For Your Heart (Hill Dweller Retellings) (5 page)

    
She's pretty for a human, I’ve always thought so, but now that I see her close-up, I know for certain.  And there’s a compelling familiarity about her.  I don’t doubt that.  Roxel says the minds of our kind, especially when we move between worlds like I do, fog quite easily. 

    
One reason is the difference in how time passes.  In Otherworld, time moves quickly – one day on Earth is close to a week in Otherworld, but we don’t age past maturity.  I don’t understand why the hours tick by differently or why we don’t age.  I daresay I’m centuries old but don’t look much older than Lovely. 

    
Another reason for the mind-fog is that moving between worlds addles the brain and plays tricks on time-memory.  Yesterday seems like three years ago while ten years ago seem like now.  I know this girl from my morning rounds, this I know to be truth.  The familiarity must come from the time-memory confusion – she’s familiar to me like all the people who are my neighbors are.

    
I run my fingers over the ribbon, glad this particular neighbor finally decided to come for a visit – even if it took the faeries chasing her here to do it.  Normally, I only ask pretty visitors for a trinket.  But, she has already given me a souvenir, so I'll ask for a favor instead…a kiss.

    
And then...I'll ask for more.  I want more from her.  I'd like to touch her flawless, angelic skin, I’d like to wrap my fist around her hair, tug on it ever so gently – exposing that long, swan neck of hers.  I’ve had a long time to add to the list of things I want from Lovely.  She’s been teasing me for years, living at the edge of my forest but never coming in, and I think my requests fair.

    
She spins around again and again, like an animal caught – so fast that her skirt flits around her waist and I'm disappointed to find, instead of the colorful, string-like undergarments I'm used to when mortal girls visit me, she's wearing shorts.

    
Oh well, I'm sure they’ll come off just as easily
.  Besides, the modest undergarment gives her an air of mystery that makes her more alluring.

    
I slip down the oak and kneel behind the trunk of a white pine.  She has stopped spinning and is now pacing forward, her eyes scanning the ground like she's looking for something.  Then she stops and I see what she sees.  Everything inside me freezes solid.  I fight to breathe, I fight to stop her, but I can't move.  She steps forward and crouches in front of one of Roxel’s precious jewels.

    
No, don't touch the roses.

    
She reaches out and her fingers delicately trace the deep red petals of the tallest, most beautiful rose.  A delicious shiver dances up my spine.  The look on her face is enough to shock my heart back into beating and I draw in an awed breath.  She’s so beatific and enrapt that I’m entranced by her pleasure.  I never knew a woman could look at something with such innocent, unbridled pleasure.  Her eyes go liquid and her cheeks flush a shade pinker, her warmth spreads through my veins like a summer's breeze.  Her lips part ever so slightly, like she's expecting a kiss – one I’m more than willing to give. Then I hear it:

    
Snap

    
I blink and my eyes trace the smooth length of her arm.  She's got the rose's stem in her hand, but the stem no longer reaches into the ground.  Inch by inch, the space between the flower and dirt grows until Lovely has the petals against her soft lips and, eyes closed, savors the scent of the faerie queen's sacred bloom.

    
For a moment, the simple act sends a primal ripple of pleasure slithering over my skin.  But then my mind takes hold and my heart gallops wild, fear eating my intestines like a rabid wolf.
What is Roxel going to do to me?  I’m to protect her roses, that’s why she sent me to patrol Carver Hall Park.  What will I do? 
She's going to kill me.

    
Suddenly, I'm filled with hatred for this tantalizing but destructive human girl.  She couldn't appreciate the beauty before her, she had to destroy it.  Why should I die on account of her folly? 

    
Before I realize what I'm doing, I let out a roar and leap through the underbrush.  I grasp her by her treacherous hand, throw her to the ground, and hold her there. 

    
“What have you done!?” I demand, knowing full well the implications of what I'm asking.  “How dare you come to this place!  How dare you pick a rose!  How dare you break its stem!  Do you not understand that you must ask leave of me!?”

    
Lovely’s fingers loosen around the rose as terror slackens her muscles.  Those fae green eyes chase her crimson sin as it falls to the ground.  Then she stares at me, as if she can’t believe I am real.

    
I tighten my grasp, drawing her attention to my hand shackled around her wrist, reassuring her that I am no dream.  “Speak up.”

    
Her lips tremble as her gaze widens on me, her throat bobs hard before speaking.  “T-this land isn't yours.  It's under my father's care.  H-he’s the principal of Mary Magda.  I can pick a rose whenever I like.  I-I don't need to ask your permission.”

    
So close, her voice is like a folded melody that purrs over my skin and tickles my nerve endings.  There is something calming about that voice, something that makes me want to breathe a sigh of relief, like a weight lifted.  The muscles in my shoulders relax and my grip on her wrist weakens.  My fingers stroke her delicate skin.  I shouldn't want to rub my fingers along the pulse in her wrist, but the urge seems so natural – an assertion that she’s as real as me.

    
Lovely glances at my hand and her breath catches like I've somehow wronged her.  Her eyes flash back to me, wild and alive.  She wrenches herself out of my grip and struggles away, backing until she’s flush with a tree. “W-who are you?” she demands.

    
I cock my head and give her a disbelieving look.  Who does this upstart maid think she is?  The Queen of the Fae?  Certainly not.  I don’t have to answer to her demands, so I don’t.

    
Her attention flies around the glade, as if searching for escape or a weapon.  When she speaks again, her tone is cautious and certain.  “You're that Green Man everyone is talking about, aren't you?”

