Pierce came close. His eyes held concern as he looked me over, using his thumb to wipe a stray bit of goo off my cheekbone. "I"ve heard that wasp larvae were raised as sentries," he said, "but I never thought I"d see it up close and personal like. I suggest we move deeper."
"Yeah, but do you think there are more?" I insisted.
Pierce said nothing as he put a hand on my shoulder and guided me past the fallen insects. He wasn"t worried, but I kept looking over my shoulder as we went down the gentle incline. The glow from the walls grew brighter, and I wasn"t surprised when the confines of the hall opened up to a large open s.p.a.ce the size of say, the sanctuary at the basilica.
"Well if that doesn"t cap the climax," Pierce breathed, and I held his light high when it doubled in intensity. Even then, the glow barely touched the distant walls. It looked like we were half underground, half in the stump, with black stones the size of my hand embedded in the earth to hold it back. At the center of the room was the glow of a banked fire. Under our bare feet was the feeling of plastic, and I looked to find it was poker chips, arranged in a pleasant pattern of colors. "Jenks?" I whispered, hearing only my voice echo back.
"I"ll tend the fire. See if you can find a door," Pierce said, and I gingerly headed toward the wall, Pierce"s light held high. Slowly the light from the fire grew as Pierce built it up using wood from a rabbit Pez dispenser.
Evidence of tasks dropped and left undone were everywhere-life interrupted. Bits and pieces of stuff belonging to both Ivy and me were among the organized clutter, surprising me at first, then irritating me. In one corner was a small calculator I thought I had lost, the slate and chalk arrangement beside it making me think it was an impromptu schoolroom. The ticking was the watch I"d misplaced last year, the band being used for who knew what since it was being held up now with a bit of lace I recognized as being from Ivy"s black panties. Not that I paid attention to that sort of thing, but I did fold clothes occasionally.
Closer to the fire, the poker-chip floor was covered with a soft gray fur. Mouse, I decided by its softness under my bare feet. A barrette that I"d lost behind my dresser and never bothered to retrieve was being used to hold a magnetic calendar with WERE INSURANCE on it. Postage stamps decorated the walls at odd heights. Some of them had frames built of garden materials. Pictures, I decided, seeing that most of them were of outside shots.
I paused when I got to a huge glittering figure eight on the wall. Reaching up, I touched the bottom loop to decide it was made of fish scales. Maybe they were from the wishing fish Jenks and his family had accidentally eaten. It looked important, stretching up almost four times as tall as I stood. As I watched, a dot of sun shining down from a hidden upper window slowly slid onto the scales to make them glitter brilliantly.
"Noon," Pierce said from the fire pit, and I looked to my borrowed watch, seeing it said 12:35, not noon. But then I realized that it wasn"t our noon, but the real noon of when the sun reached its apex. The figure eight was a clock to show seasons, not hours. It was something a pixy would have to be very sure of so as not to get caught unaware by the cold. "Cool," I said breathlessly, following the shaft of light up to a small patch of sunshine high above our heads.
"Do you see a door?" Pierce asked, satisfied with the state of the fire and joining me.
"I think they"re all up there," I said, pointing to shafts opening up about two pixy lengths over my head. Pierce sighed, and I looked around for something to stand on. There was an arrangement of cushions and chairs in a lowered pit, which was no help. But between it and the now-cheerful fire was a long table made of popsicle sticks, stained red and dovetailed together to make it longer. Maybe we could prop it up against the wall, like a ramp.
I was just about to suggest it when a scuffing from the ceiling jerked our attention upward. Wasps? Wasps? I thought in fear. I thought in fear.
"Jenks?" Pierce called out, and I tensed when a harsh clatter of wings came and went.
"Who"s here? Jax, is that you?" said a slurred voice from the high patch of sun. " "Bout time you showed up. I gotta tell you about the water rights with the clan next t-t-to ours."
"It"s me, Jenks!" I called out, thinking it was one of the dumbest things I"d said in a while, but I was so relieved to know he was alive I didn"t care.
"Rache?" The shadow between us and the light staggered, then fell backward. There was a crash followed by a weak "Ow."
I looked at Pierce, then the upper patch of light. "There"s a room up there," I said. Another brilliant observation. "How are we going to get up there?"
