14. A Couple of Months Ago
fourteen
A Couple of Months Ago
I t’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.
The words circled my mind like vultures as I drifted through Belgrave as a ghost. Whether they were a positive affirmation or the binding command inside a spell made no difference to me. The minute I stepped through the gateway, I knew something was very wrong.
The empty field that existed miles out of the small township of Belgrave was a vast expanse of undisturbed land and long, golden grasses when I’d followed the High King into Faerie, so the industrial estate that existed there as we stepped back through the glass-like wall was new to me.
Behind us, the soft symphony of wind chimes coming from the lilac wheat stalks with azure-tipped spikes was quickly replaced by loud, obnoxious beeps, truck reverse alarms, and rumbling engines.
Voices took the form of shouts in the distance as men in hard hats and fluorescent vests clamoured around in different lots, waving their soot-smeared forearms above their heads or driving forklifts back and forth in private concrete yards encircled by chain-link fences.
Lucais saw the sharp rise of fear and dread in my demeanour—or perhaps he felt it stabbing him through the bond—and grabbed my hand to pull me across the obscene display of modern industrialisation and development.
I watched as brand-new warehouses, truck and car yards, mazes of side roads—some of which were still being laid down and marked—and parallel parking spots whooshed past us in a smooth gust of golden-tinged wind.
We arrived beside the river in the heart of town, and I dropped his hand again. Everything was wrong.
It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault—
The docks had been redeveloped to make room for a restaurant. It extended over the water on a collection of white-painted wooden stilts, with fairy lights decorating the alfresco dining area behind a set of clear plastic curtains that could be rolled up or down, depending on the weather.
There was a large, peeling sign like a billboard, advertising boat rides for tourists over to the next town along the water. Squinting at it, I read the words, though none of it made any sense to me whatsoever.
My stomach flipped with foreign uncertainty because the next town had barely hit a population of three digits when I’d left Belgrave a couple of months ago— a couple of months ago!
—and yet it had suddenly become an attraction for tourists to go and see the site where a bushranger’s remains had been discovered during a level-crossing project—
“Lucais,” I said, my voice wobbling. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. I sucked in a harsh breath that burned my lungs, and my voice rose with panic. “Lucais!”
“Aura,” he answered. His tone mirrored my confusion while he reached for me, and I whirled, snatching his hand like I knew what to do with it as I registered the utter disbelief etched across his face.
He never finished the sentence he was forming. The touch of our hands sent a spark of amber light shooting into the atmosphere like a firecracker on somebody’s birthday, and then we were spinning through the air until we were halfway up the main road that cut through town.
I wasn’t sure which one of us was in control of the direction we moved when we evanesced in each other’s arms—or if either of us could honestly say that we were.
While the High King didn’t seem to share my terror at our findings in the human world, he did seem to share my horror at the way things had changed since we were last there.
To make matters worse, the first building my eyes fell upon in the main street was my favourite.
And, to my utter dismay, Dante’s Bookstore was closed.
The windows were boarded up, the sign on the door advising that the shop had permanently shut its doors and would not be reopening, and the insignia on the rosewood had been scratched off. Whether intentionally or not, I couldn’t be sure.
A sob of disbelief and raw sadness ripped free from where it had tethered itself at the bottom of my throat, and I would have fallen to my knees if Lucais’s arms hadn’t been wrapped tightly around my waist, fixed under my arms.
He stood behind me and cast his eyes around the crowded street that was filled with traffic lights and crosswalk signs, despite the fact that almost half of the shopfronts looked like Dante’s Bookstore.
It had been turned into a one-way street to accommodate some of the more insufferable rear-to-curb parking spaces, and I—
“Watch out!”
A cyclist tore down the street, almost plowing straight into us as we stood on the curb, and threw a middle finger up above his shoulder as he sped away after having almost knocked us into the pathway of an oncoming tram.
Bleary-eyed, I blinked at the slow-moving monolith of public transport that pulled up to a signpost beside us as a robotic female voice filtered out through a set of speakers I couldn’t quite trace, alerting its passengers to the name of the stop.
“Please alight for Main Street , visitors to the city’s Tourist Centre , the Docks , and section Twelve of the Heritage Society Tour .”
I hadn’t even noticed the tracks they’d laid down in amongst the cobblestone or the new power lines criss-crossing through the sky. Lucais tensed as a large group of people poured out of the tram and spread out around us like a nest of ants, dissipating into the existing crowd within moments.
“Please stand clear. Doors closing.”
The tram began to crawl along the tracks again with a faint metallic buzz.
It stuck out to me like a sore thumb in an alien world, full of sensory overwhelm as the sounds of nonsensical human chatter, the perfume of beautified chemicals and car exhaust fumes, and the scratch of polyester shoulders brushed up against us.
A tram—in Belgrave! They’re fucking joking—
“We have to get to the townhouse,” I said, my voice thick with the tears that were flowing freely down my red-hot cheeks. I felt feverish, burning up, even though it was very clearly winter again in the human world and the wind was bitterly cold.
There was no guarantee that my mother and sister would still live in the same townhouse, given that the rest of the world seemed to have changed in unimaginable ways during my absence.
But with my father out of the picture, I had a feeling that my mother wouldn’t have found a good enough reason to change anything about their living situation.
After all, the only times she had moved us in the past were because of him.
They were separating and he wanted to sell the house, or he’d punched too many holes in the walls for the real estate not to notice, or she couldn’t afford to absorb the rent increase once he’d left.
So I wasn’t surprised to find that my mother’s car was sitting in the same government housing driveway as if I’d only been gone a few days—not the way that I was surprised to see the little black hatchback parked beside it.
“No,” I whispered, racing towards the front door.
Another shot of déjà vu attacked my nervous system as I fumbled with the door handle, banging my other fist into the wood.
My head was swimming with emotion as I grappled for the off switch in the new reality playing out before my tearful eyes.
If I can only wrench this fucking door open and step back into the hallway, it’s fine.
It’ll be fine. “No, no, no, no, no, no—”
“Aura.” Lucais’s voice was tight, even as he reached around me and knocked on the door like a perfectly normal person would do under perfectly normal circumstances. Neither of which were applicable to us. “Aura, I didn’t—”
The front door swung open, cutting his voice off like a guillotine, and revealed a teenage girl.
Dressed in a white crop top and baggy grey sweatpants, she had shoulder-length, pale blonde hair with hot pink dye on the ends.
She was very pretty with her blue eyes, light splattering of freckles across her nose and cheekbones, and the glimmering sheen of makeup dusted across the high points of her face.
I could tell she had her eyebrows professionally threaded, and possibly her lashes done, too.
A part of me was assaulted by an unexpected twinge of jealousy as I recalled all of the normal things I’d missed since I left—like hair salons and makeup, and wearing dresses without fear of getting caught on brambles whilst running for my life.
The girl looked between my face and the face of the High King as if we were trying to sell her something or ask if she had the time to talk about our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and my shoulders began to relax.
For a moment, I almost believed we were at the wrong house, and I’d misremembered the number plate on my mother’s old car. Or maybe she’d sold it to pay rent.
But it was only for a moment.
Only until the girl rolled her eyes at us and turned her head to call out over her shoulder for someone in the house.
“Mama, Aura’s home!” Brynn shouted.
And then she turned and walked away from me, leaving the door between us wide open—and sealed permanently shut.