Chapter 5
Chapter Five
The Gatekeeper
Perhaps he’ll settle for the shortest of versions. “I named you.”
He gasps and holds on to the air. “Did you name all of us, then?”
“Only you.”
“Only me.” His pupils dilate, drawing me in. “And how did that come to be?”
Right. So, the long version, then. “Do me a favor—”
“Anything,” he offers far too quickly.
“Wash up, put on something warm, and get into bed.” I reach for the babe, and he hands her over. “Let me get her settled with Eulayla, and when I return, I’ll answer your questions.”
“All of them?” he asks, eyes sparkling.
“Heavens, no.” I’m not the smartest man alive, but I’m smarter than that. “You take me for a fool?”
“Never. Ten questions?”
“No.”
“Five.”
“No.”
“Three?”
“Gale.”
“Oh, come on. Three’s not that many.”
I shake my head and laugh. “I’ll tell you the story of how you came to be called Gale, and in return, you will go to sleep without pestering me any further.”
“Me?” He clutches his chest. “Pester you? I wouldn’t dare.”
“Liar.”
“I’m hurt,” he says through grinning lips. “You’ve hurt me.”
“Say it with a straight face next time, and I might believe you.”
I leave, put the baby in with a sleeping Eulayla, hoping they both get more rest before the need to feed arises again, then head to the kitchen to fetch Gale a hot drink.
It’s been years since I’ve seen him with a hot cocoa, but he loved the treat as a child. Spiced wine or warm beer on an empty stomach is a disaster waiting to happen, so cocoa it is.
As the milk warms, I remember that night.
The little fae babe with more power in his pinky finger than most sorcerers this side of the gate.
The winter storm with its wind and hail.
The human babe I tucked to my chest, wailing louder than the weather, furious at having been plucked from sleep and taken so far from home.
I don’t often dwell on the minutiae of my duties. I guard the gate. I swap the babes. I endure. It would be Gale who forces me to ponder. To relive the deed. To dig deep into uncomfortable detail.
Ah, well. I owe him that much.
When I return, his tidy room is warm, a fire crackling steadily. Gale is tucked into bed as requested, nestled under a pile of old quilts sewn by an army of women come and gone over the many years I’ve been master of these lands.
I’m relieved to note his lips have gone from a sickly blueish tint back to their normal, healthy pink. His eyes retain the ever-present glitter, focused on me as they usually are. As I prefer them to be.
“Did you bring that for me?”
“Mmm.” I set the steaming mug on his bedside table.
He picks it up and takes a sip. “Oh, cocoa. My favorite. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” I bring a wooden rocker closer to the bed, sit, and cross my legs. Where to begin?
“What was the other baby like? The one you swapped me for.”
That will do. “A bit older than usual. Quiet. Full of magic. I bespell them, you know? To blend in, to suppress their abilities, to be comfortable living as humans in the earthly realm.”
“I didn’t know.” His stare doesn’t seem to hold judgment, but I brace myself for it nonetheless. “Makes sense. Can’t have babies flying around and casting enchantments on the humans of the other side.”
“Exactly. It’s for their own safety. Humans with magic attract suspicion. Some have met terrible fates as a result. It took a great deal more effort to glamour that one’s fae nature than usual.”
“What’s he doing now, I wonder.”
Living the life meant for you.
I can no longer hold his gaze, so I study the tattered quilt, pink threads coming loose around the edges. “I don’t keep close track of them, the fae-souled, but they’ll be there always, born again and again. Ready if I need them.”
“Reincarnated?”
“Something like it, yes. Fae-souls never truly die.”
“Unlike humans.”
“Unlike humans.” I think of my cemetery, full of the bones of those who’ve lived and left. A dull ache blooms in my chest. Made from clay and to clay they shall return. I feel the ghost of dirt under my fingernails and shudder. One night it will ha—
“Why me?” Gale’s voice cuts through my melancholy. “Why my family?”
I sigh.
This question holds much weight for Gale, yet very little for me. At the time, he was convenient, his family was convenient, the weather was poor, and I was in a hurry. But I can’t tell him that. Mere coincidence isn’t the answer he’s searching for.