"Stairs," Pierce said, pointing, and I realized that there was indeed a thin excuse for a stair, without so much as a hint of a banister, snaking upward in a wide spiral running along the outside wall of the main room.
"Who, by Tink"s little red thong, put the floor up here?" drifted down.
Oh G.o.d. He was drunk. I gathered up my skirts and dropped Pierce"s light into them, anxious about what I might find. The higher I went, the brighter it got. The air, too, felt different. Moister. I wondered why there were stairs at all, seeing that pixies could fly.
Finally I reached the top, blinking in the strong sun. Jenks was flat on his back beside a fallen wire-and-cushion chair. Dropping my skirts and Pierce"s light, I went to him.
Pierce came up behind me in a soft padding of bare feet. "I swan, this is the most beautiful room I"ve ever seen," he said as I knelt beside Jenks.
The bottoms of six gla.s.s pop bottles were wedged into the earth wall to let the sun in, but the ceiling was actually the stump. The long, curving room was moist, and the soothing sound of water dripping came from somewhere. Moss grew on the floor with tiny white flowers growing from it. Even the benches under the windows were covered in green, making soft hummocks. A small table made from a big b.u.t.ton and plastic-coated paper clips stood before an empty fireplace that looked like the bottom of a throat-lozenge box. The chairs were of wire and cushions, and I recognized them as looking almost exactly like the tables and chairs from the island resort at Mackinac Island. The top of a saltshaker was in a corner half full of dirt, and infant seedlings grew close to the windows. Manicured gra.s.s rose tall at the back to hide the wall.
No wonder Jenks is here, I thought as I pulled on his arm to get him up. Matalina"s grace was everywhere. I thought as I pulled on his arm to get him up. Matalina"s grace was everywhere.
Jenks finally focused on me as I got him upright, his wings bent behind him as he sat on the floor. Not a glimmer of glitter was on him anywhere, and he was still stained from the battle. "The Turn take it, Rache," he said, pushing my hands off him as he sat propped against a hummock. His wing was caught under him, and he shifted a tall vial of honey to his other hand to reach back to free it with a tug. "Can"t you just let me die in peace? Matalina died in peace."
Pierce sighed. "He"s corned!" the witch said, and I looked at him, annoyed.
"Of course he"s drunk," I said sharply, trying to get the vial of honey away from Jenks. "He just lost his wife." Oh G.o.d. Matalina was really gone, and my heart ached for Jenks.
Jenks wouldn"t let go of the vial, and I gave up. With a huff, he tilted it up, and a slow avalanche of honey fell into him. "I"d have to be drunk to imagine you"re in my s-stump," he stammered after swallowing. "Wearing Jih"s dress. And a little furry man with you." Squinting, he looked closer. "Pierce! Son of Tink. What are you doing in my nightmare?"
Wings humming, Jenks started to collapse.
"Look out, Rachel!" Pierce exclaimed, lunging forward to catch him about an instant too late. With a whoosh of air, he landed on me, pinning me to the floor.
"Holy c.r.a.p, Jenks," I said as I wiggled out from between the two men and tripped on Jih"s dress as I found my feet. "You"re heavy."
"Watch the wings!" Jenks slurred. "Fairy farts, I don"t feel so good."
Shaken, I watched Pierce help him to a bench and drape a rough-silk blanket over his shoulders. Crouching, the witch forced the pixy to look at him. "How long have you been like this, old man?" he asked.
Jenks"s bloodshot green eyes focused from under his curly, smoke-stained bangs. "Forever." He raised his gla.s.s in salute and drank some more. I didn"t like seeing him like this, but being drunk was probably why he was still alive. With a surge of recognition, I realized his pointy-bottomed gla.s.s as a solstice lightbulb with the wires removed.
Concern and empathy were heavy on Pierce as he stood and looked down at Jenks. "Time to sober up, pixy buck. Rachel wants to talk to you."
"I"m not a buck, I"m a schmuck," Jenks slurred. "Mattie. Oh, my Mat-tie." His head bowed, and a faint dust slipped from his eyes. "She"s dead, Rache," he said, and my heart broke again. "She"s dead, and I"m not," he lamented as I knelt and gave him a hug, my own tears starting. "That"s not right," he slurred. "I should be dead, too. I"m dead inside."
