Chapter Four
ABBY
LILL TRIPS OVER her feet as she heads to the bathroom, her movements uncoordinated in her drunken state. I tense, my muscles bunching together as I wait for her to righten herself. I’m sitting on the floor beside the coffee table, close enough to lunge forward and catch her should she fall.
Her shoulder hits the wall, and she lets out a quiet grunt as she lays her hands flat against it and straightens back up. I wish she’d use her crutches. I’ve been panicked since her tumble in the shower, and I’m having trouble getting the sight of her crumpled form out of my head.
What if she hurts herself while I’m gone?
My parents don’t know Lill’s a faerie, and they’ll insist on taking her to a hospital. Given her weakened state, I’m not sure she’d have enough strength to fight them off. They’d bring her there kicking and screaming if need be.
Lill slams the bathroom door behind her, and I drop my head onto the coffee table. It hurts, the hardwood unforgiving against my skull, but the pain is easy to ignore. I deserve it.
I deserve all the pain for pressuring Lill into drinking so much. Alcohol is no better than poison in her system, and she’s going to spend the next several days in pain. Delysum tea would help to alleviate her symptoms, but she won’t drink more than her self-rationed amount until she’s at death’s door.
She’s a stubborn faerie.
The toilet flushes, and I begin putting away the cards littering the table. Lill’s too drunk to continue playing, and I’ll be damned if I leave her with a mess to clean up tomorrow.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Lill slurs, hobbling out of the bathroom. She approaches the living room window, frowning as she presses her clammy palms against the glass and peers into the sun. The light shines into her eyes, making the violet coloring look as vibrant as it did when we were younger.
Her eye color is the one thing I’ve never been able to get used to. I find it so distracting, and it’s hard not to stare when speaking face to face.
“Do all faeries have violet eyes?” I ask.
I already know the answer, but it’s an excellent way to open up the conversation about the faerie realm. If I come straight out and start asking about it, she’ll suspect something’s off and shut down. I need to ease her into it.
Asking about her eyes is foreplay.
“Yes,” Lill says. “And most have white hair.” She fiddles with a strand of her hair. “Not all, though. My childhood best friend had dark hair. It’s uncommon, but it happens.”
I hum. “Are they all as tall as you, too?”
My parents used to call Lill a string bean when we were kids, much to her annoyance, but she grew into her long limbs. Her awkward movements became graceful, and by the time we were teenagers, she had the fluidity of a supermodel. She’s still graceful, at least when she’s not drunk, but her thinness hides the elegance. Her protruding bones are all people see now when they look at her.
Lill laughs. “I’m average height for a faerie woman. Humans are just short.”
I can practically see her mind wandering as she turns to look back out the window. She’s thinking about the faerie realm. I know it, and I slide near my backpack still resting against the couch.
Lill steps away from the window, tripping over her feet and almost giving me another heart attack, before taking a seat on the couch. She lands on the cushions with a quiet huff, and I bite the inside of my cheek when she rests her head on my shoulder a second later.
She smells like shampoo and floral perfume, and I subtly breathe it in.
“Do you remember a lot about your home?” I ask. “You were so young when you left.”
I hardly remember anything from that time in my life, but Lill’s always had an impeccable memory. I think it’s a faerie trait.
She clears her throat. “I don’t remember as much as I’d like. My memory is spotty.”
I slide my hand up and down her arm in what I hope is a comforting gesture.
“I loved playing in the open fields,” Lill continues. “I’d stay out there all day if I could, and my poor mom would bring me inside kicking and screaming more often than not.”
I snort, not at all surprised to hear that. Lill’s always been stubborn, and I imagine she was a handful. My mom often jokes that the two of us were what made her go gray so young.
“Do you ever miss it?” I ask.
It’s a risky question, one Lill would usually flag as dangerous, but I can tell by her relaxed muscles that she hasn’t picked up on my prying. I blame the alcohol.
Lill sucks in a shaky breath. “I do.” She shakes her head, clearly ready to end the conversation. “Are you hungry for lunch?”
“No,” I say, ignoring her attempt to change the topic. “It makes me so sad to think you’ll never see it again…”
Lill shudders.
“I don’t know how you do it,” I continue. “I wouldn’t have been able to resist opening a portal and peeking in.” Lill doesn’t respond, and I give her a moment to consider my words before continuing. “Have you ever done that?”
Lill’s cheek brushes against my shoulder as she shakes her head. She’s not usually still for this long, especially when she’s been drinking, so I know she’s lost in thought. That’s good. I want her distracted.