“Even I dare not question fate. You were the one, my dear. How could I not have chosen you if such a destiny was meant to be?”
It’s not a lie, but it’s perhaps more than I really believe. Fate. Destiny. What have they to offer but daydreams?
One thing I know about Gale, he values dreaming, so to give him a new dash of the stuff is a boon I can offer easily enough.
“How did you do it? Tell me everything.”
I gesture to the forgotten cup in his hands. “Drink that, and I will.”
He sips obediently. “It’s good. You may not drink cocoa yourself, but you know how to make it perfect.”
“Eulayla is a fine teacher. The trick is to heat the milk to the precise temperature before adding the cocoa. That and a sprinkle of cinnamon to liven it up.”
“Now you’re stalling. Please tell me about that night?”
There’s no ignoring the open vulnerability in his expression. No escaping his earnest desire to know. I take a breath.
“I shall do my best, though I’m not a natural weaver of stories.”
“Just tell the truth. No story.”
“As you wish.” I gesture to his cup, and he drinks.
His cheeks are beginning to brighten back up.
“The babe’s fae parents had met with grave misfortune.
Not dormancy, as is the usual reason I’m summoned, but death.
Burned in a house fire in which only the infant survived.
Terrible tragedy. As the village was deep in mourning and no suitable arrangement could be made, I took the babe to a home on the other side. ”
“My home,” he says in a small voice that pains my soul.
“Yes.” No backing down from the harsh reality. “Your home. Your parents were doing well. Your father was a blacksmith with a well-stocked shop in a decent-sized town. The fae babe would live a good life there. Safe. Loved.”
“And me?”
“I should hope you feel safe and loved as well. You are, you know. Under my protection and loved deeply by both those who were here before you and those I brought after. Amaris looks at you as if you hung the very moon in the sky.”
He squirms. I’ve made him uncomfortable. Such was not my intention.
“You were asleep in your cradle. Blonde curls already fully formed around your crown.
Green eyes like the fae babe that needed your spot.
I set him down next to you, and right away he reached for your hand.
You could have been twins. You woke, spotted him, and grinned.
He laughed. It was a shame to separate you.
“But a storm was raging outside, and I needed to get you through the gate quickly and unharmed, so I swaddled you up and lifted you into my arms. The moment I plucked you from your bed, you began to wail.
Strong and piercing, louder than the thunder clapping with you as though raging on your behalf.
“I tucked you tight to my chest and ran from the house before your parents could catch me in the act. There was a moment when I thought the fae babe wouldn’t fuss, which would make no sense when they came to check on a crying infant, but eventually he did, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Outside, hail pelted my head and shoulders, raining sideways in the blustery winds. Lightning lit the town, and for a split second, I saw your father’s shop haloed in the eerie glow. Horseshoes, tools, daggers, and chain mail until it was all washed in shadow a second later.
“You screamed and cried and writhed in your swaddle the entire long trip back to the gate. So much so that I sang to you as I flew us home, hoping to calm you, to offer some comfort, but you would have none of it.
“Somehow you worked a hand free, snuck it into my shirt, and dug your tiny little fingernails into my chest. I’d never taken a babe so angry with being stolen as you were.
“By the time I made it back through the gate, I was bleeding, and you’d wriggled entirely out of your swaddle. I had to cling to you with both arms to keep you from flailing out of my hold.
“I was eager to hand you off to Eulayla. I found her in the kitchen, preparing pap, but when I went to pass you over, she shook her head fiercely and stepped back. ‘You mustn’t,’ said she. ‘I’m sick. Don’t want to get the baby sick too.’
“‘But he hates me,’ I said. You and I made eye contact then, and if looks could kill, there’d be no one left to guard the gate.
“She rolled her eyes. ‘He’s a baby, you fool. He doesn’t know how to hate.’
“I don’t often doubt Eulayla, but I did then. She pulled out a chair and pressed me into it. ‘Here.’ She handed over the pap. ‘This will settle him.’