"You"re not," I said, holding him tight. It was worth it. All the s.m.u.t was worth it. It was worth it. All the s.m.u.t was worth it. "She wanted you to live. Jenks, please. I know you love her, but she wanted you to live." "She wanted you to live. Jenks, please. I know you love her, but she wanted you to live."
"I"ve got nothing." Red-rimmed eyes met mine when he leaned back. "You don"t understand. Everything I did, I did for her. Everything." His head drooped, and he was silent. His fingers opened, and the vial of honey hit the floor. Pierce plucked it up before the honey could spill, and set it aside. Just that fast, Jenks was asleep.
"Do you want to take him out now?" Pierce said. "Ceri twisted a curse to turn him big so you could keep an eye on him."
Jenks took a slow breath, his honey-stupor sleep giving him a respite. Slowly I stood and looked down at him. "No. He"d never forgive me. Let"s let him sleep it off."
"Mattie," Jenks mumbled. "Don"t leave me. Please..."
I eased Jenks down onto the moss-covered bench, chest heavy as I went to the table before the fire and sat where Matalina must have sat a thousand times before. I put an elbow on the table and dropped my head into my hand. Saying nothing, Pierce crouched at the fire.
I felt awful. Jenks would be awake again in five minutes, tops. This time he"d be sober. "Am I making a mistake?" I whispered.
Pierce looked up, his gaze on the fire poker as he tried to figure out what it was. I couldn"t place the thin piece of hard plastic either, but I was sure I"d seen it before. "I don"t know," he said simply. "It"s a sin to end one"s life, but judging Jenks by human or witch morality isn"t fair."
"He loved her so much," I said. "But he"s got his entire life. He might learn to love again. Maybe pixies marry for life because their lives are too short for second chances."
Pierce rocked to the toes of his feet, still crouched before the fire. "Ask him what he wants." His blue eyes flicked to Jenks, now snoring. "When he"s sober," he added.
I looked at the slant of the sun, wondering how this day would end. "Am I being selfish?"
Not answering, Pierce went to the miniature carved statues of insects on the mantel. "These are beautiful," he murmured. Even wearing a pixy buck"s trousers, long-sleeved shirt, gardening jacket, and hat, he didn"t look anything like a pixy. Not only was his hair not right, but he was too muscular. Feeling my eyes on him, he turned, his expression making my heart jump.
"Where do you suppose Matalina is?" I asked softly.
From behind us came Jenks"s dead-sounding voice. "She"s in our bedroom, pretending to be asleep."
Warmth flooded my face, and I spun to see Jenks"s eyes open, watching us. "I"m sorry," I said, realizing he was sober already. "I didn"t know you were awake. Jenks, are you okay?" Yes, it was dumb, but I didn"t know what else to say.
Jenks sat up, elbows on his knees and his head bowed as he held it. "My head hurts," he said softly. "You shouldn"t have taken s.m.u.t to help me. I"m already dead. My heart knows it, but my body won"t listen."
Feeling awkward in my borrowed dress, I went to sit beside him. The sun was warm on my back as it came in through a circle of thick gla.s.s, but I felt cold inside. "What"s another layer of s.m.u.t?" I said, believing it. "Jenks, I"m sorry if it sounds trite, but it"s going to be okay. It just takes time. Hundreds of people in Cincinnati lose the person they love every day. I survived losing Kisten. I-"
"Shut the h.e.l.l up!" he shouted, and I drew my hand back. "It"s not going to be okay. You don"t understand. Everything I was ended with her, ended with her, I loved her." I loved her."
My face warmed, and I couldn"t stop myself. "I don"t understand?" I said, my fear that he was going to die coming out as anger. "I don"t understand?" I stood, heart pounding. "How dare you tell me I don"t understand!"
Pierce"s eyes were wide. He clearly thought yelling at Jenks wasn"t the best way to convince him to live, but I wasn"t going to let Jenks fall into the poor-me syndrome and die.