    
I toss a dramatic glance at my arm.  “I am rather green.”  Roxel's magic does that to me, protects me, gives me strength.  None of the ladies before this one bothered to complain.

    
Her voice hiccups with fear as she says, “W-what do you want?”

    
I give her my best angry look, even though I can't seem to stay as mad with her as I have a right to be.  I use my words instead, trying to make my voice sound sharp as obsidian.  “Do you have any idea what you've done?  What you've cost me?”

    
She purses her lips and looks down at the rose.  “It's just a wild rose.”

    
My anger flares again and in the next moment I've got my knife to her pale, swan-like neck.

    
The tendons in her neck strain and her throat wobbles in fear.  “What are you doing?” she squeaks.

    
“Just a rose, just a pretty maiden's head.  I'd say they’re equal,” I growl.  My hand is shaking.  Normally I have a steady, precise hand.  It's not like I haven't slit a throat before.  I squeeze the hilt until my muscles lock and my knuckles go white.

    
A scoff escapes her throat.  “Are you crazy?” Her voice is shrill, the only indication of her fear because her face is now strong.  She’s a good actress.

    
Smirking, I press the knife a little harder against her fair flesh.  I won’t cut her, it would be a sin to mar such lovely flesh or to punish such bravery.  When faced with my knife, most people beg and cry…This girl wants to know if I’m crazy.  You could grow to like a girl like that.

    
“Okay,” she breathes.  “It’s some kind of rare, expensive rose.  I get it.”  Though her face is cool, she sounds half hysterical.  I can almost see her brain working her out of this.  “I'll pay you back for it.  Just let me go back to my house and-”

    
“You're trying to run away,” I cut in, pressing the knife harder to her throat until she’s practically molded against the tree.  “You must repay the damage you've done.”
How?  With what?
I can't even guess at how valuable that rose is.

    
“That's why you have to let me go back,” the girl reasons.

    
I shake my head.  “No, your mortal coin does nothing for me.”

    
She closes her eyes and sucks in so much air that her breast grazes my arm.  “What do you want for it?”  There’s an ominous tone to her voice, as if she hates that she’s even asking.

    
Good question.  One that I don't have an answer to.  All at once my anger collapses under the weight of my uncertainty. 
What can I do to make up for this?
  Pulling away, I sheath my dagger.  My eyes find the rose, red as blood against the dark moss and decaying leaves of the forest floor.  I gingerly pick it up.  Such a perfect rose – perhaps the most immaculate rose ever created.  It’s understandable that it caught the girl’s fancy.  I can't imagine why I never noticed it before.

    
But then, Jeanette has a way of making even the stupidest thing seem important.

    
I straighten.  Where had that thought come from?  I look back at Lovely.  She's staring at me intently, like she expects me to pull my knife on her again.
Jeanette?  Is that her name?
  Perhaps I heard that man she lives with – her father, I think – call her that?  Out of the corner of my eye one of the brilliant red rose petals falls off the head with a tiny
click
– as if plucked by an invisible hand.  The girl's eyes follow the petal as it skims to the ground, weighted and calculating, like that petal means the world.  I can't help but stare at it, too, like a tiny version of the rose, blood on the dying earth.  The rose is already fading, already losing life.  And it’s my fault.

    
Suddenly overcome with terror at the thought of the petal being alone and lost on the ground, I suck in a breath and scoop it off of the ground.  It’s warm against my palm, as if sitting against flesh for quite some time.  I slip it into the empty pouch at my belt.

    
When I look up, she's running away.

Jeanette

     I run through the park like the four horsemen of the apocalypse are charging after me.  I run from the Green Man – his intimate hands, his dark, husky voice, and the promising oceanic grey of his eyes.  I run from the threat of his knife and the rose that brought him upon me.  And I run from the heat of his green skin.

    
I run until my lungs burn and then I continue to run.  I run as fast as I once ran through these same woods when bells and invisible hooves pursued me by dark of night.

    
I pay no mind to the tears being captured by the wind whipping my face.  I pay no mind to my hair being ripped out in clumps by hungry coniferous branches.  I don't care that my legs are stinging and bleeding from thorn bushes.  I don't care about seeing Amber's meet or besting Celeste.

    
I almost died.

    
I want to get away from him.  But no matter how fast I run the feeling of his hand burns my skin, the wild scent of him floods my nose, and his chiseled features sit in my orbitals like he's hovering over me – still daring me to run.

    
I just crossed paths with the unknown, something I thought wasn’t real.

    
I skid through the back door, scaring the crap out of Neko-Neko, my cat, and slam it closed behind me.  Shaking, I sink to the floor and continue to sob until my whimpering drowns out my thundering heart.

Tamrin

     As I slip through the waygate leading from Earth to
Tír na nÓg
, I’m greeted, as always, by the site of Alaphos, the troll who guards this side of the gate.

    
He bows, though his deep-set, beady eyes betray that he loathes to do it.  “Master Tamrin.”

    
I give him a cursory nod, but nothing after.  He doesn’t respect me.  Bowing and calling me master are things he does to please Roxel, not because I carry the light that mesmerizes and commands loyalty from the fae.  Why I was not born with it like every other
Aos Si
, is a mystery.  Roxel tells me that my parents were both truly gifted
Aos Si
–that’s why they were sacrificed.  That’s how she ended up taking me as her ward.

    
Turning away from Alaphos and his ugly little troll face, I make my way out of the gate chamber and into the main hall.  Roxel’s castle is in the heart of
Tír na nÓg
, a tall crystalline palace set on a lake so still, it’s like glass.  It is diamond on sapphire, set against emerald, serine and quiet.  But inside, it’s a different story.