“I think I should stay,” said Becky.
I looked at her, a little hurt.
“No, don’t go looking at me that way. Here’s what I was thinking ... I can act like I’m here and listen in on conversations and stuff, and I’ll pop in and out where you are and tell you what I hear ... give you a heads up if the elders figure out what you’re up to.”
“Can you go that far?”
“I think so.” She smiled shyly. “I’m getting pretty good, actually.”
“It’s a good idea,” said Jared. “What about you, Finn?”
“Sure. I ain’t stayin’ behind and lettin’ Spike have all the fun. Shee-it.”
“So that’s it then – four are going, one staying.”
“Five!”
“That’s five Jared, don’t forget Tim.”
“Yeah, sorry, Tim. Five fae on board plus Ivar and me.”
“Is Ivar gonna give us a hard time?” asked Finn.
“No. He knows what’s going on.” Jared moved back from the table, heading towards the door. “The plane leaves in three hours. Be at the door with the wing of Mercury on it by nine o’clock. That’s two and a half hours from now. Make sure you eat your breakfast before you go. We won’t have much food on the plane, and I don’t want to be in Florida for more than two days. I don’t want the elders sending anyone after us, and I think two days is as long as we can run this game. We’ll put together our plan on the plane. Jayne, you get to Gregale, ASAP. He’s probably still at breakfast. Do whatever you need to do to get him to take you into the Gray.”
We all stood, heading for the door at once.
Jared made one last comment before he walked out the door. “Remember to pack your weapons.”
Chapter 23
I walked as fast as I could back to the dining hall. Gregale was there, talking to some of his brainiac friends.
“Hey, Gregale, can I talk to you for a sec?” I tried to cool myself down by blowing air up into my own face. I was sweating like mad from rushing back and from general nervousness.
“Sure, Jayne. What can I do for you?”
“Could you walk with me for a minute?”
“Of course.”
He followed me out into the hallway. I imagined the door with the sideways figure eight on it, and we were standing in front of it in less than fifteen minutes, which had to be some sort of record.
“Are we in some sort of hurry?” Gregale said, breathing heavy.
“No, not at all. I’m just excited.”
“About what?”
I pushed the door open, stepping out into the meadow where he and I had our first session together.
“Well, I learned today that you have a special talent and I was really hoping you could show it to me.”
He looked at me with a frown on his face. “And which talent would that be?”
I turned and faced him. “Going into the Gray.”
His eyes widened. “Oh, no, I do not think that is such a good idea, Jayne. Maybe we should go back to the dining hall.” He turned to go back through the door, but I grabbed his sleeve, halting his movement.
He looked back and saw my hand on his sleeve. He looked surprised to see my hand there.
“Jayne, what are you doing?” he asked in a testy voice. “Unhand me.”
“Listen, Gregale, please. I need you. Badly. Remember that day we were out here? And I showed you The Green?” I knew that event had earned him big points with his fellow gray elves.
He smiled in memory. “Yes, of course.”
I got hardcore on him. “Well, guess what? You owe me. I showed you my talents, now it’s time for you to show me yours.”
He got a pissed look on his face, but he didn’t argue. “Why do you want to go into the Gray so badly all of a sudden?”
“I miss my friend Tony. I got an email from him that worries me.” That wasn’t a total lie. I just didn’t tell him that the email was from six weeks ago. “I need to check on him and make sure he’s okay. He should be sleeping now, so I know where to find him.”
Gregale sighed in defeat. “Astral projection is not tied to a place. It is tied to spirits.”
“Astral projection?”
“Yes. That is what you are asking me to do. Take you with me as I project my spirit out through the Gray – the space that exists between our world and the Otherworlds.”
I felt a chill go up my spine. I’m pretty sure if Tim were with me right now, he’d be shaking, but he was back in our room getting ready to go.
“Okay, so what do I need to do?”
“Come. Follow me. It is better if we find a comfortable place to lie down.” He stomped through the meadow grasses until he came to a suitable spot. “This would be much better if you had your daemon here.”
“Why?”
“Because he could watch over your body while your spirit is gone.”
Holy bat balls, what have I gotten myself into?
“How about The Green? I can have it watch over both of us.”
Gregale perked up a little bit. “Yes ... that could work.”
He laid down on the ground and patted a spot nearby with his hand. “Lie down next to me.”
I laid down, silently sending my message out to The Green, asking it to protect Gregale and me from any creature wishing to do us harm. I also asked it to protect us from any creature trying to see what we were doing. That should cover it. I didn’t want anyone sneaking through this time. I felt the hum of The Green’s willing response.
“Hold my hand.”
I reached over and placed my hand in Gregale’s. It was cool and slender, uncalloused – the hands of an intellectual who touched only paper all day.
“Now, close your eyes. I am going to ask you to imagine some things in your mind’s eye. You will feel energy coming from me ... then you will feel a pulling near your core. Do not panic. Once your spirit is free, it will not be so jarring.”
“Okay.” I was trying not to freak out, but it was hard. I wasn’t so sure I wanted my body and my spirit separated.
