Chapter 4
Chapter four
The house settled into evening quiet. Allegra had crashed after dinner, exhausted from their beach trip, but fighting sleep until June promised she'd be there when she woke up.
Their mother now sat in the armchair beside Allegra's bed, reading by lamplight and standing guard against nightmares both real and imagined.
Briar sat cross-legged on her bedroom floor, surrounded by the physical evidence of her desperation.
Library books spread in a semicircle around her.
She’d already gone through Folk Tales of the Pacific Northwest, Iron in Mythology and The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales with nothing to show for it.
Her laptop balanced on her knees, twenty-three tabs open to increasingly obscure websites.
A legal pad filled with useless notes lay beside her, each crossed-out idea marking another dead end.
Name magic??? It was crossed out. She didn't know his true name. Eliam could be anything.
Challenge to a game? Also crossed out. That was Rumpelstiltskin, and she had nothing to wager.
True love's kiss breaks all curses. She had scratched that one out so hard the pen had torn through paper. This wasn't a Disney movie.
On her wrist, the mark pulsed, a steady rhythm that had become background noise to her thoughts. She'd caught herself rubbing it twice, stopping only when the thorns seemed to press back against her fingers.
Her phone showed 11:24 PM which meant she had only twenty-eight hours left.
She opened a new search: goblin king folklore Pacific Northwest
Nothing useful. Tourism sites about local legends including a badly designed webpage claiming Bigfoot was actually a goblin king, which honestly would have made her laugh a few days ago.
fae contract law historical precedent
Academic papers about the symbolism of fairy tale bargains, a Reddit thread about D&D rules, but nothing helpful about breaking real bargains with real creatures that shouldn't exist.
She picked up one of the library books, flipping through yellowed pages for what felt like the hundredth time.
In it were stories of clever girls who outwitted magical beings, but always through tricks established early in the tale: a golden thread that could bind anything, a mirror that showed true forms, riddles with one answer.
She had none of those things. Just a mark that burned and a sister who trusted her to fix everything.
Her phone buzzed, startling her. The screen showed a text from her manager asking if she'd be at work tomorrow. Briar stared at it until the words blurred. Work. Making lattes for tired, grumpy commuters while smiling from behind the counter in her green apron.
Family emergency, she typed back. Need a few more days.
It wasn't a lie, not really.
She pulled the legal pad closer, flipped to a fresh page. The pen trembled in her hand.
Dear Ally,
No. Too formal. She crossed it out.
Allegra,
If you're reading this, it means I had to go away for a while.
The words came stilted, flat. How did you explain the impossible? How did you tell your twelve-year-old sister that magic was real but terrible? That love meant sacrifice but not the kind in movies she loved to watch?
She tried again.
Ally,
Remember when you were eight and convinced there was a monster in your closet? I told you I'd checked everywhere and there was nothing there. That was the first time I lied to you. There are monsters. They just don't live in closets.
No, that was too scary. She crumpled the page.
Ally,
I'm sorry I can't keep our promise about beach days. Please don't be mad. Know that if I could stay, I would. I'd take you to every beach, every tide pool, every—
Her vision blurred again with tears she refused to let fall. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until she saw stars.
One more try.
Ally,
Take care of Mom. I know that's not fair to ask, you're twelve and you should just get to be twelve. But she's going to need you. Be patient with her. She loves you so much, even when she gets lost in her own head.
Don't try to find me. This isn't something you can fix with stubborn determination and purple ice cream. Some stories don't have happy endings, but that doesn't mean they weren't worth telling.
I love you more than all the stars you can see from the beach.
Briar
She folded it carefully, wrote Allegra's name on the outside. Then another sheet.
Mom,
This one came easier, anger making the words flow.
I understand now. What you did. Why you did it. I forgive you, but I need you to forgive yourself too. Allegra needs you present, really present. No more guilt. No more looking over your shoulder for monsters that already collected their due.
I made my choice. Same as you did. We Delarosa women, we do what we must for those we love.
Don't let Ally blame herself. Don't let her think she could have done something different. And please, don't tell her about the forest until she's older. Let her have a few more years of believing the world makes sense.
I love you.