“Ha! Wishful thinking if there ever was such a thing. You were not settled. You were as far from settled as a queenless swarm of honeybees. You batted away the bottle—which ended up in shattered clay pieces all over the floor—and yelled your little heart out.
“I rocked you. I patted you. I sang to you, but you were inconsolable. It took hours for you to cry yourself to exhaustion, and during that time, Eulayla sat with me and coached me on how to care for you, even though she was ill and near to fainting from fatigue.
“When you finally gave up, your little face was blotched red, but your emerald eyes held no defeat. Only a sad sort of weariness I was sorry to see on one so young. We watched each other in silence, me with trepidation, you with melancholy, until Eulayla spoke up. ‘What’s to be his name?’
“‘How should I know? You pick.’
“‘No, you,’ she said. ‘This one wants you to choose.’
“‘And how do you know that, hmm? I never name them.’
“She shrugged. ‘Yet you’ll name this one.’
“I’ve never had a companion so willing to boss me around as Eulie.
There’s no denying her when she’s made herself clear.
So I continued to study you, your honey wheat skin, your red face, your tangled curls, messy from the ferocious wind we battled on our journey.
And your name came to me. Gale. For the storm.
“You focused when you heard it, watching my lips as I repeated myself. ‘Gale?’
“‘Suits him,’ said Eulayla. ‘He likes it.’
“That was the first time I saw you smile. And it would be the last time that night because just after you gathered your strength and began to wail again, Eulayla handed me a freshly prepared bottle. ‘He’s ready for it now.’ And so you were.
“I fed you. You ate until your tummy bulged. Then you slept.”
I remember laying him down in the same cradle the fae babe sleeps in now, so relieved he’d finally stopped bawling.
“And that is the truth of your trip through the gate and how you came to be called Gale.”
The same fierce green eyes pin me now as they had done then, only this time the wisdom of his years shines through. My tiny Gale, grown up and still as restless as he ever was.
“Then what happened?”
“What do you mean, then what happened?” I laugh.
“You grew up here, obviously. Eulayla and Chester raised you. You constantly got yourself into trouble, and I constantly was called to collect you from it, and now you’ve waited up the whole night half-frozen so as to give me heart palpitations upon my return, you mooncalf. That’s what happened next.”
He laughs. Of course he does. A tinkling merry sound at my expense as usual. “No, I meant directly. When the sun rose and you had to leave me.”
“Oh, that. Chester rode into the village first thing. He returned with a wet nurse who kept you until Eulayla recovered.”
“Why didn’t you keep me?”
“You’re here, aren't you?”
“Isn’t it what Eulayla wanted? For you to raise me?”
“Perhaps, but contrary to popular belief, Eulayla doesn’t get absolutely everything she wants around here.”
“Yes, she does.”
“Well, she didn’t get that. And be grateful for it. I’m in no way suitable to be a father. Beyond choosing your name, I certainly never acted in that capacity. You have Chester for that.”
“Chester isn’t my father. My father is a blacksmith.”
I don’t know what to say to that, but I’m glad Chester isn’t here to hear it. “Are you angry with me?”
“No.” His answer comes quick.
I thought perhaps he would be. I’m well accustomed to the anger of others. “No?”
“You were only doing your job. I won’t be angry at you for that. But I will be angry if you don’t take me back. I want to meet them.”
I should have expected as much. “Then you will be angry because my answer is and always will be no.”
“But—”
“Your place is here, in Luminia, not earth. Your family is here.”
“It’s not.”
That stings, but I school my face to a blank expression, refusing to let Gale see the hurt. “The other side is dangerous. I cannot protect you there.”
“I don’t need your protection anymore.”
“I disagree.”
“I don’t care. I need to go. I have to find them.”
“Put the idea out of your mind, child. It isn’t possible.”
“Don’t call me child. And sure it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Your presence would only disrupt their lives and cause chaos. They have their son, Gale, and it’s not you.”
As the words leave my mouth, I regret them. As his face falls, I regret them. As the air is vacuumed from the space between us, I regret them.
But there’s no taking them back.
There’s no escaping the wounded look he shoots me.
Voice gone cold, he says, “Get out.”
So with regret, I leave.