hundred years gone. “I’m so sorry,” Saffron muttered, but the greedy wind took her words and swallowed them. She put her hand over her mouth and finally let herself cry as the ghost girl’s pain sucked her in.

The ghost had been staring down. She seemed terribly mesmerized by the turbulent waves. Suddenly, she gasped. Her head shot up.

Static prickled the air and left an acid tang on Saffron’s tongue.

The ghost girl’s head swiveled around on her neck. She looked straight into Saffron’s eyes.

Saffron cried harder. “Oh, I’m so, so sorry.” She fought the urge to run with everything she had in her. She struggled not to be consumed by the bottomless, edacious black eyes that threatened to overtake her as they studied first her body, her hair, then eye-to-eye. Saffron almost buckled under the heavy scrutiny. She held her hands out to the ghost in a placating manner. She whispered, “You don’t have to be like this.”

The spirit didn’t blink, but her glance shifted almost imperceptibly from Saffron’s eyes to her lips, as she watched the words form.

“
You don’t have to suffer anymore. You’re like, suspending yourself in time, or something, and you don’t have to. Look at you, in agony – you don’t have to feel like that! I know what I did back then was wrong, but you don’t have to suffer now.”

The ghost blinked once.

Good, Saffron thought. She can hear me. She can understand me. “I can…. I can…. I can
feel
your pain! I want to help you. I need to tell you — you are…dead. You don’t have to be like this anymore. You can get a new life. A better life.” Saffron grimaced. “And I won’t be in it. You don’t have to worry about me screwing up your life again. You should go now – you’ll be so much happier….”

The ghost raised an eyebrow. Her lips parted as if to speak, then closed again as she continued to stare silently at Saffron.

“
Look, don’t ask me how I know all of this. But you can trust me this time. You need to…. Whoa – whataya doing?” Now Saffron held her hands out to stop the ghost.

The girl had stopped listening to Saffron and had taken a step towards her. If the ghost girl had any substance, they could’ve touched noses. She was staring past Saffron, over Saffron’s right shoulder, at the forest. Her tears had mercifully stopped flowing and the expression of unmitigated torture had lifted at last.

Saffron saw the tiniest pinpoint of light reflected in the girl’s eyes. The light grew larger, until her pupils were no longer black, but two great mirrors of light. Saffron spun around. What was that? What was out there?

The ghost moved through Saffron to get to the forest.

It was a sensation Saffron would never forget. First, she felt all the air being sucked out of her body. Then she felt the girl inside her, and every emotion the girl had ever felt filled Saffron’s soul and poured out of her skin. Then Saffron smelled cut green grass, and hot sulfa, followed by the scent of roses in full bloom — their perfume hot from the sun. After the ghost had moved all the way through, Saffron almost lost her balance at the loss of the soul that had just occupied her body with her. She wanted to crumple into a useless pile, but struggled to hold her skin and bones up. When she finally collected her strength, she ran after the girl, but she was becoming too hard to see. Before the ghost was swallowed by the forest, Saffron heard a whisper, in her right ear — “I just wanted you to know.” Then, the girl vanished.

Saffron stopped running and stared at the darkness. She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. She looked over her left shoulder, out at the ocean. She looked back to the spot where she had last seen the ghost. “Huh.”

Chapter 5

T
he magic is gone
.

Saffron sat on her blanket by the edge of the sea, getting ready to pick blackberries from the overburdened bushes.

The magic is gone
.

She repeated this to herself several times to see how the realization made her feel. And, as it is with the passing of many personal things, she felt on the one hand, sad because she knew she would never experience anything like that again. On the other hand, she felt great relief that it was finally over, because most of the time, it was just too much to bear. She was no longer a shining beacon for all the freaky magic things in the world. No more naked gnomes, catatonic ghosts, smelly gremlins, snotty unicorns, and best of all, no more damn fairies. Good riddance. She didn’t go to see movies anymore, but had read about Jethin in the newspaper. Last February, he was employee of the month.

It had been one full year since she sat here last, completely alone, shaded by the pines from the pulsing August sun. This had been a pleasant summer, if a little uneventful. Coco came over a lot. Sometimes, she went to Coco’s crazy mausoleum of a house and laughed to herself every time she remembered that on the night she first met Coco, she assumed the would-be stripper lived in a trailer. Another reminder that you never can tell what’s really going on until you experience it. She and Coco like to make their own jewelry, and their sales weren’t too shabby. Markis had called a couple of times from New Mexico. But their conversations were dull and heavy with unsaid words.

Now, she sat alone, basking in the sun and suffering through a healthy dose of loneliness. Coco was in the Bahamas. Saffron no longer felt the same comfort in solidarity as she once had. Audrey was thrilled with the new Saffron — just yesterday, Saffron had received an acceptance letter from the state university. She was undeclared, but the locks were off her bedroom door and she was going off to college.

She felt the heat from a shaft of light beating down on her head.
Damn!
She had forgotten the sun block. She rifled through her pack, beyond the sweatshirt, the extra socks, the journal, the stationery and envelopes, bits and pieces of beads, earring cards and wire, and dug way, way to the bottom. There was no sun block, only a pair of tights.

“
Whatever works,” she grumbled. She pulled the waistband of the tights over her head, the legs dangling off the back, leaned on her elbows and shut her eyes. She’d told her mom that she would be right back with the blackberries, but the sun was making patterns on her closed eyelids and the birds were chatty – she wanted to stay forever.

***

Audrey stopped wiping a dish to squint out of her kitchen window. Somebody was making his way up the drive and he was pushing something. After a moment, she realized who it was and a sunny smile came to her face. But why was he pushing the motorcycle up the driveway? She laughed. Maybe he was trying to surprise Saffron — he didn’t want her to hear the bike. Saffron wouldn’t have been able to hear a herd of elephants tromping up the drive because she was tucked in the woods. She might as well be a million miles away — the tall pines and vines of the woods blocked all noise from outside its perimeter.

Audrey continued to watch Markis as he panted his way up. She giggled. Wowee, he sure was hot! If Saffron married him, Audrey would have the best-looking grandchildren on the East Coast. She sobered as she thought;
I could be a Grandmother before I’m forty.
She yelled out the window over the sink. “Markis, come in by the screened door out back. I’ll pour you some lemonade.”

Markis parked the motorcycle, and then met Audrey on the large, granite step before the door. He drank the lemonade in five gulps and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve.

Audrey motioned him in. She went back to the sink and resumed dish-washing. “How was New Mexico?”

“
Yeah, it was great. I’m gonna ask Saffron if she wants to move there when we get married.” He winked.

“
Uh, huh. Well, she’s out in the woods. She forgot her sun block; will you take it to her?” She squeezed out her sponge and wiped the counter. “If you follow that trail there, out back through the grass, you’ll find another path through the woods. Keep on it and you’ll find her.”

“
Thanks for the drink. It’s nice to see you again.” He plopped the heavy glass down on the wood chopping board by the sink, and turned around to make a mad dash for the woods.

“
Ah, Markis?”