As if he had read my mind, Gregale spoke again, “Your spirit will not leave your body completely. There will always be a connection. When you are out of your body, you will see it. It will look like a glowing string.”
“A string. Gotcha.”
“Okay, relax. Here we go, into the Gray ... ”
At first I felt nothing. Then I felt something coming into my hand from Gregale. At first I thought he was pulling me with his hand, but then I realized that his hand was still. It was some sort of weird force that was pulling at me. It crawled up my arm and then into my shoulder. It took my chest and face and head ... my stomach and thighs and calves ... and then my feet came last. Eventually, all of me was being pulled, harder and harder. My breath sped up as I started to panic.
“Just relax, Jayne, do not fight it. You are trying to bring The Green with you and you cannot do that. You have to let it all go. Just be free. Release yourself from your earthly bonds.”
I pictured myself floating up from the ties that kept me to the Earth. I even let go of The Green, which was emotionally very hard for me to do. I realized as I let it drop away that it had become nearly a part of me. I briefly wondered if that integration was what began the process of an elemental eventually going crazy. I made a mental note to talk to Spike about it later, since Valentine seemed to be the guy with the gossip goods.
“That’s it. Now, here we go, let us begin.”
I felt a pop! And then I realized I was completely without my normal physical feelings. I didn’t feel the weight of that energy from Gregale, The Green, or even from my own body anymore. “What the hell?”
“Open your eyes. Look down.”
I opened my eyes and looked down. I could see my body lying on the ground next to Gregale’s, both of us holding hands. “Wow. That is the freakiest thing I have ever seen in my entire life – my body laying on the ground like that. I look like I’m dead or something. It’s like I’
m having a near-death experience.” I tried to look out at myself, the part of me that was floating up above my body, but there was nothing to see, except a faint green haze that had a glowing string attached to the center of it, stretching down to the ground and attached to my body’s midsection. It was like a giant, glowing umbilical cord.
“Hey! I’m like a big glowing fetus up here!”
I could sense Gregale’s patience with me. “Yes, you could say that, I suppose. So, where are we going then? We are now in the Gray.” Gregale’s voice was projecting into my consciousness somehow, because he wasn’t actually talking. He had no mouth up here in the Gray and I didn’t exactly have ears either.
I looked around. It was kinda gray looking, actually. I felt like we weren’t alone, even though I couldn’t see anything but our bodies below and the glow-strings linking us.
“I feel like ... we’re not alone in here, Gregale.” It was beginning to creep me out, too.
“We aren’t. Which is why I would like to hurry this along if you do not mind.”
“Are there ... bad things in here?”
“Well, that depends on your definition of ‘bad’. Please ... our destination?”
I tried not to think about his evasive answer. “I need to see Tony.”
“Picture Tony and the place where you think he is in your mind. Focus on your feelings for him. I will hang on to your energy and follow you while I keep a watchful eye out.”
“Eye out for what?!”
“Shh, just focus. Let me worry about everything else.”
I shoved the worries of the unknown away and searched my mind for memories of Tony. Tony standing next to me in the foyer of his house as he packed his bag to take with us to Miami. Then Tony in his room with walls covered in posters of planets. Tony holding doors open for me. Tony and his shy laugh.
“Are we here?” asked Gregale, softly.
I looked down and saw Tony’s room below me. At least, I thought it might be Tony’s room, but it looked very different. Gone were all the planet and science posters. In their places were posters of rock bands. His floor was a mess, dirty clothes and papers all over the place. His desk had stuff piled all over it – and none of it looked like homework.
“I’m not sure. It’s his room, I mean, all of the dimensions are right and the windows and doors are in the right places, but other than that, it’s all different.” I looked down at the bed and it was empty. “Where could he be? It’s after midnight there.”
“Look at the window,” said Gregale in a hushed voice.
The window was going up of its own accord. Then I saw a head coming through – a head with hair that was badly in need of brushing. The rest of the body came through and fell to the floor. I saw that this person was wearing heavy, black boots – combat style – jeans, and a sloppy flannel shirt. “Who is that guy in Tony’s room? Maybe Tony’s family moved.”
But then he looked up from the floor, standing to brush himself off, and I saw his face. I gasped.
“What?” asked Gregale.
“It’s Tony!”
“Great!”
“No, not great. Not great at all. Look at him!”
“He looks like other human boys I have seen.”
“He doesn’t look like Tony though. He’s totally changed.”
I watched as he clumped across the room, kicking off his unlaced boots and flipping a switch on his stereo. He took two steps towards his door, reaching out to flick on his overhead light before backing up to drop down on the edge of his bed. I could hear the music come on loudly.
There was a knock at his door, his mother’s voice coming through the space. “Too loud, Tony!”
Tony picked up one of his boots next to his bed and threw it at the door. I could hear his mother pad away without saying a word.
I gasped at what I saw. “Did you see that?! Tony would never do that. Never!”
Gregale said nothing.