If she were in her right state of mind, she wouldn’t so much as consider discussing opening a portal.
She hesitates before answering. “I’ve thought about it.”
I get another whiff of her floral perfume, and despite my best attempts to remain level-headed, my eyes begin to water. I can’t risk Lill seeing me wipe them away, so I open my eyes wide and stare at the ceiling, hoping to dry them out.
“You should do it,” I say. “There’s got to be at least one place where it’s safe to open a portal, even just to look around. You’ve always said how beautiful the faerie realm is.”
I have no idea how portals work, but I like to imagine she just has to visualize the place she wants to go and, voilà , a portal is open.
That’s how it happened in a book I read once, and it sounds about right.
Lill chews at her thumbnail. “I can’t.”
I hum, hoping the response comes off as nonchalant. There’s a thin line between being convincing and being pushy. I’ve never been good at toeing it. I should’ve practiced this conversation more, but I feared sounding too rehearsed.
“Don’t you want to see it?” I ask. “What if it’s changed?”
Lill lets out a pained groan. “I do. You have no idea.”
She sits up, and I quickly wipe a cold tear off my cheek as she runs a hand through her hair. Poor Lill looks beyond stressed, and she plants her palms on her knees before pushing up to her feet and pacing the length of the living room.
I wish she’d sit back down. The movement must hurt her ankle, but she’s probably too drunk to notice the pain. She’s undoubtedly going to be feeling it tomorrow, though.
It will be swollen and tender, and I won’t be around to help.
I shut my eyes and suck in a calming breath. As much as I want to sit around worrying about Lill’s health, the portal needs to be my number-one priority. A hurt ankle isn’t going to kill Lill, but running out of delysum tea will.
“I’m sure it’s not that dangerous to peek,” I continue. “And if any faeries see you, I’ll fight them off.”
Lill looks me over from head to toe, her lips pursed, before she grimaces and waves me away.
“You’d never win in a fight against a faerie,” she says. “They’d kill you with a snap of their fingers.”
Well, that’s rude. I’ve never been in a fight, but I like to think I could hold my own. I know how to make a proper fist, and the rest seems fairly intuitive.
“Do you think I should do it?” Lill asks.
She sounds desperate, like the temptation of opening the portal is eating her up inside.
I give a curt nod. “You deserve to see your home again, even if it’s just through a portal.”
Lill chews at her lips, clearly in deep concentration, before stumbling to her bedroom. It takes everything in me to remain seated and patient, and an agonizingly long few seconds pass before she returns. She’s got something clenched in her fist, and I crane my neck to see what it is.
“I’m not strong enough to open a portal on my own. Not anymore,” she says, stopping in the middle of the room. “My mom said if I ever needed to return to the faerie realm, this would help.”
Lill sways on her feet, and I realize it’s a necklace she’s holding. I’ve never seen it before, which is unusual. I can list every article of clothing and piece of jewelry Lill owns—mainly since most of them belonged to me first.
The gold chain shimmers as Lill clasps it around her neck, and dangling from the center is a small, black stone. I want to get a better look, but I don’t want to interrupt Lill. She’s about to open a portal, and I’ll be damned if I do anything to make her come to her senses.
“I’m going to do it,” she says.
My lips twitch upward, and I force them back into a neutral position. “Are you sure?”
She nods. “Just for a second. I’m going to die here, and I want to see my home one last time. I deserve to see my home.”
Lill shuts her eyes, which I assume is her way of getting ready to open the portal.
She doesn’t chant or say a magic spell, which I admit is mildly disappointing. A long few seconds pass where nothing happens, and I tap my toe against the ground as Lill’s eyebrows furrow and her face turns red.
She shifts her weight from foot to foot, her chest heaving.
It looks like she’s struggling.
The seconds continue to tick by, each one feeling like a lifetime. I’m beyond anxious to get this over with, and as I watch Lill struggle, I begin to fear she won’t be able to do it.
This is my only chance to help her, and dread consumes my entire being at the thought that I may be too late.
My heart pounds, and I snap my jaw shut with a loud click when the air in front of Lill begins to ripple. Her back is to me, and I press my fingers to my lips as the space before her splits open. I’ve never seen anything like it. The world moves like two curtains being pulled aside, the human realm opening just wide enough for a person to fit through.
In the center of my living room is a window to the faerie realm, and I think I’m going to shit my pants.
Lill grunts.
I stare at the giant expanse of green, lush land she’s revealed.
It doesn’t seem real.