"You saw me suffer after Kisten died," I said, and his dust-wet, red-rimmed eyes went wide. "You yourself told me I was going to be okay and that I"d love someone again. I lost my dad when I was ten. I watched him die like you watched Matalina. I held his hand and promised him I"d be okay. My mother told me it was going to be all right, and one day it was. Don"t sit there and tell me that because you"ve got wings and cry sparkles your pain is more than mine. It hurts. It hurts like h.e.l.l. And it"s going to be okay! Don"t you dare give up because it"s hard," I said, vision swimming. "Don"t you dare, Jenks."
Tears falling, I turned away. "I need you too much," I added, shaking Pierce"s hand off my shoulder. d.a.m.n it, I hadn"t wanted to cry in front of him-in front of either of them.
"I"m sorry," I said miserably. "I can"t tell you how sorry I am about Matalina. You were beautiful together." I was still staring at the wall, seeing it swim. Taking a deep breath, I wiped my eyes. "Matalina is gone, but you"re not. She wanted you to live, and I need you. It"s selfish, but I do. You"ve done too much to give up and not see how it ends. You said last year that you were angry because you were going to die and Ivy and I were going to continue on." I turned, and the grief in his eyes made a flash of guilt rise in me. "Life"s a b.i.t.c.h, Jenks. But if you don"t live out what"s given to you, what"s the point?"
"I didn"t know it was going to hurt this much," Jenks said, eyes going almost panicked. "She told me to live, but there"s no reason to. She was why I did everything!"
He was only eighteen. How could I help him find a way to understand?
Pierce"s voice eased into the moss-smelling air as if it belonged, shocking me. "Living on is not betraying her," he said, standing alone by the empty fireplace at the far end of the room.
"It is!" Jenks stood, catching his balance with a hum of wings. "How can I feel anything when she is not here with me? She said to live, but why? It doesn"t mean anything!"
With the patience of hard-won wisdom, Pierce raised his eyes. "It will."
"How do you know?" Jenks said bitterly. "You"ve never done anything, dead in the ground for a hundred years."
Face placid, Pierce said, "I have loved. I have lost everything because death came early. I"ve seen it from your view. I"ve lived it from Matalina"s. She wants you to live. To love. To be happy. That"s what she wants. I can promise you that."
"You... ," Jenks started vehemently, then hesitated. "You have," he whispered.
Pierce set the figure of a mantis back on the mantel. "I loved a woman with all my soul. And I left her though I strove not to. She lived on, found love, married, had children who are old today, but I saw her face in their pictures, and I smiled."
I sniffed, thinking my coming here was a travesty. I was trying to help Jenks live when Pierce had lived more than both of us put together. Not in years, but in experience.
Seeming to start to understand, Jenks collapsed back onto the hummock of moss. "When does it stop hurting?" he asked, hand around his middle.
I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. All of us were damaged, but it made us stronger, maybe. Maybe it just made us more fragile.
"The mind numbs," Pierce said. "The memories blur. Others take their place. A long time. Maybe never."
"I will never never forget Matalina," Jenks vowed. "No matter how long I live." forget Matalina," Jenks vowed. "No matter how long I live."
"But you will live." Pierce faced us squarely. "Others need you. You know it. Otherwise, why tell Jax to take the land? That"s not pixy tradition. It"s against everything you know. Why do that if you don"t feel a responsibility for something else?"
Jenks blinked fast as he thought about that, and Pierce stood beside me. "You"ve reached past your limits, pixy," he said. "Now you have to live up to your ideas. You have to live live up to them." up to them."
A light silver dust was sifting from Jenks as he silently cried. "I"ll never hear her again," he said softly. "I"ll never know her thoughts on a sunset or her opinion of a seed. How will I know if it will grow? She was always right. Always." Misery in his face, he looked up. Relief spilled into me. He wanted to live. He just didn"t know how.
Pierce handed him his gla.s.s of honey. "YouTl know. Come with me on the first full moon of spring. We will tour the cemeteries. I need to find my sweetheart. I need to put flowers on her grave and thank her for going on without me."
My chest seemed heavy, and my throat was tight. I couldn"t help but wonder, though, if Pierce had been measuring me against his eighteenth-century love. That was something I could never be. I didn"t know if I even wanted to be with a man who wanted a woman like that.
"I will," Jenks said seriously, not drinking the honey. "And you will sing with me about Matalina."
Hope mixed with melancholy, and I crossed the room to give him a hug. "Are you ready to go?" I asked him. Matalina wanted him to burn their home.