I was getting ready to leave, so stressed out I couldn’t even think straight. But then I watched Tony start to move again. He got up and walked over to his desk, shoving a bunch of things out of the way, looking for something.
Curiosity made me stay.
He found whatever he was searching for, digging it out of the junk on the tabletop. His back was to me so I couldn’t see what it was. He leaned over and pressed a button on his stereo so the CD selection was lit up. I watched as he clicked through the tracks until he came to the one he wanted. He pressed play and then sat down on the edge of his bed, holding something in his hand – the thing he had been looking for and then found buried under the crap on his desk.
The music began to come out of the speakers, a haunting melody I hadn’t heard in a long time – My Immortal by Evanescence. The words carried a whole new meaning for me in this moment, as my spirit floated up above Tony’s new and disturbing life. I knew looking at my best friend right now that this song meant something much, much more to him too ... more than it ever could have before we were exposed to the world of the fae. More than it ever could have when we were together in each other’s lives every day.
Tony’s body began to silently shake and tremble, his shoulders hunched over. He shifted a little to the left and I could finally see what he was holding in his hands. It was a picture of him and me that I had put into a frame for him over a year ago. We had gone to the mall, goofing around by the big fountain. I remember holding up my camera and doing a self-portrait of us. Later I put it in a frame for his birthday, telling him to put it on his desk to remind him not to be so serious all the time when he was doing his homework. I watched as a tear landed on the glass.
Suddenly, Tony looked up at his ceiling, as if he could see me there, and yelled, “Why can’t you just leave me alone?!” He jumped up, throwing the picture across the room. It hit the wall, shattering in a huge explosion of glass. The picture and frame fell heavily to the floor amidst the wreckage that was his new life ... a life that didn’t include me anymore.
I had seen enough. Too much. “Gregale,” I cried desperately, “get me out of here! Please!”
I felt Gregale’s energy warmly surround me and pull me back through the plane we had traveled. I paid no attention to the cold things that brushed past us as we flew by. I could only think of one thing – the image of my best friend, left alone and abandoned by me – the one who should have been there for him but who had instead chosen personal glory and adventure over friendship.
Chapter 24
We were back in the meadow, lying amidst the heather, and I was sobbing uncontrollably. I couldn’t move past the pain that my selfish choices had caused the person I loved most in the world. How could I have left him alone like that? What have I done?
“Jayne,” Gregale said softly. “Jayne, please do not cry.” He must have misunderstood my tears. “I do not yet consider my debt to you paid. You may still have anything you wish from me, at any time. This thing I did for you – I am afraid it was no favor.”
I just shook my head. I couldn’t even talk. The tears poured down my face unchecked. I began to keen for my lost friend, moaning with the pain. It was too late. I was too late. There was no point in going back to Florida. I had already lost him. He didn’t want to be my friend anymore.
I felt Gregale leave my side, but I didn’t care. It was better that way. I was a terrible friend. A terrible person. Everyone should just leave me alone. I should go over with the Dark Fae – it’s where selfish people belonged.
I don’t know how long I sat there sifting through the memories of Tony, of the times we had spent together before Dardennes and all of them had come into our lives – even further back, before my mother’s boyfriend had entered our lives and started the cascade of events that had led me to be here, my heart breaking, in the middle of the heathers and meadows of the Light Fae forest ... in the middle of an enchanted piece of somewhere I didn’t even know where. My own private hell.
I was going to miss the plane to Florida, but it didn’
t matter. I wasn’t going. I tried to block out the image of Tony throwing our picture across the room and the sound of the song that had been playing when I saw it hit the wall, but I couldn’t. It was haunting me. The tears came anew, threatening to wash me away entirely.
I became aware of another presence, seconds before I felt a gentle touch on my arm. I looked up through my tears to see Maggie the witch at my side. She dropped down to sit next to me, the pain of bending her limbs etched into her wrinkled face. I couldn’t speak to her now. I wasn’t up to her barbed comments and harsh criticisms. I just shook my head at her, the tears still flooding my face.
“You have seen something you shouldn’t have.”
I shook my head. I didn’t agree. I had needed to see it.
“The Gray distorts things. It puts a shadow over things that do not have shadows.”
“I need to let him go. He’s already gone.”
“No! If you let him be taken from you, you are not the fae I thought you were.”
“I wish I wasn’t fae!”
“Lie!”
“I wish I hadn’t left Tony.”
“Lie!”
“I wish he had come with me.”
“Truth. Finally. You cannot control the choices of others. But his life is different now. His choice may be different now too. Go to him. Let him make the choice again. Do not make the choice for him.”
“I already let him down.”
“No! You do what’s right for you. He does what’s right for him. Sometimes what is right brings you together. Sometimes it drives you apart. The only thing you have is honesty. Be honest with yourself right now. What is your fondest desire?”
Those words came back to me, a whisper from the near past – the day I stood before the last waypoint, the first day of my life as a fae. I thought about it hard. Concentrating with all my might, trying to ignore the pain and self-criticisms. What is my fondest desire?
“I want things to be the same with Tony again.”
“Lie!”