Briar
Her hand cramped as she wrote more: letters for birthdays, graduations, weddings. For Allegra's 16th, for her first heartbreak, for when Mom got scared. Each one felt more defeated than the last, but what else could she do?
The laptop screen had gone dark and she ran her finger across the trackpad, bringing up her last search. On impulse, she typed: how to kill a goblin king
The results were all fiction. Games, movies, books where heroes won through cleverness or courage or magical swords. There was nothing for a twenty-something barista with iron that wasn't pure enough and love that wasn't strong enough to break anything but her own heart.
The mark pulsed harder, almost sympathetic. She glared at it.
"Shut up."
It warmed in response, and for a moment pine and dark earth filled her nostrils. Not here, not really, just the ghost of it. A reminder. A promise.
She wrote until her eyes burned and her hand went numb. Letters for every milestone she'd miss, every moment stolen. By the time she finished, pale pre-dawn light was creeping through her window.
Twenty-four hours left.
One more day of pretending. One more day of memorizing faces.
She hid the letters in her desk drawer, beneath old pay stubs and expired coupons.
They'd find them after, when they went through her things, wondering why she'd disappeared. Her mother would know the horrible truth, but would Allegra ever be able to understand? Would she hate her? Would she think that she’d abandoned her?
The tears she had been fighting all night finally slipped free and Briar brushed them aside with the back of her hand.
On her wrist, the mark pulsed once more, satisfied.
Day three arrived with ordinary sunshine and the smell of pancakes.
Briar carefully made her bed, gathered up the library books in a neat pile, and tried not to think about the fact that this would be the last time she woke up in this room.
She then dressed slowly, taking stock of the tasks left unfinished, small things she told herself she’d get to tomorrow, never thinking that tomorrow would be stolen from her.
"Morning, sleepyhead." June stood at the stove, spatula in hand, looking more present than she had in years. "Allegra insisted on chocolate chips."
"I insisted on chocolate chips AND whipped cream," Allegra corrected from the table, where she was building what appeared to be a pancake sculpture. "But Mom's being reasonable. I hate when she's reasonable."
"Terrible parenting, I know." June slid a plate in front of Briar. Three pancakes, no chocolate chips, but a smiley face drawn in syrup. "Coffee's fresh."
Briar stared long and hard at the smiley face. When was the last time her mother had made her pancake art? Ten years? More?
"You okay?" June's hand touched her shoulder, fingers squeezing gently. The question felt both empty and charged in equal measure, They knew the answer, but Briar answered anyway.
"Yeah." Briar cleared her throat. "Just tired."
"She was up late doing her weird iron project," Allegra said through a mouthful of pancake. "I googled it, you know. The iron thing. Apparently it's for protection against fairies."
Briar's blood chilled.
"Is that what the internet said?" June's voice stayed carefully neutral as she returned to the stove.
"Yeah! If you wear iron, fairies can't mess with you. It's in all these old stories." Allegra licked chocolate off her fork. "Maybe Bri's secretly hunting fairies. That would explain why she's being so weird."
"I'm not hunting fairies,” Briar said, hating how defensive it sounded. Allegra didn’t seem to notice.
"Just protecting against them?" Allegra grinned. "With your collection of not-pure-enough iron?"
"Eat your pancakes."
"I'm just saying, if you need fairy protection, you're supposed to turn your clothes inside out. Way cheaper than buying every piece of not-iron in Oregon."
June made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob, covering it by clanging the spatula against the pan.
After breakfast, Allegra dragged them into the living room for what she called "mandatory family bonding." This apparently meant subjecting them to her current favorite show—something with too many characters and dragons that weren't nearly as impressive as advertised.
"Okay, so that's Marcus, he's in love with the dragon queen but she doesn't know he's actually—Mom, you're not watching!"
"I'm watching." June had been staring at Briar for the last ten minutes.
"You're not. This is important!"
Briar tucked herself deeper into the couch corner, memorizing the way Allegra gestured wildly while explaining plot points, how their mother attempted to follow along despite having missed three seasons.
All while taking in things she’d always taken for granted.
Like the fact that the couch still had that one spring that poked through if you sat wrong or the way Allegra's feet were tucked under her thigh, stealing warmth.