Jenks"s eyes flicked down to the gla.s.s in his hand. "Not yet."
I took the solstice light out of his hand. "I missed you, Jenks," I said, giving him a hug and shocking myself when I found wings back there. "Just for that breath of time I thought you were gone. Don"t do that to me again."
He took a breath, then another. It came ragged, full of his emotion. "I miss her so much," he said, and suddenly he was holding me tight as he cried angry sobs into my hair. "I miss her so d.a.m.n much."
So I held him, my own tears falling anew as we gave comfort to each other. It had been worth it. All the blackness on my soul was worth this. And no one would convince me that this was d.a.m.ning. It couldn"t be.
There was a hollow place in my middle that wasn"t from not having eaten all day. The sun was nearing the horizon, and the leaves that hadn"t been burned were stark against the blue and pink of sunset. Almost like an oil, the scent of ash coated me. The heat from Jenks"s stump burning was a gentle warmth this close to the ground instead of the expected inferno.
To one side of me, Pierce stood, his hands clasped before him with a white-knuckled strength, his expression pained from a memory he wouldn"t share. Sunset would be here soon, and he"d ignored all my suggestions to leave. He claimed Al would leave him alone as long as he was "protecting" me. I didn"t need protecting. Okay, maybe I did.
One of Jenks"s returning children had given Pierce a heavier coat, garden stained and looking like it hadn"t been washed since last fall. It went all the way to the ground, and Pierce looked odd with his dirty bare feet peeping out from under it.
Jenks was a tortured presence at my other side as his home burned with Matalina inside it. Tears glittered into dust as they fell from him, a pure silver that gave him an unreal glow, almost as if he were a ghost. Each breath was pained, rising from deep within him, hurting.
His children were in the garden, silent. All but Jax had returned, their grief tempered with the unknown. Never had a pixy tried to live past his or her spouse, and though happy they were together, there was no understanding of what came next-joyful that their father was alive, yet mourning their mother. They were confused, not understanding how they could be both.
The flames took on rims of blue and green as the rooms laden with pixy dust caught, a funnel of heat making the flame swirl into a spire, as if reaching for the heavens. Jenks"s fingers brushed mine and took them. Fire cleansed, but nothing could stop the heartache.
"Tears could not be equal, if I wept diamonds from the skies," Jenks whispered, empty and bereft. "My word silent, though I should howl. m.u.f.fled by death, my wings can"t lift me high enough to find you. I feel you within. Unaware of my pain. Not knowing why I mourn."
He lifted his eyes to mine, a glimmer of tears showing. "And why I breathe alone."
I shifted my bare feet, cold on the earth. I wasn"t a poet. I had no words. Tears blurred my sight as we stood and watched his life burn.
Today had been harder than anything I"d ever endured, watching Jenks"s children come home, one by one, each not knowing why they were drawn back or how to react. I could imagine what usually happened to the lonely souls that were cast into the world, hurting and alone. Watching them realize that they had one another to share their grief with was both painful and a joy. Jenks was the binding force, the gravity that had brought them back. Even the fairies, now released from their prison to find food, were subdued.
"I"m sorry, Jenks," I whispered when the flames grew higher, warming my face but for the tear tracks. "I want you to stay in the desk."
Taking a deep breath, his wings shifted, then stilled, lying like gossamer on his back. Saying nothing, he pulled his hand from mine and looked up at the faint noise the fairies were making as they hunted for spiders in the chill evening. Apparently their wings were why they destroyed a garden in their efforts to reach food, and they were amazed by their new dexterity, relishing being able to duck into small places. Better yet, they weren"t damaging the garden.
"No thank you," Jenks said, his voice low as he watched the trees. "I couldn"t live in the stump anyway." His faint smile was because of parental pride. "The kids will be fine. They have huts all over the garden. I"ll just sleep in my office."
I couldn"t bear thinking of him setting up residence in the flowerpot he"d turned into an office at the edge of the property. I was itching to push him into taking the potion that Ceri had made to turn small things big, but I daren"t mention it yet. I shivered, and Jenks turned from the fire, his shoulders slumping. "You should get big again. It"s too cold out here for you.
"I"m fine," I said, clearly not.